Page 26 of Love and Loathing

Aubrey was there. Mud on his boots. Shotgun broken over the crook of his arm. Or raised to his cheek, dark eye tracking the flight of some helpless bird.

Crack.

She jumped as the faint noise reached her across the fields.

“They’ll be finishing soon anyway,” said Amy. “They’re back for lunch, the housekeeper said so. Your dad’s insisting Hugo and I go over today. I’m going to make an excuse for lunch, but I don’t think we’ll be able to avoid dinner.”

“They’ll serve the duck they’ve shot,” Evie said glumly, pulling a bamboo cane from the earth and adding it to her bundle. “The partridge.”

“Surely you can escape dinner?” Amy said gently, knowing full well the state of things between Evie and her father. The man would want Hugo there, as eldest son and heir. And Amy, gentle and polite and the daughter of a family even older than theirs, was always welcome at Conyers. Her father approved of Amy. Or the Amy he knew, who sat meekly and quietly and appeared to act exactly like he wished his own daughter would.

Should Evie avoid dinner? She was still very far from achieving her goal. Aubrey would be leaving tomorrow morning. It seemed impossible, right now, to imagine a scenario in which he would comfortably leave her alone in a room with his laptop. It was something he’d only do with a friend, a lover…

“My current impulse is to throttle you.”

Evie winced, though no shot sounded. There wasn’t a single thing she’d done so far today that had helped her mission. She worked silently down the line of canes, bundling them together absently. Maybe she ought to tell FTP it couldn’t be done. But she’d already let them down once. All she needed was a few emails. Just a few minutes' access. It wouldn’t hurt Aubrey—FTP would keep his name out of it. She just needed more time…

“I could survive dinner,” she said to Amy. “If you’re there.”

“Then I’ll be there,” Amy said. “Even if there is something you’re not telling me.”

Evie tensed. “What?”

“Why, if everything you told me earlier is true, is the entire Conyers household under the impression you’re actually, um…”

“What?” Evie asked warily, though she could guess exactly what it was.

“That you’re…um…” Amy paused, always awkward about these things.

Evie yanked out another cane. “Shagging Aubrey Ford, my dad’s head of tax strategy?”

“Not quite how my housekeeper put it… But. Yes.”

Evie shook her head. “No. It’s just cover for this FTP thing. Explains why I’m there. Gets me close to Domnall.”

The story she’d told Amy and Hugo was the same one she’d told Aubrey: that she was there merely to observe Domnall. She busied herself with untangling some garden wire from the fence post at the end of the row. Lying to Amy was her least favourite part of the whole plan. But she didn’t want anyone to know Aubrey’s unwitting role in her real mission. And when, in his usual non-subtle way, Hugo had exclaimed yesterday upon seeing her, “Why on earth are you at Conyers while Dad’s here with his awful work people?” she couldn’t bring herself to tell them the real plan. Hugo was already laughing at her anyway before she explained more than the briefest outline.

“My sister, the spy. You’re hardly inconspicuous. Didn’t they see those photos of you chained to a bulldozer?”

“You really think this Domnall man is going to say something incriminating?” Amy asked now. “Something FTP can use?”

The jagged end of the wire snagged on Evie’s finger, gave her a tiny, stinging cut. She sucked it briefly, shaking her head in reply. “I have no idea. But you never know what might happen.”

“And this Aubrey man…”

“Fake.”

“He knows?”

“He knows it’s fake.”

“But he knows what you’re planning with Domnall?”

“He hates Domnall.” She explained briefly about Liv. “So you see, it’s very definitely all fake. I hate him, and he only has eyes for Liv. We’re just using each other.”

Amy nodded. Said nothing.

TWELVE

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