Celeste Bradley - [The Liar's Club 01]

by The Pretender

  Not that she’d ever be able to find him. But he’d be watching her. Indeed he would.

  He nodded politely as he passed her. “Nice to be of service to you, mum. I thanks you for the bath. I’ll be collectin’ me rig and be on me way.”

  The parlor door slammed shut inches in front of his face. Simon looked down to see a plump palm pressing the door closed.

  “’Ere now. I thought we was done.”

  “Done? Done? After the mess you’ve gotten me into? Did you have to be so charming? Did you have to smile so … so…?”

  Blast. He was doing it again.

  Agatha got shivers in her stomach as Mr. Rain smiled down at her.

  “Charmin’, was I? And me not sayin’ a word? Now, how could that be?”

  His voice was low and flirtatious and his eyes gleamed as if they held a secret. Only one corner of his mouth actually curled upward, and it gave her hot chills simply to look at it.

  But those shivers no longer lived just in her stomach. A great deal more of her person seemed to be involved.

  She licked her lips.

  He chuckled and his breath was warm on her face. He smelled of cinnamon. What would he taste like?

  Good lord, what was she doing?

  Quickly Agatha ducked under his arm and scuttled across the room. Yes, distance was good. Enough distance that she couldn’t feel the heat of him on her skin.

  Smoothing damp palms down her skirt, Agatha resumed her artificial smile and turned back to Mr. Rain. Indicating that he return to his seat on the blue velvet sofa, she herself perched where Lady Winchell had sat.

  Distance.

  Mr. Rain moved to the sofa but did not sit. Instead, he stood behind it and planted his elbows on the back. He said nothing, only studied her closely, that off-center smile still lingering on his lips.

  “You may sit, Mr. Rain,” Agatha said with another regal motion to the sofa.

  “Oh, I knows it. I’m just keepin’ the way clear to the door, in case you’re wantin’ to snare me again.”

  “I assure you, Mr. Rain, I have no intention of ‘snaring’ anyone.” The gall!

  Well, except she had rather snared him, hadn’t she? Oh, heavens, what was she doing? Abruptly the starch and indignation left her spine and Agatha wilted.

  Putting her face in her hands, she blocked out the room and the man and her hopelessly tangled situation.

  Think. No, not about the fit of Mr. Rain’s trousers. Think about how to mend the damage.

  She must be allowed to continue at the hospital. It was the best link between London and the soldiers still at war. She was able to ask about Jamie at every opportunity and peruse first-hand the lists of men lost and men found.

  “You looks a bit mopped, mum. Don’t know why. Them ladies think you’re right married now.”

  “Yes. Married to you,” Agatha muttered from between her palms. “What will they think if I do not go to Lady Winchell’s supper dance? I cannot very well go without an escort, especially now that they have met Mortimer.”

  And Lady Winchell had known that no one could easily turn aside such a highly sought after invitation without inviting gossip. Gossip meant curiosity into her affairs, curiosity she could ill afford.

  What a blasted muck-up she’d made of things. Blast, blast, blast!

  Vulgarity helped, but when Agatha raised her eyes, the central player in the muck-up still leaned insouciantly against her sofa back.

  “Well, that’s a right shame for the lady, but it ain’t got nothin’ to do with me then, do it?” He turned to go.

  “Wait!” Perhaps this wasn’t a mess. Perhaps it was a miracle.

  The only other clue Agatha had to Jamie’s disappearance was a name. Not even really a name, more of an epithet. On Jamie’s last visit home, she had chanced upon a letter in his room, a message clearly in code, signed by “the Griffin.”

  What did a common soldier have to do with the most famous gentleman spy in Britain? Agatha had no idea, but there was no doubt that Jamie and the Griffin had some connection.

  Finding the Griffin might just mean finding Jamie. And finding the Griffin would be much easier if Agatha could enter Society.

  And for that, Agatha needed Mortimer.

  Mr. Rain turned halfway back to her, clearly not intending to be swayed from his departure. How could she make him stay?

  “It seems I still require a husband. You were interested in making use of a bed. That can be arranged, if you agree to help me.” He could nap in Jamie’s bed for the rest of his life, if he would help her find her brother.

  Simon was startled by her bold invitation. What was the alleged Mrs. Applequist after, really?

  He let his eyes travel over her with the intensity he reserved for business, seeking out clues that would tell him who this woman was.

  There was little to discover on the surface. Her wardrobe was of good quality, if a bit short on style. Her features were regular and appealing in an apple-cheeked country fashion. Nothing to hint that she was anything out of the very ordinary.

  Until he looked at her body.

  It was difficult to do so with detachment. Her full, sweet curves made his blood heat. He couldn’t examine her without wanting to get a much closer look. Would the reality prove as promising as his imagination?

  Would her breasts overflow his hands the way they overflowed her corset? Would her bottom prove as luscious as the swelling of her hips promised him? She was full-bodied and ripe, like the fruit of temptation hanging just out of reach.

  His mouth watered.

  “I should think you’d jump at the chance to earn a decent wage, Mr. Rain. After all, you’re getting a bit large to sweep chimneys, aren’t you?”

  So lush …

  “Mr. Rain?”

  With difficulty Simon bridled his hunger and wondered if perhaps he should check his chin for saliva. Quickly he pulled on the impudent facade of Simon the Chimneysweep.

  “What all will you be wantin’ me to do? I ain’t interested in nothing what might get me across the law, and no mistake!”

  “Of course not. The very idea. There is no breaking of the law involved. The merest bending, perhaps, but truly nothing serious. And all for the finest of causes, I assure you.”

  “Well, that’s good—”

  “Oh, Mr. Rain, I cannot thank you enough! It will only be for a few weeks, perhaps slightly more, but hardly any time at all, really. And I will reward you for your pains, most handsomely.”

  The lady beamed at him and heaved a great sigh. Simon was forced to rip his gaze from her décolletage. Pains? He had agreed to perform as her husband? He’d been so distracted, he hadn’t even noticed.

  She was clever. Too clever, for a mere mistress. Her ingenuity and persistence were something other than ordinary. Simon was forced to move her from “bystander” to “accomplice.”

  A party at Lord Winchell’s London house would fit into his plans anyway. All the better to keep his eye on this woman. And Winchell was definitely on his list of possibles, for the man lived very well, with high standing in both Society and the War Office. Winchell’s position close to the Prime Minister alone made him worth investigating.

  With the Liars’ current manpower shortage—Simon suppressed the pain and loss—every man had to serve more than one purpose as it was. He could kill his two birds with one stone.…

  Carefully Simon focused his attention on the problem at hand, squelching his odd distraction. Yes, agreeing to her plan might yield a great deal of information.

  But he wondered … what precisely had he agreed to?

  Chapter Three

  It was a most agreeable dream.

  Warm breath caressed Agatha’s neck and she sighed. Turning into the heat, she stretched her body in luxurious delight. Reaching out, she stroked her hand over—

  —the chill hard wood of the bedpost.

  Snapped from her sensual half-dream, Agatha jerked upright. Her nighttime braid had slipped its knot and her hai
r spilled in front of her eyes. She pushed it hurriedly aside and sat very still, listening.

  The chamber was the same unimpressive room as always, its squat furnishings not improved by the shadows. Unlike Jamie’s chamber, she had made little effort to improve her own.

  Yes, her window was still shut against the last chill of spring and the coals still glowed from her bedtime fire. So why were her nerves trembling? Why was her breath coming short and sharp, and her neck aquiver with sensation?

  Why did the room smell ever so very faintly of cinnamon?

  Simon.

  Mr. Rain to you, my girl, she scolded herself, and don’t you forget it. Moreover, Mr. Rain was safely all the way down the hall, ensconced in Jamie’s big bedchamber for the week.

  He hadn’t liked the idea of staying in the house, and it had been all that Agatha could do to persuade him that there would be no irate person of the male persuasion coming to defend her honor. Truly, it was the only practical solution.

  And it was lovely having a man around the house again. A deep voice, a heavier tread, a solid presence to fill the emptiness. Agatha bit her lip for a moment. She missed Jamie and Papa terribly.

  As much as she loved Appleby, the estate had become more lonely burden than loving home in the last few years. Jamie had not been living there for quite some time, even before he went to war.

  And poor Papa, gone just two years, had been so devastated by his wife’s death fifteen years before that he had retreated into his books and his mathematics. Even when he was with his son and daughter, he was scarcely there at all.

  The care of the sheep herds and the orchards had been hers for so long, it felt distinctly odd not to forever be thinking of lambs and apples. Odd, and something of a guilty relief.

  But she would gladly tend both for the rest of her life if only she could bring back her family. The way they used to be. Agatha rubbed at her eyes, for they burned just the tiniest bit.

  She pulled her determination about her like a shield against the pain. Papa was gone forever, but Jamie was out there, somewhere, and it was left to Agatha to find him.

  Mr. Rain was not a replacement but a tool placed in her path to aid her mission.

  She was close, she knew it. She could envision the moment when she found her brother, perhaps when the ambulance wagons brought the men into the hospital by the dozens.

  She would offer a dipper of water to another wounded man, one who was not too terribly wounded, then raise her eyes to see the gleam of Jamie’s wicked grin and hear his teasing voice.

  “Got your nose in my business again, don’t you, Aggravation? Can’t leave you alone for a minute!”

  And she would help him from his pallet and he would walk out of the hospital—because he wasn’t too terribly wounded—and they would go back to Appleby, where things would be just as they had always been before.

  Before Napoleon had struck and Jamie had gone soldiering. Before Papa had died.

  Before Lord Fistingham had come to tell her that he was the executor of her inheritance now that her brother was likely dead as well. Hence, she should be honored to join her wealth and her lands to Fistingham by becoming the bride of his son, Reginald.

  Before she had been left alone with Repulsive Reggie, with his sweaty hands on her body and his slimy tongue in her mouth.

  She had managed to avoid Reggie for most of her life, neighbors though they be. She’d learned very young that he was not to be trusted.

  Quickly she shut her mind to that older memory, so swiftly that only a brief vision of Reggie’s sweating teenage face appeared, silhouetted against a cloudy summer sky while she fought him off with small childish hands.

  He isn’t here.

  She was safe from him here as she had been for the past several years at Appleby. But that hadn’t lasted forever, had it?

  It had only been through her reluctance to offend Lord Fistingham that he and his son, Reggie, had managed to be let into Appleby last month.

  His lordship had come to pursue an agenda of his own.

  “You’re an orphan, gel. Not a soul in the world to look after you. It’s my duty to see you set.”

  “Jamie will look out for me, my lord,” Agatha had argued. She hadn’t thought claiming she could look after herself would have done her any good with an old-fashioned fellow like his lordship.

  “Ah, but young James is dead, make no mistake. You must get beyond this foolishness and face the truth. You’re all alone in the world, doomed to starve.”

  “Hardly that,” she’d muttered dryly. She was fairly sure that Appleby brought in a larger income than Fistingham, for it was better managed by far. Not to mention that her accounts had not the constant drain of a useless gambling sot of a son.

  “Nonsense. No woman can get by without a man. But I’ve taken care of that. Your father—ah, how I miss dear Jems—would have wanted me to.”

  Agatha had striven to seem respectful, for Lord Fistingham had been the closest thing her father had ever had to a friend. The unworthy thought crossed her mind that Lord Fistingham had only made the occasional appearance to hit his dear “Jems” up for a loan.

  And her father would only blink dimly and write a generous cheque, never questioning the amount and never asking to be repaid. Although knowing Papa’s complete disregard for anything but the realm of numbers and formulas, that likely had more to do with a total disinterest in money than actual generosity.

  Then his lordship had outlined his plan to bring their great estates together under the name of Fistingham. Agatha had barely listened, mentally tallying her books while she nodded away.

  Until she had realized with cold sinking horror that Lord Fistingham’s plans included marriage. A proposal that he was not going to let her refuse. At first she’d been afraid he’d wanted to marry her himself.

  Then her situation had become even more dangerous.

  “You’ll marry Reggie straightaway. You’ve no choice, gel. I’ve control of everything now, you see. With young Jems gone, your father’s will turns it all over to me until you marry, at which time it will go to your husband.”

  She’d frantically tried to remember the reading of the will, but only the shadow of her grief came to mind. Still, she hadn’t doubted for a moment that it was true. How like her father to turn her welfare over to a stranger. And why not? He’d practically been a stranger himself since her mother had died.

  “But I’ve run Appleby for years! I’m perfectly capable of tending my own affairs!”

  “Oh, I know young Jems let you play steward now and again, the silly boy. He’s fortunate you didn’t do much damage.” Lord Fistingham had stood then, his formerly mild gaze sharpening suddenly on his son. “Time for you to wed, gel. Reggie, see to convincing your bride.”

  “Yes, Father.” Reginald had smiled winningly at Agatha.

  His lordship had left then, removing the key from the lock and closing the door carefully behind him. Agatha could still remember how that click had resonated through her nerves like a screamed warning.

  For romantic persuasion had not been part of Repulsive Reggie’s plan. As soon as his father had quit the room, he’d been on her. He’d clawed at her bodice and pulled her hair, all the while crudely pushing himself at her like a rutting ram.

  Agatha had struggled silently against her own debilitating fear and his superior strength. She’d dared not call out for one of her servants to break down the door to help her, for she’d only condemn her own staff to an appearance before the magistrate if they laid hands on a lord’s son. That would not end well, especially when Lord Fistingham was the local magistrate.

  It hadn’t been until Reggie had her down on the sofa, fixed on pinning her whilst he undid his breeches, that a long-ago event had flashed through her mind and she knew what she must do.

  When they were young, Jamie had suddenly decided that she needed to learn to protect herself and had demonstrated how to disarm a man completely with one simple action.

 
; With all her might, Agatha kicked out. Her knee had missed, for she was hampered by Reggie’s weight on her skirts. But her thigh had made satisfying contact all the same.

  Most satisfying indeed. Reggie’s face had gone greenish-white and he had rolled off her with a breathless wheeze. She’d clambered out with practiced ease through a large window, leaving her foe writhing on the floor behind her.

  When she’d left Appleby early the next morning, her household staff had still been trying to clean the vomit from the carpet.

  Remembering that day, Agatha realized that she was rubbing her wrists, although the bruises had been gone for over a week.

  She shuddered. Absently rebraiding her hair, she forced herself to focus her mind on the enormous task confronting her.

  How to turn a chimneysweep into a gentleman in a single week?

  He must be able to converse, to dine, to dance, to walk even, as if he were born to the gentry. It was a daunting task, without the remotest chance of succeeding. Agatha dropped her braid and flopped back onto her pillow.

  One thing at a time. She had spent the evening with him, going over a few highly useful phrases that would get him by with the household help for the next few days. He had learned quickly and relieved her mind about his ability to master conversation.

  The simplest change would be to transform the outside. Already he had proven to be acceptable-looking, even a bit devastating. With the proper clothes and a modicum of manners, he ought to pass well enough.

  After all, it wasn’t as though she were trying to find him a wife. She needn’t prove anything about him but that he was an ordinary fellow.

  If only she hadn’t claimed he was a musician …

  Curling her body around her pillow, Agatha sleepily tried to plot her way out of that one until she drifted off again.

  * * *

  Simon stepped out of the shadows to look down on Agatha. Even in the near darkness, he could see her sleep-flushed cheeks and one round shoulder peeking from the neckline of her gown.

  What was her game? She was a consummate actress, with her fresh country ways and her direct sexuality. He had waited for another invitation tonight, half-expecting her to dispense his “reward” for remaining to help her.