The Husband Mission (The Spy Matchmaker #1)(4)

From the front, the house looked no different from others along the street: three floors of windows and a door to the left. It had not looked like a den of iniquity. The steps were clean swept, the trim in good repair. Perhaps he had been misled after all.

He nearly turned back but decided to knock just in case. As he approached the entry, however, he could not help but hear a commotion inside. His hand raised to knock, he paused. Doors slammed, voices shouted.

What on earth had he gotten himself into?

Excitement surged through him, and he rapped sharply at the door.





Chapter Two


A few moments earlier, Katherine Collins had heard the sound she had been waiting for all afternoon.

"I shall kill him!" her uncle thundered.

Katherine exchanged glances with her stepsister Constance Templeman, who rose from the leather-bound chair in the library in a flurry of pink-sprigged muslin. Katherine gathered up her own navy skirts and hurried after her for the corridor. Already their man Bixby and their cook and housekeeper Emma were hustling from below stairs.

"Places," Katherine ordered from long experience.

Heavy-set Emma grabbed Constance's hand, and they scurried for the kitchen stair. Bixby took his place by the front door as Katherine started up the main stairs.

Above them, the door to her uncle's study slammed. "I tell you, I shall kill him this time," Sir Richard Collins swore, storming onto the landing. His handsome face was florid, his cravat loose over his dark coat as if he had yanked the linen free in his frustration. "Bixby, fetch my sword cane!" 

He started down the polished stairs, his limp barely evident. Katherine put herself squarely in his path.

"Whatever is the matter, Uncle?" she asked, making her eyes as wide as possible. A shame that her grey eyes were not nearly as vapid and innocent as Constance's blue eyes or her heavy auburn tresses as light and curly as her stepsister's blond mane. But her dainty stepsister would be far more convincing in the role Katherine had given her to play. Constance could never confront anyone, even to save the family from social ruin. In the Collins' house, Katherine was the managing female.

"Stand aside, Katherine," her uncle blustered, though she was thankful that he was not so far gone as to touch her on the stair lest she fall. "The editor of The Morning Chronicle has gone too far this time. How dare he malign Wellington's strategies?"

Katherine refused to give way. "I am certain Mr. Perry means no disrespect for the valiant general, Uncle. Perhaps if you read the piece on the Peninsular War again … "

"Again!" Her uncle glared down at her, brown eyes surprisingly heated. "I couldn't stand to finish it once, let alone twice. Now move out of my way, or I'll have Bixby confine you to your room for a week."

She was fairly sure Bix would never follow through on such an order. He knew which way the wind blew in their house. Besides, he was more grandfather than butler and just as likely to spoil her. Unfortunately, she was even more sure her uncle would not be swayed by logic. Sighing dramatically, she moved out of his way and watched as Bixby flawlessly executed the second phase of their plan.

"Will you be wanting a carriage then, Sir Richard?" the elderly retainer asked as he handed her uncle his top hat. He was so diffident that Katherine wondered whether Sir Richard would notice. Bixby and her uncle had been campaigners together. At times neither remembered who was master and who servant. She shook her head sharply behind her uncle's back to warn Bix not to play it too brown, but Sir Richard was already blustering ahead.

"Of course I want a carriage," he raged as she came down the stairs to help. "Do you expect me to walk? I took a ball for Britain, blast you. Must I do everything else as well?"

Bixby's blue gaze met hers, and she was pleased that he did not deign to answer the question. He'd been there when her uncle had been wounded. Sir Richard would never have returned home without him. Most days, Sir Richard remembered that and was grateful.

Bixby straightened his thin shoulders and looked down his long nose. "If you'll be so good as to wait in the library, then, sir," he said in his best imitation of a stiff-rumped butler, "I shall fetch you a hack."

"Wait?" Sir Richard's look was so apoplectic that Katherine thought Bix had given away the game. But her uncle merely snatched the ebony cane from Bixby's long-fingered grip. "Oh, very well. But be quick about it. And this isn't my sword cane."

"No, sir," Bixby replied, carefully snagging the offending implement as Sir Richard waved it angrily about. "I shall do my best to locate it."

"I believe I saw it upstairs in my brother's room, Bixby," Katherine offered. "Eric is rather fond of playing adventurer."