by Edith Layton
“Our Lion was no less than a bona fide hero,” Warwick commented, ignoring Arden’s scowl as he went on, “for all he’s pleased to jest. He’s enough medals to start his own pawn brokerage, and commendations enough to paper over Napoleon’s drawing room, for he rose to a colonel in his majesty’s service, before he was pleased to sell out.”
“I was more than pleased, I was ecstatic,” Arden snarled, eager to change the subject, and began to ask his host what keyholes he’d snooped at when Julian added merrily, amazed and amused yet again at how Arden squirmed at praise as he’d never do at pain or injury. “Yes…Fuentes de Onoro, Badajoz, Ciudad Rodrigo…his itinerary in Spain wasn’t one for idle tourists, it reads like a dispatch from the battlefront, and his name was mentioned in many of those dispatches too,” he added, his face growing more serious as he gazed down at his friend with pride.
Francesca sat quietly as she listened, unwilling to make a sound lest she call attention to herself and interrupt this odd, touching, and honest moment among the three friends. Because although they’d supposedly begun these revelations about Arden for her benefit, she doubted they thought of her at all now. This was for each other. There was a bond among them, she perceived, that supported and greatly pleased them all, for all they jested about it. It was a sort of love, and it was as good to behold as it was rare. She wouldn’t say a word lest she miss one that was spoken, for when they weren’t jesting, these three spoke truth, and spoke it so as to aid each other.
“Et tu, Julian?” Arden murmured unhappily. “But how did you discover it? And not a word of it to me until now?” He shook his head in dismal wonder.
“Oh,” Julian said simply, grinning, “I’d a friend who taught me that the best gamesters keep their best cards concealed until they need them. And as to how—why, Warwick told me so.”
“Am I any less than you, my dear Lion?” Warwick asked before Arden could speak. “Would you sit down to play with any man until you know the cards he held? And as to how—why, Wellington told me long ago.”
“With you, my devious duke,” Arden said, nodding, “it’s entirely possible. Although I’d think it more probable that you had it from Harriet Wilson’s pillow.”
“Such a monster of vanity,” Warwick scolded, “to think that the great Wellington had nothing better to do than whisper praise of him into his mistress’ ear! At any rate, I never enjoyed anything but dear Harriet’s displeasure, even in those salad days when I so much as looked at other females. She was both too expensive and too cheap for my tastes. But enough salaciousness, for look—our clever Francesca, all a-lurk and a-listen, is still quiet as a mouse but now red as a rose!”
“True—I’m afraid you’d make an inferior spy, Fancy,” Arden said ruefully, though he smiled at her. “You’ve got the silence down very well, but whenever the talk got warm, you’d glow in the dark.”
Knowing the best way to deflect attention from herself was to call it back to him, Francesca, hoping her blushes, if for nothing else but that attention, were fading, only said, “I’m glad to hear of your glorious career, Arden, however it was divulged.”
“Oh, yes, glorious,” he said, all laughter fled. “So glorious I tried to leave all memory of it in Spain when I left there. Battle’s nothing but savagery, and the aftermath of it in Badajoz showed me how killing fever’s infectious, and in some cases incurable once it’s set in. No, medals for competency in killing are not my idea of fashion.”
“But for all I don’t know a great deal about the army, despite my brother’s having been in it,” she said just as seriously, for she sensed his denial of his honors had more to do with his distaste of how he’d earned them than of the honors themselves, “I know they give medals for bravery, not slaughter.”
Warwick and Julian looked at her with approval and fell silent. And Arden smiled at her again. Then he shrugged, and scoffed, and the moment was gone, but it had restored something to him, for he seemed easier in his mind.
“Oh, bravery,” he said lightly. “It’s much misunderstood. It’s only doing something you’d rather not, but think you ought. Extreme bravery is doing something you’d really rather not, but know you must. Fools confuse it with daring or recklessness, but it’s nothing but duty. Good army men don’t think about it at all. And the gents I’ve coming here today may talk about war itself in passing, but mostly they’ll want to forget the battles to remember all the gossip and little incidents to do with weather and supplies and other men. Talk of battles and bravery is for those who were chefs and onlookers—fighting men speak of trivialities and leave history to judge what they did while at work.”
But Francesca doubted that Major Kern, Arden’s first visitor, had only gossip on his mind when he came to call. She’d a look at him when she was introduced as he was announced, and a lingering glance at him as he sat down to confer with Arden—and Warwick and Julian. For neither of the other men left the room, and Major Kern was unsmiling and efficient-looking and still in uniform. He looked as determined as any officer about to ride into battle, and never like an old army chum come to chat about the weather that amusing day in Spain.
She’d a father who was a master of lies, so Francesca quite naturally doubted anything told to her, and for all that Arden, who might well have been able to sell her father London Bridge if he’d a mind to, had been so blithe with his excuse of army friends come to call for tea and tall tales, he hadn’t seemed entirely comfortable with it. Or rather, she thought, as she pretended to look at letters left on a table in the hall, so a passing footman would think her occupied, he’d seemed far too comfortable with it. It might have been because of her experience with her father, or even because she dared believe she might be becoming someone Arden couldn’t be easy about deceiving, but mostly it was that she was too alive with speculation to take any excuse for her banishment easily. She wanted to know what was going forth in the drawing room more than she’d wanted anything in her life but Arden’s life before.
But the moment she drifted past the drawing room, coming close enough to hear the low vibrations of active conversation through the closed heavy oak doors, the duke’s butler appeared like a genie from a bottle, out of nowhere, to ask if there was something she needed, just as she was seriously thinking about resting her ear against the door and calling it a fainting spell if that door should swing open. But a fainting spell with that astute butler watching closely would avail her nothing but salts waved under her nose and the housekeeper called to see her to her bed. And it was the front hall and the drawing room she wanted to see. So remembering that the library lay diagonally across the front hall, she murmured something about seeking a book to read, and trying to look earnestly studious, she made her way there, found a chair facing the open door, and waited.
Major Kern left after his appointed hour, looking as grim and determined as he’d been when he arrived. She’d hardly time to actually look at the book she’d opened when the front door was opened again to admit Lieutenant Adjutant Miller, a comely young man with an easy smile and the evident gift for making others merry as well, for long after he was shown into the drawing room and the door closed behind him, Francesca could hear the rumbling vibrations of masculine laughter coming from the room. He’d stayed for his entire hour when Francesca, who’d kept careful count of the passing minutes, laid down her book and arose. Her timing was almost as perfect as the lieutenant’s, and her tread was much more deliberate, so by stopping to look at her slippers and dawdling as she retied them, she imagined to be passing by the drawing room just as his hour was up, and was pleased to appear all surprise and delight when she came face-to-face with him as the door opened, and was introduced, at last.
She received a flatteringly appreciative smile from the young man as all of his handsome face lit up, including, she would swear, his signature army mustaches, but nothing else for her pains except for such a rueful, knowing look from Arden that she dared not linger so as to meet his third guest. She returned to the library only a
fter Captain Shipp arrived and had been shown into the drawing room. And there he stayed. And remained past his allotted hour, and half again the time. Not daring to prowl the halls again, Francesca found herself poised on the edge of her chair, the leather cover of the book she held grown damp and warm in her hands, but still he didn’t reappear. No sounds of laughter came from the room, nor did the butler stray far from it. At last Francesca, ablaze with curiosity and jangling with tension, rose, and ventured into the front hall again, prepared to face Arden’s amusement and to swear to any probable thing to save face, if only to get a hint of what was going forth. And then the door swung open and she got far more than that.
“Very well. When you’re ready, Colonel,” the tall, thin office said, looking back into the room he was about to leave. “My word on it. I’ll have his direction by nightfall, I promise you, and shall return as soon as I do. As you ask it of me, I promise I’ll not confront him, but by God, sir, only because it is you who ask it of me. Bad enough what he did that day, but to compound such ignoble cowardice by attempting your life! He ought to be twice hanged, for that as well as for his—”
“Ah! Captain, may I present the Honorable Miss Carlisle,” Warwick, who’d been standing closest to the door, quickly said, cutting across the captain’s angry utterances, “a dear friend of ours and our friend Arden, and a lady with the most convenient restlessness. Arden, I know how you wanted these two to meet—how lucky that she anticipated your wishes.”
“Singularly fortunate,” Arden agreed as he rose to his feet, suddenly paler due to the sudden effort, or to Francesca’s unexpected appearance.
“No,” Captain Shipp, bending over Francesca’s hand, refuted promptly, “it is I who am most fortunate, ma’am.”
He uttered the requisite flatteries, gave Francesca an even measuring stare from his cold blue eyes, and then, reassuming his rigid height, nodded, his smile gone, his face all neat planes again, even to his luxurious but symmetrical mustaches, and casting Arden a last significant look, he bowed and took his leave of them.
Francesca felt the force of three pairs of assessing eyes upon her, and knowing her guilt, yet nurturing her self-justification, and worse, beginning to accept something else she’d far rather not, she turned her head and looked down to her toes.
“I believe it’s time for a light luncheon,” Julian said after a silent moment, “that is, Warwick, if your kitchen staff’s recuperated from the effort of filling our invalid up this morning.”
“Recuperated?” Warwick asked, incredulous. “Say, rather, inspired. He’s exalted my chef to new heights, and here I thought it was only motherly country cooks who admired a hearty appetite. But Antoine is in raptures over the first really appreciative audience he’s had since leaving France, and I’d best look sharp or he’ll elope with Arden in the night.”
“The trick is not in gluttony,” Arden said, sounding much offended, while all the while he watched Francesca carefully, “for I’ve sent back the odd dish or two, when I had to. Rather, it’s all in paying due homage to what is done right.”
“Sent back a dish?” Julian hooted. “Why, was it still moving?”
“Hush, lout,” Warwick advised his blond friend. “Antoine will be after you with a cleaver if he hears you depreciating his favorite guest. I think it’s time for us to pay our own homage to him. Coming along, Arden?”
“Shortly,” Arden answered, “soon,” but he didn’t move or leave with them, nor did he speak until they’d gone.
“Half-heard is all misheard every time, you know,” he said, trying to read Francesca’s expression as best he could as she stood with her head bent, her face half-hidden beneath the sheltering wings of her dark hair. “A great many very bad plays have been written on just that premise,” he went on gently, “and a number of amusing ones. Still, farce is fine in a theater, but less so in life. Captain Shipp is helping me look for my assailant, that’s true. But he doesn’t really know anything as yet. He likes to sound positive—it made him a good soldier, and makes him an excellent hand at cards, for I’ve seen him bluff a man out of a hand flushed with royals with that air of certitude. It makes him a good gambler, and that’s lucky for him, since he does little else when he’s not playing at war,” he said on a grin, before he added more seriously, “but it don’t mean anything, not yet, Fancy.”
“And when it does, Arden, will I know of it?” she asked quietly, raising her head and learning more than the half she knew by his expression then, and the way he left off looking at her and gazed elsewhere, anywhere, around the room.
“In time,” he said at last.
And she thought she knew almost all then.
Arden set himself to entertaining her at luncheon, to chase away her drawn expression. Warwick and Julian aided him, and when Roxanne arose at a fashionable hour to join them, their task was made easier. Roxanne declared herself vexed to discover she’d missed the morning callers Francesca had seen, since, she said, casting a flirtatious eye to Julian, they’d all been stalwart army men, after all. Then Arden was pleased to commiserate by describing them to her in terms of such manly desirability that even Francesca was distracted from her interior fears and had to look up to smile at him.
It was when Arden was relating how the Spanish ladies had thumped their French lovers on the head and become partisans after one look at Lieutenant Adjutant Miller that Julian broke in at last, with outsize annoyance.
“Yes, Roxie, it may be so, but pull in your net. For there are a few details he neglects to mention. The charming lieutenant may well be a pretty fellow—though never half so lovely as I, of course—but he’s far more fickle than Yours Devoted too, since he complains that he’s only got seven nights in his week and eight ladies to share it among just now. That other bit of glorious manhood, Major Kern, who wouldn’t know what a smile was if he tripped over one, has a wife and more drooling babes underfoot than Warwick can claim. And our noble Captain Shipp fancies himself a Captain Sharp, because the gaming tables are his favorite battlefields and his best tactical efforts are waged at his club, Watier’s, and every lesser gambling hell in London.”
“Sheer jealousy,” Arden declared, shaking his head sorrowfully, “although I’ll admit the lieutenant has a busy bed, and the major a crowded one, and the captain does prefer a table to a bed—for some sport, that is to say.”
They laughed, and Roxanne, delighted to hear the conversation get warm, proceeded to take it too far, or at least far enough so that Julian had to give her a warning look, which she ignored, and then Warwick had to deftly turn the topic again. And Francesca went back to her brooding and turned her problem round and round in her head until it whirled.
After luncheon, Roxanne retired to her rooms to rest, the gentlemen went back to the drawing room, and though they invited her to join them, as if by tacit, unspoken agreement Francesca refused them graciously. Instead, she retreated to the library again, this time solely for the solace of the thoughtful solid silence in the book-lined room. For she didn’t dare eavesdrop again. But she never had to. The afternoon was not too advanced when Captain Shipp was readmitted, and although Francesca could only see him stride toward the drawing room, she didn’t have to strain to hear the note of exuberant triumph in his deep voice as he announced, poised on the threshold, “Success! I have him, Colonel! As I thought, he’s been seen and recognized, and we have him, or at least, his direction, now!”
And then the door closed sharply on his next words.
But Francesca didn’t need them.
Roxanne’s voice was querulous when she called an answer to the tapping on her door. When she entered, Francesca was surprised to see her own maid brushing out Roxie’s hair as the widow peered into her glass. She’d given the girl the afternoon off but hadn’t realized Roxie had given her some coins to tend to her immediate needs.
“Lemon juice and crushed soap and a bit of ash from the fireplace, rub it in, and wash it out, and the hair gleams gold as new. But not for you, Fancy, f
or you’d only need to pat on a bit of boot polish if you spotted a gray hair,” Roxie sighed.
“Roxie, I have to talk to you,” Francesca said bluntly.
“I’m here,” Roxanne answered absently, staring deep into her mirror with a critical frown, investigating her face as though it were that of a stranger. Then, realizing from the dark-haired girl’s silence that it was a matter of a personal nature, she brightened somewhat, and inventing a wrinkle in a frock that needed a touch of the iron, watched the maid gather up the offending gown and sat quietly until she’d left them alone.
“At your service,” she said brightly then.
“I need you to come someplace with me this afternoon,” Francesca said carefully, “and I need you to stay mum about it, with never a word to anyone, ever—your word on it.”
“Sounds lovely,” Roxanne laughed. “Tell me more.”
“First, your word,” Francesca demanded.
“Not until you tell me more, for I may not approve.”
“Then there’s no point in saying more.” Francesca shrugged, turning to the door.
