The Sugared Game - K.J. Charles Page 0,74
the way. It’s dealt with.”
That was something. “Thanks,” Will said. “Second, then: what are we going to do when we get there? Do I tell Maisie what’s going on? Get her out of there?”
“That is indeed the question. I was inclined to say we remove her from the situation at once, but I doubt that would go down well. All Waring has to do to make us look like fools is nothing, but if he chooses to hurt her, we’ll be heavily outnumbered. We’re on the back foot here.”
“That’s a good place to throw a punch from. How outnumbered?”
“I have to assume he’ll have staff in the know, ready to follow orders, but I don’t know how many. And there’s always Johnnie Cheveley.”
“Phoebe said he’d be there. You don’t think—”
“Oh, yes I do,” Kim said grimly. “He’s deep in Waring’s business and trying very hard to marry his daughter. If I were Waring, I wouldn’t have someone that close that I couldn’t trust.”
“Isn’t he meant to be a gentleman?”
“Heavens, yes. His father was an earl. Really, it seems noblesse doesn’t oblige anyone any more.” Kim gave a mirthless smile. “Cheveley’s family was cut off at the knees by death duties during the war, leaving him, as the youngest son, with nothing. He harbours a great deal of resentment about it. I have often wondered if Waring picked him up because they have such similar characters, actually. Entitlement, arrogance, and a sense of superiority that takes anything less than full submission as a personal affront.”
“He doesn’t have a tattoo.”
“No. Maybe he hasn’t been admitted to the inner circle, or maybe Waring is grooming him for the leadership in the future, although that argues a willingness to give away power that I don’t associate with him. Maybe upper-class members aren’t required to bear the brand. Or maybe I’m wrong, but I doubt it. We should consider him hostile until proven otherwise.”
“No problem there,” Will said. “All right, third question: what’s your aim for Waring? Arrest? A trial? Nasty accident?”
There was a long silence. Kim turned the car down a narrower lane.
“I don’t know,” he said at last. “Even if I had irrefutable evidence, he’s got the funds and the network to bribe and blackmail his way out of trouble. It would be extraordinarily difficult to make a case stick. This is why the Private Bureau is the one taking Zodiac on.”
“Because you don’t do things the legal way.”
“In a word.”
“Do you want him dead?” Will said bluntly. “I need to know.”
Kim grimaced. “Not at your hands. He’s Phoebe’s father and a viscount, and this is Hertfordshire, not the Wild West.”
“It feels like the Wild West.”
“The rules are certainly flexible from here on in. We’re going to have to improvise.”
“We did that before. We’ve done it a few times. I don’t know anyone I’d rather have in a tight spot than you.”
“That wasn’t the impression I had yesterday.” Kim spoke as if it were a joke, and maybe another time it could have been.
“All right, stop the car,” Will said. “Stop it.”
Kim brought the Daimler to a halt. Will glanced around. They were in a country lane, trees on either side, nobody in sight. He reached to cup Kim’s face, felt him tense.
“Listen. We’ve given each other a bit of a kicking over the last few months. You’ve been pretty foul to me sometimes, and I’ve said things that weren’t fair along with some that were. But I wouldn’t have bothered with any of it, wouldn’t have given a tinker’s curse, if you weren’t...” He wished he had words for what Kim was, the aching pain and the starlight, the beauty and the ugliness. “Do you know Lepanto?”
“The Chesterton poem?”
“There was a bit I was trying to remember when I was chained up in that bloody room. I looked it up afterwards. ‘Dim drums throbbing in the hills half heard, Where only on a nameless throne a crownless prince has stirred, Where risen from a doubtful seat and half-attainted stall, The last knight of Europe takes weapons from the wall.’”
Kim’s lips parted. Will held his eyes, willing him to believe. “That’s you.”
“It truly isn’t.”
“The last knight. He’s got a bad reputation and maybe he deserves it, but he’s still taking up arms, fighting the battles other people don’t want because somebody’s got to do it. That’s what you make me think of—sometimes, anyway. That’s what I see, and I reckon it’s what Lord Waring is scared of.”
“You think he is?”
“If he’s not, he’s