An Affair with Mr. Kennedy by Jillian Stone

Kennedy?”
    “I try to avoid it whenever possible, Mrs. St. Cloud.”
    She studied him with a beguiling half smile, just the barest ends of a superbly sensuous mouth turned up in quizzical amusement. “I take that to mean you do dance, but perhaps only in the course of duty. When it is forced upon you?”
    She made him feel as silly as that exhaustive, tedious brother-in-law of hers. Zeno no longer tried to feign indifference toward the attractive widow, particularly since he could not seem to tear his gaze away.
    He exhaled a loud sigh. “Women take pleasure dressing in evening gowns, being waltzed about a ballroom and whispering tittle-tattle.” He loosened his cravat. “Men, on the other hand, must endure high-pointed collars, feet crushed by dainty toes—and tittle-tattle.”
    She pressed her lips together and formed a dimple. “The only reason I ask is I am quite sure my brother will wire back and beg off at the eleventh hour. And frankly, I’ve not much time. The ball is tomorrow evening, you see …”
    Her conversation faded, accompanied by a wistful, resigned shrug. “I suppose I could always tag along with Gerald and Miss Templeton.”
    He contemplated the idea of escorting her to the ball. On the yea side, she provided perfect cover. He could observe theBloody Four unawares in their milieu, take note of their friends and associates. As for the nay?
    Zeno listened absently to the pattering of rain on the carriage roof. The woman frazzled him at times. Especially when she bit her lower lip and let it slip out from under pearl white teeth. Like now.
    “Mrs. St. Cloud. Do you wish for me to escort you to the crush of the season?”
    Her gaze slipped away, then back again. She added a nod.
    “Please accept my offer of escort, as long as my company brings you greater happiness than the attentions of Lord Rosslyn.”
    “It brings me a great deal more happiness, Mr. Kennedy.” The sparkle in her eyes so beguiled him, he allowed his smile to widen.
    “I believe we have an engagement, madam.”
    HIS BOSS CAUGHT up with Zeno in the corridor, moments before their appointment with the home secretary.
    “Here, read this, damn you.” Melville passed the wire message over. “Explain how this message, sent from the Clan na Gael , gets into the hands of one of your suspected subversives, namely Hicks-Beach.” Melville couldn’t suppress a grin.
    Zeno read the deciphered message dated a week prior.
     
BE ADVISED EAGLE HAS LANDED STOP
AWAIT DELIVERY INSTRUCTIONS STOP
LE CARON
     
    Zeno sucked in a breathb through clenched teeth. Concrete confirmation of his hypothesis. The eagle reference had to refer to a shipment of dynamite sent by Irish Americans. He doused a momentary surge of excitement with a heap of skepticism. “A coded message meant for anarchists ends up in the hands of a Home Office appointee. How exactly did we come by this?”
    Melville lowered his voice. “Shall we say it was misappropriated off Hicks-Beach’s desk by a most diligent interoffice mole?”
    Zeno reread the wire. The shipment could arrive in London any day now. “Careless of him. I say we place a permanent tail on James Hicks-Beach.”
    “Ahead of you for once, Kennedy. He may well have changed sides. In league with a radical Irish contingent.”
    “Let me guess …” Zeno returned the scrap of paper. “Funded or even led by Delamere.”
    His boss wore a gleam in his eye as he opened the door. “After you.”
    Zeno and Melville entered the home secretary’s stately office and traveled a length of polished wood floor. A staunch figure peered out a set of mullioned windows. Charles Albert Hancock, Earl of Castlemaine, stood with hands clasped behind his back. Everything about the picture might have impressed on some other occasion. But not this night.
    A white-hot vein of lightning flashed in the distance as gray clouds tumbled low over the building tops of the city.“Another storm front coming in.” Castlemaine barely turned