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“That’s what I thought.” Octavia fell silent. The carriage rattled along in the dark. Then, in a smaller voice, she asked, “Does London change everyone?”
Harriet felt a quick sympathy for the girl. Octavia might not be able to name it, but she certainly felt the condescension in Miss Throckmorton’s manner. “Has London changed someone you know? Your brother?”
“Not my brother.” Octavia sighed. “Did you change when you came to town?”
Harriet tried to frame a careful answer. She had changed, of course, but not in order to hunt a husband. “I suppose I did change over time, by growing up and by living with the Luxboroughs. Lady Luxborough is a wise woman.”
“I think I must change much faster than that.”
“What would you change about yourself if you could?”
“Everything,” announced Octavia. “My clothes and hair and manner of speech...everything.”
Harriet smiled in the darkness. Octavia’s everything list was shorter than she’d feared. It was full of changes that could be corrected and that would do no harm to her character. The wrong clothes could be abandoned. Hair would grow again. And affected speech was likely to fade away as Octavia grew more at ease in society.
“Must you change so much?”
“Yes, for I am determined to have a husband by Christmas.”
“And you do not want a gentleman who loves you for...who you are?” Harriet surprised herself by asking. Hadn’t she abandoned that idea long ago?
“I don’t think love has anything to do with it.”
“Can you wait a day or two to change everything?”
“Why?”
“Because tomorrow, there’s a skating party to Hadleigh Pond. There will be any number of young gentlemen there, but probably not Miss Throckmorton.”
* * * *
Shortly after dawn, Charles reported to Goldsworthy, the spymaster. He slipped into the Pantheon Club, just doors from Byron’s famous publisher and the Royal Institution. The club’s façade, concealed behind scaffolding and flapping canvas, gave it the appearance of one of the king’s architectural projects, now abandoned. Most Londoners walked past the place, little dreaming it housed a spy organization. The club’s other entrance was equally concealed by a modest chemist’s shop in Bond Street.
Inside, the place offered all the comforts of a gentleman’s club. The spacious coffee room with its high curved ceiling and carpeted floors was furnished with long couches and coffee superior to any he’d had in London, except in the company of Sir George Fawkener, an agent returned from the East who had helped to brief Charles for his mission.
Nate Wilde, the club’s majordomo, met him at the door, took his hat and coat, and offered a cup of the club’s excellent brew. Wilde was a youth in his early twenties with something of London’s East End rookeries in his face, a look at odds with his gentlemanly accent and tailoring. The tailoring, Charles knew, came from Kirby, the so-called chemist, who made elegant coats for the spies in the back of the shop on Bond Street—as well as the gaudy waistcoats Charles wore for his current assignment.
“The big man is ready for you, my lord,” Wilde told him.
Charles swallowed a fortifying gulp of coffee and headed up the stairs. At his knock and Goldsworthy’s gruff reply, Charles entered. In Goldsworthy’s office, all disguise of a mere club was dropped. Cabinets of files, maps, and weapons suitable for the headquarters of a military operation lined two walls, and Goldsworthy’s desk in front of the canvas-shrouded windows, always buried in loose papers, commanded the room like the brig of a warship.
Goldsworthy lifted his shaggy russet head. “Well, lad, have you sorted out the marchioness yet?” He waved a large hand toward one of the two green leather chairs facing his desk.
Charles took the indicated seat. “She’s sniffing around Edenhorn a bit, but she’s taken none of the bait.”
“If she’s not interested in information, what is she after?” Goldsworthy asked. He was a towering figure of a man, dressed in a rather old-fashioned brown frock coat and green waistcoat. In his similarity to an ancient, lichen-covered oak, he looked out of place behind a desk.
“She hasn’t tipped her hand so far. Except…”
“Except?”
“She takes a curious interest in my sister.”
“Your sister?” Goldsworthy’s gaze turned sharp. “The one you keep in the country?”
“Unexpectedly, Octavia turned up on my doorstep this week.”
Goldsworthy shook his head, frowning. “Not the plan, lad. Where is she staying?”
