The Spy's Kiss (29 page)

“You could have told me a bit earlier that it was all a sham,” Julien said acidly to the priest. He was still a bit dizzy; he had slammed his head against the brick wall as he fell and had been in a genuine stupor when the soldiers carted him back into the armory. It had been quite some time before he could sit up without losing his equilibrium. “Before I wrote those letters, for example.”

“I thought you knew. The letters seemed a clever, authentic touch. My apologies.” The priest was wiping the pig's blood off of Julien's hands and chest.

Julien jerked away. A disquieting thought had occurred to him. “You didn't actually deliver those letters, did you?”

“We did, of course. Why?”

He closed his eyes and groaned softly. “I thought I would never see Miss Allen again in this world. I told her I loved her.”

“Is it true?”

“You heard my confession.”

“So I did.” He daubed at a stain on his own cassock. “You know, if you had told her that yourself, a bit earlier, you would have been spared a lot of misery. As would she.” He surveyed Julien's torso critically and then handed him a clean shirt. “Still, this may prove to be the best thing for all concerned, in the end. You did quite well, especially considering we were only able to rehearse once before they came for you. Are you up to playing dragoon now?” He indicated a heap of military clothing on the table. “These should fit; Dauncy is quite tall. We must somehow smuggle you out of the Tower. The most dramatic and effective method, from our point of view, would be a coffin, but I fancy you would not be very comfortable. And Miss Allen might demand to see the body if she saw us hauling a casket through the water gate. She has already threatened to denounce the Constable for executing an innocent man.”

“The devil! Serena is here? Where? Do you mean to say she witnessed that farce?” He was almost through the door before the other man could stop him. “Let me go,” he panted, straining against the iron grip on his arm. “She'll think she's partly to blame, she'll be frantic—” He was slightly taller than his opponent and unencumbered by clerical skirts; though confinement had taken the edge off his strength, he was inexorably forcing his way towards the door until the other man, exasperated, hauled off and struck him, hard, across the face. Black waves danced across Julien's vision as he leaned against the wall.

“You can call me out, if you choose,” the priest said, breathing hard, “but for your own sake—for Miss Allen's sake—stop and think for one minute. Why on earth do you suppose we put you through that ordeal? To have you pop out of this room like Punch in the puppet show an hour after your execution?”

“What do you mean?” Dazed, Julien sank back into the chair. It was beginning to sink in that instead of being rescued, as he had thought, he had been used. He stared at his companion, eyes narrowing. The Spanish accent had mysteriously vanished some time ago; now he saw the telltale raw edges of the tonsure.

“You're no priest.” It was a statement, not a question.

“No.”

“You sneaking piece of filth,” choked Clermont, remembering with terrible clarity what he had confessed to the “priest,” “I
will
call you out! Of all the low-down, despicable—”

“There's gratitude for you,” retorted the other man. “Save a man's life, and what is your reward? Three members of that board of inquiry were quite ready to shoot you in earnest, you know. And you certainly were not contributing anything to your own defense. So my colonel persuaded me to come hear your confession. I did not pass on all the items you told me, if that relieves your mind. White and Barrett already had their doubts; once I gave them my word as an officer of the Crown that you were elsewhere on the night of the burglary they had no interest in your activities.”

“Your colonel?” Clermont had some confused notion of a lay brother serving as chaplain until he remembered Catholics could not hold commissions in the British army.

“Permit me to introduce myself. Major Richard Drayton. Second-in-command of His Majesty's garrison force, Gibraltar. White is not, in fact, my colonel. I'm meant to be on leave at the moment. But I reported to him until I was sent to Gibraltar.”

It took Julien a full minute to assimilate this revelation. “You are a major? Not even Catholic?” He stopped. “It's impossible. It's true your Latin was a bit rusty, but you knew the office; you rattled off the blessing perfectly—”

“I spent four hours being drilled by another officer in our service who has traveled through Spain disguised as a priest.”

Julien gave up trying to follow this on his own. “I don't understand,” he said. “Who are you? What concern am I of yours? Why did you pretend to shoot me? Who are you working for? Are you spies?”

Drayton winced. “Spy is such an ugly word. We prefer to call ourselves couriers. We are assisting the Foreign Office in a confidential investigation; that is all I can tell you.”

“You mean that you thought I was purloining documents from Bassington,” said Clermont bluntly.

“
He
did not. I did, at first. You must admit that there was good reason for me to do so.” It was Meyer, standing in the doorway.

Julien looked back and forth, from false priest to false naturalist. “But then, once you knew I was not the thief, why the sham execution?”

“If you are not the thief, someone else is,” was Meyer's enigmatic answer. “And that is why we cannot, as yet, reveal that you were not killed just now.”

“Oh, come, you cannot expect me to be content with that!” Clermont got up again and headed for the door. “You have no legal cause to detain me, by your own admission. If you are going to talk in riddles I will take my leave. Miss Allen's peace of mind is of far greater concern to me than your underhanded machinations for finding this so-called thief.”

Drayton blocked his way. “Don't you want to see him caught?” he demanded. “Don't you realize that the thief almost certainly took advantage of your presence in Bassington's household to frame you, to set you up as the culprit? You could help us trap him.”

“My recent experiences have given me a profound distaste for the pursuit of vengeance, as you might realize if you called to mind some of the less salacious portions of my confession.”

“Vengeance? What about justice?”

“I have no desire to turn catchpoll,” said Julien with hauteur. “England has a perfectly adequate constabulary for those purposes.”

Meyer stirred. “Do you know who the thief had chosen as his scapegoat before you appeared? The viscount. Who is now once again a suspect. Don't you believe you owe the boy something?”

Julien looked at him darkly. “Do I? What did you have in mind? Should I let your men use me for target practice again? Volunteer for another week in gaol? Publish a posthumous confession in the
Gazette
?”

“What we would like,” said Meyer, “is to have you tell us everything you know about every person in the earl's household. You thought the man was your father, after all. You were so curious about him and his family that you went to a great deal of trouble to gain entry to Boulton Park. Surely you learned something during your stay which might help us identify the real thief.”

Julien turned to Drayton. “Forgive me if my memory is playing me false—I have taken a few blows on the head lately. But did you or did you not, yesterday afternoon, grant me absolution for spying on the earl—after agreeing with me that it was one of the most loathsome schemes you had ever come across in your clerical career?”

“It was loathsome,” said Drayton calmly. “Violating the seal of the confessional was loathsome as well, even though I am not a priest. But I did it. It seemed less loathsome than allowing them to shoot you with real bullets.”

Julien digested this for a moment in silence. “And after I betray Bassington and his family yet again? Then what?”

“Then,” said Meyer, “we send you down to Oxfordshire with eleven real dragoons and hope that your dramatic resurrection produces an equally dramatic revelation.”

 

 

For two days Serena had been trying to find an opportunity to talk privately with Simon. During the hurried departure from London it had been impossible; during the journey itself even more impossible. Her aunt had been so solicitous and omnipresent that Serena had been forced to feign sleep for hours at a time in the carriage. But now they were finally back at Boulton Park, the servants were unpacking, and she had taken advantage of the confusion to grab Simon and drag him off to his secret room. After her conversation with her uncle the day before they left town, she was well aware that neither she nor Simon would be allowed to disappear at will from now on. She had seized what might be her only chance. For one thing, she wanted to tell him to watch his step. She was afraid he would do something foolish right in front of the soldiers. And for another thing, she had a very awkward question to ask him, and she wanted to ask him here, where no one could hear them or even see his face when she asked it. But Simon, of course, didn't want to listen to lectures. He wanted to talk about the soldiers and their search for the mysterious document thief.

“It is Mrs. Childe,” he said, for the third time.

“She probably thinks it is you,” Serena pointed out. “I know she isn't very agreeable, Simon, but why would you fasten on her as a suspect?” At least he hadn't decided it was his own father. She had edited her report of Clermont's fate and the earl's warning drastically for Simon's benefit.

He shrugged. “I don't know. She never looks anyone in the eye. And she has nearly as many jewels as mother, even though she is a poor widow.”

“Perhaps they are paste.” Then she said, suspicious, “How do you know how many jewels she has?”

“I got her jewelry case open a few months ago.” He said, with a malicious smile, “I shortened the chain on her favorite clasp, as well, so that she would think she was growing stout. And it worked. Haven't you noticed she is drinking vinegar after breakfast now?”

“Simon!”

“She's horrid, Serena. You know she is. And if it isn't her, it will be someone I
like
.”

She said, exasperated, “You do realize that pranks of that sort will be taken as more than boyish mischief? That the soldiers who are here will ask the servants who might know how to get into Sir Charles's safe, and all the servants will immediately name you?”

He scowled. “I don't care.”

She took a deep breath and asked the question she had been postponing. “It wasn't you, was it, Simon? You didn't take those letters, did you?”

She couldn't read his expression. It might have been outrage, it might have been surprise and alarm.

“You can tell me,” she said hastily. “But you must tell me right now. I can protect you, I promise. No one will shut you up in prison or shoot you.”

“Mr. Clermont wasn't even the thief, and they shot him,” he pointed out.

Black guilt swallowed her. He was right. How could she promise him safety when she hadn't even been able to exonerate someone who was innocent? She stared down at the cracked floorboards.

“Serena.” He was shaking her. “Serena, stop looking like that! It wasn't me.”

“Good,” she said dully.

He shook her again. “Serena! It wasn't.”

This was important. This was why she was here. She pulled herself together. “You swear it?”

“Word of honor.”

“Let me see inside your trunk, then.” She had already searched his room in London, as thoroughly as she knew how, on the pretext of helping Mrs. Digby pack.

He was shaking his head.

“Either I inspect this trunk, or I ask Hubert to carry it out for the dragoons to search. Which do you prefer?”

“Turn your back, then, so you cannot see how I open it,” he ordered.

Obediently, she turned towards the wall. She heard rustling noises, and the clink of a buckle, and then Simon's voice. “You can look now.”

It was empty. She ran her hand around the lining to make sure there were no papers tucked inside and inspected the lid for good measure. Nothing.

“Simon.” She couldn't help herself, she had to ask. “Why do you keep an empty trunk sealed up in your hidden room?”

“I knew you would say that,” he said in disgust. “Because I might want to keep something in there sometime, that's why. Because it was funny to see the servants look at it and hear them talk about what might be in there.” He sighed. “I suppose having secrets isn't a very good idea at the moment, is it?”

“No,” she said sadly, “it isn't.” She got to her feet and dusted off her skirts. “Let's go, before anyone misses us. Does anyone else know about this room and your trunk besides me and the servants?”

“My mother. Jasper. Mr. Clermont.” He thought for a moment. “I offered to show this room to Mr. Meyer, but he never came.”

“Well, I don't think anyone will tell the soldiers about it, but just in case, I would leave the trunk open for now.” She was thinking of what Vernon had told her about the damage to Clermont's luggage and clothing. She wasn't sure how Simon would feel if he came back here and saw his trunk torn to pieces, and she didn't want to find out.

 

 

Julien was back at the Burford Arms. It felt very odd. No one looked at him, of course, one of a dozen faceless dragoons milling around the taproom, but he took care to keep well away from Budge and the barmaids, just in case. He spoke as little as possible to his fellow soldiers. He might speak English like a native, but he didn't speak it like an enlisted man.