Page 57 of Better Off Wed

He hesitated for a moment. But what was the use in keeping this secret, given what she knew? “He intends to ask you to turn spy.”

She looked thoughtful. “For the Crown? Or for him?”

“One in the same.”

“Are they?” She turned back toward the window. “So, you’re handing me over to him tonight.” Her voice was flat, emotionless. “After we—”

“He’s in Brighton, on holiday.” Jeremy spoke across her, hoping the explanation would reassure her, though it probably ought not. Miles were rarely an impediment to General Scott. “You may recall that Lord Sterling does not actually have a grand house in town. I did not want Thornton’s coachman knowing where you live.” He glanced out the opposite window. “And I did not think my mother’s humble cottage would suit the characters we’ve been playing.”

She felt around her for her reticule and stuffed the unneeded stocking into it, revealing nothing of what she felt. “Will the general’s servants give us cover, do you think?”

“Let us hope.”

When they arrived in Audley Street, lights blazed in the general’s study, the windows of which faced the street, and for a moment, Jeremy felt a pang of anxiety. Had he led Laura straight into a trap, just as she had feared?

He waited impatiently for the groomsman to unfold the steps, then hurried down them to lift Laura out, while the groomsman gathered up their bags. “Give a knock, my good fellow,” he ordered the man, nodding toward the front door. “I hadn’t time to alert the household to our arrival.”

The groomsman did as he had been bid, as Jeremy helped Laura hobble up the wide stone steps. After an interminable wait, the door swung open to reveal a footman on the other side. “Look sharp,” the groomsman said, handing off the bags. “Here be yer lord and lady.”

Jeremy’s heart stuttered when the footman goggled and shook his head in disbelief and denial. Three days of subterfuge about to be undone.

Then a voice spoke behind the footman. “Take those bags inside.” Once the footman had gone, the butler stepped into the doorway. “My lord,” he said to Jeremy and bowed. “My lady. How good it is to have you home.”

To disguise Scott’s missing horses and carriage, Thornton’s coach and coachmen were dismissed to the nearest livery stable with the excuse that his lordship’s groom had been given leave to visit his sick mother. Feeling Laura begin to sag beside him, Jeremy swept her up and over the threshold into the house, and the butler shut the door behind him.

“Captain Addison, is it not?”

“Yes, er—?”

“Highsmith, sir. You know that General Scott is from home?”

“I do. And I’m most grateful to you for playing along with our little charade. I’ve been… Well, this is—”

“Laura Hopkins,” she told him, without hesitation. “Lieutenant Fitzwilliam Hopkins’s sister. And if it isn’t too much trouble, I daresay Captain Addison would like to put me down.”

“Of course, ma’am,” Highsmith said and showed them into Scott’s study.

“I sprained my ankle while traveling, you see,” Laura explained as Jeremy settled her in one of the leather chairs by the fire and dragged over an embroidered footstool. “The general had sent Captain Addison into the country on some other mission, but when he found me, he dropped everything to escort me back to London.”

“I couldn’t leave the sister of a fellow officer in distress.”

Highsmith looked from one to the other of them, clearly not sure what to make of their story or why they were telling it to him. Jeremy recognized a degree of skepticism in his otherwise impassive face. “Will Miss Hopkins require a room for tonight?” he asked.

Jeremy noted his own omission from the question; of course General Scott’s butler must know full well that Jeremy had somewhere else to lay his head.

“No,” she said, before he could answer. “If you will call for a hackney, I will return to my aunt in Clapham.”

“Very good, ma’am. In the meantime, I’ll send in tea.”

“He doesn’t believe us,” Laura said to Jeremy when Highsmith was out of earshot. “We gave a more convincing performance in Kent.”

He quirked his lips in what he hoped would approximate a smile. In truth, he was weary of parts. Neither aristocratic coolness nor brotherly concern could do justice to his present feelings for Laura. “You were fast asleep when I concocted this scheme, and I had nothing from the last season’s worst plays to guide me.”

“And the best plays aren’t much use to people who have found themselves in the sorts of improbable situations we have over the last few days,” she conceded. Pain or weariness or both had dulled the lively sparkle in her eyes.

“Your ankle is troubling you.” He reached again into his pocket, this time withdrawing the little glass vial of Phelps’s tonic, and knelt to offer it to her. “Once you are home, take a drop or two before you retire.”

She took it from him without either arguing or agreeing. “I could do with a night of dreamless sleep,” she said as she slipped the bottle into her reticule. It clinked softly against Penhurst’s stolen watch.