A Spy in the House (5 page)

“Hope I’m not interrupting your feminine chitchat,” Thorold said, patting her cheek. He bowed respectfully to Mrs. Thorold and continued talking to Angelica. “Had a good day?”

“Yes, Papa. Shall I ring for your whiskey?”

“That’s my girl.” He turned to Mary politely. “I don’t believe we’ve met, Miss . . . ?”

“Quinn. Mary Quinn.” She bowed. “I’ve just been engaged as companion to Miss Thorold.”

“Bless me, of course you have. I’m Henry Thorold, of course, and this is my secretary, Michael Gray.”

Mary bowed again to the young man who trailed in Thorold’s wake. “A pleasure to meet you, sirs.” The secretary was good-looking in a pretty way, but it was to Mr. Thorold that Mary’s gaze returned. The man was instantly recognizable from the portrait on the stairs, of course. But his undignified energy and good humor came as a shock. She must learn to avoid stereotypes: there was no reason on earth why a ruthless merchant who evaded taxation and smuggled Hindu artifacts could not also be a jolly paterfamilias.

Drink in hand, Thorold lowered himself into the armchair beside Angelica’s with a deep sigh. Michael chose a place on the sofa while Mrs. Thorold remained in her chair, rather outside the conversational triangle made by the other three. There was a silence. Finally, Thorold stirred himself to ask, “Anything to report, then? What has my darling been up to today?”

A short silence followed the question.

“Conversation and music, Papa.” Angelica’s voice was mild. So she behaved nicely in her father’s presence, only letting loose with her mother.

Michael Gray smiled politely. “My congratulations, Miss Quinn. You must be exceptionally well qualified, if Miss Thorold has taken a liking to you.”

Mrs. Thorold cut in unexpectedly. “Angelica and Miss Quinn will get on charmingly.” It was definitely a command, despite her quavering voice. “And Miss Quinn will be useful at the party this Saturday.”

“Party?” Thorold looked perplexed for a minute. Then he slapped one hand to his forehead. “But of course! The party!”

Angelica made a face. “About that party, Papa . . . Don’t you think it’s rather poor weather for a garden party? This — this —” Her voice trailed off as she searched for a polite word for
stink.

“Miasma?” suggested Michael.

She ignored him. “This unseasonable heat is too much. Our guests will be most uncomfortable.”

Mary looked at Angelica curiously. Why would a rich, bored young lady want to cancel a party?

“It is impossible to cancel now, Mr. Thorold,” said Mrs. Thorold firmly. “The invitations went out three weeks ago.”

“Our guests will understand our reasons for postponing,” insisted Angelica. “They can hardly be eager to crowd into a drawing room twenty feet from the Thames.”

“Then there are the preparations to think of,” continued Mrs. Thorold as though Angelica had not spoken. “All that food ordered and the band booked and all those extra footmen and maids engaged. Not to mention the tent for the garden.”

Thorold was looking from wife to daughter, as though at a tennis match. “You have a point,” he said, vaguely addressing both.

“We cannot possibly cancel now; it’s far too late,” said Mrs. Thorold firmly.

“What about your health, Mama? It’s so delicate,” said Angelica simultaneously.

Both women turned to Thorold, awaiting a judgment. The silence stretched out for several long seconds. It was so quiet in the room that Mary heard him gulp. After what seemed like an age, he delicately cleared his throat. “Er . . . well, the thing is . . . we did — er — hum. There’s the matter of . . .”

“Mr. Easton,” said Mrs. Thorold crisply. All heads swung to look at her, and she slumped a little in her chair. “He’s an excellent prospect for Angelica,” she continued in a weaker voice, “and very much taken with her.”

Thorold frowned. “It would be a shame to disappoint Easton. I saw him just today, and he told me how much he looked forward to the party.”

“A suitor with money,” pronounced Mrs. Thorold, “will make a pleasant change from the packs of fortune hunters swarming the house.”

Thorold looked agreeable. “Told me he was after a contract in India! Clever chap . . . land of opportunity at the moment.”

Mary leaned forward slightly, but that was all he said.

Angelica sighed heavily.

Michael looked at the ceiling.

Thorold nodded once. “Very well, then. The party must go on!”

By midnight, all the Thorolds’ guests had arrived with their ladies’ maids in tow. Due to the weather, they avoided the tent in the beautifully lit but foul-smelling gardens, and the house was consequently a crush. Despite the extra footmen posted with large fans in the corners of every room, the air was thick and stale. The bouquets of hothouse flowers massed around the room already looked wilted, as did the footmen.

The heat aside, however, it was a beautiful gathering. Dozens of tall wax candles combined with the gaslights to make the room midday-bright. The young ladies wore frothy white dresses, lavishly trimmed with ribbons and flowers. Married and older women wore more colors, but for all ladies it was a season for dramatic décolletage, and showy gemstones glittered from a few dozen bare breastbones. In their black dinner jackets and white ties, the gentlemen provided a dramatic contrast.

Gazing about the laughing, chattering, flirting, tipsy throng, Mary found it difficult to believe this polished luxury was built on creaking wooden ships and the backs of merchant sailors. International trade and dangerous labor had no place here, except as an unacknowledged, invisible source of wealth.

A fierce impatience knotted her gut. She’d spent four days living with the Thorolds. Four days keeping Angelica company. Four days absorbing hostile remarks and pretending not to notice sulks. Four days trapped in this dark, airless house while Mrs. Thorold went out in the carriage each afternoon. And all for what? The only bits of information she’d heard were sadly commonplace. For example, Thorold had no obvious heir. His only son, Henry Jr. — the sickly boy in the portrait — had died several years ago, transforming the ambitious company of Thorold & Son into the more subdued Thorold & Company. And last month, the parlor maid had been sacked for “immorality.” She’d been six months’ pregnant at the time, and word in the kitchen was that Thorold was the father.

It was becoming clearer and clearer that Thorold and Gray never discussed business at home — at least not before the women. And there was so little time remaining: Anne and Felicity expected the assignment to end in just over one week. They’d sent her no additional instructions or information, which meant that they had no news — at least nothing that concerned her. She’d had no contact from the primary agent, which meant that her assistance was not required there. She was not to communicate with either the primary agent or the Agency unless she learned something concrete. And — completing the circle — the only way she’d discover anything would be actively to look for evidence of smuggling and such. And — oh dear — it would be so much more interesting than wearing itchy dresses and fetching fruit ices for rude matrons.

She wouldn’t. She should carry out her instructions to the letter.

And yet . . . what was the harm? There were, after all, only nine days left on the case.

She didn’t know where to begin.

Oh, yes, she did.

The party was at its peak. No one would miss her for a mere quarter of an hour. She slipped past a knot of men near the entrance of the drawing room. Dressed as she was in a modest gray gown, most of the guests looked straight through her. Except —

A white shirtfront, rather wilted from the heat, suddenly loomed in front of her. “Where’s the fire?”

She looked straight up into Michael’s eyes. Green eyes. “I beg your pardon?” She sounded startled, breathless.

“You’ve been dashing about all evening. Avoiding someone?”

She laughed at that. “I don’t know anybody to avoid.”

“You know me.”

“I suppose I do, slightly,” she said, sounding a little surprised.

He made a comical face. “‘Slightly.’ How very humbling, when I’ve been lying in wait for you all evening.”

Was he flirting with her? Surely not. And how did one go about flirting back? Assuming one wanted to flirt back . . .

He seemed to enjoy the confusion written on her face. “Speechless?”

“I suspect you of trying to make me speechless.”

He was really very handsome when he smiled like that. “Perhaps. But I’d like to try conversing with you as well. Will you grant me the next waltz?”

“Oh, I couldn’t. . . .”

“Don’t tell me your card is full.”

“Of course not.” She didn’t even have a dance card. “But I shouldn’t dance.”

He looked amused. “Is it forbidden?”

“Of course not. It’s only that — I’m not . . .” Mary gestured helplessly.

Michael’s gaze traveled over her lightly, admiringly. “You look well equipped for dancing: female, two arms, two feet . . . that I can see, at any rate.”

She had to laugh at that. “You are being difficult on purpose. I mean that I am not one of the young ladies. You ought to dance with someone else.”

“I’m not an eligible bachelor. It’s practically your responsibility to dance with me, you know.”

“On the contrary . . . there seems to be a shortage of male partners. If you’re so intent on dancing, you’d better ask one of the younger girls. That should be perfectly safe.”

“I say, Gray!” commanded one of the men in the doorway.

“Coming!” Michael called. “This conversation is not finished,” he warned her smilingly. “I’ll be waiting for that dance.”

She flashed him a cheeky look as she stepped around him. “You may wait all you like.” Rounding the corner, she slipped down the corridor with a smile lingering on her lips. Perhaps flirting wasn’t as difficult as she’d thought.

Both the noise level and the temperature fell somewhat as she neared the back of the house. The only room at this deserted end of the corridor was Thorold’s office. The servants were below, feverishly producing more iced drinks, more food, opening more champagne.

Mary tried the door handle. Locked, naturally. She extracted a sturdy hairpin from her bun and crimped it deftly. Picking locks had always been one of her favorite parts of her old job: looking out for intruders while simultaneously listening to the tumblers of the lock required immense focus. During her training sessions at the Agency last month, she’d been pleased and surprised to find the old knowledge flooding back. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the talents she’d acquired as a young thief were all still there. She had struggled more with new skills, like code cracking. Now, however, she found that her nerves were unused to the pressure after all these years of ladylike respectability, and her hands shook in an alarming fashion. She stopped and forced herself to draw five deep breaths in succession. If she didn’t calm herself, she’d only scratch the lock, lose her hairpin, and have to go back to the drawing room empty-handed. It was a sobering thought that helped to steady her fingers.

Her second attempt was much better. Almost immediately, she could feel the inside of the mortise lock — visualize the tenons revolving in their neat patterns. A brief burble of laughter from down the hall made her freeze, but its source didn’t appear, and she continued her work. The last lever clicked into place, and she grinned. So satisfying.

The handle was well oiled. A glance inside confirmed that the room was empty, and she slipped inside, closing the door silently behind her. The heavy velvet curtains were open, and a blend of moonlight and garden torches half lit the room. She wouldn’t need the stub of candle tucked in her pocket.

She turned to survey the office. To her right was Thorold’s desk, square and massive and completely bare. Behind the desk sat a pair of filing cabinets, a tall wardrobe, and a drinks table with several well-filled decanters and a set of glasses. To her left was a series of glass-fronted bookcases filled with leather-bound books with gold-embossed spines. The windows were against the back wall.

She frowned and chewed her lip. She couldn’t expect a miraculous discovery. Indeed, she told herself sternly, it was quite likely that Thorold kept all his trade-related documents at his warehouses. But she had to begin here in order to rule out the obvious.

She began on the left, with the bookcases. They had been recently dusted, so there was no way to tell if some volumes were more frequently used than others. Indeed, although the names were venerable — Milton, Shakespeare, Johnson — the books looked perfectly new. She pulled out a volume of Donne’s sermons and smiled to herself: the pages were still uncut. Clearly, this library was purely for show. The rows upon rows of books were all like that — immaculate, respectable, untouched.

Until . . . as soon as she opened the door of the last bookcase, the one closest to the windows, she knew something was different. The pleasant odors of new leather and paper gave way to dust and . . . cigar smoke? She ran her eyes over the rows of books and began to realize that despite their elegant bindings, these were a very different type of book:
Aretine’s Postures, The House of the Rod, Fanny Hill.
She selected one of the most worn and opened it: a tangle of naked bodies, some pink and white, some brown-skinned . . . some smiling, others —