Sari Robins - [Andersen Hall Orphanage] by What to Wear to a Seduction Read Free Book Online

he was being helpful. The shoes were a distinctive clue. François Millicent.Paris. She was gaining ground on this blackmailer, she just knew it!
    For the first time in weeks Edwina felt hopeful. For the first time in ages, she felt…not so very much alone.

Chapter 5
    P uffing from the thin cigar, Sir Lee stepped into the card room of his club and scanned the half-empty tables. His nose twitched, and he blinked his eyes from the smoke, disappointed by the lack of opportunity for play at Brooks’s that afternoon.
    As usual, Lord Wilmington and his crony Mr. Foreman engaged in a quiet game of vingt-et-un in the far left corner while Mr. Oglethorpe and Mr. Harris were in heated play of cribbage in the center of the room, egging each other on with one feigned insult or another. As if cribbage could ever be that exciting.
    A few younger gents were halfheartedly playing spades at a table near the wall. It was early yet, Sir Lee understood, sighing, wondering if the day could get any longer. Yet having passed his seventieth birthday, he supposed he ought to be thankful for the early hour; he seemed barely able to stay awake past nine o’clockthese days and was usually up before the crack of dawn.
    Sir Lee was about to turn and depart, when from the doorway across the room he spied a familiar figure. With his stout belly, white hair, and shiny pink cheeks, the tall man could easily be mistaken for Father Christmas. Ironically, that fatherly exterior cloaked one of the most calculating, coldhearted men Sir Lee had ever met. And he should know, for he’d taught Tristram Wheaton everything he’d known about being a master of spies.
    Unbidden, a smile leaped to Sir Lee’s lips and his heart warmed as he remembered his glory days at the Foreign Office, the thrill of the hunt, the mental challenge of outwitting his opponents and struggling to think one step ahead of, well, everyone. Being the man in charge of intelligence on every suspicious foreigner in England had been Sir Lee’s greatest pleasure. It had, actually, been the focus of his entire existence after his daughter’s death. His work had been his only refuge from the grief, effective as much as anything could have been, because he’d been bloody good at it and had loved every Machiavellian moment.
    Wheaton’s bushy white brows lifted as he acknowledged Sir Lee across the room. As if by signal, Lord Wilmington and Mr. Foreman quietly rose from their seats and departed, leaving the corner free from any who might overhear.
    Wheaton ambled over to the corner table and claimed the now-empty chair, adjusting his coattails and sleeves as he sat.
    Hiding his smile, Sir Lee strolled between the tables and joined his former pupil.
    A servant quietly placed two snifters of port before them and departed as unobtrusively as he’d come.
    “Haven’t seen you here in a while, Wheaton.” Sir Lee leaned back in his chair, the wooden slats feeling good on his achy back.
    “Some of us actually have a useful occupation.” Wheaton sniffed, holding the port up to the flame of the candle on the table, as if appraising its quality.
    Sir Lee licked his lips, concealing how keen his interest really was. “Oh? Anything exciting?”
    “Gnats is what they are. Minor irritations.”
    “But in a swarm they can be bloody inconvenient.” Sir Lee had an inkling that Wheaton was fishing for help. The man never made a move without an ulterior motive, even coming to his club at an hour when he’d know he would see his former superior.
    “You’re damn right about that.” Wheaton’s lips drooped into a frown as he leaned back in his chair. “It certainly doesn’t help when one inherits someone else’s mistakes.”
    Sir Lee shook his head. “Par for the course, I’m afraid, no matter how astonishingly talented your predecessor.”
    “Astonishingly talented?” Wheaton scoffed. “Your memory is fading in your old age.”
    “My memory fades the day Hades freezes over, old friend, and you