How would she get back to the house if she had to walk alone?
She realized she’d been standing stock-still at the entrance, and that the lady proprietor had called a cheerful greeting.
Louisa made herself respond pleasantly, calmly. In her ordinary life, she might spend an hour in such a place, poring over ribbons and trimmings and bolts of fabric.
She had little patience for her mother’s extravagant frivolity, but back in a time when they’d been obliged to make over gowns and hats instead of buying new ones, it had become a point of honor to strive for fashionable elegance despite their pinched purses.
She possessed a talent for it, she discovered, or perhaps it had been sheer bloody-mindedness that had produced such inspiring results. She had not wanted to look like the charity case she was. And though connoisseurs of the London ton would have easily descried the chasm between her wardrobe and the latest mode, in her and Millicent’s very small sphere during those lean years, people had always complimented them on their style.
And why did her mind run after such inanities when she needed to plan and think?
She fingered a length of scarlet ribbon. Her native caution told her to end this charade, immediately. She had no real hope of finding the paper in question. She ought to report what she knew to Faulkner and leave, whatever he might protest to the contrary. In fact, the safest course might be to hire a post chaise from the inn and not even return to the house.
But . . .
The bell clanged and Louisa’s head jerked up. Lord, she was jumping at shadows! It was only a plump matron with her daughter. But when the pair moved away from the door, Louisa saw him. Faulkner. Standing across the street.
The panic she’d suffered gave way to utter relief. She had to suppress the urge to burst from the shop and call out to him.
She forced herself to be circumspect. She asked to see several bolts of cloth and rubbed them between her fingers, eventually settling on two different types of heavy serge and a frivolous length of ribbon. When her package was safely stowed in her basket, it occurred to her she’d no idea what she’d purchased.
When she emerged from the haberdasher, Faulkner had vanished.
She nearly cried out, the disappointment was so acute.
But of course. She and Faulkner needed to avoid having anyone see them meet. Otherwise, why go through all that rigmarole with the ribbons and the dead drop?
Louisa made her way along the street by degrees, pausing now and then to stare in shop windows while her brain worked furiously. Where might Faulkner think it safe to approach her? Harriet had told her she must always assume she was watched. If a man followed her now, she would need to shake him off before Faulkner would make contact with her.
She completed the length of the street, arriving at last at the green, where it looked as if the villagers were planning to host some sort of festivity, perhaps in honor of the hunting season?
She didn’t know, but she sent thanks to heaven, for the crowd assembled there would make it easier for her to accomplish her plan.
Louisa looked for a place to conceal herself. Finally, she found it. An enormous, hollow oak tree with enough space inside to hold a bench, perfect for lovers’ trysts.
She drew out the two lengths of fabric she’d bought at the haberdashers and folded both into rough triangles, tying the smaller one over her head like a kerchief. Hopefully, that would hide her distinctive pale hair.
The second, she wrapped around her shoulders like a shawl.
She waited in that hollow for what seemed like hours, until a distraction came. One of the massive beer barrels two burly men had been rolling along the green must have hit something—a stump, perhaps. It bounced and sailed through the air. Somehow, during the commotion, the tap on the barrel broke off and dark, yeasty ale burst forth.
The villagers were delighted and ran to collect what they might of the spillage.
Louisa joined the throng that surged toward the spewing barrel, walking with a stoop and a slight hobble to add to her disguise. She edged through the crowd, eventually skirting it until she might slip away. While all eyes watched the beer catastrophe, Louisa, transformed into a middle-aged woman, entered St. David’s Anglican church and settled in a back pew. She could only hope that Faulkner, and no one else, would penetrate her disguise.
She was shaking.
In the still, cool quiet of the cavernous church, she made her mind slow, forced her hands to still.
She thought of what she knew and what she might infer from those bare facts. Who could she trust? The sad reality was that she had no logical reason to trust Faulkner. The head of the secret service would have no qualms about sacrificing her to his cause if it became necessary.
Would he come? Had Faulkner followed her, as she’d hoped?
She bent her head, as if in prayer.
If Faulkner was as wily as he was reputed to be, he’d be here any minute.
“I told you not to contact me.” The gravelly voice sounded to her left, breaking the contemplative quiet.
She kept her head bowed. “Things have changed,” she whispered, as if in prayer. “Mrs. Burton disappeared the night before we arrived. I’ve not heard from her since. She left me a message.”
A faint hush as a prayer book slid toward her. Louisa slipped the short note into the prayer book, then laid it between them on the seat.
Silence.
“What should I do?” She paused, her heart drumming in her throat. “Can I do anything to get that list back? I searched Radleigh’s desk but came up with nothing.”
A faint snort told her what he thought of that ruse.
Should she mention that Jardine was there? But she wasn’t supposed to know about Jardine’s work for the service, was she?
Faulkner took his time answering. “There might be a safe. Try to find out if Radleigh has one in his private apartments. Report back on Thursday morning here, at midday. By then I might have more information for you.”
She hesitated, then gave a quick nod. “And what if I’m caught?”
Her only answer was the click of his footsteps as he walked away.
Fifteen
LOUISA left the church. Instead of retracing her steps to the high street, she skirted the Gothic edifice and wandered through the adjacent graveyard, hoping to find another way out.
A high stone wall enclosed the graveyard. Clutching her headscarf beneath her chin, she forced herself to dodder like an old woman along the path that cut through the higgledy-piggledy sea of headstones. Resisting the urge to look over her shoulder, she let herself out the lych-gate into a narrow lane.
Ah, just as she’d hoped, this lane ran along the back of the shops she’d passed on her way to the church. She’d follow this less-frequented path, slip along the length of the high street unseen.
Louisa fished out her hat from her basket, then took off her kerchief and shawl and stuffed the material back in. The hat was a little the worse for her harsh treatment, but with a few judicious tweaks, the straw resumed its former shape.
She looked up from her task, directly into a male chest. She gasped and fell back a step.
“Don’t creep up on me like that,” she snapped, jamming the hat on her head and making to push past him.
But Jardine was having none of that. He gripped her arm and bent so that their faces were bare inches apart. “So this is what you’ve been up to.”
She didn’t quite know how to answer that. She assumed he knew everything, for he was tiresomely perceptive, but she couldn’t work out how. Unless . . .
Had he seen her with Faulkner? But she’d been so careful!
The heat from his body, his breath, his closeness made her senses swim. She was tired and afraid, and she wanted to sink into him, beg him to hold her, but what a craven, humiliating act that would be.
“You are leaving. Now.” He shifted his grip to her elbow and hustled her along with him.
She stumbled, but his hand held her up. “I
shall do nothing of the kind!”
“I’ve hired you a post chaise and you’ll go straight back to town.” He halted them both. “What were you thinking, you little idiot! Prowling around in the middle of the night. Leaving clandestine messages for Faulkner. My God, you could have been killed.”
Coolly, she said, “Don’t be dense, Jardine. Why would Radleigh kill me when he could have me to wife?”
The way his nostrils flared and his lips tightened when she said the word wife made her recoil.
But it gave her hope, too. A hard kernel of it lodged in her breast, threatened to flourish and grow.
The menace in Jardine’s voice was unmistakable. “He will never have you, do you hear me?”
She stared up at him. What was going through his mind? Was it pure, sexual possessiveness that motivated this fury, or something more?
He was breathing hard. They both were.
And suddenly, she was in his arms, held fast, and he was kissing her closed eyelids, her temple, her cheek, her lips. The contrast between the lung-crushing tightness with which he held her and the gentleness of his kisses nearly undid her.
With a dull kind of ache, she felt her heart uncurling itself, like the fingers of a long-clenched fist, opening, reaching out to him.
She needed him. He needed her. She would not let him push her away again.
“We ought not to be seen together,” she said breathlessly, as he nuzzled her neck. “It is dangerous for us both.”
He lifted his head, his eyes dark and glazed. Suddenly, those eyes seemed to snap into focus, as if he’d only just registered what she’d said. “Yes, you must go. I’ve hired a carriage under the name Mrs. Foster at the inn.”
He slid his hands down her arms and took her hands. Placed a soft kiss on her brow.
“Go now, and Godspeed.”
Eyes downcast, she nodded, and moved past him, toward the Bird in Hand. She did not turn to look at him, not once, but she felt his burning gaze following her.
As she turned the corner, she glimpsed him still standing where she’d left him, a tall, solitary figure. He had always stood alone. She must remember that.
Louisa slipped up a side lane between shops and walked out onto the high street. She entered the bustling inn yard and looked about her for an ostler.
She had never been so afraid.
JARDINE watched her go with a heady surge of relief. That had been surprisingly easy. He’d rather expected Louisa to put up more of a fight when he’d told her to go.
She’d never been a foolish woman, though, and she knew that she was in over her head on this occasion. She was intelligent enough to take him at his word that the situation was dangerous.
Perversely, he would miss her. He could admit it to himself, now she was gone.
Ives materialized at his elbow, shaking his greasy head. “Kissin’ and nuzzlin’ in a public place,” he muttered.
“ ’T ain’t right.”
It had felt perfect.
He sneered down at Ives from his superior height. “When I want your opinion on my conduct, I’ll ask for it. And then I’ll get my head examined. Go and see to the horses. I’ll meet you at the crossroads in half an hour.”
“YOU lying, unscrupulous bastard.” Only the recollection that Faulkner must have about fifty years in his dish stopped Jardine from bunching his hands in the man’s shirt and slamming him against the wall. “You knew I was after that list. You knew I’d get it, too. Why send Louisa Brooke to do your dirty work?”
Faulkner said, “I don’t see what concern it is of yours if I send Lady Louisa Brooke or the Queen of Sheba. You don’t work for me, as you’ve stressed repeatedly.”
There was a smug light in those hard gray eyes. Why wasn’t Faulkner scared? He ought to be. But that bulldog tenacity shouldn’t be underestimated. Faulkner was an old hand at this game.
“I would have delivered the list to you, nevertheless,” Jardine answered. “And you know it, so why this charade?”
Faulkner grunted. “All Lady Louisa was supposed to do was get another operative of mine an invitation to this party. She did, and they were to travel together to Radleigh’s house.” He paused. “My agent did not arrive.”
There was no emotion in his voice as he said it, but Jardine knew he must fear the worst.
Faulkner shrugged. “Perhaps you and Lady Louisa can work together. You are acquainted, I presume?”
Jardine set his teeth. “She’s Lyle’s sister. I am, perforce, acquainted with her.” Thank God she was already on her way back to London. “She is a gently bred lady. You had no right embroiling her in this.”
“No right?” Faulkner raised his shaggy brows, his eyes widened a little. “We do what is necessary, Jardine. You know that. I saw the interest flourishing between Radleigh and the lady. I had some previous acquaintance with her and asked her—quite mildly, you understand—for a favor. Her role was insignificant, hardly likely to get her into trouble.”
“You didn’t warn her about the dangers—”
“As a matter of fact, I did. Lady Louisa is a determined young woman. In fact, she wanted more responsibility than I was prepared to bestow.”
Faulkner’s brows knitted slightly. “There is something about her. A core of strength and steadfastness, and a deep, cold rage. She would be a perfect operative, given time and training. But we didn’t have the time, so I sent someone else. Someone who seems to have vanished between here and London.”
“So this betrothal is a sham.” Elation shot through Jardine, a profound satisfaction that he hadn’t been wrong about her motives. A drastic step to take. What a nerve the woman had!
“As to that, I could not say.” Faulkner spread his hands. “I certainly did not urge such a thing. I told Lady Louisa that Radleigh was dangerous.”
Faulkner fingered his chin. “Sometimes, danger makes a man so much more attractive to a woman. Don’t you think?”
The words clanged in Jardine’s head as he and Ives rode back to the house. This was no longer a scouting mission. He needed to find Smith and do it now. And the only way to do that would be to draw him out of hiding. Dangle some juicy bait.
He had thought his presence might be enough to draw his old enemy out, but no such luck.
The next step was to get hold of that document, the list of operatives that Smith would kill to have, the one that Radleigh was offering up for sale.
Jardine smiled grimly. There was no need for thievery or subterfuge, after all. He’d simply buy the list himself.
LOUISA drove back to Radleigh’s house at a spanking pace, causing the groom standing behind her to give a startled grunt. “Never fear. I shan’t overturn you,” she threw over her shoulder.
They came to a straight stretch of road and she dropped her hands, shooting them forward at an even faster clip. If Jardine overtook her before she arrived at the house, she was sure to be kidnapped and bundled into a coach headed for London.
High-handed, pigheaded man. Had he seriously expected her to meekly do his bidding?
She shook her head, but she smiled, too, because in those kisses, in that embrace, in his concern for her safety, Jardine showed more than arrogance. He showed he still cared.
Why had he sent her away so cruelly on the morning after her birthday? There must have been a reason, one that seemed cogent and compelling to him.
She doubted she would find it so.
The smoldering coal of anger in her heart flared. Why did men always think they knew best? Why must they always try to shoulder everything alone, thrust their women aside when things became difficult?
Her father had been the same. If only he’d shared his problems instead of keeping them locked inside, he might still be alive today.
Radleigh’s fantastical house burst into view, artfully framed by copper beech and cedar and oak. If she could reach the house before Jardine discovered she hadn’t meekly followed orders, she’d make sure he had no other opportunity to eject her from the party with
out creating an undesirable scene.
Exhilaration and fear made a choke of laughter catch in her throat as she pulled into the stable yard. She’d arrived without incident, and with the gruffly expressed admiration of the groom, who took over the ribbons.
She tipped him and alighted with her basket. Grinning a little and swinging the basket to and fro, she turned to leave the stable yard.
“My dear.”
The smile fell from her face. She stopped, feeling as if two fingers pinched the back of her neck.
Somehow, she managed to find her smile and paste it back on. Turning, she said, “Mr. Radleigh. Duncan. How do you do?”
He was an imposing figure in buckskin breeches and a bottle green coat. He carried a crop that he tapped against his boot in a rhythmic way that seemed to string her nerves tighter with every stroke. “You have been to the village this morning?”
“Yes, I always like to take exercise in the morning but I found my basket became heavy with all my purchases and I decided to take a hired conveyance back. It’s a pretty village, is it not?”
She was babbling. She needed to calm herself.
He nodded. “I had it moved there when I landscaped the park so it wouldn’t spoil the view from the house.”
“Oh.” There didn’t seem to be much to say in reply to that. She knew it was done all the time. The practice had always seemed to be a little hard on the villagers, however.
She lifted her brows. “And you, sir. Have you been riding?”
“Just about to. Care to join me?”
She looked down at herself. “I’m so sorry. I’m not dressed for riding. Perhaps tomorrow?”
His hazel eyes glinted. With anger? Frustration? “Yes. Tomorrow, then.”
“I shall look forward to it.” Something about his expression sent chills creeping over her flesh. Every fiber within her seized with the need to get away from him.
“You won’t escape me forever, you know, Lady Louisa,” he said softly, as if reading her thoughts.
Sweetest Little Sin Page 14
