So he offered the only medicine he could by pushing himself out of the chair and fetching the decanter of whisky.
“You have two beautiful and loving daughters, general.” He topped off the man’s glass and solemnly returned the stopper with a soft clink of crystal. “Lean on them to get through the days to come.”
“My daughters,” the general repeated into his glass. An odd tone colored his voice, one Kit couldn’t comprehend. “You could have arrested Diana for treason at the inn. Should have. It was your duty as a Home Office agent, but you didn’t.”
He sank into his chair and stared into the fire. “No good would have come from it.”
“Thank you for that.”
The man’s gratitude clawed at his chest. His intentions had been far less noble than that. Kit hadn’t arrested her because he’d wanted to use her to find her brother. But now… Damnation.
“And thank you for saving her life.” General Morgan threw his unwanted cigar into the fire. Then he mumbled into the flames, “I’d sacrifice everything I possess to keep Diana safe, and she’d give the same for Meri.” He swirled the golden liquid in his glass. “We men do everything we can for the women we love.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And God help us if they ever realize that.”
Kit’s mouth twisted into a grin. “Yes, sir.”
General Morgan looked up from his drink and pinned Kit beneath his steely gaze. The same gaze that had stared down Napoleon and other enemies across the empire. “Be careful with Diana,” he warned. “She’s much more fragile than you realize.”
“I’ll protect her with my life,” he promised. And meant it.
Chapter 10
Three Days Later
London
Kit tossed another coin into the center of the table. “Deal.”
As the cards were dealt, he leaned back in his chair and took an assessing glance around the King Street gambling hell. This place was where bluebloods came when they wanted an evening that their private clubs couldn’t provide, right down to the lightskirts that were let in shamelessly through the front door, and where middle-class gentlemen could rub shoulders with aristocrats who would never have let such upstarts into their St James’s Street clubs.
Tonight, he was gladly one of them. He’d already spent hours here gambling, drinking too much into his cups, carousing with chums who were always up for a good time, and flirting with the women. Even as he tossed away coin after coin on one bad hand after another, he kept grinning and shouting boisterously to the men around him at the other tables, bragging about how he planned to fleece them of their fortunes and steal their women.
In other words, behaving exactly like himself.
Or rather, exactly what society thought was the true him. How convenient that he could hide behind such an easy disguise.
Tonight, though, it was only a partial façade, because a large part of him truly longed for any way to push Diana from his head.
That he couldn’t stop thinking about Diana Morgan, of all women—he nearly laughed aloud. Thaddeus “Never Surrender” Morgan’s daughter, the sister of his enemy…an innocent. Pursue her? For God’s sake, he might as well become a vicar after all.
Across the main room of the hell, Lord Stanwyck’s second son, Henry Blythe, shouted out in victory as the luck of the cards finally fell to him. He rose to his feet and made a show of kissing the cards before sweeping in his winnings with both hands. The men sitting at the table with him shot him murderous looks, while others nearby scowled in annoyance. The men tolerated him only because he was the son of a marquess, generous when it came to buying rounds of drinks, wealthy enough to keep the stakes high—and a bad enough player to keep that same wealth flowing into their pockets when he lost. Which was usually every night.
That last hand was a fluke. But Kit would gladly take the opening it gave him.
“Blythe!” he shouted out, loud enough to shake the dusty chandeliers overhead. He leaned back in his chair to get a good view of the man through the crowd and rested his arm across the back of the empty chair beside him. “Did you win? Impossible!”
“Look to your own losses, Carlisle!” Blythe shot back, sending up laughter across the tables. “God knows you have enough of those to keep straight.”
“Losses, you say? What are those? I wouldn’t know.”
Snickers, hoots, and eye rolls went up around him. Good. Every man in the room was used to such antics by Kit. Had come to expect them, in fact. Tonight, he wouldn’t disappoint.
“But I hear you’re quite familiar with losing. Heard your horse lost at the Ealing races last week. A mare, too.” Kit slapped the shoulder of the gentleman sitting to his right, bringing the unfortunate man into the fray as an accident of proximity. “Just like every female in Blythe’s life, the old nag gave up before she finished!”
Peals of laughter exploded around the room.
Used to Kit’s barbs, Blythe shot back, “Go to hell!” He paused and gestured at the room around them. “Oh, wait—we’re already there.”
More laughs went up, followed this time by calls for both of them to shut up and let the men get back to their cards, booze, and women. Blythe clamped a cheroot between his teeth, nodded to the other players as he excused himself from the table, and headed toward the fireplace to stretch his legs and light his cigar.
“All kidding aside, Blythe,” Kit called out to him, much more reserved this time, “I know what you can do to improve your chances at winning the races.” He reached for the bottle of port that he’d spent a small fortune to purchase and refilled his glass. “But by all means, don’t listen to me. After all, I’m just someone who wins every race he enters.”
Unable to resist that bait, Blythe gestured at him. “Get your bragging arse over here then,” he ordered. “And make it worth my time by bringing that port with you.”
Grinning, Kit snatched up the bottle and a spare glass, then left the table in mid-hand, to insults and curses from the men playing with him. He sauntered up to the fireplace where Blythe was standing and set the two glasses onto the mantelpiece. No one else stood nearby who might overhear their conversation.
Blythe lit his cigar and tossed the used spill into the fire. “So you think you can tell me how to win at Ealing, do you? I doubt you’ve ever—”
“I don’t give a damn about racing.” Kit’s grin belied his icy bluntness. He kept up the pretense of two old chums sharing nothing more than casual conversation by pouring the man a glass of port. “You work for the Foreign Office.”
Blythe froze. Only for a beat, but it was enough to prove true the rumors about Blythe’s connection to Whitehall. Recovering himself, he laughed. “You’re mad!”
“You work for the Foreign Office,” Kit repeated in a hard voice, one that said he would brook no dissembling. He raised his glass in a friendly toast, as if reminiscing about schoolboy adventures, but there was nothing at all friendly about the accusation he leveled. “You talk about things that you should never mention, things that only a Foreign Office operative would know.” He held out the glass. “Take it and pretend to drink with me.”
Blythe stared at him over the port, his jaw working so fiercely as the man contemplated what to say that the veins in his neck stood out.
That was why Blythe would never be more than what he was—simply an observer asked to report unusual activity among the aristocracy. A paid snitch. He would never move up in the ranks, never be trusted with important missions or information, because he could never keep his thoughts from his face. Or from his tongue.
But tonight, Kit didn’t really give a damn about his old schoolmate’s espionage career—or lack of it. Blythe was positioned far enough inside the Foreign Office to provide answers, however limited, that would send Kit in the next direction. That was all that mattered.
“Take the glass,” Kit ordered again, his grin still in place. “And it would help if you laughed.”
Blythe didn’t. Instead, his f
ace remained serious as he accepted the port. “What kind of game are you playing at, Carlisle?”
A deadly one. “What have you heard about a French initiative to learn about military meetings in the early days of the Waterloo campaign?”
No point in asking directly about Morgan. Morgan was no more than a go-between. If Kit were to learn where the man was hiding—and why—he first needed to discover why the French wanted the diary. Then he could flush out the Frenchmen involved, and Morgan right along with them.
“Waterloo?” Blythe blinked. “Christ, man! That was seven years ago.”
“Along with one dead English king and a dead French emperor. Yet here we are.” Time made no difference among the ranks of kings and generals. “What do you know?”
“Nothing.” He pointedly arched a brow in an attempt to intimidate him but which came off as merely juvenile. “Even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you.”
Kit smiled down at the port in his glass as he swirled it. “You’re a low-level operative—”
“No need to be rude,” Blythe countered dryly, forcefully flicking his cigar ash onto Kit’s boots.
“—with zero chance of moving up in Whitehall.” Especially if Blythe kept implying with inside humor to his chums about his activities. The Foreign Office didn’t like people it couldn’t trust. Particularly within its own ranks. “You have no way to prove your worth unless they assign you to a real mission, but they won’t give you that assignment because you have no worth to them. Damned if you do…”
Blythe’s jaw was clenched so tightly now that Kit didn’t know how the man managed to take a swallow of port when he silently raised the glass to his lips. Amazing trick, that.
“I’m assuming that you want more from your career than simply reporting back what Baroness Habersham did on her recent trip to Italy or which Prussian prince is sleeping with Lady Godfrey…or Lord Godfrey.” He tapped Blythe on the chest with his glass to emphasize his point. “But if you went to them with important information—say the name of a certain society widow who’s been sending secret messages to the Habsburgs—then Whitehall would have no choice but to pay attention to you and give you the due you deserve.”
Blythe’s eyes gleamed at that offer for a trade. The name of a treasonous widow for information about what the Foreign Office was up to with the French. “Why do you care anything for the Foreign Office, or the French for that matter?”
“I have a personal interest.” That was all the explanation he would give.
Blythe silently considered his offer for a long while. Then, making his decision, he tossed back his port and reached for the bottle to top off his glass. “I don’t know specifics—as you said, I’m the lowest of the low.”
“But not for long.”
His lips curled at that blatantly mercenary assurance. “There are whispers floating around Whitehall regarding the French.”
Not what he wanted to hear. “There are always whispers floating around Whitehall about the French,” he muttered irritably against the rim of his glass as he took another sip.
“True, but this time the undersecretaries are working to quash them. Normally, they just ignore them. So there must be something special about this particular set of rumors.” He puffed at his cigar and studied Kit through the cloud of smoke. “The talk concerns someone high up in the French court who’s supposedly one of ours. Someone who’s been sending Whitehall information for a good, long while.”
“Who?”
“No idea. Could be King Louis himself, for all I know.” Blythe played with the cigar in his fingers, turning it over and watching the tendril of smoke rise from its tip. “Whoever it is, he’s important to Whitehall, and as a primary asset, they want to protect him. Enough to address rumors and whispers when they’ve never done so before.” He shrugged. “No idea what any of it has to do with Waterloo, though.”
But Kit did, and the realization splashed through him like ice water.
Everyone who worked for the Crown or had been part of the army in 1815 had heard stories about French generals who weren’t at all happy that Bonaparte had returned and had once more sent them scrambling back into battle during the Hundred Days. They’d mistakenly pledged their loyalty to a madman and dictator and were looking for a way out that would cause the least damage to what was left of France and to themselves. Some of the stories went so far as to claim that a few of the French generals had secretly met with Allied field marshals before the Waterloo campaign began, to share what they knew about Boney’s battle plans and any weaknesses in their own lines.
If one of those generals who had met with Thaddeus Morgan became a high-ranking official at the French court after the wars had ended, the Foreign Office would do anything they could to protect him. Especially if the man were still providing information to the British, now while sitting at the king’s side.
And if French agents had heard the same whispers and rumors, then they would do anything they could to expose him. Including getting their hands on General Morgan’s diary. Any way they could.
When Blythe popped his cigar back between his teeth, he clenched down hard. There was nothing friendly about the way he forced out around the cheroot, “Now tell me who this widow is so I can return to my game and lose another sizeable portion of my allowance.”
“Lady Bellingham,” Kit answered, with not one ounce of guilt. “She’s hoping to position herself into a second marriage with an Austrian archduke and so is passing along to the Habsburgs any bits of information she overhears from her friends in the Court of St James’s and the military. Mostly harmless information, yet she’s doing it. Whitehall knows that even a blind pig finds an acorn now and then and will want to put a stop to it. Or use her to send false information to Vienna. Either way, they’ll be impressed that you uncovered her.”
As he considered Kit’s information, Blythe casually flicked the ash from his cigar. “Have to admit, Carlisle, this is a damnably odd conversation to be having with you of all men.” He drawled thoughtfully, “A wastrel rakehell.”
Kit grinned in reply. “So you are. You know that second sons have to live by their wits to survive.”
“Yes. By gambling and taking wealthy lovers to supplement their incomes.” Blythe pointed the cigar accusingly at Kit. “Not by digging into Whitehall’s affairs.”
“By every means,” he corrected, raising his glass in a mock toast.
Blythe wasn’t amused and quietly demanded, “How do you know about the Countess of Bellingham?”
His grin faded. “She talks too much.”
The underlying warning in that struck Blythe as visibly as if Kit had punched him. He tightened his jaw and narrowed his eyes to slits. Ignoring that, he muttered, “But if you know about her, then surely so does the Foreign Office.”
“There are lots of things that happen on English soil that the Foreign Office doesn’t know about.” He’d never uttered truer words. “Even if they do, they’ll still be impressed that you brought it to their attention, and they’ll reward you for it.”
Not enough to promote Blythe to more important secret activities, but enough for him to be given a government post. The position would be a nice accolade to add to his family’s reputation and would come with a considerable salary, too. Kit believed in rewarding trust and loyalty, just as he believed in punishing those who betrayed him.
“But as long as you’re working for Whitehall, in any capacity,” he warned sincerely, “be careful.”
Blythe smiled. As with the rest of England, he’d heard about Kit’s brother, Ross, Earl of Spalding, and the charge of treason that had been falsely leveled against him. He most likely believed that this was the reason Kit had sought him out tonight, and Kit let him believe it. Lies were often easier than the truth.
“No worries there.” Blythe laughed. “Even with Lady Bellingham’s name, they won’t give me anything exciting to do.”
“No,” Kit answered quietly. “I meant that they’ll take your soul.”
Slapping Blythe on the back as he stepped past, Kit strode away. He swallowed down the last of his port and handed off the empty glass to a uniformed attendant standing at the door to the gaming room as he passed into the entry hall.
A former general turned high-ranking official, now positioned at the French court and handing information across the Channel to the old enemy—the secret of that man’s identity lay within the pages of the diary. He knew now why the French wanted it so badly, and badly enough to turn one of the Morgans’ household staff against them, to convince Diana that her brother was being held for ransom.
Yet he had no idea how Garrett Morgan fit into all of this, or why Nathaniel Grey had tried to convince him to cease his hunt for Fitch’s killer.
But he was damned well going to find out.
“Carlisle!” one of the men from the growing crush inside the hell called out to him as he collected his coat, hat, and gloves from the attendant manning the door. “Leaving so soon?”
“But it’s barely midnight!” Another gentleman joined in, chiding him.
“Lost all your money already?”
“Better ask Spalding to raise your allowance!”
That last barb irritated the hell out of him, considering that his government salary was more than enough to provide a fine West End London living.
But all he could do was flash a bored expression and send a jaded glance around him. “Plenty of hours left before dawn. Why waste them here with the likes of you?”
Hoots and howls went up from the room in reply.
Kit slipped on his coat and walked out the door and into the damp air. Since the day he joined the Home Office, he’d let the world think whatever they wanted to about him. Cultivated that scoundrel persona, in fact. But he’d taken comfort in knowing the truth about himself. That had always been enough.
After the Spy Seduces Page 11