Chapter 25
As soon as James departed, Brent Stone went to his office down the hall. He quickly closed the door, slid the bolt in place, and went to the fireplace behind his desk. Pressing the base of a candlestick resting upon the end of the mantel, a stone loosened in the brickwork. He carefully removed the stone to reveal a hidden safe.
It had been six years since Brent had summoned his contact in the Home Office. Six years without an assignment, free of espionage, lies, secrets, and assassinations. He had thought he was done with the spy business, but fate, it seemed, had alternate plans for him.
Only this time
he
would contact
them.
Brent made quick work of the safe. Inside was a four-inch stack of bills, a double-barreled pistol, a bottle of ink, and a miniature portrait of a fair-haired woman.
He reached for the portrait first. The artist had captured the woman’s white-blond hair, the rosy hue of her cheeks, the sea-green eyes. She had been sweet innocence, completely without guile or the slightest tinge of malice. She had been clean and beautiful in soul as well as in appearance. Everything his ordinary world had lacked. Forcing his thoughts aside, he returned the picture to the top of the bills and removed the pistol and bottle of ink.
He shut the safe and carefully put the stone back in place and straightened the candlestick. When the safe had been installed all those years ago, he had laughed at the irony. The Crown’s best safecracker in possession of his own safe. His superiors had used his talent for years to reclaim highly sensitive documents, priceless stolen artwork, and counterfeit plates used to print banknotes. There had also been the highly dangerous missions to steal military secrets from foreign diplomats and governments.
Brent’s mathematical mind had excelled in safe cracking and the spy business, and he had been at the top of his game.
That is, until he had met and fallen in love with Grace Newbury.
But Grace had died ... no, she had been murdered. A mission gone terribly awry.
Brent had immersed himself in his initial cover as a Lincoln’s Inn barrister, obtaining letters patent where his engineering studies at Oxford aided his comprehension of mechanical inventions. His scarred soul and broken heart were suited to the isolation required for studying drawings and drafting patent claims.
His friends mistook his dedication to his legal practice and his celibacy for lack of interest in women when the truth was it was a form of penance for his sordid past and guilty conscience.
His superior, Hadrian, had repeatedly tried to persuade Brent to take on new missions, but Brent had refused.
Until now.
This time Brent would persuade Hadrian to act.
Brent’s close friend needed him. James was in love with Bella Sinclair. The fact that James denied his own feelings was of no consequence. Brent could discern the truth, just as he had known that another legal colleague and friend, Jack Harding, had fallen in love with Evelyn Darlington some five years ago.
Now Bella’s life was in danger, possibly James’s too, and Brent couldn’t stand by and allow James to suffer the same fate as he had, losing the woman he loved to a treasonous madman.
Brent had known many men like Roger and Rupert Sinclair. Traitors, gluttons, killers ... men who would stop at nothing to advance their positions and their coffers no matter the damage to their country or the death of their countrymen. Brent had enjoyed taunting them, stealing from them, capturing them, and yes, killing a few of them.
Then he had met Grace.
He deserved his own life, Grace had said. He need not forever be a slave for the Crown and repeatedly risk his life, Grace had urged. They had secretly married and Brent had been ready to turn his back on espionage and spend the rest of his life with the woman he loved.
A flash of loneliness stabbed his heart. The years had only served to replace his initial grief with an inner torment that gnawed at his insides.
Brent sat at his desk and rested the pistol in the corner. Opening the jar, he dipped a pen in the ink. He wrote a single line on a piece of foolscap, then watched as the writing faded and finally disappeared in less than thirty seconds. He folded the note and sealed it in an envelope.
For a heart-stopping moment, Brent pictured Hadrian’s eyebrow twitch when he opened the envelope.
Brent would surely pay a price for his request. His retirement would come to an abrupt end. His crazed double life would commence all over again.
He would break his promise to Grace.
Grace, my beloved. I pray you understand. I must help my friend.
Brent hesitated, the envelope in hand. Then he rose and unlocked his office door.
“McHugh,” he called down the hall.
The harried clerk appeared moments later. “Yes, Mr. Stone?”
Brent handed McHugh the envelope. “Kindly have this delivered immediately. It’s a legal opinion on the viability of Lord Quinn’s patent.” The lie came smoothly from Brent’s lips—they always did. “I must leave for the rest of the day.”
McHugh nodded. “Yes, sir.”
Brent reached for his coat. He had one more stop before his true work could begin.
Chapter 26
It had not been difficult to slip out undetected from the boarding house once Bella had discovered they were being watched. Worry weighed upon her when she realized they would lose their first month’s rent, but her concern had soon been replaced with the urgency to find new lodgings.
There were few lodging houses in London that suited Bella’s precise needs. She desired to stay away from the fine townhomes and mansions for two reasons: to conserve their funds and to remove them from the attention associated with society; yet at the same time, she wanted to avoid the rampant crime that permeated the London sinkholes.
They found a second floor for rent near Covent Garden, and Bella shared a room with Harriet.
“No sign of the stable lad or anyone else?” Bella asked.
“No, luv,” Harriet reassured her.
Ten days. They had been in this dreary house for a full ten days and each passing hour felt as slow as melting snow during a frigid January evening.
When Harriet left to prepare breakfast, Bella leaned against the door and sighed. The sparsely furnished bedchamber was even worse than their prior lodgings near Portman Square.
She made her way to the corner and sat before the only table in the place—a drop leaf Pembroke table with a scarred top, wobbly leg, and a side flap with a broken hinge. She picked up a pen, dipped it in an inkwell, and tried to write.
The editor at the
Times
expected the second installment of her political piece, but for the first time in her life, she had lost her desire to write. Her mind was a blank slate, without inspiration or ideas.
James’s image focused in her memory instead. Her lips tingled in remembrance of his kiss, and she suffered the dull ache of desire at the mere thought of him. She was trapped—trapped by the memory of his mesmerizing eyes, his touch, and her own rioting emotions when he was near.
She pictured him in London, rising to the challenges of his responsibilities as a duke of the realm. Was he in the House of Lords taking up his new position? Or was he in Lincoln’s Inn discussing legal cases and clients with Brent, Anthony, and Jack?
She couldn’t help but wonder if James was upset she had slipped his watchdog. Or was it simply a matter of gentlemanly concern that he knew she was settled? It was unreasonable to expect Bobby to follow her forever, and James himself had not knocked on her door to check on her well-being.
He had told her to seek him out should she need him. She needed him and desperately but for other reasons. Wicked, selfish reasons. She wanted to caress his perfectly chiseled face, touch her lips to his, feel the hardness of his chest against hers as he embraced her, as he made glorious love to her.
She pulled her drifting thoughts together. She refused to put his life at risk. Memories of James ill and fevered, with the blood-swollen bodies of the leeches on his arm, were forever imprinted on her mind. Harriet, who had been with her since childhood, was her responsibility and would stay by her side.
But James was a duke....
Bella may have spent her life in the country, but she wasn’t ignorant of society’s demands. He needed to marry a woman of good bloodlines, one who could give him an heir. Neither was she blue-blooded, nor was she even sure she could conceive a child. During the first months of her marriage, Roger had bedded her and she had never conceived. She had been relieved at the time as she had never wanted Roger’s child. But James deserved an heiress who could give him a son, not a widow with a crazed brother-in-law who had shot him.
After an hour of penning rubbish, frustration roiled within her, and she threw down her pen. It was useless. She couldn’t write in her agitated state. She needed to escape the despair of the rented room with its broken furniture and stale air.
They were in need of food and other household supplies. In their haste to leave Wyndmoor Manor, they had left behind necessities. Seizing this opportunity to turn her mind in another direction, Bella reached for her bonnet, tied the strings tightly beneath her chin, and called for Harriet.
It was late morning by the time Bella and Harriet made their way to the main square of Covent Garden. The market and the surrounding streets were bustling with activity. Throngs of people meandered from stall to stall, haggling with overzealous merchants selling fruit, vegetables and dairy products. Hawkers roamed through the market peddling everything from fresh-cut flowers to pies, gingerbread, and sausages—all from trays hung about their necks.
Accustomed to the fresh air and quiet of the country, the shouts of the crowd, the stench of horse dung and human perspiration overwhelmed Bella, and she pulled her cloak more tightly about her.
Harriet must have sensed her anxiety for she reached out to squeeze her hand. “It’s better this way,” Harriet said in her ear. “No one will spot us here. In a few hours’ time, this street will be no place for a lady.”
Bella understood her meaning. When night descended, the market would fold up and the prostitutes would emerge in search of paying customers.
“Let’s hurry, then,” Bella urged.
They made several purchases—vegetables, butter, cheese, eggs, and a sturdy pot—and Bella discovered she could be quite proficient at haggling over prices. She was painfully aware that their money could quickly run out.
Only one item remained. “There,” Bella said, pointing to a middle-aged hawker peddling fruit and crying out, “Fresh ripe oranges here!”
Rows of bright oranges and red apples made her mouth water. Bella headed straight for the fruit stand when a loud shout from a nearby merchant drew her attention.
“Stop! Thief!” The merchant lurched forward and grasped the collar of a passerby.
Bella strained to see, but the crowd, seeing a spectacle unfold before them, closed the space. People shoved and pushed, and Bella was jostled and separated from Harriet. Alarmed, Bella elbowed through the crush to where she’d last seen Harriet just as a constable barged past, barking, “Out of the way!”
The crowd parted like the Red Sea to let the official through, then closed the space in less than a heartbeat.
“’E should cut the thief ’s hand off, if ye ask me,” a large man said on Bella’s right.
“’E’s just a boy,” a woman in front of Bella turned to argue.
“So?” the man sneered, his top lip curling back to reveal swollen gums. “Boy or not, ’e’s got no fear of God or the law.”
Once again, the crowd parted as the constable made his way past, pulling along the “thief ” behind him. He wore a patched corduroy jacket and a battered hat that shielded his eyes. As he came close, the large man bumped into him, and the hat fluttered to the ground to reveal disheveled red hair.
Bella froze as pulse-pounding recognition rushed through her. “Bobby!”
The lad’s head snapped up to reveal his stark white face, his freckles bright blotches across his nose. “I didn’t do it!”
“I believe you! Tell me what to do.”
“Find the duke,” Bobby pleaded. Then he stumbled, as the constable tugged forcefully on his wrist and dragged him forward. Seconds later the crowd closed in, swallowing up his small frame.
There was no question in Bella’s mind that Bobby had been searching for her, just like he’d been before. Why else would he be in a Covent Garden marketplace? No doubt Bobby felt responsible for losing her the first time and sought to make it up to his employer, the duke, whom he idolized.
She felt no animosity, however, only fear for the lad, for she was certain he would be convicted of a crime he did not commit if she failed to act.
She must find James and quickly. He would know what to do. She owed Bobby, she told herself, since he had also been a victim of Rupert’s malicious behavior.
Once the commotion in the market calmed, Bella found Harriet and escorted her home. Bella then returned to the street and hired a hackney cab. She went first to the ducal residence on Park Street only to be told by a sour-faced butler that His Grace was not in residence. Bella debated whether the butler had spoken the truth; then she recalled that James’s friends spent their days at Lincoln’s Inn. Surely they would be able to locate James.
When Bella informed the hackney driver of her new destination, he grinned knowingly and said, “Legal problem, miss?”
“Yes, and quickly if you don’t mind,” she answered.
The cab wove its way through the city streets before finally coming to a stop. She alighted and stared in wonder at a massive complex of sprawling buildings. “Which one is Lincoln’s Inn?”
“All of them, miss.”
At her blank look, the driver said, “Head for the Gatehouse.”
She paid the man and headed for the impressive stone structure. As she came up to the Gatehouse, she gazed at the three coats of arms above the massive oak doors, the first showing a lion rampant. Her father had owned a book outlining the achievements of Sir Thomas More, one of the most prominent members of Lincoln’s Inn. Bella had repeatedly read it to her father cover to cover as it had been one of his favorites, and she recalled a sketch of the coats of arms. Never had she believed she would visit the Inn and see it firsthand.
She understood the lion rampant to be the symbol of Lincoln’s Inn as well as the arms of Henry de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln. The remaining two coats of arms belonged to Henry VIII, king at the time the Gatehouse was built, and Sir Thomas Lovell, member of both Lincoln’s Inn and the House of Commons, as well as the Chancellor of the Exchequer who helped fund the Gatehouse.
She passed through the oak doors and stood in a charming Tudor-style courtyard with turrets and a small garden with flowering bushes.
She knew Lincoln’s Inn boasted a library that contained some of the rarest books in the country. Under different circumstances, she would have loved to explore everything the place offered. She envisioned James in the library, surrounded by books and fellow barristers, and her heart ached for the sight of him.
“May I help you?”
Bella whirled to face a short, portly man dressed in a black barrister’s gown and white wig.
“Pardon. I’m looking for the chambers of Brent Stone, Anthony Stevens, and Jack Harding.”
“Ah.” The man’s face lit. “Make a left and head for the Old Buildings. You’ll find their chambers easily enough.”
She followed his directions and soon came to a long hall lined with the nameplates of barristers. She passed two clerks whose arms were full of voluminous documents. The pair spoke in bursts of conversation, clearly intent on their duties and destination. They barely paid her attention as they rushed by. She continued onward until midway down the hall when she spotted the proper nameplate. She opened a door and stepped inside.