Replica

Nadia smiled and patted Mrs. Reeves’s shoulder. “Don’t worry about him, Mrs. Reeves. I’ll ask him about it myself.”

“And you’ll let me know if Hampton was telling me the truth? If she lied to me, then she doesn’t belong in this household.”

Nadia didn’t want anyone to get fired over this, especially not some hapless maid who probably thought it was some harmless gossip. But if Missy Hampton concocted a cover story blaming someone else for what she’d done, then she deserved to be fired.

“I’ll let you know,” Nadia promised.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Nadia didn’t know what to make of Mrs. Reeves’s revelation. Maybe Hampton was making the whole encounter with Dante up, just to have someone else to point the finger at. Or maybe everything had happened exactly the way Hampton said, but it hadn’t been Dante she’d seen. Even if it was Dante, that could easily be coincidence. After all, there were plenty of legitimate reasons he might be in the hallway of their apartment. And of course, he could have been sneaking around on some errand of Mosely’s.

Logistically, it was fairly easy to imagine Dante having had access to her tray, without anything in his actions seeming particularly daring or out of place. What didn’t make sense was for him to be conveying messages to her from Bishop, of all people. If he were truly working for Dirk Mosely, then he was the enemy—no matter how friendly he seemed—and there was no way he had any contact with Bishop. Of course, it was possible, maybe even likely, that Bishop had used an intermediary of some kind. Maybe Dante had no idea he was delivering a message from the man who’d supposedly murdered the Chairman Heir.

The only way she’d find out would be to question Dante, but the idea frightened her. If she let on that she’d had contact with Bishop, and if Dante relayed that message to Mosely …

The old, painfully cautious Nadia would have measured the risks against the potential rewards and decided not to pursue this. But Nate had put his life on the line trying to find Bishop, and, thanks to the note, Nadia might now be able to help him, or at least point him in the right direction.

At two o’clock, she headed down to the schoolroom for her classes, praying that Jewel and Blair would be absent. Surely they wouldn’t show up three days in a row. She let out a breath of relief when there was no sign of either one of them. Chloe was still keeping her distance as well, and Nadia suspected her former friend would soon formally withdraw from the class. Nadia wasn’t sure if it was because of the lingering taint on her reputation, or because Chloe knew their friendship could never recover from the awkwardness.

Whatever the reason, Nadia was Mr. Guthrie’s sole pupil—unless you counted Dante, who was openly listening now that Jewel wasn’t around to harass him about it.

No matter how much Nadia usually enjoyed Mr. Guthrie’s lectures, this time she could barely focus enough to keep up with him. She found herself constantly watching Dante out of the corner of her eye, searching for any clue to who he really was, what he really wanted. Trying to discern whether he was a danger to her, a possible ally, or just a coincidental bystander. Once or twice, Dante caught her looking, and Nadia hastily glanced away.

When the class was over, Nadia doubted she could have repeated back a single thing from the lesson. She chatted amiably with Mr. Guthrie as the teacher packed up his things. If she was going to confront Dante about the note, now was by far the best time to do it, so, as Mr. Guthrie made his way out, Nadia drifted over to the refreshments table, where Dante was clearing away the untouched plates of sandwiches and pastries. She fixed herself a nerve-soothing cup of tea as he carried the plates away. Then, when he returned, she pointedly made eye contact.

The wariness that crept into Dante’s expression the moment she met his eyes put her on alert. True, she didn’t make a habit of initiating conversation, but something about the way he was looking at her made her think he knew exactly why she had stayed behind.

Dante averted his eyes and reached for the coffee urn.

“I want to talk to you,” Nadia said, though she was sure he’d already guessed that much.

Dante hesitated a moment as if in surprise, then shrugged and picked up the urn. “So talk,” he said, turning his back on her and carrying the urn toward the dumbwaiter at the far end of the room.

Nadia shook her head at him as she followed on his heels. “You’re the world’s worst imitation servant,” she told his back, and was rewarded by a faltering of his footsteps.

He recovered quickly, resuming his march toward the dumbwaiter. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He wasn’t the world’s greatest spy, either, Nadia decided. Shouldn’t a professional spy be able to lie more convincingly than that? Then again, he didn’t look to be any older than Nate, and he couldn’t have had a lot of on- the-job experience. Perhaps Mosely had set him on her as some sort of a training mission. If so, he’d need a lot more training before he’d be ready for the real thing.

“Why don’t you make things easier for both of us by dropping the charade?” she suggested. He kept his face averted as he thumped the coffee urn onto the dumbwaiter, but she could see the flush of red creeping up his neck. Whether the flush was embarrassment or anger, she couldn’t tell.

“Drop what charade?” he asked, turning his back on her again and striding toward the refreshments table.

He moved fast enough that if she’d tried to turn and follow at the same speed, she’d have spilled her tea. “You know, a real servant wouldn’t turn his back on his employer and walk away when she’s trying to talk to him.”

He stopped in his tracks, his broad shoulders tight with tension. He risked a look at her, and there was an expression she couldn’t quite interpret in his eyes. Anger, maybe, though she thought it was more complicated than that.

“You’re not my employer,” he said. “Your father is. And I have a lot of work to do.”

Nadia had known who Dante’s true employer was since before she’d ever laid eyes on him, and it wasn’t her father. Perhaps she would get him in trouble by revealing she knew the truth about him, but there was too much at stake for her to continue being so cautious. She put the cup of tea down, no longer interested in it.

“You work for Dirk Mosely,” she countered, unable to keep the distaste out of her voice. He seemed remarkably likable for someone who worked for Mosely, but then maybe he was better at acting than she gave him credit for. “You’re here to spy on me, and I’m tired of pretending I don’t know it.” Not that her pretense had been any more convincing than his had been.

Nadia could practically see the denial on the tip of Dante’s tongue as he once again met her eyes, this time with a definite hint of belligerence in his expression. But both the belligerence and the denial faded away as his shoulders slumped. Maybe he realized that nothing he said would convince her, or maybe he was as tired of pretending as she was.

“If you’re so sure you’re right, then what is it you want to talk about?” He sounded weary, almost defeated, and she wondered what Mosely would do if he found out Dante’s cover was blown. A reasonable man would understand that Dante’s cover had been ridiculously thin to start with and wouldn’t blame him for being discovered, but Mosely was not a reasonable man.

“I’m not going to tell on you, if that’s what you’re worried about,” she reassured him.

He gave her a wry little smile. “You mean you’re not going to call your good friend Dirk and demand I be removed from your home immediately?”

Okay, maybe that hadn’t been what he’d been worried about. She matched his smile and his dry tone. “Much as I love chatting with him, no, I’m not.”

Some of the tension eased out of his shoulders, and he came closer to her, no longer looking like he was on the verge of fleeing. The look in his green-flecked eyes softened in sympathy.