The Poisoner's Game

Chapter 4

A.

London

One week prior...

My father's house never changed, or it hadn't since my mother's death. I sometimes wondered if my life would be different if that day had never happened. A bitter memory of hope, warmth, and contentment threatened the edges of the stark foyer before me. At one time one could not find a room that didn't smell of lavender and fresh flowers. Now, just like me, they were banished. The Butler, Mr. Griggs, who had known me since birth, looked me once over with little kindness reflecting in his eyes.

"I will see if His Grace is in, my lord." With that, he turned and stiffly walked down the hall.

"Pleased to see you again too, Griggs," I muttered.

My teeth ground together as I paced the foyer. I hadn't even been given the courtesy of relinquishing my hat. It would be the ultimate insult for my father to now refuse me, but I wouldn't let him. Not this time. After what seemed like just enough time to be rude but not enough time for one to make a fuss, Mr. Griggs returned to the foyer and indicated that I follow him.

"I know the way." I stopped once we entered the hallway lined with my ancestor's faces. As a child, I felt their eyes follow me so much so that I wouldn't venture down the hall until my mother and I had thoroughly examined each portrait together.

"But, my lord." Mr. Griggs puffed up with a weighty sense of protocol, for he still used the proper honorary title while holding me in contempt. I wished I could tell him to call me first lieutenant as it was something won through grit rather than birth.

"This is my family home is it not?" I raised a brow, knowing Griggs could little refuse me though we both knew the truth.

Griggs gave me a shallow bow and left me alone in the hallway. Outside my father's study, I stopped to listen to the murmur of voices.

"Your grace, the Queen's coffers have suffered a particular blow in the Indian markets this quarter," a male voice spoke, coming from behind the partially closed door.

"If the Royal Navy could manage to avoid crashing clippers in the Suez Canal, we'd have a better chance," murmured my father. "You may leave." Hearing his voice straightened my spine like nothing else would.

The door opened and a man exited. He stopped in front of the door, fumbling in his pockets. A flame blazed across my eyes as he lit a cigar, highlighting the white scar across his face. Smoke tickled my nose as it drifted down the hallway, following his retreating figure. He never even looked my way.

With what some might call bravery and others might call foolhardiness, I pushed open the door without knocking. A study materialized. On one wall, a bookshelf reached to the ceiling and was crammed to capacity. Plastered on the other wall were maps of shipping routes and ship schematics, covered with unfamiliar symbols and a messy scrawl. The maps depicted land and ocean routes, anything from the Suez Canal to the Port of Hong Kong. Built for purpose and out of place in the grand house, the room lacked any display of wealth.

I moved toward a large, sturdy oak desk in the center of the room. Behind the desk sat my father, his face hidden in the shadows. I could only hear my muffled tread over the carpet. My father's harsh presence encircled me like a chill across the moorlands in Yorkshire.

"Would you care to tell me what this business is about?" I asked my father before my courage escaped me.

Just like the stinking fortress, he never changed either but for several more lines etching themselves into his forehead. He didn't stand upon my entrance but lazily swirled his brandy in his crystal snifter. However, I knew my father well enough not to let my guard down.

He leaned forward into the light. Sharp and hollowed features scrutinized me to my bones. His eyes were pure metal. With a head full of steel-grey hair and dark slashing brows below a lined forehead, his face revealed little kindness. From cravat to evening jacket, his impeccably tailored suit was midnight black. Several silver rings adorned his fingers.

"Don't let your youthful impatience lead you to rudeness, first lieutenant," he responded while he shuffled his papers.

The cut felt deeper than I wanted it to and much deeper than I wanted my father to realize. I pushed onward. "What does this have to do with my mother?"

"I have information regarding the Frenchman," he pulled out a piece of paper from his stack, "you so resolutely believe killed her." He said the last part with a tinge of sarcasm and dismissal. The paper that might have meant something or nothing at all disappeared into the stack.

I held back my response waiting for his answer before I said something that would send me on the first ship back to Malta or worse, without any answers. Capturing the Frenchman had been part of my waking nightmare for the last nine years. It didn't surprise me that my father held the information as a bargaining chip, he knew I wanted nothing more.

"But I will not give you this information unless you do something for me first. Something of importance to this nation and the Queen."

I wanted to tell him I had been doing important work for the Queen stopping the Turks and Russians from all-out war, but I said nothing. Taking the seat across from him, I leaned back and affected a bored expression. My father didn't realize he'd taught me well. A fire blazed in the hearth, flickering across my father's face.

"Tell me then."

"You'll be tracking a man known as the Poisoner. He's been hidden on the continent until a few weeks ago when we intercepted his correspondence." My father opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out several letters.

Everyone within the international trading community had heard whispers of the Poisoner, a man of the underground who had used a diverse set of brutal tactics to control certain unsavory markets. At one point, several years ago, the Royal Navy had tried to intercept him in India with little success. Nobody lived to talk and if they did they ended up dead days later.

"Why do you care?" I asked, pushing my luck. "Isn't the Poisoner the C.I.D.'s case?"

"Yes, yes of course. Howard Vincent, the Director, is about to retire into politics, and I don't want the case to slip into," my father sighed loudly, and took a swig of his brandy, "imbecilic hands."

I made one last push forward. "But, why do you care?"

"I am a man of business, and the Poisoner is bad for business." If my father were a man to shrug he would have.

"Why me then?" I asked. I wanted to ask to add why take me out of my career, why make direct contact after so long, and why was it so important?

"There's a girl."

"I don't follow."

My father sighed as if I should already know the answer. "The correspondence we intercepted is between a young woman and the Poisoner. I need you to charm her, seduce her if you must, but you need to gain her trust and her access to the Poisoner by attending society events without calling attention from anyone but other silly young ladies. You have your mother's coloring after all." The latter might have been a compliment from anyone else.

"What's her name?" I gritted out.

"Lady Margaret Savoy."