The Gentleman Spy: A Guardian/Ward Historical Romance

Chapter 1

Beauden Calverleigh’s gloved hand flexed on the reins. The gnawing creak of leather scraped against the soft sounds of the Kentish countryside: the distant rush of constant water, a cold wind with just enough power to rustle leaves loosened and fallen to the ground, the airy grunt of an impatient horse. Astride his mount, Beau took in the moody grey sky, the damp verdant knolls, the sprawling honeyed structure at their seam—the place that held duty, responsibility, and little else. He pulled in a long, solemn breath, tasting the faint smoky aroma of winter on his tongue.

The last long stretch of road leading to Oakmoss Manor was edged in by old, deeply rooted oaks, timeworn and gnarled, like the one in black ink that snaked up his forearm, spreading its long limbs around his bicep and shoulder.

Beyond the oaks, a Palladian bridge yawned wide across the lake. At sunset on a clear day, the golden stone would catch fire, sending long, blinding rays shimmering across the water below. After the bridge, home—although it had never quite felt that way. Not as a child. Not once it became his to protect, or wreck, or ravage.

In the breast pocket of his overcoat sat two letters. The first was from the Home Office. His most recent mission should have been an easy one—a tête-à-tête with the mistress of a high-ranking diplomat posted in Antwerp who’d been suspected of copying and disseminating classified documents, forgery, and the murder of a foreign contact. History had proved time and again that men confided all sorts of things when tangled in bedclothes smelling of sweat and cheap perfume. Still, the exchange had nearly cost Beau his life.

The second letter, oppressive and unwieldy like a stone hung from his neck, announced his father’s death and had come edged in black above four years ago already—the address penned in a hand he had not recognised.

Mr Calverleigh,

I am sorry to be the bearer of news which must give you pain, particularly when you are far from this country. Your father has passed on. May it provide you some little solace to know his spirit did not linger. Your mother and sister would benefit from your presence, and, as you are aware, you are now master of Oakmoss Manor. Mr Sims will no doubt write you as well.

God bless you,

Miss Doubleday

Beau had doubled over and put a hand to the wall of his room in Vienna to keep from crumbling entirely. When he’d been able to unfold himself, he’d swayed a little. His head had shaken back and forth of its own accord in a vain attempt to deny the truth of the words blurring on the paper clutched in his hand. Threaded between his shock and grief, confusion. He had been so caught out by the message, he’d overlooked the name of the sender. Even as he’d run a shaking thumb over her signature, he hadn’t been able to conjure up more than a hazy vision of a slip of a girl with dark, wild hair—and certainly not a reason why she’d dispatched the news rather than his mother, steward, or solicitor.

There was a gulf between himself and his father’s ward—in age, disposition, and experience. Rather, his ward, unfortunately, with his father dead and gone. His brow furrowed as he struggled to recall even a single exchange between himself and Miss Doubleday. He was ten years her senior, and if he thought of her at all, it was because that young lady had been the source of a great row between him and his father during one of their last rides. The late Lord Avon had been teaching Miss Doubleday how to manage a great estate, lending her books, discussing such matters as what to grow in the hothouse and which crops to turn over.

‘Why should she be interested in these matters at all?’ Beau had questioned. ‘Men don’t care about such things in a wife.’

‘Foolish men don’t. I won’t see that girl married to a fool.’ When Beau had made no reply, his father had added, ‘She shows more interest than you do.’

Beau had scoffed. He’d spent every summer and school break between the ages of twelve and twenty at home, learning to run the grand pile that would one day be his.

‘I’ve been a constant by your side, always have done what you’ve asked of me.’

‘And very little else. You seem to feel your talents—if that’s what you choose to call them—are better spent in town or at house parties or doing who knows what else.’

Beau forced himself to unclench his teeth as pain emanated from his jaw. It had been impossible to reveal his true self and equally unbearable to live with the burden of his father’s disappointment.

As a child, he’d spent much of his time playing by himself—climbing trees, slipping in and out of rooms through long-forgotten passageways, listening to conversations never meant for his ears. So often he’d spent the hours after his lessons spying on the steward and imagining that man an informant for some nefarious foreign government. Beau could never have imagined how closely his life would imitate his childhood fancies.

The offer he’d received had been for more than just a job. It’d been a chance to establish an identity outside of being Lord Avon’s son, an opportunity to do something for Crown and country beyond hosting house parties and siring children. His father had had the estate and his good health. Beau would have his work—something meaningful, something all his own.

Yet there he was; he could slip from one assumed identity to the next, but he’d never be able to outrun who he was in blood and bone.

Beau’s horse dipped his head, no doubt frustrated with how long they’d been standing still while Beau glared down at the distant golden brick of Oakmoss. He urged Arion forward, moving towards his future as his history faded, catching on a gust of wind and carried off as if it were never a part of him to begin with.

As he entered the sweeping great court, a groom came to greet him and take his horse.

‘M’lord!’ exclaimed William, once he was close enough to recognise Beau.

‘Not a word,’ Beau said, handing over the reins before skipping up the dozen steps to the front door almost four times his own height. Inside, he was assailed by the rich, sweet scent of roses. All at once, he felt certain he could recall every time he’d come through that door. His mother always kept a large vase filled with several dozen stems on a table near the entry. When he looked over to his right, his gaze landed on blooms of vibrant pink, cultivated in Oakmoss’s large hothouse.

His Hessians echoed on the black and white marble floor of the great hall as he came to its centre, where he paused to look up and up and up, some sixty feet to the ceiling. Above him, painted in gauzy whites and heavenly blues, thefirst Earl of Avon loomed large, surrounded by the Muses and receiving a laurel wreath. Along the walls were arches and columns done by master carvers, an ormolu clock that had ticked away the minutes of his secret missions as a child, and an inscription in Latin above each of the two archways set at the back of the hall, the words as familiar to him as his own name.

‘Sir!’

It was the first and only time Beau had ever heard the butler gasp, and his own pensive expression was replaced by a closed-lip smile as he turned.

‘How did you know it was me, Buddle?’

‘The hair. The set of your shoulders. From the back you are equal parts your mother and your father,’ he replied, a look of fondness or pain or remembrance clouding his features before he added, ‘My lord,’ with a slight bow.

My lord.The words rang in Beau’s ears. How different they sounded, resonant and echoing in the yawning halls of this house.

‘Might you tell me if my mother and sister are at home?’

‘You will find the ladies in the blue drawing room, sir.’

‘No one could ever accuse you of loose lips, Buddle, but if you wouldn’t mind keeping my presence to yourself, just for a time? I rather enjoyed giving you a start.’ Beau moved towards the wide stairwell that split the grand entry hall in two but bent his steps to the right of it, pausing beneath the words fortitudo, patientia, properitas. ‘Oh, and Buddle, Saunders is following with the luggage. Have him unpack my trunks in my room.’

‘Understood, sir, and if I may add, welcome home.’

Beau nodded once in acknowledgement, but grimaced as he began the long walk down the quiet corridor.

The drawing room door was a little ajar, and a laugh like tinkling sleigh bells floated through the air, bringing him to a halt. His eyes closed and, for a moment, he imagined his mother and sister side by side, smiling over a letter, a shared memory, a humorous passage in a book. For the first time, he considered just how long he’d been away. In his mind, they were exactly how he’d left them, but standing there, he wondered if his mother’s smooth skin had begun to wrinkle and how grown up Louisa must look.

When he pushed in, the conversation ground to an abrupt end as three sets of eyes turned his way, all widening in droll unity. There were concurrent cries of ‘Brother!’ and ‘Beau!’ and two of the three ladies rushed forward to claim his embrace. A young lady he didn’t recognise remained seated, a book open in her hands. His mind worked to place her—a cousin, a friend, a neighbour?—but there was no memory, no woman he’d ever met, who compared with the one quiet on the settee.

Over his mother’s head, and impervious to his sister’s exclamations, he studied her. She was one of the loveliest creatures he’d ever seen. A tiny mole just above the right corner of her mouth drew all his attention to her bow-shaped lips, and he licked his own as an afterthought. Beau watched with interest as the surprise on the woman’s face slipped into something much more like dismay.

Looking at her lap, she closed the book, balling a hand into a fist after she did so. Her shoulders had gone rigid, and he wondered at the tension tugging the edges of her pretty features. A quick scan of her person told him she was slender, tallish, and well off, but hadn’t purchased her dress in London. Kid leather boots instead of slippers indicated she walked often, outside as well as in. And the book—he glimpsed the title as he set his mother and sister at arm’s length from him—The Mysteries of Udolpho.

‘Beau, come, sit. I just rang for tea and cakes. You can refresh yourself after accounting for your presence,’ his mother instructed, taking his arm and leading him to an empty chair.

‘You’ll excuse me, ma’am,’ the young lady said, rising from her seat and making for the door as she spoke. ‘I’ve some pressing correspondence which can be put off no longer.’ She looked to him then, her countenance frigid, her eyes sharp, insolent, so dark they devoured the light. Heat flooded his body. His lungs filled to bursting. Something inside him, intangible and transcendent, ignited like he’d swallowed a lightning bolt.

In calculated silence, she brushed past him with movements so elegant of dismissal he was as impressed as he was bewildered.

‘Charming house guest,’ he said to his mother as the thud of a door closing sounded around them. ‘It’s the first time my presence has offended a woman instead of pleasing her. Tell me, is her stay coming to an end?’

‘Doubtful,’ remarked the dowager, looking a little bewildered. ‘But since she is your ward, I suppose the decision is yours.’

Beau sent the tide of desire that had rushed in back out to sea. As her guardian, he had the power to control every aspect of her life, from determining which books she read to selecting whom she married. Honour forbade him from abusing his position by using it to pursue her. He sighed and ignored the tightening in his chest—the sudden awareness of his own heartbeat as it thudded in his ears.

There was nothing more damnable about being home than discovering the woman he was most drawn to was the only one he couldn’t have.