Page 6 of Betrayal from Beyond
“Do you have houseguests?” Niall knew the blue room was meant for guests—not that the viscount ever entertained any.
“No, sir. He’s had the telescope moved in there.”
“Is he harassing the gardeners again?”
“Not that I am aware of.” Now the butler’s tone intimated that the old man’s antics were worse. Worse than Stayme’s unfounded conviction that he knew more about gardening than the men hired to care for Berkeley Square’s central garden?
“I’ll go up.”
“If I may suggest it, Master Harold might wish to go down to the kitchens,” Watts said. “Cook has just made a batch of treacle scones. They are likely still warm.”
Harold shot a questioning glance his way, and Niall nodded. The boy headed for the green baize door that led to the servants’ stairs as Niall exchanged a glance with the butler and headed upstairs.
“Something is afoot,” Stayme announced when Niall entered the guest room. The old man sat at a table at the window. His prized telescope sat upon it, aimed out the window at the front of the house. The viscount was scribbling busily in a journal.
“What’s afoot?”
“Someone is watching the house.”
“Someone is always watching the house. What are you mixed up in now?” The viscount was one of the foremost dealers in that most valuable resource in games of power—information.
“That’s just it. Everything is relatively dull right now. The Whigs and the Peelites are settling into their coalition government. Palmerston, turned home secretary, has shifted his focus inward, though he cannot keep from commenting loudly on foreign affairs. That leaves things mostly quiet at the moment. And yet I have a watcher. An intriguing specimen, too.”
“Intriguing?”
“Yes. It was a man stationed in the garden at first. He looked like any aging clerk, sitting with his newspaper, but he sat out there a little too often, for a little too long. I made a detour around the square one morning, to be sure to get a good look at him, but then I shrugged it off. As you say, there are those out there who like to keep track of me.”
Niall grinned.
“But after I did that, I noticed the clerk didn’t come back. However, a gentlewoman did. She made a show of wandering the garden and reading her novel, and she made sure not to sit in the same spot, but she couldn’t fool me. I went out to harangue the gardeners and set them to trimming the trees before thespring thaw, so that I might get a good look at her.” The viscount raised a brow. “And guess what I noticed?”
“I couldn’t possibly.” Niall went to the room’s other window and peered out, but he saw no one lurking in the garden.
“The aging clerk and the gentlewoman were the same person,” Stayme said grimly.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Perhaps they were related. Siblings?”
“I considered it, but no. I began to truly watch the watcher, and I’m convinced—they are the same person, and that person is female. I gave no indication of anything amiss, but I called in one of my own best people and set him on her.”
“And what did he find?”
“Well, it took a full morning for her to notice him.”
“Your man must be good.”
“He is.”
“Who do you think sent her?”
“I hadn’t the faintest notion. Until…”
“Until?”
“When she noticed my man, things got strange.”
