Free India Black by Carol K. Carr

nemesis from Sunday evening.
    He was just as aloof and unflappable as I remembered, giving me an appraising eye and the briefest of nods before he stood aside and my escorts ushered me into a long room with a fire blazing briskly in the hearth at the other end. It was a swell’s office, all mahogany paneling, Persian rugs and leather-bound books lining the shelves on either side of the room. The fireplace sported a carved marble mantle and a painting of our Royal Highness, looking particularly lugubrious, as though she’d just learned that the Prince of Wales had been seen sporting with another actress. Two men stood before the fire, crystal glasses in hand, regarding me somberly.
    My assailants deposited me before the fireplace with a flourish, but not before Billy took the opportunity to give my arm a savage squeeze with his ape-like hand and whisper, “Don’t try that again, ducks, or you’ll be sorry,” in my ear. Then he and his friend (of the cauliflower ear) deferentially touched the brims of their bowlers and bowed their way out of the room, closing the great oaken door behind them.
    The shorter of the two men stepped forward. With his dark curly hair, his bright, inquisitive eyes and his hooked nose, he wouldn’t have looked out of place on a Saturday at Temple Emanuel or running a rag and bone shop in Whitechapel, only no self-respecting man of business would dare dye his locks such a sable hue or don the outfit the little man sported. I believe Beau Brummel would have hesitated a moment before choosing the striped trousers, canary yellow waistcoat, and the puce velvet jacket. It was Disraeli, of course, in the flesh, and if you think I was a bit disconcerted to find myself in the presence of Lord Beaconsfield, prime minister of Great Britain and its colonies, you’d be right. I’d had my hand kissed by minor aristocracy, but I’d never been this close to the seat of power before.
    My first thought (isn’t it always?) is that my fame had preceded me, and I’d been brought here to give Dizzy a gallop. But men who moved in his circle seemed to have no problem finding ready partners among their own class, and while I knew Dizzy’s reputation as a connoisseur of women, his marriage was rumored to have been a happy one, and he’d been seriously cut up by his wife’s death a few years before. Still, the strain of managing an empire and jollying along that gloomy old bag Victoria might have gotten to the man. I was pondering how to break the news that I’d retired on my laurels when the second man caught my attention, swirling the drink in his hand so that the crystal glass glittered in the firelight. He was a rum-looking cove, with reddish gold hair, a severe mustache and amber eyes that held not a spark of warmth. His skin was unnaturally white and glowed like alabaster in the light from the fireplace.
    The prime minister waved a hand at a heavy sideboard lined with bottles and glasses. “May I offer you some refreshment, Miss Black?”
    Stranger things have happened to me than being offered a glass of whisky by the prime minister, but for the life of me, I can’t recall what they might have been. I muttered my thanks, accepted the proffered glass with what I hoped was a charming bow, and allowed myself to be shepherded into a soft leather chair.
    “I trust your journey here was a pleasant one,” Dizzy said, as though I’d received an engraved invitation and been escorted here by the Royal Blues, instead of kidnapped off the street by two Neanderthals. I wondered if there was a polite way to express this thought, but Dizzy was continuing on, oblivious to (or ignoring) the irony of his statement.
    “Allow me to introduce William Endicott. Mr. Endicott is here on behalf of Lord Derby, the foreign secretary.” Endicott was the rufus-haired gentleman. He turned a reptilian gaze upon me and blinked once, slowly.
    “And of course, you have already met Mr. French of this office,” said Dizzy.
    The dark