A man ambled in, tall and dark-haired and handsome in a soft way, complaining. “We’ve been invaded. That Welshman and his laborers are cracking boxes open and shouting about it. The noise drove me downstairs.” The genteel whine didn’t pause as he made his way across the room. “Standish has potsherds laid out all over the salon. I told him any pottery that wanders into my bedroom will be used for target practice. He has been warned.” He took note of her then, because he was going to complain about her next. “I wish you’d warn me if you’re going to start bringing these girls to breakfast. I don’t like surprises.”
The Captain plucked a muffin from the basket in the center of the table and passed it back and forth, from one hand to the other. He leaned back, content to observe events, noncommittal, his legs stretched out long under the table.
Eunice said, “Quentin,” warningly.
So this was Quentin Ashton. Quentin was somebody else she knew from the paperwork in her office. He was Sebastian’s cousin. He was next in line for that earldom the Captain wasn’t going to inherit from his father, Kennett being a bastard in every sense of the word.
Quentin Ashton sauntered over. “My dearest aunt, you cannot rescue the poor of London, female by wretched female. I wish I could convince you of that. You’re trying to empty the sea with a teaspoon. What we need is a change of government. ” He stood peering down the front of her dress. “At least this one is presentable.”
There was a time, she’d have been tempted to lift his watch, what with his belly pressed up next to her. She was past that now. It was a nice gold watch, too.
He said pensively, “It’s a pity. You’ll dress her in black serge and put her to some domestic drudgery. She’ll be useful and respectable as a tablecloth. Such a waste. I can’t help but wonder if some of these girls aren’t happier in their natural element.”
Up close—he was close—Quentin looked less like his cousin than she’d first thought. He was like a copy of the Captain, but one struck off near the end of the print run so the ink didn’t set deep.
“You’ll make her a parlormaid, I suppose. She’ll do well enough, if her employers count the spoons regularly.” He tweaked her chin. Just like that. Tweak. “Would you like to be a parlormaid, young woman?”
On the whole, no.
“You have the look of one,” he told her. “I wish you wouldn’t spoil her, Eunice, with your Lalumière and Wollstonecraft and the rest. She won’t understand a tenth of it. It’s not as if she’ll ever engage in rational political discourse. You make them discontented when you teach them to read, and you confuse them.”
So she said, “I can read, actually.”
He pulled his gaze out of her bodice and noticed she had a face. “What?”
“Read, write, add and subtract, and I know all the kings and queens of England, in order.”
“Jess, this is my nephew, Quentin.” Eunice was tart about it. “And this is Jess Whitby. She’ll be staying with us a while. You don’t have to eat that muffin, Sebastian. They’re rocklike today.”
“My years at sea have hardened me to the rigors of home-life. ” The Captain dunked the muffin in his tea to soften it. “Quent, before you say anything else. This is Whitby of Whitby Trading. She’s Josiah Whitby’s daughter.”
“Whitby? That’s ridiculous. How would Whitby’s daughter get here?”
Eunice swept crumbs out of Standish’s German book with her napkin. “She was in an accident at the docks near her father’s warehouse. Bastian, very properly, brought her home to me.”
“What accident? What do you mean, an accident? Sebastian, how did this happen?”
“The port’s a dangerous place.” The Captain was watching her, being thoughtful. Planning, she would have said. “And Whitby should take better care of his offspring.”
“For the next little while, I will take care of her,” Eunice said. “And you, Sebastian, will see to it she has no more jarring encounters on the docks. I am counting on that. Are you eating breakfast, Quent, or must you run?”
“I can’t stay. I’m expected at the Board. But she shouldn’t . . . It’s not . . .” Quentin started in on a couple more sentences before he finally settled on, “You weren’t wrong, Bastian. I’m sure you did the best you could, under the circumstances, but this isn’t one of the street sweepings Eunice meddles with. We can’t adopt the girl like a stray cat. She has to go home.” He took her arm, emphasizing his point. He had smooth hands, hands like a woman, but he managed to squeeze one of her bruises. “Have you thought how it’s going to look, keeping her in your house? For her? For us?”
The Captain’s eyes flicked across her. “I don’t see a problem.” He was the picture of a man used to clearing problems out of his path.
Quentin thrashed his way through a whole thicket of reasons why Jess Whitby shouldn’t be in this house. Good enough reasons, some of them, but he wouldn’t have persuaded a jellyfish. Easy to see why Quentin Ashton wasn’t a force to be reckoned with at the Board of Trade. “People are going to ask why she’s here.”
“Sebastian hit her with a hackney.” That came from the doorway.
A woman had joined them. She was tall and thin and black-haired, about thirty. “At least, that’s the consensus in the kitchen.” She went to the sideboard and lifted the cover from a plate, letting loose a rich, silver ching. “Ah. Kippers. Much can be forgiven a morning that brings me kippers.”
“I didn’t hit her with a hackney,” the Captain said. “I didn’t hit her with anything.”
“How pleased you must be. I suppose you have some reason for bringing her home with you. Beyond the obvious.” She picked up a silver fork to choose among the kippers. “Not that one monkey more or less makes a difference in this menagerie. Do you know, Quentin, if I were you, I wouldn’t put my hands on Sebastian’s playthings. He doesn’t share.”
“Really, Claudia.” But Quentin stepped away, hasty like.
This was Quentin’s sister, Claudia. The family nose was unfortunate on a woman. In Whitechapel they’d have called her homely. In the West End, she was probably distinguished looking.
Claudia lifted another dish cover. Eggs under that one. “How lively my morning has been. There’s general agreement belowstairs that she cast herself beneath Sebastian’s chariot wheels. The question is whether she took her clothes off before or afterwards. Much heated discussion in the kitchen. There are bets.”
“And that is quite enough of that,” Eunice said. “Jess, this is my niece, Claudia Ashton. She will eventually remember she was raised a gentlewoman.”
“An impoverished gentlewoman, than which there is no more futile creature on earth. Did you throw yourself in front of my cousin’s coach? How intrepid and original of you.” Claudia’s attention was all on the eggs, musing. “So few of our guests arrive at the door in their rosy and unadorned pink skin. I’m sure there’s a story behind so very much impropriety.”
Half of London saw me carried in here last night. “You could ask the Captain.”
“Discreet and silent as the grave, Cousin Sebastian. We’ll get no interesting tales from him. What they’re wondering in the kitchen is whether he compromised your somewhat problematic virtue. No bets, because impossible to determine. Am I the only one eating this morning?”
Quentin said loudly, “She’s Josiah Whitby’s daughter.”
“And Josiah Whitby is . . . ? Ahhh.” Claudia turned and gave her an open appraisal, head to foot. “The merchant. I met him at a party once. A vulgar little tub of a man in the most amazing waistcoat. Your father?”
Everyone seemed to notice Papa’s waistcoats. “That’s him.”
“Quite indecently rich, they said.” Claudia sat down, perfectly straight, and her back never touched the chair. “And yet Sebastian brought you home, naked in his greatcoat. What an adventurous life merchants lead. I am perfectly willing to be shocked, I suppose.”
“It is fortunate my presence makes Jess’s visit impeccably respectable.” Eunice fille
d another cup and offered it across the table to Claudia. “The less said about everyone’s state of dress, the better. More tea, Jess?”
She looked in her cup. “No. I’m fine.” She was bobbing like a cork in all these undercurrents. Her head ached, of course, but she couldn’t have dealt with Claudia if she’d been chipper as a robin.
“You appear distressed. How wise of you.” Claudia used tiny silver tongs to pick up a lump of sugar. “You’ve made a mistake, putting yourself in Sebastian’s hands. He’s an ambitious man. Aren’t you, Bastian?”
“No. But I’m a busy one. Excuse us, Claudia. Eunice. Quentin.” The Captain stood up. Something glinted in his eyes and disappeared, fast as a fish in a wave. “Jess, you’ve finished here.” He tucked under her elbow and lifted her out of the chair like she was made of feathers.
Claudia said, “I was just beginning to enjoy myself.”
“Don’t. Eunice, I’m putting her to bed before she faints in the teacups.” He pushed her ahead of him, toward the door.
Eight
HE DRAGGED HER INTO THE GRAND FRONT HALL. The laborers had taken their wood crates away and left the place empty as a platter. Sun lit up the big swag of crystal chandelier above and the silver candlesticks sitting on a side table and the cypress-wood backs of the chairs. Everything rich and fine. She was alone with Sebastian Kennett.
She searched his face for warmth or humor . . . anything to show this was the same man she’d met last night. Not a sign. Just that cold, assessing stare. It was like Captain Sebastian had moved out and left a stranger inside his skin.
She remembered the feel of him. The palms of her hands had learned ten thousand secrets about his bone and muscle last night. She didn’t want to know those things. She didn’t want to know him at all.
He escorted her, firm like, to the curve under the staircase. Not a soul in sight. It was a wonderment how they didn’t have any servants milling about this place. He pressed her to the wall, where the scrolls and flowers and leaves worked in the plaster got acquainted with her back. Lumpy and full of points, that fancy plasterwork.
He said, “You were waiting for me on Katherine Lane.”
Pitney warned her to keep away from the Lane. Doyle—canny, wise old Doyle—told her not to play games with Sebastian Kennett. Didn’t do her any good asking for advice if she wasn’t going to listen to it, did it?
She had lots of reasons for wishing her head didn’t ache. “The Lane’s free to anyone.”
“Anyone who doesn’t mind getting attacked and hit on the head. You didn’t plan on that when you were out in Katherine Lane, sticking to me like a mustard plaster.”
“Not in the slightest particular. You ever notice how life just sneaks up on you? I remember once . . . I was in Cairo, just minding my own business, and—”
“I wish to hell you were back in Cairo right now. I want you out of here.”
Well, he would, wouldn’t he, if he was Cinq? Cinq would have all kinds of secrets and skullduggery piled up in the corners of his house. “I’d figured that out, being a woman of great natural sensitivity. I was about to embark upon a humorous anecdote pointing up the general uncertainty of life and how we—”
“Stow it, Miss Whitby.” Of everyone with the Ashton family nose, the Captain wore it best. Getting glared at over that nose . . . oh, that was a proper spine-chiller, that was. If she’d been one of his sailors, she’d have set about scrubbing the decks, double quick. “The hell of it is, I can’t send you home. Whoever’s supposed to be taking care of you, isn’t. But you can’t stay here.”
She could, though.
What were the odds he kept private papers in some strongbox within a hundred feet of where she was standing? Had to be letters, maybe a journal. Could be all kinds of incriminating paper lying about. Something in this house would tell her whether he was innocent or guilty. Kennett wasn’t going to have enough secrets to upholster a thimble when she got done with him.
Five feet away to the left, on one of the decorative little tables, was a big leather dispatch case, bulging like a pregnant lady. That was Quentin’s probably, and he left it out where anyone could get to it. If the Captain was Cinq, he probably strolled through Quentin’s papers with great regularity. A man as careless as Quentin was just an incitement to treason.
The bits and points of the plasterwork she was leaning on didn’t get any more comfortable. “I’d like to stay. And your aunt invited me. I like your aunt, by the way.”
“Everyone likes my aunt. I don’t let people take advantage of Eunice.”
“I won’t—”
“You already have. I don’t know what lies you’ve told her, but you stop that now. No. Don’t try to deny it.” He bracketed her shoulders, one side and the other, with huge, iron-hard fists, perfectly immobile. Probably he intended to make her nervous. It worked moderately well. “There is one reason, one only, that you aren’t out the door this minute. It’s not safe for you out there. A friend of mine has a country house in Hampstead. I’ll send you there.”
Him, making plans for her. “I stayed in the country, once. You would not believe how dangerous it is. Pigs and horses and these huge black crow birds they let go flying loose everywhere. Birds the size of chickens. And cows. I got stepped on by a cow once and it didn’t half smart. I’ll stick in London, thank you.”
She had to admit it was satisfying, prodding him this way and watching him glower. Petty of her.
“You’ll do what I tell you,” he said.
I don’t think so. “Does your aunt know you buy girls up on Katherine Lane?”
Not a damn change in his eyes. Not a blink. A deep file, Kennett.
“You overpay for it, too.” She saw a tiny twitch to his mouth. Her point. “Maybe I’ll just toddle back into the breakfast room and enlighten her. Then you can tell her what we got up to in your bunk last night. I can’t be informative myself, because I lost track about ten minutes after you slipped me that drug.”
“Damn it. I did not—”
“You can tell me what happened. We’ll all be—”
“I carried you home and dropped you in bed. And put some clothes on you. That,” he bit the words into chewable fragments, “is what I do to women with head injuries. Molesting them is low on my list of amusements. I have a number of bad habits, Miss Whitby, but raping unconscious women isn’t one of them.”
“Your aunt’ll be glad to hear that. Sighs of relief from every quarter. Shall we go back in there and talk about it?” It was dangerous sport, blackmailing the Captain.
His hold got heavy and hard on her shoulders. Heavy as lead. “What did you try to put into my pocket last night?”
Every word of that was English, but strung together, they didn’t mean anything. And she was so tired. Tired and dizzy and a little sick. Into his pocket? Maybe it was some interesting part of last night that she’d forgotten. “I like riddles, generally. But not today. Try another game.”
“Let’s try the truth.” He gave her a shake, as punctuation. “Your father gave you something to slip in my pocket. What was it? A letter? A document? Do I have to go back and pull it out of the mud?”
Pull what out of the mud? What letter? She had to close her eyes to take the words apart and think about them. Into his pocket.
He thought Papa had sent her tippy-toeing up Katherine Lane to stuff incriminating evidence into his smallclothes. He thought they’d send some innocent to choke his life out on the gallows to save her father. Oh, but that was plausible and logical and cold.
That’s the way Cinq thinks. “You would not believe how much I’d like to send you out searching the muck. I’m going to rise above it, though. There aren’t any papers in the mud. None anywhere.”
“Your father doesn’t give a damn if he puts you in danger. He sent you after me, knowing . . .” His hold tightened up. “Now what’s the matter?”
His dark, predatory face leaned close above her, all sharp angles and blunt planes. What black, black eyes he ha
d. Night eyes, with a fire burning in them. They pulled like a whirl-pool of dark water. It’d be almost a relief to let go and just fall in.
He muttered, “Why am I even talking to you? You’re swaying on your feet, you’re too bloody sick to stand up, and you’re not going to tell me the truth anyway.” In a swift coil of motion, he reached down and slipped her feet out from under her and grabbed her up in his arms. “Let’s get you to bed.” He started up the stairs, his boots thumping on the marble, tough and angry.
It was like being lifted up by an ocean wave, like there was no end to the power he had. She gripped a handful of his sleeve. “You can put me down. Right here will do fine.”
“You want to crawl your own way back to bed?” They were at the top of the stairs, fast as talking about it. He strode down the long second-floor hall, past bedroom doors and those Persian miniatures and something new—a procession of little brown pots marching in a line against the wall. “Next time, I’ll let you try. That’ll be amusing. When you collapse, I’ll step over you.”
Then it was up the back stairs, and he wasn’t even breathing hard. The last flight to the attic had a narrow turn in the middle. He went through sideways. Didn’t even pause. That was the good balance he’d learned at sea, climbing the rigging. He kicked the door to her bedroom open. It slammed back to the plaster. Made a hell of a clatter.
Then he laid her on the counterpane so careful she could have been made of glass. Complicated as hell, the Captain.
She sat up fast, jerking the bedclothes loose. After a minute, the room didn’t spin anymore, and he was standing over her, waiting. It was one of those moments with a lot of possibilities for what came next.
Hard to say what Kennett would do if he was Cinq. Strangle her maybe. Or he might strangle her even if he wasn’t Cinq, just from sheer irritation. A woman with a modicum of common sense would get up and run for the door.
“Look at me.” He gave one tap to her chin, almost perfunctory. “That’s right. Now, hear me well, Miss Whitby. What you’re planning to do in this house isn’t going to work. You can hide a mountain of evidence in the corners, and nobody will believe it. Scheme you ever so wisely, charm you ever so well, you’ll fail.”
My Lord and Spymaster sl-2 Page 8
