Laura adjusted her blonde wig. Raoul came up behind her, drew a curl forwards to hide a hairpin, and anchored it in place with another pin. "Effective," he said. "One trick of disguise is to change one's most immediately recognizable feature. You're beautiful in any case, but it's your hair people notice first."
Laura looked up at her husband. "Thank you. For not trying to stop me."
"I don't want to stop you." Raoul adjusted another curl. "This could be very useful. But I will own I'll feel distinctly relieved when we come back."
Laura turned her head to kiss him. "Now you know how I feel nine-tenths of the time."
His hands closed on her shoulders. "Don't think I don't know it."
"Knowing it is different from feeling it, sweetheart." She kissed him again.
"You're enjoying this," he said.
"Don't tell me you don't enjoy going undercover."
"Sometimes. All right, most of the time."
She looked back in the mirror, at her eyes exaggerated by blacking, at her lips rouged in a darker shade than she normally employed, at the fair hair which somehow changed her whole coloring, made everything about her seem cooler and paler than when her titian hair framed her face. "It's odd. I was undercover as a governess, but always playing the same part. Which was really a different version of myself. I haven't had the chance to play someone else. Any words of advice?"
His gaze skimmed her face. "Trust your instincts. Improvise. But don't hesitate to run when you have to."
"You aren't just saying that because I'm your wife, are you?"
He squeezed her shoulders. "No, I'm saying that because it's what I'd do myself."
Mélanie reached for her eye blacking and drew it over her eyelid with a heavier hand than she usually employed. The tapers on her dressing table flickered, and in the glass she saw Malcolm leaning against the doorjamb behind her.
"It's a good transformation," he said. "But I still think I'd know you anywhere."
"Well, yes, darling, but I hope none of the Elsinore League knows me anywhere near as well as you do." She began to line her other eye. "Do I look like a cyprian?"
He gave a faint smile though she saw the stab of unease in his gaze. "I'm hardly an expert."
She rubbed at a smudge at the corner of her eye. "You've been undercover in more brothels than I have lately."
"Mel—"
She swung round on the bench to look at him. He had that look in his gaze that she'd glimpsed so often after he learned the truth of her past. As though she were fragile and he was walking on eggshells not to damage her further. The revelations about Kitty yesterday would only have made it worse. "Darling, it's hardly the first time I've masqueraded as a lightskirt. I've done it often enough with you, if it comes to that. It's good the most disagreeable parts of my past can at least be of use."
He moved to her side and set his hands on her shoulders. "You're remarkable, sweetheart."
She leaned back against him. "I hated being powerless, darling. This makes me feel quite the opposite."
"I understand that. And I'm glad it does."
But there was still a line between his brows. "Is it harder because you won't have any sort of claim on me?"
"For God's sake, Mel. When have I ever tried to lay claim to you?"
"That's not what I meant. But when we're undercover and you're supposed to be my lover, you can interfere without breaking character if other men get too close. In fact, it gives you the perfect cover for letting loose your protective impulses."
"As I recall, when we've been undercover, we've more often ended up fighting side by side. If I did anything but assume you could hold your own, we'd probably both get killed."
"Well, yes, that's true, love. But I think you've always worried more about my being subjected to pawing hands than to fists and knives and pistols. I agree pawing hands are disagreeable, but I'm quite capable of dodging them. It's a long time since I've put up with anything I wasn't willing to."
"I know."
She turned to kneel on the bench facing him and smoothed his hair off his forehead. "Just because you're a man doesn't mean you're responsible for all men, you know, darling. You're you. And you couldn't be more different from the sort of men who'll be at tonight's party." Or his brother. "Which hopefully you're a good enough actor to disguise."
"I wish—"
"I know. You wish you could have stopped the things that happened to me. You wish you could have stopped what happened to Kitty. But all we can do is move forwards from where we are now. And given both our pasts, where we are now is rather amazing."
"I just hate to think that what's between us has anything to do with—"
"What men at the party want from girls from the Barque of Frailty? What we share couldn't be further from a transaction. But at its heart, desire is desire, darling."
"That reduces us to rutting animals."
"On a crude level, that's what we all are." She slid her hand behind his neck and looked into his familiar, incredibly tender gray eyes. "It doesn't mean there aren't layers about it. Incredibly complicated layers. Incredibly delightful layers." She reached up and kissed him, lightly, but as a reminder of all that was between them. "Nothing's like what we share, darling."
His fingers closed on her elbows. For a moment, she felt he wanted nothing more than to lose himself in what was between them, blotting out past and future.
A rap on the door broke the moment. "I'm, sorry," Valentin said, when they bade him come in, "but Lord Palmerston is below. In the circumstances, I thought you'd want to see him."
Valentin had shown Palmerston into the small salon. He was standing by the fireplace but turned and came forwards when Malcolm and Mélanie came into the room. "I'm sorry. I know it's well into the evening, and I seem to have interrupted you on the point of going out."
"A masquerade friends got up," Mélanie said. Her makeup was done and her gown of black net over claret satin was not beyond the realm of what she'd wear to a party herself. Thankfully, she hadn't yet put her wig on. "We're not in a hurry." That wasn't entirely true, but they needed to learn whatever Palmerston had to say.
Palmerston nodded. "I'm on my way to dine myself, but in the circumstances, I thought this shouldn't wait. As I suspect you guessed, I wasn't entirely forthcoming when you came to see me yesterday."
"I had an inkling." Mélanie moved to one of the chairs by the fireplace. Malcolm and Palmerston sat as well.
Palmerston settled back in his chair and crossed his legs. "I have to answer for the army's accounts in Parliament. I get no end of questions from my own colleagues, and out-and-out attacks from the Opposition." He looked at Malcolm. "Yours are particularly effective."
"Thank you," Malcolm said.
"So when someone comes asking questions about the accounts, my first instinct is that they're looking for information to use against the war office."
"Harry," Mélanie said, "are you saying that Annabel Larimer came to see you about war office accounts?"
Palmerston met her gaze with none of the artifice of the ballroom. "She wanted to know how unofficial military intelligence operations were funded."
"Did she say more?" Malcolm asked.
"Yes." Palmerston tapped his fingers on the chair arm. "She wanted to know if I'd heard of an operative called the Goshawk during the war. Which I had, a bit, in the foreign papers. I thought he was Spanish. Mrs. Larimer said he was British, that he'd worked for British intelligence, and wouldn't the funds he'd used for his missions, and to distribute to the Spanish, have had to be accounted for somewhere in war office records? I said theoretically, yes, but with the tangle of war office records it would be damned hard to trace. All of which is perfectly true. It's also true that Mrs. Larimer didn't tell me why she wanted information about the Goshawk and in fact resisted my efforts to draw her out on her motivation. So I was inclined to think it might all be some effort to embarrass the war office. I said I'd look into the matter and get back to her. I did start to do so, but other matters intervened, and I confess I wasn't in a great hurry." He looked from Mélanie to Malcolm. "I had no notion the matter might be urgent."
"You wouldn't have done," Malcolm said.
"Yes, well, I can't but keep refining upon it, but that's folly, I suppose. When Mélanie came to see me yesterday my first instinct was still to be careful what fodder I gave for your excellent questions before the House. But I started digging through the papers in earnest last night and today. I think I've found what Mrs. Larimer was looking for. There are large amounts that I'm quite sure were being diverted to the Goshawk operation, particularly in late '12 and early '13. When one of my clerks learned what I was looking for, he was quite helpful. The odd thing is, he said he pulled the same information for Lord Carfax seven years ago."
"In the autumn of '12?" Malcolm asked.
"Early '13, I think." Palmerston met Malcolm's gaze for a moment. "Odd, I thought, Carfax asking for the records of expenses for his own mission."
"Yes," Malcolm said. "It is indeed."
Palmerston nodded. "I have my clerk combing the records further. I've told him the results are only to come to me, for now." He pushed himself to his feet. "I'll give you an update as soon as I know more."
Malcolm stood as well. "Talking of awkward questions, I assume it's occurred to you that Carfax may not want you talking to us."
"It could hardly fail to do so. I don't know if it's the Whiggish influence of the woman I love or just my general quixoticness, but between Carfax and the two of you, I really find no contest. Just be a good fellow and spare me the questions in the House this time, Rannoch. Don't worry, I'll see myself out. I know you have a great deal you're juggling. Mélanie, you look stunning." He kissed her hand. "I'd give a great deal to know where you're actually going tonight."
Mélanie looked at her husband as the door shut behind Palmerston. "Was Edgar—"
"Diverting funds intended for the Goshawk operation? Carfax's interest in early '13 suggests that. At least it suggests that Carfax wanted some account of the funds being used for a mission he'd set up himself. And at the moment, I'm certainly ready to imagine Edgar guilty of just about anything." His gaze clouded for a moment with questions he perhaps wasn't prepared to face yet. "A lot of questions to consider tomorrow." He squeezed her shoulders. "But meanwhile, we have a mission to prepare for."