“You are mistaken. I am a diplomat, not a—”
Kit raised a hand to cut him off and repeated the statement, “You and your men have been monitoring French communiqués. Do not insult me by attempting to deny it.” He lowered his hand, although every muscle remained coiled and ready to spring. The Russian said nothing. “I want to know about the movements of one of their operatives. An Englishman named Garrett Morgan.”
“I do not know of him.” But the flash of surprise in his eyes said otherwise.
“Think hard.”
When the man said nothing, only continuing to slowly sip at his port, Kit reached beneath his overcoat to his breast pocket, to the bundle of letters tied with a pink ribbon.
“Perhaps you need something to jog your memory.” He held them up. “Correspondence between you and the lovely Dorothea von Lieven. I must say,” he mused as he turned them back and forth, contemplating them, “I doubt His Excellency the Russian Ambassador wants the contents of these letters spread throughout the Court of St James’s, wouldn’t you agree, Secretary Ivanov?”
The man’s lips twisted, as if he suddenly found the port distasteful.
“The man who wrote them might find himself sent packing from London, just in time for a long, cold Russian winter.” His eyes flicked between the letters and Ivanov. “So, let’s try again, shall we?” He held the letters up to the candle on the washstand beside him and let the flame singe the corner of the top letter, tempting the Russian into cooperating with the promise of destroying them. “Garrett Morgan. The past fortnight. Tell me.”
Ivanov said nothing.
Kit pulled the letters away from the flame and made to put them back into his coat.
“Fine!” He bit out a string of Russian curses at being bested, then broke into laughter at Kit’s audacity. “What do you want to know?”
“Garrett Morgan is working with the French.” Months of tracking down leads and information had proved it to him, and now Ivanov’s silent reply to that statement confirmed it. “A fortnight ago he went missing, apparently kidnapped and held for ransom.”
Ivanov laughed.
Kit frowned. “Morgan isn’t missing?”
“Oh, he is missing, certainly, but he was not kidnapped.”
“How do you know?”
“Because if he were kidnapped, then he must be a magician to be in two places at once.” He refilled his glass. “He was in London and in active communication with French agents as of three days ago.”
“About what?”
Ivanov refused to answer that. Instead, he undid the first button of his bulging waistcoat and commented, “Then he went silent. That was when he disappeared, not a fortnight ago.” He chuckled to himself and made a mocking toast with his glass. “Not even the French are sly enough to have a man in two places at once, or the boudoirs across Paris would be exceedingly happy places.”
“Where is he now?”
“When his messages stopped coming, a few of my concerned acquaintances—shall we say?—decided to pay him a visit at the White Horse Inn. He was already gone.”
“To where?”
“He is no longer in contact with the French.” He shrugged. “He is no longer my concern.”
With that, Kit knew he wouldn’t coerce any more information out of the Russian about Morgan’s whereabouts. So he teased the corner of the notes into the flame, letting the letters catch fire, watching the paper blacken and curl.
“One more thing.” He waved out the flame, ignoring the murderous narrowing of Ivanov’s eyes. “Could Morgan have fled because he double-crossed the French?” That would explain why the Frenchman didn’t want the pages when Diana delivered them, if they weren’t nearly as important as Morgan had led them to believe they were. Worthless, exactly as Diana had called them.
But damn the man to hell for placing his sister in danger.
“Possibly.” He eyed Kit suspiciously over the rim of his glass. “Whoever you are, I am certain that you understand what it means if he did.”
Yes. If Morgan wasn’t dead already, he would be soon.
Ivanov smiled devilishly and slowly swirled the port. “If I were you, I would check downstream when the tide is low, and you will most likely discover where he went when he left the White Horse.”
So…the Russian believed that Morgan was dead. Kit studied him closely, looking for any evidence that he was lying. And found none.
Slowly, he stood and moved to the door. He paused in the doorway to tuck his pistol back into its holster beneath his coat and tossed the singed notes onto the bed. “Thank you for your time.”
The Russian snatched up the ribbon-tied bundle and held them to the candle, to burn them into ash, not realizing that they weren’t love letters written by the ambassador’s wife to her lover, but by Lady Bellingham to hers. “Send Jenny back to me on your way out.”
Like hell I will.
Kit moved casually through the brothel toward the front door, as if he belonged there. As if he’d just spent the past hour in the company of a prostitute. If any of the people crammed within its thin walls recognized him, they would assume he was there for the same reason as every other gentleman who walked through the door. Good. Such beliefs only added to the false persona he’d cultivated as a scoundrel and younger son leeching off his earl of a brother. The more shiftless society thought him, the freer he was to hunt down Fitch’s murderer.
Until tonight, when it all ended.
Ironic that it had come to this. That in the end he’d been pursuing a dead man.
Fingers clutched his arm as he strode past the main drawing room toward the entry hall, stopping him gently with a well-practiced touch.
“Leaving so soon?” A rich, feminine voice purred in his ear, followed by the warmth of her body sidling up against his from behind.
“Mrs. Smith.” With a show of respect, he faced her and sketched a bow, giving her a flirtatious grin. He didn’t like the woman, but he needed to stay in her good graces. “I’m afraid it’s past my bedtime.”
“Stay.” Her red lips pursed into a pout. With her makeup and wig, it was impossible to discern her true age, but Kit supposed that she’d been selling herself and other women for at least twenty years. The hand resting on his arm certainly belonged to a woman who’d suffered a hard life, with little relief in sight for the future. “I can find someone to fit your tastes.” She squeezed his arm, although Kit couldn’t have said whether to keep his attention or to gratuitously feel his muscle. “In fact, I just hired a pretty little blonde thing that you’re sure to find enjoyable.”
“I’m afraid I have to refuse tonight.” And every night.
“You never use my girls. You pay good money to talk to them, but you never take pleasure in them.” Thankfully she kept her voice low enough not to be overheard by anyone else in the small crowd gathered in the entry hall. “Aren’t they good enough for you?”
“Ah, that’s the problem.” He forced a forlorn expression onto his face. “I’m the one who isn’t good enough for them.”
She knew a line of drivel when she heard it, and her eyes flashed with dark amusement. “If it’s an experienced woman you prefer, I can help you with that.” She ran her hand up his arm, then down his chest. “I don’t usually take on gentlemen from here, preferring not to mix business with pleasure.” The look she raked over him told him in very blatant terms how much pleasure she expected to have with him. “But in your case, Mr. Carlisle, I’d be willing to make an exception.”
Yes. He was certain she was. For a price. As a businesswoman, Mrs. Smith was nothing if not mercenary.
When her hand drifted down his front and cupped his manhood through his breeches, Kit sucked in a mouthful of air through clenched teeth and grabbed her wrist to stop her.
“I’m afraid not,” he said gently, lifting her hand away to place a kiss in the air just above the backs of her fingers. “I wouldn’t want to run the risk of not pleasing you in bed. How would I ever live that down
?”
She froze for just a beat, her eyes narrowing angrily at being rejected. Then she laughed, a deep and throaty sound that eased away all the tension between them. “Is it true what I’ve heard about you, then, that you want to become a vicar?”
With an inscrutable expression, he answered, “My heart belongs to God.”
She gave him another lingering look, this one of longing and disappointment, and drawled, “Pity.”
“But I would still like to do business with you tonight, Mrs. Smith.”
“Oh?” Her eyes lit up.
He reached into his coat and withdrew two sovereign coins. “I want to purchase Jenny for the night.”
“No. She’s already with the Russian.”
“I want to purchase her away from the Russian,” he corrected as he slid the coins into her hand. Surely far more than Ivanov had paid for the evening. “Let her have the night off, let her go to another man—anything but go back into the room with the Russian, understand?” When she closed her hand over the coins, he lowered his mouth close to her ear and threatened, “If you double-cross me on this and give Jenny to that man tonight, I will personally make certain that your brothel burns to the ground and that you find yourself on the first ship to Australia. Do you understand me?”
She blanched for a beat, then forced a saccharine smile and purred, “What Russian?”
With their self-serving friendship still intact, Kit nodded his gratitude and excused himself, sauntering out of the brothel and into the darkness.
He flipped up the collar of his overcoat to protect the back of his neck from the drizzling rain and hurried through the dark streets of Seven Dials. The only sound was the clip of his own boot heels on the cobblestones and their echo against the sides of the brick buildings edging the deserted streets, yet he reached beneath his left coat sleeve to palm the small knife he always carried there as a precaution.
He blew out a hard breath. A pretty little blonde thing. That’s what Mrs. Smith had tempted him with, only for an image of Diana Morgan to pop into his head. Christ.
Diana was certainly beautiful—downright angelic, in fact, with her golden hair and sapphire eyes, pink lips that tasted of strawberries and cream, warmth, softness…and in trouble up to her pretty little neck. How far could he trust her? Had she told him what she believed to be the truth, or was she simply spinning stories in order to save her own delectable skin?
He wanted to trust that she was sincere, that Ivanov was correct and Morgan was dead, that she’d been contacted in a desperate attempt by the French to secure documents that Morgan had promised but never delivered. If that were true, it would put an end to the pursuit that had been his sole focus for the past six months.
What a relief it would be to have it over. He’d finally be able to think of something other than Fitch’s murder, to sleep without having nightmares of Fitch’s beaten face haunting him. He could focus on his job again instead of what he’d been doing, which was ignoring Home Office duties, taking advantage of existing contacts, and ruining opportunities with future ones. Like Ivanov. He would never gain justice now—only watching Morgan swing would have done that. But Morgan’s death at the hands of the French was the next best thing.
Except that too many pieces weren’t fitting into the puzzle.
“Carlisle.”
Kit stopped, his fingers clenching around the knife handle as a man stepped out of the shadows directly in front of him. The fog and darkness required a moment to discern his identity—
Lieutenant-General Nathaniel Grey. A hero in the wars with Napoleon, former War Office administrator, and now one of the best spymasters the Foreign Office employed. Kit knew him well and respected him, not least because the two men were distantly related by marriage through Kit’s cousin Josephine.
But what the hell was he doing here?
“Odd time and place for a family gathering, don’t you think?” Kit released the knife and extended his hand as Grey came forward, less in greeting than to show that he wasn’t pulling a weapon on him.
Grey shook his hand. “Less mess and expense this way.”
“And no fighting.”
“Perhaps a little.” Grey smiled, but no amusement showed in his eyes.
A warning slithered down Kit’s spine. “So not a social call, then.”
Grey’s face was set hard in the shadows. “I know why were you at Mrs. Smith’s tonight.” He tugged at his leather gloves, but his attention never strayed from Kit and the damp street around them. Kit was certain that if a pin dropped two streets away Grey would note it. And react instantly. “And it wasn’t to enjoy the women.”
To deny it would be an insult to both men’s intelligence, so Kit said nothing. And better, too, to find out exactly what Grey wanted with him.
“My men have been watching Ivanov since he arrived in London last year. As a foreign diplomat, he falls under the purview of the Foreign Office.” Grey’s deep voice was calm and controlled, but a cold admonishment laced through it. “The Home Office has no authority to interact with him.”
“We’re on English soil.” Kit resisted the urge to clench his jaw and kept his face carefully inscrutable. “That puts him under Home Office jurisdiction.”
“Not when it interferes with Foreign Office operations.” He paused and fixed a hard stare on him. “And not when it has nothing do with official Home Office business.”
An electric jolt skittered through him. Grey knew why he’d questioned Ivanov. Which meant he knew about Fitch’s death. And didn’t care.
“A personal vendetta brought you here tonight. One you need to give up.”
Like hell I will. “A good agent was murdered.” He paused to let that settle over Grey, just like the damp drizzle of rain seeping over the sleeping city. “Do you really expect me to believe that if one of your operatives or friends were killed that you wouldn’t seek justice?”
“Of course I would. And doing so would be just as pointless as what you’re attempting.” Grey’s eyes narrowed as they swept through the shadows around them, to make certain that they were still alone and speaking privately. “As someone who shares your allegiance to England, I’m here to warn you—stop looking into Fitch-Batten’s murder. If you don’t, Whitehall will notice what you’ve been doing, and it won’t be a quiet conversation like this that they’ll have with you. Your career will be over, and everything you’ve worked so hard to build will be destroyed.”
Kit had known that from the beginning and had been willing to risk it. Still was. “He wasn’t just killed,” he dared to correct. “He was murdered in cold blood by a man he thought he could trust.”
“Fitch-Batten was caught off-guard, and he paid the price.” Grey’s face was grim, with the fog and shadows only adding to the severity of his countenance. “It happens to agents, even to the good ones. That’s always the risk, and we all accept it. But what you’re doing now by pursuing this is causing problems for the rest of us.” He looked away into the thickening fog as the icy drizzle increased to a light rain. “God only knows how much more damage you’ll do if you keep chasing after a dead man like this.”
His heart skipped. “Garrett Morgan’s dead—you know that for a fact?”
Grey gave a quick, hard nod as his gaze swung back to Kit and pinned him with a look of cold anger. “And so did you, even before you set foot into that brothel tonight. You knew it in your gut, yet you approached Ivanov anyway and ruined months of surveillance work by my men. If I’m lucky, I can salvage most of my contacts within the Russian embassy. And if you’re lucky”—he punctuated that with an arch of his brow—“then Whitehall won’t discover what you’ve done.”
Kit had never been that lucky. Nor did he care.
“You spoke to Ivanov,” Grey continued, “and he confirmed your suspicions about Morgan.
“He told me Morgan was dead. But he didn’t say why he killed Fitch.”
“Let it go.”
He bristled at the quiet threat disguised a
s a friendly warning. “Or what?”
“I can’t have you interfering in Foreign Office operations.” Grey straightened, his spine rigid and his presence a commanding one deserving of the rank of lieutenant-general. “I’ll go to the Home Secretary myself, and he’ll have no choice but to remove you from duty.”
A long moment of uncomfortable silence stretched between the two men, both deadly serious as they stared at each other in the darkness. Not as friends or distant family, not as patriots in service to England, but as adversaries.
There, in the cold and darkness, with the icy rain falling over him and soaking him through to the bone, Kit made his decision—
“Then have me removed.”
He strode past Grey and down the puddle-strewn street.
“Whitehall will declare that you’ve gone rogue,” Grey called out after him. “You know what that means, what they’ll do to you.”
Kit halted mid-step, his heart jarring with a brutal thud in his chest. Yes. A death sentence.
“So be it.” He walked on. He didn’t look back. Didn’t have to in order to know that Grey still stood there on the wet cobblestones, staring after him as he faded into the shadows and fog.
When he reached the main avenue, he waved down one of the old hackneys for hire that prowled the late-night streets and barked directions at the driver as he climbed inside. The carriage jerked to a rough start, then shook and shuddered as it rolled over the cobblestones, the springs so worn that every dip rattled his bones. He looked out the window. What he wouldn’t have given to be on his way home to his rented rooms in Albany, or even to take advantage of his brother’s hospitality and drop into Spalding House for the night, uninvited.
But he headed east, past the Temple and Blackfriars. To the White Horse Inn.
Grey was right, he considered, as he stared out at the city but saw only fog and darkness. He had gotten his confirmation tonight, because there was only one reason why Nathaniel Grey would seek him out, why he would warn Kit like that to stop his investigation.
Garrett Morgan was still alive.
After the Spy Seduces Page 6
