not I.”
“Hortense didn’t do us any favors.” Clasping her hands behind her back, Jane glanced back towards the house, faintly visible between the fronds of the willow trees. “The party is small enough that one could effectively conduct surveillance on one’s own. There’s no need for both of us here.”
“Maybe it’s not about need,” said Augustus desperately. “Maybe it’s just about…nice. It’s nice to be here together. In the gardens. In the sunset.”
Jane shook her head. “We could be much more effective apart.”
“Effective,” Augustus repeated.
The sunset wasn’t effective; the swans on the lake weren’t, either. They were because they were, because they were beautiful, because they moved a man’s soul.
He could hear Emma’s voice in his head, saying apologetically,
The phantom Emma put her tongue out at him.
He looked at Jane, framed by weeping willows, silhouetted against the water, an objet d’art in her own right. He could imagine her with her pale brown hair streaming down her back, straight and shining as water, darker than honey, lighter than oak, defying definition, always slipping just out of reach. She was like a moonbeam, a faint gleam of light across the sky, making the throat grow dry and the heart constrict, beautiful to contemplate, impossible to hold.
No. It wasn’t right. He wouldn’t give up this easily.
Yes, she was beautiful. Yes, she was clever. Yes—he would admit it—she might be more than a little reserved. But there was more there. He had seen it. He had seen it in the quirk of her lip, the glint in her eye, the suppressed amusement that seemed, on more than one occasion, to be for him and him alone. They had worked together for more than a year now, and he had been sure, more than once, that he had sensed something more than a professional interest.
She was so used to his flummery by now that she probably thought it was nothing more than that, just another verse in an old poem.
“Is there nothing more to which to aspire than to efficacy?” he demanded. “What about—”
He was going to say love. He meant to say love. But his tongue refused to form the word.
“—poetry?” he finished lamely.
Jane clapped a hand to her bosom, fluttering her lashes coquettishly. “Why, Mr. Whittlesby! As always, you flatter me.” Her voice dropped. “Where is he?”
Augustus’s gaze immediately skittered to the side, scanning for intruders. “Who?”
Jane slowly straightened, giving him a perplexed look. “You went into role. I assumed there was someone there.”
“I see,” he said slowly.
And he did see. He had been right. He couldn’t hide behind flowery language; she would only read it as part of the masquerade, never realizing that below his silly shirt beat a heart that beat only for her. Well, partly for her.
“What if it wasn’t an act? What if I meant it?”
Jane narrowed her eyes at him. She didn’t look alarmed so much as bemused. “Really, what has got into you this evening?”
It wasn’t so much what had got into him as what had got away. He felt like he was clinging to the edge of a waterfall, trying, desperately, to push the water back.
“It’s not this evening,” he said. “It’s been a long time coming. It cannot come as a surprise to you to know that I have the deepest respect and admiration for you.”
“Thank you. The praise of an agent of your caliber is always a mark of honor.”
Agent. The word settled on his chest like the slabs once used to crush condemned men, one stone at a time.
“I don’t speak just as an agent,” he said, fighting against a growing sense of doom. “I know the circumstances are inconvenient. The circumstances are always inconvenient. But if you found yourself moved…”
Jane’s spine stiffened until she stood as upright as Miss Gwen. “We have a job to do, Mr. Whittlesby,” she said crisply. “An important job.”
“I know that,” he said. “Don’t you think I know that? I’ve been doing this since you were in pinafores. But there’s a time for work and a time for—”
She turned her back on him, stepping rapidly away from the rail. “I made some inquiries about Mr. Livingston,” she said quickly. “And about his financial interests. You were right.”
“I was?” Augustus felt slow and stupid. His mouth formed the words without connection to his brain.
She stayed a careful arm’s length away. Her voice had the determined cheerfulness of someone delegated to convey bad news. Cheerful voice, watchful eyes. “Your suspicions seem to have some basis in fact. I ought to have trusted your instincts on this.”
On this. Only this.
Jane’s mouth continued to move, conveying information that fell around him like leaves in autumn, dry and dead and brown, tainted with the scent of decay.
He had got it wrong. Jane wasn’t Cytherea, goddess of love and beauty; she was Cynthia, goddess of the moon, chaste and untouchable. The tower wasn’t his invention; it was her choice.
Or, maybe, she just didn’t want him.
Metaphor was no consolation. He could pile up classical allusions, one on top of the other, but none could hide the simple fact that Jane had known what he was saying and had deliberately ducked and dodged. She didn’t want his declarations of love.
He could smell the sickly sweet scent of Emma’s pity clinging to his skin like rot. She had known and he hadn’t. She had known exactly what was going to happen. Had she and Jane discussed it over their coffees with Hortense Bonaparte? Had they laughed over his ridiculous pretensions?
No, they wouldn’t have laughed. Jane would have simply deflected all questions with a smile and a change of subject.
Jane had paused in whatever she was saying. She was looking at him expectantly, waiting for him to reply.
“I’m sorry,” said Augustus roughly. “Can you repeat that? I’m afraid I missed the end of it.”
She smiled approvingly, thanking him for what he hadn’t said. “Mr. Livingston’s primary interest seems to be the munitions factory, but, as far as I’ve been able to tell, he hasn’t conducted any business on its behalf during this visit. Instead, there’s talk of a new business venture.”
Augustus forced himself to frame the right words. He felt like one of those chickens that continued to careen around the barnyard long after the fatal blow had been administered, too stupid to realize it was dead. “What sort of business venture?”
“That’s still unclear. It appears to involve Mr. Fulton.”
“Fulton?” The name drifted towards him from a very long way away, like flotsam on the river. “The inventor?”
“The very one.” Jane’s gaze sharpened on Augustus. “Do you know anything?”
“Madame Delagardie commissioned Fulton to make a wave machine for the masque.”
Like a swimmer breaking the surface of the water, dragging in his first, gasping breath, Augustus felt his fogged brain begin to clear. There was something there…some connection.
“Wait,” he said sharply.
