‘Whitstable was Whitstable, as it always is.’ Charity flapped the question away before grabbing Faith by the arms. ‘Who cares about Whitstable when Hope and I might burst unless you thoroughly apprise us of all your dealings with the infamous Lord Eastwood.’
‘Well, first of all, you should probably know that Mama has decreed he is to be called Lord Beastly henceforth in her presence and not Lord Eastwood.’
‘Why? What did he do?’ Hope made herself comfortable on the old tatty sofa in the corner of Faith’s small studio next to the kitchen, throwing a cushion behind her head and stretching out.
‘Nothing really, but you know Mama.’
‘“Nothing really” suggests he did something.’ Not much ever got past Hope.
‘He was a tad obnoxious.’ After she had practically goaded him into it. ‘And generally unlikeable.’ In an oddly likeable sort of way. ‘To be completely honest with you, I haven’t really worked him out.’ Which was probably why he had taken up too much space in her thoughts.
‘Was he as horrid as the newspapers say? Could you smell the evil coming out of his pores?’
Hope rolled her eyes at the youngest. ‘I’m not sure evil has a smell, Charity.’
‘Well, that shows how wrong you are, because it does. Fire and brimstone. Or so it says in the Bible at any rate, and you cannot argue with that.’
Faith smiled. She had missed them. They were three entirely different characters but despite their wildly conflicting personalities, they still managed to be the best of friends. ‘No fire or brimstone. No sign of any horns or cloven hooves either—I checked. Not even the faintest whiff of sulphur. Just the customary arrogance and aloofness which pompous peers tend to wear like cologne.’ Although he did smell rather nice, now that she recalled it. Clean, fresh, subtly spicy…
‘If he was arrogant and obnoxious perhaps you read him completely correctly. Perhaps there really was nothing else to see?’ Charity shrugged, clearly disappointed. ‘Lord Beastly is as beastly as we expected and that’s the end to it.’
Except it hadn’t been. Yes, he had been rude…eventually. But initially he had been… Faith still couldn’t put her finger on what exactly he had been beyond compelling. Whatever he was, something about him called to her and refused to shut up. ‘Mostly, he was reserved—polite—almost shy in his bearing. Taciturn and even, dare I say it, slightly awkward in his own skin.’ Or so he had initially seemed around her until she had gone out of her way to bait him. Even then he had been calm and measured, stoic even in his rudeness, and she couldn’t help but admire that when any normal person would have torn her off a strip for her unprovoked impertinence—let alone a peer of the realm. Her first question had been downright insulting and it had gone rapidly downhill from there, to such an extent her father had been furious at her in the carriage on the way home for her comments in the Writtle drawing room, but he had thankfully not been in the ballroom to witness her crowning glory.
Is this the fabled affable side of your character which you are supposed to be showing me?
Just thinking about those combative, tart words made her cringe. She had been spoiling for the fight and, very calmly and politely all things considered, he had given her one.
Then there was the endearing way he had cringed and stumbled over his words when she had gone to his study to apologise, so mortified that she had seen his niece’s chalk pointers telling him to pay Faith a compliment that she had not had the heart to mention it.
‘Not at all like the newspapers described actually.’ Which really bothered her. She huffed out a sigh. ‘He has intelligent eyes.’ Very nice, intelligent eyes truth be told. Deep and green and, she was sure at times, perhaps even a little bit lost. She found herself constantly drawn to them and wondering why that was while she interviewed his mother and father and tried to appear oblivious to him stood so quietly in the corner.
Only she hadn’t been oblivious.
Far from it, in fact.
‘Intelligence can be a dangerous weapon in the villain’s arsenal.’ Hope liked to write dark and suspenseful Gothic novels. Her imagination was as vivid as her trademark red hair. ‘You should probably be especially careful around him if he’s cleverer than average. The most ruthless and malicious men are often geniuses. Villains are rarely two dimensional. They are as complex and as adaptable as a changeling. What you see on the surface is rarely what lurks beneath.’
Never a truer word was spoken and a timely reminder to maintain her guard irrespective of her indecisive feelings towards him. Lord Rayne had seemed lovely and genuine on the surface, as hopelessly besotted with her as she had been with him, until he went off to visit his family’s estate and within days she read about the snake’s engagement in The Times.
It still made her queasy to think of that. That same bile had bubbled when her clueless father had innocently brought the snake up in conversation in the Writtles’ drawing room, and all at once she had been that stupid, green and humiliated girl again. Hideously ashamed of her monumental lack of propriety and furious at her blindly naive foray into passion with a man who was rotten to the core.
Some of that had, with hindsight, also leaked into her dealings with Lord Eastwood, who had undoubtedly borne the brunt of her disgust. As a result, she had been waspish, confrontational, and downright obnoxious herself.
Not her finest hour.
‘He was curt—not malicious.’ Nor did she sense any malice in him, which was probably not a reliable measure when she had been so thoroughly duped before. It was humbling to realise she was a generally poor judge of character, but knowing it was useful because it now forced her to question everything. ‘Ruthless perhaps as the papers say but…’ Did ruthless men indulge their mothers? Or allow their fathers to win steeplechases to spare their pride? Or clearly love their nieces to distraction? Or accept a strange woman’s censure calmly and unflinchingly, and with more stoicism and patience than her combative comments and questions deserved, let alone graciously accept an apology without using his rank to make her beg and squirm for it first?
‘But he does possess a sense of humour and can be rather charming too, when he puts his mind to it. He’s very tolerant of his niece who clearly adores him. He allows her to play under his desk while he works and talks to her as if he listens, which is surprising when one considers the callousness with which he offloaded his poor wife.’ Faith shrugged at the quandary. ‘Which I suppose perfectly illustrates Hope’s point. Villains are rarely two dimensional.’
‘Was he at least as sinfully handsome as they say he is?’ Charity perched on the arm of the sofa grinning. ‘Only I’ve never caught sight of him at any social functions…’
Hope interrupted. ‘That is because he never attends social functions. Because he knows full well if he did, he would be thoroughly shunned at them. And that’s if he is allowed through the door to begin with. I’ve heard the patronesses have banned him from ever attending Almack’s, therefore he is officially a social outcast.’
Faith felt compelled to defend that. ‘Those same patronesses have always denied us vouchers to Almack’s too, Hope, so I hardly think they are the most reliable gauge of a person’s character.’ Although theirs had been denied because of the circumstances of their birth rather than their behaviour, which made the petty prejudice even more galling. As did the friendly conversations those same ladies frequently had with the Brookes girls at all the other society engagements they were invited to, the polite how do you dos and believable smiles which always served to highlight the fickle double standards of the aristocracy in general.
‘Anyway,’ said the youngest undeterred. ‘Dorothy Philpot said she saw him in Jermyn Street last month with his father and that just the sight of him made her want to swoon.’ Charity batted her eyelashes for effect as she sighed. ‘But then Dorothy is a silly dolt with fluff for brains, so I doubt it would take much for her to swoon. Did he mak
e you swoon, Faith?’
Hope glared exasperated at their youngest and most wayward sibling. ‘Surely even you have learned by now that a Brookes girl never swoons. Not only is it a sign of weakness—it’s a mark of stupidity.’ Thankfully, neither sister was aware of Faith’s short but unfortunate bout of swooning over the snake.
‘Well, I’ve certainly been tempted to swoon a time or two and am entirely convinced that when we meet the right gentlemen, swooning will be inevitable—or at least I hope it will.’ Charity clutched her hands to her chest dramatically purely to vex the most serious of the three of them. ‘To be perfectly frank, Hope, the idea of marrying a man who doesn’t send me all aquiver fills me completely with dread. I want passion and emotion from my marriage, like Juliet felt for Romeo or Isolde had with Tristan, and I am quite determined never to settle for less.’
‘Because obviously both those emotional and passionate love stories ended so well?’ Hope did not possess a romantic bone in her body. ‘You spend far too much time at the theatre with Mama if you believe all that nonsense.’ Charity was training to be a soprano too and had enough foolish optimism for the three of them. Like their mother, she still believed in fairy tales, especially if they involved handsome men.
‘And you spend too much time with the villains and macabre demons you make up in your odd head, that you imagine every man is intrinsically bad and will likely end up dying as an embittered old maid as a result.’
Oblivious of the petty argument about to erupt just feet away, Faith was still pondering Lord Eastwood and the concept of swooning. ‘He was handsome—but not overtly so.’ But certainly enough for her to have noticed and to keep noticing. She remembered every minute but perfect angle of his face even now. Not that she would admit that either to her sisters when they all knew the scandalous lord was not the sort of man any sensible young lady would deign to look at twice. And Hope was right, as a sensible and well-educated Brookes, it would be inconceivable to imagine she would have deigned to look once. All three of them had been brought up to have more substance than that. ‘He was tall and dark and a bit brooding perhaps.’
Very tall.
Very dark.
Undeniably brooding.
‘Did you just sigh?’ Charity grinned and pointed her finger in accusation. ‘You did, didn’t you? You just sighed over Lord Eastwood! Sighing is practically swooning!’
Flustered, she snatched the tube of Prussian blue from her paint box and squeezed a blob on her palette. ‘If I did sigh, it was because he is an enigma—and not in a romantic sort of way either, Charity, before you get any ideas.’
‘A handsome and brooding enigma—a promising start.’
‘To what, Charity?’
‘To redemption of course!’ Her sister sighed theatrically. ‘Lord Beastly certainly sounds like the perfect candidate for it because if he is good with children he plainly has a soft heart.’ Which was a huge part of the dichotomy Faith was struggling with. ‘A soft heart he keeps hidden from the world behind layers of tortured complexity but which he will only reveal to the perfect, insightful woman who finally steals it.’
‘Assuming he has a heart in the first place.’ Hope echoed the other part. The pragmatic, sensible and battle-hardened part of Faith. ‘And so far, tolerating his niece does not make up for the selfish and heartless way he treated the poor, unfortunate woman who married him. You need to remember that, Faith, when he turns on the charm around you again.’
‘Oh, for goodness sake! I am well aware that a gentleman can seem to be pleasant on the outside but hideous beneath.’ Only too aware. The scars left behind were permanent and deep. ‘But no amount of pleasantness on his part detracts from the hideous way he treated his poor wife. It takes more than charming to charm me.’
A mantra Faith decided she probably needed to repeat as often as it took to completely believe it.
CHAPTER SIX
‘It is too soon, senhor.’ And it was too damn early to attempt to manoeuvre seven separate and stubborn nations in one direction. Or too damn late if you still considered five o’clock in the morning very much the territory of the night before, which on this dreary Saturday morning, Piers was inclined to think it was. ‘While we understand the Conde do Funchal is eager to report to your government that our attack of Toulouse is imminent, now would be the wrong time.’
Two months of unprecedented torrential rain had made Wellington’s advance through southern France slow going, and while they certainly had the manpower and with the recent victories at Nive and Orthez under their belt, Soult’s troops in the south of France were still too scattered for a battle now to achieve anything decisive. Despondent, ill-disciplined and ill-equipped, the reluctant French conscripts were also on the cusp of revolting. Something which was also happening along the volatile front in the north of the country, as the Russian, Prussian, Austrian and Bavarian allies rapidly converged on an increasingly weak and desperate Napoleon and the capital, Paris.
British High Command were keen to allow that dissension in the ranks to keep festering in the dreadful weather for as long as possible, reasoning that it would be easier to beat an uncommitted and unfocused enemy in one organised, conclusive battle once Paris had fallen, than a riled one still clinging to the hope of victory and baying for allied blood in a prolonged series of skirmishes.
Piers had spent the better part of the last hour explaining that logic to the men around the table, painstakingly repeating the highlights of Wellington’s latest dispatch in three different languages, yet true to form, the representatives of the Sixth Coalition to the Palace of St James were as uneasy in one another’s company as the troublesome alliance was flimsy. They all came to these meetings with varying agendas, they always had, stubbornly ignoring that only one truly mattered—and that was defeating blasted Napoleon.
Russia, Prussia, Austria and Bavaria were fairly aligned on their purpose once more, although that had been a close-run thing after an unexpected flurry of French victories had almost caused the changeable Austrian and Bavarian leaders to retreat completely. Both had once been aligned with Napoleon, so for a while it had not been inconceivable to imagine they would fall back behind him again. Fortunately, the Tsar had talked them around, but his growing power within the uncomfortable alliance was a major concern for the British who did not trust the Russians to leave France when the war was done. And the Portuguese were, understandably, sick to the back teeth with the never-ending battles which had raged for years either directly on their doorstep or on neighbouring Spain’s, and were all done with the dithering and could not fathom why Wellington was dragging his feet when they were raring to go.
‘Leaving Marshal Soult to regroup in Toulouse is pure folly.’ The Portuguese diplomat was a troublesome character at the best of times because he preferred to react to unsubstantiated rumours rather than waiting for the cold, hard facts which only came from diligent reconnaissance, and in this case, even with those facts now in his possession, preferred to scaremonger. ‘We have it on good authority they have amassed another half a million conscripts who are preparing for a mammoth assault within days. We have also heard…’ Piers politely raised his hand to stay the litany, using the excuse of translating all this to his own superiors as a way of calming the fellow down.
‘Oh, good grief…’ The Foreign Secretary, Lord Castlereagh, had only barely managed not to roll his eyes as he whispered through gritted teeth. The ink was barely dry on the Treaty of Chaumont, a negotiation which had tested all Piers’s skills to the limit but had guaranteed the coalition would continue to fight the war until all of Napoleon’s troops were beaten and France retreated back to within its original borders. But already, trying to maintain that agreement for solidarity among the allies a mere few weeks on, was proving problematic. ‘We’ve been over this. Twice at least.’
‘And clearly we are going to have to go over it again.’ Lord Bathurst, the Secretary of S
tate for War, was always more patient than his fiery counterpart at the Foreign Office. Subtly, he glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece, pretended to nod sagely as if giving the sabre rattling from the Portuguese Ambassador’s most annoying lackey some serious consideration, then also whispered in case any of the men around the table had a much better grasp of the English language than they were prepared to let on. ‘Unruffle the idiot’s feathers, Eastwood, without promising him anything of course, and then perhaps we can all escape in time for breakfast.’ A near impossible task under the best of circumstances. ‘And then look into finding a new harbour for our message ships. It’s dashed inconvenient to keep having these meetings in the small hours.’ Inconvenient but inevitable when all the untrusting allies had a network of spies carefully watching each other’s every move in case they were being duped. Hence as soon as this message arrived from Dover they had all been raised from their beds at an ungodly hour to argue in circles with their allies like they always did. The only difference being that now the end really was in sight, relations between the six nations were deteriorating because they were all impatiently determined to get to that final destination in their own way.
Instead of groaning his frustration with the pettiness of it all out loud, Piers offered his most reassuring smile before attempting to achieve the impossible in fluent Portuguese. ‘Senhor Melo, France is in utter turmoil and Bonaparte has lost the goodwill of most of his people. Those he has managed to recently press-gang into his army are a ragtag bunch of angry farmers and peasants and children who have been given such little training they barely know one end of a gun from another. And let us not forget Marshal Soult isn’t the only French General seeking reinforcements. They all are. I have fresh maps and charts I can show you.’
‘I should like to see those documents.’ The Portuguese official seemed placated.
‘We all would.’ The Russian Ambassador spoke in his native tongue despite his obvious understanding of Portuguese and his own translator sat right beside him. ‘That we haven’t yet seen them when we have been here for an hour is a grave concern, gentlemen.’ The Russians might well be closest to Paris, but British intelligence and communication lines across northern France were far superior and, thanks to the navy, arrived much quicker in London than to the allied commanders of the coalition. If those armies or Napoleon’s advanced six inches, Whitehall knew about it within a few days. It was sending that intelligence speedily back to Wellington in the south which was more problematic. ‘If you have kept vital French troop movements a secret, what else have we been kept in the dark about? And more importantly why?’
Harlequin Historical February 2021--Box Set 1 of 2 Page 6
