Celeste Bradley - [The Liar's Club 0]

by The Spy

  “Phillipa, I care for you.”

  “Nicely said.” She continued to fold her things. “I care for you as well, although perhaps a bit too differently for my peace of mind.”

  “What are you saying? Didn’t you hear me? I want to marry you!”

  “You think of me as a friend. You like to bed me.” She held up a hand against his protest. “I like to bed you as well. And you are grateful for my role in delivering you from the guilt that you have carried.” She finished packing and closed the valise.

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you!”

  She looked at what was left of the things she had been given. “I don’t know what to do with Phillip’s clothing. Button went to such pains, but I don’t think a real gentleman could wear them.”

  She toyed with a loose thread on the waistcoat. “I ought to mend this, but there is no time.” The seam parted in her hands. Phillipa stared at the lining in evident shock.

  “Oh, merde.” She held it out to show James, her green eyes wide. “The money. Bessie’s money. She must have sewed it into this waistcoat for safekeeping.” She folded the vest carefully. “I stole it after all,” she murmured. “I must return it immediately to Bessie’s family.”

  “Bother the clothes! How can you be so indifferent to me?” James tugged the valise from her grip. “Look at me, Flip! Look into my eyes and tell me that you do not want to marry me!”

  Phillipa looked down at the bag in his hand, then allowed her gaze to rise to meet his. Her eyes were clear and somber and as green as spring pine.

  “James Cunnington, I do not want to marry you.”

  Then she pulled the valise from his numb grip and left the room.

  Agatha plunked both fists on her hips and glared at him. “You botched it again, didn’t you?”

  James grimaced. “I most assuredly do not want to talk about this.”

  He sat at the giant worktable in Kurt’s kitchen, although even Kurt had deserted his own realm when he’d seen Agatha was in this fit.

  “First you proposed ‘politely,’ which is bloody insulting if you ask me.” Agatha made that sound, the one that women had made at men since probably the beginning of time. It always made James flinch. “What did you do this time, Jamie? Plead gratitude?”

  Since that was precisely what he had done, this only infuriated him more. “What is so wrong with being grateful? She did something most astonishing for me.”

  “So does the ashman, every morning, but that doesn’t constitute reason to get engaged to him!”

  James opened his mouth to dispute her, but then shut it. Was that what he had done? Offered payment for services rendered? He dropped his head into his hands. “Women are—they’re bloody encrypted, that’s what they are!”

  Agatha nodded. “Now you’re getting it.”

  Clara entered. She gazed at James with his head on the table and then considered Agatha’s pose of disgust. “He botched it again, didn’t he?”

  James stood, too upset to suffer further at the hands of these women, no matter how beloved. “I am going to the code room, should—should someone send for me.”

  “Phillipa isn’t in the code room,” called out Agatha as he left. “There’s nothing there but dusty old papers and dusty old Fisher.”

  James didn’t answer. He needed to decipher the woman he loved, and Fisher was the only code-breaker the Liars had.

  Phillipa stopped to say good-bye to Robbie. It wasn’t easy to walk back into that house again. The very walls seemed to ring of James’s presence. Of course, Robbie was playing in the study, the single most painful room.

  Denny led her there, his expression sour. “Don’t know what you think you’re doin’ back here. Made a muck of it all—that’s what I’d say if someone were to ask me.”

  “Denny, you simply don’t understand.”

  “I understand that you come in here and you lied, and now the little bloke won’t talk to anyone, and the master is all tied in knots.” Denny stopped to glare at her. “Things were just fine afore you come along.”

  Phillipa blinked. “Before? Do you mean when Robbie couldn’t read and James couldn’t sleep?” Then she stopped herself. There was no point in arguing with Denny. The man had resented her presence from the beginning. Blaming her for the household’s unhappiness was as natural to Denny as breathing.

  “You’ve no need to worry, Denny. I’m leaving in a moment and you’ll never have to worry about me again.”

  Robbie was happy to see her at least. “Flip!” He jumped up from his scattered soldiers to fling himself into her arms. “Are you home then?”

  “No, darling. I only came to say good-bye.”

  “You’re leavin’?” He leaned back in her embrace to blink woeful eyes at her. “When are you comin’ back?”

  Phillipa’s own eyes burned. This was harder than she’d dreamed. She didn’t know how to explain to this little boy who had never had anyone to count on that she was another person walking away.

  “I can’t stay, Robbie. I can’t live here with you and James. Lord Etheridge has ordered a rescue operation. I am going back to Spain to await my father’s return.”

  “Spain?” He scowled at her, even as his blue eyes filled. “What’s in bl-bloody Spain?”

  She didn’t answer him, for there really was nothing in Spain, not for her. For that matter, there was nothing there for Papa either, but for memories that had kept him from living for far too long. Perhaps, once he’d recovered from his imprisonment, they might consider living somewhere else.

  But not London. Never London.

  London meant James, and Robbie, and the Liars. London meant more pain than she was sure she could survive.

  Still, she found herself unable to walk away just yet. She sat in the big chair behind James’s desk with a wilted, grieving Robbie on her lap. His gangling legs dangled ridiculously far and he was heavy, but she treasured the feel of her boy in her arms.

  Finally it was time to go. “Kiss me good-bye, darling. My carriage is waiting.”

  “Not quite yet, my mistress of disguise,” a deep voice said.

  James stood in the doorway, leaning one broad shoulder on the frame. His hair was windblown and he’d a small streak of ink across one cheekbone. His brown eyes had gone black with intensity and he kept her gaze pinned with his.

  Robbie ran a wrist under his nose. “James, Flip says she’s goin’ away!”

  “I intend to take care of that, son, if you’ll kindly take yourself off to your room.”

  Robbie wrapped his arms more tightly about Phillipa’s neck. “No. She might leave!”

  James looked at his son then. “Rob, a good Liar knows when to turn the mission over to a specialist.”

  “Oh.” Robbie slid from Phillipa’s lap and ran from the room before she could get a last kiss good-bye. Her arms felt empty. She stood, keeping the desk between her and James—not from fear, but as a sort of buffer to the powerful draw of his presence.

  “I should go.”

  “Please, stay just a moment. There is something I need your help with.” He pulled a folded paper from his breast pocket. “Fisher can’t make out a thing. I thought perhaps you might, if you can spare the time.”

  “Oh. Of course.” Feeling oddly deflated, Phillipa took the document and returned to her seat behind the desk. She took a sharpened pencil from the drawer in her hand and examined the paper.

  “It seems to be a message, done in a simple alphabetical replacement mode. If we take the most commonly used letter of the alphabet, which is e, and we discern which symbol has replaced it—” She looked up at him with suspicion. “Fisher ought to have been able to decipher this easily.”

  James shrugged, although he did sneak one finger into his cravat to pull on it. Phillipa blinked at that. Was he nervous about something? Then she found herself distracted by his firm square jaw and his sculpted cheekbones and the way his dark chocolate hair curled just so about his ear—

  The code. Y
es. She swallowed, forcing herself to concentrate. She continued with the alphabet replacement, and then found herself intrigued anew. “There’s an interesting numerical twist here,” she murmured. “Not difficult, but nicely concealed. Whoever composed this was quite good.”

  James made a noise, causing her to look up. She scowled at the interruption. “Do you want me to decipher this or not?”

  He nodded, seeming most earnest.

  She went back to work. The familiarity of solving the puzzle soothed her. She wasn’t sure what Papa wanted to do with himself when he returned to Spain, but perhaps they could work together—

  The puzzle snapped into place, the words appearing as if by magic. She smiled. “I’ve got you now,” she breathed.

  James leaned forward in his seat. “Read it.”

  She held up a hand. “Don’t rush me.” Tilting her head, she blinked at it. “It seems to be a sort of poem.” She read it silently to herself.

  You are the end, and the beginning.

  You are what I wish to hold close each night

  And what I wish to breathe in every morning.

  When I die, my only regret will be that you could

  never reside in my heart to hear how it sings when

  you touch me.

  You are my fancy. You are my friend.

  You are my love.

  Phillipa swallowed hard, forcing her heart to slow, not daring to believe. She blinked rapidly, until the mark on the bottom of the page came clear. “There’s—there’s a symbol on the page, a signature. I’m not sure . . . it looks like a lion and an eagle combined, like a—”

  “A griffin.” His voice was low and intense.

  “Ah.” Her voice was not trustworthy.

  James shifted nervously then. “I did it correctly, didn’t I? I didn’t accidentally say I wanted to wear your stockings or some such?”

  She laughed but in her laughter began to leak tears. He had charmed her heart open too many times for her to resist him now. Still, she couldn’t allow him to escape a very subtle revenge.

  She smiled at him, the big broad-shouldered blur that he was. “Shall I code my reply? After all, you made me work for this.”

  “Dear God, no! It took me hours to write that! Don’t make me wait.”

  “Oh, I think you’ll be able to read this code rather easily.”

  She pushed back her chair and stood. Drying her eyes, she walked around the desk to cross the carpet to him. Raising her arms and arching her back, she began to undulate before him as she hummed a very familiar Arabian tune.

  James found that puzzle very easy to unravel indeed.

  Epilogue

  The apples were gone from the trees, all but a few late bloomers. Soon the leaves would fall as well and the estate of Appleby would take on a cozy air of bubbling hearths and apple wood crackling sweetly on the grate.

  Still, for now the weather was fine enough for everyone to have made the journey from London to Lancashire in comfort and good time.

  The wedding breakfast was done, the huge serving platters bearing only fragments of the feast that had taken place. Nevertheless, the guests didn’t seem to want to leave, despite having eaten their fill of apple tart and apple pastries and apple jumble. It seemed the staff at Appleby had a surplus of apples this year.

  James stood in the large ballroom—which had been needed to accommodate the entire village at the tables—with Dalton and Lord Liverpool. They were ostensibly discussing business, although his eye was constantly caught by the glint of bright auburn hair twined with pearls. Phillipa looked every inch the woman in Button’s creation of ivory silk. Every female there, and there were some beauties, seemed to pale before her vivid glow.

  She was copper and pearl and emerald fire. She was a jeweled work of art in feminine form.

  And she was his own. Possessive pride swept him. He felt like a king today, like a—

  Fingers snapped before his eyes. “James has gone off again.” Dalton wore a patient smirk.

  Liverpool raised a brow, but merely continued with what he was saying. “A question still remains, that I don’t think we shall ever know now. How did Lavinia know to single out James in the first place? She targeted him most specifically.”

  Dalton nodded. “I’ve been wondering that myself. There’s more as well. I didn’t want to bring this up on such a happy occasion, but a body was pulled from the Thames three days past. We think it may be Jackham’s.”

  Dull regret tugged at James. The poor sod. Jackham had never been a Liar, never had the strength of the club behind him to help him resist Lavinia. “Did you identify it?”

  “There wasn’t much of a face left. You know what the river does. But the corpse was wearing a very distinctive waistcoat.”

  Liverpool pursed his lips. “Done in by one of your men, do you think?”

  Dalton tilted his head. “They say not. I think they’d give me a hint, even if they didn’t admit it outright. Still, it is possible.”

  James knew better. There had been talk, but so far the men had been unable to come to any sort of agreement. No one Liar would do such a thing without a consensus.

  Ren Porter traveled through James’s mind, but Ren had cleanly disappeared from London that day, never to be seen since. “The other possibility is that he was killed by the opposition.”

  “Hmm.” Liverpool nodded. “Gentlemen, it seems we have not done yet with this particular espionage ring. There is someone running about with far too much knowledge of the club and the Liars.” He eyed the circle of women around Phillipa. “If you gentlemen would only take your courting outside club boundaries . . .”

  Both Dalton and James felt the need to protest.

  “Come now, my lord, one can hardly say—”

  “She came looking for me, my lord!”

  James might have been mistaken, but he thought he saw Lord Liverpool’s mouth give a tiny twitch. Good God, was his lordship teasing them? James rather hoped not. Such a thing would unbalance his world entirely.

  “Speaking of your lady wife, Cunnington,” Liverpool went on. “How do you propose to explain Master Phillip? He–she made quite the impression among the matchmaking set.”

  James grinned. “Why, Phillipa’s dear twin brother has had to leave on an extended journey to parts unknown.”

  Dalton grimaced. “Twins? Isn’t that something of a cliché?”

  “I beg your pardon!” came an affronted voice from behind them. The three men turned to see Kitty and Bitty Trapp, clad in matching maid-of-honor gowns, staring at them with arms folded.

  James stepped back. So much identical ire. It was quite disconcerting.

  Even Dalton seemed nonplussed. Only Liverpool seemed immune. He was staring across the ballroom at a lone fair-haired figure standing in the grand doorway. There was a careful space around him, as if the other guests feared contagion. Few of the Liars really knew the truth behind Nathaniel Stonewell’s sacrifice.

  “What is Reardon doing here?” The Prime Minister’s words were chips of ice.

  James squared his shoulders. “Nate is my friend. I invited him to my wedding.”

  Liverpool turned to him coldly. “Don’t you understand? I want him isolated. It is the perfect smoke-screen. As a publicly known traitor, Reardon is the bait on my hook.”

  James worked his jaw. “Well, there are none but friends here today. The Crown needn’t fish at my wedding breakfast.”

  “Stand down, Cunnington,” admonished Liverpool. “I’m not about to throw him out by the collar.” He lifted a glass of wine from the tray of a passing footman and raised it to salute James. “Now go see to your pretty bride.”

  Across the room, Agatha turned to Phillipa in wonder. “I do believe Lord Liverpool is mellowing somewhat. I’ve never seen him drink standing up before.”

  Surrounded by her new friends, Phillipa smiled at Agatha’s obvious cheer. Even Rose was openly happy today—except when Collis was nearby, which sent the girl into somber retreat�
��and Clara was serenely pleased.

  “Why is everyone so thrilled by my wedding James?”

  Agatha filched a bit more apple tart from a table. “It’s the change in him, Phillipa. He’s back with us at last and it was you that brought him home.”

  Phillipa shook her head. “I should love to take the credit, but he came back all by himself. I only held the candle in the window.”

  She felt powerful arms encircle her waist, tightening with gentle ferocity. “Like a moth to flame.” Warm breath brushed her ear. “I missed you,” he whispered.

  “I saw you not ten minutes past,” she teased.

  “Too long.”

  He smiled at his sister and Clara and Rose, but made no apology as he towed Phillipa away by the waist.

  They passed Rupert Atwater, who was discussing something with great intensity with Fisher. Phillipa’s father had arrived back in England several days before, in good health but strained from constant worry. The rescue had gone smoothly, its method so undetectable that even now reports came of searches still being carried out in Paris.

  Atwater, who wasn’t nearly as elderly as James had remembered him being, had immediately taken up his old post with the Liars, much to Fisher’s joy. In addition, Agatha had installed three new apprentices in the code-room this week. Not a full department, but it was a start.

  Now Rupert Atwater, lean and ginger-haired, stood quite comfortably while Robbie hung from his arm like a monkey on a vine.

  James grinned at the sight. “I like your father.”

  “There was a time when you wanted to kill him, remember?”

  He nodded, unrepentant. “And I’m sure I’ll want to again, since he’s to live with us. A full house. Still, Robbie needs a grandfather and I think Rupert might just need Robbie.”

  “You think that makes a full house, do you?”

  He frowned in worry. “Too full?”

  “I should say not, although I’m glad you passed Denny on to Collis. I have neither the time nor the inclination to win him over. We have a mission of our own, you know.”