'Exquisite,' he said. 'You have outdone yourself.'
The maid relaxed. Anton beamed. All was well in Grenville's world.
'Certain you will not have some, Lacey?'
I shook my head. It would have been dust in my mouth. I rose. 'Just tell me where to find Allandale. I will go alone if I must.'
'No, you will not.' Grenville gave his chef a placating nod. 'Set this aside for me. I will have it with my supper.'
No one in that room was terribly happy with Gabriel Lacey.
Once we were settled in Grenville's carriage, he said to me, 'I know you rarely do anything without purpose, usually good purpose. So why are you so eagerly pursuing the very dull Mr. Allandale?'
I told him. I told him the entire story, not even suppressing the bits that wounded my pride. When I was finished, he stared at me in astonished horror. 'Dear God, Lacey, if that is true, I apologize to you for my coolness. I ought to have known you would not ask favors lightly.' He paused. 'Are you certain he has done this?'
'Yes,' I said. 'I do not think she was lying. But, of course, I will ask him.'
He cast me a wary glance, but subsided.
Chapter Twenty-three
We found Allandale at Brooks's. He was playing billiards with a few desultory members who looked bored in the extreme. They brightened when Grenville appeared.
Allandale looked a query. 'Gentlemen?' he asked in his smooth, polite voice.
I wanted to smash my fist into his face right then and there. 'A word with you in private.' My teeth were so tightly clenched I could barely speak.
His brows flickered. 'Of course.' He laid down his cue and excused himself from the other gentlemen. They did not look in the least displeased to see him go.
Allandale led the way down a short hall to another room. I came behind him, my fists clenching. Before we'd gone halfway, Grenville stopped me. 'Lacey,' he said. 'Let me just hold your walking stick.'
He eyed me steadily, his hand out. I frowned, but slapped the walking stick into his open palm.
Allandale had already entered the little room. I quickened my pace and gained the threshold several steps ahead of Grenville. I turned, abruptly closed the door in his face, and locked it.
'Lacey!' Grenville's alarmed cry came through the panels. Like Lydia had, he rattled the handle.
Allandale faced me, puzzled. The room we stood in was quite small, containing only a table and chair, a small bookcase, and a window. Here a club member could pen a letter or read away from the noise and bustle of the billiards and card rooms.
'I have some advice for you,' I began. 'Leave England. Today.'
Allandale's politeness wavered. 'I beg your pardon?'
'I said, leave England and do not return.'
He studied me uneasily. 'And if I choose not to?'
'Then I will certainly kill you.'
He stared for one more bewildered moment, then his oily smile slipped into place. 'Please tell me what you are talking about, Captain Lacey.'
He ought to have been afraid. I had locked us in here, and no one was here to aid him against me. 'You raping Lydia Westin.' I took a step toward him.
He gave a sharp laugh. 'Is that what she told you? She is a termagant, have you not discovered this? She turned her daughter against me and bade her break the betrothal. I plan to bring suit against them for breach of promise.'
I lifted him by his coat and slammed him against the wall. I held him there, my face inches from his. 'You touched her, you little worm. You deserve to die for that.'
His too-pretty face flushed. 'She is a whore. You ought to know. She whored for you.'
The man was a fool. I banged his comely blond locks against the moire wallpaper. 'You do not dare speak of her. Do not even speak her name. Pack your things and get out of England. And if ever I find that you have gone near her, or in any way made yourself known to her, I will kill you. You have my word on that.'
His polite mask vanished. The eyes that looked out at me were filled with disdain and scorn and a darkness even beyond what I had imagined. 'You know nothing about Lydia Westin. She is a cold bitch who seduces gentlemen then turns them away. You poor fool, she did the same to you.'
I put my hand on his throat. 'I believe I told you not to speak her name.'
'You are nothing, Captain. Even your association with the great Mr. Grenville does not make you important. If you try to fight me in court, you will lose, and then all will know what kind of woman Lydia Westin truly is.'
I kept my voice deadly quiet. 'I have no intention of fighting you in court or anywhere else. And you have spoken her name twice since I told you not to.'
He sneered, unafraid. I saw now in his eyes a man who viewed all of humanity as fools to either use or step around. His politeness kept us at bay, but beneath that politeness, he looked upon us all with loathing. He took what he wanted, and his practiced courtesy and smooth handsomeness deluded others into thinking him kind.
'You had better open the door for your Mr. Grenville,' he said now. 'He sounds quite anxious. Then we can finish this foolishness.'
'Yes,' I said, not releasing him. 'We will finish.'
Grenville had taken away my walking stick and its concealed sword, knowing what I might do. But I had not told him about the knife in the pocket of my coat. I removed it now. It was a small thing, a souvenir from Madrid, with which I cut open books and broke seals on letters and frightened away footpads. It fitted nicely into my palm, the thin, pointed blade only as long as my index finger.
I touched it to Allandale's cheek. He focused nervously on the tip. 'What are you doing, Lacey? Are we going to fight like drunkards in a rookery?'
'No, we will not fight. I have no intention of letting you fight. I am going to reveal to everyone your true face, so that when they look upon you forever after, they will know you for what you are, and loathe you.'
He stared, his mouth a round O, uncomprehending.
I pressed the blade into his skin and cut him. He screamed.
Grenville's voice rose on the other side of the door. 'Lacey! Bloody hell!'
My knife worked. I sliced stroke after stroke across his alabaster cheeks, shallow cuts that would heal and close and leave a criss-cross of scars all over his face. Scars that would remind him, every time he looked in the mirror, of me. They would tell him that he could not merely smile in soft politeness and have what he wanted. He would never, ever be able to trick anyone with his handsome face again.
Such coherent thoughts would come much later when I reasoned out why I had done what I'd done. At the moment, I only shook with rage and hatred and deep hurt.
This man had broken my beautiful Lydia, wounding her so deeply that she had gone deliberately into despair and shame. The Lydia Westin who had so resolutely stood by her wronged and innocent husband, in the face of all who opposed him, would never have dreamed of lowering herself to a courtesan's tricks, or to using a man who had showed her the slightest kindness. Allandale's actions had turned her into someone she herself had hated in the end.
He had taken her from me before I'd even met her. I would never know that other Lydia, the one true and steadfast and honorable and beautiful. He had shamed her and hurt her, and I doubted she would ever recover from that.
And so I cut him. My knife moved across his lips, his eyelids, his brows. All the while he screamed and wept and pleaded. He tried futilely to claw himself free, but a too soft life had made him weak. I pinned him firmly and sliced again and again into his ever so handsome face.
Behind me, the door burst open. Strong hands seized me and hauled me away from Allandale.
I went without fight, because I'd finished. Allandale's face streamed blood, cuts covering his face in a bizarre pattern. Tears mixed with the blood, smearing it, dripping to his cravat.
