“One thing I have learned since becoming Duchess of Richmond”—Claire hurried toward the door as she spoke—“is that with money and position one can accomplish a great deal. Let me see what I can do.”
“Why are you just standing there staring after your sister?” Having moved aside to let Claire pass, Aunt Augusta now clapped her hands sharply at Beth, who jumped. “If this is to work, you certainly cannot hide up here. Your absence has already been remarked, and the longer it lasts the louder the gossip will buzz. Twindle, you and I must help Miss Beth dress: she will be reappearing in the ballroom just as quickly as may be.”
Reappear in the ballroom, when her knees felt shaky and her stomach had a knot the size of a fist in it, and a dozen growing aches and pains were vying with one another for her notice? But it seemed there was no choice. Between Twindle and Aunt Augusta, she felt like she had been enveloped by a whirlwind. She was pushed, pulled, brushed, pinned, powdered, perfumed, and exclaimed over to within an inch of her life, until, in the span of perhaps ten minutes, she was once again fully dressed, this time in an emerald satin gown that she had planned to wear to the Palmerstons’ ball the following week. If the change in her raiment was noticed, as it almost certainly would be, that would be all to the good: she could then casually explain her prolonged absence by saying that she had spilled something on her gown and needed to change it.
“’Tis a good thing you’ve grown into a beauty.” Aunt Augusta’s tone made it clear her words were not a compliment as she surveyed her niece from head to toe when all was done. “That makes the world more forgiving. Come, we must go down.”
“Here, Miss Beth, keep this about your arms,” Twindle whispered, handing her a silk shawl with a significant glance at the aforementioned appendages as Aunt Augusta swept from the dressing room with the clear expectation that Beth would follow. “Bruises are starting to show.”
Glancing down at her arms, Beth saw that Twindle was right: small discolorations just above her right elbow marked where William had grabbed her. Lips thinning at the memory, nodding thanks at Twindle, she draped the garment around her elbows and hurried in Aunt Augusta’s wake.
Thank goodness I did not marry him. However great the scandal may be, at least I am free of him and every other man.
The knowledge lightened her heart just a little as she made her way down the ornate staircase to the guest-filled first floor in Aunt Augusta’s wake.
Graham, Claire’s stately butler, hurried toward them as they approached the foot of the stairs. From the worried expression on his usually imperturbable face, it was clear something was afoot. The hall, already warmed by its yellow walls and spectacular Oriental carpet, was bright as day as hundreds of candles blazing in the trio of huge crystal chandeliers overhead joined forces with others in wall sconces and tall silver candelabra in corners. Music and laughter and the scent of food and flowers filled the air. Out of the corner of her eye, Claire could just see the kaleidoscope of color that was the ballroom at the rear of the house. Against a backdrop of scarlet walls and masses of white flowers, gorgeous gowns of every imaginable description swirled and floated like windblown blossoms amongst the more soberly clad gentlemen as the dancers went through their paces.
“Miladies, Lady Rosen is—” Graham began, low-voiced, with the air of someone attempting to deliver an urgent warning. He broke off as the lady in question erupted from the direction of the library, stalking furiously into view with Gabby—slender and elegant in lavender silk, her chestnut hair piled high atop her head and her creamy neck and ears glittering with diamonds—following grim-faced behind. Gabby, with the children, was visiting for an indeterminate number of weeks, her husband, Nick, having had business abroad.
“We just must continue to trust that the gossip is not true.” Gabby sounded as if her patience was being sorely tried. “Although I must point out that, if it were, the fault certainly could not be laid at my sister’s door. Your son is a grown man, after all.”
“One who has been cozened shamefully!” Lady Rosen’s riposte was sharp. Then, as she spied Beth, who was still standing on one of the lower steps with a hand on the elaborately carved banister, Lady Rosen stopped dead. “Hah!”
“Thank goodness,” Gabby murmured as she discovered Beth in turn.
“I knew it! I knew he wouldn’t have eloped with you.” Relief combined with venom in Lady Rosen’s voice. Dressed in magenta lace with a trio of plumes nodding in her upswept gray hair, William’s mother resembled him in both build and coloring. Recovering, bosom swelling, she came toward Beth like a ship in full sail. “He, at least, is not so lost to all sense of propriety as to participate in anything so repugnant. I am not surprised you could not persuade him to it.”
Beth’s chin came up. “I never attempted to do so.”
“Have Lady Rosen’s carriage brought round,” Gabby directed Graham quietly. Gabby’s lips were tight and her gray eyes glinted with anger. Beth could tell that she was having a difficult time keeping a civil tongue in her head.
“Her Grace the Duchess has already instructed me to do so.” Graham slid back out of the way as Beth, her back poker straight now, stepped down into the hall beside Aunt Augusta, her eyes narrowing as she met Lady Rosen’s accusing gaze full on.
“Where, pray, is my son?” Lady Rosen’s eyes were fierce.
“William has gone home,” Beth replied, pardonably proud of how cool her voice stayed. “It will no doubt comfort you when I tell you that we decided we should not suit.”
“What?” A look of relief came over Lady Rosen’s round face. “Thank heavens he came to his senses at last. I knew William could not be such a fool as to ally himself with one such as you.”
Beth watched Gabby’s eyes flash. Bright flags of color appeared in her pale cheeks. With the best will in the world for it not to happen, her own temper began to heat. Beside her, Aunt Augusta stiffened, drawing herself up to her full, formidable height.
“Lord Rosen is certainly to be admired for realizing in time that Beth is far too good for him.” Gabby’s reply was perfectly polite, with the tone of one agreeing with a previous statement. Her eyes, however, blazed.
Lady Rosen reddened alarmingly. Beth smiled at Gabby.
“You don’t have the sense of a goat, Frannie, and never did.” Taking full advantage of her superior height, Aunt Augusta glared down her nose at the much shorter Lady Rosen. “But that is neither here nor there, now that, thankfully, there is no question of our families being united by marriage.”
Lady Rosen opened her mouth to give voice to what, judging from her expression, was certain to be a very pithy reply, but before she could say anything Claire swept into view, very much the grande dame with her beautiful head held high and her expensive skirts rustling, dragging her husband with her. In the face of finding herself the object of the Duchess of Richmond’s snapping eyes and the Duke’s intimidating frown, Lady Rosen bit back whatever she had been going to say. At thirty-four, Hugh, Duke of Richmond, was one of the most powerful men in the kingdom. Not even Lady Rosen’s current spleen was enough to make her eager to incur his displeasure.
“I could hear the lot of you clear in the supper room,” Claire scolded in a hushed voice when she was close enough. Uncoupling herself from her tall, handsome husband, she thrust him at Beth. “Clearly it benefits none of us to make family matters common knowledge. Hugh, take Beth into the ballroom and dance with her, if you please.”
“Your Grace, Lady Rosen’s carriage is at the door,” Graham murmured in response to a signal from a footman who had just hurried up the stairs from the ground floor.
“If you will accord me a few minutes of your time first, I promise I will not keep you from your carriage long,” Claire said to Lady Rosen, who gave her a long, assessing look before acceding with an ungracious nod.
Her brother-in-law’s gray eyes met Beth’s. With Lady Rosen’s attention focused on Claire, he gave Beth a quick, commiserating smile even as he offered her his arm.
“We’ve been given our marching orders, it seems,” he said, low-voiced. “If you’ll do me the honor?”
“Go on, Beth. Gabby and Aunt Augusta and I will sort this out,” Claire promised. “You must just laugh and dance and appear as carefree as you can. Hugh, take care of her.”
Understanding the role she needed to play if scandal was to be avoided, Beth tucked her hand in Hugh’s arm and smiled back at him as they walked toward the ballroom, although the smile required considerable effort. He gave her hand an avuncular pat, then tugged one of the long red curls that cascaded over her right shoulder in the style that she habitually chose for evening, having learned over the years that there was no hiding her bright mane, and, thus, it was better to flaunt it.
“And here I was thinking Waterloo was dangerous,” he murmured for her ears alone as they crossed the threshold into the ballroom and all eyes immediately turned in their direction. “If we’d just had the wisdom to dispatch our ladies to deal with him, Napoleon would have run screaming from the field before a shot was fired.”
Beth laughed.
After that, smiling got easier. She was really very fond of Hugh, who treated her exactly like the little sister he’d never had and was amazingly good to Claire, and that helped her give an impression of ease as he bore her onto the floor and swung her into the steps of the dance.
Head held high, smiling brilliantly, pirouetting in her brother-in-law’s arms as if she had not a care in the world, she set herself to facing the gossips down. By the time she went down to supper on the arm of Viscount Newby, with Claire dancing and Aunt Augusta gossiping on the sidelines and Gabby already in the supper room, she was fairly confident that they would be able to soldier through.
Chapter Six
THOUGH NEIL HUSBANDED IT carefully, Rosen’s money disappeared like water in a desert. Three days after Neil had helped himself to it, he was down to his last few shillings. Leaving London was not an option: as he knew from recent experience, the continent was not far enough, and limited funds made next to impossible the kind of far-flung flight that would be necessary to preserve his life for any length of time. Anyway, running would provide only a short-term solution. London was where the heart of the problem lay, and London was where he needed to stay until the situation was resolved. The difficulty was, he could not stay in any one place for longer than was needed to grab a few hours of sleep, nor could he turn to any of his contacts in the capital or repair to any of his usual haunts. Although he had lost Clapham for the time being, he did not delude himself that the dogs had been called off and Clapham had given up and gone on his way. No, his fellow assassin was at present hunting him with all the skills he had acquired over the course of his very successful working life, along with the fervor of a strong personal animosity besides, and the only thing that was keeping Neil out of his hands was that he possessed the very same skills honed to a greater degree, plus the cunning of a predator now turned prey. People almost always returned to familiar places sooner or later. He knew that, and so did Clapham. Ergo, almost every person and place he might have turned to for help was denied to him.
Neil was also aware that it was quite possible, nay, likely, that there were others searching for him as well. Those who would order his death would be unlikely to rely solely on a single team of assassins. They would send out multiple tools, who would do whatever was required to get the job done. An attack could occur anywhere, at any time. He was acutely aware that a gunshot or a thrown knife or any of countless other stealth techniques could do for him in an instant. He could die right now, or five minutes from now, or five hours or five days from now, with no warning whatsoever.
Which was a cheering thought indeed.
The hard truth was that, once set in motion, this kind of death sentence was both immutable and, ultimately, all but inescapable.
Unless he could outwit them, outrun them, or outkill them, the sad fact of the matter was that he was not long for this world.
To worsen the situation, he had a lowering presentiment that, if they succeeded in killing him, heaven was past praying for. He was going straight to hell. And since that idea didn’t appeal, the only real solution to his problem was, simply, stay alive.
Which he was trying his best to do.
The best option he could come up with given his limited choices boiled down to cutting out the eye of the beast that sought him. Only a very few knew of his existence, and only one of those knew enough about him to find him if he chose to go to earth. Not by happenstance, that was the man at the top of his particular food chain, one of the last who would have had to sign off on the order to eliminate him. By killing that man, he hoped to save himself.
And never mind that he had once, a very long time ago, counted that man as a friend.
The deed would have been done already were it not for a certain fiery-haired chit whose interference had ended most disastrously. Since then, since Neil’s escape from Clapham, his quarry had gone on alert. The man remained in London, at the heart of the organization as always, but he was being careful, surrounding himself with guards, taking every precaution.
He knew better than anyone just how dangerous Neil, his former prized weapon, could be.
What he did not know was that Neil had discovered a weakness in his defenses, an Achilles’ heel, as it were.
The taste of betrayal had long since ceased to be bitter in Neil’s mouth. As he had learned so many years ago that it seemed like another lifetime, it was simply the way the world worked. He expected nothing more.
The sad truth of his existence was, one killed, or one died.
“Come along, then, Florimond.”
Neil heard her voice before he actually saw her, which wasn’t wonderful considering that he was lurking concealed behind a nearly impenetrable thicket of thorny hollies that bordered the west edge of the ornamental dairy in Green Park. His horse—well, it was his horse now, as he had stolen it the night before—awaited him near the rarely used north entrance, tied to a tree.
“Hello, sweetheart,” he said softly, way too softly for anyone save himself to hear. He had timed his arrival nicely, and had been waiting perhaps only five minutes. It was a beautiful morning, bright and breezy, with the promise of a warm afternoon to follow. Birds twittered cheerily all around him. Butterflies flitted. Insects buzzed. Abundant trees and bushes clothed in the fresh new green of spring added to the feeling that he had stumbled upon a small island of country right in the midst of town. The musky smell tainting the fragrant air—even ornamental dairy farms had an unmistakable aroma—served to underline the rural comparison. The magnificent outline of Devonshire House—a veritable palace—rising on the eastern horizon, its towers and turrets just visible from where he stood, provided a stark contrast to the bucolic surroundings. It marked the Clarges Street entrance that he had thought she was almost certain to use. At the realization that he had guessed right, he felt a quick rush of satisfaction.
Once again, his instincts had not failed him.
This wasn’t the ideal solution, not by a long shot, but it was a workable one. As always, he would do what he needed to do.
Kidnapping was one of the few crimes he had never before committed, and under most circumstances he would have scorned to lower himself to it. But these were not most circumstances. His survival was at stake.
Therefore, kidnapping it was.
A couple of steps took him around the thicket and brought his quarry into view, although—he was fairly certain—he remained concealed by shadow. The speaker, whose voice he was slightly surprised to realize he had recognized as readily as if it were one he knew well, was Lady Elizabeth, the remark was addressed to a stout, wheaten-coated little terrier that had stopped to sniff a willow trunk, and the tone was impatient. It was early, a few minutes or so past ten, and there were not many others about. Only a pair of unfashionable riders (the truly fashionable patronized Hyde Park, and at a much later hour) cantering away across the lawn and a nursemaid pushing a p
ram were visible from where he stood. Lady Elizabeth was, as she had told him was her daily custom, clearly out for her morning constitutional in the park. The dog (which would probably bark) and the bored-looking maid following her were impediments to his plan, but only minor ones that could be easily dealt with. The lady herself might prove more problematic, but he had done her a signal service and was reasonably certain that as a result he could persuade her to do what he wished her to do.
Which was, in a word, come with him. Persuading her to do so was so much more efficient than forcing her, although he was prepared to use force if he had to. Lady Elizabeth Banning—oh, yes, he had learned her identity during the past three days—was about to repay him for sparing her life by luring her brother-in-law the Duke of Richmond, now one of the directors of England’s far-flung spy network and his own long-ago friend, to his death.
Only if Richmond died did he have any reasonable hope of living out his natural life span.
There was indeed, as his mother had once told him, purpose in all things. If he had killed lovely Lady Elizabeth as he should have done, he would not now have this most promising weapon to use in the battle to preserve his own life. He’d already made arrangements to have, on the following morning to give him plenty of time to get his prize safely away from London, a missive delivered to Richmond informing him that his most charming sister-in-law was in his quarry’s hands. More instructions, he had promised, would follow. Neil had no doubt at all that he could lure the always heroically inclined Richmond into coming for the chit, and thus to his own death.
Watching as she strolled all unsuspecting along the gravel path toward him, Neil realized that he was feeling more optimistic at that moment than he had in the fortnight or so since he had learned that the organization that had made him what he was had turned on him with a vengeance. Lady Elizabeth, he was certain, was going to prove to be the surprise trump that took the game.
If Muhammad could not go to the mountain, then the mountain would be made to come to Muhammad, as it were. If he could not get to Richmond, then he would get Richmond to come to him.
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