Beauty and the Spy (32 page)

His only option, unattractive though it might be, was to bring both women along to Gorringe. And quickly.

Where was bloody John Carr when he actually needed him?

"Susannah, listen to me: Do you want this to be over? Do you want to be safe?"

"No, I rather enjoy dodging for my life, and wondering when you'll next be stabbed or crushed on my behalf."

He smiled again, pleased with her the way he always was when she was sarcastic.

"How can you
smile
?" she wanted to know, irritated.

"You forget, my dear, that danger has been a way of life for me."

She pondered this. "Wouldn't you rather just be a naturalist?" she said weakly.

He didn't answer; he just looked at her for a long moment. And then he leaned forward and touched his mouth to hers.

Her lips were obstinate at first, but then they softened beneath his, and her hand went up to cup his face—he loved it when she did that—and she parted her lips. For a short, dizzying moment, they feasted tenderly on each other. It was incomparably sweet.

And when he was finished kissing her, she looked down and ran her tongue over lips, tasting them, took in a long breath. He knew her head was spinning like his own.

"Where do we have to go?" she asked finally, composure regained.

"Do you remember when I said there were some papers incriminating Morley? I think I know where they are."

"Where?"

"Do you recall the stained-glass windows in the church in Gorringe? The vicar said they weren't original—he said they were donated by a 'generous benefactor,' along with the mausoleum behind."

"'Faith, Hope, and Charity,'" Susannah mused, and then her eyes flew wide. "Oh! I see it now! The
windows
were 'Christian virtues'! It's something to do with the windows!"

"Yes. And I think that generous benefactor was your father. Richard Lockwood."

"Good heavens," Susannah was impressed. "He
was
clever, then."

"Too clever by half. Too whimsical by half, perhaps. He might have been a little more direct—no doubt we all would have appreciated it—but where would the fun have been in that?" Kit said wryly. "I believe the documents he collected—if they exist—might be hidden in the mausoleum in Gorringe."

"But if he'd been more direct," Susannah said, defending the father she'd never known, "perhaps Mr. Morley would have found and destroyed the papers by now."

"Clever, aren't you." Kit's mouth twitched.

"I get it from my father, I believe."

"Perhaps," he indulged. "But you're right, of course, about Morley. The fact that he seems to be trying to kill you… I think it means he hasn't yet found the documents. I believe James threatened him with their existence,
then
set out to actually find them, which, as Mr. Avery-Finch told us, is a rather backward way to conduct blackmail."

"And then Mr. Morley searched my home for them, but didn't find them."

Kit nodded. "He probably thought it would be easy enough to eliminate you, just in case you had the documents and intended to use them, since he believed you hadn't any other means of income. He clearly hadn't reckoned upon me."

"I imagine you come as a bit of a surprise to most people."

He shrugged modestly. "Then again, the papers may
not
exist, Susannah… but it's the best hope we have for bringing Morley to justice."

"What if you're wrong? About the mausoleum, that is? And the rest of this?"

"I so seldom am." He gave her confident smile.

Which caused her to roll her eyes.

"But we do need to look for those documents
now
. Today. Because if they are what they seem to be… then we might be able to arrest Morley. And stop the, shall we say, inconvenience of frequent attempts on your life."

"And clear my mother's name perhaps?"

"And clear your mother's name. I hope."

"And save Caroline, somehow, as well." Susannah said the words flatly. "Because you must by all means save Caroline."

Kit hesitated. He didn't know how to tell Susannah what he suspected; he thought perhaps he wouldn't tell her just yet. For the moment, he needed her relatively calm and enthusiastic. "Perhaps," he said.

Susannah was quiet for a moment. "She's very beautiful."

"Yes," Kit agreed simply.

Susannah turned her head away from him, studying the portrait again. She seemed to be struggling with something; he saw the passage of thought over her features.

"How would you describe me, Kit?" she asked finally.

"I'm sorry?" It wasn't the last thing he expected her to say just then, but it was very near it.

"How would you
describe
me? It's just… I've never heard you do it. I've heard you call Caroline 'difficult to forget' Dark hair, dark eyes. But… what do you see when you see
me
? How would you describe me?"

She said it urgently, as if she couldn't possibly exist until he'd delineated her in words.

Kit was startled by the request. He would describe a vole, an adder, a fern, a horse. He knew the facts of them, their colors, their habits, the connections between them.

But how would he describe Susannah? He tried to think, but images and feelings tumbled together, defying single words: wit and complicated eyes and a green hat and exquisite breasts and—

For some reason the only image that lingered was Susannah with her arm buried up to the shoulder inside a horse. It seemed important, that image.

He realized he couldn't describe her any more than he could describe his own…
viscera
. She lived inside him now.

"I can't do it," he said softly, almost to himself, his voice frayed. "I can't describe you."

He saw the bitter disappointment flood her face. Then watched her struggle to disguise it.

He stood up then, feeling strangely agitated. "How can I possibly describe"—he made an abrupt, sweeping gesture—"everything, Susannah? Because that's what you are. You are… everything."

She gazed back at him, stunned.

"Does that satisfy you?" he asked quietly.

He knew it didn't. He was embarrassed by the inadequacy of it. Still, he couldn't bring himself to say the words to her.

"I'll have the coach brought round."

And then he left her, very quickly, as though the enormity of the love he saw in her face and the enormity of all that he felt drove him from the room.

Kit halloed for the vicar when they arrived at the Gorringe church, but there was no response. Perhaps the vicar was napping off his noonday wine.

Very well, then. He'd conduct his own tour of the church grounds. He led Susannah and Caroline around back.

The mausoleum was easy enough to find: a somber granite block, glowing white in the sun, guarded by suitably solemn carved seraphim holding trumpets aloft. Kit was amused; it wasn't grand, but the thing was so ostentatious as to be nearly mocking, perhaps more evidence of Lockwood's famously whimsical sense of humor. Or perhaps he really
had
intended to be buried in this mausoleum, and had wanted to do it in style, and add his family members to it, as well, as the years went on.

As Robert Burns had said so well: The best laid plans of mice and men…

It was locked. He'd been prepared for this eventuality. He fished about in his pack, came up with a length of wire, poked it in and jiggled it about. He pocketed the lock, as he didn't intend for them to be locked inside, and pushed the door a little. It gave, and the trapped must of years rushed out at him in a cloud of agitated dust.

He coughed and waved his hand.

It was dim inside, despite the brilliant day behind him. He produced a lamp and lit it—Kit was, of course, prepared—allowed the light to pulse into a glow, and he studied the inscrutable interior, which, unlike the door, yielded nothing. He gestured for the women to precede him inside, and they both did so gingerly. And once they were inside, Kit retrieved his pistol from inside his coat, kept it in his hand.

He hesitated to close the mausoleum door behind him, yet he didn't want to call attention to his presence. He compromised by wedging his tinderbox there. He entered, holding his lamp aloft, and waved it around.

The light found it: a box. He gave it a tug from its slot.

Susannah and Caroline leaped back, squeamish.

"It's not a body," he assured them. "No one has ever gone to their eternal rest in this particular mausoleum."

There was a sturdy lock on the strongbox; a few more minutes of fumbling with and swearing at the lock, and it sprang open.

Dust flew out like a genie escaping a bottle, and when it cleared he saw a stack of documents. He settled the lantern on one of the empty spaces above him, and began to leaf through them, his fingers careful; many of them had gone brittle with age.

The first was a letter, sent to a French operative whose name he recognized—they'd apprehended him years ago�in a code he recognized. How on earth had Richard Lockwood acquired this—bribery? Lockwood had indeed been playing a risky game, if he'd undertaken this investigation alone. The next document was a letter in French agreeing to a meeting with Monsieur Morley at an inn near the London docks. Not terribly incriminating, in and of itself, but perhaps useful as part of a story. Another sheet of foolscap below that appeared to be a list of the names of ships. He recognized the names.

There were drawings of guns. And letters describing meetings.

"
Sweet Lucifer
," he breathed. It was true. It was all true. Morley was a traitor, and in his hands he held enough to hang him.

And then the thick dusty hush of the mausoleum was interrupted by a sound he knew too well, inches behind him: the
click
of a pistol.

And he turned around to discover Caroline Allston pointing one at Susannah's temple.

"Give me the documents, Kit."

He took in the situation with one glance. It would have been a simple thing to snatch that toy from Caroline's delicate little wrist, except—

"This is a dueling pistol, and it'll go off like"—Caroline snapped her fingers—"
that
if you so much as nudge me."

Except for that.

"Then perhaps you hadn't better do"—Susannah snapped her fingers—"
that
." Her voice was shaking, but it sounded more like fury than fear.

"Susannah," Kit said softly. "She's right. Don't move."

Susannah went obediently quiet. Kit could have reached out and crushed Caroline's windpipe between two fingers, such was the force of his fury at the moment. Fury with himself, as well. He'd known Caroline was capricious, and willful, and reckless.

But he'd never for one moment thought of her as violent.

His own prejudice, his own sense of honor, had clouded his judgment here, and now she was aiming a pistol at Susannah's temple.

His voice was a gentle thing. Breeze gentle. "Put the pistol down, Caroline. You don't want to do this."

"No?" She sounded half-amused. "You don't intend to 'help' me, Kit. It's my guess you intend to see me hang. I think I
do
want to do this."

"Why do you think I'd like to see you hang?" Again, gently, gently. So as not to jar her mood any further than necessary.

Caroline all but rolled her eyes at him. "Oh, you needn't speak to me so very
gently
, Kit," Caroline sounded amused again. "I'm not
mad
. Perfectly sane."

"Caroline, if you just hand the gun to me…"

She snorted. Held very still. As did Kit. The air itself seemed to congeal.

"She was kind, Susannah," Caroline said slowly. "Your mother."

Susannah's eyes slid to Caroline's face. Kit watched the comprehension begin to dawn there. She was beginning to realize what he'd realized today in the library.

Caroline smiled a little. "So few people really are," she continued. "They pretend to be, because they think that's how they're supposed to be. But your mother was truly kind. And I was a
terrible
maid."

"How do you know my mother?" Susannah said hoarsely.

Caroline's exquisite face registered nothing, but her eyes briefly reflected a boundless, startling sadness. "I
am
sorry," she said.

Susannah choked it out. "It was you that night… your hair… I remember. It was
you
. It must have been you."

"I was a maid in your home in Gorringe, Susannah. Morley had suspicions about Mr. Lockwood, and he knew that Anna Holt was hiring a staff for her country home in Gorringe, and he arranged for
me
to be part of that staff. And after that, it was a simple thing to just listen, as no one pays any attention to a maid. I might as well have been a flea. Your father told your mother everything. And so… I listened, and confirmed Thaddeus's suspicions. I imagine Thaddeus did… well, the rest."

The rest, of course, being to arrange for the murder of Richard Lockwood and to blame it on Anna Holt.

Caroline turned to Kit. "And
that's
what makes me think you intend to see me hang, Kit. Because I realized today, when you wouldn't allow me to leave, that you probably already knew all of this. And because you are always loyal to the people you love, so hell-bent on righting wrongs. But you never really loved me; it was all tied up with your bloody sense of honor—the wanting to marry me, the wanting to help me. All tied up in your sense of right and wrong. But you
do
love Susannah. And because of that, letting me walk away today would be wrong."

Kit was silent.
So Caroline was an expert on love, was she
? he thought snidely.

She was, however, altogether correct.

He said it quietly. "You shattered their lives, Caroline. Three little girls. A woman, their father. You were playing at spy with Morley… you may have been young, but I think you knew exactly what you were about."

"Well, I suppose I thought of it as an adventure, then… I didn't think much of it beyond that And I
did
say I was sorry, and I am. But that doesn't mean I intend to hang for it, for pity's sake. So kindly hand those documents to me. I intend to burn them."

"Caroline, even if I did hand them to you, even if you do burn them, you'd never really be free of this. I would make bloody certain of it."

Kit could hear Susannah's breathing; it had grown more rapid. Her face, even by the warm lantern light, was pale as the marble walls. He wanted to reach for her, touch, her, comfort her; he didn't dare. He instead looked his love into her eyes, and a faint smile touched her lips. As though she was reassuring
him
, for God's sake. She could teach a few men a thing or two about bravery.

Or perhaps it was just that she put a little too much faith in him. After all, he'd been doing nothing but saving her life for days now.

"And how do you suppose you'll get away?" he asked Caroline, almost conversationally. "You've only the one bullet in that pistol, if it's even loaded. You can't kill the both of us."

"Oh, someone followed us here. A man of Morley's, right scary little man. I imagine he'll be here shortly, and then off we'll go. This will be over sooner if you hand the documents to me now."

There was a faint scuffing noise, and Caroline and Kit swiveled. It was the toe of Susannah's boot moving a fraction of an inch.

"I'm terribly sorry, but I… but I think I might faint," Susannah whispered.

Kit felt a rush of concern and then…

No. If Susannah hadn't yet fainted—over adders, mad horses, and lunging men with knives—she wasn't about to do it now.

He waited, senses on alert.

Caroline shifted a little uneasily, and Kit watched the gun barrel nuzzle more deeply into Susannah's temple, and he felt it as surely as if it were pressed against his own skin.

"Really," Susannah said, again sounding desperate. "And I think I may very well be sick all ov—"

Caroline took the minutest step back in alarm, and in that instant Kit lashed out and seized Caroline's wrist, yanking it skyward, and the pistol fired into the mausoleum ceiling.

Chips of marble came showering down. Kit swept an arm across Susannah's waist and pushed her aside. He seized the petite Caroline's wrists in his own and twisted them behind her back.

"Susannah… pull the string from my knapsack. There's a knife in there… use it to cut it free."

For someone who'd just had a pistol pointed at her temple, Susannah managed to do this with admirable dexterity, and Kit bound Caroline's wrists.

"For pointing a gun at Susannah, Caroline… I'll see you hang."

The three of them swiveled toward a creak as the door opened fully. A lantern entered. Kit spun, pointing his pistol at the door. "Don't move another inch or—"

"Oh, spare the blustering, Kit, for God's sake. It's only me."

John Carr was holding the lantern, and a pistol, and a knapsack filled with helpful things.

Kit lowered his pistol. "Now you arrive, John."

John Carr paused in the doorway, took a look around, the blasted ceiling, the marble fragments on the floor, the broken-open strongbox. "Bloody hell.
Again
you beat me to it, Grantham. How the dev—"

"I'm just better, is all, John."

John shook his head, swearing softly, and Kit laughed.

"Found the documents, then?" John asked. "They do exist? I followed the trail here, at last."

"They're over here," Kit jerked his chin toward the strongbox. "And look who found
me
."

"Hello, John," Caroline said pleasantly. "It's been some time, hasn't it?"

John spun toward her voice. And went utterly, almost eerily, still. Merely regarded Caroline with an expression impossible to decipher.

His stillness was only seconds shy of troubling Kit when John finally spoke again.

"Are the documents what they're purported to be?" John turned away from her, said the words coolly.

"Have a look for yourself." Kit motioned with his hand, and John strode past the bound Caroline and the quiet Susannah, not meeting the eyes of either of them, focused on his goal. He leafed through the documents, skimming the words; his face grew steadily grimmer.

"I came upon a nasty little character named Bob lurking about, knocked him out, tied him up," John said absently, as he read the documents. "I do think he'll be useful when it comes to… proving Morley's transgressions. You may want to send someone for him." He continued reading.

"We've enough there to hang him, I suppose," Kit said. "Morley, that is. With the testimony of Mr. Avery-Finch, if he agrees to testify."

"Yes, it looks that way," John said slowly, as he turned the last of the documents over. "So why don't you let Caroline go?"

Kit wasn't certain he'd heard him correctly. "I beg your pardon?"

"You have enough here to hang Morley," John said calmly. "So let Caroline go."

Kit stared at John's handsome face. The words were disorienting, as though someone else had borrowed John's mouth to speak them. "John… are you mad? Tell me you're jesting. She's part of all of this… she helped all but destroyed Susannah's family, she helped murder a man, she held a pistol to Susannah's
temple
, in case you're wondering why I've bound her wrists." He gave an incredulous laugh. "She was instrumental in obtaining the very information you're holding there. She's a traitor to England, John, as surely as Morley is."

The traitor to England lifted her delicate brows at this description, but otherwise remained silent.

John said nothing. Merely stared levelly back at Kit.