Agent of the Crown

by Melissa McShane

  And I was going to destroy all that. Thank heaven I came to my senses. “That’s…quite a burden to bear,” she said.

  Eleanor steered her to sit at the broad table. “I didn’t mean to lay that on you. Happen I exaggerated.” She patted Telaine’s hand. “Lainie, walking out together doesn’t mean a promise. It’s how you get to know each other, what you’re like together. But a man like Ben, when he gives his heart, he gives it all at once. Remember that, will you?”

  “Happen you should give him a talk about not expecting too much of a girl,” Telaine said, and laughed. “No, don’t, I wasn’t serious,” she added when Eleanor firmed her chin in the way she did when she was planning on giving someone a good stiff lecture. “But you have to admit it’s fearsome to have that much power over a man.” The Princess would have loved to be in her position, to know she could make Ben dance to her tune. Telaine didn’t have any idea what to do with it.

  “Fearsome and beautiful,” Eleanor said. “My Robert was like that. Loved like a bonfire burning.”

  Robert had died only three years before. “I wish I could have known him.”

  Eleanor nodded. “I miss him still,” she said, dry-eyed and resigned. “But I have his children. And the way Trey and Blythe are going, I might have his grandchildren soon.”

  “They are rather like rabbits, aren’t they?” Telaine said, and Eleanor laughed and nodded.

  Ben still had his back to her when Telaine left the laundry. She stood at the rail, watching him, ignoring the murmured conversation a couple of old men were having nearby in which they alternated between staring at her and staring at Ben.

  He wore a sleeveless shirt with a leather apron tied over it, and the muscles of his arms and his back slid and stretched as he worked the bellows. His head was bowed over his work, his light brown hair sweaty around his neck. How had she passed him every day for nine weeks and never realized how good he looked? And she’d made him happy. She leaned on the stone pillar at the corner of the forge rail and waited for him to notice her.

  It took him a few minutes to turn around. He twitched, surprised someone was there, then smiled that new, wonderful smile when he realized it was her. I’ve made him happy, but he’s made me happy too, she thought. “I hope I’m not a distraction,” she said.

  He plunged whatever he’d been working on into the quenching barrel. “Never that,” he said, then the corners of his mouth twitched up in amusement. “Not an unwelcome one, certain sure.”

  “I wanted you to know I’m back, safe and sound, and I’ve got a new job that will keep me away from Morgan for a while. I thought you’d feel better knowing that.”

  “Much better.” He took the metal from the barrel, but stood there holding it. “Watching you ride off with him all those times, and how he made you hold him so close…never hated anyone so much in my life.”

  Anger made him sound nothing like himself, and Telaine clasped his arm.

  “I need you to promise me something, Ben,” she said. “You have to promise you won’t go picking a fight with Morgan. I don’t care what he does. If he kills you, I—I don’t want him to kill you. Please.”

  “Happen I’ll kill him instead,” Ben said, clenching his fist and making the tendons rise up on his arm.

  “I’ll stay away from him, and you’ll leave him alone, and Morgan won’t be part of our lives. Promise me.”

  Ben cast his cool, steady gaze on her, unsmiling. “promise,” he said, and Telaine jerked. He had never lied to her before. She thought he never would. She had no way to challenge him on it.

  “Thanks,” she said instead, and released him. All that was left to her was to ensure that whatever Morgan did to her, Ben would never find out.

  He gave her a half smile. “Walk out with me tonight? In public this time?” He sounded amused.

  “How can I refuse such an invitation?” she said, and dimpled at him. She loved the way it made him catch his breath and look at her lips as though kissing them was the only thing on his mind.

  They spoke a little longer, low-voiced words that were no one’s business but theirs, before Telaine went back to Aunt Weaver’s to clean up and encode the day’s intelligence to be sent out the next day. Soon, very soon, she’d finish her work, and then…then anything was possible.

  ***

  That evening, “walking out,” to Ben Garrett, meant going down to the tavern. They walked together down the main street, hand in hand, in silence. People passed them, eyeing their clasped hands, then giving Telaine knowing looks and smiles that had her wishing she was invisible. It was so much easier being the focus of attention when you wore a mask.

  She clutched Ben more tightly until he exclaimed, in mock pain, “I’m going to need that hand later.”

  “I feel like everyone’s staring at us,” she said.

  “Everyone’s staring at me,” he said. “Not you.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “I know how they think. They’re thinking,” he dropped his voice to a near-whisper, “‘How did that homely fellow end up with such a mysterious, beautiful woman?’”

  Telaine blushed. She’d blushed more in the last two days than in the whole rest of her life. “You are the least homely man I’ve ever seen,” she said. “And I’m hardly mysterious or beautiful.”

  He put his free arm around her waist and picked her up, making her first gasp, then laugh with delight as he spun around with her once before setting her back down. “You are beautiful,” he said in a low voice, “and I’ll tell you a truth, every unmarried man in Longbourne wishes you were walking out with him tonight.”

  “Guess that makes you the lucky one,” Telaine said, trying not to blush again.

  “It does,” Ben said. The serious look was back, the one that always made her heart beat faster, and without remembering that they were standing in the middle of Longbourne, she kissed him lightly and was rewarded with his brilliant smile. Somebody hooted at them from the other side of the street, and Ben waved absently in the man’s direction.

  “Don’t know how I earned that,” he said, and led her on down the street.

  “By being who you are,” Telaine said. “And because you think I’m beautiful.” She laid her head on his shoulder briefly. “You know so much, what are they going to do when we walk into the tavern?”

  He tilted his head back to look at the sky as if reading the future there. “They’re going to say, hey there, haven’t seen you in a while, you buying the next round of drinks?”

  “They are not,” Telaine said, laughing.

  “I’ve no idea what they’ll say. Probably tease us a lot. Everyone teases the new couples. Then they get used to us, and then next time we’ll be the ones teasing.”

  Ben held the door to the tavern open for her. It was too noisy inside, at first, for anyone to notice them. One of the quarrymen was playing the pianoforte with more energy than accuracy, while his comrades belted out a well-known song about a young man and his walking staff. It was a song that relied heavily on innuendo and double meanings, and the quarrymen found it hilarious.

  Ben saw her seated—he was the perfect gentleman, far more well-mannered than several noblemen Telaine knew—and went to fetch them beer. Telaine watched the pianoforte player and tapped her toe along to the rhythm.

  “Sitting alone, sweetheart?” said a man dressed in the woven white shirt and suspenders favored by the loggers. He sat across from her and leered. He was such a stereotype Telaine had to pinch her lips shut to keep from laughing at him.

  “Actually, I’m waiting for someone—”

  “And here I am, darlin’, the one you’ve waited your whole life for.” He tilted back in the chair until it rocked on only two legs.

  The Princess took over. “If I’d known you were him, I’d have waited a while longer.”

  The man looked confused. She added, “You know, your mother warned me about you. She said you were like to put yourself where you’re not wanted. Happen you could go back
to your friends now.”

  “That’s some good sense there,” said Ben, holding a mug in each hand. He set the mugs down on the table and stood next to her with his arms folded over his chest, looking down at the man with cheery good humor. Telaine had to cover her mouth; he’d taken a pose that clearly outlined the hard flat muscles of his chest, the long muscles of his arms.

  Unfortunately, the man went from confused to belligerent. “You ought leave the lady alone,” he told Ben. He was drunker than she’d first thought. He swayed as he stood, several inches taller than Ben and more heavily muscled. Telaine looked around, wondering what to do. Maida and her barman weren’t in sight. The man’s friends had taken notice of the confrontation and looked like they were thinking about joining it.

  Ben shook his head. “Women make everything complicated, don’t they?” he said. He had a resigned, mournful look on his face. Telaine, outraged, opened her mouth to speak, and a foot pressed hers into the floor. “Tell you what, friend, let’s ask the lady which of us she favors, let her make the hard choice.”

  The man’s face cleared. “Let her make the hard choice,” he repeated. He turned to Telaine. “Which is it?”

  Timidly, Telaine pointed at Ben. He sighed and threw his arms up. “Guess that’s that,” he said. “You’re a lucky man, friend. You might’ve had to take her home.” The foot was removed from hers. “Now I’m stuck with her, and you’re a free man.” He took the chair away from the man and sat with his chin in his hands, looking despondent.

  The man looked from Ben to Telaine and back to Ben. His face cleared. “Lucky me,” he declared, and went back to join his friends.

  “Drunks can be fun,” Ben said. He took a long pull from his mug. “Thanks for not stepping in there.”

  “I was going to,” she said, “but somebody kept my mouth shut by way of my foot.”

  Ben laughed. “Doesn’t have to come to a fight if you think fast.”

  Telaine drank her beer. That had been unexpected. Clever. She gave him a narrow-eyed look. “Didn’t know you had so much cunning in you.”

  “Lots of things you don’t know about me yet.” He smiled, his eyes warm. “Looking forward to you learning them.”

  Telaine took another long drink. “I’m looking forward to that too.”

  “Lainie!” Liam Richardson’s exuberant voice rang out. “And… who’s this, fellows? The recluse of Longbourne? Lainie, what did you do to get this fellow out after seven? We not good enough for you, Ben?”

  Ben waved his mug at them and grinned. “Don’t take this the wrong way, fellows, but you’re not nearly pretty enough.”

  An “oooooh” went up among the crowd. Liam clutched at his chest. “This what you left me for, Lainie? Hope he’s worth it.”

  “Oh,” she breathed, taking Ben’s hand, “he is.” A roar of laughter went up around her, and several people started talking at once, but she no longer minded being teased.

  Maida came up and set down two more mugs. “You people are having an awful lot of fun,” she said. “Lainie, you sly fox, and here’s me never seeing what was going on right in front of my face.”

  “That’s all right, neither did I,” she said, and got another roar of laughter. It seemed her friends would laugh at anything tonight. Liam sat down next to her and pulled Isabel Colton onto his lap. She squealed and laughed. Jack Taylor, solo tonight, took a nearby table and waved for a drink. Her other friends—how had she gained so many friends in so short a time?—gathered in, laughing, talking, drinking, teasing Telaine and Ben.

  Somebody proposed Jack take over at the pianoforte. Isabel disposed her legs across Liam’s lap and leaned over to Telaine.

  “You been out of Longbourne today, Lainie?” she asked.

  “I was up at the fort,” Telaine replied.

  Isabel looked disappointed. “Thought maybe you’d heard more about this news out of Granger,” she said.

  “What news is that?”

  “You haven’t heard? Little girl—maybe not so little, eleven or twelve—went missing this morning. They’ve been searching around the crevasse, but haven’t found her. Not likely to find her now dark’s come.”

  Telaine shuddered. “That’s terrible. Are they sure she fell in the crevasse?”

  Isabel shrugged. “Only place she could’ve disappeared so fast, so completely.”

  “Stop talking about other people’s troubles,” Liam said. “I’ll buy you a beer.”

  Isabel giggled, her good humor restored. She bounced up and led Liam to the bar.

  “That makes four,” Ben said.

  “Four what?”

  “Four kids missing,” he said. “Since I moved here, anyway. All about that age, all from villages in the valley. A couple from Longbourne, even. They think maybe they drowned or fell down the crevasse—that’s probably why they’re looking up there even if she disappeared from someplace else.” He finished his second beer and wiped his mouth. “Let’s go someplace quieter.”

  “Someplace darker?” Telaine suggested.

  “Someplace warm.”

  “Someplace you can admire my dimple?”

  He took her hand again. “You know that means I have to be right up close to you?”

  She sighed. “I suppose I can live with that.”

  An hour later, she walked through Aunt Weaver’s back door into the dark kitchen and stopped to lean against the wall, smiling. All those years of being courted by the nobles and gentry of Tremontane, and a country blacksmith was the one to sweep her off her feet. He was gentle, and passionate—not a combination she’d ever thought to find in a man—and his kisses made her head whirl, and… She smiled again, closing her eyes in happy reminiscence. And she’d almost thrown all of that away.

  She went up the stairs cautiously, not wanting to light a lamp and disturb Aunt Weaver. Though it was strange, her going to bed so early; on nights when she didn’t have knitting circle, she usually sat up knitting in the uncomfortable drawing room.

  “I’m home, Aunt,” she said, knocking on her bedroom door. There was no answer, but the door jigged and then swung open as if it hadn’t been latched securely. No one called out sharply from within to shut the door and leave her business alone, so Telaine pushed it open further. The room was identical in size to Telaine’s, had the same furnishings, though Aunt Weaver’s mirror wasn’t cracked, and it was empty.

  Telaine contemplated the bed, which hadn’t been slept in, then went into the room and felt the base of the oil lamp beside it. Cold. There was a chest like Telaine’s at the foot of the bed, not locked, and Telaine took a quick look inside and found nothing but clothes. It was a boring room. She pulled the door shut behind her and, after a moment’s thought, pushed the latch open enough that the door was closed but not latched. Just in case.

  She went downstairs again and confirmed that the heavy black cloak was missing. So Aunt Weaver was out on another one of her mysterious errands. Telaine hadn’t caught her at it since the first time, but she didn’t spend a lot of time monitoring the woman’s actions. After her discovery of two nights before, she’d started wondering if she should.

  She intended to confront Uncle about it via telecoder the next day, when she went into Ellismere, though she wasn’t sure what she would say. If he didn’t know, should she give away Aunt Weaver’s secret? What if Telaine was wrong? In any case, she didn’t want to go on wondering.

  Grinning to herself, she took a seat at the kitchen table and waited in the dark kitchen. Serve Aunt Weaver right for accosting Telaine this way the night of the shivaree. The night Ben had kissed her for the first time. He was wonderful. She sat there, remembering their times together, anticipating the next day when they’d add to those memories, feeling again his kisses on her lips and cheek and throat, so beautiful.

  She wasn’t sure how much time had passed when the door creaked open, then slammed hard. Aunt Weaver cursed. “That’s a tricky door,” Telaine said.

  There was a silent pause in which neither
of them moved. “What are you doing?” Aunt Weaver demanded.

  “Just waiting up for you. Wanted to make sure you got in all right.”

  “That’s a kindness.” It was sarcastic enough that Telaine might have cringed if she weren’t so full of amused righteousness.

  “Where’ve you been?”

  “None of your business.”

  “Probably. But I’m curious about why you feel the need to sneak around.”

  She could see the outline of Aunt Weaver, unmoving in the darkness. “Do you tell me what you get up to when you’re at the Baron’s manor?” Aunt Weaver said.

  “No.”

  “Then I ain’t sharing my business with you.” Aunt Weaver strode past, going into the front room to remove her cloak. “Stay out of this.”

  “What ‘this’? Look, it’s clearly important to you—”

  “It’s Longbourne business. You’re leaving eventually.” Aunt Weaver went to the foot of the stairs, then paused. “You’ve got enough to do without taking on more. Leave this to me.”

  She was up the stairs before Telaine could come up with a response. Something was going on in Longbourne, or possibly in all of Steepridge, and she— She shook her head and ascended the stairs to her own room. Aunt Weaver was right; she would leave, and she shouldn’t interfere any more than she already had. It just felt…wrong. And she wasn’t sure why.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Telaine handed over money and the telecoder form and thought about what to do while she was waiting for the reply. Pity there wasn’t a Device that let you talk to someone directly, no waiting for the message to be turned around, no worry that the wrong someone might read your message or its reply. She went out into the street and decided to explore. Outside the Ellismere town hall she bought a newspaper and took it to the park across the street to read.