Page 17 of His Wife, the Spy (His Enterprising Duchess #4)

J asper pushed away from the desk and Annabel’s thorough list of necessary repairs, ignored tenant requests, and shoddy workmanship. All his life, his grandfather had lectured him to pay attention to what mattered. It wasn’t that Jasper hadn’t listened. There was just so much that required his management, and there was only one of him.

Until now.

It had taken every ounce of his persuasive charm to convince his tenants to talk to him honestly. I don’t have a complaint, your lordship. Your grandfather was a fine man, your lordship. We’ve been doing well, your lordship. Your rents will be on time, your lordship.

Annabel had done better with their wives. Apparently, they needed little encouragement to be brutally honest.

Jasper left the library and found Stapleton standing sentry at the door. “Where is Frederick?”

“With her ladyship in the garden,” the older man said. “I thought it best, since his eyes are sharper.”

“And she likely had her gardening tools.” Jasper chuckled. The staff had learned quickly that gardening with Annabel was neither a short nor passive task. “I’ll go relieve him.”

“She mentioned something about the maze, sir.”

He nodded his thanks as he opened the door. Once outside, it was easier to breathe. The air held scents he’d known since childhood. Roses at the front of the house, lavender nearer the laundry sheds, newly turned earth by the kitchen door. Yesterday, when they rode to visit the tenants, the world had consisted of hay, recent rains, and mud. Barnyards and sheep pastures had added a solid reminder on how he made his living and who depended on his care.

The sunshine warmed his hair, banishing his brewing headache as he entered the maze in search of his wife.

The towering hedges had terrified him into stillness as a child. He’d hidden, fighting tears, until Bottoms, grandfather’s gardener, taught him to use a string to retrace his steps to the exit. Now, newly trimmed growth littered the path at every turn, pulling him forward but reassuring him of the path out again.

Voices drifted to meet him. Annabel’s measured tones mixed with another, more excited one. Familiar, but not, and definitely not Frederick. Jasper lengthened his stride and took the corners shorter, snagging his shirt on sharp-ended branches.

He stopped at the edge of the circle. Annabel was in an apron and a hat with a brim large enough to keep two of her shaded. Hands on her hips, her gloves clenched in one fist, she nodded along as the man beside her waved his hands as though conducting a green orchestra.

“Camellias will do better against the hedges, on trellises,” the man said. “We could find other shrubs for the centerpiece.

“Peonies.” Jasper walked forward, his grin widening as he stretched out his hand. “It’s good to see you again, Bottoms.”

“It is, your lordship.” Bottoms returned the greeting, his smile just as wide. “Word spread that old Jones was no longer in charge of the purse, and I thought I’d come see if we could put the garden in proper shape. Her ladyship happened to be out here working on her own.” He cast a glare at Frederick.

“It’s good to have you back, Bottoms. Start an accounting for what you will need.” Jasper put his hand at his wife’s waist. “I need to borrow Lady Ramsbury for a moment.”

They walked away from the gardener and their rifleman guard to the statues that stood as the centerpiece. The muses gleamed white from head to foot, making the larger cracks easier to see.

“We’ll need a plasterer to repair these,” Jasper said. “Otherwise, we’ll lose them altogether.” He bent to her ear. “Thank you for hiring Bottoms. I had no idea he’d left because of Jones’s greed.”

“Your grandfather’s earlier ledgers showed a larger expenditure on the gardens than in later years. Was that down to your grandmother?”

Jasper nodded. “She spent as much time outdoors as she did in ballrooms. She and Bottoms were thick as thieves.”

The old gardener walked the circle, tilting his head to stare at the shrubbery and empty beds much as an artist stared at a canvas.

“This place will be in good hands.” Jasper twined his fingers through Annabel’s. “And yours will be saved from all this weeding.”

“A little gardening now and then helps me think.” She thumped his shoulder with her thick work gloves. “Which is what you’ve asked me to do.”

“You’ll likely have plenty of things to think about at Lambourn. Father disliked bookkeeping and put his faith in Jones much earlier than Grandfather.” The old man had managed his own accounts until he could no longer see to write straight. “But Mother has likely rid it of weeds already.”

“I seem to remember your telling me your mother was ill, and you were looking for a companion for your sisters. Almost in this very spot.” Annabel’s eyes danced.

Being caught in a lie had never been this much fun. “It was thirty paces north.” He kissed her nose. “But yes, I lied to keep you talking.”

Unspoken questions lay heavy on his tongue. Further ones flitted across her eyes. She blinked, and they vanished.

“I can write ahead to Lambourn and let them know to open the house for next week,” Annabel said. “If you’d like.”

She was bolder in many areas, and she spoke her mind more freely—mostly when they were alone. However, answering his correspondence had concerned her. It wasn’t her decisions that gave her pause, it was her handwriting. She didn’t want it to look like a woman was writing his letters. She needn’t have worried. Her penmanship was as straightforward as she was.

How had Spencer ever considered her a suitable spy?

“We’ll have to visit Warwick Manor first. Uncle Edgar’s invitation mentioned something he’s left too long.” He sighed. “The house is likely a pile.”

“It must be a weight,” she said. “My father found one estate a chore.”

Jasper had two if he didn’t count the estate in Norfolk, which he didn’t because Uncle Augustus wasn’t dead yet. And even after he was, Cousin Amelia and Richard would be looking after it. He’d have three after Edgar died.

What am I going to do with more houses?

“Is that how you came to understand ledgers?” he asked.

“Numbers always made sense to me. Though we weren’t taught much more than how not to overspend what husbands would allow us, the principles for budgets are the same. The sums may be larger, but the mathematics involved don’t change.” She walked away from him to snip an errant sprout. “It’s easy to find truth in numbers.”

Jasper followed her. He’d learned long ago that he discovered more when he was quiet. People said things without saying them, or when they were saying something else. The way they held their bodies or spoke their word choices were telling. Annabel’s choice of truth spoke volumes.

“You’re the one who discovered your father’s debts?”

She nodded. “It took time, tracking down things he’d sold at bargains, and invoices that were paid late. There were improvements he’d listed but never made, and investments he’d purchased from fraudsters and thieves.” She pulled a weed with such vehemence that she beheaded it.

Perhaps she would have made a good spy. “What did you do?”

“I confronted him with the differences between his ledger and the one I’d translated using his records. He’d become so wrapped up in his schemes, he didn’t even know how broke we were.” She dropped to her knees to dig out the remainder of the intruder. “Why would he do that? It never made sense that he would lie to himself.”

“Lenders review our accounts before they loan money,” Jasper said. “It’s usually a formality, especially if you have a title and an estate. No one would investigate past the last few pages.”

No one but a daughter who was determined to learn the truth. Jasper lifted her to her feet and took her trowel. She had done enough work today.

“He said reading through ledgers and doing sums wasn’t a suitable pastime for a lady.”

Jasper’s ears twitched. “You don’t like that word, do you? Suitable.”

Annabel’s steps slowed. “Almost as much as you like your lordship .”

He understood his aversion. He wanted to understand hers. “Why?”

“It means I’ve met a mark but not exceeded it. I’m good enough , smart enough, pretty enough .” Her tone sharpened. “You buy a cart horse because she’ll do . You buy a racehorse because she captivates you, and you consider her valuable.”

I need a suitable wife. He’d meant it as a compliment. She’d heard cart horse . And now he had her managing his household and handling his correspondence. And cuddling against him in the middle of the night.

Does she consider everything I ask of her a job?

A houseboy appeared at the gap to the hedges. He whipped off his hat and gave a bow that reminded Jasper of a broken toy. “Visitors, your lordship.”

Assassins likely wouldn’t show themselves in the middle of the day. Still, Jasper kept Annabel close as they walked toward the house. Frederick walked at a safe but respectful distance, his rifle at the ready.

This was their current truth, and none of them had to say a word about it. However, the longer the silence stretched, the more Jasper’s skin crawled with the impression someone other than Frederick was watching his back. If he felt that way, Annabel certainly must.

Stapleton met them at the door. “Lady Lambourn and Mr. Yarwood are in the library, Lord Ramsbury.”

Mother would never leave the girls unattended at a house party unless something had happened, and Kit would have never let her travel alone. This was bad news. “Thank you, Stapleton.”

It was only a few steps to the library, but Annabel took his hand before they reached the door. Her fingers warmed his icy ones, but the warmth crept deeper still. At every other critical point in his life, he’d been alone. Even when there were other people in the room, they were not the ones to bear the responsibilities that followed.

He wasn’t alone any longer.

They entered the library together. Mother, in black, had taken the chair farthest from the windows. She held a crumpled handkerchief to the corner of one red-rimmed eye. Kit, on the other end of the room, paced from wall to wall, head down and deep in thought.

Jasper went to his mother first and curved his free hand around her shoulder. “The girls are fine, yes?” The words almost choked him. Having Annabel in the path of assassins had brought home how dangerous his foes could be to those around him. A house party wouldn’t have a rifleman on the roof.

“They’re fine.” She patted his hand. “Having a wonderful time. Mrs. Linden was kind enough to step in so I could leave.” Her tears began anew. “Edgar has died.”

Jasper hadn’t spent much time with his uncle as an adult, not after his exile to the countryside and his stubborn refusal to repent and reform. What he remembered most was a man with a laugh that was too large for his body, his mother’s favorite sibling in a family she loved to a fault. “I’m sorry, Mum.”

Annabel set a cup of tea on the nearest table.

“Thank you, dear girl,” his mother said. “I am so glad you’re here.”

So was he. Just as he’d been glad to have Annabel across from him in the coach last night and meeting with tenants this morning.

“Are we planning the funeral for here?” Jasper asked. “Or did he make arrangements for a crypt at Warwick?”

Mother looked past him toward the other end of the room, to Kit. It took Jasper back to his father’s death, when Mother had looked over the girls’ bowed heads and sought his input, when he’d navigated the swamp of grief to give the answers everyone expected. Six months ago, after Grandfather’s death, everyone had stood in this room and waited for him to do it again.

Kit had stopped pacing and now stood in front of the desk, facing them, his hands behind his back and his chin held high, as though he was meeting a firing squad. Mother, her mouth in a firm line and her blue eyes like ice, could easily pull the trigger.

“Edgar wanted to be buried in Warwick’s churchyard.” Kit pulled an envelope from his coat pocket. “No crypt, simple stone.”

Jasper’s father had kept a similar envelope in his safe. So had Grandfather. They’d shown him where to find it and what it meant.

Heirs were told those things.

Heirs…

Kit’s nod was short and quick.

“Leave us.” Jasper cast a glance at his mother and his wife. Sending Annabel from the room was like losing a lifeline through the maze in his head, but he needed to ask some very rude, very direct, questions.

The door clicked closed.

“Jasper.”

Ignoring Kit, he walked to the liquor cabinet and poured two shots of Cousin Amelia’s best whiskey. He delivered one to the man he’d considered a brother, if not by blood then by experience. The boy he’d fought beside in the schoolyard. The friend he’d worried over during the war. The man he’d trusted with his secrets and his life. “Cousin.”

Kit’s stare was wary over the rim of his glass. Ever vigilant, his friend. No one read a situation better, whether it was a rowdy crowd in a pub or one man in a library. He could always find the easiest way out, the surest plan of attack, the information that was needed.

“How long have you known?” Jasper asked.

“Since Mum’s death.” Kit stepped back so he could lean against the desk.

Kit had lost his mother during their third year at Eton. “That long?”

“Da told me, but only because he was foxed and miserable.” Kit pulled his body into the shape of a man who spent far too much time stooped in a mine and then slouched on a stool in his favorite pub. “ You will always be my boy, even if in the eyes of the law you’re a bastard .” He straightened his spine and sighed. “As though I needed to be told either thing. It was plain the old man loved me, and just as obvious that I looked nothing like him.”

“That’s hardly proof that—”

“Mum had a letter from Edgar in the trunk at the end of her bed, agreeing to pay for my education but nothing else.”

The boys at Eton had teased Kit mercilessly over two things: his Welsh accent and the identity of his benefactor. The larger the crowd, the wilder the guesses, until Kit lashed out. Jasper had fought next to him every time. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Honestly?” Kit shrugged. “I thought you knew.”

“You thought I knew ?” Jasper raked his hand through his hair, struggling to keep his temper in check and his brain clear enough to follow Kit’s reasoning. “And simply didn’t mention it for twenty years.”

Kit tilted his glass, first to one side and then the other, as he stared over his shoulder and out the window. “I know how Society is about bastard children.”

Jasper ground his back teeth together to silence his protest. This story was not about him. “How did you get from nothing else to knowing where Edgar kept his will?”

“I never expected to hear from him, but when I enlisted, he sent an invitation to Warwick. I was curious, so I went.”

Edgar had never invited anyone to the country house he’d once referred to as his own personal Elba.

“Big house, garden full of flowers I couldn’t pronounce. Awkward silences. He did say he’d been sad to learn of Mum’s death, which was kind, and then he offered to pay for my commission. Said he thought Mum would want him to do whatever it took to keep me safe, which was true. I took it for her.”

Edgar could have kept his heir in Britain altogether. “Nothing else?”

“I didn’t want to be the Earl of fucking Warwick, and there was still a possibility for him to father a legitimate heir.”

Stranger things had happened.

“That changed after Egypt.” Kit refilled his glass and carried the decanter to Jasper, who shook his head. He needed his wits about him. “I went to see him after I returned—once I saw Da.” He returned the whiskey to the cabinet and kept walking. He reached the door before he reversed direction. “I wanted him to know he’d invested wisely, I suppose.”

Jasper understood that compulsion. He’d often wondered whether his father would be proud of what he was accomplishing. Since Grandfather’s death, the curiosity had doubled.

“It was clear he was ill.” Kit’s jaw kicked sideways. “Very ill. We went on a carriage ride around the village and the estate, and then we went back to the hall. Edgar warned me he’d written a new will, claiming me. He wanted to keep Warwick safe.”

“Safe?” Jasper thumped his glass to his desk. “From me?”

“That was a poor choice—”

“Get out.” Jasper heard his knuckles crack before he felt them. His heartbeat deafened him to anything other than his breathing. “Leave.”

Kit placed his glass on the nearest table and walked to the door.

“Wait.” Jasper didn’t turn, but he knew Kit would stop. He always did. “We were set upon by highwaymen on the way here. We may be getting too close, either in London or in Cardiff. Be careful.”

“Thank you for the warning.”

The door closed with a snick . Jasper refilled his drink, his back to the empty room. The latch clicked again.

“Jasper?”

“Mother.” He had so many questions, but he didn’t dare face her until he had better control of his emotions.

Instead, she put herself in his line of vision. “There is a way to fight this. Mr. Burks says we can argue that Edgar’s illness rendered him incompetent. That a devious man took advantage of a previous kindness, and—”

“You knew, didn’t you?” She had to have known. She and the family lawyer hadn’t arrived at this plan of action surrounded by strangers at a house party. It explained also her cold civility every time Kit visited. “All this time, you knew and you said nothing.”

“We thought it best.”

Best. To keep the secret that his best friend, the man he thought of as a brother, was actually related to him.

“Burks is ready with the paperwork—”

“I will not lie about Kit’s paternity. Edgar did the right thing, finally, and we will honor it.”

He lifted the decanter and carried it with him to a chair that faced the gardens. “Leave me.” The glass was half full when he remembered his manners. “Please.”

She did.

Jasper drank until the garden resembled the impressionist painting hanging over the mantel in the dining room.

His life was full of secrets and lies, the ones he’d perpetuated as a fa?ade to hunt other liars and thieves and the ones others told him. His mother, his best friend, his family—even his wife.

Darkness fell as he finished the whiskey and moved on to the gin.

Was Annabel a spy, using everything at her disposal to get close to him? Or was her interest, her affection, authentic? Had he let her into his life only so she could tell Spencer everything and ruin his plans? Or worse, given the attack on the road? He couldn’t be sure of anything any longer.

Stapleton was a shadow against the firelight as he set a tray on the desk. “Lady Ramsbury insists you eat, your lordship.”

Jasper nodded but didn’t leave his chair. There was every possibility she’d poisoned it. Or, since Kit had hired Stapleton, they were working in concert. Perhaps the assassination attempts weren’t related to his progress in the embezzlement case or Gareth’s death, but instead led to his newly discovered cousin’s darker motives.

His stomach rumbled and gurgled as the scent from roast beef and herbed potatoes curled through his nose and downward. Using the desk for balance, he moved to his chair and sat. After choking down the first few bites, eating became easier. The room was brighter and warmer than he’d thought, though he’d never heard anyone stoke the fire or bring in candles.

Annabel. It had to be her doing. Mother would have fussed, and the servants would have never breached the door of their own accord. Would a woman who wished him dead care whether he sat starving and cold in the dark?

Jasper finished his dinner and stood. He left the room and several of his doubts behind, though he listed to the right as he crossed the hall. He clung to the banister and watched his feet as he climbed the stairs. It would never do to evade being trampled and shot only to tumble backward and bash in his head on his own stairs.

His bed was turned down, but empty. His eyes adjusted to the dim light. Annabel’s door was ajar, a sliver of firelight tempting him to go through it.

A bleary-eyed Travis entered the room a few moments later. “Your lordship. Do you need—”

“Thank you, Travis, but return to bed,” Jasper whispered, hoping to avoid waking his wife. “I can do this myself.”

He did just that, stripping off his clothes before filling the basin and scrubbing clean. He cleaned his teeth last, hoping to rid himself of the smell of alcohol, if not the effects.

He opened the door to a room he’d never entered as an adult, other than during the tour the previous butler had insisted on conducting before his departure. Likely to prove he hadn’t stolen anything.

All Jasper cared for was the woman in the bed, facing the door. Everything he wanted to ask her, every word he wanted to say, jumbled together in his brain and stayed there. “My feet are cold.”

A slow smile crept over Annabel’s face as she pulled the bedclothes back in invitation. Jasper slid beneath them and into her arms. Her warm cheek rested against his chest. “Your mother told me everything.”

Likely not everything. He didn’t even want to tell her everything. Not tonight.

“She believes you are angry over Edgar’s slight.” Her breath heated and tickled his skin.

Her hair was silk against his fingers. “What do you believe?”

“That you want a fourth estate like you want a third arm.”

“A third arm might be useful now and then.” He stroked her spine, and she arched closer, pressing her breasts against his ribs. “They lied to me, Annabel.”

“Do you tell the truth all the time?”

He forced himself not to squirm away from her question. “This isn’t water in my gin glass. He’s my cousin , and he couldn’t find a good time over the last twenty years to tell me. Neither could Mother.”

“Sometimes the longer you’ve kept a secret, the more difficult it is to reveal,” she whispered. “Especially if you care about the person.”

Her words pricked his conscience, but he pushed the impulse aside as he pressed a kiss to her forehead. The peace she gave him was addictive, and he didn’t wish to lose it. Perhaps, though, he could explain the reasons for his decisions and it would help later. When he was sober. And clothed, without her knee resting near vital bits of his anatomy.

“Society wraps heirs in soft cloth until we’re needed,” he said. “We’re all shipped off to school, safe from any drama of home and family. We’re groomed to manage estates, but not work them; to create children, but not raise them; to declare wars, but not fight in them.”

He drew a deep breath. “For years I wished for an older brother.”

“Maybe two.” Annabel’s smile teased his skin. “You could have been third.”

“God, no.” Jasper’s laughter shook the bed. “Can you imagine me in the pulpit every Sunday?” He kissed the top of her head. “Besides, I don’t think I could manage being that poor.” He sighed. “But soldiering…”

Her knee grazed his thigh, but she stayed quiet. Only her uneven breath told him she was still awake, listening to him ramble as the gin wore off.

“Rather than declaring Kit his heir and saving him from war, Edgar paid for his commission.”

“Did Kit wish to be saved?”

“He says no. That he told Edgar he didn’t want to be an earl, and Edgar went along with it.”

“I see.” She raised her head and rested her chin on the back of her hand. “Who are you angry with, then?”

Her deep brown eyes held his. The mattress was soft against his back, and the fire warmed the room. Her body was warmer still, soft and yielding.

“Both,” he whispered. “I had to stay behind and watch Kit and Gareth sail for Egypt.”

“Gareth?”

“Claudette’s husband.” He twined a lock of her thick hair around his finger, then unfurled it, only to repeat the action.

“He died in the war?”

He shook his head against the pillow. “Afterward. He and Kit came home whole and safe. I would have, too.”

Her sharp inhale shifted her ribs away from his. “You wanted to go?”

“I thought it was only fair.”

“Jasper,” she scolded him quietly for the lie.

“Fine.” He met her arched eyebrow with one of his own. “My titles, which I have simply because I am the only male of my generation on my father’s side of the family, give me every luxury but adventure.” He put a finger to her lips to stop her protest. “And, before you say it, I know war is not an adventure. However, I’m allowed to go to the Continent to shop, or for sex, but I’m forced to stay in England while young men without the benefit of birth or fortune go fight for something vastly more important. Something their government, of which I am a part, has ordered them to do.”

Annabel shifted against him, rising just enough to press a soft kiss against his lips. Her palm cradled his jaw. “I, for one, am glad you didn’t go to war, whatever the reason.”

There was nothing but sincerity in her eyes and her words. It was the same every time he looked at her, every time he held her. Whatever misguided belief had brought her into his life, she offered something he’d never expected to find—a place to be himself. He couldn’t imagine being anywhere else.

“So am I.” He drew another deep breath. Once he put this wish in the air, he was committed. “But I want to do something to help them.”

She yawned and snuggled closer. “Then that’s what you’ll do.”