The Spy's Kiss

by Nita Abrams

  “She did not believe he was studying butterflies, then.”

  “No,” said Rodrigo.

  “Neither do I,” said Meyer grimly.

  “I cannot believe I am doing this,” Serena muttered as she made her way through the darkened house. Dinner had been a nightmare. Every syllable Clermont had uttered—and he had been in a talkative, convivial mood—had set alarm bells ringing. Was that the trace of a French accent? Was it significant that he spoke of Austria, Prussia, and Spain but not of Russia or France? When he asked her, laughing, if he was indeed to be permitted a walk to the greenhouse tomorrow, was that a veiled hint that he knew she was now tempted to confine him to a dungeon? Her aunt was still treating Clermont with exaggerated deference, and Serena wanted to stand up and shake her and scream that her guest was a fraud, an assassin, a thief.

  The quarter-hour in the drawing room waiting for the men to reappear had seemed an eternity. Could her uncle even now be confronting Clermont? Would it end in violence? Were soldiers already on their way from the garrison in Wallingford? When the earl and his guest came in, chatting quite amicably, she was so tense that she sprang up out of her chair, drawing a startled look from her uncle. Fortunately her aunt had recalled, belatedly, that Clermont was still convalescing, and at her insistence the tea tray had been brought in almost at once.

  As soon as the other three had gone off to their bedchambers, Serena went in search of Simon, determined to ask him to repeat every word of the conversation he had overheard. He was nowhere to be found. Nurse Digby had come down to the drawing room earlier to tell the countess that Simon had been feeling poorly and had gone to sleep right after supper. That was a familiar tale, and sure enough, when Serena came up after the nurse had retired for the evening and quietly tested the door of his room, it was locked from the inside. She knocked softly in the pattern which told him she was alone, but there was no answer. Cursing under her breath, she retreated to her own chamber and paced up and down until the household grew quiet and she thought it safe to venture out again. Back to Simon’s room: still locked, still no answer to her coded taps. That was when she had decided to go and confront Clermont.

  At least this time I’m still dressed, she told herself as she went down the back stairs and into the servant’s corridor, which led to the outer room of his suite. I shall say I am looking for Simon—it is not precisely a lie. But when she knocked softly and opened the door, the first person she saw was, in fact, Simon, standing in the doorway between the anteroom and the bedroom. His back was to her, and he was talking in a low voice, very earnestly, to Clermont, who was propped up on one elbow in bed.

  “Simon!”

  He whirled around, startled.

  “You promised,” she reminded him sadly, wishing that she felt outraged instead of relieved.

  “I didn’t tell him,” he said fiercely. “I was just—just—”

  “Didn’t tell me what?” Clermont sat up. With a sudden lurch of her stomach she realized that although she was dressed, he was not. Not even in a nightshirt. The discarded garment was lying off to one side of the bed, and as the quilts slid down she saw the gleam of smooth skin, the line of his collarbone—she looked hastily at the floor. “Yes, forgive me for not getting up,” he said, sounding amused. “It seemed the lesser of two etiquette evils. To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit? Is it a delegation?”

  “No,” said Serena.

  “Yes,” said Simon, at the same moment.

  “I see.” Clermont pulled the covers up higher. “Well, my experience with delegations is that the members often disagree amongst themselves. So, for the moment, I shall accept the viscount’s response. Lord Ogbourne, could I trouble you for my dressing gown? On the chair right behind you.”

  After a minute Serena raised her eyes again. Clermont, swathed in deep red silk, was looking at her quizzically. “Who is the head of the delegation?” he asked.

  “Serena,” said Simon at once.

  “There is no delegation. I was merely looking for Simon,” she said stiffly. “I am very sorry to find that he is disturbing you again.”

  “He wasn’t disturbing me; I was not asleep.” It was true that the lamp by his bed was still burning and a book lay open beside him. She squinted, but she couldn’t see from this distance what it was. “Fabricius on the habitats of tropical moths,” he said helpfully. “From your uncle’s library. No, I was reading, and the viscount came—arrived very conventionally, knocked at the door, etcetera—and told me he had an apology to make.”

  “An apology?” Serena swung round to look at Simon.

  He nodded.

  “He apologized for comparing me unfavorably to the gentlemen we observed attending your uncle this afternoon.”

  “I told him that I was sorry,” confirmed Simon, “and that he was just as much a real butterfly-man as Mr. Meyer.” He emphasized the second half of the sentence strongly, enunciating each word, and giving Clermont a hard stare.

  Oh, Simon, thought Serena, feeling affection well up inside her. I misjudged you. His solution was crude, but he had kept his word, and, unless Clermont was an idiot, the oddly phrased apology should have put him on his guard.

  Perhaps too much on his guard. “And what was it that you promised not to tell me?” he asked Simon.

  He blinked, momentarily panicked. “That—that we know you are French!” he blurted out in a desperate rush.

  Clermont was puzzled. “You didn’t know I was French? Philip didn’t tell your father? In his letter?”

  He looked genuinely taken aback, thought Serena. Perhaps he was not a spy after all.

  “He didn’t,” said Simon. “And you don’t have any accent. And you call yourself CLAIR-mont, not Clehr-MOHN.” His attempt at the French pronunciation of the name was only partially successful.

  “I’ve been living in England since I was six,” Clermont said absently. “I was sent out of France when they started chopping off heads.” He frowned at Simon. “Why does it matter? Why would you not wish to tell me you knew I was French?”

  Now it would all come spilling out, she thought, resigned. But she had reckoned without Simon’s years of experience as a liar. Good liars steer their fictions as quickly as possible back to the terra firma of truth.

  “Because Serena hates Frenchmen,” explained Simon, relaxing.

  She closed her eyes, hoping she had not heard him correctly.

  “You see—”

  “Simon.” She put every ounce of authority she had into that one word.

  He froze, opened his mouth, took one deep breath, and closed it again.

  “Your cousin is not very fond of me in any case,”

  Clermont reassured him, breaking the awkward silence. “I don’t think one more black mark will make much difference.”

  In her most dignified manner, she turned and walked to the door. “Good night, gentlemen,” she said scathingly. Then she slammed it behind her. If it woke her aunt and she caught Simon in Clermont’s room it would serve them both right.

  Clermont winced slightly as the door crashed shut. “Why does your cousin dislike Frenchmen?” he asked.

  Simon shook his head. “I daren’t tell you. Not now.”

  He thought for a moment. “Suppose,” he suggested tentatively, “I wished to have a conversation with someone. Not your mother, but someone else who knew Miss Allen, knew her family. Who might that someone be?”

  “Mrs. Childe,” said Simon promptly. “Or my nurse. Mrs. Childe can be a bit starchy, though. Especially about anything involving what she calls ‘lapses.’”

  Clermont was reminded uncomfortably of his aunt, who would have approved and encouraged the revolting obeisance Mrs. Childe had inflicted on him at the dinner party.

  “Perhaps Nurse is safer,” Simon decided. “And she does love to gossip. But she is likely on her way to my bedchamber now, after that racket Serena just made. I must go.” He headed for the door.

  “Simon?”

  The boy turne
d.

  “Thank you for the—apology.”

  Simon nodded stiffly. “You’re wrong, by the way. Serena is fond of you,” was his parting shot.

  “As the hawk is fond of the rabbit,” muttered Clermont. He picked up Fabricius, extracted the diary he had tucked down inside it, and settled back to consider the very interesting entry he had discovered for March of 1793. After a long list of scientific books, with prices, there was a short note: n. b. funds returned from Lausanne. It would have meant nothing to anyone else. Julien had been searching for it since his first day at Boulton Park.

  12

  A gentleman is well-informed upon a variety of subjects, but eschews pedantry and displays of erudition.

  —Precepts of Mlle. de Condé

  Serena returned from her postbreakfast walk in a foul mood. This excursion was usually the highlight of her day—a chance to be alone, to walk as briskly as she pleased, to think without interruption, to escape the well-meant but irksome restrictions her aunt and uncle placed on her. She knew every path on the grounds and loved them all, even on wet mornings like this one, when her shoes and skirt hem quickly caked over with mud. But today the misty landscape spread out beneath the hill had not even registered. She had stepped mechanically over stiles without seeing them. Her feet had carried her, inexorably, towards the fateful iron gate where Clermont had entered the park—illicitly, she now suspected.

  Someone else evidently suspected the same thing. When she reached the spot on the path where the gate came into view, she saw Meyer, his gig abandoned in the middle of the road, examining the lock with great attention. Hastily she retreated, hoping he had not seen her and furious with Meyer for doing exactly what she had intended to do herself.

  “Nasty, officious, meddler,” she said under her breath as she crested the hill again. The sight of the greenhouse by the garden gate irritated her further. She had been planning to take Clermont there once he was on his feet again. She was much more knowledgeable about plants than about insects; in the greenhouse, she had decided, she could form a clearer picture of Clermont’s scientific credentials. But over the past two days she had become more and more certain he was a fraud. He had revealed himself when he had shown Simon the lens grinder. His rapt expression and unselfconscious delight were unmistakable; she had seen them many times on the faces of the Aurelians who came to venerate the butterflies. In the cabinet-room Clermont had been courteous, interested, well-informed—but not absorbed, as he had been with his machine. He could recite entire catalogues of tropical plant names and it would not change her mind. Whatever he sought at Boulton Park, it was not butterflies.

  Then there was the problem of Simon. Royce had evidently gone off to London first thing this morning with dispatches; her uncle had decided that even the government couriers were insufficient protection for this particular batch of papers. That left her mischief-minded cousin free for the day. He had visited her to announce this fact at half past seven, an hour which normally would not even see him awake, let alone dressed.

  “I’m to spend the morning in the library with Mr. Clermont,” he said, looking so smug that she wanted to throttle him. “So you needn’t miss your visit with Fanny Orset after all. I can help him find anything he needs.” She pictured Clermont and Meyer in the library, circling each other like wolves. Worse, she pictured Simon confronting Meyer and informing him that his investigation was “not sporting.” She had written a hasty note to Fanny putting off their engagement until another day, and ordered the lens grinder moved up to the library in the hope that its noise would make conversation impossible.

  By the time she had changed into dry clothing, Meyer’s gig was standing in the stable yard, and she was not surprised to receive a summons from her uncle: his apologies, but Royce was away; would it be too much trouble to go up to the library and show a new visitor the cabinet-room?

  “What of Mr. Clermont? Where is he at the moment?” she asked the servant who had come to fetch her.

  “Also in the library, miss. As is Master Simon, who evidently has permission to use the optical equipment.” It was Coughlin, who knew Simon well, and he added pregnantly, “Mrs. Fletcher reports that a paring knife went missing from the pantry shortly after Master Simon visited the kitchen.”

  She hurried up the stairs, wondering what she would find when she opened the double doors. Meyer and Clermont hurling butterfly species’ names at ten paces? Simon holding Meyer at knifepoint? Clermont being led off in manacles?

  What she did find was the last thing she expected: four males, ranging in age from eleven to fifty-five, amicably huddled over the lens grinder. Clermont and Simon, with great enthusiasm, were explaining to Bassington and his guest the different possible adjustments and demonstrating the action of the polishing disks.

  “May I?” asked Meyer, indicating the handle.

  “It is Simon’s lens, for a telescope,” Clermont said. “Nearly finished, I believe. What do you say, Simon? Shall we let Mr. Meyer and your father take a quick turn at your lens, or would you prefer to put in a new blank?”

  Torn between courtesy and a natural reluctance to risk his precious handiwork, Simon hesitated. Bassington suddenly recalled his responsibilities as host and cleared his throat. But Meyer spoke first.

  “If it is not too much trouble,” he said timidly, “I would be most interested in seeing the process from the very beginning.”

  Simon brightened, and the other two men looked relieved. Simon’s lens was removed and duly admired; a new blank was inserted and the various brackets adjusted, with eager questions from her uncle and Meyer, who both insisted on taking several turns once the apparatus was ready. Serena retreated unobtrusively to a chair and watched—not the machine, which held little interest for her, but its operators. Meyer, whose performance as the reclusive scholar was so convincing she began to doubt Simon’s report. Her uncle, looking more relaxed and cheerful than she had seen him in weeks. And above all, Clermont and Simon, who seemed like the older and younger halves of a single person. They hovered, watching and correcting, with the same expression of possessive enjoyment when the disks were turning, the same narrowed, intent gaze when some adjustment was required. Two left eyebrows flew up when her uncle asked a question which apparently revealed his ignorance of gear mechanisms. Two simultaneous nods answered another query by Meyer.

  Absorbed in the pantomime (when the grinder was operating she could not hear any of their conversation), she did not realize her aunt had come in until she saw her go up to Bassington and literally shake him.

  “George!” shouted her aunt.

  He was bent over, turning the handle, but now straightened up and looked at her in surprise. He took in her folded arms and compressed lips. “Is something the matter, my dear?”

  She pointed to the lens grinder. “Who put this machine here?”

  Belatedly, Serena realized that the apparatus had been moved from the marble-topped bureau she had designated as its new home earlier that morning and was now resting on a large pier table. A large rosewood pier table, to be more precise, featuring an elaborate marquetry panel depicting the triumph of Neptune. It was a family heirloom; her own mother had spoken of it, envying her sister its possession.

  “This,” said the countess, indicating the table, “is an original Adam design. In rosewood, gilt, ebony, and ivory. It is worth thousands of pounds. It is also of great sentimental value to me, having been given to my mother by the Duke of Somerset on the occasion of her betrothal.”

  “The apparatus has felt on the bottom, Mama,” Simon assured her. “We looked before we moved it.”

  “The apparatus,” she said with exaggerated patience, “grinds glass. Which means that small, sharp pieces of glass are rubbed away from this round thing”—she gestured at the blank, sitting forlornly in its brass clamps—“and are deposited on my table.” Her finger stabbed towards the layer of translucent grit which now covered one side of the surface.

  “I gave Simon permissio
n to move it, my dear,” Bassington confessed. “Four of us could not fit around the bureau where it had been set up by the servants. I’m afraid I did not think about the inevitable consequences of the grinding. Perhaps Mrs. Fletcher can contrive some means of removing the fragments without damaging your table.”

  “I will clean it myself,” said the countess in a thin voice. “I would not put Mrs. Fletcher, or any of my staff, in such a difficult position.”

  All three men were looking sheepish.

  “Ah, Serena!” Her uncle had finally noticed her. He coughed nervously. “I had promised Mr. Meyer a tour of the house. Perhaps now would be a good time?”

  Simon and Clermont were looking as though they, too, would have liked an excuse to escape the library. Serena half expected them to volunteer to accompany her, but Clermont was, quite properly, apologizing to her aunt and offering to move his equipment back to the bureau immediately.

  She found Meyer courteous, attentive, and far more convincing as a scholar than Clermont. He ignored notable treasures of the house, such as the Lely portraits and the astronomical clock, and lingered instead over obscure engravings of rare plants. A small cabinet of fossils fascinated him. He made no attempt to impress her with his knowledge, but asked questions, very humbly, and accepted her replies with gratifying interest. She found herself dreading the inevitable confrontation of the two pseudoscientists.

  It was not long in coming. Towards the end of their circuit through the main rooms, her sixth sense, which sometimes warned her Simon was on the prowl, came to full alert. They were in a small salon behind the main entrance hall, and Meyer was over by the window admiring a set of framed watercolors depicting English butterflies. Sure enough, there was the faint but unmistakable sound of footsteps on the other side of the paneling.