The Spy's Kiss

by Nita Abrams

  She had tried to avoid standing anywhere near him. When he had approached to request this dance, she had manufactured an excuse to move away after agreeing. Now, however, she would be standing with him for at least fifteen minutes—more, if the line of couples grew any longer. And everyone in the room could see for themselves the blazing declaration, in blue trimmed with silver: Mr. Julien Clermont and Miss Serena Allen were a pair.

  Clermont, damn him, was amused. He had recognized the sartorial gauntlet thrown down by her aunt the minute he arrived and had raised those dark eyebrows in acknowledgment. Now he said, in the most courteous, bland tones imaginable, “I have been admiring your gown, Miss Allen. Is it new?”

  “Of the same vintage as your waistcoat, I imagine,” she snapped, refusing to look at him.

  “Oh, so I am to blame?”

  She hissed fiercely, “You don’t suppose I had anything to say about it, do you? If you must know, I am absolutely mortified.”

  “Softly, sweet. Everyone is looking at you. And if you keep glaring at my waistcoat and then at your flounce, they will take more interest in those two items than they might otherwise.”

  “It doesn’t matter what I do, or where I look,” she said bitterly. “Every female in the room can see at once that we are wearing matching clothing.”

  The orchestra, after a pause to retune an errant cello, struck up the first bars of the dance. He bowed; she curtseyed; and they began to weave down the floor, separating to perform the first figure.

  “If you must glare,” he said in a low voice as they came together again, “be sure to glare at Philip Derring and Jasper Royce as well.”

  “I haven’t seen them yet. And why should I glare at them?” Another partner whirled her away.

  “Philip just got here; he is leaning against the wall, far end of the room,” he informed her as he reclaimed her. “I don’t see Royce. Ah, no, there he is, talking to Countess Lieven’s escort. A few yards away from Philip.” She twisted her neck, but she was facing the wrong way. Not until they had reached the bottom of the line did she catch sight of Derring. He was indeed leaning against the wall. He was looking very unhappy, but she didn’t pay much attention to his expression, because her eye was drawn at once to his waistcoat. It was silver, trimmed with blue. Royce was moving towards the dance floor, chatting easily with the young Russian at-taché. His waistcoat was white and silver, with blue piping at the edges.

  “You see,” he said mildly, “I became suspicious when a garment I had never purchased appeared in my wardrobe a few days before this dance. A garment obviously meant for formal evening wear. And when I asked my valet about it he told me three different, contradictory stories about what it was doing there. He is normally a very honest man, but I believe dreams of romance may have triumphed where bribery would have failed. In any case, once I forced a confession out of him he promised to do his best to limit the damage.”

  “But then I ruined your good work by glaring.” She sighed. “I believe I owe you another apology.”

  Another couple arrived and claimed the bottom position in the set. As they moved up towards the front of the room, he said lightly, “No need to apologize. But I would be very grateful if you could contrive to dance with one or both of them and scowl at their chests with equal intensity. Or—”

  The figure of the dance separated them for a moment.

  “Or what?”

  “You could smile at me,” he suggested, “although I must confess you have one of the most glorious scowls I have ever seen.”

  She favored him with a particularly ferocious example.

  They did not speak as the next couple went by, but then she said abruptly as they moved up once again, “Why did you wear it? If you knew?”

  He shrugged. “I’m not certain.”

  She didn’t believe him. He didn’t have the look of an uncertain man.

  He maintained a flow of polite trivialities for the remainder of the dance, but as the last couple twirled down towards the far end of the room he said, “I must speak with you later tonight. Would you have another dance free? One where we may talk without so many interruptions?”

  “That would be a waltz,” she informed him. “I am already engaged for the waltz.” In point of fact she was not, but if Julien Clermont thought she would waltz with him, he was dreaming. The idea made her dizzy right now.

  “May I take you in to supper, then?”

  She glanced over to the doorway, where her aunt was watching the result of her plotting with unmistakable delight. “I suppose if I tried to go in with someone else my aunt would poison them in any case. Very well.”

  “Go scowl at Derring,” was his parting shot as the dance finally ended.

  Philip, had, in fact, worked his way through the room so that he could approach her once the music stopped. He still looked unhappy.

  She went over and linked her arm through his. “Why the long face?”

  He attempted a smile. It was a poor attempt. “It’s nothing.” They walked in silence towards the edge of the room, where the crowd was thinner.

  “Your waistcoat seems to be all the crack,” she said lightly, trying to tease him out of his bad mood. “I’ve seen at least two others very like it.”

  His expression did not change; if anything, he seemed even more upset. He drew her over beneath a large painting of a hunting scene. Just at her eye level—and Philip’s—was a dying stag, an arrow fixed in its bloody flank. “Are you in love with Julien Clermont?” he said in a low voice.

  “What?” She drew away, instinctively, and stared at him. She wondered if she had misheard him. But then he repeated it. Fortunately the room was noisy, and there was no one nearby.

  “Are you in love with Julien Clermont?”

  “Certainly not!” She followed Clermont’s advice and scowled at Philip. “And what concern is it of yours? You have been a good friend to me, but that gives you no right—”

  He interrupted. “Has he made you an offer of marriage? Hinted at one?”

  More and more bewildered, she said, “No. But what—”

  “Listen to me,” he said urgently. “I know Julien is my friend, but I felt I had to warn you. Don’t trust him. There’s something—he’s—” He bit his lip. “Don’t make too much of his attentions towards you. That’s all I am at liberty to say.”

  “Philip, are you jealous?”

  He flushed. “Of course not. Merely concerned. For both of you. Will you remember my warning?”

  She looked at his tense, guilty, expression and wondered whether his “of course not” had been a lie. “I have never trusted Mr. Clermont,” she said, “from the first moment I met him. Does that relieve your mind?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Yes, it does.”

  He had danced with four young women whose names he could not remember three seconds after he was introduced. He had conversed—or, more accurately, fenced—with Countess Lieven, who was holding court on a gold settee in an anteroom. Her arch comments about blue and silver butterflies gave him a good idea of the sort of gossip that was already circulating in the overheated ballroom. He had made sure to visit briefly with both of his hostesses and even with Mrs. Childe, who was playing whist with three fantastically turbaned dowagers in the card room. He had fulfilled all his obligations, in other words, and now, as the musicians set down their instruments and the dancers began drifting out to go downstairs for supper, he could turn his attention to his meeting with Serena Allen.

  It was not hard to spot her. She was taller than most women in the room. She was talking with Royce, and although her head was turned away, he recognized the silver band in her hair. He made his way over to her just as Royce, clearly angry about something, made a stiff bow and stalked away.

  “Oh, dear,” said Serena, following the tutor’s departing figure with her eyes. She was smiling in amusement, though. The little curls around her face were actually very attractive, he decided. They made her look softer, less remote. “Does it count
if Jasper scowls at me? Because he just did. And scolded me, as well.”

  He made a very educated guess. “Simon?”

  “He has disappeared, apparently. Probably to the attics; he likes the ones in the London house because you have to go up ladders to get into them. At any rate, for some reason Nurse Digby fretted herself into a state, as though this doesn’t happen every third night, and Rowley sent a message over here to Jasper. Why on earth he should leave the party to chase after Simon I cannot imagine, but he decided it was his duty, and when I disagreed he informed me that Simon is shockingly spoilt, largely thanks to me.”

  “Well, he is shockingly spoilt,” he said, drawing her arm through his and leading her towards the stairway. “But I think your aunt and Mrs. Digby and Mr. Royce himself must take most of the blame. You, in fact, are the only one of all of them who does not have any official responsibility for the boy.”

  “But I am also the only one he listens to,” she pointed out.

  “The two facts are not unconnected.” He paused in dismay as they came out into the stairwell and he saw the throngs milling around the tables in the hallway below.

  “What is it?” she asked. Then she saw the clusters of people crowding the hall. “Are you hungry?” she asked, looking up at him. “Would you mind missing supper? I don’t think we will be able to talk there.”

  “I do not need supper, no. Where would you suggest?”

  She turned and led him back into the now-empty ballroom, down to the far end, and then into a little side room where footmen had been stationed earlier, loading trays of drinks. “Here,” she said.

  There was no one in there now; the servants were all downstairs serving supper. She pushed open a door he had not even noticed, set into the back wall. It was completely dark on the other side. “More secret passages?” he asked.

  “It’s just a servant’s corridor; Simon knows all of them in every house he’s ever been in. It will only be dark for a minute. Mind your head; the ceiling is a bit low.” She ducked into the corridor, and he followed, keeping his distance lest he tread on her skirts accidentally. He could hear them rustling in front of him. Suddenly there was light—not lamplight or candlelight, but moonlight, accompanied by a rush of cold air. He stepped out through the door she was holding open and emerged onto a tiny balcony.

  They were at the back of the house, looking out over the small terrace and garden to the right and the mews and kitchen courtyard to the left. A few other couples had obviously decided not to wait in line for supper either; there were figures on the terrace below and even a few hardy souls in the garden. It was chilly out; he tugged off his jacket and draped it around Serena’s shoulders.

  “What an odd place for a balcony,” he said.

  “It isn’t a balcony. It’s the top of a stair.”

  Looking more closely, he saw that the railing on the left side was in fact a gate. Narrow iron steps descended along the wall of the house; there was another small landing on the floor below, with, presumably, another door.

  “It’s for the servants, to carry food back and forth to the kitchen when there are large parties,” she explained. As she spoke he saw someone come out onto the landing below with a tray and start down the lower flight of steps.

  They remained silent until the figure disappeared into the bright doorway at the bottom.

  “Well then, Mr. Clermont,” she said briskly. “What did you wish to say to me? I trust it will not take long. My aunt will notice our absence even in this crush if we stay out here for more than a few minutes.”

  He had come to the ball with one purpose: to fulfill his promise to Philip. The minute he had heard Vernon’s confession about the waistcoat he knew he had his means. Nothing could be more calculated to goad Serena Allen into snubbing him than that crude stratagem on the part of her aunt. He had worn the hideous thing; he had persuaded Philip and the tutor to wear theirs. The result (as predicted) was an entire country dance’s worth of glowering indignation from Miss Allen. Everyone had seen her snap at him, and she hadn’t smiled once during the entire set. Surely that would be enough to shield her from pity after tomorrow night. Surely everyone would believe that he and Philip and Jasper Royce were all courting her, equally unsuccessfully. Surely tonight would inspire other young men to try their luck.

  What did he wish to say to her? Daydreams of warning her, of explaining, of begging for forgiveness were revealed as impossible fantasies now that they were alone together. There was no reason, no reason at all to ask to speak with her privately. In fact, it was potentially disastrous. If anyone saw them, everyone would remember the tale of the brazen girl who had emerged from the woods at dawn with her French lover. Only this time it would not be the garbled story of an elderly gamekeeper; it would be Countess Lieven, or Mrs. Childe, or some other well-bred scandalmonger.

  “Well?” she repeated impatiently.

  He shook his head, helpless. Her face was in the moonlight, and he could see the moment when she realized he had no answer. No good answer, at any rate. He reached out with one hand and touched her cheek.

  She started to step back, but the landing was very small. There was no place for her to go. Her eyes were enormous. “You’re going to kiss me, aren’t you,” she whispered.

  Apparently that had been his plan all along. “Not if you don’t want me to,” he said. It didn’t sound like his voice. He brushed one of the little curls back from her temple.

  “We—we should go back inside.” It didn’t sound like her voice either.

  He decided speaking again would be a mistake, so he nodded. Turning around, he reached for the door handle. It wasn’t there. No handle, no knob, no latch bar. Nothing but a flat iron plate with a keyhole at one side. A small tendril of anxiety unfurled in his lower stomach. He felt along the edge of the door, trying to tug it open. It didn’t move. “We’re locked out,” he said flatly.

  “We can’t be!” She stepped past him and tried the door; tried it several different times, tugging at both the bottom and the top. “We can’t be,” she repeated, leaning against the obstinate door. She wrapped her arms around her chest. She looked utterly miserable. “What are we going to do?”

  The obvious answer was to go down the stairs, walk up to the people who would be staring at them by the time they reached the bottom, and announce an engagement. After tomorrow night, however, that option would be closed. So he chose the next most obvious answer. “Would you be willing to reconsider your decision on that kiss?” he said.

  Simon had enjoyed a very pleasant evening so far. His complaints about being excluded from the festivities had found an even more sympathetic audience in Mrs. Digby than in Serena. As a result, he had been taken over to the Barrett’s kitchen to sample the treats being prepared for the party. Then he had been sent to bed, but had been allowed to sit up reading with a generous allowance of lamp oil. At ten, he had dimmed the lamp, gradually, over a five-minute period. When Mrs. Digby came to check on him he was lying artistically draped across the pillows with the book tumbled open beside him and the lamp burning low.

  “Poor lamb,” he heard her murmur as she tucked him in.

  Fifteen minutes later he was on the Barretts’ roof. He had gone up the back outside staircase to the first landing and slipped in the door, which was propped open for the servants carrying up plates for supper. From there he had only to wait for a clear moment on the inner stair and he was in the attic and then out onto the roof, unstrapping the telescope case and fitting the two halves of the cylinder together.

  It was a beautiful night, although a bit cold. He studied the moon for a long time, watching smudges bloom into craters and lava beds as the lens swept over them. Then he went to the front of the house, where he could look down on the cul-de-sac which led to the Barretts’ house. There were a few late arrivals, and he enjoyed testing his power: could he see the buckles on a man’s shoes? the shading of feathers in a lady’s headdress? He could, and more. The telescope made his field glass seem
like an old man’s spectacles. By this time the ballroom had grown warm; windows were opened, and the music floated out below him. Eventually he headed back to the attic trapdoor at the other end of the roof. From here he had a good view of the back of his own house, and he was struck by an unusual number of lights on the upper floors. Weren’t most of the servants—and all the adult members of the family—here at the Barretts’, in the rooms beneath him? He raised the telescope carefully and sighted. His own room was illuminated, and he could see torches moving outside the servants’ entrance to the house.

  That was very bad news. He had promised that there were would be no more episodes like the one at St. Paul’s. And while he had convinced both his mother and Nurse that he sometimes walked in his sleep, no one was going to believe that he had dressed himself and carried a telescope up to the roof of a neighboring house while sleepwalking. He lowered the instrument and stood there, calculating his chances of getting back home without being seen. He hadn’t planned on coming down off the roof this early; there would be far too many servants using the outside stair right now. Sitting down by the trap door, he quickly disassembled the telescope and packed it away. Then he went very quietly over to the edge of the roof and peered over the raised parapet.

  He noticed the servants first, carrying supper dishes down to the kitchen. There were lanterns at the lower landing and at the kitchen door. It took him another minute to see that on the dark platform immediately below him two people were standing. Standing very close together. In fact, they were embracing. In fact—