One Thing Leads to a Lover (Love and Let Spy #2) - Susanna Craig Page 0,106
party.
He had not long to bask in his triumph, however. The new angle of his chair to the desk, combined with a shaft of sunlight slanting over the newspaper, forced a previously-overlooked item into his line of vision. He leaned forward again, the front legs of his chair dropping softly onto the carpet.
Pandemonium! Sly Lady Sterling has struck again, this time vexing a visit to Vauxhall Gardens for the ordinarily penurious Lord P—, a plump pigeon plucked before he could play.
For good measure, Scott removed his spectacles, polished them against his waistcoat, and settled them carefully on his face again before reading the lines a second time. But the words remained as opaque—or clear—as they had ever been:
Lord P— (Penhurst, presumably) had been robbed by London’s most notorious—and fascinating—thief.
Pandemonium was a high-stakes hell. A man of Penhurst’s reputation would never have been permitted to gamble there on credit, so Lady Sterling, whoever she was, must have pocketed a weighty purse indeed. One wondered where he had acquired the funds—and how she had discovered they were in his possession.
As Scott added Penhurst’s name to his mental list of the Lady Sterling’s victims, something clicked quietly into place. Over the past few months, a surprising number of aristocrats had found themselves in a similar predicament. He knew each to be a man with a personal weakness, some past misdeed that made him potentially easy prey.
Lord Dulsworthy’s recent treachery—Scott hardly knew if someone so dull-witted could rightly be accused of treason—was a pointed reminder of a how a weak man could be exploited by the enemies of the Crown.
Some speculated Lady Sterling was no mere thief, but an avenging angel acting on behalf of individuals who had been wronged by the men in question. Scott rather hoped than knew it to be so. But if it were true, then she was in possession not just of these men’s valuables, but also their secrets, worth far more than mere pounds and pence. What scandalous stories could the Lady Sterling tell? And what might the subjects of those tales be willing to pay, or do, to ensure her silence?
A good many Englishmen had cause to regard such a clever woman as an enemy.
Scott wanted her as an ally.
“Collins!”
He called for his aide before remembering that he was not in his Whitehall office but at home in his study, hiding from Mrs. Scott as she put the finishing touches on her preparations for their trip to Brighton. He pushed to his feet and stepped toward the bell, but before he could ring it, Highsmith, his redoubtable butler, stepped to the doorway, unfazed at having been summoned by the wrong name and in such a fashion.
“Yes, sir?”
“Has—er, has Mrs. Scott finished packing, Highsmith?”
“The footmen brought down Mrs. Scott’s trunks earlier this morning,” he reported, then hesitated. “But she’s at work on yours again, I’m afraid.”
“Good, good,” said Scott absently, grateful for his wife’s distraction. As best he could, he tried to keep his domestic life untroubled by his work.
At that unlooked-for reaction to what should have been unfortunate news, something like surprise flickered into the butler’s eyes. Ignoring it, Scott returned to his desk and scrawled a few words across a piece of paper, then folded and sealed it. “I need you to deliver this message to—to my tobacconist’s. An urgent matter.”
Highsmith’s eyebrows rose fractionally higher, though their movement was almost lost in the vast expanse of his forehead, undifferentiated from the dome of his bald pate. “Of course, sir,” he said, taking the note.
“And see to it that my trunks are locked and brought down at noon sharp. Empty or full.” His wife had packed and unpacked them half a dozen times at least. But come morning, he meant to be on his way to enjoying the refreshing sea air, with or without luggage.
“Very good, sir.”
Not an hour later, Captain Jeremy Addison was standing before his desk, his dark head bowed over the same item in the same newspaper. When he looked up, he wore an expression somewhere between nonplussed and annoyed.
At the sight of it, Scott battled back a smile. “Ah. I take it you have heard of the Lady Sterling?”
“My sister Julia finds the woman’s exploits amusing and takes it upon herself to keep me apprised.”
Scott could well imagine the teasing. “An interesting choice of alias for a thief, is it not? Sterling. Hints at excellence, trustworthiness. Purity—of motive, perhaps, if not of method.”
Addison looked up, fixing him with a pair of shockingly blue eyes. “I trust you didn’t call me here over a trivial coincidence. Sir.”
Scott, who did not believe in coincidences, sat down behind his desk and motioned the other man toward a chair.
From time to time, he saw an opportunity to shift one of his agents to a position that was still useful, though considerably less dangerous. Often, the change in assignment was precipitated by a change in responsibilities at home: a man might come into a piece of property, as had happened recently with Lieutenant Sutherland, the Earl of Magnus. Though it was certainly not official policy, Scott generally did what he could to make sure the officers in his service seized such a chance to step into a quieter life, settle down, start a family. The war could and would get along without them.
Of course, many of those officers were not inclined to leave his service and required a little nudge. Some, like Major Laurens, now the Duke of Raynham, had been reluctant to return to claim an inheritance they did not want. Others, like the Magpie, fancied themselves in love with danger.
But none of that experience could help Scott now. Jeremy Addison needed not a nudge but a shove, and not toward a quiet life, but away from it.
Though a viscount, he never flaunted his title; he’d offered his skills to the army as a codebreaker instead. Though he was handsome and intelligent enough to attract any lady’s notice, the only women he ever mentioned were his mother and sister, tucked away in a rented cottage in Hammersmith. Though he might have made a reasonably comfortable home with them, he chose to quarter in the Underground. Scott felt sure his message had found the man alone in the dank, dimly-lit workroom there, bent over a book.
Embarrassment over an inherited debt—that was all the explanation Captain Addison had ever given for relegating himself to the shadows. Beyond preposterous to believe that the search for a mysterious and morally ambiguous woman was just the thing to entice him back into the light.
Nevertheless, Scott intended to test the case.
He steepled his fingers as he contemplated how best to begin. “Like your sister, I’ve been following the Lady Sterling’s career with interest. She targets men whom I would call…vulnerable, in some way. Men with secrets they would like to keep. And while money may be one motivation for her exploits, I suspect it is not all she takes from these men.”
Perhaps in spite of himself, interest flickered in Addison’s bright eyes. “She’s gathering information, you mean?”
“Yes. Information that can be used for blackmail. Indeed, she may already be in possession of secrets capable of doing real damage—to the war effort, the King, even the nation. I need to know whose side she is on.” He slid his fingers together and laid his folded hands before him on his desk. “So I’m sending you to find her.”
Addison, who had been obligingly nodding along with his commanding officer until the last, jerked to his feet. “I? But I—I don’t—” His throat bobbed in a hard swallow. “What am I to do with her if I succeed?”
“When,” Scott corrected, handing the newspaper across his desk to Captain Addison as he would a set of orders. “And I should think the answer would be obvious, Lord Sterling. I want you to marry her.”
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