Chapter Twenty-Six
AFTER MURIEL WHISPERED TO DEVERELL that she felt poorly from inadvertently ingesting strawberries at luncheon, he had at once accepted her claim, which caused Erik’s eye to twitch once before he corrected his expression into one of concern for her. She knew it irked Erik that Deverell was aware of her reaction to strawberries. She simply had no time to reassure him. With a convincing clutching of her side as she sped from the garden, where the party was rehearsing, back into the castle, she knew she had played her part well.
She had only been searching for three quarters of an hour, but the sheen of nervous perspiration had grown to an embarrassing level. If Deverell did not believe her ill before, he certainly would now if he happened upon her. She had already propped the letter on his bed for her story in case she was caught by him, one of the maids, or his valet. The note was filled with sweet nothings. On the heels of her anarchic proposal, he would believe her to be capable of practically anything in the name of romance.
She had searched nearly every inch of his chamber and carefully gone through each of his coat pockets to no avail. She plunked her hands on her hips and turned about the room, her gaze alighting on the desk once more. In one of Vivienne’s novels, Muriel had read about someone pinning her private letters under the desk. She dropped to her knees and searched under the drawers of the writing desk. Nothing.
Sinking back on her heels, she studied the furniture. Her gaze returned to the wardrobe. She crossed the room and lay on her belly, running her hand underneath the piece, squeezing her eyes shut as her fingers grazed cobwebs and scattered piles of dust, when she felt something different altogether. She ran her fingers over the perimeter and, finding a pin, tugged it free. Her hands trembled as she retrieved a small packet … in a feminine hand. Love letters? Despite their engagement being a farce, she could not help the twinge of betrayal in her gut.
The sound of boots in the hallway had her darting to her feet. Closing her eyes against the cobwebs caught on the packet, she shoved the finding down her bodice, moving to the bed as if in the middle of setting the letter atop the pillow. She had barely gained the bedside when the door opened. On seeing her, Deverell leaned against the threshold, crossing his arms and grinning.
She gasped, her cheeks burning at being caught in such a manner even if it was for Erik’s cause. “Osmund! What are you doing here?”
“Miss Beau? I think that is my question.” He shoved off the door and into the room, his cutaway coat draped over his arm, silk double-breasted waistcoat taut against his muscled chest. “I find you in the most unusual of places.”
“I—uh.” She had never before considered how a gentleman might achieve such a physique … Was he simply a Corinthian, Requin, or one of his spies?
“Miss Beau?” He chuckled. “You seem rather surprised to see me in my own chamber.”
“I was leaving you a note.” Her cheeks flamed, sweat trickling from her curls down her neck. “I thought you would still be in the garden and I—I wished to surprise you. To let you know I was thinking of you.”
“It is a relief to hear you aren’t abandoning me already.”
“Wh–what?” She fluttered her hand at her neck, desperate to cool her cheeks.
He closed the door and strode toward her. “Usually notes are left when unhappy news is to be had instead of passed discreetly under the dinner table when there is good.”
Her flushed deepened. “You will have to read it to determine that for yourself.”
He grasped her trembling hand, and she prayed he did not notice the dirt marring it. “My darling, our engagement must be short, for in finding you here in my room, I see my feelings are returned most heartily.” He drew her into his arms, resting his chin atop her head. “As a gentleman, I must not kiss you. Instead, I must bid you farewell.” He set her firmly back and guided her to the door, poking his head out into the hallway first. “Your path is clear. I look forward to reading your note.”
“If you like it, I may return when you least expect it and leave another.” She dipped her head at her shocking reply and hurried away, praying he would not check under the wardrobe before she returned the packet. Safe in her bedroom, she bolted the door. Sinking atop the window seat, she opened the packet, her heart plummeting at finding only notices of shipments, something she had seen a hundred times on her stepfather’s desk. Surely if they were affixed to the underside of the wardrobe, they had to be special. She opened her desk and began copying the list, vigilant not to leave out a single detail in case Erik would think it important.
Where is the man?Erik strode about the terraced garden. He had kept his eye on Deverell for an hour as he practiced his lines for tonight’s play. Erik surveyed the refreshment tent. Deverell had been there only moments before, when Lady Ingram had pulled Erik aside. Striding out of sight of the party, he broke into a run for the castle as soon as he was able, imagining Deverell alone with innocent Muriel. Entering through the old guard’s turret, Erik raced to the library.
He pushed the settee away from the wall and shoved the tapestry aside. The hidden door looked as it had two decades ago when he’d discovered it—ancient and ominous. The passages had been created from centuries of adding new wings to the castle, and he had spent many a rainy day exploring every inch of them. He jerked open the door and traversed the secret passage, winding with the castle, ducking under cobwebs. He had not used these passages since his boyhood, yet he navigated them with the precious little light streaming in from the cracks in the walls. He paused at the door that, in her room, masqueraded as a bookshelf. He sucked in a breath, praying she was well and, if so, that she would not be offended at his intrusion. He released the lever and slowly let himself inside. “Muriel?”
A book sailed at his head. He ducked, but not fast enough. The volume hit him square in the nose. “Muriel, it’s me!”
She gasped, falling back a step and sinking onto the bed. “What on earth are you doing?”
Dabbing his nose with the back of his hand and finding no blood, he closed the bookcase door. “Checking on you. Deverell disappeared, and I couldn’t go knocking on your door lest the staff catch me.”
She rose and moved to the desk, where papers were scattered about. “Deverell is in his chamber as we speak. He caught me, but he understands me well enough to know I tend to place myself in odd situations.”
“Thank God.” He sagged against the bookcase. “I must say, you are terrible at spy work with being caught every time you attempt to be clandestine.”
“Oh, really?” She withdrew the stack of papers from the desk. “I found these. They appear to be just shipments and coordinates. However, I started making copies in anticipation of returning the originals.”
He crossed the room and riffled through them, hope soaring. “They will have to be confirmed, but if these documents are what I think they are, we may have our man. Well done, Muriel.”
“Only doing my duty to our country. But what are these papers, exactly?”
“They note the shipments of recent goods, marked as certain dry goods leaving ports all over England.”
“Meaning?”
“Requin uses these exact dry goods as his cover for gunpowder and pistol shipments to France.”
She paled. “Will these prove Deverell is the spy?”
“Possibly. Though we will not be able to confirm it unless we intercept his next shipment, which is, judging from this manifest, in a week. Unfortunately the port is not marked.” He thumped the page with his finger. “If only we had time to finish copying them all before we return them. I cannot risk him discovering their absence after you were in his chambers.”
“If I seek him out, do you think you can return them to the bottom of the wardrobe without being seen? Or is it too perilous?”
He laughed. “One does not become a privateer without taking risks.”
“Does Deverell’s room have a secret entrance?”
“Only your room, my childhood bedroom, and the master chambers have access to the passages, as well as the library and the tunnel that releases in the woods. A former earl and countess wished to whisk away their children at any moment should the castle be attacked.”
“Brilliant. Give me five minutes to convince him I am well enough to return to the garden party and then take the passageways, which I will insist on seeing after this is all over.” She paused at the doorway and turned to him, a question in her eyes.
“Yes?”
“I’m afraid he might kiss me.”
The very thought of the man holding his darling’s hand was enough to make Erik wish to revoke the entire plan, but Muriel had asked him to trust her. “If you are chaperoned at all times, you should be safe from his advances.”
“I was chaperoned in the garden by Lady Ingram and now that he is engaged to me …” She twisted her hands. “I do not know if his gentlemanly resolve will hold much longer.”
He frowned. “A fact which plagues me.”
“Yes, well, he will take my first kiss if he does.”
Erik closed the distance between them. “We must not have that, must we?” He placed his hand at her waist and waited for her to lift her chin to him.
She shook her head, gazing up at him. “It would be piracy.”
“How fortuitous I have a license to steal,” he whispered in her ear, lingering until she closed her eyes. He lowered his lips to hers, Muriel’s sweet kiss sending a thrill through his being. His hands found the small of her back, their kiss deepening—their breath mingling as he stole a second kiss that turned into a third. At last, he broke away, chest heaving.
“My dear Captain. Stealing ships and hearts.” She fanned herself with her hand and took a step back.
“My darling Ariel, you are the greatest treasure a man could ever dream of.” He bowed, wishing to steal more kisses. Such a thing would have to wait until they were properly one another’s. He ducked into the passage, shoving open the door that led to the back of the wardrobe in his chambers. Pushing through his clothes and flinging open the wardrobe doors, he leapt out and landed on the balls of his feet. Soundlessly, he moved to the hallway and then to the baron’s room, where he listened for a moment before letting himself inside. Following Muriel’s instructions, he lay on his belly and affixed the pin through the exact hole in the packet, so as not to raise suspicion.
He rose, catching a glimpse of a miniature on the man’s night table. He lifted it and frowned. It was Muriel. The man truly did have feelings for her to commission such a piece … which was, perhaps, even more dangerous for her than if he were simply after her funds. Setting down the miniature, he raced for his chambers.
Having run a comb through his hair and changed his dusty cutaway coat, he rejoined the others in the gardens. He bowed his head to Widow Whelan, Lady Ingram, and Elena, who were all in cluster around Lord Sullivan in the refreshment tent, while Lord Traneford strode arm in arm about the garden with Miss Poppy and Miss Hale, no doubt practicing a scene in the play. Beyond them, Muriel hung on Baron Deverell’s arm, her head tilted up to him as if enraptured while walking slowly enough to convince him she was recovering from the strawberries. And by Deverell’s adoring smile directed at Muriel, the baron suspected nothing … at least not yet.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Baron Deverell called out to the party, his hand resting over Muriel’s. “I have the honor of announcing that Miss Beau and I are to be wed in a month’s time.”