you should see to your guest first?”
“Guest?”
Amanda followed her mother’s gaze, through the windows of the morning room, past the flowerbeds, to the wrought-iron gate. In the alleyway beyond, disguised by the unkempt branches of the hedge, she glimpsed a figure. A man in a red coat.
“It’s Mr. Stanhope,” said Pip, moving toward the door.
“Major Stanhope,” Jamie corrected, following him.
“Sir Langley,” their grandmother declared with a note of finality as she released Amanda’s shoulder to catch the boys by their elbows. “And I’ll wager he’s here to speak to your mama about something important, so you stay here.”
Dazed, Amanda descended the three broad steps and crossed the garden, fearful every moment that he would prove to be just another specter conjured by her tortured mind. At the gate she stopped and wrapped one hand around a sun-warmed metal post. “Why didn’t you come to the front door?”
He lifted one shoulder, though the movement made him wince with pain. His uniform otherwise disguised his injuries admirably, the scarlet wool reflecting color onto his pale face, the drape of one sleeve almost hiding the sling in which his injured arm rested. “This seems…more fitting, somehow.”
“Well, either way, I’m glad you’re here,” she said.
At the same time he told her, “Billy sent me to talk with you.” Then for a long moment, he said nothing more.
“About General Scott’s letter?” she prompted.
“In a manner of speaking.” Another pause, and he refused to meet her eye. “What did you make of it?”
“Well, I was certainly surprised to discover that my husband was a—well, an associate of General Scott’s, should I say? I wish he had confided in me. I might have been some help to him, more than a hostess. But I suppose he must’ve thought me too much of an empty-headed rattle,” she concluded with a forced laugh.
“If the late Lord Kingston believed any such thing,” Langley said, “he would have been a fool. And in my experience, General Scott does not suffer fools.”
She did not know which was stranger: the tenor of his reassurance, or the fact that she was reassured by it. “Thank you. I am flattered that General Scott believes I could be of assistance now—”
“But I daresay you’ve had enough excitement for one lifetime.” His narrowed gaze darted toward the garden, to where the boys and her mother were no doubt watching them with interest. “You’re under no obligation to go along with Scott’s schemes, you know.”
Every time he spoke, his voice sounded more gruff, pricklier than the hedge between them. Always before when he had acted and sounded thus, she had imagined him determined to ward her off from danger.
For the first time, she wondered whether he might not be trying to goad her. Had he hoped—did he want her to agree to General Scott’s idea of a partnership between them?
“Whereas you are obligated to follow orders, Major Stanhope?” she asked.
He gave a curt nod, his jaw set in a familiar, stubborn line.
“Well, I suspect the ladies of the ton will be only too happy to pour their secrets—and anyone else’s they may happen to learn—into the ear of the dashing Sir Langley. And when you and I cross paths at these society events,” she went on, “I shall try not to let my jealousy interfere with your mission.”
“J-jealousy?”
She had heard him speak in half a dozen different voices. But she had never before heard him stammer. Something devilish and delightful flickered to life in her chest. “Mm, yes. I confess that when I read General Scott’s letter, I was disappointed. Oh, not in the overall idea, of course—I’m happy to use my connections to help gather information on behalf of the Crown. It’s just that, well…lately, I had found myself wondering about the possibility of another sort of partnership between you and me. Perhaps foolishly, I had been hoping for a different kind of proposal altogether.”
His hand rose to encircle the post next to the one where her hand rested. Almost, but not quite, touching her. “Oh?”
At just that moment, a shadow of wings fluttered over them. She glanced up as the bird found its perch on the top of one of the fence posts. Its striking black and white feathers gleamed in the afternoon sun.
“A magpie,” she said, surprise making her voice sharp.
A sign of something, surely?
“But alone.” His knuckles had turned white where they griped the black iron. “One for sorrow,” he said, quoting the familiar rhyme.
Releasing the post, she reached through the gap to lay