Unmasking the Spy (13 page)

After a moment, Alicia tilted her
head toward his and asked, “Did you wish to have a word to me about something?”

“No.” He shrugged and continued
walking next to her.

Humph.

Alicia glanced at the faces they
passed and offered a tentative smile at the glaring countenance of Mrs.
Lambert, a recent widow with a notorious interest in the
ton
’s most
celebrated rakes.

“I do not mean to be rude, but
since you’ve finished with your rescue and don’t seem to be inclined toward
conversation, why are you prowling beside me?”

He flashed her a grin. “Maybe I
enjoy your company. Or maybe I haven’t been introduced to anyone else.”

Just like a rake. So much for him
contemplating pressing suit on her. Stupid, stupid. What made her think he was
interested? He was a stranger, and she was convenient. Alicia frowned. Men
seemed to find her awfully convenient of late. Well, she wasn’t having it.

Alicia faced forward again,
focusing on the sea of elegantly-clad bodies swarming around the room. She was
hardly flattered to be singled out because she was the only woman Mr. Morrissey
had acquainted himself with so far. Plenty of other, less moral women hovered –
ready to crawl all over him if given the opportunity. She did not need to
embrangle her already overwhelming life with yet another self-centered man.

“Why don’t you ask the hostess?
I’m sure she’ll be pleased to introduce you to other guests.” Alicia kept her
tone polite, but laced with unmistakable finality.

Mr. Morrissey halted mid-step.

Whether or not he planned to
reply, Alicia didn’t know. She kept walking.

*          *          *

Twisting in his seat, Ian tilted
the letter into the morning sun in order to make out the last lines.

“However, such antics hardly come
as a surprise when coming from Carlotta. Julia hopes you order new dresses for
us while you’re in London. And Poppy says since you’re in town anyway, you
might as well bring home a bride. Yours, etc. Mavis.”

Ian folded the letter and stuffed
it in his pocket. His sisters had been pestering him to settle down for what
seemed like forever.  He had almost decided they were right. An uncomplicated
country miss seemed just the thing – but here he sat in his boring, barren
townhouse.

He leaned back in his chair and
surveyed the sitting room. Gray curtains, gray chair-cushions, gray rug.
Matched both London and his present mood perfectly. Ian lowered his chair with
a thud. He loved hearing from his family, but talk of marriage never failed to
make him think of his father.

Some wounds would never heal, and
his father’s death was one of them.

Hell, he had just celebrated his
ninth year when it had happened.  His sisters were still babies.  Twenty years
ought to make it ancient history – but if he closed his eyes, he could see the
scene just as vividly as ever.  Poppy, barely five years old and already
world-weary and dramatic.  Julia, three years old and clutching his
pantaloons.  Mavis, crying because she was teething.  Carlotta, not yet even
born.

And him – the oldest, but perhaps
the most innocent of all.  Because even when the men came and took his father
away, he thought everything would work out.  Even when his mother sobbed
herself to sleep every night that first week, he still thought his father would
come home.  And when he found out his father would be hung for murder, he knew
it was a mistake.  His father was the gentlest, kindest, most patient man he
knew.  All those girls in the house, and he never once raised his voice.  A
kiss for each of them, every night. 

Even when the hanging was
scheduled and it seemed the whole town turned out to watch the noose tighten,
he still thought the overzealous hangmen would realize their mistake. 

The worst thing, the very worst
thing, was that they had in fact realized their error – but too late.  A
nobleman had done the crime, a member of the peerage.  And had accused his
father out of fear and desperation, pointing to his Irish heritage as further
proof of the crime.  And on this accusation alone, his mother sobbed and his
sisters screamed and his father swung at the end of a rope.

The lies were not discovered, of
course, until after the execution.  After his father had been falsely accused
and publicly hung.  After his family had been denied his father’s proper
funeral so that the body could be displayed on a gibbet as an example, a
warning to the common folk of the consequences for crimes against their
betters. Only then was his father exonerated.

By the time the truth came out,
it was too late.

 It was a crime of passion, they
said.  The lord had discovered his lady in bed with another man.  She had met
the lover in London, during the Season, and had decided to continue their
relationship – and the lord reacted out of fury, yes, but also hurt, they said.
Ian’s father had been nearby, the lord had confused him with the lady’s lover –
surely you see how it could happen, they said. 

In London, married lords and
ladies are often free to be with whomever they like, since they are so rarely
intimate with each other.  In London, things are different.  People are
different.  The peerage is different.  Try to understand, they said.

But his confession comes too
late, and my father is dead!  He had shouted at them then, passionate words
tossed blindly at the crowd of sympathizers once his father had been
exonerated.  Now the nobleman has killed two men!  Should he not pay as my
father has paid? 

Ah, they said, with a knowing
smile and a shake of the head.  Ah, the voice of babes.  He is a lord, they
said with a little shrug.  He will be tried by his peers in the House of Lords,
and no doubt hung as well, but nothing will bring back your father.  You must
learn to forget.

Forget? he had demanded angrily. 
Forget my father?  Forget that on one man’s accusation, my father was plucked
from our lives and sentenced to dangle at the end of a rope, to die in front of
my mother and my baby sisters?  Forget that there is such injustice in this
world that such wrongs could happen to me, or you, or to anyone I love?  Forget
that I am now the sole man in my family, and that it is up to me to see them
safe from such injustices?

No, he had not forgotten, nor forgiven.  And he had
never understood.  But nor was he idle.  He applied himself rigorously to his
studies, and exercised his brain as much as his body.  He was going to make a difference. 
He was going to change things.  This would not happen to anyone else’s husband,
as it did to his mother.  This would not happen to anyone else’s father, as it
did to his own.

And when a special branch of the
government approached him with an invitation to be part of a secret war
division, how could he have said no?  When he was given the opportunity to
investigate matters before arrests were made – and possibly save the lives of
innocents caught in the web of wicked men like Napoleon – how could he have
walked away?  When they offered to train him, in the arts of subterfuge and
infiltration, all in the name of punishing the wrong and protecting the good –
how could he have passed up the opportunity?

For well over a decade, he had
spent his days minding his investments for his family’s secured future, and his
nights stalking the shadows, exposing the evil that men do.  Many times, the
perpetrators of the crimes were exactly who the government suspected them to
be.  If he were to be honest with himself, he would have to admit that this was
almost always the case. 

Almost, yes.  But not always. 

Several times he had uncovered
plots where the government had not seen behind the smokescreen.  There were
times when women wept in his arms for saving them from widowhood.  There were
also times when the wives didn’t know how close they’d come to losing their
husbands, when the sight of their children – playing happily, innocent of the
events swirling around them, faithful that their fathers would return safely
home – caused a twist in his gut and a pain in his heart.

Ian shook his head. The war was
over. His father’s death was long past.

When he recognized the
handwriting in the afternoon post, he had hoped hearing from his sisters would
cheer him. Although he was far too old for schoolboy homesickness, he could
hardly wait to clear Chadwick’s name and get back to Heatherley and his family.

However, he’d like to meet
Chadwick just to see if he shared a similar personality with his baffling
daughter.

What a rude, ungrateful little
chit! Granted, he hadn’t battled any dragons for her at last night’s rout.
Larouche reminded him more of a scurrying roach than a fearsome beast.
Nonetheless, a rescue was a rescue, was it not?

“Go ask the hostess,” Ian
mimicked, falsetto. “She’ll introduce you to someone else, you half-Irish
country hick.”

He hadn’t curried introductions
for a reason. He preferred to remain somewhat behind the scenes. Gleaning
relevant information from overheard scraps of dialogue was much easier when not
engaged in conversation oneself.

Walking with Miss Kinsey would
have given the illusion of interacting in society while affording him the
opportunity to keep his ears open. Who knew Miss Kinsey would be too high in
the instep to be seen in his company?

Behind closed lids, Ian relived
her imperious tone and the exaggerated sway of her backside as she sashayed
into the crowd. Just when he thought he’d been too quick to judge her based on
his personal prejudices, she proved to him he was right all along.

Ian opened his eyes. Sun trickled
through the windows as the drizzling rain slowed.

To be fair, she had her moments
of wit. And although today’s fascination with literary quotations fell nothing
short of bizarre, such a display of quick-thinking intelligence indicated an
educated mind. His sisters would give him a set-to if he spoke so much as a
word against educating females. Ian smiled. A brother had a duty to tease his
sisters. He’d never let them know how proud they made him. He had no quarrel
with women of a bluestocking bent.

Elizabeth
, on the other hand, blew hot where her uppish niece
blew cold. Now, there was a woman who would choose passion over books if given
the opportunity. Or, Ian admitted, if she knew what such a choice entailed. He
doubted she realized how close he’d come to kissing her that night.

Tonight, she might be waiting for
him. He could get to play the romantic hero for a damsel in distress who would
welcome a dramatic rescue. Elizabeth believed he was coming solely to see her
and he must not let her doubt it. He should bring her some token. Perhaps a
better flower.

Ian gave a self-deprecating smile
as he recalled his elation at having flowers in his pocket turn into horror
when he realized their sorry state.

And she had reached for them
anyway.

When she touched him, he had
frozen. Her naked fingers touched the black leather glove encasing his hand and
his palm had immediately begun to sweat. Her gaze flew to his as if she sensed
his body’s response. Ian’s pantaloons tightened at the memory.

If only there had been light – he
would have loved to see her face. No. Better that he never see her face. Had he
glimpsed a hint of passion, he might not have stopped himself from tasting her.
Better that shadows enveloped them and kept her safe.

Ian groaned and staggered to his
feet. Damned fashionably tight pantaloons.

He should be thinking about
evidence, not Elizabeth. What on earth was the matter with him?

*          *          *

Although her eyes were closed,
Alicia’s fingers danced over the ivory keys of the pianoforte with precision.
The rise and fall of the staggered chords before the conclusion of
Fur Elise
was her favorite segment of the piece, and since neither Papa nor Louis were
present to say otherwise, she could play that section as much as she liked
without feeling obligated to start from the beginning and continue until the
end. The power of that portion always lifted her spirits.

So did the absence of Louis,
although she had been certain he and Papa would return by nightfall. When
supper came and went with no word or sign of them, she assumed they were off on
another antiquity-hunting jaunt. Alicia didn’t much care where Louis took
himself as long as he wasn’t by her side to harass her. How fortunate that she
had escaped his claws last night.

Well… to be honest, she didn’t do
any escaping on her own. If Mr. Morrissey had not come by to stage his
fortuitous rescue, she might have been listening to Louis lecture for another
hour.

Alicia’s fingers flew down the keys
in a flurry of descending chords. She hadn’t been on her best behavior.

While unflattering to find
herself the default conversational partner of a known rake for the simple
reason that he hadn’t yet gained introductions to women more of his bent, one
might say she’d been a bit more discourteous than necessary. Alicia scowled.
Fine, she had been horribly rude. The situation hadn’t called for dismissing
him out of hand. After all, he had rescued her, no matter what his motives
were. He’d at least been mannerly and considerate, more than could be said for
Louis.