One Thing Leads to a Lover (Love and Let Spy #2) - Susanna Craig Page 0,30

he cleared a space, sat down in a sturdy chair, and laid his forehead on the scarred wooden tabletop, resisting—but only just—the temptation to strike his head against the cool, unforgiving surface until sense returned, or was driven from his brain forever.

A few moments later, the door opened behind him. Not bothering to sit up, he twisted his neck to identify the arrival.

“No luck, eh?” Colonel Millrose said, studying him from the threshold. Langley knew that dawn must be approaching, for Millrose was dressed in his shop clothes. He opened the tobacconist’s early, for the business that came when the hells and clubs closed their doors and unwitting men, half-drunk with fatigue or entirely drunk on illicit French brandy, wandered in with occasionally interesting stories to tell.

Langley’s only reply was to turn back to his prior position, hiding his face from the other man.

“I’m sorry to hear it.” Millrose strode toward the table, scraped a chair across the floor, and sat down. “But I’m glad to have a chance to speak with you in person. General Scott sent a message just after you left.”

“Finally realized he chose the wrong man for the job, eh?”

Langley wasn’t entirely sure who the right man would have been. But he was positive the task should belong to someone who wouldn’t have connived for a kiss with the countess at the first opportunity, who had the self-control not to grope her arse. It was more than likely Scott had assigned him to this mission to humble him, to teach him a lesson. But impossible that Scott had foreseen his supposed best agent lusting after Aman—Lady Kingston.

Millrose ignored his words. “He’s heard—don’t ask me how; it’s as if the man has some vast secret network, spying on his spies—that Hopkins’s captors have managed to figure out who has the codebook.”

They would have had to torture the information from Hopkins. But that was not the first concern that rose to Langley’s mind. He dragged himself upright and eyed Billy, who sat a few feet away, his arms folded over the back of the chair he was straddling. “I pray you mean Dulsworthy.”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Christ.” He was on his feet before he knew he’d moved, the heavy table skidding forward with the thrust of his arms and his chair toppling onto the floor behind him. “Then she needs—she and her family need protection.”

Unperturbed, Billy waved the fingers of one hand, gesturing for calm, for Langley to sit down again. But he couldn’t. Not if—not when—

“I’ve got men guarding the house, front and back. So long as she stays inside, she’ll be perfectly safe.”

“But?” Langley spoke the word the other man had left unspoken.

“It seems she has plans for the theater tonight. Covent Garden. A box with her friends Mr. and Mrs. Hurst.”

Langley raked a hand through his hair. “A ball last night, the theater tonight. Didn’t the dossier—didn’t you imply the woman never left the house?”

Hell, she had implied it. You haven’t the first idea how dull my life is, she’d told him, pleading up at him with those rich brown eyes as she’d insisted on a chance to play a part in the search.

Billy shrugged as he rose from his chair and swung his leg over the seat to stand beside it. “It would seem the Countess of Kingston is finally out of mourning.” He reached a hand into his breast pocket, withdrew a folded paper, and laid it on the table. “Your ticket to Cymbeline. Eight o’clock. I’ve heard Kemble is extraordinary as the hero.”

Langley swore and kicked the fallen chair for good measure. “Which exactly is it I’m being ordered to do? Search for the codebook? Or tail her ladyship about the town?”

A knowing smile split the man’s face. “Yes.”

* * * *

Well before the longcase clock in the entry hall chimed seven, Amanda had been ready and eager to escape Bartlett House. She felt rather as she imagined a fox must feel during the hunt, hurried and harried from its den, and from every subsequent hiding place it found, until it simply gave itself up to the hounds.

With no other plans for the day, Mama had been at liberty to follow her from room to room, enquiring about the ball in that saccharine voice that set Amanda’s teeth on edge. And with every remove, Mama had ordered poor Lewis to fetch the vase containing George’s flowers, ostensibly to discover the ideal place to showcase their beauty.

They were lovely, a hothouse arrangement studded with red