Page 6 of The General's Gift
Celeste glanced at the door. She could flee—but to pass him now would mean brushing against him. So she stepped back and let her spine press into the wall, playing the role of one of Katherina’s knick-knacks.
Katherina eyed the stranger from his scuffed boots to the neat knot of his neckcloth. “You presume correctly,” she said at last, her accent sharpening the way it always did when dealing with strangers. “But you do intrude. I’m a woman with little patience for interruption. State your purpose, sir.”
“I should not take more of your time than necessary. My name is Nathaniel Crowther, and I’m an officer attached to Bow Street. I have questions regarding one of your dancers.”
Celeste’s fingers curled around the edge of the velvet couch. Please, this could not be about Louise and her liberal friends again.
Then his gaze shifted toward her.
Celeste braced herself for thelook. The slow rake, the greedy appraisal that turned her into something consumable. But he didn’t leer. His gaze caught on her like a misstep in choreography, surprise widening his eyes.
“My girls are under my protection, Mr. Crowther,” Katherina said. “They work hard to make an honest living and do not deserve to be harassed by—”
“Nor is harassment my aim. I am seeking a young lady. Her name is Lady Cecilia Stratton.”
A wave of relief swept over Celeste. This wasn’t about Louise. Sweet deliverance.
“If you’re searching for an aristocrat in Covent Garden, Mr. Crowther, I suggest you come at night. During the day, only dancers are allowed in the theater.” With a graceful flick of her wrist, Katherina pointed at the door.
Crowther didn’t budge. “Are you sure, madam? The young lady I seek is the daughter of the Marquess of Faversham.”
Katherina stood straighter. “Do you mind, Mr. Crowther? I have a class to teach, and my dancers are waiting.”
“And her mother,” he continued, his voice heavy as a curtain drop, “was Angélique de Rochefoucauld. Daughter of the Duc de Rochefoucauld.”
A chill rippled across Celeste’s skin, and her legs took her out of the shadows.
“You told me my mother’s name was Angélique,” Celeste said. “Did you not, Katherina?”
The glass slipped from Katherina’s hand.
Celeste stood still. All around her, the world felt suspended, as if the setting of her life had dropped, and a new one, painted in unfamiliar colors, waited behind it.
She looked between the stranger and the woman who had raised her. Her pulse thudded in her throat. A hundredquestions spiraled inside her, none ready for air… but somehow she knew her play’s first act had just begun.
Mr. Crowther’s lips curved, and he gave a dignified bow. “Lady Cecilia. A pleasure to finally make your acquaintance.”
Mayfair, one week later.
Hawk dipped his quill, the sharp scratch of ink against parchment the only sound in the study. He was pressing the seal against the letter to Wellington when the knock came—indecisive and unwelcome.
“The runner is here, my lord. He brought the girl as well.” His secretary bowed, awaiting his reply.
Hawk stiffened as the weight of old promises settled across his shoulders.
“Bring them in.”
When the secretary left, Hawk leaned back against his chair. Exhaling, he searched for the lock of hair in his pocket. Slowly, as if guarding a flame in the wind, he opened his fingers. Color flickered in his palm. It was the only thing in the room that seemed to breathe.
Everything around him was uniform, grey on grey, the neat lines he demanded of all things. The desk was the color of stone, and the maps were the same. Only the lock in his hand broke rank. Alive in a way nothing else was.
Talavera had burned his sight to ash, stripped him of every hue but this. He had welcomed it. A world in black and white was easier to control than chaos in color. And he had been lucky.
That day had changed all their lives. His best friend dead. Hawk’s wife lost in childbirth. Two graves. One on foreign soil, the other in his own house. He exhaled sharply through his nose, burying the grief before it surfaced. Glory had proved indeed a fickle companion. But he had done his duty. Won the day.
He closed his fist. The red vanished, and with it, what little light the room had. Had the runner found the right girl, or was this another attempt to trick him? Crowther was the best in his trade. But a ballerina? She had to be a coquette. And worse, a French coquette. No matter. French ballerina or not, if she were Faversham’s daughter, she would be his responsibility.
The door opened.
