Chapter 21

Guilt settled in Miranda’s stomach as she watched her sister and mother dither over the right ribbons to purchase. It didn’t matter that they’d already bought out the shops in Hertfordshire, Georgina was determined to start afresh at the stores in London. Their mother was as excited as Miranda had ever seen her, obviously thrilled to have one daughter who found enjoyment in the trappings of the Season.

Miranda had never been as enthralled as Georgina. Even today she’d walked into the shop knowing she wanted a bright green ribbon to trim the hat she was making to go with her new walking dress. She’d walked in, found the ribbon, purchased it, and then waited for the others to finish.

She was still waiting.

Finally Georgina settled on the width and style of ribbon she wanted. There was no question of the color. She hadn’t purchased anything that wasn’t white in well over a year.

Georgina turned to Mother with wide eyes. “Don’t you need a ribbon as well? If you and Lord Blackstone go riding, you’ll need a bonnet that goes with your new afternoon dresses.”

Miranda bit back a groan as the two floated away from the white ribbons to examine the blue ones.

She strolled deeper into the trim shop, perusing pins and buttons and decorative trims. A collection of beaded lace caught her eye for its unusual blend of elegance and simplicity.

“May I help you with anything, my lady?”

Miranda’s head snapped up at the familiar voice. There was Ryland, standing behind the counter with a tape measure draped around his neck and a pair of scissors poking from his pocket. His back was slouched and he was standing in a way that made him shorter than she was.

His swollen right eye was mottled with purple, red, and blue splotches. She didn’t know whether to commiserate over the pain or search out Trent to commend his skills as a pugilist. “What are you doing here?”

“Talking to you. Also cutting lace, if you wish to purchase it.” He pulled the very trim Miranda had been admiring from the case and sat it on the counter.

Miranda looked around the shop, but no one was paying them the slightest bit of attention. “Is this what you’ve been doing for the past ten years, then? Hiding amongst the aristocracy so you can make fools of us?”

“Hiding, yes. Making fools of you, no.” He unwound a length of lace and spread it along the counter.

“What would you consider it, then?” She couldn’t help but run a finger along the beautiful piece of trim.

“Spying. And most of the time I was in France. Occasionally Spain. I even traveled to India once.”

Miranda looked into his face, knowing her surprise must have been written all over her face. Her voice lowered to a whisper. “Why are you telling me this?”

Ryland lifted a brow. “Because you deserve to know.”

She swallowed. “When you were at Riverton you were watching us? You thought we would betray—”

“No.” He cut her off with a swift snip of the scissors, even though Miranda had not yet said she’d take the trim.

“Donkey. And Smith,” Miranda said.

Ryland nodded. “And your butler.”

Miranda fiddled with the edge of the cut lace. “If you wanted to talk to me, why didn’t you come by the house?”

Ryland lifted an eyebrow at her. “You aren’t at home.”

It was hard to refute that truth.

“Even if you were, I doubt you’d have agreed to see me.”

She couldn’t deny that claim either. “How did you get back there? How did you even know we’d be here?”

“This is what I do. I’m a spy, Miranda—or at least I was.” He folded the trim and wrapped it in paper. Anyone looking at them would see a clerk—albeit an unconventional one—helping a customer.

She wasn’t sure what to react to, his confession that he’d spent a decade submerged in lies and danger or the revelation that he’d walked away from it. Confusion joined the swirl of hurt, insecurity, and embarrassment.

“You can ask me any question you want.” Ryland folded the ends of the paper together, forming a package as pretty as that of the most experienced store clerk.

“And you’re going to answer them over lace and ribbons? This isn’t normal, Ryland.”

“My life hasn’t been normal for nine years, assuming it ever was.” He placed a different roll of trim on the counter.

Miranda looked at the package, at his easy handling of the trims, his understated appearance. The ease with which he appeared to be something he wasn’t sparked the emotions swirling inside her into a blaze of hurt anger. “If it was all a lie—”

“I don’t lie, Miranda.”

Her eyes narrowed. She supposed if one were going by a very strict definition of honesty, he’d truly been her brother’s valet for those few weeks. But everything else. Had there been any truth in it? “Then you posted my letters? Where did you send them?”

He winced.

It was all the answer she needed. She turned to leave, intending to drag her mother and sister out of the store whether they were done or not.

Ryland dropped a handful of coins on the counter and scooped up the package of lace. The proprietor was finishing with Miranda’s mother and sister as Ryland slipped toward the back of the shop and out the door. The overwhelming stench of the back alley turned his stomach even as the noise echoing from the main street pounded through his brain.

Following Miranda into the shop had not been his original intention when he’d left the house this morning. His bruised eye would keep him from polite society for a few days, at least until the worst of the swelling had gone down, but impatience had spurred him from his bed. Despite the fact that he had officially retired, the entire business with Lambert left him feeling uneasy. He didn’t feel like he could truly pursue Miranda until the situation had been resolved—which was why he was slinking through a London alley instead of nursing his head in the quiet of his bedroom.

And when he’d seen Miranda step from the carriage, he had been unable to resist—but he wasn’t certain their encounter had done any good. So now it seemed clear his best chance with her would be to solve the case he had left behind.

After walking away from spying, he’d asked Archibald, one of his agents turned footman, to follow Lambert. Most of his reports had been incredibly boring. Yesterday, however, Lambert had received a message from a well-dressed footman. It had been a simple matter for Archibald to pick a fight with Lambert in the tavern and pull the message from Lambert’s pocket. He’d stepped away and memorized it before slipping it back in place.

Archibald was still following Lambert. Jeffreys was checking on a few other locations in case the note was written in code. And that was why Ryland was sneaking toward the rendezvous point mentioned in the note to see if anything—or anyone—interesting was there.

Given the fact that whoever had sent the note had used one of his own footmen to deliver it, Ryland was banking on his adversary’s arrogance to keep him from using code in his communication.

Although the choice of a popular tea shop as a meeting point was surprising.

Ryland looked over the alley behind the tea shop. He’d rather be inside the shop, acting as a waiter or even sitting in a quiet corner sipping tea. Unfortunately, the possibility existed that Lambert would recognize him. They couldn’t take that chance.

The shop was on the end of the street, so Ryland eased around the corner, trying to peek into the windows at the patrons. The tables were filled with London’s elite. Even dressed in his finest, Archibald would stick out like a sore thumb. The choice of location wasn’t looking quite as ridiculous as it had earlier.

Ryland watched Archibald stride past the shop, a stack of packages in his arms. Anyone looking would think him a footman taking his master’s purchased goods back to the house.

Ryland dared to ease closer to the front of the shop, watching the interior for any sign of Lambert.

There he was. Walking toward the back of the shop, just past the window.

Ryland wanted to punch something. He was going to have to enter the shop. There was no way around it. He’d have to wait a suitable amount of time, but he had to see who was in that corner.

Archibald appeared at his elbow, having gone around the next section of buildings to come up the same alley Ryland had. “Where is he?”

“In the corner. Where we can’t see.”

“What do you want me to do?”

With a grimace, Ryland watched as Lambert came back into view and quickly walked to the door. Whatever the meeting had been about, it had been short. “Follow him. Try to see if he left this meeting with anything interesting.”

He pulled the package of lace from his coat pocket and stuck it under his arm before strolling around the corner and into the shop. Lambert was gone, but Ryland needed to see who was sitting in the unseen section of the shop.

The whispers began as soon as he entered. He sat and placed his package on the edge of the table before ordering tea from the prompt waiter. A newspaper had been left on one of the seats at his table. Ryland opened it and pretended to read while taking in the four tables past the edge of the window.

A man and a woman sat at one table, appearing oblivious to everyone else. Unlikely to be them, but Ryland memorized their faces anyway.

Another table was occupied by a woman and a young girl. Ryland prayed that it wasn’t them. He had no illusions that women couldn’t be conniving, but he hated the thought that anyone would involve a child in their underhanded dealings.

The last two tables held men, sitting alone, drinking tea and reading the paper just as he was. Both looked vaguely familiar, though he couldn’t come up with their names. Both were dressed in fine clothing with stiff white cravats and expert tailoring. The only thing Ryland could do was commit their faces to memory and hope their fine clothes meant he might encounter them socially. After all, an introduction was the easiest way to learn a name.

The next day, amongst the flowers and poems for Georgina, a small paper-wrapped package arrived addressed to Miranda. She recognized the interlocking edges from the package Ryland folded at the trim shop.

She slid it into the folds of her skirt and smuggled it upstairs before anyone else had a chance to remark on it. She expected a note of some sort but found nothing except the lace.

All afternoon she expected him to come by, but the day passed without Gibson announcing the man.

Miranda couldn’t stop herself searching for him at the ball that night, even though she swore to herself it was only so that she could avoid him. She was still angry, after all, even if a part of her remembered how much she’d missed his letters and the conversations she’d had with him as the valet. The fact that the two men she’d been thinking about were actually one man should have delighted her.

It didn’t. Not completely.

He didn’t show up the next day either. Every question she couldn’t think of while in the trim shop swam through her mind as she suffered through the agonizing anticipation of another afternoon of callers and the harrowing tension of another ball.

That night, as she stood near the wall, watching Georgina and Lord Howard work their way across the dance floor, she consoled herself with the fact that the next day’s plans were easier if for no other reason than that they would be the ones going visiting, and she knew the Duke of Marshington’s house was not on their agenda.