to know that even amongst the king’s servants there were spies. And not the kind who protected the Crown.
Camille smiled and fluttered her fan as she watched the English king laugh and hold court with his subjects. The man enjoyed hosting these simpering fools. No wonder her master wished to destroy him and all those who followed him. They dined while others starved. They laughed and danced, while only a few streets away women sold themselves to feed hungry babies and men worked themselves to death to feed their families.
“We must defeat the system from the inside out,” her master had often said. “We must bring it all down to build something better.”
The king approached Camille and offered her a rakishly charming grin. “Lady Halsey.” The fool thought her to be English like all the rest. It was far too easy to act and speak like an English lady, and no one had ever questioned her pedigree, not when she acted so perfectly English.
“Your Majesty.” She dipped into a curtsy, allowing the king to see her ample bosom in the dark-purple court gown she wore. It was so easy to distract men.
“A pretty widow. You have your pick of hearts to break tonight.” The king laughed before moving on to greet the next guest.
Camille turned her attention back to a man with reddish-brown hair who wound his way lazily through the crowd. She saw him bump sharply into the very person Camille had come to find—the new Lady Morrey.
Camille flicked her fan up in front of her face to hide her shock as she saw the man holding on to Lady Morrey’s arm. Lord Morrey, the hapless English aristocrat her master had so easily dismissed, was the man who’d foiled her attempt on Lady Edwards’s life.
So . . . Lord Morrey is a spy.She gazed at the handsome Lord Morrey and recognized those gray eyes that had so captivated her when she’d glimpsed him briefly as he’d thrown himself between her and her target. He was as tall and well built as her master, an equal match. How had her master not known that this man was a spy? He was the farthest thing from a silly English dandy.
Camille noticed the slight adjustment Lord Morrey made to his sleeve a moment after his wife pressed her hand to his. The man was good, almost perfect, but she missed nothing. He’d received something from the red-haired man and had tucked it into his sleeve. A message.
If Lord Morrey had married Lord Pembroke’s sister, it meant she truly was important, so important that Lord Morrey had offered her the protection of his body and his name permanently.
Now that Camille was certain of the woman’s importance, she would be even more certain to end her life. Whatever advantage she brought to the English Home Office, Camille would see it erased. It would be difficult now that she knew Lord Morrey stood between her and her prey.
There was only one solution. They would have to be captured so that the information she required could be pried from them. And then they would be disposed of.
Camille motioned for a footman to come to heras Morrey and his wife left the room. The man was one of her agents who had gained employment in Carlton House.
“Yes, my lady?” the servant asked, hiding any hint of knowing her.
“Follow them. Take plenty of men with you. Once they are well away from London, you know what to do. Get me the information, and then take care of them. Make it look like a random attack.”
The footman nodded before slipping away into the crowd. Camille returned to the party, smiling as she noticed the red-haired man’s gaze sweep across the room, not pausing on her at all. She was as good at blending in as he was. She couldn’t help but wonder, was this new spymaster, Avery Russell, the reason her master was acting overly cautious? And if so, she would have to learn all that she could about him.
11
Letty didn’t like the tired, worn look in her husband’s eyes. They’d returned to the townhouse after the dinner at Carlton House this evening, and now Adam was seated at his desk, writing a few hasty letters while Mr. Helms and Mina packed their trunks again. Letty had changed out of her court gown into a blue velvet carriage dress for the long trip ahead.
“Where are we bound?” she asked Adam.
He finished writing a letter and rubbed the ink to