But good sense intervened. With Garrick Stanley Breckinridge Throckmorton the Third, good sense always intervened.
He must have been staring at her for too long, for Celeste glanced away, then glanced back, and a color that matched the rose of her gown glowed in her cheeks. “Is there something . . . wrong?” She sounded quite faint, as if she knew exactly what was wrong but didn’t want to contemplate the truth.
Because, of course, she loved Ellery. The knowledge left a nasty taste in his mouth, and he realized this was the perfect moment to pursue his plan. “Not at all.” He bowed. “I was simply contemplating your beauty and feeling quite . . .” He trailed off as if unable to frame the words.
Celeste blushed harder and looked everywhere but at him.
He would have said more, but Kiki interrupted with a fierce barrage of French.
Celeste’s relief matched his irritation.
Celeste answered her in French, then translated to English. “It is time for Penelope to get off, but it’s also time for other people to take their turn.”
“Qui est-ce?” the child asked.
Celeste glanced at him and took revenge for his suspicions. “Mr. Throckmorton, for example.”
Throckmorton stiffened and glared.
Kiki didn’t even have the delicacy to cover her mouth before she laughed.
“I have swung on a swing in my day,” he said stiffly.
“I’m sure you have, Mr. Throckmorton.” But Celeste’s eyes were dancing, too. “Why don’t you take a turn?”
He straightened his shoulders, donned his dignity like a barrister’s black robe, and answered, “All right. I will.”
11
Throckmorton strode toward the swing. The crowd opened before him. Behind him, he could hear Kiki prattling in French. He could hear the rustle of Celeste’s skirt as she hurried to keep up with him. He heard a cough. A snort. A gasp. The movement of many shuffling feet. He could almost savor the crowd’s astonishment lapping at his back.
At the swing, he observed Hyacinth, smiling at Lord Townshend, who pushed Penelope. He saw Penelope, swinging with the blissful smile he saw too seldom. He hesitated; it seemed a shame to interrupt her pleasure. But if not him, it would be someone else, and he would show Celeste . . . he shouldn’t want to show her anything, yet somehow her amusement, her conviction that he would never relax his dignity enough to take a turn on the swing . . . well, she irritated him.
At the side of the swing, he grasped one of the upright poles and waited, as any youth does, for his turn. Hyacinth noticed. Lord Townshend was clearly nonplussed.
Penelope dragged her toe in the gravel. She didn’t seem at all surprised to see him standing there. “Did you want a turn, Papa?”
“I want a turn,” he affirmed.
Penelope hopped off and patted the seat. He smiled at her, then at Hyacinth who, to his approval, seemed quite able to contain her amazement. Indeed, she even smiled back.
He turned a chilly eye on the immobile Lord Townshend, “I won’t need your assistance.”
Townshend backed off so quickly he tripped over one of the braces for the swing.
Throckmorton looked out of the crowd. He’d never seen so many mouths hanging open at one time. Even little Kiki, blond, blue-eyed, beruffled, looked as if a support had been knocked out from under her. He’d show them all he wasn’t the predictable, stuffy fellow they thought him.
He sat down and pushed off.
He noted that Celeste didn’t look dumbfounded. She watched him . . . no, she observed him. If she was a spy, she was a very good one. She manipulated him into doing what he hadn’t even realized he wanted to do.
He hadn’t remembered how it felt to swing. He hadn’t thought of it in years. The smooth backward glide skimmed him back among the branches. The thrilling drop, then the upward swing that, if he strained hard enough, revealed a brief glimpse over the edge of the ridge to the plain and the winding river far below. Then another stomach-clenching backward drop before the rope and board caught him and carried him back among the branches again.
He would order another swing built right beside this one.
He swung up and back, lying back far enough to have the branches catch at his hair, to see the sky through the leaves.
Celeste was right, no one should have to share a swing. And something she hadn’t thought of; it was more fun to swing when there was two. He could almost imagine her laughter and the flutter of her skirts beside him as she rose and fell with the rhythm of the swing.
Like a wave on the sea, like a bird on the breeze, he soared and descended. He kicked his feet out and back. He felt the rush of hair on his face and heard the murmur of voices as if from a distance. This was freedom—from business, from family, from duty. He never wanted to stop.
No, no one should ever have to share a swing.
As he sailed forward once more, he glanced out at the crowd. And saw, near the edge, one of his soberly clad gentlemen.
Pleasure dissipated as if it had never been.
Duty called.
It wasn’t her.
“Where is she?” Ellery asked in loud, slurred indignation.
“Sh.” Throckmorton adjusted the weight of Ellery’s arm across his shoulders. “You’ll wake the guests.”
It wasn’t Celeste who was the spy, but Stanhope, the man Throckmorton deemed his friend. Stanhope had sold information about English troop movements on the Indian subcontinent. Stanhope had killed English soldiers as surely as if he’d used the knife himself.
“Where is my sweet little Celeste?” Ellery stopped his trek back down the long, dim, downstairs corridor. Taking Throckmorton’s shoulders in his hands, he stared at his brother in bleary disbelief. “The servants said her bedchamber was here. So where is she?”
The scent of brandy on Ellery’s breath almost knocked Throckmorton off his feet, and he thanked his lucky stars he’d been working in his office and heard his intoxicated brother calling Celeste’s name. “Celeste is sleeping in the nursery tonight to look after the children.”
Through Stanhope, Throckmorton had to correct the damage done—as soon as possible.
Which left him with one obvious plan.
“I haven’t got to see her in days and days.” Ellery frowned with the excessive anguish of a man who had tippled too deep. “My sweet little petunia.”
“Only one full day,” Throckmorton pointed out. “And you’re the one who won’t come out of his room.”
“I’m ugly.”
“You’re handsome, as you very well know.”
“I’m blue.”
Throckmorton steered Ellery toward one of the night candles and squinted at him. “The color appears to be fading.” Which in its way was too bad. “In fact, you’re rather rosy.”
“Washed.” Ellery took a quavering breath. “A lot.”
“Cleanliness is next to godliness, old chap.” Throckmorton hoisted his brother’s arm back around his shoulders. “If you’d come out, you could see whoever you wish. Preferably your betrothed.”
Not Celeste. Celeste, to whom Throckmorton would provide false intelligence about the English plans. Then he would foster the impression he was truly in love with Celeste. Indulging in pillow talk. Being indiscreet. Stanhope would seek her out, and in his charming, ruthless way, he’d pump Celeste for the information. Celeste would tell him all, and the Russians would be misled.
“She came to visit me today.”
Throckmorton steered Ellery toward the stairs. “Your sweet little petunia?”
“No.” Ellery sounded surly. “Hyacinth.”
“She would be your sweet, tall climbing rose.”
Ellery was too far gone to comprehend even so simple a jest. “She’s not, either.” Then, thoughtfully, “Although she does smell nice. I like a woman who smells nice, don’t you?”
If they could just keep the conversation on Hyacinth, perhaps Ellery would be reminded of his duty. And perhaps Throckmorton could forget his. “La
dy Hyacinth smells very nice.”
Back to surly again. “Have you been smelling my betrothed? Because you’re supposed to be smelling my sweet little begonia.” Lifting his head, he caroled, “Celeste! Where are you?”
“Sh!” Throckmorton jabbed his elbow into Ellery’s sore ribs.
Ellery flinched away and bumped into the banister. “Why? I want to speak with her. My pretty little carnation.”
“If you try to talk to her at this hour of the night alone in her bedchamber, her father will scoop your heart out with a trowel and bury you beneath the honeysuckle.”
If Milford knew that Throckmorton planned to use Celeste, he’d do the same to Throckmorton—and Throckmorton would deserve it. He’d used innocents such as Celeste before. He didn’t like it. He never liked it. But he told himself the end justified the means, that the future of the British Empire was at stake, that innocent lives depended on such subterfuge.
Yet the thought of leaving Celeste alone with Stanhope, a traitor and a murderer, made his skin crawl.
Which was why Ellery could never see her at night. A guard stood outside her bedchamber—a bedchamber that would change as Throckmorton decreed—and would until she returned to Paris. That would be when the party was over. When she had been shown she could never have Ellery or Throckmorton. When she had served her purpose for British espionage.
“Do you really think it would matter if I married the gardener’s daughter?”
“Are you going to marry her?”
“Thinkin’ about it.”
“Because she smells nice?”
“Because she’s . . . pretty and she smiles . . . a lot.”
Throckmorton wanted to push his stupid brother back down the stairs. A hank of hair and a couple of dimples, that’s all Ellery saw when he looked at Celeste? “Lady Hyacinth is pretty,” Throckmorton said between gritted teeth. “Lady Hyacinth smiles a lot.”
“But Celeste doesn’t . . . expect anything out of me.” Ellery belched loud enough to raise a ghoul.
Throckmorton hoped he hadn’t raised Hyacinth’s father. “What does Lady Hyacinth expect?”
A shiver quivered through Ellery’s frame. “She says I’m a good man. She says I’m smart and I work hard and I know what to do all the time. She says she respects me, ’cause I’m going to be the head of our household and be a good father to our children. Can you believe it? She told me all that!”
Throckmorton wanted to drop his forehead onto Ellery’s shoulder. The foolish girl had scythed the deal by, in essence, telling Ellery it was time to grow up.
Just two hours ago, Throckmorton had listened to a half-drowned woman babble in a different language while she coughed up the water she’d inhaled from the river. He’d seen the finger marks on her neck—the marks Stanhope had put there. He had had to face the betrayal of his friend. He now planned to use an innocent maiden as an instrument to correct a great injustice.
And Ellery was frightened by the face of maturity.
The ridiculous, fatuous fribble.
Ellery gave a hiccup. “I don’t even know what to do with the tyke I have now.”
“Just pay her some attention,” Throckmorton snapped. “That’s all Kiki wants.”
Ellery brightened. “Celeste knows what to do with my kid.”
“Leave her in the nursery to do it, then.” Irritation made him move Ellery along with considerable more briskness.
“Hey!” Ellery said in exaggerated torment. When Throckmorton didn’t respond, Ellery showed some remnant of wit. “What’sa matter, you ol’ brother, you? You tired? You ought t’ go t’ bed.”
“After I get you to your room. Come on.” Throckmorton marched him along. “So Lady Hyacinth came to visit you today?”
“She loves me,” Ellery said in a most self-pitying tone of voice.
They had reached Ellery’s bedchamber. “You encouraged her.”
“Thought I was going t’ marry her. Because she’s really a nice woman, you know? She’s smart and she’s funny when you get t’ know her and she’s really young but she’s going t’ be one of those fascinating women I could listen t’ forever. Today”—he staggered sideways, pulling Throckmorton with him—“today she said so many great bon mots. She made me laugh. I even let her see me. She made me feel . . . like I could conquer the world. Then”—his voice lowered to a whine—“she told me she thought I could. Me! She’s got the wrong brother.” Ellery poked at Throckmorton’s chest. “You should marry Hyacinth.”
Throckmorton lost his patience. Shoving Ellery against the wall, he leaned his face close. “Now, you listen to me, little brother. You look handsome. Your haircut will start a fashion. And our guests are wondering where you are. There’s a hunt tomorrow. You will come out of hiding. You will be pleasant to everyone, especially Lady Hyacinth and her parents. You will let me handle the matter of Celeste.”
Ellery nodded. “You and Celeste.”
Throckmorton grabbed him by the arm before he tottered into his room. “Most of all, you will not drink yourself into oblivion.”
Ellery hesitated.
“You will lose all if you do.”
“Garrick, I don’t want to do that.” Ellery’s voice sounded husky, almost as if he struggled with tears. Maybe somewhere inside that pitiful conscience of his, he comprehended the consequences of his deeds.
And who was Throckmorton to judge Ellery and his conscience? He had Celeste and her well-being on his.
Giving him a quick hug, Throckmorton pushed him inside where his sensible valet waited up. Poor man. Like everyone else, he worshipped Ellery, but Throckmorton couldn’t imagine when he got to sleep.
Throckmorton strode to the stairs and paused, then gave in to impulse. He allowed his steps to carry him upward, toward the nursery. He told himself that as long as he was awake, he might as well look in on Penelope. He told himself that his excessive worry was normal for a man involved in this desperate international game of conspiracy and counterconspiracy.
Yet he knew it was Celeste who drew him. She had shown him how well she worked with the children, and shown him, too, her determination to do the task for which she had been hired.
Yes, as soon as the house party was over, Celeste would be sent back to Paris, Stanhope arrested, and of course, because the Throckmortons were fair and wonderful people, they would settle a large sum on Celeste for her trouble and help.
Throckmorton’s mouth twisted cynically, then smoothed.
He identified himself to the bodyguard as he approached the nursery. Through hard experience he had found such caution saved him a brutal blow to the head.
Mr. Kinman—large, quiet, innocuous—opened the door. “Sir.”
Throckmorton slipped inside. The playroom glowed in the light of a single candle. The children and Celeste slept in the bedchamber just off the playroom. He stepped gingerly, taking care to avoid the wooden train strewn in pieces across the nursery room floor, the skipping rope snaking over the smooth boards.
He’d learned to move without noise while in India; it had proved to be an asset in his line of work, and he blessed that ability now. Lifting the candle, he carried it into the bedchamber and over to Penelope.
She slept restlessly, her braids tangled about her, her blankets twisted and thrown back, her nightgown-clad body curled into a tiny, shivering ball. He covered her. Smoothing the hair from her face, he experienced that tug of emotion only a father can understand as he looked on his sleeping child. He wanted to protect Penelope from all hurt. He wanted only good things for her. He wanted her to be happy.
She relaxed into the warmth of the blankets. That was all he could do tonight.
He moved to Kiki’s bed. The rambunctious child slept peacefully, as if in sleep she found the contentment she fought so defiantly during the day. Poor girl. When he saw her like this, he wished he could give her what she sought. But she didn’t seek it from him; she wanted affection and approval from her father, and Ellery was too selfish to know how to give
. So the turmoil continued, unless . . .
Drawn by a need he couldn’t explain, he went to the third bed. To Celeste.
She slept with her hand under her cheek, a frown on her face, as if during sleep she fought the demons he would loose on her unsuspecting head.
It wouldn’t be so bad. She’d be safer here than anywhere in England or on the Continent, and she’d be helping her country.
Odd to see her without the animation of consciousness. She was so alive, so keen to the enjoyment of life, he could almost catch her youthful fever to know, to be, to go, to experience all that youth had to offer. She would have been a fit mate for Ellery; the two of them would have been a living proclamation for spirit and verve.
But even if she came out of this yarborough without harm, she would be hurt if she discovered that he had romanced her to detach her from Ellery.
Sighing, she flung out an arm. Her hand rested palm up on the blankets, her fingers slightly curled. The frown smoothed from her face, leaving only the contentment of slumber. His hand rose and hovered over her forehead. He wanted to stroke the hair back from her forehead as he had done for Penelope. Yet the tenderness he felt for Celeste contained nothing of fatherly affection. Rather, this need to touch Celeste had its roots in want and seduction. He had to wonder at himself; could it be he was stalking the girl? Was he motivated less by duty than by attraction?
He stared as her chest lifted and fell. She wore a plain white cotton gown with a modest neck. The sheet covered her, too. Yet without seeing—without ever having seen and never allowing himself to see—he knew what her breasts looked like. Smooth, creamy young skin lifting above her ribcage in two perfect curves, topped by round blossoms of color so soft they could scarcely be called rose. He didn’t have to close his eyes to see the stretch of flesh above and below; his imagination took the delicacy of her features and the hint of skin showing above her neckline and filled in every detail. She was like a portrait and he the artist—and he had even less talent at painting than he did at languages.
Except with Celeste.
What was happening to him? Ellery lusted. Ellery romanced. Ellery seduced. Not Throckmorton. Not after two days. Not without a foundation of common beliefs and interests. Not madly. Not passionately.