Chapter Six
It was astonishing, really, how swiftly a person could grow accustomed to a completely different routine.
“Good morning, Cawthorne,” Bernard said cheerfully as he traipsed down the stairs that morning.
The butler inclined his head. “And good morning to you, Mr. Dixon. I trust you slept well?”
“Yes, please thank Cook for me; she was right—lavender under my pillow was perfect to send me straight off to sleep,” Bernard beamed.
Just enough to stop the nightmares. To prevent the terrors creeping in around the darkness of his eyes. To cease the unending dread that slipped into his mind the moment darkness fell and he was left with nothing but memories. Memories and—
“The family is in the morning room, sir,” Cawthorne said warmly. “Won’t you join them?”
Bernard hesitated.
“Join them.” Join the family. Join the Earl of Lindow, his wife, and their son…and their daughter.
It was tempting. Until now, Bernard had done his best to be as unobtrusive as possible. It was a small miracle the man hadn’t thrown out the stranger whom his daughter had brought him from a prison, and Bernard was hardly going to ruin his best lodgings in years.
But it was one thing to avoid notice, and quite another to sit down and breakfast with the lot of them after the big announcement days ago that he was a convicted criminal.
Bernard bit his lip. He did know how to behave at a breakfast hosted by an earl, but it had been years…
“There are kippers this morning, Mr. Dixon,” said Cawthorne encouragingly, as though the only thing holding the man back were the mention of fish.
But he was being kind, and it had been a long time since Bernard had been surrounded by kindness.
Prisons weren’t kind.
“That is good news,” Bernard said cheerfully. “Well, in that case, it appears I have no choice.”
Striding forward, he reached out to open the door to the morning room but almost stumbled into the room itself when the door opened all on its own.
Of course. Footmen.
“Ah, Mr. Dixon. I wondered when we’d have the pleasure of your company this early in the day,” called the Earl of Lindow cheerfully from the breakfast table as the trio of Chances looked around. “Don’t usually see you until dinner!”
Which was true enough. Bernard had managed to avoid them for breakfast by dint of not eating it, had become great friends with the cook to enjoy luncheon with the servants—where undoubtedly most of them thought I belong, he could not help but think wryly—which left dinners to get through with the family.
Get through. As though he didn’t salivate at the very thought of all those delicious chicken cutlets and raspberry tarts.
“Come, sit by me, man,” called Lord Percy with a grin that suggested mischief was on the off. “I wanted to ask you, when you were in prison—”
“Percy!” chorused his entire family.
Bernard stepped forward awkwardly and tried to smile. “I am afraid there is not much to tell, Lord Percy.”
That was true enough; there was very little he was permitted to tell. One did not sign up to be a spy for Her Majesty then blabber the details over kippers.
Kippers that smelled good.
“And I hope you will not tell him a thing, Mr. Dixon. He is altogether too contrary for his own good.” The countess smiled before shooting her son a glare that could have withered a substantial tree. “Percy!”
The man jumped as Bernard sat beside him. “What is it?”
“Don’t think I don’t know about your plans! No desire to get married; I have never heard the like from an heir to an earldom,” his mother said warningly. “There’s a fifty percent chance it will all end in tears, you know—”
“Surely, that’s enough mathematics this early in the morning, Mama,” opined Lady Lucy with a smile she shot in Bernard’s direction, though she immediately flushed and looked elsewhere.
And that was another reason why Bernard had been avoided breakfast.
Oh, it was delightfulness itself to be in Lady Lucy’s company, and that was the problem. Bernard could see the way she looked at him, all interest and intrigue and hope that he would look her way.
The trouble was, it was all too easy to look her way. She was too beautiful, too intriguing for words.
A woman who had been born into such privilege, who did not need to stir her finger even to have her tea poured—ah, a footman has poured me some tea, capital—and yet she went out of her way to help those whom Society itself had decided were no longer worthy of help.
Lady Lucy Chance was extraordinary.
And the best of it all was, she had absolutely no idea.
“The post has arrived, my lord,” came Cawthorne’s quiet voice.
Bernard jumped.
“He always does that,” Lord Percy said conversationally. “I used to put down mouse traps and ring the bell—”
“I knew that was you!” Here Lady Lucy had interrupted, and there was a look of great ire on her pinched face. “And I was blamed for it! All because I moved one of them because I didn’t want the dragon—”
Bernard still did not quite understand why this bizarre yet charming family called dogs ‘dragon,’ and it appeared he would never know.
“Do not bore our…our guest with our family nonsense.” The countess smiled.
‘Guest.’
Oh, Bernard did not blame them. They were not to know he was not really a criminal, but a gentleman serving the government in a secret capacity that he could not speak of. There was not even any real way that he could explain such a thing without betraying the confidences of others.
Still, they were trying. The Chances. They were trying to be polite, trying to share their home with a known criminal, and Bernard had to admit they were doing an admirable job.
Most families would not even consider it. His own father, for example…
Bernard’s jaw tightened and he lifted his teacup to his lips in an attempt to loosen it. Just don’t think about him. Don’t think about any of them.
“And a letter for you, Mr. Dixon,” finished Cawthorne, stepping around the table with a silver platter.
Bernard blinked at the servant. “For—For me?”
It couldn’t be. Not a soul knew he was here, save for Judge Bonner, a few bailiffs, and a couple of solicitors, and he didn’t exactly think he was likely to receive any correspondence from any of them.
“Don’t be daft, man,” Lord Percy said easily, “the man can’t read.”
“And what makes you think that, Percy?” asked Lady Lucy sharply.
Her breath hitched as Bernard’s gaze fell upon her, and he could not help but smile as he remembered that moment they had shared in the study.
“I just… I mean, anyone can learn to read, if they have the opportunity to learn to read,” she said faintly, as though that made sense.
“Very well said, sis.” Her brother rolled his eyes. “Well, I suppose if a man is taught to read, it stands to reason that he might learn to read.”
“Oh, be quiet, Percy,” his father said forbiddingly. “Let the man read his letter.”
Bernard was still not sure whether it was his letter. A letter? Who on earth could have been writing to him?
But as he looked down, there it was, just as Cawthorne had said. A letter, addressed to him. Well, addressed to his false name, the one he had lived under for years now. Simply addressed, in an envelope of inexpensive cost, a postmark from London—
Ah. And he recognized that handwriting.
Bernard took the letter from the platter and hoped his face gave nothing away as he said quietly, “Ah, yes. Thank you.”
He used his butter knife to open it up before remembering that etiquette demanded something very different. But it was done now, and the folds of paper were unfurling in his hands, and—
And it was as he had thought. Hovell.
How the devil had the man tracked him down?
Dixon,
Well, what a clever mess you have managed to find yourself in. I wouldn’t have believed it except I heard from Judge Bonner myself, and the idiot appears to believe he has done you a favor.
Stuck as you are with the toffs, I’d ask you to stay a little while—it will look too suspicious if you depart now, and this Lady Lucy Chance appears to have destroyed all hopes of getting the intelligence from you.
You can’t write, the letter could be intercepted—you must know that, as you haven’t written.
Give it another three days, then I’ll write again. I have another little project for you that I think you’ll find most interesting.
Hovell
Anger burned through Bernard’s lungs as he reread the letter for a second time.
“This Lady Lucy Chance appears to have destroyed all hopes of getting the intelligence from you.”
It was hardly her fault! The woman had thought she’d been saving a man from a fate worse than death—she wasn’t to know that the man she had ‘saved’ would never have found himself on a transport ship. And besides, the exact method of ‘saving’ hadn’t been her idea.
And what was all this about another little project?
Bernard bit his lip. The man had promised him that this mission, the one he’d been on in Brighton prison, would be the last. That he could retire and disappear from Hovell’s memory. That had been the agreement.
So what was this about a new assignment?
And the very idea of leaving Lady Lucy… No. That could not be borne.
Bernard was not exactly sure when it had happened, but at some point, his interest in Lady Lucy had changed from amused wonder to heartfelt curiosity. He liked her, liked her far more than he perhaps wanted to admit.
The idea of leaving her now, of just disappearing from her side…
“Bad news?”
Bernard jumped. Lady Lucy had been watching him, clearly, for there was sympathy on her face and concern in her eyes.
“News,” he said briefly. “Of a sort.”
He could not exactly explain why, but lying to Lady Lucy was like lying to oneself. There was no point in it, and it diminished one as a person, somehow, to know that such a thing was being attempted.
Her expression burned with curiosity, but Bernard was swift to fold up the letter and place it in his pocket.
The last thing he needed was that sort of thing lying around.