Maggie MacKeever (9 page)

None of this would have stopped Ned if he had really wanted to wed Bianca. Clea wished she could be certain her brother knew that he had not.

Came a tap on the door. Cerberus opened one eye and growled.

Tidcombe hovered in the doorway. “Lord Saxe —”

“Is right behind you,” said Kane, following close on the butler’s heels. A pained expression on his face, Tidcombe bowed himself out of the room.

Kane was dressed for riding in a blue coat with brass buttons, leather breeches, and gleaming top boots. “I suspect your butler doesn’t approve of me.”

Neither did Cerberus. The dog launched himself at Kane’s riding crop and engaged it in a tug-of-war. Clea rose, clasped Cerberus around his middle, and deposited him on the carpet some distance away. Being somewhat partial to females, the dog merely snapped at her.

“Tidcombe approves of none of us.” Ned propped his booted feet on his desk. “He finds us too informal for his taste. We should send him to Cousin Hannah so that she may show him the error of his thinking. You look tired. It must be from all that racketing around with the Distinguished Guests.”

Kane shot him a look. “The Czar can’t arrive anywhere without
a hysterical ovation. There are never less than ten thousand people waiting outside the Pulteney Hotel to gawk at him. He has apparently made a private resolution to do none of the things that
Prinny expects, instead demanding to meet Whig leaders and defending liberal views, all of which might be less
disturbing were the man not the most powerful leader in Europe.” Alexander and his sister are indefatigable sightseers. Thus far they had viewed the Abbey and Westminster; the Tower and the British Museum; the Royal Exchange and the docks. Kane dreaded to discover what further excursions lay in wait.

He watched Clea resume her seat. “You are stylish today, brat.”

“Am I not?” Primly, Clea smoothed her skirts. “Cousin Hannah is turning me into a young lady.”

Ned propped his booted feet on the edge of his desk. “Clea has decided to make an advantageous match. She wants to have offspring, you see. As well as a dazzling career as an acknowledged beauty with dozens of gentlemen dangling at her slipper-strings, and writing her poems, and going off to shoot themselves when she casts them aside.”

Kane’s eyes crinkled with amusement. “That’s all right, then.”

Clea looked indignant. “You don’t think I can?”

“I’ve no doubt of it.” Kane awarded her his lazy, heart-stopping smile. “Still, I would hate to see you grow up too soon. There are dozens of proper young ladies out there,
chérie
, but there’s only one you.”

Clea was for once without words. Her cheeks turned pink.

Again a tap on the door. Tidcombe entered the room, bearing before him a calling card on a silver tray. “You have another visitor, my lord.”

“We are popular today.” Just to be annoying, Clea snatched up the card. “Sabine? You left Sabine waiting in the hall?” With a flurry of skirts, she ran from the room.

Tidcombe gazed heavenward. “Mrs. Sabine Viccars, my lord.”

“So I gathered,” Ned said dryly. “Clea will show her in.” Tidcombe departed, doubtless in search of the bottle of medicinal spirits he kept hidden for all-too-frequent occasions such as this. Kane looked mildly interested and Ned added, “Sabine was with us in the
Peninsula. Her husband died during the fall of Badajoz.” During an unforgettable moonlit night made brighter by the immense fireballs the French hurled over breaches on which they had fixed obstacles made of razor-sharp swords, along with exploding powder barrels and an endless barrage of shells.

The carnage had been appalling. The morning after the siege, Wellington had wept to see so many of his finest men destroyed.

Kane glanced at the doorway. “Your young lady claims to be an impoverished gentlewoman from York?”

“I suspect that ‘claims’ is the operative word.”

“Thus far we’ve found no Wynne family living in Yorkshire. Further inquiries are being made.” Kane contemplated the old globe. “Damned careless, don’t you think?”

Clea returned, bringing with her a stunningly beautiful woman in her middle thirties, fine-boned and as fair as if she had wandered into this world from some otherworldly realm. Her figure was perfection, her features patrician, her eyes a stormy gray. Silver-gilt hair made a startling contrast with dark lashes and brows.

Ned rose to his feet. “Sabine. Welcome home.”

“Home?” Her voice was husky. “It’s been a long time since England was that to me.”

Ned performed introductions. Kane and Sabine both gave excellent impressions of being politely unimpressed. In Sabine’s
case, it might even have been true. Countless officers had sought to court her after her husband’s death, for no attractive woman was long left without a husband during a campaign.

Which brought Ned back to the question of why she was here, now. “We’re delighted to see you. I’d heard you were in France.”

“It’s raining Englishmen in Paris.” Sabine settled in one of the ornate carved chairs and regaled them with a description of Louis XVIII’s arrival in Paris. An escort of fourteen carriages. Doves released into the sky. “A swarm of adventurers and troublemakers of all sorts besiege the Tulieries. Everyone is relentlessly gay
.”

Clea, as she had informed her brother, was an astute young lady; and Sabine was not in the habit of making idle social calls. “Look at the time!  I don’t want to leave you, but I must. Proper young ladies always keep their word.” She bent to kiss the older woman’s cheek; snatched up her pelisse.

Kane smiled lazily.
“‘
Te de aliis, quam alios de te suaviust fieri doctos
,
’”
he said
.

“It is better to profit by a horrible example than to be one? Never fear. For you I shall always be a brat.” Clea crammed the straw bonnet on her head, and sauntered out of the library.

“A proper young lady?” said Sabine.

Kane awarded her his practiced smile. “Clea wishes to break hearts.”

“Of course she does. She is fifteen. But you are safe, I think.” If Kane’s smile was heart-melting, Sabine’s was sufficient to poleax any gentleman not already stunned speechless by her looks. Kane was far too seasoned a warrior to go down under a single blow, but he did almost blink.

Ned knew Sabine far too well to insult her with the offer of any beverage as mawkish as tea. He brought out the Madeira and three glasses and poured. “What brings you back to England? You don’t seem delighted to be here.”

Sabine raised her glass. “England holds many memories for me, not all of them happy. I had hoped to speak privately with you, Ned.”

“In other words, I am
de trop.
” Kane made no move to take his leave.

“Further introductions are in order,” said Ned, distracting his friends from their antagonistic concentration on each other. “All
the world must know by now that secret agents are prone to pseudonyms. Therefore, if I may: Sabine, meet the Raven. Kane, say hello to the Swan. Sabine is one of Wellington’s most valued
secret weapons. Kane has been in the employ of the British government since he reached his majority.”

The Swan and the Raven regarded one another without enthusiasm. Kane was first to speak. “I’ve heard of you.”

“And I you.” Sabine returned her attention to Ned. “As you said, England was
once
my home. Now that the war has ended, is it so odd that I might wish to come back?”

Not odd, but Ned didn’t know that he believed her. “I sense another hand in this.”

“Castlereagh had hoped that if the Allied Sovereigns were in London and away from all the Paris schemers, Alexander might prove easier to deal with.” Sabine noticed the ugly dog crouched at her feet, reached down to give him a scratch. Such was her charisma that, instead of biting her, Cerberus merely snarled and drooled. “I’m told it has not served.”

“You think you may succeed where diplomats have failed?” asked Kane.

Sabine straightened. “It’s not what I think that counts.”

Chapter Nine

What you didn’t hope for happens more often than what you hoped for.
— Plautus

Julie was trying to do as she should. The problem was: according to whom? Lady Georgiana would have been horrified to see her creep along the upper hallway of the French ambassador’s residence. Cap’n Jack would have been equally dissatisfied to learn that she had not.

The strains of distant music followed her. Julie had learned various country dances, the cotillion and the quadrille, her dancing master having possessed the patience of Job and a healthy fear of the consequence should he fail in his task. She hummed the tune, pirouetted in the middle of the hallway, and wondered what it would be like to dance with someone who didn’t reek of garlic and stood more than five feet tall. It wasn’t likely she’d find out. As a mere companion, Julie was expected to fade into the woodwork.

Well, she was fading now. Julie had left Lady Georgiana holding forth on the unfortunately frog-like appearance of the Prince of Orange.

The third door on the left, Pritchett had told her. Julie counted carefully, glanced before and behind to make sure she was alone before turning the knob. The door was unlocked, as Pritchett had promised. She stepped inside.

Candles burned on the mantle. A fire blazed in the hearth. Julie closed the door behind her and wasted precious seconds just looking around.

There was a patterned carpet on the floor, and expensive paper on the walls. Two gilded chairs covered with straw-colored satin had been drawn up near the fire. In one corner stood a wardrobe with matched oval panels, and by the window a bureau cabinet with an arched top. The huge high bed with its domed tester and draperies of richly fringed blue damask was big enough to accommodate Noah and the entire contents of his Ark. Nearby was the mahogany writing desk that had brought her here, strewn atop it a number of items that would light up the eye of any fencing cove.

Julie’s own eye brightened. She clenched her fists. It had taken a great deal of time and practice to become the skilled operator that she was. Yet now she was meant to meekly follow instructions and keep her hand in, so to speak, by filching a required item here and there. That the selection of those items made no sense to her mattered not at all, as Pritchett had informed her when she asked.

Yes, and she’d best get on with it, hadn’t she, before Lady Georgiana decided she’d scarpered like her predecessor and raised a rowdy-do. Julie left the pretties where they lay and slid open the left-hand desk drawer. Hidden in the furthest corner, as she had been told it would be, was a gentleman’s stained leather glove.

A strange thing for the French ambassador’s wife to have as a keepsake. Julie picked up the glove and wondered what story lay behind it, and how Cap’n Jack had found it out.

The door snicked open behind her. Julie spun around, nudged the drawer shut with her hip, thrust the stained glove behind her back.

Lord Dorset closed the door and leaned against it. “Have you lost something, Miss Wynne?”

Her heart, which had jumped right out of her chest to flop about somewhere on the floor. Julie reminded herself to breathe. Ever since their last meeting, when the earl had looked her smack in the eye, she had been half-expecting him to pop up like some genie from a bottle and clap the sheriff’s bracelets on her wrists. When he had not, she dared hope that she was safe. Now his gaze met hers again, and she knew that she’d been wrong. Eyes as green as emeralds, yes; and as cold.

He frowned when she didn’t answer. “I’m waiting,” he said.

“Um? That is, you startled me, my lord.” It wasn’t entirely due to shock that her heart was thumping like a drum. Tightly fitting black pantaloons made it clear his lordship had no need of padding. An excellently cut coat showed off his broad shoulders and lean
waist. His skin was golden from the sun, his cheekbones strongly sculpted; he was blessed with an arrogant nose, a firmly chiseled jaw, and a mouth that promised pleasure so potent as to make a maiden swoon.

The earl looked every inch the gentleman in evening dress, and at the same time thoroughly uncivilized. He also looked impatient. Julie added, “I was looking for the ladies’ withdrawing room. I must have taken a wrong turn.”

His green eyes were intent on her. “You must have taken the wrong stair.”

A vision popped into Julie’s head. Of herself at the sheriff’s ball. Dancing the Paddington frisk, the Tyburn jig.

How to escape? The window was too far away to reach. Pretty Ned stood smack between her and the door.

Julie searched about for something with which to defend herself. Nothing on the desk was of sufficient weight. A pair of stout silver candlesticks stood on the bureau. She shifted in that direction, just a little bit.

He moved quickly toward her; caught her shoulders before she could bolt. Julie tried to kick him, but the earl blocked her with his body, and she found herself trapped between strong thighs.

With one arm, he held her fast against him; with the other he plucked the glove from her hand. Julie sighed. “I don’t suppose you’ll believe I found that on the floor.”

“I’d sooner believe the moon is made of molasses.” He inspected the glove more closely. “
I
don’t suppose you’d care to explain.”

Julie shook her head. She was rendered mute by the sensation of being held so close. Lord Dorset smelled not of garlic but starched linen and leather and something she could only describe as male. He stood nearer six feet tall than five. She wondered what he would do if she asked him for a dance.

He set her away from him, still gripping her firmly, and looked her over from head to toe. Julie had the queerest sensation that he could see right through her disguise — pale green dress with puffed sleeves and a rounded neck and a short sash tied in a bow behind; shift, corset and petticoat; stockings and slippers and long gloves — to the imposter underneath.