Hawkes lunged forward and slapped Brundage across the face so hard his head snapped backward and he fell sideways out of his chair.
With difficulty, Brundage righted himself. His shoulders were moving like bellows now with labored breaths.
Hawkes kept his gun pointed at him. “I knew you were evil. But I didn’t think you were. Just. That. Stupid. Test me again, Brundage,” he hissed.
Brundage was furious now. His eyes were slits, and so was his mouth. But Hawkes could still all butsmellhis fear.
“L-listen to me, Hawkes. This m-melodrama is unnecessary. I never meant to become... so carried away with... with her. Iapologizedto her afterward. I gave her a damned emerald. And it ought to have been sufficient. She was to be my wife. It was to be myrightto take her whenever I wanted, however I wanted. What difference would a few days have made? And she literallypushedme.”
Hawkes’s gut twisted when he realized that what he saw in Brundage’s expression was a sort of supplication: he was actually pleading with Hawkes for understanding. He thought his point of view had merit. He wanted some affirmation from Hawkes that he wasn’t entirely a monster, and perhaps some sympathy for the fact that he’d been at the mercy of his own inability to endure the anguish of not getting what he wanted, precisely when he wanted it.
And what he’d wanted from the beginning, as he’d told Hawkes, was Aurelie in his bed.
It would have been easier to understand if Brundage had been an actual monster, Hawkes thought. One without a conscience.
Instead, this man had created a hellish trap for himself, despite all of his advantages—and he’d scrambled ruthlessly to save himself again and again at any cost, no matter who needed to suffer. And now he was attempting to justify it in order not to experience a twinge of emotional discomfort.
Hawkes fought back a violent wave of nausea and something primal. Almost fear, of the sort that makes one stamp out poisonous spiders. But nothing quite so merciful as pity.
Hawkes said evenly, “Yes. We all know apologies make everything better. Perhaps you ought to apologize to Valkirk for the losses he suffered in battle when you informed your friend Florian Vasseur of the general’s planned troop movements in exchange for five hundred pounds.”
Brundage visibly stopped breathing. He was rigid. But Hawkes could almost sense the frantic rush of his thoughts.
“You’ve been thorough, Hawkes.”
“Just thorough enough,” Hawkes confirmed, pleasantly.
“All right. We both know you aren’t going to shoot me, Hawkes, because that’s the sort of man you are.” Brundage said this with a tinge of bitter mockery. “So you must want something for your silence. Name your price.”
“It’s tedious how you think everyone can be bought, just like you, just as an expediency. You soldmeout to the French, Brundage. I spent three years in prison. You sold yourcountryout to the French. You sold Valkirk out. I wonder how many mamas would love to have their sons back. Ask them how much they want for their sons. Ask Valkirk if those losses haunt him.”
Brundage was silent. His lips pressed together.
“You see, I know precisely how you did it. I know how you hid the money in the fake charity, the Society for the Relief of English Prisoners of War—the money funneled to you through the antiquities shopthat was a front for Cafard’s activities, that is. You arranged for me to be captured years ago because you sensed I was already suspicious, and if I’d kept looking, I would have discovered the entire truth. And then just a few short days ago you tried to have me killed because I was closing in on it again. You hadn’t counted onthat. How inconvenient for you.”
“You can’tproveany of this.” Brundage was struggling to sound bored.
“Well, yes, I can,” Hawkes explained patiently. “I’ve quite a bit of evidence, actually.”
The ensuing silence all but rang in Hawkes’s ears. Brundage regarded him through narrowed eyes. His breath came audibly through his nostrils. Sweat beads amassed like a regiment at his hairline and one at a time, poured down his green-white face.
And all the time Hawkes’s gun arm never wavered. Brundage’s view was still the dark center of his pistol. And he still apparently valued his sorry life, because he made no attempt to move.
“And so. I did what you paid me to do, Brundage. I found Lady Aurelie. She is safe, and will be from now on. She obviously wants naught to do with you. I also found...” With his free hand he dipped into his pocket and retrieved the emerald necklace, which he dangled from one finger.
Brundage’s eyes flared, then fixed upon it, as if it were a mesmerist’s pendulum.
“Since you’ll never see your erstwhile fiancée again, which would you choose: The necklace for which you haven’t yet paid, and which would lead to an enormous scandal and the loss of the ambassadorship if you don’t return it . . . or the account book listing your fake charity, the account books listing the false prices you paid for the vases, or the accountbook from Guthrie’s Antiquities showing how the vases were actually promptly returned for a much higher price. The balance of which was applied to the charity, whereupon, instead of directing the funds to Lloyd’s Patriot Fund, you magically made your debt disappear. You can have only one of these things.”
The silence was punctuated by a subdued pop from the low-burning fire.
Hawkes could just imagine the black snarl of Brundage’s thoughts.
“Are you suggesting a deal?” Brundage said tonelessly. His voice was low, and it trembled a little.
“Which would you take if you could have them?” Hawkes repeated patiently. “Mind you, you can only haveoneof the books. Together they tell the story, so if one is missing, it’s rather more difficult to prove your guilt. Decide which one is most incriminating, and I’ll give it to you. I imagine you can always find some other way to swindle enough money out of someone to pay for the necklace if you can’t do that now.”
“You had no right to take those books from Harrigan’s,” Brundage said, quite superfluously.