The Fashionable Spy (14 page)

Chapter 8

“I should like to know what Sir Edward does while at these gaming establishments, if he isn’t an out-and-out gamester,” Victoria mused aloud to Julia over breakfast the following morning. “This is a man who is frequently in pain, yet he spends his nights lounging about in gaming hells, from what Mr. Padbury says. Be an angel and find out if he knows which club Sir Edward patronizes the most, will you?”

“What do you have in mind, love?” Julia replied with caution. She gave her dear sister a shrewd look before dropping her gaze to the plate before her.

“It is but vague at the moment. Something urges me to investigate, and you know how my hunches are.” She shot a look at Julia, then became silent as Elizabeth bounced into the room.

“Really, Lizzie,” Julia remonstrated, “must you be quite so exuberant? I declare, we ought to persuade Aunt Bel to join us for a time.
She
would have you behaving the lady in no time.”

Elizabeth frowned at the use of the hated “Lissie,” then gathered what she wished from the sideboard before joining her sisters at the polished mahogany table. “You know full well she loathes London living, and besides, she has Cousin Hyacinthe in her care. I should not wish that young lady under our feet.” Elizabeth made a horrid face that quite adequately expressed her feelings about her cousin.

“She is very beautiful,” agreed Victoria with a smile, “and exceedingly proper.”

“Hah!” Elizabeth exclaimed. “That is only because no one knows what goes on in her head and the scheming that is so carefully executed when no one is looking. Proper, bah.”

Julia and Victoria exchanged amused glances, fully aware that Hyacinthe was indeed a pretty schemer, but probably no more so than any other lovely young miss trying to capture a respectable husband.

“Lord Leighton sent you a lovely bouquet of flowers. Did you see them as you came down for breakfast?” Victoria inquired of her younger sister.

Elizabeth gave them a startled look and shook her head. “That man. What a nosy creature, asking where Geoffrey is and when he is coming home. As if I should know!” She nibbled on her toast before adding, “I do wish our dear brother
would
come home. Things might be a little easier were we to have a man about the house.”

Julia nodded as her eyes met Victoria’s wary gaze. “None of us knows a thing, and I suspect everyone believes we make up our ignorance out of whole cloth.”

“Have you suffered unwanted advances from Lord Leighton, Elizabeth?” Victoria demanded quietly.

“Well,” Elizabeth admitted reluctantly, “just the kisses at Lady Fenwick’s ball. I was most annoyed,” she added for good measure. At least she had persuaded herself she was annoyed. At the time it had seemed romantic and the kisses quite heavenly, until she realized the impropriety of it all. “Dastardly man,” she declared, but without her usual fervency. “Now he teases me like Geoffrey used to do. I find him most disagreeable.

“I can see why you have shunned him,” Julia said in her most soothing manner. “Say no more and we shall see to it he is kept from your side.”

Elizabeth nodded, but somehow looked rather unconvinced that having Lord Leighton at a distance would solve her confusion.

Victoria turned to matters more important than the harassment of her younger sister. “I had a message from the war office this morning. They beg that I double my efforts at deciphering the message. It seems their best man has not been able to accomplish it either. What a pity we cannot put our heads together. Perhaps we might just solve it with a combined effort.”

“You well know Lord Bathurst decided that the fewer who knew about your efforts, the better,” Julia reminded her. “It is a dangerous business, Vicky. I shudder to think what might happen to you if more people knew.”

“Like another box with a dead iris?”

“Victoria! Please do not say such. We know nothing about that sender either,” Julia reminded.

“I detest unknown quantities,” Victoria declared. “They are so unsettling.”

Evenson entered the room just then to announce the arrival of Mr. Padbury. “I put him in the study, Mrs. Winton. He seemed to think that the place to wait for you.”

Victoria recalled that she had left the missive from the war office on her desk, and chided herself for her rare carelessness. She shook her head at Julia.

“Why not invite him to join us in the morning room?” Elizabeth suggested, aware of undercurrents, even though she did not know what caused them. The three sisters had grown far closer than the usual sibling relationship, partly owing to the loss of their parents and partly owing to the danger they shared.

“Excellent idea,” Julia agreed. “Be so good as to show Mr. Padbury in there.” Once Evenson had left the room, she whispered, “Why, Vicky?”

“I forgot that letter on the desk. Although we know Mr. Padbury to be harmless as a gnat, we cannot take any chances, can we?” Victoria whispered back, then joined her sisters in a hasty flit to the morning room as Mr. Padbury was ushered in by Evenson. The morning light revealed the young ladies in impeccable day dress, all perched on chairs, wearing expectant looks.

“Good day, dear ladies. I can see you rested well after your late evening at Lady Tichbourne’s. Mrs. Winton, lovely as ever,” he avowed, bowing toward Julia.

Victoria bit back a smile at the “genial gentleman” as she recollected Sir Edward calling him. He was so much the well-mannered, civil London man-about-the-town. Julia said nothing in regard to her feelings about him. Victoria hoped that her elder sister did not feel constrained to marry merely to remove herself from the Dancy household.

It would seem that subject was also on Mr. Padbury’s mind as well this morning, for he said, following the usual chitchat about the weather, “I note that Lord Simpson has wed. What will you charming ladies do when your brother marries? Or what if he should return with a wife? I hear there are a great number of Englishwomen, not to mention those dark-eyed ladies of Spain and Portugal, who cast out lures to the soldiers over there.”

Victoria exchanged looks with Elizabeth and Julia. They all knew the possibility existed, naturally. However, they had pushed aside the actuality of the matter.

“I doubt my brother would order us out of our family home, Mr. Padbury,” Julia exclaimed softly.

“The gentleman has a point, Julia. We ought to form plans. It is only sensible. What bride would want to enter a household where three sisters have reigned for years? Perhaps we shall hunt about for a suitable house of our own. Would that appeal to you? At least until Elizabeth marries, at any rate.”

“You have no intention of being wed? I understood you planned to take a wedding trip to Switzerland.”

Victoria gave Mr. Padbury a curious look. That exchange, however nonsensical, had been between Sir Edward and herself. Somehow, she doubted that Sir Edward was the sort to confide in the man he oddly seemed to dislike. Perhaps her voice had carried farther than she believed.

“A jest, Mr. Padbury, nothing more. Coffee, sir?” She signaled to Evenson, who had remained near the door. “Coffee for Mr. Padbury.” With that, she rose from her chair and escaped from the room, intent upon placing that paper from the war office in a locked drawer.

Once that was accomplished, she headed to the workroom to assemble her materials. All her tools went into the neat case made just for that purpose. The incipient wax sculpture, carefully kept clean and wrapped, was placed in a dampened cloth bag. By the end of the morning she was satisfied that she was as ready as she might be—at least for her work. Dealing with Sir Edward was another matter entirely.

* * * *

It was nearing two of the clock when Victoria, accompanied by Sable and a footman, left the house. Admonitions from Julia, Elizabeth, and Mr. Padbury—who had lingered for lunch—still rang in her ears as she entered her town carriage.

“Honestly,” Victoria declared in mild affront, “one would think I’ve not done this sort of thing before.”

But inwardly she knew this time was different. Never before had she felt such an attraction to her patron, nor had she to cope with a protector who adored the one to be guarded against. “Sable, what shall I do with you? You are to make the man stay away from me. Do you understand, I wonder.”

Sighing with frustration—for she knew once her silly dog got a sniff of Sir Edward it would be pointless to command the animal to stand guard—she absently stroked his silken head.

Her thoughts returned to the matter Mr. Padbury had raised that morning. What
would
they do if Geoffrey returned with a bride? Or when he married, as he must, to, preserve the line? How foolish of the sisters not to have a plan for that event. However, it was not too late. Elizabeth must marry, of course. And Julia? Would she become Mrs. Padbury? Somehow Victoria doubted it, but one never knew, and she would not probe. Perhaps obliquely inquire, nevertheless. If she had to be alone, she might as well prepare for it. Not one suitor who had approached was welcomed by Victoria. She wanted someone strong, capable, and she wanted a love match such as her parents seemed to have had.

They had refused to be parted from each other, which was why the girls were left orphans. Granted permission from the French government—indeed. Napoleon himself—to travel to Paris to study a Sanskrit manuscript kept at the Bibliotheque, they had been subsequently accused of treasonous activities. Before help could arrive, they were dead. Murdered! Victoria tried not to dwell on the manner of that death. Small wonder that she and her sisters did anything they might to fight the French.

She welcomed her arrival at Sir Edward’s handsome establishment, for it forced her to think of the approaching afternoon and what she might learn. She would make certain the gentleman kept his distance.

After her footman’s rap on the door, she was ushered inside. The footman carried her paraphernalia to the study, where she found a very nice stand placed in just about the precise location she would have wished it.

“Thank you, James. That will be all for now.’’ She waved a dismissal to the footman, then removed her pelisse, absently handing the lovely jade garment to the butler.

“Perhaps to the left a trifle.” She squinted at the window, her prime source of lighting, then placed the wax form on the stand, pleased with her decision. It was a pity she couldn’t tell a soul that this rudimentary head had been intended for the very man she now prepared to sculpture. What a delicious joke to have to keep to herself. She chuckled while removing a tool from her case.

“You find this amusing. Miss Dancy?”

Startled out of her wits, Victoria clutched the fine tool used for modeling delicate features to her breast as she whirled about to face Sir Edward. How long had he been standing there observing her?

He held her jade pelisse in his hands, which meant that he had come into the room directly behind her. Victoria’s cheeks flamed at the realization that she had treated him like his own servant.

Just then the butler entered, accepted the pelisse from Sir Edward, then nodded at the request for tea to be brought.

“I trust you become thirsty while in the creative mood?”

At the forgiving twinkle in his eyes, she relaxed sufficiently to add, “Hungry, too.”

“My excellent housekeeper has anticipated this, I feel sure. Lemon wafers and ratafia biscuits, I believe she promised.”

Since lemon wafers were a favorite with Victoria, she smiled, then turned to business again. She simply could not allow herself to be enticed by the fascinating intensity of this man. Capable and strong, he also intimidated her, and she was too spirited to permit some man to rule her. It didn’t seem to occur to her that the present description she had assigned to Sir Edward came remarkably close to matching her own requirements for a mate.

Sir Edward watched her efficiently go about the arrangements for her work with an intent gaze, missing not a thing she did. When she at last instructed him as to where he was to sit, he obliged quietly.

Victoria felt a quiver run through her as she touched his face to position it just so. Like so many, he tried to comply with her orders, but it took a touch of her hand to get the matter right. His skin felt warm and surprisingly smooth, firm. He was freshly shaved, and the scent of his lotion was pleasantly spicy. Not having her brother around for ages, she didn’t know what the ‘fragrance might be, but she suspected it was costly.

“Can you maintain that pose, Sir Edward? Or shall I find something for you to lean upon?”

“Proceed,” came his reply as the butler entered with the tray of tea and biscuits.

Hoping that her consumption of tea would not offend Sir Edward, Victoria poured a small amount, sipped, then began. In moments she was totally lost to the world. This was what she had longed to do. The transfer of his features, the clean line of his profile and that magnificent, aristocratic nose, to the fluidity of the wax had drawn her since she had met the man. Never had she been so fascinated with a profile. The hollows and planes, the faint crinkles about his eyes, everything about him enthralled her. The man behind the face was another enigma she desired to uncover. That, she knew full well, would take time, and might never be accomplished.

At the faintest droop of a shoulder, she stopped, checked her timepiece, and exclaimed in horror, “Sir Edward, I do apologize! I did not intend to weary you to this degree, believe me.”

Sable looked up at the sound of her voice from where he had curled up at Sir Edward’s feet. Victoria gave the traitorous dog a frown. “I had best leave now. You deserve a rest after that long a sitting. But then, if you remain home this evening, you can relish your repose.”

“Are you probing into my activities. Miss Dancy?” he inquired in dulcet tones. “I assure you that I intend to make my usual rounds of an evening.” He flexed his muscles while she covered the bust with a dampened cloth.

“I shall return on the morrow if it pleases you.”

Sir Edward nodded. “I shall be ready for you.”

Victoria was very much aware of his brooding gaze as she fled the room with Sable reluctantly at her heels.