Page 10 of Every Rogue Has His Charm

Scott grabbed his hat, which had been resting on his knee, and turned it thrice around by the brim. The ground on which they tread had been growing increasingly thin all afternoon. He had heretofore always abided by the principle that the less Helen knew of his work, the happier and safer she would be.

Thankfully, she moved on without waiting for an answer. “But he is not an officer?”

“At the time, I rather thought he might accept a commission merely for the chance to drive his grandfather mad. But in the end he laughed and said he didn’t fancy the way he looked in scarlet. Nevertheless, he’s proved very useful to me—to the Crown. He can pass for French, you see.”

“So, when he left his wife, he actually did go to Paris?”

“Eventually—though not on any official assignment, you understand. Officially, Britain and France had declared a truce, though it was always an uneasy peace. Fraying already when winter came, and dissolved into nothing by the spring of ’03. I was glad enough to have Chesleigh firmly ensconced when war broke out again.”

The carriage jerked into motion once more. Helen dropped her voice to a confidential whisper, hardly to be heard above the rattle of the wheels. “At the house, you said you can’t be sure that he’s…one of yours. Do you mean to tell me, he’s gone over to their side?”

“He’s been embedded in French intelligence for years—that was his mission.” Scott spun his hat again. “The question, I suppose, is whether he’s now keeping our secrets, or theirs.”

“His grandfather is dying?”

“If my information can be trusted, and I believe it can, he won’t last a fortnight.”

“And you’re certain Lord Chesleigh will come home when his grandfather is gone?”

“Yes. If only to dance on the man’s grave.”

A shuddering sigh escaped his wife’s lips. “Poor Lady Chesleigh.”

“Poor Lady Chesleigh, indeed. But your suggestion to send her a companion was a stroke of genius, my dear.”

“And this…Mrs. Drummond, I believe you said—what can you tell me of her?”

Scott craned his neck, the better to assess their location. “In another moment, you’ll be able to make your own assessment of her character. We’re nearly there.”

A few minutes later the carriage rolled to a stop. Helen peered through the window, then abruptly drew down the shade and leaned back against her seat. “Zebby? I believe there’s been some mistake.”

He chuckled. “Rest assured, ma’am, Mrs. Drummond has naught to do with that sort of house—at least, not that I know of,” he added with a wink. “We’ll find her here.” He tapped on the opposite window to direct her attention to the other side of the street and the swaying shingle that read W. Millrose, fine tobacco.

Inside the shop, the bell jingled merrily to signal their arrival, and Scott drew a deep breath of the warmly spiced air. “You promised,” Helen said, watching him with one eyebrow raised, “to give up the habit.”

“On my honor, my dear,” he said, laying his hand over his heart. “Now, Mr. Millrose,” he called to the proprietor, a portly Black man whose silvering head was at present bent over a small brass scale.

“Sir,” Millrose answered, his spine stiffening almost imperceptibly as he looked up from his measurements. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“We’re here to see a Mrs. Drummond,” his wife answered for him, a frown flickering across her brow as she glanced around the glass-fronted shop, which was otherwise empty of customers. Millrose looked from her to Scott and back again, his expression a mixture of surprise and disapproval. “If it’s not too much trouble.”

Scott laughed. “You heard the lady.”

“Yes, sir.” Millrose set aside the scale and reached beneath the counter behind which he stood. A section of the countertop lifted on a hinge, forming a passageway between the customers’ side and the proprietor’s. Once both the general and his wife had passed through, Millrose gestured toward a door at the back of the shop. “She’s just below, sir.”

“Thank you, Colonel,” Scott said, opening the door to reveal a steeply pitched stairwell that descended into darkness. “I’ll go first, shall I, my dear? I have not been down these stairs in years.”

At the bottom of the steps, a long, dimly lit corridor stretched before them, with closed doors lining either side. “Some time ago,” he explained to his wife, “I purchased this building with the intent of creating a place where my best domestic agents could work and live, somewhere their comings and goings wouldn’t attract too much notice. The men call it the ‘Underground’—quite smart, don’t you think?”

“The cellar beneath a tobacco shop?” she asked, not bothering to hide her skepticism. He began to wonder if her brows were ever going to settle to their normal positions.

“Better that than a gaming hell.”

“Zeb—!” she began, her brows now diving low. But she swallowed the rest of her reprimand as the door to their left swung open and a young man with ginger hair appeared.

Though out of uniform, he snapped to attention. “General Scott, sir!”

Scott recognized him immediately as Fitzwilliam Hopkins, the field agent who, late last spring, had retrieved a valuable codebook, only to find himself soon thereafter held captive and tortured by ruthless French agents who had come all the way to London looking for it. Despite the intervening months, the young man still looked harrowed by the experience.