Bridal Favors

by Connie Brockway

  Chapter 12

  BACK IN THE library, Justin rolled his forehead against the door. Thirty-two years he had lived unscathed, and now this woman, this Evelyn Cummings Whyte. How did one prepare for a woman like Evelyn? Shrewd and green, autocratic and shy?

  One didn’t.

  She broke in unexpectedly and stole things you valued: your peace of mind, your sense of purpose. Her touch brought you to your knees, laying self-sufficiency and years of emotional liberty to waste. And she didn’t even know it. Hadn’t a clue, this worldly innocent.

  Such a small woman to cause such large problems. He swung around, stalking to the two newly delivered crates. Hell and damnation. He didn’t need this. Not now. He had too much to do, too many other things to consider, and all of them would only be harder with her mucking around in his thoughts. In his heart. Blast!

  He slammed the side of his fist against the nearest crate, and pain exploded in his injured hand. He grimaced with caustic amusement. That would teach him to leave the romantic outbursts to the chaps who didn’t mind getting hurt. At least, it cleared his thoughts.

  He had a job to do and he had always done his job very, very well. Before, his lack of personal attachments had been one of his greatest assets. None of his actions or observations were clouded by emotional issues. And they weren’t going to become clouded now. He wouldn’t allow it.

  In the last hour everything had changed. Somehow the enemy had discovered where the device had been sent. The simple delivery he’d anticipated had turned into something dangerous.

  Justin had little doubt that the man with whom he’d fought was an enemy agent, for while he was willing to concede that the intruder in the library had been the half-drunk lout looking for a quick bit of ready he’d described for Evie, he was not willing to trust that speculation. Particularly when Evie’s safety was at stake.

  And the assignment. Not that it held precedence. Not over Evie.

  At least, Justin told himself, he no longer needed to concern himself with getting Bernard’s scientist into the house. As the point of the entire operation had been to take possession of the device secretly, it was now moot. It was too damn bad that it was too late to have the shipment diverted.

  He still needed to take delivery of this thing. But then he would send it straight off again to Bernard.

  He retrieved the crowbar and wrenched the tops off the crates. Inside, he discovered nothing remotely diabolical—unless you counted a dozen hatboxes. He replaced the lids on the crate and stood back. His eye caught a glint on the carpet. He bent over and picked up a kitchen boning blade.

  Useless as a means to pry something open, its presence here was disquieting. Whoever had brought it in here had carried it as a weapon. If he was an agent . . . Well, that wasn’t the way the game was played.

  Clandestine operatives depended on their ability to blend in with the local community in order to accomplish their fact-gathering. Some spent years making themselves invisible through habituation. Others, like Justin, openly entered an area and assumed a harmless persona. A spy rarely offered physical violence, because to do so called attention to him; a man running from authorities has little chance to accomplish anything else—like stealing a diabolical machine.

  Besides, covert operatives didn’t go about killing one another. They were seekers of information, not assassins.

  No, Justin disliked this knife intensely.

  His lips tightened. He thanked God it had been him and not Evie who’d entered that room. The very thought of her running into the assailant and his boning knife set a clamp tightening around Justin’s gut.

  He’d send her away. Tell her he’d rethought their arrangement and it wasn’t working. As soon as he thought it, he dismissed the idea. He couldn’t do that to her.

  The things she’d done with the abbey in the space of a few weeks had been extraordinary. The transformation from a moldy, dusty old tomb to—how had she put it?—“an adequately picturesque country house” had been astounding. No, he couldn’t reasonably argue that she’d interfered with his life. And she wasn’t going to know how she’d interfered with his heart.

  Over the course of the years, he’d sacrificed a great deal for his position, for his cover, for his country; while he had never stopped to tally the cost, he had occasionally felt it. He honestly hadn’t cared what opinion his grandfather had of him, but he would have liked his grandmother to know he hadn’t been a useless idler.

  He loathed the thought that because he was a successful spy, Evelyn must come to a similar assessment. He should hate to see disappointment in her dark, muted eyes. But that was his problem, not his country’s and certainly not Evie’s. He couldn’t tell her he was not just some aggravating, unmotivated social parasite. He’d taken oaths of silence, and he well understood the necessity of absolute secrecy. Not only his life but the lives of others relied on his staying mute until such time as his superiors released him from his vows.

  But none of this solved his current problem, and that was what to do about Evie. And just what did he need to do about her? he asked himself, forcing his thoughts to be clear and unemotional.

  Now that he knew for certain that there was an enemy about, he could be careful, take every precaution. No one was after Evie, he reminded himself. He only needed to keep her away from any likely-looking crates and stick close to her, to keep her safe.

  Besides, his assailant had revealed himself. He wouldn’t risk another frontal attack. Until he was certain the thing was within reach, he wouldn’t make another move.

  But though reason and experience told him one thing, his gut refused to believe it. Fear still dug its talons deep. There was only one thing he could do: He would find a man with a face bruised from where he’d struck him.

  He left the library without bothering to lock the door and headed for the bedchambers, noticing the change the abbey had undergone. The ceiling had been fixed and the water-stained walls freshly painted. An Oriental carpet muffled his footsteps. On the wall, a portrait of some saucy eighteenth-century Powell wench smiled at him.

  He went on and entered the corridor that led to the sleeping quarters. Evelyn’s was the farthest down, a corner room with windows affording reasonably easy access on two sides. Surely, no one would assault her? Why would they?

  He stopped at the room opposite hers and hauled out an armchair, which he slid beneath the window at the end of the hall. He had to start looking for his assailant somewhere and Blumfield’s place was as good as any. Tomorrow, he’d pay the Blumfields a neighborly visit. And if by chance the invalid brother wasn’t around, or big brother Ernst had mysteriously disappeared, well, then, certain deductions could be made—such as one of them was hiding a black eye. With that thought, Justin flopped down in the chair, his legs sprawled out in front of him and his head tipped back. He stared at Evie’s door, waiting to fall asleep.

  Though every bit of common sense declared there was no reason anyone would hurt Evelyn, and every shred of experience pronounced her safe for the rest of the night, his gut wasn’t buying it.

  And a spy slept when his gut was satisfied, not his head.

  Chapter 13

  “WHO PUT THIS chair outside my door?” Evelyn asked Merry, who’d emerged from her room in her nightdress. “It wasn’t here last night.”

  “Can’t say,” Merry answered in a bored voice. She peered at her more closely. “Did you sleep well? You look a bit done for this morning, Evelyn.”

  “I do?” Evelyn’s hands flew to her hair. It took only a few pats to determine that every strand she’d bullied into submission was still in place. Admittedly, she hadn’t had a very restful night. She’d had more blasted dreams, and though she didn’t remember them specifically, she knew Justin had figured prominently in them.

  Justin’s eyes. She remembered now. She’d dreamt about Justin’s eyes. And kisses, only in her dream those kisses had been the beginning of an end she couldn’t quite recall and wasn’t sure she wanted to. She fidg
eted and glowered at Merry. “Nonsense.”

  “If you say so.” Merry grinned. “But you are as red as cherry jelly. Who’ve you got in there with you, anyway?” She stood on tiptoe, pretending to peer into Evelyn’s bedroom.

  “Merry!” Evelyn gasped.

  Merry’s eyes twinkled. “I was just teasing you, Evelyn. I know you are alone. More’s the pity.”

  “You are incorrigible!”

  “What is incorrigible? To think that you have finally enjoyed the uncommon pleasures of the common woman?”

  “Merry Molière, your parents would be aghast.”

  Her lips compressed with scorn. “Probably so. The French bourgeois are so conforming. But I am an artist. It is only in heightened passion I find inspiration.”

  “Then, on the evidence provided by Buck Newton’s ever-rapt expression, I may deduce that Mrs. Vandervoort’s wedding dress will be the product of near delirium?”

  Merry laughed. “You try so hard to be the good girl, Evelyn, when the naughty woman suits you so much better.”

  This didn’t bear further conversation. Evelyn was a good girl, and had no intention of becoming a naughty one. It was all very fine for Merry to espouse free love, but a duke’s granddaughter had standards to live up to. Though those standards did seem unfairly restrictive.

  Why, she’d never experienced more than the few clumsily executed kisses that the boys at coming-out parties had talked her into allowing—not that it’d been all that hard to talk her into them. Those certainly hadn’t been the stuff of girlish dreams. They’d been wet and slobbery, like smooches from Stanley’s bloodhound.

  She didn’t imagine Justin kissed like that. Now, if Justin were to want to kiss her, maybe she would be a little naughty. And that happenstance, she was loath and excited to admit, actually might arise.

  She knew Justin liked her, and if evidence could be gathered from his own lamentable lack of style, he might not require ravishing good looks from a woman in order to be attracted to her. He might be satisfied with intelligence, industry, and competence. . . .

  Whatever was she thinking?

  She returned her wayward attention to Merry. “Never you mind my love life, Merry. I should think yours would be more than adequate to keep you busy.”

  “But I am fond of you!”

  “I appreciate your interest and I promise that the next time a man throws himself at me, I will immediately seek your counsel.” She smiled wryly, certain Merry would join in her joke. Merry only shook her head.

  “Evelyn, sometimes you are such a fool!” she pronounced angrily and marched back into her room, stopping in the doorway. “And it is a sin that you leave my dresses to rot!”

  With this non sequitur, Merry slammed the door shut, leaving Evelyn staring at it in bemusement. She didn’t stand there long. She struck out for the library, deciding to find out what had been in the crates Justin had picked up yesterday. She was nearly there when Justin came in the front door carrying the daily post.

  For once his hair was brushed and his chin had the smooth sheen of the freshly shaved. His shirt even had a collar attached to it, which was as close to sartorial elegance as Justin came.

  “Are you going somewhere special?” she asked, trying to quell the fluttering of her heart. It would be best for everyone if they just returned to their former comfortable relationship.

  “Going somewhere special?” he repeated, looking at her as if she’d gone daft. “Where the blazes would I be going, Evie? We’re in the middle of the country, for crying out loud, and the last time I looked they hadn’t erected any opera halls in Henley Wells.”

  She smiled serenely. She needn’t have worried about any awkwardness on Justin’s part after their harmless intimacy last night. “Are any of those for me?”

  He looked at the correspondence in his hand as though he was trying to make up his mind whether or not any were, indeed, for her, before thrusting a little stack of letters in her hand. “Here. These.”

  “Why, thank you.”

  He stood looking at her expectantly. “Aren’t you going to read them?” he demanded gruffly.

  She studied him. If she hadn’t witnessed him coming from Mrs. Underhill’s room herself, she would never have believed he was a debonair lady-killer. He just didn’t fit the mold. Not at all. He’d crossed his arms over his chest and was regarding her impatiently. There was nothing in the least suave about him.

  “Tell me, Justin. At some point in the last few years did you sustain a knock on the head?”

  “What?” he asked, looking tellingly at the letters she held. “I think you ought to read your posts. One looks as though it was written in a foreign hand.”

  “It would have to have been a hard knock, I imagine,” she mused. “Perhaps enough to render you unconscious.”

  “Whatever are you talking about, Evie?” he asked. “No, I was never hit in the noggin. Why?”

  “Well, I’ve heard that being hit on the head can in some instances actually alter a person’s personality so much that after the blow he is unrecognizable as the person he was prior to it.”

  “And what,” he asked, “has this to do with me?”

  She shrugged. “Oh, nothing. It would just explain so many things.”

  He regarded her suspiciously. “Have you been drinking, Evie?”

  “No.” She sighed, reluctantly giving up on the notion that a brain injury had ended Justin’s lady-killing career. “No. I haven’t been drinking.”

  “What sort of woman are you, then? My sisters can’t leave a letter alone for ten seconds, and here you are holding the blasted things as though they were bills from the coal steward. Aren’t you interested?”

  “Of course I am.” She slipped her finger beneath the flap of the first one and withdrew several sheets of paper.

  She thumbed to the last page. “Aunt Agatha must be employing a secretary for her correspondence. I didn’t recognize this as her handwriting,” she murmured, going back to the first page to read. “Ah! They’ve abandoned Paris for the Alps, and are thinking of taking a ship down the African coast, of all things—”

  “Yes, yes,” Justin said, pointing to another letter. “You’ll want to study it at your leisure. Best look at the next one and make sure it’s not creditors.”

  “I suppose.” She opened the next one and read the short note with increasing pleasure. “Another cheque. Again presumably from Mrs. Vandervoort,” she murmured and stacked it beneath her aunt’s letter before opening the last one.

  “Why, Justin, what an eye you have! It is, indeed, a foreign hand. It’s from Mr. Blumfield. He asks me to join him on a picnic this afternoon and, listen, he apologizes most profusely for not respecting my independence and autonomy.”

  Justin craned his neck to look at the letter. She hid it against her chest.

  “Go on,” Justin sneered delicately. “The poor blighter didn’t actually write ‘independence and autonomy,’ did he?”

  “He most certainly did,” Evelyn sniffed. “I find his formality charming.”

  Justin made a derisive sound. “Sounds like my father’s aunt Bessie. Pinched of nose, thick of skull. You’re not going, are you?”

  “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “You have things to do.”

  “No I don’t. Everything is running along smoothly, and I should like a picnic.”

  “Well,” he said, looking blustery, “if you don’t think the wedding will suffer from your dereliction of duty.”

  “Don’t be an ass, Justin. For some reason you dislike Mr. Blumfield. I suspect it’s because he’s foreign.”

  “Are you accusing me of being a xenophobe, Evie?” he asked haughtily.

  “If the phobe fits . . .” She trailed off with sweet smile. “Now, if you’ll excuse me. I have things to see to before I leave, and I know you wouldn’t want me to be derelict.” For once, she had the last word.

  It wasn’t the best day for a picnic. It was cloudy and humid and still. Ernst had picked he
r up promptly at eleven o’clock, respectfully admiring her tidy brown worsted dress and neatly plaited hair. He’d already picked the picnic site, proclaiming it the prettiest place in East Sussex.

  For a while, it appeared that Ernst’s only contribution to the conversation was going to be an occasional mumble, and Evelyn had begun to feel a shade alarmed at the prospect of spending an entire afternoon in monologue. Then she’d asked about his bicycle, and he’d launched into a comprehensive discourse on the benefits versus the practicalities of the new vulcanized tires. From there on, they’d had no troubles.

  Soon, Ernst drove the wagon off the road, hopped out, and unhitched the pony. Evelyn descended, waiting while Ernst unloaded his bicycle and two large, cumbersome-looking wicker hampers.

  “I will use my machine to transport these one at a time to my little idyllic place,” he said.

  Oh. So they weren’t there yet. Well, good. A bit of exercise before a meal always stimulated the appetite and invigorated the spirit. “Mr. Blumfield—” Evelyn began.

  “Ernst, please.”

  She dimpled. Well, she would have dimpled had she owned them, but she could have sworn she felt little dents developing in her cheeks. “Ernst. You must allow me to carry one of the hampers. I am perfectly capable.”

  “As I am well aware,” he answered solemnly.

  She picked up one of the hampers and immediately listed forward. Gads! The man must have packed a stove. Still, she smiled valiantly and shifted the weight to her hip, happy to note that he didn’t try to appropriate it from her. He sincerely respected her independence and autonomy. Heavens!

  It took twenty minutes to hike to Ernst’s picnic site. Most of it uphill. And through a creek. Clouds of midges swarmed up from the grass as they trudged across a rutted field and up a steep slope toward the edge of the forest. Her boots had not been intended for cross-country meets and soon rubbed blisters on her heels. The brown worsted she’d worn as least likely to show grass stains wasn’t up to camouflaging the dark rings spreading under her arms.