He looked ready to take offense, then shrugged it off. Freddie was his only real option and they both knew it.
“Give Her Majesty my best.”
The laughter carried them outside, where Dan bustled Freddie onto the trap and down the lane in less than his usual time.
“You’ll get caught, joking like that,” he scolded once they were on the high street, safely ensconced in the noisy flow of traffic. The little trap bounced along the cobbles, tugged along behind the steam “pony” that Dan controlled with deft flicks of the levers in front of him. Most of London’s flesh-and-blood horses were inured to the steam engines now, and didn’t even shy at the noise and sudden bursts of speed from the surrounding vehicles.
“I’m bound to get caught eventually. I don’t think cracking wise will make much difference one way or the other. Bloody hell, it’s warm out here for May.”
“You’re sitting right in the vent path. Told your father we needed a cowling on this thing when it was converted, but would he listen? And you shouldn’t be using coarse language, it ain’t ladylike.”
“Don’t be such a prig, Dan. You sound like my old nursemaid.”
“Because your old nursemaid was my mum, or have you forgot?”
“How could I? You’re the very image of her. Oh, bother. I’ve ruined these trousers with grease. My last. I don’t suppose you could procure another pair for me tonight?”
“You’re supposed to be saving your earnings, I thought. I’ll get Mum to clean those ones.”
“But they’re not your size, won’t she suspect?”
Dan’s laugh rang out above the noise of the street. “You don’t think she already knows? She knows everything, miss. She probably knew your scheme before you even thought of it yourself.”
Freddie glanced around, a reflex with her now. “Don’t call me that now.”
“Right. Pardon, Fred old chap. Are we headed for your piece of skirt among the quality, my lad?” He swung wide to get around a slow horse-drawn carriage, then cut through a narrow gap between two cabs and down a quieter side street.
“Who’s the coarse one now? Yes, to Lady Sophronia’s.” Freddie’s closest friend and ally aside from Dan himself, Sophronia Wallingford could always be counted on to provide a hot bath and the loan of a maid when Freddie completed one of her little moneymaking ventures and needed to clean up before returning to proper society.
“Ah, the beautiful widow Wallingford.” Dan let his voice deepen, and his rough accent managed to make even those few innocent words sound like lewd speculation. Freddie knew he teased to cover his genuine adoration of Sophie, a poignant longing that society would always make it impossible to requite. A footman could love a gentlewoman from afar all he liked, but the emotion could never bring him anything but empty daydreams and misery.
Freddie didn’t know why Dan subjected himself to it, but she tried to be sympathetic while at the same time subtly discouraging him. “You wouldn’t say that if you’d ever seen her before her maid was through with her in the morning.”
She also didn’t understand the embarrassed laugh and cough Dan hid in his glove, much like he’d done at old Armintrout’s earlier. But that was Dan, he’d always had inscrutable moments as long as she’d known him. All her life, in fact. He was the big brother she’d never had, except that she’d more or less always had him.
A heavier-than-usual patch of traffic and slow-moving pedestrians held them motionless for a few minutes, long enough for Freddie to grow anxious. The nearest walker, a youngish gentleman, had stopped alongside them. He stared in bewilderment from his map to the surrounding scenery, then in dismay at the cobbled road beneath their carriage.
“Haven’t they ever heard of asphalt?” she heard him say into the lull, apparently to no one in particular. Clearly the street noise was too much for him. Delicate sensibilities, perhaps. Or he was a tourist; he had a foreign look about his clothes, an accent that hinted at time spent in the American Dominions.
“They’ve started it north of the river,” Dan remarked to him, leaning down sociably from his seat. “But it’ll be a cold day for Lucifer before the nobs this far west allow that much change. Not to mention the smell when they lay it down. Nah, here it’ll be cobbles and setts until they die, I’d wager.”
Unheard-of cheek, especially coming from Dan, who was usually so sober and proper. The tourist was obviously no commoner. But it was safe enough, Freddie supposed. The next moment the steam coach ahead of them lurched forward, and all was noise and motion once again. The puzzled, fresh-faced gentleman was lost in the crowd, left alone with his map to speculate on road surfaces and how to find his way through London. Freddie forgot him the moment he was out of view.
Wallingford House loomed ahead of them for a moment, before Dan diverted the pony down another side street to the mews. They would enter as two rough tinker-makesmiths, then Dan would reemerge in his livery and return with the trap to Rutherford Murcheson’s stately Belgravia residence several streets away.
Miss Frédérique Murcheson would return home again only after attending a ball under the watchful eye of her friend and frequent chaperone, the Lady Sophronia Wallingford. With her mother now settled resolutely in France, and her father in London only occasionally for business, Freddie was able to get away with quite a lot—but sometimes even she couldn’t weasel her way out of an important social occasion.
After all, when the Queen called . . .
• • •
BARNABAS STARED AT the map, then at the street in front of him, wishing for the dozenth time that he’d opted to unpack his dirigible and fly to his employer’s home, instead of taking the Metropolitan railway from the air ferry stop in Hillingdon, then walking to his final destination. It had seemed like a foolish waste of time to launch himself instead of taking advantage of the local transportation, but now he eyed the individual airships above with envy. He could have at least taken a taxicab, but he had the ridiculous notion that he knew the town well, and he’d judged the cab not worth the expense for such a short distance.
London was not as thickly populated as New York, but it sprawled for what seemed like endless miles. Ancient, meandering streets were overlaid by the new. What had seemed straightforward on the map was rendered meaningless by the scale, the bustle and the overwhelming noise of steam cars and horse-drawn conveyances vying for space on old, cobbled roads or wood-block paving. The few times he’d come to the city with friends during his Oxford days, it hadn’t seemed so daunting. Or so cacophonous.
“Haven’t they ever heard of asphalt?”
“They’ve started it north of the river,” a voice commented from the nearest vehicle, a converted steam-drawn pony trap of a type that was all too familiar from the streets of New York. This one looked slightly down-at-heels, and its driver’s and passenger’s coats were frayed at the cuffs and collars. Tinkers, by the oil stains on their clothing and the assembly of tools in the back of the trap. No expertise with fine clockwork, but they could likely repair an engine or a pump for anyone who couldn’t afford a proper makesmith. Barnabas didn’t begrudge them their living but wondered how the local guilds viewed these independent competitors.
“Not to mention the smell when they lay it down. Nah, here it’ll be cobbles and setts until they die, I’d wager,” the driver finished.
The trap disappeared like magic as the traffic suddenly picked up its pace, and Barnabas stared dumbly for far too long at the space the little cart had occupied. There was something odd about the trap’s passenger that had diverted his attention from the driver almost instantly. He tried to pin it down but was unable. Something, though. About the eyes and jawline, the fit of the clothing . . .
A prodding hand jolted Barnabas from his bemused stupor, and he lashed out just in time to catch the wrist of his attempted pickpocket.
“Hey! Stop that!”
The boy dropped B
arnabas’s coin purse back into his pocket and escaped with a sharp twist of his hand against his intended victim’s thumb. Obviously not the first time the youth had been in that situation. A cluster of other boys lurked near the next corner, looking too nonchalant.
More alert, Barnabas transferred all his valuables to safer inside pockets, then returned his mind to the task at hand. He knew from his map he was close to Belgravia, and the rough tinker’s remark about nobs was confirmation. Rutherford Murcheson’s house couldn’t be too far off now. He should be able to find it in time to change and dress before the evening’s festivities. Whether he would actually find it festive, trying to keep a watchful eye on Murcheson’s wayward daughter, remained to be seen. At least it would be a relatively honest evening’s work.
Rutherford Murcheson hadn’t especially wanted Barnabas for the job of looking after his daughter. Barnabas had suspected as much from their correspondence, and his impression was confirmed by the man’s edgy, dismissive demeanor when Barnabas finally arrived at his tasteful home.
“You resemble your brother,” the older man said flatly after they’d shaken hands. “Are you going to disappoint me, as he did?”
Barnabas’s younger brother Phineas had seemed destined to greatness in his military career before he allegedly succumbed to the lure of opium and fell off the map. But that shouldn’t mean anything to Murcheson. “Who was he to you, sir, that you had any expectations of him?”
Murcheson was an industrialist, a manufacturer of clockwork devices and steam engines. Few knew of his other work, as a spymaster for the Crown. Barnabas himself had only learned this recently, and there was no reason young Lieutenant Phineas Smith-Grenville should have known it at all. But Barnabas had reason to believe there was much more to Phineas’s disappearance than his family had been led to believe. Finding out the truth about his brother and restoring honor to his name was still his primary objective, regardless of what assignment Murcheson might make. His last attempt to locate Phineas had resulted only in more shame for the family, as it involved Barnabas performing very badly in the American Dominions Sky and Steam Rally. He’d made it no farther than the first rest stop before succumbing to influenza. His friend Eliza Hardison—now Eliza Pence—claimed to have spotted Phineas in San Francisco during the finishing line ceremony. But a more recent sighting by a former shipmate of Phineas’s placed him in London, so here Barnabas was.
“Lieutenant Smith-Grenville was an unreliable operative. You have clearance to know this officially, now. Your younger brother worked for me, as I’m sure you already know from his own mouth, and was meant to be in deep cover to infiltrate a ring of opium smugglers. Instead he fell victim to the poppy himself and disappeared into the western Dominions. Weak character. But my good friends Baron and Baroness Hardison assure me you’re made of sterner stuff.”
Barnabas was shocked to hear that Phineas had been working for Murcheson as a spy, but it was clear Murcheson thought Phineas had revealed his assignment to his brother. Ultimately, though, it seemed important parts of the story were confirmed, that whatever he’d been doing previously, Phineas had subsequently disappeared into the world of opium addiction. Barnabas covered his startled stammer with a feigned cough, giving him a moment to regain his composure.
“I like to think my actions speak for my character, sir.”
“I’d like to think so too, but I’ve little confidence. Your last major action was taking a spectacular and costly loss in a race your family had invested in. You seem set to waste their time and money. Still, here you are, and I suppose I must make use of you. Incidentally, you’ll find a trunk full of your brother’s effects in your room. He’d left it in the keeping of his landlady, but it seemed fitting that you should have it. Perhaps you can deliver it to your family when you return to the Dominions, which I suspect will be sooner rather than later. If you actually last a fortnight, I’ll see to finding a house for you to let. For now, you’ll bunk here. Cheaper that way.”
Murcheson’s attitude was more than disheartening. The Hardisons had seemed so much more enthusiastic when they recruited Barnabas to their cause. The timing was perfect—his desire to search for Phineas in London, their European colleague’s need for a fresh operative there with an upper-class background. They had assured him that just as their own blue-blood heritage had served them well in forming a cover story for espionage, Barnabas’s social credentials made him ideal to pose as a young industrial dilettante abroad. A feckless fop of a son, perhaps, foisted off on the Makesmith Baron to train some sense into him. The story could be that the Baron had assigned Barnabas the ridiculously easy but lucrative sinecure of finalizing some negotiations that had obviously been conducted months prior between the Baron himself and Rutherford Murcheson. Then Murcheson could instruct Barnabas as he saw fit. And compensate him, a necessity as Barnabas’s father had refused to fund any further searching for Phineas following the rally debacle.
Barnabas had pointed out to his spymaster instructors—who included Charlotte, Lady Hardison, and her father Viscount Darmont, much to his surprise—that he knew people in London. He couldn’t appear too feckless. He was his father’s heir, after all, current disagreement notwithstanding. Nor could he play the fop when he’d been notoriously uninterested in things sartorial at Oxford.
“Ineffectual, then?” Charlotte had suggested. She’d been holding her daughter Penelope, gently bouncing and rocking her as she walked about the room. She seemed disinclined ever to give the infant over to her nursemaid’s keeping.
“Can’t I just be myself?”
They all looked at him as if he’d gone mad. Then Charlotte tilted her head, running her gaze up and down Barnabas as if seeing him in a new light. “It might work. No, let’s consider this,” she insisted when her colleagues raised their voices to object. “Who is Lord Barnabas Smith-Grenville? Look at him. He’s cheerful, generally well liked. He’s quite earnest but doesn’t completely lack a sense of humor. Well enough connected but hardly from a powerful family. Not a fashion plate or a Greek god, by any stretch. Meaning no offense, Barnabas.”
“None taken, madam.” But he found himself adjusting the shoulders of his coat and trying to recall when he’d last had his hair cut.
“None of those things are bad, none of them are particularly good. There’s nothing on the surface that’s—”
“Remarkable,” the Viscount finished for his daughter, earning a glare from her. “I see it now. Or rather I don’t, and neither will anybody else. He doesn’t need a show to divert attention, because nobody’s attention will be drawn to him in the first place.”
“I’m not sure I’d go so far as to—” Barnabas attempted.
“Women will not swoon, captains of industry will not bow down, that sort of thing,” the Viscount continued. “Just a perfectly nice chap, nothing more. Penny a pound.”
“Precisely,” Charlotte agreed, favoring Barnabas with a smile. “It’s perfect.”
“My boy, don’t look so downtrodden,” her father explained, leaning in and beaming at Barnabas. “We’re not insulting you. On the contrary, we’re paying you the highest compliment. In this business, unremarkable is the best thing you can possibly be.”
Charlotte nodded. “Nobody will ever suspect you of derring-do, not in a million years. Which makes you the perfect spy.”
But evidently the perfect spy was only fit for a job of personal busywork, more suited to an underling or footman in Barnabas’s opinion. Spying on the boss’s daughter, using his social graces to charm her into a false sense of security. He was to spend all his waking hours monitoring her. When he found out Frédérique Murcheson was his first assignment, Barnabas felt like he’d been had.
Murcheson claimed she was a security breach in the making and needed a tail. But now it seemed Murcheson didn’t even trust him with following an errant twenty-one-year-old girl. All because Phineas had let himself become addicted to opi
um. What was more, if Barnabas was to be on constant call to watch the girl, he would have difficulty spending time in the docklands trying to find a lead on Phin’s location.
“I’m not my brother, Mr. Murcheson.” Barnabas fell into the plummy, snooty tones of his upbringing. He was no misbehaving lieutenant, he was the eldest son and heir of an earl. Not a particularly important or powerful earl, true. But he still outranked a commoner in trade, at least in terms of social standing, and he had no compunction about reminding this man of that fact by his demeanor. “I was invited into Lady Hardison and Lord Darmont’s confidence because they believed me capable of working well for the Crown. If you’re not of the same opinion, I can simply—”
“Stop there, lad. Enough huffiness. You do the public school patter quite well, I’ll give you that. If you want my good opinion, prove yourself. Everywhere my daughter goes, everyone she speaks to, you will know and report to me. But she mustn’t suspect you. You must play the part of the fervent, well-intentioned suitor, do you understand? No matter how difficult you find that, once you meet Frédérique.”
“Understood.” What more could he say? It was clear any further reassurances from Barnabas would fall on uncaring ears. There was nothing left but to prove himself by outwitting and fooling this young woman into believing he was smitten enough to hound her every move, which ought to be simple enough though potentially a trifle unnerving for the lady. But perhaps not; wasn’t forming such an attachment the primary concern of most young ladies during the social season, after all? Even the heiresses whose blood wasn’t remotely blue. Except that this heiress was sounding less and less like the typical model.
“I suppose you ought to go attire yourself appropriately,” Murcheson sniffed. “It is a birthday ball for a prince, after all.”
Barnabas went, accompanied by a creeping sense of dread. What the hell had he gotten himself into?
THREE
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