Morgan and Archer: A Novella by Grace Burrowes Read Free Book Online

five-and-thirty, though south of five-and-fifty. His hair was medium brown, his eyes medium blue, his height simply medium.
    He dressed well but not ostentatiously. A careful observer might have said he looked like a diplomat, and that would have pleased him, for a diplomat he was—among other things. He was fluent in nine languages and competent in six more. His native tongue was French, though in English, his public school accent was flawless, despite the fact that the only academy he’d attended had been run by thugs and strumpets on the docks of Calais.
    The young ladies of Polite Society considered him safe; the older women thought of him as a well-mannered fellow, and that would have pleased him too.
    He was, at all times, in all languages, well mannered.
    He assured himself yet again that every shade was down on each of the room’s four windows. At quarter past the hour precisely, the door to the reading room opened, and a young man of pale countenance and wheat-gold hair admitted himself to the diplomat’s company. The younger fellow was dressed in natty evening attire, to all appearances a scion of the beau monde enjoying an evening on the town.
    The diplomat rose with a gracious smile. “You are punctual. Such an undervalued quality in a gentleman these days. May I pour you some brandy?”
    “Please.” The young man did not quite stutter, but as he reached for his drink, his hand shook.
    “How is your wife?”
    “Fine, thank you. Quite in the pink.”
    “And your son?”
    The young man’s smile was sickly. “Thriving, thriving.”
    And well the little shoat might be, for the wife’s propensity for lactation would be the envy of His Majesty’s pet milch cow. This had been verified by a reliable informant on more than one occasion. “Glad to hear it. Shall we sit?”
    The younger fellow gave a jerky nod and appropriated a chair with its back to the window. An amateur’s mistake, but tonight was not the time to point that out.
    “I gather things did not go well earlier this evening. Perhaps we should discuss it?” The diplomat let the question hang delicately while the young man downed the rest of his drink.
    “Things went terribly. The Frenchman showed up, but he wasn’t at all inclined to parlay peaceably.”
    “More brandy?”
    Another quick nod, so the diplomat brought the bottle over to the small table near the other fellow’s chair.
    “I am here to help, you know. Not every assignment will go smoothly, and the people whose interests we benefit will never be able to aid us or acknowledge our contributions. We must rely on each other.”
    “I cut him. That fellow, the Frenchie, he pulled a knife, and I was afraid he’d call the watch, and it was awful.”
    That the young man was rattled was to his credit. He was a reluctant traitor, after all, so the diplomat adopted his most avuncular tones. “I was proud of you.”
    Wary surprise greeted this observation, probably accompanied by the young man’s first inkling that being a spy meant being spied upon. “You were there?”
    “I was not about to let you handle this without some support, and under the circumstances, your mistake was understandable.”
    “A man is injured, possibly dead, a man who never meant me or mine any harm, and you call it a mistake ?”
    Scruples were such touching, dreary inconveniences. “He meant you harm. You didn’t imagine that knife, and if you hadn’t thought to come armed yourself, he might well have brought down the authorities. That is the last thing we need.”
    “And if he’d cut me? How would I explain that to Lucia?” He scrubbed a hand over his clean-shaven features while the diplomat filled the brandy glass for a third time.
    “Your efforts were not in vain, you know. The evening yielded some interesting information.”
    The traitor looked up from his drink. “Not from the Frenchie. He hared off without saying more than bon soir . I’ve never known a man to fight so quietly.”
    Because