Beauty and the Spy (13 page)

"What—"

"Hush," he said abruptly. He kept his arm tightly around her.

Kit didn't see a long stick anywhere within reaching distance, and swore softly. It would have made a useful tool in this circumstance. And for God's sake, it might only be a squirrel or a mouse, something benign or inconsequential, and then wouldn't he look foolish?

The lid of the basket bumped up a little again.

Kit wasn't conditioned to think things might be "benign" or "inconsequential." They so seldom were, at least in his world.

So he lashed out a foot and toppled the basket over.

And an adder nearly as thick as Susannah's arm darted out.

Kit swiftly lifted Susannah up into his arms as it whipped past; she ducked her head in his chest.

Fortunately the adder's retreat was hasty and complete.

"It's all right," he said softly. "You're all right It's gone."

Susannah said nothing for a time; just breathed swiftly in and out. She was warm and lithe in his arms; the faintest scent of lavender, and that mysterious sweetness of her own, the scent he'd discovered at the nape of her neck the day he'd caught her spying on him, rose up to him, released by the heat of her skin.

"It was a snake." Her voice, a trifle unsteady, was muffled against his shirt.

"It was, indeed," he said softly. Her breath had found a gap between the buttons of his shirt; it washed over his skin in a very nearly hypnotic rhythm. In… and out. In… and out. In… and—

He put her down so quickly she nearly staggered.

"Thoughtful of you to bring a specimen along
with
you to sketch, Miss Makepeace," he said abruptly, to disguise the fact that he felt a little unsteady, too.

To his astonishment, she actually managed a weak smile.

Surprise: again, a useful way to take the measure of a person.

He looked at her carefully. Her eyes were a little too bright and her face was a little pale, but she wasn't wobbling on her legs, or shrieking. And the sheer surprise of that adder could have stopped the heart of many a stout man.

"Was
that
one poisonous?" she wanted to know. Her voice was a little threadbare.

"Yes," he told her, gently. "It was. Not very poisonous, but… yes, it was. And that's what was troubling your horse." Both horses had wandered a few feet away from them, and were now nipping contentedly at the short meadow grass. "Did you perhaps put that basket down outside, Susannah, or open it before you left the house this morning? Did you ever leave it unattended?"

"No, I never did. Aunt Frances packed my lunch last night, and put it on the shelf on the mud porch, just as she did yesterday. Perhaps… perhaps the adder found its way in last night, somehow?"

"I suppose it's possible…"
Not bloody likely, however
. "But… well, adders are very shy. They—" A cascade of boyhood memories crowded into his mind, and he knew that taking the mystery out of something could take away the fear of it. "Shall I tell you about them?"

Susannah nodded, albeit cautiously.

"Well, this one looked like a female adder—she was a little brighter in color than a male. Almost green." Almost
too
green, in fact, he realized suddenly. The ones in the Barnstable region tended to be lighter in color.

"She was pretty," Susannah said bravely. "Very shiny. Lovely marks."

"She
was
pretty, wasn't she?" he agreed enthusiastically. "
Big
for an adder, too."

"W-was she?"

"Oh, yes! And you'll notice she blended quite well into the grass, as adders are designed specifically
not
to be seen. When I was a boy, I eventually became quite good at spotting them," he added proudly. "And adders are not any fonder of people than people are of adders, which is why it would be unusual for her to enter your house. And did you know adders have their young this time of year? And adder venom can make you quite ill, but in most cases, it won't kill you, unless you're already frail, or you're a dog. And as you are neither…"

He trailed off when he realized Susannah was watching. Head tilted, wearing a slight smile. In his experience, women did that sort of thing when they were about to say something disconcerting.

"This makes you happy, doesn't it? Adders and voles and…" She swept her hand about, indicating the universe of greenery surrounding them. "Studying them. Knowing about them."

He stared at her.
No
, he wanted to bark incredulously.
Are you mad? This is exile
.

Except… he was a proponent of accuracy.

He turned abruptly and walked a few paces away from her and gathered the reins of their horses. Susannah's mount, a considerably calmer beast now, came docilely. He led them to where she stood.

"Will we need to draw adders as part of this folio?" she wanted to know, when he still didn't speak.

The devil in him made him say it "To be thorough, it would be nice to have at least one proper adder in the folio."

There was an eloquent pause.

"Perhaps I can draw it from memory," Susannah suggested testily.

"Perhaps we'll be lucky enough to see another."

She scowled, which made him laugh, which teased her scowl into a smile again. "If I must, I must," she said dramatically. "After all, you do keep Aunt Frances and I in sausages. But I seem to be having rather a run of
luck
lately."

"A run?" Kit gave the basket another nudge with his foot; nothing else slithered out; he picked it up, inspected the inside more closely. Finding no other living things, only lunch and a sketchbook, he presented it to her. She took it very, very gingerly. "Did something else happen, Miss Makepeace?"

"Well, there was… my father dying, you see. That was rather a significant something." Said with admirable dryness. "And then there was—" she stopped, and he had the distinct sense she was skipping over something. "And then there was the mail coach tipping over in the inn yard—"

Kit frowned. "The mail coach
tipped over
in the inn yard?"

"As I was traveling to Barnstable. Something to do with the wheels, I believe? I was too tired to pay much attention to the cause."

A peculiar apprehension crawled up Kit's spine. Mail coaches didn't typically just…
tip over
. The idea of it was as discordant as an adder in a basket. A linchpin would have had to come loose enough for a wheel to shake off completely, or an axel would have had to snap. And the roads weren't rough enough at this time of year to snap an axel, unless the axel was already severely compromised.

Oh, bloody hell
. Perhaps he simply saw patterns of nefariousness everywhere now; the price—the reward?�of life as an agent of the crown. But an adder in a picnic basket? A tipped coach? A watching man? He'd found crushed twigs yesterday when he'd investigated the place he'd seen the man standing; he'd seen part of a footprint pressed into some old leaves. And that was all.

A chilly little wind of suspicion ruffled his instincts. And his instincts had kept him alive again and again in situations that rightly should have finished him off. Well, instincts, and his impressive complement of practical skills with weapons.

But thirty days and a folio were all that stood between him and Egypt.

Again:
bloody hell
. Surrendering to his instincts might very well get him exiled for good. They had work to do. He drew in a deep breath, exhaled his exasperation.

"Well, they say bad luck comes in threes, Miss Makepeace, so I think you've had your run of it."

"
Do
they say that about bad luck?"

"Well,
I'm
saying it now."

She pondered this, head tilted back. "Because I'm not certain whether to count my father's death and the loss of my home as one thing, or two."

How on earth to respond? "Fives, men," he amended. "Bad luck comes
in fives
."

This inanity, remarkably, made her smile again. And granted, it was just a slow, wry curve of that lovely mouth. But for some reason it pleased him beyond all proportion.

Which led him to this swift and startling realization: he rather liked Susannah Makepeace. It shifted his balance, a little, this realization: he couldn't recall the last time he'd simply… liked a woman. For years he'd seen them only in terms of… challenge. They were a necessity, a palliative, a diversion. Not something simply to enjoy, the way one enjoyed… well, a summer day. The kind with a soft breeze and something cool to drink.

"Do you feel equal to drawing today?" he asked, uncomfortable, suddenly, with the fact that he was comfortable. "Oh, for heaven's sake. It was only an adder." It was a passing good imitation of nonchalance. They smiled at each other, both enjoying her bravado, and then he cupped his hands for her boot and lifted her up to the gelding again.
Ferns
, he told himself.

Morley cradled Fluff in the crook of one arm and combed his fingers through the soft hair on his belly. Fluff regarded Bob through sleepy, contemptuous gold eyes.

"When I said 'make it look like an accident,' Bob, I meant of the
permanent
variety. I didn't mean make her a little
ill
for a little while." Two days he'd waited for news of Susannah Makepeace's demise. And now
this
?

"T'was a right large adder, Mr. Morley—"

"Which would have been splendid, had it been possible to
frighten
the girl to death. You might as well say, 'it was a right large
apple
, Mr. Morley,' for how much true danger an adder presents."

This blisteringly icy stream of sarcasm made Bob blink. "I'm a London man born and bred, sir. What would I know of the country? And it was right difficult finding that bloody snake, too," he added on a mutter. He'd needed to buy the adder, in fact, from an odd old woman, a witch, some whispered, who specialized in the sales of crawling things. Bob was proud of the snake, the basket, creeping in at dawn to do it, the whole plan, in fact Proud of the mail coach. Timing and stealth and skill had been required, knowledge and expertise gained only through years of experience.

Bloody difficult to make things look like an accident.

"And Caroline? What of her?" Morley demanded.

"Can't be everywhere at once, sir."

Bob was getting cheeky. Then again, he wasn't accustomed to failing, and perhaps it was taking a toll on both of them.

"Caroline Allston is not inconspicuous, Bob."

"But she
is
clever, Mr. Morley."

"No, Bob," Morley explained, strained patience weighting his words like lead. "She is
not
clever."

Beautiful, wily, unpredictable as an animal. All instinct But
not
clever. Not his Caroline.

His
Caroline. Odd, but it was how he used to think of her. How he still thought of her, even as they now attempted to hunt her down.

There was a long silence, during which Morley consulted his watch and Bob scuffed his feet nervously on the carpet.

"Sir, you know I'm
a profess
—"

"Then get it
done
, Bob."

Morley turned and lowered Ruff to the ground. The cat stretched and flicked his tail, unhappy at the interruption in attention.

Morley realized Bob was still standing there, when in essence his words had been a dismissal. "Yes?" he made the word a hiss of impatience.

"
Must
it be an accident, Mr. Morley?"

"Lost faith in your own repertoire of nefarious skills, Bob?"

Bob looked at him blankly.

"Can't do it?" Morley translated, keeping his sarcasm checked with some difficulty.

"It's just that she's never alone, sir. Always with that great fair-headed geezer."

This was new. "And who would this 'great fair-headed geezer' be, Bob?"

"Not certain, sir. They appear to be wandering about and… and"—his brow wrinkled—"
drawing
things." His tone said everything about how he felt about the peculiar habits of the gentry. "Looks like a farmer," he further illuminated. "Dresses like one, anyhow."

"Bob. Just go ahead and get it done. In your own inimitable, skillful, professional manner. And find out who the 'geezer' is, if you would. It might be important."

"Really, sir? It needn't be an accident?" Bob had brightened; his eyes were alight with new plans. "Because you see, after one too many accidents…"

"Accidents cease to look like accidents. I understand. Use your own excellent judgment, Bob. Please report back only when you've succeeded… or if you've new information."

Bob clicked his heels, his confidence restored now that his options had expanded. "You can count on me, sir. I'm a professional."

A little more than a week of riding through meadows and trudging about the woods had yielded sketches of the White Oak, some squirrels, and a few ferns, but the woods were filled with wild medicinal herbs, too, Kit knew, and it would take days to document them.

One month, his father had said.
Thorough
, his father had said. As if Kit would ever do any other kind of job of it. Every sketch in that book kept Egypt at bay.

He led their saddled geldings from the stable. "Today we go in search of Hellebore," he announced to Susannah.

Her vivacity instantly dropped several degrees. "Tell me 'Hellebore' isn't what it sounds like."

He grinned at that. "Fear not, Miss Makepeace. Hellebore will never creep into your picnic basket. It's an herb. A medicinal—some would say poisonous herb—that grows wild in this area. It's been used as a purgative and to bless cattle, among other things. And in… magic spells."

Speaking of magic spells, she was wearing the green hat again, which made her eyes glow a nearly mesmerizing shade. He knew now that her eyes were in fact hazel, which wasn't in and of itself a magical thing, but he couldn't help be fascinated by their ability to take on the color of things near them.

He cupped his hands for her boot and lifted her into the saddle, and Susannah hooked her leg over the calf block, settling into the saddle, taking the reins up in her hands. "Perhaps we should cast a spell upon—"

The gelding beneath her reared with a scream, his forelegs flailing the air. He heard Susannah gasp as she pulled the reins tightly in her fists. The horse came down hard and bucked out twice.

And launched into a headlong run.

Sweet Lucifer.

Kit vaulted into the saddle of his own horse and kicked it into a gallop. That gelding intended to unseat Susannah, and in single-minded horse fashion was heading straight for a tree branch in order to accomplish it.

Her hat flew from her head, a bright disk of green hurtling through the air, and she was leaning over the pommel now, clinging to the horse's neck, struggling to regain her balance and losing the battle for it He saw her slip, and his heart flew into his throat Bloody
sidesaddles
.

Kit kicked harder, harder, urging his horse to stretch out in punishingly long swift strides until he finally drew flush with Susannah.

To his horror, Kit saw her saddle slip roughly sideways, as though the girth had loosened. Susannah looped her arms around the frenzied horse's neck, clinging desperately now; the reins had become nearly useless to her.

Harder
. He kicked his poor horse harder, goading it and goading it, cursing the fact that he couldn't bloody
fly
, until he finally drew past Susannah's gelding. And then he yanked his horse up short to a rearing halt and threw himself out of me saddle just as Susannah began to fall. He lunged for her, pulled her into his arms the moment me sidesaddle slid completely beneath the gelding's belly.

But the shift in gravity and the weight of their two falling bodies was too much for her gelding; it lost its footing. Kit flung Susannah aside just as the horse came down on him.

Blinding pain in his shoulder.

Blackness as his breath left him.

And then mercifully, quickly, the horse righted itself, thrashing its way to its feet.

Kit lay stunned, flat against the earth. He struggled to inhale, and couldn't. He choked, wheezing; in a moment there was breath in his lungs again. With great difficulty, he levered his torso upright.

Pain.

"Susannah…" he gasped, turned his head, which sent a cloud of tiny dots swaying and bobbing before his eyes. He saw her through them, whole, sound, her face stark white above the green of her habit, the sky oddly brilliant behind her, her shoulders heaving with terrified breathing.

Pride and masculinity forced him to get all the way up on his feet as she rushed for him.

I
am not going to faint
. He took a step, but moving made him nauseous.

Now, vomit, on other hand
—that
I
might just do
.

He knew more than a little about pain; so he closed his eyes, took a deep breaths, exhaled, did it again, to steady himself.

"
Kit
." She was next to him now. "God, please don't move. Are you—"

Well, then. At last she'd called him Kit. "You're all right?" His voice was a little wheezy, barely a voice. He opened his eyes; those black dots were still everywhere.

She squeaked. "Am
I
all right?' Am
I
? A
horse
fell on you."

He winced. "Only part of a horse," he voice was steadier now. "His shoulder and foreleg. Not the entire horse. Your voice hurts," he added absurdly. "Too squeaky."

"But are you—" Still squeaky. She stopped, adjusted her tone. "You're hurt, you
must
be." Her hand reached out reflexively.

"Careful of the shoulder," he heard himself say calmly. "Best not touch it."

Those black dots were floating like a flock of tiny birds before his eyes. His voice sounded distant in his own ears.
I
am not going to faint
.

"Your face…"

"Was already like that before the horse fell on me, Miss Makepeace."

"Don't jest," she said curtly. "I can see it hurts. Breathe through it, through the pain. Deep breaths. Is anything broken?"

Kit wiggled his fingers, then raised his elbow a little, all of which hurt like the very devil, but the fact that all of those parts still functioned was a very good sign indeed. Tomorrow was going to be
deeply
unpleasant.

"Just sprained and bruised, I think. I hope. My arm took the brunt of it And… my ribs might be a little bruised. I'm bloody lucky. He wasn't on me long."

"Lucky?" Susannah repeated incredulously. "I would say you've inherited
my
sort of luck." And men she looked at him closely; he saw her face go worried at what she saw. "Kit… are you sure…"

He could only imagine how white his face must be. He felt bleached clear through, strangely hollow. "It's just… my body seems to want to go into shock. Struck my elbow in just the right place. Or wrong place. Happens that way."

"Breathe," she said gently. "I'll catch you if you fall, if you insist on standing."

He gave a faint laugh. But it was sensible advice, and somehow, he liked hearing her give it So he did it took more deep breaths, exhaling the pain with each one. A fine cold sweat gathered on his brow and over his back, but the black dots slowed their frantic dance before his eyes. He was more certain now that he wasn't going to faint in front of her. He thought he might like to lie down, however. And he was
positive
he was going to drink quite a bit the moment he returned to the house. Bloody hell, but he'd need a sling, at the very least.

What on earth had possessed a perfectly amiable horse to try to kill its rider? It couldn't possibly be another adder.

Kit's curiosity overcame his pain. He held his injured arm close to his side, gingerly, and slowly went to the gelding. The animal was still a little wild-eyed, and he tossed his head at Kit's approach, but he didn't try to bolt. He was clearly much happier with Susannah out of the saddle. Feeling much more himself.

"Ho, my lad," Kit said soothingly, reaching his good arm up to touch him. "What's got into you, eh? Shall we take a look?"

Susannah touched the horse, too, gently, calmingly on the flank.

"Poor beast. It was the saddle, I think. The moment I settled into it, he desperately wanted me
out
of it. And then the saddle itself… it felt as though it came loose. I tried to hold on, I did, and you…" She paused. "Thank you," she said simply. "You saved my—"

Kit gave a short, nonchalant, heroic shrug, which hurt, but it cut off her words. And then he used his good arm to try to pull the saddle from the horse, but the hefty leather of it was awkward. Susannah quickly took the other end of it They deposited it on the ground, and Kit flipped it over with the toe of his boot. Then he slowly knelt, mindful of his throbbing limbs. While Susannah watched, he ran his hand across over the underside of the saddle skirt, searching carefully, feeling over every inch of where it might touch the horse.

He stopped when something pricked his finger.

It was a small twig with an end so sharp it nearly looked deliberately sharpened, and it had somehow lodged between the panel and the skirt of the sidesaddle. The added weight of a rider would have driven it right into the haunch of the horse. Not deeply enough to cause much damage, or a great wound… just deeply enough to cause great pain to the horse.

And possibly kill the rider, should the horse have succeeded in bucking the rider off.

A horrible little coincidence, perhaps. Any number of odd little things could find their way into a stable. Perhaps a saddle had been dropped to the floor of it, and the twig had become lodged there, or…

"Here's the culprit," he said lightly, holding the twig up. But he didn't drop it to the ground; he pocketed it.

Kit was having a difficult time stringing his thoughts together; pain had set up an annoying buzz in his mind. He took in another breath. He'd need a drink
soon
.

He examined the girth of the saddle, and saw that it had snapped entirely where it joined the leather beneath the flap, a place one wouldn't normally notice as they cinched the saddle around the belly of the horse. He supposed he could shout at the stable boys, but it wasn't entirely their fault He ran the girth through his fingers; the leather was somewhat brittle with age.