How to Plan a Wedding for a Royal Spy

by Vanessa Kelly

  “Who’s watching him now?”

  “Carrington has his eye on the stairs. O’Shay is alone, from what I can tell, so the three of us should be able to easily handle him.”

  Will nodded. “Let’s get to it, then.” The hairs were starting to bristle on the back of his neck. All his instincts told him they were running out of time.

  And he couldn’t help worrying about Evie. He’d extracted a halfhearted promise that she would stay clear of St. Margaret’s and the Hibernian Association. She’d protested that the church and its buildings were perfectly safe, what with Father O’Kelley and Mrs. Rafferty in residence and with a constant stream of congregants, but Will didn’t want to take any chances. Since Evie’s agreement had sounded grudging at best, he knew he couldn’t count on her staying safely at home. Certainly not if someone at her blasted charity needed help. She’d be off like a shot then, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it short of tying her to a chair. Even then she’d probably manage to slip away. She’d grown into the most stubborn, principled person he’d ever met, and he knew she’d make any personal sacrifice if she thought it was the right thing to do. Those qualities were going to try his patience, but they were some of the very reasons he was so bloody in love with her.

  He stumbled, disconcerted by the simple, sheer force of the thought that had slipped so easily into his mind. He did love Evie. He’d always loved Evie, though he’d allowed himself to think it was something else, and not what it truly was. Apparently, he’d not been wise enough to admit it until now, when it was almost too late.

  “What’s wrong?” Alec whispered.

  “Nothing. I just realized something, but it doesn’t matter.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Will smiled, even though he doubted Alec could see it in the enveloping dark. “It matters a great deal, actually, but I’ll tell you about it after this is over.”

  “That sounds ominous.”

  A moment later, Alec motioned for silence as they approached the doorway of the building where O’Shay was hiding. He cocked his head, then pulled Will into an alley that ran between the dilapidated structure and the one next to it. It couldn’t have been more than a foot wide, so they were forced to cram themselves in.

  Will held his breath when footsteps sounded. A couple exited from the building. The man held the woman by the arm, talking to her in a genial Irish accent about their children. They hurried across the square and were swallowed up by the black maw of the laneway.

  “How many people live in this building?” Will asked as he slipped from their hiding place. Alec’s broad shoulders, however, were wedged in so tightly that Will thought he might have to yank him out. But his cousin finally wriggled free, grunting a low curse when the sound of ripping fabric accompanied the movement.

  “Dammit, and this is one of my favorite coats,” he complained.

  “Remind me never to use your tailor. Now, stop being an idiot and answer the question.”

  “I’d say there are at least four or five families per floor, but let’s hope they have the brains to stay in their rooms. They should, I expect. Once nightfall comes to St. Giles, sane people generally stay indoors.”

  They crept around to the front of the building and slipped through the battered door, which hung loosely on creaky hinges. St. Giles smelled like dung, urine, and rotting garbage at the best of times, but the outside air was as fresh as May in the Kentish countryside compared to the foul atmosphere they encountered inside the tenement house. Will resisted the impulse to gag at the clashing smells of bodily waste, mold, tobacco, and cooked cabbage.

  “Awful,” Alec said with a grim shake of the head. “Makes you wonder how anyone can survive it.”

  “I can only suppose the alternative was worse,” Will said. He had to wonder exactly how bad Ireland could be to make the stews of London a better choice.

  A tall, lean man appeared from under the staircase. He was dressed in black and moved with the silent economy that marked him as one of the brotherhood of spies.

  “Anything?” Alec asked, not bothering to make introductions.

  “Just the couple you saw a few minutes ago,” Carrington replied in a low murmur. “I slipped back upstairs to check on O’Shay. He’s still in his room, and I’m sure he’s alone.”

  Will nodded. “Then let’s get to it.”

  The three men moved as quietly as possible up the old staircase, although they couldn’t prevent the occasional creak or groan warping up from the decaying wood. Fortunately, the hallways were far from silent. Behind closed doors babies wailed, mothers yelled at their children, and thumps and clattering crockery signaled the making of evening meals. They probably could have charged up the staircase bellowing drinking songs for all anyone noticed.

  O’Shay, however, would be a different story. The man might well know by now that he was being hunted and be straining to hear even one sound out of place.

  They made it to the third floor without encountering any of the inhabitants and crept down the hall to O’Shay’s room. They’d agreed on a plan on the way up—Alec would kick in the door and Will would go in first, hoping to immediately take down O’Shay. The others would pile on, if necessary. Given what a bruiser O’Shay was, Will assumed it would be necessary.

  He counted off, one, two, three with his fingers, and then Alec’s boot lashed out to deliver a shattering blow. The door crashed open, half-coming off its hinges. Will went in swift and silent, taking in O’Shay’s dumbfounded face as the man tried to lumber up from a low bed in front of a small grate. Will caught the Irishman in the midsection before he could make it all the way to his feet. They crashed heavily into the bed, Will’s shoulder connecting painfully with the wooden frame, and then rolled together onto the floor. Fighting with vicious desperation, O’Shay’s huge hands grappled for purchase around Will’s throat.

  Will wedged his palm under O’Shay’s chin, shoving up and snapping his head back. For a moment, the big man’s hands loosened from around his throat, and that was all the time Will needed to twist enough to knee O’Shay in the gut.

  He heard the oof when his knee connected, and O’Shay doubled over. A moment later, Alec and Carrington were dragging the Irishman off him. O’Shay continued to struggle, but he was gasping for breath and it took but a half a minute for the two men to slam him down into the wobbly cane chair—the only other piece of furniture in the dismal, low-ceilinged room.

  By then, Will had his pistol pointed straight at O’Shay. “Stop fighting,” he snapped. “Because I’ll have no trouble putting a bullet in your knee to slow you down. And I’m bloody sure a wound like that won’t stop the hangman from doing his duty.”

  His threat halted O’Shay in mid-struggle, and he sat fairly still while Alec tied his hands with a length of rope he extracted from an inner pocket. But that didn’t stop the Irishman from uttering a low string of curses as he glared at Will, his dark eyes glittering with hatred. O’Shay might be guilty of treason, but he didn’t look the least bit intimidated by his capture.

  “Good. Now we’ll have a little chat.” Will stowed his gun in his pocket. “And I suggest you answer my questions with a great deal of frankness if you want to avoid the noose.”

  “No chance a’ that, I reckon,” O’Shay retorted. “You bastards have already made up your mind that I’m guilty, and that’s the end a’ it.”

  Will met Alec’s gaze, both aware that Beaumont had made the same point.

  “We might be able to argue for clemency if you tell us who your intended target is and give up your coconspirators,” Alec said.

  O’Shay rolled his eyes at them. “I don’t have any coconspirators, you bleedin’ idiots. Whatever it is you’re after, you got the wrong man.”

  Will pulled Beaumont’s letter from his pocket and held it up in front of O’Shay’s face. “Then why is your name on this list?”

  O’Shay leaned forward to peer at the piece of paper. Then he jerked hard against the rope that boun
d his wrists to the back of the chair. Will had to admit that if the man was playacting, he was doing a damn fine job of it.

  “Do you know these men?” Will asked.

  “Aye,” came the reluctant answer.

  Alec jabbed him in the shoulder. “You’ll have to do better than that, man.”

  O’Shay bared his teeth in a snarl. “Sod off, you bleedin’ Scotsman.”

  “Now, that’s cut me to the quick,” Alec said.

  “We know you’re a Ribbonman,” Will said, “as are the other men on this list. You all had to flee Ireland after the Battle of Garvagh.”

  Even by the light of the miserable fire in the grate and a guttering tallow candle on the mantel, Will could see the color drain from O’Shay’s face. “Who told you that?” he slowly asked.

  “Your sister, for one,” he replied.

  Anguish flashed across the Irishman’s features. He swallowed noisily before he could get the next question out. “What else did she say?”

  “That she was worried about you. That she was afraid you were caught up in something you couldn’t handle.”

  O’Shay’s head drooped. He stared at the floor, looking stunned. Beaten, too, if Will didn’t miss his guess. When he looked up again, Will was startled to see tears forming in the big man’s gaze.

  “Did she tell you where to find me?”

  “She didn’t want to,” Will said. “But I didn’t give her much of a choice.”

  “Did she tell you?” O’Shay gritted out from between clenched teeth.

  Will and Alec exchanged wary glances. Something was off, but Will couldn’t yet figure out what. “Not this exact location, no. But she did tell us where to look.”

  O’Shay let out a harsh laugh, shaking his head. “Aye, and I bet it’s kept you jumpin’, hasn’t it? She knew exactly where I was, but she’s too clever to let you find me too soon.”

  Alec jabbed him in the shoulder again. “Stop speaking in riddles, man. Your sister is obviously trying to protect you. We don’t blame her for that.”

  O’Shay snorted with disdain. “I’m the one tryin’ to protect her.”

  “What?” Will took a slow step forward. “You are a Ribbonman, are you not? Are you telling me that you pulled your sister into this plot?”

  “I was a Ribbonman. And what I’m tellin’ you is that I have no bloody idea what this bloody plot is,” O’Shay growled. “Bridget wouldn’t tell me a goddamned thing or listen to a word I said, no matter how hard I begged her not to get involved with those bastards.”

  Will started to get a very bad feeling in his gut—one that usually signaled he’d gone off in the wrong direction. “The other men on this list?”

  O’Shay nodded then closed his eyes, looking like death. “I’m the one who made her leave Ireland, not the other way around. I wanted to get her away from all that before we got ourselves killed. Get a new start in London. I knew she’d do all right, with her book learnin’ and pretty ways, even if I didn’t. For a while, I thought she was doin’ all right.”

  The small room was stifling hot, but Will felt a chill pass through his limbs. Alec and Carrington looked equally disturbed.

  “So, you’re saying that your own sister let you be taken up as guilty for a conspiracy you had no involvement in?” Alec asked slowly.

  O’Shay opened his eyes and sucked in a heavy breath, struggling to capture his composure. “Looks that way, don’t it?”

  Will slowly nodded as the puzzle began to take shape. “That’s what you were doing there that night at St. Margaret’s. You were trying to convince your sister to walk away, not the other way around.”

  “Give the man a prize,” O’Shay sneered.

  “Enough of your shite, man,” Alec barked. “We need to know the leader of this little gang, and where we can find him. Things will go better for you if you cooperate.”

  O’Shay shook his head, almost as if he pitied them. “You bloody fools still don’t get it, do you? My sweet sister Bridget is the leader. She’s the one with all the answers, not those idiots sniffin’ around her skirts.”

  And then all the puzzle pieces clicked into place in Will’s head with hideous clarity. Bridget worked in Sir Gerald Milbank’s huge old pile on the Thames—the same Sir Gerald who held weekly dinner parties attended by various members of the government, including the prime minister.

  Even, including on occasion, the Duke of York.

  He uttered a curse so foul it even startled Alec.

  “What?” his cousin asked.

  Will shook his head, disgusted that he hadn’t thought of it before. “She works in Milbank’s house. Who knows what she has access to?”

  For a moment, Alec looked dumbstruck, but then shook it off. “Apparently, we are a pack of idiots.”

  Will grabbed O’Shay by the collar, pulling him half out of the chair. “I need details, man. Tell me where I can find your sister and these other men before it’s too late.”

  O’Shay let out an ugly, bitter laugh. “Figure it out yourselves, you buggerin’ bastards. I won’t send me own sister to the gallows.”

  “Your sister is trying to send you to the gallows to cover up her crime,” Will exclaimed. “How can you keep protecting her?”

  O’Shay’s expression was a harrowing mix of contempt and despair. “Maybe hangin’s what I deserve—what we all deserve, including you lot.”

  Alec grabbed Will by the arm, pulling him off the big Irishman. “Will, you need to tell Aden. I’ll go to Milbank’s and start the search, but have Aden send reinforcements to help. Carrington and his men can take O’Shay to Bow Street.”

  Will was already halfway out the door.

  “Evie, this is a dreadful idea,” Eden said. “Wolf told you to stay close to home until this horrible situation is resolved. I think you should listen to him.”

  Her twin stood in the middle of Evie’s bedroom with her fists propped on her hips and her fair brows pulled into a fierce scowl. It was a typical Eden pose when she was trying to boss Evie about. Most of the time, it worked. But not this time, because there was simply too much at stake.

  “Will needs to stop acting like he’s already my husband,” Evie replied as she finished buttoning up her spencer. “He has no business ordering me about and he knows it.”

  “And what about when he is your husband?” Eden asked in a sarcastic tone. “Will you let him order you about then?”

  Evie let out an impatient sigh. She truly didn’t have time for this. “Yes, no . . . oh, I don’t know. Honestly, Edie, I don’t even know if Will and I should be getting married. Not like this, anyway. It’s all such a terrible mess.”

  Her sister hurried to give her a quick hug. “I know, darling, but Wolf’s just trying to keep you safe. He likes to put on that stern, soldier’s manner, but you know he adores you.” She cocked her head and gave Evie a smile. “In fact, I suspect you have him eating out of your hand by now, don’t you?”

  Evie’s stomach dipped at the idea of Will adoring her but knew it wasn’t true. Yes, he cared a great deal for her and certainly seemed to enjoy making love to her, but she knew he wouldn’t have asked her to marry him unless his hand had been forced. Every time she thought of being hopelessly in love with a man who couldn’t return that depth of emotion, a part of her heart seemed to cringe with shame. It was rudely ironic that there was a man who did truly adore her and would still probably pledge his life to her. But Evie could no longer envision wedding Michael—or anyone else, for that matter. For her, there would now only and ever be Will, which struck her as a rather perilous situation.

  She forced away her gloomy thoughts and stepped around her sister, heading to the wardrobe. “I don’t know where you get such an idea, Edie. No one ever tells William Endicott what to do. Well, except for his father, perhaps.”

  Eden rolled her eyes and flopped down onto the chaise. “Don’t think I don’t know what’s going on between you two.”

  Evie jerked to a halt and slowly turned. She share
d almost everything with her sister, but she had not shared the fact that she and Will had been physically intimate. It was something so profoundly life-changing that she was still trying to sort it out in her head. Besides, Eden would want details, and Evie couldn’t think of any way to describe what had happened without making it sound sordid or cheap. It had been anything but that, but there was no denying she’d violated all boundaries of decency and decorum. Under the circumstances, she supposed she should count herself lucky that Will wanted to marry her at all.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said, sounding stupid and stiff.

  Eden’s eyebrows distorted into a comical lift. “Really? Well, you certainly made a good start on things the other night in the library. After that episode, I assumed that Will would have taken advantage of any opportunity to engage in, well, a little more exploration.”

  Evie breathed out a tiny sigh of relief and dredged up a smile. “Well, perhaps just a little bit, but nothing worth talking about. Not that Will isn’t a very good kisser,” she hastily added when Eden looked more than slightly appalled. “He’s a very good kisser, naturally.”

  “Well, that’s good to know. But I was hoping for a little more detail than that. I haven’t had very good luck in that particular area.”

  Eden sounded so disgruntled that Evie was tempted to laugh. Her sister might have a reputation as an outrageous flirt, but it was mostly for show. When it came right down to it—when it came right down to men—Eden wasn’t much more experienced than Evie in any way that counted.

  Except that now Evie was a great deal more experienced than any gently bred spinster had a right to be, thanks to the aptly named Wolf Endicott.

  “I’ll tell you all about it when I get back from St. Margaret’s,” Evie said, fetching a plain bonnet and gloves from her wardrobe. “I promise to wait up until you get back from Mrs. Parkminster’s musicale. I can’t tell you how happy I am that Mamma is allowing me to miss that.”

  “Yes, I told her you were simply worn out from all the excitement of the last few days, and that you needed a good rest.”