My Lord and Spymaster (22 page)

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Authors: Joanna Bourne

BOOK: My Lord and Spymaster
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Morals that would make an alleycat blush, that’s what she had.
What she wanted was in the bottom drawer. Well, well, well . . . Eureka, as one of her governesses was fond of saying when she found her knitting bag.
We have found something worth locking up.
She pulled out the metal box.
The little felt packet was wrapped up in her shawl. It unrolled to reveal the whole sweet set of lockpicks, each resting in its pocket. Her charms, she’d called them in the old days, when she used them fairly often. They were accustomed and friendly as her own fingers.
She crossed her legs and cradled the strongbox into her lap. Not heavy. That was good. That meant she wasn’t about to waste her time breaking in on jewelry or coin. And look what a delightful lock was adorning this pretty box. Louis Girard made these in Lyon, every one sneaky and excellent. Had to be something interesting hiding behind all that intricacy.
What are you hiding, Captain? What do you care about this much?
She closed her eyes to pick, the way she always did. Lord, but it was satisfying to be busy with something she loved. Back when she used to go a-stealing, the men she worked with told her she whistled under her breath when she picked a lock. She never noticed it herself, but it used to make them nervous as hell. They were always breaking her concentration to tell her to shut up.
She never got annoyed at locks the way some people did. It was such a joy when your fingers finally saw how the tumblers fitted together, and the whole sweet mechanism lay in your hands, ready to swing open.
Maybe this was how Sebastian felt when he was trying to seduce her . . . like he was opening a complicated lock. Except he was more like that Greek cove who just cut the whole business in half with a sword. Her governess had been right. There was more to those Greek stories than you’d think.
The clock marked the half hour. Kedger balanced up on his back feet and stood up and watched her. The lock made tiny, contented, burring sounds, like a pigeon, as she eased the picks around.
She’d learned lockpicking from Lazarus. He’d stolen dozens of locks for her to practice on. He didn’t let her pick pockets, not from the day he bought her. It made sense, of course. It had to be more profitable robbing a strongbox than a pocket, and it was no more dangerous, since you got hanged either way.
Nothing in London was safe when she’d been Hand. Damn, but she’d been good.
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The lock clicked open. She let her breath out, long, slow, and contented. The box was hers. Captain Sebastian Kennett could just stir that in his tea. That would teach him to put his trust in expensive ironmongery.
She chucked the banknotes out. Lots of them. The Captain liked to be prepared, didn’t he? Funny to think of banknotes as something to clear out of the way. Time was she’d have fetched that home to Lazarus and counted this an evening well spent.
What the Captain had here was letters. Lovely, lovely, letters. She lifted out the stack and flipped it, starting from the bottom.
Letters from other shippers and traders. Letters from his agents in Greece and Alexandria. He gathered up news, just like Whitby’s did. Politics, cargoes in and out, shaky banks, and suspect merchants. And some letters of credit Kennett had issued. He wasn’t earning as much return as he should be. He needed a business manager, really, to tighten up how he handled liquidity. Kennett Shipping was large enough to afford one.
In the middle of the stack she came to a thin blue notebook, the sort of thing a schoolboy might write his Latin exercises in. But this was Arabic. And in Kennett’s blue black ink. A diary maybe? Had to be something important if he kept it in Arabic and locked up.
He probably thought he was safe, keeping his secrets in Arabic. Thought he was being clever. Hah.
She might not read Arabic, but she could copy it. She pulled writing paper from the top drawer and unstoppered the ink, let the book fall open where it wanted to, and started.
Kedger came over to sit in her lap, helping by nudging her hand every so often.
She’d filled six pages with loops and squiggles and dots when the clock chimed the hour. Time was just scampering along, wasn’t it? That was writing from two places. That should be enough to find out what it was.
Time to hurry. Never overstay your welcome. That was another thing Lazarus had taught her.
More letters. More gossip. Kennett really did run his business well. Statues from Greece. Good profit in that if you knew what you were about, which the Captain seemed to. Here was his agent in Marseilles, talking about troop movements with a candor that’d get him shot by the French. Kennett pulled that kind of loyalty out of his people. Some likely trading ventures into the Balkans. Fascinating, but nothing she should be looking at.
Then a letter in Italian . . . “
The sale of plans and maps was completed with only trivial difficulty.
”
Plans. She skipped to look at the signature. Giovanni Reggio. She knew the man. A short, untidy, dark rogue who smelled of garlic—that described half of Minorca—but this one was shrewd and treacherous and a direct pipeline into France. Her father used him, too.
Your merchandise arrived safely in Paris. You may expect payment from LeClerque to your American brokers within the week. I have been the soul of discretion, of course, as always, and the principals in Paris are entirely satisfied. My c£satto orrespondent is most anxious for the next shipment from London. After my oh-so-tiny commission . . .
Maps and plans. She changed francs to pounds in her head. The sale had been for 800 pounds. A small fortune.
The letter sank down to her lap, feeling too heavy to hold up. She sat for a long time, staring at it.
This was how you felt when the ship crunched up on rocks in the night. Shock and helplessness and nothing ahead but cold, dark water closing over you. Lots of struggle you were going to lose at.
She’d worked so hard, looking for this proof. But it had been almost a game, these last few days, searching his house. She’d been so sure she wouldn’t find anything.
“It’s not proof. It’s just paper.” Kedger nudged under her hand and she reached to hold him. “It’s just paper.”
She’d thought she understood the Captain. He was stern outside. He walked around looking at the world like he was about to board it with a cutlass between his teeth. But she’d felt warmth glowing out of the center of him, like a sun. Cinq would be cold and selfish as winter. Not like the Captain. Could she be so wrong?
Kedger nudged again. She whispered, “It could mean anything. It’s no better than what they have on Papa.”
She knew what she had to do. She had to give Sebastian to the English authorities. They’d let Papa go. Her father would live, and Sebastian would hang, and she’d crawl away into a hole and be sick. She was sick now.
The clock chimed. She packed everything away neat into the strongbox and closed it up and put all the lights out, except one to carry with her, and went out into the Dark.
HIS bed was next to the window. He liked to turn his head and look out at the sky over the trees in the square when he was falling asleep, losing himself in the stars the way he used to do when he was first mate and took watch. Sometimes, when he was drifting off, he caught himself trying to chart the course of the house, calculating its latitude from the height of the North Star.
He’d fallen asleep to the sound of rain. But he’d passed too many nights in dockside taverns to ever sleep deeply. Stealthy footsteps woke him instantly.
That was light in the hall. That would be his sneak thief, Jess, plying her trade.
She’d crept past Quent’s room, not even pausing. Good. He didn’t have to go out there and knock his cousin endwise.
She’d stopped outside his door. No. Outside the door across the hall. She was not, unfortunately, coming to share his bed. She was breaking into his study. It took her half a minute to get through the lock. A woman of varied and interesting skills, Jess.
He’d listened to her putter around his office, making rustles and clicks he could barely hear. Then there was no noise at all. Jess was comfortably ensconced, going through his desk£hroer . He could almost see her, working away at it when she should be resting.
He lay with his hands clasped behind his head, looking at the night, fighting an absurd impulse to go in there and help her ransack his office. She hadn’t slept, had she? Not more than an hour or two. When she was through with this bit of burglary, she’d stumble out into the dawn and start running Whitby’s.
He slept off and on, waiting for her to be finished. Keeping watch, in his way. At last, his study door opened and closed quietly. Barely a click. He heard the swish of cloth on skin. She was headed back to her room.
He’d go flush himself out a thief.
He didn’t make noise getting out of bed and grabbing a banyan, wrapping it around himself and walking to the door. When he opened up, they were expecting him. Her foot-high gray lookout was reared up, snarling silently. Dozens of tiny, menacing teeth gleamed in the candlelight.
She wore a white nightgown, long-sleeved and high-necked, with a big, dark shawl close around her. Her hair was in two long braids that hung down over her breasts.
“Miss Whitby and escort,” he said. “A little restless tonight? ” Then he saw her eyes, and it wasn’t funny anymore. “What’s the matter?”
“I didn’t mean to wake you,” she said dully. “I went down to the kitchen. I wanted . . . tea.” It was a poor, limp, amateur job of lying.
“You were in my office.”
She wore the pale, overwhelmed look of somebody who’d been punched in the stomach. “I have to get back to bed.”
“What did you find in my office? What?” She’d come across something that shocked her. He couldn’t imagine what.
She started away, and he stopped her. He made his hand soft on her shoulder, but he held her there, letting her know he was twice her size and willing to hold on indefinitely. The ferret made a sound like pebbles boiling. “Tell me what you found.”
“Nothing.” She brushed her face, as if she’d walked through cobwebs. “I can’t talk.”
“There’s nothing to find in that study. What did you see?” She didn’t answer. Her candle was shaking. The candlelight on the wall shivered and swirled like the lights at sea.
He’d come a long way, luring trust out of her, little by little. He’d lost all the ground he’d ever gained. If he let her go, she’d bound off like a gazelle. If he didn’t, the damned rodent would take his foot off.
A door opened. Quentin stuck his head out into the hall, wearing a nightcap and blinking like an owl. “Is that you, Bastian? What’s the matter?”
“It’s just Jess, looking for something. I’ll take care of her.”
“Miss Whitby? Jess?”
“Go back to bed.” He didn’t give orders to Quentin often. He didn£ of? J’t remind him whose house this was and who was in charge here. It was hard enough on Quentin, living on another man’s allowance. Tonight, he didn’t have time to worry about Quentin’s delicate sensibilities.
His family would get used to seeing Jess in his bedroom. When she was ready for it. When she wanted them to know. Not yet, though. Not now.
“Sebastian? This won’t do. I’m sure this is perfectly innocent, but it presents the appearance of impropriety. I have to say, this won’t . . .” Quent stayed ducked behind his door. He wouldn’t want to be seen in his nightshirt, showing his skinny shins. He’d always been vain as a monkey. “This is extremely unwise. I strongly suggest you wake Eunice. She is the voice of reason. I don’t expect you to take my advice, and maybe you’ll—”
“Please. You don’t have to bother.” Jess squirmed, but quietly, not wanting to call the whole brigade out into the hall. “I didn’t mean to wake anyone. Really.”
“I’m afraid I must insist. Your situation here is delicate enough without the suggestion—”
The ferret stopped sniffing and clucking. Suddenly, it dropped to all fours and darted down the hall, making a dead set for Quentin. Quent slammed his door just in time.
“I wish he wouldn’t do that.” Jess shook in his hands and her skin was cold.
Quentin was probably leaned against his door, ear pressed to the wood, listening.
“I’m taking you up to bed. No. Hold your tongue. Or else shout real loud and wake Eunice up so we can discuss your visit to my study.” He pushed her down the hall in front of him. The ferret kept pace, slinking close to the wall.
“I don’t want to do this,” Jess whispered.
“I don’t give a damn what you want right now. Go. Upstairs. ”
He followed her, watching her heels swish in and out of her nightdress. Through that thin cotton she was wearing, he could see her legs outlined by the candlelight. When she twisted to look back at him, her breasts made beautiful shadows, swaying. The nipples were delicate pink, like dainty, round seashells. Yes. Pressed up against the embroidery on the bodice. There were his little friends.
He was going to want this woman when she was a wrinkled hag. Want her everywhere, every day, under every conceivable circumstances. Tonight, when she looked like this, she stunned him.

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