A vast emptiness filled her rib cage, as if someone had robbed her body of its vital organs. She stood at the open door a few minutes, hoping James had sent Fenwick around the block, but no rattle of a carriage stirred the night air. She slowly closed the door and reclimbed the steps.
“Whatever is wrong, dear, you look ashen.”
“He left.” Her voice sounded dead, even to her own ears. She was numb, and empty, like the specters she was told she resembled. “His carriage is gone.”
Her aunt tightened her lips. “Perhaps Mr. Locke’s pain was too bad to go unattended. He still has that manservant, does he not?”
“Yes, but I thought . . .”
“Yes, dear?”
“I thought Locke felt I was worth waiting for. I thought he believed that I was special and necessary.”
“And you are, dear. You are all of those things.”
Lusinda shook her head. “Now that the mission is over, he has no further use for me.” It hardly seemed real, yet he had done exactly as he warned her he would. The fact that she had saved him was not worth consideration. “I thought he would want me.”
Her aunt put Portia’s hairbrush on the side table, kissed the girl’s cheek, then moved to a side chair. “Tell me, Lusinda. Do you think we can trust Locke to keep our secrets? If he can dismiss you so lightly, should we be planning to disappear ourselves?”
Lusinda wanted to say that he wasn’t worthy of trust, that they should move far away so she wouldn’t have to see the Kensington house and remember all that occurred within those rooms. She certainly didn’t want to accidentally meet him on a London street, or encounter him in someone’s dark study. But the denial of his trustworthiness stuck in her throat. It would do no good to lie and uproot the family once again. “Locke will keep our secrets.” Tears burned the corners of her eyes. Her voice broke. “He just doesn’t want my heart.” The tears flowed freely.
Her aunt moved quickly to her side. “There, there now. You don’t know that to be true. His gaze never left you when he came to dinner the other night, and he was as proud as a peacock to have you grace his side at the ball. You should give him the benefit of the doubt.”
“You didn’t see his face when he learned of Portia’s gift,” Lusinda said, regretting the tinge of jealousy in her words. “When he looked at me that way, I felt extraordinary. Now I know it’s only my ability to recover that inspires his affection. I was a good thief. Otherwise Lusinda Havenshaw is just another unnecessary distraction.”
“I don’t believe that of Mr. Locke, and I don’t believe it of you. You are so much more than your unique talent.” She sighed. “You’re tired, Lusinda. You’ve had a long, trying day. From the looks of him tonight, Mr. Locke needs his rest as well. Give him the night to sleep on it, to be without your affections. In the morning, things will be brighter. I promise.”
But things weren’t brighter in the morning. It was a dreary gray, rainy day in London. Her pillow damp from shed tears, Lusinda awoke puffy-eyed and morose. She had no plans for the day, no safes to crack, no valuables to recover. The latter concerned her as she imagined Locke would no longer generously fund her family’s necessities. Perhaps Portia’s new contacts in her limited exposure to society would generate new recovery business. She planned to discuss the matter further with her aunt.
Portia, however, awoke refreshed from her long, deep sleep. She had no memory of what had transpired after Locke appeared on the hill, and her aunt seemed content to keep things that way. Lusinda looked at the older woman with renewed respect, appreciating how hard she struggled to keep their lives as normal as possible, even for little Rhea, who skipped into the breakfast room.
“Sinda!” Rhea’s face filled with such contagious joy that Lusinda felt her lips trying to turn up in response. “You’re home. Will you come to my tea party?”
“Of course I will.” She stroked her sister’s golden hair. “Who else shall be in attendance?”
“Mr. Rabbit will come.” Her little lips pursed in concentration. “And I shall invite Miss Muggles . . . but no Shadow. He’s a bad cat. He’s not allowed.”
“Poor Shadow,” Lusinda tsk’ed in sympathy. “Whatever did he do to earn your displeasure?”
“Why he tripped Mr. Locke last night when he tried to come to the house. I saw from my window. Mr. Locke fell down and laid on the walkway. The giant who carried Portia upstairs picked Mr. Locke up and carried him away, all because of bad Shadow.”
Why would Locke have tried to come to the house? Why didn’t he wait for her in the carriage? Certainly Rhea’s description would explain why the carriage departed so quickly, but Locke must have wanted to say something to her. A tiny flame of hope sparked to life. Would he have ventured from the carriage just to say good-bye? Perhaps. Or perhaps he was coming to check on Portia. Or perhaps he was coming to claim her. Her spirits lifted.
“Why is your face all twisted?” Rhea asked.
“Twisted?” Lusinda brought her attention back to her sister. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“You look like this . . .” Rhea frowned and bit her lower lip, then scrunched her lips to one side.
Lusinda laughed. “That must be how I look when I’m thinking very, very hard.” She kissed Rhea’s forehead. “Thank you for telling me about Mr. Locke. I think I should pay a call upon him to see that he was not injured in his fall. That would be the polite thing to do, would it not?”
“Does that mean you will miss my tea party?” Rhea asked disgruntled.
“I’m afraid so, dear, but perhaps Portia can come instead. ”
Rhea frowned. “Portia never comes. She says she’s too old for tea parties. Maybe Shadow is sorry for being bad. I’ll go find him.” She skipped back out of the room.
Lusinda glanced at her shabby morning dress. This gown would never do to call at the Kensington residence. Now that she had a bona fide reason to call upon him, she was determined that he see all that he was so casually dismissing. She hurried to her room to prepare.
SHE AGAIN WAS DRESSED IN HER WIDOW’S WEEDS, ALTHOUGH this time done up proper with support and foundation. Her hair was as artfully arranged as Aunt Eugenia could manage beneath her impatient cries to hurry. Most of her wardrobe remained at the Kensington house, so she hadn’t much choice in attire. Fortunately, the black played well inasmuch as a single woman couldn’t very well call un-chaperoned upon a single man, unless she was a widow.
A stranger opened the door to her knock, a rather handsome young man in military uniform. Lusinda stood stunned for a moment, wondering if she had somehow come to the wrong address. The man cocked his head and studied her carefully. “You don’t remember me, do you?” A slow smile spread across his face. “I dashed off to bring my lady fair a glass of punch, only to find she had left me.”
Her young champion from the ball! Why would he be here? Wasn’t he in league with Ramsden? “I’m afraid I encountered a bit of an urgent matter that required my attention, Mr. . . .”
“Burnes. Captain Burnes at your service.” He bowed as if they had been formally introduced. “I presume then that you are Miss Havershaw?”
“Yes,” she replied, still in a bit of shock.
He quickly scanned the area behind her, then looked at her. His smile widened. “Right this way, please.”
He showed her into a parlor to wait without asking her purpose. Although Lusinda was grateful that James was not alone in the household with only that wretched little Pickering to care for him, she felt irritation at not being allowed immediate access to Locke. How did that man know her name? She was obviously expected, but why? By whom? Darn it all that she didn’t make this call at midnight when she could have slipped by the interlopers and gone straight to James. Visibility combined with society’s restrictions could be more than bothersome.
“Miss Havershaw?” an older man with a white mustache liberally waxed into long pointed ends greeted her from the doorway. “I take it that you are the assistant that Mr. Locke speaks of so fondly? Allow me to introduce myself. I am Colonel Tavish. Mr. Locke and I have served Her Majesty together on a number of occasions.”
Lusinda managed an informal curtsy, though she was unsure what she could say to this stiff old man. How much did he know? Were those occasions of a recent nature, or back in the days of Locke’s military service?
“Please sit down.” The colonel pointed to a pair of upholstered chairs near an unlit fireplace. “I must admit, I had not expected to find you in mourning attire. Surely it is not for Mr. Locke that you grieve?”
Her heart stopped its steady rhythm, she felt faint, her whole body chilled with dread.
“Locke is d . . . dead?” He was badly injured last night, of course, but he was breathing steadily when she left him in the carriage. Could the fall—?
“No! No. I’m sorry to have startled you. No indeed. Mr. Locke is not dead.” He chuckled to himself over some unvoiced jest. “He is far from dead.” He reached over and patted her gloved hand as if comforting a child. “In fact, he has been asking for you. If I don’t take you to see him soon, he’s liable to shrug off young Burnes who I charged with keeping him in his bed. His injuries are substantial, but not life threatening. At least, not anymore.”
Lusinda relaxed. He was asking for her. He wanted to see her, confirmation that he was coming to see her when that wretched Shadow tripped him. A lightness filled her chest, and she yearned to skip out of the room, much as Rhea had done at breakfast.
“That is why I wished to talk to you. He told me that the list of agents for which we had been searching does not exist. That it had all been a ruse.”
Lusinda shifted her attention back to the colonel, who seemed to be watching her carefully. So he
was
involved with Locke on more recent adventures. However, she didn’t know how much Locke had shared with Tavish about her role as assistant. She lifted her brows as if waiting for a question to be voiced.
“I know the effect a whip can have on a man’s back, Miss Havershaw, and although Mr. Locke appears to have suffered injuries of a recent nature, the damage is hardly what one would expect given the circumstances. One might even call his rapid recovery miraculous.” He pulled back and narrowed his eyes. “And I can see that none of what I’ve said comes as a surprise to you.”
She forced her eyes to open wide and effected a surprised appearance. “I knew of his injuries, yes . . . That is why I brought salves with me to treat his back. As for his rapid recovery, surely even you realize he has a tough hide.” Certainly, she had difficulty penetrating it.
The colonel smiled. “If I may say so, I see that you two are well matched.” He leaned back in his chair. “What role did you play in last night’s mission, Miss Havershaw?”
“I accompanied Mr. Locke to the ambassador’s ball. Did not Mr. Locke tell you of this himself?”
“That’s about all he told us,” Colonel Tavish said. One side of his mustache twitched. “Then you know nothing about a woman’s ball gown, the same color as the one Captain Burnes says you wore last night, along with an assortment of intimates discovered in a gardener’s shed?”
She snapped a black lace fan open and fluttered it in front of her face as if his descriptions were improper for her young ears. “How would I know of such things? I witnessed many gowns of many colors last evening.”
“I suppose you can not enlighten us about the dancing pantalettes in the gardens as well?”
She closed the fan and lightly tapped it on the colonel’s arm. “Now I see you are teasing me. Dancing pantalettes, indeed. ” She laughed at the poor man’s sheepish expression. “Where did you hear such tales?”
“Mr. Locke was not the only agent in attendance at the ambassador’s ball, Miss Havershaw.”
Her eyes narrowed and the forced laughter was replaced with a wave of subdued anger. “Then why didn’t your agents help him when he needed it most?”
“Because apparently you helped him in ways that my agents could not.” He studied her face with the same intensity she had witnessed in James. “I don’t pretend to know how you did it, but you have my esteemed gratitude.” He took her gloved hand and raised it to his lips. “I don’t think James would have survived had it not been for you, my dear.”
The affection he poured into Locke’s given name made her feel guilty at her rebuke. This man obviously cared for Locke as he would for a son. She felt a bit giddy as the recipient of his gratitude and a bit nervous as well. If she liked the man, she might forget to keep her words guarded. “May I see him now?” she asked.
“Yes, of course, my dear. I’m afraid of what James might do if I delayed you a moment longer.”
She followed the colonel down the hall to the stairway. Though she was tempted to run ahead, she didn’t think it was wise to show she was well acquainted with the bedrooms. They passed the study where she and Locke had spent so many hours practicing on the Milner holdfast safe. She peeked in the open door, but without Locke’s presence pouring over books and maps, making plans, assessing her abilities, the room seemed cold and empty.
Colonel Tavish took her to the door of Locke’s bedroom, then turned to address her. “I know it’s not considered proper for a young lady to enter a man’s bedroom, but I assure you that in his current condition, Locke should not be a threat against your virtue.”
The man had no idea, Lusinda thought. The things Locke could do with one finger . . . A tremor slipped down her spine.
“If you’d like me to act as chaperone, I can do so . . . but if you would prefer privacy—”
“We will be fine alone, thank you, colonel. As you’ve mentioned, I’m sure Mr. Locke will be a proper gentleman.” Though she hoped he would not.
The colonel opened the door and motioned for Captain Burnes to leave. He held the door ajar for Lusinda to enter, then silently closed it behind her.
Locke lay on his side facing her. He appeared to be asleep, but as she approached the bed, she saw a smile spread across his face. His eyes remained closed as if he were having a delicious dream. “Sinda, I knew you would come.”