A Gentleman Never Tells

by Juliana Gray

  Into the small space this created, he’d hidden a few essential items: the list of contacts with which Sir Edward had confided him; a rectangular wooden box of gold coins, signed out in triplicate from Sir Edward’s meticulous accounts and suitable for bribery as needed; and his code-book.

  Such a nuisance, codebooks. Roland usually memorized each new one as it came out; his talent for mathematics was legendary among the small circle of people who knew about it. But it had been a busy few months since that fateful meeting in Sir Edward’s library, and he’d had no communication at all from his colleagues since paying a brief visit to Beadle in the Florence office, and one glance at the paper told him it employed a code both recent and complex.

  He closed his door, set a chair against the lock, and went to the dresser.

  The drawer opened easily, its mellow old wood worn into comfortable grooves and long accustomed to the vicissitudes of heat and damp. Roland reached inside, slid open the false back, and pulled the slim paperbound volume from its resting place.

  CAHIER DE MATHEMATIQUES, proclaimed the plain pale blue cover, in a tenuous attempt at disguise, though any counteragent worth his salt would know exactly what it contained if he bothered to look inside. Roland removed the note from his pocket and consulted the wax seal for the proper code. A FOX type, of course; he peered at the animal’s right ear until he discovered the number 6 imprinted at the tip, and flipped through the codebook until the pages opened to FOX 6.

  The little room had no desk. Roland went to his trunk, got out his travel secretary, and opened the lid. The sweet smell of cedar filled the air. He selected a fine-tipped fountain pen, closed the lid again, and sat down on an old wooden chair, secretary in his lap, long legs propped atop the bottom edge of the bed frame.

  Nothing like cold numbers to take a man’s mind off his women troubles. The fountain pen scratched comfortably against the paper, a fragrant breeze caressed Roland’s cheek from the window, and his brain sank gratefully into the complex puzzle before him. After a moment, the book became unnecessary, and he tossed it onto the bed. The numbers rose up around him like a three-dimensional model, until he could see the solution, the decoded message, in its architecture.

  His pen dropped to the floor. “Good God,” he said.

  Thump thump thump, went the door.

  Roland jumped from the chair, just saving the secretary before it crashed at his feet. “Who is it?” he called.

  “Your brother, damn it! Open up, for God’s sake!”

  Roland exhaled. Bloody Wallingford. He chucked the secretary back in the trunk and closed the heavy wooden lid.

  “Why the devil have you got your door locked?” demanded Wallingford, by way of greeting. He strode into the room with his usual air of unassailable command, booted heels cracking on the old wooden boards. His handsome face wore an especially thunderous expression, as if he’d just been told his Mayfair town house had been invaded and occupied by a band of cigarette-smoking anarchist squatters in his absence.

  “Good afternoon, Brother. Yes, I’m quite well. And you?” Roland ducked behind his brother’s large frame and closed the door with a firm thrust.

  Wallingford’s voice came dark and alarmed at his back. “Why the bolted door? You don’t think they’ve taken to spying on us, do you?”

  Roland whirled. “What’s that?”

  “The women.” Wallingford struck his palm with a closed ducal fist. He looked as though he’d just had a bath of extraordinary vigor: His hair hung dark and damp above his collar, and his cheeks shone with the same fresh-scrubbed pinkness as young Philip’s. “Bloody hell! I expect you’re right! Spying, of course! How else would . . .”

  Roland tilted back his chin and laughed. “Spying on us? The women? For God’s sake, Wallingford. Been at the opium, have you?”

  Wallingford’s stern face tightened into a scowl. “Don’t be naive, Penhallow. I wouldn’t put it past them. Crafty harpies. Do you know, I caught Lady Morley at Burke’s workshop this morning?”

  Roland gasped and put his hand to his heart. “No!”

  Wallingford raised a finger and stabbed it toward Roland’s chest. “Damned impertinent cub. Don’t you know they’re determined to make us break first? That they’re determined not just to win the damned wager, but to drive us out of here entirely, before that fellow Rosseti can be found to set things right for us? There was Lady Morley, all but seducing poor Burke before my eyes, and do you know what her ladyship gave me as an excuse?”

  “I can’t imagine.”

  “That she was delivering Burke’s post. His post, by God!” Another smack of the fist.

  “The wicked strumpet!”

  “Exactly! I told . . .” Wallingford stopped and frowned. “Are you being sarcastic again, you mongrel?”

  Roland leaned forward and peered at the hair above his brother’s left ear. “I say. Is that a feather in your mane, old boy?”

  Wallingford clapped his hand to the side of his head. “Where?”

  “Just there. Under your hand. Charming little downy white . . .”

  “Never mind that!” The duke raked at his black locks with vicious fingers and turned to stride to the window. “The point is, we’ve got to outsmart them. Beat them to the punch, chase them out ourselves. Before poor old Burke succumbs to Lady Morley’s charms and we’re hoisted by our own petards.”

  “Sorry, old man. Don’t quite follow you.” A flash of blue caught the corner of Roland’s eye. He glanced at the bed, where the Cahier de Mathematiques lay in bold relief against the faded yellow bedspread.

  Hell.

  “The bet, man! The wager!” Wallingford turned to skewer him with an intense black gaze. “If Lady Morley succeeds, we’ve got to concede. An advertisement in the Times, Penhallow! And once that happens . . .” His voice trailed off, as if the consequences of a Times advertisement were too appalling for words.

  “Once that happens . . . ?” Roland prodded.

  “Why, we shall be humiliated before them all! We’d be forced to leave; our lives would be made miserable. More miserable, I say, than they are already.”

  Roland shrugged. “I’m not miserable at all. I think it’s rather charming, having a spot of female company to liven things up.”

  Wallingford’s face, already pink, turned the color of an angry tomato. “Oh, all very well for you, isn’t it? You and that damned Lady Somerton.”

  A sudden gust of wind took hold of the window, flinging it against the wall with a loud bang and ruffling open the pages of the Cahier de Mathematiques. Roland took a single step forward. “Do not,” he said, with icy precision, “ever say those words again.”

  Wallingford’s mouth opened briefly, and then his eyes dropped. “Sorry, old boy. Quite in the wrong. She’s . . . well, she’s a woman of virtue . . .”

  “She’s the finest woman who ever lived.” Roland went to the dresser, placed his fingers against the edge, and leaned backward. Wallingford turned to face him, with his back to the bed.

  “Yes, of course.” The duke’s brow darkened. “You, on the other hand, you weak-willed dog of a fellow. Stay away from her. I’d trust her honor above any of the others, but your damned twitchy co—”

  Roland held up his hand. “Watch yourself, Brother.”

  “All right.” The duke sighed. “Shall we say, your propensity for seduction may prove our downfall. Our very public downfall. To say nothing of poor Lady Somerton’s.”

  Roland folded his arms. Lilibet’s words in the orchard echoed in his ears, her genuine fear of discovery by Lord Somerton. His brain, preoccupied by Sir Edward’s note, began to shake itself off and consider what his brother was saying. “Look here, Wallingford. You’re not to say a word about her presence here, do you understand? That beast of a husband of hers . . .”

  “What the devil do you mean by
that?” Wallingford’s head jerked to attention.

  “Just that he’s a damned wretch, and I understand she’d be quite happy if he never got wind of her whereabouts, for the time being.”

  The duke’s eyes narrowed. “Are you trying to tell me we’re harboring a runaway wife? Because that’s hardly . . .”

  Roland leaned forward and spoke in a voice of harsh intensity. “I wouldn’t put a dog in Somerton’s care, Wallingford, and neither would you! Be compassionate, for once in your misspent life.”

  Wallingford blinked at the onslaught. “You don’t suppose . . .”

  “Suppose what?”

  “Well, that it’s the reason they want us gone? They’re afraid Somerton will hear about it?”

  Roland let his eyes drop to the floorboard before him. “It’s possible.”

  “Hmm.” Silence, and then: “Well, regardless, I shan’t comply. Any number of unoccupied castles lying about the area, I’m sure, and the women can damned well find another.” His voice blazed.

  Roland sighed, still staring at the floor. “Tell me, Wallingford. Why the devil does it matter to you so much? Can’t we simply call off the wager and live amicably together?”

  “You’re joking. Live amicably with the harpy sisters? Oh, I say, Penhallow. Mathematics?”

  Roland’s head shot up.

  The duke reached out one long wool-covered arm to the bed and picked up the pale blue codebook. “What the devil? What sort of mathematics is this?”

  Roland made a long and ungraceful leap forward to snatch the Cahier de Mathematiques from his brother’s hands. “Nothing! Just a . . . a pamphlet I picked up in France. A new mathematics. Fascinating stuff. Quite beyond your level, I’m afraid.”

  Wallingford made a futile swipe at recovering the book. “Look here! I’ve a decent brain for maths, and that . . . Now, look here . . .”

  Roland stuck the book in the top drawer of his dresser and pushed it shut. “Never mind. It’s nothing. The point is this . . .”

  Wallingford stepped closer. His voice dropped to a silky growl. “Hold a moment, Brother. Tell me more about this mathematics of yours.”

  “It’s nothing. For God’s sake. A few numbers on the page. I . . .”

  “But it’s important, isn’t it?” Wallingford leaned his head forward, as if sniffing the air. Perhaps he was, the crafty dog. “You just took the greatest pains to hide it from me.”

  Roland’s heart made an unnatural thud behind his ribs. Be sensible, he told himself. He knows nothing. Remember yourself. He took in a calming breath and closed his eyes. When he opened them an instant later, he’d schooled his expression into its most charming and empty-headed arrangement.

  “Oh rot,” he said lightly. “You’re just a damned suspicious bastard, Wallingford. What do you think it is? A collection of love notes from mathematical machines? Coded messages from one of those Oriental contraptions, with the . . . the beads and whatnot?” He twirled the first two fingers of his right hand in a helpless gesture.

  “Whatever it is, you’re taking great pains to conceal it.”

  Roland heaved a dramatic sigh. “Conceal it? You’re joking, surely? Have a look, then, if it means so much to you.” He turned and pulled out the book and tossed it at his brother’s chest. “If you can make heads or tails of it, I’ll give you a fiver.”

  Wallingford shot him a malevolent stare and ran his thumb along the edges of the pages. “Cahier de Mathematiques, my arse,” he muttered, selecting a page. His eyes ran over the lines, left to right: one, two, three. A frown furrowed his brow. He lifted one finger and traced along the paper in a long deliberate motion.

  He looked up. “I know what this is.”

  Roland folded his arms and rolled his eyes to the ceiling, pretending to study the pattern of solid wood beams across the plaster. His mind hummed, constructing excuses and scenarios. “Pray enlighten me,” he drawled, in his most careless voice.

  Wallingford snapped the book shut. “Chemical formulae, of course. Are you helping out Burke with his electrical batteries? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Roland’s jaw wobbled. “Batteries?”

  “Yes. I, er, recognize the equations. Matter and force and . . . er . . . ether and so forth.”

  “To say nothing of ions.”

  “Ions, yes.” Wallingford held out the Cahier de Mathematiques with an air of assurance only a duke could muster in the face of such abject ignorance.

  Roland took the book without looking at it and folded it into his hand, against his chest. His gut went hollow with relief. “Haven’t told Burke yet, of course. I want to surprise him in a few days. Walk into his workshop and rattle on about charges and sparks and all that. He’ll be absolutely gobsmacked, don’t you think?”

  “Undoubtedly. But about the women . . .”

  Roland took his brother by the arm and guided him to the door. “Look here, Wallingford. I’ve no head for strategy, no head at all. Makes my poor brain spin like a top. And I’m as soft as butter around the ladies. You know that. I could no more plot their downfall than I could plot against our own mother.”

  “Yes, true. You are a damned old romantic,” said Wallingford, with patronizing affection.

  “You see? So you make all the decisions in that regard, and I’ll . . . well, I’ll simply hover in the background, I suppose.” He smiled his guileless smile. “Sound all right?”

  “Ah yes.” Wallingford patted his shoulder and reached for the door latch. “I’ll put my brain to use this afternoon, and spring it on ’em at dinner tonight. Ha-ha. Give that Miss Harewood and her damned goose down a bit of long-overdue medicine, by God.”

  “Miss Harewood?” Roland lifted his eyebrows. “Goose down?”

  “Yes. Well. Never mind. And look, Penhallow,” the duke added, with a final kindly look over his shoulder. “I don’t mean to crush you, but I doubt you’ve the right sort of head for mathematical endeavors. Leave all that higher-level thinking to Burke and myself. Stick to your poetry, that’s the ticket.”

  “Yes! Quite! In fact, I’ve the most delightful sonnet in contemplation at the moment. Perhaps you’d care to hear it?” Roland offered.

  Wallingford blanched. “Yes. No. Perhaps after dinner, old man. I’ll . . . er . . . I’ll look for you.” He bolted down the hallway.

  Roland raised his arm. “Right-ho! See you then!” he called.

  Wallingford’s hand rose up in the air, the last part of him visible as he disappeared down the stairs.

  Roland waited another second or two, just to be sure, and slipped back inside the room and closed the door. He leaned against the old wood for some time, eyes narrowed into the abundant afternoon light, mind spinning with the precision of a finely tuned rotary engine. His fingers closed around the paper, crisp and sharp cornered in his pocket.

  In the weeks since his arrival in Italy, he hadn’t given much thought to the situation back in England. I’ll sort it out, Sir Edward had promised. Get to the bottom of things. Ferret out the troublemaker. Roland hated that aspect of his work: the infighting, the politics, the pitting of one agency against another. It seemed so pointless, so wasteful. He much preferred the excitement and challenge of fieldwork. If Sir Edward wanted to ferret out the Judas in their midst, he was welcome to it.

  Besides, Lilibet’s appearance had made dropping out of sight a great deal more delightful than he’d anticipated.

  Ah. Yes. Lilibet. Darling girl. What would she make of the information in his pocket?

  Roland pulled the paper free and unfolded it. The letters and numbers leapt up at him in perfect English, now that he’d deciphered the code. The message itself was short and direct, as Sir Edward’s communications tended to be, and produced a great many more questions than it answered:

  Triangulation of evidence suggests possible sou
rce Earl of S in Navy office. Whereabouts of his wife and son currently unknown. Stay in place and await further instruction.

  It seemed Lilibet’s appearance in Italy might not prove a coincidence at all.

  NINE

  The dining table, like the rest of the Castel sant’Agata, had been divided down the middle. Every evening, the ladies sat along one side, and the gentlemen lined up on the other, a configuration that proved ideal for sparring.

  Lilibet, her spirits still in disarray from the disastrous exchange with Roland in the peach orchard, could hardly be bothered to ask for the salt, but the others had no such reservations. Alexandra had apparently been discovered delivering Mr. Burke’s post to his workshop this morning, and the duke was convinced that her motives had been sinister.

  Abigail, of course, did not agree. “But that’s absurd. If you seduced Mr. Burke, successfully I mean, the wager would technically be a draw, wouldn’t it?”

  Alexandra choked.

  “Yes,” said Mr. Burke. “Yes, I believe it would.”

  Abigail turned to Wallingford. “You see? You may put your mind entirely at ease on the subject of seduction, Your Grace. No reasonable person would contemplate such a scheme. Two advertisements in the Times! It wouldn’t do.”

  The duke’s face reddened alarmingly.

  “Dear me, Wallingford,” said Lady Morley. “You really must endeavor to calm your nerves. I fear you will bring on an apoplexy. Have you any medical training, Mr. Burke?”

  Mr. Burke selected an olive. “Only a few rudiments, I regret to say. Hardly enough to loosen his cravat.”

  “I am happy to be the source of such endless amusement. But you”—Wallingford stabbed his finger at Mr. Burke’s chest—“and you”—to Lord Roland—“have no idea at all what these women have in contemplation. From the moment of our arrival last month, they’ve been scheming and harassing us, in order to make our lives here so hellish as to drive us away entirely, and leave them the castle to themselves. Do not, Lady Morley, be so insulting as to deny it.”