Page 4 of The Spy Who Loved Her
“It occurs to me,” Marcus said, “that you always seem to be in possession of a great deal of information.”
Alwayswas a strong word. In fact, Marcus could not possibly be aware of how much moreRafe knew than even Marcus suspected. Rafe lifted his shoulders in a blasé shrug and tore off another bite of scone.
“I didn’t mark it at first,” Marcus said. “I suppose there was no real reason for me to do so.”
Again, notably nota question. Rafe stirred a second lump of sugar into his tea, contriving to let a little frown etch itself into his brow. “I don’t take your meaning.”
The paper rustled again, and Marcus folded it up and set it aside. “First,”he said, “there was all of that to-do with Lydia.”
“Mm. And where is she this morning?” Deflect. Dodge. It was how he’d lived his life for years.
“She took Edward”—his son, and Lydia’s, just two years old—“to breakfast with Diana’s family. I suppose she’ll spend most of the day there. Said something about putting their house in order before a certain blessed event.”
Ah. Rafe supposed he must mean sorting out a proper spot for a nursery, given that Diana and her husband were expecting a child sometime in the coming months. They were newly returned to town, after Christmas spent at their estate in Hertfordshire.
Marcus had been diverted only briefly. “I didn’t mark it years ago, and perhaps I ought to have done. But you followedLydia—”
“You asked me to do so.” Not a lie. Marcus had asked, years ago, when he and Lydia had still been at such severe odds with one another. “If you’ll recall, I also refused you.” At first, at least. He, like Marcus and Lydia both, had not known, then, the true cause of their rift which had happened years even before that. Of course, Rafe had discovered it eventually, and had told Marcus what he had learned.
“I suppose so,” Marcus grumbled; a minor concession at best. “But still I must wonder at your suspicions. How it was thatyouhad them, when evenIfailed to suspect.”
That was no great mystery; Rafe had learned to expect perfidy. Even from those most trusted. Perhaps especiallyfrom those most trusted. But for the most part, those outside of his line of work did not. They never saw the flash of the dagger coming for them in the darkness, and felt only the pain of it when it was too late to do anything of it. Marcus had never suspected their own fatherof such treachery because he was a good man, an honorable one. Naturally, he expected the same of everyone.
Rafe, conversely, expected the worst, and he had rarely been disappointed. “Only distance,” he said. “Of course you couldn’t see it yourself. You were far too close to all of it.”
Marcus remained unconvinced. “I’ll confess it had nearly slipped my mind entirely,” he said. Which was not a surprise, given that it had all ended up well enough for Marcus and Lydia. One tended not to question one’s good fortune, when it was made real. The ends justified the means, after a fashion. Like most, Marcus had been satisfied enough to have won his wife, to have achieved the happiness that had long eluded him. What manner of man put aquestionto how it had been done, when the result had been such a grand one?
“But then,Diana,” Marcus mused. “How could you have known, Rafe?”
Ah, yes.Thathad been the spark to the kindling of whatever bits of suspicion might have lurked at the very back of Marcus’ mind. That Rafe had managed to track down a man who had been missing for a decade—Diana’s long-lost fiancé, the Earl of Weatherford, whom she had recently married.
In all actuality, it hadn’t been so very difficult a thing to manage. The man had been involved in the business of mining graphite, and during the wars, the bulk of graphite had been used for military applications, which meant that the government had long kept meticulous records of those buying and selling it. He had stumbled across the earl’s name within those records quite by chance, and, out of love for his sister, had passed the information he’d acquired along to her.
The difficulty was in explaining how, precisely, he had come across that information in the first place. “I listen,” he said. “I observe.” No one ever paid much attention to a second son. “What I do notdo is betray confidences.” Another neat weave. Insinuating that he was protecting someone else would make it a matter of honor rather than a matter of secrecy.
The feint worked. Though the tiniest frown still creased Marcus’ brow, his hand drifted back toward his abandoned paper, and he shook it out once again. “Hm,” he said, as his eyes scanned the lines. “Do you know, Rafe, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you had the makings of a rather proficient spy.”
Rafe lifted his brows and took a sip of his tea. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he said, on a low, dismissive chortle.
It wasn’t true, of course. He was not, in point of fact, rather proficient.
He was one of the most valuable spies in all of England.
∞∞∞
“Christ.” Rafe slanted a glare at Chris as he slammed the door of his study closed. “Penny post is less effort than breaking in, surely. You might have sent a damned note.”
“Couldn’t risk putting it to paper,” Chris said from his chair, stretching out his legs before him, planting his gloved hands upon his knees. “Your housekeeper leaves at four. Thought it would be safe enough for a chat.”
Only because Rafe had not much house to keep. His home suited him well enough, but it was just a small townhouse in Soho. Only a few rooms, most of which he got little enough use out of. But Chris had all the subtlety of a club, when most situations required a scalpel’s precision. He’d sooner break a window than pick a lock—and Rafe would not have put it past him to bust a few panes free of their moorings to let himself inside.
“The usual place, then. Thursday,” Rafe said, tugging at the knot of his cravat. They had often enough made do with regular meetings at a run-down tavern near the docks, where the patrons had more interest in the cheap whisky than they did in what company they kept.
“Couldn’t wait, either,” Chris said, flexing his knuckles. A muscle in his jaw jumped. “Em saw you, evening last. So did I.”
“Rubbish.”
“She didn’t recognize you, o’ course.”
