At the base of the stairs he stopped and grazed her chin with the backs of his fingers. “Whatever sent you out after m- me, my dear, d-do hold that thought. I shall r-return shortly.”
Laurel waited until he had retreated into the servants’ domains before she lifted her skirts and raced up the stairs.
At the faint click signaling a turn of the doorknob, Aidan extinguished his candle, dashed into the dressing room, and slipped behind the door. Damn! How maddeningly inconvenient. He’d had time only to scan the first of the sheets of parchment he had discovered in a small, leather-bound portfolio tucked at the bottom of a bureau drawer. His pulse rattled in his impatience to continue his scrutiny.
The page bore the seal of the Duke of Clarence.
The door opened long enough to admit a few high notes of Amanda Beecham’s distinctive voice accompanied by the pianoforte. With another soft click the sounds were shut out of the room. The approach of footsteps across the rug in the outer sitting room prompted him to hold his breath. Holding his ear close to the gap between the door and the lintel, he heard those steps come to an uncertain halt. He tucked the map and the portfolio into his waistband and drew his waistcoat down over it.
A whisper darted through the shadows. “Aidan?”
He rushed out from behind the door and traced a swift path through the darkened rooms to her. His hands closed over her bare arms, her skin warm against his fingers. He was at once happy to have her back with him, away from Fitz, and apprehensive about what had brought her. “Laurel. What are you doing here?”
“He’s coming. A shortage of champagne sent him belowstairs, but soon enough he will be here to change his neckcloth.”
“The raspberry florendine.”
“Yes, you noticed it, too? I thought we were free and clear until his sister pointed it out to him from across the drawing room.”
“Drat Bea for her keen observations.” He drew out the parchment he had been studying. “See here, Laurel, I’ve found something.”
With no light to aid her, she squinted to make out the writing. “But this isn’t a letter. It appears to be . . . why, a map.”
“Indeed.”
Frowning, she shook her head. “We are supposed to find correspondence between the Duke of Clarence and André Rousseau. Victoria never said anything about a map.”
Aidan’s insides went still, his thoughts silenced by the echo of the name Laurel had uttered. She realized her mistake, for her eyes went wide and a hand flew up to cover her lips.
“Victoria who?”
She grabbed his wrist and tugged. “Aidan, he’ll be coming shortly. We must go.”
“Victoria the queen?” He felt as if the shreds of a tapestry had suddenly mended themselves to reveal an astonishing landscape he could never have imagined. “The queen sent you?”
She looked over her shoulder at the door and gave another tug. “Aidan, please.”
Outside, footsteps thudded across the upper landing.
Laurel gasped. “It’s him! We must hide.”
“No time. Come here.” Shoving the map back beneath his waistcoat, he seized her in his arms and crushed his mouth to hers.
A muffled sound of protest vibrated against his lips as she struggled to break free. He held her fast and lifted his lips a fraction. “We’ve no choice. Play along.”
The door opened, throwing a rectangle of candle-light across the floor. Turning Laurel to the right, Aidan glanced up through her hair to see Fitz’s ungainly hulk silhouetted in the doorway.
“Who’s h-here?”
Fitz reached for the candle burning in the sconce beside the door and held it in front of him to illuminate the room. “By God, B-Barensforth, you b-blackguard!”
The candle went out, thrusting them all into darkness, as Fitz pounded into the room. Clamping Aidan’s shoulder, Fitz hauled him away from Laurel. The force of Aidan’s back hitting the wall sent pain radiating through his already injured ribs. In another instant Fitz was on him again. Gripping a lapel, he dragged Aidan forward and at the same time raised a fist.
Aidan ducked the blow, pulling out of Fitz’s grasp and darting around him. Fitz swung around and staggered, then grabbed the back of a chair to catch his balance.
“She b-belongs to me, you s-swine,” he ground out between clenched teeth. “How d-dare you?”
Head down, he released the chair and charged. Again Aidan moved out of the way, then gave Fitz a shove from behind that sent him reeling. “I beg to differ, old boy. The lady’s with me.”
“Stop it, both of you!” Laurel yelled as Fitz struck a side table and stumbled hard to his knees. A lamp teetered, but lurching forward, Aidan caught it before the crystal piece hit the floor and shattered. “Good heavens, grown men behaving like schoolboys. And making such impertinent assumptions, not to mention insulting advances. I have never experienced the like.”
Frozen in place, both Aidan and Fitz gaped at Laurel—Fitz in somewhat inebriated confusion, Aidan in consternation. What had she not understood when he had commanded her to play along?
Her admonition called for a quick change of course and he pretended to see her—truly see her—for the first time. “Mrs. Sanderson? Good heavens, how embarrassing.”
“Indeed, sir. Whom were you expecting?”
He shot his cuffs. “A gentleman doesn’t like to say.”
“Laurel, d-darling,” Fitz said from his semiprone position on the floor, “then you d-did come up here to w-wait for me?”
Her hands snapped to her hips. “It is Mrs. Sanderson, sir, and no, I most certainly did not. Nor did I expect to be manhandled by Lord Barensforth. Had I known these were your private chambers, Lord Munster, I should never have set foot inside.”
“Then . . . wh-what are you doing here, m- madam?” Fitz struggled to his feet, accepting the hand Aidan offered to help him up.
“I had merely sought an empty room in which to”—here she paused, drew herself up, and gave a dignified sniff—“to right an article of clothing that seems to have come loose. And that is all I shall say about the matter. A lady does not discuss the particulars of her wardrobe in mixed company.”
With that, she whirled and swept from the room, leaving Fitz looking thoroughly dejected and Aidan filled with new admiration for a woman with the ability to take on two rogues and trump them both.
As her footsteps receded down the staircase, Fitz murmured, “W-well, old boy, it seems we’ve b-both lost this one.”
An hour later, having left the party in separate carriages, then rendezvousing at his town house, Laurel and Aidan sipped strong tea in the proper environs of his downstairs parlor. Sifting through the documents strewn among their teacups and soda cakes, they made their plans.
From what they had been able to piece together, they learned that before the wars Lord Munster’s and Victoria’s fathers had been part of an intellectual society dedicated to the advancement of the alchemical sciences. The French traitor André Rousseau had been among the group’s members.
“This is not at all what I believed I would find,” Laurel said, lifting one of the letters signed by André Rousseau and holding it to the light beside her. “Can they truly have believed in the transmutation of base metals into gold? Or that immortality could be achievable through an elixir created with this so-called philosopher’s stone?”
“It’s been my experience that the promises of wealth and eternal youth often make the ridiculous seem sublimely plausible.” Aidan gave a waggle of his eyebrows. “Both the dukes of Clarence and Kent lived lifestyles that exceeded their incomes. It isn’t hard to imagine them seeking miracle cures for their financial woes.”
She fell to studying a diagram that outlined the alchemist theory on the connections between wisdom, morality, bodily harmony, and salvation. “It’s rather like a religious doctrine, only without God.” She chose another page. “Rousseau seemed initially skeptical that the basic properties of the stone could be extracted from the minerals in Bath’s thermal
waters.”
Aidan nodded. “Until the Duke of Clarence produced this map. That appears to have finally convinced the others.”
She reached for the parchment he had briefly shown her in Lord Munster’s bedchamber. The rendering of Bath’s Lower Town depicted all the significant landmarks, among them the Pump Room, Bath Abbey, and the Guildhall. But superimposed against the city’s streets, bold black lines stretched from the west end of Pulteney Bridge to the docks south of Avon Street. “What do you suppose these signify?”
“I have my theories.”
“Yes?”
Silence stretched. He took the map from her and laid it aside. Evenly he said, “You work for the queen.”
She sighed. “Yes.”
His eyebrow arcing, he aped Micklebee by rolling his fingers in a gesture that meant he wanted more from her than a one-word reply.
“Oh, all right. I am here at Victoria’s behest to discover whether George Fitzclarence is plotting treason against her, most specifically with Claude Rousseau.”
“And how in God’s name are you connected to the queen?”
“Actually, I have known her nearly her entire life.” Laurel couldn’t help smiling at a quick memory of the toddler Victoria, and at the way Aidan’s features grew taut as he took in her words.
“You see, my father was once an officer under the Duke of Kent in Canada and Gibraltar,” she explained. “My uncle Edward as well. They remained friends afterward, and after their deaths Victoria’s mother and her uncle Leopold were frequent visitors to Thorn Grove, usually the only visitors we saw for months on end. Uncle Edward was a decidedly reclusive gentleman and—”
“Why, Laurel? Why the devil would the queen send you to investigate when she might simply have made her suspicions known to her ministers or the Home Office or the police or, for heaven’s sake, any number of individuals who would have made a great deal more sense than sending you?”
“I beg your pardon. I believe I’ve made a rather first-rate job of things. We have the documents, do we not? And happily enough, they do seem to exonerate Lord Munster of treason, if not of some odd and perhaps illegal behavior.”
His lips thinning, Aidan grabbed a decanter off the table beside him, pulled the stopper, and poured a generous measure of spirits into his tea. He drank and then ran a hand through his hair.
“What was the queen thinking, sending you into a potential powder keg? Does she not realize that she has armies at her command? It so happens I have been investigating Fitz, and I must tell you, your interference might well have compromised my position.” He tugged at his open collar. “In fact, once or twice it did.”
“I’m sorry, but it couldn’t be helped. Victoria wished this matter handled as quietly as possible. The scandals surrounding her grandfather’s and uncles’ reigns have left a bitter taste in many mouths. There are those who would end the monarchy once and for all, and another disgrace to the Hanover name might be just the thing to tip the scales against her. In a way, although her cousin might not have been plotting overt acts of treason, his involvement in fraud and . . . and this”—she pointed to the documents—“could still prove damaging to Victoria’s standing.”
She reached for his hand. “Oh, Aidan, she is so young and so determined to lead this country to the best of her ability. She deserves the chance to do so.”
He brought her fingers to his lips, kissed them, and held them there for a moment. “I agree, even if I heartily protest her methods.”
Silence fell. Laurel drained her tea and resolutely set the cup aside. “Now that you are privy to all of my secrets, isn’t there something you should like to tell me?”
“Not particularly, no.”
“Aidan!”
He shut his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “The Home Office. I work for the Home Office and have ever since I recognized a diamond- mine scam a few years back that would have fleeced a good number of England’s distinguished citizens out of their life’s savings, including some of those you’ve met right here in Bath.”
“Well. I cannot say this comes as a shock. I figured out quite a while ago that you were no ordinary nobleman.”
“And you, madam, are no ordinary lady.” His arm snaking around her, he pulled her to him for a kiss.
She couldn’t help grinning when he broke away. Savoring the lingering heat of his lips on her own, she leaned across him to retrieve the map.
“We need to focus. So far we’ve learned that André Rousseau and the dukes of Clarence and Kent knew one another before the wars, and that together they explored the properties of alchemy as they pertain to the legend of a life-renewing elixir.” She raised her brows and shook her head. “It seems more of a hobby to fill their leisure time than an act of treason, to be sure.”
“That depends on their intentions. Were they merely dabbling for sport? Were they foolish enough to believe in the promise of an ancient alchemist recipe? Or were they planning to separate a number of wealthy individuals from their fortunes, as their sons appear to be doing?”
“A pity Uncle Edward is no longer with us. As a friend to both dukes, he might have been able to shed light on the matter. Now we may never know the truth.”
“Not the truth of decades ago, perhaps, but I won’t rest until I discover what Fitz and Claude Rousseau are cooking up together.”
“What do you intend to do?”
“At his demonstration, Rousseau claimed his laboratory is hidden deep beneath the city. At the time I took the assertion as mere dramatic folderol to entertain his audience, but . . .” He took the map from between her fingers. “If these lines represent a tunnel system beneath the Lower Town, they might lead me to the answers I’ve been seeking.”
“Good. When shall we go?”
“Oh, no, my dear. I am returning you to Abbey Green posthaste.”
“But—”
“But nothing. I want you out of harm’s way. That is an order.”
Laurel paused to gather her courage and a convincing veneer of bravado. She had promised Victoria to investigate George Fitzclarence’s actions, and she would not be left behind at such a critical juncture in her mission. She possessed a pistol, and as she had discovered that night by the bridge, she had no qualms about firing the weapon when necessary. “You say you work for the Home Office?” she asked lightly.
“Yes.”
“Then you cannot issue orders to me.”
Scowling, he pressed his face close to hers until it was all she could do not to flinch away. “You think not?”
“Oh, I know not. My orders come straight from the queen, and the queen’s authority supersedes that of the Home Office. You, sir, are now working for me.” She gave his cheek a little tap, then held her hand there, enjoying the scrape of his evening whiskers against her palm. “We either do this my way or you shall find yourself in a great deal of hot water. Scalding, in fact.”
His mouth opened and then closed. In his indignation he glowered, until the greater portion of her bluster began to falter and she fully doubted he would let her have her way. Without visibly moving, he became taller, broader, a virtual wall of defiance. He would flat-out refuse and there would be nothing she could do about it.
The release of an audible breath robbed the steel from his posture. “Damn.”
She smiled. A mistake.
“You impossible minx.” Catching her hand and sliding it to his lips, he traced a heated trail from the base of her forefinger to the pulse in her wrist.
Then he pulled her closer and dipped his head. The hungry suckle of his mouth on her neck evoked instant ripples of desire, and the respectability of sipping tea in a downstairs parlor spiraled into oblivion. She could not resist the strength of his arms as he turned her and tilted her face up. His exploration of her flesh continued as his lips traveled over the expanse of bosom bared by the low cut of her evening gown. He reduced her to shivers when his tongue delved between her breasts.
His head came up a fraction and,
as he spoke, the motion of his lips tickled her skin. “A trickster does not relish being tricked, my dear. If I cannot command you, I will nonetheless ask you to listen to reason and remain somewhere safe while I follow the map.”
“No, Aidan.” Her breath came in gasps while her heart threatened to burst through her stays. He seemed well aware of his effect on her, adding the caress of his fingertips along her calf for good measure. “Victoria . . . sent me to do a job,” she insisted, “and I must see it through. She is counting on me.”
“And you may count on me.”
His wondrous touch tempted her to give in, to yield her royal obligations to him. Only the knowledge that together they had learned more than either would have managed alone kept her resolute. “You know I am right. You need me—you have all along. If not for me, you would never have discovered the map. I am coming with you, and there is an end to it.”
His lips returned to her bosom. Through her dress and chemise, his teeth closed over her nipple, the sharp pleasure of it prompting her to cry out in helpless delight. It was his turn to smile. “That, madam, is a promise for later, when I am no longer bound by the queen’s authority.”
Chapter 23
The mud of the riverbank sharp in Aidan’s nostrils, he proceeded alone across Bridge Street to the top of the steps that led down to the boat slips. Because of the map he had discovered, he now suspected that Fitz and Rousseau hadn’t boarded a boat and traveled downriver the night of the Guildhall concert.
Back at the entrance to the Grand Parade, Laurel waited with Phelps in the cabriolet. Aidan had left his manservant with a pistol and strict orders to shoot should a pair of ruffians holding clubs or any other weapons leap out of the shadows.
A fine mist drifted off the river, but for the most part the air remained clear and sharp and provided nowhere for a footpad to hide. Besides, Aidan suspected the henchmen were hired only on nights when Fitz and Rousseau intended venturing down to their subterranean lair. He doubted they would do so tonight. When he and Laurel left the fete, Fitz had already been too inebriated to go anywhere.
Most Eagerly Yours: Her Majesty's Secret Servants Page 28