Frank blew out a gusty breath. “No.” He had the grace to look ashamed. “I was going to tell you sometime. But the princess is scary. Like a witch.”

Nicholas knew exactly what he meant. “All right, then. Tell me the rest.”

Frank groaned. “The princess said if I didn’t do what she said, she wouldn’t sleep with me anymore.”

“She’s sleeping with you?”

“Only once, and it wasn’t very good. We were at your apartments—”

“My apartments?”

“Yes. Reading your correspondence. Going through your desk.”

“Bloody hell.” Nicholas stood up. “You got in my apartments?”

“I told the doorman I was your brother, and she said she was a Russian princess, and then she stuck her hand between his legs and twisted until he screamed, and he opened the door.”

“Good God. Why were you there?”

“She wanted to know if you had a new mistress and was looking for signs of one. That, plus she wanted to go through your things and sniff your coats, especially.”

“And you went along with all this?”

Frank shrugged. “She’s pretty. And then she threw me on the floor and told me to get the cask and instructed me what to do with it, and we rolled about a bit, and I think I ravished her.”

“You don’t remember?”

“No. Next thing I knew, I woke up and she was gone.”

“So she drugged you, too.”

“I suppose. And then this old man came in and saw me, and I told him almost everything. Not about the cask. Just that I’d heard from the friend of a friend that someone was after ruining your engagement to Lady Poppy and that the princess told me.”

“An old man walked into my apartments?”

“Yeah. Ugly bugger. Long face, beady eyes.”

Groop.

It had to have been.

“Did he explain why he was there?”

“No, just said he’d been following me and the princess and was concerned when she came out all red-faced and crazed-looking, and I didn’t. He said he knew you and I didn’t get along, but then told me we should. We’re brothers, after all, he said, and he picked me up and bought me a hot meal and gave me some money.”

Nicholas wondered why Groop would care about Frank. He wasn’t the type to go about being a Good Samaritan or showing himself at all. He usually left the secret trailing of persons of interest to his underlings.

Odd.

But nice somehow, even though Nicholas was furious all this had taken place in his apartments and he’d never known.

And he was even more enraged to think that the princess intended to put Poppy in a barrel and send her to Australia, using his brother to do her dirty work.

His brother.

He simply had to stop thinking about it, or he’d go to the princess now and put her in the cask and ship her home.

It was the opposite of what the Service wanted him to do.

CHAPTER 42

Much to Poppy’s dismay, when she returned to London, rumors were flying there, too. The newspaper even carried a small article about Sergei’s madcap proposal on the road and referred to her as having been lately engaged to the Duke of Drummond.

Poppy didn’t go out. Instead, she kept reading Clarissa. She was extremely grateful to the author Samuel Richardson for giving her an idea …

A dangerous, outrageous idea. Clarissa had been caught up in unseemly events—some of which took place in a brothel—and remained virtuous despite it all, hadn’t she?

Poppy’s virtue, on the other hand, was hanging on by a thread—she’d thoroughly enjoyed being almost ravished by Drummond—but like Clarissa, she wasn’t going to sit and watch the world go by. She was going to put herself on the line.

She was going to do something.

Something that even the wicked Duke of Drummond of Cook’s tales might do. Something that the real Duke of Drummond thought he was going to do (but wasn’t because she was).

She was going to retrieve the painting for her family.

All by herself.

Hiding out in the open. Isn’t that what Lady Derby had done by commissioning that portrait and by being in the Service in the first place?

Poppy was going to hide out in the open, too. She’d be brazen like her mother and Clarissa and hope for the best. She’d retrieve the portrait, and if she got caught, she’d show the world her mother’s receipt signed by Revnik and dare anyone to deny its veracity.

It was a gamble. But she was sure the Service wouldn’t step forward and make a claim. Hadn’t Nicholas told her that the clandestine agency would no more acknowledge its role in anything than a small child would admit to stealing a sweet from his nurse’s apron?

And what need would the Service have of the painting, anyway—after they’d seen it and uncovered their precious mole? Which she’d let them do while she was holding on to it—and only in the sanctuary of her own home.

But she needed the Spinsters to help her.

She called on Eleanor and Beatrice at one of their favorite emergency meeting places, the Ribbon Emporium, where no one would ever guess they were talking about anything more substantial than ribbons.

They all shared one big hug.

“We’re so glad you’re back in Town,” said Eleanor.

“And so sorry about Drummond,” Beatrice murmured.

“I don’t believe the princess’s story,” said Eleanor.

“Neither do I.” Beatrice’s eyes were lit with speculation. “She’s after Drummond, and she’ll get him any way she can.”

Poppy gripped both their hands. “The irony is, these last few weeks I’ve been tasked to keep her happy.”

Beatrice drew in her chin. “By whom?”

Poppy bit her lip. “I can’t say. But it’s possibly a matter of”—she looked around to make sure no one was listening—“national security,” she whispered.

Eleanor gave a nervous giggle. “You sound as if you’re working for the government on a secret mission.”

Poppy let her eyes go very wide and said nothing.

Beatrice let out a little squeak. “You are, aren’t you?”

“I can’t say.”

“Pick a pink ribbon if yes, and a green ribbon if no,” Eleanor urged her.

Poppy picked up a pink ribbon.

“I can’t believe it,” cried Beatrice.

“This is amazing!” Eleanor clapped her hands.

“I’ve been dying to tell you about this latest … pink ribbon,” Poppy said with a grin, “but you really didn’t have a need to know. That’s some kind of rule the duke must abide by, the need-to-know principle.”

“Drummond?” Eleanor hastily picked up a yellow ribbon and pretended to examine it. “Is he working on this with you?”

“Oh, dear,” said Poppy, totally flustered. “I really can’t say, but—”

She held up a pink ribbon.

“He’s in on it, too!” Beatrice crowed.

Eleanor’s brows flew up. “Goodness, Poppy, what’s going on?”

She flushed. “All I can tell you, girls, is that—much as I was dying to tell you before and couldn’t—you do need to know what I’m up to now. Because this is much more than a simple matter of national security. This has become a Spinsters problem—and we must solve it together.”

All three of them exchanged grave looks.

“Tell us what we have to do,” Eleanor said.

Beatrice had a noble look in her eye. “We’re up to the task.”

So Poppy told them about the painting and her plans for it. It would mean Nicholas wouldn’t get his M.R. But he was a duke and an intelligent man, she reminded herself, and there were always opportunities for other M.R.’s in the Service.

He’d land on his feet, she had no doubt.

“I have no solid proof Mama commissioned it,” she said, “except the receipt Nicholas and I managed to get our hands on—which he says may be fake.”

“Why would it be fake?” Eleanor asked.

Poppy drew in a deep breath. “Because my mother…” She held up another pink ribbon. “Can you guess?”

Beatrice put her hand to her throat. “Your mother worked for the government? This is getting to be a bit overwhelming.”

“Isn’t it shocking?” Poppy agreed. “But I know Mama, and I trust my own intuition. She and Revnik both might have colluded to put a message in the painting, but if she’s the mother I know, she got that idea after she’d already asked Revnik to paint the portrait as a gift for Papa.”

“We believe you,” Eleanor said.

“And we’re going to help you get it back,” said Beatrice.

Poppy was so pleased. “Here’s the other part of what I wanted to tell you. I found the man who seems perfect for me.”

Eleanor’s mouth split into a wide grin. “You have?”

“Who?” Beatrice’s eyes widened.

Poppy tried to say who it was, but his name got stuck in her throat. She was angry. And hurt. She felt the veriest stooge.

“Oh, dear.” Beatrice sighed. “It’s the Duke of Drummond, isn’t it?”

Poppy nodded. “You know he’s marrying Natasha. And even if he weren’t, I wouldn’t want him. He—he’s not to be trusted.”

“He’s an Impossible Bachelor,” Eleanor said. “You knew that from the start.”

“I never meant to fall for him,” Poppy said. “In fact, Sergei proposed.”

Both her best friends were in a tizzy.

“It’s what you wanted,” Beatrice said.

“This is—was—your dream come true.” Eleanor giggled.

“Yes, it used to be.” Poppy gave a quick shrug. “But then Eversly proposed.” She paused. “And I might accept him.”

Beatrice squeezed her arm. “But you don’t love him. A true Spinster would never marry a man she doesn’t love.”

“I know.” Poppy couldn’t help it. She felt a lump in her throat. “Remember I said this isn’t just a national security problem but a Spinsters problem?”