“Yes?” Deep lines were etched in his face, as though he bore the troubles of the world. Aster wouldn’t have thought working in a button factory could cause such stress. His head was halfway to being bald, and he’d grown his remaining hair longer on one side and swept it over his exposed pink skin. It amazed Aster, how his head shone between the strands when the rest of the place was so dusty. How did he keep his scalp so clean? Perhaps he polished it every night?
Quinn laid the invoice on the counter and smoothed out the wrinkles from where Aster had clutched her reticule. “Albert Simmons, secretary to Sir John Warrington of the Records Office. I’m here to collect our button samples.”
“One moment.” The clerk took the paper and stared at the instructions. Then he shuffled to the wall behind him, the entire side of which was home to numerous pigeonholes of different sizes. Each space was labelled and numbered, and contained a variety of different-shaped packages. He muttered as he compared the invoice to the slots. His feet stopped as he found the right one, then came more muttering as he sorted through several boxes of a similar size. With a huff, he decided on one and pulled it free. Then he shuffled back.
“Army uniform buttons,” he said as a statement, not a question. He cast a rheumy gaze at Quinn, as though doubting he could be in the service.
“That’s right,” Quinn replied. “Terribly excited to see the new ones.”
The clerk’s gaze narrowed. Perhaps after decades in buttons, his enthusiasm had worn off. He made another guttural noise in the back of his throat and flipped open the lid of the box.
Nestled on a piece of velvet within were numerous new samples of different sizes and designs. Quinn picked up a large brass button with a wolf’s head, its mouth open to show its sharp canines.
“Oh, I say. Isn’t it fabulous?” he asked Aster, holding it out for her to see.
“It will look grand on the new uniforms,” she said.
“Good work, my man,” Quinn said as he laid the button back in the box and closed the lid. Then he gave the top a tap for good measure.
The clerk grunted, picked up a large journal from the desk, and flicked through the pages. “Sign here.” He pointed to a line on the ledger and held out a pen.
Quinn winked at Aster, took the pen, and signed A. Simmons in a bold hand next to Sir John’s order in the ledger.
The clerk snapped the book closed, nearly catching Quinn’s hand. Then he shuffled back to his desk and ignored them.
Quinn picked up the parcel and took Aster’s arm. “Well, sister, shall we away to our next stop?”
She smiled up at him, which required no real effort at all. “Of course, brother. Lead onward. It is ever so interesting to see you at work.”
The street seemed overly bright after the dull gloom of the strange office. Aster held a hand to her eyes. The angle of the sun penetrated her bonnet, and she was glad for her dark lenses.
“You should have a parasol,” Quinn said as he helped her up. Alick sat in the saddle, a bored look on his face as he stared off into the surrounding press of people.
Aster smiled. “An extravagance I do not need.” Truth be told, she longed for a pretty lace parasol to shield her face from the sun. But the frippery was an extravagance that would deplete her Winter Fund. Better to have a roof over her head in old age than a lace shade now.
Quinn made a noise in his throat as he took the reins. “Where to next, sister?”
She extracted the next invoice, and Dougal snuffled under her arm to help. “Requisition cards. The army could not function without them, you know.” She read off the address and he called it out to Alick. The man gazed at the sky for a moment as though taking his bearing, then nodded. He nudged his mount to the front to show them the way.
Aster breathed a sigh of relief that their next stop was markedly cleaner, and more polite, than the last. Again, Quinn signed for the parcel as Albert Simmons, with his adoring sister on his arm, and soon they were on their way to Rotten Row.
8
Hamish
* * *
That morning Hamish had made a decision: If the lass were a French spy then he wanted her where he could keep an eye on her. He hired a smart pair of chestnuts and a curricle, and with his men in tow, headed for the Royal Arsenal. He congratulated himself on luring her away from Sir John for the day. Perhaps if she relaxed around him, she might let slip some kernel of information that he could use. At least he kept telling himself that was the reason he wanted her close, but every time he thought it, the slumbering wolf let out a snigger.
He used the drive to put her at ease, talking with his men as though she were a member of their pack and treating her as an equal. Not that it took any great effort; her conversation was intelligent and insightful, and made a welcome relief from the inane chattering of some women he’d encountered. Aster was like a breath of fresh air after escaping an overcrowded ballroom. She revived him and stirred his senses.
He had a small pang of conscience, knowing his business in London involved discussing her with another intelligence agent, but he needed information. Anything she might give away could tell them who she really was, or her true reason for serving Sir John. He could no longer think of their mission in strictly impersonal terms; his personal interest grew. The more time he spent in Aster’s company, the less he could imagine her not being there.
The Highland Wolves struggled with the changes they had undergone, which affected every aspect of their lives. None of them had formed any relationships or attachments since. They were all unencumbered and disposable when they signed up to be infected by the wild lycanthrope, then they were kept isolated except for their missions. While Hamish had sought physical relief with women while abroad, Aster was different. The wolf stirred in a new way and it named her mate, the unique woman to match his mind, body, and creature.
He halted on the south side of the Thames, just before Southwark, and handed her care over to Quinn and Alick. With Ewan at his side, they rode across the river to an older, middle-class neighbourhood at a discreet distance from the Mayfair boundary. The house he sought was unremarkable, identical to the others in the terrace row. Only the numbers distinguished them. He dismounted and handed his reins to Ewan, leaving the other man to take the horses to be watered at the mews down the road.
Hamish rapped on the door and waited to be admitted. Inside, it struck him how unremarkable the agents often were. They gathered whispered knowledge without anyone ever noticing them. They weren’t the nobles at the highest level of society, but those who made up the lower ranks, below the notice of those they spied upon. They stood at the edges of conversation and soaked up every spilled word.
As another benefit of the change, his Wolves had better hearing, vision, and scent. They often spotted danger long before an ordinary man would, which made them better soldiers and spies. He had already detected the lower, second voice in the room beyond.
Hamish was shown through to a front parlour, although the room was not used in the conventional sense—to entertain. This was the parlour of a man who did constant business, strewn with papers and books amongst the sofas and end tables.
“Hamish.” A small man with a thick crop of grey hair and a heavily lined face took his hand.
“Harry.” Hamish served two masters, who worked in tandem; Colonel Powers, who was responsible for the Highland Wolves’ army movements, and the unremarkable man before him, who controlled England’s spy network. Harry Wilkes appeared to be more librarian than spymaster, but he excelled in collating all the whispers that his multitude of ears heard. Each sentence was filed away and stored like its own volume.
He was also one of the very few civilians who knew the entire truth behind the formation of the Highland Wolves. Wilkes earned their loyalty by championing the petition for Unnaturals to be legislated as regular citizens. He used his contacts to whisper in the right ears—ears that were connected to hands that would vote in parliament.
“Do you know Callum Forge?�
�� Wilkes said, as another man rose from his seat in a shadowy corner, a fitting place for this spy. Of average height and build, he was one of those men who blended expertly into a crowd by dint of looking so much like the average man. There was nothing remarkable about him, except the mind ticking away behind the near-black eyes and the deadly skill with which he handled knives.
Hamish would have labelled him a vampyre, except for his dour clothing. No undead being of French creation would dare wear something so many years out of fashion. Yet there was something unnatural about the other man’s skill with a blade, which rivalled that of Ewan. His wolf rose to brush against the surface and drew Callum’s scent over its tongue. The creature wanted to bare its teeth and growl, and Hamish had to push it back down. The inner wolf retreated, its protest limited to raising a shiver along his spine.
What was he missing about this man?
“We have met before, in Europe. Callum.” Another round of handshakes. “What brings you back to England?”
“Shore leave, as it were.” He smiled, but the gesture never touched his eyes, which stayed cold, like an empty fire grate. “I am on the trail of a rumour concerning a list.”
Hamish huffed. “It seems we are both drawn to London at this time. I have been tasked as nursemaid for Sir John Warrington of the Records Office. Please tell me, Harry, that I am not being punished for some unknown indiscretion.”
“Not at all.” Harry laughed and indicated a sofa by the warm hearth, where a blaze chased away the lingering chill of the spring morning. The three men took seats a suitable distance from each other, as though they wrapped themselves in distrust.
“What can you share about this mission?” Hamish asked. His gaze darted to Callum and back again. There was something about being around the agent that was like splashing cold water in his face. His wolf was instantly alert and it took effort to restrain the growl that built in his chest. Hamish watched every minute movement the man made. For all that he seemed innocuous, Hamish still wouldn’t turn his back on him. One predator recognised another, but was Forge a man—or something else?
Wilkes leaned back in his chair. “There is a rumour that Napoleon has a plan in place to bring England to her knees. One possibility is that he will break the bonds of friendship with our allies, leaving us isolated on the battlefield. But we are blind as to the nature of the plot. My sources only turned up one interesting tidbit, that there is a list of individuals who have roles to play. That list was intercepted on its way to the puppet master. He is most eager to either have the list back, or have it destroyed.”
“What of the names?” Callum asked. “Any rumours as to who is on it?”
Harry shook his head. “All I know is that the list is ensorcelled and coded. The French are confident we will never crack either their spell or cypher. But they still want it back in their possession, just in case.”
Hamish rubbed a hand over the back of his neck as his mind sorted through the information. Given the nature of his initial assignment, there was only one conclusion that made any sense. “So the existence of the list is confirmed and our focus is on finding it. Do you believe it will make its way to Sir John?”
Callum leaned forward. “If the list is in England, then that is the only logical conclusion. George Scovell is kept busy at Wellington’s side decoding field messages and, I hear, he does not have the time for this assignment. Sir John would be the only other mind that could crack the list, assuming that the mages could first stabilise the cypher. I chased the list to England’s shores, and then it vanished into the mist.”
A list of potential traitors could be at the Royal Arsenal right now, either in the hands of the War Mages or Sir John. That, then, raised another problem. “What do you know of Sir John’s secretary? Can Simmons be trusted?”
Some gut instinct told Hamish to keep her sex a secret, and that the wolf would break free and howl if he dared reveal her existence to the other man. There was something in the way Callum lounged over the sofa, as though he had not a care in the world, while his keen gaze captured everything. The danger of being a confidential agent was the associated paranoia. There were few people Hamish trusted implicitly, and Callum was not on that very short list. An agent learned never to volunteer more information than necessary, just in case.
Harry made a noise in the back of his throat. “Sir John checked the lad thoroughly before hiring him. Well bred, but without any living family. He had the required attributes of a keen mind and no known vices that could be exploited. He has lasted longer than Sir John’s other secretaries; most depart after a few months. He is rather peculiar in his need for order.”
Hamish cast a look to Callum and remained silent. Either Harry knew Simmons was a woman and was likewise keeping quiet, or Sir John was keeping everyone in the dark. What the deuce was going on?
“I shall keep my ears open, though, just in case. A person with no family may be swayed by the right amount of coin.” Hamish hoped he was wrong, but knowing the importance of Sir John’s work, it made Aster’s position all the more unusual. He needed to gain the woman’s trust somehow. Then an idea sprang to mind—something he could achieve once he left this meeting.
Silence dropped over the room as the butler appeared and served tea. Harry played mother, pouring for the others and handing over the delicate cups. They resumed their conversation once the door snapped closed.
“I’m sorry I cannot be of any more assistance. Obviously it is vital that the list be decoded before the French reclaim it. My network can do nothing with a spell or a cipher, for that is beyond my expertise. We need actual names to move forward and unravel the plot,” Harry said.
“Well,” Callum said, pinky finger extended as he drank his tea, “let us hope we lay our hands on the list before the French. And that should he possess it, Sir John is successful in his endeavours to break the undecipherable code.”
“Let us drink to that,” Hamish said, his gaze on Callum.
The men toasted to an English victory and spoke of more general topics for some time, and eventually Hamish took his leave. While safeguarding the Empire was important, he had a more pressing engagement, one that involved acquiring a certain accessory carried by ladies. A frippery that he hoped would purchase him a measure of trust with Aster—or at least a warm smile and possibly a kiss of thanks.
Back on the pavement, Hamish mulled over the little he’d learned. It was time to have an honest discussion with Sir John. Cyphers were tricky business these days. Mages ensorcelled the ink so the symbols constantly swapped places, making deciphering impossible for either side. The first step was transcribing with a counter spell, so the actual cipher could be analysed. The list had to be either with a mage at the Arsenal or Sir John. Regardless of whether he held the list or not, there were questions Hamish wanted answered about Miss Simmons.
He walked along the road to the mews, where Ewan lounged on a wooden bench, reading a small book. The men tended to stay away from horses other than their own, as equines were nervous around wolves. Ewan looked up as Hamish approached and tucked the volume into his jacket pocket.
“Did you succeed in extracting any information whatsoever from our master?” Ewan asked. He waved to a groom and pointed to the two horses chewing hay in an outside yard. The groom nodded and picked up their tack, signalling for another to help him prepare their horses.
“No,” Hamish replied, watching the men saddle up the horses. “Yet again we must rely on our own resources.”
“Business as usual, then.” Ewan checked the girth on his mount before he took the reins and swung up into the saddle.
Hamish mounted his grey and pondered why, given that they were intelligence officers, they usually had the least idea of anyone about what was going on around them. And how could one slip of a lass tie so many knots in his gut?
“I need to make a detour before we head to Hyde Park. There is something I must buy.”
Ewan raised an eyebrow but said no more, his mount fal
ling in beside Hamish’s as they trotted to Bond Street. Half an hour later, with at least one mission satisfactorily accomplished, they turned their mounts toward Hyde Park.
Rotten Row in the afternoon was the place for the ton to see and, more importantly, be seen. They walked the outer rail and eventually found Aster, Quinn, and Alick at a spot under a large tree. The carriage pair and Alick’s horse were hitched to a low branch, and Hamish and Ewan added their horses to the small herd.
Aster smiled as they joined him, and he wished he could see her eyes behind the dark lenses. Was she genuinely pleased to see him? He took her hand and kissed her knuckles. “Was Quinn an adequate companion?”
Her smile grew wider and she cast it at the man on her other side. “Yes, he did an admirable job.”
Quinn winked, and a knife stabbed through Hamish’s gut. Inside him, the wolf sat back on its haunches and narrowed its gaze at the younger pup. It seemed that in just a few short hours a bond had sprung up between Aster and Quinn and the knowledge made Hamish want to wipe the smile off the younger man's face. He frowned. Did she have some affection for the younger soldier?
“I have something for you.” He pulled the item from behind his back and laid it in her hands.
Her eyes widened. “Oh, Captain, you shouldn’t have.”
“I have dragged you away from your work and forced you out into the harsh sun all day. This gift is the least I could do, since you do not appear to have a parasol about you today.” Hamish suspected she didn’t own one at all; most women never ventured outside without a parasol, even if they weren’t vampyres. However, he didn’t want to draw attention to her possible inability to afford a pretty umbrella for herself.
She smiled, and the genuine expression hit him deep in the gut. She ran one hand up the carved ivory handle and opened the parasol. A cream canopy was embroidered with a repeating geometric design in dark chocolate silk. It reminded him of her: at first glance you would think it ordinary, but the longer you stared, the more complex the pattern became, until you realised you were looking at something quite remarkable.
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