The earl’s sneer deepened. “My dear, naïve Mrs. Turnbow. You cannot imagine I am unaware of Sir Smythe’s ailing health. I am sorry to say the infirm and frail-minded cannot be entrusted with matters as profoundly impacting as that of unlocking the mysteries of enemy ciphers.”
Dread settled upon her, heavy as a stone. “What do you want from us?”
Kilross smiled, the grooves bracketing his thin mouth deepening. “What a delightful question. I shall be succinct. Specifically, I require you, Mrs. Turnbow.”
The stone became a boulder of Sisyphean proportions. “Me, my lord? What need can you possibly have of a widow who lives a quiet life with her father?”
The earl inclined his head. “Whilst I have no need of a widow, I do have need of a female who can decipher, one who will have easy access to correspondence and other private documents in the home in which she is employed.”
Employed? She was a simple woman, but surely he did not intend for her to become a servant? She had lived a genteel life as the daughter of a knight, and whilst their staff was small and she aided with household tasks, neither was she suited to be a maid.
“It sounds to me as if you wish me act the spy,” she said coldly. “I neither have the inclination nor the talent for subterfuge, nor will I engage in servitude to settle your whims, my lord. I am afraid you will have to seek someone else for the task you have in mind. Is that not right, Father?”
But when she looked to her father for reassurance, his milky gaze flitted away, like a bird scared by an encroaching feline that was about to pounce upon its dinner. “I am afraid I have already promised you will assist Lord Kilross,” he admitted, his shoulders slumping. “There is a great deal at stake, and I am afraid no one else can be trusted but you.”
Dear heavens.Father had already committed her to the earl’s plot. She went cold. “Father?”
Father closed his eyes and pressed fingers to his temples. “Please, my dear daughter. Listen to what the earl has to say.”
It would seem she had no choice. Her gaze swung back to Kilross. “Tell me what I must do, my lord.
His eyes gleamed with triumph. “For one month’s time, you will become the governess for the Duke of Whitley’s sisters. Your task will be to comb through his correspondence and private documents, seeking any that are written in French or in cipher. You will then decipher all such messages and transcribe them for me, taking care to return them to their original placement without detection.”
Her heart took up a rapid beat. The new Duke of Whitley had a reputation as dark as the devil himself. “But I am a widow, and I know nothing of being a governess.”
Never mind she would be expected to live beneath the roof of a man as wicked as the duke, that she would need to trespass against him by riffling through his private papers, and expected to report back to the loathsome Kilross.
“I will provide you with references, and you will present yourself as Miss Turnbow when you interview for the position. Whitley’s sisters have run off three governesses already, and he is desperately seeking a replacement. It is the perfect opportunity.” He paused. “You do have the knowledge necessary to teach the little viragos, do you not? Watercolor, French, and the like.”
“Yes, of course.” The earl was deadly serious, she realized as she studied his face, hoping somehow this was all a depraved jest. “What need can you possibly have for the private correspondence of the Duke of Whitley?”
“Simple, madam.” Kilross’s countenance darkened with undisguised hatred. “The man is a traitor, and with your help, I am going to be the one who unravels his deceptions.”
Chapter Two
They said hewas a war hero.
What rot.
Crispin swigged his whisky as he preferred, straight from the bottle, seated in the darkness of his study. The drapes were drawn, and he despised even the lone, wraithlike beam of light that crept past the window coverings through a tiny gap left by some harried parlor maid. He disliked the blazing orb that decided to rise in the eastern sky each morning with the ritualistic precision of a soldier.
It reminded him that he was alive when he did not deserve to be.
Give him darkness, drink, and warm, willing flesh over the bright lunacy of the sun any day. Give him night, everlasting distraction, mindless pleasure, any cursed means by which he could forget.
The lauds he received were not rightfully his to claim. The true hero was dead, tortured slowly to death by a Spanish butcher, what remained of his broken body never found. The true hero had possessed the daring of a thousand men, the fearlessness of an immortal, the fierce, bone-deep loyalty no other soldier could ever claim.
By contrast, Crispin was a pretender. A poor, faded imitation who had somehow survived the bludgeoning attack in that Spanish farmhouse and woke to the ghastly specter of the dead French captain’s burned head looming over him. He would never forget the sight or the blood, dark and red and copious, the severed hand wearing Morgan’s signet ring on the stone kitchen floor.
The sickening realization that he had been left for dead while his best friend had been taken to face unfathomable horrors still brought bile to his throat. He drank again, liquor burning its devil’s path down his gullet, straight to his empty stomach. He was soused, and he knew it because he couldn’t recall the last time he’d consumed a morsel of food. The inkiness of his study swirled about him, hazy and indistinct.
And though he did not recall summoning his butler or answering a knock at his door, suddenly, Nicholson stood at the threshold, clearing his throat in a long-suffering manner. “Your Grace.”
Crispin shook his head as if it could clear his stupor. It could not, and so he lifted the bottle back to his lips for another generous draught.
“I beg your pardon, Your Grace.”
Glowering in the direction of his butler because his eyes refused to sharpen, he slammed the half-empty bottle onto his escritoire. “What can it be, Nicholson? Can you not see I am otherwise occupied at the moment?”
