Celeste Bradley - [The Liar's Club 03]

by The Charmer

  Collis’s wavering gaze took in the offending but beloved shoes, a pair made of pristine white kidskin and embellished with gold buckles. “They do appear a bit small.”

  George nodded woefully. “But small feet are so fashionable right now.”

  Collis pondered his own booted feet blankly. His feet hadn’t been small since he was five years old. “Damn,” he swore mildly. “Looks like I’m on the outs, then.”

  George snickered. “Never mind, my boy. You’ve got other assets, from what the ladies at court say.”

  Collis eased himself back into his chair slowly. Only the asset of being highly ornamental, unfortunately. He’d not confided that to George or to anyone. Everyone made the obvious assumptions, keeping his roguish reputation intact.

  Rose’s eyes hovered before him in the flames. He saw disappointment and disdain rise in them, just as he had so many times. Had even intentionally caused, when she had provoked him too often. Grave hazel contempt.

  I pity the waste. Suddenly his flirtations with the ladies at court seemed pathetic. Collis drained his glass. He would not ride that horse tonight.

  “What are you thinking?” The Prince wasn’t even looking at him but sat staring into the fire. Too damn perceptive by half.

  “I am pondering the mystique of the female bosom.”

  “Ah. A favorite topic of mine as well. And how go your musings?”

  “I’m working my way round the matter.” He recalled the sensation of Rose’s soft feminine flesh cradled in his palm. He smiled wistfully. “I’m still grasping the full import, so to speak.”

  George issued an appreciative snort and raised his glass. “Would you like to hear how I spent my day? First I sat through six hours of incessant whining and begging—I refer to the Royal Audiences, of course—then Robert stalks in with the usual poker up his arse about how I’m spending too much time and money in Brighton. The man is clearly the stiffest Prime Minister England has ever seen.”

  George sniffed. “The only vaguely diverting thing that happened today was that I was presented with an example of a very pretty carbine I commissioned to award every soldier who has served his five years in my service. Which entertaining incident lasted scarcely five minutes before some old stick pattered in, complaining of yet another old-stick crisis.”

  George tossed back his wine. “Let me tell you this. If I were free to be a Liar, I would never let anyone stop me. I would go, this very moment, to ride every league of that race and beat her to the finish.”

  “I hardly think my target would welcome such a late visit.”

  The Prince tsked him sadly. “I thought you had a better mind—and more spine!—than that. Be creative, man! Change horses! Do the last thing she expects!”

  Rose had expected him to wander off to play. His sodden mind began to turn slowly, like a wheel lodged in mud.

  “She wouldn’t expect me to change tactics. She wouldn’t expect…a midnight housebreaking!” He stood abruptly. The room slid a bit sideways and his stomach churned, but he was proud to find that he was not as incapacitated as he had thought.

  The Prince’s face brightened. “Now? Like a parlor thief in the night?” He sighed longingly. “How absolutely thrilling.”

  “Would you care to join me?” Collis blinked in surprise. Had he said that? What a terrible idea.

  “What a marvelous idea!” The Prince was on his stocking-clad feet in a bound. “I’ll just go change, shall I?” He was gone in a flash.

  Collis was left standing in the middle of the room, bemused. Though stout with his lifetime goal of premeditated overindulgence, the Prince was surprisingly swift when he wanted to be.

  How was he to talk George out of this appalling plan? A mission to break into a nobleman’s house would put the Prince into inexcusable danger—

  If it were a real mission. But it wasn’t real, was it? A spun-candy farce of an operation designed to test his skills, wasn’t it? One that Rose had likely already passed?

  “Rose is going to knot her knickers over this,” he murmured to the empty room with a smile.

  “I’m ready!” The Prince bounded back into the room, dressed dramatically in all black. “We can use the tunnel beneath the palace to get out without my men seeing us.” He waved an enormous square of black silk in his hand. “What do you think?” He held the silk across his face below his eyes. “Highwayman? Or thief?” He wrapped the scarf around the top portion of his face. “Of course, I’ll have to cut eyeholes.”

  Collis laughed. Feeling suddenly buoyant and reckless, he bowed to his madly accessorizing prince and ruler. “My lord spy, your mission awaits you.”

  Chapter Ten

  Rose moved carefully through the dark house, trying to be undetectable and yet simultaneously look as though she were on a legitimate late-night task. She still didn’t know the house as well as she ought before attempting such a thing.

  She could not risk staying here another day. The cook would suspect such stupidity, first of all. Then there was Louis Wadsworth to contend with. She’d been careful to stay out of his path—but for that incident in the parlor. So far Louis apparently hadn’t recognized her with her head bowed beneath her cap, but she had noticed him looking at her oddly, as though he was searching his memory.

  As for her own memory, Louis was as fastidious and well groomed as ever. Still, she shuddered to think that she’d ever—

  Then was then. Now was now. And now she was going to prove that Louis was in thick with the French, just like his father.

  The study was on the ground floor at the back of the house, overlooking the rather unimaginative gardens. The house gave forth a few nighttime creaks. Nothing suspicious about that, but still Rose’s heart jumped. Should she blow out her candle? She could use his lordship’s special friction matches to relight it. Yet there was a part of her that didn’t want to give up the reassurance of the light, even for a moment.

  If she was caught, she could not expect to be rescued by the club, especially since she was not acting on orders. She would be treated as any servant would who was caught with her hands in the master’s safe box. Imprisonment would be her best hope. More likely she’d be pulled dead from the Thames. Louis was every bit as ruthless as his father. She had no doubt that he would prefer to enact his own brand of justice upon her.

  Dare you risk this? Risk everything? It wasn’t too late to back out, to go back to the club, admit to the mistake with the file, to be sent back out on her arranged mission to the Wentworth house.

  Louis was too dangerous, too crafty, for her to face alone. This was a matter for the Liars to handle, not her.

  Only they weren’t handling it, were they?

  “Stop tryin’ to talk y’self out of it,” she muttered in the comforting accents of her childhood. “Keep y’mind on y’work.”

  She was safely in the study. The door was shut, the draperies were drawn…now to find the safe box. Louis had a great deal to hide, and he wasn’t a stupid man. He must have learned a few things from his father’s downfall—such as where to conceal your guilt so that prying servants could not find the evidence….

  The safe box was plainly situated behind a large painting that hung over the desk. Rose didn’t bother breaking the box. Louis was sly and very twisted of mind. He would keep his secrets somewhere unexpected, somewhere that amused him.

  Yet she doubted he would put them anywhere else in the house. This study was his territory, safe from most daily intrusions by the others in the household. She stood in the middle of the room and turned slowly, trying to think like a twist-minded traitor.

  Being inside Louis’s head for even a moment made her feel ill, but she forced herself to remember back to how, for her own preservation, she’d learned him so well that she could almost predict where he’d be at any given moment and what he’d be doing.

  Louis-now was more sophisticated than Louis-then, she had no doubt, but a rodent couldn’t change its tail. The nasty, warped young man was still insid
e him. She could get inside him as well, if she was willing to return back there.

  She gritted her teeth. “I am going to take a long, boiling bath when I get home,” she muttered. Then she opened her memory fully.

  Louis liked contrast, she recalled. Whatever she had been experiencing, he would turn it around. If she was content, he would disturb her. Once he’d caught her humming at her work. When he’d finished describing what better uses he could think of for her mouth, she’d been sickened and agitated. And yes, forcing herself to recall it fully, darkly intrigued.

  He’d known her so well. He’d known when to stop before repelling her completely, had known when to turn the encounter light once more, so that she was even grateful to him for the reprieve. But in return, she had grown to know him as thoroughly.

  Contrast. Rose opened her eyes to look around the room, turning slowly. Something sour would be disguised as sweet. Something evil would be portrayed as good.

  Something secret would be…

  In plain sight. Yes. Excitement flowed through Rose, sharpening her mind, returning her focus.

  Earlier today she had inspected this room, albeit more quickly than she would have liked. The pinch-penny cook had been determined to get every unpaid, exhausting chore out of Rose by day’s end, and she had only been able to spare a moment to investigate the room while she brought in coals for the fire.

  It was a study like any other but for one thing. In the niche of one of the paneled walls there stood a plinth, the sort used to display an open book, atop of which rested a mahogany and glass case obviously designed to display something precious.

  The case held only one object, a gold medal resting on a bed of velvet. The engraved plate on the case read: Medal of Allegiance, awarded (posthumously) to Edward Wadsworth (1750–1813) for his ultimate sacrifice in the name of the Crown, by His Royal Highness George IV.

  How Louis must love the high irony of this award.

  Rose approached the case with an eye to any sort of inappropriate seams or cracks. The mahoganyframed glass lid was locked, but only with a tiny decorative latch that a child could undo with a hairpin. The case was also quite flat, not much deeper than a picture frame.

  She wrapped her fingers around both sides of the case to lift it carefully. For all she knew, Louis had the folds of the velvet lining memorized. Best to keep the entire thing level while she checked beneath it—

  It didn’t budge. The case was firmly attached to the stand beneath. Curious. Rose dropped to her knees to investigate.

  The plinth was an ornate mahogany piece, waist-high and carved to resemble a column from Roman times. “Very expensive,” Rose murmured as she ran her hands carefully over every inch. “And hardly even a little bit ugly.” She found nothing. She sat back on her heels to ponder the stand for a moment. It was large enough to hide a great deal within, unlike the case above.

  The case. Rose went up on her knees to examine the case at eye level. How was it attached to the stand? There seemed to be nothing holding it there from the outside, which meant that a certain amount of thought had gone into concealing…something.

  She was on the right track, she knew it. Closing her eyes, she thought back to what she had learned when their studies had covered secret compartments. Lord Etheridge himself had taught that course and had brought in several examples, from tiny slot drawers built into desks to a mechanism that had come from a false wall.

  “The most secret compartments are often the most obvious, once you know what to look for,” he’d told the students. “Something that is loose, or something that is unusually solid. Most amateurs still believe in the sanctity of their safe boxes, or the common false-bottom drawer. It is the professional who will have put real thought into his concealment—thought that you will have to follow if you want to reveal it.”

  Lovely. Back into Louis’s filthy mind she must go.

  Collis stepped in something noxious but didn’t bother mentioning it. The tunnel from the royal chambers was dry and dusty but had long been occupied by royal vermin. Royal vermin scat looked and smelled very much like common vermin scat, Collis noticed.

  He had been led downward from the Prince’s chamber on a spiral stairway made of stone that looked little used. “Built right into Carlton House,” George had shared informatively. “In case of another riot. Just like those leading from the palace.”

  He seemed casually proud, rather like a host showing off his home. “The whole city is riddled with tunnels, you know. Old rivers that were built over, drainage sluices from the streets, sewers—you can access nearly every district in the city from here. Although I recommend we avoid the sewers, shall we? These royal escape tunnels are more pleasant…well, for the most part anyway. I haven’t used these for years, although I tore a path through them enough when I was young. I wasn’t fond of princely duties.”

  Collis grunted. He wouldn’t be prince if his life depended upon it. His and Dalton’s. ’Twas enough being heir to Etheridge. “And are you now?”

  George raised the lantern they had brought with them to brighten the arches above and the webs festooning them. “I suppose I simply realized one day that there is no escaping one’s fate,” he said thoughtfully. Then he turned to Collis with a piratical grin. “Where’s this house? I’m absolutely itching to do something rife with danger and crime.”

  Collis laughed, but he was beginning to regret this whole venture. Or perhaps he was merely regretting the wine. Either way, his head was pounding and the swaying of the lantern light was making him feel a mite sick.

  Still, it was only a play mission with likely enough safety nets wrapped around it to keep a tot safe. “Milton Crescent,” he told the Prince.

  “Ah, east it is then!” The Prince charged down a branching tunnel. Collis sidestepped another pile of rodent pellets and followed him. The Prince seemed much enamored of excitement.

  Collis hoped that tendency wasn’t going to get them both into trouble.

  For lack of any better ideas, Rose had finally reached for the set of picks strapped to her thigh and selected the one that fit the best. The decorative lock on the case gave way instantly.

  She opened the case on her knees with her eyes level to the hinges. She didn’t see any traps that would be triggered by the lifting of the case. That didn’t mean they weren’t there, of course. Then she gently ran her finger around the rim of the medal.

  The medal didn’t budge beneath her touch. Curious. She tried twisting it gently, but it wouldn’t move. She tried harder, inadvertently pressing down on the gold disk.

  Click.

  A panel in the side of the plinth popped open a fraction of an inch. “Lovely,” whispered Rose, and she reached carefully inside.

  Later, Rose still sat tailor-fashion on the floor of Louis Wadsworth’s study in the wee hours of the morning, trying to make sense of what she had found within the display plinth.

  Diagrams. Perfectly legitimate drawings of perfectly legitimate muskets, at least as far as she could tell. Damn, she must have stumbled onto Louis’s hiding place for his manufacturing secrets.

  She chewed a nail pensively. She wasn’t entirely sure about these plans, but she was absolutely sure of Louis’s nature. He’d been an evil lad and he was an evil man. She would simply have to look further.

  She rolled the plans up carefully, returning them to the narrow leather tube she’d found them in. There was nothing remarkable about the case, either. She’d examined it most carefully. Why keep it so secret?

  She was about to open the secret compartment once more when she heard a soft slithering sound from the hall. Then came the unmistakable sound of metal in the lock of the study door. There wasn’t time to return the case. Rose blew out her tiny candle and dived behind the desk even as the door opened.

  Chapter Eleven

  Collis pushed the Prince into the study and shut the door quickly. He’d lived a lifetime in the ten minutes it had taken him to get George up the trellis, through his unlatched wi
ndow, and into the study.

  The Prince seemed determined to live out every moment of some parlor-thief fantasy and had even insisted on fumbling about with the lock on the study door before Collis had snatched away the picks and manipulated the catch open with one swift flick of his wrist.

  “Sorry, Your Highness, but these are exceedingly chancy picks of mine.” Collis whispered the balm to the Prince’s notoriously prickly pride out of habit, even as he searched the room with his eyes.

  Simon would never allow the test to be too easy. There would be some tricky element. It could be that the target didn’t even keep the evidence in his study. Still, it was likely everything would be somewhere in this room, although not someplace predictable.

  “Damn, we could be here all night,” he muttered as he gazed around the study. It was crammed full of manly ornaments such as globes and model ships, and books that looked largely unread.

  A crash sounded behind him. Collis whirled to see the Prince standing over a fallen pedestal and presentation case that lay shattered over it. Glass sparked in the lantern light like diamonds. George sent him a shame-faced shrug.

  “So sorry,” the Prince said.

  “We’d better go, quickly!” The last of the wine fogging Collis’s mind dissipated with the realization that if he were found here with his prince-at-large, his career would be over forever. How could he have been so stupid?

  “How could you have been so stupid?”

  Rose came out of nowhere, rather as if she had bobbed up from underwater. Collis took an involuntary step back as she charged at him with some sort of leather tube held in her hand like a club.

  “You brought a friend along? On a mission? A clumsy friend at that!” She moved to the door and listened with her ear close to the wood. “Oh, crikey. They’re coming.”

  She shoved the tube into Collis’s stunned hand. He automatically tucked it under his bad arm. “Go,” she urged. “Take it and hide. I’ll try to buy some time, although I don’t think anyone is going to believe I was simply doing a bit of pre-dawn dusting.”