Her heroic description of him only grew the guilt gnawing at his gut as he returned to his perch on the desk. The truth was that he’d have gladly strung up her brother for murder and treason if Morgan had been at the tavern in her place.
“And then Mr. Carlisle brought me safely home,” she finished, thankfully avoiding the details that would have gotten him shot at dawn. But she seemed absolutely confused about him when she added, “He was a perfect gentleman.”
When she met his gaze over her father’s head, Kit arched a knowing brow and mouthed, A perfect gentleman?
Stop that! she mouthed back, yet her cheeks pinked intriguingly.
Kit grinned, then coughed to cover his smile when the general glanced up at him. He quickly raised the whisky to his lips.
“You didn’t trust me enough to tell me,” the general scolded her gently, yet Kit suspected that the question was actually aimed at him.
“Of course, I trust you.” Her voice lowered to an almost secretive whisper, and she took her own glance at Kit then, to see if he was listening. “You know how much.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me?”
Worry melted across her beautiful face. “I didn’t want to upset you because of your heart. I planned on telling you once Garrett was safely back home, but everything spun out of control.”
The general eyed Kit askance and muttered, “Apparently.”
“I was wrong earlier to blame Mr. Carlisle,” Diana corrected, quietly apologetic. “He’s been caught up in all of this by accident, just as we were. He only wants to collect the gambling debts that Garrett owes him.”
The general’s eyes never left Kit. “He isn’t here to collect money.”
That knowing accusation sliced into Kit with a sickening jolt.
“But he is,” Diana answered for him, frowning. “That’s why he was at the inn when—”
Her father cut her off with a wave of his hand and sat forward on the edge of the settee, his hard gaze fixed on Kit. “Are you, Carlisle?”
There was no point in denying it. “No, sir.”
“Why else would you want to find Garrett?” Diana twisted on the settee, her bewildered gaze darting between the two men. “I don’t understand…”
“Tell her,” the general ordered.
“I’ve already tried. She won’t believe me.” Kit took a long swallow of whisky to brace himself. “She needs to hear it from you.”
“Hear what?” Her confusion changed to irritation. When the two men exchanged a silent look, she demanded, “What are you two talking about?”
“Garrett is working for the French.” The general’s face turned haggard. “And Carlisle knows it. That’s why he was there at the tavern and most likely why he’s here tonight.”
“Stop saying that!” Diana shot to her feet, her hands clenched at her sides as she wheeled on Kit. “It’s not true.”
“Unfortunately,” Kit corrected bleakly, “it is.”
Her bright eyes narrowed into slits of accusation. “I’ve told you that my brother is not a traitor. Yet you—”
“The only way that Frenchman would have known where to look for my diary was if Garrett had told him,” her father interrupted, staring grimly into his whisky. As if acknowledging it made it real, as real as if his son were already swinging by the neck for treason. “No other cabinets were disturbed in any of the other rooms, or any other cabinet in this study. He knew to go to that one, specifically, because Garrett had told him that was where I keep my papers, not knowing that I keep my diary hidden in a secret drawer inside it.”
“No, you’re wrong,” she whispered, unable to find her voice beneath the truth about her brother. “The Frenchman didn’t know where the diary was. That’s why he came after me.”
“Only after he’d searched the cabinet,” Kit said quietly, raising his eyes solemnly to meet her anguished ones. “After he didn’t find the diary where he was told it would be.”
The color that had managed to return to her face seeped away again, and a haunted look took its place. One so distraught that it ripped through him. Christ, how he hated that she’d been dragged into this mess!
“But—but the Frenchman took the diary.” She jabbed a finger at the desk, and at him, thrusting upon him all the anger she couldn’t yet bring herself to level at her brother. “You gave it to him. I saw you.”
“That wasn’t my diary.” General Morgan pushed himself off the settee and crossed to the ruined cabinet. “That was the household account book.”
He yanked open one of the twisted drawers and reached inside to push a hidden button. The small panel at the top of the cabinet, decorated with a scallop shell, popped open to reveal a secret door. He withdrew a key from his pocket and unlocked it, then opened the tiny drawer that guarded a space not more than five inches wide and three inches deep. The compartment was perfectly hidden among the decorations, and anyone who didn’t know where it was would never have found it.
He reached inside and removed a small, leather-bound pocket book. Its plain brown cover was covered in scars and stains from being carried through battle, its spine stitched with an equally plain binding that had loosened slightly from use.
“This is my diary.” His face hardened as he brushed his hand over it. “No one knows that I keep it here. Not even your brother.”
Her mouth falling open, Diana turned toward Kit, trying to absorb it all.
“I took a chance that there’d be another book inside the desk.” He shrugged a shoulder. “One I could pretend was the diary. I needed to catch the Frenchman with his hands full so that he’d have no choice but to release you.”
“When he did, you pushed me to the floor,” she whispered, staring at him again in that odd way she’d done before, as if seeing him for the first time.
No—as if seeing right through him, to his soul. He knew then that he’d been correct to keep his distance from her, until this past sennight when he’d had no choice but to get close to her. Ironically, far closer than he ever should have.
“But what could the French possibly want with this diary?” the general interjected. “It contains nothing but an old soldier’s stories.”
“They requested specific pages in the note they sent to Diana,” Kit answered quietly. “Those describing the beginning of the Waterloo campaign. They probably want to know logistics—who was where and when.”
“But that was nearly ten years ago.” Frustration colored her voice. “What does it matter now who the British officers were or where they’d amassed their troops?”
“Not ours,” her father interrupted, returning the diary to its compartment and locking it inside. “Theirs.”
Kit’s gut knotted. Brilliant tactician that he was, the general was already two steps ahead. But if the French were attempting to track down the whereabouts of one of their own, then this went far beyond the jurisdiction of the Home Office. Nathaniel Grey’s warning to stay away from Garrett Morgan suddenly took on a new meaning, one that had nothing to do with Russian diplomats.
General Morgan misunderstood the sudden hardening of Kit’s body and shook his head in what he believed was shared frustration over the diary. “So many men came in and out of meetings then, on both sides, during the Hundred Days. How do we know which men they’re interested in?”
“We don’t,” Kit bit out, his jaw clenched. But the Foreign Office knew, damn them. Just as they knew the French were working with Morgan. Christ—they knew! Which meant they’d known all along about Fitch’s murder. And hadn’t done a bloody thing about it.
The question now…why were they letting it play out?
“So we assume it’s all important to them,” Diana concluded. “What do we do?”
“We wait for them to make their next move.” Kit walked back to the drink table to refill his glass. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough whisky in all of Scotland to dull the betrayal and anger now simmering inside him. “They know we’ve got the diary. They’ll send—”
&nbs
p; The door opened, and Kit spun around, his hand diving beneath his jacket for his pistol.
But instead of being flung wide, the door pushed open barely a foot. Just far enough for a slip of a little girl in a night rail to run inside. With wide eyes that reminded him of Diana’s, a head of curly chestnut hair, and her face red from sleep, the girl cried out a loud, “Papa!” and launched herself at the general, who scooped her up into his arms and brought her down onto the settee with him.
Heedless of dirtying her skirt, Diana dropped to her knees on the floor at the general’s boots. Her hand reached out to rest on the little girl’s back. But the frightened child didn’t notice, burying her face into the general’s shoulder, her arms wrapped tightly around his neck.
Diana shot Kit a look over the girl’s head, one he couldn’t fathom but that reminded him of a doe startled by hunters. Not one of fear, but—caught. As if waiting for judgment and recrimination.
But for what? The little girl had been safely tucked away in the nursery with her nanny, Kit had made certain of it during the past two hours when he’d worked with the general to secure the house. What did Diana have to feel guilty about?
“What is it, Meri?” she leaned toward the child, her hand rubbing circles across her small back to soothe her. “What frightened you?”
“The noise,” the little girl mumbled against the general’s jacket. “All the people walking up and down the stairs… I don’t like it.”
A soft sigh of relief escaped Diana, but even though she smiled, Kit sensed worry in her. And grief. “It’s all right, darling,” she assured her. “The party’s over. That was just the servants putting everything back into place.”
But her words and soft caresses did little to calm the child, who continued to cling to the general for dear life.
“It’s all right, Meri,” he told her, placing a kiss to the girl’s forehead. “All the guests are gone, and the servants are all heading off to bed, exactly where you should be. Is Mrs. Davenport still in her room?”
The girl nodded. “She’s snoring.”
“And so should you be.” He set her away from him far enough to tweak her nose, drawing a small smile from her. “So go on back to your bed, and in the morning, we’ll take the dog-cart out for a drive. How about that?”
The girl nodded, appeased by that bit of bribery. “Will you tell me a story, Papa?”
“Not tonight. I have a guest.” He nodded toward Kit, bringing Meri’s attention to him.
Shyly, she curled up against the general’s chest and eyed him uncertainly. His attempt to win her over with his most amiable grin only earned him an uneasy frown.
Apparently, his charms were failing with all the Morgan women tonight.
“Go with Diana.” The general handed Meri over, but the child visibly cast a pleading glance back at her father to let her stay. “Go to bed, and I’ll see you in the morning.” He rose to his feet and placed a kiss to the top of her head. When he placed another one to Diana’s cheek, Kit saw in him the same fleeting look of grief that had been on his daughter’s face just moments before. Odd… “Both of you.”
“Yes, general.” Holding the girl protectively in her arms, she moved toward the hall. She paused in the doorway to glance back. “And the house?”
A world of meaning lingered in that quiet question.
“Footmen have been posted, so have grooms, including one on the landing outside the nursery,” her father assured her. “In the morning I’ll request a few men from the local guard to keep watch over the farm until all is settled.”
“Thank you.” Pressing the sleepy child tighter against her bosom, she nuzzled her face against Meri’s hair. She inhaled a deep breath before asking, “Darling, do you want to sleep with me tonight in my room?”
“I want to sleep in my bed, with all my dolls and animals.” She considered a moment, then added, “But there’s room there for you, too.”
Hiding her smile in Meri’s curls, she rocked the little girl in her arms. From the gleam in her eyes, that small exchange had inexplicably pleased Diana more than Kit could fathom. “Up to the nursery, then.”
“Diana.” Kit took a step toward her, suspecting she was keeping secrets from him…I want answers. “Let me escort you upstairs.”
“No need.” When her eyes met his over Meri’s head as the sleepy girl finally rested it upon Diana’s shoulder, he felt a wall already being erected between them. “Goodbye, Mr. Carlisle.” Please leave me alone… But he had no idea what he’d done to become her enemy. “Have a safe journey back to London.”
Then she was gone, stepping into the hall and closing the door behind her.
Kit stared after her, resisting the urge to deny her wishes and follow after her anyway so that he could demand answers from her. And kiss her again. After tonight’s revelation about the Foreign Office, he wanted nothing more than to lose himself in her soft arms and forget the world for a few blissful hours.
He slid a sideways glance at the general, who was eyeing him closely. That was never going to happen.
“So.” General Morgan collected his glass and came up beside Kit at the drink table. He reached for the decanter to refill both glasses. “She doesn’t know.”
Nodding his thanks for the whisky, he lifted the glass to his lips. There was much that he’d not told Diana about her brother and his connection to the French. “Know what?”
“That you’re working for the Home Office.”
Kit froze, the glass halfway to his mouth. Every muscle in his body tightened. A jarring thud of his heartbeat counted off the long seconds while he returned the general’s gaze over the rim of the crystal tumbler before he finished bringing it to his lips.
“No.” He took a long swallow. “But apparently, you do.”
“Of course I do.” The general reached into the table’s center drawer to remove two cigars from a specially made box of untreated Spanish cedar and offered one to Kit. “I was the one who recommended you to them.”
Kit squelched his surprise as the general crossed to the fireplace. “Because you thought I was a good soldier?”
“Hell no.” He removed a wood splinter from the spill vase on the mantel shelf, then crouched down to light it on the coals. Rising to his feet, he leveled a no-nonsense stare at him. “You were one of the worst soldiers who ever served beneath me. I recommended you to put you out of the ranks and away from me.”
Well, that stung.
“You had the intelligence to be a general, but being a soldier wasn’t in your character.” He clamped the cigar between his teeth and lit it from the little flame dancing at the end of the spill. “You lacked all discipline and regard for the command chain.”
True.
“But I’ve never known another man who could commit as much trouble as you yet somehow escape all punishment, who could talk a man out of all his blunt and convince him that it was his idea to give it to you.”
So was that.
“You were wasting your talents by being in uniform.” He tossed the splinter into the fire and puffed at the cigar until a trail of smoke curled toward the ceiling. “Especially when the Home Office could put them to better use. And did, from all I’ve heard.”
The backs of his knees tingled. “You’ve been keeping watch on me?”
“Someone had to, once your father died and your brother went overseas.”
That should have rankled, yet oddly enough, it didn’t.
“After all, I recommended you. My reputation was as much at stake as yours.” The grisly old man didn’t fool him with that comment, especially when he didn’t look at him as he said it, keeping the truth hidden behind a frown at his cigar as he rolled it between his fingertips. He’d kept watch because he’d been concerned.
“You have nothing to fear in that regard,” Kit assured him.
“Yet you let the world believe you’re nothing more than a wastrel who wants an easy living as a vicar.”
When the general put it like tha
t, one of the men he’d respected most in his life… Damnation. He admitted with chagrin, “It’s easier that way.”
“You are one of His Majesty’s most decorated men.”
Definitely easier than having to admit publicly to that. “I have to work in secret. If anyone outside the Home Office discovers what I’ve been doing, my career is over.”
Most likely his life, right along with it. Which made his pursuit of Fitch’s murderer even riskier. But he owed it to his partner for all the times that Fitch had rescued him from trouble. And because it should have been him who had his throat slit in the alleyway that night.
Pushing those grim thoughts from his head, he lit his cigar, then followed the general’s lead of sinking into a leather chair positioned in front of the fire. Both men kicked out their long legs to rest their boots on the fireplace fender and quietly watched the smoke drift upward from their cigars. In the soft light of the fire and lamps, the house finally quiet around them, Kit could almost imagine that the two men often spent time together like this.
Until General Morgan studied the glowing tip of his cigar and demanded, “Is my son truly a traitor, Carlisle?”
Harsh reality came crashing back. “He’s working with the French,” he replied carefully, not wanting to upset the man any more than possible. “He must have a good reason.”
“Revenge on me.” The general grimaced into the fire. “As payment in kind for all the chiding I’ve done of him over the years, all the criticizing that he wasn’t living up to expectations. My expectations for him.”
“I don’t believe so.” Life as General Morgan’s son couldn’t have been easy. But sons criticized by their fathers ran away to join the navy, pursued racing or boxing, spent their days in drunken stupors in gambling hells and their nights passed out in brothels. They didn’t commit treason.
“When you catch him, you’ll arrest him.” Not a question.
“Yes,” Kit confirmed quietly.
There was no point in lying, and nothing that Kit could say to ease the general’s pain at knowing his son betrayed his country and all that he’d worked so hard to defend. Nor would he insult the man by spewing any kind of placating platitudes.
After the Spy Seduces Page 10