Lord Crayle's Secret World. Lara Temple

Two

      ‘By all that’s holy, Michael, you were lucky to have escaped with your lives!’

      Michael frowned ruefully across the chessboard. He had tried to keep the story to the barest minimum, but perhaps it was the fact that Alicia had been with him in the carriage that had shocked Anderson. He was well aware that his mild-mannered friend was becoming increasingly enamoured of his spoiled little sister. Under other circumstances he would have been delighted at the connection. John St John Moncrieff Anderson, or Sinjun to his friends, was possibly the best man he knew, but his sweet temper might not be the best match for Alicia’s wilful nature.

      He and Anderson had been friends since going up to Eton as children and they had both served in the army, though in very different capacities. Anderson had been one of Field Marshal Wellington’s aides-de-camp, and while he had witnessed much of the carnage of war at the great commander’s side, unlike Michael he had not participated in its bloodier aspects. It was precisely for this reason that Wellington, aware of the connection between them, had asked Michael to take a role in setting up the ‘Institute’ for the War Office.

      ‘I’ve been campaigning for thirty years now, Crayle, and I’ve no stomach for another war,’ Wellington had told Michael. ‘You know what I mean more than Anderson would. He’s a good man and one of the best minds for organisation I’ve had the pleasure to work with, but I need someone on the spot who knows what it means to get over rough ground as lightly as possible. I know you have other fish to fry now you’ve decommissioned, but this new venture needs everything you learned with the Ninety-Fifths. You’ve always been able to get your men to follow you into the mouth of hell, the devil knows how, and some of the men you’ll be recruiting won’t be easy to manage. Will you do it?’

      Faced with this direct approach, Michael had found it impossible to say no. He sympathised with Wellington’s wish to avoid future wars more than he would have admitted to the commander he admired so much. He was still paying a heavy price for going into those mouths of hell, as Wellington had called them. The thought of being responsible for other men’s lives again, and the inevitability of failing them, was something he preferred not to contemplate. The nightmares had mostly faded, but not the memories. He had consoled himself with the thought that this was a substantially different battlefield.

      He shook off these thoughts and inspected the chessboard. Apparently Anderson had been even more distracted than he.

      ‘Pay attention,’ he remonstrated. ‘You just left your poor bishop completely exposed.’

      ‘Never mind the bishop! You might have been killed!’

      ‘For heaven’s sake, Sinjun. I told you they had no intention of shooting anyone. They were damn amateurs.’

      ‘It didn’t sound so amateurish to me.’

      ‘Not in execution, perhaps, but I would have heard, and so would you, if there was a woman highway robber on the North Road. They cannot have been at it long.’

      ‘Well, from what you said, she was not the one who was supposed to be doing the talking. For all we know she may have been at it for years...’

      ‘Unlikely, but still, that is beside the point. We both agreed after the Varenne incident that you could use some females at the Institute. She is perfect for our troop of spies.’

      ‘Agents, not spies,’ Anderson corrected absently as he withdrew his bishop. ‘And I was thinking along the lines of an actress available for the odd job and so were you. What the devil will we do with a female criminal?’

      ‘The same thing we do with the male criminals. Train her and use her.’

      ‘They are not all criminals!’ Anderson protested. ‘And...hell, between setting up the Glasgow office and taking care of that business in Birmingham we’re too busy and shorthanded to deal with new recruits anyway. And now we find out from the Foreign Office that two Austrian mercenaries are apparently on their way to London. You yourself said that finding out what they plan to do here is a top priority.’

      ‘Any more information from the Foreign Office or from the ports?’ Michael glanced up from his inspection of the intricately carved wooden pieces.

      ‘None. Stimpson assured me he has his best Austrian contacts on alert for information, but all we know is that they are being sent on behalf of one of Metternich’s closest friends and that they are to receive their orders from someone in London. And he said it was the merest chance they found out even that much. Apparently someone is being very careful.’

      ‘I don’t like it. Junger and Frey are the best, or the worst, of their lot. We need to find out why Metternich is sending particularly vicious mercenaries onto English soil and who they are working with here. I came across Junger’s work in France once and it wasn’t pretty. The thought that they might even now be in London... We need to find out what they are here for. And who on our side of the channel is paying their shot.’

      ‘Well, you see why we can’t be distracted just now,’ Anderson said, almost imploringly.

      ‘Well, with any luck, she won’t show up,’ Michael said reassuringly and drained his port. ‘Come, it is no fun winning when your mind isn’t on the game. We need to leave anyway or we’ll be late for our meeting with Castlereagh.’

      Anderson stood up swiftly, clearly happy to dismiss the thought of being saddled with a female highway robber.

      * * *

      Sari would have been happy to dismiss the idea as well, but the throbbing of the bullet graze to her arm was a constant reminder. George, too, had become uncharacteristically obdurate. He had placed the lord’s card prominently on the single table in the seedy rooms they could barely afford at the poorer edge of Islington and for two days she had done little but stare at the stark black letters proclaiming ‘Michael Julian D’Alency Alistair, Viscount Northbrook, Earl of Crayle, of Grosvenor Square, London’. The name had begun to take on a singsong quality in her mind. It was madness, she told herself. They would probably find it was a hoax at best, a trap at worst.

      George had disagreed. Two evenings after their failed escapade, he had come home from his job at the hostelry and had sat with her and his wife, Mina, at the table as they mended their well-worn clothes to the accompanying noise from the tavern next door.

      ‘I’ve done some asking, miss, and he’s solid. I know it’s not what your ma would have liked, but she never thought we’d find ourselves in such a tangle, neither.’

      Sari felt the familiar mix of guilt and panic rise up in her again like a sickness. She let her throbbing arm rest for a moment before picking up another shirt from the pile.

      ‘If only Papa had lived, we might still have been able to earn enough to get by.’

      ‘Aye, and I’m sorry Mr Trevor’s gone, but he never was the same after your ma passed. I’ve as much reason as anyone to be grateful to him and your ma for taking me in all those years ago, but I call a spade a spade and he had no business leaving the work and the worry to you all those years while he drank himself and his money under every night. He should have at least seen you married and then you might have had a husband’s helping hand with Charlie.’

      She smiled somewhat crookedly.

      ‘To be fair, he did try when we returned to England after Mama died. We have it on excellent authority that I’m not marriage material.’

      Mina snipped a thread and reached for another pair of socks from the pile before her.

      ‘Mrs Ruscombe and her kind are no authority you should be listening to, Miss Sari,’ she said in her soft voice. ‘Now put that down and let your arm have a rest, do.’

      Sari shrugged and laid down her sewing thankfully. ‘Everyone else listened. Hector certainly did.’

      ‘Moresby was a weak young fool,’ George said roughly. ‘And your father was an even greater fool for not taking him to account for shying off instead of having at