080072089X (R) by Ruth Axtell

trusted him. He’d never given her reason otherwise.
    She shook her head. She could not believe that he would betray her. No, it couldn’t be. Her fingers clenched around her shawl. Could the old, stalwart butler have been bought off? Was MacKinnon evenhis nephew? Both men were tall and broad-shouldered, but there was no other resemblance that she could discern. But how much would a man of nigh on seventy resemble one of thirty?
    Having come to no conclusions, she arrived in front of Gaspard’s door and knocked softly. There was no response. Hoping he was not yet asleep, she knocked a little louder.
    Finally, the door opened a crack. Her chef’s eyes sharpened at the sight of her, and he opened the door wider. “You have something for me?” he asked her in French.
    In reply, she handed him the paper.
    He took it without a word. A second later, he closed the door. Céline turned away and headed back up to her room.
    It wasn’t until she was there that she realized she had not mentioned MacKinnon’s strange departure to Gaspard. She must do so at the earliest opportunity. He could keep a closer eye on her butler.
    She and her compatriots would have to watch their steps even more closely within their own house.
    “Well? What have you found?” the soft-spoken man, his gray hair half hidden by his low-crowned hat, asked Rees.
    Rees sat facing his contact across the table in the tavern not far from the Thames. The man he knew only as Bunting sat hunched over his pewter tankard, the collar of his coat turned up around his ears.
    Rees had only met with him once, right before taking on his assignment. “Nothing much,” he said quietly. “Lady Wexham is not the only French person in the household.”
    The man merely raised a shaggy gray eyebrow, waiting.
    Rees cleared his throat. “There is her abigail, one Valentine Simonette, and her cook, Gaspard Guignoret. They have both been in her service several years as far as I can ascertain. I was able to search both rooms.”
    “Well?”
    He extracted the bit of paper he’d found in Gaspard’s room. “Thechef appears to be a royalist. His room is full of royalist newspapers. I found this.” He handed the scrap to the man, who took it in his hand and studied it a moment.
    He didn’t return it to Rees but pocketed it. “It could be a front.”
    “Lady Wexham had a dinner party this evening, the first since I’ve been in residence. She is well connected.”
    Bunting listened as Rees recounted who had attended and what was discussed. “Very good,” Bunting said, sitting back. “I’ll be here next week. Keep your eyes and ears open. If anything should prevent you from meeting me here, come to my lodgings.” He gave him the address.
    Rees left the tavern, taking in gulps of the cool night air, feeling as if he’d been through the Inquisition even though Bunting had been mild-mannered and silent for the most part. Was it only Rees’s own ambivalence regarding Lady Wexham that was making him overly sensitive, as if he were holding something back from his contact? But he’d told him everything he knew.
    Everything but the way Lady Wexham made him feel when he stood behind her taking off her cloak or when he looked into her inquiring gaze as she handed him her gloves.
    The next afternoon Rees took advantage of some free time to visit his own lodgings, a brick building on a narrow street not far from the government buildings of Whitehall. He couldn’t be gone from the house long, having told Tom he was going out to buy a newspaper.
    Thankfully, he didn’t run into anyone he knew. He went quickly up the stairs, unlocked his door, and slipped into his room. Although it was risky to be seen about, he needed to check for any correspondence from his family, who had no idea about the double life he was leading.
    Rees had explained to his landlord that he’d be gone a few weeks to help an ailing relative but that he would be by from time to time to check for any post. He had