“You say that now, Rob, but some pretty face will turn your head and you’ll change your tune.”
“I’ve not got the mettle for marriage.” And he hadn’t the heart to risk deceit again. Deceit and denigration.
“’Twas none of your fault, man. Maeve’s the one who insisted she visit her sister in Venice. She was a determined woman and made her own decisions.”
Douglas was wrong. Rob didn’t blame Maeve for that particular decision. But he knew who was responsible—the damn charlatan who’d hinted that his wife’s destiny awaited her in Venice. That she should go there to escape the man who would destroy her: him. Rob would hunt Madame Zoe until he could expose her for the imposter she was, and then he’d utterly destroy her—her confidence, her trade, her income and, sweetest of all, her reputation. By the time he was finished with her, no member of society would consult her.
Ah yes. He’d learned to be a very patient man lying alone in a cramped box while oozing infection from his wounds and planning his escape. All those months in the Dey’s dungeon he’d been waiting, going slowly mad. And he’d planned. Madame Zoe would pay for destroying the McHughs.
Monday morning, in the well-appointed offices above a bank, Rob studied his fingernails in a pose of casual boredom as Mr. Evans, Madame Zoe’s factor, leafed through her appointment book with a great show of accommodation. Indeed, Rob was anything but bored. It was December 14, and by his estimation, he should be finished with Madame Zoe no later than Christmas. He studied his surroundings, imagining the sort of woman who would employ Mr. Evans.
The office was estimable in every sense of the word. Comfortable chairs sat along one wall and the factor’s desk was clean, polished and modest. Mr. Evans himself appeared to be an eminently respectable man in his middle years, and Rob wondered why he would represent a charlatan.
The London gossip mill held that Madame Zoe was a middle-aged French émigré, a fortune-teller to the French court who had foretold the rise and fall of Napoleon Bonaparte. She was a widow, ’twas told, and always wore black. Liberal use of veils prevented anyone from giving an accurate description. Some even speculated that she was a prominent member of the noble but impoverished French community in London and employed the veils to prevent recognition in that circle.
Charlatan or not, Madame Zoe was clever to have put such an elaborate process in place. Before she ever saw a new client, the person had been screened by her factor. Only then was the client given an appointment time and the address at which she could be found. What a sweet little setup.
Tired of waiting for what was essentially a simple task, Rob slouched in his chair and asked, “So you do all Madame Zoe’s procuring?”
Mr. Evans flushed. “I make appointments for consultations with Madame Zoe. I am a factor, not a flesh peddler. She is extraordinarily busy, what with the ton in town for the season.”
“I will take whatever appointment she has available.”
The man cleared his throat. “Payment in advance.”
“Payment in advance?” Rob repeated, just to be certain his displeasure was evident. What a lot of nerve—demanding to be paid in advance for a pack of lies!
“Yes, my lord. Without exception,” the man confirmed.
“What if she has nothing to tell me?”
“There are no guarantees, my lord. And no refunds.”
Rob watched the man steadily, knowing his attention was unnerving. It was a technique he frequently used when eliciting a confession. The enemy always feared his silence meant that he knew more than he actually did.
“Madame Zoe has had a cancellation,” Mr. Evans said after flipping through a number of pages in the little leather-bound appointment book. “She can see you this afternoon at three o’clock,” he said after an uneasy moment. “Shall I put you on the books, my lord?”
“Yes,” Rob said, more harshly than he intended.
The factor dipped his pen in an inkwell and scratched a line of writing across a piece of paper. “Five pounds, please.”
Five pounds! Though it galled him to pay even a ha’penny, Rob handed over the required sum in exchange for the address.
Afton climbed the steep stairway that rose from a hidden panel in La Meilleure Robe to open in the closet of Madame Zoe’s second-floor flat. Should anyone follow her, it would appear as if she had gone to the shop for a fitting with Madame Marie. And when she left, it was through the same closet and out of Madame Marie’s door.
At the top of the secret stairs, the abandoned servants’ access from the time when the building had been a private residence, she listened carefully for a moment, her ear against the wooden panel. She was always a little afraid one of her patrons might have arrived early and entered by force, in an attempt to discover her true identity. Or worse—that the murderer had returned, broken into the flat, and lay in wait for her. That possibility had led Grace to insist that Afton carry a small, but very sharp, dagger. Reassured by the silence, she pushed the secret door open and slipped through into Zoe’s salon.
Afton lifted the heavy tapestry curtain that separated the back room from the main room, and went to light the fire banked in the small fireplace. That done, she opened the cupboard containing the tools of her trade: a deck of tarot cards, a deck of ordinary playing cards, a crystal orb, a bowl for water gazing, astrological charts, runes, candles, incense and a host of other items that she had no idea how to use. Guessing that Lord Glenross would not ask for anything unusual, she retrieved a deck of cards and left it on the round table in the center of the room.
Lord Glenross, Robert McHugh. Though foppish elegance and a slender frame were all the rage, Afton preferred a more substantial man, and Glenross was certainly that. He was almost too muscular for current styles. The narrowly cut jackets strained over his shoulders and chest in a most distracting manner. The prospect of being alone with him, even in disguise, caused her no small amount of anxiety. To her, he was larger than life. He filled a room, claiming it with no more than a crooked smile. And his eyes! Those cool ice-green eyes that looked right through her flesh to her soul! Thank heavens for her veils!
A glance at the clock on the small dressing table inspired her to hasten. She had slipped out of an impromptu tea and lively discussion of Lord Byron’s latest exploits, with barely a nod in her aunt’s direction, but the delay had caused her to run late. She stripped and donned black crepe de chine widow’s garb that covered her from throat to toe. Above that, a gray wig topped by black silk veils obscured her face. Last, she pulled on a pair of white silk gloves to cover her hands. Nothing, she knew, would betray her identity.
The clatter of horses’ hooves and the jangle of harness from the street below drew her to the window. A black town coach drew up outside and the door opened. Instead of a patron of Madame Marie, the occupant was none other than her client. Early. Afton smiled, thinking he must be more anxious for a reading than she’d thought, and watched through the sheer lace panels as the top of his head disappeared though the doorway below. She wondered again at the incongruity of a man like McHugh consulting a fortune-teller as she decided not to pull the heavy velvet draperies over the lace curtains.
For good measure, Afton checked her appearance in the mirror above the fireplace. Yes, the veils obscured her features and made her virtually unrecognizable. She would be safe enough. Just as she lit white candles and sandalwood incense, a knock sounded at the door. She lifted the little brass disk that covered the peephole to see the Scot, quite alone. She paused with her hand on the latch, anxiety twisting her stomach in knots.
“He is just curious,” she whispered to herself, though she was too well aware that any client—this one?—could be Auntie Hen’s murderer. She glanced at the bell rope, touched the little dagger in her sewn-on pocket, squared