Joanna Bourne - My Lord and Spymaster

“Jess, where did you get this?”

“Found it in a desk I was cracking,” she said promptly.

“Where else? None of my business, anyway. I can’t possibly translate these for you.”

“Not Arabic?”

“Not . . . seemly.”

“What?” First time in a while she’d been dumbfounded.

“I recognize this, of course. I was fortunate enough to come across a copy at Cambridge. It’s rather famous among Arabic scholars. I don’t believe it’s been translated into English. These are quotes from an ancient . . . erotic manual. Lyric, classical Arabic. Your first passage deals with the man discussing a certain activity. The second is a description of one of the physical attributes of a woman.”

“A dirty book.” In Arabic. She leaned back in the chair and laughed. Oh, but she’d fooled herself proper, hadn’t she?

Reverend Palmer shook his glasses at her in a minatory fashion. “I cannot imagine where you acquired this, and I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me. But it’s not the sort of thing you should be reading.”

“It’s Arabic, so I’m not likely to be reading it.” She had to wipe tears out of her eyes, from laughing so hard. “And here I thought it was some deep, dark secret. All that sneaking and prying to get me fambles on a dirty novel. Lord, I’ve outfoxed myself. That doesn’t happen to me often.”

“I don’t suppose so.” He squared up the edges of the papers. “You were immensely capable, even as a child. I found you impressive.”

“I’m not feeling all that capable lately.” She watched him lay those pages of Arabic aside, thriftily, in the box of scrap paper. She folded her hands up, one inside the other, and set the pair of them against the edge of his desk. “This business with Papa . . . It’s not a problem I can solve. Not like filling up a hold with cargo. It’s slippery. I keep adding seven and twenty-two and coming up with the color red.”

“Can I help?”

“You are. You’re one of about three people I’ve talked to in the last week who isn’t lying to me all the time.” She chewed on a strand of hair. “Reverend.” There was one more thing she had to ask. It was hard to put it in words. “I came here . . . I do have a problem. I wanted to ask you . . .” She stuck there.

“Yes.” He had some papers on his desk that needed rearranging all of a sudden. It kept his eyes busy.

“What do you do if you like somebody and you’re afraid he’s done something real bad?” She hadn’t known she was going to ask it that way, till she did.

“What do you think you do?”

She’d never been able to fool the Reverend. “I guess I know what to do.” She switched her hands around and put the left inside right this time. “It hurts a lot. Hurts every way I play it. I really . . . I like him.”

He picked up his glasses and unfolded them, then folded them back up. “I’m sorry, Jessie.”

“That’s all I get from you, isn’t it? Just, ‘I’m sorry it hurts.’ All these years, you never once told me everything’s going to turn out right.” Her lips twitched, not making the smile she was trying for. “I may have to peach on him, Rev. You can guess how I feel about that.”

“I think you’ll find it hard. Is he a good man, this friend of yours?”

“Not very. About like me, that way. And I don’t think we’re friends, actually. I’m fibbing about the friend part.” She felt discouraged, thinking how profoundly impossible it was. “Doesn’t matter much. It’s not something that could have worked out, whatever happened.”

“Then I’m very sorry indeed. I always hoped you’d meet a fine man someday, someone who was a proper match for you. I’d like to see you happy.”

“I don’t think I get happy out of this particular consignment. ” She lifted her eyes and let him see all the misery inside her for a minute. He was maybe the only one in the world she could show it to. The Reverend wasn’t going to talk about happy endings. Seen a lot, had the Reverend.

She looked away and shrugged. “Maybe he’s pure as a spring lamb gamboling on the green, and I’m just being unnecessarily suspicious. He keeps telling me to trust him.”

“Do you?”

“Sometimes. I catch myself doing it and try to stop.”

“Or you could listen to yourself.”

“That’s not such a good idea. I’m . . . stupid about him.” It was too late, really, to tell herself not to love the Captain. “It’s funny, innit, what folks do for some idea in a book. It’s not like there’s a paradise over in France. I been there, and I know. Secret police, for one thing, and the bribes get higher every year. More paperwork, too.”

“You have a way of seeing very clearly, Jess.” Raucous laughter came from the main room. The Reverend ignored it.

“I should know the difference between a good man and a bad one. I seen sterling examples of both.” She stood up. “Why is it you never tell me what to do, and I always end up doing it?”

“I’m not sure. What did I not tell you to do?”

“Get to work. Prove he’s not guilty.”

“Sounds like I’m giving good advice these days. Do you need any more of it?”

“That should hold me for a while. Lead me to this safe, reliable escort of yours, Reverend. You would not believe how much work I have to do today.”

“You always do.” Palmer took her untouched cup of tea, lifted the lid off the teapot, and poured it back in. “Are you safe in that house, with Bastard Kennett? He’s a grim-looking man, from the glimpses I’ve had of him.”

“He’s that.” A piece of her hair had come loose. She stood, twirling it around and around her finger.

Palmer sloshed the teapot around thoughtfully. “I’ve heard he’s a man of his word. An honorable man.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“I didn’t think it would be, with you. I’ll send you out of here with Mrs. Trimble. Nobody in his right mind would attack Mrs. Trimble. Even I’m afraid of Mrs. Trimble.”

He opened the door for her, and they were back in the noise and confusion of the crowded dining room, with kids squalling and women talking loudly. One man rolled on the bench, shouting about the imaginary bugs crawling on him. The Reverend looked it over calmly and turned back to her. “God keep you in the hollow of his hand, Jess.”

“God’s got better things to do with his hands, I’d say, looking at this crew.”

SHE’D do what she had to, to get Papa free. She didn’t have the luxury of being a coward.

The Russian teacup with jasmine flowers on it was at her elbow. Every time she set it down, it left a little cup-sized circle marked on the blotter. There were dozens of little circles.

The first time she went on a roof, she’d hung onto the chimney, whimpering, telling Lazarus she couldn’t do this. Wouldn’t do this. And since Lazarus wasn’t a man you said “wouldn’t” to, he pried her fingers off the bricks and kicked her loose to roll down the slates till she hit a gable and stopped.

When she inched her way back up to him again she wasn’t inclined to snivel quite so much. Eventually, she got over being scared. He’d been right about that.

I can do this. She tucked a sugar cube in her cheek and drank some tea. Then she wrote,

I will see the list and assure myself that it is exactly as promised. I will examine the details of one instance of theft. An instance of my choosing.

Russian samovar. Russian tea. Russian way of drinking it. And she liked the cheap brown Barbados sugar, the kind Mama bought when they were flush with money.

What was the point of being rich if you couldn’t drink your tea just as you liked it.

Clerks were putting on their coats and hats, getting ready to end the day. She’d told the messenger boy to wait, though. He was sitting on one of the high stools, playing the game with the little ball and cup.

And there was the clerk Buchanan, peering through the window into her office. He was beginning to get on her nerves.

You will produce this document the night before any contract is signed. There can be no compromise on this.

Pitney was going down the line of windows in the outer office, closing them up and locking them. There was no job in this warehouse he wouldn’t put his hand to. He took care of Whitby’s like it was his own. Pitney would stay till she left and put her in the hackney himself and stand on the front steps of Whitby’s, watching, till she was out of sight.

She drank another sip of tea. Her nib was drying up. She took more ink.

I would suggest you bring the paper to the meeting at Kennett House tonight. The ceremony, if you wish, can be scheduled for tomorrow. The settlements are ready to sign.

Lies, lies, and more lies. But it would get that list out of the Horse Guards. It might not be a bird in the hand yet, but at least it was a bird in the bush instead of a bird locked up safe with a squad of marines guarding it.

Sebastian is not going to be happy when he finds out what I’m up to. Papa neither. And Pitney won’t be delighted. Then there’s the colonel. Reams is going to be poker-hot furious.

She signed the letter and sprinkled sand on it. She was displeasing men right and left today.

IT WAS EARLY YET, BUT VOICES BUBBLED UP from the salon downstairs like oatmeal boiling in a pot. Historians talked a lot, apparently. Every candle in the house was lit. The front hall smelled like baking and beeswax and perfume. She walked down the curving stairs, checking the fiddly clasp on her necklace one last time. The crystals in the chandelier sparkled like a waterfall in sunlight.

They’d stationed suits of armor around the walls in the black and white entry hall, eight of them, at neat intervals, like footmen, but armed with sharp points. She’d attended scientific meetings in Paris and Vienna—Papa loved that kind of thing—but she’d never ventured among historians who took an interest in pikes and poniards. There was Colonel Reams to lie to. Later on, she’d sneak out and visit his house. A busy night. She should probably be more nervous than she was.