Nate Wilde, his head tipped back, his hands in his pockets, studied the façade of the building on Albemarle Street that had been his home for nearly three years. He was twenty-one, a child of Bread Street in one of London’s darkest rookeries. He had lost homes before and not regretted them as he rose in the world. So he wondered at himself that he should have a heavy heart at seeing Goldsworthy’s spy club close.
He had never seen the building without the scaffolding and canvas that had concealed the building’s true purpose from the eyes of ordinary Londoners. Until the French marchioness, who was really the Russian agent Sophia Dashkova, no one outside the members of a most exclusive spy club had guessed that from inside the building the wiliest of spymasters had run his network of agents and informers.
They were all there for the building’s unveiling—the first three spies, Blackstone, Hazelwood, and Clare; Lynley and his bride Lady Emily, the only lady spy; and Wynford, who had lately saved the club and its precious files from total destruction. Standing beside the spies, his lads, as he called them, was Samuel Goldsworthy himself, the towering giant who ran the place, and old Kirby, and his daughter Miranda, whom Nate would marry soon.
Miranda slipped her hand in his, his proud shop girl with the airs of a lady.
It was Twelfth Night, the final day of Christmas, and the sun was as blinding as the January air was crisp and cold. They had stepped outside after viewing the transformation of the interior. Goldsworthy shook every man’s hand, except Nate’s, and thanked them all for their service to king and country. That was all right. The club was to become a legitimate gentleman’s club now, and Nate had been offered the position of majordomo, if he wanted it. He didn’t know where he stood on the offer. If he took it, he would be able to marry Miranda with no further delay.
Yet the idea didn’t sit well with him. He didn’t think he would like supplying ordinary gentlemen with superior coffee and sandwiches, or looking after their coats and hats, and answering their questions or meeting their requests when it wasn’t for a case, when he had no chance to be involved. Miranda had told him she would accept whatever decision he made. She and her father, who ran the shop on Bond Street that was actually a front for a rear entrance to the club, would give up that establishment and move to a more modest street, her father no longer wishing to manage a shop.
Miranda gave his hand another squeeze. “Everyone’s leaving,” she whispered. “It’s too cold to idle about here.”
He roused himself from his thoughts to say proper farewells and accept everyone’s wishes for the new year. Miranda, with a brief glance at him, took her father’s arm to help him back inside. In a few minutes only Nate and Goldsworthy stood on the pavement.
The big man laid one of his heavy tree-branch arms across Nate’s shoulders. “Well, lad,” he began, “I take it you don’t fancy being majordomo when the club changes.”
Nate swallowed. The moment to choose had come. “It wouldn’t be the same, sir,” he said.
“No, it wouldn’t,” Goldsworthy agreed. Yet his heavy arm still rested on Nate’s shoulders. There would be more coming. Nate waited. “I’ve been thinking,” the big man went on. “I doubt Dashkova, fiendish woman, is the end of it for the Russians. Zovsky or his masters will regroup and throw something new at us before this new year is very old.”
Nate held his breath. Goldsworthy had something in mind after all.
“So, tomorrow, I think, you and I must start looking for a new home for our little enterprise. What do you say to that, lad?” Goldsworthy lifted his arm from Nate’s shoulders.
Nate looked up grinning. “Yes, sir,” he said, his heart light.