Scarlet Devices (27 page)

“I'd like to think so too, but I've little confidence. Your last major action was succumbing to influenza on the first day of the Sky and Steam Rally, dropping out of the race and wasting your family's substantial investment. Still, here you are, and I suppose I must make use of you. Incidentally, you'll find a trunk full of your brother's effects in your room. He'd left it in the keeping of his landlady, but it seemed fitting that you should have it. Perhaps you can deliver it to your family when you return to the Dominions, which I suspect will be sooner rather than later.”

Murcheson's attitude was more than disheartening. The Hardisons had seemed so much more enthusiastic when they recruited Barnabas to their cause. The timing was perfect—his desire to search for Phineas in London, their European colleague's need for a fresh operative there with an upper-class background. They had assured him that just as their own blue-blood heritage had served them well in forming a cover story for espionage, Barnabas's social credentials made him ideal to pose as a young industrial dilettante abroad. A feckless fop of a son, perhaps, foisted off on the Makesmith Baron to train some sense into him. The story could be that the baron had assigned Barnabas the ridiculously easy but lucrative sinecure of finalizing some negotiations that had obviously been conducted months prior between the Baron himself and Rutherford Murcheson. Then Murcheson could instruct Barnabas as he saw fit. And compensate him, a necessity as Barnabas's father had refused to fund any further searching for Phineas following the rally debacle.

Barnabas had pointed out to his spymaster instructors—who included Charlotte, Lady Hardison and her father Viscount Darmont, much to his surprise—that he knew people in London. He couldn't appear
too
feckless, because he never had been before. At least he certainly hoped not. He was his father's heir, after all, current disagreement notwithstanding. Nor could he play the fop, when he'd been notoriously uninterested in things sartorial at Oxford.

“Ineffectual, then?” Charlotte had suggested.

“Can't I just be myself?”

They all looked at him as if he'd gone mad. Then Charlotte tilted her head, running her gaze up and down Barnabas as if seeing him in a new light. “It might work. No, let's consider this,” she insisted when her colleagues raised their voices to object. “Who
is
Lord Barnabas Smith-Grenville? Look at him. He's cheerful, generally well-liked. He's quite earnest, but doesn't completely lack a sense of humor. Well enough connected, but hardly from a powerful family. Not a fashion plate or a Greek god, by any stretch. Meaning no offense, Barnabas.”

“None taken, madam.” But he found himself adjusting the shoulders of his coat and trying to recall when he'd last had his hair cut.

“None of those things are bad, none of them are particularly good. There's nothing on the surface that's—”

“Remarkable,” the Viscount finished for his daughter, earning a glare from her. “I see it now. Or rather I don't, and neither will anybody else. He doesn't need a show to divert attention, because nobody's attention will be drawn to him in the first place.”

“I'm not sure I'd go so far as to—” Barnabas attempted.

“Women will not swoon, captains of industry will not bow down, that sort of thing,” the Viscount continued. “Just a perfectly nice chap, nothing more. Penny a pound.”

“Precisely,” Charlotte agreed, favoring Barnabas with a smile. “It's perfect.”

“My boy, don't look so downtrodden,” her father explained, leaning in and beaming at Barnabas. “We're not insulting you. On the contrary, we're paying you the highest compliment. In this business, unremarkable is the best thing you can possibly be.”

Charlotte nodded. “Nobody will ever suspect you of derring-do, not in a million years. Which makes you the perfect spy.”

But evidently the perfect spy was only fit for a job of personal busywork, more suited to an underling or footman in Barnabas's opinion. Spying on the boss's daughter, using his social graces to charm her into a false sense of security. When he found out Frederique Murcheson was his first assignment, Barnabas felt like he'd been had.

Murcheson claimed she was a security breach in the making and needed a tail. But now it seemed Murcheson didn't even trust him with following an errant, nosy, twenty-one-year-old girl. All because Phineas had let himself become addicted to opium.

“I'm not my brother, Mr. Murcheson.” Barnabas let himself fall into the plummy, snooty tones of his upbringing. He was no misbehaving lieutenant; he was the eldest son and heir of an earl. Not a particularly important or powerful earl, true. But he still outranked a commoner in trade, at least in terms of social standing, and he had no compunction about reminding this man of that fact by his demeanor. “I was invited into Lady Hardison and Lord Darmont's confidence because they believed me capable of working well for the Crown. If you're not of the same opinion, I can simply—”

“Stop there, lad. Enough huffiness. You do the public school patter quite well, I'll give you that. If you want my good opinion, prove yourself. Everywhere my daughter goes, everyone she speaks to, you will know and report to me. But she mustn't suspect you. You must play the part of the fervent, well-intentioned suitor, do you understand? No matter how difficult you find that once you meet Frederique.”

“Understood.” What more could he say? It was clear any further reassurances from Barnabas would fall on uncaring ears. There was nothing left but to prove himself by outwitting and fooling this young woman into believing he was smitten enough to hound her every move, which ought to be simple enough. Wasn't that the primary concern of most young ladies during the social season, after all? Even the heiresses whose blood wasn't remotely blue. Except that this heiress was sounding less and less like the typical model.

“I suppose you ought to go attire yourself appropriately,” Murcheson sniffed. “It is a birthday ball for a prince, after all.”

Barnabas went, accompanied by a creeping sense of dread. What the hell had he gotten himself into?