The Spy's Kiss

by Nita Abrams

  “I went to Boulton Park,” he said, addressing Barrett. “I thought I should let you know. No one saw me, save for Miss Allen.”

  “As you predicted,” Barrett said to Meyer, rising. He escorted Julien back down the hall. “Did you tell Miss Allen anything about our plans? Or give her any hints she might pass on to others?”

  “Any hints beyond the obvious alarm a guilty party might feel seeing the house surrounded by dragoons? No.”

  “We have provided an explanation for the patrols. Death threats against Lord Bassington.”

  Julien snorted. “Who is going to believe that?”

  “It happens to be true.” Barrett opened the attic door and waved Julien in. “Some members of the French émigré community took the news of your assassination—as they term it—very hard. You cannot imagine how eager I am to resurrect you.”

  “I myself find being dead increasingly tiresome,” Julien said.

  “Will you give me your word to remain in this room until you are needed?”

  “Yes.” He could not help adding, “I would have been in a very difficult position had you asked for my promise earlier.”

  Barrett sighed. “I was reproaching myself for that omission when we found you gone, but Mr. Meyer was certain you had gone only to see Miss Allen, and luckily he proved to be right.”

  Julien was growing very tired of the knowledgeable Mr. Meyer.

  “We have sent for your servant,” Barrett added. “He should be arriving in a few hours to help you restore your normal appearance.”

  Julien ran one hand over his chin. “I am usually a bit cleaner,” he admitted.

  Barrett paused, one hand on the door. “Was Miss Allen happy to see you? Or is that too personal a question?”

  “Will she radiate joy, do you mean, and so advertise my presence to your quarry? You may rest easy on that score. She tried to crack my skull open with a poker. Then she accused me of failing to die properly and laughed at me when I proposed.”

  If Barrett had smiled, Julien would have throttled him. But all he said was, “I see.”

  Serena woke up in stages the following morning. First, there was the sense that a wonderful gift was waiting for her somewhere. The precise nature of this gift eluded her at first; she lay there for a while simply enjoying the absence of guilt and misery. Then she remembered what the gift was: Clermont was alive.

  That got her out of bed. Terrified that it had all been a dream, she searched her room for some evidence that he had actually been there. It took her twenty minutes to find it: a smear of dirt on the not-quite-closed window. She drifted along in a daze for several hours, savoring her private happiness, trying not to reveal her change of mood when Emily came in to dress her or when her aunt stopped by for her now-routine visit of consolation.

  The second awakening came later in the morning, and was more metaphorical in nature. In the middle of another daydream-cum-reminiscence centered on last night’s visit, she became aware that her silver lining was surrounded by a very ugly cloud. Why had Clermont’s execution been staged? And why, at this particular moment, had he been allowed to reappear? An obvious and very unpleasant answer suggested itself, and she went at once to find Simon and warn him. Now her concern was not so much that she might seem too happy, but that her agitation would be too obvious. She retreated to her room again. But at two o’clock she could not bear the waiting any longer. She decided to go in search of her uncle.

  Her excuse was to be the rumors Emily had passed on to her earlier. The servants were all terrified, convinced a horde of rabid Frenchmen were planning to storm Boulton Park and kill every living soul in the place. She would ask him whether the wild rumors circulating in the kitchen had any foundation.

  Pritchett did not know where his master was—unusual in itself. She tried her uncle’s study and the library, and the sitting room attached to the earl’s bedchamber, and the drawing room (this last a forlorn hope; he never set foot in the place if he could help it), and at last returned to the study. The first time she had obtained no response to her knock. Now she rapped more loudly, and called out, “Uncle, it’s me.”

  “Serena?” It was her aunt, behind her.

  Feeling guilty for some reason, she blushed as she turned around. “I was looking for Uncle George,” she said.

  “Oh, dear.” Her aunt looked flustered. “I was hoping you might know where he is. The servants—”

  “—are about to resign en masse,” Serena finished for her. “Did he say anything to you about this business of the royalists?”

  “He told me not to fret, and patted my hand in that absentminded way he does when he wants to get to work. I was sure he would be here.”

  A door in the paneling opened and Simon stepped out. “Papa is in the records room,” he said.

  His mother jumped slightly. “Simon! I do wish you would not appear and disappear in that disconcerting manner.”

  Serena merely gave him a warning frown. She had told Simon not to use the servants’ corridors while the soldiers were here.

  “What would your father be doing in the records room?” the countess demanded. “He only goes in there on rent day, or when he and Mr. Cruik are going through so many accounts they cannot bring all the ledgers to his study.”

  “I don’t know,” said Simon. “But he is there; I heard him talking. And there are a lot of soldiers in there, as well. And two guarding the door.”

  Serena and her aunt looked at each other and set off at a near-run around the corner.

  The records room was a sizable apartment used for estate accounts. It was in the same wing as her uncle’s study. Royce used one part of it for his office, but the place was not suitable for a military council, if that was what this was. The room had no amenities at all—no windows, no carpet, no chairs save those at Royce’s desk and the worktable.

  The guards allowed the two women in without comment.

  No one really noticed the new arrivals. The earl, looking stunned, was standing by the worktable, where a pile of jewels lay gleaming in the lamplight. Mrs. Childe was protesting furiously as a slender man Serena found vaguely familiar examined each piece and then set it aside.

  “All genuine,” the man said finally to Sir Charles. When he spoke, Serena recognized him. It was Meyer, looking years younger. The vague, scholarly dreaminess had vanished; he looked stern, almost menacing. “Most pieces quite recent, although the brooch there is older, likely French. I would estimate the total value at something over three thousand pounds.”

  Next to Serena, the countess gave a little gasp.

  “May I ask how you obtained these jewels, Mrs. Childe?” said a tall man in a colonel’s uniform who was standing to one side.

  “You have no right!” she spluttered. “These are family pieces, gifts! Protection for my old age!” She caught sight of the countess. “Tell them, Clara,” she demanded. “Men have no notion of how thrifty women are, how we save and plan for the future!”

  The countess did not answer. She was staring at the glittering pile of gold. Serena, after a rapid calculation, discovered that the annual income from an investment of three thousand pounds was nearly as much as the entirety of her own (admittedly meager) dowry.

  “I told you her jewels were real,” Simon said. He spoke to Serena, but he did not bother to lower his voice. Serena hadn’t realized he had followed them in, although she should have known he would never have missed an opportunity like this.

  “There!” Mrs. Childe pointed at Simon. “If you are looking for a thief, there is your culprit! Nasty, sneaking little worm! He has been in my room often enough, and his father’s study, as well! There’s not a lock in the house can stop him!”

  Royce, standing behind his desk on the other side of the room, was looking on in horror.

  “Come now, Mrs. Childe,” said the colonel crisply. “There is a great deal of difference between childish mischief and theft. The criminal we seek reads French and German, and possibly Russian as well. Surel
y you do not believe the viscount to be such a prodigy? For that reason we eliminated the servants as suspects. You must admit that it looks very odd for a supposedly penniless widow to amass a small fortune in jewels while residing in a kinswoman’s household. If you have a reasonable explanation, by all means let us hear it.”

  “You have no proof, none at all,” she said, glaring in turn at the colonel, at Bassington, at Meyer, and at Royce. The secretary instinctively backed up a step and tripped slightly over the leg of his own chair. “You come storming in with your dragoons, Colonel White, and say that Mr. Clermont was not guilty after all, and the real thief is here in the house. Well, how is anyone to know, now Mr. Clermont is so conveniently dead? Will you arrest everyone in turn and shoot us as the fancy takes you?”

  White gave a nod to one of the soldiers by the door. The man opened it, and Clermont stepped in.

  It would have been more dramatic if he had been exactly as she had seen him that day at the Tower, hair tousled, in his shirt sleeves. Or if they had carried him in, limp, with the blood everywhere. But it was shocking enough as it was. He simply walked in, the dark eyes shadowed, and stood in the center of the room, looking gravely at each person in turn.

  Mrs. Childe, for once, had nothing to say. She simply stared. The earl and the countess stood speechless, openmouthed.

  Only Royce moved. Shuddering, he collapsed into his chair and put his head in his hands. “Thank God,” he said weakly. “Thank God.” He looked up again, as if to reassure himself that Clermont was really there.

  Clermont walked over to the desk. He looked tired and unhappy. “It was you, wasn’t it, that night at the ball?” he said to Royce. “I noticed you talking to one of the Russian attachés. And then you disappeared, ostensibly to hunt for Simon, and no one saw you for two hours.” He turned to Barrett. “I have already told you that I was concealed in the passageway outside your study, Sir Charles, while Simon and Miss Allen made their appearance at the kitchen door. What I did not recall until just now is that there was someone else in the passageway with me.”

  “You did not see this person.” It was Barrett.

  “Naturally not, as my main concern was that they should not see me.” He looked again at Royce. “You were hoping to get into the study while I was known to be in Sir Charles’s house, were you not? But then you heard me and Simon in the passageway and realized that I was headed there myself. Did you learn later that I was seen by a footman as I left? Did that decide you to break in the following night and take the letter, now that I was sure to be blamed? A much more serviceable scapegoat than the viscount, don’t you agree?”

  The whole room was silent. No one moved.

  Royce’s face was flushed. “I suppose I could deny it,” he said. “You have no proof, as Mrs. Childe was reminding everyone just now.”

  The earl gave an inarticulate cry. He was trembling, and had to put his hand on the back of a chair for support. “You—you—” he stuttered, then closed his eyes.

  Royce was stacking papers on his desk, closing up the ink, stowing pens in the drawers. A pistol suddenly emerged in his hand from one of the drawers. It was not pointed at anyone in particular, but the expression on Royce’s face left no doubt he was prepared to use it. He backed slowly towards the door behind the desk. Simon had moved closer to Serena and was clutching her sleeve like a much younger child.

  Bassington looked up as his secretary reached the door. “What was it, then?” he whispered. “Money? A girl? Some family scandal?”

  “No, I suspect I will be the family scandal,” said Royce bitterly. His hand was on the key.

  “Dammitall!” cried the earl, taking one step towards him. He contemptuously ignored the pistol. “I receive you into my home, I sponsor you, I trust you not only with my affairs, and the affairs of the nation, but with”—his voice began to shake—“with my son, and you throw it all away for money?”

  “I didn’t do it for the money!” flared Royce. “Acquit me at least of that, sir! I never spent a penny of it on myself.” He gestured at Mrs. Childe. “You wanted to know where those jewels came from? I gave them to her, to buy her silence after she caught me copying one of your letters a few months ago. She asked for more and more, thinking she was squeezing a poor fool for all he was worth, not knowing I was overjoyed to pay, to get rid of the foul stuff.”

  “Then why?” The earl’s voice cracked.

  “Has it never occurred to you,” said Royce passionately, “that some Englishmen might in fact admire Napoleon?” He gestured towards a stack of books on his desk. “I was a patriot until I came to work for you, my lord, and began reading about English law and English taxes and English land reform. Reform? Hah! Robbery, more like! And the taxes are worse! As for our laws—have you consulted our penal code lately? Do you know that it is still possible to hang a man for stealing five shillings’ worth of meat? To transport a youth who throws mud at a soldier in a village? To own slaves? Do I regret the deception I was forced to practice? Yes, I do. But my honor seemed a small price to pay for improving the government of Europe. You, of all men, should understand. You share the same ambition. It simply happens that we have different views about the best means to that end.”

  Barrett interrupted. “And how does selling diplomatic correspondence to Austria help Napoleon?” he asked in a sharp tone.

  “Napoleon is finished,” said Royce. “I saw that months ago. The allies will carve him up like a trussed pig. I chose the state I believed most likely to carry on Bonaparte’s program, the guardians of his heir, the Hapsburgs. The King of Rome will take up his father’s legacy.” He pulled a folded set of blue sheets out of a book on his desk and tossed them contemptuously on the floor. “You can have the letter back, if it will ease your mind. It was useless without a signature.”

  There was a stifled cry of dismay from Mrs. Childe. “Foolish boy! You should have kept it! Exchanged it for a pardon! Now you have nothing!”

  “I have this,” said Royce, hefting his pistol. He trained it once more on the earl. With his other hand he groped behind his back and opened the door, removing the key. A clumsy bow of acknowledgment to Bassington, a wider one to the room at large, and he had backed through the door. They all heard it close, and lock.

  One of the soldiers started forward, but Bassington waved him back. “It’s a storage closet,” he said grimly. “Full of boxes of old tax receipts. This is the only door.”

  Serena held her breath, waiting for the sound of the gun. All around her she could see everyone in the room frozen, strained towards the closed door. After a minute, the men began to look at each other uncertainly. After two minutes, the colonel looked at Meyer.

  “If he’s still in there he could blow my head off when I try to pick the lock,” Meyer said mildly.

  “What do you mean, if?” snapped Bassington. “Where else would he be? It’s a cupboard, not an anteroom!”

  “Idiots,” muttered Simon under his breath. Fortunately, no one but Serena heard him.

  Meyer was kneeling by the door. After a minute he pushed something or pulled something, and the latch clicked.

  Cautiously, two of the soldiers, pistols primed, pushed open the door.

  The room was empty.

  Cursing, White and the soldiers ran out into the anteroom. Bassington and Meyer were hard on their heels, along with Simon, who was offering loudly to show everyone where the passage came out. Serena saw Mrs. Childe scuttle furtively after them, with as much of her hoard scooped into her skirt as she could carry. No doubt she was hoping to escape in the confusion, but the countess seized her arm.

  “I think we should wait for the gentlemen upstairs,” said the countess in a hard voice.

  Julien had come over to stand beside Serena. “I am sorry,” he said in a low voice. “Another apology to add to your collection.”

  She shook her head. “No need,” she said.

  He looked taken aback. “You don’t mind that I played the ghost in that vicious little ve
rsion of Hamlet?”

  “I did something worse. I broke my promise. I told Simon I had seen you. I went to him this morning and explained that you were alive and what I thought might happen today. And then I told him to come down and show Jasper that hidden door, just in case.”

  “You knew? You knew it was Royce?”

  She hesitated. “I suspected. He was ill, physically ill, when he realized that they were going to execute you. He nearly killed us both trying to get us to Whitehall in time to stop them. When he thought we had arrived too late he was so distraught he fainted. Ever since then he has been stumbling around as though he had died, instead of you.”

  “I am not sorry he escaped,” he admitted. “I know I should be more outraged—he tried to frame Simon, he succeeded in framing me, with considerable assistance from my own stupidity, and he betrayed your uncle. But I think I am as relieved to see him get away as he was to see me alive.”

  “If he got away.”

  He smiled at her. “Didn’t I just hear Simon offering to show the nice soldiers where the passage comes out?”

  “True.” She felt a bit of the dread which had enveloped her all morning fade. Perhaps Jasper would escape after all, and her uncle would be spared the ordeal of a trial.

  He offered her his arm. “Shall we go upstairs and protect Mrs. Childe from your aunt?”

  She shuddered, but laid her hand on his sleeve and moved towards the door. “I suppose I must. Aunt Clara looked ready to stab her.”

  “I have never seen your aunt angry before.” He paused. “I hadn’t thought you resembled her very much, until I saw her march over to Mrs. Childe just now.”

  “The women in my family are noted for their tempers. My mother and my aunt were nicknamed the Furies by their brother.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “What happened to your aunt, then?”

  “She married my uncle and reformed.”