The Undercover Scoundrel

by Jessica Peterson

  She flung manure at him, speckling his face and hair until at last he clamped both her wrists between the fingers of his left hand. By now they were both laughing so hard neither of them could speak; Caroline’s laughter came in great, silent sobs, her ribs aching against the force of it.

  She couldn’t remember the last time she laughed this hard. It was the kind of laughter that was childish and gleeful, the kind that made her feel grateful for being alive; a reminder that life’s littlest joys could also be its greatest.

  Henry’s sigh still tripped with laughter some moments later. He wiped his face with the back of his hand, and for a minute appeared as if he might be ill.

  “Try not to use your nose,” Caroline said. Her eyes were blurred with tears.

  “It’s in my nose.”

  “You deserved it. I’ve got it in places I cannot mention in your presence.”

  “You started it.”

  She grinned. “I did.”

  Looking down they realized, at the same time, that Henry still held her wrists. He released them, wiping the manure from his breeches; a moment later he was rolling back his shoulders and shrugging out of his coat.

  They looked up, meeting eyes. His face was flush with laughter; the dimple in his left cheek was egregiously adorable. Her belly dropped to her knees.

  The air between them seemed to twist and tense, pulling them closer, coaxing them to fall into one another. Caroline’s lips felt warm, alive with the need to be kissed.

  Oh, kissing Henry—that had been life’s greatest pleasure.

  In the silence that stretched from his body to hers, something moved. Neither of them dared give it voice, but that sensation, that feeling, was there nonetheless.

  He was leaning close now. She leaned, too, the manure in her stays shifting as she drew closer to Henry. And closer. And closer. Their noses almost touched—

  “’ve got the rest ov th’ peonies, m’lady, ’pologies for th’ delay, but that witch ov a cook chased me off w’ a spoon—”

  Mr. McCartney drew up his wheelbarrow beside Caroline, his face wide with surprise as he took in the scene before him. Quickly she and Henry fell back from one another, looking down at the dirt as if they’d like to hide in it.

  Cheeks burning, Caroline smoothed the soiled expanse of her skirts. “I’m afraid we’re going to need more manure, Mr. McCartney.”

  “Right then. I’ll . . . see t’ it.” And then, after a pause: “E’rything all right, m’lady?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  The gardener shuffled back to the house. For a moment neither Caroline nor Henry made to move.

  What the devil just happened? Had they really almost kissed? And here, in her brother’s garden of all places, a spot visible not only to the house but to their neighbors’ houses as well?

  How foolish! How positively wanton of her.

  Turning away from Henry, Caroline patted her hair, cheeks flaming.

  “Well.” Henry coughed. “Back to the peonies, then.”

  In her quest to smear Henry with manure, Caroline realized she’d tossed the blooms aside; they now lay scattered about the ground at her knees.

  He reached over her legs and gently gathered the stems in his hand, shaking stray manure from their roots. His movement tugged the cuff of his shirtsleeve up his arm, revealing the shapely angles of his bare wrist. The bronzed skin was covered in a pale sheen of gold hair.

  She looked away.

  “Hold them upright in the hole there,” she said, gathering a scoop of dirt in her cupped hands. “No, not like that—to the left—to the left, Mr. Lake—here, let me show you.”

  Caroline dropped the dirt and reached for the flowers. Henry slid his hands to the roots while she held the stems. Her arm brushed the bare skin of his wrist; they both moved to reposition themselves at once. Caroline tried to ignore the pulse of heat that shot through her at the sudden contact.

  “I’ll hold them,” she said. “You fill in the dirt.”

  Henry scooped earth into the hole, carefully, slowly, patting it into place about the plants with gentle fingers as if he was afraid he might harm them. Caroline watched, mesmerized by softness of his touch. There was something distinctly primal, and private, about the juxtaposition of his strength and the gentleness of his hands. He could easily crush the blooms, could have easily crushed Caroline’s wrists with a flick of his fingers if he’d wanted.

  But he’d handled her gently, reverently almost. Strange this care he took not to hurt her, when a decade ago he’d hurt her in the worst ways without apology.

  There was something different about this thirtysomething Henry. When he was young he was rough, and unaware of his nascent strength; she remembered the way he’d knocked into her on their wedding night, bruising her nose. He didn’t yet possess the enormous body he’d received in his seventeenth year (he told her he’d grown a foot—a foot!—in the span of a few months); he was very much the proverbial bull in a china shop.

  But this Henry—this Henry was self-possessed, certain in his strength and able to control it. He proceeded with knowledgeable care, and great patience.

  “Here,” he said, “you might leave the plant, let’s see if it stands on its own.”

  To her surprise, and her pleasure, Henry had done a decent job of planting the flowers.

  “Not bad,” Caroline replied. “I wouldn’t say it’s perfect—”

  “It’s not.” Henry frowned. “Needs to go a bit more to the left.”

  And so he patted and prodded the earth until he was satisfied, crossing his arms about his chest with a small smile.

  “There. That is perfect.”

  His smile was infectious, and even though she knew she couldn’t, and most certainly shouldn’t, invite him to stay, she patted him on his knee and said, “Yes, perfect. We’ve only got fifteen more to go.”

  Eleven

  Henry wished they had another fifty peonies to plant.

  He didn’t want to leave.

  It was well past noon when he and Caroline planted the last of the flowers. His back ached—though, curiously, his leg did not—and sweat was dripping into his eye.

  He had to resist the temptation to try kissing Caroline again. This temptation was infinitely more difficult to resist than the first.

  She’d always been a beautiful woman to him. But digging about in the garden, squinting against the sun and sweat, and caked in manure, Caroline was positively radiant.

  All morning he’d watched her from the corner of his eye. He couldn’t help it; there was something magnetic about her energy, her enthusiasm for her peonies.

  And her laugh—Good Lord, he hadn’t realized how much he missed that sound until he heard it again. It made his heart unfurl in his chest; it made the armor of his grief loosen.

  The hours passed as minutes. He dug, she set down manure and watered the earth with the tin watering can he refilled at the troughs outside the mews. While they chatted and poked fun at one another, they spent a goodly portion of the morning in contented silence, lost in the task that was now, sadly, complete.

  He helped Caroline to her feet, and with their hands on their hips they surveyed their work. In the midday heat, the garden seemed more alive than ever, green leaves and bold-faced flowers arching like cats toward the sun.

  “It looks beautiful,” Henry said. “You were right about the pink against the purple. It’s a lovely contrast.”

  “Thank you,” she replied, rolling up her shoulder to wipe her cheek. “And thank you for playing along with my ruse.”

  “Thank you for saving me from your brother,” he said, grinning. “I get the feeling he doesn’t like me very much.”

  Caroline looked up at him. “He doesn’t. I wouldn’t take it personally; William doesn’t like most people.”

  Henry bent down to retrieve his coa
t, shaking off the excess manure. He loved this coat. It was probably ruined, and yet he didn’t care. It was well worth a morning spent here, laughing with Caroline. He wished he could spend every morning like this.

  But you can’t, he reminded himself. You are here for the French Blue.

  And Caroline would never have him besides.

  “Mrs. Simmons would faint if we trailed all this”—Caroline held her soiled gown between her thumb and forefinger—“this mess of unmentionable substances through the house. Let’s go toward the mews; you might go out that way.”

  Henry looped his first two fingers into the collar of his coat and flung it over his shoulder. “Splendid. You know how I feel about front doors.”

  He followed her through the garden and mews, toeing aside bits of manure as it fell through the jungle of Caroline’s garments to the ground. He bit back a smile at the memory of her face as he’d held open her collar, the way she’d scrunched her eyes shut against the force of her laughter. It made him feel light inside, to know he’d made her laugh.

  The nape of her neck shimmered with perspiration. He thought of that night in his brother’s room. He had to look away.

  “What’s that?” he asked, pointing to a small, irregularly shaped structure tucked into the far corner of the garden. Its walls were done up in paneled wood, painted a dark shade of brown; a turret of windows sat proudly atop the sloping roof. Through the doors, flung open to receive the warm weather, Henry could make out the sparkle of crystal, the dim outlines of furniture and tables.

  “William’s garden folly,” Caroline replied, stopping to admire the view. “I helped him and his architect design it. It’s meant as a place for peace, for solitude and reflection, but I think my brother uses it for rather less . . . noble pursuits. He’s done it up in the Turkish style, pillows and sofas everywhere.”

  Henry grinned. “Solitude and reflection, indeed.”

  “It’s more a harem than a folly,” Caroline agreed with a shrug. “Must be something about all this fresh air that puts his—ah—friends in the mood.”

  They made their way through the garden, past the mews and kitchens. Caroline stopped beside the gate, thrown open to a shadowy, narrow lane beyond, and curled her fingers into the gate’s wrought iron scrollwork. She looked down at her boots as she scuffed aside a stray pebble.

  Henry did not want to leave.

  “Lady Caroline,” he said, bowing. “You have provided most able instruction. Then again, I am a most able student.”

  She grinned, turning her head to glare at him from beneath her lashes. “Humble as ever, Mr. Lake.”

  “Bah, humility is so boring.”

  “And you,” she scoffed. “You’re anything but boring.”

  “Yes,” he said.

  Yes, and do you like it? he wanted to say.

  The quick flash in her eyes told him she might.

  Henry hesitated, scrambling to think of something to say. Parting really was such sweet sorrow; when on God’s green earth would he stop having to learn that lesson?

  “Thank you, my lady. For agreeing to help me.”

  She looked at him for a moment. “You’re welcome, Mr. Lake.”

  Untangling her fingers from the gate, she turned, rolling back her shoulders as she walked; dried clumps of manure fell from the back of her gown.

  “Though you must promise never to challenge me to a manure fight again!” she called over her shoulder.

  “I promise!”

  That was the only promise he could afford to make.

  * * *

  Henry spent the rest of the afternoon in the kind of daze he’d only felt while reading a good book: one foot in this world, the other planted firmly in another, a place composed of thoughts and feelings that were largely the product of his imagination. But they were real somehow, these things. They were true.

  And that scared him, in a way he hadn’t been scared in a long time.

  An impermeable wall separated this world and that of Henry’s imagination; a wall in the form of Caroline’s brother, the Earl of Harclay, and the fifty-carat gem he’d stolen from Thomas Hope—and from England.

  If it were business as usual, Henry would hunt down the French Blue by any means possible. Subterfuge, slitting throats, sex—it was all fair game. Hell, if it were business as usual, Henry would’ve likely already had the jewel in hand.

  But he’d sworn to Caroline he’d refrain from such business, no matter how usual or useful. And this presented an obvious problem: without the diamond, Henry couldn’t negotiate with the French, couldn’t save the lives of a hundred, a thousand British soldiers, couldn’t serve England as he should.

  Henry had to tread carefully; quickly, too. As long as he was in London, he was putting them all at risk. And he’d already been the cause for enough hurt as it was.

  He took a bath.

  And then Henry Lake did what he did best. He pasted a big, furry beard to his face and tucked his queue into a wig and, alongside Mr. Moon, brooded over a tankard of ale in that deliciously sordid Cheapside tavern, the Cat and Mouse.

  His right eye—the good one—twitched at the sourness of the ale.

  “So, to be clear, we’re looking for those short, hairy acrobats again. The ones with bad teeth, rough hands?” Moon murmured, glancing about the low-ceilinged tavern.

  “Yes,” Lake replied. “This is their favorite watering hole. We need only wait.”

  “Shouldn’t be too difficult, considering every man in here—and woman—fits that description.”

  “The women aren’t all that hairy, are they?”

  Moon raised his eyebrows at the bar behind Henry.

  Henry turned, gaze falling on the barmaids working behind the counter. “Heavens,” he said, turning back to his accomplice, “even I can’t grow a moustache like that. I don’t know if I should be frightened or jealous.”

  “Jealous. Definitely jealous.” Moon sipped his ale. “D’you really think the earl’ll fall for this? He doesn’t seem the type to intimidate easily, especially if hairy drunkards are doing the intimidating. Why don’t we just—ah—coax the earl into telling us where he’s keeping the Blue, and be done with it?”

  Lake looked down at his ale, studiously avoiding Moon’s gaze.

  “The girl!” Moon nearly cried. “And the honey! You did it!”

  “You sound surprised.”

  “Oh, but I am! Frankly I didn’t think you capable of such . . . er, finesse.”

  Henry sighed. “I don’t know why I’m even talking to you about this.”

  “Because you need my help, that’s why,” Moon said. “Although it does put us in a bit of a pickle. Can’t torture your beloved’s brother, no matter how much he deserves it.”

  “She’s not my beloved.”

  “Keep telling yourself that.” Moon scratched at his fiery red goatee. “And she won’t help us?”

  “She’s agreed to let me have a look about the earl’s house without interference. But she’s not to be involved beyond that,” Lake said, more savagely than he intended. “I gave her my word—never mind, I shouldn’t be discussing this with you, and at the lovely Cat and Mouse of all places.”

  “Right,” Moon said, taking a long pull from his mug, “back to the hairy acrobats, then.”

  “Yes, the acrobats.”

  The plan was simple, really; probably too simple, but it was the best Henry could come up with in his dreamily addled state. The earl was in disguise when he’d hired the acrobats to terrorize Hope’s guests; the short-statured fellows hadn’t a clue who Harclay was. Which meant, of course, they had no recourse when it came to collecting the twenty-five pounds Harclay still owed them.

  But if Lake tipped them off that their employer was none other than William Townshend, an earl, and a wildly wealthy one at that, Henry knew the acrobats wouldn�
�t hesitate to show up at Harclay’s door for all of fashionable Mayfair to witness.

  Harclay’s Hanover Square mansion was enormous, and enormously impressive; it wouldn’t take long for the acrobats to deduce that the earl had more—much, much more—to give than the twenty-five pounds he promised them.

  With any luck, those limber scalawags would harass Harclay for money, for favors, for more money—hell, with more luck they might even blackmail him, threaten to reveal him for the thief and liar he was. Thus beleaguered, his honor at stake, the earl might come to regret stealing the diamond, regret setting his plot in motion. Maybe—and this was a very big maybe—the acrobats’ harassment might convince the earl it had been a bad idea to thieve the French Blue, and to return it post haste to its rightful owner, Thomas Hope, before he was found out, his honor destroyed.

  “We’re playing with fire, you know,” Moon said. “Once we tip off the acrobats, it will be difficult to control them. They could stake out Harclay’s house, follow him, find out who his friends are, and whom he loves. They could use that information as a weapon against him. What if they threaten Lady Violet’s life, or your lady friend his sister’s?”

  “She is not my lady friend,” Henry ground out. “She’s not mine, period. How many times do I have to tell you that?”

  Moon rolled his eyes. “Of course. My mistake, sir, apologies. But the fact remains—after we tell the acrobats who their employer is, it’ll only be a matter of time before they discover his secrets. They could demand virtually anything from him if they threaten to kidnap, or harm, or even kill his sister. You said yourself that Harclay is very protective of her.”

  A surge of anger rose through his chest to pool at the base of Henry’s skull. Just imagining those blackguards handling Caroline brought his baser instincts to life; his fingers tightened around his mug. The earl may be protective of his sister, but Henry would kill anyone who so much as harmed a hair on her head.