Hopefully, the flirting stage would not last overlong. He was much more comfortable once the woman was already in bed. Last night had given him just a taste of Anne. Learning more about her body and what gave her pleasure ... the prospect sounded damned pleasant. He already felt the quickening of his pulse, the heated edge of emergent desire.
Just as he turned to make his way back up Lombard and thence to Cheapside, he caught sight of Stephen Norwood emerging from a coffee house.
Destroy him.
The words, spoken silently by a voice not his own, wove through his mind like a trail of smoke. Thoughts of Anne were blotted out. All Leo saw was Norwood, the cheat. A year ago, they had been partnersLeo, Norwood, and two othersin an East Indian shipping venture. Norwood had gone behind Leos back, urging the others to underreport the ventures profits, all the while wearing a wide betrayers smile. Leo had caught wind of the scheme and extricated himself with as minimal damage as possible, never letting on that he knew of the deception.
Like a serpent, Leo had bided his time, waiting for the right moment to bring Norwood down with a flash of fang and mouth full of poison.
That time was now. Cold intent spread through Leo, originating between his shoulder blades and winding through his body, his limbs, and his mind.
Destroy him.
Good to see you, old friend. He strode up and shook Norwoods hand.
The charlatan grinned. Surprised to see you here today. Word is out that yesterday you took a wife.
Leo decided not to mention that he had married Anne, yet as to the taking of her ... that would happen later. A husband I may be, but the Change is my mistress, and I can never stray. He glanced toward the door of the coffee house Norwood had just exited. You and I havent spoken in far too long. Join me inside?
Though he maintained his grin, Norwoods eyes were chary. If he knew what Leo had planned, he had good cause for concern. But no one save another Hellraiser or the Devil himself could know what Leo intended.
I have good intelligence on some new investment prospects. This was Leos bait, for he was renowned, some might say notorious, for his faultless ability to select the best ventures. Hed been strong in business before gaining his gift of precognition. Now, he was unstoppable.
Wariness left Norwoods gaze, replaced by eager greed. No greater pleasure than to renew our friendship.
They ducked into the coffee house and removed their tricorn hats. Inside, men of business hunched at battered wooden tables and crowded into settles. Brokers, jobbers, men seeking capital for their schemes, and those, like Leo, keen to invest in the next profitable ventures. The close air within the shop was thick with the smell of coffee and the sounds of speculation. London was an old city, a city built upon the detritus of centuries rotting into the earth. Yet here, in this coffee house, in the narrow, crowded alleys of the Exchange, men lived in the future. They dwelt in the possibility of what could be, what might be, and in that gauze-covered world of chance, they staked their fortunes.
Leo had an advantage no one else possessed. And that made him one of the most feared and respected men in the Exchange. Him. A saddlers son, whod never drunk tea from fresh, unboiled leaves until he was fifteen years old.
He and Norwood managed to find a table, pushing aside the newspapers stacked there. As they sat, the proprietor flung two steaming mugs of coffee toward them and
quickly trundled off.
Have you change for a bob? Leo asked Norwood. He held up a shilling.
Only a tanner and thruppence.
That shall suffice.
Are you sure? Norwood raised a brow, believing that the benefit would be all to him.
Truly, its satisfactory.
With a shrug, Norwood slid his coins across the table and accepted Leos shilling. The moment Leo touched the coins, he smiled, for though he had lost three pennies in the exchange, he now gained something far more valuable.
To Norwood, and to all the men in the room, Leo sat at a table within the same coffee house. He did not rise up from his seat. He barely even moved, except to curl his fingers around the coins. Yet with just the brush of his fingers over the moneys metallic surface, Leos mind became a spyglass. Time folded in on itself, collapsing inward. Dizzying. The first few times Leo attempted this, hed found the unexpected sensation unpleasant, like drinking too much whiskey too quickly. Now, hed learned not only to anticipate the feeling, but to welcome it, for it meant that soon the future would be his.
Leo felt the rough wooden table beneath his fingertips, heard the voices of men around him, yet his eyes beheld not the coffee house but a distant port. Palm trees and golden-skinned people in colorful wraps. Tall-masted ships bobbing at anchor. Buildings both Oriental and Europeanno, not just European, but the tall, narrow facades of Dutch structures, and battlements. He knew this place, never having been there, but by reputation: Batavia, in the East Indies.