Chapter Twenty
Sidney’s untasted champagne fizzled flat as he brooded in his chosen corner of the drawing room.
From this vantage, he could see everyone spread across the three rooms where most of the party gathered, a swirling mass that reminded him of little ants—little ants in sequins and tailcoats, toasting each other in those posh, tinkling voices.
Did they all affect the same accent on purpose or was it inevitable from generational inbreeding?
Even Ginevra had a hint of it, though it waxed and waned depending on who else was around.
With him, she relaxed into her vowels; with Craddock, she sounded starched stiff.
For the third time in ten minutes, Sidney eyed the steps up the grand staircase.
He could probably take them two at a time, check on Gin, and return to his post in mere minutes.
She would be annoyed, of course, but the way Craddock had hovered as they progressed to the second floor made Sidney’s hands clench.
Only it wasn’t really his business, was it? The man was technically her fiancé.
For a girl who often said precisely what she was thinking, Ginevra had a maddening habit of going quiet when Sidney was most curious what whizzed through her mind.
When she’d suggested approaching Craddock for invitations, she’d seemed resigned rather than eager, which puzzled him.
Was it a forced engagement? Or did she really care for Craddock and fret over his Damocles membership, fearing there were secrets to uncover?
It made Sidney feel even more of a cad that he would be only too happy to shake out a few skeletons if it detached her from such a wretch.
“Sir.” A footman stopped before Sidney holding a platter of hors d’oeuvres. “The crumpets you requested are being prepared right now.”
“Not really a crumpets kind of party, is it?” Sidney leaned closer, pretending to inspect the tray. “Everything all right in the kitchens?”
“So far, yes.” The agent disguised in a footman’s dark suit politely glanced at the nearby guests, but they were well out of earshot.
“No sign of the target or any tampering with the food. If you need anything, I’m floating between the drawing rooms.” He made a small smile.
“I think this tray is safe if you’re peckish. ”
Sidney’s stomach was beginning to rumble, but he’d brought a packet of nuts as a precaution. “Thanks, but I’ll manage.”
The agent inclined his head and drifted away, and Sidney had to credit the Rook for his ingenuity.
Most great houses couldn’t afford to be choosy about hired help with so few young people entering service, and inserting agents among the party’s temporary staff was clever.
It was also, however, a weakness that Marion Kirk might choose to exploit.
Sidney winced when he caught himself again checking the staircase.
At the moment, he was a weakness to this mission, mooning after a girl who’d made her feelings plain enough.
If Sidney had invited me, I would have laughed in his face, she’d told Finchley.
I’m here with Donald. Gin was fierce and capable and didn’t need him to save her from Craddock, her damn fiancé.
Their partnership was strictly platonic, and wallowing in his conflicted feelings could only bring Sidney trouble.
He forced himself to turn from the staircase.
Watkins and Neville strolled into the drawing room—or rather, Watkins strolled while Neville clung to her arm for support.
The female don didn’t seem to mind helping her friend and observed the party with great interest, directing Neville’s attention toward architectural details about the room.
But Dr. Neville had become a hollow shell of the quiet, even-tempered man Sidney remembered from lectures his first year.
He had looked ghastly at Leland’s party and was now verging on ghostly.
Watkins brightened at the sight of Sidney and tugged Neville along to join him. “Mr. Braithwaite! I’m rather surprised to see you here. Are you trying to join Damocles?”
“No.” It came out too brusque, too abrupt, and she stared at him as though expecting more. Sidney forced himself to smile. “My friend Harold Webb is, though. I suppose I’m here for the champagne.”
“Cheers to that.” Watkins clinked glasses with him. “Nobody throws a party like the Damocles Club. Isn’t that right, Neville?”
Beside her, Dr. Neville’s posture sagged as though the champagne flute taxed his strength.
Shadows underlined his already delicate cheekbones, and his face was more gaunt since Julius Caesar.
He murmured something indistinguishable and wandered toward a chessboard arranged in a small study off the drawing room.
“Dr. Neville seems out of sorts,” Sidney said in a low voice.
Watkins sighed. “I don’t think he’s sleeping … or eating much, for that matter.”
“The dustup at Professor Leland’s book reception rattled me too.”
Watkins hesitated, glancing at Sidney as though remembering he was perhaps not a suitable person with whom to discuss a fellow don’s health, but then nodded.
“Yes, I tried to make him stay home, but he insisted he had to put in an appearance as an old member.” She snorted.
“I think Leland is the only alumnus they care about, but who am I to point out the disparity of preference to my colleague?”
A soft gong echoed from the neighboring ballroom, and the rest of the party eagerly flocked to the dance floor.
Sidney swept the room again for any sign of Marion, but the throng made it hard to identify individuals.
He did, however, glimpse Harold happily chatting with Iris Finchley, apparently too enamored with her to sample the appetizers, and exhaled a wee fraction of the evening’s stress.
“Are you enjoying yourself, Mr. Braithwaite?” Watkins asked.
“Yes,” he said. “A grand time.”
Watkins snorted, and Sidney realized he’d failed to mask his displeasure. “The house is impressive,” he amended. “I’ve never been anywhere like it.”
“You’re from Cumberland, yes?”
“That’s right.” The band struck up a lilting waltz, and there was a midnight-blue twinge under Sidney’s breastbone. He tried to ignore the stairs. “I went from a mining village to France, and then to Oxford. Didn’t have the time for parties like this; nor the connections, I suppose.”
Watkins shrugged. “There are many in this room who I would wager haven’t experienced a teaspoon of the life that you have.
I was a nurse before I turned to teaching, and I don’t regret those years one bit.
Variety breeds not so much sophistication as…
” She hesitated, surveying those inside the ballroom. “Pride.”
In the study, Neville knocked a chess piece to the floor and nearly fell from his chair trying to reach it. Sidney hurried to his side and knelt to retrieve it while Watkins followed, anxiously tutting.
Neville reclaimed the piece from Sidney without acknowledging him. “Liliya would have seen through that move. I must do better.” His fingers danced across the board again, advancing pieces with a rapidity at odds with his manner.
“Liliya, sir?” Sidney asked.
Neville looked up at Sidney with an apprehensive, clouded expression.
“Liliya is fine, Sam,” Watkins said, easing him back into the chair. “Finish your game.”
Neville returned to feverishly moving pieces, and Sidney turned to Watkins. “Who’s Liliya?”
“A friend,” Watkins said shortly.
Neville mumbled at the board in Russian, and Sidney raised an eyebrow. “A foreign friend?” When Watkins’s eyes cut toward him warily, he added, “I know what it’s like to lose contact with someone. I’m sorry.”
Watkins studied him, sipping her champagne in silence, and finally shifted to stand beside him as they watched Neville play.
“He met Liliya at a tournament in Moscow,” she said softly. “Her family works for the KGB, and their communication has been strictly monitored for years.”
The redactions in Neville’s letter that Gin had translated, Sidney realized. The blacked-out portions had nothing to do with agents passing information. It was Soviet control over citizens.
“Any hope of meeting again was slim, yet Sam has clung to it like a drowning man. Only the letters grew less frequent this year, and he hasn’t heard from her in months. It was worrying him a great deal before the incident at Leland’s party; since then, it’s like he’s being driven mad.”
“I’m sure,” Sidney murmured. All those visits to Olenev were for love letters? It was a mercy they had uncovered Marion’s connection to Robert Crowne before wasting precious weeks trying to find a code in Neville’s letter from a sweetheart.
A shadow crossed Watkins’s face. “Dr. Neville is a good friend, and it’s been difficult to watch the toll on his spirit. Perhaps I should have tried harder to dissuade him from such a foolish romance. But I suppose the heart doesn’t always lead in sensible directions.”
Sidney did not like the uncomfortable plucking sensation under his rib cage stirred by Watkins’s comment, nor the renewed urge to take the stairs two at a time. It was silliness and heartburn, a physical reaction to the stress of the night. Ginevra was just fine on her own—
A lone figure passed through the drawing room next door, and Sidney’s churning thoughts quieted. Marion Kirk had arrived at last.
She wore a pale pink dress with matching silk gloves and a white lace shrug that clung to her shoulders, the first time Sidney remembered seeing her dressed in something other than brown tweed. No need to slip inside as staff; elegance was the perfect disguise.
“I think I’ll find us more champagne,” Sidney said. Watkins nodded absently, still watching Neville, and he slipped out of the study.
Marion had stopped beside a love seat in the middle of the drawing room, greedily watching the dancers next door as though searching for someone.
Sidney checked the footmen lining the ballroom for any sign of the identified agent, but he was nowhere to be seen.
He wavered, caught between the need to keep a low profile and the desire to restrain Kirk.
But when she opened the sequined handbag on her arm, a cold, manic gleam in her eyes, the decision was made for him.
Quickly, he stepped into her path, bumping her shoulder. “Sorry, Miss Kirk.” He didn’t mean to slosh quite so much champagne on her, but the Ginevra Maneuver, as Sidney now thought of it, was effective. Kirk startled, and the full force of her anger turned upon him.
“Do I know you?” she asked brusquely.
“Maybe not,” Sidney said. “But I know you. And I know you’re not supposed to be here.”
Marion stiffened, her eyes hooded. “None of these leeches should be here either.”
She glared over Sidney’s shoulder, and he turned.
Watkins hesitated in the study’s doorway, her lips pursed.
Before Sidney could delay her, the female don skirted around them and headed toward the stairs while Marion cast a nasty look at her backside.
Watkins was probably fetching someone to haul Marion away, which was the expected thing to do.
Only Sidney wanted Kirk in the Security Service’s care first.
He lowered his voice and drew nearer. “But you’re here for a specific reason, aren’t you? You’re trying to ruin the Damocles Club.”
“They deserve it,” Marion snapped, pulling away. “They maintain power by destroying those deemed beneath them.”
“Like your uncle, Robert Crowne?”
Marion’s attention locked onto him with burning intensity. “What do you know about my uncle?”
“I know he was sent down from Oxford when a boy died after a sconcing, and I know he was later accused of treason in Vosburg. The expulsion seemed harsh, but can you really hold the Damocles Club personally responsible?”
“Yes,” she spat. “That expulsion ruined his life.”
“Did they make him turn traitor too?” Sidney asked evenly in turn.
Marion drew back, staring down her nose at Sidney though he had her by a few inches.
“My uncle was innocent of the charges against him in Vosburg, and yes, I blame the Damocles Club for that too. The evidence against him was asinine and weak, but all those officers were old Damocles boys still keeping their little cliques, even inside prison. They sacrificed the outsider as their scapegoat while the real culprit walked free.” Her eyes narrowed, and she leaned closer.
“I’ve come here tonight to find the truth. ”