“Come.” He stood up and pulled her to her feet. “I want to show you something.” Valen led her to the window and unlocked the sash, swinging it open, and then he leaned out. The cool night air blew some sense into his wobbling brain. “Take a look down here.”
She peeked nervously over the edge.
“Do you see? It’s three stories down.”
“I know that. But I’ve heard stories of thieves and brigands who can climb—”
He nodded. “Up drain pipes and trellises. There is neither a drain nor a trellis outside your window.”
“But his face, I saw it so clearly. Right here. I woke up. It sounded as if someone were fiddling with the latch. And there he was, outside the glass. Here.”
Valen stared out of the window, squinting into the darkness, wondering if the ledge under her casement was wide enough to hold a deranged French spy.
Robert straggled into the room in his nightshirt carrying a candle. “What’s all the to do? Kept hearing screams in my sleep again. I swear, Izzie, I should have left you home with Mama. Never should have tried to bring you to town. Too much bother.”
She sniffed, and the tip of her nose made its familiar journey toward the ceiling. “Very nice. Considering I am the one with the plan to keep us out of the River Tick.”
“You and your plans. This is another superb example of what happens when I listen to your schemes.” Robert set the candle down and dropped unceremoniously into the chair at her bedside. “And what are you doing here, Valen? Devil take it. Do I need to call you out for being in my sister’s room in the middle of the night?”
Valen and Izzie exchanged guilty glances.
The truth always being the best option, Valen launched into a full frontal attack of honesty. “Yes. Go ahead then, call me out. Undoubtedly, I deserve it. You know all too well that I’m not much of a stickler on the proprieties. Alluring chit, your sister. Thought I’d just dash into her room and have my way with her after a busy night of chasing Merót around London. A pity she had a nightmare and ruined the mood.”
Izzie looked up at him in alarm.
Valen winked at her. “What say you, Robert, pistols at dawn? Perhaps I might persuade you to postpone until dawn two days from now? I’m devilishly tired.”
Robert appeared to be half dozing in the chair. “Right. I take it Merót got away then, the slippery bugger. Sorry, Izzie. Excuse my language.”
“He did.” Valen tugged Elizabeth back toward the bed. “I was just showing your sister that he could not possibly have been the apparition she saw outside her window. Three stories up. No drain pipe or trellis.”
Robert propped his head in his hand. “I dunno. Wouldn’t put it past him. Clever devil, our Merót.”
Valen wanted to smack his friend in the head. “In that case, I hope you find that chair comfortable. You will stay here in her room with her to make certain there are no more apparitions at her window.”
Robert groaned.
Izzie climbed under the bedsheets, and Valen reached down to tuck them. His hand grazed against a foreign fabric under her pillow. He tugged at it, and leaned over her to get a glimpse of it. In the flickering light of Robert’s candle he recognized the edge of a sleeve sewn of green brocade, a green brocade decorated with peacocks and trimmed in hideous orange satin.
His coat, under her pillow. He would have laid odds she had burned the thing. Valen stared at Izzie, trying to sort it out. She smiled up at him. Then, as it dawned on her what he’d discovered, her expression turned to dread. She turned to see his hand beside her pillow and groaned. Rolling quickly onto her side, she jerked the fabric away from him and stuffed it back under her pillow.
Robert thumped his hand angrily against the arm of the chair. “I should have known!”
They looked over at him. Valen feared his confounded desire for Izzie must be a palpable thing. Robert really would have to call him out if he could read his thoughts at this moment.
Izzie’s voice arced up a trifle too high. “Should have known what?”
“Merót! When he disappeared on the continent—I should have guessed he’d come here. But no, I assumed he’d hared off to Russia.”
Izzie relaxed and Valen with her.
“Might have puzzled it out, too, if I hadn’t gotten called home. What the devil has he been up to?”
Valen stood up and paced to the window. “His old game, I expect, advising Napoleon’s generals on the movements of our troops.”
“But how?”
“We discussed it at length in the war offices today. If we have guessed correctly, his was a relatively simple scheme. Officers have sisters, sweethearts, mothers. These women buy silk. You know how charming he can be.” Valen glanced furtively at Elizabeth, who refused to look in his direction.
He continued. “Suppose he ingratiates himself to a lady who wishes to purchase his silk. In the course of conversation, this lady mentions she has received a letter from her sweetheart or son who is marching, let us say, toward Madrid. Merót, merely by expressing a casual interest, might easily extract more information regarding troop movement without her becoming suspicious in the least.”
Izzie sat up, startled. “You may be right!” She glanced from Valen to her brother. “Not three weeks ago, just as I entered the shop, Mr. Smythe escorted Lady Cauvil out from behind his curtain. At the time, I thought it odd that she should be in a back room, alone with a shopkeeper. But she probably wasn’t, was she? Merót must have been there. Smythe handed her a package, and she nodded amiably to me, as if nothing were amiss. I forgot all about it until now.” Izzie looked expectantly at her brother. “You realize, don’t you, Lady Cauvil has a younger son posted with Wellington in Spain.”
Robert nodded.
