CHAPTER TWO
“By the smallest deception, mutual confidence is destroyed.”
Private Education: A Practical Plan for the Studies of Young Ladies.
Elizabeth Appleton. 1815.
“Tea for two and a plate of hot buttered crumpets, if I may.”
The Hatchett’s Hotel waiter turned on his heel, and Amelia removed her gloves, brought forth Miss Appleton’s hefty tome from her carpetbag, placed it on the tablecloth and frowned at it.
This morning, she had attended a meeting with her superior and endeavoured to gain more insight into this governess assignment – like why the Foreign Office were involving themselves in Home Office affairs anyhow – but Lord Rainham had merely steepled his fingers and declared that she knew all she needed to know. For now.
A racket outside caught her attention and she raised her head to peer through the hotel’s bow window. The ten o’clock stagecoach from the west country was disgorging its passengerslike a whale spitting out bones; weary elder ladies wandered to the entrance with dusty skirts while dazed country maids gawped at Piccadilly’s bustling life.
With lashes lowering once more in deference to Miss Appleton’s instructional opus, Amelia opened the quarter-bound leather cover and flicked through the initial pages, past the dedication and on to the crisp leaf detailing chapter contents.
Grammar. Writing. Geography. Music. Painting. Conversation.Morality…
She sought page two hundred and twelve.
…for anything clandestinely begun and hastily concluded betrays a consciousness of something wrong and is the cause of many a heart-rending pang and remorse to the parties themselves.
Amelia closed the book.
Perhaps tomorrow.
During the meeting with her superior, she’d contended that she may not be the best choice for this assignment as Mr Hugh Cadwalader was too…too debonair, too sophisticated, too everything, but Lord Rainham had again steepled his fingers and replied there was no one more suitable.
No one, full stop, she’d grumbled beneath her breath.
Since the fall of Napoleon, female spies – the unsung handmaidens of the war – had become scarcer than hen’s teeth. Of course, the government denied that any females had ever been involved at all, their temperaments too passionate, their passions too temperamental, their sensibilities, conversely, too delicate.
But in this world of man, what better disguise than a woman. Hence, they had indeed worked in just such a capacity, able to enter princely palaces or society balls as humble maids, faux aristocrats or seductive courtesans.
Seduction, however, was not Amelia’s forte, Lord Rainham knew that, so if she was employed as governess by Mr Cadwalader, all her abilities of observation and subterfuge would be needed.
Under normal circumstances, this assignment to search a townhouse for evidence of treason would not be too arduous but…to spy upon a spy?
“Miss Lambert, I presume?”
Amelia twisted at her true surname.
Before her stood a tall auburn-haired lady in her mid-twenties with drab-brown bonnet and even drabber-brown gown. With gloves slightly frayed at the tips and a lace collar that may once have been white, she appeared down-at-heel, but her shoulders were held straight and her green eyes were clear and astute.
“Miss Webster?” Amelia rose to her half-boots and smiled. “Delighted to meet you. Do join me.”
The waiter returned and Amelia watched as Miss Webster’s gaze slid over the fare with barely concealed hunger. Despite the lady residing at this hotel, perhaps she had not partaken of breakfast, so Amelia used the tongs to place a buttered crumpet onto a plate and prodded it forth.
“Oh, I couldn’t,” said Miss Webster, removing her gloves.
“But they are quite delicious. It would be a shame not to.” Amelia smiled. “The bill is settled.”
After the briefest of hesitations, the lady reached for the plate and tucked in while Amelia poured tea and contemplated Miss Webster along with what she’d learned for a guinea or twofrom the clerk at Mr Clegg and Sons’ employment agency and a moment alone with the relevant file.
Miss Webster’s former governess positions had all been in the north of England, the Westmoreland area of the Lake District, for an assortment of gentry and nobles, but now she had travelled to London seeking work.
Previously lodged at the Saracen’s Head Inn where passengers on the northern stagecoach disembarked, she’d relocated here to Hatchett’s on Monday, likely because they’d a special offer of five nights for the price of three. What the out-of-town Miss Webster hadn’t likely heard was that Hatchett’s had suffered an infestation of fleas a fortnight past, hence the special offer.
