CHAPTER TWO THE PROPOSITION
Gabriel St. Clair had been propositioned in drawing rooms, conservatories, theatre boxes, carriages and once, memorably, inside a linen cupboard by the wife of a bishop who had mistaken religious restraint for a challenge.
He had received invitations written in perfume, delivered through servants and whispered across crowded dinner tables while husbands discussed politics within reach.
None of those offers had rendered him speechless.
Miss Eleanor Finch had managed it with five words. I require lessons. In seduction.
Gabriel remained beside the fireplace in Arabella’s library, his coat draped over one arm and his mind—usually dependable in situations involving women, danger or combinations of the two—abruptly empty.
Eleanor stood several feet away with her leather portfolio resting upon the table behind her.
Her grey gown was modest, her dark hair arranged without ornament and her expression composed enough to suggest she had requested instruction in bookkeeping.
Only the pulse moving rapidly at the base of her throat betrayed her.
Gabriel noticed it because he noticed everything about women.
That skill had once been a matter of appetite.
It had later become a profession. He knew when a woman’s smile concealed fear, when boredom hid anger and when flirtation served as distraction.
He could distinguish curiosity from desire by the direction of a glance and recognise a lie by the fraction of a second someone took before laughing.
Such observations had carried him through bedrooms, political dinners and private card rooms where men revealed more after three glasses of brandy than they intended to confess in church.
Yet Eleanor Finch had spent months existing at the edge of his vision, quiet enough to be mistaken for harmless, and now she had stepped into the centre of the room with a request that turned every earlier impression of her upon its head. Gabriel recovered his voice.
“No.”
Eleanor blinked once. He had expected surprise, perhaps embarrassment. Instead, she merely looked thoughtful.
“You have not asked what the lessons would involve.”
“I possess sufficient imagination.”
“So does society. It has rarely troubled you before.”
Gabriel set his coat over the back of a chair. “Society’s imagination is usually more flattering than accurate.”
“Is that why you encourage it?”
“I encourage anything that makes people generous.”
Eleanor’s gaze travelled over him, not in the lingering, appreciative manner to which he was accustomed, but as though she were examining the construction of an argument.
“Your generosity does not appear impaired,” she said.
He smiled automatically. “Miss Finch, if you continue to compliment me, people may misunderstand our relationship.”
“I did not compliment you.”
“No, but you considered it.”
“I considered whether vanity might be treated medically.”
Gabriel laughed, though the sound came less easily than usual. Eleanor’s colour had risen, but she did not look away. She had meant the request. That made refusal more important.
“You cannot attend the Mercury Club,” he said.
“I can if I am properly prepared.”
“You cannot become a widow in three weeks.”
“I have read enough marriage settlements to understand the role.”
“The private galleries require more than legal knowledge.”
“That is why I asked for instruction.”
Gabriel moved around the chair, placing its solid frame between them. “You are unmarried.”
“I am aware.”
“Your father is prominent.”
“Only when receiving praise.”
“If anyone recognised you—”
“They would not.”
“You cannot know that.”
“Neither can you.”
“I know the men who attend the Feast.”
“Which should make you useful.”
Her composure was beginning to irritate him, largely because his own was less secure.
Gabriel had expected Miss Finch to flush, falter and perhaps retreat once the word seduction had been spoken aloud.
Instead, she stood before him with the same grave determination she applied to a damaged Greek manuscript.
“You have no understanding of what you are asking,” he said.
Eleanor’s eyes sharpened. “I understand that I require access to a private club. I understand that a timid unmarried scholar’s daughter cannot enter it, while a confident widow upon your arm may. I understand that you possess experience I do not.”
“You also understand that I have spent years encouraging people to believe the worst of me.”
“Yes.”
“And that does not concern you?”
“Your reputation concerns me less than your answer.”
Gabriel studied her. The silence lengthened.
Eleanor did not fill it. That was unusual.
Most people hurried to rescue themselves when he allowed a pause to become uncomfortable.
Eleanor simply waited, perhaps because silence had always belonged to her.
He became aware of the faint scent of lavender paper clinging to her clothes, of the delicate shape of her wrists beneath her gloves and of the fact that her mouth was softer than the rest of her face suggested.
It was not a mouth designed for silence.
The thought arrived without invitation and settled with dangerous ease. Gabriel stepped back.
“No,” he repeated. “Find another way.”
“What way?”
“You are the scholar. Invent one.”
“I have. It involves you.”
He almost smiled again, but something in her expression prevented it.
“Good night, Miss Finch.”
He reached for his coat.
“You are afraid,” she said.
Gabriel paused.
Eleanor’s voice remained calm. “That is inconvenient.”
He turned slowly. “Of what, precisely?”
“That you might enjoy teaching me.”
For one remarkable instant, Gabriel considered crossing the distance between them and demonstrating exactly how little fear governed his decisions. Then sense returned. He slipped into his coat.
“Your first lesson,” he said, “is that confidence becomes recklessness when unsupported by experience.”
“That sounds like something Julian would say.”
“Julian has the occasional virtue of being correct.”
“Beatrice generally cures him of it.”
Gabriel inclined his head. “Good night.”
He left the library before Eleanor could reply. The air in the corridor felt considerably colder.
* * *
The coffeehouse near St. James’s possessed three qualities that made it useful to men involved in private government work: a noisy public room, a discreet rear staircase and an owner who believed curiosity was more dangerous than treason.
Gabriel entered shortly after midnight through the side door.
The keeper glanced up from polishing a glass, recognised him and looked away with professional indifference.
Anyone observing would have assumed Lord Ashcombe had come to continue an evening of dissipation.
His loosened cravat, unbuttoned coat and faint scent of brandy supported the impression.
The brandy had been poured over his sleeve.
Gabriel had consumed half a glass of wine at Rothmere House and nothing else.
He climbed the rear staircase, knocked twice upon a narrow door and entered without waiting for permission.
Julian Blackwood stood beside a small fire, reading a document beneath the light of a single lamp.
He had removed his formal coat but otherwise looked as he always did: composed, severe and faintly disappointed by the behaviour of civilisation.
Marriage had altered him in ways most of London had failed to notice.
He still spoke little, watched everything and possessed the unsettling habit of making ordinary conversation resemble evidence presented at trial.
However, the hard reserve around him no longer seemed impenetrable.
Beatrice had broken several windows in that fortress and installed curtains without asking permission.
Sir Malcolm Hargreaves sat at the table with a pot of coffee and three open files.
At fifty-eight, Hargreaves had the lean, colourless appearance of a man who had spent too many years in rooms where secrets mattered more than sunlight.
He had formally retired from military intelligence after the war and informally continued doing everything retirement should have prevented.
Neither man looked surprised to see Gabriel. That was almost insulting.
“You are late,” Julian said.
“I was detained by a lady.”
Hargreaves glanced at the clock. “Married?”
“Not yet.”
Julian’s attention lifted from the paper. Gabriel removed the Mercury programme from inside his coat and placed it upon the table.
Hargreaves reached for it. “Where did you obtain this?”
“Miss Finch.”
Julian’s expression changed with remarkable subtlety. Another man might not have noticed. Gabriel had known him too long.
“Explain.”
Gabriel poured himself coffee. “She found it among her father’s lecture papers. The quotation contains the same imagery as the Vesper correspondence, and she decoded the alterations in the earlier programmes.”
Hargreaves read the notes Eleanor had written along the margin.
“Third bell,” he murmured. “West gallery. Silent account. Bring original.”
“Hermes sees all,” Julian added.
Gabriel leaned against the mantel. “Comforting.”
Hargreaves looked up. “How did she identify the cipher?”
“She understands Greek.”
“Many scholars understand Greek.”
“Not like Eleanor.”
Julian’s gaze settled upon him.
Gabriel drank his coffee. “Miss Finch.”
“You have never called her Eleanor before.”
“I have thought of her as Eleanor.”
“That is more troubling.”
Hargreaves ignored them. “The programme is printed upon the same stock recovered from Rooke’s office. The ink differs, but the watermark may identify the printer.”
“Quinn?” Julian asked.
“No. The watermark belongs to Whitmore and Sons. They supply half the private presses in London.”
Gabriel looked down at the programme. “Miss Finch overheard references to a private printing and a considerable investment made to an unnamed publisher.”