Page 32 of After the Spy Seduces

“Tell her,” the general ordered.

“I’ve already tried. She won’t believe me.” Kit took a long swallow of whisky to brace himself. “She needs to hear it from you.”

“Hear what?” Her confusion changed to irritation. When the two men exchanged a silent look, she demanded, “What are you two talking about?”

“Garrett is working for the French.” The general’s face turned haggard. “And Carlisle knows it. That’s why he was there at the tavern and most likely why he’s here tonight.”

“Stop saying that!” Diana shot to her feet, her hands clenched at her sides as she wheeled on Kit. “It’s not true.”

“Unfortunately,” Kit corrected bleakly, “it is.”

Her bright eyes narrowed into slits of accusation. “I’ve told you that my brother is not a traitor. Yet you—”

“The only way that Frenchman would have known where to look for my diary was if Garrett had told him,” her father interrupted, staring grimly into his whisky. As if acknowledging it made it real, as real as if his son were already swinging by the neck for treason. “No other cabinets were disturbed in any of the other rooms, or any other cabinet in this study. He knew to go to that one, specifically, because Garrett had told him that was where I keep my papers, not knowing that I keep my diary hidden in a secret drawer inside it.”

“No, you’re wrong,” she whispered, unable to find her voice beneath the truth about her brother. “The Frenchmandidn’tknow where the diary was. That’s why he came after me.”

“Only after he’d searched the cabinet,” Kit said quietly, raising his eyes solemnly to meet her anguished ones. “After he didn’t find the diary where he was told it would be.”

The color that had managed to return to her face seeped away again, and a haunted look took its place. One so distraught that it ripped through him.Christ, how he hated that she’d been dragged into this mess!

“But—but the Frenchman took the diary.” She jabbed a finger at the desk, and at him, thrusting upon him all the anger she couldn’t yet bring herself to level at her brother. “You gave it to him. I saw you.”

“That wasn’t my diary.” General Morgan pushed himself off the settee and crossed to the ruined cabinet. “That was the household account book.”

He yanked open one of the twisted drawers and reached inside to push a hidden button. The small panel at the top of the cabinet, decorated with a scallop shell, popped open to reveal a secret door. He withdrew a key from his pocket and unlocked it, then opened the tiny drawer that guarded a space not more than five inches wide and three inches deep. The compartment was perfectly hidden among the decorations, and anyone who didn’t know where it was would never have found it.

He reached inside and removed a small, leather-bound pocket book. Its plain brown cover was covered in scars and stains from being carried through battle, its spine stitched with an equally plain binding that had loosened slightly from use.

“Thisis my diary.” His face hardened as he brushed his hand over it. “No one knows that I keep it here. Not even your brother.”

Her mouth falling open, Diana turned toward Kit, trying to absorb it all.

“I took a chance that there’d be another book inside the desk.” He shrugged a shoulder. “One I could pretend was the diary. I needed to catch the Frenchman with his hands full so that he’d have no choice but to release you.”

“When he did, you pushed me to the floor,” she whispered, staring at him again in that odd way she’d done before, as if seeing him for the first time.

No—as if seeing rightthroughhim, to his soul. He knew then that he’d been correct to keep his distance from her, until this past sennight when he’d had no choice but to get close to her. Ironically, far closer than he ever should have.

“But what could the French possibly want with this diary?” the general interjected. “It contains nothing but an old soldier’s stories.”

“They requested specific pages in the note they sent to Diana,” Kit answered quietly. “Those describing the beginning of the Waterloo campaign. They probably want to know logistics—who was where and when.”

“But that was nearly ten years ago.” Frustration colored her voice. “What does it matter now who the British officers were or where they’d amassed their troops?”

“Not ours,” her father interrupted, returning the diary to its compartment and locking it inside. “Theirs.”

Kit’s gut knotted. Brilliant tactician that he was, the general was already two steps ahead. But if the French were attempting to track down the whereabouts of one of their own, then this went far beyond the jurisdiction of the Home Office. Nathaniel Grey’s warning to stay away from Garrett Morgan suddenly took on a new meaning, one that had nothing to do with Russian diplomats.

General Morgan misunderstood the sudden hardening of Kit’s body and shook his head in what he believed was shared frustration over the diary. “So many men came in and out of meetings then, on both sides, during the Hundred Days. How do we know which men they’re interested in?”

“We don’t,” Kit bit out, his jaw clenched. But the Foreign Office knew, damn them. Just as they knew the French were working with Morgan. Christ—theyknew! Which meant they’d known all along about Fitch’s murder. And hadn’t done a bloody thing about it.

The question now…why were they letting it play out?

“So we assume it’s all important to them,” Diana concluded. “What do we do?”

“We wait for them to make their next move.” Kit walked back to the drink table to refill his glass. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough whisky in all of Scotland to dull the betrayal and anger now simmering inside him. “They know we’ve got the diary. They’ll send—”