His mother gasped and his father turned purple behind his silver beard. ‘I will hear no more of such things in my house! And how can you afford such nonsense anyway? After that Nixson investment business last year...’
‘I didn’t lose a farthing in that business,’ Chris said and indeed he hadn’t. The Nixson business had all been a set-up through his work to catch a spy, but his parents couldn’t know that. To them he was just their disappointing son.
‘Only because your brother saved you yet again.’ His father turned away with a huff of disgust and silence reigned in the dining room again.
Chris finished his fresh glass of wine, secretly pouring most of it into a potted fern, and thought of his brother with a sharp pang of jealousy that Will was far away in Vienna. He had letters from him and Di every week, as they had to keep in touch for work as well as affection, and Chris couldn’t help but be a bit envious of how happy they were together. How seldom they had to see the elder Blakelys.
It was with the greatest of relief that he could finally escape at the end of the meal, like a man walking out of the gates of Holloway after a long sentence. His mother followed him to the hall, where she stood silently beside him as they waited for the butler to fetch his hat.
‘You know, Christopher,’ she whispered, laying a birdlike hand on his arm. ‘I do think Miss Golens has a younger sister. Not quite as pretty, perhaps, but still...’
‘Mother,’ he said. ‘No respectable lady would have me. You know that. My reputation is irredeemably rackety, I’m afraid.’ And that was exactly what had come to nag at his own mind lately, seeing how happy Will and Di were, knowing that could not be his. But that was his world and he would work with it. He just couldn’t tell that to his mother.
‘No man is truly irredeemable,’ she said. Then her face clouded, as if she remembered her husband. ‘Usually. You are so handsome and with your new place at the Foreign Office—I am sure if you worked hard...’
‘Go off to India like Will, you mean? Then come back to astonish society with my newfound sobriety?’
‘It wouldn’t hurt. Many fortunes are made in India,’ she said hopefully.
The butler came back with Chris’s coat and hat, and Chris gave his mother a quick kiss on her cheek. ‘Don’t worry about me, Mother, please. Just take care of yourself. I’ll see you soon.’
To his surprise, she caught his arm as he turned to leave. ‘Where are you off to now, Christopher?’
He was going back to the office to face a new mountain of paperwork, but he couldn’t tell her that, of course. No chink could ever show in his carefully constructed mask. He gave her a bright grin. ‘Now, a chap should never say such things to his mother.’
He gave her one more kiss and set off into the night. It was the hour most of London was bent on merriment—or mischief. He saw carriages flashing past, pale faces and bright jewels in their windows as the riders set off to the theatre or a ball. A group of men, already staggering and laughing, moved in a blur just down the street. But, despite what he wanted everyone to believe, Chris was intent on neither. He found a hansom and directed the driver to a near-deserted office building in a respectable, but not terribly elegant, part of town.
During the day, it bustled with business, crowds of men in their black bowler hats and carrying furled umbrellas hurrying on terribly important errands. At night, it was silent.
The foyer of the building was empty, the reception desk dark, but chinks of light flashed under a few doorways. Chris made his way up the stairs to his own room on the top floor and lit the lamp. The glow fell on a couple of chairs, a cabinet, a large desk covered with neat piles of papers.
He hung up his coat and hat, and only when he sat down and reached for the folder on top of the stack did he let his mask drop. He had to pay attention now and get his work finished. He had to be sombre, responsible Chris now.
Suddenly an image flashed through his mind. Emily Fortescue’s face, the French sun shining on her chestnut hair, her lips pink from their kiss. A kiss he should never have stolen, but the temptation had been overwhelming as he saw her laughing there, running lost through the maze. The intoxicating sweetness of her taste, the way she’d felt in his arms. The way he’d never wanted to let her go.
No other woman in his life had ever been able to make him feel quite like Emily did, as if he was driven half-mad by her.
Then he remembered the terrible disappointment on her face as they parted that day in Paris. The sense that something had ended before its time and he didn’t know how to fix it. Chris had become accustomed to such looks on people’s faces—he had seen them all his life. But the glimpse of that same look on Emily’s face had pierced him like an arrow and he had never quite been able to forget it. It drove him forward even more in his work, even though she would never know about it.
Chris sucked in a deep breath and pushed the memory of Emily away. She could never be his and it was no use remembering her now. He took out a sheaf of papers and started reading. Soon he was lost entirely in the work.
* * *
As the clock down the corridor tolled one, a knock sounded at his door. Chris was startled. No one ever disturbed anyone else’s work at such an hour. Worried it might be an emergency, he pushed his papers back into their folder and called, ‘Yes, come in.’
To his surprise, it was Lord Ellersmere, head of the office. ‘Ah, Mr Blakely. I’m glad to see you’re here this evening. Something has come up today and I think you might be just the man for the job.’
‘Me, Lord Ellersmere?’ Chris said, puzzled. He hadn’t been sent on a foreign assignment since the Nixson business in France and he wondered what was happening now.
‘Oh, yes.’ Ellersmere sat down across from the desk, looking immaculate in a dark suit despite the late hour. He had been working for the Foreign Office for many years and nothing ever seemed to ruffle him. ‘After your excellent work on the Eastern Star and then the Nixson business, you do seem to be just the one we need.’
Chris smiled wryly at the memory of those jobs, both in France. They had both required a great deal of subtlety, of subterfuge, and he had enjoyed them rather a lot. But his smile faded when he remembered Emily’s contempt when she’d found him on the street, ‘drunk’ and flat broke, during the Star operation. ‘The man to play the buffoon?’
Ellersmere chuckled. ‘We are very lucky you decided to work for us instead of going onstage at the Lyceum. Your skills are invaluable, and rare among our sort. But I’m not sure buffoonery is needed so much this time, though one never knows in this line of work.’
Chris was intrigued. ‘What is it?’
Ellersmere sighed. ‘Trouble with the Germans again, I fear. Have you ever heard of a man called Herr Friedland, or maybe a Madame Renard?’
Chris mentally scanned through all the case paperwork he had just been reading. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘Well, Friedland may not be his real name, we aren’t quite sure yet. One of our people in Berlin, someone quite high up with the Crown Princess, has got word of some strange new scheme among some of the—wilder sort there.’
Chris sat back in his chair, fascinated. There was always trouble with the Germans, of course, the elderly Bismarck, the bellicose Kaiser and Queen Victoria’s liberal-minded daughter Princess Vicky always creating a stir. ‘Involving a Madame Renard?’
‘A French radical, yes, and a friend of a woman called Mrs Hurst. Perhaps you’ve heard of her? She’s a regular at the Pankhursts’ At Homes. They’re always involved in all manner of doings there.’
‘Oh,