He grinned, gratified. “Quite simple. A matter of ‘Do unto others as you would do unto them.’ In other words, ‘Never be the first to turn, lest your host stab you in the back.’ ”
“And that host would be you?” she asked sweetly.
He burst out laughing, and after a second, she joined him. She couldn’t help it. He completely undermined any attempts to remain angry at him.
“You’re a fool, Justin,” she said fondly, shaking her head. Without waiting for a reply, she started up the steps.
“I know, Evie,” he said quietly, watching her go. “I know.”
Chapter 10
THOUGHTFULLY, JUSTIN WATCHED Evelyn disappear.
The Blumfields, he knew, had been in the cabin for just under two months. Not much longer than Justin had been at the abbey. There was no possible way they could be enemy agents awaiting the arrival of Bernard’s infernal machine. When they’d rented the cottage, Justin hadn’t even known where he was going to take delivery of the shipment. Logically, he knew they were just what they appeared to be. But logic did not always play a role in espionage. And more and more often of late, Justin had been on edge, his instincts screaming that something was not right.
And yet, on the face of it, nothing could be more right. There was nary a whisper of anything sinister in the air. Indeed, he’d seldom had an assignment so straightforward and harmless. And yet . . . and yet . . .
It was this waiting. It made him edgy, likely to jump at shadows . . . or bluff Prussian neighbors.
But now maybe the waiting was over. One of these crates might hold the device. It was certainly time the damn thing made its appearance.
With that thought, he went in search of Beverly. He found him around the back of the abbey, supervising the placement of a modern oven in the kitchen.
Soon after Justin had entered the army, Beverly had surreptitiously joined his unit at the request of Justin’s maternal grandmother, who had apparently felt less than confident in Justin’s ability to stay alive in the field.
He had worked for Justin ever since. The two had formed a good team, and if Beverly had discovered in the easygoing young man a spine of tempered steel and the intellect and cunning to make use of it, he’d never let on that he’d expected anything different. And for his part, Justin had soon enough discovered that Beverly’s talents extended far beyond a batman’s or butler’s arts.
But their interesting experiences did not keep Beverly from forgetting his butlering. Not for a moment. Nor did it keep Beverly from expressing his morose, misogynistic and puckish personality.
“Beverly, I want you to hie yourself off to the stables and have one of the lads hitch me up a cart.”
Beverly looked at him mournfully. “The stables, sir? Where there are horses and thus horse excrement?”
“Walk carefully, Beverly.”
“Thank you for your concern, but don’t you think that taking into account your current state,” he shuddered delicately as his gaze swept over Justin, “you might see to this little task yourself?”
“No. I’m going to dash inside and pry the tops off the crates Evie and her new boyfriend have just delivered and at the same time keep an eye out the front window in case Mr. Blumfield should happen to drive by on his way to Henley Wells where he happened to have forgotten something. Like a crate,” he said with heavy irony. “I doubt he’s a secret agent for another country but God knows I’ve played harmless pups myself enough times not to risk trusting to appearances.
“I have extremely good vision, sir.”
“You have terrible vision. Worse than a mole in sunlight. Look at you. You’re squinting right now.”
“It’s a tic, sir.”
“No wonder Evie thinks you a difficult creature.”
“Does she?”
“Terribly.”
“How delightful of her to consider me at all.”
“Enough of your slathering after my good lady, Beverly. Off to the barn with you.”
“Of course, sir,” Beverly said before offering a dignified little salute.
Justin headed to the library, where Evie had taken to storing incoming paraphernalia, and examined the two crates. Both were large and stoutly made. He found a claw hammer and within five minutes had jimmied the lids off, fully expecting to find another, better secured box inside.
Instead, he found a great deal of ladies’ luggage, trunks and valises monogrammed with the initials E and C, which Justin quickly deduced was Mrs. Vandervoort’s future monogram.
Alas, there was nothing inside to gladden the heart of an expectant recipient of diabolical machines. Still, two other crates awaited him in Henley Wells. He couldn’t afford to assume that they, too, held Mrs. Vandervoort’s trousseau. He’d just finished nailing the lids back on when Beverly appeared. “The beast waits without.”
“Good,” Justin said, heading outdoors. He climbed aboard the waiting wagon and whistled up the horse to a trot.
Despite Evie’s claim that the station had closed, he knew better. He would like to have seen Sully Silsby’s face when he realized Evie didn’t have the vaguest notion that when he said “sausage day,” she was supposed to offer him a quid to stay open past hours.
No, Justin had no fears that he could rouse the manager and bribe him into releasing the boxes. But he did have to get there before any other, yet to be identified, interested parties got there. He’d always been clear-sighted, focused on his goal, absorbing pertinent data, filtering out the extraneous, always one step ahead of the opposition. It’s what had made the game fun.
But recently, he’d begun second-guessing his motives. Being clear-headed, he decided, was deucedly inconvenient when one’s personal bias started to creep into the equation. The fact was that he didn’t like Mr. Blumfield. Mostly because Evie did, but also because in spite of what he knew, he was still suspicious of the Blumfields.
Their sudden appearance in this sleepy little hamlet, the manner in which they’d secured the strategically located cottage, Ernst’s attentions to Evie—which coincidentally gave him an excuse to visit the abbey—it was all just too convenient.
And yet, if Blumfield was after Bernard’s device, why offer to haul two of the crates most likely to contain it here? No. He was tilting at windmills.
He was too good an agent to make assumptions without any evidence to support them, he reminded himself.
Justin arrived in town at dusk. The chink of cheap china, the high pipe of children’s demanding voices, and the low drone of the parents’ patient replies drifted in the air. The smell of frying bacon and onion perfumed the dusk. Henley Wells was settling in for the evening.
Only the pub was crowded and raucous. Its double doors stood open and the shutters were flung wide, spilling light and noise into the twilight.
Justin drew around to the back of the dark train depot, set the brake, and leapt to the ground. He took the steps up to the back door and peered through the sidelight. Inside, he could just make out the dim shapes of several crates. The office door was shut and the gas jets had been turned off. He knocked lightly, just in case, and, when no one answered, tried the doorknob. It was locked.
Not that a locked door would stop a determined thief. Or spy. Or even a one-time spy, Justin thought, dipping into his pocket and extracting a penknife. He flipped up one of the blades, a very slender, flexible blade.
Carefully, he inserted the slender blade into the catch. Picking a lock was a matter of finesse and delicacy, a task more appropriate to touch and hearing than sight. A little jostle here, the slide and click of a tumbler there, a gentle tug, a sleek tickle and voilà!
With one last, careful look around, Justin turned the knob and slipped into the office, quietly closing the door behind him. Once inside, he made for the manager’s office.
He found a crowbar on a shelf just inside the door and went to the crate. As quietly as possible, he wedged the end of the bar under the wooden lid and pushed. Nothing. He looked closer at the crate.
The damn thing had been nailed shut every four inches. Bloody hell. He jammed the crowbar more securely under the lip and heaved down. He’d just heard a recalcitrant groan when the office gaslights flared to life. Blast!
“Is that you, Mr. Powell? Whatever are you doing?”
Justin turned his head. Sully Silsby stood in the front doorway, weaving slightly on his feet. Hovering behind him stood Archie Flynn and two others Justin didn’t recognize.
Many years ago, Justin had learned that the best reaction to being discovered in a compromising situation was to play put-upon. He sighed in exasperation.
“I’m trying to get this blasted thing open,” he said. “What does it look like I’m doing?”
It worked. Sully nodded as if indeed, now that he thought of it, of course that was what Justin was doing. “So you are. But how’d you get in here, sir?”
“Through the door.” Justin rolled his eyes, the picture of exasperation. He dropped to the ground. “What does your wife put in those sausages, anyway?”
Sully flushed guiltily. “I haven’t been home yet. I stopped by the pub and was just about to leave when Archie here come back to say how he seen a cart behind the station.”
“And you rounded up this stalwart band to see who’d breached the sanctity of your office?” Justin asked.
“That’s right.” One of the men in the back hiccuped.
Justin lifted his hands, palms up, at his sides. “Just me, I’m afraid. Lady Evelyn informed me that if I didn’t hurry, the crates would be doomed to wait here until Monday. Couldn’t let that happen. So hither I flew.”
“But how’d you get in, sir?” Sully insisted.
“I tried the door. It was open.”
“I could have sworn I locked it.”
“Maybe the latch didn’t catch,” Justin suggested.
Sully nodded, convinced. “Needs replacing.”
“But if you was coming to get the crates, why’re you trying to break ’em open here?” Archie demanded, blast him.
“To determine just who owns the bloody things,” Justin explained with exaggerated patience. “If they’re mine, I figured I’d leave them until Monday and save myself the effort of loading them myself. But if they are Lady Evelyn’s, well, she’ll need them.” He didn’t miss the wink Sully sent his nearest mate.
“So, that be the way of it?” Sully asked with all the subtlety of a twelve-year-old. “And whose crates are they?”
Justin shrugged. “Haven’t found that out yet.”
“Ach! We can get that lid off for’n you,” one of the strangers, a rabbity-looking fellow with a sunburned complexion, offered. “Can’t we, Jim?”
His friend, stouter and already sporting a stunning map of capillaries across his bulbous nose, nodded.
Justin didn’t want an audience when the contents of the crates were revealed. He wrenched the iron bar out and dropped it on the floor. “Thanks for the offer, but I’d just as soon wait until I’m back at the abbey to open them, since I seem to have found some fine fellows to lend me a hand loading them. That is, if you wouldn’t mind helping?”
“Sure thing, Mr. Powell,” Sully agreed. Justin always paid well for any effort expended on his behalf.
Justin looked over the strangers. “I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure. You are . . . ?”
“New to town,” Sully answered for the pair. “Come down from London only a few days ago. Salesmen for a new line of combine harvester. They’ve decided to make Henley Wells their ‘center of operations.’ Leastwise that’s what they said, and right official-sounding, too, don’t you think?”
“Very,” Justin murmured.
“Good fellows,” Sully said, which, in Sully’s lexicon, meant they’d paid for a round of drinks. “We’re quite chummy over to the pub. You stop by, Mr. Powell. Got us a merry little crowd. The deacon’s cousins—what he didn’t even know he had afore they appeared on his doorstep last night—they’re over to the pub, too.”
“Sounds grand. But first things first, eh?” Justin said. Salesmen, ailing Prussians, long-lost relatives—was there no end to his possible adversaries? He suddenly felt tired. If there had to be an enemy within, why couldn’t the fellow have the good grace to don a black cape and twirl pointy mustachios?
“Right. You and me, Archie,” Sully clamped a paw on little Archie Flynn’s shoulder, “we’ll take this one and you lads take t’other.”
Amidst general camaraderie, the men hoisted the crates to their shoulders and shuffled out into the street, where they made quick work of loading them. Then they stood back and gazed expectantly at Justin.
“Well, I’d say you’ve earned yourselves a well-deserved round or two.”
Justin fished some money out of his pocket and flipped the coins to Sully.
“Now that’s right kind of you, Mr. Powell. Don’t say you aren’t going to join us?”
“Not tonight, Sully. Lady Evelyn—”
Archie dug his elbow into Sully’s side. “Never thought to see you struck by Cupid’s arrow, Mr. Powell.”
Justin regarded him dryly. “Not to worry, Archie. I don’t think it’s an arrow so much as a dart.”
He winked as the men broke into laughter, and swung up into the carriage. But as he drove he could not help but consider how easily the local men accepted this role of unwilling lovesick swain. Perhaps because it wasn’t far from the truth. . . . Ruthlessly, he hauled his thoughts back to the task at hand.
He wouldn’t think of her. He spent far too much time thinking of her as it was. Thinking of her, wanting to be with her. Wanting her. Damn it, next thing he knew, he’d be mooning about like that fool Blumfield!
Thirty minutes later he was back at the abbey, rousing the poor stable boy to help him manhandle the crates into the library. By the time the boy left, the grandfather clock had struck sonorous notes that echoed down the deserted corridors.
Justin shrugged out of his jacket and turned up the gas jets. The claw hammer lay where he’d left it. He picked it up.
“Well,” he said softly, “I suppose there’s no time like the present—”
Swoosh!
He ducked. The blackjack caught him a glancing blow behind the right ear. The hammer skittered across the floor as he went down hard, driven to his knees by the explosion of pain.
Out of the corner of his eye he glimpsed movement and rolled. The second blow missed his face, pounding with nerve-numbing force into his shoulder. He turned to face his adversary just as the room went black.
Blast! The man must have come in earlier and hidden when he’d arrived. Justin froze. Listened. By turning off the lights, his enemy had leveled the playing field. The sudden darkness would be more to his enemy’s detriment than Justin’s—which meant his assailant didn’t want to be seen.
Footsteps slid along the floorboards. Justin crouched, holding his breath. A figure slipped across the rectanglular murk of the doorway and dissolved into the darkness to his right. Dressed for the occasion, had he? Justin thought, bitterly aware of his own white shirt. This would teach him to ask Providence for villains in black.
A floorboard creaked close by. He waited. Felt more than saw the looming presence behind him. Tensed. Heard his assailant’s breath catch, and at that instance pivoted, driving up with a clenched fist. His knuckles connected with bone-crunching force.
“Ahh!” His assailant bellowed.
“Bloody hell!” Justin swore, violently shaking his injured hand and ducking the wild swings of an all but invisible arm.
One should never, ever hit something without being able to see it. Bloody hell, that hurt!
Justin ducked another swing, glimpsed a black, featureless face, and, gritting his teeth, drew back his fist and drove straight from his shoulder. But this time the man saw his arm coming and ducked in time to avoid it. Then, just when Justin was vulnerable, the figure plunged headfirst into Justin’s unprotected belly.
“Uff!” Justin gasped and stumbled backward, knocked to the gr
ound. He curled, protecting his head, but the man was apparently now simply intent on escape. Before Justin could regain his feet, his enemy had stumbled out of the door, slamming it closed behind him and pitching the room into even deeper darkness.
Justin leapt to his feet, intending to give chase, but tripped over the sodding hammer, flung open the door, and collided straight into Evie Cummings Whyte.
Chapter 11
IT HAD BEEN a long day. Evelyn had supervised the hanging of a new chandelier, started the workmen on the papier-mâché boulders, finally located the source of a noxious odor in one of the guest rooms and dealt with the rat’s disposal. By the end of the day, she was exhausted but too keyed up to sleep.
She took dinner standing up in the kitchen and spent the rest of the evening going from room to room, checking the progress of cleaning and repairs. She ended her tour in the room across from the library, one of the last that needed cleaning, and decided to take a little break.
The Brigadier General had used it as a trophy room. The walls were covered with photographs of him in various uniforms, the tables piled with scrapbooks, ledgers, and diaries from various generations. Idly, Evelyn sat down and began leafing through them. If Justin came in she would hear him and they could . . . talk. No one came. Justin least of all.
Soon even the General’s amazing record of tightfisted domestic tyranny failed to hold her attention and she fell asleep. Almost at once she began to dream.
She was driving a carriage, and Mr. Blumfield stood in the road behind her, applauding. All at once, the road turned into a track careening down the side of a steep mountain, and the carriage became a bicycle. She was losing control, going faster and faster, when her wheel hit a rut, hurling her out over the cliff face.
Terrified, she plummeted, screams freezing in her throat. And then she saw Justin hanging from a gnarled tree root halfway down the cliff face. Her terror vanished. She stretched out her hands and he caught her round the waist. The moment they touched, the air turned balmy and soft.
Gently, he gathered her in. “Evie,” he whispered. “What did you think you were doing?”
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