by Joan Wolf
Adam was dressed for dinner in a black coat and snowy waistcoat and shirt. His thick black hair, newly cut, gleamed in the firelight. “I like them,” he said simply.
At this Marc galloped into the room, followed more sedately by Ginny and Miss Braxton. “I knew you would be here, Adam!” he cried. “I told you he would, didn’t I, Ginny?”
“You did, but there’s no need to shout, Marc.” Ginny spoke with careful dignity. “Good evening, Mama. Good evening Adam.”
“Good evening,” Nanda replied faintly. She looked at Adam, her eyebrows raised in a question.
He grinned, looking suddenly much younger. “I asked the children to call me Adam.”
“You can’t play bat and ball with a lord, Mama,” Marc explained helpfully.
“Bat and ball?”
“Adam played bat and ball with me and Ginny in the garden today. I hitted the ball over the fence, Mama. I hitted better than anyone.”
Nanda stared at her son in alarm. “Marc, if you break another window Papa will be extremely angry.”
Her son frowned, his full lips pouting, his chin indenting in the cleft he had inherited from her. She heard Lord Stanford say, “We were very careful, Your Grace.”
“Yes, Mama,” Ginny said eagerly. “Adam pitched and made us hit toward the street and away from the house.”
“A few passing tradesmen had to move rather hastily, but we did not regard that as a problem,” murmured Adam gravely.
Nanda stared at him in exasperation. “Of course you didn’t. Your leg was no problem either, I suppose. If you have a relapse it will be quite your own fault.”
“I never have relapses,” he said in that distant, pleasant voice he always used with her.
“Adam only throwed the ball, Mama,” Marc said. “He didn’t hurt his leg – did he Ginny?”
“No, Mama. We would never want Adam to hurt his leg,” Ginny said.
The two of them looked at her worriedly. They were afraid she was going to forbid them to play with Adam, she realized.
“I’m glad to hear that,” she said. “The both of you must watch over Lord Stanford very closely when you play and make certain he isn’t growing tired.”
“We will!” her children chorused.
She turned and was met by a pair of hostile blue eyes. “I assure you, Your Grace, I am quite capable of looking after myself.”
Nanda gave him her sweetest smile. “I’m sure you are, my lord, but I don’t want my children upset should anything happen to you.”
There was a spark of humor in his eyes as he replied, “Touché, Your Grace. The point goes to you.”
# # #
Later that night, alone in his room, Adam tried to analyze the reason for his wariness of Nanda de Vaudobin. He did not trust Gacé. His instinct told him there was more to the duc than appeared on the surface. It was this same instinct that had made him so effective in intelligence work, and he wasn’t about to disregard it now. Indeed, it was the reason he was at Gacé House in the first place.
He did not trust Gacé, and Nanda was Gacé’s wife. On the surface there seemed to be smooth accord between the duc and his wife. It was, as far as Adam could tell, a successful marriage. His reason told him that if he didn’t trust Gacé, then he shouldn’t trust Nanda either.
If only she weren’t so damn beautiful.
CHAPTER FOUR
Christmas was almost upon them and the Gacé household reverberated with anticipation. Ginny and Marc were bubbling with excitement. Nanda was looking forward to her mother’s visit and occupied herself with shopping and making out menus. Adam and Gacé were the least affected. Adam went each day to the Horse Guards and Gacé divided his time between King Louis, his clubs, and the Horse Guards. The two men also spent a number of cozy winter evenings in the library of Gacé House.
Adam had been surprised by the extent of knowledge Gacé revealed during their conversations. There was little going on in Europe that Gacé did not know about intimately. “I have friends and relatives in every court and palace of Europe,” Gacé had replied to Adam’s comment about his extensive knowledge. “They are all terrible gossips and they live with pen in hand, as it were. Sooner or later, I hear everything.”
As these evenings progressed, and the brandy bottle grew lower, Adam had the distinct impression that Gacé was pumping him for information. His conversation about the war in the Peninsula seemed on the surface to show only a natural interest, but Adam, himself a master at interrogation, recognized some very skillful probing. His highly developed instinct for danger, first aroused by Gacé’s odd invitation, began to focus more intently on the Duc.
The security precautions Adam had recommended were being fully implemented by Menteith, but those precautions could easily fail with a spy who functioned at the level of Gacé. The problem was, Adam had no proof. On the surface Gacé was a committed Royalist. He was a friend of the exiled king, for God’s sake! It was almost impossible to believe that a man of his background could throw in his lot with Napoleon. But Adam couldn’t shake the uneasiness he felt about Gacé, and he resolved to watch the man like a hawk stalking his prey.
# # #
Two days before Christmas Adam was returning from the Horse Guards when he passed the green saloon and Nanda called him to come and meet her mother.
The dowager Countess of Menteith offered him her hand. “I am so pleased to meet you Lord Stanford. I knew your mother many years ago. May I offer you a cup of tea?”
Adam accepted, took a seat close to the tea table, and regarded Nanda’s mother with pleasure. She was a small and delicately boned woman, with gray eyes and her daughter’s wonderful smile. “How did you know my mother?” he asked with genuine interest.
“I grew up in Yorkshire too,” she replied. “Your mother was younger than I, but her home was only a few miles from Lambeth Castle, my home. You look very much like her, I must say.”
Adam was prevented from answering by a voice from the doorway inquiring curiously, “Did your mother get dead, Adam?”
“Marc!” Nanda exclaimed, putting down her teacup a bit too firmly. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to see Grandmama,” the little boy replied with dignity. “I saw her come in from my window.”
Nanda looked behind him. “Where is Nanny?”
“Somewhere,” came the lofty reply, and Marc marched into the room. “I only asked you that, Adam, because most of the people Grandmama knows are dead.”
Adam couldn’t help himself; he threw back his head and laughed. After a moment, Lady Menteith joined in.
“That is the most telling comment on my age I’ve heard in a while,” she said ruefully when she could catch her breath.
Nanda stood. “Come along Marc, you’re going back to Nanny.”
Marc, who had been looking pleased at the reaction his words had elicited, began to protest.
“Let him give me a kiss first,” Lady Menteith said.
Nanda sighed. “All right. Go and kiss your grandmother, Marc, and then you are coming with me.”
A glint of triumph shone in Marc’s dark eyes as he went to hug and kiss his grandmother. Adam had to smother a smile as Nanda escorted her son out of the room.
Lady Menteith’s arrival provided a convenient buffer between Adam and Nanda, which Adam greatly appreciated. Gacé always seemed to have evening engagements, leaving Adam alone with Nanda. And he did not want to be alone with Nanda de Vaudobin. It wasn’t just her extraordinary beauty that he found dangerous; there was a warmth about Nanda that was even more attractive. Adam had felt her pull immediately, and had been striving to keep his distance ever since.
He found her utterly lovely, but he judged her as shallow. After all, she was married to Gacé, and she seemed happy in that marriage. No sensitive, deep-feeling woman could be happy married to a cold fish like Gacé, or so Adam told himself every evening when he saw her over dinner and sat with her for evening tea.
Then, one afternoon when Adam r
eturned a bit early from the Horse Guards, he stepped into the small sitting room next to the stairway to rest his leg before attempting the stairs. His attention was immediately caught by sheets of drawing paper laid out on the rosewood table by the window. They had not been there yesterday, and he limped to the table to find they were architectural drawings. He forgot about his leg and was absorbed in looking at the drawings when the door opened wider and Nanda came in.
“I see you are looking at my plans,” she said.
He turned to her. “It looks like you are undertaking some restoration work.”
She joined him. “Yes. Pennington is a lovely Elizabethan house, but it needed repairs when Matthieu bought it. One entire wing has to be demolished and rebuilt, and I want to retain the Elizabethan style. It has proved to be very complicated.”
“Why?”
“Oh, we don’t want to disturb the main section of the house – the towers, gables, chimneys, and so forth. And we want the new wing done in the same style as the original.”
“Who is your architect?” Adam asked. “These plans look very good to me.”
“Yes, I think I have finally put it together properly.”
“How are you coming off here?” He pointed to the north wall of the main part of the house.
“I’ll show you.” She picked up a pen and in a few minutes of technical description and mathematical computation she demonstrated how the problem he was alluding to could be solved.
Adam was dumbfounded. He stared at her, trying to comprehend the enormity of what he had just witnessed. “You’re the one who drew up these plans?”
She smiled at his blatant incredulity. “Yes. I wasn’t satisfied with any of the architects I spoke to. They’re only interested in creating their own style, not in restoring something from the past.”
He looked again at the mathematics she had just shown him. Those computations were not the product of an empty brain. “Who taught you to do this?” he asked.
“Michael Overbury,” she said easily, peering down the wing she had sketched.
He felt his jaw drop. “Michael Overbury the mathematician?”
“Yes.” The sheet upon which she had done her mathematical calculations slipped out of her hand, and he bent to pick it up. Her face was perfectly serene as she took it from him and placed it back on the table. Nothing about her suggested that she had said anything unusual.
He asked bluntly, “How did one of the finest mathematicians in the world come to teach to you how to do this?”
She gave a small shrug. “My brother Charles took a course from him at the University of Edinburgh and he used to come to us for dinner and visits.” An impish light shone in her great brown eyes. “He was interested in Mother, you see. Well, we were building a new house near Linlithgow at the time, and I was fascinated by the whole building process. Master Overbury taught me about plans, how to calculate for stress, and things like that.” She laughed. “Teaching me gave him an excuse to come and see Mother.” She looked down at the table and added softly, “He said I had a good brain.”
“He was right,” Adam said, looking from her face to the table then back to her face again. He felt as if he had just been hit between the eyes. Everything he had thought about Nanda de Vaudobin was wrong. The brain that Michael Overbury had seen fit to instruct couldn’t belong to the superficial lady of fashion Adam had believed her to be.
But she was married to Gacé. Why on earth would she have chosen a man like him when she could have had anyone? In a matter of minutes, in that small sitting room, Nanda had become a real person to Adam; a real person and a puzzle he very much wanted to solve.
During the remainder of the Christmas season, when her family frequently gathered at Gacé House, Adam watched them all. He watched, and the conclusion he came to was one he would have reached weeks earlier had he not been so busy guarding himself against her.
Lady Menteith did not like Gacé. Nor did Menteith. Nor did Charles Doune, the brother who was closest to Nanda in age. Nanda’s whole family was devoted to her; so why, if her husband made her happy, did they so dislike him? The answer was ridiculously simple; Nanda was not happy in her marriage.
Adam next wondered why she stayed with Gacé when her family would clearly support any separation effort she might initiate.
This answer was simple as well; Gacé had the children. Nanda had no claim at all on Ginny, and Marc was Gacé’s heir. The Duc would never allow her to take him. Nanda’s only option was to remain with her husband and try to be content. Having reached all of these conclusions, Adam went from disparaging the Duchessee de Gacé to thinking she was positively heroic.
CHAPTER FIVE
The more Adam saw of Matthieu de Vaudobin the more he disliked him. That his dislike of the Duc was directly in proportion to his growing interest in the Duchesse was something Adam did not allow himself to contemplate.
One thing was certain: Adam was now convinced that the Duc de Gacé was the traitor he was looking for. He had always suspected Gacé, but it wasn’t until he had begun to read the Duc’s mail that he found actual evidence. Gacé carelessly kept his correspondence locked in a desk drawer in his library at Gacé house, and Adam had both the opportunity to spend time alone in the library, and the skill to open locks.
Adam had always realized Gacé was au courant with what was happening in the world; but he had not realized that the Duc operated one of the finest intelligence networks in all of Europe. He had told Adam the truth when he said he heard everything. In particular, there was information about the present Prussian-Russian negotiations that caused Adam to purse his lips in a soundless whistle. Adam’s brother Edward, who was serving as a diplomatic attaché to Sir Robert Wilson in Russia, had not been able to discover this kind of information. Nor, so far as Adam knew, had Gacé seen fit to communicate his knowledge to any member of the British government, who would have found it extremely interesting.
Adam next asked Menteith for some very specific information about the Duc, and what he discovered deepened his suspicion. Gacé had become attached to the Horse Guards when his friend Lord Liverpool became prime minister. This was the exact time when the leaks to the French had begun.
What Adam could not discover was a motive. Why would the Duc de Gacé, trusted adviser to French royalty, rich, respected by his own countrymen as well as by the nobility of England and Europe, throw in his lot with Napoleon Bonaparte? A casual conversation he had with Menteith gave Adam a possible answer.
“Gacé almost lost his head to the guillotine, according to Nanda,” Menteith told him. “Couldn’t bear to leave the family chateau, apparently.”
“What finally happened to it?” Adam asked.
“It wasn’t destroyed; Napoleon’s minister of finance has it. He bought it from the government. Matthieu can’t even speak of it. Nanda says he lives only to get it back again.”
Adam frowned. “Surely Gacé must know that even if the king is restored it will be impossible for him to return all the property of the nobles who have been exiled.”
Menteith snorted. “Matthieu thinks he has the king twisted around his finger. I’m sure he expects to move back home the minute Napoleon is defeated.”
Adam, who had a very high opinion of the Duc’s intelligence, did not agree. He was certain that Gacé must have evaluated all possibilities. Could he have come to the conclusion that his best hope of retrieving the Chateau Gacé lay with Napoleon? If this was so, then Adam had what had most puzzled him about the idea of Gacé being the traitor: a motive.
He shared his thoughts with Menteith, who was not convinced. However, he agreed to make certain that no information from the Horse Guards about the Spring Offensive ever got to the Duc de Gacé.
# # #
Wellington’s army was in winter quarters at present; his plan was to open the Spring Offensive at the beginning of May, when the grass was in for the horses to eat. Menteith had asked Adam to stay on at the Horse Guards to help with the reorganiza
tion he had suggested Menteith carry out.
Adam had accepted Menteith’s invitation gladly. How much of his gladness came from his opportunity to keep an eye on the Horse Guard’s security, and how much came from his opportunity to spend more time with the Duc de Gacé’s wife, was a question he tried not to think about.
He told himself that all he felt for her was friendship. She was an intelligent woman and he enjoyed their conversations. She seemed to enjoy them as well. No harm in that, Adam told himself. No harm at all. We’re friends. Just friends.
May came and Wellington’s campaign launch had to be delayed because the crops were late in Spain and there wasn’t enough grass for the horses. Parliament opened, however, and many great families returned to London. The Season officially started and Adam found himself besieged by invitations.
“How do these people even know I’m here?” he asked Nanda in bewilderment as he looked at the envelopes piled next to his breakfast plate.
She lifted an eyebrow. “The mamas of unwed daughters know everything about every eligible bachelor in the whole of Great Britain. You’ve been found out, Adam. And your leg is so much better; you should accept some of those invitations. You might not be able to dance, but you can certainly socialize with your peers and meet some nice young ladies.”
I like the lady I’m talking to right now. The thought flashed into his mind and he lowered his eyes so she couldn’t read it. Lately she had been showing a disconcerting ability to read what he was thinking.
“Will you go with me to these social gatherings?” he asked. “I’d be terrified to go on my own.”
At that she laughed out loud. “I doubt anything terrifies you, my lord. Your exploits in the Peninsula are well known by now.”
“But this is quite different. I haven’t had any experience with drawing rooms; I went into the army straight out of Cambridge.
“All right, I’ll go with you.” Her large brown eyes were still full of merriment. “Matthieu and I are going to Lady Worth’s ball tonight. You have an invitation too. Come with us and we’ll look out for you.”
