“Your man told me you were calling on Lucy, and her butler told me you’d gone for a stroll,” Gilbert was saying, leaning into his brother as though he had an urgent matter. “Quickly,” he added. “I need you to do something for me.”
“Me?” Roderick repeated.
“Both of you, actually.”
Roderick’s gaze sharpened on his brother. It was one thing for Gilbert to ask him to do something that, from his demeanour, was going to be shady or questionable or embarrassing or something. It was a completely different matter for him to involve Lucy.
“What do you want with Miss Scranton?”
“I need you to do some listening, and I need it to look perfectly innocent or like you are completely enraptured with each other and not in the least paying attention to what you’re really listening to.”
“No,” Roderick said baldly. There was no way he would allow Lucy to become embroiled in one of Gilbert’s missions. They were often dubious, occasionally dangerous, and there was a real possibility of some sort of harm coming to the inexperienced young woman.
“Why not?” Lucy asked with a frown, even as Gilbert demanded more sharply, “You don’t really get to say no, little brother.”
Embarrassment, shame, and anger twisted in his belly at his brother’s words. Each of his brothers, to varying degrees, seemed inclined to think he owed them obedience in whatever matter they thought to demand it. Roderick wasn’t sure if it was merely because he was the youngest or if it was connected to his lack of gainful employment. It had only started bothering him in the last year or two. He’d barely noticed it before then. But now it hurt and angered him in equal measures when it was made so evident that they had little respect for him.
He pulled himself to his full height. He might not be as filled out as Ashford their sailor brother or Foster who adventured in the New World and spent so much time at various sporting pursuits, but he wasn’t the small twig his brother seemed to think.
“I might not mind participating in whatever your latest start is if it were just me, but you cannot involve a lady.”
“She needn’t be ‘involved’ as you say,” Gilbert said, making quotes in the air as though to punctuate how ridiculous he thought his brother’s words, “I just need you to listen in on something and I need her to make it look as though you’re engrossed in your own conversation and not possibly aware of anything else.” Gilbert made a growling noise as though he were burdened with frustration. “Come on, Rod, I don’t have any time to waste here. I need you both to come at once. I know you’re being chivalrous to think of protecting the lady, but I swear to you, there won’t be the least bit of danger, and I truly need help with this. We all need this, truth be told. It’s really your obligation as a subject to do this thing. Both of you.”
Roderick could see fascination and curiosity filling Lucy with indignation closely on its heels. “You aren’t the boss of me, Roderick Northcott. You can’t say I can’t do whatever this is. And if it’s our duty, it’s our duty. Why would you wish to shirk it?”
He had to laugh. What a contrary chit she was. She didn’t have a clue what his brother was actually talking about, but she was unable to countenance being told she couldn’t do it, whatever “it” was.
Gilbert quickly outlined his plan even as he was ushering them back onto the path. They made an odd little entourage, Roderick thought with a glance back toward Lucy’s maid who was following at her usual discreet distance with a slight frown of confusion covering her face.
Chapter Nine
"Wait a minute,” Lucy said, interrupting Gilbert’s flow of words and bringing his and Roderick’s focus back toward her. “You want us to eavesdrop on someone’s conversation? That is very badton,Mr. Northcott. How rude.”
Roderick’s grin was not reassuring.
“It’s not rude when they’re traitors,” Gilbert pointed out in a voice that showed he was trying to restrain his reaction. His quiet words silenced her for a moment, though, and Roderick and his brother carried on with their arrangements.
“I’m sorry to interrupt, but I have another objection. If I understand you correctly, you’re saying this conversation we are supposed to be overhearing will be taking place in French.”
At Mr. Northcott’s curt nod, Lucy shook her head. “My French isn’t strong enough to eavesdrop effectively. I have to watch a person’s face to be able to understand them.”
“You speak French beautifully,” Roderick argued and complimented at the same time.
“Thank you for saying so, but I can assure you, I won’t be able to discreetly glean anything from their conversation, or not enough to be helpful, in any case.”
“That doesn’t matter, Lucy,” Gilbert interrupted, treating her like the young girl she had used to be. “Roddy here is an expert. All you have to do is carry a conversation. Prattle on about anything or nothing. You’re a young lady, you should be able to do that without even blinking.”
Lucy wanted to be outraged, but her ready sense of humour took that moment to inconveniently turn up. What he said was actually truly amusing due to its accuracy. He was right. She could carry a conversation quite expertly with an inanimate object if she had to. It was the mark of an excellent hostess to be able to always keep the conversation flowing. And she was quite good at it, if she did immodestly say so herself.
“And will you be able to eavesdrop in French effectively while I prattle in your other ear?” Lucy asked Roderick, a little incredulous despite her deep respect for his intellect.
“I can,” Roderick said readily even though he had an expression of concern on his face. “I do have one request, though.”
Lucy wasn’t sure if the request was of her or of his brother, so she merely stared at him in silence waiting for what he had to say next.
“Could you not talk about what we had been discussing earlier?” Lucy frowned. It was what she had been thinking of talking about. It felt like an effective use of her time. Her disappointment must have been evident because Roderick grinned. “I won’t want to listen to them, I’ll be paying attention to you,” he explained in a low voice. “The point is that I need to appear as though I’m paying attention to you while in fact my ears and mind will be elsewhere. So you need to talk about something that will not be of much interest to me,” he explained before quickly adding. “That isn’t to say that anything you say is ever uninteresting, of course, but –”
He was interrupted by a snort from his brother.
