The Bride of the Unicorn. Kasey Michaels

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СКАЧАТЬ impertinent bastard!” Lord James accused hotly, struggling to rise from his pillows. “Never have I met your like! Never!”

      “No, no,” Morgan corrected, his tone insultingly amiable. “I’m your image, Uncle, remember? ‘Cold to the bone,’ as I believe you said. Oh, dear. Is that the gong calling me to dinner? What a fortunate escape. Never fear that I shall find my meal inadequate. I took the precaution of bringing a basket with me from Clayhill.” He rose slowly, pushing the chair back to its former position, the cool precision of his movements galling Lord James. “If you should chance to expire while I’m dining, please consider this our last tender farewell. Good evening, Uncle.”

      Morgan was nearly at the door before Lord James spoke again, for it took him that long to regain his breath after his last outburst. He had to say this now—say what he wanted to say, what had to be said—or else Morgan would be gone for good, and James would have died for nothing. If he could not leave behind some festering evidence of his malevolence, the only legacy of a childless, bitter man, it would be as if he had never lived….

      “That’s it. Run away. No one can capture the Unicorn!” he called out, his voice loud in the quiet room. He lay back against the pillows, listening to the drops of rainwater splash into the pan nearest the bed, waiting for Morgan’s response, but not really expecting any.

      “I’ve always thought it the height of irony that you were the Unicorn,” he continued when he felt enough time had elapsed to build the suspense he desired. “England’s greatest spy. My nemesis. And so modest about it. If I had not broken the codes that made up the messages I delivered to the smugglers, I might never have guessed. Even Wellington never figured out which was which, did he? Pompous, posturing dolt! But I recognized you immediately, recognized myself as I could have been—would have been if Saint Willy hadn’t been born first. So, yes. Yes! I did know my treason could mean the death of you. It was part of the joy of the moment! Jeremy’s death was no more than an accident of good fortune. But the war is over. Napoleon is banished. And still you cling to your secrecy, still you stand quietly and allow another to claim all your glory.”

      Lord James paused for a moment, then smiled. “I hold the key to that man’s destruction, nevvy,” he continued quietly, liking the hint of menace in his voice. “Would you like it? What would you and your patient revenge do with the perfect tool for that man’s destruction? Shall that key be my parting gift to you, your legacy?” He lifted one skeletal hand, indicating the bedchamber and all of the house. “Along with this decrepit pile, of course.”

      “You’re lying,” Morgan said, his hand on the door latch, his back still turned toward the bed. “You have nothing I want. You were a most deplorable traitor, Uncle, barely worth the effort it took to ferret you out. You say you knew my identity, yet you seemed surprised to learn that I, in turn, had caught you out. But I will admit your dramatics are interesting, if a trifle lacking in style—especially that little bit about Jeremy. Perhaps you should have devoted yourself instead to penny press fiction.”

      His nephew didn’t believe him! He was going to leave!

      Sudden panic lent Lord James new strength. “I’m not lying, damn you! Think, nevvy. As the twig is bent! Willy can tell you. I was always what I am now, capable of anything for the sake of a few gold pieces. Trading in secrets was my only mistake, a miscalculation of old age and greed, but not my only source of income. I was better when I was younger, sharper.”

      “Hence this splendor in which you live, Uncle,” Morgan taunted, spreading his hands as if to encompass the faded ugliness of the bedchamber before opening the door. “I’ll ask one of the servants to come sit with you. Obviously you are now slipping toward delirium.”

      “No! I’m telling the truth. I swear it.” James clawed his way to the side of the bed, the better to see his nephew, the better to allow his nephew to see him. “You cannot know all the things I’ve done, the vile, dastardly crimes I’ve committed.”

      “Cannot and do not care to know.”

      Lord James sneered. “Oh, nevvy, how far you have to fall from that perfidious pinnacle of indifference you perch on. You do care. You will care, because I hold all the cards now, all the answers to your schemes that you still do not admit to, even to yourself. You want revenge, nevvy. Damnation, man, you may even deserve it!”

      “Perhaps you’re right. But it will be in my own time, Uncle, and in my own way.”

      “Of course. I should have realized that you wouldn’t wish my help, even if I am trying, in this feeble way, to atone for any indirect connection I might have had with dear Jeremy’s death. I understand, nevvy.” Lord James began to pick at the coverlet, his eyes averted from Morgan. “But then, there is still the matter of the child.”

      Lord James held his breath as Morgan let go of the latch and turned, his dark eyes narrowed as he stared straight into his uncle’s grinning face. “Child? What child?”

      “What? Did you say something, nevvy? I cannot hear you very well, and the room grows dim. Come closer, nevvy. Come close so that I can give you my last confession.”

      He heard Morgan’s footsteps and smiled into the frayed collar of his nightshirt. He counted to ten, slowly, then began to speak once more. “Once upon a time,” he began, then chuckled at his own wit, the laughter turning into a wet cough that left bits of blood on his already soiled handkerchief.

      “Once upon a time, nevvy,” he continued, “there was a man like me, a man who found himself where he should not be, while another man, a lesser man, usurped his rightful place. We met, this man and I, no more than once or twice, and we bemoaned our fate together over several bottles of wine. Perhaps more than several bottles.”

      “Go on,” Morgan urged, pulling the chair back over beside the bed. “Continue your fairy tale.”

      Lord James shot his nephew a searing look, reveling in the lack of necessity to hood his dislike for the younger man. “I have every intention of continuing,” he said shortly. “We chatted idly, without real purpose—until the day the man’s circumstances changed and it became imperative for him to take steps to protect himself. He tried to enlist my help, but I refused. Why should I do for him what I might have done for myself?” He shook his head. “I only wonder why I never did it for myself when I was younger…when we all were younger. I only wonder….”

      Morgan stood. “And I can only wonder, Uncle, why I am allowing a perfectly good roasted chicken to continue to lie downstairs untasted in my dinner basket.”

      “No! Don’t go! You must hear the rest. I did not help the man, but I know what he did.” Lord James lowered his voice conspiratorially. “I followed after and watched—then fired my pistol to scare them off before they’d finished. He was even so stupid as to lift his mask and show his face, to crow about his success, so that he knew I saw him plain. That was a great help to me, almost as great a help as the child. After all, nevvy, what good is it to know something if you cannot turn a profit from it, hmm?”

      “Uncle, I haven’t the faintest notion what you’re talking about.”

      “Of course you don’t,” Lord James agreed, feeling very satisfied with himself. “As one of those Greeks scribbled so long ago, nevvy, ‘The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one great thing.’ You look surprised. Did you think I was a total barbarian? I know something of the classics. You, nevvy, are like the fox, but I am the hedgehog. Blackmail, which depends on knowing a single great thing, would never occur to you. But it occurred to me.”

      Lord James rubbed his СКАЧАТЬ