Celeste Bradley - [The Liar's Club 03]

by The Charmer

  Odd, Collis couldn’t remember the last time Rose’s speech had slipped so badly. She truly must be nearly out of her wits with fear.

  He ought to be enjoying her discomfort, since this was the first time he’d ever seen her without her customary air of superiority. But the childish cling of her fingers to his made him sorry for her fear and made him want to reassure her.

  To Rose, it was as if the past months of security and learning had never happened. The school, the training, even the ache of her shoulder where she’d taken a blow from one of Louis’s footmen—everything seemed to fade away, muffled and cut off by the tons of earth above and around her.

  To be underground meant burial, and burial meant death, and all the study, all the rationality of thought, all the learning, was swept away in a wash of deeply bred superstition.

  She was never going to see the sunlight again. She was going to die down here. She could taste the death in the very air. Her heart was beating like a frightened rabbit and her eyes were so wide open they ached. She felt as if the dank air was too thick to breathe and her lungs could not draw it in.

  Collis and the Prince began to fade away, their lantern going dim. She could hear them talking to her, but the words made no sense. She could not catch her breath—

  The sharp crack of a hand across her face brought her to just as she’d been about to fade completely. She blinked to see two worried faces staring at her in the circle of lamplight. Her cheek stung and she rubbed it, glaring at Collis despite the fact that she was grateful for the distraction of anger.

  He held up his hand to fend off her glare and sent his eyes sideways to indicate the Prince. George stood there with the lantern raised, but Rose could see that he was shaking his other hand as if to relieve a sting.

  Forced to draw back her sharp rebuke—for who was she to rebuke a royal slap?—Rose merely dipped a very slight curtsey. “Thank you, Your Highness.” Still, a perverse little spirit slipped a few extra words in. “If I may ever repay the favor, it will be my pleasure, Your Highness.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Collis was glad to see Rose returning to her usual dry humor. Not that she was a jester in any way. He had only seen her smile once in a great while, and never at him. Why was that? The other students could sometimes coax a flash of light and life from her, and he had heard rumors that Phillipa Cunnington had even made Rose laugh out loud on occasion.

  Unfathomable. Rose laughing. He itched to hear it, if only to fulfill his masochistic curiosity. Bah. He didn’t believe it anyway. Rose Lacey wasn’t human enough to laugh.

  He wondered if her laugh had the husky edge that her voice carried when she was annoyed with him. He liked that edge, liked the way it worked upon his hunting instincts like a stimulus. That slightly deeper, wilder tone brought to mind the chase, which of course brought to mind the capture…

  And the, ah…completion.

  Now is not the time, old man. Now is the time to worry about your neck—and the Prince’s—not other parts of your anatomy.

  George had led them into an older segment of tunnel. The hundred-year-old stones of the arched wall and ceiling were fitted without mortar. Collis tried to convince himself that that was a good thing—that walls built so were sturdier against the press of city above—but the decreasing height of the tunnel only made him feel the weight of every cobble and every shop above their heads.

  The monotonous splash-splash of their steps had been the only thing they could hear and the few feet of tunnel ahead all they could see for so long that Collis was beginning to feel as though they were treading in place, never advancing. If they had been wading against the current, he would have been sure of it, but as it was, the flow of rank water pushed steadily against the backs of their calves. They were definitely on their way somewhere.

  At least the smell was improving; that or his senses had failed him completely. Terrible thought, that. No more smelling the aroma of roasted venison, no more scent of roses…no more sweetly perfumed women. Not that he could do anything about them now anyway.

  “But the sniffing part was still good,” he muttered to himself. He saw Rose’s profile against the lantern for a moment as she turned her head at his words. He didn’t bother explaining himself. She’d only think him mad for worrying about something so trivial when all their lives were in danger.

  Rose heard Collis’s mutter clearly enough. If he was worried about losing his sense of smell, she could reassure him. She’d cleaned enough chamber pots and privies to know that after a time the smell simply stopped registering, leaving the nose in perfect working order.

  Her shoulder throbbed with every beat of her pounding heart, but there was no time to worry about it now. She must not slow them down. The Prince must reach safety.

  George looked over his shoulder at her, his plump cheeks glistening in the light of his lantern. “I knew I remembered this! There is a royal tunnel just ahead!” He splashed ahead with renewed enthusiasm.

  Rose halted in dismay. Had there been a doubt?

  Collis came close behind her. “Please tell me that he knows where he’s going,” he begged softly.

  Rose could feel the heat of his big body through her damp dress. She longed to lean into him for warmth and strength, just for a moment. Of course, Collis would only stare at her oddly, but at this moment she was quite willing to be a fool if only he would warm and reassure her.

  “Rose?” He touched her shoulder. “Are you all right?”

  The concern in his voice made her knees weaken—and she could not afford to weaken. She brushed his hand away. “Good Lord, Collis, will any female in the dark do? Mind you keep your hands to yourself, if you please!” She forced her knees to turn to steel and stalked forward, her manufactured anger lending her force she hadn’t had moments before.

  Collis stared after her. His open palm closed to save the warmth of her.

  A voice within reminded him that she was cold and frightened. He gave that voice a swift uppercut and left it unconscious on the ground. Miss Lacey still had some explaining to do.

  She isn’t the one who dragged the Prince Regent along on what appeared to be anything but a candy-coated test assignment, is she?

  Damn. The little voice had returned. Well, at least he had company back here in the dark.

  In an office high in the attic of the slightly left-of-respectable gentlemen’s establishment known as the Liar’s Club, Dalton Montmorency took a moment out of his busy spymaster’s morning to roll his neck from side to side. His cravat and collar dug in at such an uncharacteristic motion. Bloody hell, he was tired. The first of the trainees had yet to graduate, and the Liars were still severely short-handed. Twice the operatives wouldn’t be enough. Something was brewing on the other side of the channel. Dalton just knew it.

  And then there was the double-damned Voice of Society. The tattle column had already leaked vital information to the public—information that no one could possibly know.

  Except somehow, someone did.

  It didn’t matter which news sheet the Voice appeared in. When the government would try to put pressure on one publication, the Voice would simply disappear, only to emerge again at another paper.

  No editor had ever been able to pin the Voice down to an agreement. There was no pay. But if one got the chance to publish the Voice, one took it. Whoever had the Voice sold more papers than all the others put together.

  More papers giving away more of the Liars’ secrets.

  The acrid scent of painting spirits wafted under the door, bringing pleasant associations despite the reek. Clara was painting. Or, at least, trying to paint. She was such an accomplished sketch artist that Dalton tended to forget how untrained she was at her oils. Still, she was most diligent in her practice.

  So diligent, in fact, that Dalton suspected she was submerging herself in her art to forget other, less pleasant regrets.

  He wished she wouldn’t worry so about conceiving a child. Although it was the dearest wish of b
oth of them, it would be impossible to love her less, no matter if she was as barren as she feared. And anyway, it might be his doing. In his past he’d always been supremely circumspect—all right, very nearly monkish. At any rate, he’d never had any bastards lain at his door. It could be that he was not able.

  Not for lack of trying, however. And they’d only been wed for a few months, he reminded himself. Just because she’d never conceived in her previous brief marriage—and just because she was nearly thirty years of age—well, it was preposterous. They’d yet have the large family of their dreams.

  Still, it was fortunate he had Collis as his heir.

  Collis. Now there was another drama in its first act. Dalton rubbed his neck. If Collis would only come around—if Collis could manage to tie his talents together with Rose’s gifts—

  Dalton certainly hoped Simon’s hare-brained “assignment” was going to work. As for himself, he was running fresh out of ideas.

  A knock came to the door of the office, then Stubbs stepped inside without waiting for a reply. Dalton hid a sigh. He missed the days when the office had been secret from all but the select few. Now it seemed as if his doors never stopped swinging.

  Stubbs was panting from the climb. Well, too bloody bad. Dalton refused to install a bell so he could be rung up like a butler.

  “My lord—sir—he’s come!”

  “Oh, for pity’s sake, Stubbs. Who is come to put you in such a piffle?”

  “I am.” A greyhound-lean man entered. Lord Liverpool, Prime Minister of England, was not a tall man, but still he managed to fill a room with his presence, especially one as small as Dalton’s not-so-secret office.

  Dalton stood and bowed. His rank and holdings were equal to Lord Liverpool’s, but he’d always deferred to his mentor’s age and greater experience. Well, he thought as a fresh wave of paint spirits entered the room, perhaps not always.

  Thoughts of Clara revived his energy and he waved Liverpool to a seat with interest. “What has brought you here so early, my lord?” Or at all? Liverpool was not fond of the egalitarian nature of the Liars and oft threatened to disband them when they didn’t perform to his exacting standards. He usually only appeared in Liar territory when doom was about to strike.

  “Oh, damn,” Dalton muttered. “Which is it, George or Napoleon?” He passed a hand over his face. “Pray, tell me it’s Napoleon.”

  “I’m afraid your first guess is correct.” Liverpool sat in the chair as if it were a throne, or perhaps a chariot. His spine didn’t bend in the least.

  “What’s he done now?” The Prince Regent had seemed so settled since taking over for his father, mad King George. Then again, perhaps the Prince was simply a dam waiting to break. Since George had already had a secret marriage, run off to play revolutionary, and spent his way right out of the palace vaults, Dalton shuddered to think what his reluctant ruler had done now.

  “His Royal Highness has disappeared. Apparently voluntarily.”

  “Oh, hell,” Dalton said weakly.

  “There’s more.” Liverpool crossed his hands over the silver top of his walking stick and gave Dalton a supremely sour glare. “The last person seen in his presence was none other than our very own Collis Tremayne.”

  “Oh.” Dalton sat opposite the Prime Minister, his knees weak at the thought of what the two of them could get up to together. “Oh, bloody hell and damn.”

  One corner of Liverpool’s mouth twitched without humor. “My thoughts exactly.”

  The royal tunnels were a vast improvement over the storm drain, as far as Rose was concerned. Hardly damp and not a bit smelly. The arched ceiling was high enough for even Collis to stand erect, and the lantern’s light seemed to go much farther when reflected by the elegant creamy stone walls.

  Very nearly cozy, if not for the fact that it was still under the bloomin’ ground. At last the three unlikely tunnel occupants came to an open area, in a sort of nexus of several tunnels, with carved relief work decorating a band of darker stone at eye level. Knots and spirals and stylized animals twined intricately together. It must have taken many hours of skilled labor to create.

  Wasn’t that just like the aristocracy? Rose snorted. “Why make it pretty when no one’s going to see it?”

  George came closer to her and held the lantern up to brighten the stonework. “It isn’t only beautiful. It also tells where each tunnel goes, if you know the symbols used.”

  Rose turned to look at the Prince Regent meaningfully. He chuckled at her expression. “Yes, dear lady, I know the code.” He yawned and turned away.

  It must have been her imagination that made her think he muttered something as he turned away. Something that she was very much afraid sounded like, “Mostly.”

  George puttered around the chamber, lighting a few of the torches that stood ready on the walls. “These are dry as ash,” he told Rose and Collis. “They won’t last long, so rest while you can.”

  Rest? Under the ground? Not likely. Yet the floor here was dry and clean. George stretched himself out and closed his eyes in relief, pillowing his head on his crooked arm. He was snoring within seconds.

  Rose tugged on Collis’s hand. “Let me explain. Then we can decide what to do.” She led him to a far corner, taking the lantern with her.

  Independent Rose wanted to confer with him? Surprise mingled with concern. This did not bode well. He sank down beside her on the dusty stone floor. “Explain, then.”

  She sighed. “You are going to be furious, I fear.”

  She told him an appalling tale, from her first mistake in choosing the wrong file to her attempt to discourage his own participation.

  “But why didn’t you simply tell me?” Her silence stung, more than he wanted to admit. “I could have helped you.”

  She looked down. “It was my mess. I was only trying to lessen my error.”

  Collis had the distinct feeling that he wasn’t being told everything. “Instead, you compounded it.”

  She sighed. “Yes, I did. With a bit of help from you, of course.”

  He held up a hand. “Oh, I know I did my part. I can’t believe I let George tag along. Dalton’s going to have cat fits over that one.”

  They both went silent as they imagined the magnitude of the spymaster’s disapproval. It wasn’t heartening. Liverpool’s fury didn’t even bear thinking on.

  After a moment, Rose went on. “I only needed one night. I knew I could find something and I did. At least, I think I did.”

  “Yes, the prize,” Collis remembered. He pulled it from where he’d stuck it into the deepest inner pocket of his frock-coat. It was making a most unsightly lump in the fabric. Collis could almost hear Denny’s moans of anguish.

  He was really going to have to do something about Denny.

  They uncapped the leather tube and spread the plans out in the circle of lantern light. Hunching over them, their shoulders touching, they tried to discern if there was anything suspicious contained in the detailed drawings.

  “Well…” Collis scratched his ear. “It’s a musket.”

  She slid him a low-lidded glare. “I gathered as much.”

  “And you think Louis Wadsworth has nefarious plans for this alleged musket?”

  She chewed her lip. “I know he must have. I simply don’t know what they are.”

  Collis had his doubts. Rose seemed to be leaping to some very far conclusions. “Yet the file contained nothing suspicious. Do you truly think that the Liars could be so ill-informed about Louis Wadsworth?”

  She turned pensive. “I did find that hard to believe, actually. But the men have been stretched so thin for so long now….” She shrugged. “They were so focused on his father’s treason, I suppose Louis didn’t seem like much of a threat.”

  Collis blinked. “But Edward Wadsworth was a hero! The Knights of the Lily would have never have been revealed had it not been for his loyalty.”

  “Edward Wadsworth was a traitor. He was the leader of the Knights of the Lily. I sho
uld know. I worked in his house for years.” She began to roll up the benign-seeming diagrams.

  “Then you’re the maid that Clara posed as!” He felt rather stupid for not realizing it before. Of course, he’d never asked, had he?

  Rose nodded. “When Clara moved in next door, she asked to exchange places with me in order to spy on the master.”

  “Which is where she met Dalton, who was posing as a thief. I know the story, believe me.” He’d heard it repeatedly, until all he needed to hear was, “Remember in the attic?” before his eyes glazed over.

  “The two of them reminisce over dinner nearly every evening,” he informed her. “One could toss one’s lamb chops, the way those two carry on.”

  Rose looked a bit misty-eyed. “I think they’re sweet.”

  Collis grunted. “Try living with them. You’d think they invented love.”

  She turned that sea-green gaze on him. “Don’t be cynical, Collis. They’re so happy.”

  Her eyes seemed to lock onto his, for he couldn’t tear his gaze away. She was so close, shoulder to shoulder. If he wanted to, he could duck his head slightly and kiss her soft mouth.

  The silence stretched on for two breaths, then three. Collis could feel heat rising under his collar, despite the chill of the tunnel. Rose’s eyes sparked gold lantern light. Her lashes were very long, he noticed. Thick and dark, like her hair.

  What did her hair look like down? He’d never seen it. She always wore her practical braids wound tightly around her head like an ebony crown. Suddenly, he wanted to see her hair. His fingers twitched with the impulse to pull the pins from her braids and comb free her tresses for his enjoyment.

  Rose’s hair, spread across his pillow. Spread across his chest—

  “Collis?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Can I have the case?”

  “What?” He swallowed, shook himself back to the moment and handed her the case. He’d been holding it in his bad hand. Mysteriously, it was quite crushed. Rose frowned at him but didn’t say anything as she worked the stiff leather open again.