The Spy's Kiss

by Nita Abrams

  Robbins was her aunt’s dresser. She had impeccable taste—had helped select Serena’s gown, in fact. Serena peered into the cheval glass, which had been set up in the middle of the room for her fitting. It was true, her hairstyle was old-fashioned, pulled straight back off her face. Everyone else these days had little curls dangling. Even her aunt. Even Mrs. Childe. She wondered how she would look with just a few tendrils loose.

  “We’ll go out earlier, then,” she said. “Somewhere high, where we can see the city, since it will still be light.”

  His face lit; he jumped up. “You will? Serena, you are a trump!”

  Half laughing, she pushed him away as he tried to embrace her. “Go on, get out. You’ve twisted me round your little finger, as usual; now get back to your lessons.”

  At the door, he turned, and said impulsively, “You’re not severe, you know. Not when you smile.”

  After Simon left she went and stood in front of the mirror. She pulled out a strand of hair from her chignon and draped it across the side of her forehead. Then another, on the other side. She tried a smile. It looked ghastly. When she held up the gown and tried again it looked even worse. She hated Robbins. She hated Clermont, with his gold hair and his dark, unreadable eyes. She hated herself. Perhaps she could arrange to break her ankle this afternoon on her expedition with Simon.

  There was a Mr. Hewitt at Hewitt’s Bank, Julien discovered, but he himself did not usually meet with clients these days. His firm had prospered in the past ten years—war was not always a bad thing, for an astute financier—and there were bank officers now, men with soothing, well-bred voices, who handled most visitors. Hewitt made an exception for high-ranking peers, of course, and for ministers, and for one or two very lovely actresses. He was making an exception today, as well. Clermont had gone to Royce and obtained a letter of introduction. He had planned to make the request of the earl personally, but his nerve had failed him at the last minute. It was just as well, he decided. A letter from Bassington himself might alarm Hewitt, make him more cautious.

  He arrived precisely on time, at ten, and the elderly banker looked up from his desk in astonishment when an assistant ushered him into the room. Four ledgers were open in front of him, and he hastily closed them and piled them to one side.

  “Mr. Clermont?”

  Julien inclined his head. “Mr. Hewitt. Thank you for agreeing to see me. I understand it is a rare honor, and I am to convey to you Lord Bassington’s appreciation for your courtesy to him.” In fact, when Bassington found out, he would be furious. But by then it would be too late.

  The assistant withdrew, closing the door behind him.

  “Please, have a seat,” Hewitt said, gesturing to a leather chair by his desk. “My apologies; I was not expecting you just yet. Most young men of your class are not very punctual, especially for morning appointments.”

  Julien smiled dryly. “Even those who come to borrow?”

  “Even those.” Julien sat down, and the banker studied him for a moment. “What can I do for you, sir? I understand the matter is confidential.”

  “Yes.” He paused. “Lord Bassington has informed me that you are a man who can keep his own counsel. And that of his clients.” With a little prompting, he had managed to get Royce to word the letter perfectly. “Could you suggest that the matter requires discretion?” he had asked, leaning over Royce’s desk. “Perhaps the earl has employed Mr. Hewitt for confidential transactions in the past?” And so the note had gone off, with Royce’s compliments, and many expressions of thanks for Mr. Hewitt’s past services to the Piers family. Could Mr. Hewitt receive Mr. Clermont and assist him in a transaction of some delicacy?

  Julien took a small, folded piece of paper from an inner pocket. He had guarded that paper with fanatical devotion since it had come into his possession six months ago. Had shown it to no one, had concealed it even from Vernon. It normally resided in a hidden compartment in one of his silver hairbrushes, but he had been unwilling to leave it when he went riding off to Clark’s Hill, and had sewn it into the cuff of his shirt, where it had fortunately survived a vicious assault by the earl’s laundress after his accident.

  Now he passed the document across to the banker. “Do you recognize this?”

  Hewitt looked at the paper, at Julien, back at the paper. “It is a draft on this bank,” he said. “Signed by me, and addressed to a Mademoiselle DeLis, at the Convent of the Sacred Heart, in Lausanne. It is not a forgery, if that is what you wish to know.”

  Julien cleared his throat. “The earl has been very kind to me. He has refused, however, to allow me to repay the monies sent abroad to Miss DeLis. I am a wealthy man, Mr. Hewitt. Even were I not, this touches my honor. Nor, I think, is it truly Lord Bassington’s right to deny me. The payments were authorized by the late earl, were they not?”

  The older man said nothing, but he shifted slightly in his seat.

  His guess had been correct, Julien saw. “I am asking you, as a personal favor, to provide me with the total amount disbursed. I know that this was only one of several such payments.”

  Hewitt read the paper once more. “This is all very irregular, Mr. Clermont,” he said, frowning. “I understand that the earl has taken you into his confidence, but I am still reluctant to provide you with information about an account which belongs to another client.”

  “My alternative,” said Julien, “is to arbitrarily suppose ten payments, all equal to this one. And to deposit that sum in this bank under Lord Bassington’s name.” It was a staggering amount of money, and Julien knew that any banker would be horrified at the waste. He leaned forward. “Do you not believe, Mr. Hewitt, that a debtor has a right to know the extent of his debt?”

  “And do you regard it as a debt?” Hewitt looked up and met his eyes. “Those who have been wronged normally regard such payments as justice, not charity.”

  So, he knew.

  “I do.”

  “Very well.” Hewitt rang a small bell on his desk and sent his assistant off to fetch a file. Julien wondered how long it would take to find highly confidential documents nearly thirty years old.

  It took half an hour, during which time Julien was invited to wait in a sitting room around the corner from Hewitt’s office. At the end of the half hour, Hewitt himself came in and handed him a small slip of paper. “This is the total,” he said.

  Two thousand pounds, thought Julien. Two thousand pounds for a human life. It was slowly sinking in that after weeks—months—of work he finally had his proof, could be certain that Bassington was indeed his man. He took a blank draft on his own bank out of his pocket, filled in the amount, signed it. His hands were shaking slightly. It was sheer pride, that gesture. He could easily have promised to send the draft next week, by which time he would be gone. But when he had devised this plan—the only plan he could think of, short of simply asking Bassington for the truth—he had decided that the price for tricking Hewitt into betraying a client was to consider his pledge to the banker binding.

  “I will arrange to deposit the funds into the earl’s account today, sir,” said the banker, tucking the draft into one of the ledgers on his desk. “Would you like me to send a copy of the transaction to his lordship?”

  “That won’t be necessary,” said Julien. “I’ll tell him myself. I’m calling at his house this afternoon, in fact.”

  Bassington rang for the fourth time. He knew the bell was working; his study was on the ground floor, and he could hear the chime faintly in the basement hallway below. Where the hell was the blasted footman? Or Rowley? He didn’t want to leave his office and go in search of anyone. He couldn’t leave the letters unguarded in his office—there was enough there to blow Castlereagh’s treaty sky-high—and he had promised Barrett that if he could have the file today he would not let anyone so much as glimpse the wrappers. He didn’t much fancy going down to the kitchens with a dispatch case full of diplomatic bombshells under his arm, which seemed the only option at this point. Besides, this was h
is house, damn it. He was entitled to expect someone to appear when he rang the bell. He stomped up and down, fuming, for at least a minute before reluctantly going over to his desk and extracting yet another pinch of snuff from a container he had rigged out of an old ink bottle. Clara was a ruthless exterminator of snuffboxes; he had learned to be clever.

  At the footman’s knock on the door he whirled and yanked the door open, roaring, “Where the devil have you been?”

  Only it wasn’t the footman. It was Simon, holding a long wooden tube—presumably the promised telescope. Behind him stood Royce, his niece, and Julien Clermont, with expressions ranging from terrified (Royce) to amused (Serena) to polite surprise (Clermont).

  “Papa—I—we—” stammered Simon, backing up into Royce.

  “Sorry, sir,” interjected the tutor, red-faced. “We didn’t mean to disturb you.”

  “No, no,” said Bassington, trying to unobtrusively slip the pinch of snuff into his waistcoat pocket. “My apologies. I thought you were Hubert. I’ve been ringing for ten minutes and no one has answered the bell.” He looked at his son. “Is that your new instrument?”

  “Yes, sir.” Simon handed it to him, and, warned by his possessive grip, the earl took it very carefully. He turned towards the window, eased the yard-long cylinder carefully up to eye level, and sighted. “Very good,” he said absently, and then, a moment later, as the magnified image came into focus, he added, surprised, “By Jove! It really is good!”

  Simon hovered next to him. “It has two lenses,” he explained, breathless. “The smaller one, the magnifying one, is mine. The refracting lens is on the bottom. Mr. Clermont contributed that one. There’s a carrying case and a tripod as well, but I left those upstairs. Serena and Mr. Clermont and I are going to go try it out now. And Jasper, if you can spare him.”

  “Are you? Where?” The earl gave the telescope back, somewhat reluctantly. It was really quite impressive, for a homemade instrument.

  Royce said, somewhat apologetically, “Miss Allen and I agreed St. Paul’s would be best, sir, but we thought it might be wise to have your permission first. Given, the, er, unfortunate incident last year.”

  “Hmmmph. Yes, I can see why.” He eyed his son and heir sternly.

  “I’ll behave, Papa. Word of honor,” Simon said hastily. “And that verger might not be there today.”

  The earl took some coins out of his purse and handed them to Royce. “I profoundly hope the man has retired. But in case anyone recognizes the viscount, you may need this.”

  “Can Jasper go, then?” Simon asked.

  “Certainly.” Bassington looked at his secretary-cum-tutor. “I’m working with the Russian correspondence this afternoon, in fact. You won’t even be allowed into my office.” He shot a hasty look at his desk to make sure the dispatch case was closed up. One blue sheet of paper was sticking out. Fortunately, that side was blank. He stepped into the outer room, closing the door behind himself, and turned back to his son. “Has your mother been consulted about this expedition?”

  “We couldn’t find her,” said Royce. “We couldn’t find anyone, in fact.”

  Bassington heard footsteps. The footman, after a mere twenty minutes, had finally arrived.

  “Could you give permission, sir? Please?” His son’s voice was urgent.

  “I suppose so,” said the earl, just as his wife’s voice behind him said, “Permission for what?”

  “To climb the dome at St. Paul’s with Serena and Jasper and Mr. Clermont so that I can try my telescope.” Simon opened his blue eyes wide. “We’ll be very careful.”

  His wife was looking horrified.

  Bassington stepped over to her side. “I already gave Simon permission, my dear,” he said in a low voice.

  “Oh, Simon may go, of course,” she said. “Mr. Royce will be there, will he not? And perhaps Mr. Clermont, although he has been far too generous already. But Serena cannot possibly go.”

  He saw his niece and Clermont exchange a quick glance.

  “I would be back in plenty of time to get dressed, Aunt Clara,” Serena said.

  “That might be so,” she said, “although your ideas about how much time is required may not coincide with mine. But no young woman in my charge is going to climb five hundred steps a few hours before a dance. Your uncle took me up to the Stone Gallery when we were courting, and I couldn’t walk for three days afterwards.”

  The earl prepared himself for a battle royal between aunt and niece. He had seen many of them over the years. But, to his surprise, Serena turned to Clermont. “Are there really five hundred steps?”

  He nodded. “Five hundred thirty-four, to be precise.”

  “Then I’m afraid my aunt is right. I’m sorry, Simon. Do you mind?”

  Simon looked at Clermont. “Will you still come, sir?”

  Another of those silent, almost instinctive exchanges between Serena and the young Frenchman.

  “Of course,” said Clermont. “If Mr. Royce will not be bored to death listening to us talk about focal length and eyepiece rims.”

  “Not at all.” Royce gave a thin smile. “It will certainly be useful to have another pair of hands to carry the instrument and tripod. And there don’t appear to be any footmen available.”

  That reminded Bassington of his grievance. He turned to his wife. “Yes, where are the servants, Clara? I rang the confounded bell four times, and no one has responded yet!”

  “You’ll simply have to make do, all of you,” she said. “I’ve lent all the maids and footmen to Sara Barrett for the afternoon and evening; her staff here in town is not sufficient for an event of this size.”

  “I thought this was a small, informal supper with some dancing afterwards,” he said.

  “It—grew a bit. Now there will be dancing first and then a supper.”

  Suddenly suspicious, he demanded, “How many guests will there be?”

  She waved her hand airily. “Oh, perhaps a hundred. It seems there were more of our friends in town than I had originally thought.”

  A hundred people. He had thought there would be two dozen; mostly people he knew well. He had planned to excuse himself after supper, get some more work done. Instead, he and Barrett were apparently cohosting a preseason ball.

  “Well then,” he said, trying to sound genial. “I will look forward to seeing all of you this evening. Mr. Clermont, many thanks for your kindness to Simon.” He stepped back into the study and sat back down with a sigh. His evening was ruined now, and the deadline was fast approaching on the reply to the Tsar. He was hoping for some uninterrupted time to write. But he wasn’t really surprised, after those telling glances back and forth between Clermont and his niece, to answer a knock at his door a few minutes later and find the Frenchman there.

  “I beg your pardon, sir,” said Clermont. “I meant to write you and request an appointment tomorrow evening, but it occurred to me that my note might not reach you today if the servants are all at Sir Charles’s home.”

  “Quite right.” He started to add, “Do come in,” but a hasty glance revealed telltale blue pages all over his desk. Once again he found himself in the anteroom leaning against a closed door. “So, you wish to speak with me tomorrow? A personal matter?”

  Clermont nodded.

  “Would you care to dine with us first?”

  Clermont swallowed. “That is very kind, but I—believe I am engaged tomorrow until eight or so.”

  Bassington remembered how nervous he had been just before he approached Lord Bell to request Clara’s hand. “No matter. Shall we say half past eight, then?”

  The younger man bowed. He looked pale.

  Bassington went back into his office smiling a bit. He hadn’t thought much could shake Clermont’s poise, but obviously his niece had managed to do so. Clara would be overjoyed. Should he tell her? His hand was on the bellrope when he remembered that no one would answer. That if he wanted to find her he would have to pack everything up and march through the house with the
dispatch case. No, better to have his own secrets for a change.

  19

  The first steps down the path of Ruin are often taken on the dance floor.

  —Miss Cowell’s Moral Reflections for Young Ladies

  Serena stood waiting for the other couples to take their places in the set with a sense that some evil destiny had brought her to this moment. A series of small, seemingly insignificant decisions had taken on a life of their own and propelled her into a scene from her worst London nightmares. If she looked back now, of course, she could identify all the wrong turns, but retrospection could not alter the color of her dress, or change her partner, or remove one hundred people from the Barrett’s ballroom.

  Her first mistake had been yielding to Simon’s plea and coming to London. Or rather, to be honest, yielding to her own fascination with the enigmatic Mr. Clermont, which her cousin had ruthlessly exploited. Then her aunt had asked if Serena would be willing to attend a small dinner. That was her second mistake. She had watched with horror as the “small dinner” became, in the space of ten days, something quite different. Perhaps a dance or two, after the dinner, the countess had next proposed, if someone could be induced to play for the young people. Before they had even left for London, it had become a slightly larger dinner with a trio of musicians engaged afterwards. Finally it had blossomed into a full-fledged ball, with an orchestra and midnight supper, and, as a result, the event had been moved to the Barrett’s house, which possessed an actual ballroom instead of merely two large drawing rooms with connecting doors. Her aunt bombarded her with well-meant suggestions. Did Serena not think she needed new gloves? New slippers? Could Robbins and the hairdresser try something a bit different with her hair? Would she not like a new gown?

  Like a dutiful niece, she had said yes and yes and yes. She had even admired her ball dress, had flushed slightly with pleasure at her appearance in the mirror as she saw how the silver threaded through her new curls echoed the silver trim of the gauze as it floated over a blue silk slip. The gown, of course, was her third mistake. Because here she was, at the top of the set in the Barrett’s very large and very crowded ballroom, with Clermont opposite her. Julien Clermont, the plague of her existence, the most beautiful man in the room. Who was wearing, in addition to his very correct black knee breeches and coat, a blue waistcoat trimmed with silver, which matched her gown nearly exactly.