The Spy's Kiss (8 page)

“Well, yes and no. Yes, he should be told. But no, I don't think you should do it.”

“You?” She was astonished.

“Certainly not!” he said, clearly very offended.

“Well then, who? I think Bates suspects, but it is hardly his place—”

He interrupted her impatiently. “Simon, of course.”

She sat down slowly in the chair, which had been drawn up next to his bed. After a long moment, she said quietly, “What a sad commentary on how badly spoilt Simon has become these past few years. That solution did not even occur to me, and of everyone in the household I am closest to him.”

“Is he—dishonest?” He said it as though he were holding up a toad.

She shook her head. “Not in the way I think you mean. He tells raspers, as he calls them, by the bushel. He feigns illness. He opens locked cupboards in Mrs. Fletcher's office and switches all the plate from one to the other. But most of that, in my opinion, is simply pent-up energy.”

Clermont repeated what was becoming his refrain to the ballad of Viscount Ogbourne: “That boy should be in school.”

“My aunt thinks him sickly. And he was, when he was younger. He was quite ill, off and on, for two years.” She stared off into space. “He was only four when the first bout of pleurisy hit, and he was so patient, and brave! I nursed him; I had just arrived and barely knew my aunt and uncle; it was a relief to have something worthwhile to do. We became, in effect, brother and sister. And then he recovered, gradually, but my aunt never believed it. So now he takes advantage of her fears, and I stand by and permit it.”

“What of your uncle?”

“He defers to my aunt on all domestic matters.”

“The doctor?”

She smiled suddenly, a mischievous smile. “Dr. Wall and I have in fact been mounting a campaign to promote Simon from an invalid to a healthy boy with a slight tendency to colds in the chest. It is a delicate operation; a year ago Dr. Wall told my aunt straight out that Simon was not really ill and she nearly dismissed him on the spot.”

He changed the subject suddenly. “Speaking of Dr. Wall, he told me that if Vernon returned he would authorize my removal to the inn the day after next.”

“Did he?” she said in her blandest tones. The old doctor had conferred with her, of course. “Congratulations.”

“Your aunt is pressing me to stay on, however, as a guest rather than a patient.” His dark eyes studied her carefully as he spoke.

“Why do you tell me this?”

“Because I will decline if it will make you uncomfortable,” he said bluntly.

“I thought you were eager to be gone,” she said, equally blunt. “The phrase ‘durance vile' was used, not completely in jest, only a few moments ago.”

“There is a difference between being confined to bed on a diet of broth and medicinal teas and being a guest of the Earl and Countess of Bassington,” he pointed out.

“Not much of a difference,” she warned him. “At least if I have anything to say about it. You will still need to rest frequently and eat a light diet for several more days.”

“A light diet!” He groaned. “Do you know, I would kill for a piece of bread. Or cheese. A big, square hunk of cheese. Apples. Grapes.” His face brightened. “Wait, don't invalids eat grapes?”

“They do,” she conceded, “when their host's succession houses contain grapes. Which ours, alas, do not.”

“Oh,” he said, disappointed.

“If I procure grapes, will you stay?”

He looked at her curiously. “Do you want me to stay?”

She wasn't sure of the answer. For that matter, she wasn't sure where she could find grapes at this time of year.

“I think you might be good for Simon,” she said at last.

“If he doesn't kill me, or disable me, or steal all my worldly goods.”

“And do you have any worldly goods, Mr. Clermont?”

His brows shot up. “My, what an inquisitive young lady you are, Miss Allen. Yes, I do. A very ample supply, in fact. Is there any particular reason you wished to know about my finances?”

She lowered her head, mortified. This time she really had gone too far. “I don't want you to—to take advantage of my aunt,” she said in a low voice. “Perhaps she seems foolish to you, but she is very good-natured and I owe her a great deal.”

“Miss Allen, look at me.”

She did. His eyes held hers, imperious.

“I am not here to fleece your aunt. I am not here to steal the Bassington rubies, if there are any Bassington rubies. I am not here—let us put our cards on the table—to court you. Believe it or not, I am here to read about the travels and researches of the late earl.” He smiled suddenly, a speculative smile which made her very uneasy. “Although come to think of it, a discreet flirtation would be a charming way to distract me from the trials of my convalescence.”

She glared at him. “I am
not
interested in a discreet flirtation,” she hissed.

“Well,” he conceded, “it is true that discretion is not your strong point.”

“I think I liked you better when you were ill,” she informed him crossly. Turning, she swept towards the door using her best glide. But she paused at the last minute and turned around. “You may stay if you wish.”

He inclined his head gravely. He did not smile, which was wise. If he had she would have told him that, on second thought, he made her very nervous and perhaps it would be best if he did leave.

When she looked in again before going down to dinner, half hoping he might have changed his mind on his own, he was asleep. With the dark eyes closed and his gold and brown hair falling across his face, he looked from across the room remarkably like an older version of Simon. No wonder she didn't trust him.

Somewhere a clock chimed midnight. His door was open a crack—the old nurse had not closed it properly when she had left an hour ago—and the strokes could be heard distinctly in the silent house. He had slept for several hours earlier in the evening; now he was lying awake, enjoying life without Vernon. It was not pleasant to have a continual headache, or to worry about whether his wrist was broken instead of sprained, or to be confined to bed and half starved. But it
was
pleasant to have a respite from his servant's well-meant, solicitous, endless hovering. Miss Allen, with her efficient hostility, was in some ways a breath of fresh air.

He was being unjust, of course. Vernon could not help a touch of paternalism; Clermont's aunt had engaged him to wait on Julien years ago. To Vernon, his master was still a boy, and all Clermont's actions were judged as though he were sixteen. The sojourn in Canada was, in the servant's view, a three-year fit of pique. The decision to conceal his title and be known as plain Mr. Clermont: foolish pride. The visit to Boulton Park—no, he decided, he didn't want to revisit Vernon's blistering denunciations of his current enterprise.

Their last quarrel, which had taken place just after their arrival in Burford, had ended with Clermont threatening to dismiss the valet if he said one more word to him on the subject. Since then Vernon had confined himself to the occasional enigmatic quotation from the Bible, addressed in a loud voice to inanimate objects. The washbasin, for example, had been told that “a fool uttereth all his mind,” while Julien's greatcoat (or perhaps the clothes brush) was the recipient of “can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes be not burned?” Clermont wondered what Vernon would come up with in response to the news that his master now intended a stay of ten days as Bassington's guest.

Well, tomorrow he would find out. In the meantime he would make the most of his solitude. He tucked his good arm behind his head and contemplated the dull glow of the banked embers in the grate. At some point, he knew, one of his nurses would come in again and check on him. Should he wish for the shapely shrew, or the kind but dull Mrs. Digby? In his present optimistic mood, he could see advantages either way. Mrs. Digby could probably be cajoled into bringing him something to eat. And Miss Allen, besides being undeniably attractive, maintained a guarded distance which appealed to his sense of mischief.

He heard a noise like a door closing and pushed up onto his elbow, expecting to hear footsteps coming down the hall towards his room. He could tell by now, from the pace of the steps, which of his nurses would appear. But he heard nothing more, except a faint series of thumps behind the chimney. It was still gusty outside—there had been a rainstorm earlier in the evening—and after another minute without any activity in the hall he concluded that the wind had torn open a shutter and was now banging it occasionally against the wall of the house.

Conscious of a slight feeling of disappointment, he sank back down onto the pillows. The bed gave a disgruntled creak, the wind flung a belated spatter of raindrops against the window, and there was another thump from the fireplace, accompanied by an odd odor of wet wool. Then silence. And a full minute later, barely audible over the noise of the wind, a soft footstep. Clermont's eyes, well-adjusted now to the near darkness, made out a faint movement on the other side of the room. His good hand shot down between the mattress and the bed frame and found his pistol. It made an audible click as he cocked it, and he heard a startled exclamation from somewhere near the window.

“Stop right there,” he ordered curtly. “Don't move; I've a gun and I hear very well. If I sense motion I will fire at it. Who are you? What are you doing here?”

No answer, just a cough, quickly smothered.

Clermont added two plus two and came up with four. He sighed and lowered his weapon. “Viscount Ogden, I believe? Or is it Ogbourne? My apologies, I took you for a thief. I'm setting down the pistol.” He released the hammer very slowly and audibly. “Might I ask you to come over to the nightstand—two or three paces ahead, slightly to your left—and light the candle?” There was still no reply, but he knew he had guessed right. The boy stepped over to the little table, moving with an assurance which told Clermont that he was an old hand at navigating in the dark. After only a brief fumble, he saw a spark, and the candlewick guttered slightly in the boy's trembling hand and then caught. The widening arc of light showed him Simon's face, very pale, mouth clamped shut, eyes wide with apprehension.

“Well, which is it?” Clermont prompted. “Ogden, or Ogbourne?”

“Ogbourne,” whispered his visitor mechanically. Then he recovered his powers of speech in a rush. “You won't tell, will you? I'd no notion of disturbing you, I was just trying to get back upstairs without being seen.”

“That was you the other night as well, wasn't it? The bang from the chimney?”

“Yes. Sorry,” said the boy in a small voice. “I didn't mean to make such a noise, but I don't often go this way, and I had forgotten how the handle worked. I was tugging at the wrong end for the longest time, and I pulled too hard, and it just flew back suddenly and clanged right into the wall.”

“What handle?”

“To the little iron door in the chimney wall. Lots of the fireplaces in this house have them—a little door, and you can get into a space between the fireplace and the outer wall of the house and climb down to the next floor. That is, I can. You wouldn't fit.”

Now Clermont could see that there were, in fact, a few flecks of soot in the fair hair and more soot smeared across one shoulder of the jacket. “The stairs, of course, are to be avoided?”

“Well, if I don't want Nurse to catch me, they are. She comes some nights to see if I'm asleep, and when she finds my bed empty she lurks about at the top of the staircase trying to ambush me. But if I can get back to my room without her seeing me, I can convince her that I was hiding somewhere in the attic the whole time.” Simon said this last with considerable satisfaction.

“The whole time . . . when you were, in fact, where?” asked Clermont, moving slightly to one side in the bed so that Simon could sit down. Now he knew where the wet wool smell had come from; the boy's jacket and nankeens were wet, and a slimy brown clump of leaves left a smear on the quilt as Simon settled himself.

“Oh, out.” Simon waved his hand vaguely. “I have a weak chest, you know, and Nurse and my mother are always saying I look unwell, and dosing me, and making me lie down, and I
hate
lying in bed when I'm not sleepy. So I found some other ways to get in and out of my room, and when I'm restless I can take a—a—constitutional.”

“A constitutional? At midnight? In February?”

“A gentle walk is good for the health and can be beneficial in cases of insomnia,” recited Simon in a sing-song voice.

“You,” Clermont retorted, “should be at school.”

“My mother says schools are dreadful places, especially for boys who are delicate.” Simon looked prim. “You sleep in a damp, unheated garret with dozens of other students, and there isn't enough to eat, and they tell you where to go every minute of the day and flog you if you are tardy.”

“It's true that the school day is rather regimented,” admitted Clermont. “But the rest is nonsense. I was at Old Hall in Hertfordshire for nine years. No garrets. No floggings. And I had my own study the last two years I was there.”

Simon digested this in silence for a moment. Then his eye fell on the pistol, a small model covered with silver inlay and elaborate scrollwork. “Not much of a gun,” he said scornfully, picking it up without waiting for permission and hefting it. “Wish I'd known you were threatening me with this little toy. Couldn't hurt anything much bigger than a rabbit with this, I'd wager.”

“Wrong again,” said Clermont, smoothly recapturing the weapon. “I killed a very large bear with that gun some years ago. You have to hit between the eyes, of course. The gauge is too small to be sure of killing a large animal if you aim for the body.”

Simon was looking sullen. Ashamed of his earlier fright, Clermont guessed.

“You should get back to your room,” he said, giving the boy a gentle shove. “Don't worry, I won't tell anyone I saw you.” The boy, still scowling, had nearly reached the door when some unaccountable impulse led Clermont to add, “You know, this gun can be unloaded without firing it. Would have come in handy last week in the park.”

In an instant Simon was back by the bed. “You're gammoning me,” he said.

“No, watch.” With three neat twists, Clermont unscrewed the barrel from the stock and removed the bullet from its chamber.

Simon's mouth was wide open.

“I'll show you how to fire it, once your cousin lets me out of bed,” he offered as he replaced the barrel. “It's Dutch, spiral bore, very moderate recoil and wonderfully accurate.”

“And to think I said you would be a good influence on him.” Her voice came from the doorway and did not sound amused. This time her hair was neatly braided, and she was wearing a shawl over her wrap. But she looked just as irritated as she had that first night when she had burst half undressed into what she thought was a crisis in the sickroom and found Clermont gaping at her while Mrs. Digby rewound his bandages.

Simon and Clermont both froze in place. She stepped into the room, closed the door quietly but firmly behind her, and stood, arms folded, glaring at them. Her cousin scuttled quickly from his position by the night table to the relative safety of the other side of the bed.

“Where on
earth
have you been?” she asked Simon in a low, furious voice. “You are lucky I heard Mr. Clermont talking and realized you might be in here; Mrs. Digby is hunting for you everywhere!” She caught sight of his bedraggled nankeens, with the telltale fragments of muddy leaves clinging to the sides of his legs, and groaned. “Not the secret forest?” Simon nodded sheepishly. “Take off your wet things, and wrap yourself up in this for the moment,” she ordered, handing him her shawl. “I'll go distract her and fetch your nightshirt. Leave your clothes here; I'll collect them later and smuggle them upstairs.”

She turned to Clermont and raked him with a withering glance. “As for you, you are meant to be convalescing, not entertaining midnight visitors. You should be ashamed of yourself, encouraging him like this! And”—as her eye fell on the muddied coverlet—“I see that your bedding is wet
again
. Do you think the servants have nothing to do but change your bed linens every night?” The injustice of these accusations left him speechless, and before he could point out that she was far more guilty of corrupting Simon than he was, she had disappeared in an angry flutter of braids and nightclothes. Clermont thought he heard her mutter some imprecation containing the words “ungrateful” and “odious” as she went through the door.

Simon was hastily stripping off his boots and stockings and kicking them under the bed. “I shan't take off my shirt and breeches until I have something to put on, no matter what she says,” he grumbled, wrapping the shawl around his legs. “It's not decent. I'm not a child anymore.”

“What is the secret forest?” Clermont asked, intrigued.

“A tunnel from the cellar; it comes up under the woods in the park. Everyone always makes a fuss because I have to crawl a bit at the end and I get muddy.”

When Serena reappeared with a nightshirt he wriggled into it and out of the rest of his clothes with the ease of long practice.

“Hurry!” she told him, giving him a push. “She's looking in the kitchen now; you've time to get upstairs and open the attic door before you get back in bed.”

He skittered towards the door but turned at the last minute.

“Sir? Did you mean it?”

“Yes, I promise you a shooting lesson.”

Grinning, Simon grabbed the door frame and swung himself exuberantly out the door.

“Now you have just rewarded him for misbehaving,” she said disapprovingly as she gathered up Simon's scattered clothing.

“
I
did not send Mrs. Digby to the kitchen.”

She sighed. “You're right, of course. And I haven't yet dared suggest to him that he tell my uncle about the pistol.” Absentmindedly, she sat down on the edge of the bed and stared at the muddy bundle in her lap. “That task requires more eloquence than I possess, I'm afraid.”

It was tempting to lead her on, to encourage her in what he suspected might be a lengthy conversation about the wayward viscount. He might be able to pry some information about Bassington out of her in the process. And she was very pretty, in her white nightgown, with the candlelight reflecting off the smooth curves of her braids. But it was even more tempting to take revenge for the insults she had heaped on him a few minutes earlier.

“Why, Miss Allen,” he murmured, moving closer and taking her hand, “when you told me you were not interested in a discreet flirtation I had no notion you might in fact be more partial to an
indiscreet
flirtation.” He bent over and pressed a light kiss on the palm. Then on the wrist. One more, just behind the wrist.

It occurred to him that she should be resisting. He lifted his head and looked into her eyes. They were wide with shock, deep gray mirrors edged in lamplight. With a great effort, as though he were moving through water, he lowered her arm and laid it gently on the bed. His gaze slid down to her mouth. He wasn't thinking about revenge any longer. He drew in his breath, very quietly.

She sat, paralyzed, for one more moment. He saw her take it all in—that she was in her nightdress, seated on the bed of a strange man, about to be kissed. Then she jumped up and fled, scarlet-faced.