by The Impostor
A very odd sensation began to occur in Dalton’s chest, a chilling of his heart.
The girl’s chin quiyered. “But I did like her! I won’t say nay to it, not even if you throw me in the Tower!”
Beatrice moved to stand beside her daughter. “Neither will I!”
It seemed that Clara Simpson inspired loyalty in the most unlikely defenders. Still, it was obvious that the Trapps knew nothing that would help Dalton.
“May I see her room? She might have left some clue to her destination.”
Beatrice looked as though she would have liked to refuse, but Oswald gave her a nudge and a growl. “The man’s a peer, you birdwit! Show him the room!”
Clara’s room was rather plain. Almost Spartan, for a woman. There was no lace except at the windows, and she didn’t seem to be fond of covering her dressing table with fragile little oddments.
All in all, he would have declared the room’s resident a very sensible woman.
Not the Clara Simpson he knew at all. His Clara was a mad creature, trading identities the way some women changed their gloves. His Clara was a risk-taker, a creature of danger and mystery.
The desk held all the implements of drawing, overflowing with charcoal and inks, pen nibs and papers of various types. Not hoping for much, he fanned through the stack of drawing paper. She might have left some sort of note, some clue—
It was like catching a glimpse in a mirror, if mirrors came supplied with black silk masks. And if they also furnished wicked glints in the eye, and grins full of mischief and flirtation. And removed one’s clothing.
Dalton had spent hours in the last week pondering Sir Thorogood’s drawings. He knew every stroke, every clever form, every light and humorous line. …
It felt rather like being stabbed with one of Kurt’s long knives, that feeling of recognition and betrayal that pierced him. A very curious sensation, indeed.
He thought he might well bleed himself dry from it, slowly and forever. Abruptly he straightened and drew himself in. What a ludicrous thought. He was disappointed, that was all.
It was obvious to him now, of course. Memories of Mrs. Simpson streamed across his mind—questioning, pressing for a drawing, pursuing him like a love-maddened mink. And Rose—his Rose—sneaking through Wadsworth’s house in the dark, leading him along, learning how to open safe boxes, by God!
Dalton looked back down at the illustration in his hand. The drawing was nothing more than a sketch, hardly more than a handful of lines, yet she had captured so much. Was this how she had seen Monty, this erotic portrayal of a dashing rascal? He removed the drawing and rolled it carefully, then tucked it into his coat.
Evidence, of course. He was in the habit of collecting evidence, it was his job. Nothing more.
And now his job was to collect a certain lying artist with entirely too much to say about the state of the government.
He turned to the three people waiting breathlessly in the door of Clara’s room.
‘Trapp, I have reason to think you have been bar boring someone in your house who is acting against the good of the Crown.”
The man paled, but his surprise seemed unfeigned. Beatrice staggered to a chair and sat gaping like a fish. Dalton waved aside their protests.
“I’m satisfied that you had no knowledge of her actions. I have reason to know that she can be very clever.”
“She?” Trapp was still blinking at him in disbelief. “She?”
Dalton firmly suppressed his impatience. “She. Mrs. Bentley Simpson, to be precise.”
“Clara?” The shriek threatened to tear the paper from the walls. It seemed Beatrice had regained her faculties.
Trapp’s expression hardened. “Why, that sponging little—”
Beatrice slapped her husband on the shoulder. “Oh, posh, Oswald! Clara isn’t a revolutionary. She’s like a mouse!”
That hadn’t been Dalton’s impression of the Widow Simpson at all. “A mouse?”
Beatrice shrugged. “She was always hiding in her room, always drawing—” Ah. Yes. Precisely.
Drawing.
Clara pulled the hood of her cloak closer about her face. She knew she looked ridiculous wearing wool on a fine summer day, but better that than to be recognized. She gathered up the last of her drawings. This string-wrapped parcel signified the final performance of Sir Thorogood.
She wouldn’t even have risked bringing them to the Sun if not for her dire need of funds. There was no way to know when she’d ever be able to make any more. What she carried in her small chest might very well need to last the rest of her life.
She could always do tepid portraits of country folk in exchange for a chicken or some game, she supposed. To be honest, she wasn’t quite sure what country folk did or how they lived. She’d been a resident of London her entire life, with only a few childhood journeys to Brighton to her name.
As she entered Gerald Braithwaite’s office, she brushed by a small ragged man passing just outside. She ducked a quick apology and moved on, aware that the fellow had turned to watch her curiously.
Gerald took the packet glumly, not snatching it with his usual glee. He gave her a woeful glance. “They’re after him, you know.”
She gave a brief nod, pulling the hood more tightly. Gerald sighed and pulled the usual thick envelope from his desk drawer. He handed it to her, but didn’t release it immediately.
“Is he done, then? Will there be any more to come?”
Clara shook her head quickly and tugged at the envelope. He released it and dropped his chin onto his knuckles, disconsolate.
Clara hesitated. She was rather fond of Gerald, for he’d been the first to see the worth in her drawings. He was a crotchety, foul-mouthed, belligerent old fellow, but he liked her work and echoed her cause.
She pulled back her hood and bent to give him a quick peck on the cheek. “I’ll tell you a secret, Mr. Braithwaite,” she whispered. “Sir Thorogood isn’t half the man you think he is!”
At Gerald’s look of shock and dawning comprehension, she gave him a quick wink before shielding her face and ducking from the office.
As she hurried to the front door of the building and her waiting hack, she heard Gerald’s laughter boom through the halls one final time.
The ride had been long clinging to the back of the hired carriage, but as the small ragged man watched from his perch as the lady descended from the hack, he grinned to himself.
‘The gentleman said ‘Follow the maid, Feebles,’ but methinks the gentleman meant ‘Follow the lady.’”
Still, the case itself was none of his concern. His job was information, and he was fairly sure this information would be useful to the gentleman in charge.
He watched the lady enter the coaching inn that lay on the outskirts of London. The cabby followed with her bag, leaving the inn’s hostler to water the horses. Good, then. She was staying the night.
Taking advantage of a chance for a brief rest, Feebles carefully stretched one leg to the ground, then the other. Then he ambled around the hack to cadge a chew from the hostler. That sort never smoked because of the chance of fire in the bam. Without a word, the hostler tossed Feebles a plug. The two men settled down to wait together.
The cabby came back, stuffing a wad of notes into his pocket as he jogged to his hack. Feebles hailed him in a leisurely manner. “Goin’ back to town, are you? Mind if I come along?”
The man stopped with one hand ready to pull himself to the seat above. “Got the bob?”
Peebles shrugged easily. “Nothing but the lint in me pocket. But I’ll promise good conversation if you let me ride up front. I might just know a tale or two you never ‘eard before.”
The cabby eyed him suspiciously, but Feebles was used to that. In fact, he cultivated it. He also purposely encouraged the next stage, which was dismissal.
The driver shrugged, accepting the very harmlessness that was Peebles, and vaulted up to his seat at the reins.
“Well, come up then. If you bore
me, you’re walkin’ at the next crossing.”
Peebles grinned and shot a stream of spittle to one side. It worked every time. He hadn’t paid for a hack in years.
He clambered up beside the cabby. “Did you hear the one about the teetotaler and the tavern maid?”
The secret office above the Liar’s Club was dark, but the intruder knew it well. It only took a moment to find the file containing the latest information on the search for Sir Thorogood. A quick scratch and light burst from one of the special friction matches that only the Liar’s Club was supposed to know about.
By the time the wooden matchstick had burned down, the intruder knew everything about Sir Thorogood that the spymaster knew. A deep chuckle made the tiny flame sputter, then go out.
“Took you long enough, Etheridge.”
There was a scrape, then a click.
Then the office was as empty as it should have been when the spymaster was a fast horse out of town.
Clara stood at the window of her little room at the coaching inn with no idea where to go next. All she could think of was how quickly her life had fallen apart. It had only been four days since she’d first seen Sir Thorogood at the Rochesters’ ball! How had she managed to ruin everything in so short a time?
Clara walked to the wall, then turned and walked to the window, then back again. She’d never tried pacing before, but at this point she was willing to do anything for some inspiration. She’d stopped at this coaching inn just outside of London because she simply didn’t have anywhere to run.
She’d tried making a list, but there was nothing to put on it. She’d been in this room for hours. Night had fallen long ago, but she had no way to know the time. She’d never needed a watch in town, for the bells rang the hours during the day and the watchmen called them at night.
No one called the hours here. In fact, there seemed to be no one about at all. She’d opened her window when she’d entered the stuffy room this afternoon. At that time there had been the everyday noise of carriages, horses, and the staff working about the place.
Now it seemed as though everyone in the world was asleep but her. Unfortunately, she was far too restless to prepare for bed.
If she leaned through the deep-set window she could just see the road shining white in the moonlight, stretching both ways through the mysterious hillocks and shadows. In one direction lay London and everything that was familiar. In the other lay all that was unknown to a woman born in the city.
Each stretch of road beckoned. Should she press on, living on what she had saved, eventually taking her chances on finding employment somewhere despite having no references or experience?
Or should she go back to where she knew the ways of the streets and the stones and the very air? Where she would live in constant danger of discovery, and quite possibly, attack?
Leaving the window and its beckoning possibilities for a while, Clara went to her case and removed a portfolio of sketching paper and a small box of charcoal. The accumulated candles in the room gave enough light when set together on the small writing desk, and soon Clara had lost her worries in the pure joy she felt in her drawing.
She drew Kitty the way the girl looked with her head angled over the keys of the piano and her hp caught firmly in her teeth. She drew Beatrice with one brow raised in an expression of mixed disapproval and amusement.
And she drew him, whoever he was. She drew him as Monty and as the pompous Sir Thorogood. But mostly she drew him as the devastating man beneath the mask who had kissed her with such damning false craving.
If she was ashamed of anything she had done, it was that she hadn’t seen through the he.
She hadn’t wanted to see.
The drawing blurred before her. She pressed both wrists to her eyes. She would not cry. Her grief put up quite a fight, but ultimately she felt able to face his image again.
When she opened her eyes, the paper before her was blank, the sketches gone as if by magic. Had the topmost sheet blown from the table in a breeze from the open window? She looked to each side of her, but there was nothing on the floor.
“Hmm. I cannot deny that I am flattered.”
Clara froze at the sound of the rich cultured voice behind her. Fear leaped high in her chest, ridden by an unmistakable bit of excitement. She stood, shoving her chair back as she turned.
The man who was not Monty stood behind her. Gone were the rough clothes. There was no trace of the laughing thief, no hint of the pompous poseur. This man was someone altogether new.
Chapter Seventeen
He was magnificent. He was everything that he had never been for her. Polished but tastefully elegant. Handsome, but somber in his perusal of her.
Had he always been so tall? So wide and imposing? So beautiful?
A trace of anger began to stir within her fear. So much of what she had given her heart to had been a he. Monty’s gentle humor, his flirtatious approval of her boldness… his desire for her. All a he.
Had this man ever been anything but deceptive toward her? Had he ever said one thing that was true?
She backed slowly away as though he were a snake, until the small desk stood between them. He remained where he was, unimpressed by her caution, as a cat is unimpressed by the maneuverings of a mouse.
He merely watched her, then went back to examining the sheet that he held carefully by the edges.
“You’re very good.” He tilted the page to the lamplight, leaning to peer more closely at a thumbnail sketch of himself reposing nude in the moonlight.
Heat crept over Clara’s face, but she tossed her hair back and held her chin high. “You’re very easy to look at, as I’m sure you know,” she said, attempting a careless tone. “An artist’s dream, really.”
He merely made that noise deep in his throat once more. Clara twitched. Unwise of him. It made her want to fling something at him.
Preferably something heavy.
With spikes.
“I should very much like to tide that page,” she said, her voice straining to cover her turmoil. “Perhaps if you condescend to tell me who you truly are.”
He finally looked up from the drawing and eyed her coolly. She couldn’t keep herself from fidgeting under that silver gaze, but hopefully he couldn’t see her fingers twisting behind her back.
He contemplated her for a long moment, his hands idly rolling the drawing into a narrow tube as he did so. Then he approached her, tucking the scroll into his coat as he drew near. He stopped just inches from her, so close she could smell the sandalwood scent of him. She turned her head away, but that only allowed his breath to brush her cheek.
Warm fingers caught at her chin and raised her face to the light. His touch was not rough, but there was no caress within it. He examined her as he had the drawing, with narrowed eyes that missed nothing.
She had the absurd desire to cross her eyes at him but until she knew his intent, it would not be wise to antagonize him. She must remain cool and retain her dignity, if only to save her heart from further humiliation.
Still her foot twitched with a suppressed longing to stomp his instep and perhaps have a go at bruising his… dignity.
He tilted her head from one side to the other. “I have never truly seen you in good light, not without the face paint.” He gazed at her dispassionately, his eyes shaded to gray as he stood with his back to the light.
Monty’s eyes.
Pain slashed within her. She jerked her chin from his grip and looked away. How could she still long for someone who was no more than a figment of her imagination?
“You still haven’t answered my question,” she said, her voice flat. “Who are you truly?”
He lowered his hand and stepped back, as if surprised that he had ever come so close. Then he bowed formally, so deeply that it had an air of mockery. She longed to break a vase over his shiny dark head.
“Dalton Montmorency, Lord Etheridge, at your service.”
She couldn’t help a disbelieving snort. “Oh, very
good. And I’m the Princess of the Moon.”
He rose, his gaze intense. “No, you are a fairy maid, wild and changeable, born to taunt poor mortals to their ruin.”
Clara nearly looked behind her to see whom he addressed before she realized he was most assuredly speaking to her.
“Me? A fairy maid?” She stepped away, eyeing him with new suspicion. “You simply cannot stop, can you? Lies fall from your lips like leaves in autumn.”
He stiffened. “I have not once lied to you since coming into this room.”
“That reminds me… how did you get in?”
He cocked his head to one side. “How do I usually get in?”
The window. Heavens, how stupid could she be? For someone like him, an open window was a virtual invitation. Then his words sank in. He was truly a lord?
He thinks thinks me a fairy maid?
Oh, shut it, she thought to herself furiously. You have more important things to think about now. “Well, what do you want with me? How did I offend the mighty Lord Etheridge? I never lampooned you.”
“No, you wouldn’t have. I live out of sight for the most part.”
“Yet you played the part of Sir Thorogood so well,” she said bitterly. “You became quite the favorite of Society.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “Jealous?”
“I did not enjoy seeing a liar such as you showered with my success, no. But I never wanted acclaim or I should have stepped forward long ago.”
“Then I doubt you would still be breathing today. Since I assumed Sir Thorogood’s identity, there have been no less than three attempts on my life.”
Concern swept her before she could stop it. Drat it, would she never get it through her head? This was no lover. This was an enemy.
She turned away, moving toward the window. The moon had moved to shine into the room, brightening that portion nearly as well as the grouped candles lit the other side. Could that truly be the same moon that had shone down upon Rose and Monty? Had that truly been only last night?