My Lady, My Spy (Secrets and Seduction Book 4) (7 page)

Had he been spotted? He held his breath, waiting to see what the Frenchman would do.

A moment later. LeCompte trotted down the steps toward the hackney. The game of fox and hound was about to commence.

LeCompte’s footman snatched open the hackney’s door just as LeCompte reached it and then ushered him into its depths.

The hackney immediately pulled away. Despite wanting to follow, Frederick waited as he stared into the darkness, searching for a sign of Turner. Where was the man? They needed to move quickly, before they lost LeCompte.

A dark figure darted toward him across the residential street. As it drew closer, Frederick recognized Turner. A moment later the entire conveyance bounced and swayed as the young man clambered up the side to sit with the driver. In an instant, the carriage took off with a jolt.

From inside the carriage, Frederick couldn’t see LeCompte’s hackney, but he trusted his coachman and footman to handle the pursuit.

A moment later, a small door in the carriage roof snapped open. Frederick glanced up and saw Turner’s grinning face gazing down at him through the square frame, his excitement for the chase evident. “He took off quickly, but we managed to catch him,” the young man announced.

“He might have seen the carriage. If so, he’ll expect us to follow.”

Turner’s face bobbed up and down in the square. “We’ll be careful.”

The little door snapped shut, and Frederick could only smile at the young man’s exuberance. On any other night, the two of them would be following LeCompte on horseback. He detested tracking someone at night while riding in a carriage, especially in one as distinctive as his. But the condition of his hands left him with little choice.

Was sitting inside the carriage the only reason his excitement for the chase had ebbed? He shifted restlessly. In truth, he resented that his duties had required that he set aside a much more enticing alternative.

Josephine.

Frederick let out a heavy sigh. What kind of life could he offer a woman? Especially someone like Josephine? A life of lies and missed engagements? A life of sitting home alone? Yes, she claimed to already know he was a spy, but that didn’t mean she truly understood what that entailed. The sacrifices she’d be forced to make if she linked her life to his.

But his life was even more complicated than that of most spies. He harbored secrets within secrets. There was one in particular he was certain Josephine never would guess. A secret he and his brother had guarded for more than a decade. One secret that had shaped his childhood with its far-reaching consequences.

And it wasn’t even
his
secret. It was his father’s.

Josephine didn’t know. No one knew, although a few might suspect.

Treason. His father had committed treason.

With his tragic and shortsighted decision, the late Lord Wentworth had launched his entire family on this fateful trajectory. Josephine was right about that.
Our decisions shape our destinies.
With every choice Frederick made since learning of his father’s secret, he’d always taken it into consideration.

Every decision but for one. Being with Josephine.

His one weakness.

His one mistake.

He never should have pursued her. Never should have slipped into her bed. Not with this secret looming over him. Not with his father’s treason casting a shadow over his future.

If he was lucky, no one would ever find out.

Unfortunately, he didn’t believe in luck. Luck was for fools. A man made his own luck through hard work and attention to detail.

Eventually his father’s secret would come to light. Someone would discover it. The only thing truly surprising was that it had remained hidden for so long.

Once that secret came out, Frederick’s carefully constructed life would come crashing down, and anyone close to him would be brought down as well.

He couldn’t do that to Josephine. He needed to keep her as far away from this as possible. He couldn’t bear to have her tainted by this.

He’d break things off with her. There was no other choice.

A moment later, the carriage pulled to a halt. It shifted as someone climbed down, and a moment later the carriage door opened. Turner slipped inside.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Woolsy. It appears we’ve lost Monsieur LeCompte.”

CHAPTER FIVE

After a long and disappointing day of trying to track down the thief, Frederick was no closer to finding that book than he’d been the previous night.

He tapped his foot against the leg of a small side table in his bedroom as his valet, Herbert, finished re-bandaging his more severely injured hand. “These burns are a blasted nuisance,” Frederick muttered. “It’s only been a day and I’m already thoroughly sick of them.” They’d caused him to sleep fitfully last night. Tonight probably wouldn’t be any better.

Herbert shook his head as he scowled at the burns. “They’re bad. Lord Percival owes you an apology.” He smoothed more of the poultice directly onto Frederick’s left hand, forgoing the bit of flannel. Fortunately, these burns were proving to be relatively insignificant. In fact, the blister along the outside of his littlest finger seemed to be smaller already. He’d only need a bit of poultice and a glove for his left hand.

Herbert held open an oversized glove and Frederick examined it, deciding the best angle at which to hold his hand while sliding it on.

“I doubt I’ll get one,” he said as he began slipping his hand inside. “In fact, he was so inebriated, I doubt he was aware he’d started the fire.” He winced and pulled back as the blister on his smallest finger grazed a seam inside the glove. He adjusted the angle of his hand and tried again, this time successfully managing to sheath it.

He lifted his left hand and turned it from side to side. No one would be able to tell it had been burned. He’d even be able to use it if he was careful.

Unfortunately, his right hand was a different matter. Herbert generously swathed it in strips of cotton, but it still hurt like the blazes— or at least it
had
until Herbert had applied a freshly mixed batch of Mrs. Drummer’s poultice to it. Frederick grimaced at the thick swaddling of bandages.

He viewed it as his own personal emblem of incompetence.

If not for the burns the bandages concealed, he wouldn’t have been obliged to ask Robert for help, he wouldn’t have been ambushed upstairs by Josephine, and the book wouldn’t have been seduced away from his brother by that silver-gowned thief.

They’d come so close to success, only for it to be snatched away. Close really didn’t matter. He’d lost the book. A book that might have averted a war.

Had Monsieur LeCompte spotted Frederick outside his home last night? He must have.

After the Frenchman left his house, they’d followed his hackney to its destination. When his carriage door opened and he’d emerged from its depths, they’d discovered the ruse. Another man had switched places with LeCompte— someone close to his size and wearing his clothes.

The impertinent rascal then yanked down his woolen scarf to reveal his face, tipped back his hat, and flashed Frederick a broad grin. He’d known they were following all along.

LeCompte, that trickster, had lured them into following the wrong hackney. Once he’d drawn them away, LeCompte must have rendezvoused with the thief. Frederick should have left Turner behind to watch things. Add that to his tally of missteps.

Herbert cleared his throat. Frederick glanced up. How long had Herbert been standing there holding Frederick’s evening coat?

Frederick glanced at the mantel clock and then rose to his feet. Time to leave. He gingerly slid his right hand through the sleeve, being careful not to abrade the bandages. “I plan to meet with Lord Cary, so I’ll probably be quite late.”

“Yes, sir.”

He had no idea how the spymaster would react to the news that he’d lost the church register. It was an enormous setback. Frederick had never before failed so abysmally at completing an assignment. It had been years since he’d needed to rely on Lord Cary’s knowledge and resources to help him untangle a tricky problem.

Fortunately, Lord Cary enjoyed nothing more than devising plans to defeat an enemy. When he’d first recruited Frederick as a spy, they would work hours into the night as they examined the strengths and weaknesses of the various solutions they devised.

Lord Cary was a clever man. He understood the motivation that drove a man’s choices better than anyone else Frederick had ever met. He could use that uncanny ability to accurately predict how someone would behave given a specific set of external pressures. He always knew exactly which puppet string he needed to pull to evoke the reaction he desired. He was appallingly good at it, and some of the people he manipulated found themselves doing things they’d never dreamed of.

Frederick wasn’t as comfortable using such blatant manipulation, nor was he particularly skilled at it. He much preferred devising an overall strategy and then finding key people who best suited his overarching goals. Frederick liked to think his methods were much more subtle and natural than Lord Cary’s. Kinder as well.

Lord Cary’s manipulations occasionally had the consequence of leaving a man’s life in shambles. Sadly, even though Lord Cary could evoke the reaction he wanted, he couldn’t foresee the effect of his actions on the poor wretch he’d manipulated.

Lord Cary might predict the precise moment when he could trade some small incentive for a secret or betrayal and use that knowledge to his advantage to gather information, but he couldn’t accurately measure the cost of that betrayal on a man’s conscience. He sometimes pushed too hard. Too far. Men broke under his pressure. Not frequently, but often enough.

For years, Lord Cary had been oblivious to the havoc he’d caused. After using a man to achieve a specific goal, he forgot about him. At first, Frederick believed Lord Cary to be callous as he casually tore apart a man’s life as easily as rending wet tissue paper.

He’d been wrong.

Lord Cary hadn’t been callous. He’d been myopic. To him, men were tools, picked up and used as needed, but then cast aside with little thought.

Frederick had come to this realization one day while listening to Lord Cary bemoan the loss of a storeroom guard in the Great Western Railway. Two years earlier he’d bribed the man, convincing him to leave his post for a few minutes. Now, he wanted to get into the same storeroom again, but the new guards weren’t so easily manipulated.

“Did they sack him?” Lord Cary asked in a disinterested tone. “That seems a bit harsh. He only left the room unguarded for a few minutes.”

Frederick recalled staring at him in stunned disbelief. “Did you think the fact he let one of your spies slip into the room would go unpunished? His employers dismissed him the very same day. Within a month, he was reduced to picking pockets. A month after that, he was in prison.”

“That’s blasted inconvenient.” Lord Cary pinched his lower lip between his thumb and forefinger as he concentrated. “Now the railroad has two guards on duty. I might be able to sway the younger one, but the older man is one of those dedicated sorts. A former army sergeant. Rigid as they come.”

Frederick narrowed his eyes. “Wait. Is that all you have to say? You’re irritated because you’ve been inconvenienced after you ruined a man’s life?”

Lord Cary stared at him blankly. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Frederick let out a sigh. “I’m referring to the man you bribed. The one who was dismissed.”

Confusion fled his face. “Ah. Him.” He shook his head. “The man never should have been a guard. He wasn’t suited for it. Much too easily bored. He rather enjoyed the excitement of helping one of Her Majesty’s spies.”

Something cold tightened around Frederick’s neck. “I thought you said you bribed him.”

“No, no. I was mistaken. I recall the young man quite clearly now. Idealistic. Easily swayed.”

“You ruined his life.”

“Don’t be foolish.” Lord Cary’s face reddened, but then his voice took on a defensive tone. “He ruined his own life. A man should know his own limitations, don’t you think? He wasn’t suited for the position of night guard. He should have known that about himself. Life is made of choices. What position to take. Who to marry. Who to help. Whether to turn right or left at a crossroads. Some decisions are minor, and some have enormous consequences. That former night watchman made too many poor ones. I certainly didn’t force him to become a pickpocket. If fact, it appears he made yet another poor career choice, given that he ended up in jail so quickly.”

“But you manipulated him into losing his job. If not for your interference, he’d probably still be working there.”

“Ah. Now I comprehend your meaning.” Lord Cary rubbed at his chin for a moment. “You might be right about that. I found him to be a likable enough fellow, if a bit gullible.” He swayed his head from side to side, as if weighing a conclusion. “You’re right. Although I doubt he would have remained in his position as a guard for long, I’m fairly certain he never would have turned to a life of crime if he hadn’t been sacked.” He let out a sigh. “I suppose that when he was dismissed, his employer refused to give him any sort of letter of recommendation.”