Chapter Six
Jones smoothed a hand over the worn pages of the first book he had ever purchased. He’d pored over the pages, examining every word, every brush stroke of the paintings. That mankind could learn something and share the knowledge through the printed word had been a marvel to a boy from the rookeries.
Even a marvel to a man who had scrimped and saved and gone to bed hungry to have enough money to buy something so frivolous as a book. But this naturalist’s handbook contained a painting that had captivated him long ago. Two butterflies sharing the page, the one at the bottom had small, spotted brown wings—a sad little species compared to the brilliance glowing above.
Morpho helenor achillaena in Latin, or as he had first read it, Lepidoptera I. Papiliones I. Nymphales VIII. Potamides C. Conspicuae d.
He didn’t know what any of those words meant, but he knew what he saw—an exotic butterfly native to the warmer climates. The color of its wings was just as he remembered, though it had been months, perhaps a year, since Jones had last looked at the page. Those wings were a dazzling blue he’d never seen anywhere in his life. Iridescent. Incandescent. Brilliant. Luminous.
None of those words did the color justice.
None of those words could accurately describe her eyes.
He had followed the baroness and the maid back to Worthington House, as promised. No one looked at them twice along the way, even though the baroness was wet and bedraggled.
She was beautiful even then, though she looked a proper mess.
Jones touched a fingertip to the stunning butterfly wing dancing across the page. He could only say that her eyes had been like this. So blue they sent a man’s heart soaring and his knees to the ground.
Yet he had made a mistake.
She had seen his face twice now. The baroness knew what he looked like, had spoken to him. He had even defended her in the street. He would not be able to hide from her easily as he investigated Wycomb.
He supposed it did not matter now. She was already in danger. Whoever Wycomb was involved with—and whomever he had angered—knew of her.
She’s just leverage. They want the gov’nor to fall in line.
For a moment in the street, Jones had thought to take her away with him, to protect her. His intervention would do nothing but alert Wycomb of the investigation.
Being among the bosom of the ton was probably the safest place for her, at least for now. The ton’s prying eyes could often be protection enough, and if she were in danger from Wycomb, he would have long ago attempted something. Still, it was time to take the next step. The gov’nor was involved in something right enough.
“Not that book again, Jones. Don’t you think you’ve read it enough?”
Jones stilled, his hand frozen over the wings of the butterfly. That was the voice of the only man who knew what the book meant to Jones.
“At least I read, Angel.” He closed the book, setting his hand over the smooth leather cover for one more moment to regain his equilibrium before facing his mentor.
“I read, too. Quite a bit, in fact.” The man facing him grinned smugly as he sat on the edge of the study desk. He crossed his legs and cocked his head, the leather thong holding his hair in a queue shifting against his back. “I read recently that a certain someone is on special assignment.” Golden brows rose. “No details were provided.”
“No.” Jones stood, picking up the naturalist handbook to slide it back onto the bookshelves. If there was a slight pang in his chest because he had not been ready to close the cover over the blue butterfly, he was confident it didn’t show in his movement. “And I can’t tell you about it.”
“Ah.” Angel only grinned more broadly. “One of those assignments, then. I won’t pry, but do have a care for your hide when you’re hunting one of your own. British spies aren’t stupid. More, Lilias would like you to join us for dinner in the coming weeks and I’d hate to tell her you died because you were spying on another spy.”
“How is your lady?” Angel’s wife seemed like a more prudent topic than his current assignment.
“She’s well, as you would know if you visited more often.” The Marquess of Angelstone’s lips curved up in a wry grin. “Which she told me to tell you.”
“Please convey my apologies. I’ve been busy.” Guilt sat uncomfortably on his shoulders, so he rolled them to release the tension. “I’ll try to visit soon.”
“Oh, stuff it, Jones. We all know you’re not one to sit down to a family dinner.”
How could he when he didn’t know what family was? “Still, I should—”
“Not be concerned.” Angel waved Jones’s future absence away with an elegant hand. “Lilias’s confinement is drawing near and she was simply hoping for company other than my mother and sisters-in-law.”
“I’ll make time to see her, then.” It was a jolt, remembering that the woman who fought on the fields of Waterloo was going to have a babe. He’d seen Lilias only a few times since she’d begun to swell with child and it was both awe-inspiring and terrifying.
“There’s more, Jones.” Angel’s tawny eyes sobered, and the laughter faded from his voice. “I have to go to Italy, probably for a few weeks.”
“An assignment?”
“Yes, there’s an informant there who is in some trouble. With Lilias so near her time—” He broke off, breathed deep, then started again. “I know she’ll be well. She has two months yet and she is healthy. My mother and sisters-in-law are there, and the physician and midwife will attend. But…” His voice trailed off as he straightened his shoulders. “Jones, I never really thought about what fatherhood meant, until I realized I might not come back from this mission. If I don’t—”
“You will.” Jones said it calmly, because if a spy doubted for even a moment that he would return home, then he never would.
“I know. But if I don’t return, I need to know someone is watching out for Lilias and the child.” Angel breathed deep and looked straight into Jones’s eyes. “Will you?”
Something burst through him, something bright and powerful. Pride, though that seemed too pale a word. Perhaps it was gratitude, except he did not deserve such an honor. “The Earl of Langford would be better suited,” Jones said, referring to another spy. A peer. A trusted friend.
“And I know Langford will take care of Lilias, too, but he also has his own family to protect. I want someone else—someone I trust implicitly—to watch over her while I’m gone and if…Well.” Angel rubbed a hand over his jaw. “Will you?”
He asked as if Jones didn’t owe every second of his life to the man. “Of course.”
“Good.” Angel looked down at gloved hands and spread his fingers wide. After a deep breath, he closed his fists again and looked up at Jones. “Good.”
He seemed so vulnerable just then, in a way Jones had never seen even when Angel was falling in love with Lilias. It wasn’t fear, precisely. Nor was it worry or sadness. It was a strange combination of all of it.
Which was why a spy should never fall in love.
“Truly, Angel, I’m sure Lilias could protect herself well enough.” Jones decided he wanted a brandy to lighten the atmosphere and strode to the decanter. “She almost brought down a trained assassin, after all.” He gestured to the golden liquid, then stopped.
He was offering Angel his own brandy.
Angel didn’t hesitate, but simply nodded his acceptance. “She probably would have bested the bastard if it hadn’t been raining and dark. More, she was wading through the Serpentine. At least she wasn’t wearing skirts that day.” Angel snorted and his scorn seemed to bring everything back to recognizable ground. “Well, if you do visit, she’ll stop pestering me. She’s unbearable with all this inactivity, and if you’re not careful, you’ll be her next project.”
“Project?” Jones handed a snifter to Angel, who swirled it and sniffed before sipping.
“Every day it’s something new. New drapes for the morning room, folding gowns for the baby, searching for the perfect set of tin soldiers our child won’t be able to play with for years yet.” Angel shrugged his shoulders and pushed away from the desk to study the shelves. “Lilias is bored now that the physician has restricted her activity and she can’t ride or fence or—in her words—have any fun. By the way, where are my field glasses? These are all yours.” Angel was frowning as he studied the sets lined up on the shelves.
Jones shifted uncomfortably, the muscles inside his belly and chest going tight. He’d made a decision he had no right to make, surely. “I put your pair upstairs. In your old—in your room.”
“Oh good. I rather like that pair. I’ll have to collect them before I leave.” Angel tossed an easy smile over his shoulder that made the tight muscles inside Jones relax. “We both know I’ll not be staying in this house for many more nights, Jones. I’ll need to visit, but with Lilias and the babe—no. I’ll not be here.”
It was what Jones feared. Not the lack of a roof, as he could rent a room easily enough with his pay and the money he had diligently set aside. But this house, Angel’s bachelor quarters, had been a mainstay in his life. It had been the only safe place for too many years.
“I can begin moving out my items tomorrow, my lord, if you intend to rent or sell soon.” The very words drove a hole in Jones’s heart, and he hoped it did not show on his chest.
“What are you talking about?” Angel spun his body around, his eyes wide, mouth turned down in a frown. “I’m not selling or renting this house.”
“But if you’re no longer staying here, then it’s not needed. Training has moved to other locations.” He supposed the house had outlived its usefulness.
“It has, but you’re still living here, aren’t you? I’m not selling it as long as you’re willing to stay.”
Pride roiled in Jones’s chest. “You don’t need to pay for me. I can find my own place.”
“Why the hell would you? This house is ideal. The locks, the training room, the weapons store.” Angel spread his arms wide, as though by doing so he could gather up the entire house and all its contents. “You’ve lived here almost as long as I have, longer now that I’ve moved to my family’s townhouse. It isn’t my place any longer, Jones. It’s yours. And we may still need it in the future.”
“I can’t pay for the upkeep,” Jones said flatly. “My salary doesn’t run to this kind of house, and I won’t allow you to pay for it.”
“The service will pay for it.”
Hope could wound as much as drive fear into a man’s heart, he decided, dropping into a chair. “What?”
“Sir Charles approved it months ago. The house is yours to use, Jones, as long as you’re working with the service. After that, it reverts to me. But Sir Charles—well, let’s just say he wants the spy hunting his spies to be happy.”
He should not feel such relief and joy. It was only a house, one that didn’t belong to him. But he could remember the night Angel had brought him here, and that he’d been warm, well-fed, and comfortable for the first time in his life.
“We should use it for more training, then.” He leaned forward and set his elbows on his knees. He didn’t want to have other people underfoot, along with all the emotional maintenance and bickering that required appeasing. But emptiness was a waste for a building such as this. “I’ve no experience in training, but we have space for it.”
“Jones.” Angel’s voice held more command than Jones had heard this past year. “It’s yours, for the foreseeable future. There may be training required at some point, but for now, the space is yours.”
Jones looked at the shelves, at the instruments he’d laid out there. He thought of the training room and the hours he’d spent honing his skills, the room he’d slept in and made his own after his training was complete.
The townhouse was a gift, for however long it lasted.
“Take it, Jones.”
It wasn’t that simple. A man didn’t accept gifts of this magnitude. But—
But.
“For now.” Jones looked up into Angel’s amber eyes and felt twin spires of gratitude and elation. Only Angel would know what this gift meant. “For now.”