“It is a very difficult language.” She excused Stanhope. “I went to Russia with the ambassador and his wife. They refused to speak any other language in front of me so I could learn to speak correctly. If not for their insistence, I would probably not understand it at all, for they are fluent in French and English.”
He walked to the door. “Wait here.”
From the tone in his voice, she knew it was an order.
Throckmorton strode along the corridor toward his mother’s bedroom suite, his analytical mind putting together the facts.
FACT: For the past year, there had been too many missteps in his intelligence organization.
FACT: The Russians wanted dominion over Central Asia, and for much the same reasons the British did—the wealth of India and the lands beyond was unimaginable.
FACT: He had to rely on an interpreter, for he couldn’t speak Russian.
He gritted his teeth on facing that fact. He could solve the most difficult mathematical problem. He understood the nuances of diplomacy. He could outfit an expedition and lead it through the passes of the Himalayas. He could arrange a party, dance a waltz, and kiss Celeste into submission. But he could not speak more than a few words in any language other than his own, and he understood even less. It was his failing. He hated to fail, and he hated even more the position of dependency in which his shortcoming placed him.
Which led him to the next fact: he depended on Stanhope to interpret the messages that came to him in those other languages. Stanhope spoke Russian and German, French and Italian, Urdu and Hindi. His secretary had the talent for languages which Throckmorton did not. It was that which first attracted Throckmorton to him.
FACT: Celeste had worked for the Russian ambassador for three years.
Celeste could be a spy.
He rapped firmly on Lady Philberta’s door. His mother’s maid, Dafty, opened the door, prepared to yell at the interruption, but paused when she saw him. Dafty was not in his service. She worked solely for his mother as her lady’s maid. She ran errands and performed missions most women would have shuddered to imagine. Dafty shuddered about nothing; the elderly Englishwoman showed a constant and invaluable steadiness of nerves.
She curtsied. “Sir?”
“I must speak to your mistress at once.”
She disappeared into the depths of the suite. He heard her speak, then almost at once she returned. “She’s finishing her toilette, sir, but she says ye can go in.”
He followed Dafty into the dressing room, and there saw his mother clad in her dressing gown, her face bare of cosmetics, her hair straggling around her shoulders. Now, at this moment, she looked every day of her age, and she reminded him of a sailing vessel stripped of its sails, awkwardly bobbing at anchor.
“What problem is so important it can’t wait?” She sounded calmly interested.
“The problem is Celeste.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “You can’t handle her?”
“It’s not that. She says Stanhope lied about a message given me today.”
“She said that?”
Dafty patted a powder puff over Lady Philberta’s cheeks.
As the talc flew, Lady Philberta sneezed.
“Not exactly. She said Stanhope didn’t understand Russian well.”
“Of course, she would speak it.” Lady Philberta nodded. “How does she know . . . ?”
“She was in my office.” He explained the situation as Dafty finished Lady Philberta’s coiffure. When he had finished speaking, she took the rouge pot away from Dafty and said to her, “Dear, would you run and see if you can find Ludmilla within the house? We badly need to speak to her.”
Dafty curtsied.
“Make haste,” Lady Philberta added. “And don’t let Stanhope see you.”
With a quiet competence that lent weight to Lady Philberta’s faith in her, Dafty left the room.
“The Russians have found you out. Well, you’ve coordinated the matter of Central Asia for four years. That’s as long as anyone can expect to go undetected,” Lady Philberta said philosophically.
“It happens to us all, so they tell me.” Annoyed with the timing, but knowing no time would have been a good time, he held himself very still and thought. “We’ll have to increase the guards around the estate.”
“The children.” Lady Philberta rested her hand over her heart. “Given a chance, the Russians will not hesitate to take Penelope or Kiki and use them to extract sensitive information from you.”
He’d already thought of it, and an unfamiliar fear roiled in his belly. “The children will have a bodyguard at all times, not just when they’re outside.” No precaution was good enough, but he had picked his men with care. He would speak to them, ascertain that their loyalties had not wavered as he feared Stanhope’s had done. “If Dafty finds Ludmilla, how will we speak to her? We’ll have to send for a translator. You have no gift for languages, either.”
“Yes, and I’m sorry I passed that trait on to you.” She placed a beauty mark near her mouth. “If we find her, I fear we must agree Stanhope has lied to us.”
“Why? Why would he lie to us? Why would he . . . betray everything we have worked for, everything we hold sacred?”
“Money.” She waggled her head. “Dear, I know he is your friend, but consider. When you secured him a place at university, he didn’t have the patience to finish the course to become a barrister. When you handed him the stewardship of the estates, he proved incompetent to deal with the accounts. And his romantic misadventures rival Ellery’s.”
“Yet he’s been with me for years, a faithful and indispensable servant to me and the British Empire. He traveled with me to the most horrendous outposts in the most primitive of lands. He proved utterly reliable during negotiations with rajahs and hostile officials.”
Leaning toward the mirror, she dabbed rouge on her cheekbones and smoothed it with her fingertips. “Yes, but I’ve known other men who were grand adventurers, but were never able to settle down to the reality of everyday living. Stanhope is getting older, and despite a promising start, he’s nothing more than your secretary.”
“We climbed the Rohtang Pass. We survived an avalanche.” Throckmorton raked his fingers through his well-ordered hair. “We drank curdled yak milk together.”
She sighed impatiently.
His friend’s betrayal tore at Throckmorton’s guts. “Mother, he saved my life.”
Her fingers hesitated over the charcoal pencil. “Did he?”
“In an ambush. He took a knife meant for me.”
“How many years ago?” she asked with pointed significance.
He turned to the window to wrestle with his doubts.
“His father was a baron. His mother was an earl’s daughter and one of the coldest women I ever met. He was raised among the ton, and expected to take his place with the finest when his father lost it all in a single game of whist and shot himself.” Lady Philberta sounded completely analytical as she stepped into her dressing room and called, “You’re respected. You’re wealthy. And you have a family, albeit a difficult one.”
“Parts of it.” He heard the rustle of silk.
“You appear to have everything. He resents you.”
“Yes, but what appears on the surface to be perfect, is not, and he knows my secrets. He knows the hours I work. On my instructions, he’s gone to pay off Ellery’s lovers.” Throckmorton offered up Celeste as a sacrifice. “Celeste could resent the family’s success, also. The gardener’s daughter could be the Russian spy.”
“She could be.”
He found little comfort in the lush, civilized prospect below him. “But you don’t believe it’s likely?”
“No, but I’ve been in this business for forty-seven years.” Lady Philberta walked back into the room. “Nothing is impossible.”
Throckmorton pinched the bridge of his nose. That was not the answer he’d been looking for. He’d wanted assurances, but his mother, former operative for the British network,
could scarcely give him that.
“We should not underestimate the Russians’ acumen. Wiser men than you have fallen for a pretty face. They could hope to trap you.”
He faced his mother. “But to send Celeste, when her activities these past four years were so well known! It doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t make sense that she would return to disgrace her father. It doesn’t make sense that she would make a play for Ellery when I’m the great prize.”
Lady Philberta’s silver georgette tea gown billowed behind her. Her white hair was gathered at her neck, and wings swooped down to cover her ears. She now moved like a graceful ship at full sail.
As always, he marveled at the transformation.
Pausing by the chair, she gathered a cashmere shawl and draped it around her shoulders. “Where is she now?”
“In my office, awaiting my pleasure.” He winced. A bad choice of words.
Lady Philberta kindly ignored it. “One must always consider that she may have manipulated the situation to get to you. She is in your office.”
“The Russians would be fools to depend on her beauty to cloud my judgment.”
She laughed at him in open amusement. “You’re insulted that they might think you could be susceptible.”
The day had started badly and was disintegrating rapidly, and he thought he knew who he could blame for his vexation. “Ever since she appeared yesterday . . .”
With difficulty, Lady Philberta sobered. “You can’t blame it all on Miss Milford.”
“That’s true. I can blame Ellery, too.”
In her most severe tone, she said, “I would say you’ll suffer no complications from Ellery today.”
“Come, Mother, you can’t imagine I could foresee that disaster in the bedchamber!”
“I think you foresee more than you say.”
“He wasn’t hurt.”
“Seriously.” She held up a hand to halt any further protestations. “No matter, dear. It’s done. As long as you’ve got Ellery handled, we can concentrate on this Stanhope predicament.” She walked to the door.
“Ellery is handled,” he said. Celeste waited in his office, a woman who, if she was not the seducer, would be seduced.
9
Celeste was nodding over a book that she’d pulled from Mr. Throckmorton’s bookshelf when she’d heard his footsteps. She scrubbed at her cheeks to clear away that drowsy sensation, then rose and faced the open door.
“Celeste!” He moved toward her with a smooth, flowing gait.
He no longer looked grim, and although he wasn’t Ellery—she’d never seen a man as handsome as Ellery—he conveyed strength and confidence with every motion. Her comments about Mr. Stanhope’s linguistic skills had caused greater unrest than she’d realized, but she felt sure Mr. Throckmorton would handle the situation. He was the kind of man who handled every situation.
Indicating the book in her hand, he said, “Oliver Twist. What do you think?”
“I don’t like it.”
A slow smile blossomed on his face. “Really? Why?”
“It’s overwritten and slow, and Oliver is such a little martyr it’s hard to care whether he survives or not.” Remembering that the volume was his, and probably a favorite, she added, “But I’m sure it will get better as I read.”
“Don’t bother.” He plucked it from her grasp. “I had earlier judged you a woman of uncommon sense. It’s good to have my opinion confirmed.”
His frankness and lack of tact made her want to laugh out loud, but somehow, in the light of day, shared laughter seemed more dangerous than a shared kiss. So she watched him gravely. “What about the woman? Did you find her?”
He sealed her lips with his finger. “Forget about her. The matter is taken care of. In fact I would prefer that you not mention her again. Not to anyone. Promise me.”
She nodded, but her mind raced. How intriguing. Mr. Throckmorton apparently thought Stanhope had deliberately misinterpreted the woman’s words, but why?
“Stop thinking about that,” Mr. Throckmorton insisted. He pressed his finger more firmly against her lips—he seemed to like touching her lips—then lifted it away. “It’s not important. Let’s talk about . . .”
“That we can never do that again.” He hadn’t responded last time she’d said it, so she faced him with her chin raised. “It wasn’t right. I realize it was only a spontaneous response to the dim light and the music, and nothing to cudgel ourselves over, but I feel I must make my position clear.”
His eyebrows lifted during her speech, and remained at a questioning high. “Pardon me, my dear, but—your position on what?”
“That kissing!”
The eyebrows descended. They were rather nice eyebrows, bushy and dark over gray eyes rimmed with dark eyelashes, but Celeste found herself disconcerted by the fact he could transmit opinions through their use. Right now he was diverted, and she waited for the rather condescending comment about how she made too much of a simple salutation.
But he didn’t say that. He said, “I was hoping to discuss Ellery.”
“Ellery?”
“You remember Ellery. My brother? Tall”—he measured a height just below his own—“handsome, light on his feet?”
Throckmorton suffered a rather nasty tendency toward sarcasm. “Yes, I was hoping to see Ellery today.”
Throckmorton’s expression never changed. “As you wish, but he won’t like it.”
“I don’t mind viewing a few blotches.”
“It’s more than a few blotches, now.” Throckmorton cleared his throat. “Ellery suffered a bit of a catastrophe last night. I think every one of the servants on the upper floor heard it.”
She caught her breath in dismay. “What kind of catastrophe? Is he . . . ?”
“He wasn’t badly hurt.” Throckmorton seemed to be having difficulty maintaining his gravity. “In the dark, he wandered into the wrong bedchamber. He crashed into a mélange of paste and old paint, and brought down a ladder and newly hung drapes. Scared the good sense out of the housekeeper, and the nursery maids screamed so loud they woke the children.”
“He was in the nursery?”
“A bedchamber beside the nursery. Now, in addition to taking oatmeal baths, his valet is having to cut bits of wallpaper out of his hair, he’s wearing a sling and he’s limping. Luckily, the paint came off straight away, but it has made patches of his skin turn blue.”
“Blue?”
Throckmorton gestured, helpless to describe the color. “That blue one gets when the laundry accidentally puts blue stockings in with the white linens.”
Sadly, Celeste struggled against the appalling urge to laugh, too. “Oh, dear.” In dismay, she cleared her throat. Laughing! About Ellery! With Mr. Throckmorton! This would never do. “I wish to make myself very clear.” She tilted her chin at him and braced herself. “I plan to marry Ellery.”
He blinked as if her vehemence astonished him. “Well . . . yes. I thought that’s what all the fuss was about. Which reminds me, I want you to come to the garden tea today.”
“Don’t change the subject. I can make Ellery love me, and . . .” His meaning struck her. “Tea? In the gardens?” Teas were a Throckmorton tradition every day the family was in residence, and in the summer the garden teas served both the famous and the infamous in government and society. Lady Philberta was justly celebrated for their elegance, their variety, and the liveliness of the company. Her father was justly celebrated for the beauty of the setting. Certainly never before had the gardener’s daughter been invited to do more than serve. “Why . . . was this Ellery’s idea?”
With a stern quirk of his brow, Throckmorton said, “I control shipping and interests around the world. I’m in charge of plantations in the East and the Americas. Do you think me unable to plot the simple coup of positioning you to take the ton by storm?”
She wet her lips. “I didn’t realize—”
“That I managed so many interests?”
“That you were positi
oning me to take the ton by storm.”
“Something must be done. Ellery charged me to take care of you. I’ve considered every course, and I believe you would be more comfortable meeting everyone at tea than at a formal supper.” He took her hand and patted it. “You must do as you like, of course, but if I could presume to advise you?”
She nodded, her thoughts racing to her bedchamber where her wardrobe waited. What did she have that was appropriate for an English garden tea?
He continued, “I wouldn’t immediately mention my relationship to Milford.”
Her mind returned to this room as she considered whether to take offense. “Mr. Throckmorton, he’s my father and the best gardener in England. I’m proud to be his daughter.”
“As he’s proud of you. I’m simply suggesting that once the ton has taken you to their bosom—and with your style and wit, they will—they will be hard pressed to deny you for any reason. It’s for Ellery’s sake I propose this. He would not like to be shunned.”
Throckmorton presented her with a potent blend of flattery, reality, and dream come true, and Celeste found herself both excited and frightened. “Thank you for your guidance. I will try to do as you suggest.”
“But?”
“But if I’m asked I will acknowledge my background.”
“Of course. Never lie. It makes it too difficult to remember to whom you told what. Now come.” He tossed the book aside. “I’ll take you to Ellery’s chamber.”
He turned her hand in his, holding it as a lover might, and tugged her along. Her palm tingled where his palm rested, and her fingers twitched as if nerves jumped beneath her skin. She pulled back a little, wanting to take a stand against this intimacy, but before she could object, he placed her hand on his arm.
The walk through the house was fraught with impediments, most in the form of the few guests who had risen before noon to wander the corridors in search of breakfast. Each person stopped to greet Throckmorton and be introduced to Celeste. He did so with grace and ease. When the guest would have probed into her background, Throckmorton excused them by saying they had promised to visit poor Ellery.