The boy shoved to his feet, fists bunched at his side. “I don’t take orders from some—”
Maybe he’d take this pup outside and teach him some manners. “They know you’re listening.”
“Trev.” Adrian waited till the boy scowled and opened his fists. “Take Whitby his tea. Put some sausages on the tray for Jess. She forgets to eat when she’s engaged in lunacy.”
“We should keep her here, where she’d be safe. Captain Kennett,” the boy crammed a barrelful of derision into the title, “just wants to get her into bed. It’s obscene, letting him put his hands on her when he’s the man piling up evidence against her father. We could make her comfortable, and she’d get to be with her father. We could put her in the second guest room.”
“How snug,” Adrian murmured. “Our very own collection of Whitbys.”
“He’s not taking care of her. Besides—”
“Besides, you want to run around holding the key to her bedroom. Having beautiful women in your clutches isn’t nearly as much fun as you’d think, Trev.”
The boy was young enough to blush. “It’s not like that.”
“You disappoint me. Take your notes with you, and this,” Adrian held up the book he’d been studying. “Galba wants the summary by tomorrow morning. Translate the Russian for him. It’s not one of his languages.” When Trevor didn’t move he added gently, “Now.”
A muscle twitched in the boy’s cheek. “It’ll get done. You’re making a mistake handing her over to him.” He slid pencils into the pencil case, taking his time. “She’s said all along those are forged entries in the Whitby books. Maybe the Captain did it. He’s the only man who’s had them.” He clicked the door closed behind him. Quietly.
What the boy needed was a year scrubbing decks on a merchant schooner. Fortunately, Adrian’s apprentice spies weren’t his problem. “Is that the British Service theory now? That I’m Cinq?”
“That is Trevor’s working hypothesis. But he’s fifteen and smitten. And he’s never shared a filthy French pigeon loft with you.” Adrian sat on the edge of the table in front of the lantern, blocking most of the light. “If you feel the need to discuss that with him, don’t break the bones in his right hand. I need them. Why am I talking to you instead of eavesdropping on Whitbys?”
“Common decency.”
“A virtue in short supply hereabouts. Did I explain to you that we’re spies? Surely I mentioned that at some point.”
“Give her some privacy with her father. She doesn’t have many more hours with him before he hangs.”
“I’d rather not hang him at all, thank you.”
I wish we didn’t have to. I wish he wasn’t Cinq. “You’re scaring her. I want you to talk to her, face-to-face.”
“She won’t see me.”
“Do it.”
“There are very few things I can give Jess at the moment. My absence is one of them.” Carefully, because the metal was hot, Adrian turned the dark lantern, lighting up a different portion of the room. “I’m playing jailer here. I’m not going to force her to be polite to me to get to her father.”
“She thinks you’re going to hang her.”
A fierce, impatient shake of the head. “She can’t think that.”
“She does.” He let the silence lie.
“I suppose I deserve that.” Adrian rubbed thumb and forefinger together, looking at them. “How very far we have come from St. Petersburg. You will convince her she’s being ridiculous.”
“Not while you’re sneaking around behind the walls, peering and taking notes. She’s afraid of you. Talk to her, for God’s sake.”
“She would appall us both by spitting in my face.”
The door opened inward. “There you are.” Doyle, wet-haired, radiating cold, stood holding the knob. “And the Captain. Good. Is that damned unrestful woman going to stay put for a while? I want to send the boys home and call in a new lot.”
“You should have an hour. ” Adrian gestured to the wall behind him. “Trevor’s bringing food. She’ll stay to see Josiah eats.”
“I’ll get some food, too. No telling what she’ll decide to do next.” Doyle’s greatcoat dripped lines of wet onto the hall carpet. “I would very much like our girl tucked up safe in bed tonight. All night. Can you see to that, Captain?”
Doyle had a lot to answer for. “Why the hell didn’t you stop her?”
“Now that’s exactly what I keep asking myself.” Doyle reached up easily, hooked his fingers over the door frame, and leaned into the cubbyhole, looking from one man to the other. “The whole time she was climbing the side of that building like a fly I asked myself why I didn’t talk her out of it.” He snorted. “Next time you two come along and try.”
“No, thank you.” A slim black knife appeared in Adrian’s hands, tossed from palm to palm. “I kept her out of mischief for three nerve-wracking years. If you think she’s bad now you should have known her at twelve. Is the Irish contingent doing anything interesting?”
“Hanging around Kennett’s place, pestering the servant girls when they go out. Watching the Whitby warehouse. Following Jess. Fletcher’s boys and girls are keeping an eye on them, but there’s no sign of Cinq. Not yet.” Doyle glanced both ways in the hall. “I’d like Trevor on duty, if you can spare him. He needs time on the streets, and it’ll get him away from Jess.” There was no trace of Cockney in Doyle’s voice. “He’s unreliable when it comes to the girl.”
“We all are.” Adrian stilled. In the dimness, the knife was nearly invisible. The thin silver line of a razor edge seemed to hang, suspended. “Let Trev be gallant. We get so few chances.”
If he annoys me, I can always send him to Madras. “She’s making you into a bogeyman. Face her.”
“It’s not that easy.”
“Because you arrested Whitby?”
“Mostly.” Adrian tossed the knife and caught it, two-fingered, by the blade. He’d done that a thousand times in the years Sebastian had known him. Toss and catch. “There’s more to it.”
Doyle said, “Just tell him.”
Adrian laid the knife on the table beside him. “The last time I spoke to Jess . . . I’d managed to get Josiah shot through the lung. We were old friends, and he let me use the mansion in St. Petersburg as a base of operations. A mistake on his part, as it turned out.”
“Josiah knew what he was doing,” Doyle said.
“There were three or four dead men in the salon and I was carrying one of those vital documents we always seem to have. The fate of nations depended on it, of course.” His voice was bleak as sea water. “So I walked out. I left Jess in the front hall, with the tsar’s men breaking down the door and her father’s blood running out through her fingers.” Adrian’s face was in shadow. Only his eyes picked up a gleam of light. “He lived. Jess and Josiah spent a month in a Russian prison and Jess never forgave me.”
“You never forgave you,” Doyle said. “You saved twenty, maybe thirty men’s lives. If the Russians had got that memorandum back, it would have been a thousand dead.”
“I shall wrap that warm thought around me in the long reaches of the night. She was fourteen.”
He didn’t want to see what was showing in Adrian’s face. “It’s been years. Whitby’s alive and snapping. Jess can get over being annoyed at you. I’ll set up a meeting at my house.”
Adrian picked up the knife again. “I’ll think about it.”
“You do that.”
The brass listening-funnel that extended from the wall was filled with wisps of Jess’s voice. He could almost understand. If he stayed here, he’d keep trying to. “I’ll be upstairs going through Jess’s papers. Send somebody home with her when she’s through with her father.” He put his hand on the door. “Not just a guard. She needs company, so she’s not alone.” It galled him to say it. “Send the boy.”
“Trevor?” Adrian gave a spark of amusement. “He will manfully protect her through the wilds of Mayfair, hoping for brigands. He’s green with envy that you got to kill men for her. I am very glad she is not locked up here. Sebastian . . .”
Trevor could daydream all he wanted to. “What?”
“Subdue your gentlemanly scruples for a minute. I want you to look at this.” Adrian pulled aside the curtain on the wall to show a panel set at eye level.