Celeste Bradley - [The Liar's Club 02] (5 page)

Clara had greeted the dawn with a yawn and a quick cup of tea before spreading her drawing supplies out across her desk and setting to work. She’d been awake long into the night plotting wild acts of revenge against the impostor. Her favorite was still one involving replacing all the seams of his ridiculous clothing with cheap thread. The next time he performed one of those flourishing bows, he would split his breeches and reveal his true nature to the world and whatever highly shock-able ladies of influence might be standing behind him.

It was a lovely image. Positively joyous.

Her lips twitching still, Clara bent to her final, more realistic plan. Surprisingly, it had taken her several hours to come up with the single most obvious way to expose the man.

Sir Thorogood would do it.

Clara chewed her pencil end in thought. She could show a stalwart, dignified Sir Thorogood tossing the poseur into a rubbish bin. She stroked a few lines onto the page and studied them.

She wasn’t terribly comfortable with the idea of actually portraying herself as a man. That smacked too much of outright lies. Best to leave the details of her alias as vague as possible.

What about a hand, drawing the ridiculous fake with a quill … well, the fellow was absolutely crying out for
caricature with his outrageous costume and his flamboyant ways. He’d been wearing more cosmetics than she had, for pity’s sake! And if she were not mistaken, he’d drawn in a mole upon his cheek, like a beauty mark.

The drawing began to take shape. First the hand, neither masculine nor feminine—and if the public chose to take the cuff of the sleeve as a shirt rather than a gown, well that was their option, of course.

Yes, that was just the thing. …

Only the impostor didn’t turn out quite as ridiculous as she would have liked. In fact, he looked almost handsome with those long legs and those shoulders—

Clara tossed her pencil aside in a burst of frustration and crumpled the drawing in her hands. Once more, this time concentrating on the powdered hair and the man’s fluid catlike grace and his silvery eyes—

The drawing met the same fate as the first, as did the next, and the next. She wasn’t concentrating! Just when she thought she’d pinned down the very features to exaggerate, she would start to think on the breadth of his frame, or his eyes, or something else entirely useless to her plan.

Perhaps she was still distracted by the other episode last night. Yes, of course. How could she possibly concentrate for wondering who had loosened her corset and left her half-naked in the garden? Honestly, anyone would be diverted by such a question.

Clara pushed aside her sketching materials and leaned back in her chair. Well, who could it have been? She didn’t remember anything beyond being unable to breathe and making for the air outside. She had obviously made it to the garden, and someone had come upon her there.

Not another woman, for it would take a man’sstrength to tear the strings from their holes.

Though it gave her a shiver, she forced herself to consider that a strange man had touched her and half-undressed her. But only to help her, surely? Once she had been safely freed, hadn’t he discreetly left so as not to cause her further embarrassment?

But who?

She knew the names of most of the men in the ballroom last night, though she had been introduced to very few. After all, she could hardly do her work without a thorough knowledge of her subjects. She even vaguely recalled seeing the Prime Minister himself there.

But he had come inside before she had gone out. Sir Impostor had been about somewhere, but she didn’t see him as the rescuing sort. And there was that fair-haired man who had been so concerned—

Oh, dear.

Clara bit her lip. Perhaps she didn’t want to know what had happened. After all, she was fine now. Nary a bruise to show rough handling, and she was no child. She knew what handling felt like and she was quite prepared to vow there had been none of it.

So some mysterious gentleman had come to her aid and left her once she’d been aided. There was nothing more to it than that.

She shook off the thought and bent to her task once more. Perhaps if she concentrated more on the dandified clothing and not so much on the man within it …

Dalton Montmorency tried not to wince as James Cunnington took another brutal fall to the mat. The Liar’s Club fight instructor was not one to spare James just
because he was second in command. If anything, Kurt would be all the harder on him.

James lay panting on the mat that stretched the entire length and width of the room that had once been the cellar. The house that now held the spy school had been gutted and refitted with classrooms and bedchambers abovestairs, all very ordinary to the outside world once the highly irregular books and maps were stored away.

However, the belowstairs had been converted to a very strange sort of gymnasium, apart from the kitchens. This area was covered by the mats that Kurt had made from sailcloth and straw, and the walls were lined with racks that held every weapon known to civilization and a few that were not. Straw-stuffed mannequins stood at attention beside the racks, ready to do battle with unsuspecting students. Someone had painted curling mustaches on the canvas faces and a few even wore scraps of tattered French uniforms.

James groaned. Dalton left his position holding up the wall to step carefully onto the mat and bend over his second. “Are you still with us, then?”

“No. Sorry. Quite dead, I’m afraid.”

Kurt planted broad hands on broader hips and grunted. “Still got a mouth on ‘im. He’ll do for another round.”

James shuddered. “Dalton,” he gasped. “Have mercy. Kill me now.”

Dalton shrugged. “Can’t be done. If you don’t work that shoulder, you’ll never be ready to return to work.” Then he looked up at Kurt. “What do you think? Is he ready?”

Kurt would have looked almost sad—if mountains could show emotion. “Not a bit of it, milord. A kitten’d take him out now.”

“Damn.” Dalton looked down at James. He’d been a good operative before he had taken a bullet in the shoulder for the Prime Minister. Dalton had hopes of getting him back in the field soon.

Crestfallen, James gazed back up at him from the mat. “My apologies, Dalton. I know you wanted me for the Thorogood mission.”

“That I did. It had to be someone who could pass in Society. With you still recovering and Ren Porter out, possibly forever, there wasn’t a Liar available who could do the job.”

James managed a grin. “But you did look fine as the fop last night. And I must give Button my compliments. Today’s costume bids fair to being yet more eye-popping.”

Tugging at the wine-red frock coat that he wore over tangerine breeches, Dalton gave James his best “watch yourself squint. James only grinned unrepentantly back. Dalton’s lips twitched reluctantly. “Humph. If you don’t discuss my costume, I won’t discuss the amount of time you’ve spent on the floor today.”

“Agreed.” James rolled his head to turn a roguish gaze on Kurt. “I’ve decided I should change my Liar nickname, Kurt. Instead of ‘the Griffin,’ what do you think of ‘the Wolf,’ since I’m so lean and fast now?”

Kurt gazed down at James impassively. “More like the Scarecrow, you bein’ more skinny than lean. Me-thinks a man gets named when he’s earned it, and he takes the name he’s given.” He sent an impenetrable glance to Dalton. “Just ask the gentleman if that ain’t the way of it.”

Dalton held the big man’s gaze with composure but inwardly he wondered what the big assassin truly thought of the new spymaster.

Kurt had seen a few spymasters come and go, for he’d been here since before Dalton’s own predecessor, Simon Raines, had joined as a boy.

Had Kurt tested Simon so relentlessly when he’d taken over for the Old Man? Possibly, although Simon had been groomed by the Old Man himself, taken from the streets and trained alongside the men at every turn. Like a son taking over a business from his father, since the story held that the Old Man’s own son had wanted none of it.

Dalton had no such advantage of familiarity with the Liars. Even James was less friend than comrade, for the bond they had was one forged during their accidental adventure a few weeks past when James’s sister Agatha had so desperately needed Dalton’s help.

With one hand Dalton pulled James to his feet. The younger man still weighed too little. His health was slowly returning, but his wound and previous imprisonment had drawn him to his finest line. He wasn’t half up to fighting weight yet.

Another life shattered by the war against Napoleon. Would that madman never stop costing England her sons?

James had caught back some of his breath and was dusting himself off, although the half-furnished gymnasium was spotless. Tactfully, he changed the subject. “I still don’t see why I couldn’t have done it. If I were playing an artist type, I wouldn’t need to be very athletic.”

Kurt grunted as he gathered up the last of the equipment they had used. “Weak as a girl. Even Button’d make pudding of ye, like as not.”

Dalton gazed evenly at Kurt. “Will you be joining us across the way, Kurt?”

Kurt cast a glance over his shoulder and snorted as he lifted the heavy gear with one hand and toted it toward the weapons storage room. One could possibly construe that as agreement, if one were a bloody optimist.

Dalton watched Kurt leave the ring, then turned back to James. “There were two more reasons you weren’t chosen. First, you were made overly visible recently when you took that bullet for Lord Liverpool. Second, it’s common knowledge that you’ve been out of the country much of the past year. Sir Thorogood has been in operation for at least that long.” Dalton shook his head. “Sorry, James. I know you think you’re ready for the field, but there is too much at stake with this case.”

“I thought you called it a make-work errand for some overstuffed pompous idiot?” James toweled off and pulled a shirt from his stack of clothing.

Dalton handed James his waistcoat and cravat. There was a meeting of the Liars in a few minutes, but Kurt had insisted that James not miss a day of training. “It is. But dissenters come in many sizes. Even a small character like Thorogood could have surprising power to drum up sympathy for a cause. The popularity of those cartoons is growing by the day.”

James grinned as he created a cursory knot in his cravat. “I think they’re rather good, myself. Remember the one that skewered Sir Mosely for taking the orphanage funds for himself? How he was portrayed as a reverse St. Nicholas, stealing the stockings? I pinned that up at home.”

“Don’t forget the furor which ensued from that, costing Mosely his position on the board and embarrassing several other lords.”

James was affronted. “As it should have!”

“Precisely.” Dalton nodded. “As I said. Power.”

“So far. Sir Thorogood’s cause has been to aim the public eye at the unfair differences between the classes,” James protested. “You yourself are something of a reformist, remember?”

Dalton raised a brow. “That I am. Still, there exists the possibility that the reformist platform is being used now to gather popularity, and that something other is motivating Sir Thorogood. Else why the secrecy? Why can’t we discover who he is?”

“That editor Braithwaite still won’t talk?”

Dalton shook his head and held James’s coat for him. “There’s nothing for him to tell. The caricatures are delivered by a servant roughly every two weeks at no specified time. He pays cash at delivery, and no addresses or accounts are used at all.”

James shrugged into his coat. “So follow the servant.”

They climbed the stairs from the lower training level to the main floor. Dalton wanted to collect one other Liar for the meeting.

“I’ve put Peebles onto that already. He’ll be watching the
Sun
, and Braithwaite has agreed to give him a sign if the servant shows up. It may take a while, for the last delivery contained enough drawings for several issues. In the meantime, we’ve moved on to the secondary plan.”

When they entered the outer rooms of the “school,” they spotted the founders of the Lillian Raines School for the Less Fortunate in the front study. A lean dark man stood with a curvaceous woman turned out in the latest fashion. James stepped past Dalton to sweep the lady into a most improper hug, considering that her husband stood not two feet away.

“Aggie!”

“Jamie, put me down! You know Simon hates it when you do that.”

“You never should have married the old codger, Aggie. He’s made you boring.” James bussed his sister’s cheek.

Agatha laughed and cast a plea to her husband. “Simon, do I bore you?”

Dalton watched as Simon turned his head to give his wife a profoundly smoldering glance. Agatha blushed in response, her jest with James forgotten, her eyes only for her husband. The two were the very picture of a newly wed couple in love.

Dalton smiled tightly. It hadn’t been all that long ago that he himself had imagined a very different outcome with Agatha Cunnington for one impulsive moment. He’d done his best in the end to keep Simon and Agatha together and a good thing, too. Agatha had proven to be far too unpredictable to make a proper Lady Etheridge.

Then again, women like Agatha seemed to be something of a rarity. Oh, there were plenty with generous figures and pretty faces, and perhaps even a few with brains—but he couldn’t seem to find one with heart.

Real heart, an understanding of true loyalty and allegiance—at least to something other than fashion and gossip.

“I don’t suppose there are any more like her around, are there?” Dalton raised a brow. “All I seem to be able to meet are silly creatures like Mrs. Simpson.”

Agatha, who had come close enough to reach her fingertips to Simon’s sleeve in a tiny unconscious gesture, tilted her head and frowned. “Mrs. Simpson? Clara Simpson, the widow?”

“Widow?” Dalton considered that. “I suppose that makes sense. Why do you ask?”

Almost absently, Agatha tucked her arm into her husband’s and moved as close to him as was proper. Then she moved a little closer. “I don’t know her well, but I always thought her a sensible woman. Kind, as well.”