Celeste Bradley - [The Liar's Club 03]

by The Charmer

  They were going to burn down the school. Dear God, they were going to burn down London! With the other hand he reached blindly over his head for any container in reach that he could fill.

  Rose came back, pushed the empty pots at him, and disappeared with the ones he’d filled. They worked like this in panicked and breathless silence for what seemed like hours. Collis felt the water run over the sink into his boots but never let up the pumping. Rose blew past him, tossing empty pots into the water with a splash that soaked them both and pulling full ones dripping from the sink.

  Collis wanted to help but stayed where he was. Rose was faster. He was stronger. This was the best way to do it. He could only carry one pot without spilling it—his dead hand never seemed able to keep a grip unless he was looking at it.

  Finally, he felt a small, cold hand rest on his good arm. “Stop,” she breathed. “It’s out.”

  Sure enough, there was no more dangerously flickering light, although the kitchen was choked with smoke. He reached out one arm to support her, letting his dead hand slide from the pump handle. She sank against him for a moment.

  Now that they weren’t in a panicked frenzy, Rose realized how cold and wet she was. Her clothing was soaked through, especially where she’d been forced to douse her own trousers to protect her legs from the heat of the flames.

  But Collis was warm and he felt as solid as a tree in the smoky darkness. She wanted to rest her head on his shoulder and shake with all the relief and leftover panic welling inside her.

  Surely he wouldn’t mind, after what they had just gone through together? To lean on someone strong…just for a moment…

  “Bloody hell!” The roar came from the arena.

  The smoke had roused Kurt.

  Rose watched warily as Sir Simon Raines tapped a finger on his lips while he walked slowly about the room surveying the damage done to the Lillian Raines School for the Less Fortunate. The former spymaster turned headmaster was usually a cheerful man, quite willing to be teased by his pretty wife, Agatha.

  This early dawn, he was not so merry. In fact, Rose had never seen the man so grim as he eyed them both. Collis was standing with his arms crossed, leaning against the very post that had once held the rope to the giant chandelier. His expression was one of buoyant unconcern. His knife still protruded from the wood above his head, just out of reach.

  Rose couldn’t decide whether to run screaming into the dawn or throw herself at Sir Simon’s feet and beg for mercy. The devastation surrounding them was bloody phenomenal.

  It had seemed bad enough in the darkness and panic. Now, in the bright light of the several carriage lanterns hastily hung about the chamber, it was much, much worse.

  The giant mat was ruined. Not only had it torn down every seam from the impact of the chandelier, but it also bore a great charred hole in its center. Rose tried not to think about the way it also squelched wetly beneath his lordship’s every step.

  In the middle of the room, the wreckage of the giant oak wheel looked like the last siege of some medieval fortress. Great spokes pointed skyward like broken spears raised toward the pall of smoke that still drifted through the beams.

  Around the perimeter, the dummies lay sprawled like the dead warriors of that fortress. Dimly Rose remembered knocking them down a few hours ago—had it only been such a short time? Now they were ruined as well, soaked by the volumes of water she had thrown on the smoldering mat. They would never dry but only mildew and rot from within.

  It was carnage, plain and simple.

  Rose tried not to think about the additional damage they’d done to the swamped and smoky kitchen. It would take days for the hungry students to clear it.

  Sir Simon stopped and turned to face them with his hands clasped behind his back and ire in his blue eyes. “Fire, flood, and famine…in one short night. I must say, I wouldn’t have believed it could be done.” His dry tone did not bode well.

  Rose didn’t move or respond in any way. It was time to think carefully. Although she would never lie directly to the headmaster, she’d long ago learned how to evade complete disclosure. Everything might still be passed off as an accident. She was clumsy, everyone knew that—

  Sir Simon let his sapphire gaze pass over her for one long moment, then turned it on Collis. “Here’s what I see. You challenged Rose to a contest. You then carelessly sent a knife into the moorings of the chandelier. What have you to say for yourself?”

  Rose blinked in dismay. How had he known?

  Collis couldn’t help his surprise. Rose must have sold him out. She hadn’t seemed the sort, but then again, she was awfully keen on the rules. He didn’t look at her but only kept his eyes on Simon. “I’d say you got the gist of the story, then.” He shoved off the post with a grin. “It’s just a bit of mess after all—”

  Simon’s sharply raised hand halted Collis’s offhand apology. Collis subsided, glancing at Rose for support. She was looking down, her hands clasped tightly before her. Collis found himself disappointed that she’d obviously not felt the same sense of camaraderie after their struggle to douse the fire.

  Oh, was that what you were feeling? And does camaraderie usually come accompanied by a raising of the old flag?

  Collis squashed the thought. Lusting after Rose? ’Twould never happen again.

  Simon was eyeing him now, but Collis didn’t even bother to hide his impatience.

  “What’s all the fuss? It was nothing but a bit of healthy competition that got out of hand.”

  “You demolished the arena.”

  Collis threw up his hands. “I’ll sew you another bloody mat, all right?”

  Simon’s gaze was cool. Too cool, really, for Collis’s comfort. This wasn’t going to go away, it seemed. For the first time it occurred to him that there might be serious consequences coming.

  “What’s it to be then? A scolding? A slap on the wrist?” Expulsion. The word began a nasty singsong in his mind. No more Liars, lost it all, all adrift again. He shook it off with a quick jerk of his head and forced a careless grin. “Probation?”

  Simon didn’t smile back. “You were already on probation.”

  Collis felt a shock go through his gut. Already on probation? He dropped his pose of unconcern. “Based on what offense, may I ask?”

  “Lack of ability to play well with others,” Simon snapped. “I’ve had my fill of the both of you, squabbling like children. You two are the best we have—the best we ever hope to have—yet neither of you has the slightest idea of what being one of the Liars truly means!”

  Simon folded his arms and glared at them equally. “Hasn’t it occurred to either of you that there may someday be a need for the bonds that you discount today? What of later, when you might be working Liars together?”

  Uneasily Collis noticed that Simon said “might be”—not “will be.” Collis opened his mouth to protest again, but there was nothing he could say in his defense that would not sound more asinine than what he had already said.

  Simon gazed at him for a long moment, his frustration still very apparent.

  Habit made Collis tilt his head at the old insouciant angle, and habit kept his tone free of worry and pain. “So what do you propose to do with me?”

  “Us,” said a voice from beside him.

  He glanced down to see a pale and obviously nervous Rose standing at his side. He frowned. Why would she be willing to do that when a moment ago she’d turned him in like a watchman after a bounty? She raised her serious hazel gaze to his. Her eyes were the color of the sea and as full of the unknown. He’d never noticed….

  The moment was lost in the wake of Simon’s next words.

  “I hereby assign you your first mission.” Simon folded his arms. “Together.”

  A few hours after the debacle in the arena, Rose traveled the tunnel toward her customary stint helping out with the Liar’s Club meal preparation. She was hoping the main kitchen would be empty but for Kurt.

  Kurt was the biggest, hairiest, ugli
est man Rose had ever seen, but she loved him dearly. Killer or no, he was the one she turned to when she felt she couldn’t master the skills she needed, when she lost, and when she won. Clara was as dear as a sister, but Rose knew her friend still sometimes saw her as “poor little Rose.”

  Kurt wouldn’t say a thing about this morning’s embarrassment, she knew. Of course, Kurt wouldn’t say three words together at pistol point, but he was always able to spare the time to give her a bit of extra training in the arena. His undemanding silence would be very comforting this morning.

  However, when she entered from the tunnel door, through the storeroom, and up the short flight of stairs, she saw that Stubbs and Feebles were sitting at the worn oak worktable, having tea.

  Feebles? She’d never actually seen the wiry little pickpocket inside the club before. Usually he hung about the street outside, a fringe member. Rose had heard some of the Liars jest about the ragged fellow not being quite housebroken.

  Feebles was a curious sort of person. He was a small man dressed in tattered jacket and cap, yet he was an undisputed genius at sly information gathering and unassuming invisibility.

  To Rose, Feebles was like the fog. He’d be right before you one minute and gone the next, sliding from your attention the moment you forgot to look at him. She’d never actually seen him come and go. He was simply there, or not. She wished he could teach her how to do it, but when she’d asked him once, he’d said he’d been born with it. Then—while she’d been distracted by the mind-bending picture of Feebles as a tattered, sharp-featured pocket-picking baby—he’d slipped away.

  Even so, he’d always had a shy smile and a tip of his cap for Rose, and she liked him. More than once she had delivered something tasty from the kitchen to him as he held his chosen post outside.

  Stubbs was a friend as well. The sturdy young doorman had struggled to learn to read ably, just as she had. Although Stubbs had already been a Liar when the school had opened and had not been required to train with the other students, he and Rose had spent many hours at that very table, sharing a candle and a set of books.

  She’d not been completely ignorant of reading and writing, although she’d never managed to be really good at it. That is, until it occurred to Lady Raines to have her fitted with spectacles. Suddenly, the world came clear. Trees separated from blobby green masses into distinct and separate leaves. The city sharpened and enlarged about her—and best of all, the words on the pages flowed fast and beautifully beneath her vision.

  It turned out that she was neither clumsy nor stupid, but merely near-sighted.

  For his part, Stubbs was aiming to be a saboteur for the club. It was true he could dismantle any mechanism and put it back together with blinding speed. He’d been stalled by his inability to read, but once he’d taken it in, he’d progressed quickly. He was going out on his first mission soon with James Cunnington, as soon as James and his wife, Phillipa, returned from their honeymoon.

  Phillipa was already expecting, just like Agatha, so Rose didn’t expect she’d have much to talk about with the new lady in the club. She sighed. Babies were everywhere suddenly. She wasn’t exactly envious, although she wanted children…eventually. First she wanted to see what the rest of the Liars saw—adventure, purpose, even danger.

  First she wanted to belong.

  The three of them, Kurt, Stubbs, and Feebles, now watched her expectantly. She stopped, nonplussed.

  “Were you gentlemen waiting for me?”

  Feebles grinned proudly at her. “You sound just like Lady Clara, you do.”

  Stubbs nodded vigorously. “Every bit.”

  Kurt only grunted when she took her own seat at the table. Instead of passing her vegetables to chop or dough to knead, Kurt slid a dish of her favorite chocolate biscuits before her. Stubbs jumped up to fetch her a cup of tea, and Feebles shyly passed her the cream pitcher and whispered, “Buck up, lass.”

  Oh, blast. Tea and sympathy? She wasn’t sure she could bear it. “Thank you,” she said somewhat repressively. Perhaps if she didn’t begin, they wouldn’t carry on. Her appetite was entirely gone, but she nibbled at a biscuit to spare Kurt’s baking pride. It was delicious, of course, but the sweetness that she usually adored sat sour in her stomach. The tea was lovely and fragrant, but she couldn’t swallow much past the growing tightness in her throat.

  It would break her heart to leave the club. She’d never had a home like this, where she was so much more than an extra child or an invisible housemaid. Here, she was someone. Here, she belonged.

  Or at least, she would soon, if her row with Collis didn’t cost her everything she wanted so badly. She blinked away that black possibility to see that her companions watched her with doleful and worried eyes. She forced her spine to stiffen. There was no point in loading the cart before it was hitched.

  Forcing a smile for her friends, she took a large bite of biscuit. Time for a change of subject. “Mr. Feebles, do tell us—what’s the most revolting thing you ever found in someone’s pocket?”

  Chapter Four

  Collis had spent only an hour in his rooms at Etheridge House, time enough to change and rid himself of the smell of smoke and the disquieting memory of brief attraction he’d shared with Briar Rose. Now he was clean, dressed, and entirely at loose ends.

  He’d no more than trotted down the front steps of Etheridge House before he wished he could turn about and go back inside. Two young ladies, accompanied by their maids, were strolling slowly by. Young ladies tended to pass very slowly these days. Collis vaguely remembered that these two were neighbors to Etheridge and was fairly sure he’d been properly introduced at some point in the past. He’d been introduced to every unmarried maiden from Glasgow to Brighton, after all. All well-born, all fashionable, all alike. These two were as peas in a pod, pretty enough to be pleasant, yet apparently forgettable or he’d remember them better.

  He tipped his hat and smiled dutifully. They slid their eyes sideways and slowed their pace to a bare crawl. Then, obviously having decided the moment was appropriate for a bit of friendly conversation, they stopped.

  After three sentences of greeting, Collis began to wish they hadn’t. The fluttering lashes and longing gazes didn’t seem to carry quite the usual reassuring balm to his ego, and the friendly conversation seemed lacking. They did not retort provokingly to his male banter, nor did their eyes flash with challenge and intelligence.

  Still, he smiled warmly at them. At least their company kept him from thinking about the conversation inside Etheridge House.

  Rose was walking slowly toward Lord Etheridge’s residence. She was in no particular hurry to face down his lordship’s sentence.

  “After the two of you make yourselves presentable,” Sir Simon had said to her and Collis earlier, “we’ll be expecting you at Etheridge House at noon.”

  As she approached the large, fine house, she took a deep breath. She was lucky, truly. She ought to have been cast out entirely after such antics. It was evident, although the spy-headmaster had not said so precisely, that this trial mission with Collis was her only chance to save the place she had made for herself. Her lovely, purposeful new life—depending on her working with a man she couldn’t get on with for three minutes running.

  Even as the thought crossed her mind, she spotted him. He was standing on the walk near the front steps of Etheridge House, apparently at ease while he passed the time of day with two fawning ladies doubtlessly out on their morning calls.

  Her chin high, Rose approached the trio as they stood just before the steps. The two ladies were intent upon Collis, their eyes bright and their gloved hands gesturing delicately.

  Rose had been taught by her training to interpret stance and expression and she could read quite clearly the message being cast: You’re handsome and manly and socially advantageous and I’d eagerly kill the lady next to me in order to gain your attentions.

  Well, perhaps not kill. Probably only slice and maim, in the social sense. Therefore, Rose pre
pared herself for the ladies turning scathing glances her way when she approached. She was not disappointed.

  Collis turned her way when he noticed the ladies redirecting their attention. His lip curled slightly in a guarded smile. Rose’s stomach ached at the thought that he believed she had turned the blame on him this morning. Of course, he’d been awfully eager to think it, hadn’t he? Why, when she’d never given him a single reason to think her such a sneak?

  Rose cultivated that indignant thought, for it afforded her spine more steel than did dwelling on silly and hopeless dreams regarding Mr. Tremayne.

  But Collis’s manner was all affability when Rose stopped before him. He doffed his hat very formally and bowed to her carefully mastered curtsey. “Good morning!” he said brightly.

  He then turned to the other ladies and smiled. “Ladies, may I introduce a friend of the family?”

  Rose barely kept her jaw from dropping at that. The ladies ran discerning gazes over her simple but quality attire. Rose waited, but the young women obviously could not quite place her status by her appearance alone. Never had she been more thankful for Lady Agatha’s insistence on excellent cloth and fit for the students’ garb. Her ladyship’s thinking was that quiet quality could pass in almost any environment, be it high or low.

  The ladies finally nodded warily and Collis bowed again. “Then may I present our dear friend—” His smile was challenging. “Our dear friend, Miss Thorn.”

  Thorny Rose. She hid the sting and kept her chin high and her expression serene. Dropping another curtsey to the ladies, she accepted their greetings with composure.

  Obviously miffed that their entertainment had been interrupted, the two ladies made their farewells to Collis and walked slowly away with many a longing glance back, punctuated by whispers and giggles.