The Devilish Montague

by Patricia Rice

  Holding his fretting wife steady, Blake met her glare. “He is not a little boy you must cosset. He is capable of learning to respect other people’s privacy and not think only of himself.”

  “He thinks only of his birds,” she corrected. “He is the very opposite of Harold. And for that, he must be shielded.”

  “Until I teach him to fight back. Take my word for it, cosseting does not help. Stay here. I’ll see what he wants.”

  She nodded reluctantly.

  If what she said about Harold was true, it was a miracle the boy was still alive—a miracle and the intelligence of a good woman. She did not give herself enough credit.

  Garbed in only shirt and trousers, Blake strode into the corridor to find Richard pacing up and down, rubbing his arms as if to keep from flying off like one of his birds. “This had better be worth it,” he warned.

  Richard nodded and hurried for the stairs. “I have found the pattern.”

  Blake had already learned that with Richard that could mean anything from a swan’s mating dance to an arrangement of duck feathers that allowed fowl to swim. He could not hope the boy had learned to read code.

  But he could hope that encouraging Richard’s talents would someday give the lad a future as something more than Harold’s heir. The devil only knew that it was difficult enough in this world to find outlets for nonconforming brains!

  He followed Richard into the conservatory, where Percy swung on a perch in his newly repaired birdcage. Richard had been as meticulous in restoring the cage to its original grandeur as Blake’s mother had been in refurbishing Carrington House.

  “Where, Africa!” Richard called to the mangier creature nibbling at a stick dangling from the cage bars.

  Head tilted, the female Grey eyed him skeptically through beady black eyes. “Where, Percy!” she called back.

  Or perhaps they said ’Ware! Blake doubted either bird knew what the words meant. They simply repeated what they heard.

  Percy squawked, “Here,” and began pecking at his perch as if he were a woodpecker and the perch was a tree.

  “B,” Richard added to the bird-witted conversation.

  “Huit,” Africa called happily, before returning to stick nibbling.

  “They do that every time,” Richard said in satisfaction. “I say a letter, and they say a number. The same number and letter each time after I say where.”

  Blake rubbed his hair and tried not to roll his eyes. Huit? French for eight. He’d already suspected that the parrots had learned the language from Antoinette. But why in this order? When Blake had first noticed the pattern, Richard had said A, and Africa had said neuf. Nine.

  The birds were speaking in code.

  Earlier, he’d suspected Ogilvie of having a grudge over the bird, or even over Jocelyn, but now that he knew Harold was also in the habit of causing murderous incidents, a more serious pattern was developing.

  Had Harold conspired with Ogilvie, thinking he’d be able to steal Percy if Blake was incapacitated? Why would Harold suddenly want to reclaim the noisy parrot?

  For money, as Jocelyn had predicted. Quent’s note had said a reward had been offered for the birds. What was so important about them that they were worth a reward?

  Blake examined the cage Richard had restored. The perch on which Percy pecked was thicker than the others. Where. Here! And then the bird pecked his perch. Blake studied what appeared to be an ivory cylinder instead of a wooden stick. “Richard, can that big perch come off?”

  “It all comes apart to be cleaned.” Richard stuck his hand in and moved Percy to another roost, pulled fastenings on either side of the ivory stick, then detached it. “See?”

  “May I see it?”

  Not believing that the obvious had been right before his eyes all this time, Blake examined the notched rod. Definitely ivory. As he studied the fastenings that held the stick to the chains, his gut lurched. “Where did you find this?”

  Richard shrugged uneasily. “It’s pretty. Percy liked it.”

  “That’s not what I asked. You won’t get into trouble. Just tell me where you found it.”

  Richard hung his head and shuffled his foot. “I stole it,” he whispered.

  “From whom?” Blake examined the numbered notches and carried the cylinder out of the conservatory, checking to be certain that Richard followed.

  “From Tony. She would not let me see the wheels.”

  “What wheels?” Blake asked, coming to full alert.

  “The ones like you make. She let her friends use them, but not me. They took Percy’s perch when he was sleeping! So I stole it back.”

  Blake thought his heart might stop ticking. He tried to act casual as they reached the study. “So you’ve had this for how long?”

  “Before they sent us to Kate’s,” he said defiantly, still not meeting Blake’s eyes.

  “Six years? You stole this six years ago? While you still lived here?”

  “Percy liked the perch, and Tony wanted to keep it. It wasn’t right!”

  The perch—the spindle—was essential to the code wheel only for holding the pieces together and allowing them to turn. It was replaceable. But the loss of an important component of spy equipment would have terrified anyone guilty of treason—terrified them into banishing any young witnesses whose curiosity could lead to trouble.

  Blake sat down at his desk and located the wheels he’d carved. Neuf. Nine. A. Antoinette’s code key was unlikely to be the same key used on a battlefield, but if it was being used right here in London . . . Eight. B. If the numbers were the key . . . There were only nine of them on Jefferson’s wheel. If he worked his way through alphanumeric combinations of nine, he could see if any worked with the coded message he wanted to decipher.

  His hands almost shook as he attempted to insert his version of the wheels over the ivory spindle. They didn’t quite fit. It didn’t matter. Jefferson’s spindle was metal. Blake’s was wood because he couldn’t work metal. Ivory was just gilding the lily. “After you stole the stick, Harold sent you to Kate’s?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Richard said sullenly. “Antoinette yelled and Harold hit her and she hit him back. And then we all went away.”

  Antoinette had yelled. Antoinette wanted the birds back. Her brother had offered a reward.

  Harold’s wife had been hiding a spindle from a code wheel in a birdcage. A spindle she removed from the cage—when she or others needed it. A spindle she needed to stack the wheels on to encrypt messages—using a designated pattern that started with a number matching a letter.

  If any of his suspicions were true, it would look very bad for Jocelyn and her family. The government destroyed traitors, and in consequence, their families, removing their titles, their lands, anything they possessed. He should burn the spindle and sell the birds.

  He could not. He held evidence of Carrington treason in his hands, and also, possibly, the key to the French code that could save Wellesley’s troops. He wondered how spies without birds would communicate the key to the code.

  “Who knows you have this stick?” he asked, looking up to watch Richard pacing before the empty grate.

  Richard shrugged. “Mama. Josie. A man.”

  Blake swallowed bile. He firmly rejected the notion that either Lady Carrington or Jocelyn was involved in treason, if treason this was. To them, a stick was a stick. Harold and Antoinette were the ones who had fought over losing the ivory. “A man?”

  “He asked if he could buy Percy. I told him no. He tried to take Percy’s perch away while I was fixing the cage.” Richard finally looked up, frowning at the memory.

  “When was this?” Blake tried not to cause alarm. Richard panicked easily.

  “When I moved here. Before you did. He helped me hold a wire on the cage, but I didn’t like him. He smelled funny.”

  “Was he short and fat?” Bernie didn’t smell funny unless he was drunk. And Richard would recognize Harold or the knife-wielding thief.

  “No, he was big l
ike you.”

  The prior intruder had not been large, but Blake asked anyway, “The man you hit before?”

  Richard shook his head. “No, but he talked like Antoinette. Funny.”

  French. Another damned Frenchman had been in his house. Looking at Richard’s birds. And the cage. And the spindle—damning evidence of a code wheel to anyone who knew about them. As Blake did. As he’d stupidly made apparent to any who had listened—not realizing the French could actually have spies in England already.

  A French thief had broken the glass and attempted to steal the cage. It couldn’t be a coincidence. French spies might fear Blake would put two and two together.

  Blake gazed at the slender piece of ivory, glanced toward the ceiling where Jocelyn waited, and decided he might hold both their fates in his hands. If he solved the code, he might earn the commission with Wellesley. If he reported Antoinette’s treason, Jocelyn’s reputation and that of her family would be ruined.

  A pall of desperation descended as he spoke. “I’d like to borrow Percy’s perch, if you don’t mind, Richard. I’ll give it back as soon as I’m done. Will you tell Jocelyn I’ll be upstairs in a little while?”

  Richard nodded. “I’ll tell Percy, too.”

  Blake nodded absently, already working out a chart in his head. Puzzles were easier than dealing with the rampaging screams for justice in his head.

  He could only pray the trap he had planned for tomorrow would catch French spies and not Jocelyn’s relations.

  32

  Jocelyn fell asleep waiting for her husband to return to bed.

  Blake still wasn’t there when she woke at dawn.

  Had the newness of their marriage bed worn off already? Not for her, it hadn’t! She had learned to love waking in Blake’s arms, feeling his arousal pressed against her, knowing he desired her. Wanted her, flighty little Ladybyrd. He actually listened to her and made her feel special. And best of all, he heeded what she wanted! In bed, at least. She’d thought that might be important.

  She kicked off the covers, and rather than wait to call on her mother or a maid to help her dress, she found her robe and wandered out in search of her errant spouse.

  With any other man, she might descend into despair and fear that he had tired of her refusals and sought other outlets for his lust, but she knew Blake a little too well. He would never give up a challenge.

  She found him asleep at the study desk, his dark hair resting on his arms and scribbled papers scattered across the surface. Wood shavings dotted the desk, certain to leave ugly marks on his jaw. He’d let his hair grow overlong again, and she stroked the blue-black strands.

  Blake stirred. Her emotions spun in a whirlwind she didn’t understand and wasn’t prepared to accept. Even in beard stubble and shirtsleeves, he was an immensely attractive man. She didn’t know what she would do without him if he must go to war.

  “Coffee?” she asked as he rubbed his eyes.

  “I’ll get it,” he muttered, his eyes widening as he discovered her dishabille. “What the devil are you doing down here dressed like that?”

  She smacked him over the head with one of his papers. “I could ask the same. I’ll have the coffee sent upstairs so you may dress properly.”

  She whirled around and marched out to summon a maid, leaving the exasperating man to his work.

  The exasperating man arrived in their bedchamber right behind the coffee tray, slamming the door shut after the departing maid and sweeping Jocelyn into his arms. Before she could utter a squeak, Blake kissed her so thoroughly she thought she might swoon from lack of air.

  “What was that for?” she asked when they were both forced to breathe.

  “For not hitting me with something harder than paper.” He set her back down and grabbed the coffee, swallowing it black and boiling.

  She knew him well enough now to recognize he was seething with some suppressed passion. Really, her husband might appear calm, but beneath that composure Blake Montague was a steaming cauldron that could scald on the slightest provocation.

  “What did you find?” she asked, consumed with curiosity about what he’d been doing with his papers and books that so fascinated him.

  He set the nearly empty cup down, raked his hands through his hair, and practically glowed with energy and excitement. “I have broken the code.”

  Jocelyn dropped to a chair in astonishment. “You’ve found the answer? How?”

  He shook his head and looked as if he regretted having said anything. “Every code has a pattern. I found this one.”

  She sensed he was holding back, screening his words, but codes were military matters she did not understand, and he possibly thought she should not know. She would not press him. She was simply delighted that he was sharing his excitement.

  “I must write Wellesley,” he continued. “And persuade the War Office to see me.”

  That jerked her back to reality. “You cannot go into London today!” she said in alarm. “The masquerade is tonight. There is far too much to do. Send a note asking for a meeting. You can speak to a few of our guests this evening and ensure that whoever needs to hear your news will grant you an audience.”

  Beneath his mop of hair, Blake developed that mulish expression she recognized too well. She stood and poked him in his linen-covered chest. “Respect my knowledge of social codes, please. You cannot barge about London, demanding that important people see you. It is not done. Society is not a battlefield.”

  She stopped and thought about that, then shrugged. “Well, maybe it is, but not one in which traditional warfare wins out.”

  When he would have shrugged off her warning, she threw her arms around his neck and pressed against him, smiling as he developed that dazed look she loved so well. “I don’t want you to go to war and die when you could save more lives by working here. If we are ever to have babies, you must trust my expertise in this matter.”

  Blake pressed her tight against him and watched her through smoky eyes. “Are we to have babies?”

  “Oh, yes, I fear so, no matter how hard we may try to delay them.”

  She amazed herself by saying that. He amazed her even more by not arguing.

  A grin tugged at the corners of his weary mouth. “I like it when you’re being perfectly clear.”

  The heat of his kiss seared her straight to her toes, and Jocelyn vowed to be honest forevermore if this was the result.

  “I thought we were wearing sackcloth and ashes,” Blake said in puzzlement, watching his bedazzling wife descend the stairs that evening to greet the guests they’d invited to dinner before the masquerade. He was wearing a monk’s cowled robe over his shirt and breeches. Given what he was about to do to his wife and her family, he probably ought to be wearing a hair shirt.

  Jocelyn was wearing a Renaissance costume so spectacular he could scarcely tear his gaze from the plump mounds of her breasts, which he feared would pop from the corset. She wore her hair in a glorious mane of silver curls supported on a diamond tiara that resembled no sixteenth-century portrait he could recall. She glistened.

  That might be because Jocelyn was wearing a fortune’s worth of diamonds—in her hair, around her throat, dangling between her ripe breasts, on her wrists and fingers. He wagered she even wore them on her toes. This hadn’t been part of his plans.

  “Ice queen!” Fitz, the Earl of Danecroft, crowed. “Ice blue velvet, glittering ice, snowy froths of lace. . . .”

  “You are far too familiar with ladies’ costumes,” Abigail, the Countess of Danecroft, noted. She wore a Queen of Hearts attire to match her husband’s Knave.

  “I chose yours, didn’t I?” Fitz inquired cheerfully, gazing with affection at his red-haired wife. “Does it not suit?”

  “Belden’s diamonds,” Quentin asserted, when Jocelyn bobbed a haughty curtsy before them, acting out her ice queen role by not deigning to reply. “I knew the late marquess possessed buckets of them, but I had not realized the extent of the largesse. I sense a plot be
hind the choice.” He had not bothered with more than a black domino, the mask and cape of which currently adorned a chair so that he stood in his black evening attire.

  “You had some doubt, milord?” Jocelyn inquired coolly. “Perhaps you thought ladies do not have the wits to plot?”

  Nick Atherton, dressed as a dandy from a prior century in red heels, clocked stockings, and acres of lace and velvet, leaned against a doorjamb and admired Jocelyn’s costume. “A man would have to be mindless to miss the fact that the ladies run the world. I bow to your greater grandeur, my queen.” He made a leg and bowed so low his powdered wig threatened to fall off.

  Feeling decidedly out of place in his homespun monk’s robe, Blake grabbed the back of his friend’s velvet coat and jerked him upright. “No peeking under skirts.”

  Nick placed his hand over his heart and adopted a humble pose. “Would I do such a thing? Really, I only sought to see if there were diamonds on your lovely wife’s toes.”

  Since that was precisely the question he’d pondered, Blake considered punching his best friend in the snout but let it go when Jocelyn snickered.

  “I’m hoping she’s wearing a knife strapped to her ankle to fight off the hordes,” Blake grumbled. “Jocelyn, don’t you believe I have enough to worry about tonight without also having to beat off jewel thieves?”

  Lady Belden swept down the staircase, garbed in a revealing black velvet gown, rubies, and a black cloak lined in garnet red. She wore her black hair stacked high and wrapped in more red jewels that framed her white powdered face and kohl-lined eyes. “We are not in the city. Jewel thieves are the least of your concerns,” she declared in a low, throaty voice.

  Blake noticed Lord Quentin came to attention at the sensual purr, but the Scotsman refrained from joining the banter, merely bowing over the lady’s hand without comment.

  “If you’re dressed like that simply to provoke lying gossips, then the rest of us should be wearing weapons to prevent warfare,” Blake said, convinced he should have found a musketeer’s costume so he might wear a sword.