Persuasion in the Pantry [Maid for More #1]

Chapter 26: Sleeping with the Enemy

"What?!" Bianca sounded startled by some news. "I had not known that the Queen was enceinte already. How far along is she?"

Cain strained to obtain the answer as well. Neither he, nor the ton had been privy to the information that the Queen was pregnant yet.

"Well, that's not long." Bianca hissed with latent aggression. "Yes, of course it doesn't give us a lot of time. Obviously an heir to the throne will not be acceptable."

There was a scuffing of chairs against the floor and the heavy fall of boots towards the door on which Cain leaned. He swept the adjoining sitting room for a crevice to hide and luckily opened an empty armoire into which he crawled. The duke sealed himself within, with only a thin stream of light entering through the keyhole and waited.

"Do not worry yourself, Sir. The contingency will be prepared and will not fail us come the day of reckoning. Be assured that the pieces are all moving into place."

The door closed firmly as she escorted her accomplice out into the hall. Cain opened the armoire a fraction to ascertain that the room was clear and carefully stepped out and crept towards Bianca's study with the same light footed grace he had used not long before in the ballroom. The boards were well oiled and the room door still flung open, ripe for the plucking, and he intended to pluck it well, like a debutant on ball night.

Her study was pastel, in hues of lavender and every ornament rimmed with gold. She was a lion in sheep's clothing, come to kill his Queen- who was simply a woman, yet to prove her worth and so far whose only crime was to love a man that Bianca coveted. And yet there were too many players in the game for such a simple reason. Bianca may have directed operations from the comfort of her home but she was far from the puppet master.

Documents sat in ordered piles and Cain swept his gaze over those that seemed most used. There were copies of some of her husband's files attached to the financial accounts of other men and women. The pattern seemed to be of selling information to interested stakeholders, goading participants with trial secrets and other more disreputable deeds. Despite assuring him of her black heart, nothing present contained any whisper of Queen Victoria's impending assassination. With nimble fingers he ran a feathered touch over every inch of her desk in search of a hidden compartment but none was to be found. He was about to give up hope when he spied the frayed edge of a fragment of perfumed paper protruding out from under the inkwell. He pulled it out and inhaled the thick rosey scent. On the surface in beautiful cursive writing that did not match Bianca's was a single word.

Oxford

Surely it couldn't mean the Duke of Oxford, he wondered. Before Cain could ponder its meaning any further he heard Bianca approaching from the hallway beyond and recognised there was no possibility of returning to his hiding spot. Throwing himself out of the window seemed a touch extreme and hiding beneath the desk was an act of idiocy. Cain quickly settled on squeezing himself into the corner between the bookcase and wall, behind the weighted hanging curtains that fell to the floor.

Having returned the note to its resting place he calmed his body and lowered his breath to shallow intakes as he had done so often many years ago in the field. Work for the Queen's secret service never truly left the soul. It carved the body with memories that crept into muscle like scars into skin.

Bianca strode back into the room muttering unkind words with an unbidden familiarity. Cain heard the sliding of books being jammed with frustration back onto the shelf and the swish of Bianca's heavy skirts before she spoke again.

"Bring her to me." The venom in her voice could have struck directly from a cobra's bite.

Cain could only assume who 'her' was and he dreaded the furtive steps of a newly bedded courtesan but held his place. He extended his senses outwards as he had once mastered and waited for the first delicate scent of jasmine and sandalwood. He did not have to bide his time for long until Liara was ushered through the door in haste. His palm caressed the solid steel of the dagger tucked at his waist and he listened patiently while trying in vain to trust the Guild Mistress's choice. Blinded by his location, he could not help but notice that their mission to protect the Queen was equally as crippled when adolescents were sent to do the work of Agents.