Celeste Bradley - [The Liar's Club 0]

by The Spy

  Phillipa attempted to spend her time constructively, expanding her knowledge with one of the many excellent books on the shelves, but she found her mind wandering to most distressing places. Such as—were all men as hard in body as James? And hadn’t It swelled to a most astonishing size? And, yes, inevitably . . . what really had happened to It last night?

  Slowly she raised the book to cover the flaming blush on her face. It remained up for at least an hour.

  When she had indulged her scandalous thoughts quite long enough and had managed to beat back the scalding redness in her cheeks, Phillipa stood to put away the most excellent book that she hadn’t read a word of.

  She tried to step around Robbie’s game of soldiers on the carpet. Little lead men were scattered everywhere. Apparently it had been a long and bloody battle. She missed her appointed step by an inch. Robbie’s gasp echoed against the book-lined walls. “You smashed my foot soldier!”

  She looked down at him holding the crumpled fellow in his palm. “So sorry. Might he be repairable?”

  Robbie tried to reshape the little fellow but the soldier remained rather quadrupedal. “He looks like he’s crawlin’. Soldiers march, they don’t crawl.”

  “Not necessarily.” Phillipa smiled, thinking of the adventures set down in her father’s journal. “A spy might crawl, to avoid being seen.”

  “A spy! That’s the ticket!” Robbie bent to place his man to skulk on the edges of the enemy encampment, behind a tent made of one of Denny’s fine linen table napkins. Then he looked up at Phillipa as if struck by a thought. “What d’you know of spyin’? You’re a girl.”

  “A little louder, please, Master Robert. I don’t think Cook heard you.” Phillipa sat beside her student, more in an effort to keep his piping vocal level low than out of sympathy for his neck. “And why wouldn’t a woman know as much of spying as a certain little boy?”

  “Huh. I know all about spies.”

  Phillipa raised a brow. “You do?”

  Robbie shrugged carelessly. How curious, that he had made that statement without an ounce of young male bravado. He had said it as if it were simple fact. “The sky is blue. The grass is green. I know all about spies.”

  Something tingled in the back of Phillipa’s mind. James . . . this house . . . his club . . . his friends . . . and always, her father’s warning. “Keep a close watch on James Cunnington.”

  So many puzzles. Perhaps Robbie held the key.

  Despite the sudden intensity tightening her shoulders, she affected a pose of bored indifference, propping her elbow on her knee and her chin on her fist. “I doubt it. You’re no more than eight or nine years of age. ’Tisn’t likely that a spy would teach you anything.”

  The war game was forgotten in the midst of a gigantic explosion of cannon. Robbie sat up with affront on his thin little face. “Why not? I’m as good as any man in Wellington’s army. James said so.”

  Phillipa toyed with a cavalry soldier. “How do they make these tiny horses look so real? Oh, don’t worry yourself, Robbie. Someday you’ll be old enough to be a real spy. Many years from now, of course.”

  Her disbelief was hurting Robbie’s feelings, she could see it on his face. Guilt twisted in her belly. She had fallen so far she would manipulate an innocent child to meet her ends.

  Even worse, she was good at it.

  She put the soldier down and smiled at Robbie. “Let us change the subject. I’m feeling peckish. Think we might be able to scout the kitchen and spy out a bit of teacake?”

  But Robbie, stubborn little survivor that he was, would hear none of it. “I do know about spying. I’ll prove it to you!”

  He stood to look about the room. Phillipa followed his gaze about the warm and cluttered study. James’s presence was everywhere in these books and furnishings, which was likely why Robbie loved to be here so much.

  “Aha!” Robbie leapt into action. He scrambled through his own carefully placed battle scene to James’s desk, where he took the top sheet from a stack of writing paper. He turned to wave it triumphantly at Phillipa.

  “I can show you the last thing written here.”

  Phillipa stood, more carefully than Robbie had. No more four-legged soldiers, thank you. “Rob, there’s no need. Come, let’s have at that teacake.”

  But even food would not pry Robbie from his purpose. He turned to the fireplace, which sat dully glowing from the morning’s fire. The day was not too cold, so Phillipa had let the coals burn away.

  Robbie knelt just before the grate.

  “What are you doing? Don’t burn yourself!”

  He only cast her a disdainful glance and bent to reach to the side of the fire. Phillipa came to kneel beside him, worried. “What are you after? Take your hand from there—”

  He pulled back his hand rather quickly, his fingers covered in soot. “Look,” he said. He laid the paper on the hearthstone, then lightly brushed the tips of his blackened fingers across the page.

  Lines began to appear as if by magic, rising from the grimy paper as dark embossing. Phillipa peered closer, enormously intrigued. “But that’s writing! What a marvelous trick! Where did you learn that?”

  “Simon showed me—”

  When he halted, Phillipa looked up to see his mouth shut most decidedly. Simon, hmm? Might that be the same Simon who was married to James’s sister, Agatha?

  Robbie bent to his work once more and soon the page was entirely begrimed. There wasn’t a great deal on it, merely a paragraph at the top of the sheet.

  Robbie handed it to her. “You read it.”

  Phillipa turned her head this way and that, but no matter how she read it, she could make nothing out.

  “It’s nonsense,” she said in disappointment.

  Robbie snickered. “It’s wrongwise. That’s the back of the paper. You have to read it in a mirror.”

  “Really.” Phillipa carried the paper gingerly by the corners to the mirror hanging above a small side table. She held the paper high, squinting at it in the reflection. Her first thought was that it was most definitely James’s handwriting, the same as in the primer they had made together.

  Her second thought was that this paper was none of her business and the girl she once was would have put it right down without reading it.

  She read it most carefully.

  “. . . and there remains the fact that Atwater has systematically fed critical information to the enemy from our own coded dispatches. I feel there is no recourse but that of Elimination.”

  Robbie’s voice seemed to come from a far distance. “What does it say?”

  Phillipa’s numbed fingers let the sooty paper slip away to float to the floor. She stared at her own reflection in the mirror but saw nothing but that one word.

  “Elimination.”

  James Cunnington was a spy.

  A spy who wanted Papa dead.

  James came home that evening to find Robbie sprawled sleeping on the carpet in the study. Not alarming in itself, for the boy had often ended his days so before the coming of Phillip Walters.

  But that had changed now, hadn’t it? The young tutor had taken on every aspect of Robbie’s care, ensuring his bath and appropriate bedtime was maintained on a daily basis. And Robbie took to such structure like a fish to water. Poor little rat was absolutely pining for someone to give a damn.

  This made James think of his own inexplicable lack of ability in managing Robbie. He’d thought it would be simple enough. Adopt a street child. Feed him, clothe him, educate him, give him a house to live in.

  No less than he himself had grown up with.

  And no more, said a tiny voice in his mind.

  Yet, what more was there? He didn’t shout at Robbie, didn’t beat him, didn’t touch him at all, for that matter. It was all as it should be.

  Phillip does more.

  Well, Phillip was paid well for it, wasn’t he? Still, James set down his hat and gloves, then knelt by the prone Robbie. There was dirt on the boy’s hands and a smudg
e on his face.

  The clock in the hall chimed twelve times. It was past late. Where was Phillip?

  James reached out to shake Robbie’s shoulder. “Wake up, Rob.” There was no response. The child slept so deeply that only the regular huffs of breath gave credence to the presence of life.

  James gave him another small shake. Still nothing. The small bones under his hand felt as delicate as a bird’s. The boy needed some flesh. What did children need to eat? All James could remember from his own childhood was apples.

  And milk. Tall frothing glasses of milk at the table, stolen swigs from the pitcher kept chilled in the springhouse.

  Well, that was simple enough. There were any number of dairies set up on the outskirts of the city, and milk wagons were seen with regularity. Likely his cook already received cream and butter from one of them. He’d just have the order increased, then.

  The nutrition issue might be solved, but there still remained the fact that Robbie was not in his bed, nor were Phillip or Denny anywhere to be seen.

  “No help for it, then.” James pulled off his frock coat and laid it over a chair. Then he bent to wrap his arms gingerly around Robbie and lift him up.

  So light. Robbie awake seemed to take up so much bloody room, it was surprising to realize how small and spare he truly was.

  Not to mention limp. The boy almost slithered right out of James’s grip. Grunting, James tossed his burden a little higher to rest on his chest and shoulder, then made his way upstairs.

  Robbie’s bedchamber was cool and dark, but not so cold that he needed to bring up more coals tonight. James balanced Robbie with one arm and reached to pull down the counterpane and linens. He laid his small grubby heir on the pristine sheets without a worry about Denny’s reaction. Serve the bloke right for leaving Robbie to sleep on the floor like a dog.

  The warmth of his anger at Phillip and Denny shook James. There was no real harm done after all. It was only that he’d gotten used to Robbie’s life having order and rhythm, even in just the few days since Phillip’s arrival.

  He pulled the covers high around Robbie’s ears and awkwardly tucked them in beneath the feather mattress once more. He straightened to regard his heir, a small mop of black hair showing on the pale linen of the pillow. He looked entirely small in his large bed. James hadn’t thought to order a child’s bed for the lad. He’d simply assigned him one of the many already furnished rooms in the house. He’d never actually come in the room since, he realized.

  The large tester was somewhat imposing in the room, not that there were very many other furnishings to compete. As a matter of fact, the room looked bloody barren in the dim glow coming through the door from the lighted hall.

  What had his own room been like as a boy? Fully chaotic, as far as he could recall. From his bats and balls to a collection of birds’ nests that he had deemed inexplicably valuable, the chamber had been packed with the debris of country boyhood.

  This room held nothing that signified boyhood. The dignified tomes on the shelf would not likely be read for years, if ever. The gleaming bureau boasted only a man-sized hairbrush, probably very lightly used.

  The chamber looked stolid and permanent, while its inhabitant seemed temporary, as if Robbie were merely a not terribly welcome guest, soon to disappear once more.

  As he gazed back down upon the sleeping boy, he spotted something peeking out from beneath the pillow. He reached to carefully draw it out. It was the primer he and Phillip had made, lovingly wrapped in a bit of linen.

  Denny was going to be looking for that table napkin, James thought absently. Then he flipped through the small book. Someone, Phillip probably, had punched the pages and tied them together with an oddly feminine bit of ribbon.

  The book already looked well used, although carefully so. One page in particular seemed to be a favorite, by the creasing of the tied spine.

  Z is for Zap.

  James smiled, reminded of Phillip’s frustration that day. He carefully rewrapped the book and tucked it beneath the pillow once more. Perhaps there was a bit of Robbie in the room. A bit of all of them, in fact.

  James left, shutting the door quietly behind him, though likely he could have run through the house slamming every door without disturbing Robbie’s dead-to-the-world slumber one little bit.

  Grinning at the thought, James went to find his missing tutor.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Phillip’s room was not too far from Robbie’s, just a few doors down from James’s own master chamber. There’d been no reason to put Phillip up with Denny in the servants’ quarters on the third floor, when it made much more sense to keep him near Robbie.

  James tapped on the door but received no answer. He entered to find the room dark but for the last glow of coals in the grate. The room was almost stiflingly warm.

  “Phillip?” He waited but there was no response. He turned to leave. Where else might Phillip be?

  Then a quiet voice hailed him from the sitting area by the fire. “Here, sir.”

  James approached the fireplace to see Phillip huddled in the large chair that every bedchamber featured. There wasn’t much to see but mussed hair and extreme pallor. Phillip was curled up as if he were cold, which was impossible in this overheated room. “Good God, man. You look bloody awful.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Are you well? Should I call a physician for you?”

  “No, sir.” Phillip’s voice was hoarse. “I’ve only had a bit of bad news.”

  “In the post?”

  “Ah . . . a letter, yes.”

  James well knew the black news that could come in the post. “Did something happen?”

  “No, sir. It was something I learned . . . but I’d rather not say, if it is all the same to you.”

  “Is there anything I can do to help?”

  Phillip turned to look at him for the first time. James was shocked to see red-rimmed eyes and blotched skin. He pulled up another chair to sit where he could meet Phillip’s eyes.

  “Sir . . . James . . .” Phillip shook his head abruptly. “No, I know of nothing that can be done. Nothing that I am capable of, at any rate.”

  James regarded him for a moment. He didn’t want Phillip to hurt. The empathy he felt was quite surprising. Yet this was Flip, his wry young companion who always had some compassionate good sense to offer, vastly wiser than his apparent years. Flip, whose humor drove away the blackest of James’s moods and whose genial manner had made this sober address into a home. Indeed, companion might not be strong enough a word for what Phillip was becoming to him.

  Family.

  But, of course, that was not truly so. Phillip Walters was simply a valuable employee, an asset to the household. James was bound to offer what he could in comfort by his responsibility as master of this house. That was all.

  “If you will not allow me to help you, at least allow me to give you some advice. You are a very intelligent fellow, quick and resourceful. You are capable of a great deal. Whatever it is that must be done, you can find it within yourself to do it.”

  There came a small bark of hoarse laughter. Startled, James blinked. “What amuses you?”

  “Oh, sir, I am not amused. I am only terribly confused. Your support is most appreciated, but I think I’d prefer to be alone at this time.” Phillip took a breath and wiped a wrist across his eyes. “If it is all the same to you.”

  James nodded, reluctant to press further. Phillip was such an odd prickly fellow sometimes. Still, Phillip was sitting straighter already, his eyes now dry, James noticed with satisfaction. Perhaps he’d managed to help in some way.

  When James turned to go, leaving Phillipa sitting in the dark, he unknowingly left a coal of burning rage in her heart.

  As the door closed after him, Phillipa leapt to her feet, unable to keep still for the volcanic ire within her. How could he gaze into her eyes with such warm concern, when at the same time he was plotting to kill her father? What sort of monster could appear to be so k
ind when death was all he knew?

  Phillipa paced, fighting back more of the hot tears of rage that she had been crying these last hours. No more of that, by God! She would save that anger, save it and use it to stop that evil man from his plotting.

  She rubbed at her face. Let there be no more girlish displays. She was fighting for her father’s life now, and her own. Her pacing stopped short at the thought.

  Her own life. Dear God, what would such a diabolical man do if he learned her real identity? There was no doubt in her mind that he would order her eliminated as well.

  “Eliminated”! The very word reverberated with the man’s cold heart and moral void. “I’ll stop you, James Cunnington, fear not.”

  But how? She had sat here all evening, torn between fleeing this house and the danger she herself was in, and staying in place to find some way to help her father.

  She would not flee again, she’d decided. Regardless of the risk to herself, she would never again hide away in some hole when there was a chance she could save Papa.

  Evening had become full night as she’d tossed out ideas both ridiculous and impossible, but as yet she had come up with no way to do what was necessary. Now she made herself sit, forcing her manic feelings to calm. How could she help Papa? She didn’t even know where he was.

  But James knew.

  How obvious. After all, one could not eliminate someone unless one knew where that someone was. James was likely part of the whole affair. Somehow Papa had been helping the British cause from Spain and James and his evil crew had learned of it. The soldiers had come to take Papa away and had destroyed Phillipa’s quiet world.

  James had ruined her very life.

  She fought down her storming emotions as they threatened to rise anew. Bad enough that James had done all of this, but terrible things were being done on both sides. It was war, after all.

  But she had liked him. Admired him. Even—and here she began to feel a bit sick—wanted him! Her stomach roiled at the thought, and at the memory of the way his nearness affected her.

  She glared at the floor and tried to think. What could one woman do against a clan of spies?