Ivy and Intrigue: A Very Selwick Christmas Page 6

  Jane just looked at her. Amy could see her right eyebrow beginning to rise.

  Not the eyebrow. She couldn"t take the eyebrow just now.

  “Never mind,” Amy said hastily. “Forget I asked.”

  Silly her. Jane undoubtedly had the entire floor plan of Uppington Hall committed to memory, outbuildings and all. Just an average precaution in the day of a professional spy.

  That was, Amy was forced to admit, one reason why she herself hadn"t lasted terribly long in the trade. She was very good at the whole dashing escapades bit, but very poor at advance planning. After all, how was one to know what one wanted to know until one was in a position to want to know it? Unless one was Jane, that was.

  The winding stair spat them out onto an intricately inlaid marble floor that Amy recognized as belonging to the first floor. Jane led the way soundlessly down another corridor, pausing in front of an ornate door with a curved top, that Amy recognized as the door to the library.

  Richard had taken her there the other day to show her his favorite globe, the one that he had accidentally launched out the French doors and into the duck pond as a scapegrace little boy.

  The thought made Amy smile. But only for a moment.

  How many more stories would they have time to exchange if she were to go back off to Paris?

  A sharp hiss of indrawn breath brought her back to the business at hand. With a warning look, Jane held a finger to her lips and angled her head to the door.

  * * *

  Marlowe… Marvell…. Richard"s finger followed an alphabetical line across the shelf of verse, but it was no use. Dead poets were all very well in their way, but their cold hands couldn"t lend talent to the living.

  It had really been quite poor planning on his part, his mother had opined with that irritating touch of maternal smugness, to write poetry to a teenage infatuation but not to his bride.

  Richard"s pointing out that “teenage” and “infatuated” were the general prerequisites for the writing of poetry had left his mother unmoved.

  “But Amy doesn"t want poetry,” he had argued.

  “Don"t be silly,” his mother had said, as though he were closer to eight than twenty-eight.

  “All women want poetry. Especially when you"ve been writing it to someone else. I saw the look on her face when that dreadful Deirdre announced that she had poetry from you.”

  How could he explain that the look had been there already, product of homesickness for a life he had taken away from her—and then offered back to her. Somehow, the giving back hadn"t worked quite as he intended. She had seemed, in fact, more upset by the cure than by the disease. Richard frowned at the elaborately embossed bindings. He knew he was missing something, but he couldn"t for the life of him figure out what. With a sigh, Richard tossed Marvell and his winged chariots aside. Poetry wasn"t the remedy. But since he wasn"t quite sure what the remedy was, here he was, on the second floor balcony of his parents" library at three in the morning on Christmas Eve, culling the shelves for inspiration.

  Merton… Milton…. Paradise Lost hit a bit too close to home right now. Richard picked up Paradise Regained, but it appeared to be entirely devoid of useful tips on how to get back to a state of grace.

  Below, the library door slid inward. A female figure stepped hesitantly in. Richard glanced eagerly down, but it was the wrong woman. She was too tall, fair rather than dark. Her blonde curls glowed like a nimbus in the light of her candle. Pushing the door closed behind her, she looked from left to right, as though she were looking for something or somebody.

  Blast. Deirdre. He bloody hoped she wasn"t looking for him. Richard ducked behind a bust of Horace. He felt like a fool, hiding behind the statuary, but he really wasn"t in the mood for another tete-a-tete, particularly not at a singularly compromising hour of the morning. With any luck, she had just come for a book to wile away the sleepless hours, and, having found one, would depart forthwith.

  Funny, that. He didn"t remember Deirdre being much of a reader. Of poetry or prose. But that had all been seven years ago. They had all changed in seven years. Perhaps Lord Jerard had awakened her to an appreciation of the joys of good prose. Or perhaps she was just very, very bored.

  She moved purposefully towards the far end of the room. Purposeful was good. Go on, Richard thought, sucking in his breath and pushing as far back against the wall as he could.

  Horace rested on a very pointy plinth, which was doing its best to put a permanent dent in Richard"s midsection. Pick a book. Pick a book and go.

  Instead of heading for the shelves, she made for the French doors that opened out onto the snowbound garden. Richard stifled a sigh. Brilliant. That was all he needed. Soulful staring into the moon-bright night while he found himself punctured in places God had never intended.

  Pushing aside one of the heavy brocaded drapes, she leaned close to the glass panel, so close that her breath left a fine fog on the glass. Holding up her candle, she moved it first to the right, then to the left, as though she were… signaling. Signaling whom?

  Before Richard could speculate further, she unlatched the door with a quick, decisive motion, yanking it open with one hand. The draperies blew back as a frigid gust of air rushed into the room, and with it, the androgynous form of someone shrouded in a thick black cloak, a hood pulled low over his or her head.

  “I thought I was like to freeze out there!” said in a female voice, in very colloquial French.

  “English, please,” said Deirdre coldly, in the sort of voice he had never heard her use before.

  “And keep your voice down. We don"t know who else is about. The house is simply swarming with Selwicks and their brats.”

  Richard"s jaw had relocated to somewhere in the vicinity of his waistline. What in the devil?

  An irreverent part of his brain speculated on exactly what his mother would have done to his former ladylove had she heard her darling grandchildren being referred to as brats. A more useful part of his brain was wondering what the devil she was about and exactly why she was conducting rendezvous with French speaking persons in his parents" library in the wee hours of the morning.

  “I need more time,” Deirdre was saying. “I haven"t got it yet.”

  The cloaked figure made a gesture of displeasure. “I thought you said it would be an easy job.”

  Deirdre frowned. “It should have been. The wife was an unanticipated complication.”

  “You mean,” said the other woman, with Gallic directness, “that he no longer has the infatuation for you.”

  “Nonsense,” said Deirdre, with a smile that sent a chill right through Richard"s wool coat, brocade waistcoat and assorted layers of linen. “It"s simply a matter of reminding him.”

  Richard and Horace exchanged a look of masculine disgust.

  “It will just take me a little more time to persuade him to confide in me, that"s all. But he will,” Deirdre concluded, with insulting assurance. Had he really been that much of a pushover seven years before? Apparently, yes. “For old time"s sake.”

  Their old times hadn"t been that good.

  Below, the library door appeared to be moving of its own accord. It slid slightly and then stopped again. Their backs to it, neither Deirdre nor her companion noticed. Richard frowned down at the portal, but it appeared to have decided to stay still.

  The other woman arrived at a decision. “I shall return tomorrow, then. The same time. Shall you be able to stay another night?”

  Deirdre gave a nonchalant shrug. “I don"t see why not.”

  “But I do!” This time, the door was definitely in motion. It careened open, bumping into his mother"s wallhangings before rebounding back. As Richard watched, his wife charged into the room like a very short Valkyrie, waving a—was that a warming pan?—over her head like a battle axe.

  His wife skidded to a halt, warming pan at the ready, and confronted the two startled conspirators. “Don"t even think of trying to escape. I heard everything. The game is up!”

  Chapt
er Six

  We are not daily beggars

  That beg from door to door,

  But we are neighbors’ children

  Whom you have seen before.

  --“Here We Go A-Wassailing”

  Lady Jerard gave a delightful, silvery laugh. She looked with amusement at the warming pan.

  “What are you planning to do, heat me to death?”

  Amy narrowed her eyes at her. “Burning is the usual sentence for witches.”

  “Dear Lady Richard.” Lady Jerard moved forward with hands outstretched. “We seem to have suffered a misunderstanding.”

  “Indeed. You made the mistake of underestimating ME.” Grasping exactly what the other woman was trying to do, Amy made a mad dash around her, intercepting the cloaked figure just before she slipped out through the French doors to safety. “Your missing maid, I presume?” she panted.

  There was an undulation beneath the cloak and the tip of something dark and shiny appeared through one of the folds.

  “I shall not make the same mistake,” said a French-inflected voice.

  Amy didn"t stop to think. She swung. Jane was right; the warming pan did make an entirely satisfying thunk. She had meant to hit the pistol, but the trajectory of a warming pan wasn"t quite what she had imagined it would be. She hit the maid instead. The woman went down with a thud, sending the pistol tumbling across the snagged surface of the carpet.

  Abandoning her warming pan, Amy dove for the pistol. But not soon enough. As Amy skidded across the carpet, up to her elbows in rug burn, the loathsome Deirdre neatly leaned over and scooped it up. She hadn"t even disarranged her hair.

  “My, my,” said Lady Jerard, examining the pistol as though she had never seen one before.

  “This does change matters, doesn"t it?”

  Amy really didn"t like the sound of that. There was nothing like being flat on the floor on the carpet while someone pointed a pistol at one to put one at a bit of a disadvantage.

  “Not really,” said a voice from above. Both women twisted their heads to look up. Twenty feet up, the former Purple Gentian swung a debonair leg over the balcony railing. The rest of him looked awfully debonair, too, thought his wife fondly. All that was missing was his black cape and mask. “You, madam, are still a self-confessed traitor. And I heard it, too.”

  With that, he jumped from the balcony, launching himself at the broad metal ring of the chandelier.

  Amy scrambled to her feet, trying to figure out if she could catch him if he fell, or if that would just mean both of them falling over and being squashed flat. For a heart-stopping moment he hung suspended from the side of the chandelier, which had gone entirely perpendicular, candles tumbling down like icicles around them. Letting go, he dropped lightly onto the balls of his feet in front of an open-mouthed Lady Jerard.

  “I always wanted to do that,” Richard said with a disarming grin, and plucked the pistol from Lady Jerard"s hand.

  Tossing the pistol to his wife, the Purple Gentian grabbed hold of Lady Jerard"s arms, wrenching them behind her back in a decidedly unsentimental hold.

  Amy found that she was jumping up and down like an idiot, wafting the pistol in the air and shouting things like, “Huzzah!” and “Well-played!” and “Serves you right!”

  She came to an abrupt halt mid-cheer as the library door bounced open for the third time that evening. It wasn"t Jane, who, having set events in motion, appeared to have made herself scarce. Instead it was… ah. Amy sobered rapidly as her mother-in-law strode into the library, looking distinctly unamused.

  “What in heaven"s name is going on down here?” demanded Lady Uppington, bustling into the library in a truly impressive dressing down of flowing green brocade. “It"s hard enough to get the children to sleep on Christmas Eve, but at your age, one would have thought—oh.”

  The maternal tirade trailed to a halt as her voice caught up with her other senses. She looked from her son, holding his former beloved"s arms twisted around her back, to her daughter-in-law, hopping up and down and waving a pistol in the air, to the crumpled figure lying on the floor next to a severely dented warming pan.

  Lady Uppington"s mouth opened and closed several times. Regaining some limited power of speech, she said, very slowly, and very carefully, “Is there something you would both like to tell me?”

  Amy felt a bit as though she had been caught sticking a finger into the Christmas pudding, but Richard answered without fear.

  “She is a spy,” he said brusquely, giving Lady Jerard a little shake.

  “Both of them,” Amy contributed, gesturing with her pistol towards the huddled creature on the floor. The figure remained inert, although whether from necessity or policy remained unclear. Amy really hadn"t thought she had hit her that hard.

  Lady Uppington"s lips set in a thin line. “Spies? Again? They"re worse than moths, these spies! They get into everything. And on Christmas!”

  “I don"t think they"ve been chewing your draperies, Mother,” said Richard mildly, readjusting his hold on his captive. Amy was pleased to note that it was a readjustment that placed them in less intimate proximity.

  Lady Uppington looked sourly at her son. “Oh, ha, ha. But they"re far harder to dispose of.

  One can"t just swat the daughter of a neighbor. It would be too terribly awkward.” She looked sternly at Lady Jerard. “Does your mother know about this, young lady?”

  Somehow, through it all, Lady Jerard"s clusters of curls were still perfectly arranged. She looked arrogantly at her hostess. “No.”

  “Hmm,” said Lady Uppington. “Well, she"ll have to, you know,” she said, as if she were reporting some childish transgression, like jumping in the duck pond or eating all the plums out of the plum pudding. But she spoiled the illusion by adding, “And I suppose the proper authorities will have to be told. We can"t have you running about doing this sort of thing again.”

  “Out of curiosity,” said Richard, again in that mild, controlled voice, “just how long have you been doing this?”

  Lady Jerard"s countenance looked more than ever like porcelain, very fine porcelain, prone to cracks and jagged edges. “The first time was an accident,” she said in a brittle voice. With a grim little smile, she added sweetly, “But a widow has to eke out her jointure somehow.”

  “Stuff and nonsense!” Lady Uppington emitted one of her infamous harrumphs. “Save the affecting tales for when you"re not wearing your diamonds, my dear. If Jerard didn"t leave you with a thousand pounds a year, I"ll eat the Uppington emeralds.”

  Lady Uppington was spared making good on that culinary feat by the sound of something very large hitting the library door. It turned out to be Miles, who obviously had expected it to be locked. He barreled into the room shoulder first and kept on going. He was followed, more demurely, by a bright-eyed Henrietta, a glowering Miss Gwen, and a meek-looking Jane, all in their slippers and nightcaps.

  “Is something wrong?” Jane mumbled, swaying on her feet a bit as though befuddled by sleep. She rubbed her knuckles across her eyes. “The noise woke us up.”

  Oooh, well done, thought Amy. If either of the spies succeeded in escaping, they would never suspect a sleepy and confused young lady, ten minutes late to the scene, of having had anything to do with their detection and apprehension.

  “We all heard a racket,” seconded Miles, swirling a cricket bat in the air and narrowly missing decapitating a bust of Pliny.

  Assorted spies and revelations had left him unmoved, but…. “That"s my cricket bat!”

  protested Richard.

  “I couldn"t find mine,” said Miles, unrepentant, “and I didn"t want to come down unarmed.

  One never knows what one might find.”

  “Spies,” said Lady Uppington tartly, as Henrietta appropriated the bat, tucking it under her own arm for safekeeping. “Infesting the woodwork. Again.”

  “At least they look like small ones this time,” said Miles cheerfully. “Not the big, ugly variety.”

  “No, j
ust the local, treacherous variety,” put in Amy.

  “Spyus Neighborus,” contributed Henrietta giddily. Looking at the woman standing in her brother"s grasp, she added smugly, “I knew I never liked you. And it wasn"t just all the awful poetry Richard was writing.”

  “I thought it was lovely poetry,” said Lady Jerard stiffly. Amy peered closely at her. She actually appeared to mean it. Maybe she had been in love with Richard, even if just a little bit. It was an appalling thought.

  Miles shook his head. “Doing it a bit too brown. Old Richard there has many talents, but verse ain"t one of them.”

  “Oh?” said Richard. One eyebrow appeared over Lady Jerard"s high-piled curls. “What about your Ode to Spring?”

  “Oh, for—I was only eight!”

  “Ten. „When the leaves pop out on the tree, tra la/ And the sun shines over the sea, tra la"….”

  “At least he had the sense to give it up before he turned twenty,” Henrietta waded into the fray on her beloved"s behalf.

  “Sense, ha!” Miss Gwen cut off the recitation with a judicious thump of her parasol. Under the force of her glare, no one had the nerve to inquire what she was doing with a parasol inside the house, in the depths of December, at three in the morning, in the midst of a snowstorm. “If you had any sense among the lot of you, you"d think twice before leaving the library littered with the operatives of a foreign power. It is pure sloppiness.”

  “I suppose we shall have to put them somewhere,” agreed Lady Uppington with a sigh. “And on Christmas, too. Too, too provoking.”

  “We could tie them up with holly and stuff their mouths with mistletoe,” contributed Miles cheerfully.

  “Or not,” said his brother-in-law. “Can we hurry this along? My arms are getting tired.”

  “You could just hit her with the warming pan,” suggested Amy. “I found that worked well for me. And it makes such a satisfying thunk.”