Chapter 3

On a bright, sunny day, Rebecca Fogg walked from her home to the offices of the Secret Service at Whitehall for a meeting with Chatsworth. There was no need to hurry and there had been no promise of a mission in his note to her. He had been letting her languish without work for nearly a month, only now calling on her out of the blue.

Flintcraft greeted her upon arrival, opening the door to the director's office, showing her in to wait. "Sir Jonathan is in another meeting, but I will tell him you are here."

After being left alone, she idly walked around the room, looking out the window for a time. She idly scanned the bookshelves. She took a seat. Not her former guardian's seat. She never commandeered the desk chair. She took a visitor's seat, left catty-corner to the desk. Looking about, she noticed the desk littered with folders and papers. Absently, she glossed over some of it upside down, thinking it might be her next assignment. Most of it appeared to be background information on someone named Jordan. The name meant nothing to her. It was a common one.

Sir Jonathan came into his office before Rebecca could get too far into her reading. He greeted her with his usual all business manner. He took his desk seat and stared down at the mess on his desk before addressing her.

"Miss Fogg," he started, "I have a delicate matter for you to deal with. It is not official business yet, but might become so." He did not look at her as he spoke. He kept staring at the papers.

Rebecca wondered what could make him so resistant. It was not like him to act so. In her time under his management, Rebecca knew him as a very direct sort, but with a professional detachment reminiscent of her late guardian's management style. She did not share her cousin's poor opinion of him. He was not Sir Boniface, but he had qualities that made him competent to his office. But right now, he was acting nervous and more detached than usual. Because of it, she wondered just how unofficial this task was and just why he did not seem to want to give her the assignment.

"What do you need me to do?" she said, prompting.

"For starters, you will accompany me to a dinner party. If all goes as…well as planned, you will be given further instructions," Sir Jonathan said.

That was unusual. She had never been required to act as his or any agent's social companion before. Was this social event to be a covert fishing expedition?

Chatsworth isn't a field agent. Why accompany him?

"What part am I to play?" She said. A mischievous thought came unbidden. "Paramour?"

That was the wrong thing to say. She saw it in the sudden shocked look he gave her and the anger that welled up hot in his face.

"Certainly not!" He snapped. "You will play the intelligent, respectable, well-bred lady you are! Really?"

"Sorry," she said, dropping her gaze. That had not been the reaction she had expected. It said a great deal about his mood. Normally Chatsworth, while formal, could take a joke and give them with a wiry dry humor, but not now.

He seemed to calm himself after a moment and looked back at her with a piercing expression. Rebecca met his gaze for a moment but got unaccountably self-conscious. She dropped her eyes to the papers on his desk again. He was looking for something personal; trying to pull it out of her by force of will.

"Miss Fogg?" he said, bringing her gaze back to his face. "I do hope you know that your duties as an agent of the Secret Service have never and will never require you to act in any manner outside your choosing. No agent under my authority ever goes on a mission with orders to act contrary to their moral judgment or personal wishes. Missions have always been voluntary, especially when the dangers are high."

That unexpected lecture on the conditions of her duties took Rebecca aback. This subject had never come up since her first year, training in the service. And in that, it had been explained by an older woman from the foreign offices, not by Sir Boniface or Chatsworth.

The man knows my record. Missions get dangerous and, at times, compromising. The service's present and only official female agent had allowed liberties occasionally that she would not normally have. She had even been put to flirt, make promises, and occasionally follow up on them. She stayed short of prostituting herself for the cause. It would have been easier to do so in some ways, but that was not a path Rebecca Fogg had wanted to take.

Being known as England's whore, as others had become known as France's or Prussia's, was nothing Rebecca wanted said of her. And now, it was good to hear her less salacious choice of methods had been met with her superior's appreciation and good will.

What in the world caused this subject to come up?

"The dinner party will be at eight in the evening tomorrow night," Chatsworth said. "We will leave from here at six-thirty in the evening. The event is at a country estate outside of London. Agreed?"

The question was more a matter of her willingness to be part of the endeavor than the timing.

"Agreed," she said.

Once she left, Chatsworth shook his head, wondering if she was truly the right woman for the job. Rebecca was highly respected and considered very competent by him and his other agents. That had not always been so, and she had had to overcome entrenched biases to gain it. Her record spoke for itself in its multitude of successful completions. She was also far more intelligent and self-assured than the average miss, and that showed in her every move, word, and deed.

This mission, however, would require, not cunning, but openness and trust. She would need to be seen as vulnerable, exploitable. Would she be capable of exhibiting those things? Was she that good of an actress? He wasn't sure. He personally could not imagine her being anyone's victim. Her cosmopolitan remark to him just now proved her too sharp to be anyone's helpless prey.

"I may have to rethink this."

At tea that afternoon at Rebecca Fogg's cousin's home, the agent was still puzzling over the odd turn of conversation in Chatsworth's office. The situation she was going into tomorrow night seemed just too strange.

What is Sir Jonathan doing going into the field? To my knowledge, he did that some years ago, but not for long and not with me. He accompanies the queen, but there were always other agents around to do the actual work.

"Rebecca… Rebecca, do join us, will you?" A voice said, breaking into her thoughts?

Rebecca looked up. "Excuse me… did you say something, Phileas?"

"Oh, just that London Bridge was on fire again," He teased.

The two cousins were nestled in Phileas's cozy study. There was a low fire in the grate and what was left of a companionable tea. Rebecca smiled back at him sheepishly and put her teacup down on the table between them.

"Sorry," she said. "I have been lost in thought all day. I appear to have a new assignment, but it is not coming with much background information."

"Oh?" Phileas said. I thought I had broken Chatsworth of that bad habit the day I knocked him out cold in his office. Will I have to repeat the lesson?

"It seems to be a preliminary thing," she said. "I am going to a dinner party tomorrow night with Chatsworth. The rest depends on what happens."

Phileas looked up. "With him, as in, as his companion?"

"Exactly," Rebecca said. "You were in the service longer than I. Has Sir Jonathan ever done any fieldwork?"

"No," Phileas said with a thoughtful look. "He was hired as father's political weasel, not a field operative. The closest he has ever come is escorting dignitaries to and from the queen's chambers."

Passepartout, Phileas's manservant, came into the study at that moment, breaking the conversation. "For you, Miss Rebecca," he said, handing her a letter on a tray.

"Thank you, Passepartout," Rebecca said, as she picked up the envelope and opened it. The message was from Sir Jonathan. She did not bother to wonder how he knew to send it here. Suffice that he did. She supposed several might know of her biweekly teas.

"Well, that would be that. My dinner date with Chatsworth has been canceled. Now I will never know what it was all about or find out who Jordan is."

"Who?" Phileas said.

"Isaac Jordan," Rebecca said. "There were papers on Sir Jonathan's desk concerning someone by that name. I assumed he was the host of the party we were going to, or someone I was to meet. The party was to take place at an estate outside the city."

"I see," he said. "Do you have plans for this evening?"

"No, I had just planned to do a bit of reading; you?"

"I am going out for a while. No idea when I will be back," Phileas said.

Rebecca gave him a knowing smile. "Well, enjoy yourself and don't beggar your opponents too badly. I must be going now."

She stood and Phileas came to his feet with her, seeing her to the door himself.

He came back to the study and sat in his chair with a head full of troubling thoughts. He knew of a man named Jordan. He was a financier of inventions and business endeavors. He had a reputation for looking after his own interests more than his business partners. There had been talk of wild parties at his estate outside London. Just a week ago, he had overheard rumors of the goings on at Jordan's parties; of the many doxies brought in for entertainment. The invitations to these house parties were coveted and only offered to his best clients.

Phileas did not know the man personally, nor had he any dealings with him. He did not know of anyone who had direct contact with him, either. Jordan was just a name that came up over drinks and cards.

What would Chatsworth want with him? And why would he want to take Rebecca with him?

It was a mystery. As it might still involve Rebecca, it was one he felt needed solving.