The Fashionable Spy (11 page)

She ought to remain at home. Every sense in her body told her so. Yet she felt this need, this great curiosity. She was compelled to go. Perhaps she might learn something.

Edward watched as Miss Dancy appeared to struggle with some inward emotion. How neatly she had fallen into his trap. He had expected demure refusals. Yet, even her sisters supported her endeavors. Intriguing.

Last evening while at his club he had overheard the word “iris” in a softly spoken conversation. Since it was not intended for his ears, he could scarcely ask for an explanation from the men who had tossed the clue into the midst of a discussion. But he was well-acquainted with the men—they frequented the war office and were involved with the efforts to snabble any who aided the French.

Was that the role Miss Dancy played? That of a spy for France? While her brother served in Portugal?. Improbable. Unless there was something else involved, like blackmail. He ruefully confessed to himself that he really did not wish to see Miss Dancy as a spy, serving his country’s enemy.

Yet, what else was he to think? The most damning evidence was the locket, studded with lapis and nestled against that exquisite bosom. That and her partiality for gentlemen associated with the war office as clients.

Well, he had set the snare out, and now would have the pleasure of watching Miss Dancy as she walked into the trap.

Victoria turned to smooth the surface of the wax, appearing deep in thought. “Sir Edward, might I inspect the area in which I am to work? So that I shall know precisely what I ought to bring along? So often I find I take far more with me than I need. So trying, you know.”

Mr. Padbury looked up, offering in his mild voice, “You must not forget a footman to carry all your paraphernalia, Miss Dancy. ‘Tis good your dog goes along with you. Of course, Sir Edward is a sterling fellow, but it will silence any wagging of tongues, you know. Ain’t the usual sort of thing, for a respectable young woman to enter the home of a young gentleman. Best to observe the proprieties and take your maid.’’

Including that gossipy tongue of yours, you old goat, thought Edward as he surveyed the other man. How Padbury could spend his hours occupied in that drizzling was more than Edward could imagine. It wasn’t as though he was purse-pinched. Word had it he was very plump in the pocket, and on the lookout for a wife. Edward wondered if Padbury intended to offer for a quietly charming Mrs. Winton. He entertained a momentary vision of the couple sitting through the years, Padbury drizzling in a chair, Mrs. Winton bent over an oval of ivory.

Shaking himself from his abstraction, Edward gave Miss Dancy a bland look. “I should be most pleased. I deem myself fortunate that you are free to do my likeness. I am at your service, dear lady.” He offered her his right arm, leaning on his cane while he waited for her to make up her mind.

“Lovely.” Victoria draped a damp cloth over the mound of wax, then wiped her hands on a towel. “If it is agreeable with you, we could go immediately.” As far as she was concerned, the sooner she investigated Sir Edward’s home, the better. How fortunate that he had presented himself so promptly after she had developed her suspicions about him.

“Your servant, Miss Dancy.”

She gave him a sharp glance before sweeping ahead of him as they left the room. Was he a trifle
too
eager? She had not dared to accept his arm just then. Passing through the doorway so close to his side was a trifle too intimate.

In the front hall she met the stately Evenson, who carried a slim white box, which he extended to her as she neared.

“This box, which I daresay is from a florist, just arrived for you, miss.” He proffered it with regal care.

Victoria accepted the slender white box with mild curiosity. Whatever the offering, and she received flowers from time to time, it was very dainty. Removing the cover, she drew in a sharp breath as she studied the contents.

“Something unusual, Miss Dancy?” Sir Edward said with mild concern in his voice. He took a step forward, and Victoria backed away.

“ ‘Tis nothing, sir. Nothing at all.” She hastily put the lid on the box, then managed a smile at Sir Edward. “Let me just take this to my room while I fetch a pelisse and bonnet.’’

Sir Edward nodded, but Victoria sensed he was intrigued with her reaction to the gift. She knew she must have paled, for her shock had been great.

She rushed up the stairs to her room, thanking what presence of mind she’d had that kept her from crying aloud or dropping the box in her horror. Inside that pretty white package had been a twisted and very dead blue iris. “I have a message for you,” was the old meaning of the flower. Who had sent this, and what was the intended message?

It took but moments to shove the box under her bed, to be examined later, when she was in a calmer state of mind. After donning her pretty new pelisse and bonnet, she found her gloves. While drawing them on, she reflected over the meaning of the delivery of a dead, twisted iris. Absently picking up a reticule that matched her pelisse, she walked from her room and down the stairs.

Obviously it was someone who knew of her activities. But . . . was it a threat that she would end up the same way? Her neck twisted? Or was it a reminder that she had best cooperate with whatever came her way? Or might it merely be a prank? The last she dismissed immediately, for why would anyone do such a thing? She took great care to conceal the locket she always wore tucked inside her gowns, not that most people would know its meaning. In the event that she was captured, she could reveal that little iris, and hopefully save her life.

By the time she had returned to the ground floor, where Sir Edward awaited her, she was none the wiser as to who might have sent the warning. But she was quite sure it
was
a warning; there was no doubt whatsoever of that. She motioned for her maid, Letty, to join her on the foray to a gentleman’s lodgings.

“You seem abstracted, Miss Dancy. I trust the gift was to your liking?” Sir Edward said as he ushered her from the house to where his barouche awaited.

“It was a unique gift, not at all in the ordinary,” was all Victoria could think of as a reply. Sir Edward was anything but stupid; he could guess that she had been shaken by the box’s contents, even if he didn’t see them.

“From someone you know well?” he inquired smoothly as he settled down in the carriage at her side. Letty sat, neat and quiet, across from them.

“Actually, it was anonymous. I have no idea who sent it,” she confessed.

“Ah,” he exclaimed softly, “that explains why you looked so confused. I have found that it is never wise to do something like that. One may assume the recipient will jump to the correct conclusion, and that is not always the case. It is merely a matter of vanity, my dear Miss Dancy. I have no fear that your sender will identify himself . . . soon.”

Words undoubtedly intended to comfort her made her all the more gloomy. When Sir Edward had said that the sender would identify himself soon, it had sounded too much like a death knell.

She managed the usual sort of social chitchat during the drive to his home. What a blessing he had not taken up residence at the Albany, as so many bachelors did. Rather, he had a modest town house in a good location off Mayfair. After the carriage had come to a halt, she looked up to study his dwelling a moment before accepting the footman’s hand to descend from the carriage.

Relatively new, the town house was of solid stone with an exquisite entry. To either side of the door were beautiful old lamps to provide excellent light at night, rather than those smoky flambeaux that most homes possessed. Elegant leaded glass in a pretty design graced the fanlight above the door.

“You approve?” he prodded gently.

“You have a lovely home, Sir Edward.” Victoria accepted his arm, walking up the few steps to the door with no hint showing of the trepidations she felt. Letty followed them inside, sitting on a prim hall chair at Victoria’s gesture.

Victoria retained her pelisse and bonnet, walking down the spacious hall until he opened a door, then ushered her inside. She looked around with approval at what she saw.

“Very nice indeed, sir.” A good-sized window overlooked the rear of the property, which contained a modest patch of grass bordered by a neat row of shrubbery. To the rear she glimpsed what she surmised was a necessary house adjacent to an unpretentious stable. The town house was situated so that sunlight flooded the room in the morning, the best possible siting for her purposes.

Tearing her gaze from the pleasant scene, she began to absorb the contents of the room in which she would work, when she caught sight of it: a large framed botanical print of an iris. It hung on the wall directly behind an imposing desk.

She caught her breath. Two irises in one day? Without her realizing it, her hand wandered to her throat, to remain there while she considered the meaning of this. A coldness crept over her.

“You admire my latest purchase? I rather fancy it. Done by some French fellow, and a handsome frame, if I do say so.”

“Redoute, I believe,” Victoria murmured absently. “You are partial to the iris, then?”

“I have found certain of the species interesting.”

His reply seemed odd, to say the least. She tried to ignore the incriminating picture on the wall, and strolled over to glance at his collection of books, the volumes bound nicely in leather and looking as though he had dipped into them more than once.

“You enjoy reading as well as sculpturing. Miss Dancy?”

“Oh, yes . . . that is, when I have the time.”

“You travel often. Perhaps you have time to read then? If this is an indication of your preference for a workroom, I imagine you spend a good deal of time in one library or another.”

“Well,” she replied evasively, “they often have excellent light, and few homes offer a room such as we have added to ours.”

“Would not a conservatory do as well?”

“Perhaps.”

Edward studied the woman who perused his selection of books with what he would wager were unseeing eyes. The trap he had set had sprung quite neatly. He had positioned himself to watch her face, and felt satisfied for his efforts. She had paled at the sight of the iris—more than paled. She had been shaken, much as she had reacted to that peculiar package that had been delivered just before they left her home. What had it been, to have unsettled her so? He would give a deal to know, and he suspected she’d not reveal those contents, no matter how skillfully he probed.

Just then his servant knocked, and, given permission, entered to inform Sir Edward that a gentleman had called to see him on a matter of urgency.

Edward gave Miss Dancy a look of frustration, wanting to remain where he could keep an eye on her. Yet he could hardly ask the man to come in here. It could compromise Miss Dancy, himself as well. He did not desire marriage to this luscious armful of suspicion.

“I shall be there directly.” Turning to Miss Dancy, he added, “I am sorry that I must leave you for a few moments. I trust that you will be able to occupy yourself until I return?”

“Of course,” Victoria replied. “I quite understand.” And, she admitted to herself, she was intensely curious about what else was contained in this room. Did the iris on his walls mean that he was a member of the iris ring? She longed to know more, and acknowledged that she hoped he was not.

Once he had departed for the front of the house, Victoria gingerly started her exploration. Heart beating unnaturally fast and mouth dry, she began with the desk. It seemed the most likely spot for documents of any sort, although she knew that any papers of a dangerous nature might be stashed away in a hiding place.

The desk was a smooth mahogany, designed most likely by Mr. Sheridan. Elizabeth owned a drawing table from him, and found it excellent. Both bore his unmistakable stamp of design. There were papers scattered over the desk, but nothing she could see that might point to any connection with the iris ring. Several drawers were locked, the open quite innocuous in regard to content.

Turning, she espied a tall gentleman’s secretary. It was a massive article of furniture, with glass-fronted bookshelves for precious volumes to either side of the central portion. Curious, she let down the central door, just enough to see that the vertical slots were stuffed with papers and folders, the cubbyholes crammed with folded letters and various missives.

She crept to the door, opening it enough to hear if there were footsteps in the hall. She listened a moment. Only Letty could be seen, sitting patiently. Nothing else, but the drone of voices in the distance. Who had sought him out? No matter, it probably was a social thing.

She returned to the secretary and let the central door down, extending it until the hinges caught. She swiftly perused the contents of various compartments, then checked the drawers. In the bottom one she caught sight of a familiar piece of paper. It was identical to the one she had risked her life to bring to London, the very paper that had been in the packet she brought from Dover!

Hastily, after scanning the paper once again, she slammed the drawer shut, then restored the cover to the front of the secretary. Withdrawing to a far part of the room, she stared out of the window as she considered what she had just discovered. Her heartbeat at double time and she knew a feeling of desolation.

Sir Edward
must
be a spy. Else how could he have a copy of the encoded letter? Had he untangled the cipher? Goodness knew that she had been confounded by the dratted thing. Never had she found a cipher so perplexing. The miserable handwriting had not helped in the least, and she suspected that it greatly contributed to her difficulty.

She felt ill. He couldn’t be, yet he was. The man society adored was a spy for the French. She gave the botanical print that hung in pride of place behind the desk an angry glare. It was all of a piece—the print, the copy of the ciphered letter, his great curiosity about her. Oh, she was not so foolish as to think he was enamored of her. His behavior at the windmill had put paid to that notion.

The windmill. How wrong Sam had been to trust Sir Edward. While he had not ravished her, he had plundered something else. He must have searched her case and found the packet. Yet, all had been restored perfectly. How clever he must be!