He found Eric sulking in the shadow of the servant’s stair. Catt approached with slow footsteps, careful to keep his posture and demeanor nonthreatening. The boy tensed as he lowered himself onto the stair next to him.
“Don’t run,” Catt said, keeping his voice low. “I only want to talk.”
Eric said nothing. The glow of a lamp or candle from somewhere further in the manor cast a dim light that stretched just far enough to make out the contours of his face. Whether due to the lighting or some natural pigment, the boy’s face appeared waxen and drawn.
He said nothing, giving Catt time to collect his thoughts before he ventured, “We know the poppy was not planted by you.”
The boy looked relieved. “I swear, I didn’t even know what it was for, when I first found it. I just thought it was another of Lady Belhaven’s flowers.”
“I take it you never told her of it.”
“No. It was in such a sorry state I was afraid she would sack me for mistreating it, so I looked it up in the library first.”
The color rushed back into his cheeks in a flood. He pressed his lips together and didn’t say another word.
Catt stifled a sigh. He knew not every person they cornered would be as willing to spill their secrets, but for some reason, he considered this one to be key. Could he come at it from another angle?
Keeping his posture carefully casual, he mused, “I’ve heard from others in the manor that Mr. Dowden killed his wife.”
Catt shot a glance toward the boy in time to catch his confused expression. Eric shrugged. “I don’t know if that’s true. It was before my time here.”
“The kind of man to bully someone into fetching from his stash would certainly be capable of killing, wouldn’t you say?”
Fear crossed the boy’s face. “You think Mr. Dowden…?” He pressed his lips together and shook his head. “No. Mr. Dowden isn’t forcing me to do anything.” The mixture of emotions on his face was all but indecipherable. Was he disappointed or afraid? Catt wouldn’t tell.
Gently, he said, “You’re certain? I will take you at your word. If you tell me Mr. Dowden is to blame for the existence of the poppy, I will believe you.”
“Well, he is,” Eric scowled. “But he doesn’t know that I found it.”
Interesting. Catt had been so certain…
Maybe he needed to purge all preconceptions from his brain and listen to what Eric was trying to tell him. The boy was clearly on edge, moments away from divulging the truth. If Catt pushed the wrong way, he might close up and offer nothing.
Softly, Catt promised, “I won’t tell him.”
That didn’t seem to ease Eric’s discomfort.
Catt took a deep breath, trying to think. “Did you take the leaves for yourself?”
“No!” The boy recoiled, hunching in on himself as he vehemently denied the notion with words and body language.
“For who, then? Lady Belhaven?” The boy had already confessed that he hadn’t informed her of the plant’s existence. Hadn’t he?
Tight-lipped, Eric shook his head. He wrapped his arms around his knees and didn’t say a word.
Someone was undoubtedly extorting him. Could this be connected with Catt and Rocky’s assignment? For some reason, Catt didn’t think so. What benefit could Monsieur V take from the use of opiates? Unless he wanted to indulge for himself, but that seemed careless and irresponsible, two things that Monsieur V had long since proven himself not to be. The French spymaster didn’t make mistakes, didn’t descend into a state that might loosen his tongue. He was meticulous in everything he did; if anything, opiate use might make him sloppy. Therefore, it was unlikely that Monsieur V was the man forcing Eric to steal the poppy leaves for him.
Who, then? Should Catt walk away and leave the matter as it was?
He gritted his teeth. He couldn’t. For Rocky’s sake, if nothing else. She had a soft spot for adolescents forced into a tight corner. He didn’t know what had gone on in her past to warrant such ferocity, but he knew he couldn’t let Eric walk away without at least making an attempt to learn who was truly behind this behavior.
Catt laid a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Eric, I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what is going on.”
The boy hid his face. “You can’t help me, either way. Lady Belhaven wouldn’t believe you any more than she would me.”
Catt took a deep breath, trying to maintain his calm, neutral tone. Snapping at the scullery boy for his reluctance would do more harm than good. Fear was not going to win him any answers; trust would.
“How do you know? I believe the lady is quite fond of me.”
He did escort her back to her rooms nearly every time she visited the hothouse. Sometimes, she asked him to take tea with her there. He wasn’t always at liberty to accept, depending on the day, but she certainly wouldn’t offer if she abhorred him.
Eric swallowed audibly. “It involves…her family.” His voice cracked.
Catt waited, but he offered nothing more. Gently, Catt said, “Who in her family? Her son? Her grandsons? All three?”
Lance had strode into the hothouse as if it was his rather than his grandmother’s. Had he learned about the poppy and wanted some for himself?
To be honest, Catt couldn’t picture it. Lance didn’t seem the type to indulge in such a fashion. He was upright, collected, calculating. The kind of qualities Catt pictured in Monsieur V.
Stanley, on the other hand, was more self-indulgent and seemed to live for his own pleasures. The only reason Lady Belhaven seemed to treat him differently than her son was because he was more considerate. At least, as far as Catt had been able to tell.
After a long, drawn-out moment, Eric’s shoulders slumped forward in defeat. He let out a gusty sigh. “A couple months back, when I was helping Lady Belhaven in the hothouse, she had a fit.”
Catt frowned. “What kind of fit?”
“Dizziness. It happens from time to time. She fell, but I managed to catch her on the way down so she wasn’t as hurt as may be.”
Catt strongly suspected that by ‘catch her’ Eric indicated that he had cushioned the old lady’s fall.
“Go on,” he said slowly. He didn’t understand what her health had to do with her family…unless one of them was trying to do away with her?
He didn’t want to think of that possibility. He stowed it in the back of his mind, for consideration at another time.
“Lady Belhaven has a draught in her bedchamber that she keeps on hand to give her strength against the dizzy spells. I ran to fetch it for her while she recovered.”
Catt nodded. He waited for the boy to continue. Since none of this explained the poppy in any way, he sensed there was more to the story. Silence wrapped around them, punctuated by the distant sounds of the servants going about their chores. No one lingered in this section of the manor, for the moment. That didn’t mean that they would remain in privacy for long.
“You found the draught,” Catt prompted.
“I found more than that.” The scullery boy fiddled with his fingernails, picking at them. “I found Mr. Belhaven in her room, helping himself to the money in her purse.”
“To which Mr. Belhaven are you referring?” There were three, after all. Even if, given the conversations both he and Rocky had overheard, Catt suspected he knew precisely which man Eric meant.
“Her son,” the boy confirmed.
The answer didn’t surprise Catt in the least. He’d known the man was a fiend from the moment they’d met.
“You didn’t tell Lady Belhaven,” he guessed.
Eric shook his head. “I can’t. Who will she believe, a scullery boy or her own son?”
Catt would like to think that the old woman had enough sense to see the truth, but he didn’t speak as much aloud. Truth be told, Eric was likely correct. If Lady Belhaven had wanted to see the truths of her son’s character, she would have disowned him and barred him from the house rather than simply refusing him money.
“How
does this matter relate to the poppy?”
Catt sensed he wouldn’t be happy with the answer, but he had to know the full truth. Hell and damnation, how was he going to tell this to Rocky? She would want to charge into Mr. Belhaven’s home and flay him alive.
The adolescent scratched his head. “It didn’t, not at first. When I caught Mr. Belhaven, he threatened that if I told his mother that I’d found him in her room, he would see me sacked. He’d see that I never found another position. He’d say I was the one stealing, not him.”
In one paragraph, the boy expressed all the injustice of the class system. Catt had never considered himself much of a radical, though the fact that he straddled the lines of the class system and didn’t truly fit into any category gave him a unique perspective. Now, however… Was this what had happened to Rocky when she was young? He suddenly appreciated the Graylockes and their liberal dispositions when it came to formality and the separations of class. Although they had copious servants, neither Lady Graylocke nor Morgan would ever stand for such an injustice to occur under their roof. They treated those who worked for them as people, as equals, as least as much as one could treat someone as an equal when that person looked after one’s every need. At the very least, they one and all treated their servants with respect.
Here, Eric had caught a man in wrongdoing, which under any other circumstance might have given him an advantage against the person he caught. But no, Mr. Belhaven had twisted that with his privilege to take advantage of the scullery boy instead.
Eric continued. “I promised not to say a word, but that wasn’t the end of it. He started to ask me for favors. I don’t know how he came to learn about the poppy, but once he did, about a month ago, he’s been making me fetch him the leaves so he can imbibe.”
“My sympathies.” What could Catt do? What could he say? Kenneth was, unfortunately, as far beyond his grasp to punish as Monsieur V. He and Rocky hadn’t been sent here to right the world’s wrongs; their only concern was with Britain and the war. Softly, he added, “If it’s any consolation, should you be turned out of the house, I can see you get a good recommendation to work for the Duke of Tenwick.”
“A duke?” Eric snorted. It was a sound of disbelief. His voice was laden with distrust and bitterness when he added, “What can you do? You’re only a servant, like me. Them lords and ladies don’t listen to the likes of us.”
Catt wasn’t a servant. He was a friend to the Graylockes, and he was fairly certain that Morgan would take Eric in if only Catt explained the situation. But he couldn’t say either thing to the boy, or risk giving away his true purpose in the house. To Eric, Catt was nothing more than a servant. That was his role here, and he’d best not forget it.
He clapped the boy on the shoulder. “Well, you have my silence. And Rocky’s as well. I’ll see to it.”
Eric looked a bit alarmed, but he bit his lower lip and nodded. Catt squeezed his shoulder and stood. He needed to tell Rocky what he’d learned. She wasn’t going to like it.
The real question was whether or not he could stop her from doing something that might jeopardize their purpose in the household. He squared his shoulders and prepared for another battle of wills.
The moment he stepped into the hothouse, he found Rocky pacing. She’d lit a lantern, but that only threw her shadow against the glass wall, distorting her reflection. He couldn’t catch her expression in the glass. When he shut the hothouse door, she rounded on him. Impatience bled from her pores.
“Well?”
He pressed his back against the door, barring her escape. “Eric confessed the situation to me.”
She looked relieved. Had she not trusted him to get the boy to open up?
“And?” She stepped closer, a pace away where she didn’t have to raise her voice.
“He’s being forced into it, as you might expect.”
“By whom?” Rocky’s jaw was set, her eyes hard. She looked ready to do battle.
He couldn’t let her.
“Kenneth.” As a thundercloud darkened Rocky’s expression, Catt hesitated. He knew that she wasn’t going to like the explanation of the situation any more than she did the culprit. “Eric caught him stealing from Lady Belhaven and has been blackmailed into silence.”
Catt knew he should have put it more delicately, given the way Rocky became riled at the mistreatment of working class adolescents. He caught her gaze with his, willing her to understand that he’d told her the bald truth because he trusted her not to do anything rash.
Her expression knit into a mask of outrage. She whirled away from him, storming the length of the hothouse before turning back. Her posture was rigid. Even across the room, he could tell she was shaking.
Blast! He should have broken the news more gently, after all. He strode away from the door and caught her as she turned back toward him. They were so close—he didn’t think twice, but wrapped his arms around her and drew her close to his chest. His heart thumped hard as he waited for her to thrust him away.
She didn’t. Instead, she buried her face in his shirt. “It isn’t right.” She grabbed fistfuls of his jacket like she plotted to wring someone’s neck.
He rubbed her back, slowly feeling the tension leave her. He’d never seen her worked into this much of a lather. But, usually, if she found something to be out of sorts she was at liberty to fix it. This time, their hands were tied.
“No,” he said softly. “It isn’t.”
She tipped her face up to his. Her gaze snapped with indignation and outrage. “We have to do something.”
He’d never felt more helpless in his life than when he had to tell her, “We can’t. Not yet. We’re here to catch V.”
The tension returned to her body. He pulled her even closer, resting his cheek on top of her head. “I’m sorry. If I could do something, I would. I told him I could get him a position with the Graylockes, but I don’t think he believed me.”
Rocky trembled. “Kenneth deserves to be punished.”
“He does.”
Catt couldn’t refute that. Unfortunately, he couldn’t condone it, either. They couldn’t draw attention to themselves and there was every chance that if they spilled the truth to Lady Belhaven that Eric would be right and she would discount their tales in favor of her son.
That left inaction, and while it didn’t sit well with Catt, he could see no other option for them. They had one mission and one mission only; if Kenneth was not Monsieur V, then he was no concern of theirs despite his heinous actions.
To his surprise, Rocky started to relax against him. She wrapped her arms around his waist and clutched him tight. A bit tighter than was comfortable, but he wasn’t about to complain. Certainly not when she seemed to be calming down and returning to her usual state.
Had he…helped? He continued to rub circles over her back as emotion drenched him. He didn’t know anyone able to calm Rocky when she worked herself up like this. No one except…him. At that moment, he felt strangely powerful. Important. He spent most of his life feeling superfluous—an extra body at a dinner party when needed, or company while Gideon worked through one of his brilliant breakthroughs with their research. Catt wasn’t needed, not really.
At that moment, he felt needed. Like he’d made a difference. He turned his face into her hair, afraid to speak and ruin the moment.
“So what can we do?” Rocky asked after a moment, her voice soft.
He sighed and lifted his head, though he didn’t release her. She didn’t seem to mind that she still stood in the circle of his embrace. In fact, though she’d lessened her death grip, she still held him close. She tipped her face up to his. She looked more vulnerable than he’d ever seen her.
He hated it. He wanted the strong, confident woman he knew so well. Unfortunately, he didn’t know how to bring her back, or even if that woman would still want to stand here, like this.
“I don’t know,” he admitted softly. “Discovering V’s identity is our top priority.”
She
nodded, her expression resigned. “I know.”
“Perhaps after we complete that task, we’ll be at liberty…” He trailed off, not knowing what to say. If they exposed Kenneth’s thieving ways, they would upset Lady Belhaven, who appeared to be in a delicate state of health whether or not she cared to admit it.
If they confronted Kenneth, Catt doubted that it would do a damn bit of good. With that man’s temper, they might only wind up hurt.
The only good they might be able to do would be to remove Eric from the situation and install him in one of the Tenwick estates. But would that be good enough to ease Rocky’s conscience?
He didn’t know.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I wish we could do more.”
She burrowed her face in his chest again. “As do I.”
He didn’t know how long they stood that way. He wanted to ask what had happened in her past to make her so vehement in the defense of adolescents, but he didn’t want to shatter the moment. For all that he’d hugged her to offer her comfort, he found the closeness of her body to be soothing to him, as well. He’d never taken comfort from someone like this. He didn’t want it to end.
So he said nothing. He steeled himself against the moment they would have to separate and return to their usual selves. The bullish Rocky who second-guessed every word out of his mouth, the tantalizing woman he wanted to kiss but couldn’t. In the back of his mind, he feared what this moment would do to their fragile friendship.
Even that fear couldn’t pull him away from her at that moment. He didn’t want this newfound intimacy with her to end.
Chapter 18
Rocky deadheaded the orchid with a bit more vigor than necessary. Throughout the night, she had been haunted by the knowledge of Kenneth’s misdeeds and plagued by dreams of her past. Once she was out of that situation and settled at Tenwick Abbey, she had vowed never to stand idly by while something similar happened beneath her nose.
Charming the Spy (Scandals and Spies Book 4) Page 14
