Unmasking the Spy
Authors: Janet Kent
Unmasking
the Spy
Janet Kent
, England
Friday,
March 3, 1820
“Alicia, get your head down from
the clouds!”
Alicia Kinsey jumped guiltily
when she realized she’d been so involved in her own thoughts that she’d walked
right past her father’s office. Alicia stepped back, inched inside past the
crackling fireplace and stood in front of his towering bookshelves to dip a
quick curtsy.
“Yes, Papa. I’m here.”
“I can see that, daughter.”
Baron Chadwick looked the way he
always did – rotund figure, neatly groomed silver-blond hair, fashionable and
tidy clothing. He sat behind his wide desk, elbows propped on twin piles of
stacked documents, tapping the tips of his fingers and eyeing her with an odd,
speculative look. He cleared his throat and leaned back in his chair.
“Have you thought about marriage,
daughter?” he asked.
Alicia clasped her hands to her
chest. “Oh, yes, Papa. All the time. When I fall in love, you’ll be the first
to know. Or,” she added in a wry tone, “when I get a suitor. Whichever comes
first.” The Season would start bustling again in the next month or two. Since
they lived here in London, a few invitations had already begun to arrive.
Perhaps this would be the Season she’d find love.
Chadwick cast his gaze to his
desk, dipped his pen in ink, and signed a waiting document with a flourish.
“That’s no longer necessary.”
Alicia took an involuntary step
back, nonplused. “Which? That I find love or find a suitor?”
“The former is up to you,”
Chadwick replied without looking up from his papers. “As to the latter, I have
decided to grant your cousin’s petition to marry you.”
She took another step backward
and sagged against the doorjamb. “Which cousin? Who?”
“Louis Larouche, of course.”
Alicia goggled at her father.
“You want me to marry Loony Louie?”
Chadwick’s head snapped up to
give her an irritated glare. “You cannot use that unfortunate nickname.”
The fading sun trickled light
through the window behind her father, casting his shadow across her feet.
“If he is to be my husband, I’ll
call him anything I like,” Alicia muttered.
“Wives have no such privileges.”
She winced. Being wife to Louis
would hardly be a privilege. No doubt his interest was due to her position as
sole heiress. What was a title? All the baronies in the world couldn't compare
with the simple joy of being in love. She herself planned to settle for nothing
less than happily ever after. She doubted Louis qualified as Prince Charming.
Her father gazed at her without a
hint of compassion. “Louis will be a good husband.”
“Louis is rarely good to anyone
but himself,” countered her aunt’s quavering voice from the corridor. Something
thumped against the doorframe as if to underscore her point.
“Beatrix,” Chadwick said in a
low, long-suffering voice. “I have asked you not to use my quizzing glasses as
hammers. Please set it down before you break another.” The expression on her
father’s face bespoke his annoyance with the interruption.
This was apparently not one of
her aunt’s more lucid evenings.
“She’s
not
in
love
with
Louis
,” insisted Beatrix, whacking the quizzing glass against the
wall with each emphasized word. On “Louis,” the handle cracked and clattered to
the floor. Alicia closed her eyes after she saw the large round lens from the
quizzing glass sail through the doorway, skate across her father’s messy desk,
and land in his lap.
Beatrix sniffed and hobbled down
the hall, leaving her to fight this battle alone.
Her father’s hazel eyes cast a disapproving glance
in her direction, as if Alicia had somehow instigated her aunt’s punctuated
support. “It has been decided.”
“By whom?” Alicia flung out her
arms in frustration. “I decided nothing.”
Chadwick tapped the tips of his
pale fingers together. “A daughter is not required to–”
“I know what a daughter is required to do, just as I
know what a wife is required to do. Submit to her father, then submit to her
husband.” Alicia’s blood rose to a boil. “And while I must submit to you, Papa,
I must also state that I categorically do not wish to submit anything at all to
Loony Louie.”
“Alicia.” Chadwick’s tone left no
doubt to the level of his displeasure.
“You made up the name yourself
before he set out on his Grand Tour, and he is no different today!”
Chadwick’s nostrils flared. “I
haven’t uttered that name in years.”
Alicia paused. No, he hadn’t –
not since the scandal.
“He tries to influence your
antiquities collection even though he’s not half as intelligent as your left
shoe! He’s a conceited fribble.” Alicia waved a slender arm in a sweeping
motion about the room, indicating the classic antiquities, stylish curtains,
and delicately carved furniture. “Chadwick House is tasteful and elegant. The
town house Louis keeps is a hovel.”
In a bored tone, her father asked,
“Have you been to his town house, daughter?”
“You know I have not.” Alicia
fought the urge to pick up the other half of the quizzing glass and throw it
against the wall. “I see Louis more than necessary with his constant visits
here.”
He sorted through some papers
before replying. “Perhaps Louis cares for you.”
“Force me to marry if you must,
but don’t bother with polite lies.”
Chadwick gave her a measuring stare, and dipped his
pen in ink. He marked several documents as if he no longer registered her presence
in his office.
Alicia’s hands fisted at her sides. She took a
calming breath. Her mother preached following her heart. However, Mama could no
longer intervene, and Great-aunt Beatrix held no authority.
“I would rather marry a man in
love with me,” she said. Was that so outrageous? “Someone who would condescend
to speak when he entered my home, not spend the entire time shuttered in an
office with my father. A man in love would clasp my hand and whisper sweet
words in my ear, and press a kiss to my cheek.“
“Life is hardly a romantic novel,
daughter,” said Chadwick in an immutable tone, squinting at the writing on one
of his papers.
Alicia bristled. “You are, of
course, correct. Would that it were so.” Perhaps she was naïve in hoping to
marry for love. “But is it too much to ask for even the faintest flicker of
affection?” she implored.
“Louis may learn to feel a
certain affection.” Chadwick waved a careless hand and returned to his papers.
“My position on this matter is clear. Your outrage is inappropriate.”
“Marrying Louis is
inappropriate,” Alicia muttered.
Chadwick pointed a chubby finger
in Alicia’s direction. “Do not disobey me, daughter. I will not carry you
bodily down the aisle, but I have the power to better or worsen your situation
as I see fit.”
Alicia nudged the broken handle
of the quizzing glass with her slippered foot. A continued argument would serve
no helpful purpose. If Louis had asked her father’s permission to marry her, it
was hardly Papa’s fault. But why the sudden interest? She doubted Louis even
liked her. She certainly felt no love for him.
“Papa,” she began in a soft
voice. “Louis only comes to beg you to procure that piece of pottery or those
paintings, which he probably just turns around and sells. He has no business–”
“You are a girl,” Chadwick
interrupted. He stabbed the air with his pen and tiny drops of ink peppered his
paperwork. “You collect fripperies and fritter the days arranging each blonde
curl just so. You do not understand business dealings.”
Fripperies? He was the one who
collected things, not she. And her hair needed no assistance to coil into
springy curls, a lucky trait that allowed her free time to read or practice the
pianoforte.
Papa seemed to have no idea his
daughter had a brain. She’d taken to the library from the first moment she
could read, inhaling the non-fiction as well as the fiction. She’d read each of
the romance novels enough times to have them almost memorized. If anything,
she was bored, not stupid. His words ignited a frustrated rage she hadn’t known
she possessed.
“You don’t have business
dealings, Papa. You are just a collector. You–”
“And you are a daughter who
oversteps herself,” Chadwick snapped in return, blotting at the ink stains with
a cloth. “I was a fool not to enforce the maxim that children are best seen and
not heard.”
“Children?” Alicia gave a little laugh. “I am the
only one you have, and at nearly one-and-twenty, I am no longer in the
nursery.”
“And I should have taken a much stronger
rod to your bottom. You are not so old that I cannot.”
He would beat her into submission?
Alicia backed closer to the bookshelves. Her father’s hand flexed around the
crumpled handkerchief in his grip.
“No more, Alicia. I know what’s best.”
Chadwick raised his bushy brows and waved her away with one hand. “That is my
final word.”
Alicia clenched her jaw. She’d have to
appear to go along with the idea. She took a deep breath and let it out before
replying. “My apologies, Papa. I forget myself. I am sure you have sound
reasons.”
He nodded in approval and returned his
attention to his ink-smeared papers.
Alicia pressed her lips together.
Reasons or not, she needed a stratagem that would place her at the altar with
an acceptable suitor. She had hoped to marry for love by now, not find herself
leg-shackled to her second cousin. “Is it too late? Have you given Louis your
permission?”
Chadwick sifted through another stack of
documents and read a few pages before responding.
“I have not. Louis will meet me in the
morning to discuss potential terms.”
Pent-up air escaped her lungs in a
sudden rush. “Not tomorrow,” she breathed in a voice tight with dread. “I need
more time. I wish to see if we will suit,” she said as evenly as she could,
hoping the roiling in the pit of her stomach did not seep desperation into her
voice.
