Gilded Lily Page 3

  GASLIGHTS. CANDLES. GLOSSY silks and polished silver. Everything sparkled and glowed in the ballroom, as befitted a royal birthday ball. The Queen’s appearance had been blessedly brief, but her youngest son seemed bent on dancing the night away with as many besotted ladies as possible. At twenty-eight, it was high time he made a choice and settled down with one of them, Freddie thought. With three healthy brothers and two boisterous nephews, he was far enough down in the line of succession that he could suit himself when it came to a bride.

  She had plenty of time to think these matters over from the sidelines of the ballroom floor, where she habitually sat alone for the duration of these events.

  Things hadn’t always been this way, of course. Freddie had started her first Season as the incomparable, a half-French mystery girl with a hint of her mother’s legendary looks and a delightful fortune to add to her allure. Her easy manner and wit had charmed potential suitors at the beginning. But as the weeks wore on and Freddie continued to be herself, all but the gold diggers slipped away. She’d considered an offer from one of them, a young man who didn’t seem so bad compared to some of the others. But after he was seen leaving a tryst with Honoria Weatherfield during a house party, Freddie rejected him publicly and loudly at the next event in town. She had turned down another three proposals over the course of that summer and the next.

  She hadn’t had an offer since. During the current Season—which was admittedly just beginning—she hadn’t even been asked to dance. She’d become the quintessence of wallflowers, shunned even by the other set-asides. None of which was the real problem.

  No, the real problem was that sitting on the edge of the ballroom not talking to anyone was boring. Freddie loathed being bored. So naturally, as she always did, she looked for entertainment of her own. Tonight, however, that option seemed to have been quashed by her father and his meddling. He’d apparently found her a new suitor, some business associate from the Dominions who was to be staying with them in London for a time. After a brief introduction the young man had attached himself to her like a barnacle while her father vacated himself to the punch bowl.

  Freddie suppressed a snicker at her unintentional mental wordplay. Barnabas, the barnacle. Lord Barnabas Smith-Grenville seemed glued to her side for the evening, indeed. Fortunately for her, he didn’t look like a creature from the ocean’s depths. He didn’t look like much of anything. He was a man of averages, she thought. Average looks, average manner, average taste in clothes. Bland and pleasant as pudding.

  This lack of interesting features on his part made her instantly suspicious. He was too unremarkable, as though he’d been artificially compiled from a list of criteria for young, attractive, eligible gentlemen. All of which led her to believe that this unremarkable man was no mere friend of her father’s but one of his employees. He obviously was who he said he was—his father’s title was one she knew, and he’d been greeted by a few others in the room in passing, men he appeared to know from school days—but Freddie suspected he was something else as well. Not one of her father’s legitimate business associates, as they’d claimed, but somebody from that other line of work. The one she was desperate to learn more about.

  “How do you know my father, again?” she finally asked, deciding that the straightforward approach was the best counter to subterfuge. The suspiciously bland man had a ready answer, however, and gave no sign of lying.

  “Through Baron Hardison in the Dominions. My people are there for the most part, but as I went to school in England and have some connections here, Lord Hardison thought I’d make a good business liaison between him and your father. They’ve dealt together on a number of projects.”

  “It surprises me that Your Lordship would take such an interest in trade.”

  “My father is the Lordship. I have not yet inherited the title, so you may address me as simply ‘my lord.’”

  She glanced at his face and saw the tail end of a smirk as it vanished and was replaced with an expression of smooth courtesy. Just because she could—and because she wanted to misdirect at least a little of her anger at her father toward this convenient stranger—Freddie dropped into the rough accent of her tinker role. “You’re taking the mickey out o’ me, my lord.”

  That got his attention for a moment, earning her a startled blink. “A bit, yes. You were doing it first, though, calling me Lordship. You know I’m no one in particular.”

  “No one in particular. I’ll try to remember that. Although as you’re not very memorable, perhaps I’ll forget you altogether once you’re gone.”

  Lord Smith-Grenville almost smiled. It was there in the corners of his eyes, at the edges of his mouth, followed by tension across his fine brow as he formulated a careful response. “Ah, but I won’t be gone. I’m quite smitten with you, Miss Murcheson. And as I’ve your father’s tacit approval to court you, you won’t be rid of me so easily. It will take far more than a few backhanded jabs to dislodge me now.”

  He hadn’t been convincing at all. Freddie stifled a groan, foreseeing a very long Season indeed. She would have to find some subtle means of revenge against her father for saddling her with this pudding-man. For saddling her with this series of watchmen. For putting these unnecessary obstacles in the way of the unconventional life she’d rather be living. “You’re smitten? You don’t even know me, sir.”

  “And if I did come to know you?” He turned his shoulders, ignoring the dancers and facing her more directly, placing one hand over his heart in a horrifyingly trite way. “Imagine how enchanted I’d be then, Miss Murcheson. You’d have me in your thrall.”

  “Disappointing. Very disappointing, my lord. You’re trying far too hard.” Somebody should have taught him that the ability to fake earnestness was the one critical skill for those who sought to be underhanded. Freddie felt exhausted, deep in her soul, and something like defeated. This was what she warranted? She was out of patience for playing her father’s game against yet another unworthy pawn. She’d had enough. “I’ve heard that speech or something like it so many times before. And I’ve heard it better, frankly. Tell me straight, has my father tasked you with me? You wouldn’t be the first. He always thinks I don’t know when he sets employees to watch me, but I always do.”

  He cocked his head, appraising her seriously for the first time. “You shouldn’t know about that.”

  “But aren’t you one of his spies?” There. She’d said it. Let the cards fall where they might.

  The young lord coughed into his hand, glancing around them almost frantically. No one was close enough to overhear. “What? No! Don’t say that word!”

  She was right. She’d been right all along. He really was hiring men to follow her in the guise of suitors. “What, then? Agents? Operatives? At least tell me he’s working for the Crown and not the other side, I’ve yet to reassure myself on that count.”

  “Good God, no wonder he wants you monitored! Yes, for the Crown. But you aren’t supposed to know any of this!”

  “Thank you.” And she meant it. It was a relief, to know at last what she’d only been able to speculate about. She felt an odd wash of gratitude toward Lord Barnabas Smith-Grenville.

  “You’re welcome. I . . . oh, dear heavens, I think I’ve just committed treason.”

  Freddie shrugged, amused at his polite expression of horror and his terrible espionage skills. “Your secret is safe with me, sir. I’m sure you’ve no reason to believe that, but it is. We can be honest with one another. I like you, Lord Smith-Grenville. You’re much more amusing than the usual types my father foists on me. They’re always so dour.” Perhaps the Season wouldn’t be so bad, after all, if she could spend it tweaking Smith-Grenville’s tail to make him squeak. And if he was this bad a spy on first meeting, he should be easy enough to shake when she wanted to go somewhere without the benefit of an escort. Had they trained the man at all?

  “Your father only has your safety in mind
, you know.”

  She shook her head. “He has his own safety in mind. If he were concerned for me, he would pay enough attention to find out what I do with my time himself. He’s just worried somebody will try to use me to get to him. And while we’re being honest with one another, I’ll be honest enough to tell you that I don’t trust you. You’re his man, ergo you’re not a man I can trust. And you’re a truly terrible spy, which also doesn’t speak well for you.”

  “It’s my first assignment,” Barnabas admitted, clearly disappointed in himself. “I had all sorts of things prepared to say if anybody suspected, or if I was tortured. I never expected anyone to just ask me directly, in the course of polite conversation. Least of all you. I thought this would be the simplest job possible. Damn. I’m going to hang for this, and it’s only my first day.”

  “Oh, cheer up. You’re not going to hang. I told you, I always know. Although it was more clever of Father than usual to try somebody from the peerage, and with decent conversation for once. If you’d affected ignorance I’d have probably believed you, and just assumed you were a gold digger. You’re a very unlikely spy.”

  “That was the idea. You really won’t tell him you’ve found me out already?”

  “No,” she reassured him. “Easier to let him go on thinking we’ve simply hit it off. Are you going to ask for bribes?”

  He drew himself up, puffing like a pigeon. “I should certainly think not.”

  Freddie nodded and smiled. “Excellent, then. We shall pretend to court, you’ll report to my father that I’m innocent as a lamb without a suspicion in the world, I won’t tattle on you, and otherwise I’ll continue to do exactly as I like. Agreed?”

  Barnabas hesitated. “I can’t agree to that, Miss Murcheson. I’m ordered to know your whereabouts at all times, I’m afraid.”

  “Catch me if you can, my lord.”

  He sighed. “This is not turning out at all as I’d imagined.”

  They stared out at the dancers, each lost in their own thoughts for a moment, before Barnabas gathered himself and offered his arm.

  “Would you care to dance?”

  Freddie eyed his arm but didn’t take it. “Oh, you shouldn’t dance with me. It’ll stain you indelibly.”

  “Are you socially unfit in some way?”

  “Quite ruined, I’m afraid. Not in that way, mind you,” Freddie reassured him, though she wasn’t sure why it suddenly mattered to her. Lord Barnabas Smith-Grenville’s opinion of her, good or otherwise, was irrelevant. “But I’m hopelessly odd, you see. I used to do quite well on the marriage mart. There were proposals and so forth, and though I never accepted, that only heightened my allure. Then at the end of last Season I made a critical mistake and let boredom overcome me at one of these things. I don’t do well with boredom.”

  “You fell asleep?”

  “I was caught in the host’s study, fondling his big inclinometer.”

  Barnabas coughed into his hand, a charming blush spreading up his cheeks. Or rather, she observed, a red mottling spread there. It was objectively unattractive, regardless of how she might view it subjectively. A grown man blushing like a schoolboy shouldn’t charm one.

  “I . . . I’m afraid I don’t see.”

  “A mariner’s astrolabe. And I wasn’t so much fondling it as reassembling it.”

  “Ah. Which suggests that at some point prior you had—”

  “Disassembled it, yes. Because it was broken. It had a clever display function, a set of powered number wheels to show the latitude and longitude findings, with translucent glass number panels so they could be backlit for use in the dark. On a submersible, say. But the connections on those things are fiddly and tend to jostle loose when the inclinometer is running. I found the thing on his desk with a note to his man of business attached, saying, ‘Bin this rubbish and refuse the bill.’ But it wasn’t rubbish; I could clearly see the problem was just a question of tightening a few things up. My real mistake was deciding to replace the copper wire to the bulb fixture with silver. Too time-consuming.”

  He seemed to consider this for several moments, then asked a question she wasn’t expecting. “You happened to have silver wire about your person at a ball? Just in case you ran across a piece of broken equipment , or . . . ?”

  Freddie reached up, touching the blossom-strewn curl that draped down upon her shoulder. “I happened to have silver wire in my hair. It spiraled from the crown of my head down around the loose curls, and between the strands were crystal flowers. It was lovely. Until I cut it out, of course, to use in the inclinometer.”

  “Of course. I see.”

  “Now you see.”

  His lips tightened in what she supposed might be sympathy but was likely either disapproval or another suppressed smirk. “One mistake, and you paid for it with your reputation. Clearly not fit to marry, the sort of girl who takes her hair down and strips a man’s inclinometer to its parts the minute her chaperone’s back is turned.”

  She didn’t know him well enough to know whether to laugh, but she found herself wanting to see him laugh. Or scowl, or do anything other than smile blandly and look polite. “Yes. Well. At least I wasn’t spotted in the mechanic’s stables, flat on my back on a crawler, sliding under a carriage to investigate a faulty steam pump.”

  “In a ball gown? As if you could. Preposterous!”

  “No, I mean at least I wasn’t caught, the time I did that. The gown was ruined beyond repair, of course. I went straight to my carriage and home afterward and everybody just assumed I’d left the ball early with a headache. As I said, I’m not good with boredom. But I am usually quite good at not being found out.”

  The emotions she’d been looking for on Smith-Grenville’s face appeared like magic, a series of impressions that flicked from sudden insight through “surely not” to politely horrified certainty. His gaze traveled down to her midsection, below the level where men’s eyes normally paused, then back up to her face. And just before he spoke, she remembered where and when she’d seen his unmemorable face. Only that afternoon, in fact, on a crowded street in a part of London that a young woman of quality shouldn’t know existed.

  “You’re that tourist.”

  “You’re that tinker.”

  FOUR

  THEY WERE BLACKMAILING each other. Freddie tried to frame the dilemma in some other way but could find no other means to describe it. She had seen through Lord Smith-Grenville’s cover instantly and could ruin his reputation with her father with a word. But Smith-Grenville knew of Freddie’s secret identity as a seemingly male makesmith-tinker. He could rat her out at any time too.

  Ratting Smith-Grenville out, however, would mean the end of his assignment, and who knows what her father would do if she tipped her hand and revealed she knew he was assigning operatives to watch her? Besides, the young lord was not entirely unpleasant company. Neither was he terribly hard on the eye, though not particularly compelling either. She could certainly suffer worse companions, and indeed she had suffered worse.

  If she’d been able, she’d have quitted her father’s household altogether. She made decent money with her tinkering, and while she couldn’t have afforded anything like her current lifestyle, she probably could have survived. She might be destitute by the standards of her current set, but she’d be well-off compared to most of London. But at the cost of losing all contact with society, her few real friends, possibly her family as well. And there was the complication of her gender; if she struck out on her own, would she live as herself, or as Fred Merchant? She was so weary of pretense already; Freddie couldn’t imagine an entire life spent as her alter ego.

  So she would keep the mild pudding-man awhile longer, and meanwhile she would continue making her rounds whenever possible. Practicing the trade that society would deny her. As soon as she acquired another pair of trousers.

  The London house was still candlelit
instead of gas, and dim at night. Freddie had been raised there and knew all its secrets: the floorboards that tended to creak, the hinges that required oil. The likely timing of servants in the front hall and on the back stair. Tonight, an unexpected maid in the vestibule had sent a sneaking Freddie down a hallway to hide in her favorite discovery, a sort of priest’s hole in the wall between the front parlor and her father’s study.

  What it had originally been used for, she couldn’t begin to guess. But the narrow chamber was accessible from either room and the hallway, and the entries were cleverly concealed in the paneling. Only a chance draft had tipped her off, a brief and unexpected draw of air on an otherwise stagnant candle flame as she passed by one night in her early childhood.

  That night, her father’s study had been empty. Tonight, as she waited for the maid to finish her late tasks and clear the way, Freddie found herself privy to a conversation between Rutherford Murcheson and one of his associates. One of those nonindustrial associates, from the sound of it.

  “We can’t deploy further units until the testing is complete on the prototype,” the other man was saying as she carefully eased the panel closed behind her. “If you had given us a larger test vessel than the lily, we could be—”

  “I don’t need excuses, Hampton. I’m mothballing the lily; it’s not sufficient for our needs. Tell Nealy I need a working unit on a full-sized armed submersible. Now. We can no longer assume the enemy is lagging behind. They must have something, some advantage, to have evaded our patrols for so long. And with this latest report from Ruckham’s team, we’ve lost the luxury of time to catch them by conventional means.” Her father sounded more anxious than demanding, which was unusual for him. Freddie wondered what a lily had to do with testing an armed submersible.

  “Quakes have always been a concern for—”

  “Not like the one they’re predicting. But they need more data, and with the sabotage, Ruckham is no longer even able to provide us accurate, timely warnings for these minor tremors. The glass octopus is all but useless in several quadrants, and I’m running short of men to run perimeter checks even to repair the legs that are still functional. I couldn’t man a constant guard on them all, even if having men posted in those areas didn’t defeat the purpose of the station in the first place. We want to avoid alerting people to our presence, not draw our enemies a map.”