When a Lady Dares (Her Majesty’s Most Secret Service) Read online

  “Bloody fraudster. I made some inquiries this afternoon. The lass he’d been working with for more than a year ended their association about six weeks ago. She hasna been seen or heard from since.”

  “Interesting. What do you know of her?”

  “She went by the name Lady Valentina. She claimed to be a distant relative of the Romanovs.”

  “Of course. The more intriguing his assistant, the better, as far as Trask is concerned.”

  “Her landlord is looking for her. She owed the man,” Henry said.

  “He won’t find her. I doubt she left of her own accord. But if she did, she’s in hiding.”

  “Ye think Trask killed her?”

  “Not necessarily Trask. But someone connected to the bastard. Someone who thought Lady Valentina knew too much.”

  Henry downed another swig of ale. “Damn shame. She was a beauty, or so her landlord said.”

  Just like Sophie. His mind conjured an image of Trask’s newest assistant. In centuries past, artists would’ve vied to capture her likeness on canvas. Her sweetly rounded face was precisely the thing to lure in an unsuspecting male.

  “Trask is no fool. Fleecing a male client is much easier when the sap can’t take his eyes off the man’s assistant. The blighter’s abilities have more to do with diversion and misdirection than his skill at communing with the world beyond terra firma.”

  Indeed, Sophie’s lovely features and gorgeous body would entice a man like an oasis under the desert sun. Of course, that was to Trask’s advantage. The role she played required her to draw a man’s attention away from the charlatan’s deceptions.

  But somehow, despite her tempting lips and luscious curves, Miss Sophie Devereaux was not what Gavin had expected.

  The medium’s assistant was clever—which was not surprising in itself, but Sophie had made no effort to conceal the intelligence lighting her dark eyes. He’d detected a bite to her tone, a wry wit that distinguished her from the others of her kind. She met Trask’s attempts at stage direction as so much claptrap, regarding the man as if she couldn’t hide her discontent.

  But damned if Sophie wasn’t an effective diversion. God knew he’d had to muster his wherewithal to keep his focus where it belonged. His rebellious gaze had wanted nothing more than to linger on Sophie’s pink-coral mouth. Not that there was time for such indulgence. He’d come to the occult salon seeking answers, clues to a brutal truth. Trask and his lies had led Peter Garner to his death. Gavin wouldn’t rest until he’d brought the charlatan to justice.

  A fresh wave of regret plowed into him, brutal as a brawler’s fist. He’d been hundreds of miles away when Peter had lost his beloved wife and newborn son to lung fever and had then plunged into a grief-laden abyss.

  “Damnation, if only I’d been in London when he lost Amelia and the babe.”

  “Ye couldna protect him from himself.”

  “He was vulnerable. And Trask sniffed that out, a predator sensing weakness. By the time Peter’s sister sent word to me, he’d become entrenched in Trask’s séances. I returned as soon as I received her summons.” He dropped his gaze to his drink, bracing himself against the gut-deep misery. “I was too late. Peter threw himself off the Waterloo Bridge three days before I arrived in town.”

  “What does his sister know of Trask’s activities?”

  “Helena was aware he’d sought out Trask’s dubious services, but she has no knowledge of what actually occurred during each sitting. She noted Peter had grown more desperate with each meeting, more frantic to make contact with Amelia…until he took his own life.”

  “And she blames the medium?”

  “Yes. The bastard led Peter on with false hope.”

  “Ye’re sure Trask was responsible?”

  Gavin nodded. Even if Trask had not uttered the words that led his friend to take his own life, someone had convinced Peter his wife waited beyond the earthly realm—someone with ties to Neil Trask and the dark, cramped shop that reeked of incense and deceit.

  “Ye’ve met his newest assistant?”

  “Yes.” Gavin bit back a wry smile. “She’s not what I’d anticipated.”

  “How so?”

  “If Trask brought her into his operation believing he’d found a deferential accomplice, the man must be sorely disappointed.”

  “The bloke’s not going to like that.” Henry stared down at his ale, his expression darkening.

  “For now, he’s got little choice, not if he wants to get a turn at fleecing me. I’ve insisted on working with her.”

  “Ye think she knows something?”

  “There’s no way to be sure. Not yet. She’s new to Trask’s enterprise. But she’s clever. And observant.”

  “If the lass is smart, she’ll take her leave from Trask soon enough. Before she ends up like Lady Valentina.”

  The words prickled the hairs at the back of Gavin’s neck. If she learned anything about Peter’s death, would her knowledge make her a target, a liability to be silenced? Could Sophie Devereaux—if that was even her real name—be in danger?

  She was new to Trask’s world. Sophie could not have been involved in Peter’s death. Or so he told himself. But her proximity to Trask made her valuable. Since throwing in her lot with the treacherous fraud, God only knew what she’d seen and heard.

  He couldn’t allow his interest in Sophie to become too obvious. He’d have to portray his attention as nothing more than male attraction to a pretty face. He couldn’t risk giving away his true purpose in coming to Trask’s dank little studio. If the charlatan had played a role in Peter’s fate, he would pay for his treachery. Gavin would see to that.

  He downed what little was left in the tumbler and set it on the counter. “I won’t let anything happen to her. But if she had anything to do with Peter’s death, her pretty face isn’t going to save her.”

  Chapter Two

  Sophie stormed about the tiny room she used to prepare for her performances, each an elaborately staged lie designed to separate the grieving and the curious from their coin. Depending on the participants gathered for the evening’s sitting, she could be mystical and alluring or as demure and somber as a widow deep in the throes of mourning.

  Stanwyck’s husky voice played in her thoughts. Wear red tonight. Why, the gall of the man. Trask’s carefully choreographed routine dictated her choice of dress, not some overblown jackass who’d made his name storming off on one adventure to the next.

  Flopping into a chair, she drew in a slow breath, then another, mentally readying herself for the evening. In less than an hour, she would sit with Trask and immerse herself in the role he’d created for her.

  How she detested these sittings. Cruelty did not come easily to her. And at times, the deception seemed precisely that. Cruel. Leading bereaved widows and suitors to believe their loved ones pined for them from beyond the grave, while Trask pocketed their money, was indecent. For some, like Stanwyck, their coin had come easily, but for others, the payment they put forth had been earned with sweat and tears and was needed for far more legitimate ends than Neil Trask’s blasted gatherings.

  Just a while longer. A few weeks at most. Then I’ll wrap up this investigation and tie a tidy bow around it. But for now, she needed the access to the sources Trask’s sittings provided. Even very bad men let down their guard when they communicated with a long-departed loved one.

  Leaning back, she studied the ornate design in the ceiling tiles, as if that might calm her raw nerves. This investigation should not pose such a daunting challenge. In three years at the Herald, she’d risen from research assistant to a journalist in her own right. There was nothing like the thrill of the chase when pursuing leads for an exposé.

  But somehow, this investigation was different.

  Very different.

  The truth of the matter that had brought her to Trask’s occult salon would likely never see the light of day. Exceedingly hush-hush, as were all inquiries of the Colton Agency, an elite, highly discreet cadr
e of investigators in service to the Crown. Sophie had been recruited into the agency following her assistance in a harrowing case that had seen her mentor imperiled by all manner of ruthless criminals. In the end, the evildoers had got their just deserts. Quite thrilling, all in all.

  At present, her investigation promised more intrigue than danger. Or so her mission chief, Matthew Colton, believed. She’d been tasked with gathering information on Trask and his activities, especially his involvement with three prominent gentlemen who had ties to the Queen’s inner circle. The stakes were high. The men had little in common, other than their patronage of the supposed medium’s occult salon and the tragic—and lethal—accidents that had befallen them within a span of seven months.

  Sophie was to be the eyes and ears of the agency, luring whatever truth she could from Trask’s mouth while coaxing others to reveal their secrets through her masquerade as a medium. The dead men all had a connection with Neil Trask. Two had attended sittings with Trask’s previous medium, a mysterious woman who claimed she’d held sittings for Russian nobles in Moscow. Following the third death, the beautiful brunette known as Lady Valentina had disappeared. She’d returned to her birthplace in St. Petersburg, or so the rumors said. Trask claimed no knowledge of his medium’s whereabouts, though, he hinted she’d taken up with a wealthy patron and retired to an estate on the Continent. It seemed Lady Valentina had simply vanished. Was she exceptionally skilled at covering her tracks, or had someone ensured the medium would no longer predict anyone’s future, much less her own?

  Sophie’s inquiries had unearthed several ugly truths about Trask and his communiques from the dead. Perhaps, when all was said and done, she’d publish an exposé of Trask’s devious methods. S. Adams, the dull pseudonym by which she was known to the Herald’s readers, would reveal the psychic’s fraudulent ways.

  But that was not why she’d come to this place. She’d more important matters afoot.

  “Our first guest has arrived.” Trask’s voice was a quiet rasp through the curtain.

  “Thank you,” she said, rousing herself from her all-too-brief respite. She peered into the small, dingy mirror. For that evening’s performance, she would slip into a role, a stranger to her, really—the aloof, inscrutable Miss Devereaux. At least that much of her disguise was familiar—her mother’s family name before she’d married an earnest English lieutenant and left behind her native France.

  Arranging her wavy tresses in a neat roll at her nape, she patted her cheeks to bring a little color to them. With her fair hair and complexion, the dove gray dress she’d selected left her as drab as a foggy morning along the Thames. She searched through her valise, seeking the precise accessory to complement her ensemble, and fished a small velvet bag from the bottom of the satchel. Gavin Stanwyck had requested she wear red. She would grant his request, if only in the most subtle of ways.

  …

  Gavin leaned back in a plain, serviceable chair, stretched out his legs, and began his study of Neil Trask’s studio with a scientist’s observant eye. On the surface, the cramped space might have passed for any middling man-of-business’s office. Two desks—one a massive slab of mahogany with carved legs, its pretentiousness well-suited for its owner, and a smaller writing desk, little more than a table, which Gavin presumed was used by Trask’s assistant, Sophie of the pretty, false smile. Bookshelves lined the compact space. Again, quite well-suited to an ordinary office. Until one spared the volumes a glance. Preston’s Spirit Guide. The Occult Sciences. The Arcana of Astrology. Certainly titles no respectable businessman would flaunt.

  Of course, Neil Trask was neither respectable nor a businessman.

  Gavin’s gaze swept to the people seated around a round table draped with surprisingly sedate white lace. A single white pillar candle had been set upon the table, precisely centered among the intricate patterns. Somehow, he’d expected a far more dramatic setting, perhaps a covering of ebony silk and towering black tapers and a shiny crystal ball.

  He recognized the man at his side. Josiah Cromwell. A wealthy man, by anyone’s estimation, Cromwell had parlayed his father’s apothecary shop on the Strand into a flourishing enterprise that catered to those with more money than sense, selling miniscule jars of face creams, dubious virility treatments, and flowery scents for extravagant sums. Gavin was well-acquainted with Cromwell’s enterprise, having squandered far too much bob buying French perfume for his last lover, an opera singer whose petulant demands had soon grown too tiresome to endure.

  A woman settled into a seat at Cromwell’s right. Silver strands crowned a perfect oval face. Time had not erased her classic beauty nor the glimmer of hope in her eyes. Had she come to mourn a husband? A child taken far too young? How cruelly would Trask mislead this elegant lady in her time of grief?

  He tore his gaze from the woman, settling his attention on the lean, expressionless man at her side. About his own age, three decades or so of life under his belt, the cool violence in the bloke’s eyes brought to mind a caged lion.

  Don’t play games with this one, Sophie. Your sweet pout won’t fool him for long.

  Tiring of his own thoughts, Gavin tore his watch from his pocket. Five past nine. Fashionably late, are we now, Miss Devereaux?

  As if his thoughts had played through the room, Sophie made her entrance. Sweeping a violet curtain to the side, she emerged, a diva greeting her adoring audience. Had she been formally trained in the theater? If not, she was a natural.

  Her gaze swept slowly over those gathered at the table. Was it his imagination, or did her upper lip curl into the tiniest hint of a sneer when her dark brown gaze lit on him?

  “Good evening, friends. I am so sorry to keep you waiting. As I prepared for our gathering, I felt the presence of a new arrival, desperate to convey his message.” Miss Devereaux’s attention fixed on him. Her brown eyes narrowed, and her unrouged lips pursed as though in contemplation. “But I will save that revelation for later.”

  Neil Trask cleared his throat. He stood by his monstrosity of a desk. A freshly emptied whiskey tumbler rested by his fingertips. Nerves, eh, Trask?

  “Miss Devereaux, Mr. Stanwyck was indeed able to join us this evening. I knew you would be pleased.”

  “Indeed.” The word dripped from her rosebud mouth like a single bead of poison.

  Trask escorted her to the table. He lowered his head, his expression telling, and her mouth thinned, taut as a tightly stitched seam. Her tiny gesture was not lost on Gavin. You’ve let your mask slip again, Sophie. Fraud does not come so easily to you.

  With one subtle step, she positioned herself behind the chair to Gavin’s right. Directly beside him. Playing the role of a gentleman to the hilt, Trask swept out the chair and waited for her. She slid in with practiced grace. Trask then dimmed the gaslight to a flicker before seating himself between Sophie and the silent, inscrutable man with the eyes of a predator.

  “We have gathered tonight to channel our shared energies, to reach out to those we have loved and lost.” Neil Trask recited the words he’d no doubt uttered hundreds of times before. But Gavin’s eyes were not on the fraudster.

  No, he fixed his attention on Sophie. If anyone would crack under pressure, it would be Trask’s assistant. He’d do his best to rattle her, to test her response. Was she a hardened charlatan? Or a novice drawn into this deceitful enterprise as a means to keep a roof over her head and food in her belly?

  His reasons were logical, he told himself. Utterly sound.

  Damn shame he couldn’t convince himself the magnetic pull she exerted on him was all in the interest of his investigation. The woman was damned tempting. He couldn’t deny that truth. Perhaps it was a bloody good thing she couldn’t abide the sight of him. Or else, Sophie Devereaux might prove a distraction he didn’t need.

  He certainly could not accuse her of dressing for seduction tonight. If Trask intended Sophie to lure his male patrons with her rounded curves, he was doing a damnably poor job of outfitting her wardrobe.

/>   Unless she’d selected a dress as drab as a peahen specifically for this occasion—her not-so-subtle response to his request that she wear red tonight. If she’d garbed herself in widow’s weeds, she could not have been less vibrant. Or more defiant.

  No wonder Trask looked as though someone had trampled his best-laid plans. Judging from the terse set of his mouth, the blighter was ready for another drink. Gavin couldn’t fault the man, given his lovely assistant had chosen a gown better suited to a stern governess than an alluring distraction. Perhaps it was time to twist the knife a bit.

  Gavin leaned forward, resting his elbows against the table. “It seems we have a misunderstanding, Mr. Trask.”

  “How so, Stanwyck?” Trask’s question was smooth and calm. Too calm.

  “When we met earlier today, I issued a specific request. It would appear Miss Devereaux has chosen to dismiss it.”

  “Request?” Trask regarded Gavin over steepled fingers.

  “I asked Miss Devereaux to select a garment in a color that would appeal to my father. Instead, she is wearing a dress that might well remind him of his governess. He so detested the woman, he continued to reminisce about her hateful ways even into his old age. He most likely believes the shrew has come back to terrorize him. I doubt he will choose to make an appearance.”

  Crimson streaks lined Trask’s face. His jaw set. Gavin would have sworn he could actually hear the man’s teeth grind.

  “There must have been a misunderstanding. Miss Devereaux, you must have believed Professor Stanwyck to be speaking of his private consultation.”

  She shook her head very slowly. A smile that might have inspired daVinci spread over her lips. “There was no misunderstanding. He requested I wear something red. I have honored his wishes.”

  She placed her fingers against the black choker encircling her neck. Somehow, the gesture was as sensuous as a caress. What would that creamy flesh feel like beneath his touch? Beneath his lips? A bolt of carnal hunger surged to his groin. He swallowed hard. Bloody hell, he was hard as a rock.