Somewhat Scandalous (Brambridge Novel 1) (7 page)

What would Henry think?

Agatha stepped out from the pot plant. She might be the lowly companion but Victoria didn’t treat her as such. She treated her as a friend, the first one Agatha had ever had, allowing her to prattle on about angles, diagrams, chemistry, and biology without once censuring her or cutting her off. Sometimes she might even make an insightful remark which could change Agatha’s thoughts. For that reason alone she would do anything for Victoria.

Sliding back into the ballroom, Agatha searched for Charles. He stood with his finely dressed friends against the outer edge of the ballroom, watching the whirling couples. Each of them sported waterfall designs to their cravats. He smiled as she approached, and, taking her hand, led her onto the dancefloor.

He really was rather perfect.

Feeling unusually light on her feet, Agatha floated around the ballroom in her dance slippers, her heavy boots a distant thought.

“You’ve been very quiet, Agatha,” Charles murmured as they whirled. “You haven’t answered me.”

“Pardon?”

“I asked if you would be going to the circus in Vauxhall Gardens in three nights’ time. We can watch the Grand Salvatore together.”

Interrupted in her plotting and the effort of counting dance steps, Agatha almost stumbled in surprise. She hadn’t been paying attention—Vauxhall Gardens—where the disreputable part of the ton caroused deep into the night? With Henry looking on, that wasn’t just somewhat scandalous. That was
stupidly
scandalous. As she frowned at him, he looked back down at her as they executed another quick step turn and laughed nervously.

“Just ribbing you my dear. After your joke about approaching the Royal Academy of Science last week I thought you might laugh. Everyone knows the Royal Academy doesn’t take women.”

They didn’t?
Agatha inhaled and went back to counting her steps. Henry had tried to warn her.
A novelty with scandalous ways.
They’ll want to have fun with you.

Six… seven… as she reached the count of eight she stepped out of his arms, a step to the left, back into his arms and
twirl
.

Charles caught her neatly in his arms again. “I say. Couldn’t help admiring that marvelous new pair of greys Anglethorpe’s bought. Who did you say his dealer was?”

Aha. Appeal to his
self-interest
. Charles had asked several times about Darkangel, Henry’s race horse. Hmm. “I’m really not sure, but I could ask.” Smiling sweetly, she cocked her head on one side. “That is, if you would be so kind as to get me a lovely glass of champagne?” Pulling back, she executed, to her mind, the best quadrille she’d ever done.

Charles watched her with wide eyes, before taking her in his arms again. “Agatha m’dear,” he murmured. “No need for that. You should have just said. Go to the blue salon in fifteen minutes, the glass will be waiting for you there.”

As Agatha whirled to a stop, Charles bent over her gloved hand and kissed it as usual before giving her a long intent look, and striding purposefully towards the ballroom door. Agatha continued to hold her hand out, not sure what to do with it. The back of the glove was
wet
. Glancing up at the roof, she wondered disbelievingly if there was a leak. Perhaps the workmen hadn’t quite finished off the building yet. It was all rather new.

Grimacing, she bent and rubbed her hand along the part of her hem that skimmed the floor. Standing again, she gazed back through the crush and picked out Victoria’s long blond hair. Her friend started towards her with an uncustomary frown on her face. With a flick of her head, Agatha signaled to her to meet her by the curtained stage.

“Charles is going to get us a glass of champagne,” she said breathlessly as Victoria arrived. “Meet me in the blue salon in ten minutes.”

Victoria snapped open a fan and leaned forward, covering their faces. “Are you sure, Agatha? You don’t think Charles will tell anyone, do you?” Her frown deepened. “I’ve been hearing some things…”

“No, don’t worry at all,” Agatha broke in. “Charles acted like it was the most natural thing in the world. I know he won’t tell anyone either, I gave him quite an incentive.” Her scientific examination of male human nature had been extensive. After all, most of the household at Hope Sands had been male. “I must go. He told me to go to the blue salon five minutes ago.” Pushing back Victoria’s fan, Agatha edged towards the door. “Who are you dancing with next?”

“Lord Colchester.” Agatha winced. Lord Colchester was a man of advanced years whose only advantage was his immense wealth. Victoria tapped her fan on her skirts. “But what of…”

Victoria’s last words were lost in the crush as Agatha pushed through the door from the ballroom. Once outside, she stopped to look around. The hall was deserted yet again. Hurrying down the hallway, she didn’t even give her favorite pot plant a cursory glance. She did not want to be discovered—she only had a few moments to grab the glass of champagne and wait for Victoria.

The blue salon was located further down the long hall. In fact, it was further away than she had thought. She tried the doors to several rooms down the corridor but they were all locked and no lights shone beneath the doors. Each time she rattled the handles her heart thumped loudly in her ears.

The last door at the end of the hallway stood slightly ajar; the wallpaper that glinted through the crack was a deep azure blue. Gulping in relief, she peered through to see Charles standing by a deep window, a glass of champagne fizzing on a round table by the fire. Agatha drew back into the hall. What was he doing in there? He was meant to have left the champagne glass on the table,
alone
.

CHAPTER 8

Henry walked through the dark streets to Granwich’s residence. The wind ruffled at his coat, and grabbed at his hat as he held it firmly on his head. If he hadn’t been intending to join Agatha and Victoria at Lady Foxtone’s ball later he wouldn’t have taken it with him.

Granwich lived in the unfashionable old town houses that surrounded Covent Garden, interspersed between tanners yards and factories. Paint flaked on the small nondescript door that gave onto a narrow hall. Henry was greeted by a dour butler who led him into an austere side room with bare walls and a desk behind which stood a comfortable chair. In front of the desk stood a three legged stool. Henry winced. He knew which one he would be sitting in.

“Sit down, Anglethorpe. Can I get you a drink?” Granwich moved to behind the desk and sank gracefully into the chair. His hand hovered over the decanter that sat beside him on the fireplace. The butler closed the door behind him with a discreet click.

“No, thank you.” Henry could feel his stomach rumbling. He had missed dinner. Cursing under his breath, he put a hand to his midriff. He did
unreasonable
things when he was hungry. Usually he carried a bag of nuts in his coat pocket, but Ames had taken away his normal attire to clean, having told him in no uncertain terms that a peer of the realm did not go about his business with a bloodied jacket for six months. No peer of the realm that had Ames as a valet anyway.

Henry looked at the stool’s sharp edges. “Do you mind if I stand?” It would keep his mind off his empty stomach. Hopefully.

Granwich fluttered his hands. “Of course not.” After pressing his hands together for a few moments he cleared his throat and shuffled some papers on the desk. “Three things, Anglethorpe. Firstly, how is your hunt for a bride coming along?”

Henry gazed levelly at Granwich. The lady he had intended for his bride had no idea that he was interested. In fact she seemed rather taken with someone else. “It’s coming along,” he said smoothly.

“Fine,” Granwich looked away to pour himself a glass from the decanter. “I am sure you have everything in hand. Secondly, have you found what your father was looking for?”

Henry drew in a quick breath. “No. What’s the third thing?”

Granwich coughed and glanced back at Henry. “Yes, thank you. We’ve heard some more mutters about someone or something called
Monsieur Herr
. Lovall’s had his ear to the ground at the docks. The taverns are full of it.”

“
Monsieur Herr
?” Henry leaned against the bare wall and crossed his legs comfortably. He could stand in that position for hours, when he wasn’t thinking about how hungry he was.

“Yes. We think that the
Monsieur Herr
is the French spy that I mentioned to you a while ago. Some of the chatter seems to indicate that the man is German, but young Lovall says that the balance of chatter says he’s probably French. Plus there’s been a spate of important British information falling into French hands in the last two months, most unfortunately.”

Henry straightened. Normally he managed to nip the spies in the bud before any information had been passed over. “Has Anthony got any more information?” Anthony Lovall was a master at discerning the fact from the fiction.

Granwich sighed. “No, unfortunately not.”

“I think I’ll take that drink.”

Granwich nodded and poured a small glass of brandy. The glass scraped on the rough wood of the desk as he pushed it towards Henry. Picking up the glass in one hand, Henry pushed the stool against the wall with his foot and sat, resting his back against the wall casement, rumpling his coat tails.

There were four aspects of espionage to his mind, targeting, collecting, analyzing and dissemination. Before he could start on the latter three, he needed to focus on the first—his target, their strengths, location, likely intentions and indeed, their capabilities.

“Hmm. What information has been passed?”

“That’s just it, it’s random; sometimes it’s little secrets, like the type of delicious cream bun they were serving in Hartley Place on a Tuesday,”

Henry raised his glass and studied the light as it curved through the brandy, his mouth watering as his stomach gurgled even louder than before. “Delicious cream bun?”

Granwich put out his hands and stretched. “Ahem. Yes. Belgian fancies apparently. A light cream center with jam on the top surrounding by a slightly salty dough…” He scratched at his head. “At least that is what I’m told.”

“And why is that dangerous?” Henry took a sip of the brandy. It did nothing to soothe his hunger.

“Blighter found the bakery that was supplying the war office and put a bottleful of laudanum in every cream bun they could find.”

“I didn’t hear of anyone being affected.”

“They weren’t. Somebody had requested that they served Danish pastries on that day instead.” Granwich coughed. “Can’t think who that person was. When we used to get the cakes from Lord Foxtone’s outfit we never had the same problems.” He studied his blank desk and rolled his shoulders. “The bakery was paid for the Belgian buns anyway so they gave them to the paupers in gin alley. Poor souls were out of their heads for days.”

“Good grief, if that had happened to the staff of the War Office—”

“—someone could have assassinated them, stolen the secrets, done something despicable right under our noses and no one would have been able to do anything about it.”

“What about the seemingly important pieces of information?”

“Fashington found a list of all the people that worked in the War Office. Yours, his, the new boy Lassiter, even my name was on it. It was a bloody list of targets. If they know who we are, they can get at us.”

Henry frowned. He’d prided himself on operating in the shadows. Outside of the war office no one knew that he worked for the crown. Whichever way he looked at it, the list of names and the Belgian buns, neither of the pieces of information tied together or gave him any more of a clue about the French spy.

He drained the glass of brandy and, leaning forward, pushed it back onto Granwich’s desk. “You called him
Monsieur Herr
. Mister in French, Mister in German. Why the double emphasis?”

“It was Earl Harding that chose it. Apparently it amused him. It was the last word at the end of the list that Charles gave us. Blue ink that had run slightly. But it very clearly said ‘ihn’ in German which means ‘him’ in English. We’ve no idea if it’s connected. But we went ahead and called the spy Mister Mister in German and French anyway, just to cover all bases.”

“That could be the spy’s mark.”

Granwich nodded. “Or it could be that it was the name of someone on the list that the spy was thinking about but he couldn’t remember his name. You know when you say oh
him
.” He drew in his chin. “I seem to be doing that a lot at the moment.”

“Where did Charles find the note?”

“Rather strangely, he said it was tucked into his clothes.” Granwich sniffed. “Bit of an unusual set up if you ask me, meticulously making a list of Crown people and then losing it in one of their pieces of clothing.”

“And Charles—”

“—no reason to doubt his loyalty. Strange cove but fairly cunning. Has found us some interesting stuff about the French until now. No whiff of scandal.”

Henry stood. The word scandal reminded him of the chaperoned Victoria and, more importantly, Agatha who, no matter what he said, always seemed to find some way to create an experiment that ended in a hoo haa. More fool him, he had let them loose for the first time since Lord Colthaven’s affair by themselves at Lady Foxtone’s ball with strict instructions to Agatha to not indulge in the scientific side of her nature.

“Be careful out there.” Granwich tapped on his desk. “I hear we are in for a storm tonight, with extremely high winds.”

Henry nodded. His stomach grumbled again. It was time to make sure that Victoria and Agatha were still in one piece, and more importantly, find some dinner.

CHAPTER 9

Glancing up and down the deserted corridor, Agatha pushed open the door and crept in. Thank goodness Victoria was due any moment. If she and Charles were discovered together then her reputation would be ruined. For a brief second she gazed at the back of her hand and shook her head. She didn’t have much time.