Page 16 of Lord Carlisle's Enticing Lure
His friend shrugged. “I have the same problem as you. Terrible first marriage. Reluctant to face shackles again.”
“It’s a bad trick to play on a man or woman. Show them an irresistible someone and always, always, give them some barrier, some crisis of mind that the two of you cannot be happy after the first five times in bed.”
Langley stopped in his tracks. “You are in bad straits.” He opened, then snapped shut, his pocket watch. “Our friend awaits us inside.”
“Good. Let’s tackle a problem that can be solved.”
Langley frowned over that. “I’m glad to hear you say so. Since we met last week, Mulgrave has new evidence of another double agent.”
“What a tangle.” Clive shook his head. Foreign Secretary Henry Phipps, Baron Mulgrave, was new in his post, appointed by Prime Minister Pitt only in January. His charge, along with the home secretary’s, was to protect Britain from Boney’s invasion. Formerly a general in His Majesty’s Army, Mulgrave had many supporters who claimed he knew how to fortify from within and without. “Has he any information from his agents in Paris?”
“Two of them were arrested by Fouché’s man, René Vaillancourt, last week. The third made it to Le Havre by the skin of their teeth. The newest word from him is that we have a nest of double agents along the Channel coast. Women who pass information to other women.”
“At garden parties. Or at tea.”
“Exactly.” Langley shook his head. “Mulgrave’s upset with our lack of progress.”
Clive’s stomach turned. “He has reason to be.”
“You’ve not found the source of those odd diagrams of Hastings, I take it?”
“Not yet.” Clive had visited a friend of his in Hastings four weeks ago. His friend, a retired navy man, had written to Clive about a series of three sketches of the shoreline of Hastings that his wife had found in a bookstore. She had thought it odd that the drawings were folded and left inside a book of poetry for sale upon the shelf.
“But stranger still was the fact that all of the renderings were incorrect. In one pencil sketch, the shoreline was distorted and the buildings dotting the coast incorrectly sized. Another ink drawing, unique in its aerial view of the town, attempted to define the shoreline from above the buildings. The third drawing was a haphazard painting done in watercolors and the shoreline was also incorrect.”
Clive sighed. “Whoever was to have bought that book of poetry has not appeared to buy it. I had a good discussion with the owner, and put two men to watch the shop, but no one who has come recently has asked for that particular book. As of last week, my friend wrote to inform me that it still sits upon the shelf.”
“You put the drawings back in the book?”
“I did. The owner of the shop writes every day to tell me about its fate. I fear that in the time during which my friends had the drawings in their possession, someone came to buy that book. We may have missed the connection.”
A roar of men’s wild shouts carried on the afternoon breeze.
Langley cast his gaze to the sky. “The Grand Army?”
Clive widened his eyes at the sound of more than two hundred thousand French so dangerously near. “Giving us hell from their camp in the plains of Boulogne, holding maneuvers. Perhaps even our good friend Bonaparte is there today to give out more prizes for his new Legion of Honor.”
*
“Good morning toboth of you!” Lord Halsey strode toward them as Langley opened the door to the pavilion. Halsey daily reported to his very good friend, the prime minister, any new information about the French navy’s maneuvers in the Atlantic Ocean. “Glad I caught you. Feared I’d be late.”
“Never!” Clive put out his hand to the PM’s advisor.
Langley offered his own welcome.
Inside the foyer, Clive was amused by the bright yellows and greens of the Chinoiserie décor. The prince regent had created a Mughal palace in architecture outside, but inside, a Chinese display of colorful porcelains and paintings dazzled the eye.
Clive stopped, shocked at his next thought. Giselle would love to see this array of color and style.
“Let’s go up.” He recalled his purpose here and nodded toward the staircase. “The prince’s steward has set aside a room for us to meet.”
“I’m eager,” Halsey said as they took the stairs, “to hear your latest news, Carlisle. Your agent in Boulogne does such good work.” Halsey had come down from London to Brighton just to meet with Clive, who had written that he had new intelligence from his man in Boulogne. His man had arrived day before yesterday with his latest. He told Clive that the French navy were preparing to cross the Channel any day.
No one was on the stairs with them, and Clive was tempted to speak freely, but did not. “Let’s go to our room, shall we?”
Inside, Clive shut the door and did not sit, but faced his two friends. “My man has seen those amphibious landing barges the French navy wants to use to come ashore here.”
“Are they as effective as the Royal Navy thinks?” Halsey still stood, eager to hear Clive’s news.
