Dear God, how much of a fool could one man be?
He entered the pub, demanded a pint, and drank it in a swallow. Pushing the glass back toward the tavern keep, he gestured with a jerk of his chin for another, and finally looked about.
Low-ceilinged, with narrow windows and plenty of dark nooks, it was the sort of place well suited to knavery. He might hang his head in shame if he cared any longer about Colin Gray and the damned Club. Everything he’d learned as an agent, every lesson in studying his surroundings swiftly and efficiently, he had forgotten already. Kitty Savege held his entire attention now.
He pressed his eyes shut and blindly took up the glass again.
Dear God, he really wanted her. And the more she touched him with eager innocence, the more difficult it became for him to believe she had been Poole’s mistress.
He scrubbed his hand across his face. He knew better. He knew much better. In London, rumor had raged through the summer and into fall that she had brought criminal evidence against her former lover to the Board of the Admiralty because he had once scorned her. Listening to the gossips and knowing what he’d already known, Leam hadn’t had any reason to disbelieve that rumor.
Taking a heavy breath, he opened his eyes. Yale lounged in a rickety wooden chair, watching him.
Leam straightened and the young Welshman stood and sauntered over, set his tankard on a table, and gestured him from the bar.
“I prefer to stand,” Leam said gruffly.
“Can you for much longer?”
“Can you ever?” He pushed away from the bar and took a seat. The table was tacky, the place smelled of stale ale and sawdust, and something nasty crunched beneath his feet.
“After the scolding you gave me last night, I’ve had but this one glass.”
“You remember the scolding?”
“I’ve the jaw to remind me.” He did, a bluish-black mark coloring his chin. He lifted his half-
empty pint, silver eyes narrowed. “Happy Christmas, old chap.”
Leam scanned the pub’s patrons, a half-dozen men in caps and rough trousers, farmers and shopkeepers who looked like they’d spent half their lives on these benches.
“It’s Cox.”
Yale’s expression did not alter. “Your interested party?”
“I believe so. And I think he’s behind that faulty stable roof. But I still haven’t the foggiest why, or why he’s made himself plain to us.”
“P’raps he hoped to hide here and I routed him out. Or perhaps he simply admires your high fashion and is mad with jealousy. Quite a natty fellow, isn’t he?”
“Goddamn, Wyn.” Leam shoved back his chair and stood.
“Huffing off again? And so swiftly this time.”
“I huffed off swiftly last night as well, which you would recall if you hadn’t been immersed in a barrel of whiskey.”
Yale smiled. “And where is the fair Lady Katherine now?”
“Far and away from me as she may be, I pray.”
“I prithee.”
Leam ground his molars.
Yale crossed his arms over his chest. “Well, you might as well get it right if you’re going to go off spouting verse.”
“That was not verse. It was an actual prayer.” He passed his hand across his face again. He still tasted her on his tongue. It was hopeless, the need rising within him as swift and sure as the panic.
Physical exertion might do it. He would shovel more snow. Perhaps if he exhausted himself he wouldn’t have sufficient energy to lust after her. Or if he continued to lust—a more likely scenario—
he wouldn’t be able to lift his arms to do anything about it. She was curved and hot and he wanted to tear that damned green gown off her and pin her beneath him, to a mattress, the floor, any surface would do.
More shoveling it must be.
Yale hummed something under his breath, clicking a blunt fingernail against his glass.
“Blackwood, old man.”
“What?” he snapped.
“The tavern keep says there’s a very pretty farm girl who works the place every few nights.” He sounded far too casual. “He assures me she is expected this afternoon, despite the snow. Quite punctual when fine gentlemen pass through town, don’t you know.” Now he grinned.
“Wyn.”
“Leam?”
“Go to hell.”
“I’ll save you a seat.”
Leam set his palms down and leaned into the table. “What do you know of Lambert Poole?”
“Only common knowledge, that in July he was stripped of his estates and exiled for supplying arms to insurgents and attempting to bribe Admiralty officials into treason.” Yale met his gaze squarely. “And that three years ago you looked into him rather assiduously.”
Leam drew back slowly. What he did not know about his closest companion of the past five years occasionally astounded him.
“If your interest in Poole now concerns Katherine Savege, Leam, it’s your own business, of course.
But if you think it has got something to do with Cox you will tell me, won’t you?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“Because you’ve quit the Club.” His eyes looked flinty in the dim light. “But the mantle is difficult to cast off, is it not?”
“For some, no doubt.” Leam gestured toward him.
The Welshman laughed, loosening the tension corded between them. “Well, I haven’t anything better to be doing, after all.” He leaned back in his chair, abruptly a study of elegant ease.
Leam had no further use for the spy. He left the pub. The dogs bounded to him across the thick expanse of white street, young Ned in their wake. He wasn’t more than three or four years older than Jamie, but the lad with his toothy smile looked nothing like the sober-mouthed child Leam would meet at Alvamoor if he ever left this village.
“I run them to the butcher’s, gov’nor. Got us a nice young goose for Christmas Eve dinner.” He lifted a wrapped parcel, his reddened cheeks shining with pride. Leam hadn’t any idea if Jamie ever smiled like that when he wasn’t around. Leam’s youngest sister, Fiona, said he was a happy boy. Leam had never wanted to hear. He’d never wanted to remember. But now he was going home for good and he would be obliged to remember every hour of every day.
At this moment he was trapped. Not only in a snowbound village. Trapped between the life he cared nothing about and the life he had avoided for half a decade, the place where his wife’s and his brother’s bodies rested not six feet from each other in a massive marble mausoleum.
He did not wish to ponder it deeply. Never again deep ponderings, he had vowed. It would be easier to let himself think ceaselessly about Kitty Savege, to caress and seduce her—or perhaps more accurately to allow her to seduce him as she seemed intent upon doing—and spend his holiday in a limbo of hedonistic captivity.
“Ned, I’ve two questions for you.”
“Yessir, gov’nor.” He fluffed the shaggy fur atop Hermes’s head, and the big dog leaned into him, setting the boy to teetering on the icy path.
“What can you play on that fiddle of yours?”
“Anything you like, milord.” He smiled wide.
“Good. My second question: Is there a man in this town who might know something about smithing gold or silver?” He had returned the cashmere muffler and coins to Cox earlier in the day, watching his reaction. Cox had thanked him affably but said nothing of the broken gold chain still in Leam’s pocket. It could prove useful to know what might have hung on such a chain, information Cox clearly did not wish to share.
“Sure is, gov’nor. Old Freddie Jones. Used to be a watch-maker in Shrewsbury till he lost three fingers to an angry cow.” His grin never wavered. Leam could not help returning it.