Explosive. Charlotte MedeЧитать онлайн книгу.
access to the Eroica score and to have it deciphered as much as you do and he recognizes that this is—and I am—his only opportunity to do so.”
“Indeed—all of which I knew well in advance,” mused the Frenchman with a superiority that was second nature. “He dearly wants the music and he clearly wants to work with Clifton’s daughter—you—Devon Caravelle. He knows that the two go hand in hand.” Le Comte paused for emphasis, his gaze sharpening. “You worked with your father to the end. You understood—understand—his world. His talents are your talents. His secrets, your secrets.”
If only Le Comte were not speaking the truth.
Glancing down at the open cameo on the vanity table, she could distinguish the faint but indelible images of her parents. The past was becoming for her a series of faded portraits. Their small cottage at Blois. Her mother dying from a fever. Her brilliant and lonely father. His urgings that she continue her study of music, that she play her mother’s pianoforte, although she knew each note and chord she struck was bittersweet for them both.
The terrifying implications of his work and his obsessions.
“I was his assistant, nothing more.” She put down the comb carefully and turned around to look directly at Le Comte.
“Of course, of course, my dear,” the Frenchman mocked her earnestness. “All the more reason I want you to work with Blackburn. Your combined knowledge will prove most useful. I’m certain he will help you, help us, make the most of what little you claim to know.”
“And if I refuse?”
“Come now, I expect better from a woman of your intelligence. Certainly, there’s no need for any more of the high drama and coercive strategies I was forced to use with Blackburn to bring the two of you together.” Le Comte paused significantly, crossing a stockinged leg and absently admiring a silver buckle on his shoe. “And even if you were to refuse,” he reflected philosophically, “I would hand you over to the authorities in France as a traitor. The daughter of a traitor, to be more specific. Or perhaps I’ll turn you over to England. It’s actually difficult for me to choose. Your father changed sides with alarming regularity, as you may recall.”
Devon’s eyes burned at the insult as she dug her hands into the marquetry of the vanity table behind her. “My father was not a traitor. He was a genius.”
Le Comte sighed theatrically. “You are being tedious, Devon, as well as decidedly ungracious. I made a very generous offer when I first came to you at the Conservatoire—and it still stands. Discover what the Eroica score holds and I shall ensure your freedom from prosecution. Even at your most cynical, you must admit the proposition is sound. After all, what better guarantee? You will have as much knowledge about my motives as I will have about yours.”
A pact with the devil. Simple enough. Just sell her soul and spend every day under Le Comte’s watchful eyes, tortured into giving away her father’s dangerous secrets, at every turn threatened with having her father and herself exposed as traitors.
She closed her eyes against the onslaught of panic, conjuring the image of the man she had met at Blackfriars Bridge just hours before. The gaze that missed nothing, a cold hard blue. He even smelled of danger, a scent that overpowered her senses until she couldn’t think.
Her mouth was dry with desperation. Clenching her hands into fists, she charged headlong into the breach. “You promised to give me access to the original score. Blackburn and I will need it to unravel the formula.”
“You’re quite right. Time is running out.” Le Comte settled more comfortably into his chair. “But before I relinquish the score I want to be sure that you have entrapped our Marquess as surely as Delilah ensnared Samson. You do remember the story, Devon?”
A powerful man who was brought to his knees by a dangerously sensual woman. She swallowed the panic in her throat.
“Blackburn will surely find you a beautiful, intriguing woman. More important, he will like nothing more than to think he could steal not one, but two of my prized possessions, the Eroica and my valuable protégée.” Le Comte made a minute adjustment to his extravagant cravat before adding, “Let us just say that the Marquess and I have a certain shared history that adds a piquancy to this situation.”
There was something more to the relationship between the two men, Devon was beginning to suspect, an enmity, a bitter rivalry that transcended mere ideology.
Something Delilah could exploit.
“Is that the reason you’re hosting these recitals? To make very public your newest, shiniest, liaison?” she asked, biting back the urge to say more. She momentarily caught sight of her profile in the mirror, her eyes glittering feverishly.
“It does add a certain drama,” the Frenchman conceded, toying with the crystal stopper of a perfume bottle beautifully displayed on the pedestal table by his chair, the sweet cloying scent instantly filling the room. “I want to keep you and the Eroica dangling just out of Blackburn’s reach—for now. It will only whet his appetite and bring him under my control—and trust me, he is a difficult man to control.”
As though she had any doubt.
Le Comte continued pompously, “Understand this, if nothing else. Together you and Blackburn form two halves of a whole and that whole is what I want. Together you have the ability to give me what I’ve been after for years.” His lips thinned and his eyes narrowed. “Let me emphasize one more thing, Devon. I’ve waited long enough. And I’m expecting you to perform. I trust we’re clear on that point?”
Le Comte continued, digging the knife in deeper. “One must admit that the Eroica is a symphony of incredible beauty and, thanks to your father, it carries in it the seeds of humanity’s destruction. Quite the horrific irony, no?”
Soulful, majestic, heartrending, Devon could hear the strains of the melody, a composition dedicated to the courage and folly of Napoleon Bonaparte and the Revolution.
“And it led to my father’s murder, leaving in its place an ineradicable stain of blood.” Her words were a whisper in the room.
“Unfortunate for you, isn’t it?” Le Comte eyed her speculatively.
“And that’s why I’m here, Le Comte,” she concluded bitterly, ultimately a realist.
Even if she had the Eroica in her possession, to wrestle with the code alone was impossible. Even her highly vaunted proficiency was limited when it came to the complex cipher that her father had a part in creating.
She needed Blackburn. And yet he could just as easily toss her to the magistrates as a spy or traitor to the British cause once he had what he wanted.
Her blood warmed in anger as she remembered his words, his touch, his threat.
Seduce him…what else?
The words appalled her, and again she felt Blackburn’s hot breath on her skin, the hard hands enclosing her wrists. In the eyes of the Marquess, she was entirely disposable, a mistress as easily manipulated as a rag doll, her body to be used as currency.
Devon felt the unblinking cold of Le Comte’s stare on her skin, shocking her back to the present.
His face was a sly mask, barely disguising his pleasure at his own machinations. She was freezing again. In spite of the hothouse confines of the room, her blood ran like ice. Unable to hold his gaze, Devon once more conjured the specter of Blackburn, forcing herself to admit that the Marquess represented the biggest gamble of her life, and she was more than familiar with the laws of averages.
“You seem fatigued, ma chère.” Le Comte interrupted her thoughts with false concern. “Shall I ring for your maid?” His eyes were sharp and she shivered again at the thought of those pale, white hands on her body.
“No need—I’m quite all right.” She knew it was useless to inquire about the whereabouts of the score, as Le Comte was a man who never changed his mind once it was set upon its course.
“Do