To Sketch a Sphinx

by Rebecca Connolly

  But she had seen Trace return only a few weeks ago, and the emotion of that reunion had been significant. She had been curious about the disappearance of One, the longstanding clerk to the London League. She had devoured her brother’s letters to her with eagerness, trying to root out any code he might have left therein. She was vastly well protected, and not just because of her brother or her parents. She knew too much, and it was in England’s best interest that she remain safe and hidden away as she was.

  What was her motivation? What did any of this bring her?

  Sad to say, she had no answer. It had simply been what she had always done. Her brother was the one with a rich vein of patriotism and loyalty running through him with all the luster of copper. She had quite simply never thought about the thing long enough to consider anything else.

  Only she did know on which side of the line she stood. She knew which flag would fly among the banners of her heart. She couldn’t pretend that the idea of actually doing something, physically giving of herself, would not be a relief, given what the rest of her family had willingly endured.

  She had felt so pale in comparison to the glorious picture of the rest.

  No matter how foolishly they had behaved.

  The Mortimer family had given their all; now she would join the ranks. Henrietta Mortimer would finally have the chance to do some good.

  The weakest thrill of hope flashed within her, a rather dull sensation, all things considered. She could only hope that her body would have more noteworthy physical responses to such nobility of thought in the future. After much practice, no doubt.

  “What would you have me do?” Hal inquired with a tilt of her head. “And when shall I begin?”

  Weaver smiled broadly and leaned forward, clasping his hands loosely. “I would have you be the most disgruntled version of yourself in the most refined ways while you and your partner prance about Paris in whatever circles you can manage. There is nothing they would love so much as a British émigré.”

  Hal dipped her chin, her thoughts flying over possibilities. “My mother has cousins in Paris. I could prevail upon them to be my hosts. They are a rare branch of old French nobility that miraculously managed to keep their heads during the Revolution. Literally. No appendages were severed in the maintaining of this family.”

  “Oh, indeed?” Weaver smiled with satisfaction. “Which family?”

  “I haven’t the faintest idea.” Hal returned his smile with a bland one of her own. “Mother never spoke of it, for obvious reasons. No idea if the cousin I’m thinking of was a comte, a vicomte, a marquis, or simply one of the petite noblesse. All I know is he and his wife were very good at aligning themselves most conveniently for the times at hand.”

  Weaver raised a brow. “Evidently. And what might persuade this family, of which you know so very little, to accept you as a guest with so muddled a connection?”

  Hal reached out and patted his hands. “As my superior, I shall rely on your years of diplomatic and covert experience to find a most convincing reason to encourage them. No doubt you have some rather lofty connections of your own to boast.”

  “One or two,” he allowed as he eased back into his chair, eyeing her with some speculation. “The names of your family?”

  “De Rouvroy.” Hal screwed up her face in thought. “And I’m sorry, I cannot recall if he is the direct descendent or his wife.”

  Weaver waved that off without concern. “Never you mind, I can unravel the knots of the lineage and peerage, even with Napoleon restructuring of it all.” He smiled and rose from his seat. “Thank you for your hospitality, Hal. I will see you soon.” He nodded and turned to leave the room.

  Hal shot to her feet, following. “Fritz!”

  He turned, smiling like the godfather she had always known at the use of his true name. “Henrietta?”

  She winced playfully, then tucked a stray curl behind her ear. “You never told me when I will start.”

  “Did I not?” His smile turned tight and almost formal. “I will need you to come to my home tomorrow evening, just after dark. We’ll have a brief rendezvous and go over the details, and then the wedding and you’ll be off.”

  Hal had been in the process of nodding when his words reached her comprehension and she jerked. “Wedding? What wedding?”

  Weaver blinked once. “Yours, Hal. Your partner is a man, and we cannot have the pair of you travelling unaccompanied without that protection.”

  “We’re falsifying everything else, why not that?” she demanded, color seeping from her face and leaving a cold vacancy behind.

  He heaved a sigh, and for the first time, she could see signs of weariness in him. “Come to my home tomorrow, Hal. I promise, I will explain everything.” He smiled again, then left, only the sound of badly squeaking hinges leaving any indication that he had done so.

  What had she gotten herself into?

  Chapter Two

  John Pratt was a sensible man. An intelligent man. Remarkably so, as any number of people would have agreed. He was respectful, respectable, and reliable, all of them to a fault, according to his younger brother. But even he had to pause at the revelation that he would be marrying his partner for this assignment before it could begin in earnest.

  Whomever she would be.

  Weaver hadn’t thoroughly explained himself when he’d come to John with the proposal, and answers hadn’t been given then. Only his attendance at the meeting today would grant him those, which was a cruel incentive indeed. The plan for the mission had intrigued John, limited though his information at this stage was. The opportunity to be out in the field, something that had always fallen to his brother’s lot, wasn’t something that he’d hoped for.

  But marrying his partner? What use was it to send in a female spy if they could not do so without the polite expectations or fear of scandal? Surely, there were capable men who were free to make the journey to Paris with him, and who possessed the requisite skills for the task. It would simplify matters easily for both parties and for the superiors they answered to.

  Surely, they meant the appearance of a marriage so that the lady in question would be protected from the scandal of jilting, annulment, or divorce from that appearance of a marriage. How exactly they were going to do such a thing was beyond John at the moment, but he made a point not to question the abilities of the Shopkeepers and their associates.

  One could never be entirely sure where their intervention had occurred over the history of Britain.

  More and more questions swirled themselves about in his head as he stood in this quiet drawing room at the back of Weaver’s family home, staring at a painted landscape that could have been done in any county in England. The sort of nondescript rolling hill that he had seen in Hampshire, Shropshire, Derbyshire, and Kent. Was the ambiguity intentional or was the artist quite simply not imaginative enough to find a more distinct subject?

  He leaned closer, his eyes narrowing, something about the grass not sitting right with him. The brush strokes were smooth, even, hardly distinguishable from one to the next. But where the ground sloped to the creek, the style and strokes changed, grew rougher, almost clumsy by comparison. Hardly noticeable until it was right before one’s eyes, and even then, one had to look.

  John was quite used to looking for things that no one else could see. He’d made his life out of it and was well known in certain ranks for it. He had been called a man of riddles and was himself impossible to read. Sphinx had seemed the only name adequate for his code, and he embraced it fully.

  He wasn’t all that mysterious, in truth. Reserved, observant, and clever. That was all.

  More often than not, it sufficed.

  With a little time and undivided attention, the most extraordinary things came to life before his eyes, if he could just see the pattern…

  “I had no idea you found art so inspiring, Sphinx.”

  Biting back a scowl, John turned to face the now familiar voice of Weaver, the second in command of all
covert operations in England. Weaver was smiling, leaning elegantly against the doorway of the drawing room, looking somewhere between coming in for the day and going out for the evening in his dress. As it was the man’s house, it was to be expected, but as John rarely went out for any social occasions, there was only one state of appearance he ever saw on others.

  This was not it.

  “Care to tell me what it’s hiding?” John said with a tilt of his head towards the painting, ignoring the teasing jab.

  Weaver smirked and came over to look at it as well. “That one? That is the first landscape my wife painted after the children were born. What makes you think it’s hiding something?”

  John ran a finger along the area. “Different strokes, not as careful as the rest, layered up.”

  “Incredible.” Weaver shook his head in disbelief. “Nothing nefarious, we didn’t purloin it from any dignitary and paint over it. As I said, Emily painted it when the children were quite small. That area, I believe, would have been Alicia’s mark when her mother wasn’t looking. Rather than start over on a fresh canvas, Emily simply covered it up. Now I have artwork by my wife and my daughter in the same piece. Convenient, eh?”

  It was all John could do not to grumble. With all the covert work Weaver had done, both in recent years and in his time before this when he had simply been the Fox, he had fully expected the mystery of the painting to be something worth discussing. The accidental brushstroke of a child was not exactly what he’d had in mind.

  “If you say so,” John grunted, turning his attention away from the art and strolling to another part of the room. “Who else is coming this evening?”

  Weaver went to the sideboard and poured himself some brandy. “Priest and Tailor.”

  “Tailor is coming himself?” That was a shock, to be sure. Tailor rarely met with operatives in any sort of gathering, communicating more through messages than anything else.

  “He insisted,” Weaver replied with a firm nod. “Oh, and Sketch, naturally.”

  John turned to look at him, sliding his hands behind his back. “I’m not familiar with that particular operative. New?”

  Weaver’s slight smile was unreadable, even for John. “Yes and no.”

  Never one for the riddle-like manner operatives tended to adopt, John exhaled and flicked two fingers in a weak gesture. “Care to explain?”

  Thankfully, Weaver didn’t evade further. “She’s a new operative, but she is not new to the network.”

  That limited the list considerably, but not enough to give John any certainty or comfort about his partner. “From the Convent?”

  “She is a graduate, yes,” Weaver confirmed without hesitation, “and her particular skills will make her an invaluable partner to you.”

  John grunted softly. “I’ll take your word on that.”

  Weaver was silent for a moment. “Do you have a problem having a woman for your partner in this assignment?” There was an edge to the question that brought John up.

  He couldn’t start this assignment in the field disgruntled with his superiors, not if he wished to go on assignment ever again.

  Provided he’d wish to go on assignment again after this.

  There was every chance this could all be a dreadful experience.

  “Not in the least,” John assured Weaver with a weak attempt at a smile. “I am well aware of how capable and dangerous the ladies of the Convent are. It is only the need for matrimony that I question.”

  “That would be the question of the evening, would it not?” demanded a sharp, piercing voice that immediately caused the hair on the back of his neck to stand at attention.

  It wasn’t an unpleasant voice, didn’t screech, wouldn’t chirp, and resembled nothing at all like the sound of claws on a slate.

  It was the identity of the person belonging to that voice that rendered such effects on him.

  And suddenly, he felt ill.

  Please, Lord, no…

  He was praying. He hadn’t prayed in a number of years, yet he was praying for deliverance.

  He could walk out. He could leave. He hadn’t signed anything, hadn’t agreed, didn’t have to agree, had every right to escape…

  “Bloody hell, don’t tell me you’ve paired me with Sphinx, of all people.”

  John craned his neck from side to side in irritation. “Had to be Hal. Hal is Sketch, Sketch is Hal, doesn’t take intellect to make that leap.”

  “Why is he muttering? What are you muttering over there?”

  “Not everything is your business, Hal,” John snapped before he could stop himself, turning to glare at the fair-haired tyrant whose hair seemed determined to escape whatever hold she had tamed it into.

  Her upper lip curled into a sneer, her pale eyes narrowing. “Listen, Stinks, neither you nor any other pompous…”

  “Nice to see you both here,” a new voice greeted with a calm steadiness that stopped any argument, though John was still muttering a great deal in his mind.

  An older gentleman with a few wrinkles and even fewer strands of hair atop his head entered the room, looking at them both with the sort of familiarity one usually saw in family alone. His gaze started on Hal, and John was pleased to see the woman turn moody and sullen, folding her arms like a temperamental child, though she did obey the silent command.

  Then the grey eyes came to John, and the most unnerving sensation of being seen clear through from front to back and every thought and process in between started rising. The impulse to confess a very great deal created the strangest buzzing on his tongue, though John was no great sinner, and his mind began racing all on its own to find some task he had accomplished lately that he could report in on.

  Lord Cartwright to the world, and Tailor to those individuals who knew him better, was unquestionably the most powerful man in England. Not even the King himself could cause to happen what this man could, though it would be treason to have expressly said so. Though he was not a man of action at the present, the tales of his exploits as an operative in years past were legendary. Likely exaggerated into the realms of impossible, but no one could quite exclude the possibility.

  Not where Tailor was concerned.

  A shorter, younger man in the plain ensemble of a clergyman followed, nodding silently and moving to the rear of the room, where he quietly sat and waited.

  Priest, John could only assume. He knew little of the man, and even less of the operative, but if the man was legitimately in holy orders…

  “The two of you quite understand what you are taking on?” Tailor asked, finally releasing John from the power of his gaze as he set his hat down. “It has been explained to you?”

  “Yes,” John said at once.

  “Not satisfactorily,” Hal said at the same time.

  John looked at her in exasperation. There was no mistaking the stubbornness in her tone, nor the insolence.

  She would get them both killed before they ever reached France purely by her tone.

  She met his look with a derisive one of her own. “What? You don’t have any more questions on the subject? You’re perfectly content to marry me at this minute before we venture off on our assignment?”

  Well, when she put it like that…

  A shiver raced down his spine and somehow settled in the smallest toe of his right foot. “Perhaps there is a point there,” he allowed mildly, turning to face Weaver and Tailor with an apologetic smile.

  Tailor, much to his credit, only gave them a faint smile and nodded. “I understand. You comprehend the task of the mission itself?”

  “More or less, yes,” Hal replied with a much tamer turn of her voice. “Use my mind and my hands, combined with his skill and intellect, to discover who, what, and how regarding the Faction. Yes?”

  It was a crudely simple description, but John, for all his attempts, could not find fault in it.

  Interesting.

  “Yes.” Tailor nodded again, just once. “We simply cannot afford to risk more of our valuable operat
ives to missions associated with the Faction when we have already experienced some compromise with a few. We do not know how secure our connections are any longer, nor how deep the compromise extends. Given the personal connections the pair of you have within the network, that should be motivation enough to succeed, I gather.”

  John stiffened at the thought of his brother Jeremy being compromised. He’d only just married a few months ago, and to see them in danger already, to potentially have them separated from him for the rest of their lives for protection…

  Jeremy was his only family left, and while he might not appear to have any sentiment within a five-mile radius of his person, he was rather attached to that younger brother of his, rascal though he was.

  And God help anyone who separated Jeremy from his new wife. Helen would raise hell better than any demon or gorgon possible.

  A soft, slow exhale from his left brought John’s attention around and he saw, with some interest, Hal bunching her hands into fists at her side and exercising a would-be controlled breath just as he was preparing to do.

  It was then he recalled that she also had a brother within the network. Trick, if he recalled, though he had never met him. They’d exchanged correspondence on several occasions, but never met either officially or unofficially. Trick worked alone, which was a risk in and of itself, and was surely in more danger than any two operatives at a time.

  What fear and trepidation that must bring to his sister!

  The thought wasn’t enough to soften his feelings towards Hal, but he would allow for a feeling of sympathy.

  However brief.

  “There is a file of information,” Tailor went on, somehow sensing the renewed dedication in John, at least, if not Hal as well, “that will be made available to you before you sail for France. In it, you will find connections you may avail yourself of during your time in Paris, as well as the most recent and accurate information we can provide you with safely. How you accomplish your tasks will be up to you both, and you will not have a requisite report to make as you progress. Should you have urgent information, you will also have access to a number of avenues to get that information across the Channel and into the proper hands.”