Affair by Amanda Quick Page B

delivered earlier, shortly before he had left the house to meet Charlotte.
    It was from his father’s widow, Maryann, Lady Esherton. It was the third message she had sent this week.
    “Bloody hell.” With a sense of resignation, Baxter picked up the letter and broke the seal.
    The message was almost identical to the other two notes Maryann had dispatched to him during the past few days. It was very short and to the point.
    Dear Baxter:
    I wish to speak with you. The matter is most urgent. I request that you call upon me at your earliest convenience.
    Yours very truly,
    Lady E.
    Baxter crumpled the note and tossed it onto the fire just as he had the earlier notes from Maryann. Her notion of a crisis did not equate with his own. Maryann’s gravest problems tended to revolve around money, specifically the Esherton fortune. Baxter’s father had left him in charge of the inheritance until Maryann’s son, Hamilton, reached the age of twenty-five. Maryann was not pleased with the arrangement. Nor was Hamilton, for that matter.
    Baxter had a few more years of the thankless task to endure before he could dump the entire responsibility into his half brother’s lap.
    Impatiently, he pushed aside his old problems and considered the new set he had acquired. He propped his elbows on the leather arms of the chair, steepled his fingers, and gazed into the fire.
    Whatever else could be said about the night’s events, one thing was clear. There was danger afoot and Charlotte was in the midst of it.
    I n the black and crimson chamber the coals on the brazier burned low. The rich, spicy vapors of the incense had opened his senses. His mind was attuned to the forces of the metaphysical plane. He was ready.
    “Read the cards, my love,” he whispered.
    The fortune-teller turned over the first card. “The golden griffin.”
    “A man.”
    “Always.” The fortune-teller looked at him across the low table. “Beware. The griffin would stand in your way.”
    “Will he be able to alter my plans?”
    She turned over another card, hesitated. “The phoenix.” She reached for the next card, placed it faceup. “The red ring.”
    “Well?”
    “No. The golden griffin may prove difficult but ultimately you will prevail.”
    He smiled. “Yes. Now tell me about the woman.”
    The fortune-teller turned over another card. “The lady with the crystal eyes. She searches.”
    “But she will not find.”
    The fortune-teller shook her head. “No. She will not find what she seeks.”
    “She’s only a woman, after all. She will not be a problem.”
    And neither would the fortune-teller be a problem when this was finished, he thought. He would dispose of her when the time came. She was useful at the moment, however, and it was a simple matter to hold her in thrall with the bonds of her own passions.
    W hat do you make of this curious design, Ariel?” Charlotte pushed Drusilla Heskett’s watercolor sketchbook across her desk. “You are more conversant with current fashion than I. Have you ever seen anything similar?”
    Ariel paused in the act of pouring another cup of tea. She glanced at the sketchbook, which was open to a page near the middle. Her eyes widened as she gazed at the picture of a nude statue that decorated the left side of the paper.
    “Uh, no,” Ariel said dryly. “I do not believe that I have ever encountered anything similar to that particular design.”
    Charlotte gave her a reproving glare. “Not the picture of the statue. The little drawing in the corner. It appears to be a circle with a triangle inside. And there are little tiny figures around the edges and in the center of the triangle.”
    “Yes, I see.” Ariel shook her head. “It bears no resemblance to any of the fashionable motifs I have seen in
La Belle Assemblée
or
Ackermann’s Repository of the Arts
. Perhaps one of the other ladies’ magazines contains such a design.”
    “Perhaps it is Egyptian or Roman.”
    “I do not believe so.” With the tip of one