Twelfth Night by Deanna Raybourn Read Free Book Online Page A

“Swear it!” she
demanded. “Upon your honour.”
    “I will tell no one,” I promised. “Save Brisbane. We are
speaking of his father, after all. He deserves to know.”
    She nodded and collapsed back onto the pillows. “Very well. I
trust him,” she said dully. “He is nothing like his father.”

Chapter Eight
    To business that we love we rise betime
    And go to it with delight .
    — Antony and Cleopatra , IV, iv, 20
    I related the sad tale to Brisbane as we made our way back to the Abbey. A valiant winter sun had burnt off the worst of the mist, and we were surrounded by the sound of dripping water as the frost melted. It was a strange sort of day, with the unearthly light and the cottage like something in a fairy-tale wood and the sad maiden locked away from a villainous wretch.
    Brisbane took my arm. “Stop romanticising,” he said.
    “I was doing nothing of the sort,” I protested.
    He gave me a knowing look, and I conceded the point. “Well, perhaps a little. I suppose the truth is that Lucy is a rather stupid girl who has acted impulsively and is paying a terrible price for it. Still, we are better equipped at the Abbey to care for the child until she recovers herself.”
    We walked along in silence for a few minutes, retracing the route we had followed the previous night. The countryside was solemn and still, and in the distance, I could just make out the gaily painted vardos of Gypsies camped on the fringes of my father’s land.
    “It must have been cold for them in the snow,” I remarked.
    “They’ll not be bothered by it,” he assured me with a quirk of his shapely mouth. “We’re hardy stock, or had you forgot that?”
    I slipped my hand into his. “They’re lucky to live so lightly—everything neatly tucked into one wagon to take along in their travels. I envy them the simplicity of it.”
    He shot me a quizzical look. “Do you mean it?”
    I stopped to look at him. “Yes, why?”
    “It’s just that I had a letter from Mrs. Lawson,” he began. “She grows tired of London, and her sister wants her to move to Bath. She has offered to sell us the house in Half Moon Street.”
    “I think it’s a brilliant idea. You would own your consulting rooms, and we could let the rest of it.”
    “Or we could live in it,” he suggested.
    I said nothing for a moment, thinking swiftly. “The house is far smaller than anywhere else we have lived. It would mean a drastic reduction in staff,” I said, beginning to warm to the idea.
    “We wouldn’t need half a dozen maids,” he agreed.
    “Or footmen,” I put in with real enthusiasm. Our footmen were Brisbane’s idea, former thieves recruited for the sole purpose of acting as my bodyguards and employed against my will.
    Brisbane nodded. “I thought you would like that. I could put them to work for Monk,” he said, referring to his right-hand man, his former teacher and batman and friend of long acquaintance. “They can take the day-to-day cases, the missing jewels and purloined letters and blackmail notes.”
    “And what would you do?” I asked.
    Brisbane’s nature tended towards the serious, but there was a graveness to his manner that told me he was speaking entirely from his heart. “I would like to work with Morgan. On a regular footing.”
    Sir Morgan Fielding. Secret advisor to the Prime Minister, my distant cousin, and Brisbane’s sometime employer in activities that could only be termed espionage. “You have given this a great deal of thought,” I temporised.
    “I have.” He began to walk, pulling me slowly along, his hand covering mine. “The threat in Germany grows. I don’t know how long we have, but something is stirring, something ugly and dangerous. Morgan is worried, too. He is in Berlin now.”
    I blinked at him. “He said he was going to Paris for a bit of recreation. He might have told me the truth. I am taking care of his larcenous cat,” I reminded Brisbane. Nin was a violently loud Siamese with a penchant