The Sugared Game

by KJ Charles

  She took his arm and steered him out to walk along a path. The wind bit. “God, it’s cold,” Will muttered.

  “Never mind that,” Maisie said. “What on earth are you doing here?”

  “Long story. Is everything all right?”

  “Well, it depends if you count me staying in a lord’s house being treated like a lady. Good heavens, Will, this place! So many bedrooms, and mine’s a lovely one, and these grounds! My ma won’t believe it when I tell her. And Lord Waring has been so welcoming. He says he wants a private conversation with me later.”

  “Right,” Will said. “Yes. Lord Waring. What’s he like?”

  Maisie stopped dead, turned, and narrowed her eyes. “All right, what’s going on?”

  “What do you mean?” Will said, a reflex he instantly regretted.

  “Don’t give me that, Will Darling. You’ve turned up here when I know very well you weren’t invited, you were making me nervous earlier just by the way you stood there, and now you’re asking questions in that voice.”

  “What voice?”

  “The one when it’s all going wrong, that’s what voice. I can tell there’s something up, so don’t treat me as if I’m stupid.”

  “I’m not. It’s just—Has Lord Waring been odd, at all? Asking funny questions?” He had to say it. “Do you feel safe?”

  Maisie took a long, slow breath. “Are you saying I shouldn’t?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I want to know what is going on. Now.”

  “Look, Maisie—”

  “No, you look,” Maisie said, sounding extremely Welsh. “Phoebe is helping me. We have plans. She’s done so much work to have me here with all sorts of useful people, and Lord Waring’s her father. If there’s something wrong, I need to know what it is.”

  “I don’t know what I can say.” Kim’s anguish at Phoebe’s future pain was too raw in his mind. “It’s not something I can share. You know I would if I could.”

  “I don’t know that at all, and I tell you what, you’re letting that Kim Secretan go to your head.”

  “I am not!”

  “Oh yes you are, running round hitting people and making cryptic remarks like him out of The 39 Steps. You own a bookshop! What are you up to?”

  Will braced himself. “I think it might not be a good idea to trust Waring.”

  “Me? Or Phoebe?”

  “Anyone. I’m going off what Kim’s said.”

  “And he’s messed you around often enough,” Maisie pointed out swiftly.

  “And you haven’t told me what a nice old man Waring is, even though you’ve had plenty of chances.”

  Maisie walked on in silence for a few steps. At last she said, “He isn’t a nice old man. Of course not, he’s a viscount. He’s very charming and well-mannered and hospitable.”

  “You don’t like him.”

  Her nostrils flared. “I didn’t say that, and it’s not up to me to like him. He’s very courteous.” She took a couple more steps. “And now you’re making me doubt myself, because I thought that he smiled with his mouth and not his eyes, and I decided he just doesn’t know me yet.”

  “You once told me that girls should never ignore their feelings about men.”

  “Don’t you quote me against myself. Will, what’s happening? You’ve got me worried.”

  “So am I. Would you go home?”

  “I can’t do that! Phoebe’s done so much, she’s putting up with Johnnie Cheveley for us, and Lord Waring’s giving us the money. I can’t just walk out because I’ve got a funny feeling. About her dad, too!”

  “I wish you’d both go. Could we fake a message from your sick auntie and ask Phoebe to come with you?”

  “No,” Maisie said comprehensively. “And I don’t know where you’ve got this taste for lying from—well, I do, but it needs to stop, and you need to talk to me. I’m not throwing away everything Phoebe’s done for me because of a few cryptic comments.”

  This felt like some sort of cosmic punishment for shouting at Kim. Will fervently wished he hadn’t raised the subject. “Maisie, I can’t, not yet. All I can say is, I think Waring’s bad news. Really bad news.”

  “But you aren’t telling me why. You can’t do this to me, Will. It isn’t fair.”

  “It wouldn’t exactly be fair to Phoebe if I told you a lot of things about her father that she didn’t know!”

  “Things Kim knows.”

  “Yes.”

  “And hasn’t told her.”

  “Uh—”

  “I’m not having this,” Maisie said flatly. “You don’t treat friends this way, or people you love, and you know that yourself, Will Darling. I expect better from you than this cloak and dagger nonsense. And your Kim needs to think very hard about what matters, because Phoebe’s kept him on his feet long enough and he won’t even be honest with her, and now you’re playing his game too? Have some respect.”

  She stalked back towards the house. Will trailed after her.

  Kim was talking to Cheveley when he returned to the garden, looking particularly saturnine. “Will. Let me show you your room, and then we’ll have that little chat with the viscount.”

  He led the way inside, up the grand oak stairs and along a series of elegantly wallpapered corridors. “It’s just down here. You’re in Borodino and I’m in the Pyramids.”

  “Sorry?”

  “All the bedrooms are named for Napoleonic battles. Lord Waring is a great admirer of Napoleon. Phoebe sleeps in Corunna. The master bedroom is of course Austerlitz.”

  “Is that right,” Will said. “Does he have a Waterloo?”

  Kim’s eyes met his as he stopped by a door that bore a sign reading Borodino. “Not yet.”

  He opened the door and gestured Will in, then stepped in after him.

  It was a very nice room, with a single bed, a dresser with a mirror, a vase of fresh flowers. Will’s bag was on a chair, apparently unopened. He checked inside and found the Messer.

  “Lovely,” Kim said. “So pleased you’ve brought a murder weapon to a house party.”

  “You said to come armed. Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

  “Not a clue.” Kim sounded almost cheerful. “I expect we’ll get a hint from Waring shortly. You probably don’t need to go armed to that meeting unless it makes you feel better. Did you have a set-to with Maisie?”

  “I was trying to warn her about Waring and see if she’d go home. But I couldn’t say why, so it didn’t go well. Actually, I did about as badly as was humanly possible.”

  “At least we’re consistent,” Kim said. “This is the hell of it. Prepare to feel like the villain of the piece to Maisie, to Phoebe, to whatever audience Waring decides to perform in front of, and primarily to yourself as you wonder if, after all, you are quite rational and have not been deceived, or deceived yourself. I spent a long time persuading myself I was wrong.”

  “I heard Fuller say Etchil.”

  “Keep that in mind. It isn’t going to make things easier with Maisie, though, right or not. I’m sorry about that.”

  “She doesn’t like Waring,” Will said. “Can’t put her finger on why.”

  “I expect because she is used to moving defensively through life. When people are obliged to keep an eye out for threats, their eyes tend to be sharp. That’s what women’s intuition means, if you ask me: being unconsciously alert for dangerous men. Let’s dress before we descend, shall we? I for one feel better when I look the part.”

  Will readied himself accordingly, though he did not feel in any way better for wearing evening dress. He felt, and looked, like an idiot.

  Kim knocked on the door while Will was attempting to control his unruly hair. He looked superb, as usual, born to the clothing, with crisp shirt front and gleaming white cuffs, not to mention glittering amethyst cufflinks.

  “Fancy,” Will said.

  “You scrub up nicely yourself.”

  “Mutton dressed as lamb,” Will muttered. “Or somethi
ng like that.”

  “Nothing like that,” Kim said. “I said ‘sophisticatedly thuggish’ before, and I meant it. Smooth outside, hard centre. The effect is mouthwatering, trust me.”

  He might even mean it, from the look in his eyes. That was a little bit heartening. “If you say so.”

  “I do, I truly do. Let me adjust that tie a fraction.”

  This apparently meant retying it. Will didn’t object to that. He’d done it badly, and anyway it put Kim in front of him, dark eyes intent and body close.

  Kim’s hands moved gently at his neck. Will watched his face, noting the lines of strain around his eyes and the bruised-looking skin under them that betrayed exhaustion. Those were the only giveaways: the rest of his face was still, the way he liked to keep it when he had something to hide.

  “Kim?”

  “Mmm?”

  “I don’t know how much this is hurting you,” Will said. “I don’t know how scared you are. But I’m here if you need to stop pretending for a bit. You’re not alone.”

  Kim’s eyes were on his, very wide. His lips parted, but he didn’t speak. Will wasn’t sure what to add, or if there was anything else to say at all. They simply looked at one another, silent but for the whisper of breath, the gentle thud of pulses.

  “I,” Kim began at last, and had to try again. “I would like to be—not alone.”

  “Shoulders right here. Suitable for leaning on, crying on, or standing at for the purposes of a fight.”

  Kim’s mouth moved in something that ended up as a smile. “They are magnificent shoulders and I shall take you up on it. Though in a fight I shall doubtless be cowering behind you.”

  “Nice try, but I’ve seen you with a knife,” Will reminded him. “Are we going to do this?”

  “Yes. It’s going to be ghastly.”

  “We’ve both had worse.”

  “Have we? Well, you have.”

  Will took Kim’s slim forearm and ran his thumb over the black cloth that covered the old scars. “Pretty sure you have too.”

  Kim paused on that. “Perhaps. I don’t know. Shall we go and find out?”

  Will cupped the back of his head and kissed him. Kim’s hands came to his shoulders, gripping them, opening his mouth to Will and pulling him in. They kissed deeply for just a moment, a snatched few seconds in a world that gave no space, and pulled apart by what felt like mutual decision.

  “Right,” Will said. “Now let’s go.”

  LORD WARING’S STUDY was the sort of room Will might have expected—more oak panels, lots of books, an oil painting of a dignified man with a moustache, a watercolour of Phoebe, a big desk. There was an ornate fireplace with beautiful carving and a painted coat of arms at its centre. A large filing cabinet struck a rather ugly note of modernity.

  Lord Waring was standing at the desk. “Ah, Arthur. And Mr. Darling. Shut the door.”

  Kim did so, then came to stand by Will. “Well. What did you want to talk about, sir?”

  “Oh, nothing formal. Just a little chat.” Lord Waring’s voice was genial. “I wondered what you’ve been up to in the past—oh, week or so. Since last Sunday, say.”

  “This and that.” Kim smiled back at him. “Pootling about, don’t you know.”

  Waring’s smile didn’t falter. “And you, Mr. Darling? I understand you’re a bookseller.”

  “That’s right.”

  “A delightful occupation. How do you come to be acquainted with Arthur?”

  “He dropped into my shop last winter, and we got talking. Struck up a friendship.”

  “Of course Arthur is a great bibliophile. Well, that explains it. What’s the phrase? Business makes strange bedfellows. Is that a fair description? Strange bedfellows?”

  This would doubtless be what Kim had meant: veiled threats, verbal games, generally playing silly buggers. Will had known a couple of officers like that. “As you say, sir.”

  “Oh, harsh,” Kim said. “I may be considered a queer fish by some, but Darling’s quite the petit bourgeois. The exemplar of Napoleon’s dictum that the English are a nation of shopkeepers.” He smiled back at Waring. “Which is perhaps a little dismissive on the great man’s part. After all, the shopkeepers won.”

  “Hm. And how is business, Mr. Darling? Thriving, I hope? Your generation faces so many challenges. The struggling economy, the precarious nature of prosperity. It takes very little to make a small business fail these days. Could you survive if you were forced to close your doors?”

  “Why would I have to close my doors?”

  “So many things can happen.” Lord Waring’s eyes glinted. “Some misfortune to your shop, or yourself. Slipping and falling on a train platform, say. Accidents happen so easily, especially in wet weather.”

  “And it often rains in this country, doesn’t it?” Kim said.

  “I don’t know about that.” Will met the viscount’s eyes. Bugger not reacting: he wasn’t going to stand here and be threatened. “Summer’s coming.”

  “Not soon enough,” Lord Waring said. “Not soon enough, I fear, for you.”

  Will shrugged. Possibly you weren’t supposed to shrug at viscounts; he couldn’t make himself care. “It rained a lot in Flanders. Sometimes seemed like it never stopped. I made it through all the same.”

  “Ah, but it’s peacetime now,” Lord Waring countered. “Quite different.”

  “The shop’s a good way to remind me of that,” Will said. “It keeps me busy. If I was forced to close my doors, it would be a lot harder to remember I’m not at war right now.”

  “Military Cross,” Kim murmured. “Three bars.”

  “Admirable.” Lord Waring was smiling still, face relaxed. “One can truly respect a man who did his part.”

  Kim’s bland, blank expression suggested he’d expected the taunt. Will took a leaf out of his book, looking past Waring’s ear rather than directly at his face, which meant he saw the coat of arms.

  You have to be bloody joking, he thought.

  “Something wrong, Mr. Darling?” enquired the viscount. “You look startled.”

  “Not at all, your lordship. I was just looking at your fireplace. Excellent workmanship.”

  “It’s over four hundred years old, and considered one of the in situ masterpieces of Hertfordshire. I’m honoured it meets with your approval.”

  That was probably meant as a snub. “Well, I did a bit of joinery back in the day, so I can tell good stuff when I see it,” Will said cheerily. “Is that your coat of arms? What do you call that creature?”

  Lord Waring turned, as if he needed to look at it. The central shield held an aggressive-looking goat with cloven hooves and curling horns; from the midsection down it had an elaborately curved and scaled fish-tail.

  “A sea-goat,” he said. “Family legend holds that the first Viscount Waring was, before his ennoblement, a privateer.”

  “A pirate,” Kim said. “One might even say, a murdering thief with a good press-agent.” He gave a little laugh as if that was a joke, and Waring laughed too. All friends together.

  “If you are interested in heraldry, I’m sure Arthur can inform you further,” Lord Waring went on. “My daughter is less knowledgeable though she takes great pride in our name, as Arthur knows. That reminds me, Mr. Darling. I understand you’re great friends with Miss Jones.”

  Will had almost started enjoying himself. Maisie’s name acted like a bucket of cold water. “That’s right.”

  “A remarkable young lady. So much ambition. Talent too, Phoebe tells me. With my daughter’s help, I imagine she could achieve great things. I’m sure we all hope she finds her path clear in the future. It would be such a shame if she were forced to return home defeated and humiliated, with her hopes dashed and her prospects destroyed.”

  “She’d better not be,” Will said, and he didn’t even try to make that sound like chit-chat.

  Waring’s smile broadened. “It’s the way of the world, Mr. Darling. Young women—especially of her class and race
—are very vulnerable.”

  “And old houses are flammable,” Will said through his teeth. “Just like old bones are breakable.”

  That got a reaction. It was contemptuous anger, but at least it was a reaction, not that punchably bland smile.

  “The world is full of peril on all sides,” Kim said, voice quelling. Will stepped back a fraction, calming himself down. “I take it you invited Maisie here to make that point, sir. Consider it made.”

  “But do you understand?” Waring said. “You see, Arthur, a business in which I invest recently suffered a serious incident. It seems a member of my staff was killed while going about his duty. A very grave matter.”

  “Graves only be men’s works,” Kim murmured. Will knew that one: it was a line from Timon of Athens that had come up in the course of his first entanglement with Zodiac.

  “It has caused me enormous inconvenience,” Waring went on. “I consider it a direct attack. An unprovoked act of war, one might say, and as you remarked, Mr. Darling, one can so easily feel as if one is at war when one’s business is threatened. I do not let injuries pass unavenged.”

  “Then avenge them on the right target,” Will said. “Not on people who haven’t done you any harm.”

  “It doesn’t work that way, Mr. Darling. If you attack what is mine, then I shall retaliate against what is yours, do you see? I expect you would shrug off threats of personal injury or even real harm. I dare say you’re very brave.” He gave the word an insulting flick. “But if the punishment would be suffered, not by you, but by those for whom you care, I think you might be a little more circumspect. Arthur understands that, don’t you, Arthur? You care very little for yourself; I imagine you would be eager to make some great dramatic sacrifice. But my daughter suffering distress, even by watching Miss Jones suffer—no, you wouldn’t like to see that, would you?”

  “I would not,” Kim said. “I hope it will not arise.”

  “I shall decide what will arise,” Waring said. “You have chosen to interfere in my business; you do not choose the consequences.”

  Kim took a deep breath. “Is there any room for negotiation?”