Bridal Favors

by Connie Brockway

  She nodded, not trusting her voice.

  “That crate,” he jerked his chin toward the wooden box without looking away from her, “I’ve been waiting for that crate.”

  Whatever she’d expected, it hadn’t been this. She twitched sideways, staring at the wooden box behind him in bewilderment. The lid was off and lying tilted against its side. “I don’t understand.”

  “I was meant to take possession of the crate. But you got to it first.”

  “What?”

  “The crate!” he repeated, the fierceness in his tone making her shrink back. He noted it and clenched his teeth.

  “I’m a spy, Evelyn,” he said.

  She froze, stunned.

  “I work for the British government,” he went on tersely. “My assignment was to take possession of a certain item—a certain very important invention—that one of our men had stolen from an unfriendly source and shipped here.”

  “What?”

  He reached out and pulled her up into his arms. “Quiet!”

  His heart thundered in his chest, and she realized that in spite of his cold voice, he was struggling to control powerful emotions.

  “I’d been told that we weren’t the only government interested in the shipment. More, I was informed that the country from which it had been . . . liberated had its own agents scouring the ports, desperate for its retrieval.

  “As a means of keeping it secret and obscuring its location, the men for whom I work asked me to devise a plan. Some way we could get this thing into the country to be inspected by one of our scientists. But it had to be somewhere safe. Somewhere the ‘original owners’ wouldn’t think to look. A place where we could slip this scientist in without raising a brow.”

  “Then?” she prompted.

  “Then, I was to destroy the prototype.”

  She felt a slow trickle of dread course down her spine. Incidents and scenes, snatches of conversation, chance glimpsed expressions that she’d placed no meaning in at the time—all of them now took on a whole new significance. She pulled free of his arms.

  “Beverly’s part of it,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “And,” she looked into his eyes, “I’m part of it, too.”

  He didn’t deny it. He didn’t make any effort to justify it. He’d used her and Mrs. Vandervoort’s wedding to conduct what was in reality nothing but a theft.

  He nodded wearily, as though he’d read her mind. “My superior wanted me to find some way of receiving the crate where it wouldn’t be expected. Then you came along with your wedding plans and renovation schemes, all of them entailing shipment upon shipment of goods.” He met her eye squarely, without apology. “It was too good an opportunity to let pass.”

  “You mean exploit,” she said.

  “Yes,” he answered. “If it makes it any more palatable, you weren’t supposed to know anything about it.”

  “It doesn’t.”

  He almost smiled. His gaze flickered briefly away from her, and a muscle leapt at the corner of his jaw. The implicit pain nearly caused her to reach out. She didn’t. It could be a ploy. Another bit of fakery.

  “Nothing I did was supposed to have interfered with your plans or the wedding. It was supposed to be a simple drop-and-catch.”

  “Drop-and-catch?” she echoed, masking her sense of betrayal behind a cool, disaffected interest.

  “I was supposed to collect the damn thing. No one anticipated that anyone would find it here. At least, that’s what I was told.”

  “But why didn’t the government just have a troop waiting for it on the dock? Why the subterfuge?” She wasn’t even sure why she asked; she could barely stand to look him in the eye. But the inner nattering, the never-satisfied gluttony for knowledge that ruled her life, refused to shut up.

  This time his laugh held a tincture of honest amusement. “Because, dear, honest Evie, it’s supposedly a stolen device. Openly stealing another country’s inventions tends to evolve into sticky political problems. Not only with the country from which we steal, but with our own public. We Brits dearly love to think ourselves above that sort of thing.”

  “Oh. So you were trying to sneak it into the country,” she said flatly.

  “Yes,” he answered. “Only someone leaked information about its arrival.” His expression darkened. Not in rage but in something more considered, more focused.

  “Remember the night you fell asleep in the sitting room and heard me in the library?” he asked. “That was him. The man they set me up for.”

  “What?”

  “Unfortunately, I didn’t catch the blighter,” he said, ignoring her stunned query. “He got away before I got a look at his face.

  “But I did manage to land a blow to his face, and have spent the days since looking for a fellow sporting a bruise. No joy, I’m afraid, and by this time the bruise is likely to have faded.”

  “What did you mean ‘the man they’d set you up for’?” she insisted.

  “Look.” He pointed to the open crate.

  With ill grace, she obeyed and peered in. Inside was another smaller box and in that . . . nothing.

  Chapter 21

  JUSTIN COULD SEE the wheels spinning smoothly behind Evelyn’s puckered brow. Ramifications and implications, she was probably tallying them up faster than he had. She astonished him. Most women he knew would have been raging at him, and rightfully so. From the very beginning he’d used her, coldly and without compunction, and then, when she’d been most vulnerable, he’d taken her virginity. But she was considering his words.

  He felt only disgust for his sudden virtuous recognition of his sins. Why the hell couldn’t he have been so clear-sighted five hours ago? Because five hours ago she’d been in his arms, filling every fiber of his being with pleasure.

  “You’ve been set up.” The chill flatness of her tone abruptly returned him to the present. “By your own superiors.”

  Bright, canny little owlet. “That’s what I think.”

  “But why? Why didn’t they just tell you, warn you so that you could help?”

  His smile was humorless. “You don’t tell the bait it’s bait, darling. It starts to act like bait, and the caliber of man they’re after would sniff that out in no time. Because that’s what this is really all about. That’s the only thing that makes sense. This empty box and I have been used as bait to ferret out an enemy agent. That’s why Bernard didn’t tell me. Added to which,” his smile faded to a cold grimace. “Bernard knew I would never have exposed you to danger of that sort.”

  “What about danger of this sort?” she asked, flushing hotly.

  “There wasn’t supposed to be any danger,” he said grimly, a tic jumping in his cheek. “No one was supposed to give a bloody damn about you. Even if an agent did manage to find out about the shipment and did come looking for it, he would be a thief, not an assassin, and—” He stopped. Closed his eyes. His jaw clenched and he took a deep breath.

  “Don’t you think I know what I’ve done with my little setup? The danger I’ve put you in? Do you think I don’t know how unforgivable that is? I do.”

  She lifted her chin. “I love irony, don’t you? Your superiors used you as you used me. How novel it must be for you to be on the other end of that equation.”

  He no longer felt obligated to maintain dutiful silence. To keep her safe—and he would keep her safe—she would need to know everything. Nothing else mattered now.

  “Believe it or not, Evie, I have always comported myself honorably. At least as honorably as the situation allowed.”

  “I’m sure that is no end of comfort to those you’ve used. I know I feel immeasurably better. Poor Mr. Underhill must be in paroxysms of patriotic joy,” she said in a cold, bright voice, “knowing he was cuckolded by a man who was as honorable as he could be, given the situation.”

  He flushed hotly and, remorse not being an emotion he wore easily, anger flared at her condemnation. Especially since he didn’t have any idea what she was
talking about. “Mr. Who? What the devil is that supposed to mean?”

  Her eyes widened first in disbelief, then flashed with hurt. “Are there so many that you cannot remember the names of the men whose wives you . . .” She couldn’t finish. “Tell me, how does one convince oneself of one’s honor under those circumstances? Do you snap off a smart salute and whisper, ‘For God and country’ before hopping into their beds?”

  She blinked rapidly and dashed the back of her hand against her eyes.

  He stared at her in disbelief. He was a spy, not a rutting debauchee. She should know that, by God!

  “And,” she sniffed loudly, “in case you’re curious, Mr. Underhill is the husband of the lady whose bedroom I caught you sneaking out of ten years ago.”

  He’d had enough. His amusement at her misperception of him as a “wolf” had long since ceased to be humorous.

  “I never touched Mrs. Underhill,” he said. “You’ve built an entire fantasy around a misconstrued episode from your childhood, and pinned me with a reputation I have in no way earned or deserved.

  “Mrs. Underhill acted as a courier for highly classified information. I went to her room to receive it. And that is all, and that is the truth,” he said.

  Her dark eyes narrowed. “Seeing how the truth seems to have had little to do with who and what you are, I am supposed to blithely accept your word?” she asked.

  Damn. She had him there. He had made a career out of lies. He stood flexing his hands at his side, knowing that anything he said would only further damn him. So, he said nothing.

  Haughtily, she flipped the end of her sheet over her shoulder. It was ridiculous that a woman could look so absurd and so desirable at the same time. “I would like you to go now.”

  “No.”

  Her mouth gaped and snapped shut. “Pardon me?”

  “I can’t go yet. Not until something has been done about this. You still don’t understand, Evie. There’s more. The external crate had already been opened by the time I got here. By the man my superiors are trying to catch. He’s in the house, maybe as a guest, maybe as a servant. And he knows you have the crate.”

  Something in his tone alerted her to the gravity of the situation. She forced herself to ignore her anger and pain and listen, because she was suddenly frightened and, whether she liked it or not, she instinctively knew Justin would do whatever he could—which she’d begun to suspect was considerable—to protect her.

  “Think, Evie,” Justin began. “This spy. He’s very good. He’s extremely cautious. My superiors would have been very careful about just what sort of rumors and hints they provided him regarding my identity.”

  “Why would he care to identify you? I don’t understand. What makes you such irresistible bait?”

  “Aside from the rewards certain governments have offered for my identity? The cachet of exposing me.”

  “You’re that important? That good?” she said, regarding him closely, seeing him in a new light.

  “Yes. And being as good as my opponent must be, the hints my superiors planted would have had to be very subtle hints, or this agent would suspect something. Do you understand yet?”

  “No.”

  “Evie, he couldn’t be certain that I am the man he’s hunting, so he’s been watching me. But, Evie,” he said, “you took possession of the crate.”

  At last she understood. “But it was a mistake. Surely this man, whoever he is, he’d have to take into account that it’s only reasonable for me to accept deliveries.”

  “Maybe once, Evie. But not twice. This is the second time you’ve taken possession of crates without addresses. But most damning and irrefutable, you did take possession of the crate he thinks contains the device.”

  She felt light-headed, her thoughts shredding on a slow rising panic. “But he doesn’t want me! He wants the crate!”

  “He wants both the device and the spy he thinks you are.” He regarded her with something akin to pity.

  “Don’t look at me that way,” she said frantically. “I’m sure I’d be a picture of nonchalance, too, if I were a spy! But I’m not!”

  His stance grew rigid. “I assure you, I am not in the least indifferent to the situation. You are the most intelligent and resourceful woman I know. Rather than castigating me, won’t you use your considerable gifts to help me find a way out of this conundrum?”

  He was also in peril, she realized, and the knowledge eradicated her rising terror. He’d appealed to who she was and what she was: competent, ingenuous, and persevering. She could not refuse him.

  She took a deep breath. “Right. We can’t just leave the crate and the empty inner box renailed shut. We have to assume he knows we’re in here with it and if he came in he would open the inner box, find it empty, and assume it was a red herring and that we’d simply already removed the thing from it.”

  She paced away from him, her thoughts whirling. “We must find out who he is. But how?”

  “We have to make some reasoned assumptions,” Justin said. “The first being that since he knew where the crates Blumfield brought were stored, and has somehow apparently discerned that none of the shipments delivered until today has contained anything other than supplies for the wedding and guests, our spy has access to the house, or someone working in the house who acts as his eyes and ears.”

  She dropped to the bed, staring. Someone in the house? One of the servants?

  “Whoever he is, he is definitely keeping a close watch on the abbey,” he said. “Tomorrow is the wedding. He’ll expect you to try to move it then, when there are lots of comings and goings. It’s the logical time to do so.”

  “You have a plan,” she said.

  “Yes. We won’t disappoint him. I’ll sneak out with a wagon during the wedding celebration tomorrow. Hopefully, what with trying to keep an eye on you, it will take him a while to realize I’ve lit out and it will take him some time to catch up to me. When he does, he’ll find me towing a crate full of bricks.”

  “But won’t he . . .” Her face lightened with understanding. “Ah! He’ll think you were a diversionary tactic and that another person drove off with the real contents. Me?”

  “No!” he thundered. Good God, the woman was a menace to herself! “Beverly will drive out in the opposite direction.”

  For a second, he thought she was actually going to argue with him, but then she sighed. “Yes, I have prior commitments. Mrs. Vandervoort, you know,” she explained to him, as though he was going to question her about why she wasn’t willing to be a decoy. He was torn between wanting to shake her and kiss her.

  “It’s an excellent plan,” she allowed, looking greatly relieved. He didn’t tell her that in all likelihood the man who rode after him would also be trying to kill him.

  If the Agency had set up such an elaborate plan to expose this person, he must be a very important, strategically placed spy. Someone who would stop at nothing to maintain his secret identity, certainly not murder. And if Evie thought about it long enough, she’d realize that. So, he had to keep her thinking about other things.

  “Of course,” he said, “we might find aid in another quarter.”

  “Oh? Oh! Of course, why didn’t I realize it earlier?” she crowed. “If you and the crate are bait, then who is supposed to spring the trap?”

  “Exactly,” Justin said. “This wouldn’t have been set up if they weren’t going to have someone here to take care of this agent once he’d revealed himself. But I don’t know who. Someone good. Maybe even better than me.”

  “You don’t have any idea?” she asked, relaxing and crossing her legs under her.

  “No,” he said.

  Apparently they had navigated beyond animosity to a sort of détente, he thought dryly. At least, she had. What he was feeling couldn’t be defined as anything so tepid. Guilt and desire raged within him. The way the brightening morning light washed her smooth skin heated his blood; the thought of how careless he’d been with her chilled it.

  �
�Hm,” she mused, tapping her fingertip against her bottom lip. “Is there any way to find out?”

  “I would suggest that my superiors don’t want me to find out, or they would have already informed me. But if our unknown compatriot discovers our spy’s identity, we might reasonably expect him to act.”

  He was having a hard time keeping his mind on the matter at hand. Evie had canted sideways, leaning on her elbow, thinking.

  “I should leave,” he said.

  She glanced up at him. “What about the crate?”

  “Best thing would be to hide it in plain sight. I’ll replace the lids, and then we’ll ring for Beverly to come and take this down to—”

  “—to the conservatory!” Evie piped in. “It’s where all the wedding gifts that have been arriving are being stored. We can even post a couple of men in there under the guise of not wanting to test the moral fortitude of the workers too far.”

  “Excellent.” Justin regarded her approvingly. “Our unknown assailant is too concerned with maintaining his anonymity to risk going for it there.”

  “He is?” She sounded disappointed, and that unnerved him. He’d fallen in love with an danger addict. With a shudder, he replaced the lid on the inner box and banged it down with a paperweight before quickly doing the same to the outer crate. He’d best leave before she found some other way to inveigle herself into this mess.

  He picked up his jacket and headed for the door.

  “Are you sure I can’t do something?”

  “Yes!” He yanked the door open.

  And came face-to-face with Evie’s mother.

  “Lady Broughton!” Justin said.

  Evie, in the process of rising to go after him, froze.

  “My dear lady, when did you arrive? Your daughter didn’t mention you were one of the guests. How charming!” Justin said in profoundly amazed tones; Evelyn was struck by how easily he’d transformed from focused spy to affable rattlebrain.

  Hard on the heels of her grudging admiration came a sweep of gratitude. He was buying her time. He’d firmly planted himself in the doorway, his hand on the knob, holding it halfway closed.