Three

Caleb reached for the table edge, his legs as unsteady as those of a man who’d just walked out of a gin house. “What did you say?”

“You’d better sit down. You’ve gone white as a sheet.”

“Watch the wire,” he said.

She looked down then up at the bucket of nails suspended above her. Stepping over the wire, she reached for one of the chairs at his table and pulled it out, then pushed him down onto it. She looked warily about his room. “Are there any other traps?”

“Not at the moment.”

“This is bigger than my room, and your furnishings are not quite so worn.”

He didn’t have the wherewithal to tell her that he’d spent some of his all-too-ample time making the room comfortable and setting up traps.

“What does your window look out upon?”

At least she had the wits not to go to the curtains and fling them open. And she had the sense to know he’d had a big shock and that speaking of trivialities would mitigate the effect.

“The street.”

“Of course. I look at another building and an alleyway.” She bent to peer at him. “Do you need a drink, or have you recovered sufficiently?”

“You said I have a son?”

“Yes.”

“I need a drink.” He put a hand to his throat, which felt as though it had closed. He gestured to the floor by the washbasin where he kept a bottle of brandy. She crossed to it, and he had time to look at her. Yesterday, she’d been dressed plainly, almost matronly. Today, she wore a gown of deep red, practically an earthy brown. It was the sort of color that made her skin look flushed and healthy. Her hair was more elaborate as well. The severe bun had been replaced by a loose upsweep with a cascade of loose tendrils.

He might have taken a moment to admire her figure, but she set the brandy down hard on the table. “I can’t find a glass.”

“No need.” He uncorked the neck and drank straight from the bottle, closing his eyes as the liquid burned a path down his throat. The warmth was immediate. He savored it, then took another healthy swig just for good measure.

“Better?” she asked.

“Yes. Do sit.”

“I’d rather stand. I made a request for assistance.”

“To find my son.” He frowned. “How is it I have a son?”

Her brows went up. “I thought you, of all people, understood how these things work.”

“We were—that is to say, I was careful.” He hadn’t spilled his seed inside her. He’d been careful to withdraw every time. He’d known he’d have to go to the Continent, and he’d known there was a good chance he would die. His plan had always been to find her and marry her if he survived. He hadn’t known then that his work in the war would haunt him long afterward.

“I can only suppose that method of child prevention isn’t infallible,” she remarked dryly. “A few weeks after you left, I found I was with child.”

Caleb drank again. This time, it was to prevent his legs from standing and carrying him toward her. He wanted to hold her. “I’m so sorry, Bridget.” He raked a hand through his hair, regret slamming through him. “I can’t imagine how awful that must have been for you. You must have known you’d be ostracized.”

“I could have dealt with verbal abuse and slurs against my moral character if I had known you were coming back. If I thought you cared for me.”

He did stand now. “Of course I cared for you. I told you.” He reached for her, but she swatted his hand away.

“If you cared for me, you would have told me you were going, not have left it to the undersecretary to give me the news.”

“Bridget.” He spread his hands. “I couldn’t tell you or anyone.”

“And you were always one to follow the rules.”

Caleb fisted a hand in his thoroughly disheveled hair. “This wasn’t a rule. It was an order. If you only knew the nature of my mission, you would understand why it had to remain secret and why my death had to be fabricated.”

“But I didn’t understand any of that. I truly believed you were dead, and there I was, pregnant with your child.”

“I didn’t mean for that to happen. I meant to come back and marry you. I had no idea everything would go so wrong.”

“Neither did I. Everything went very, very wrong, and I’ve spent the last six years trying to find a way to make it right.”

Caleb pulled the other chair out from the table. “Please, sit. Tell me what happened.”

Reluctantly, she sat, stiff and formal. He sat too and offered her the brandy bottle. She shook her head.

“Did you marry?” he asked. “Or was that a falsehood to protect your reputation?” He was an arse for asking this first. Of all the things he needed to know, this detail was probably the least important. But he wanted the answer. Was she another man’s wife? Had he been the reason she’d married a man she didn’t love, though he had to admit it would be better for all of them if she did love the man. What could Caleb offer her? And Bridget deserved happiness.

“I married a man named Robert Lavery.”

Caleb furrowed his brow and drank again. He didn’t remember any Lavery. “Did I know him?”

“No. After you went to the war and I realized I was pregnant, I left the Foreign Office. I found some work teaching art to students and sold a few of my own sketches to a printshop below my classroom. On my way coming and going, I met Robbie. He was kind, gentle, obviously infatuated with me.”

Caleb had no doubt that it hadn’t been difficult for her to attract men, even men willing to marry her. But the way she spoke of this Robbie made his hand on the brandy bottle loosen. She hadn’t loved him. He should have wanted her to find love, but he couldn’t bring himself to be that magnanimous. He supposed he was selfish that way.

“He asked me to marry him, and that’s when I told him about the baby. He said he would love the baby like his own child. So I said yes. We married. I gave birth to James—”

“James. His name is James?”

She nodded. “I called him Jimmy sometimes because he was so little, and James seemed like such a big name for a little baby, but we named him James Lavery.”

Caleb nodded, still trying to take it in. He had a son named James.

“Everything was good for a while,” Bridget said.

Caleb sat straight. “And then what?”

“Robbie had debts. He had a bad habit of thinking there was a way to make easy money. He was always meeting men who had these wild ideas that Robbie was certain would pay off with a little investment.”

Caleb closed his eyes.

“Some of the men were even legitimate businessmen. He went to the bank and signed papers, but of course, when the schemes didn’t come to fruition, Robbie lost his money and then some.”

“Did you make counterfeit currency?”

“I thought about it. When he realized how much he owed, he asked me to. But I said no. I knew we’d be caught eventually, especially if we paid the banks with counterfeits. I thought we’d find a way to get out of debtor’s prison.”

Caleb released the brandy bottle and clenched the table. He was too afraid he’d break the bottle if he continued to hold it.

Bridget in debtor’s prison. Caleb would kill Lavery for that. How could he do that to his wife and child?

As if she knew what he was thinking, she said, “He died there.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No, you’re not.”

He wasn’t.

“I knew how bad the prisons could be, and I didn’t want James there with us. He was barely three. I also knew orphanages were awful, so I found one I thought was better than most of the others and left him there, promising to come back for him.”

Now her dark eyes filled with tears. She didn’t cry. She wouldn’t allow that weakness, but her voice faltered for a long moment. “I wrote everyone I knew and asked for help. Robbie wrote everyone he knew. No one had enough to pay our debts.”

“What about—”

“My Great-Aunt Fredricka? She didn’t answer my letters, and I wrote her so many times. I knew she had the funds, and she sent me some anonymously, but she didn’t approve of Robbie and wouldn’t pay for him to leave prison—even if that meant I stayed in prison as well. And then he became ill. Almost everyone in Fleet Prison becomes ill at one point or another. Most of the time, we couldn’t afford decent food or a bed or a fire. We starved and shivered and slept on the ground. Eventually, Robbie caught consumption. I don’t know why I didn’t get it. Sometimes, he was in so much pain, I wished it was me and not him. When he died, I wrote to Aunt Fredericka again, and she paid the debts within a week. I don’t know how I can ever pay her back.”

“I’m sure she doesn’t care about that.”

Bridget laughed. “Oh yes, she does. I have to send her a shilling a month until I’ve paid it all off. And when I asked why she didn’t help me before Robbie died, she said because she knew if he went free, he’d just cast us into debt again.”

“And now you’re looking for...” He swallowed. “James. He’d be eight.”

She nodded. “It took me a few months to find a position and then a year to save enough to afford a room of my own. I’ve been looking for him since I went free, but as near as I can figure, the orphanage burned in 1816. I assume it relocated, but no one seems to know where, and there are no orphanages called the St. Dismas Home for Wayward Boys in London.”

“Where was it located?”

She told him the address in Spitalfields.

“You asked the shop owners nearby?”

“I did, but no one could help.”

So she’d probably asked a few women. She couldn’t exactly walk up to a man she didn’t know in that area of Town and start a conversation, nor could she stroll into a tavern and ask questions over a pint of ale.

He could. He could do all that and more, but it would mean calling attention to himself. He was willing to risk it for Bridget and his son, if the risk was worth it.

“And what if he’s been adopted? What if he’s been made an apprentice or taken in by a couple unable to have children?”

She shook her head. “You know as well as I that’s unlikely. But if he has, and he’s happy, then I’d still like to see him, tell him I never forgot him, that I didn’t abandon him.”

And what would she tell the boy about his father? That he’d died in prison? The boy probably didn’t know any other father but Lavery, and perhaps that was for the best. Caleb couldn’t be any kind of father to him, not when he had to run and hide for his life.

“I’ll help you,” he said. “On one condition.” Her gaze met his, and he cleared his throat. “When we find the boy, you don’t tell him who I am.”

***

BRIDGET AGREED TO CALEB’S request and left his room. It was after ten in the evening and far too late to begin searching tonight. She had to be at the academy in the morning, but the day after was Saturday and she would have all day free.

She had to creep back to her room like some sort of criminal, but she couldn’t afford to be caught on the men’s floor her first night in the house. Mrs. Jacobs would throw her out with the rubbish.

She reached her room safely, closed and locked the door, then undressed for bed. Once under the covers, she lay awake staring at the ceiling. She could count on fingers and toes the number of times she’d had a room to herself. It seemed strange not to look over and see Valérie lying in her bed. Not to be able to whisper a few words and have an answer whispered back.

She’d always been the sort of person who fell asleep as soon as she lay down, but tonight, no matter which position she tried, she couldn’t fall asleep. She knew it had to do with seeing Caleb again. He looked a bit older, a bit leaner, but little else about him had changed. When she spoke to him, sat with him, it was as though no time had passed since they’d seen each other. She was as comfortable with him as she’d always been.

She was as attracted to him as she’d always been too.

It had been difficult not to allow her eyes to stray to his bed and imagine him lying on it. Imagine herself lying there with him. It might have been nine years since they’d shared a bed, but she remembered what it was like to kiss him, as though they’d shared a kiss no more than a moment before.

His kisses were very much like the man himself—confident, easy, skilled.

Bridget remembered watching his hands roam over her body—first clothed and then in increasing stages of undress—and marveling at how he managed to make her feel so much with just the touch of a fingertip or the stroke of his thumb.

She couldn’t blame him for her pregnancy. She’d been as willing as he to go to bed. And he had tried to prevent pregnancy. She’d never thought his method wouldn’t work. It was only later, after making friends with several married women in prison, that she realized they’d been taking a risk every time they’d lain together. And they’d lain together quite a lot. She and Caleb hadn’t been able to get enough of each other.

And then one day he’d been gone. He hadn’t come into the Foreign Office, and when she’d gone to check on him at his lodgings, a man she didn’t know opened the door. He said he didn’t know Caleb and closed the door in her face. Her superiors at the Foreign Office admitted he’d been sent to the Continent, but that was all they would tell her. And then just a few days after she realized she was with child, Caleb’s child, the undersecretary had come to her and told her Caleb had been killed.

Though she and Caleb had kept their relationship secret, the man seemed to know they were more than merely acquaintances. He’d taken one look at her face and sent her home for the day. The next day, she’d returned and handed in her resignation. They would have sent her away when they’d discovered her condition. She might have been able to keep a position as an art teacher longer. She’d had money saved. The Foreign Office paid well. It was ironic that she’d married to try to make her life easier and the marriage had ended up making it much, much harder. She might have faced scandal and contempt as a loose woman, but she would have been free. And she would have her son with her now.

Bridget turned over again and stared into the darkness of the room.

Caleb would find James. She knew he would, and maybe once she had her little boy in her arms again, it would be easier to forget the man who was his father.

***

THE NEXT DAY AT THE academy seemed to last an eternity. She was short-tempered with the little girls and demanding of the older. At the midday meal, she barely said a word, though Valérie tried on several occasions to encourage Bridget to speak more about her new room.

When Bridget was finally finished with classes, she didn’t even wait to eat dinner—foolish, really, because the meal was included in her pay—and rushed back to Mrs. Jacobs’s as quickly as she could. The residents there were eating as well, but since Bridget hadn’t paid for food for the month, she didn’t sit down with them. Instead, she walked slowly past the open door, hoping Caleb was inside. He was, and she caught his eye, then fled to her room.

She must have paced the small chamber thirty times before she heard footsteps coming down the corridor. Her heart leaped as it had all those years ago when they’d planned a rendezvous. But this time when she opened the door, she didn’t jump into his arms. She’d told herself that part of their lives was over and done, but when she yanked the door open and saw him standing there, something happened when their eyes met. She felt the familiar fluttering in her belly and tightening in her chest. His eyes flashed with the sort of promise she’d always looked forward to.

“May I come in?” he asked. “It’s not a good idea for me to be seen standing out here.”

“Of course.” She opened the door wide. She was an idiot. Standing there gaping at him. But he looked so handsome in his dark coat and breeches. His curly hair framed his square face and softened it.

He slid in, and she closed the door. Her small, empty room suddenly seemed even smaller. She squeezed past him and pulled out the chair at her table. “Please sit.”

He lifted a dark brow. “I may not be a peer, but I was raised as a gentleman. I can’t sit if a lady is standing.”

“I’m not a lady.”

“All you’re missing is the title.”

She sat then, because her legs felt unsteady. Caleb had always had a way of making her feel special. She’d thought it was because she was special to him, but she had to resist that sort of thinking now. Now she knew that he was capable of leaving her without even a fare thee well. She didn’t mean anything more to him than anyone else.

“We have a problem with the search for James,” he said without preamble. She’d always liked that about him—he got straight to the point and didn’t stall with meaningless pleasantries.

“What is the problem? Did you find something out today?”

“No.” He moved closer and put a hand on her shoulder. She realized her voice had risen and her face had grown hot with panic. “I did go to Spitalfields, but I wasn’t able to ascertain where exactly the orphanage had been. I admit I was more interested in getting a sense of the place, since I hadn’t been in years.”

“And?”

“And I realized there’s no way for me to do this without calling some attention to myself.”

She blinked. “I don’t understand.”

“There’s something I haven’t told you.”

Bridget shrugged his hand off her shoulder. “That’s no surprise. Why start confiding in me now?”

“Don’t be a child, Bridget. You know I would have told you if I could have. That was my only request before they sent me. I was denied, and now that I know the full circumstances, I understand the reasoning. I don’t like it, but I can’t go back and change it now. If I could do it all again, I would defy my orders and tell you everything. You must know that.”

She hadn’t known that, actually. She hadn’t considered that it must have been as hard for him to leave her as it was for her to be separated from him.

“What haven’t you told me?”

He sighed and sank onto her bed. Her first reaction was to tell him he couldn’t sit there. Not because it was improper; it was beyond improper. But because she didn’t want to look at the bed every day and imagine him on it. Imagine herself there with him.

“I’m not living in this boarding house by choice. The Foreign Office put me here.”

This made sense. She’d thought they would pay him enough that he could retire to the country if he wished. He could at least afford a decent flat. But if he was still working with the Foreign Office four years after Bonaparte’s surrender, something was not right.

“I never told you what I was training for before I left.”

“We weren’t allowed to talk of such things. I didn’t confide details of my work either.” No, they’d been too busy with other matters to discuss work overly much. Looking at him sitting on the bed reminded her of those other matters all too easily.

“I think I should tell you something of it now, so you understand my present circumstances and the risk you are taking—the risk I put you in—if we begin this search together.”

“I don’t care about the risks,” she argued. “I’ll take any risk necessary if it means I find James.”

“Little consolation it will be to find him if you’re dead.”

Bridget leveled a look at Caleb. “You’re right. I think I’d better understand your present circumstances better.”

“You must have suspected I was training to be a spy.”

She nodded. “Why else the secrecy?”

“You were correct. And when I left you, I infiltrated the ranks of the French. One of the French commanders had an aide-de-camp who died from illness. The commander sent back to France for another man who had been recommended to him. The Foreign Office had that man killed, and I went in his place.”

Bridget took a breath. She did not think she would have done anything but worry and fret for Caleb if she’d known these details all those years ago. It had been an incredible risk to take. So much could have gone wrong. “You were accepted?”

“I was able to avoid the few who knew the man I replaced. If I couldn’t avoid them, I took other measures.”

He’d killed them. The haunted look in his eyes as he remembered was proof enough that he hadn’t quite forgiven himself for the sins of war. “I can see you would have been in a unique position to send information back to the Foreign Office.”

“Exactly. But I was also in a dangerous position once Napoleon’s generals realized they had a spy in their midst. For months, they tried to discover who it was, and I was able to evade them. But no one can escape the noose forever.”

Caught up in the story now, Bridget crossed to him and sat on the bed beside him. “How did they catch you?”

“They had suspicions about three or four of us, including me. They held strategy meetings in which only one of the men under suspicion was present at a time. In each meeting, they gave different, false information. When the information I sent was intercepted, they knew who their spy was because they knew who was in the meeting when that false information was given.”

“Did they capture you?” Bridget stared into his blue eyes, bright and vivid like the color of a kingfisher’s feathers.

“They tried. I escaped and hid all over the Continent for several years. I think, during certain periods, the Foreign Office really did not know whether I was alive or dead. And then the war ended.”

She stiffened. This was where he should have come back, found her, saved her from prison, and reunited her with her son.

“I came back. I wanted to look for you, Bridget.”

“I wasn’t hard to find.”

“Neither was I, and that was the problem.” He looked down at his hands. “They tried to kill me. They almost succeeded.”

“Who?”

“The French army put a price on my head, and even though Napoleon was defeated, my treachery was not forgotten. It still hasn’t been forgotten.”

If he was still being pursued even four years after the end of the war, he had to be worth a great deal.

“How much?” she asked.

“Ten thousand pounds. Dead or alive.”

Her heart sank into her belly. It was a fortune, enough to tempt the most skilled assassins, not to mention the lowest criminals, though she knew Caleb could probably outwit all but the cleverest of men. “Why did you even come back to London? Surely they will expect you to want to return.”

“And now you know why I’m biding my time in this fair establishment.”

“Except I’ve asked you to risk your life by searching for my son.”

His hand covered hers, large and warm. “Our son. And if there’s ever been a worthwhile cause, this is it.”

“But?” She should have pulled her hand away, but she didn’t. She liked the feel of his strong hand on hers.

“But every criminal in London has probably heard about the price on my head and has seen sketches of me. You won’t be safe in my presence.”

“Then perhaps it’s best if we work quickly.”

“I agree.” He squeezed her hand. “And once we find the boy, I’ll disappear. For good.”