Bridal Favors (14 page)

“You must have been chatting the lads up
after
closing time, when they were feeling all friendly and congenial,” Justin commented.

“Chatting up? I am unsure of your meaning,” Ernst replied, looking to Evelyn for guidance.

“He’s being tiresome. Ignore him. He doesn’t mean any harm,” Evelyn explained. “He fondly imagines that by rebutting any suggestion his family is respected, he might be perceived as modest. Despite appearances,” she shot a telling glance at the open throat of Justin’s shirt, the rolled-up sleeves, and the scuffed shoes, “he has a most lofty opinion of himself.”

During the course of Evelyn’s explanation, Justin had leaned against the wagon and was smiling at her encouragingly. Poor Ernst only looked more and more confounded. He glanced appealingly at Justin.

“She knows me too well,” Justin admitted cheerfully.

“You are maybe her brother?”

“Good God, no!” Justin burst out, causing a sharp jab of pain somewhere in the vicinity of Evelyn’s . . . pride.

“No, no,” she added her voice to his denial. He looked at her strangely.

“I did not
think
so,” Ernst said. “But when I saw how—”

“How cavalier I was with her, you imagined that the relationship was fraternal?” Justin suggested mildly.

“Yes. That’s correct,” Ernst replied.

“No. No blood relation at all,” Justin said with odd emphasis.

Evelyn felt a betraying burn race up her throat. Impossible to pretend she didn’t understand. “Ha! It is purely a business relationship.”

It dawned on her how this must look to an old-fashioned gentleman like Ernst Blumfield. “And, of course, I am chaperoned,” she ended, demurely dropping her gaze.

“You are?” Justin asked incredulously, making Evelyn want to strangle him. “By whom?

“Merry,” she said tautly.

“Oh. Merry. Didn’t realize she was the chaperon. From the goings-on I’ve witnessed between her and Buck, I’d say she’s the least—”

“Ha, ha,” Evelyn interrupted, forcing a laugh. “Mr. Powell is a great tease.”

“Not I. Now,
Merry . . .”

She turned her back on him, her skirts snapping. Securing Mr. Blumfield’s arm, she dragged him away from Justin and whatever other horrible, indiscreet things he’d been about to say.

Ernst beamed. “Lady Evelyn, perhaps you might do me the honor of coming to our cottage tomorrow afternoon that I might show you the bicycle?”

“Without a chaperon?” Justin asked from close behind. The scoundrel was following them! “I shouldn’t think that would be bloody likely.”

Ernst turned beet-red and Evelyn swung around, mortified that Justin should have embarrassed Mr. Blumfield. “
You
have a very nasty mind,” she said. She turned back to Ernst. “I was hoping you would ask, Mr. Blumfield.”

But Ernst wasn’t looking at her, he was gazing penitently at Justin. “I have made a terrible faux pas. My ignorance is unforgivable. Of course, she must not come unescorted. You are right to protect her reputation.”

“You meant no harm,” Justin proclaimed magnanimously. It was too much.

“Just when,” Evelyn said to Ernst in the calm, careful tones that would have alerted her family to a brewing storm, “did you first perceive that I had lost my reasoning abilities?”

Ernst stared at her, round-eyed. “Lady Evelyn?”

“Because clearly something must have alerted you to the fact that I am incapable of making decisions for myself and thus must rely on another.”

“I . . . I . . .” Clearly, Ernst’s mastery of the language did not extend to sarcasm. He looked at her, unhappily detecting that she was angry. “May I ride the bicycle
here
tomorrow, perhaps?”

“Oh!” She gave up being angry. It did little good when one was dealing with children; apparently the same was true of men. “Fine. Ride it over here. I shouldn’t take much time away from the bridal preparations, anyway.”

Justin smirked. Ernst breathed a deep, heartfelt sigh of relief. “Good. I look forward to it, so much. And now, my brother awaits me. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mr. Powell.” He bowed formally.

Justin touched two fingers to his brow in a mock salute. Evelyn wanted to shake him and was so busy envisioning it that she was startled when Ernst suddenly clasped both her hands and lifted them, clasping them to his chest.

“Until tomorrow then, Lady Evelyn. I bid you adieu.” He gave her hands a little squeeze.

“Huh? Oh. Yes.” She smiled. “Adieu.”

He didn’t let her hands go, but stood gazing into her eyes. “I am so glad we met.”

“Me, too.”

“I wish my brother could meet you. He would find you as charming as I.”

“That would be the brother that’s waiting?” Justin asked loudly.

“Yes. Gregory. I am reminded he awaits.” Ernst released her hands. “Until then.”

He climbed aboard, snapped the reins lightly, and waved. “Good-bye!”

“Good-bye!” Evelyn said, waving back.

Justin stepped away from the wagon and lifted a hand in farewell. “Must be Prussian,” he muttered out of the side of his mouth, watching the cart disappear.

“Now, why do you say that?” Evelyn asked, turning to him, her hands on her hips.

“They never leave until they’ve said good-bye at least half a dozen times. Must be a national trait.” He screwed his face up, clearly in love with the idea. “In fact, if you consider it in that light, Mr. Blumfield’s reluctance to be the first to turn around might be culturally ingrained.”

He’d piqued her curiosity. “And why would that be?”

He grinned, gratified. “Quite simple. A matter of ‘Do unto others as you would do unto them.’ In other words, ‘Never be the first to turn, lest your host stab you in the back.’ ”

“And that host would be you?” she asked sweetly.

He burst out laughing, and after a second, she joined him. She couldn’t help it. He completely undermined any attempts to remain angry at him.

“You’re a fool, Justin,” she said fondly, shaking her head. Without waiting for a reply, she started up the steps.

“I know, Evie,” he said quietly, watching her go. “I know.”

Chapter 10

THOUGHTFULLY, JUSTIN WATCHED Evelyn disappear.

The Blumfields, he knew, had been in the cabin for just under two months. Not much longer than Justin had been at the abbey. There was no possible way they could be enemy agents awaiting the arrival of Bernard’s infernal machine. When they’d rented the cottage, Justin hadn’t even known where he was going to take delivery of the shipment. Logically, he knew they were just what they appeared to be. But logic did not always play a role in espionage. And more and more often of late, Justin had been on edge, his instincts screaming that something was not right.

And yet, on the face of it, nothing could be more right. There was nary a whisper of anything sinister in the air. Indeed, he’d seldom had an assignment so straightforward and harmless. And yet . . . and yet . . .

It was this waiting. It made him edgy, likely to jump at shadows . . . or bluff Prussian neighbors.

But now maybe the waiting was over. One of these crates might hold the device. It was certainly time the damn thing made its appearance.

With that thought, he went in search of Beverly. He found him around the back of the abbey, supervising the placement of a modern oven in the kitchen.

Soon after Justin had entered the army, Beverly had surreptitiously joined his unit at the request of Justin’s maternal grandmother, who had apparently felt less than confident in Justin’s ability to stay alive in the field.

He had worked for Justin ever since. The two had formed a good team, and if Beverly had discovered in the easygoing young man a spine of tempered steel and the intellect and cunning to make use of it, he’d never let on that he’d expected anything different. And for his part, Justin had soon enough discovered that Beverly’s talents extended far beyond a batman’s or butler’s arts.

But their interesting experiences did not keep Beverly from forgetting his butlering. Not for a moment. Nor did it keep Beverly from expressing his morose, misogynistic and puckish personality.

“Beverly, I want you to hie yourself off to the stables and have one of the lads hitch me up a cart.”

Beverly looked at him mournfully. “The stables, sir? Where there are horses and thus horse excrement?”

“Walk carefully, Beverly.”

“Thank you for your concern, but don’t you think that taking into account your current state,” he shuddered delicately as his gaze swept over Justin, “you might see to this little task yourself?”

“No. I’m going to dash inside and pry the tops off the crates Evie and her new boyfriend have just delivered and at the same time keep an eye out the front window in case Mr. Blumfield should
happen
to drive by on his way to Henley Wells where he
happened
to have forgotten something. Like a crate,” he said with heavy irony. “I doubt he’s a secret agent for another country but God knows I’ve played harmless pups myself enough times not to risk trusting to appearances.

“I have extremely good vision, sir.”

“You have terrible vision. Worse than a mole in sunlight. Look at you. You’re squinting right now.”

“It’s a tic, sir.”

“No wonder Evie thinks you a difficult creature.”

“Does she?”

“Terribly.”

“How delightful of her to consider me at all.”

“Enough of your slathering after my good lady, Beverly. Off to the barn with you.”

“Of course, sir,” Beverly said before offering a dignified little salute.

Justin headed to the library, where Evie had taken to storing incoming paraphernalia, and examined the two crates. Both were large and stoutly made. He found a claw hammer and within five minutes had jimmied the lids off, fully expecting to find another, better secured box inside.

Instead, he found a great deal of ladies’ luggage, trunks and valises monogrammed with the initials
E
and
C,
which Justin quickly deduced was Mrs. Vandervoort’s future monogram.

Alas, there was nothing inside to gladden the heart of an expectant recipient of diabolical machines. Still, two other crates awaited him in Henley Wells. He couldn’t afford to assume that they, too, held Mrs. Vandervoort’s trousseau. He’d just finished nailing the lids back on when Beverly appeared. “The beast waits without.”

“Good,” Justin said, heading outdoors. He climbed aboard the waiting wagon and whistled up the horse to a trot.

Despite Evie’s claim that the station had closed, he knew better. He would like to have seen Sully Silsby’s face when he realized Evie didn’t have the vaguest notion that when he said “sausage day,” she was
supposed
to offer him a quid to stay open past hours.

No, Justin had no fears that he could rouse the manager and bribe him into releasing the boxes. But he did have to get there before any other, yet to be identified, interested parties got there. He’d always been clear-sighted, focused on his goal, absorbing pertinent data, filtering out the extraneous, always one step ahead of the opposition. It’s what had made the game fun.

But recently, he’d begun second-guessing his motives. Being clear-headed, he decided, was deucedly inconvenient when one’s personal bias started to creep into the equation. The fact was that he didn’t like Mr. Blumfield. Mostly because Evie did, but also because in spite of what he knew, he was still suspicious of the Blumfields.

Their sudden appearance in this sleepy little hamlet, the manner in which they’d secured the strategically located cottage, Ernst’s attentions to Evie—which coincidentally gave him an excuse to visit the abbey—it was all just too convenient.

And yet, if Blumfield was after Bernard’s device, why offer to haul two of the crates most likely to contain it here? No. He was tilting at windmills.

He was too good an agent to make assumptions without any evidence to support them, he reminded himself.

Justin arrived in town at dusk. The chink of cheap china, the high pipe of children’s demanding voices, and the low drone of the parents’ patient replies drifted in the air. The smell of frying bacon and onion perfumed the dusk. Henley Wells was settling in for the evening.

Only the pub was crowded and raucous. Its double doors stood open and the shutters were flung wide, spilling light and noise into the twilight.

Justin drew around to the back of the dark train depot, set the brake, and leapt to the ground. He took the steps up to the back door and peered through the sidelight. Inside, he could just make out the dim shapes of several crates. The office door was shut and the gas jets had been turned off. He knocked lightly, just in case, and, when no one answered, tried the doorknob. It was locked.

Not that a locked door would stop a determined thief. Or spy. Or even a one-time spy, Justin thought, dipping into his pocket and extracting a penknife. He flipped up one of the blades, a very slender, flexible blade.

Carefully, he inserted the slender blade into the catch. Picking a lock was a matter of finesse and delicacy, a task more appropriate to touch and hearing than sight. A little jostle here, the slide and click of a tumbler there, a gentle tug, a sleek tickle and
voilà
!