She brushed off the problem, for she had no answer. But a few chords into the piece, she stopped. Newspapers and gossip sheets had reported Evan’s and her marriage. She was described as a French émigréfrom the Loire. But nothing more about her background was printed. Evan’s friends did not ask for more information. So how had that woman identified her as the Countess of Halsey?
The question chilled her.
The lack of an answer froze her more.
Was that woman one who would contact her again? Was she the one who would check on her progress?
No.
No. That could not be.
She would have identified herself. She would have asked.
Wouldn’t she?
#
The next evening, Inès had been invited to dine with her husband and his three male guests. “We need your smiling presence,” he insisted, and so she had sat with them. Yesterday, she had thrown off her worries about the stranger in the fish market.
When their guests finished, she rose from the dining room table. Prime Minister Pitt followed, as did Rafe Durham, Lord Carlisle, and Evan.
“I will leave you gentlemen to your deliberations,” she said, and Evan hurried to the door to open it for her.
Inès worried that, during the meal, the four men would let slip secret information. She did not wish to be informed of anything she should not know. The old cautions of secrecy still held her in thrall. Taking it upon herself to introduce interesting topics of conversation to the gentlemen, she’d navigated the dinner hour easily. Pitt concerned her. He drank too much wine and port, but ate little. The other men noticed, but said nothing. Only once had she fretted when Carlisle and Pitt emphasized their greatest frustration. It was that they had not caught the two most notorious of their suspected French spies in England.
“La Mère is no fool,” Carlisle declared. “She has money, connections. We know this. But she stays out of public sight.”
“She is too successful,” Pitt said, seemingly unaffected by Carlisle’s dismay. “One day she will slip. Then we will have her.”
On these evenings when the men came to dine, the dowager countess and Fee usually took their dinner together in the small breakfast room. Fee was often invited to routs and Christmas balls, so she and her mother went out often. Evan and Inès went with them when it was necessary for him to be present to chaperone his young sister. But they would leave early, with the dowager countess in charge.
On this particular evening, Evan and Inès had remained at home, hoping their guests would leave early so that they mightenjoy a few evening hours alone together. With two days before Christmas, they sat in their sitting room upstairs, Evan’s suite now hers as well. Davis the butler knocked urgently and entered when bidden. He seemed to get thinner each time Inès looked at him. Always she wished he had a good comb, because his dark-brown, curly hair hung over his brow down to his owl-like glasses.
He waited until both Evan and she gazed at him. He always seemed to wait like an actor for the right moment to speak. “Forgive me the late intrusion, madam and sir, but you have two callers. Lord and Lady Carlisle are in the main salon.”
Evan was out of his chair at once. “This is odd.”
“The hour? Yes, sir.” Davis eyed both Evan and Inès, who had changed into their sleeping attire. “The Carlisles urge you to come receive them immediately. While they do not wish to inconvenience you, they emphasized the urgency.”
Evan tied the sash of his banyan. Inès did the same with her quilted silk robe. Then, hand in hand, they took the stairs down and into the salon. Davis had lit candles in the sconces, but the room was chilly, the evening fire behind the grate merely embers.
Inès noted at once the dour expressions on their friends’ faces as they paced by the window. Going to Giselle, she kissed both her cheeks and shook hands with Carlisle.
Evan greeted both and offered them the settee, though he remained standing, his mouth thin with tension. “Brandy?” he asked.
“Tea? Anything?” Inès sat across from Giselle and noted her pallor.
“Nothing, Inès. Merci.”
“What is amiss, Clive?” Evan asked his friend.
“We went to the theater tonight,” Carlisle blurted out.
“We saw only part of the first act, but came straight here,” Giselle added, her hands clasped tightly together.
“Giselle and I were in Rafe’s box.”
“Close to the stage, yes. A good view. I remember,” said Evan. “What happened?”
