A Spy's Honor

by Russell, Charlotte

  Alarm darkened the viscount’s green eyes. “Yes. I mean to rebuild it.”

  They both turned and ran through the thickening trees, ran toward the spot where the explosion had sounded.

  John burst into a spacious clearing with Kensworth following behind. The first floor of the ramshackle hunting box had collapsed, a smoldering pile of broken lumber. The acrid air stung John’s nose and throat, and through the smoky haze he spied David whooping as if he’d demolished a French military encampment.

  “My brother just blew it up,” Kensworth said in shock. A horse still whinnied and cried.

  The thought of David in possession of an explosive material sent John’s blood boiling.

  He looked around for the reckless youth’s stallion, certain that fretful beast must be the one still carrying on, but instead he spotted a mare frantically trying to break free from where it was tethered to an oak tree.

  His breathing hitched as he recognized it. He rushed at David, drawing his pistol as he did. “Where is Claire?”

  David’s broad face contorted. “Why have you got a pistol? What’s this about Claire?”

  “John!” Kensworth appeared at his side. “Have you gone mad?”

  Pistol still leveled at David, John spoke to. “We need to find Claire. She could be in that tinderbox.” He held the rope out. “Your brother and Bates have been plotting to assassinate the prime minister. Tie him to a tree and help me look for Claire. Don’t you recognize her horse?”

  Kensworth didn’t move. “You’ve lost your head. I will not tie up my brother.”

  Claire could be bleeding, burning, even dying as they argued. John leveled the pistol at David’s knee. “Tie him up now or I will render him incapable of running.”

  “Who the hell are you?”

  He’d already lost Claire—emotionally, possibly even physically. His stomach clenched at the mere thought, but he might as well make a clean break with Kensworth. He shifted his gaze to the blond Viking and said, “I am with the Home Office.”

  Kensworth’s green eyes bored into him. Then, muttering vicious epithets mixed with words like traitor and dishonorable directed at John and an apology to his brother, he took the rope and tied David to a stout oak tree. With the pistol pointing in his direction, David offered no resistance.

  Tucking the gun away, John turned to the ruins behind him, moving quickly toward what might once have been the entrance to a cellar. It was open, but flames flicked up from the gaping hole.

  David’s pleading sounded behind him. “Stephen, I haven’t done anything wrong. I’m only trying to—”

  “Not now,” Kensworth said in his elder-brother voice. “Claire, if she is here, is our first priority. We’ll sort the rest out later.”

  John called to Kensworth over his shoulder, “I’m going below.”

  He began calling her name before he even reached the cellar steps. There was no reply.

  When he arrived he saw the steps no longer existed, and the dust and smoke rising from below nearly choked him. John whipped off his cravat and tied it around his nose and mouth. Peaks of fire hungrily devoured the cellar’s wooden support beams. For a moment, fear of the structure’s collapse was overwhelming, both for him and for Claire. Then memories surfaced. A pistol pointed at Claire. Her wide, frightened eyes. His utter lack of courage.

  A violent shake of his head dispelled the recollection, though not the roiling pit of his gut. John grasped the door frame and swung down into the cellar, lurching sideways to avoid flames.

  He had to see if she was down here.

  The room was a complete jumble, with beams haphazardly collapsed and under attack from the fire. Dirt spilled from the crumbling earthen walls, and his eyes watered instantly. He removed his spectacles; they would do him no good, fogged and smoky as they were.

  “Claire!”

  No answer.

  There was nothing for it but to pick his way through the rubble and flames, praying and wishing and hoping he would find her still breathing, untouched. Up above, he could hear Kensworth calling her name too.

  The room was small, but it still seemed he’d spent an eternity in a fiery hell by the time he finished searching. There was no sign of Claire, so he began around the perimeter, feeling for a door that might lead into another room or passage.

  “Claire,” he called again, his voice growing hoarser by the minute.

  “John?”

  Oh God, her voice was feeble, but it was her voice. She was alive.

  “Keep talking, Claire. I’ll find you.”

  “I’m behind a door.” She coughed repeatedly. “On the staircase.”

  He followed the sound of her sweet voice around a second corner, orange tongues of fire nipping at his legs. Snatching his leg away, John saw a scrap of velvet wedged between a mangled door and its jamb, but when he turned the handle it wouldn’t move.

  Bracing his leg against the lower part of the door, he slammed his shoulder into the upper half and crashed through. Only after regaining his balance did he see a staircase. About halfway up lay a crumpled and pale figure.

  “Thank God.” He raced to her side, slipping the cravat from around his face. “Are you hurt?” he asked, smoothing her hair back from her face. It was enough that she was alive, even if she wasn’t his any longer.

  She struggled to sit up, and John supported her. “I don’t think I’m hurt.”

  The rasp in her throat concerned him. “We need to get you some fresh air.” Untying his cravat, he used it to dab at a cut on her cheek.

  “John, David is going to—”

  “Hush,” he murmured. “I know all about David.”

  He shouted for Kensworth, hoping the way would be clearer going up rather than having to go back through the blazing cellar.

  “Coming!” Within a minute Kensworth had jerked open the door at the top of the stairs. Dust motes danced in the hazy light.

  John scooped Claire up before she could protest and carried her through to the ground floor.

  “Follow me,” Kensworth said. “The floor is unstable in places.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Kensworth led them on a zigzag path through what once had been the front of the building. Claire clung to John’s neck, her face nestled against his shoulder. He smelled like a chimney, and soot and dirt covered the upper half of his face, but she didn’t care. She’d never felt safer in her life.

  He set her down near the edge of the clearing. David looked as if he were hugging a tree, only his hands were tied.

  John knelt beside her, replacing his spectacles as he asked, “Are you certain you are well?”

  “Claire, I’m sorry!” David’s voice quavered as he called to her. “I didn’t know you were there.”

  “Shut your mouth!” Kensworth spat in disgust. Claire had never seen him so angry. “Not only did you destroy my property, you didn’t check to make certain it was clear—and you could have set this whole forest ablaze.”

  “You were going to tear it down anyway,” David mumbled.

  John kept his eyes on Claire, obviously waiting for an answer.

  She stared at her torn velvet skirt before saying, “I’m all right. When I saw David toss the tinder down I ran toward that back staircase. I managed to get the door shut, but I tripped going up the stairs.” Finally, she looked up at him, confused. “How did you come to be here? I overheard David and I sent the groom off with a note for you—in London.”

  “I’ve been in Hertfordshire since this morning. I followed David.”

  “Of course,” she said with a tiny smile. Of course he’d be where he needed to be.

  Kensworth crouched down beside her, too, his green eyes searching her face. “Are you certain you aren’t hurt?”

  “Just a few bruises. Don’t worry.” She patted his hand.

  “What did you overhear?” he asked, his voice more serious than solicitous now. “What did David say?”

  “Oh, Stephen…” Her eyes watered. How could
she tell him what his brother planned?

  John spared her the task, which shouldn’t have surprised her, but his consideration made her skin tingle nonetheless. “As I told you,” he said to Kensworth, “David and his friends intended to assassinate the prime minister tonight at Covent Garden.” Then he looked askance at David. “Gunpowder? Were you truly going to blow up the entire theatre? All those innocent people?”

  “Of course not!” David scoffed, twisting his wrists against the rope.

  “Then, what?” Kensworth demanded, rising and striding menacingly toward his brother. “What did you plan to do?”

  David lifted his chin and settled his lips into a firm line.

  “Bates!” Claire popped up onto her knees. “John, he and some Stickney fellow already left for London. With a wagonload of wooden boxes.”

  “Filled with gunpowder, no doubt,” John surmised. “What bloody fools.”

  Despite his brother’s arms being secured around a tree trunk, Kensworth grasped David by the shirt, forcing his torso to twist at an odd angle. “What did you mean to do?”

  David stared defiantly back. “We are working for reform, like you. We mean to snare the government’s attention. We mean to destroy the Tory oppressors and replace them with reform-minded Whigs.”

  Kensworth loosened his grip and stepped back, his jaw slack and his eyes wide. David was young and foolish, but Claire too was astonished at how horribly misplaced his passion was.

  “Yes, I’m working for reform,” Kensworth said, his jaw tight with anger. “But I haven’t plotted to kill anyone.”

  “We are doing what needs to be done. Your way of reform will take years.” David’s eyes slid to John. “He’s the one you should be angry with. A spy lurking in your own home. He’s probably already reported your activities to the Home Office.”

  Claire moved to stand up, to make an objection, but John put a restraining hand on her arm. Before she could protest, Kensworth distracted them all by driving his fist into David’s jaw. The force of the blow bounced the younger Cahill’s head off the tree.

  “However dishonest he’s been, at least he hasn’t committed treason and plotted to kill someone!” Kensworth made as if to go after David again, but John leapt up and stepped in front of him, pushing against Kensworth’s chest.

  Claire stifled a noble urge to defend John’s actions of the last few weeks, knowing that in David’s case her defense would fall on deaf ears, and in Kensworth’s case, other matters were more important at the moment. There would be time to mend the rift between John and Stephen later.

  John herded Kensworth back a few feet. “I know he’s a fool and his actions are deplorable, but he’s still your brother.”

  Kensworth shook off John’s hands and kicked the dirt. “He’s ruined our family.”

  That was the heart of the matter. Kensworth had done all he could to lift the family up from its reduced and demeaning circumstances, and David had thrown it all away. Claire ached for him.

  “I would be a hero if he hadn’t been such a traitorous friend,” David exclaimed, though his voice had lost much bravado.

  John turned, stalking over until he stood mere inches from David’s bleeding face. “Do you even understand what you were about to do? Assassinating a government official is not an abstract idea. You planned to take the life of Lord Liverpool.”

  Claire couldn’t keep silent; they were all ignoring one vital fact. “Bates and Stickney are still on their way to London.”

  John swiped a hand across his forehead, smearing the soot. “The prime minister is safe. When I realized what David was up to, I sent my liaison to Sidmouth with a message. The Home Secretary will not allow Liverpool to go anywhere near Covent Garden this evening.” He stepped back and glanced around. “However, I do not like the idea of Bates and Stickney in London with a wagon full of gunpowder. They won’t be able to travel quickly for safety reasons. After I turn David over to the magistrate, I’ll head for Town.”

  Kensworth nodded. Turning to David, he said, “But before you do, you will tell us what the plan was. What are Bates and Stickney supposed to do?”

  All the fire and passion leeched out of David’s face. He looked young and completely unprepared for the consequences of his actions. “Load the boxes onto the carriages while the play is in progress. Light a fuse when the time is right.”

  John uttered a succinct curse.

  Kensworth stared at his brother, who would not look him in the eye.

  “You said ‘carriages.’ More than one.” John advanced on David again. “How many?”

  David focused on the roots at the base of the tree. “Two. Sidmouth’s as well.”

  John stared at him until he looked up and then asked in a low voice, “What of their families?”

  Kensworth cursed. David let his forehead fall against the bark.

  Claire felt sick. Everyone was hurting inside.

  John cleared his throat. “Claire, will you remain with Kensworth?”

  Leave it to John to be mindful of Stephen’s need for a friend right now.

  “Certainly.”

  John untied David from the tree, let the younger, subdued man mount his stallion and then retied his hands. Finally he fastened a lead from another length of rope and led the beast over to Kensworth. “I apologize for deceiving you. I will be called to testify to the facts of David’s plot, but I will be certain to say what I can as to his character as well.”

  Had she really walked away from this man? Claire swallowed thickly. John thought Kensworth would blame him for this debacle, thought he’d lost a friend, but at least he had the integrity to do what small measure he could for Kensworth’s sake.

  She looked to see if Kensworth would accept John’s apology. Stephen’s hardened, malignant gaze didn’t waver. He said nothing.

  John stalked off leading the stallion carrying David, and Claire watched him go, so handsome even covered in dirt and blood, so…upright in an unconventional way. It took a strong force of will not to follow him. For now, he must complete his mission. But should she try to talk sense into her ex-fiancé?

  “Stephen…”

  He turned and surveyed the smoldering ruins behind them. “I need to get some men out here to extinguish the fire and…”

  Now was not the time to talk. She squeezed his arm and said, “Do what you need to do, and know I will always be your friend. So will John, if you can ever forgive him.”

  Stephen nodded, as if she were speaking a foreign language and he only understood part of what she had said. Then he clasped her hand decorously. She, however, wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tight. After a short hesitation, he returned the gesture.

  As she walked to her mare, she spared a glance after David and felt her heartstrings tug slightly. His perfidious folly had cost him so much: his family, his country, possibly even his life. By comparison, her foolishness was minor…and yet it had almost cost her, too. Her chance at love.

  John had been right. She was always asking him to be something he wasn’t because it fit her ideal view of love and romance when all along he was an honorable, steadfast man who needed no improving. And he loved her. That was something to be treasured, not to be tossed aside, though God knew she’d tried.

  ***

  After a detour to leave David with the local magistrate, John raced toward London, tormented by regret and guilt. He hoped David felt the same; remorse was his best chance for a commuted sentence. How he wished he could expunge David’s activities of the last three weeks, wished he could go back to the beginning and talk David out of this rash plan. If he’d only uncovered it sooner.

  John rode the bay as hard as he dared as daylight waned, not intending to change mounts. The sun sank lower and lower, and a frosty bite crept into the air. He was glad for it. He could focus on how uncomfortable he was rather than on the situation with Claire. Once or twice he thought he’d seen a look in her eyes, a softness, when she’d glanced his way. However, she’d said not
hing to indicate her feelings had changed, hadn’t spoken up in his defense as he’d imagined she might.

  At last he arrived in London. The sun still hovered above the buildings. He found a stable to take charge of the bay and walked toward the Theatre Royal in Covent Garden.

  A sizable crowd milled around. The orchestra was probably already playing, entertaining those who arrived early. John positioned himself on the corner of Bow and Hart Streets, near Broad Court where many coachmen chose to wait with their carriages, where he’d seen David the other night. From this vantage point he could also see the entrance to the theatre.

  Usually, he loved this part of a mission. Waiting, cataloguing the diverse natures of people, anticipating the action to come. But the end of this mission was anticlimactic. All he had to do was head off Bates and Stickney and hand them over to the Bow Street magistrate.

  Sidmouth, at least, would be pleased with the outcome of this mission. He’d have another inciting incident to use as kindling for his political fire. John couldn’t wait to leave the intelligence service and take up the cause on the other side.

  If he could get elected, he would work for reform. He would drown himself in speeches, bills and debates. There would be no time to think about one Lady Claire Talbot.

  A steady stream of carriages began arriving in front of the theatre, disgorging the cream of Society, and John straightened as two rolled to a stop in front of the theatre’s white portico. It couldn’t be. He adjusted his spectacles, but the image didn’t change. Liverpool stepped out of his crested vehicle and extended a hand to his wife. Sidmouth did the same, only the lady on his arm was his daughter, and the foursome walked into the theatre together.

  Watson.

  The man hadn’t delivered John’s message. That had to be the case. It was possible Sidmouth had decided to ignore the message, but doubtful; he feared any violent act would lead the country into full chaos. Why would he take the chance? No, Watson must not have told Sidmouth of the conspirators’ plan to attack tonight.

  John prowled up and down the street, thinking back over the last few days. The raid on the Hampden Club had been another inexplicable incident. What if Watson hadn’t reported John’s attendance at that meeting? That might explain why Sidmouth had ordered the raid.