Cassandra lounged on her chaise, sipping brandy. Moonlight poured in off the balcony of her bedchamber, giving her skin a luminescent quality. She wore nothing but a filmy dressing gown.
Johns knocked once, then came into her bedchamber.
She smiled at him, loving the way his eyes darkened as he took in her nearly nude state. “Did you take care of Mr. Olney?”
“I did. He fought me, or tried to, so there was some noise,” Johns said. “The authorities should find him tomorrow.”
“And you?” she asked.
He shook his head. “No one saw me.”
“Excellent. Now then, tell me about your other assignment.” She shifted her position, allowing the dressing gown to open, giving him a full view of her breasts.
He gaped at her display, then swallowed. “We can’t get to the girl,” Johns said.
“You’ve been to her shop.” Cassandra stood and walked over to her full-length mirror. The folds of her dressing gown flowed behind her as she moved. “You know where she is. What do you mean, you can’t get to her?” Cassandra patted her hair, then stepped away from the mirror.
He nodded. “She doesn’t appear to go to the shop much these days. We’ve followed her several times, but she is never alone.”
“Yes, yes, her aunts, I know. But you cannot find some way to dispose of three elderly women to get to the girl?” Cassandra was impatient; she knew that about herself. She’d never been good at waiting for what she wanted.
But this was getting ridiculous. That idiot chemist had proven to be a complete waste of time and money. Then he’d had the nerve to think he could threaten her.
“It’s not the aunts,” Johns said. “Though they leave the shop each evening. They are no longer staying above the store.”
“Every night? Where do they go?” Cassandra faced Johns and was struck by the sheer masculinity of him. It intrigued and annoyed her that after all these years she still desired him.
“That man you know. The blond fellow.”
“Max,” Cassandra whispered. So he had brought the whore home with him. “They all go to his townhome?”
“The aunts. The girl and Max left London. I sent Beaver and Platt to follow them. They lost them on a train. But Max and the girl are back in London.”
Platt and Beaver were idiots; they would never be able to find anything on their own. “Tomorrow I will go with you to watch them. I want to know what they are up to.” She walked up to him and ran her hand down his chest to the front of his trousers. Already he was hard for her. “Perfect.”
She shrugged out of her dressing gown.
Spencer made his way into the man’s study. Jennings was an ambitious sort, but neither skilled nor connected enough for those ambitions to take him far. He’d been an easy first choice for a lieutenant-general and now they were days away from his promotion.
“Cole,” he said as he stepped around his desk. “Good to see you again.” He closed the door behind Spencer. His mouse-colored brown hair lay flat against his head, trying in vain to cover his premature balding. Jennings was older than Spencer by at least ten years, but he was neither as cunning nor as gifted, though the man somehow had a brilliant military mind.
Spencer sat on the large leather sofa before he’d been invited to do so. He crossed his legs, resting one foot atop his other knee. “How are the plans coming along?”
Jennings jumped into motion. “I have maps.” He retrieved several maps from his desk and rolled them up, then handed them to Spencer. “We have several alternatives as far as where to land in Africa, and which countries to take control of when. Once we have the native soldiers trained, we shouldn’t have any problem occupying the continent. We’ll have them vastly outnumbered.”
“And with the elixir,” Spencer commented.
Jennings’s eyes nearly glazed over as he stared at the vial Spencer held. “Yes, yes,” the man said. “With that, anything is possible.” He took a step toward Spencer. “May I?”
“One small drop,” Spencer said.
Max and Sabine had no choice but to take time to bathe and change clothes before heading to the British Museum. While they were at Max’s townhome, Max’s chief of security told him about some men who had been spotted outside the building. And they’d also been seen outside Sabine’s shop. They matched the description of the men he’d fought with that night in the shop, the same ones they’d evaded on the train. Whoever had hired those thugs had not relented in their search.
As Max and Sabine approached the museum, they saw that it was full of patrons today—evidently a new mummy exhibit had opened recently and people were flocking to see it.
“Max,” someone called to him. It was a familiar voice, as Max knew only one Scotsman who would call him by his Christian name.
Max turned, and there walking toward him was Graeme Langford, Duke of Rothmore. A longtime member of Solomon’s, Graeme was one of the few people Max trusted implicitly. They shook hands and exchanged pleasantries.