by Eva Devon
“Thank you, my lord,” the guard said.
Andrew nodded and pushed through the door, anxious to be inside.
While he and Claire had a plausible theory for what may have gotten Clarence and Marston killed, they had no clues yet as to who had done it. The culprit might very well be within Abchurch itself. Every time he had to leave Claire here without him set his nerves on a knife’s edge, even with the additional security measures. He wouldn’t be able to breathe fully until he saw for himself that she was safe and sound.
He scanned the room…
…and there she was, hunched over her table in the back, her eyes squinted as she analyzed the missive before her. She was one of only a couple of “men” still in the Black Chamber this late in the evening.
Andrew’s chest lightened at the sight of her, and he took a deep breath, bringing his chilled hands to his mouth and blowing out his relief to warm them. Then, he quickly looked away from her.
They’d been very careful that “Clarence” got no undue notice from Andrew. Not only could it be disastrous for the killer to discover they were working together, but Andrew also doubted he could hide his feelings for Claire if he watched her overlong.
And that could get awkward.
He went about his routine of checking in with the other remaining code breakers in turn, leaving Claire for last.
“Did you learn anything new today?” she whispered when he reached her.
“Perhaps,” Andrew murmured beneath his breath. He’d been out in the frigid cold most of the day and into the evening, hunting down a rumor that San Carlos might have crossed into England last week. He relayed that to Claire.
She glanced up at him. “So he’s here, then?”
“Quite possibly,” Andrew said. A shiver caught him by surprise. Even in the unnatural warmth of Abchurch, he’d yet to recover from the bone-cold of his hours in the out of doors. He spied “Clarence’s” customary cup of tea, untouched on the table beside her. Perhaps a hot cuppa was in order. He nodded to it. “May I?”
Her eyes flicked to the tea. “I wouldn’t,” she said. “It’s been sitting there for hours. I imagine it’s cold as ice by now.”
Andrew pressed his lips together and picked it up, walked over to the tea tray and deposited it with the other used china, and got himself a fresh hot cup of tea. What he wouldn’t give for a warming shot of brandy right now—not here, but in the library of Claire’s townhouse. Sharing it with her.
It had been their routine the past couple of days. He stayed out tracking leads and setting men to follow key Spanish diplomats and influential French nationals known to the War Department, while Claire remained here looking for anything that had been missed.
Then they’d return home together each night and debrief over brandy.
And yet…since the night following their visit to the Devil’s Den, their conversation rarely veered into the personal. Oh, their relationship did. Quite personal. But while Claire seemed to revel in being in his arms, she dismissed his every attempt to bring up their future.
He knew what he feared. Chances were he was still destined to end up a bloody spot on a battlefield. With her brother gone, he’d be leaving her with no protection other than that of his name if he died. And even if he survived, he’d take up no telling how many more years of her life as she waited for him to return from this seemingly unending war. Was that fair to ask of her?
As he crossed back with his tea, he wondered if she felt as conflicted as he. Was that why she distracted him with kisses whenever he so much as mentioned tomorrow?
What was Claire afraid of?
“I may have found something,” she said when he reached her table again. She held out a scrap of vellum that was covered in coded scrawl. He could make neither heads nor tails of it.
“A little over six weeks ago, there’s a brief mention of a secret meeting being held in Paris between a ‘Ducos et Dubois’.” She pointed to a bit of translation. “I asked Finchy what he knew about it, as he’s the one who handles most of the preliminary French correspondence. I usually only see the very difficult.”
Yes. Andrew had learned from Greeves that Claire’s expertise was often a point of contention for Finch, who resented the idea that he ever needed help. “And?”
“He told me to leave it, that it was nothing of importance. I pressed him for more, asking whether he’d written a report on the matter.” She winced. “I fear he thought I was second-guessing him…which I suppose I was. He got quite surly with me.”
A surge of anger warmed Andrew better than any cup of tea ever could at the idea of Finch being rude to Claire. He glared over at the man, but Finch wasn’t at his table. A quick glance around the room didn’t locate him either. He must have gone home for the night already.
“But,” Claire went on, drawing his attention back to her, “he finally admitted that he hadn’t written a report because the meeting was only mentioned once, and to his knowledge, there are no known players named Ducos or Dubois. Since those names never came up again, he dismissed it.”
“Hmm,” Andrew said, setting his cup on the table and putting Finch out of his mind for the moment—though he’d certainly have a word or two with the man when he next saw him. “Why do you think it’s important?”
Claire’s eyes lit and he could almost imagine her rubbing her hands together in anticipation of unleashing her brilliance.
“Two reasons. First, I saw the name Ducos just recently. Not in any coded correspondence…” She shifted through a stack of notes on her table, plucking one from the pile. “Here. It’s an invitation list to the Viscountess Balfour’s annual masquerade, which is being held tomorrow night. The War Department is furnished with a list every year, as the Balfour ball is regularly attended not just by members of society, but by diplomats and expatriates from around the world,” she continued. “Much political maneuvering is done there, I understand, particularly during times of war when official diplomats have been expelled from the country.”
She smoothed the vellum out onto the tabletop and ran her finger down until, near the end of the list, it landed on Miguel Ducos.
“All right,” he said, “but I’m not seeing how that leads us to San Carlos.”
“It doesn’t. Not by itself. But consider this,” she said, going back to the original coded message that mentioned the meeting between Ducos and Dubois. “This is supposed to have happened only days after Rosalie’s informant mentioned San Carlos being seen in Paris.”
“Right.”
“Oftentimes, messages are not the only things in code,” she whispered. “Names are often disguised as well. It was only as I mulled the name aloud that something caught my attention. Duke de San Carlos.” She emphasized the first and last syllables. “If you take into account the Spanish spelling of the title—”
Having learned Spanish at school, he knew duke was spelled duc, and thus Duc de San Carlos became…
“Ducos,” he said.
Claire bobbed her head. “It very well could be. I did some digging, and discovered that San Carlos’s full name is José Miguel de Carvajal-Vargas. Miguel Ducos.”
The back of Andrew’s neck tingled, as it did sometimes in battle. It was those times, he’d learned the hard way, that he should follow his gut. Perhaps this time it meant Claire’s gut?
“Still,” he said, “it’s pretty thin.”
Claire huffed a breath. “Let me thicken it up for you then. Let’s say our theory is correct and Napoleon wanted to negotiate a secret treaty with Spain. Who would you think he would trust to represent him?”
Andrew thought for a moment, considering all he knew of the emperor and his tactics. “I would say only Talleyrand, Laforêt, or himself,” he replied.
Claire was nodding, the light of triumph shining in her eyes. “My thoughts exactly. So I gave some thought to those names in relation to Dubois. And guess what I found?”
“I…” Andrew shook his head, coming up with nothing.
“Oh, come on. Guess.”
Damn, she was alluring when she was smug. He cleared his throat, trying to rein in his thoughts before he embarrassed himself over another “man”.
“I’ve no idea.”
Claire sighed. “You’re no fun.”
Andrew just raised a brow.
“All right. Many times, the key to breaking a code is understanding the language and finding patterns within it,” Claire said. “For example, the name Dubois means ‘wood-cutter’.
“And?”
She smiled. “The name Laforêt means ‘keeper of the royal forest’.
“I’ll be damned,” Andrew murmured. Ducos/Duc de San Carlos had held a secret meeting with Dubois/Laforêt… “When did you say the meeting took place?”
Claire looked back through her papers. “It was first mentioned a little over six weeks ago…just before Clarence was killed.” She turned her eyes to him and he thought the blue seemed just a bit duller. “Do you think this is what Clarence and Uncle Jarvis were working on?”
“It could be.” Andrew hated to see her self-satisfied smiles of moments ago give way to sadness. He wished they were somewhere private so he could take her in his arms. “But we’ll have to prove it if we want to know for certain and catch whomever was responsible.”
It seemed a monumental task, but that tingling in his gut told him he and Claire had the right of it.
“I imagine Napoleon would think it paramount to keep something like this absolutely secret until the treaty was signed, sealed, and delivered,” Claire said, a thoughtful tone softening her voice. “I think that’s why we’ve heard little to nothing about it, through your channels or Abchurch’s. They are not going to commit any details to correspondence that could be compromised, not even in code.”
“I agree.”
She picked up the invitation list. “But a masquerade ball filled with diplomats and expatriates from all over the world…”
“…would be the perfect place to finalize details between the two countries and lay the groundwork to getting it ratified,” Andrew finished for her.
“Exactly. You said yourself that your sources put San Carlos entering the country last week. I believe Miguel Ducos and San Carlos are one and the same, and Miguel Ducos is on this list,” she said, tapping it with her finger.
“I’ve got to secure an invitation immediately,” he said, thinking ahead to who he’d—
“We’ve got to, you mean?”
He looked over at Claire, whose lips had turned down into a frown that threatened belligerence.
Oh, no. There was no way in hell he was letting Claire anywhere near that ball, not with a dangerous plot of this magnitude afoot. A hard knot formed in his stomach at what might happen to her if San Carlos even suspected she knew anything that could scuttle the treaty that would secure his freedom and that of his king.
“Claire,” he said, his head shaking his answer automatically.
“Don’t you even think of forbidding me to go,” she uttered, low. “I can see it written all over your face.”
Andrew clenched his teeth. Of course she could. Because she’d be going over his dead body.
“Don’t push me on this, Claire,” he warned. “I’ll have Wallace lock you in your room until the ball is over, I swear to God.”
He wouldn’t, of course, but damn it all! The idea of Claire putting herself at this kind of risk made him crazy.
“You wouldn’t even know to go there yourself if it weren’t for me!”
Andrew dropped his head, and his voice. He took a deep breath. “True. And it was brilliant of you. But you need to let me handle this now. I can’t protect you and hunt for San Carlos at the same time.”
“I don’t need protection. I—”
“Yes, you do,” he hissed. He’d die if something happened to Claire. Couldn’t she understand that? “Even if it’s from yourself.”
Claire gasped. Not loudly, but enough to draw the eye of more than one of the code breakers, who glanced back at them curiously.
“This isn’t the place,” he said beneath his breath.
Her eyes flashed, but she firmed her lips and gave a short nod.
“Gather your things and go,” he murmured. “I’ll be there soon.”
He strolled away, and was immediately caught by Greeves, who wished to discuss something one of their men had found in an Austrian diplomat’s post.
From the corner of his eye, Andrew saw that Claire obeyed, though her movements were stiff and angry. Well, waiting for him in the carriage should give her time to calm down. That had been their custom of late, so they weren’t seen leaving together. A driver would pick Claire up directly at the entrance to the building—so he knew she’d make it safely. Then they’d wait for him around the corner. He’d stay at Abchurch for an appropriate amount of time, and then follow.
As Andrew pushed out into the frigid night a quarter of an hour later and made his way to the next block over, he steeled himself. While he hoped Claire was ready to be reasonable, more than likely she would have worked herself into a dither by now, and he fully expected to be blasted with her arguments as to why he should take her to the ball the moment the carriage door opened.
But as he turned the corner, the ground seemed to fall out from beneath him and fear gripped him by the balls.
The carriage wasn’t there.
And neither was Claire.
Chapter 13
Claire touched her fabric mask, ensuring it was firmly in place as she joined the crowds making their way into the Balfours’ grand mansion on Berkley Square.
“I’ll help you find your sheep, lass,” rumbled a man’s voice in a faux Scots accent.
She turned to a gentleman dressed as a highland laird—though she was pretty certain his plaid wasn’t tied at all correctly—and smiled prettily at him. He, however, smiled directly at her bosom.
Claire tried not to roll her eyes.
The shepherdess costume she’d borrowed from Rosalie had been one of the least risqué the other woman had owned, but it still put rather a lot of Claire on display.
However, it was also the most practical for her needs. First, she had a wooden crook that she could use as a weapon if need be. Second, the large mobcap completely hid her shorn locks. And finally, it allowed for the most useful prop…
She held up the muff that she’d covered last night with white cotton wool and fashioned to look like a little lamb.
“I thank you, good sir,” she said, waggling the tiny sheep, “but as you can see, I haven’t yet lost it.” She gave him a saucy wink and turned away.
As Claire pushed farther into the room, she clutched the little lamb to her, reassured by the weight of her muff pistol within.
Her smile didn’t fade until she was out of the man’s sight. Tonight, she intended to be seen as a frivolous peahen—and not as the kind of woman who might, say, speak several languages and be able to eavesdrop on a private conversation held in any number of them.
The anger that had been simmering since Andrew had forbidden her to attend the ball last night flared back to life. She was their best chance at overhearing proof of the Miguel Ducos/San Carlos plot. How dare he threaten to lock her away, even to protect her from herself?
Blast it all, her entire life had been ruined by a man who took it upon himself to decide her future without so much as consulting her. She’d be damned if she’d let Andrew replace Clarence as her self-appointed keeper.
As she circulated around the ballroom, Claire kept her eyes—but more important, her ears—open for anyone conversing in one of the languages spoken on the Iberian Peninsula.
She also kept a lookout for Andrew. Not that she had any inkling of what costume he might wear. She imagined he also watched for her. He wasn’t a fool. He knew very well she’d be here tonight—the note she’d left him at the townhouse before she’d fled to Rosalie last night implied as much. Her best advantage to evade a scene was that he wouldn’t know if she was here
as Clarence, or as Claire.
A large male hand clasped her upper arm just above her elbow.
“A dance, Miss Peep?” a voice growled in her ear.
Andrew’s voice.
Claire’s stomach both flipped and melted, all at the same time.
“How did you know it was me?” she whispered as she turned to him. She pasted a smile on her face so that she appeared to flirt, if anyone was watching, but inside her heart hammered.
It picked up speed at the sight of him. Lord, he looked beautiful tonight, dressed in stark, close-fitted evening clothes of black.
He also looked furious. Anger simmered in his eyes, not the least bit hidden behind his simple domino.
“I’d recognize that décolletage anywhere,” he said as his eyes dropped to her rather exposed chest.
Claire melted another degree. His voice had dipped low, and while he still sounded angry, passion colored his words. And for a moment, she was intensely glad she hadn’t balked at wearing Rosalie’s provocative shepherdess costume.
Not that she wasn’t still irritated with him.
Andrew steered her toward the dance floor, where lines were forming. Despite the cold outside, the ballroom’s multiple arched windows were open to combat the heat from the crush, and a gauzy red material—swagged with greenery in a nod to the Christmas season, no doubt—floated in the light breeze. Claire was grateful for the cool air, as she’d warmed significantly now that Andrew was near.
They joined the other dancers, pairing up across from one another, as the strains of violins signaled the beginning of an Allemande. Claire tucked the muff that concealed her pistol into her apron’s pouch for the dance.
“How did you secure an invitation on such short notice?” Andrew murmured as he stepped toward her in the first move of the dance.
Claire met Andrew in the center of the aisle and touched her right hand to his as they bowed to one another. “Rosalie knows many people,” she said archly. “And when I’d explained that I needed to be here to catch whoever had killed Clarence, she was only too happy to help.”
