smartest, his cravat starched and arranged to a monstrosity, and every sparkling gewgaw he’d brought with him pinned here and there about his person. For her part the girl seemed to be doing her best to put on smiles when he catered to her. It was something of a relief to watch them, a comedy unfolding for her parents’ interested appraisal and Worthmore’s increasing consternation.
It was not sufficient distraction for Leam. It proved impossible to always be in Kitty’s company and not to watch her and want her.
He absented himself from the party. On the first day he took his horse to the nearby villages, trekking across fields sloppy with melting snow. Wearing his shabbiest coat, he made himself comfortable at pubs and fell into conversation with farmers and shopkeepers. He’d learned early in the game to look first to the locals for information. Five years ago he had devised his persona largely because it aided in that task.
He learned nothing of note. No strangers had come through save the members of his own party at Willows Hall. No laborers had been absent from the estate and surrounding areas on Christmas Day.
Leam’s shooter had not come into or from this neighborhood, it seemed.
On the second day he returned to the inn, Bella and Hermes in tow. Milch welcomed him, and they sat down to a pint and conversation, and Leam learned what he should have days ago if his head had been on straight.
Cox could well have been the shooter. He had indeed gone out for several minutes before the shooting, according to Milch, as Yale had suspected. The Welshman and the dogs had run toward the river when they ought to have been tracking around the rear entrance of the inn. Leam cursed himself for his distraction, for foolishly dismissing his suspicion of Cox because he imagined his jealousy over his attentions to Kitty was clouding his judgment. But his judgment had been fine. His jealousy was damning him yet again.
He continued on to the local magistrate’s house, an ancient squire more worried about his lower field flooding with the thaw than the personal squabbles of “trinkery Londoners.” He’d been told about the shooting and the ladies and gentlemen all holed up in an inn like loose cards. He glowered at Leam and suggested that he and his friend resolve their differences over their “fancy piece” in private instead of bothering him and everybody else with it. But if they knew what was good for them, henceforth they would keep their “pistols” in their pockets.
Leam returned to Willows Hall late, begged pardon of his hostess for his absence, and went to bed.
He rode out again the third day merely to maintain his distance, eschewing cards and more games within for activity beneath the leaden sky. Upon his return hours later he tended to his horse for as long as he could make that excuse.
In company, Kitty did not address him directly.
That evening after the ladies had gone up, he told Lord Vale that he regretted he must depart so soon. At dawn the following day Leam packed his bag and set off for Liverpool.
Yale caught up with him just before Whitchurch.
“Hell and damnation, Blackwood,” he clipped. “If you’d have bothered to divulge your plans I could have told you Jinan sent word to Willows Hall that he’s to meet us in Wrexham.”
“How did he—”
“How does he discover anything? He has contacts and messengers from Canton to the West Indies that none of us know about.”
“He isn’t the only one.” Leam pulled up on the road overhung with heavy gray clouds. “Why don’t you go to work for the Foreign Office now that the Club is finished, Wyn? The Home Office would take you too. You could make yourself useful in France or wherever you choose.”
“You’ve been waiting to ask me that for weeks, haven’t you?” The Welshman’s eyes showed pure sobriety.
“Not waiting. Simply not interested.”
“Then why ask now?”
Leam spurred his horse forward.
“Gray called on me early the morning you and I left town.”
Leam snapped his head around. “And you decided not to mention this to me until now?”
“It seems the information concerning Scottish rebels is quite good, from two of the Home Office’s best informants. Someone is stirring up seditionist rabble in the Highlands. The Home Office already has a list of possible ringleaders.”
“I told the both of you that I don’t give a damn about that. I promised to meet Jin and learn the information he has for the director that cannot be conveyed by post. That, after all, is why you are here.”
“So that you can then hasten to Alvamoor and send me back as courier to Gray with all the juicy details. Yes. I do recall.”
For several minutes only the sloshing of hooves and dripping of tree branches could be heard between them.
“And what of the lovely Lady Katherine?”
Leam reined in, drew the pistol out of his pack, and pointed it across the road. Yale leaned back comfortably in the saddle, his black’s delicate hooves splashing in the deep puddles as he passed by.
“You’ve got to cock it first, old man.”
“You’d like it if I shot you, wouldn’t you, Wyn? You’d be damned glad of it.”
“Speak for yourself.”
Leam pocketed the weapon and pressed his mount forward.
“She did not appear crestfallen to learn of your sudden departure,” the Welshman commented, “in the event that you were wondering.”
“I wasn’t.”
“Cad.”
“You’re sounding more like Colin every day, Wyn. Take care.”
The Welshman chuckled. “My intended was not sorry to see me go either. Madame Roche, however, made it clear she expected both you and me back within the sennight. Lady Vale added her charming encouragement. Our host even extended a formal invitation. Why, with such a gracious urging, I could not resist. I vowed I would make it so.”
Leam peered at his friend.
Yale shrugged. “It seems I have grown accustomed to my fate.” He looked at Leam’s face and expelled a rare crack of laughter. “My pretended fate! Good Lord, Leam, it would be like marrying my sister.”
“You haven’t any sisters.”
“I do now.” He smiled slightly. “I have come to feel somewhat protective of the chit. Like I would of an unprofitable spaniel who is nevertheless too clever to put down.”
“And Lady Emily?”
“Informed me yesterday that if I were to kiss her hand one more time she will boil it in oil so that the next time I would be obliged to kiss festering pus.”
For the first time in ages, it seemed, Leam grinned.
“Just so,” his friend murmured.
“Then on to Wrexham with haste, so that you may return to Willows Hall and pull the remainder of the rug out from under Worthmore’s feet.”
But their sailor friend was not in Wrexham. Messengers had crossed paths. Jin was on his way to Willows Hall via Oswestry, and Leam and Wyn had missed him on the eastern road.
They spent the night in Wrexham, then as the temperature dropped and snow fell in light gusts once more, made their way south again along byways thick with icy mud. Assisting a pair of carters from a ditch amid the evergreen hills of the Welsh borderlands, Yale’s Cambridge drawl slid away, replaced by the rough Celtic lilt of his homeland. Leam barely understood a word the three Welshmen exchanged, but he didn’t begrudge it. His friend’s secrets were his own, as they had always been.
The snowfall increased, layering the soggy earth afresh. When the rooftop of Willows Hall glimmered on the hill in the distance, Leam’s chest tightened.
Lady Vale met them in the foyer as they removed coats and hats.
“Mr. Yale, we are happy you have returned in such short time. And my lord, it is an honor.”
Lady Emily appeared at the stair banister above. Her lips pursed. She pivoted about and bumped into Kitty coming onto the landing.
