Beauty and the Spy (7 page)

Is that an option
? But Aunt Frances seemed so kind, and so prepared to overlook the fact that her niece was wandering into the kitchen from
outside the house
jus after dawn, that she smiled. "Good morning, Mrs.—Aunt�Frances."

"Do sophisticated young ladies take morning walk alone these days?"

The question seemed innocent enough, though Susannah suspected Aunt Frances was more shrewd than she was naive. "I… well, your garden was so pretty that I—" She was about to say,
wanted to sketch it
, but she realized with horror she'd dropped her sketchbook.
Damn
. "That I was drawn to it for the fresh country air."

She would desperately miss her sketchbook, for mort than one reason. She almost squeezed her eyes closed with mortification, remembering:
You were bloody quiet
. What if he was a neighbor? What if he paid social calls? Would she recognize him
clothed
! Would he recognize
her
!

Her aunt turned then and looked more directly at her gazed for a long disconcerting moment. "Aren't you pretty?" she concluded delightedly, with a tilted head. "And your dress…" The delighted expression supped a little, and then became officially worried, complete with a furrow between her eyes.

"Oh, Susannah," she said impulsively, seizing her by the hands. "I'm terribly concerned you'll find it very dull here, a fashionable young lady like you. Perhaps it was impulsive and selfish of me to invite you to live with me. I just… well, I'm about all the family that James had, and though he seemed to do quite well for himself… well, word does travel, bad news rather more quickly than the good, it seems, the way a storm does. I heard about your… circumstances. And I know a bit about the… ways of the world." The last four words were delicately tart.

Susannah was both touched and a little startled by this effusiveness. "You knew I was engaged to be married," she guessed carefully.

"Yes, that's what I meant, my dear." She patted Susannah's cheek. "And as you came to me straight away, I must assume that you no longer are, which is what I feared might happen to you… well, mamas of marquises-to-be can be so devastatingly practical, can't they?" Again, acerbically delivered.

It was wonderful to have someone so completely, frankly on her side. An entirely new feeling, really. "Yes," Susannah managed, feelingly. "
Practical
."

"His loss, my dear," Aunt Frances said briskly. "More fool he. And life
does
goes on. As does breakfast. There's fried bread, and sausage in honor of your first full day here, and tea. Will you get the plates down for us?"

Susannah welcomed the subject change, but she twirled about, bewildered. She felt a little abashed. It seemed her aunt had actually
cooked
the meal. No one else was about to set the table, either, or to—

"They're in the cupboard, dear," her aunt said gently.

"Of course," Susannah said weakly. She reached up tentatively, and saw that "plates" meant exactly that: four plates. Plain stone crockery, the color of an old bone.

A flush of shame blazed over her skin. How many times had she seen a servant reach into a cupboard?

Suddenly, those four plates seemed bald evidence of her plummet from status, and the life ahead of her came rushing at Susannah the way the hard ground rushes up to meet someone falling from a great height.

With hands that shook a little, Susannah selected two of the plates and laid them on the table, hoping her aunt thought the flush in her cheeks was due to the warm day.

"Thank you again, Aunt Frances, for inviting me to stay," she said bravely.

"I'm happy for your company, Susannah." Her aunt's tone was crisp. "Say no more of it, I beg of you. There's an assembly tomorrow night, and I don't mind telling you, you've made quite a celebrity of me, as a new face in the neighborhood
will
set everyone to talking. They're all dying to get a look at you. And you're welcome to come, if you feel up to it, my dear."

This cheered Susannah just a little. She didn't mind being looked at. Being looked at was one of the things she did best, in fact And an assembly… well, gaiety and motion had always kept the restlessness that forever danced on the edge of her awareness at bay. Perhaps she could forget everything for an instant, the loss, the humiliation, the grief—

Wait.

"Do they… do they know how I came to live with you, Aunt Frances?" she ventured cautiously.

In other words:
Do they know I've been jilted? Do they know I'm penniless
? Susannah knew very well what it meant when
people
were "set to talking." She'd been one of those "people" not too long ago. Having a good laugh at the way George Percy danced, for instance. It occurred to her that she might wish to take a night… or a fortnight… or a year or two… to assimilate her new status here in the cottage, before she threw herself upon the mercy of the villagers. She knew precisely how juicy a piece of gossip she represented. They'd feast on her like a swarm of mosquitoes.

Aunt Frances's brown eyes were sharp and knowing and sympathetic. "They know that your father died, and that you came to live with me, and anything else they might know they learned from someone other than I. But I think a better question is… how much do you care, Susannah?"

A breeze kicked up the curtains at the window then, and the room, with its plain wood floors and whitewashed cupboards and fireplace, was suddenly awash with light, and a faint scent of roses came in to mingle with bread and sausage. It occurred to Susannah then that most anything could be beautiful when viewed in the proper light.

And so pride hiked her chin. "Why, I find that I don't care very much at all."

In that sunny, airy moment, it was almost true.

Kit had forgotten what a miser the Grantham country manor was—it hoarded heat in the summer and cold in the winter, and by nightfall, stepping into his chambers had been like stepping off a ship docked in the East Indies. But he'd learned not to be fussy about where and how he slept; in the military, you took sleep when you could, the way you did food, grateful for any crumb of it. He stripped off all of his clothing and heaped it over a chair, has pistol, locked, went on the table next to his head. He cut a slice of cheese from a wedge on a plate and devoured it. And then he settled the knife down again, too, next to his head, because he rather liked having a buffet of weapons to choose from, should the need arise.

He flipped open his one indulgence brought from London—fine bedsheets, which were almost as good as a breeze on a night like this—and climbed beneath.

But before he doused the lamp, he impulsively reached for the sketchbook again, trying to piece together the story the drawings told. The artist had led a benign, genteel life, he concluded from the pages, filled with pretty houses and friends. But then, suddenly, like an exclamation point: a naked viscount!

He grinned and set the sketchbook aside, doused the lamp, and closed his eyes.

The light in the room hadn't changed when he opened his eyes again; clearly he hadn't been asleep long. But there was a different quality to the silence now… as though something new had been introduced into it.

His senses sang a warning. Holding his breath, he scanned the room through slit eyelids.

And saw a tall shadow next to the bureau.

In one swift motion, Kit seized the knife, rolled from the bed, and clamped his arm around the throat of the intruder from behind.

"Move and your blood will be
everywhere
," he murmured.

A male hand clawed vainly at Kit's arm. For a long moment, the two men stood locked together in a knot of tensed muscles, their breathing rasping the air.

"Ease up, Grantham," the intruder finally choked out.

Kit's grip slackened a fraction. "
John
?"

A silence.

"K-kit?" John Carr choked out.

"Ye-e-s," Kit confirmed incredulously.

Another silence.

"Are you
naked
?" John Carr sounded horrified.

Kit pushed John Carr away with a snort and jerked his trousers from his chair. He thrust his legs into them and then lit the lamp next to his bed, and the light swelling into the room revealed his best Mend since childhood standing in the center of it, rubbing his throat ruefully.

"John Carr. Thought I smelled goat."

His friend gave a short hoarse laugh, hoarse because a powerful forearm clamped across the windpipe could do that to a voice. "Christ. So you're a pirate now, are you, Kit, with that bloody great cutlass or whatever that is? '
Move and your blood will be everywhere
, '"he imitated.

"It's a
cheese
knife, John. And it's a hot night A man can sleep naked in his
own room
." Apparently, he couldn't be privately naked anywhere in Barnstable today. "How did you get in?"

"Window open just a hair in the nursery, and you know that tree outside of it—"

"Ah." He nodded appreciatively. Kit did know the tree. Very cooperative tree, that one. He'd shinnied up and down it to go in and out of the nursery window numerous times as a boy when he was supposed to be sleeping, or being punished for some other childish transgression. John had come in and out of that window numerous times, too. In due time, they'd both been caught at it and thrashed, naturally, because Kit's father had always been one step ahead of him.

There was a silence.

"John, why the
hell
—?" Kit made a sweeping gesture, indicating the absurdity of the question.

John Carr, dressed in boots and dark trousers and a dark coat of light wool—the better to blend into shadows and scale trees, presumably—pulled out a chair and straddled it backward. "You weren't supposed to be here."

Kit didn't honor that with a reply, so John tried again. "I'm on assignment, Kit."

"You're on assignment. In my bedroom. In Barnstable."

"Yes."

Kit stared at his friend. John had always been the handsome one: tall and hard, dark-haired, dark-eyed. His features achieved that magical balance of rugged and refined guaranteed to set feminine hearts aflutter.

But most people began babbling when faced with a few moments of Kit's silent blue stare.

John stared levelly back at him.

And suddenly, foreboding prickled at the back of Kit's neck. "You'd better tell me."

John lowered his head briefly, deciding. Then he lifted it again, his expression carefully bland, which Kit disliked immensely. Kit and John never used their spy faces with each other. "I'll tell you what I can."

"Am I under investigation?" Kit heard the incredulous tension in his own voice. "Does my father know?"

"Why would he know? Because he's omnipotent?" A whiff of rivalry hung about those words. John's father was a baron who enjoyed gardening; he was
not
one of the most powerful peers in England.

"He'd definitely like us to think so," Kit said mildly.

John couldn't help but grin at that. "All right, I'll tell you why I'm here Kit, but I must ask you not to repeat it. To anyone, including your father. I could be seriously reprimanded. Or worse."

Kit shook his head impatiently. "Talk, John."

"It's about Morley."

Kit went very still; oddly, he was unsurprised. And then he padded over to his bureau, blew dust off a pair of glasses, which made John snort a laugh, and poured two brandies. He slid one across the table to John. "Go on."

"We've intercepted a letter to Thaddeus Morley written by a woman who says she will "Tell all I know, all you've done," if he doesn't send money to her. In other words, she's blackmailing him. We need to find her, because she might very well be able to prove Morley sold information to the French. But so far, she's remained one step ahead of us."

"Who is 'we' John? And what the hell does this have to do with me? Apart from, shall we say, my 'interest' in Morley?"

John curled his fingers around his brandy a little too casually. "I can't tell you who 'we' is. But that woman is Caroline Allston."

The sound of her name after so many years wasn't quite as dramatic as a sword drawn from its sheath, but it wasn't comfortable, either. Kit watched John's hand go up almost absently to rub his shoulder, where a round scar marked his skin. Kit had put it there with a pistol shot when they were both just seventeen years old.

Caroline's legacy.

"Again, What does this have to do with me, John?"

John took another sip of brandy, and there was an odd lilt to his voice when he spoke. "She's sent a letter to you, too, Kit."

The muscles of Kit's stomach tightened. He was stunned. "Ah," he said.

John continued quickly. "To your London town house. I intercepted it. In the letter, she asked for your"—he paused, and cleared his throat; his voice had gone strangely husky—"for your help. Said she was in trouble, and she hoped to come to you. I suppose the letter was meant to prepare you for her… visit."

Help
. Caroline needed his help.

"When was this letter sent?"

"A week ago."

"And you're here at The Roses because…"

"She never arrived at your town house. And The Roses would be the ideal place to meet her, or hide her…" John took a sip of his brandy, lowered the glass. "If you were inclined to do so, that is."

The lamplight guttered in a wayward breeze; the liquor glowed on the table between them, but their faces were momentarily cast in shadow.

"I haven't seen or heard from the woman in almost two decades, John," Kit said finally, managing the words blithely. "I've scarcely given her a thought. But you've only to ask me, not crawl about my bedroom. Or my town house, for that matter."

"Orders, Kit."

"From whom?" he demanded swiftly. A fruitless question, he suspected, but it was worth a try, anyhow.

John shook his head. "You know I can't tell you. And I didn't know you'd… that is, I wasn't told you'd be here. It's possible she would have come here without your knowledge, looking for you, if she didn't find you in London."

"Possible," Kit said, in such a way that made it sound
highly
improbable.

John said nothing; he merely looked about the room idly. He probably knew Kit's room as well as he knew his own. Kit considered whether to tell John about James Makepeace. Part of him resented the fact that he wasn't allowed to investigate Morley. He wondered, too, how it was that his father didn't know about the investigation. And it was maddening, God help him, to think that John might very well bring Morley down before Kit could have a chance to do it. The unworthy, competitive part of him was tempted to stay silent.

But this was John… his best friend since childhood, the brother of his heart, and Kit was a patriot. If Morley had sold information to the French…

"John… there's something I should tell you. You've heard that James Makepeace was killed?"

John ducked his head in somber confirmation.

"A few weeks ago, James told me the most extraordinary tale, which I took only half-seriously at the time, I confess. And Morley was… shall we say, the hero of it."

John raised his brows. "Go on."

"Do you remember a politician named Richard Lockwood? Murdered some years ago?"

"I believe it happened about the time we were…" John hesitated as he was much more of a diplomat than Kit ever was. "Sent off to the military academy."

"The year I shot you, you mean," Kit said with blunt mischief.

"The year you
missed
me," John countered, predictably.

Once started, the two of them could go on like this forever.

And so Kit told John the whole story: of Lockwood and Morley and Christian virtues, of the allegedly whimsical hiding place of the allegedly incriminating documents.

John drummed the table a few times in thought. "Are you sure James wasn't drunk when he told you all of this?"

"When have you ever seen James drunk?"

"Were
you
drunk when he told you this?"

"Why," Kit said irritably, "does everyone think I'm bound to be drunk?"

John smiled crookedly. "You often
are
bound to be. But why do you think James told you? Was it a whim of the moment, or do you think he
planned
to tell you?"

"Difficult to say, really. Perhaps because he thought he was in danger. Perhaps because, of all the people he knew, I might be disinclined to let the matter rest, should anything become of him."

A diplomatic way of admitting he was dogged to a fault. To his credit, John didn't snort.

"Do you believe him, Kit?"

"He wasn't raving, if that's what you're asking."

"Do you suppose Caroline knows anything about the Lockwood murder? Her letter… it said, 'all we've done.'"

"It's why I told you about James. It might be a mad tale, then again, I can't help but think it's somehow related to Caroline and Morley. But I suppose it will be up to you to discover that."

John smiled crookedly, damn him, because he knew precisely how much it would bother Kit to not be able to pursue this particular mystery. "What would you have done if James hadn't been killed, Kit?"

"Press him for more information, of course. Tell me why you've begun investigating Morley," Kit demanded swiftly.

"Excellent try. But you know I can't."

Kit swore colorfully under his breath.

John laughed. "But you've helped, truly. This was worth crawling in the window. And I'm getting a little old for that sort of thing."

Kit twisted his mouth wryly. The brandy was warming the pit of his stomach, but his mind was uncomfortably alert now. "To James," Kit said, lifting his glass.

"To James."

They drank together, and for a moment indulged in separate thoughts.

"Kit…" John's voice was careful; Kit looked at him expectantly. "You do know that if Caroline helped Morley sell information to the French… that makes her as much a traitor as Morley. And now… she's attempting to find you."

But Kit had already arrived there in reasoning: If the Earl of Westphall's son was known to be consorting with a traitor, a political cataclysm would ensue. Lives would be ruined. His own, for instance. His father's, in particular.

No doubt, some people would like to see that happen.

He wondered, for a moment, if either he or his father were carefully being set up to take a devastating fall.

Kit leaned casually back in his chair, his well-trained features entirely neutral. He clasped his hands behind his head in a luxurious stretch, the picture of nonchalance. He suspected that John knew it was a performance, because it was precisely what John would have done in the same circumstances.

And then, instead of saying anything further, he tipped the brandy decanter again into John's glass, and then into his own, and raised the full glass to his friend. "So where did you end up when we parted ways the other night? Lady Barrington's town house?"