by Kate Moore
Again Radcliffe’s pistol hand wavered. He edged back, dragging Lucy with him. Behind them in the shadowy passageway Adam stood like a blasted tree.
“Drop, Adam,” Harry yelled.
Adam dropped. Radcliffe stumbled back, falling as the backs of his knees collided with Adam’s bulk. Radcliffe’s arm jerked away from Lucy. She slid to the floor in the instant the pistol discharged.
The ball grazed Harry’s ribs as he lunged, caught in the detachment of battle, neither hatred nor fury, but clarity, the smell of powder and blood filling his senses. Momentum drove his sword through Radcliffe’s chest. He pulled back as Radcliffe crumpled, curling around the wound, in his eyes the knowledge of death. Then he fell.
* * * *
Lucy scrambled to her feet and went to Harry. He dropped the bloody sword with a clang and took her in his arms, nestling her head under his chin. Around them there seemed to be a great deal of movement and shouting. He was warm and solid and breathing. His lips brushed her forehead. “I couldn’t lose you,” he said.
“He shot you,” she said, lifting her head from his chest.
“Grazed me. I’ll have a bruised rib is all.” His eyes had an absurdly joyful look.
She watched Harry’s friend pull Radcliffe’s body off Adam. The large man who had called Radcliffe a dog came to stand over the dead man.
“You probably wanted him alive,” Harry said.
The big man shook his great shaggy head. “No. I didn’t know his name, didn’t know the cheeky devil was hiding in our midst behind a mask of respectability, but I have wanted him dead for twenty years.”
Harry’s friend helped Adam to his feet. Lucy touched Harry’s sober face and went to take Adam’s hand and lead him to his bench. Around them she heard familiar voices speaking in shocked tones. The quiet hour had ended. The inn’s usual people were returning.
One of Harry’s friends organized a small party of bench sitters to move Radcliffe’s body. His other friend pulled chairs into a circle around the hearth. Frank Blodget began to pour ale. Mrs. Vell muttered about divine wrath and pork and marched a quietly weeping Hannah off to her kitchen.
“Pardon me.” Harry’s chestnut-haired friend interrupted. “Blackstone and I will keep the authorities occupied while you all get your story straight. By the way, does the physician’s case in the dining room have any bearing on the case?”
Lucy shuddered. “Radcliffe came for Adam, calling himself a Doctor Waller with a private asylum in Fulham. He kept the pistol in the case.”
The big man with the head of russet hair like a lion’s mane and the look of a large oak tree came to stand before Lucy and Adam. Tears ran down his craggy cheeks.
“Dear, dear girl, your mother is avenged.”
“You knew my mother?”
“Oh yes. The countess was fierce and fearless with a laugh no man could resist. She was one of the best agents England ever had.”
Lucy turned to Harry, the spy, the man of duty and mission. “You knew?”
“I suspected.” His face had the bleak look she remembered from when they parted in the breakfast room at Brook Street.
She turned back to the big man. “You called her ‘the countess’?”
“Yes, her French title from her husband—de Neuvillette. He was captured in France. She was on her way to help him escape with funds and documents when she disappeared.”
Lucy started. It was the name of the woman in her painting. Her father had not spent wildly on a portrait. He had known who her real mother was. “But she was English?”
“To the core. Penelope Lydford before she married. Of Hartwood.”
The bandaged youth, whom Lucy had seen earlier with Harry, now stepped forward, a pretty girl clinging to his good arm. “Hartwood is where Adam came from, sir. Miranda and I confirmed it with Adam’s old friend Nanny Ragley. There was a second footman there named Geoffrey Gibbs, who left when Adam did.”
Adam stirred on the bench beside Lucy. “Adam hide Lucy in the bulrushes,” he said.
“A clearing off the Aylesbury road,” said Harry. “I found a child’s mitten there. The mate to one your father kept.”
“Geoffrey ran away,” said Adam.
Harry shook his head. “Adam, you were frightened. You thought Geoffrey ran away. But he went to the road to show the French the way.” Harry turned to the big man. “I take it that Radcliffe got his start with the money paid to him for betraying the countess.”
The big man nodded. “He never stopped working for England’s enemies, but he wanted out when the Russian spy Malikov was arrested.” The big man turned to another stranger, a tall, dark-haired young gentleman, standing apart from the rest, leaning against the mantel with an amused look on his long, lean face. He had held Hannah when she fled.
“Is that when he came to you?” the big man asked.
The tall stranger pushed off the mantel. “I went to him. We had an encounter over Radcliffe’s practice of disposing of his dead animals on my land. I threatened to expose him and offered to buy up all his cattle. He had another idea. He would pay me to play highwayman and ‘steal’ his horses.” The stranger shrugged.
The russet-haired big man grinned. “Let’s talk,” he said.
A stir at the door signaled the arrival of the constables and a magistrate. Harry’s dark-haired friend came to tell them each would be summoned to give witness.
For the woman of property, the question of when to accept a gentleman’s proposal may be vexed. Knowing, from her own experience, the cares and satisfactions of managing her affairs allows her to meet her suitors on an equal footing. She is of all women free to choose the husband of her heart without regard to the acquisition of a comfortable establishment for her future life. Furthermore, she does not expect a man of sense himself to deny the advantages of a pretty piece of property or a handsome income with which to supply the needs of a household. She does not wish to marry a fool or a spendthrift. Nevertheless, she must accept no proposal until she is fully convinced that a gentleman’s passion for her person wholly outweighs his interest in her purse.
—The Husband Hunter’s Guide to London
Chapter 23
By nine the spies had returned to the club. It was the first time they’d returned since the night of Jane Fawkener’s kidnapping. They lit fires and candles in the vast coffee room, and now had sandwiches and coffee to sustain them. After serving them with Miranda’s help, Wilde had slipped away to sit with the girl and her father above Kirby’s shop. Goldsworthy had deigned to join them.
“Well, lads,” Goldsworthy said, “we’ve had a triumph today.”
“Will Chartwell think so?” Hazelwood asked. Chartwell in the Foreign Office ultimately controlled the purse strings for all of them.
Goldsworthy nodded. With his size he took up an entire sofa. “It’s a promising step in getting our operation going again. And with...”
“With?” Blackstone prompted.
Goldsworthy waved one of his great hands in the air. “Never mind. You lot have done well. You’ve done your duty. It’s time to put down your weapons. A year and a day. That’s the term of service England asked of you, and you gave it in full measure. A man should do no more.”
He frowned, and for a moment looked weary. “Any longer and a man changes, loses himself,” he said. He heaved himself up from his couch.
“Mountjoy,” he said to Harry. “You’ll be off tomorrow?”
“I will,” Harry agreed. In the morning he would begin his new life. He had a brother to bury and an estate to reclaim from ruin. In time, he supposed, duty and work would fade his memories of a golden girl with laughter in her eyes.
The blacksmith Will Wittering had stood in the crowd in the inn common room, watching Harry’s departure. If Wittering had an ounce of patience in his nature, he would bide his time and wait for the rhythms of t
he Tooth and Nail to draw Lucy back into her old life. Compared to Brook Street the inn might look shabby, but compared to Mountjoy, it was a palace.
* * * *
The day after Mountjoy again walked out of her life was a beef day, wet and windy outside and smelling of Mrs. Vell’s roast inside. The inn door banged frequently as neighbors and strangers alike came to view the broken Waterloo case and hear one of the bench sitters tell the tale of Geoffrey Radcliffe’s dramatic end. Little groups gathered in the entry looking down at the common room, with John Simkins or Will Wittering pointing to the spot where the rich man had died.
She sat with Adam on the bench. She gave him silver to polish, but his hands fell idle every few minutes as if he’d forgotten his work. He cocked his head to listen to the talk whenever Harry Clare’s name was mentioned. When Adam began to doze, she led him back to his bed. He lay down willingly, and she set Hannah to watch over him. The girl had not fully recovered from the fright of the day before, and Lucy gave her mending to keep her busy.
She retreated to her own room to write some necessary letters to her friends and to her uncle, explaining her discovery of her mother’s name and background, and telling them firmly and lovingly that her new knowledge did not alter the fixed attachments of her heart. In her letter to her uncle she mentioned that she had in her possession a painting of her mother, and should he wish to visit the inn, he would be most welcome to see it.
She looked at the laughing lady on her wall, her mother, with new eyes now. She was, after all, a spy, and Lucy was a spy’s daughter. You and I, she told the lady in the picture, must become better acquainted.
She folded her letters and sealed them. She understood Harry Clare, Mountjoy, better now. He had not abandoned the idea of marrying her because he thought an innkeeper’s daughter beneath him, but rather because he thought the proprietress of a thriving inn could look higher in life than a spy and the ruined son of a disreputable earl.
The second day of her life apart from Harry Clare she woke to a regular snowstorm with whirling flakes. It was a pork day.
On the third day another heavy fall of snow in the night had silenced the birds. Lamb again. And a second proposal from Will Wittering.
In the end the husband hunter must choose one gentleman. She must put to rest all other possibilities for her happiness. In that moment of declaring her acceptance of a gentleman’s proposal, she seems to be making a momentous choice that fixes her identity as the wife of a particular man. It appears that she is no longer to be Miss Potential, but Lady Defined. Yet the truth of her choosing is really quite different. Dozens of handsome, witty, charming men will remain in London. She will be as lovely and captivating herself with a ring on her finger as she was before her wedding day. The moment she chooses her husband is but the first time she chooses him. Far from ending the necessity of choosing, that day commits her to a path on which she must choose him again and again all the days of their life together.
—The Husband Hunter’s Guide to London
Chapter 24
Harry opened the inn door at that quiet hour before the afternoon stage arrived. Cold air swirled behind him, warmth met him. He stood in the shadows of the entrance landing, breathing Mrs. Vell’s roast, snow on his hat and greatcoat. He glanced at the Waterloo case. The broken glass had been replaced, and his old sword returned to its place. The last battle had been won.
Across the room Adam sat on his bench, his head tilted toward the open door, alert as a sentry. Beside the old man Lucy reached a hand to recall him to his task. Harry took a moment to watch her unobserved. Then he shook the snow from his hat and coat and hung them on the familiar hook. It was time to claim his love.
First he had to pass through the common room and the tap. One of the few bench sitters spotted him at the foot of the stairs and gave a shout.
Lucy lifted her head from the needlework in her lap. He met her gaze, and the cold of the journey left him.
The bench sitters rose to surround him and shake his hand or clap him on the back. He let them buy him a drink, surprised at how at ease he felt in their company. He was home now.
“Do you make a long stay this time, Captain?”
He nodded. He did not correct them about his title. “Excuse me, gentlemen,” he said. He put his ale cup on the bar and crossed to where Lucy and Adam sat.
“Hello, Adam, it’s Harry,” he said.
“You like your ale very dark, Captain,” Adam replied.
“I do,” Harry agreed. He let himself look at his love, her gray eyes full of mirth, her face a rare day of English sunshine, golden dappled beauty. He wanted to hear her laugh.
“So, you’ve come,” she said.
“You probably knew I would before I knew it myself.”
She nodded. “Mr. Goldsworthy paid us a visit.”
“It took three days for his express to reach me,” Harry explained.
“The express mattered a great deal, I suppose,” she said.
“It did to me. When a man courts a woman of property, he wishes to be beforehand in the world.”
“And are you—”
“I bought back Richard’s mortgages. Mountjoy belongs to the Clares again.” He realized a heartbeat too late what she was asking.
“—courting a woman of property?” she finished with a smile.
Adam came to Harry’s rescue. “Captain, you happy at the inn.”
“I am,” Harry said. He took Adam’s hand and received one of Adam’s vigorous, two-pump handshakes.
“Queenie ran away,” Adam announced.
“I’m sorry,” Harry replied. He sat on the bench next to his old friend and stretched out his legs.
“Still have Lucy,” the old man continued. “Lucy safe.”
“Thank you for keeping Lucy safe, Adam.”
“You stay here, Captain?”
Harry looked at Lucy. “If a certain room is available, I’d like to stay the night,” he said. It seemed to him a long time, possibly as long as the interval between two heartbeats, before she answered.
“I think we have just the room for you, Lord Mountjoy.”
* * * *
There was the usual inn business to be got through, stage passengers to feed, the tap to close, lingering guests to send off to bed, and Adam to care for, before it was time for Lucy to follow her love upstairs. She found him sitting by the fire in the inn’s best room, the one her father had chosen for him weeks earlier. He had made himself comfortable in his shirt and trousers, his stocking feet stretched out, a glass of wine in one hand. She could not imagine he felt her sense of raging impatience.
Then their gazes met and held.
“I couldn’t be sure you would come.” He had not moved, but she sensed some internal shift in him.
“How could I not after you invited Radcliffe to shoot you rather than me?”
“I couldn’t bear it if he shot you.”
“Ah,” she said. “I felt the same way about his shooting you. The point was to be together.”
“And so you’re here.”
She nodded.
“I have to kiss you,” he said, and he moved, easily and swiftly, so that she hardly noticed how he managed the wine and the chair and crossing the room.
“I rather hoped you would.”
And he did, taking her in his arms and crushing her to him, matching her in impatience to kiss and touch. He deepened the kiss and lifted her from her feet so that her body pressed down on his. The kiss went on while the fire cracked and hissed until he groaned in his throat and set her down, their breath rasping.
They paused and laughed, and he glanced at the bed. She read his intention and took his hand, willing to be led. He took a shuddering breath.
“Wait,” he said. He retrieved a small velvet box from the jacket hanging over his chair. He knelt on the rug before he
r and lifted up the open box. A band of gold and rubies sparkled in the velvet folds. “Will you marry me and be my lady?”
He had forgotten an important line. She would remind him later, but she nodded her yes, extending her hand, allowing him to slide his ring onto her finger, pulling him up from his knees.
He glanced again at the bed, drawing a deep steadying breath, a sign, she knew, that he was going to be far too honorable for her feelings at the moment.
“Can we be married tomorrow, do you think? In London? Don’t they have ways, special licenses and such?”
A particularly broad grin erased all that was harsh in his face. “They do. We can,” he said, getting her drift, because he was not slow, her love.
She laughed then, and he pulled her to the bed and brought them both down upon it.
Harry rolled her under him, sensing her impatience, kissing and touching, pulling up her skirts, pushing her legs apart and fitting himself into the sweet hollow of her body where he could press and rock against her. He slid his hands over thin cotton stockings, finding the silken skin above her garters. She moaned and opened wider to his hand, and he shifted to cup her woman’s place through her damp drawers, using his thumb to find the nub of her pleasure.
She moaned at the touch, her arms going slack around him, lying back, looking up at him, panting and breathless, wonder in her gray eyes.
He grinned at her. “You like that.”
“I do,” she said.
“There’s more,” he said, “but let’s get rid of some of these clothes.”
He rocked back on his knees and pulled her up. She turned so he could undo the fastenings along her back. He pushed her gown down over her shoulders and pulled the pins from her hair, letting it spill down, enjoying the springy waves of it. He buried his face briefly in that hair before he turned her again to make short work of her front-fastening stays.
He tossed the practical corset aside and pulled her chemise over her head and gave his full attention to her breasts, cupping them and rubbing his thumbs across the tight buds, making her arch up to his touch.