Page 12 of One Thing Leads to a Lover

Despite the limits of his vision, Langley glanced around the little garden, at the green-black swathes of leaves dotted with splotches and streaks of color, flowers that had burst into glory in the heat of the afternoon and some that had hidden themselves away again at nightfall.

Nothing was clear, anymore.

“Then I’ll be in touch.” After tucking his broken spectacles into his breast pocket, he gave another crisp bow. “It’s late. You should retire, your ladyship. Does this gate lock?”

“Yes.”

“Then see that you lock it after I leave.” Before she could say anything more, he slipped back through the gate and into the shadows, pausing only to listen for the grating sound of a key in a lock.

From Grosvenor Square he made his way to Brook Street, where he knew Lord Dulsworthy resided, though the dossier hadn’t included the number. He strode up and down the street twice, spotting just one window in which a light burned. It might be anything, of course: a sick room, a servant lost in the forbidden pages of a novel. Only a fool would imagine the lone candle belonged to Dulsworthy, up half the night, poring over the codebook he now had in his possession.

Surely the best explanation for the man’s behavior was the simplest one. He had taken the purported French cookbook from Bartlett House purely for the comfort and convenience of the woman he was to wed. He meant to save her the trouble of having to return it to the bookshop. Something innocuous had delayed him. In the morning, when Dulsworthy did return it, Langley would recover it and be one step closer to recovering his good name in the process.

So why was he standing on an empty street in the dark, weighed down in equal parts by unease and something like regret?

He ought to be glad the damned thing was out of Lady Kingston’s hands. Ought to feel relieved to be free of her headache-inducing chatter—to say nothing of her headache-inducing flowerpots. Why, she probably wasn’t even as appealing as his shortsightedness gave her credit for being. She probably wanted to marry Dulsworthy and settle into the safe, predictable sort of life a man like him offered. And if that was the case, then Langley would do well to keep his distance.

The last thing the Magpie had to offer any woman was safety.

The bells of St. Martin-in-the-Fields were chiming three when he returned to the Underground and left word with the watchman on duty to wake him if nothing had been heard from Porter’s by ten o’clock. Then he closed himself in his dark cell, shucked off his boots, and collapsed face down on the bed, for once falling instantly asleep.

Sometime later—minutes, hours—something roused him, calling him back from sleep, from the edges of a familiar dream—or nightmare. As always, no faces he recognized, no voices he understood, only shapeless anxiety, like hands dragging him down into the abyss. He had to shake free of them, had to get away, or else…or else…

Then the dream shifted. The aroma of flowers—roses—hung heavy on the night air, and the touch transformed, drawing him closer, coaxing him, and he wanted—needed—to chase that sensation, to reach out, to touch in turn.…

I’ll be in touch.…

“Wake up, Major Stanhope.”

That chilly voice chased away the last fragments of the dream, replacing its vaguely pleasant promise with a dull, throbbing pain at the base of his skull. The scent of roses still filled his nostrils. Perfume. Of course. He turned his head toward the woman who wore it but did not open his eyes.

“What is it, Fanny? It can’t be ten already.”

“Just past six, actually.”

He cracked an eyelid, grateful not to be able to see clearly the expression on her face, the one that no doubt matched her voice.

A flash of red greeted his half-opened eye. The scarlet coat of his uniform, which she dangled from one fingertip. He scrambled upright. “What’s happened?”

“General Scott’s had a message from Lieutenant Hopkins’s captors,” she said, tossing the coat toward him, having apparently forgotten her earlier disdain for wrinkles. “He wants to see you right away.”

Chapter 4

Shortly after dawn began to streak the sky, Amanda was summoned to her mother’s chamber. Despite her fatigue Amanda hurried to her bedside, uncertain what could have roused Mama at such an hour.

Mama was sitting up in bed, her breakfast tray across her lap. “Did you sleep well, my dear?”

Amanda had retired last night, just as the stranger—Magpie—had ordered. But sleep had eluded her. Instead she’d replayed their second encounter, weighed it against the first, and tried to come up with some explanation for both his midnight return and his concern over a cookbook that wasn’t really a cookbook.

Every explanation that presented itself made her fear she might be going a bit mad.

“Well enough, Mama,” she lied. “And you?”

Mama sighed, managing to sound fatigued, though she looked as fresh as she always did. “I confess, I shall rest easier when you are married again, though of course a mother never really stops worrying about her children.” She paused to stir her cocoa, then gestured with the spoon for Amanda to sit down at the foot of the bed. “I only want you to be safe. And sometimes…sometimes you do not seem to realize the dangers that surround you.”

It was an old argument, one Amanda knew she could never win. “Are there dangers lurking in my writing desk, Mama?” she dared to ask as she perched on the edge of the mattress.

Her mother bristled. “Did you think I was snooping?”