Celeste Bradley - [Royal Four 04]

by Seducing the Spy

  Please do not mean to propose! She had not resolved her emotions on that count. If he asked too soon, she could not give him the ready answer he deserved.

  “Lady Alicia,” he began formally, “I have a request that is of the utmost importance to us both.”

  She swallowed. Oh, dear.

  “My lady, I must ask—nay, beg of you—to take on a most serious purpose. I must know . . .”

  She held her breath. Suddenly, she was no longer unsure. Suddenly, her feelings for Stanton snapped into perfect, lovely clarity.

  She loved him. She wanted to be his wife. She wanted to spend her days with him, to hell with Society and its expectations, to hell with the included reward to those who had betrayed her. Let them benefit, for she had no more reason to hate them. They had brought her to this moment, to this man.

  “I must ask that you allow me to offer you as a lure to our mystery lord.”

  She frowned. “But we found him last night! Did he escape you?”

  He worked his jaw. “That man is not the man you heard outside the White Sow. That man is a close friend of the Prince Regent’s, who was with the prince—in sight of the prince yet—on the night you claim you heard this conspiracy.”

  You claim. Something was not right. Alicia stepped forward, intent on discovering what had gone so terribly wrong. “You caught the man I handed to you last night—you questioned him—you heard his voice! Is he not precisely as I described?”

  Stanton nodded shortly. “He is. He is also undeniably innocent.”

  “But how can that be? I heard him—”

  A flicker of distaste crossed Wyndham’s expression—a mere shadow, but she had seen it before. The morning she’d awoken to the shocked gasps of her parents and their carefully planted ‘witnesses’—the morning she had told her story over and over to an unreceptive audience—the moment she had become a liar.

  Alicia felt as though a pit had opened at her feet and her very blood was draining from her body, leaving her hollow and cold. Someone wanted to harm the Prince Regent. Someone wanted to harm her.

  And that someone was still out there.

  “A lure, you say? I’m to be bait, you mean.” Her voice was scarcely more than a harsh whisper, when she had rather been hoping for a scream.

  He looked her in the eye, of course. Always honest, always true—to himself. She could see through him like glass and what she saw was nothing. He meant to throw her before the lion, his own heart safe outside the cage.

  “I shall do my best to see to your safety, but I must apprehend this man. You are the one thing I can offer him that will surely bring him from hiding.”

  Sold again. She felt her lips stretch in a brittle smile. “At least someone wants me.”

  He stiffened further, if iron could get any stiffer. “I regret that I can see no other way. We have only one day left. If you begin to tell the story of what you overheard, minus a few pertinent details, then he will hear of it and seek you out. He will want to know if you have more information, and whom you have given that information to.”

  She gazed at him, the man she loved, the man who had just proposed she tease a killer. “And while I’m flinging myself bodily before the speeding pit cart, what will you be doing?”

  “I will be close by, watching for him. When he approaches and you have positively identified him, you will wave to me and I will intervene.”

  He sighed. “I regret deeply asking you to do this.”

  “And yet you have done it so well,” she said softly. She met his gaze with a brittle smile. “Oh, don’t let it bother you, mate. It isn’t as though I need a hero.” She turned away and took up her hat, setting it on her head with a cocky tilt. “What do you think? Am I tasty?”

  Stanton, of course, being Stanton, could not let it go. “I must beg your forgiveness, Alicia.”

  She shook off his hand. “Beg, beg, beg. All you need to do is ask. Either I will forgive or I won’t. Begging won’t affect the outcome either way, unless you make me sick of it.”

  His pride snapped into play, just as she had counted on. He bowed his head sharply. “Then my thanks are in order, my lady. You are doing a greater service than you know.”

  He turned then and strode out of the room, his back straight and his brows together.

  “Oh, I know what I doing,” she said softly to the empty room. “I want this man caught as well, for I am well done with this false love affair.” She rang for Garrett and prepared herself to reenter the social whirl of the party, this time armed with entertaining conversation of the highest order.

  “Here, kitty, kitty, kitty,” she whispered to her reflection. She undid the tiny covered buttons of her riding habit. “Come and eat the helpless little bird.”

  At the last moment before Garrett entered, she thrust the letter knife with the mother-of-pearl handle into her reticule. It was too long, so she repositioned it in her bodice, down between her breasts. “I must remember not to slouch,” she said archly to the girl in the mirror. “ ’Tisn’t proper, and it will hurt like hell.”

  She would find the bastard who had started this chain of events. She would find him and hand him over to Stanton and then she would disappear from their sight forever. All of them.

  After leaving their room Stanton walked slowly down the hall. He could not—would not—allow himself to regret what he had just asked Alicia to do. She was the only link to this mad chain of seemingly unconnected events and coincidences. If—God, always “if ”! Would it never be “when”?— he became able to see the truth in her, then he could dispense with such dangerous plans.

  Until then, he could not allow his strange and growing attachment to her keep him from fulfilling his duty. It comforted him that he’d been able to ask her to do such a thing. Of course, if she was lying, it was all a farce anyway, so nothing was lost. If she was being truthful, then they just might be able to lay hands upon the Chimera at last—and he would find a way to explain his actions to Alicia.

  He was sure he would.

  26

  Alicia immediately went about her assignment with brittle glee. She plunged herself into the party’s afternoon entertainments and made herself alternately lust-worthy and adorable. She shot pistols on the south lawn with the ladies—she lost carelessly and laughed it aside. She invaded the male-dominated card rooms, billiard rooms and smoking rooms and made them enjoy her intrusion. She talked to men, women and servants until her throat was dry—and every one heard the story of the conspiracy at the White Sow.

  Of course, she prettied up the tale, calling the filthy pub a “coaching inn” and claiming she was merely strolling through the yard. No privies, no details of the strawberry jam ignominy.

  She was merry, she was stunning, she was everywhere, for she had nothing to lose now. Wyndham believed her a liar— moreover, Wyndham thought she’d lied to him.

  She would never be free of it, never be trusted, never speak and have her words taken for simply what they were. She would be Lady All-three-cia until the day she died. All she could hope for now was that she could avoid taking her sisters down with her.

  At last, wearied beyond smiling, beyond speech, she made her way back to her bedchamber to dress for dinner where, she was sure, she wouldn’t be able to ask please-pass-the-butter.

  When she opened the door, she found the room dark and the fire cold. Where was Garrett? Something papery crackled beneath her foot as she made her way to the candelabra on the mantel. She absently bent to pick it up and stuck it into her pocket as she returned to the hall and lit the tapers from the one burning sconce several yards down the way.

  The room was chill, making her weariness triple upon itself, so she rang for someone to tend the fire and to fetch Garrett for her. While she waited, shivering, she remembered the paper on the floor.

  She took it from her pocket and unfolded it in the light of the candles. Tight, perfect letters turned frightening by the blurred pen, as if the writer had been shaking with rage—or madne
ss.

  You are the only one who knows the truth. You are not worth the breath you waste. I must kill you. You will die and my plan will succeed. I will take him away and England will be lost. I will kill you slowly and you shall die knowing that I have won. You will cry and beg and I shall listen and laugh. You will die like the puling bitch you are, bleeding in the mud. I shall watch and enjoy.

  The vicious delight in the horrible words was more frightening than the words themselves. He would enjoy it, the bastard.

  Except that it wouldn’t happen. She held the proof in her hand. Wyndham would see now that the threat to the Prince Regent was very true—and so was she.

  She thrust the letter back into her pocket and flew to the door. As she sped down the dimly lighted hall, she brushed against a liveried servant toting a bucket of coal. “I shall be back momentarily,” she called over her shoulder. “Find my maid, if you please!”

  The man nodded and Alicia picked up speed, taking the grand stairs at a full run. She found Wyndham almost immediately, in a card room with the other of the Horsemen, even Lord Dryden, who seemed to act as a sort of second for Lady Julia.

  She skidded to a stop before the green felted card table. “Wyndham, I have it! I have your proof! He’s in the house!”

  The cards scattered as the gentlemen rose as one. “Where?”

  “I found this in our room,” she said, thrusting her hand into her pocket. “Someone had put it under the door—”

  There was nothing in her pocket. She felt the other seam, although she knew there was no pocket there. She looked up at Wyndham, alarm beginning to tingle through her.

  He was gazing back at her with that hateful hardness increasing in his eyes. “I ran all the way here,” she explained quickly. “It must have fallen out—”

  She turned to retrace her steps, casting this way and that back along her trail, bending to peer under side tables as she ran. The four lords followed her more slowly.

  She found nothing, though she searched carefully all the way back to the dimly lit hallway outside their bedchamber—

  Dimly lit. Never before had the hall been lit by one sconce. Lord Cross was nothing if not flagrant with his beeswax candles.

  She had brushed by a servant, a small man who had averted his face—

  A man who had picked her pocket like a street thief.

  No. She turned back to Wyndham and the others, who stood there with varying degrees of disdain on their faces. “Lady Alicia,” Wyndham stated sourly, “I am willing to wait until this man shows his face. There is no reason to prevaricate reasons to continue this investigation.”

  She shook her head, holding out her hands. “It is true, I vow it. He said he would kill me and laugh while I died. He said he would take the prince away and England would be lost.”

  “With due respect, Lady Alicia, that doesn’t sound quite right.” Lord Dryden rubbed the back of his neck a bit sheepishly. “While we would all miss Prince George—I hardly think England would be lost without him.”

  It was all happening again. She couldn’t bear it. She turned to Wyndham, the only face upon which she wanted to see belief. “It is true, my lord. I can tell you everything it said, every word. It was a cruel and vicious letter, full of madness—”

  “The man we seek is not mad,” Wyndham said coolly. “Brilliant and cruel, yes, but not mad. Nor is he inclined to write schoolgirl notes. You have mistaken your gambit, my lady.”

  Julia couldn’t breathe. “I—it wasn’t—”

  Wyndham turned away. “Gentlemen, we have a card game to finish.”

  The others followed him, although Lord Dryden did cast her a thoughtful look over his shoulder as he left. Lord Greenleigh paused before one of the unlit sconces briefly, sent a single unreadable look back at Alicia, then followed the others.

  Sickened and unsteady, Alicia reached one hand to the wall while she fought to bring breath into her lungs. Wyndham’s face—

  I will kill you slowly and you shall die knowing that I have won.

  She had lost the only one who had believed her. Alicia began to wonder if the madman hadn’t won already.

  The flame-haired girl had fallen for his ruse like a fox to the hounds.

  The scarred man cackled and rubbed his hands together as much in glee as to gain warmth. He was a lord in a castle of his own once more, a sturdy castle of made of fire and death. It was a brilliant piece of work, although not truly worthy of the mind that had created this toy for that fat, infantile sot of a prince.

  He reached a tremor-ridden hand out to stroke the wall of his fine, lordly abode. He must leave it soon, but he would take such fond memories away with him. He only wished he’d been there to see the look on that slut’s face when she found nothing in her pocket.

  He cackled again, enjoying the sound in the enclosed walls of his new kingdom. It was only a sturdy shack on the inside, but wasn’t that always the way with these fine houses? All grandeur outside, all shabby former elegance within.

  He would build himself a castle in Lourdes with his reward, he decided whimsically. A castle with turrets and minarets . . .

  “And fireworks every night.” His rasping voice filled the room, then all faded to silence once again.

  But not for long.

  The remainder of the “card game”—which was really a meeting of the Four masquerading as a great amount of shuffling and dealing—was called due to, as Lord Dryden put it, “an overabundance of brooding.”

  Stanton’s fault, of course, but it had been a mighty blow to have his darkest suspicions of Alicia fulfilled so publicly—or at least, before the other Three. Damn it all to hell. Why couldn’t she have been the woman he thought her? Why couldn’t he have found the one woman in the world who brought him out of the prison of his own nature?

  He tossed his hand down and stood. “I’ll send her away,” he told the others abruptly. “I’ll pay her for her time and send her far away.”

  Lord Greenleigh leaned back in his chair and crossed massive arms. “How far do you think you can send her? Is there a city on the moon?”

  Stanton frowned. “You’re not suggesting—”

  Lord Reardon stood as well. “Greenleigh, don’t be ridiculous. The girl doesn’t know anything. And no one would believe her if she did.”

  “I am not saying we have her terminated. I’m saying that we should consider the fact that money and distance might not entirely solve the problem.”

  Stanton narrowed his eyes. “And what problem might that be?”

  Greenleigh gazed back evenly, undaunted by the Falcon’s glare. “The problem that you’re in love with her—or at least, you’re infatuated with her.”

  Stanton gritted his teeth. Infatuated. “That’s ridiculous. I admit that my investigation has led me to—there have been—”

  “I’ll wager there have been—several times, by the look of you two. Is she in love with you?”

  The question bothered him far more than he could fathom why. “I don’t know. I’ll never know, with her.”

  Lord Reardon was gazing at him with sympathy that Stanton could very well have done without. “Wyndham,” Reardon said, “none of us have your skill at detecting lies . . . yet we all knew, eventually.”

  That was all he could bear. “You lot didn’t fall in love with liars!” He turned to stride from the room, but he could hear his own voice echoing in his ears, very nearly admitting to something he was not willing to own.

  He burst from the card room at top speed, rushing he knew not where, but anywhere not here.

  “Wyndham.”

  His mother’s voice stopped him in his tracks. He turned to see her beside the card room door, obviously waiting to ambush him. He clasped his hands behind his back and tried to pull the old mask of cool aloofness over his face. “Hello, Mother.”

  Caroline came close to him, putting one hand gently on his arm. “I was coming to see Lady Alicia before I left, to find how she’d weathered her ordeal in the garden last
night . . . and I heard what you said to her in the hall.”

  Stanton closed his eyes briefly. How perfect. Now his mother knew things she shouldn’t know. Where had his faultless control gone, and why now, when he needed it the most? “It was nothing, Mother. She—she made a mistake and I was upset with her. A trifling matter.”

  “You don’t trust her.” Caroline pressed her lips together. “I think it must be my fault that you don’t trust her. She does seem to be a great deal like me, at least on the surface—”

  “She is not—”

  Caroline shook her head with a small smile. “No, of course not. I’m glad you see it. She is a much better woman than I have ever been, although she does give me hope for myself.”

  She patted his arm again, seeming much reassured. “I ought to have known you would see how perfect she is for you. I hope you’ll do everything you can to staunch those horrid rumors about her being a liar. I know that awful young man who caused her difficulties. Trust me, darling, the only thing she is guilty of is trusting the wrong man.”

  Dark cynicism invaded Stanton’s heart, easing the pain of doubt, sparing him the thought of future loss. “Oh, I don’t think she’s guilty of that,” he said cryptically. “I must see her now, Mother. Excuse me.”

  Lady Alicia had hoodwinked her last Wyndham.

  27

  Alone in their room, Alicia pondered what she had done to herself, all without the help of homicidal maniacs. In her obsession with vengeance, she missed the moment when she’d passed the point of no return.

  So, thinking she had nothing to lose, she set out to be very, very bad—and hadn’t realized how wrong she was until she’d lost the one thing she couldn’t live without—the respect of the man she loved.

  A man like him—an upright, ethical, demanding fellow, as demanding of himself as he ever would be of her—would not want her.

  She might try to correct the mistake. She could become as demure as a nun, as circumspect as a queen. It might kill her and she feared that future, but there was no point in even trying.