Page 57

“We were just reviewing our instructions,” muttered Brandon.

“I see.” Her gaze swung between the two of them. “Which of you has forgotten?”

Brandon shot a bitter look at Harry. “Neither, I hope.”

Angelique’s expression didn’t change. “I see,” she said again. “May we speak in the hall, Alec?” He hesitated, then nodded once and followed her, flexing his hand as he went. He closed the door behind him.

Harry slid all the way to the floor and hung his head. Brandon had a punishing jab. He deserved it, though. Again he felt the weight of his presumption, his arrogance that he thought he could do what he wanted and no one would be hurt or even know. Today’s visit to Doncaster House had a reasonable explanation only when he admitted to the rest of the story: that he had incited Mariah’s curiosity by sneaking into her room in the middle of the night until she was searching for him in every man she met. There was no chance she would have pressed him to call on her today or even spoken to Wroth if he had done as he ought, and stayed far away from her from the beginning.

He was still sitting there when Angelique came back into the room. She regarded him a moment, then crouched down beside him. “Look at me.” Reluctantly he raised his eyes. Angelique was not pleased. “Are you risking this entire enterprise for the sake of your cock?”

He scowled. “No.”

“That is what Alec tells me. He says you are drawn to this young lady, that she distracts you from your work.”

“I have never compromised my duties.”

Her eyebrows went up a little. “I see.” For a moment there was silence in the room. “Is she very beautiful, this Mariah?”

Harry let his head fall back against the wall and sighed. “She’s utterly out of my reach.”

Angelique tilted her head to one side, studying him. “That does not always matter to the heart, does it? Out of reach does not mean out of mind.”

Harry glanced at her, then looked away from her perceptive eyes. “I haven’t let it interfere with our work.”

“I see.” She smirked. “You are too ambitious, non? Not only the Home Office’s gratitude, but an earl’s daughter.”

“It’s not ambition,” he muttered.

Angelique’s smile grew. “Perhaps not.”

“And it hasn’t interfered in any way with my work,” he went on, repeating it to convince himself. “Never.”

“Good. See that it does not, or I will hand you over to Stafford.” She reached out and lifted the hair that had fallen over his forehead. “At least Alec did not hit you in the face. That would be difficult for Lord Wroth to explain.”

Harry winced, pressing a hand to his ribs again. Brandon had hit him plenty of other places. “It was a bloody hard blow nevertheless.”

“Then you will not forget it soon. Alec has even more to gain, and to lose, than you do, Harry.”

He grimaced and got to his feet, putting out a hand to help her up as well. “I have never forgotten it, Angelique.”

Nor would he.

* * *

For several days Harry applied himself to his duties with renewed focus and concentration. Staying away from Mariah and getting a full night’s sleep helped a great deal in that regard.

Crane was more querulous than ever, dictating a dozen letters a day and then sending him off on a variety of errands, once even all the way up the river to the botanic garden at Chelsea. It took him an entire day, and yet Stafford said not a word about the lengthy absence from his post.

In fact, Stafford never said much of anything about their performance. Every night he and Ian, and sometimes Angelique, sat around the kitchen table to put together their reports, in excruciatingly tedious detail. Bethwell attended the opera with his wife and spoke to Lord Canning while eyeing the girls onstage. Doncaster spent the night at his club. Crane attended a soirée and was annoyed by everyone and everything.

It was hard to see the threat, even though Harry dutifully lurked in the rain waiting to see them safely home. Bethwell in particular was a pompous ass who should have offended someone badly enough to cause a scene, but it never happened.

And still Stafford pushed them. The very lack of dangerous incidents only seemed to agitate him. He pressed for more information, more detail; he wanted to know the times they arrived and left parties, whom they spoke to, what they spoke of. He wanted lists of their correspondents and accounts of the gossip in their household. He wanted to know who called on them and when, and if they underwent any sudden changes in overall demeanor, as if overtaken by fear.

“If a scullery maid wants to sneak through the house at midnight and bash one over the head with a soup ladle, there’s not much we can do,” Ian grumbled one night, reading through the reports.

Angelique laughed. She lounged in her chair across the table from him in a very unladylike manner. “No! We are expected to know and anticipate these things. You must be waiting in the cupboard to spring out and arrest her.”