A View to a Kiss

by Caroline Linden

  Tobias had moved into his uncle’s house early that spring, coming from his own home in Dorset. From what Harry had seen, Crane took him in rather un-graciously while Tobias was determined to enjoy the Season in town if not his uncle’s company. Tobias Crane had given every appearance of being what he seemed to be—a genial fellow of very modest intelligence and even less wit. But there were enough flashes of ambition to make one wonder—or if one were in search of a traitor and not inclined to miss a suspect, to make one break into Tobias’s rooms and search them.

  His weeks of service in Crane’s house had taught Harry much. He knew the little window next to the scullery door wouldn’t close all the way, and he knew how to mount the back stairs without making a sound. He knew the lone lamp burning in the front hall was all Crane would allow to light Tobias’s way upstairs when he came home, and it told Harry that Tobias was still away from home even before he glided into the deep, silent shadows around the house and pressed gently at the scullery window. All told, it took him less than five minutes to gain entrance to the house and find his way to Tobias’s sitting room and bedchamber.

  For a moment he stood just inside the door, letting his eyes adjust. Tobias’s rooms were at the front of the house, overlooking the street and admitting no quick exit. They were plain, simple rooms, with little place to hide anything. It was a stroke of fortune that Tobias could afford no valet of his own. Harry knew Tobias had tried to persuade Jasper, Lord Crane’s man, to assist him, but Jasper had been too long under Crane’s misanthropic influence and stiffly refused. Thus, the rooms were completely empty, and would remain so until Tobias himself returned. Harry drew off his thin leather gloves and set to work, not knowing how much time he would have.

  He began in the bedroom, carefully turning over every item of clothing in the clothespress and probing every pocket. He inspected the few books, all the obvious places someone might hide stolen documents, and then every other nook and cranny he could see. Taking up his tiny shielded lantern, he moved silently into the sitting room. A few coals glowed weakly in the grate, making it a little easier to see. He searched the room with the same swift thoroughness; he didn’t want to miss anything, but also knew he wouldn’t have the entire night.

  He left the writing desk for last. Surely even Tobias would be more devious than to hide anything incriminating on top of his desk, but one never knew. Harry sat down and slid open a drawer, feeling a tinge of frustration. For the first time, he felt the pressure of time, that his quarry might act before he could catch him out. Of course, if Stafford had been honest with them from the start, he and Brandon and Angelique could have been searching all these many weeks for the villain instead of powdering their hair and lurking in the shadows doing nothing.

  The desk contained bills, several overdue and some clearly replies to letters Tobias had sent asking for more time. Harry totted up the value of Tobias’s new lifestyle as he skimmed through them, and thought again how much the man could use a source of income. There were a pair of letters from his mother, exhorting Tobias to be a good nephew and not to fall in with those who thought too highly of themselves. Harry smiled a little at that, and went on with his search.

  He’d almost reached the end without finding anything. Carefully, he replaced everything as it had been, then began picking through the letters and papers all jumbled on the desktop. To his enormous amusement, many of the pages appeared to be drafts of love letters and poems addressed to several young ladies, chief among them Lady Mariah Dunmore. His eyebrows went up as he read one heavily edited missive with her name on it. A few lines of verse were written in the margin, comparing her hair to freshly mined coal and her eyes to a rainy sky. Tobias must not have been pleased with it, for the bit about rainy sky had been scratched out and amended to “the dewy dawn.” That had ruined his rhyme, though, for dawn didn’t rhyme with freshly baked pie—which was apparently how appealing she smelled—and the poem wasn’t finished. Harry grinned and shook his head, putting it aside with the other pages.

  There was nothing. He finally got up from the desk, his amusement over Tobias’s painful poetry vanishing under the realization that Tobias’s apparent innocence meant his search was far from over. He sighed, looking around the room for some hiding place he might have missed. It wasn’t that he wanted Tobias to be a traitor; but given that there was a traitor, it would have been nicer to find the man out at once with minimal danger and inconvenience to himself. It would be considerably more difficult to get into Lord Bethwell’s home, and he didn’t even want to contemplate searching Doncaster House. If only Stafford would tell him what, precisely, had alerted the Home Office to those three men as the most likely parties.

  He put out his little lantern and turned toward the door. By his internal clock, he guessed he’d been in the house a little more than an hour, making it late enough that he should be on his way. After all, he—or rather, Henry Towne—had to be back in just a few hours, ready for another day copying diagrams of leaves and vines and other flora. Already thinking about his next step, he was reaching for the doorknob before he heard the sound of footsteps in the hall. Hand outstretched, he froze, listening and waiting. A thin line of light appeared under the door, and the steps paused, then quickened, as though the walker had stumbled before slowing in front of the door.

  In a flash Harry turned and vaulted over the small sofa in the corner, folding his body in half and pulling his knees up into his chin. He held himself utterly still as the doorknob turned and someone staggered into the room.

  The man was drunk. His steps wandered around the room for several moments, and a swish of cloth hit the floor, probably a coat. He hummed a bawdy tavern song under his breath, off pitch and far too slowly, and finally sat somewhere with a great thump that rattled the uneven feet of the sofa Harry hid behind.

  For a while it was quiet. The room hadn’t grown any lighter since the door opened, as if Tobias had just brought up the lamp left burning by the door and not bothered to light any others. Carefully, a fraction of an inch at a time, Harry raised his head from behind the sofa until he could just see over it.

  Tobias Crane sat sprawled in the armchair across the room, legs outstretched toward the fender and arms hanging out to the sides. One hand clutched a bottle, which Tobias raised to his mouth for a long drink. The lone lamp sat on the table, casting barely enough light for Harry to see him, certainly not enough for Tobias to spy him peering stealthily over the shabby little sofa.

  “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day,” Tobias mumbled, then shook his head. “I like that. ’S good rhyme. But not summer, already been done.” He frowned. “Winter day. Shall I compare thee to a winter day.” He said it a few more times, as if tasting the words, and drank from his bottle again. Brandy, Harry guessed from the way Tobias grew rapidly drunker. He slowly eased his muscles, just enough to settle silently into a more comfortable position. It might take a while for Tobias to drift off to sleep, and Harry couldn’t go anywhere until he did.

  “Compare thee…winter’s day.” Tobias was still talking to himself. “Yes, winter’s very good. Sparkle like snow. But cold.” He frowned, drinking some more. Drops dribbled down his chin. “Lady M’riah’s not cold. Warm, lovely girl. Like fire in winter.”

  Harry felt an odd urge to laugh even as he scowled. Tobias’s poetry was terrible, not at all the sort of thing to appeal to Mariah—and yet, who was he to say Tobias had no right to compose odes comparing her to a fire in winter? The heir of a viscount could call on her and flirt with her and dance with her in full view of society, and could ask the Earl of Doncaster for permission to court her without fear of being thrown out on his face. It would be a better match for him than for her, but Tobias would be Lord Crane someday, and most likely not a distant someday. Crane was over eighty and in uncertain health, and Tobias was his only heir. The considerable Crane fortune would fall to Tobias along with the viscountcy. The fellow would be an eligible match someday.

  Harry closed his eyes, n
o longer feeling the urge to laugh. Tobias was still muttering to himself, but less distinctly. He was falling asleep, though not quickly enough for Harry. The floor was hard and cold and he didn’t dare move. Even drunk as a lord, Tobias would notice a man suddenly rising from behind his sofa. All Harry could do was sit and ruminate on the utter impossibility of his own hopes and dreams while a possible traitor composed bad poetry to the woman he loved.

  Finally, at long last, the rasp of faint snoring drifted across the room. Harry dared another peek from behind the sofa. Tobias had slid sideways in his chair, the bottle cradled in the crook of his arm. He was sound asleep, and the lamp had burned very low. Harry stayed where he was until the snores turned deep and regular, then slowly crept from his hiding place and from the room.

  The next several days proved an excruciating test of Harry’s patience and subterfuge. On pretext of cataloging and organizing Crane’s papers, he skimmed through months’ worth of letters and documents. Crane’s letters of course were missing, but Harry could see with whom he corresponded and what they discussed. There were letters from the Lord Chancellor, arguing details of the Six Acts and other laws. Polite notes from members of Parliament. Letters from friends and acquaintances abroad and at home, even a letter from his sister-in-law, Tobias’s mother, timidly asking for funds in her son’s absence. And of course the voluminous correspondence from the gardener at Brimstow, John Rusk.

  To Harry’s amusement, Rusk was impatient with Crane’s horticultural vision; there seemed to be a quarrel between Crane and Rusk over the importance of Quercus robur—a large oak tree near the gates of Brimstow, as Harry well knew—versus fields of lilies and tulips that were to be planted or uprooted, it was difficult to tell. The passions of gardeners were quite beyond him, Harry thought, moving on to examine the tradesman’s bills for anything out of the ordinary.

  He didn’t truly expect to find incriminating papers in Crane’s own desk; Crane was too intelligent for that, if he were a traitor at all. But it must be done, and he would search until he was satisfied there were no treasonous papers in with the rest.

  Tobias broke up the monotony one day, knocking on the door and coming in before Crane could tell him not to. “Uncle,” he announced, “I have come to seek your blessing.”

  Harry immediately turned his face to his work. Even aside from the way Tobias provoked his uncle’s temper, Harry didn’t care to see the man and remember him comparing Mariah to a winter’s day.

  Crane shot his nephew a sour glance. “To visit your mother? Yes, yes, go.”

  Tobias, still grinning, shook his head. “No, indeed, sir. I am going to take a wife.”

  Crane grunted. “More fool you. Who is the lady? Some impertinent chit, I suppose.”

  His nephew flushed. “Not at all! She is a lady of the highest standing, the most impeccable character—”

  “Well, just tell me,” snapped Crane, “since you seem determined to make it known to me. And why do you require my blessing in any event? I am not your father.”

  “But you are the head of my family, and I value your blessing very highly, since my father is dead.” Tobias said it with a straight face. Harry kept his head down to hide his own expression. Tobias would be sunk without his uncle’s financial support, not to mention the inheritance Crane could leave to the Horticultural Society if he chose.

  Crane seemed to have the same thought. “I suppose you have weighed this blessing in pounds,” he said irritably. “Who is your object, then?”

  “Lady Mariah Dunmore.” Tobias puffed up his chest with pride.

  Fortunately for Harry, Crane’s reaction was derisive enough for both of them. “Damned fool,” he said at once, cackling with laughter. “She won’t have you.”

  His nephew blinked and raised his chin, stung. “I believe she might.”

  Crane seized on the telling word. “Might! And the moon might crash into the sun. Might! Doncaster won’t have you, even if she would. Unless you’ve managed to find your way beneath her skirts and leave your babe in her belly, you’ve not a prayer.”

  “Uncle!” Tobias was shocked. “Of course I would never abuse her that way!”

  His uncle shrugged. “I never said you should. But your only hope is that she’s lost her head over you, silly girl, in which case she might have allowed you certain liberties that would force her father’s hand.”

  Harry’s fingers clenched on his pen. He could no longer force it to keep moving across the page. For a second he could feel the velvet skin at the back of Mariah’s neck, the soft brush of her lips against his, the breathy gasp she made when he slid his hand under her nightdress, around her breast. Just like that, his body reacted merely from the memory of holding her. He swallowed and tried to tamp down the flush of anger and desire rolling through him.

  “You insult me,” Tobias was saying, sounding mortally offended. “I intend to make an honorable offer for the lady’s hand, and I believe she might be inclined to accept.”

  “Why?” Crane’s voice was like a silken whip, soft but stinging.

  “Well—because…” Tobias flushed. “She has rejected every other suitor. She is kindness itself every time I speak to her. She clung to my arm very sweetly at the Arnold soiree a fortnight past. I think she favors me, Uncle, and I intend to propose marriage.”

  Crane squinted at him for a moment as though he couldn’t quite believe Tobias was serious. “Eh, go to it, then.” He waved one hand in dismissal. “You’re a fool, whether you get her or no.”

  Tobias chose to declare victory and retreat. Beaming, he bowed. “Thank you, Uncle. Good day.”

  The viscount sighed as the door closed. “The damned fool doesn’t know what he’s doing. The Doncasters may be what he wants, but I warrant he’s not all they want. He’ll end like our noble King, stuck with an unsuitable wife he can’t be rid of…Well, well, Towne! What are you doing there?”

  Harry rose at the peevish query. “Finishing the diagram of the new knot garden at Brimstow, sir.” His employer snatched it from his outstretched hand and scowled at it, but Harry knew it was perfectly done.

  “I wish to add something here,” Crane said, stabbing one palsied finger at an open space. “Something clean and bright, but delicate…” He muttered to himself, then tossed aside the drawing. “Oh, off you go.”

  A short time later, an exhaustive list in his pocket, Harry walked down the steps of Crane’s house and headed for the Horticultural Society to discover which little plant would be added to Crane’s collection. It was a bright sunny day, after a week of rain, and he strode along briskly, stretching his legs and inhaling the crisp fresh air. He turned toward St. James, intending to make the most of his reprieve from drawing and spying on his way to Piccadilly.

  Before he had reached the end of the street, a small but smart phaeton flashed past. It made him think of Tobias, preparing to propose to Mariah. His steps slowed. He didn’t think Mariah would accept Tobias, not because of her feelings for him, which he didn’t know for certain in any event—but because Crane was right: Tobias was a fool, and Mariah had never spoken fondly of fools. She would never be happy with a buffoon, no matter how charming and handsome he was, and she could hardly appreciate Tobias’s extreme interest in her family status and connection.

  Still, it struck black murder in a man’s heart to see another man pursue his most passionate desire. Harry resumed walking, telling himself he was a bigger fool than Tobias, but it did no good. Fool he might be, but he was a fool desperately in love.

  The wide boulevard through St. James’s park was filled with Londoners out savoring the sunshine. Every man seemed to have a woman on his arm. Harry imagined strolling though a park with Mariah at his side, her smiling face turned up to him, the sunlight warming them both. She had been glorious the day he met her in the park as Lord Wroth, and even more beautiful the day he sat in her mother’s drawing room hunched over his tea and tried not to stare at her with his heart in his eyes. It was bad enough he couldn’t cal
l on her today, but to know Tobias Crane was on his way to propose marriage to her on this perfect spring day…

  Harry cursed under his breath, abruptly turned at the end of the park, and went up into the main road, where dozens of busy shops lined the street. It took him out of his way, but he didn’t care. Crane could wait a little longer to discover a new plant. In fact, he felt less and less obliged to hew strictly to the viscount’s directives now that he knew the true requirements of his actual job, and today he felt rebellious enough to drop all pretense of being Crane’s man for a while.

  It took some time to locate the right shop, and then more time to choose his purchase, but when he left, he walked along with a spring in his step and a smile on his face. A week ago he would have never dared, for fear of discovery or Stafford’s wrath or any of a dozen other reasons. But today…today he thought it was a grand thing to do.

  “Mr. Tobias Crane to see you, Lady Mariah.”

  Mariah’s first instinct at the butler’s announcement was to flee. She was cozily nestled in a sunny spot in the garden, an open book on her lap, enjoying the warmth of the sun and daydreaming about when Harry might come to see her next. It seemed an age since he had climbed through her window. She’d kept to her promise not to know him if they met in public but she never promised not to look for him in public—and all her promises had been in vain anyway. She hadn’t caught sight of Lord Wroth or Mr. Towne the secretary anywhere, and was past being ashamed to say she had looked for both. Harry had disappeared entirely from her life, and although she felt more at peace with that, his absence left a sad hole in her world.

  And now Mr. Crane had come to cast a shadow over the rest of it. For a moment she debated telling the butler to send him away, but decided against it, reluctantly. Her mother was already watching her with concern, and Mariah knew turning away visitors would alarm her even more, no matter who the visitor or what the reason.