The Spy’s Convenient Bride: The Macalisters, Book Five

by Taylor, Erica

“My boy, it’s not a coincidence you ended up with the Kenswick earldom at all.”

  Cold rushed through Luke at the implication that his old mentor had somehow influenced the Prince Regent. He couldn’t speak, couldn’t think, couldn’t form a coherent statement to ask what the hell was going on.

  “Did you not find it strange you were given a year’s time to divide up the properties awarded to you?”

  Luke forced his mouth to work properly, to focus on one thing at a time, despite the myriad of inquiries swirling about in his head. “It’s not as though a new title is created every day. I’ve no idea what is procedure.” The implications, the motivations behind each statement, the multitude of meanings. It was a lot to sort through and keep track of.

  Ducksworth chuckled. “Well, it’s not normal, so you know.”

  “Explain all of this, Uncle Ducky,” Vivian said firmly. “Or we will leave, and I suspect you went through a lot of trouble to get us here.”

  “It’s a bit of a tale,” Ducksworth said.

  “We’ve plenty of time, haven’t we, Luke?” Vivian glanced up to meet Luke’s gaze, her eyes twinkling. “Nothing pressing to take care of. No one in need of saving. Please, start from the beginning.”

  * * *

  Vivian impressed even herself with her cool intake of this entire ridiculous endeavor. Uncle Ducky was Templar? Goodness, what else didn’t she know?

  She leaned back into the cushions of the chair. She desperately wanted a cup of tea to ease her nerves, but if Luke did not drink it, then neither would she. Even if this was her father’s best friend and her mother’s brother. Even if she’d known him her entire life. Even if she trusted him to the end of the earth.

  She trusted Luke more.

  “When your father and I went off to the war with the Colonies,” Ducksworth began, “we didn’t go as soldiers.”

  “You went as spies.”

  He nodded and Vivian’s heart sunk further in her chest.

  “When the war was over, and the Colonies were declared the victors, we came home. I introduced your father to my sister, they were married, and soon your eldest brother was on his way into the world. Your father wanted no more to do with espionage.” Ducksworth paused and sipped his tea. “I, however, did not leave the game as soon as he did. I had no wife, no title then, no reason for the fun to be over.”

  “You recruited me.” Luke’s voice was gravelly and laced with emotion, more so than she had heard from him in some time.

  “Yes. And you were brilliant. You and your cousin were naturals.”

  “And then you disappeared.”

  “I inherited a dukedom upon my brother’s death,” Ducksworth corrected. “I knew then my time was up, so I retired. Married. Had children. Grew crops. Sat in the House of Lords and listened to those idiots’ confusion over the war in France and what Napoleon was capable of. I watched from a distance, not able to do anything myself, but reveling in the part I knew you were playing.”

  “The part you trained me to play. You sent me down this path, sent Redley with me.”

  “Don’t act as though you didn’t enjoy it,” Ducksworth chided. “You and Redley reveled in it. It gave you purpose and direction and something to do with your anger and frustrations. You could have been dead in a ditch after some drunken curricle race. As a younger son, you didn’t have much else to do with your time.”

  “And then it was over.”

  “And then it was over,” Ducksworth agreed with a shrug. “I was in London during Waterloo, and I heard about what you did in France with that peer who was about to sell secrets to the French. Vivian’s father was dead, his title and lands available to be distributed to someone else. I may have had a luncheon with the Prince Regent, for old times’ sake, and a few days later he named you the Earl of Kenswick. It seemed a fitting way to honor my friend’s legacy.”

  Emotion burned behind Vivian’s eyes, but she couldn’t identify exactly what she was feeling. She wasn’t angry, she wasn’t distraught, she was… outraged, but not for herself. For Luke, and how the strings of his life had been plucked in such a way.

  A glance at her husband and Vivian knew he felt the same way.

  Luke pushed off from the settee and paced across the room. He stopped near the pocket window.

  “How does Redley fit into this?” Vivian asked. Best they get to the reason for their appearance at Ducksworth Park before Luke lost his patience.

  “Last year, just after Waterloo, Redley was tasked with finding an informant within the organization, and a month ago, he found the persons responsible.”

  “Adam Poppins,” Luke said.

  Ducksworth nodded. “But it was much bigger than Redley realized. He came to me for advice, though I’ve no idea how he found me. He knew Poppins and Martin were planning something, with a third person, but he couldn’t figure out that person’s identity. Their plan was something catastrophic, but he couldn’t be the one to reveal it.”

  “Why not?” Vivian asked.

  “Because it would require Redley to testify, most likely,” Luke interjected and turned away from the window and paced about the room, like a caged animal. Vivian had never seen him this restless.

  “Is that not something he’s capable of?”

  Luke level her with a shrewd look. “Redley would have to testify out loud.”

  “Oh.” Vivian realized the issue. Redley did not speak. “Could he not write it down?”

  Luke shook his head. “Redley’s inability to speak is not as widely known as it may seem, and it is not nearly as acceptable to some. His friends and colleagues have no quarrel with it, but members of his family, particularly his parents, do. He’s been able to pretend well enough when around them, and they think he’s off to the far ends of the globe on diplomatic work. They are so very proud. But were they to learn he’d been fooling them, they’d try and have him declared unfit, unhealthy. They couldn’t take away his right to inherit the title of the Marquess of Radbourn, but they could take away his freedom and have him committed.”

  Vivian frowned. “That’s awful. They would really do such a thing?”

  “They’ve already attempted it once. If they learned he was incapable of making a verbal report on something this involved, and they would somehow, they’d not hesitate to do it again. Redley would never take that risk.”

  “He would need someone else to present the evidence,” Vivian concluded.

  “Not quite. Redley was there years ago when I questioned Halcourt about Martin’s credibility. When Redley learned Poppins and Martin had turned against us, Redley would have lost all faith in Halcourt.”

  “And everyone above him,” Ducksworth interjected.

  Luke clicked his tongue and nodded. “Precisely.”

  “He doesn’t want you to present the evidence in his place, he wants you to…” Vivian paused while her mind worked through the jumble of information. “He wants you to stop them and whatever they are planning. But—” Vivian looked back at her uncle, “—if he already came to you, why not have you do it?”

  Ducksworth shook his head. “Even with my connections at court, the integrity of the information would be questioned. I’d be unable to explain how I came into the information. Only a select few know I was once Templar.”

  “It has to be me,” Luke said absently as he moved along the row of bookshelves.

  “He didn’t want it to, not at first,” Ducksworth explained. “He wanted you out of it, but I insisted he consider involving you as a contingency plan.”

  Vivian was watching Luke, so she saw the change in his demeanor. It was subtle, and had she not been paying such close attention to him, she would have missed it.

  His jaw moved slightly from side to side, like he was trying very hard to not clench his jaw. His eyes narrowed as he looked at Ducksworth.

  “Explain your prior comment, regarding how you knew married life would suit me.”

  Ducksworth shifted uncomfortably in his seat; his gaze rested on hi
s hands folded in his lap.

  Vivian’s heart dropped. “Uncle Ducky, what did you do?”

  Had their chance meeting been a manipulation as well?

  Who was she kidding? Of course, it was. Nothing in her life had been real.

  “Why did you go to Kenswick Abbey?” Ducksworth asked Luke.

  Luke pursed his lips as he seemed to consider his answer. “My sister reminded me of an upcoming family gathering at Bradstone Park. I did not want to go.”

  “Why were you with your sister?”

  “Because my house is cold and drafty and too quiet. Norah’s is the opposite.”

  “What prompted you to reevaluate your living situation? You’ve lived there for months and just now decided it was too empty and too quiet?”

  A glower churned in Luke’s gaze as he regarded his former mentor. “The Prince Regent asked if I’d done what he told me to do: evaluate the properties and determine which to sell, find a wife, etcetera.”

  “Which caused you to realize your house was cold and quiet and without a wife, prompting you to stay with your sister who reminded you of family obligations, and in turn you took off to the first place on your list,” Ducksworth concluded. “You went to Kenswick Abbey. The very top of the Prince Regent’s To Do list.”

  Luke cursed and paced the room again.

  “Uncle Ducky, did you say something to the Prince Regent?” The manipulations this man had woven was astounding, and yet frightening at the same time.

  Ducksworth shrugged and glanced away. “I had lunch with the Prince Regent last month. What was discussed is not something I can freely talk about.”

  “You bloody manipulative bastard!” Luke spat, and Vivian jumped, not expecting that level of anger from her husband.

  “Now see here, boy—”

  “No, you see here. How dare you interfere in my life? Haven’t you done enough? Why bring Vivian into this?”

  “I merely wanted you to meet my niece,” Ducksworth replied indignantly. “I thought you’d feel concern for her circumstances, and you’d want to help. At the very least, I thought you would offer to bring her to London to have one of your sisters sponsor her. I didn’t think you’d marry her straight away.”

  “Oh, Uncle Ducky, that was very poorly done,” Vivian said, cutting off the tirade Luke looked about to launch into. He clamped his mouth tightly shut and turned away.

  “What would you have me do? Host a ball to introduce you?”

  “That would have been preferable over manipulations.”

  “He didn’t even know who I really was until thirty minutes ago,” Ducksworth reminded her. “It might have been unusual for a duke to invite an unknown earl to a ball.”

  “My brother is a bloody duke!” Luke snapped at him. “You could have found some reason, some other way. Instead you engineered a situation where I acted as your damned puppet!”

  Ducky shrugged again. “Old habits. What does it matter now?”

  “You put her in my path, knowing the Prince Regent told me to set up the earldom. You knew he meant for me to take a wife. Why put her in the middle of all of this?”

  “You needed someone to trust!” Ducksworth snapped at him. “In order for this to work, you needed someone outside of the organization, someone you had an honest connection with, someone you thought was so far removed they could never betray you.”

  “You can’t just make someone trust someone else!” Luke exclaimed. “You can’t just make someone fall in love with another person!”

  Silence echoed through the room, and Vivian locked eyes with Luke for a moment before he looked away. Neither commented on what he’d said.

  It was said in anger, Vivian told herself. It is all an act. Don’t trust it.

  Was it though? She couldn’t tell what was real and what was part of their performance.

  “You had no right to manipulate my life as you have,” Luke continued, his voice controlled. “You had no right to involve Vivian in any of this, knowing what I do for the Crown.”

  “What you did for the Crown,” Ducksworth corrected. “The Prince Regent retired you.”

  Vivian watched Luke’s jaw tighten as he squared off with her uncle, a man she knew so well but never thought capable of such manipulations.

  Luke still hadn’t replied to his statement, but Ducksworth took the measure of Luke in a handful of heartbeats. “Do you mean to win back your position?” He drew out each word as if they confused him.

  “What I intend to do is none of your concern.”

  Ducksworth chuckled in disbelief. “It won’t work, boy. Every body continues in its state of rest, or of uniform motion in a right line, unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed upon it,” he quoted.

  “Sir Isaac Newton,” Vivian and Luke said at the same time. Luke glanced at her. A hint of amusement danced through his eyes before he looked back at his mentor.

  “What happened with Redley?”

  “Redley intercepted you at Halcourt’s,” Ducksworth continued. “He nudged you towards Vivian, encouraged you to trust her. And you did. Look where you are now.”

  Luke ignored Ducksworth’s comment. “What set this all into motion?”

  “They’d begun to suspect Redley was on to them,” Ducksworth continued. “Someone saw Redley give Vivian a note of some sort at Halcourt’s. He was ambushed the night after you left. They didn’t know what Redley had told either of you.”

  “So Poppins came to London with the story of Redley turning traitor.”

  Ducksworth nodded. “It tainted his reputation within the organization, and should he ever be captured, it was their word against his. And they could speak up to defend themselves.”

  “Redley hid the notes.” Luke pulled a tome from the shelf and flipped through the pages before he snapped it shut. He continued to meander about the room, the book clutched in his arms.

  “He activated the contingency plan we’d worked out: Send you to Canterbury, get you to Bradstone Park. He was only a few hours ahead of you. Encountering you at the inn, and the inn burning down was not planned.”

  “I would certainly hope not,” Vivian murmured. Louder she asked, “Why did we need to go to Bradstone Park?”

  Luke crossed behind the settee and set the book in her lap. “This is why.”

  The tome in her lap would have been unremarkable, had she not already read it. Had her father not owned a copy. Had there not conveniently been a copy in Bradstone’s library.

  Slowly, Vivian’s gaze trailed up to rest on the familiar face of her beloved uncle, a face that was becoming more and more that of a stranger as the moments ticked by.

  “Uncle Ducky, what is this?” Her throat burned with emotion as she came to understand how they had been manipulated.

  Ducksworth’s gaze rested on the book in her lap. “That is my copy. Your father also had a copy. When he died, his copy was returned to the organization.”

  Luke’s tone was sharp. “He means someone snuck in and stole your father’s copy, likely while Kenswick Abbey was still smoldering.”

  An image flashed before her eyes; a memory pulled from the depths where she’d buried it. Redley, in the fiery ashes of Kenswick Abbey, creeping through the blackened remains like a demon fresh from Hell. She’d snuck away to the Abbey a few nights after the fire, unable to remain detained in the cottage any longer. And he’d been there, sneaking through the rooms, searching for something. He’d carried something off into the darkness, but not before she saw his face.

  “Redley,” she gasped. “He took my father’s book from the Abbey after the fire.” That explained her initial fear of him—he’d been a specter in her nightmares come to life.

  “Per protocol, their bible was not allowed to remain in anyone else’s possession,” Luke supplied.

  “Their bible?”

  Luke rested his hip against the arm of the settee. “The book used as a cypher for coded messages. Redley and I have a different book. I suspect I will need bot
h to decode his journal.”

  Vivian’s lids slipped over her eyes and she fought for composure at everything she’d just learned.

  “Let me make sure I understand this, because you do know how I detest double meaning,” she began and took a deep breath, but her eyes remained closed. “My father was a retired spy, whose spy friend recruited my spy husband, and then a spy snuck into the charred remains of my home after my father died and removed his spy bible that he used to write coded spy messages with.”

  She opened her eyes and Luke met her gaze. “That’s a lot of spies in your life, love.”

  “But accurate,” Ducksworth added with a nod.

  “My father trained me as he trained my brothers. I learned the same tricks as they did. Did he intend…” Her brows pinched together as she tried to formulate the question that had plagued her for the past few minutes. Days, more likely. Years, if she was being honest.

  “Did he intend for you to follow him into the service?”

  Vivian nodded.

  “Your father had the insane notion that a woman could be more efficient behind enemy lines than a man could. Yes, he trained you as he could so, when given the opportunity, you would have a basis to give you a leg up above the others.”

  All the tricks and skills her father had taught her, she’d thought they were games, silliness, something her father was including her in because he thought her worthy to learn what he taught his sons. The shooting, the riding, the reconnaissance and surveillance. Luke had been right, about all of it.

  “Are there others?”

  “The project has since been abandoned, but your father felt there should be a sect of female spies within the government.”

  “It’s not a bad idea,” Luke muttered but Vivian didn’t look at him.

  “But your mother would not allow it. She allowed him to train you in ways that would allow you to take care of yourself should you not have someone to protect you.”

  Another piece slid into place. “That is why Mother doesn’t like you. Why she didn’t want us to live here after my father died.”

  “She didn’t trust me not to see his idea through. She didn’t want you involved with the thing that had killed her son.”