Bridal Favors (30 page)

He smiled engagingly at the stout brunette who, along with her two male companions, looked up at his entrance, fork half-raised to her open mouth.

The two gentlemen rose. “Pleased to meet you. . . .” The taller gentleman hesitated, clearly embarrassed that he did not know the name of the man who was, in whatever roundabout way, his host.

“Powell. Justin Powell. Likewise, Mr. . . . ?” he trailed off invitingly.

“Sir Bernard Stow. And these are my companions, Tom and Ida Gould-Hedges.”

“Charmed,” Justin said before turning back to Bernard. “This is good luck. I was actually looking for you, sir.”

“Me?” Bernard didn’t do it nearly as well as Justin did. His gaze clearly held a warning.

“Yes, you, sir. There’s some confusion over which bags are yours. They have the lot spread out in the back hall and the poor maid is in tears, not wanting to make a mistake. She’s never served such exalted guests, poor creature. I’m sure you understand.”

“Of course,” piped in the brunette lady, her round face kind.

“Would you mind popping down the hall and clearing the matter up? Won’t take but a minute.”

“Er, yes, I suppose.” Bernard crumpled his napkin with rather more force than necessary and dashed it next to his plate before excusing himself. Wordlessly, he exited into the hall. With one last smile at the Gould-Hedgeses, Justin followed, closing the door firmly behind him.

He did not look at Bernard. He didn’t trust himself. Not yet. Instead, he moved past him, and heard his superior fall into step behind him, hastening to catch up. Only after he’d led Bernard into a small niche off of the front sitting room did he swing to face him.

“You had better have a bloody good reason for this, Justin,” Bernard said in a flat voice.

“Oh, I do,” Justin muttered, and unleashed a right hook straight at Bernard’s jaw.

Chapter 22

JUSTIN WASN’T SUICIDAL. Whether or not he liked it, he was an officer in the army, and Bernard was the man from whom he took his orders. At the very last instant, he pulled his punch. The blow, which would have felled a man much larger than Bernard, flew by his face, grazing his cheek.

Still, Justin could not deny his satisfaction when Bernard jerked back seconds too late to have avoided the blow—if Justin’s intent had been to hit him—and realized it. Sweat broke out on his forehead and his hand shook as he took a handkerchief from his coat pocket and mopped his face.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he demanded in a hoarse whisper. “Have you lost you mind, man?”

“No. But I begin to think I work for a madman,” Justin said with controlled fury. “That was just a demonstration, Bernard.”

“Are you threatening me?” Bernard asked in amazement.

“Yes,” Justin answered. “Oh, yes.”

“I won’t stand here and listen to this. I’m your—”

“You’re
nothing
right now, Bernard. Nothing to me except a source of information.”

The coldness in Justin’s eyes caused Bernard to start. Until that moment he’d never realized just how dangerous a man worked for him.
Had
worked for him. Because he would certainly have Justin’s rank for this outrage, once the present situation was cleaned up.

Right now, however, Bernard needed Justin, and Bernard was the ultimate pragmatist—even more so than Justin. Except that Justin apparently wasn’t as pragmatic as Bernard had assumed, which begged the question: What had changed him?

“I assume you’ve discovered the crate is empty.”

“Yes.”

“That was the one thing I feared.” Bernard shrugged, delving into a pocket for his silver cigarette case. Casually, he selected an American blend and tapped it on the lid, his thoughts racing, picking through and discarding different options. He would pace as close to the truth as he dared, and see just how much his one-time prize pupil had hypothesized.

For a second, his face reflected his regret. It was criminal, really, this waste of Justin’s talents.

“We used you to find an agent. Not just any agent, but an extraordinary one, and extraordinarily dangerous.” He watched Justin’s face carefully. “But I see you’ve already surmised as much. He’s been working for years. Always in the shadows, always a step ahead. We know virtually nothing about him other than that he’s always at the center of international intrigue, passing out vital information to the highest bidder.”

“Including us?”

Bernard should have seen that coming. “Occasionally,” he admitted.

“And that’s the reason you want to find him,” Justin said thoughtfully. “You don’t want to take him into custody. You want to identify him. Because then you can feed him whatever information you want.”

“Bravo. You were ever a cunning lad.” Bernard lit the cigarette and took a puff.

Justin wasn’t interested in praise. His thoughts were running down different avenues. “That’s why all the blinds and double blinds. You set me to guard an empty crate because you knew I’d keep it out of his hands or die in the effort. For as soon as your spy realized he’d been gulled, he’d fade back into the woodwork.

“You had to keep me between him and the crate so he’d keep trying to get at it and you’d have more opportunities to identify him. I suppose I should be flattered by your faith in me.”

Bernard wisely refrained from speaking.

“Do you realize he thinks Evelyn is
me
? He found the crate in her room and broke into it. Unfortunately I must have chased him off when I arrived.”

Bernard cursed the miniscule hesitation in his breathing. But Justin had heard it. His smile was venal. “Why did you set her up? Oh, yes. I know you set her up. I know about the letters you sent her from every hotbed of political intrigue. Anyone watching the incoming posts would be fascinated by those postmarks, wouldn’t they? I was. But how did you keep—” He broke off and sneered delicately.

“You simply diverted any real posts from her aunt, didn’t you? I won’t even ask how. For you, I should imagine tampering with the post would be a relatively easy matter. But why, Bernard? Why her?
Why
set her up?”

Carefully, Bernard knocked the ash from his cigarette and wet his lips. “Simple, really. The man we are after stands very close to discovering the most importantly positioned agent we have ever had. He may not even know it. The only reason we do is because the information that he passes on, and which we have intercepted, is almost identical to the information our agent sends us.”

“What has this to do with Lady Evelyn?”

“She fits the criteria. She moves in the same circles, has access and entrée similar to our agent. She wouldn’t stand up under close, intense scrutiny, but as a short-lived red herring she is perfect. Besides, every piece of bait we angle makes it more likely we discover the spy.”

There was a tense watchfulness about Justin that Bernard disliked.

“You gave me the idea, you know.”

“Did I?” Justin asked mildly.

“Yes. When we met on the Thames and you told me about her aunt being off on her honeymoon. I knew her family had diplomatic connections, and immediately thought how advantageous it would be to have someone think that Miss Cummings Whyte was, in fact, receiving messages from international sources.”

“Someone being your spy,” Justin said. “You might have told her what you were doing, the situation in which you were placing her.”

“Impossible. She might have refused, and that was a chance I wasn’t going to take. No. This time her work for us was gratis. Of course, in the future she’ll be fully apprised of all aspects of a situation.”

“There’ll be no future!” Before Bernard could react, Justin’s hand shot out, stopping just short of touching him. With a shiver, Justin rammed his hand into his pocket. The effort it cost him showed in his face.

“You can’t seriously be willing to involve an innocent young woman in your machinations, Bernard,” he ground out.

Uncomfortably, Bernard fidgeted with his cigarette in order to hide his trepidation.

“Why not? She’s invaluable as a way to dispense erroneous information,” he said. “She seems a game sort of lass; she might welcome it as a bit of patriotic adventuring.” He paused, his gaze meeting Justin’s. “You did.”

“Damn you, you wouldn’t play on her susceptibilities that way!”

Bernard blinked in hurt surprise. “She can always say no. But why should she? Think of how perfect she is! She has access to all the right people. Not only is she the Duke of Lally’s granddaughter, she’s in and out of the houses of some of the most prominent members in government—every household that has a daughter of marriageable age, that is.”

“She can’t because it’s dangerous,” Justin said in carefully measured tones.

“Not at all. We wouldn’t actually have her do anything. Simply pop in here and there, keeping people interested in her activities so they wouldn’t be looking at others’. Occasionally receive an odd letter. That’s about the sum of it.”

“As long as she stays in England. But what if she decides she’d like to travel abroad, and what if someone decides her true value is as a hostage?”

Bernard pulled deeply on his cigarette and blew the smoke in a thin stream. “You’re being melodramatic. What are the chances of that happening?” He snorted. “How often have
you
been taken hostage?”

“Never. But I’ve been detained a number of times. Besides, that’s not the point.”

“Oh? And what is?” Bernard asked irritably. He disliked the path this conversation had taken.

“The point is, Bernard,” Justin said, gently taking the half-burnt cigarette from Bernard’s hand and dropping it to the flagstone floor, “that that chance isn’t going to be taken.”

He ground the cigarette slowly and thoroughly under his boot heel.

Bernard felt the animosity rolling off Justin like cold from a glacier. Involuntarily, he recoiled, then checked himself. It would never do for a subordinate to think he had the upper hand. Nothing was more dangerous than a rogue spy. Justin knew that. Just as he knew that rogue spies were dealt with in the age-old manner of all rogue animals: They were destroyed. He must be very involved with Lady Evelyn, if he was willing to intimate threats.

“Be very careful, Justin,” he cautioned.

“I would offer the same advice,” Justin replied, holding Bernard’s gaze. They stood regarding one another a long minute before Bernard sighed, a saddened middle-aged professor disappointed in a star pupil. “We’ll do what we deem best, Justin. You know that.”

“‘We’?” Justin pounced on the pronoun.

“I co-opted the royal prerogative. I meant me.” He reached for his cigarette case again and thought better of it.

“So you’re here to discover this agent, eh?”

Bernard lifted his hands palms up and lowered his eyes modestly. “Who better? I would have been here when the blighter broke into Lady Evelyn’s room, except that thanks to the train derailment, the damn crate we sent arrived before I did.”

“How did you manage an invitation?”

Bernard was being questioned and he resented it. But he still had affection for Justin. He still would like to save his life.

“Bunny Cuthbert and I have sat on several committees together. It wasn’t too hard to flatter an invitation from him. The poor bloke hasn’t any family, you know, only that fool dog. In fact, he was rather pathetically pleased to think he could add a name to the guest list.”

“I see.”

Once more Bernard heaved a heartfelt sigh. “I’ll tell you what, Justin. Play the game to its end and then we’ll see what’s what. This is too important to muck up now, just because you’ve developed a tendresse for a pert speck of womanhood.”

Justin didn’t reply.

“That’s the best I’ll offer, Justin.”

With an unreadable expression, Justin drew himself up. “Then I suppose I’d best take it.” He hesitated, a bitter curl to his lips. “I suppose there never was a Diabolical Machine?”

“Like what? An internal combustion engine?” Bernard gave a humorless snort. “Don’t be absurd.”

At the door to her bedroom, Evelyn smiled and kissed her mother’s cheek. Behind her, Merry bustled about the room, muttering French imprecations and studiously avoiding Lady Broughton’s eye.

“You’re sure you are all right?” her mother asked, her brow pleated.

“I’m fine. Just a little tired. But there’s still so much to do and only one more day to do it. But after that, I may not wake for a month.”

“You must be tired if you could fall asleep right in front of Mr. Powell.”

Evelyn prayed the still murky early morning light hid any betraying color in her cheeks. “Yes.”

Francesca looked toward Merry. “Merry, dear, I was wondering if you would be so kind as to stop by my room later. I’m not sure the dress I brought for the wedding fits as well as it should.”

“As soon as time allows, Lady Broughton,” Merry nodded vigorously, “but you can see how it is.” She gestured around the cluttered room.

A housemaid appeared at the door, her arms filled with fresh bed linen. “Should I come back later, ma’am?”

“No, no,” Evelyn said, happy for an excuse to send her mother off. The maid dropped a curtsey and bustled toward the bed.