by Jane Feather
The girl nodded. “I looked in on ’em just a few minutes ago, m’lady. They’re out like lights.”
“Good . . . then you go to your bed, too, Lilly.” Harriet went to a cupboard and took a box from the top shelf. “Sugar plums have always been a tradition on Christmas morning when the children wake early, so make sure they get these. I know Nurse Maddox will grumble, she always does, but she doesn’t really object. They may come down to me at eight o’clock but not before. I daresay I shall be late abed tonight.”
“Yes, indeed, m’lady.” Lilly was putting away her darning. She took the wooden box from Harriet and set it on the dresser.
“Good night, then.” Harriet left the nursery and returned downstairs to take her place in the drawing room while the ladies awaited the men.
Julius was one of the first men to leave the dining room. He looked around the elegant salon, where women sat in little groups, holding cups of tea and chattering among themselves. Only Harriet stood alone in front of a window. She was holding the heavy curtain aside, looking out into the dark. He came up behind her and laid a hand on the soft rounded curve of a sloping shoulder. The bare skin was warm beneath his fingers.
She jumped, turned her head, her green eyes wide. “You startled me, sir.”
“Forgive me.” He kept his hand where it was, cupping the curve of her shoulder. “You seemed so absorbed. I was wondering what you could see out there in the cold dark.” His voice was soft, and she could feel his breath warm against her ear.
That feeling of intimacy came over her again, enclosing them in their own space while the hushed murmurs of the salon faded into the distance. “I was looking for snowflakes,” she responded as softly. “Remembering the magic of a white Christmas in my own childhood. The children would be ecstatic, although Grandfather would be devastated.” She turned with a little laugh, shrugging slightly so that his hand fell from her shoulder. “Divided loyalties, as always. Don’t you find them the very devil, my lord?”
“A personal question which I will answer if it’s asked in a personal fashion,” he responded with a smile that brought the deep lustre to his black eyes. “My name will supply an answer, Harriet.”
“Do you not find divided loyalties to be the very devil, Julius?” she asked, holding his gaze.
“I do what I can to avoid them,” he answered her. His hand moved, for an instant touched the curve of her cheek, and then fell to his side. “But yes, when they cannot be avoided, they are indeed devil’s spawn.”
A moment of silence fell between them. It was not an awkward silence, but it held something, a portent, a promise, a world of things unsaid.
Then he said lightly, “So what does the morning hold for us, my lady hostess?”
“Well, since none of our company is fit to go to midnight mass, having all eaten and drunk their fill this evening, matins will be an obligatory event,” she replied in like manner. “We shall process after breakfast at ten-thirty or thereabouts. The church, as you know, is just beyond the gates, so it’s a short walk. After that, there will be a party of sorts here in the great hall for the tenants and the folk from the village. You need not be there, but the family must, of course. Dinner will be at four.”
“And is there a gift exchange?”
“No, but Grandfather, myself, and the children have a small ceremony before breakfast.” She smiled. “They will be up at the crack of dawn.”
He nodded. “Then may I suggest you take yourself to bed now? You have performed your hostess duties admirably, and I can see not the slightest reason you should not slip away to the peace and privacy of your own bedchamber. You are looking sadly fatigued, dear girl.” A fingertip brushed the skin beneath her eyes. “Nick always said you took on too much.”
“I know he did.” For a treacherous instant, Harriet felt as if she could lean into this man, take some of his strength for herself, as she had done with her brother. But Julius Forsythe was a suspected double agent, an assassin. Her task was to prove this. She couldn’t do that from the protection of his arms.
She stepped away from him, her smile suddenly brittle. “I will take your advice, sir. Thank you. Good night.” She moved away across the room, pausing for a moment beside her aunt before disappearing through the double doors.
Now, what the hell happened to change her mood so suddenly? Julius stood frowning, before he, too, slipped from the room to the solitude of his own chamber.
Chapter Seven
Thomas was laying out his lordship’s nightgown when Julius entered his bedchamber. “A nice evening, m’lord?” He smoothed down the coverlet.
“Very pleasant, thank you, Thomas. I shan’t need you any more today.”
“You don’t need me to help you undress, m’lord?” Thomas sounded a little put out.
Julius shook his head, loosening his cravat with one hand. “No, I’m more than capable of putting myself to bed. You may wake me in the morning at eight o’clock.”
“If you’re sure, m’lord. I trust everything is to your satisfaction. Mr. Mallow will want to know, sir.”
“You may tell him that everything is very much to my satisfaction,” Julius reassured him. “Now, go and enjoy the rest of your evening.”
“Very well, m’lord. There is cognac in the decanter on the dresser should you wish for a nightcap.” Thomas bowed and left.
Julius shook his head. He was so accustomed to looking after himself most of the time that the constant presence of servants could at times be quite oppressive. But when in Rome . . .
He shrugged out of his coat and poured himself a goblet of cognac, carrying the glass to the window, where he drew back the heavy velvet curtain. The sweep of lawn at the front of the house was partially illuminated by the pitch torches that blazed on either side of the double front doors. The rest of the garden was in shadow, although a fitful moon occasionally skipped out from behind heavy cloud cover. The woods that surrounded the lawn formed a solid black shape, but Julius knew that they were not as dense as they appeared to be and that within them were several small clearings. In one of them, he would meet Marcel the following night.
He sipped his cognac, frowning. His contact had precise instructions as to how to find the rendezvous, but as there were several clearings, he had told Marcel he would find a mark on a tree in the correct place. He had intended to leave the marker in the clearing at some point during the day tomorrow, but now he wondered if he might find it difficult to slip away alone and undetected on Christmas Day itself. Better to do it now, when there was no possibility of anyone seeing him.
He set down his glass and took a thick cloak from the armoire. He had spent enough time at Charlbury Hall to know his way down the backstairs and met no one as he descended. He let himself out through a side door and walked briskly along the gravel path around the side of the house and out onto the lawn. A thick frost was already forming, and the grass crunched beneath his booted feet. He kept to the side of the lawn, in the shadow of the woods, until he reached the opening that gave onto a wide alley that led through the trees.
Harriet stood at her own bedchamber window, staring at the shape moving along the shadowy edge of the woods. Who could it be? Who would be wandering around the garden at midnight on Christmas Eve?
But she knew. There was something so familiar about the way the figure moved, a fluid, easy grace, a swing from the hip, a firm, crisp step. Why was Julius Forsythe roaming around the grounds on a freezing night?
It was her job to find out.
Without a second thought, Harriet wrapped herself tightly in her fur-lined cloak and flew down the stairs and out of the front door. She had no reason to hide the fact that she was taking a short stroll before bed, however eccentric it might seem. It was her family house, and she was her own mistress, free to do as she pleased.
She darted to the side of the lawn, following the imprint of booted feet in the frost. They led into the darkness of the wood, and she hesitated for a moment. Although she knew the woods li
ke the back of her hand, there was something intimidating about stepping into that dark void. She couldn’t see the Earl’s footsteps amidst the trees and stood very still, listening, straining her ears to catch the slightest sound. A twig broke somewhere ahead of her, and she jumped, her nostrils flaring in the icy air. What was he doing? Was he meeting someone? She took a tentative step forward, moving into the darkness, then stopped to listen again.
Then she heard it. The sound of a footstep just ahead of her on the path, and it was coming towards her. Her heart leaped into her throat as she jumped sideways off the path and behind the thick trunk of an ancient oak. Julius materialized out of the darkness, a shapeless form wrapped tightly in a cloak, and Harriet held her breath, praying he would walk past her and out through the trees onto the lawn without stopping.
But he did stop. Just short of the oak tree. He stopped and stood motionless, listening. Then, slowly, he turned his head and looked behind him. Something had attracted his attention.
If he discovered her, she’d have to have some logical, rational explanation. Harriet desperately tried to think of some reason she would be out there in the freezing midnight darkness. And then the Earl took a step again, continuing on his way down the alley and out onto the lawn.
Harriet breathed again but stayed where she was, clinging to the tree trunk, utterly still for as long as she could bear. At last, when she was sure he had to have reached the house, she slipped out from the protection of the tree and crept to the edge of the wood. Hiding behind a holly bush vivid and bursting with bright red berries, she peered out onto the lawn. It was deserted. As she stood there, the front doors opened, and a servant emerged from the brightly lit hall and doused the pitch torches, plunging the entire garden into blackness. A few candles burned in some of the upper chambers, but one by one, the reception rooms became dark, and she was alone in the night.
Her eyes had accustomed themselves to the darkness, and the clouds were not so thick, offering a weak light from both moon and stars. She turned back into the woods. The wide alley between the trees stretched ahead into darkness, but she was confident now that she could find her way without mishap. What was she looking for? The Earl had been in the woods for a very short time, so he couldn’t have gone too far. He hadn’t been gone long enough to meet someone, she was sure of it. So what had he done?
She began to walk slowly down the alley, looking to right and left for any sign of disturbance, any flattening of the grass that would indicate someone had passed by or a recently broken twig on a bush. The path opened into a wide clearing where the moonlight was sufficient to give reasonable visibility. Harriet walked slowly around the space, looking for something. If only she knew what. She could see nothing out of the ordinary and was beginning to feel cold despite the fur cloak. She was also very tired. It had been a long day, and the morrow promised to be no less active. But something kept her from giving up too easily. She had only come a very short way into the woods.
She veered onto a side path to the right of the clearing. It was narrower and darker, but she followed it until it, too, opened into a clearing, a much smaller one this time. She stood looking around for a moment, remembering how she and Nick had loved this spot in the summer, when the sun threw dappled light down through the overhanging copper beeches. In the center was a small spring bubbling up from the ground, which they assumed was somehow connected to the River Cherwell, which flowed along the edge of the estate. Maybe the source of an underground stream.
She traversed the clearing rapidly, and then something on the slender trunk of a silver birch caught her eye. A bright white mark stood out against the pale bark. She went close, peering at it. It was a hieroglyphic of some kind that reminded her of the impress of markings she had seen on the Earl’s secretaire. She peered closely at it. It was not carved into the bark but chalked onto it. A message for someone? A temporary message for someone who would be looking for it. The chalk would wash away in the first heavy rain, so Julius expected it to be found soon.
But her work was done for the night. She had no idea what the marking meant and not a hope of discovering its meaning, at least not that night. But she could find plenty of excuses to visit the clearing, the twins would always happily accompany her, and she would keep a watchful eye on the space over the next few days. Maybe someone would leave an answering mark.
They would have locked all of the outside doors, but she and Nick had always kept a spare key to the kitchen hidden in the henhouse. They had often crept out of the house at night when they were children to watch a badger’s set in the woods. When the babies had come out to play in the moonlight, the children had watched for hours, fascinated and entranced by their gamboling. She and Nick had intended to take the twins on their first midnight foray on their eleventh birthday. But then Nick had died. And Harriet didn’t know whether she’d feel like doing it alone.
Gathering the thick folds of her cloak around her, she hurried for the house, taking the side path that took her into the kitchen garden. She opened the henhouse door, feeling for the key on the little ledge above. The hens stirred restlessly, fearing a fox, as her fingers closed over the brass key. She murmured a word of reassurance and backed out, closing the door and dropping the heavy bar across it.
The kitchen was lit only by the glow of the range, but it gave Harriet sufficient light to fetch milk from the pantry and fill a copper pan, which she set on the hob. She realized that she was feeling a bit shaky after her excursion, although at the time she’d thought herself perfectly calm. The automatic business of heating milk and warming her frozen hands at the range restored her equilibrium. She poured her milk into a china beaker and made her way up to her own quarters.
She poured a little brandy into her milk and sat by the fire, warming her feet, sipping her drink, and puzzling over the significance of the Earl’s marking. It had to be a sign of some kind, intended for someone to see. But who? A French agent? Any way you looked at it, it was certainly suspicious behavior for a man ostensibly enjoying a Christmas house party in the Oxfordshire countryside, and it would give her something substantial to pass along to the men at the Ministry even if she discovered nothing else.
All in all, a satisfactory evening’s work, she decided when she finally curled up in her feather mattress under the feather quilt and snuffed out the candle. But somehow she didn’t feel as pleased as she thought she should, and as she lay wakeful, watching the flicker of firelight against the wall, she realized that she had no wish to discover that Julius Forsythe was a French double agent. No wish at all.
Julius sat by his own fireside, sipping cognac and considering the situation. Someone had been out there with him. He had completed his task, leaving the chalk mark on the tree for Marcel to discover on the morrow, and as he was making his way back through the trees, he had realized that he was not alone.
It was a sixth sense, that sense of danger, bred into him after years in the service, and he knew never to contradict it. He had heard nothing, seen nothing, and yet that other presence had been as obvious to him as if whoever it was had shouted out loud.
Of course, he could have looked, and probably would have found the person, but that would have been too simple. If there was a plot afoot, he would prefer to let it develop. And if it was nothing, then that would become clear enough.
He leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes. It was, of course, always possible that Harriet had been following him. If it was she who had been going through his possessions that afternoon, it would be no stretch of the imagination to assume that if she had caught sight of him in the garden, she might have taken it into her rather beautiful head to follow him. The only truly puzzling question was why she was spying on him in the first place. Did she know something? Despite her denial, had Nick told her something of his association with Julius? Was she following some whim or curiosity of her own, or did she have a real reason to suspect him of something?
Not that it mattered in the least. A slight cynical s
mile touched his lips. Lovely though she was, intelligent and courageous though she undoubtedly was, Lady Harriet Devere was no match for him in the spying game. But maybe it could play to his hand to let her think she was for a while. He’d already admitted to himself how much he wanted to cultivate her. The deeper their attraction to each other grew, the more likely it was that he’d discover what she was up to, what it was that she knew, or thought she knew.
It was all business, he told himself. False pretenses were his stock in trade. Harriet was up to her own game, so why shouldn’t he play his? But why does the idea leave such an unpleasant taste in my mouth?
Nick would not object. In fact, a liaison of sorts between his dearest friend and his beloved sister would probably please him. He had sometimes hinted at such a thing, talking of arranging a weekend at Charlbury after their mission, where Harry and Julius could meet each other at last.
Such damnable luck had haunted them on that dreadful afternoon in Bruges.
He reached for the decanter, his gaze suddenly blank as his mind went back to the moments that had ended the life of Nicholas, Viscount Hesketh. It was a memory he avoided when he could, but tonight it would not be repressed.
The narrow cobbled streets of Bruges were bathed in late-afternoon sun when Nick and Julius emerged from a corner tavern. They were alone, their drinking companions still quaffing tankards of ale in boisterous camaraderie. Nick had commented that he felt a little woozy. Julius had laughed, chiding him for drinking too much, to which Nick had protested that he never allowed himself to get foxed and certainly not on a mission. All of which was true, Julius had agreed. He had watched Nick closely, waiting for the moment when the sleeping draught took sufficient effect for Nick to declare himself ready to return to their room at the Coq d’Or. It would knock him out for at least six hours, time enough for Julius to accomplish his own mission. The moment came finally when Nick swayed and grabbed onto the jamb of a door that stood open to the afternoon’s warmth. “Don’t know what’s come over me, dear fellow, but I need m’bed,” he slurred. “I’ll go back to the inn. No need to come with me.”
