Bridal Favors

by Connie Brockway

  “I know there’s those who find the fog noxious and depressing, but what would London be without one of her famous pea-soupers?” he asked.

  “A good sight drier, I should imagine,” Justin replied.

  The man smiled without turning. “Ah, Justin, ever the maudlin sentimentalist, I see.”

  “Cursed with a soft heart,” Justin agreed.

  “Soft as steel,” the gentleman murmured. He shook his head and turned around. “Your day will come, m’boy. I only hope I live to see it.”

  “Me, too,” Justin answered with a cheeky grin. “Have a seat, Bernard, you’re putting a crick in my neck, forcing me to look up this way.”

  “Only way I will get you to look up to me, I suspect. And thus well worth the trouble,” Bernard replied but nonetheless lowered himself down beside Justin. “Well, Jus, here I am. Now, why did you ask for this meeting?”

  “I’ve a plan that might solve some of the problems you presented regarding that little matter of yours.”

  “Oh?”

  “A simple plan,” Justin leaned sideways and whispered, “but very, very cunning.”

  “Very dramatic.” Bernard applauded with the tips of his fingers. “I know there’s scant hope of your listening to me, but could you kindly refrain from treating our work as if it were some schoolboys’ game?”

  “As you say,” Justin replied, “scant hope. Oh, come, Bernard, don’t look so disapproving. It is a game. And I’m serious enough when the situation warrants—which this most decidedly does not. It’s a simple drop-and-catch on home turf. What could be less perilous?”

  When Bernard only frowned, Justin continued. “The gravest danger anyone faces is exposure. And, by the by, that ‘anyone’ is me. But what of it?”

  “Hm.” Bernard removed his top hat and set it carefully beside him.

  “My sentiments exactly,” Justin responded pleasantly. “I’ve been asking myself why you chose me for this assignment. It’s not exactly what I’ve done in the past. One would think anyone would do. Which makes me rather uncomfortable.”

  Bernard heaved a heartfelt sigh. “My dear boy, you’ve begun to suspect everyone of nefarious purposes. Including your superiors.”

  “Not everyone,” Justin replied.

  “Good,” Bernard said. “As for your question, the reasons we chose you for this job ought to be perfectly clear. First, it is precisely because you don’t do this sort of thing. No one will suspect you. Second, this invention is important. Far too important to entrust to anyone less able than you. You’re the ace up our sleeve, m’boy.”

  Justin’s smile was acrid. “So lovely to be needed.”

  Bernard ignored the sarcasm. “Tell me about this plan of yours.”

  Justin relaxed and crossed an ankle over his knee. “I have been asked—no, that’s not quite correct—I have been coerced into renting out North Cross Abbey for a society wedding.”

  “I take it you are not the lucky groom?”

  “Gads, no,” Justin said. “What woman in her right mind would have me? I have no ostensible career other than flittering about the world drawing pictures of birds and annoying the natives with impertinent questions about local habitat. Since I am constantly pressing my friends abroad for free room and board, the family coffers are viewed with the direst speculation. Added to which, I’m never home.

  “No, I’m not the groom. Never will be. I’m simply the unfortunate owner of the house to which the bride feels she must return triumphant in order to expiate the grim ghosts of her working-class antecedents.”

  “I am sure you are making sense, Justin, but I must beg you to be tolerant of my advanced years,” Bernard said. “What are you talking about?”

  Justin didn’t look in the least penitent. “There is an American widow who has cartloads of money and a grudge against my grandfather. Seems her granny worked for the old bastard and considered him punctilious, condescending, contemptuous, and unfair. Which he was, of course, only the old girl—the granny, that is—took it personally. She raised her granddaughter—our blushing bride—like some Yankee Miss Haversham.”

  Justin shook a finger in the air and intoned, “‘Return, child of my child, return to that cursed house richer, haughtier, and of more consequence than the old crock who paid me wages!’ ”

  “Americans,” Bernard sighed.

  “Indeed.” Justin lowered his hand and tucked it into his waistcoat pocket. “In order to achieve that end, the heiress hired a young woman in whose debt, coincidentally, I am, to secure the rental of North Cross.”

  “Another young woman? What young woman?”

  “Evelyn Cummings Whyte.”

  Bernard ruminated a moment before his face lit with realization. “Good God, Jus, Lally’s granddaughter?”

  Jus slanted Bernard a curious look. “Yes. Do you know her?”

  “Only by reputation. Her grandfather is an acquaintance. He calls his grandaughter Her Preternatural Formidableness. Swears his entire family runs in terror of her.”

  “Terror?” Justin tried out the word. “She’s as big as a minute and looks like a schoolgirl. In fact, I mistook her for one. Now, ‘strange,’ I might concede you, but I must disagree on ‘terrifying.’ ”

  Bernard lifted his hand in a gesture of exasperation. “I’m sure you know best.”

  “Normally I wouldn’t be so presumptuous,” Justin demurred. “But it’s amazing the camaraderie that can develop between housebreaker and house owner.”

  “What in God’s name are you talking about now, Justin? Is this your idea of a joke? Your sense of the absurd has always been your Achilles’ heel. Speak plainly, man. What has a housebreaking to do with the Duke of Lally’s granddaughter and an American widow?”

  “I thought I’d been clear,” Justin said. “Lady Evelyn broke into my house in order to collect on a favor I owed her. She felt it necessary to gain illegal access because legitimate routes had been closed to her by Beverly, who, acting upon my orders in an apparently futile attempt to keep my presence in the city from being known, told her I was not in.”

  “Does it ever worry you that you play the part of an absentminded muttonhead too well?” Bernard asked, winning a brilliant smile from Justin.

  “No, but I thank you for your concern. Again, where was I? Oh, yes. Apparently, her aunt—Lally’s daughter—arranges,” Justin groped for the right term, “matrimonial fracases or fetes or banquets or such.”

  “Ah, yes, I recall,” Bernard mused.

  “Well, the aunt has eloped, leaving Evie—Lady Evelyn—minding the store. Unfortunately, she seems to have been making a hash of it. She is certain this American widow is her last chance to save the family business from disgrace. And, I suspect, herself from humiliation.” His expression grew pensive. “I don’t think the word ‘fail’ is a part of that young woman’s lexicon.”

  Bernard retained his good humor. He’d learned from long past experience not to bother trying to rein in Justin’s conversation. Eventually, Justin would get to the point. But Bernard once more was overtaken by the suspicion that Justin did it on purpose, to distract and trick a fellow into revealing more information than he intended to. “You are getting to your actual plan, are you not?”

  The puzzlement vanished from Justin’s expression. “Everything in its given time,” he said. “The reason all this is material, Bernard, is that in order to transform my dusty inheritance into a suitably impressive stage, fit for the widow’s wedding, my little housebreaker will have to import a great many things. Which means—Bernard, are you attending? Good—which means that the abbey will receive shipment upon shipment, crates upon crates of accoutrements, flowers, food, trimmings, equipage, and various and sundry wedding paraphernalia.”

  “Ah!” Bernard released his breath.

  “‘And thus, the veil lifted from his eyes,’ ” Justin intoned. “That’s right, Bernard, your mysterious foreign agent can ship the even more mysterious ‘diabolical machine’ to the abbey without anyone rem
arking it. What’s one crate amongst dozens? Then, after it arrives, we slip your pet scientist in to do a quick little anatomical survey, so to speak; trash the prototype and back off to Oxford he pops to report in to the rest of the brain bank. It’s perfect.”

  “What if Lady Evelyn opens it?” Bernard asked dubiously. “The hell of the situation is that we don’t know exactly when the bloody thing will arrive. It isn’t as if it’s being shipped legally, you know. It might arrive a few days after it leaves port or a few weeks. I can’t see any woman leaving a crate unopened for a full day, let alone an entire week—regardless of whom it is addressed to.”

  “She won’t open it, Bernard—and here I wish you to pause and appreciate the magic I have worked—because I’ll be there to see that she doesn’t. It’s the one stipulation that I put on renting her the place: I must be allowed to reside there while it’s being readied for the wedding.”

  Bernard stroked the side of his jaw thoughtfully.

  “Look, Bernard, since you gave me this commission, I have been racking my brain trying to figure out some means to get this thing into the country and into your hands without exciting curiosity. My plan meets all the criteria you set forth. The wedding preparations serve as perfect camouflage. Once the shipment arrives, I’ll send word and we’ll be able to slip your scientist in as a tradesman or repairman, to have his peek at the device without rousing suspicion. Added to which, I can control the environment there in a way I never could in London. North Cross Abbey is thirty-five miles outside London, which means the crate can be shipped with a great deal less possibility of something unfortunate happening to it than there would be amidst London’s myriad byways. In the country, everyone knows everyone else and the roads are few and easily watched. Should unfriendly forces get wind of where you’ve had it sent and a stranger shows up, I will hear of it at once. With Beverly watching the goings-on at the abbey and me keeping an eye on the locals, we’ll have the situation pretty well attended. In London, the Kaiser could move in next door and I might not know of it until next year.”

  “It sounds good,” Bernard allowed. “It might do.”

  “It’s a godsend and you know it, particularly as we don’t know precisely when your man on the continent will be able to send it across the Channel. This way we will have as much control as can be hoped.”

  “But what about this young woman, Jus?” Bernard fretted. “Won’t she get suspicious?”

  Justin relaxed again. “She is single-minded in making sure this wedding comes off. Besides, any contact between us is likely to be limited to her attempts to keep me away from the female wedding guests.”

  Bernard blinked, surprised. “Why is that?”

  Justin’s eyes danced with delighted memory, but his tone was quite bland. “Lady Evelyn is convinced I am the last word in womanizers.”

  Bernard stared, trying to gauge whether Justin was joking or not. When it became apparent he wasn’t, he burst into such spirited laughter that Justin had to thump him on the back.

  “Oh, dear,” Bernard said, wiping his eyes and sniffing. “Forgive me, Jus. It’s just that—you, of all people, a womanizer.”

  “My sentiments exactly,” Justin replied pleasantly.

  “However did she get such a notion?”

  “Oh, she has reasons. Based on erroneous assumptions, but reasons, nonetheless.”

  Bernard was still dabbing at his eyes. “Is she addled? Her father is rumored to be rather eccentric.”

  Justin pulled a wounded expression. “My dear Bernard, surely a woman doesn’t have to be addled to consider me a—what did she call it?—a wolf.”

  “God, she is addled. What’s she like?” Bernard asked, curious in spite of himself.

  Justin shrugged. “Says the damnedest things. Whatever pops into her head, in very nice accents, of course, without appearing to have the least idea how they might sound. Nor does she have any idea of what she looks like, I should imagine. Very cavalier about her appearance. She’d dressed in boy’s clothes for our interview.”

  “Gads. What does she look like? Her mother was Francesca Cummings, you know. Stunning beauty. And the oldest daughter is Verity Hodges.” Bernard nodded as though picturing her in his mind. “Heard the younger one was as different as night to day.”

  “Night?” Justin tested the word. “Yes, maybe. A rollicking, moonlit, wind-scoured summer night.”

  “You’re growing poetical in your old age, Jus,” Bernard said in interested tones.

  “Am I? How tiresome. A momentary aberration,” Justin apologized and then, “What does she look like? Small, dark. Hiding behind a hideous pair of spectacles. Masses of black hair.”

  “Obviously, she is not very perceptive if she thinks you’re a libertine,” Bernard said. “But that can only be a plus for our purposes, eh?”

  “I wouldn’t dismiss Lady Evelyn.”

  “No. Just hope she keeps busy with her end of the show as you attend to yours.” He paused and chewed on his lip, his face slowly screwing up with worry.

  Justin nodded readily enough, which did nothing to reassure Bernard. Justin Powell was inevitably agreeable, until the moment when he decided not to agree, and then . . . But he was here to persuade Justin to take this mission, not to worry about how he’d react if things went awry.

  He liked Justin. He knew how much the young man had sacrificed to work for them. In order to join Bernard’s clandestine company, Justin had ostensibly left the military because “the company was boring, the food atrocious, and the enemy simply too well trained.”

  His grandfather, General Harden, had thereafter been tireless in his criticism of his only grandson and, while Justin had maintained a sweet disregard, Bernard was certain the continued slights and sneers of Harden and his myriad John Bull pals must have caused Justin some pain.

  The notion that he was using a man who had given up so much for his country pricked at Bernard’s long-dormant conscience, and he waved his hand irritably, as if to rid himself of the pest. “It’s a workable plan,” he allowed.

  “Yes,” Justin said slowly, his light gaze touching and holding Bernard’s. “I can’t think of another. I just don’t want Lady Evelyn penalized by involvement with me.”

  “Neither do I! Gads, Lally belongs to my club,” Bernard declared. “If you’re worried she’ll be tainted by simple proximity to you, stay away from her!”

  The lopsided smile, so charming and rueful, appeared once more on Justin’s lean, clever face. He rose with the loose-jointed grace of the natural athlete and picked up his hat.

  “Well, that shouldn’t be too hard,” he said, putting it atop his head. “She’s probably out buying bolts and locks for all the chamber doors this very minute.”

  An hour had passed since Justin’s departure and still Bernard sat, his hands folded across the top of his silver-knobbed cane. Near twilight, a nondescript man in worn Ulster, his cloth cap pulled low over blunt features, limped up the promenade. Beside him a little terrier danced on the end of his lead. When he drew close to Bernard, the man unclipped the leash and the terrier bounded off into the mist.

  “Aren’t you afraid he’ll go missing?” Bernard asked.

  “Not Captain,” the man replied. His voice belied his common appearance, having perfect public school accents. “He’ll set a perimeter and let us know if anyone approaches.”

  Bernard nodded. “Even your pets have duties.”

  “We all play many roles, Bernard,” the man replied. He remained standing, his hands clasped lightly behind his back, rocking gently back and forth on the balls of his feet. “You handled Justin?”

  “Yes.” Quickly, Bernard told the man about his conversation with Justin.

  “And he suspects nothing?”

  Bernard gave a short snort. “I wouldn’t go that far. He’s asking questions. He wondered why we chose him for a simple courier job.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I told him this invention could change the way wars are f
ought. That we couldn’t use any regular routes. That we weren’t even sure when the thing could be got across the Channel. That though we expected nothing untoward, under the slim chance that something does go wrong, we need someone with his experience and expertise at hand when we import our scientist for a quick study of the device before destroying it,” Bernard said grimly, looking down at the toes of his boots. He looked up and caught his superior’s eye with a flat look of frustration. “I certainly didn’t tell him the truth, if that’s what you fear.”

  “And what is the truth?” the blunt-featured fellow asked quietly.

  “That we need him because in order to catch a big shark you have to use big bait. What bigger bait than one of our best agents? Damn it all!” Bernard pummeled his fist into his open palm in uncharacteristic ire. “I don’t like having leaked a rumor about Powell’s identity without giving him any warning. He’s too good a man to throw to the wolves this way.”

  “You’ve done what you had to do,” the blunt-featured man answered. “If you’d warned Powell that we were setting a trap at the abbey, he wouldn’t have agreed to the plan. He would never place innocent people at such risk. This girl, Lady Evelyn, the wedding guests . . . he would think there too much potential danger to innocent bystanders. It’s why we’ve never made as good a use of him as we might have; he lives by his own code, not ours.”

  He was right. Powell was notorious for making his own rules, and there was no room for improvisation in this game.

  It had taken months to set up this house of cards, months to plot a way to lure the secret agent into revealing himself before he could identify the Agency’s own master spy, a spy who, according to all their information, this enemy spy was in close association with, even if he had yet to realize it.