Chapter 22

More than ever before Cass was aware of one thing-two, if she counted the musty odor of leather she'd spoken to Barron about several times, the one the whole coach stank of. Oh, and that hideous hog's head grinning at her from the inn sign opposite, which probably made it three things.
If she couldn't deal with Devorlane Hawley face to face, the time had come to do it behind his back. What better way to do it when she wasn't going to that soiree?
A bellyful of good pork and claret, after his day in court, would also mitigate Lord Koorecroft's feelings about the propriety of her recent behavior.
Seeing a portly figure lumber down the inn steps, she clasped the coach window edge with her gloved fingers.
"Lord Koorecroft? A moment, sir."
Even through the mist, the one that rose from the cobblestones, that moment was one Lord Koorecroft didn't look inclined to grant. His eyes-rheumy blue-peered as if she was a stranger, his feet moved on past the coach, on the top of which Barron, no doubt, sat twiddling his thumbs. But perhaps that convinced Lord Koorecroft to glance upward, then at her?
"Begging your pardon, good madam. Do I know-"
"While we were not introduced yesterday, if you will remember, I was at Lord Hawley's homecoming."
Lord Hawley's homecoming wasn't something Cass particularly desired to remember here. Not given the God awful racket she'd made at it, among other things. But perhaps Lord Koorecroft wouldn't recall everything? She clasped the edge of the window tighter in her velvet gloves.
"Yes ... egad!" Lord Koorecroft exclaimed. "So you was. Wasn't you the one who played that damnable song? What was it again?"
As if he couldn't recall something so cringe-worthy. Still, it wasn't to say she couldn't now use the fact to underline certain things. What she planned on saying for a start.
"That was on account of me not being a true musician."
"Then what was you playing it for, if you are no musician? Inflicting such damnable damage on us innocents? Hmm?"
Cass fought the urge to run her tongue over her lips. Why, when there were at least another three old goats she could have happily gone to here, did this one have to be the most challenging? The hardest to tackle? Especially given the fanciful story she had lain awake the whole night concocting? The one she was now finally going to be able to tell.
That he was also more influential than any of them was the single consideration that prevented her driving in their direction now. Get Lord Koorecroft on her side and that would be the end of Devorlane Hawley. Get Lord Koorecroft on her side and she'd not only have dealt with things as she'd vowed last night, she needn't answer another question about who she was. The peace would be perfect. Heavenly after yesterday's startling events.
"Because I would like to be a musician."
"So, why don't you damn well learn to be one then and spare us good-"
"Unfortunately, as the wife of a servant of the realm, in this time of great and unbearable crisis, that has not been possible."
"Wife?"
There. She'd said it. Now to wait for the expected reaction.
Lord Koorecroft's eyes bulged. "But I had it from Tilda you was a widow."
And still would be having it, had Gil not gone and turned up last night-which was why Cass felt her jaw stiffen in a ghastly parody of the smile she attempted to give.
"Wait ... good madam, are you saying-"
Cass squeezed back into the dark interior of the carriage. Lord Koorecroft's jaw had dropped open. This was over if she did not press the advantage and this was the perfect opportunity to do so. To seize it and truly make it hers as she'd failed conspicuously to so far, she needed to seem a little more discreet than she was perhaps being, sitting in a carriage at a tavern door. To look, in a street bustling with afternoon shoppers and traders unloading goods from carts, a little more dignified, put upon, by the ungallant Lord Hawley. To seem driven by his vile peeping Tom persecution into behaving in ways she would normally shrink from, gallant little woman that she was.
"Yes. In-in the service of my country, there have been sacrifices. That was but one. I am sure you understand."
"Your-"
As he worked his mouth open and shut, Lord Koorecroft seemed astonished. Truth to tell he wasn't alone. Cass wasn't going to do anything other than smother hers though. Appearing modest, keeping her eyes downcast, a little fidgeting with her gloves perhaps, was all she should do here. Not leap about that she'd finally said these words.
"You mean to tell me, my dear young lady that-"
"Military matters have always taken precedence. Yes. That is what I am saying. Why I had hoped-indeed, Elgie and I both had, especially now life, alas, has treated us so unkindly-that he would be allowed to live out the suffering remainder of his days in the peace and tranquility of our delightful surroundings."
"Good God."
She tried not to squirm. Yes. Obviously widow was brilliant. It allowed her to be reclusive, heartbroken, too grief stricken to talk of her time in Mysore. If the look of unadulterated bemusement Lord Koorecroft cast from beneath his bushy brows was anything to go by, spy's wife was a stroke of genius though. It allowed her to say anything, everything, and yet nothing.
"Sir, I need to ask you about Lord Devorlane Hawley."
Making out that sneering snake was a counter agent though? That wasn't just anything. It was a thing that went beyond genius to the realms of greatness. Her best yet. She lowered her gaze to the gnarled fingers Lord Koorecroft had fastened on the coach window frame, almost unable to breathe for the acknowledgement of her sheer dazzling brilliance and audacity. But obviously she did. She spoke too. To lose the battle was to lose the war after all. And this victory?This victory was stupendous.
"Is he to be trusted? Or ... or ..." Deliberately she left the word not unsaid.
"What has he to do with this?" Although the way Lord Koorecroft leaped in, the staccato-like nature of his delivery, in truth she'd have been lucky to get that word 'not' in there.
She cleared her throat. "It's just I caught him at my window. And I wondered what a person of your-"
"Devorlane Hawley?"
She nodded.
"At your window?"
"Oh God, yes. Where he caught me unawares, much as it pains me to say it."
Why did Lord Koorecroft's brows clap together like that? Thunder off the other? As if he had been set fire to? Cass could hardly afford to think it-she needed to continue after all-only the reaction, while hoped for, longed for, and expected, was extreme. She hurried on anyway.
"So much so, me not being dressed at the time-fully that is. That I am afraid ... I am afraid I kissed him, in defense of the realm."
"Good God, woman. You did what?"
All right, she hadn't. And it was a titanic mistake to say so. Why would she kiss him in defense of the realm, this man or any other, after all, when her husband had come to that same realm to die? And was no longer in the service? At least that, to the best of her sterling abilities, was what she'd just tried to say, wasn't it?
But Lord Koorcroft's reaction, his clenching of the window ledge, was unexpected. As if he wanted to snap it in two. Then there was the matter of the kiss itself. How could it haunt her like this, sending that throat-drying ripple through her so she lowered her eyelashes over throbbing cheeks? Especially when she'd more to say.
"I mean, in defense of my husband. To stop him from being assassinated."
"Good God. What?"
"But now ... now, having caught Lord Hawley in my bedroom, I fear if he is not a spy himself, he entirely misconstrues my behav-"
"In your bedroom you say?"
Snap it in two? Cass expected to see the carriage door career across the square. As for the noise, the snort that came all the way from the back of Lord Koorecroft's throat and charged down his nose? Oh, this could not possibly be because Devorlane Hawley was powerful and she was a nobody.
What on earth had he done to engender such a reaction? Was he, after all, a public nuisance? And this was known about already? And was she right to bring this to Lord Koorecroft's attention for the sake of the other put upon women in the area?
"Yes." Whatever it was, it was vital she press the advantage. "And not as if I invited him either. So now ...now, you see the situation I am in? One where I do not know how to say to him I am innoce-"
"Leave this with me."