Twelfth Night by Deanna Raybourn Read Free Book Online Page B

for making off with anything that sparkled.
    “Morgan is not terribly trusting at the best of times, even of us.”
    “But you want to work for him.”
    “With him,” he corrected. “Times are changing, and we both believe that the methods that have been used in the past will no longer serve. It’s time to create a new agency with new operatives, young minds that can be trained properly to sleuth out information and pass it back to London.”
    “You have thought this through,” I said, a trifle tartly. “I suppose it even has a name.”
    “Morgan likes the notion of the industriousness of bees. He was thinking of calling it the Apiary.”
    I thought a moment then shook my head. “No. Call it the Vespiary. After a nest of wasps. They have a more ferocious sting. If we are going to take on Germany, let them know we mean it.”
    He stopped, openmouthed. “You’re serious. You raise no objection.”
    “To what? You taking on dangerous work? You’ve done that since before I knew you. It was half the reason I fell in love with you, I expect. I could no more ask you to give up your work than I could hold back the tides. It is the stuff of which you are made.”
    He embraced me then, and when he drew back, my lips were tingling in the cold. “There’s something else,” he said.
    “Tell me.”
    “Morgan and I shall want your help.”
    It was my turn to stare, mouth agape. “You mean it?”
    “I do. You bungle into my cases with no method or order, and yet you have the instincts of a bloodhound. You understand people and what drives them. The Apiary will have need of people like you.”
    I pressed a kiss to his cheek. “The Vespiary,” I corrected.
    He grinned. “We shall see.”
    Just then he cocked his head. “And I would like to go up to the nursery and see the child.”
    I smiled in return. Brisbane had shown little interest in babies. “Why?”
    “Because I have never had a half-brother before.”
    * * *
    We arrived back at the Abbey hand in hand and in perfect amity. In the space of our short walk we had agreed upon a new career and a new style of living. We should embrace simplicity, at least a privileged and eccentric sort of simplicity. We would have rooms for consulting and photographic equipment as well as a sitting room and bedroom with further accommodation for Morag and Aquinas. A pair of guest rooms and another pair for a cook and maid would complete our domestic arrangements. That still left a few rooms unused, but I had little doubt we would eventually put them to good purpose. As to the work Brisbane proposed, I felt a thrill at the prospect of taking on such important and clandestine activities. There was much yet to be discussed, but I felt the new year had dawned full of expectant promise, and already it was being fulfilled.
    The feeling of smug contentment was doomed to be short-lived. No sooner had we arrived in the nursery than Morag thrust the infant into my arms.
    “Mind you don’t drop him. I am wanted,” she pronounced grandly.
    “By whom?” I demanded.
    “Lady Bettiscombe. She is feeling particularly unwell,” she told us. Heedless of Brisbane’s presence, she launched into a description of Portia’s bodily woes complete in all its lurid detail.
    After a particularly informative passage, Brisbane raised a hand. “No more, I beg you.”
    Morag smoothed her skirts. “The maids are fair dropping on their feet with all the running and fetching. It would help matters no end if his lordship had bothered to modernise the Abbey,” she added with a severe look at me.
    “It wasn’t my idea to keep the Abbey practically mediaeval in its arrangements,” I protested. “But what am I meant to do with this?” I asked, glancing at the sleeping child.
    She pulled a sour face. “Try not to drown him. Or drop him. Or stab him with a pin. He’s a baby, not a Fabergé egg.” She turned to Brisbane and spoke to him, her voice suitably respectful. “You’re wanted downstairs, as