Chapter Thirty-Seven. The Devil Meets His Match
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
The Devil Meets His Match
IT was a home. At least I thought that’s where Frederick Reaver had brought me.
My senses were still muted from the blast—I could scarcely hear, let alone think straight.
Had he brought me to Amberley’s home intent on trading me for Leona?
If so, he was in for a sore disappointment once Lord Amberley arrived.
My stomach lurched. Why would Reaver simply not listen to me?
The scent of leather and candle wax drifted through the loose weave as Reaver pulled me along the warm corridor.
The sore muscles in my legs began to give way, and for the second time in as many minutes I was thrust onto my knees.
Thick, soft carpet met the skin of my shins through the holes in my bloodied stockings.
Reaver ripped the rough-hewn sack from my head.
Tears streamed down my face from the sudden onslaught of light.
The world inside was too bright, too loud.
Reaver placed his meaty palm between my shoulder blades and shoved hard, sending me face-first onto the floor.
My own hands were still bound behind my back and I twisted at the last moment, catching myself with my shoulder. A hot sharp pain shot through me.
“Blast and hell, you are going to get everyone killed—” I started before the words died away.
This wasn’t Lord Amberley’s drawing room.
I blinked slowly, taking in the room around me.
This wasn’t Lord Amberley’s home.
I was going to be sick. The dawning recognition of exactly where he’d brought me finally sank in.
I had been here before. Sat on the fine antique sofa in the center of this room.
Sought refuge here from the antiquarians’ dinner party just a handful of days before.
Oh God … how could I have been so wrong?
My eyes slowly adjusted to the light as I beheld the walls lined with row after row of curio cabinets housing a lifetime of collecting antiquities.
The life’s work of Emmanuel Laurent.
Ruan’s mentor. Famed Antiquarian. Soon to be Member of Parliament. Emmanuel Laurent.
Why would Reaver bring me to Emmanuel Laurent?
I swallowed hard, not wanting to believe Laurent capable of such a thing.
It made no sense. How … why would he? Laurent had been kind.
Attentive even. My mind tripped on ahead of me as I turned my head to the side, finding young Jack—the kindly young constable from the police station—sprawled out on the floor alongside me, suffering from a gunshot wound.
What was he doing here? Earlier tonight a part of me wondered if he might not have been one of the men who perished on the canal boat, though Jack had always been at odds with the inspector.
Jack’s bloodied palm covered his belly, his eyes wide as he looked up at Reaver, his skin pale from the loss of blood.
Reaver cast the young man a pitying look.
His own expression softening for a fraction of a second.
Was Jack in league with Reaver or was there yet someone else involved in this macabre pantomime?
“I have a trade for you, Laurent! I’ve brought your pet,” Reaver shouted, interrupting my thoughts. “Now give me Leona.”
I had to get free. Had to get myself out of this before Reaver got all of us killed.
I tugged against the ropes binding my hands.
The slipperiness of my own blood allowed my one thumb to come free right away.
I folded my fingers as tight as I could, and my right hand slid a bit farther up the rope. That was something.
Pain shot through my shoulder as I drew myself up on my knees with my hands awkwardly behind me.
“Why would I want her?” Emmanuel Laurent stood in the doorway, his voice impossibly even as I stared into his dark gray eyes. The color of slate.
The devil’s eyes.
The air left my lungs on a rush. It was Emmanuel Laurent that Annabelle had seen, not the inspector at all. My gaze dropped to the gun held casually in his hand as the unlikely truth settled into my gut. My mind raced to catch up with what I already knew without a doubt.
Emmanuel Laurent was the killer.
I should have known. Should have guessed. Frantic, I looked to Jack, whose pained gaze remained fixed upon Reaver—as if somehow the prickly, hardheaded scholar had the power to save us all. The man was more likely to get us all killed than to get us out of this alive.
Foolish, foolish girl.
The answer had been before me all along, I just hadn’t paused to think on it.
Laurent been connected to Harker long before the latter’s disgrace and expulsion from Oxford.
I’d never even stopped to suspect him of the crime, despite the fact that Laurent had been connected to this whole affair from the very first act.
He knew of the theft of the Radix Maleficarum.
He knew the truth about Ruan.
He’d killed Harker. Killed him and then taken Leona to hide his crimes.
Of course Ruan would have stopped to talk to him. To check the time, not seeing the drug-filled syringe before it was too late.
He’d shot Jack, the young constable. The litany of Laurent’s crimes echoed in my head. It all made perfect sense and I could not understand how I missed it.
I could scarcely breathe, mind running through the last few days, gathering all the things I knew of Laurent—none of which brought me any closer to why a man who had so much to lose would risk it all.
“I would appreciate if you wouldn’t leave her to ruin the rug.
” Laurent stepped deeper into the room, his eyes raking over my bloody form.
“You see, Frederick, this is precisely why I do not own a cat. They always drag in the most woebegone things, disemboweling them on the floor as if their violence could impress me. I assure you it does not. It took me years to acquire that carpet and now how am I to get those stains out? Hmm?”
I glanced down to the bloody splotches I’d left and rubbed my palm on it, adding another rust-colored smudge to the pattern.
“Perhaps you should have thought about that before you shot Jack,” Reaver growled, gesturing to the poor constable bleeding out across from me.
Who was this man, and was there more to Reaver than met the eye?
Yes, he was a scholar—one couldn’t hide that fact—but the way Jack kept looking to him.
The almost protective growl in his voice.
Reaver cared for the younger man. Almost as one would a protégé. Or someone one was training.
A protégé.
Suddenly the last clue slipped into place.
On the night of Lord Amberley’s party, Laurent had occupied Ruan for most of the evening.
But at the end—when Reaver and Jonathan Treadway were in conflict—it was Emmanuel Laurent who had been at my elbow.
That was the reason for Reaver’s venom that evening.
He thought I was in league with Laurent.
No wonder the fool man believed I had a hand in Leona’s disappearance and wouldn’t listen to reason.
I was often in Laurent’s company, Ruan himself going back and forth between the two homes.
Had the roles been reversed, I would have been just as intractable as Reaver.
“Ruan, Leona … where are they?” My voice sounded far stronger than I felt at present.
Reaver’s expression faltered as he looked at me, evidently coming to the same realization as I about our allegiances.
“Perfectly safe. They both are. I take excellent care of my collection.”
“You cannot collect people,” I growled, settling on my haunches, my bound hands numb behind my back.
“Oh, but that is where you are wrong, Miss Vaughn. People are the most valuable and difficult pieces to acquire. You never know what one can do, the power one can hold over another.”
“You cannot think you can control a person’s life—”
“I do not think. I know.” He chuckled. “People, my dear foolish girl, are the path to power. And power is all anyone can ask for. There’s safety in it.
Comfort. One might not be able to achieve the divine, but with enough power a man can make himself invincible.
Untouchable. A veritable god amongst sheep. ”
“You drugged them both,” I murmured in disgust. “A god wouldn’t need to drug people into compliance.”
“It certainly helps make people more accommodating to reasonable requests, and in time they always come around, with gentle encouragement,” Laurent said with a huff. His gaze slithered from his rug back to my face. “Less mess that way.”
“Less mess?” I let out a startled sound, as I managed to free my left hand from the ropes and flex my fingers, willing what was left of my blood to begin flowing through my veins again. “You killed Julius Harker and took out his tongue, for goodness’ sake! It didn’t seem you minded mess then.”
He waved his hand airily with the gun. “It had to be done. The idiot stole my shipment. Stole it and rubbed my nose in it. He had to be dealt with and it was an expedient means to an end.”
“Leona had nothing to do with that sordid trade,” Reaver spat out, stepping closer to Professor Laurent. “Harker was a fool, everyone knew that—but Leona had nothing to do with your shipment. Let her go, she has nothing to give you.”
“Nothing to give?” Laurent clicked his tongue with a shake of his head. “You never did realize what you had on your hands, Frederick. That was always your great failing. Missing what was right before your eyes.”
Reaver bristled.
“Did you know she can read nine languages and speak at least that many? The value of a woman like that is substantial,” Laurent said with a tender tone.
“Oh, what am I thinking. Of course you know her worth. After all, everyone knows about your … tendresse toward the little Egyptian chit. I daresay, jealous rages suit you, Frederick. In fact…” His mouth curved up into a sinister smile.
“Come to think of it, I have just come up with a tidy little solution to our problem here. For we both know that the three of you cannot leave this house alive.”