Page 2 of His Wife, the Spy (His Enterprising Duchess #4)

I t is going to be a long month.

Annabel strolled through the hedge maze that had likely once been the pride of Kennet Hall’s garden. Now, its outer shape was a model of smooth respectability, but its paths were bisected with clumps of weeds. The inner walls were marred with tendrils and sprouts that waved in the breeze like hair escaping its pins.

Despite that, it was the perfect refuge. Its circular shape reminded her of the labyrinth in the courtyard of her village church. Many times she’d walked the worn stones in thought, searching for peace of mind.

Something she desperately needed today.

Sitting in Sir Reginald’s library, agreeing to his scheme had seemed the simplest path. Now that she was here, the task he’d set for her seemed enormous. The house was a sprawling mass of staircases and hallways, full of guests and servants. Of which she was neither.

Not for the first time since her father’s bankruptcy, Annabel thought it would be easier to be a maid. The work would be difficult, certainly, but she’d be able to leaf through Lord Ramsbury’s papers without notice. She’d also have a place far from those who had known her in her past life.

Which made it sound like she had died—faded away with the loss of her dowry.

“I’m still shocked to see Annabel Pearce here—in gray, no less. It’s such an unbecoming color on a young lady. She looks as though death will be knocking any moment.”

The voice, with its nasal pitch, soaked through the green wall of the maze. It belonged to Belinda Wallace, who had come out the year after Annabel. In a ballroom, clad in silks and lace, butter wouldn’t melt in Belinda’s mouth. But they weren’t in a ballroom, and it was easy to imagine the sly, sharp smile she wore everywhere else.

“Though the gray is at least this year’s style,” said Charlotte Bainbridge. “Last Season her gowns were all from the year before, if not older.” Her hushed tone made it sound as though previously worn dresses were the eighth deadly sin. “It’s no wonder that she didn’t catch a beau.”

“Dresses had nothing to do with it,” Belinda said. “She’s as poor as a church mouse. Father says Baron Chilworth risked everything in a scheme that came to nothing. They’ve rented or sold as much as they could. Father’s talking of making an offer for their library, though Mother can’t understand what he wants with piles of old books.”

Despite the warm sun and the spring breeze, a chill went through Annabel. Her family’s library would belong to someone else, or to several someones if an auction was required. The ton would dismember and distribute it without respect to the family who had curated it with a reverence others reserved for horses.

“Miss Pearce loves her library,” Elizabeth said. “She speaks of it often. It will pain her greatly to lose it.”

The sadness in the girl’s words, her proper use of Miss Pearce , gave Annabel’s spirit a lift. They would never be true friends, but perhaps she was making an impact on her young charge.

“Aren’t you worried about having a companion not much older than you?” Charlotte asked. “I can’t imagine why your father chose her.”

“Mama was meant to bring me out,” Elizabeth explained. “When she grew too ill for London, Father had to find someone quickly. Miss Pearce was the best of those who applied.”

Annabel remembered their meeting quite differently. She had been so panicked over being sent to the workhouse that she’d accepted Sir Reginald’s offer without questioning the salary. Only after a month did she realize how much she was underpaid.

Still, working for her wages was better than scheming for a wealthy protector.

“It was kind of your family to take her,” Belinda said. “But I’d be wary. It would be a shame to have her turn your beau’s head while you aren’t looking.”

In the long pause that followed, Annabel was tempted to break through the hedgerow and tell them all how little she thought of ton men and their double lives. How she’d rather spend her days alone than be forced to gossip with empty-headed ladies who sent their children to nannies and their husbands to mistresses without a second thought.

Never mind that the young men queuing up for Elizabeth were barely able to shave.

But it would do no good. No amount of protest would convince these sheltered girls that a different life existed outside their family’s walled gardens.

“You shouldn’t worry Elizabeth so,” Charlotte said. “In that drab color, with her nose in a book and no dowry? No man will ever take notice of Annabel Pearce.”

A Season ago, the mean-spirited comments and the malicious giggles that followed would have stung. Now, Annabel’s skin was thicker. She had made the difficult choice to pay her own way. She was making—

“Too right, Charlotte,” Elizabeth said, laughing. “She’ll be lucky to have the blacksmith as a husband. Her children will be born with ashes under their nails.”

The girl’s jibe sent a pin into Annabel’s heart and heat to her ears. She didn’t crave a husband, but the thought of never having children woke her in the middle of the night and sent her curling around a pillow. When dawn broke, she consoled herself with the thought of making a difference for others’ children. Like Elizabeth.

But she was making no measurable difference at all. She was simply stepping in to ensure another ton brat found a better title and a larger house.

“I could tell you that eavesdroppers never hear well of themselves.”

Annabel spun to face the speaker, realizing too late that the wild hedges had caught her hair. At least the snare gave her a reason for the tears in her eyes.

“Instead I’ll tell you it could be worse.” Fiona Allen reached up and helped free her before smoothing the loose strands back into place. Her twisted smile and arched eyebrow gave her words a dark humor. “You could be me.”

Every Society matron in London told their daughters, nieces, cousins, and random guests at tea the story of Fiona Allen’s fall from grace. It was a twisted fairytale of a beautiful girl with a father so wealthy his lack of title didn’t matter, a splash of a first Season, and a quick engagement with the bachelor heir every girl had wanted.

And prematurely anticipating the wedding night, a broken engagement, and a hurried trip to the Continent to avoid the scandal.

She was a walking warning about the results of disobeying the rules.

What Annabel remembered, however, was Amelia Chitester’s disastrous house party and Fiona’s brazen flirtation with Amelia’s fiancé. How scandal shadowed her every step.

Annabel reached to her hair to check the pins. “I’m sorry, Miss Allen.”

“Don’t be. My life is much less complicated these days.” Fiona took Annabel’s hand and tucked it into her elbow. “Let’s leave these harpies-to-be in our wake. There used to be a lovely statue garden at the end of this path.” She stumbled over a flowering vine trailing across the path. “Perhaps the jungle hasn’t claimed it yet.”

Annabel tried to free herself. Guests could stroll the grounds. She was not a guest. “Miss Allen, I should be—”

“Miss Spencer doesn’t need you in the daylight. Besides, all the young men are in the stables, no doubt wagering over whatever race Jasper has planned.” Fiona tugged Annabel forward.

“I could return to the house.” She should. If Jasper Warren was out planning a race, it was the perfect time to search his office.

“Why waste the sunshine?” Fiona said. “We’ll be trapped by rain enough this month.” She winked. “Besides that, Linden is resting after our trip, and I need someone to talk to.”

They took a turn in the circle, paralleling their earlier path on the other side of the untrimmed hedge.

“How long have you been Miss Spencer’s companion?”

“Since January.” Annabel had spent one last holiday at Chilworth House before returning to London to look for a placement. “Mrs. Spencer took ill at Christmas and is convalescing in Bath. In her absence, they advertised for someone to help bring Elizabeth into Society.” She paused. “How long has Mrs. Linden been with you?”

“Since after the Chitesters’ house party.” Fiona steered her around another hedge. “I wish I would have had her the Season before.” She sighed as they came to another wall and a third turn. “I also wish Jasper would make a shortcut through these dratted hedges.”

“The funds must get there somehow.” The voice, leaking through the maze’s inside wall, was deep and measured. Aristocratic. The man sounded much like Jasper, but Annabel couldn’t be certain. She’d only heard him speak when he was bored or poking fun.

Still, her ears perked up.

“What say our friends to the west?” he asked.

“They’re being watched too closely to communicate. I don’t blame them after Gareth’s disappearance,” another man replied. Annabel could place him easily. The very serious Mr. Yarwood had directed her to Elizabeth’s rooms upon their arrival. He had supervised the upstairs staff with military precision. “When does Claudette arrive?”

Mr. Spencer said Ramsbury had a French mistress wrapped up in his scheme. Annabel thought it quite bold to include the woman in a house party, not to mention continuing their plot in plain view. But then, Jasper Warren seemed to care little for what Society thought.

She risked a glance at Fiona. After Amelia’s party, Annabel would have sworn Fiona was Jasper’s latest mistress—or perhaps something more serious. Could the man really intend to have two ladies demanding his attention under the same roof at the same time? Did Fiona not care?

“Within a fortnight. Perhaps a bit later,” Jasper mumbled. “Our lady in London will be expecting progress, Kit.”

“Then perhaps you shouldn’t have invited a house full of strangers for the month. I can’t traipse off across Wales and leave you alone.”

“I’ve no need for a mother hen, and I’m hardly alone. Fiona is here.”

Yarwood barked a laugh. “Then you have no need of me at all.”

Fiona sped their pace and rounded the last corner in a whirl of yellow skirts, pulling Annabel in her wake. “Careful with your next words, Mr. Yarwood. Jasper can vouch for my fighting skills.”

Annabel looked between the two men, each dressed well and close in age. Yarwood was the leaner of the two, and he wore his suit with crisp precision.

However, Jasper commanded attention without moving or uttering a word. His dark blond hair, worn at a fashionable length, fell past his broad shoulders and chest. He wore his tailored coat, made of dark blue super-fine, with the casual air of a man accustomed to the best life had to offer.

“Especially when you arrive with reinforcements.” He nodded toward Annabel. “Miss Pearce.” His slight smile contradicted his sharp, wary gaze. It matched Yarwood’s. Both of them reminded her of foxes guarding their kill.

Annabel curtsied. “Your lordship. Mr. Yarwood.”

The center of the maze was a wide circle occupied by four female statues facing each direction on the compass and each dressed for a different season. Vines wrapped their feet and dirt stained their faces and streaked their clothing.

“What brings you here, ladies?” Jasper asked.

“Miss Pearce was walking when I took her captive and forced her to accompany me,” Fiona said. “I’ve come to tell you that you promised croquet, and the young ladies need something to occupy their time other than sharpening their tongues.”

“Croquet it is, then.”

“Excellent. Thank you.” Fiona turned to Annabel. “Will you join us, Miss Pearce?”

Annabel shook her head. “Thank you, but no. I should return to the house.”

“As you wish,” Jasper said. “Kit, please take Miss Allen to the croquet court and help her set out the wickets.” He winked at Fiona. “I don’t trust her not to cheat.”

“Cheat?” Fiona pressed her hand to her chest. “Me? I seem to remember you putting all my wickets uphill.”

Jasper’s warm and rich laughter rolled like sunshine from behind a cloud. “I did, didn’t I?” He walked past her and offered Annabel his arm. “Allow me to accompany you, Miss Pearce.”

She resisted the urge to put her hands behind her back. “That’s not necessary, your lordship.”

He left his arm at a right angle, waiting for her to accept. “Unnecessary, yes, but ungentlemanly otherwise.”

The weight of everyone’s stares pressed on Annabel’s shoulders, forcing her to lift her hand and thread it through Jasper’s elbow. Her fingers rested on his thick, solid forearm. His deep blue coat and buff trousers made her gray dress drabber and dowdier than she had believed possible.

“Thank you, your lordship.”

*

Jasper walked in silence beside the woman on his arm. As a general rule, he found the prattling of ton ladies annoying. Today, however, was different. In his experience, a quiet woman was rarely a good thing.

“Have you kept in touch with Amelia since the house party?” He hoped his cousin, their one mutual acquaintance, would break the ice. Amelia usually did.

“We correspond, yes.”

He waited for more. Amelia’s letters were always full of news about the estate and the family. Uncle Augustus was now determined to keep death at bay in order to see his first grandchild upon its arrival, likely in the summer.

Annabel offered nothing further.

Jasper tried again. “She doesn’t appear to regret missing the Season.”

“No, she doesn’t. It is one of the things I admire about her.”

Jasper wondered whether Annabel’s admiration would be tempered by knowing Amelia eschewed London because her whiskey business demanded much of her attention. “She is an unusual lady.”

At that, Annabel glanced up at him. Her furrowed brow enhanced the confusion in her eyes, which were the same color as his favorite chestnut mare.

“What?” he asked.

“You make unusual sound like a compliment.”

Jasper had met many beautiful women in his life. Annabel Pearce wasn’t a traditional beauty, especially with her hair in that severe style and in a dress even a nun would refuse to wear. But her skin was luminous, and she carried herself with a grace that was almost impossible to teach.

“I suppose it is,” he replied. “She has a confidence that makes her stand out amongst the other ladies of the ton .”

Except, perhaps, the young woman in front of him.

Jasper pushed the thought from his mind. Yes, he remembered Miss Pearce’s sharp wit and thoughtful stare from Amelia’s party, but he wasn’t walking with her to test her wits. Not exactly, anyway.

He resumed their stroll through the maze. “You have not been Miss Spencer’s companion long.”

“No. Mrs. Spencer took ill after the New Year and quit London in favor of Bath. Elizabeth’s governess accompanied her.”

The New Year. Viscount Stratford’s trial had concluded just prior to Christmas. Reginald Spencer had attended it as regularly as a church service, and the gallery had been so crowded that the judge worried it would collapse onto the floor below. Men and women alike had attended as though it were a party at Vauxhall.

“I do not recall seeing you in London over the holiday,” he said.

“I do not recall your ever seeing me in London.” Her steps faltered. “I apologize, Lord Ramsbury. Apparently being officially invisible has loosened my tongue.”

Jasper smiled at the top of her head. “Apology accepted, Miss Pearce.”

“Thank you, and you’re correct. I was at Chilworth during Christmas. We were packing for the move to London.”

The gossip at White’s had focused on two topics—Stratford’s trial and Baron Chilworth’s bankruptcy. Jasper had played cards with the baron on several occasions. He was a gregarious, likable fellow, though always a little too careless with his money.

“You didn’t want to live with your family in London?” Jasper asked. He had never been inside the Chilworths’ home in the West End, but he knew where it was. It was large enough for several generations of the family.

“I did not.” The words had a ring to them, hinting that the topic was closed. Just as well. He didn’t wish to discuss her family.

If Miss Pearce wasn’t in London during the holiday, then she likely knew little of Stratford’s Scandal, as the newspapers had called it. She would know less of Spencer’s shadow lurking through the trial of the viscount who had kidnapped, and then murdered, his young mistress.

“At the risk of appearing a mercenary, Mrs. Spencer’s illness was my good fortune,” Miss Pearce said, almost to herself. “Most reputable companion posts had been filled, or they were for young women I knew from…before.”

What Jasper knew of ladies’ societies he’d learned either from his sisters or his mistresses. Jane, his youngest sister, had wept for days after some girl or the other had arrived at a ball in a dress that was simply the same color as hers. Viscountess Morton had refused to take him to her bed until she was certain he’d never been her sister’s lover.

That conversation must have been awkward.

It would likely have been equally awkward to work as a companion for a young lady you’d recently stood next to in a ballroom.

“Is Mrs. Spencer very ill?” he asked.

“Her letters make no mention of returning.”

There was something in her disappearance. Jasper could feel it. “Did she not mention it before she left?”

“She was gone before I arrived.”

“So Spencer hired you himself?”

Annabel stopped and faced him. “Why are you so concerned about Mr. Spencer?”

Blast . The woman was far too smart. “It’s the situation that intrigues me,” he said. “My mother has taken ill, and my sisters may need a companion. I have no idea if it is proper for me to do the interviews myself.”

Of course he couldn’t do them. Any young woman alone with him in a room would consider it an interview for a wife.

They reached the mouth of the maze. Despite the yawning gap in the hedges and the lawn spreading out before them, Miss Pearce didn’t move. The sunlight slanted in to reach them, warming the top of his head. It touched her next, and her hair sparked to life. Gold and warm copper glinted like ore in poor soil.

“Thank you for escorting me, your lordship.”

He needed to ask her more questions, not stand here staring at her hair. He definitely didn’t need to miss her touch as she separated from him. “We are not to the house yet.”

“It’s a large house. I’m capable of finding it myself.” Her cheeks colored a bright pink, but she didn’t apologize.

“Allow me—”

“No,” she snapped. Drawing a deep breath, she put more distance between them. “I went into this maze without you. If I exit with you, the entire party will be alive with gossip of an assignation.”

“I see.” Jasper’s lips twisted at the irony. He was alone with the one woman he’d met who didn’t wish to be alone with him.

“Lord Ramsbury, we were hoping…”

The words came as a shadow cast Miss Pearce back into gloomy gray. Jasper turned to greet the intruder.

“Miss Spencer. How may I help you?”

She was blinking at her companion. “Miss Pearce?” She looked between them, her gaze narrowing.

Miss Pearce brushed past Jasper and into the sunlight. “His lordship offered to help me find the way out of his maze. It’s become quite overgrown and treacherous over the winter.” Her smile was brittle. “Thank you for your assistance, sir.”

Jasper dipped his chin. “It was my pleasure to be of assistance, miss.”

Rather than stare at her retreating back, he faced his guest and gave her his best smile. “Miss Spencer. How may I assist you?”

“We were hoping you would join us for croquet.”

She looked up at him with a wide blue stare that reminded him of his sister Johanna when she’d asked for a puppy. It was difficult not to pat Miss Spencer on the head as he’d done Jo.

“I will shortly.” He hated croquet, but he suspected Miss Spencer would wheedle if he refused. Jo wheedled with the best of them. “I use the black mallet with the longest handle. Why don’t you ensure that no one else picks it?”

After bouncing a curtsy, she spun on her heel and hurried back in the other direction, barely acknowledging her friends, who fell in behind her. Jasper waited until they were out of sight before lengthening his stride to apprehend Miss Pearce, who was almost to the lowest group of garden steps.

“You are the most exasperating man,” she said to his shadow as she avoided his hand. “What if someone saw you run—”

“I hardly ran.” He chuckled. It had been more difficult to catch her than he’d expected. She had apparently abandoned the short stride ladies were taught as soon as they could walk. “And no one saw me.”

In the silence, their steps ticked off their climb.

“Shouldn’t you join us on the lawn? What if I make love to your charge when no one is looking?”

It was a tease he would have made with Fiona, and Miss Pearce’s sharp inhale made Jasper wonder if he’d gone too far. However, when she faced him, humor sparked in her eyes. It was the first sign of life he’d seen in them.

“I believe that’s too bold, even for you.” She arched an eyebrow. “But I’ll be keeping an eye on you after sunset.”

“Wise woman,” he quipped as he opened the door and ushered her into the entry hall.

Jasper intended to leave her at the stairs. However, when he looked down to bid her farewell, she wasn’t there.

He found her at the library doorway and returned to her side. She didn’t acknowledge his presence.

“I knew it would be lovely,” she whispered.

Jasper looked past her to the room that his new staff had spent days dusting so he could work in there without being plagued by sneezing fits. The late morning sun streamed in the windows, highlighting the blossoming shrubs outside and the polished wood within. It was a room full of books and leather, the quietest space in the house.

Miss Pearce stared like it was a sweet shop and she couldn’t afford a taste.

“When Fiona visits, Mrs. Linden spends a great deal of time in here,” Jasper began. “I believe she naps more than reads, but she is as much of a guest as Fiona.”

Joy lit Miss Pearce’s eyes for a moment before she shook her head. “It’s not proper, but I appreciate your kind offer.”

“Anyone can tell you I’m as unkind as I am improper.” They probably had already. “Books should be read by someone who can appreciate them.” He kept his eyes on hers. “Please make yourself comfortable while you are here, Miss Pearce.”

The battle between what she should do and what she wanted to do was plain. It was equally plain when she decided. Her brilliant smile stole his breath. Though only for a moment.

“Thank you, Lord Ramsbury. I will.”

She entered the library and left him standing at the door, watching her peruse the shelves. After a moment, he left to join his guests, lest another young lady search him out and risk Miss Pearce’s reputation and employment.

Perhaps croquet would distract him from why that was important.