The Swordmaster's Mistress: Dangerous Deceptions Book Two(3)
In his twenty nine years Jared had gone from luxury that was not his to control to sleeping in a garret, then to a senior servant’s rooms when Cal’s father had employed him. At Cal’s side he had experienced the varied and various lodgings of the voyage round the world that the pair of them had embarked on as equals. Those had ranged from luxury to squalor and back again, almost from day to day. Things were exceedingly comfortable now. Too comfortable, someone else’s comfort, but now this was his world to shape to his liking.
When he reached his new home he washed off the grime of the auction room, swallowed a tankard of ale from the cask in what passed for his kitchen, gave the workmen in the salle d’armes a critical inspection, approved the colour for the wall paint and went out into the afternoon sunshine to climb the slope of St James’s Street. He turned left and crossed Piccadilly to avoid the usual scrummage around the White Horse Cellar where stages for the West were arriving and departing, and took a right into Clarges Street.
As always a rapier hung at his side, a rare sight on the streets these days. Only the military went obviously armed whilst gentlemen in full court attire wore a delicate dress sword, a symbolic toy. His was anything but a toy, it was a lethal tool but also part of his image, along with the black clothing, the long, tightly-controlled hair, the impassive expression. Men stepped aside as he approached, ladies cast him sideways glances. Sometimes he caught them.
The Viscount’s butler took him through to Northam without delay, pausing only to take the scabbard and sword belt he was handed. The promptness was interesting. Most gentlemen, in Jared’s experience, liked to assert their superiority by keeping an inferior waiting a while. True, swordmasters were several steps up on dancing masters, apothecaries and curates. They were equivalent, in most gentlemen’s eyes if not those of their wives, to lawyers, doctors and the vicar. But of a certainly they were not equals. Cal treated him as one because they were friends: Jared did not make the error of expecting any other aristocrat to do the same.
‘Mr Hunt, thank you for obliging me with your attendance.’
Well that was amiable enough. Jared contented himself with a polite inclination of the head, settled his feet apart, put his hands behind his back and waited, apparently all his attention on the man in front of him. He also noted the other doors into the room, the quality of the furnishings, the books on the side table, the faint sounds of the household beyond the closed doors and, automatically, the various escape routes. A pleasant room, in good taste, a little cluttered with the accumulation of years of living, a little worn around the edges for ease, not from want of funds. A warm, comfortable space that spoke well of its owner.
‘Come, take a seat.’ Lord Northam lowered himself stiffly into one of the wing chairs before the cold fireplace, using the back and the arm as props. It was the first real sign that betrayed his age that Jared had noticed, beyond the sagging skin and the grey hairs.
Jared took the seat opposite, crossed his legs and waited. He was good at waiting.
‘You were recommended to me,’ Northam said abruptly.
‘Might I ask, by whom?’
‘I set my valet the task of finding me the man I needed. He heard rumours and spoke to the Duke of Calderbrook’s man Flynn and then I had a word with a number of people who were at a certain house party. You made a very definite impression in a most discreet manner, Mr Hunt.’
Michael Flynn was Cal’s valet, their companion on their travels and a very good friend to both of them. He would have vouched for Jared even if Jared had been putting himself forward as Archbishop of Canterbury. But as for anyone else – those must have been the male guests at the house party where Cal almost lost his life and the mystery of the near-fatal illnesses that had sent him abroad as a young man was finally solved. It was troubling that guests had realised there was a situation to be dealt with. Cal’s injuries and the death of another house guest had been ascribed to accidental causes and at the time no-one had shown any sign of believing otherwise.
‘Indeed?’
‘Indeed. Nobody was quite sure what was going on, but something was and they described you as the deus ex machina who ensured that things stayed like that – ambiguous. From the very little Tonkin could glean from Flynn I was more inclined to ask whether you had Italian blood – there was a distinct hint of stilettos behind the arras about the matter.’
Jared kept his expression bland, despite the urge to snort with laughter at being described as the god in the machine. ‘Knives and an arras, my lord? That is as much Hamlet as Machiavelli. No-one was knifed, you have my assurance.’ Poisoned and shot, yes. Knifed, no.
‘I will not ask for details and I know I would get short shrift if did, which is as it should be.’ He shot Jared a sharp glance from beneath unruly eyebrows several shades darker than his hair. ‘Tonkin summed you up as a dangerous man to be on the wrong side of, absolutely loyal and worryingly intelligent. I have great need of a man like that, Mr Hunt, even if you take extreme pains to hide your past.’
‘My past?’ Jared lifted one eyebrow. Absolute stillness was as betraying as fidgeting. ‘It is an open book. I was apprenticed in arms to Monsieur Jacques Favel, then, on his recommendation, secured a position as swordmaster and companion to the young Viscount Castledale, later Duke of Calderbrook. I spent almost seven years abroad with him on his travels and have, within the year, returned with him to England.’