The Disdainful Marquis by Edith Layton Page B

more good in Vienna. I have done before, unless he’s come to doubting me now?”
    “Nothing like it,” his friend assured him. “He still thinks you one of the best agents he has. But you’re well known in Vienna now, for all your subterfuge. You’ve practically got the stamp of the foreign office upon your forehead, he says. And you can’t work well unless there’s some doubt as to your aims, you know.”
    “It’s not so bad as that.” The taller man grinned. “But I’ll grant that there may be a suspicion there that I’m not just another disinterested tourist. But Paris just now is filled with fools, with empty-headed nits who’ve gone for the fun and games of it. And I suppose I’m to be just another one of them?”
    His friend nodded with a sympathetic smile.
    “Ahh, my reputation,” the marquis sighed, passing a hand over his forehead. “My lamentable reputation.”
    Cyril laughed aloud at that. For the marquis had posed as many things, many times, in his jobs for the foreign office. Aside from that, if there was ever a man who cared less for his reputation in the ton, Cyril did not know of his. The marquis had never cared for what any other soul in the kingdom thought of him, or any other soul in Spain, or France, or Italy, or any of the places to which he had traveled since he had enlisted his services in the war against Bonaparte. It was that, the old chap said, coupled with his winning manner and his natural intelligence, that had made him such an invaluable asset to their operations.
    “Paris it is, then,” the marquis said derisively. “I will have to pack my dancing slippers.”
    Cyril rose to go and stretched himself.
    “I suppose,” he yawned, “that you’ll be taking Jenkins? Where is he, by the by? I haven’t set eyes on him in some time.”
    “Down at Fairleigh, taking care of estate business. He’s very good at that too, you know. But he’ll be here like a shot when he gets my message. He’s like an old gun dog—one sniff of powder and all else flees from his mind.”
    “Just like his master, eh?”
    “Don’t let him hear you say that; Jenkins has no master. He chooses to stay on with me and work for me. We have no title for his duties as yet, not even after all these years. He is estate manager, overseer, accountant, and, most of all, friend. As it is, I’m delighted to just be his friend and be able to employ him. He’s the one man I trust in this whole weary world.”
    Cyril turned back at the door and pulled a hurt face.
    “Oh, you don’t trust me, Sinjun?”
    “Not so far as I could toss you, old dear.” The marquis smiled slowly. “For if the old chap told you to place a knife in my ribs, you’d do it without a backward glance.”
    “I’m hurt, old fellow, wounded to the quick. For I would give a backward glance, you know. To see if Jenkins was after me with another knife.”
    They laughed and parted with a handshake.
    The marquis went to his desk to write a note to his estate manager, valet, traveling companion, assistant, and friend, Jenkins. He smiled to himself and was actually laughing softly as he added a last flourish to the note. That would get the old boy running, he thought. A hint of subterfuge, spying, lying, and the possibility of mayhem, and Jenkins would drop anything he was doing to come along. Cyril was right, he thought, Jenkins was just like him. When they had met those years ago in Spain, they had each recognized it. The marquis had been on the crown’s business, and Jenkins a batman who had just lost his officer. Exactly who had saved the other’s life when they had met they had never resolved, but each had instantly appreciated the other. Regardless of class distinctions, education, and lineage, they had banded together, recognizing their common bond.
    There was a time, the marquis thought, the smile fading from his lips, when style and reputation had meant everything to him. More than honor or love or duty. And only now could he jest