*The Lord F opus is almost done. We will be posting soon, I hope. Be patient.*

Part 6 of 8

Richard chokes on a mouthful of liquor and puts his glass down as he backs up with a hand out as if warding off tigers. When he gets his wind back he huffs, "Madam! I don't think so! Who are you again? I don't remember seeing you… not on the street or at any of the party scenes."

She frowns and returns to her chair, "Oh, I see, now you play the stranger." She sits as she sighs, "Very well then. I am Catia, sent by the Portuguese Council to aid your government in finding these bad moneys that are flooding my country. Today I learned a name of a printer not on your list." She waits to see if he's done playing but his eyebrows tell her that he is not. She sighs again and hands him a folded slip of paper which he pockets without reading.

"Ah," he nods, "we are in a brothel because no one wonders about me and any other agents visiting one woman here. You gather information then pass it to us about suspicious people and places, am I right?" He sits carefully back into his chair and sees her amused look. "So you are the eyes and ears on the street and we are the eyes and ears at the gambling establishments. We pretend to be rotten gamblers and you pretend to be a prostitute. I must say, you're a very good actress. For a moment there I thought you were really asking me to… um…" He waves a hand to the bed without looking, his colour heightening.

She chuffs a low laugh, "Oh, Ar-chee, I meet with these other men because I must. You know none of them have been into my bed."

"Well," he responds gallantly, "of course not. That would be…"

She sets her drink down and leans forward, shadows gathering in her décolletage, "That would be wasting of my time." She stands slowly, drawing his eyes up with her, "I wait always for my Ar-chee. The empty hours torment. Never before has this happen but now it is and I cannot bear it. Come, my heart, no more games. I burn… I burn…" She glides forward.

Richard slips up out of his chair and slides behind it, "Now, see here, Madam, um, Catia, I think there's been some mistake. I'm a married man and…"

She circles after him, "Yes, this I know. I also know you are trap in a loveless marriage and I ignite the flame in your loins that you once thought lost forever."

Richard pulls his jacket closed, "Well, yes, perhaps it may seem that way… but not really. In my real life I'm happily married, thank you very much. My loins are well cared for."

She circles the other way, "Ah, you English with your strange humors. You think to go back to sea, yes? The Lordship does not sit well for you. You are so not happy. I wish you to come back to my country, change your name, be someone new, be mine. Once this bad moneys task is done and the printers found, I will go home and be happy with you." She whirls, her robe flaring out most heart-stoppingly, "And Catia, the dancer, the consort of princes, will vanish like the smoke. She will get fat and have many many bebês and be happy at last."

Richard listens to most of this with dawning satisfaction (having missed the last sentence completely), "So, it's all a sham, this search for Lady Whistledown? The government is just using it as a cover to find the counterfeiters and Lord F is one of their agents. I KNEW he was bored and needed an adventure but I never thought about spies and foreign affairs." He points at her, "Does that make you his handler?"

"Yes," she sighs, "I am the handler, as you say, and now I wish to handle you. Enough games, our business talk is done. It is time for fun!" She darts around the chair.

Richard skips away, "Ah, ah, ah, none of that!" He holds up a hand again, "So that satchel of loot must be the potential proof. He has to hand it in but the thugs get onto him somehow and demand it back. Is he really murdered? No, now I'm thinking something else happens."

"Like what?" she asks quietly, pausing like she's listening to a good story.

He's pacing now, "Maybe he decides to leg it after all. Like you said, he's unhappy, trapped. Maybe he gets caught up in all the arrests. Maybe he uses the confusion to cover his tracks." He stops, looks up at her where she gleams so richly in the candle light, "And, maybe now that you're in the picture… just maybe… he DOES run off. With you! Lucky man!"

She eases towards him very carefully, "My gentle one, I have never known such a man as you. I cannot think to leave without you." She reaches out again for him, beseeching, "Please, my Ar-chee, do not forsake me, do not abandon me to my awful fate."

He keeps just out of her reach, "What fate would that be?"

"Of never having you again, never feeling your touch, never breathing your dark perfume…"

He edges around the foot of the bed, "Oh, here now, there's no need to talk like that. I'm nothing special. I keep telling you that when I'm awake but you never listen."

"No, my angel," she whispers, "I listen only to my own heart…"

… and she drops the robe.

END – part 6