Page 55 of One Thing Leads to a Lover

Langley’s answering expression might accurately have been described as a grimace. “You could say that, sir.”

“Now, Lady Kingston, do you remember our last meeting?”

The crease in Langley’s brow grew more severe, directed now at her. “You’ve met?”

“I really don’t…” Amanda began. General Scott gave an eager, prompting nod. “Oh.” For she did remember, then. Just a vague, shadowy recollection. “Why, it must have been…”

“More than ten years ago. Yes, sadly. Lord Kingston was, shall we say, a friend to my service,” he explained to Langley. “Lady Kingston organized a ball to benefit the Widows and Orphans Fund, one of those charity galas the ton so delights in throwing. You were just a bride, then,” he said, favoring her with a fond smile that gradually softened even further, almost to melancholy. “May I offer my condolences? Your husband was a most excellent man.”

“Thank you, sir. Yes, he was.” She dipped her chin, aware suddenly that she was blushing. “I apologize that I forgot our having met.”

“No matter,” he smiled benevolently. “A countess must inevitably have a large acquaintance—easy enough to lose track. Rather like a military man, I suppose. Poor Mrs. Scott has quite given up trying to remember the name of everyone I know well enough to tip my hat to.”

Amanda managed to nod. The point had been neatly made.

Despite the clutter on his desk and his air of helpless befuddlement, General Scott forgot nothing. Missed nothing.

Surreptitiously, Amanda folded her hands across her lap, doing her best to disguise the ever-lengthening rip in her skirts.

With a gruff noise in his throat, Langley reached into his coat and withdrew the paper-wrapped parcel. “Ah, yes,” General Scott said, something that wasn’t quite a smile creasing his face. “How good of Major Stanhope to recall me to the business that brought you both here.” He took the still-wrapped book from Langley, laid it on top of one of the sloping piles on his desk, put his unlit pipe between his teeth, and began to search for his spectacles. “Here we are,” he chortled around the pipe stem when he patted the top of his head, then nudged them into place.

When he once more picked up the package and began to examine it, Amanda turned her attention to Langley, who was watching the general with a strained sort of hopefulness. “Are you thinking the same thing I am, sir? That direction could lead us to Lieutenant Hopkins.”

“It could,” General Scott agreed after a moment, running a fingertip over the print. “But it’s just as likely to belong to yet another party who’s willing to pay handsomely for what’s inside.” With finger and thumb, he reached inside the torn paper and eased the book from its wrappings, then flicked them aside. As he turned the codebook over in his hands, he again wore that smile that wasn’t amusement, that glimpse of quite another sort of man from the jovial, grandfatherly gentleman she’d first imagined him to be. “Well, well, well. At last…”

A shudder chased up Amanda’s spine. “What I don’t understand is—” Both men looked sharply at her, as if they’d momentarily forgotten her presence. “Why didn’t Lord Dulsworthy return it to Porter’s?” she continued, quieter. “You…you can’t really be saying that he’s involved in—in espionage?” The last word came out as a whisper, pushed past suddenly dry lips. “If you’d ever met him, you’d know—why, Major Stanhope has met him, of course. You tell the general,” she pleaded, turning toward Langley, “how ludicrous it is.”

A muscle twitched along Langley’s jaw, and he did not meet her eye. “Appearances can be deceiving.”

“Oh, bother that,” she snapped, startling herself almost as much as the two men. But she was heartily tired of the phrase, appearances can be deceiving. Didn’t she know full well how true it was? “He’s my sons’ guardian. I deserve to know if he—if he—”

“Indeed, your ladyship,” General Scott said soothingly. “Your concern for your children is both understandable and admirable. And you shall know, as soon as we do. It’s possible, of course, that there will be an innocent explanation. A simple mix-up. Or…” With a circle of his wrist, he waved the book through the air, as if conjuring the truth. “Perhaps less innocent, but still hardly dangerous. Lord Dulsworthy, in possession of what he believed to be a valuable old cookbook, might have seen an opportunity to make a few pounds and found another bookseller. Until we know for certain, however, I don’t intend to let it be known that this”—he returned the book to the top of the pile and thumped it with his first finger—“has been recovered.”

“Then the ones looking for it will still believe it to be in Lady Kingston’s possession,” said Langley. “She will still be in danger.”

Amanda had been eyeing the codebook, wondering how soon it would be hopelessly buried beneath an avalanche of important papers on the general’s desk. An archeological expedition would be required to recover it. At Langley’s words, the sharpness of his voice—impatient, incredulous—she started.

“Unfortunately, yes,” agreed General Scott, eyeing her. “It’s good that you have Major Stanhope with you. For your protection, as well as your sons’.”

“Sir?” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Langley’s fingers curl into the arms of his chair. “I expected you to reassign me to the search for Hopkins, now that the codebook has been found.”

A breath caught in Amanda’s throat. She knew Langley would leave eventually, be assigned to his next mission, though she had not considered that it might happen so soon. Did his reaction suggest he was eager to go?

Or just the opposite?

“No,” General Scott answered after the briefest consideration—the sort of hesitation Amanda herself sometimes employed when she wanted Jamie and Philip to think she’d weighed some outlandish request before refusing it. “Colonel Millrose told me you’d appointed yourself Lady Kingston’s private guard…by claiming to be her sons’ new tutor, wasn’t it?” He didn’t wait for—obviously didn’t require—an answer. Amanda couldn’t decide whether he sounded displeased by what Langley had done. “Under the circumstances, I think you’d better stay in that role a while longer.”

“Stay?” Langley echoed hoarsely, disbelief etched into his face. “At Bartlett House?”

From the moment he had interrupted her luncheon, Amanda had been aware of a subtle change in his demeanor, his mood. Last night, even this morning, sparks had crackled between them. Dangerous, just as he’d said. A spreading fire that would consume them both if they were not careful.

But somewhere between the drawing room and the morning room, once Jamie had given him the codebook, he’d raised a sort of leaden shield between them, through which those sparks could not travel. To protect her, she’d thought.

Now, however, she wondered whether he had not been trying to protect himself.

“Oh, goodness no,” General Scott said with a laugh, plucking his pipe from his mouth.

Langley’s posture shifted. Not relief, precisely, but she did not know how else to read his response.