Barons, Brides, and Spies: Regency Series Starter Collection Volume Two

by Mary Lancaster

  Olivia had asked him about it when he called upon her to accompany him to shop for his sister or, as it turned out, sisters. Like Jory, he shrugged off the behavior, telling her it was not out of the ordinary for Adam. Still, she suspected the lieutenant only told her that as reassurance, because there was something in his face that suggested he didn’t believe it either.

  One day, I will tell you the truth. And then one day, you may actually forgive me.

  The writing box…in her most fanciful imaginings, she wondered whether Adam had hidden something in it before he locked it – a secret letter, a clue.

  Such a pity she didn’t have a key. The thought of damaging the piece to get at its contents was unconscionable. What would one have to do to pick a lock?

  At the post office, two letters waited for her, both with London postmarks, but before she could examine them further, Olivia heard her name called.

  “Miss Collins, it’s fortunate we meet again. I was so hoping we would.”

  Olivia dropped a curtsy to Lady Ridgeway, but frowned, puzzled.

  “You wished to speak to me, my Lady?”

  “Yes, let’s take a walk to the park.”

  The woman opened a blue and white floral parasol that matched her dress. White fringing shimmied attractively as they walked. Olivia adjusted her hat to help protect her face from the midday sun. Together they walked down King’s Street and onto High Cross. Despite being a decade or more younger, Olivia found herself working hard to keep pace with the other woman’s brisk clip.

  Lady Abigail Ridgeway had the bearing of aristocracy, her head held high as though anything in the world was hers for the taking. She must have had men falling at her feet in her youth. Perhaps they still did, since everyone they passed either nodded or curtsied.

  It was no small measure of irony that Olivia found herself at the same bench, under the same tree, where Peter Fitzgerald had proposed marriage. Lady Ridgeway pulled out a lace-trimmed handkerchief from her reticule and swept the seat before sitting down. She offered a regal incline of her head, which Olivia guessed was her invitation to sit also.

  “I understand you were a governess recently in the employ of Beaufort Denton.”

  “That is correct, my Lady.”

  “And you are now unemployed?”

  Olivia inwardly winced. The woman was not awkward about coming forward.

  “Yes.”

  “Do you intend to stay in Cornwall?”

  “I don’t know. It would depend on finding a situation, and I have not yet had replies to any inquiries. Perhaps, there may be an offer in one of the letters I received today.”

  “Would you stay if the opportunity presented itself?”

  Olivia looked directly into the woman’s grey-green eyes for the first time. Was this a prelude of an offer of employment?

  “Yes, I love Cornwall.”

  The look she received in return was assessing. “Just the attractive scenery, is it?”

  What on earth was she to say to that? That she had fallen in love? And with a man whose whereabouts was currently unknown and whose actions bordered on the capricious and who knew what else?

  Lady Ridgeway watched her. A smile played around lightly rouged lips. “Come now, it’s more than pretty views of the sea that make one stay in Cornwall, although I have to say I find the country air and rustic charm of frank speaking most refreshing after the society of London and Bath.”

  Olivia was taken aback by such open mockery and found herself unable to fashion a reply that didn’t call out the woman for her rudeness or make her want to respond in kind. She swallowed the words she wanted to say… the ones she only said in her mind when Mistress Caroline’s friends would treat her like a servant and not a respectable governess.

  “I’m not sure what to tell you, my Lady.”

  “Well, you’re showing a little spirit, that’s a start. I was beginning to wonder whether you were one of these insipid creatures I so detest.”

  Olivia rose to her feet. “I am most assuredly not, and since you prefer plain speaking, my Lady, then you will not be offended if I say that you are rude and condescending – an utter misplacement of the appellation of lady if there ever was one!”

  The aristocrat before her merely inclined her head, as though she had simply conceded a point in tennis. The movement was matched by an upturn to her lips and a light shrug.

  “I have been called worse.”

  She also rose to her feet.

  “Do you speak French?”

  Olivia answered firmly and without hesitation. “I do.”

  “Do you wish to marry the solicitor, Peter Fitzgerald?”

  “I do not.”

  The answer was out of her mouth before Olivia thought to question why Lady Ridgeway would ask such a personal question, let alone how she would even know of the arrangement.

  “Excellent. I think my interest in you is not misplaced,” Lady Ridgeway averred.

  “With respect, are you looking for a governess?”

  “Good Lord, no. You’ve seen my daughter, Marie – far too old to need a governess. I was considering a chaperone for certain engagements.”

  “For yourself, or for your daughter?”

  “Neither.” The woman twitched a sly smile.

  This was the most confusing conversation Olivia had ever had in her life.

  From her reticule, Lady Ridgeway withdrew a card. She handed it to her.

  “In two weeks from now, attend an interview here.”

  Olivia looked down at the card, black ink standing bold on the heavy white paper.

  Charteris House

  Truro, Cornwall.

  She looked up to find Lady Ridgeway walking away, the woman not even giving her a backward glance.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Today marked a red letter day.

  The plans that had been laid out across the long dining table for the past week had now been rolled up. Today, Adam was being spared the endless questions about the Artemis.

  He’d been dancing on the edge of a blade as he answered the questions he rehearsed with Ridgeway in a dozen different ways. Adam made up answers to some questions they had not anticipated because he felt he’d be expected to know.

  It was those answers that worried him. How many lies can a man keep straight in his head? The fewer the better was the only honest answer.

  Adam looked at each man in turn. There was no one new here. All who sat around this table had also been at their first meeting in the house on Packet Quays. Of the half-dozen men, he only knew two by name – Wilkinson, who sat at the head of the table, and that violent little thug, Dunbar, who had left after bringing him downstairs.

  Adam had given the rest nicknames based on a physical feature. If nothing else, it would give Ridgeway some way of identifying them.

  There was Scar, a man in his forties about Adam’s build with brown hair and a large scar across his cheek. It ran up into his temple.

  Red was a gingery man, tall and lean with a sharp nose and a chin to match. He never said a word.

  Black Angus was the very model of every angry Scotsman Adam had ever come across – black hair, permanent scowl, and nose bent from having been broken too often in fighting.

  The fourth man, he’d dubbed Pockmark. He was a stocky man with a pockmarked face. He was always the one to draw the short straw and end up in the kitchen fetching food for the others. Adam considered him a bit of a tuss, all things considered.

  “You did well, Hardacre,” Wilkinson conceded. “However, according to our contact, who is very highly connected in Westminster, there has been no discussion of appropriating funds to build such a ship.”

  “I don’t care if they’ve got the money for it or not,” said Adam. “I got these plans at considerable risk. Either I’m trusted and I’m in, or I’m not. And if I’m not trusted, I’ll be on my way right now with my thousand pounds in gold. That was the bargain.”

  Wilkinson glanced around at his colleagues, lo
oking for consensus. Adam, too, looked at each face to see if he could divine their thoughts.

  “It seems we have a few things to discuss, Hardacre. If it would ease your mind, you now have the liberty of the house.”

  “That’s something, I suppose.”

  Adam turned on his heel and left the dining room. He closed the door behind himself and stood waiting for the discussion to begin, but it did not. Instead, he heard the sound of a chair leg scraping on the floor and footfalls approaching the door.

  He managed to round the corner into a small anteroom before the door opened and then, a moment later, close again.

  Well, since he had the liberty of the house, he should use it. Adam turned the knob of a door before him. It turned out to be the smaller of two internal entrances into the library. He entered and made a beeline to the main double doors. They, too, were unlocked. He kept them in mind for a quick exit if he needed it.

  The library appeared to be used as a storeroom. A dozen trunks in various sizes were piled neatly into four pyramids of three each. Tempting though it was to examine them, Adam decided his wisest course was to look elsewhere.

  A desk in the center of the room was covered in papers. He scanned the documents quickly. They were in French – and he didn’t read it. He tugged loose one of the densely scribed sheets from under the pile without examining it too closely. Whoever was working here might remember the papers on top, but may not miss one buried beneath. He folded it and slipped it into the top of his boot.

  It would serve Ridgeway right if it was nothing more than a shopping list for produce.

  Adam left the library and made his way across the passage to the drawing room where he opened a pair of French doors that led out into the garden.

  Let’s see if the “liberty of the house,” also extended to the garden and the stables.

  The carriage house was his first stop. The unmarked brougham was not the only vehicle being stored. A much larger landau was beside it, dusty from months of disuse. The doors featured a cartouche and monogram with the letters D and V in a foliate script.

  He returned to the stable by the tack room. This time, he rummaged through satchels and found in one part of a crumpled newspaper that had been used as wrapping paper. The only thing of note was on the inside flap of another satchel – a hand inked mark that looked like clubs from a playing card.

  Knowing his time was limited, Adam pulled down one of the brushes and approached the stalls. He found his horse in good condition, treated as well as the other five. The horse whickered and nodded at his approach.

  He patted the horse on his neck and got to work, singing as he groomed the horse.

  All in a garden green, two lovers sat at ease,

  As they could scarce be seen above the leafy trees.

  They lovèd lofty full, and no wronger than truly,

  In the time of the year cam betwixt May and July.

  Quoth he, “Most lovely maid, my troth shall ay endure,

  And be not thou afraid, but rest thee still secure

  That I will love thee, long as life in me shall last—

  “Where the hell ye been, Hardacre?” said Pockmark.

  Adam, brush in hand, looked at him. “I came here to check on my horse. I haven’t broken any rules, have I?”

  To the best of Adam’s judgment, Pockmark was the mildest mannered of all Wilkinson’s henchman. The man looked uncomfortable. Adam could use that to his advantage.

  “Look, I’m not going to cause you any trouble,” he said, keeping his hands where they could be seen and hanging the brush back on its nail. “I didn’t think there’d by any harm in it.”

  “Maybe ye shouldn’t have, but come back to the house and I won’t mention it,” said Pockmark almost apologetically.

  Adam nodded and followed Pockmark onto the lawn between the stables and the house, but his attention was caught by a man riding at full gallop toward the house. He exchanged a glance with Pockmark who looked alarmed.

  “It’s Dunbar,” the man muttered.

  “Come on,” said Adam and led a jog back to the house.

  They slipped in at a side door and entered the hallway in time to see Dunbar barrel through the front doors.

  “Get Wilkinson,” he bellowed. “There’s been a change of plans.”

  Everyone gathered in the dining room. Dunbar glared in his direction. Adam glared back and joined the men at the table, a lot more cheered than he had been in days.

  “What about him?” said Dunbar to Wilkinson, jerking his thumb in Adam’s direction.

  “You can speak in front of Hardacre.” Wilkinson replied.

  Dunbar grunted. “Well, I got word from another chapter of the Society. There’s goin’ to be a large movement of ships within the next two weeks, but our friend doesn’t know where or when. But he has managed to get us somethin’ of interest.”

  He pulled out a slim volume from a jacket pocket and laid it on the table with great ceremony.

  “The current semaphore code book used by the Royal Navy.”

  Adam stiffened in his chair.

  “How do you know it’s the latest?” Scar asked.

  “Only one way to find out,” said Dunbar, giving him a level stare, “ask the man who was in the Navy most recently.”

  Exuding a confidence he didn’t feel, Adam leaned back in his chair and gave a condescending smirk. “I was a bosun, not part of the signal corps.”

  Nonetheless, Adam signaled with a wave of his hand to pass the book down to him. Dunbar slid it across the polished surface of the table without grace.

  After flicking through a few pages, it was as he feared – the genuine article. Just like the one Ridgeway had given him; exactly like the one. So, what was he to say? If he lied and said it was not, it would be too easy to check. If he said it was, what then?

  Adam slid the book back up the table and rolled the dice.

  “Aye, I’ve seen one like that in use on the Andromeda. But as I said, I wasn’t a signaler, and I didn’t sit there studying it. I couldn’t say if it’s latest.”

  “Well, it is,” Dunbar responded.

  “Excellent,” Wilkinson announced, “then we move forward with our next assignment. The Collector has instructed us to monitor English semaphore communications for the next several weeks, and we need to do it somewhere where we can be unobtrusive. We also need sufficient elevation and privacy to send signals of our own. The Collector has advised us of a suitable location. You know it, Hardacre.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. It’s Kenstec House.”

  Adam covered his alarm. How much did they know about his association with the manor – especially recently? “What would I know about that place?” he said.

  Wilkinson smiled. “Aside from the fact you grew up within walking distance of it? I understand you didn’t exactly endear yourself to the late owner when you were a lad. Local gossip has it he encouraged your decision to join the Navy.”

  Adam thought it best to acknowledge it. “You might say that,” he offered.

  Wilkinson paid the matter no further mind and pulled out two sheets of paper from a folded folio at his left hand. The first was a sketch of the west facing elevation of Kenstec, complete with an inset view of the tower turret. The second was a floor plan showing all three levels. A cold chill spread across the top of his head and down his spine.

  He knew the hand of the artist. Even if he had not, the signature on the bottom right of the sketches sealed it.

  In her neat governess’ hand was her name – Olivia Collins.

  *

  “Foskett, have you seen my sketchbook?”

  Olivia rummaged across the table, assembling her notes on Kenstec House. Two days ago, she decided to finish the history of Kenstec after all, and started writing its history interspersing the text with pen and ink vignettes based on her larger views. Now she was ready to chronicle the construction of the tower.

  The red-mopped clerk stuck his head around the
door. “Your sketchbook, Miss Collins? I saw it on the desk when I left the office late on Thursday.”

  Fitzgerald appeared behind him. “I’m afraid its disappearance is my doing, my dear.”

  He explained, “I thought your sketches of Kenstec House were excellent, so I’ve taken the liberty of having a selection of them framed.”

  “Framed? They’re hardly as good as all that,” she said.

  The solicitor looked crestfallen. “I was hoping you would be pleased with the gift. I meant to surprise you with it.”

  Foskett bid a discreet retreat. Olivia wished he hadn’t.

  Fitzgerald entered the room instead. She stood to eliminate the disadvantage of him towering over her. Somehow the thought of it made her ill at ease.

  “I’m sorry to have spoiled your surprise,” she said. “You are a very thoughtful man and have been very kind.”

  His face softened.

  “I would be kinder still if you allowed it.”

  She couldn’t help the flush rise up her face. Olivia knew she was misleading the poor man and felt ashamed of herself. But her heart lay elsewhere, and she had even begun to allow herself a tiny scintilla of hope that she could break their agreement honorably should the rather odd Lady Ridgeway be serious about offering her a position.

  Now, Fitzgerald smiled hopefully and she felt even worse. She didn’t like the way he looked at her with some kind of affection, as if he might be falling in love with her. Even if she never saw Adam Hardacre again, she knew her heart had gone with him. And in time, Fitzgerald would know it, too, and he would hate her for it.

  With a deep breath, she fixed a smile and found that part of herself that could tease.

  “Are you getting sentimental on me, Peter? That most certainly will not do.”

  Now it was his turn to color.

  “Does the framer have all of my sketches?”

  “No, I have most of the folio on my desk. I’ll return it now, if it is so important to you.”