Elizabeth Thornton (4 page)

It was the first time, thought Hugh humorously, that a woman had ever pursued him for his brains. Without knowing quite how it happened, he’d found himself elected secretary of the Antiquarians’ Society that Abbie’s aunt and namesake had founded. Naturally, Abbie was the president. And now Abbie regarded him as something between a well-worn encyclopedia and her favorite Dutch uncle.

The role used to suit him. He’d been disillusioned with England after his years as a soldier in Spain. He was bored with its politics, bored with its class system, and particularly bored with its women. He’d wanted to return to Oxford and take up the things that really mattered to him. He’d wanted to return to a life of scholarship, or go off on some dig for Roman ruins.

That’s when he’d met Abbie.

Abbie was a breath of fresh air. He’d soon discovered that she was anything but conventional. She’d set up her own household; she ran her own little business; she didn’t have that annoying habit of sizing a man up with her eyes as a potential husband. In fact, Abbie had made it perfectly clear that she wasn’t interested in marriage, and that suited him just fine. He’d been married once and he never wanted to repeat the experience.

He couldn’t remember when he’d begun to want more
from her than friendship. What he did remember was that he’d become irritated when he realized she was keeping him at a distance, literally. If he got too close or their hands accidentally brushed, she would give him one of her clear-eyed gazes and move away. Which perversely made him want to lay his hands on her boldly and possessively, just to shake her up a bit.

She’d given him one of those clear-eyed gazes once too often. He’d been so annoyed with her that he’d gone off to London to seek consolation. He wasn’t used to rejection. When, however, he found himself thinking of Abbie while making love to another woman, he’d known he had a serious problem.

He’d hoped the attraction would pass. But it hadn’t passed. And now he was left to wonder how he could make Abbie see him in a different light.

In the white marble entrance hall, his manservant, Soames, took his coat. Soames was tall and thin, in his mid-fifties, with an expression on his face that always made Hugh think of the word
martyr
.

Soames said, “You have a caller, sir, a gentleman. He’s waiting in the library.”

“His name?” asked Hugh.

Soames sniffed. “He refused to give his name. He insisted on waiting for you.”

Curious
, thought Hugh, and paused before opening the door to his library. His caution, he told himself, was out of place. This was Bath, the most tranquil, orderly spot on God’s earth. Nothing ever happened in Bath. It was time he learned to break these ingrained habits.

He pushed open the door, took one step over the threshold, then either saw or heard something, and in the next instant he lashed out with his balled fist, sending the door flying back on its hinges. He rolled and came up
on the balls of his feet. Before the man who was hiding behind the door could recover himself, Hugh launched himself at him and, hooking one leg behind his knee, toppled him to the floor.

“Hugh!” his assailant cried out as Hugh fell on top of him. “Hugh! It’s me! Alex! Alex Ballard!”

Hugh’s fist froze in midair. “Alex?” he said incredulously. “Bloody hell! I should crack your head open! You and your practical jokes!”

When both men got to their feet, they pounded each other on the back and began to laugh. They stopped abruptly when Hugh’s manservant came tearing into the room with a raised poker in his hand.

“It’s all right, Soames,” said Hugh sheepishly. “Mr. Ballard is a friend. As you see, he’s quite harmless. He just likes to play practical jokes on his friends, that’s all.”

The poker was slowly lowered, but Soames still looked distrustfully at Hugh’s friend, then he glanced around the library as if to make sure that nothing had been taken. His eyes came back to Hugh. “I shall be in the pantry, sir, if you need anything.”

When the door closed, Ballard let out a chuckle. “I presume the pantry is within shouting distance, just in case I should decide to murder you?”

Hugh grinned. “It’s across the hall.”

He and Alex had served together in Spain, first as soldiers, then in an elite corps that had been handpicked by Colonel Langley, Wellington’s chief of intelligence. They’d worked closely together and had become good friends. When the war ended, Hugh had taken up his old life while Alex had transferred to the foreign office in London.

“What brings you to Bath?” asked Hugh, indicating that his friend should take one of the armchairs close to the fire. “Or is that a leading question?” He poured out
two glasses of whiskey and handed one to Alex before taking the chair facing him.

“My mother-in-law lives in Wells, and Mary and the children are there now. Wells is only a short drive from Bath. So here I am.”

Mary was Alex’s wife. Hugh had met her once at a reception. There were two small boys, as he remembered. He’d learned more about Alex and his family in the short conversation he’d had with Mary Ballard than he’d learned from Alex in the four years they served together in the elite corps.

“How are Mary and the children?” he asked.

“Oh, they are all well. Mary is expecting again. That’s why we’ve made this trip to Wells. You know how it is with women. She wants to be with her mother.”

Hugh sipped his whiskey. It seemed a strange time of year to travel the roads, especially for a woman who was pregnant. And this seemed a strange hour to come calling, so late in the day. It was dark outside. Alex would have a long drive ahead of him before he got home.

The blue eyes that were studying Hugh were highly amused. Ballard said, “It’s difficult to break old habits, isn’t it, Hugh—the suspicion, the constant sifting of a man’s words and motives, putting two and two together? So, what have you come up with?”

“You’re on an assignment,” said Hugh flatly. “This visit to your mother-in-law is a blind to explain your presence in Bath. You think I can help you.” His eyes narrowed as he thought things through. He shook his head. “I hope this doesn’t mean that Langley has sent you to try and recruit me.” When Ballard did not reply, Hugh went on, “I’ll save you the trouble of asking. I’m not interested, Alex. I was never more than an amateur. I have another
life to lead now. And now we’re at peace with France, I intend to enjoy it.”

“The chief’s talking of retiring, you know.”

“Colonel Langley? Retired? I find that hard to believe. He has the energy of a man half his age. Besides, it’s the only life he knows.”

Ballard laughed. “It’s true all the same. He came into some money recently, when his cousin died, and that may have something to do with it. Now he can afford to retire.”

“He’ll be a hard man to follow. And just in case you think I’d be interested in Langley’s job, you can forget that too.”

Ballard looked as though he might say more, hesitated then gestured with one hand, encompassing the whole room. “Is this the life you want, your books and Roman artifacts?”

Hugh sat back in his chair and smiled as his friend looked around his library. Fragments of Roman marbles littered every available flat surface. The untidy pile of books on his desk, all opened at noteworthy places, was matched by an equally untidy pile of books on the floor. On top of the high bookshelves were marble busts of various Roman dignitaries. Pinned to the wall between two windows was a large map of Bath with sections circled in black ink.

“That about sums it up.”

Ballard rose and wandered over to the map of Bath. “I remember,” he said, “that you were once a great admirer of Napoleon.”

“That was before he got too big for his boots. And now that he has been stopped, my job is finished.” Hugh’s curiosity was rising. “What I can’t understand is why
you’re still in the game. You’re an amateur like me, Alex. When the war ended, you couldn’t wait to get back to your family and that estate of yours in Sussex. You wanted to raise horses. What made you change your mind?”

Ballard turned from scrutinizing the map and shrugged. “We were tying up loose ends, you know how it is, when something came up.”

“Then something else came up after that?”

Ballard grinned. “That about sums it up.”

“And now?”

Ballard looked at Hugh, measuring him with his eyes. Finally, he said, “In the last month, we’ve lost four crack agents in Paris. Something big is going on, Hugh. The only thing is, we don’t know what or who is behind it.”

There was a prolonged silence as Hugh considered Ballard’s words. He was very curious. But one question would lead to another, and before he knew it he would be in it up to his neck. That’s how he’d been recruited the last time. He had different plans for his life now.

He allowed himself one last question. “Anyone I know?”

“No. They were all French, all Maitland’s people. As you can imagine, he’s out for blood.”

At the mention of Maitland’s name, Hugh’s head came up. Richard Maitland had been recruited at the same time as Alex and he. They’d been colleagues, but that was the only thing they’d had in common. Maitland was a dour, cantankerous Scot who despised privilege in all its manifestations. He was supposed to be good at his job, but Hugh had regarded his methods as brutal and wanted nothing to do with them. He and Maitland could never work together.

“So Maitland kept his group active after the rest of us got out of it?”

“It was a precautionary measure,” replied Ballard mildly. “And it paid off. They were on to something before they were wiped out.”

Wiped out
. Once, he could have used those words as casually as his friend, but now they made him wince. He’d been away from the game too long. “I’m sorry about Maitland’s agents,” he said. “What was their assignment?”

Ballard shook his head. “We don’t know, and anyway, this is Maitland’s operation. I don’t have all the facts. Even if I did, you know I can’t tell you more without knowing where you stand. I’ve told you too much already.”

Hugh should have known that there was no such thing as one last question, not to a former intelligence agent. “I’m curious, Alex, but not that curious,” he said. “If we were at war with the French, my answer might be different. But I have a different life now, and I won’t give it up.”

“You’re a hard man to persuade, Hugh.”

“I’m impossible to persuade.”

“We always worked well together. There’s no one I trust more than you.”

“I’m sorry, Alex, but the answer is still no.”

For a while, they said nothing as Hugh sipped his drink and Ballard studied the map on the wall. Finally, Ballard said, “I thought Oxford was your home. I thought you liked being close to the university. Weren’t you a fellow there at one time?”

“Classics has always been my hobby,” said Hugh. He spoke casually, but he was watchful. He wondered what Alex was getting at. “And yes, I was a fellow, but that was before I went off to war. Now I divide my time between Oxfordshire and Bath.”

Ballard gestured to the map. “What’s that for, Hugh?”

Hugh rose and joined his friend. “It’s a map of Bath
and those marks are where we suspect we’ll find Roman remains if we’re ever allowed to excavate.” He fished in his pocket, found his spectacles, and put them on. “Look here,” he said, pointing. “We believe that there are Roman baths under the foundations of the present Pump Room, and a Roman temple nearby, possibly under the abbey.” He looked at Ballard and grinned. “Am I boring you, Alex?”

“On the contrary, I’m fascinated.”

Hugh might have been amused if he weren’t so wary of where this was leading.

Ballard said, “Who’s we?”

“What?”

“You said that ‘we’ suspect we’ll find Roman remains here. So who is ‘we’?”

He wasn’t going to mention Abbie’s name. “Oh, I meant the Antiquarians’ Society here in Bath.” He turned from the map and returned to his chair. “We’re all very respectable, Alex, all very boring. Not a foreign agent among the lot of us.”

Ballard treated his remark as a joke. “Was I asking too many questions? Sorry, bad habit.” He took a chair close to Hugh’s. “All right, I’ll be frank.” He grinned. “I have another reason for being here. Mary heard something and asked me to verify it.”

“Verify what?”

“That you’re engaged to be married to Miss Abigail Vayle.”

Hugh stiffened. He was conscious of Ballard’s veiled scrutiny, his sensing, his watchful silence. “Engaged to Miss Vayle?” said Hugh. “What gave you that idea?”

“You were with her in Paris in December, weren’t you? Bets were being laid at the embassy. It was common
knowledge, of course, that you’d terminated your liaison with Miss Munro.”

There was a moment of silence, then Hugh said softly, “What the hell is going on, Alex? Why the interest in Miss Vayle? What are you really after? Tell me and I may be able to help you.”

Ballard’s eyes opened wide. “Hugh, you’ve got the wrong idea! This is just a friendly conversation. I told you, Mary heard some gossip and—”

He stopped abruptly when Hugh reached across the space that separated them and grabbed him by the lapels. “Listen to yourself! I was wrong about you. You’re no longer an amateur. You’ve become one of them. I thought we were friends, for God’s sake.”

When Hugh released him, Ballard slowly got up.

“Alex,” said Hugh, and pressed his fingers to his temples. “I’m sorry I let my temper get the better of me. I suppose you were only doing your job.”

“No, I wasn’t,” said Ballard stiffly. “If I’d been doing my job, I wouldn’t be here.” He walked to the door, hesitated, and turned back. “I’m speaking to you as a friend now, Hugh. Remember what I said about Maitland. Remember that you have a poor record with women. And remember to watch your back.”

When he heard the front door close, Hugh rose and began to prowl around the room. It didn’t take him long to discover that his library had been expertly searched. He’d known where to put his hand on any book he wanted, but now the piles of books on his desk and floor were in the wrong order, while the papers and letters were neatly stacked, too neatly to be his work. What had
Alex been looking for? And what was he, Hugh, suspected of?