I shook my head. “I don’t know how you saw anything. I hardly remember, it’s all such a blur. Tell me,” I said, venturing a small grin. “What did I do that was so surprising?”
“You smiled.”
Twenty-Two
We parted at Southampton. Sebastian had work in London, Perdita told him firmly, and she was taking me straight to Father’s for a long-overdue chat. Through Perdita’s efforts, the story had been squashed in the international newspapers, and the only thing the London papers reported was the sad death abroad of a war hero. There was a lovely obituary for the colonel, and Perdita sent a handsome wreath to his memorial service. Cubby was listed as chief mourner, and I heard later he was the heir to his uncle’s modest fortune as well as Peeky. And as I read the obituary, my eyes lingered on Cubby’s name and I thought back to our conversation that fateful day at lunch. He had introduced us, giving me the opening I needed to follow Sebastian to Damascus. I had assumed it was Hugh who managed the affair, but I asked Perdita if the colonel could have arranged it and she thought it likely.
“We suspect he may have been tracking Sebastian and waiting for him to make a move to find Gabriel. Although, what the old fellow would want with Gabriel, I can’t imagine. He might have had his own contacts in French or Syrian intelligence working counter to our interests,” she finished with a shrug. She did not pursue the matter, and I wondered how much she suspected. The explanation of competing intelligence agencies running afoul of one another was too easy. She ought to have dug deeper, but perhaps she knew if she did, she would uncover things about her beloved Lost Boys she’d rather not know. She had collected them, misfits and renegades, and shaped them into a family. Turning a blind eye to their unsanctioned exploits might be the only way to avoid catching herself between opposing loyalties.
She went on, knitting up the loose ends as neatly as if she were making a jumper. “The donkey cart was Faruq’s doing at Armand’s behest. The idea was to make you nervous of the city so you would be likelier to put your trust in either Armand or Hugh. They were prepared for the wind to blow either direction,” she added. “Not a bad plan, all things considered. But they reckoned without your eccentric sense of duty to find out what happened to Sebastian Fox.”
I said nothing. Even after all that had happened, I could not explain what had compelled me to travel halfway around the world in the hope of saving a man I had only met once.
A sudden thought struck me. “How were you able to hush it all up? There hasn’t been a breath of it in the newspapers, and none of the French authorities in the Lebanon seemed bothered in the slightest by what we were up to. It’s almost as if we weren’t there at all.”
“Officially we weren’t,” she said with a cool look.
“But how? Does the Vespiary have an understanding with the French government?”
“With the government? No. But the government is made up of individuals, you know. And I have made a friend or two along the way.”
I stared at her, comprehension dawning. “A friend. You mean a man!”
“Poppy, you may be adept at winkling out other people’s secrets, but I think I’ll keep my own, if you don’t mind.”
She said nothing more about the subject, but my imagination filled in the gaps. It was delicious to think about the possibilities. Was he her opposite number in French intelligence? An army general? Ambassador? Junior minister? He must be highly placed if he could do her such favours. And he must be very fond of her to bother.
But Perdita was as good as her word, and she refused to speak another word on the subject. She left me at the village of Abbots Burton. “Aren’t you coming?” I asked as I alighted at the station.
“Alas, no,” she said with a bright smile. “Work. I’ve spent too much time away from my desk as it is.”
“Coward,” I said, returning the smile.
She smoothed her skirt. “Well, I don’t relish the idea of explaining to Uncle Plum precisely what you’ve been up to. I think you’ll find it best if it’s just the pair of you.” She paused and put out her hand. “I hope to see you next week in London, Poppy.”
She had offered me a post with the agency, and training was due to start in just a few days. A handful of days to make my choice.
I shook her hand slowly. “I don’t know, Perdita.”
“Yes, you do,” she said with that familiar mocking look.
I walked slowly to Father’s cottage, letting myself through the wicket gate as I approached. “So you’re back,” George said sourly when he let me in. “He’s in the studio. I suppose you’ll want to spend the night.”
I told him I would and went to find Father. He was perched on a stool, putting the finishing touches to a portrait. He turned when I entered, lifting his brows in a rueful smile.
“Ah, the prodigal returns.”
“Hardly prodigal when your own father is responsible for your running away,” I returned evenly.
“Hoist with my own petard,” he answered, turning back to the portrait. I stood beside him. The subject was beautiful, that much was apparent from the structure of her bones. But something was off in the face, some vitality that seemed lacking.
“All these years and I’ve never managed to capture her,” he mused. He dipped his head towards the stack of canvases against the wall. They were all the same subject, a dark-haired woman, and it was easy to see he had painted her through the years. The hair had silvered and the cheeks had wrinkled, but the bones were always the same.
“It’s Aunt Violante, isn’t it? Uncle Lysander’s widow. I read about her in Aunt Julia’s memoirs. You’re in love with her.”
He did not deny it. “She is the reason I was never able to make a go of things with your mother. Poor Araminta. She knew I was in love with another woman when we married. She thought I’d grow out of it. She gambled poorly.”
I smoothed my jacket. “Well, congratulations. You’ve actually made me pity Mother. I never thought that would happen.”
He put down his brush and fixed me with a bright gaze. “Poppy, your mother knew precisely what she was getting herself into. I never made a secret of my love for Violante. Araminta thought she could change me. She was wrong. Let that be a lesson to you.”
“What? Don’t try to change a man?”
“Leopards and spots, child,” he said sagely. “We all have them, and they’re indelible. And I’m not just talking about a man. I mean you. It’s time for you to take hold of who you are with both hands and stop pretending to be something you aren’t.”
“I walked out on my wedding to Gerald,” I reminded him.
“Because I offered you the means,” he countered. “I provided you with people to help you get away. But walking away from something is only living your life as a repudiation. How will you live it as an affirmation?”
I blinked at him. “Have you been studying psychology?”
He shrugged. “One must keep up with the times. I mean it, Poppy. To walk away from something is only half the picture. What are you walking towards?” I said nothing and he gave me a pitying look. “You still don’t believe in yourself quite enough, do you?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know myself,” I said slowly. “I’ve sort of stumbled into this opportunity, and I want to take it. I want to train and learn and go back into the field. I think I’m suited to it. I just wish I knew.”
His smile was proud and devilish. “You have everything required to make a success of it, Poppy. Why else do you think I chose you?”
I blinked. “Chose me?”
The smile deepened. “You still haven’t put all the pieces together, have you? I told you I had reports of you growing up. You thought I meant only your schoolmistresses and dancing masters, but there were others. People who knew what I was looking for in you. And they found it. It takes a unique combination of character
istics to do this work, child. I’d never have considered you for the job if you hadn’t shown them—and in spades. Every time you broke the mould and did something audacious, every time you thwarted expectations, I knew you had it in you. It was my job at the Vespiary to assess potential in the young ones, and I got quite good at it,” he said with an air of satisfaction. “But you’re the only one I ever had to assess at a distance, from second-hand information and my own instincts. But you are one of us, Poppy. I know it in my bones and in my blood, and I am not wrong. I chose you because we will ask much of you, but you have everything you need to answer that call.” He paused, and when he spoke again, his voice was softer. “I’ve read the reports from Perdita and young Fox. You have quite a promising future at the Vespiary if you want it.”
I brushed away the sudden tears and squared my shoulders. “I do.”
“And what about Fox?” he asked shrewdly.
“Oh, I expect I’ll marry him,” I told him. “But not now. Perdita and I have work to do first.”
* * *
Perdita, with a stroke of inspiration, paired me with another of the Lost Boys to complete my training. Affectionately called Nibs by the other Boys, he had known Sebastian, and he understood—perhaps more than anyone else would have—what it was like to be in the field with him.
“Did you happen to see his knife work?” he asked me the first day.
“There might have been an occasion,” I said, thinking of the bits of Armand scattered on the hilltop ridge.
He shook his head admiringly. “Finest skill with a blade I’ve ever seen. Of course, he only uses it as a last resort. Gets far more enjoyment out of running about in bits of disguise. Rather like me.” A sudden grin lit his slim, handsome face. “You don’t recognise Selim the beggar from outside the restaurant in Damascus, do you?”
I thought of the grimy beggar with the outstretched hand and pleading eyes. “But—but you’ve got both legs! I distinctly remember stepping over your stump to get into the restaurant.”
The grin deepened. “A particularly effective trick, don’t you think? Hell on the knees, of course, but worth it. I made rather a packet doing that and learned quite a lot to boot.”
“But what were you doing there? I thought all the Lost Boys were scattered after the war.”
He gave a nod to Perdita’s closed door. “I’m the only one of the Lost Boys who stayed in the field in Damascus after the war. I was supposed to be looking for Gabriel,” he finished coolly.
“And not trying terribly hard to find him, I’ll wager,” I said. “I won’t ask if you ever found him. I suspect you wouldn’t have told anyone if you had.”
The grin was back. “Smart girl. Now, time to practise your unarmed combat. Come at me and I’ll flip you.”
* * *
For the first time in my life, I worked hard, day and night, and within five months—not the six she had anticipated—Perdita had deemed me ready. In spite of the fact that Perdita was in command of the Vespiary, she liked to preserve the fiction that she merely carried out her brother Tarquin’s orders. She claimed it was because she could keep an ear closer to the ground with regard to what the operatives were thinking, but I suspected it was because she enjoyed getting her hands dirty.
The day I went to see her she was in Tarquin’s office, and I was told to wait a few minutes. I picked up a newspaper to pass the time, skimming the society columns with interest. One item in particular caught my attention: Gerald Madderley, heir to Viscount Madderley, announced his engagement to a certain South American nitrate heiress. I smiled to myself remembering what Cubby said about her squint. Good for Gerald—I only hoped the girl had low sex-tides to go with her pots of money.
I turned the page to glance over the world news. It was at the bottom—a small piece with no details, just the barest facts: a grisly discovery had been made in the Syrian desert near Palmyra. It was the remains of a party of English archaeologists that had gone missing between Damascus and Baghdad in an arid stretch of the Badiyat ash-Sham. Curiously, only two bodies had been found, both of them male. Of the lady who had been travelling with them, there was no trace, and it was apparent that the bodies had lain in the desert for some time. As it had been so many months, no attempts were being made to find the lady and she was presumed dead, as well.
I put the newspaper aside, thinking of the cool beauty with the raven hair who had prepared our dinner on the plateau in the shadow of Mount Lebanon. Had she seized the opportunity to do away with her travelling companions? Or had they been victims of tribal warfare? Desert brigands? The possibilities were endless, but so was the desert, and it occurred to me that the Badiyat ash-Sham was a very good place to make a new beginning.
I was still thinking of Rosamund Johnson when a buzzer sounded indicating Perdita was ready for me. I let myself in and closed the door behind me. She was standing at the desk with a companion—a raven, an enormous bird with feathers so black they had a blue sheen to them in the light, precisely the same colour as Rosamund Johnson’s hair, I thought idly. Perdita smiled without looking up as I entered.
“Handsome fellow, isn’t he?”
The bird quirked its head in my direction and gave me a long sideways stare. Its eye looked like a polished jet bead, cool and impervious.
“Very,” I said. He might have been unnerving at close range, but he was still a beautiful creature.
“Our Aunt Julia had one, as you will remember from reading her memoirs,” she said, holding a bit of meat between her fingertips, just out of range of the bird. “Grim was an actual Tower raven. I’m afraid this lad’s provenance is much less impressive. Still, he’s clever.”
She dropped the meat into a small box and snapped it closed. She tapped the box once and the raven bobbed his head. “That’s for me,” he said in a peculiar little voice.
“Yes, it is. Go to it,” she commanded. The bird eyed the box greedily and applied himself. Within a moment, he had it open and was tearing into the meat. I looked away as Perdita wiped her hands.
“Much faster this time. They really do learn. Fascinating, isn’t it?”
“Is he a pet?” I asked.
“No. A wager, actually. Tarquin thinks they can’t be trained to do fieldwork, but I think they can.”
“Fieldwork? A bird?”
She shrugged. “They’re teachable and intelligent, more so than most creatures. I have no doubt I can put him to good use.”
The raven was still enjoying his titbit when Perdita handed me a piece of paper. “Your first assignment. You’ll be in the field but not entirely on your own. It’s a bit of information gathering, nothing too taxing. And I’ve arranged for you to partner with an experienced agent to keep an eye on you.” She paused, a ghost of a smile touching her lips. “Just a precaution. You’ve done well, Poppy. And I think you’ll be an asset to the Vespiary.”
She handed me a sealed envelope with my orders inside. I did not open it, and when I hesitated, she looked up. “Yes?”
“Would you have given me this chance if it weren’t for who Father is?”
“No,” she said simply. “But that doesn’t mean you don’t deserve it. From its inception the Vespiary has been unique. Every member has been known to one of the seniors and recruited based upon a sound knowledge of the recruit’s character and abilities. It’s how we’ve managed a rather impressive rate of success when other offices have failed,” she finished with a note of satisfaction. “No one knows you better than your family, your friends. So long as sentimentalism doesn’t blind you to a person’s faults, that familiarity makes you the best possible judge of where to put your loyalty.”
“You’re sentimental about the Lost Boys,” I said quietly.
She considered this. “I suppose,” she answered slowly. “The Vespiary has been everything to me, Poppy. When it came time for Uncle Brisbane a
nd your father to pass over control, I was chosen, even above my brother Tarquin, because I had the passion to make it my whole life. I never wanted a husband or children. I wanted the Vespiary. It has been everything to me, spouse, partner, child, and I have given it the best of me. I will give it the best of me until I have nothing left to give. And that’s why I deserved it. I’ve built it into an elite group, and I am proud of the work we have done. But don’t mistake my affection for the Lost Boys as weakness. I turn a blind eye sometimes because it suits the interests of the Vespiary not to go deeper.” Her gaze held mine with a cool detachment, and I suspected then that she knew everything about the gold, about the tangle of relationships between the Lost Boys, every secret they had tried to keep from her. She was Mother, folding up the shadows and smoothing away the things that could trouble them while they slept off the fatigues of their adventures.
I wondered for a moment if she would appreciate the comparison, but as I turned to leave, I noticed the bookshelf behind her desk. In pride of place, next to her copies of our Aunt Julia’s memoirs was a well-worn edition of Peter Pan and Wendy. She saw my eyes resting on the book and gave me a bittersweet smile.
“Someone has to stay home and keep things tidy,” she said simply.
* * *
I left Tarquin’s office, clutching my orders in my hand. Outside, a clergyman was waiting. He rose when I approached, lifting his hat. His hair was tousled but his chin was clean-shaven since the last time I had seen him.
“I prefer the beard,” I told him.
There was a tiny smile, almost against his will, it seemed. He flicked a glance to my orders.
“Have you opened them?”
“Not yet.”
“Egypt,” he said succinctly. “Mine, as well.”
“So you’re my senior?”
He gave a small shrug. “Perdita thought it advisable. We have already shown we work well together, and I hear you’ve learned a thing or two from Nibs.”
His tone was emotionless when he mentioned his friend. “He’s a surviving Lost Boy. Do you think he knows where the...” I hesitated and glanced around even though we were alone in the office. “Where the you-know-what is?”
Night of a Thousand Stars Page 32