Celeste Bradley - [The Liar's Club 03]

by The Charmer

  “I tell you, last night was an accident!”

  “I wasn’t referring to your rivalry with Miss Lacey. Quite the opposite, in fact. If not for vying with Miss Lacey, you wouldn’t have come as far as you have.”

  He pierced Collis with that damned unnerving silver stare. “A Liar needs passion—an obsession for espionage, if you will. So far, I have only seen that passion directed toward another student.”

  Collis blinked. “Passion for Rose? Are you mad?”

  Dalton did smile slightly then. “So much protest, Col. If I didn’t know better, I’d call it…passionate.”

  Rose made her way into the spymaster’s study. Although she knew where the room was, she’d never been in it before. It was an undeniably masculine room, as richly elegant as its occupant. She gave a silent whistle. Posh.

  “The Wentworth file,” his lordship had said. “On top of the pile on my desk.”

  The room was dark with the draperies drawn against the day’s glare, doubtless to protect the carpet from fading. The desk was not to be missed, being large enough to double as a bed should the house ever run out of rooms. As if that were a possibility.

  Even as she reached the desk and stretched out her hand to take the top file from the stack there, her toe hit the leg of the desk and she stumbled. She caught herself, but the files slithered apart, some going over the side of the desk and landing on the floor.

  “Bloody rotten hell,” she hissed. With a sigh, she knelt to the floor and gathered up the files.

  She’d have to peek now, to find the right one. The names were written only on the documents inside. Quickly, for surely his lordship was waiting on her, she untwisted the short bit of string that looped the first file closed around a disk sewn on the front like a button. “Name, name, blast it, where’s the name?”

  She peered at the first page. Jackham. Oh, my. She’d heard tales about him. He’d run the business side of the club for years before betraying the Liars to the French. He was dead now, found floating in the Thames, recognizable only by his waistcoat. Apparently it didn’t do to betray the Liars.

  Curiosity made her fingers itch to take the page from the file, but she sternly repressed it. Clara had said to watch her step, and she would watch it.

  She reached to open the next file. Porter. Another name with a tale attached. Poor Ren Porter, beaten nearly to death by Lady Winchell’s thugs, suspected of being nigh crazed by the permanent damage done to his body and mind. The last Rose heard, he’d disappeared, possibly wandering mad through England.

  Secret, these are secret, you nosy creature! Oh, but what she wouldn’t do to be spymaster and have all this lovely information at her fingertips!

  She heard voices raised down the hall. She’d best get out there before Collis ruined his chances forever. She didn’t for a moment believe he didn’t care. She’d been beside him in class after class, session after session. He wanted to be a Liar nearly as bad as she did. If anything, he needed the Liars more.

  Hurry. She grabbed the next file and fumbled at the string, then pulled the top sheet out a few inches. W—

  This was it. Wentworth. She stuffed the sheet back in, shoved the stack back into a pile more or less resembling the one it had been in, and scrambled for the door.

  “Collis Tremayne, just shut it until I get back out there!” she muttered to herself as she made for the front hall.

  Rustling skirts behind Collis and Dalton indicated Rose had returned. Dalton held out his hand. “This file contains the basic amount of information we might be able to obtain on any subject. Many Liars have accomplished their missions armed with less.”

  Rose stepped forward to hand a leather-clad dossier to Dalton. Collis intercepted the file with a smooth motion. His uncle raised a brow but let it pass.

  “The target’s household has been informed of the mission, but not of your identities. All they know is that they are to go about their business as if they had nothing to hide, but to do all possible to keep anyone from finding the object.”

  “The targets are?”

  “A family long friendly to the Liars. That is all you need to know.”

  Need to know. Collis really hated that expression. “And the object of this assignment is?”

  Dalton smiled. “Something that would entirely expose them as traitors, of course. Your mission is to learn what that might be, how it can convict them, and where it is concealed.” He nodded to the dossier in Collis’s hand. “All other information is right there.”

  The file felt altogether light to Collis. Wasn’t that just like the Liars? “Sending us out with two clues and a handshake? Is that handicap quite fair, do you think?”

  Simon stepped forward. “Be off and don’t come back to the club until you’ve gained your objective. Get in, get the evidence, and get out—together.”

  Collis swallowed hard, turned to Rose and shot her a rueful grin. “Looks like we have a mission to plan.”

  Simon cleared his throat. “Aren’t you two forgetting something?”

  Rose sighed. “Yes, sir. We have some cleaning to do back at the Academy.”

  Collis snorted. “Apple polisher,” he muttered to Rose.

  He felt her heel come down on his instep, and he grinned. Then she grabbed his hand and tugged him into the hallway. “Say goodbye to the nice spymasters,” she hissed at him.

  Collis blinked, then sent a casual wave back to the two men in the parlor. “Goodbye, Simon. See you at dinner, Dalton?”

  Dalton shook his head in amused resignation. “See you at dinner, Collis.”

  With Collis in tow, Rose kept going until they were at the door and out of sight of Sir Simon and Lord Etheridge. Then she plunked both fists on her hips. “Are you trying to get us thrown out of the Liars?”

  “Ease those reins, Briar Rose. It’s only Dalton and Simon, after all.”

  Rose took her shawl from the Sergeant with a thank you. Collis took his hat and gloves with a grin and a punch in the arm for the dapper military man, who sighed deeply at such irreverence. Rose couldn’t agree more. She tilted her head. “I despair,” she murmured to the Sergeant, who was no taller than she.

  “Yes, miss,” he replied. “I fear it is contagious.”

  From his great height, Collis apparently caught on that he was being disparaged. “Ho there!”

  “Never mind, Collis,” Rose said. “Now, what to do first…”

  “Plan,” Collis said decisively.

  Rose folded her arms. “Clean.”

  Collis matched her stance. “Plan,” he said more firmly.

  Rose narrowed her eyes. “I get the feeling that this is going to be a very long mission.”

  Behind them, in the doorway of the parlor, Simon and Dalton watched the two best students they had come to a stand-off before they’d even begun. Simon covered his face with his hands. Dalton leaned one broad shoulder on the doorjamb and heaved a great sigh of resignation.

  “Do you believe they’ll ever be able to work together?” Simon asked.

  Dalton watched the argument before him with a frown. “Not a chance in hell.”

  Chapter Six

  Rose managed to keep her seething temper contained all the way back to the school. Collis had stood his ground like a bloomin’ mule, insisting that they plan the mission until Rose had simply turned and left him behind. Once she was back at the Liar Academy, the younger students watched her with guarded curiosity.

  The cellar was a stew of char, musty straw, and water. Quickly taking command of her fellow students, Rose worked hard at setting it to rights.

  The job of clearing the destruction of the arena was overwhelming. Rose rolled up her sleeves and hiked the skirts of her oldest dress to tuck into her waist, then she and the other students dug in. There was simply so much!

  After two exhausting hours, there was still a pile of wreckage in the middle of the floor and the water-soaked straw and canvas mess that used to be the mat was only partially lifted.

  Ros
e was doggedly mopping a corner of the arena where the lowest level of the uneven floor had collected the most water. This corner had held the rack of dummies that she had just carried out to be carted outside of London and burned. Around her the other students attempted to tug the mat aside, calling conflicting commands to one another and getting nowhere. Then a familiar deep voice among the others made Rose turn her head.

  Collis strode into the mucky arena in his pristine suit of clothing and with his kingly air and took over. Perhaps Rose ought to have been irritated by his easy assumption of authority, but she was just so bloody glad to have his help that she didn’t care a whit.

  Within moments, he had the male students organized into a line that went up the winding cellar steps and the shattered wreckage of the chandelier was hoisted bit by bit, hand to hand, clear to the alley behind the school in a matter of minutes.

  She watched him with reluctant admiration as he directed the younger men. He didn’t simply hand out commands, but he tossed his jacket and waistcoat aside and dirtied his elegant shirt carrying the sooty, charred, soaked debris tucked into the crook of his bad arm. It didn’t take long before he was as dirty as the rest of them.

  It only made him more handsome, damn it. His thick dark hair fell over his brow in a mess that made Rose think of running her fingers through it. His fine shirt was soon streaked and wet and it clung to his broad shoulders and muscled chest like a lover’s hands.

  Distracted from her mopping, Rose watched him as he passed his burden up the line, making those muscles ripple and flex before her eyes. Her mouth went dry. He didn’t look like a lord now…and yet he did, more so than ever.

  She could imagine him at the Etheridge estate, right out in the fields with the cottagers, or perhaps doing something highborn and manly with elegant long-legged horses…or something tiring and heated that would require him to doff his shirt on a summer’s day.

  The sun would shine on him—the sun always shone in the country, at least in her imagination—and his skin would glisten golden in the light and he would call to her—

  “Rose?”

  She jerked back to the moment, blinking rapidly and, yes, fry it, swallowing the saliva that had collected in her mouth at her stimulating thoughts. Collis stood before her, the real Collis, who would tease her mercilessly should he ever discern her thoughts—or, worse yet, would pity her impossible, inappropriate yearnings. She cleared her throat. “Um, yes, what?”

  He grinned. “Woolgathering? You? Can’t be.”

  “No! I was…I was thinking of a way to get the mat out to the alley as well.” She had been earlier, anyway. “I think we ought to cut it up and stuff the lot into sacks, so we don’t drop straw throughout the school.”

  He nodded. “Good idea. I’ll send someone for sacks. In the meantime…” He reached one hand toward her. Bemused, she watched it come. What—?

  Collis took her mop from her grip, tucked it under his bad arm, and reached for her hand with his other one. He turned it over and frowned. “I thought so.”

  She ought to snatch her hand back. She ought not to let him touch her, it interfered so with her thinking. Instead, she left her hand where it was, cradled in his as he peered down at her palm.

  “You’ve given yourself blisters,” he said accusingly.

  “I have not!” Now she snatched it back. “I don’t get blisters. My hands work hard.”

  “Not anymore,” he pointed out. She looked down at her own hand. There were three blisters in the crook of her thumb and fingers, sure enough. Apparently, her light kitchen duties and weapons work didn’t cause the same wear as dawn-to-midnight cleaning had. She looked back up at him in surprise. “I haven’t had a blister in years.”

  “You’re not a housemaid anymore,” Collis reminded her. “You’re a spy, and far too good a one to ruin your hands mopping.” He thrust the mop behind him when she reached for it. “No, your swabbing chores are over for now.”

  “I have to help with all this. I’m half to blame!”

  “Well, then consider your half mopped. I’ll do the rest.”

  She gaped at him. “You?”

  He nodded. Then his eyes began to twinkle and the corners of his lips curved up. Her toes curled up as well.

  “I do think you ought to change, however,” he said with a knowing grin. “You’ll catch your death.”

  Mystified, Rose followed his glance down to see that her bodice was soaked through from wringing out the filthy water collected by the mop. The elderly fabric clung to her breasts even more tightly than Collis’s shirt clung to his muscles. To make matters worse, the chill air—it had to be the air, because if it was her vivid daydream of Collis she was going to have to die right now—had crested her nipples into diamond points that left nothing to the imagination.

  “Oh!” She folded her arms tightly over her chest, giving him an angry glare. “Why didn’t you say something sooner?”

  He leaned close. “You’re lucky I ever said anything at all,” he whispered with a deep chuckle in his voice.

  Then he stood back and hefted the mop. “You can hunt down the sacks and direct the stuffing and hauling. I’ll clean behind you all.”

  And he did. She watched him closely for the next hour as she commanded the clearing of the tattered, burned, soaked mat. Properly covered by a dry apron, of course. He mopped industriously and very, very badly—holding the handle like a knight at a joust, with the butt tucked under his bad arm—but he mopped.

  Finally, the room was cleared. Cleared did not mean clean, however. There was a sooty grime over every surface and the floor had gone slimy with it. There was a great deal more to do in the arena, but Rose felt the kitchen needed doing first. The students had to eat, after all.

  Perhaps they didn’t blame her, for no one said a word, but if they didn’t, she certainly blamed herself aplenty. Especially after suffering through the bland and awful porridge that was all that could be managed for dinner.

  But everyone was exhausted. So she bid them all good night and reassured Collis that she was going for a hot bath as soon as she’d put away the last bucket. She frankly wanted him gone, for he was flustering her to no end with his wet clothing and his disarming helpfulness.

  It wouldn’t do to be disarmed by him. She mustn’t forget who he was, nor who she was.

  No, that wouldn’t do at all.

  Alone, she threw herself into the restoration of the kitchen itself. She stayed there, taking out her remorse and confusion with scrub brush and vigor until after the others had long gone to bed.

  Finally satisfied that she had removed the last of the smoke damage from the plaster walls, she hung her pail over the now-shining copper sink. The kitchen would be usable tomorrow, and the fresh whitewash could go up as soon as the plaster had dried. Penance accomplished.

  She treated herself to a cup of chocolate, melting the rich-smelling shard of waxy cocoa in the steaming water from the kettle, stirring slowly and wearily as the chocolate liquefied and swirled beneath her spoon.

  Chocolate was a recent passion of hers. She’d never tasted it before coming to the club. Cocoa came dear enough to be reserved for those with silver to spare and certainly hadn’t been for the likes of Rose-the-housemaid, at least not in the Wadsworth household.

  Kurt kept her supplied with it, through Ivory Coast sources it was best not to ask about, and she shared it with the other students on occasion. Only the girls truly seemed to like it—the boys were much more interested in tea and coffee.

  She poured her bitter concoction into a sturdy mug and washed her pot efficiently. Then she filled a pitcher with half-hot, half-cool water for her washing, put it on a tray with her mug, and left the kitchen at last.

  The arena beyond was bare now but for the lonely rack of swords. Even the cork target had been ruined by the soaking and had been pulled from its tacks and disposed of.

  The students had been assigned the job of stitching and stuffing the new mat from sailcloth to be delivere
d tomorrow. Rose fought down the relief she felt at leaving them to it while she gallivanted off on her first mission. She ought not be so eager. Honor though her first assignment ought to be, she knew it was truly a test. A test she could not pass without Collis Tremayne’s help.

  The stairs were many to her room in the gables and she felt every one as she had not since her days in the Wadsworth household.

  Rose entered her small attic room and set her tray aside. She didn’t see anyone, for her head was bent as she untied her apron and began unbuttoning her bodice. A quick wash from the bowl on her washstand would do for now. As she turned to hang her apron on a peg, a hand came down on her shoulder.

  Her apron fluttered up with a damp slap to cover her assailant’s face. “Wha—oof.” A kick to the stomach knocked him nearly to his knees. “Oh, crikey, that hurt,” he gasped through his muslin mask, clutching his midsection.

  “Collis?”

  As he staggered, fighting for his breath, Collis was gratified to hear surprise in Rose’s voice. At least this attack hadn’t been personal.

  Of course, the fact remained that she had unmanned him in seconds. Again. He peeled the clinging apron from his face, forcing himself to stand upright despite the ache in his gut. Rose stood before him, eyes wide and concerned. He couldn’t help it. His eyes dropped to the parted placket of her bodice and held there.

  Smooth, fair skin, elegant collarbone, and that lovely secret valley between her small, high breasts, just made for a man to rest his head…and her nipples were hard again. His throat closed and heat swept him. He raised his gaze to meet her curious hazel one.

  Collis’s eyes were like hot coal. The storm-cloud gray had darkened like the threat of lightning. The thunder came from her own heartbeat as it suddenly occurred to her that they were alone together in a room, in the dark of night. The last time that had happened, they’d nearly burned the school down. This time, Rose wondered if it were she who was due to combust. He was so close to her, in this tiny attic room with such a conveniently available bed and everyone else in the place sound asleep—