Chapter 19 #3
“You may speak in front of Chrysanthème,” she told Lucy. “She is a friend of friends.”
Lucy shook her head, but when they hugged once more before they left the room, she whispered, “What I know of Compton will be of value. Dubois and Cuvelier as well. Tell Beaumont this.”
Heart in her throat again, she nodded. “I will.”
Nathaniel would help secure Lucy even had she nothing to tell him; she was sure of it. Whenever he could do so without jeopardizing his work. But if Lucy could provide much-needed insight into their activities, all the better.
Perhaps her sister’s freedom would be Compton’s downfall. She had not truly dared to hope for any of it, but she’d found Lucy now. Maybe—just maybe—both possibilities were within reach.
Nate’s every nerve vibrated. It required conscious effort to maintain a bland expression, something that rarely demanded concentration on his part. He strove to keep his body loose, his posture relaxed, his movements lazy.
He’d learned close knifework with the guerrilleros in the latter part of the war and had come armed tonight accordingly, but it would do him little good if the other men turned on him suddenly in a concerted attack.
Compton had a pistol in his coat; the bulge had briefly revealed itself when he sat.
Dubois no doubt had multiple weapons at hand.
Cuvelier possibly not, but with both Compton and Dubois armed, that little mattered.
Last night he’d been nearly sure, especially after the suggestion of the salle écarlate, that Dubois didn’t trust him. Tonight he was certain.
Dubois had watched Isobel closely during the introduction to Miss Muir, and he’d watched Dubois. Dubois was the most immediate threat to her tonight, no matter that Compton was his primary objective as far as the Foreign Office was concerned.
Dubois knew. Perhaps not the exact relationship between Isobel and Miss Muir, but the remark last night about Isobel’s eyes was not a surface observation.
He couldn’t tell if Compton and Cuvelier were similarly wise but thought not—and interesting if so, for why would Dubois not have shared those suspicions?
But Cuvelier paid no attention to Isobel after his introduction to her, and while Compton had certainly taken note of her, he’d been more calculating than distrustful.
The avaricious look as his eyes skimmed Isobel was far from casual but lacked Dubois’s hooded suspicion.
Whatever was transpiring between Isobel and her sister, Dubois believed that Chrysanthème was his creature. There was cold comfort in that because, in that sense, he was not working entirely alone tonight.
“Tell me, what are your political interests, Beaumont?” Dubois asked. “I find myself very much interested in them. My friend was not able to tell me much after your game of trente-et-un.”
Oberlin again. Had he some role in all this, or had he merely been Dubois’s informer in Frascati’s?
“I am rather bored with politics, to be honest.” He reclined casually on one elbow.
“Or perhaps I should say disenfranchised by them. Those bloody wars were rather limiting, for one, preventing me from freely enjoying your country for several years.”
Dubois made a noncommittal noise. “We, too, found the wars rather inconvenient, did we not, Compton?”
Compton drank from his glass before answering. “Yes. Although it can be said the complexities demanded we become more creative.”
“I hear you’ve a shipping company. Part of your creativity?
Convenient as well, I’d say.” His voice was carefully idle, although he knew for a fact that Compton’s ships were part of their enterprise.
His final meeting on English soil with Grady at the Gull’s Wing in Dover put copies of the cargo manifests of Compton’s recent Continental trade ships into his hands.
Compton smiled. “Certainly it has proved profitable. However, one cannot simply ignore politics where there is profit to be made. You must agree with that, Beaumont.”
He shrugged. “I’ve no skin in any political games. Those are my father’s purview. Although I am, of course, always interested in personal gain regardless of politics.”
Compton looked at him over the rim of his glass. “Is that so?”
“I feel certain you have learned as much of me by now.” He flicked a glance towards Dubois, not hiding that it was pointed.
Dubois smiled slightly, message received.
He looked back towards Compton. “But who among us does not wish for more money?”
Cuvelier sloppily raised his glass. “Bien dit!” The baron was rapidly becoming unfit for company.
A regular occurrence? Intelligence this morning indicated it, and his own observations increasingly suggested Cuvelier’s role was not in any way that of strategist. He craved power, perhaps, as weak men sometimes do.
But it seemed likely Dubois had involved him with Compton purely for the money he brought to the table and perhaps to a lesser extent his connections.
Miss Muir had somehow become mixed up in all that, caught in the cross fire of their power moves.
“If you are so keen to acquire more wealth,” Dubois remarked, “I wonder that you do not gamble more deeply and make for yourself more money. You have the skill, I hear, and perhaps also the Devil’s own luck besides, according to M. Oberlin. He tells me you always stop with three games, however.”
“A personal rule. I may be fairly accused of immoderation in some areas but never with money, regardless of my enjoyment in gaming.”
“Yet I have only seen you at Hewards a handful of times.” Compton leaned forward. “Why is that?” Not an idle question.
“I’ve not been in London much of late now that I may travel freely once more,” he returned.
“Avoiding family expectations at home, mainly, although I expect to spend more time there soon, especially if I’ve incentive to do so.
” He looked lazily at Dubois before turning back to Compton.
“Perhaps, if our friendship grows, you will see more of me upon my next return home. Although certainly I am finding much in Paris to enjoy at present.”
“You have visited Les Moineaux,” Compton remarked. “But you did not engage a girl there.”
He’d half expected that Compton would mention it; it was more of a surprise that Dubois hadn’t. They were verbally circling around one another, wary as wildcats.
“None on offer that afternoon were quite to my tastes.” The honest truth, as it happened, one of very few he could give as Beaumont.
Compton lifted his wine mockingly. “A man with a discerning palate.”
“In all things,” he said coldly, arrogant to his core as Beaumont. “Have I not found the most exquisite companion? I assure you, set alongside her, no girl in Les Moineaux tempts me.”
“Yes, you have found for yourself such a delightful companion.” Dubois was fingering his letter opener; he’d done the same last night before directing them to the salle écarlate. “Very quickly, I’ve heard.”
“An accidental meeting on the street but quite fortuitous. She’d been here less than a week.
It was my excellent fortune that no one had yet engaged her.
And I will say that thus far she has been well worth the expense.
” His skin crawled, discussing Isobel so dismissively after what lay between them in truth, but to not do so would be suspicious.
“If you tire of your girl, I would be pleased to take her off your hands.” From his tone, Compton could equally have been discussing a stray dog as a woman.
If he failed, Lucy remained at Compton’s mercy—Compton’s and Dubois’s both—where there was no mercy at all. If he failed, Isobel could well be next.
He forced himself to keep his hands relaxed and quelled the stiffness trying to creep into his shoulders. “I am far from tiring of her yet. Are you in the market for a mistress?”
“I have very specific interests.” Compton’s eyes were hard.
“Regrettably there are few women who are capable of accommodating those interests to my satisfaction. I always have use for a beautiful woman, however. Especially one fluent in multiple languages. Despite her last name and refined accent, Mlle Blanchet is not truly French.”
Dubois was watching him as closely as Compton.
Lying gained him nothing and potentially lost considerably more.
“Her mother was a French émigrée to Britain during the Terror—or so she’s said.
” He shrugged as though the story bored him.
“I confess I’ve not bothered to look into it.
It wasn’t her background that captured my attention, nor are her origins the attributes that have kept my interest.”
His unease was mounting. Isobel and Miss Muir had been gone nearly a quarter of an hour. Chrysanthème had not returned.
Cuvelier roused himself. “Compton here introduced me to my own darling Thérèse.”
“Oh?” He kept his face bland.
Cuvelier leaned forward. “I shall tell you a secret, Beaumont. Compton found her—”
Dubois cut him off with a contemptuous look. “Beaumont is not interested in that story.”
“Perhaps another time.” Any sort of conversation that invited comparison between the sisters, however superficially, was supremely unwise, although he’d liked to have known just how Cuvelier had meant to finish that sentence as well as what Dubois’s reluctance about letting Cuvelier speak signified.
“I did not come here tonight intending to discuss women,” he said instead. “Or rather, that is not what I thought the nature of this gathering was when I received the invitation from M. Dubois last evening.”
Dubois’s smile was thin. “Then we reach our purpose, gentlemen. This matter I have already discussed with M. Compton, and Cuvelier will, of course, agree. We are interested in hearing further what it is you and I spoke briefly of last night.”