One Thing Leads to a Lover (Love and Let Spy #2) - Susanna Craig Page 0,40

answer George. She was feeling distinctly lightheaded.

But in another moment a man had stepped past Lewis and into the room, sketching a bow that was gentlemanly but not obsequious. His clothing too bespoke the gentleman, though neither a wealthy nor a fashionable one. Blue coat, buff breeches, crisp linen, well-polished boots. Neither a shop clerk nor a dandy out for a night on the town.

Magpie.

She mouthed the name but did not speak it, finding her lips suddenly parched and her breath rather uneven.

“I thought, as the boys’ new tutor, it would be best if I were a part of this conversation.”

T-t-t— Amanda couldn’t seem to wrap her mind around the word.

But George suffered from no such inability. “Tutor?” he exclaimed. He spun toward her. “What is the meaning of this?”

“This is Mister, er—”

She stumbled over what came next, in part because she was not sure what name to use. Did the Magpie generally employ a new alias with each new disguise?

But equally to blame was the fact that her thoughts no longer seemed to be hers to command.

He was wearing spectacles. In keeping with the part of a tutor, she supposed, though certainly no one would think to call him bookish. Steel-rimmed spectacles ought not to have made his face more handsome, and yet…

She licked her lips. “Mister, um—”

“Stanhope, my lord,” he supplied swiftly, dipping his head in greeting at George before stepping closer with hand extended.

To her surprise, Lord Dulsworthy shook hands with him, if not pleased by the gesture then not displeased by the strength of the other man’s grip. “Not a clergyman, I take it,” George said with a satisfied nod, looking him up and down, oblivious to the fact that he had dismissed the same man as the bookshop’s errand boy less than a week ago. “Thank God.”

Major Stanhope mustered a smile at what he evidently mistook for an attempt at humor on George’s part. “My father did have me in mind for the church, my lord,” he conceded, rocking back on his heels and folding his hands behind his back. “I was educated for it, kept the necessary terms at Oxford. But it’s an uncertain future without a preferment, as you must know. And I have found I enjoy the privilege of shaping young minds.”

She caught herself nodding along with the story, as if it confirmed what she already knew. Except it was also a reminder of everything she did not know:

Who he was.

Where he came from.

Why he was in her house.

“So you hired him,” George said, turning toward her, his voice now laced with disapproval.

“You’ve made your opinion on the matter of the boys’ education amply clear, Lord Dulsworthy, but I worry they are not ready for one of our fine public schools.”

“Their instruction has been rather irregular,” he agreed, directing the comment at Major Stanhope with a sharp look for her.

“Which is why I hired Mr. Stanhope. To remedy any defects he might find. To offer his professional judgment about their abilities and the best direction for their educational futures.”

Major Stanhope dipped his head in agreement with her makeshift explanation for his presence. George’s face grew redder with every word she spoke.

The two men were standing close enough together now that it was impossible not to compare them—though such a comparison was doubtless imprudent of her.

Lord Dulsworthy had always seemed to her a sort of cartoon sketch of the ideal Englishman, minus the tweed coat. He was not unhandsome and, though approaching fifty, had not lost his sandy hair. The breadth of his barrel chest was testament to the fact that in his youth, he had been a sportsman, shooting, riding to hounds, boxing, fencing. If some of that powerful chest had begun to slip a tad lower over the years, his tailor was careful not to let it strain the buttons of his waistcoat.

Major Stanhope, in contrast, was lithe, hard. If she dared to lay a hand on his shoulder, she knew she would not find his coat padded. He was not quite forty, she thought, though nearer it than she. His face would one day—and sooner, rather than later—bear the lines of a man who had done a great deal of living. He wore his dark brown hair slightly longer than was the fashion—the better to style it according to his various disguises, she supposed.

Then there were the spectacles. They…well, they suited him. She knew no better way to describe it. She understood now why he did not always choose to