“Most certainly. I have no desire to be known as the kind of man who cannot keep his family in check. If I withdraw his allowance, he will have no choice but to come home. He boasts of his new wealth. But if he has any, I have yet to see it. Money from unidentified places, sinister people…” He leaned forward, elbows on the table, and lowered his voice. “I suspect he is working for the other side. There is a conspiracy, you know, and he is in deep.”
Frederick sucked in a breath. Adam examined his fingernails, as if they contained everything he needed to know. Too much enthusiasm would only make Beauchamp worse, and he wanted the man to be forthcoming, not to tease him with drips of information. “So dramatic, sir! Gossip, that is all.”
“Not so, sir! You know it is not.”
Adam spared him a glance, kept his gaze. “Indeed? I assume you have evidence?”
“Naturally.” He finished his coffee. “A great deal of it has come my way since I arrived.”
Frederick whistled low. “You must have been busy, your grace. You’ve barely been here a month.”
“Less. Yes, I believe I have. I will put a stop to my brother’s traitorous behavior.” His expression turned sly. “His majesty will be pleased. I have sent my wife to a country villa, away from his pernicious influence, so that I may deal with the matter quickly and expeditiously.”
And put Trensom in the shade. That would be his plan. But however much Adam disliked Beauchamp, he might be forced to work with him. “Will you find a place for him?”
“I can’t regret the loss of a traitor. I will bring him to justice. In fact, I am seeking the attaché’s services. I understand he doesn’t wish for the honor. Maybe he won’t have to suffer it much longer.”
Trensom wouldn’t be happy, handing the office over to Beauchamp, but he might not have much choice if, as he’d said, he wanted to be home by Christmas. “You mean to remain in Rome?”
“For a while. Better to overwinter here than in chilly, damp England.”
A disturbance at the other side of the piazza, near the church, pulled Adam’s attention away from the obnoxious duke. He got to his feet when he recognized Signor Raffetti running towards him. The expression on his face gave him no comfort. Anxiety was etched in every line.
Raffetti stopped, putting his hands on his knees and leaning forward, sucking in air.
He stood up and met Adam’s eyes. The world stopped. Something terrible had happened. With Frederick standing silently at his side, Adam heard the words, and forced them into his mind.
“Her grace has been abducted. By Lord Joshua Stuart. Took her, he did, in the street. She was walking to his grace of Trensom’s, but he waylaid her.”
Speechless, Adam stared at his majordomo.
“I saw them. Stopped to exchange pleasantries and moved on.”
“Why would he take Delphi?” Adam asked. True, he’d punched Lord Joshua when he’d laid hands on Delphi. He must know that Adam would kill him if he touched her.
Beauchamp’s mouth curled. “To stop you moving against him. While he has her, you will leave him alone. We all saw you at the ball, and out and about with your new wife. You’re besotted, man. No harm in that if she does her duty, but you have to be strong. He’ll go to the villa now.”
Adam spun around to face him. “But your wife is at the villa!”
Beauchamp nodded. “He will take her, too, for the same reason. I know his ways. She carries the most precious burden of all, and if she dies, Joshua remains my heir.”
Never had the lines on his face seemed deeper, never had those eyes been so hard. With an agility Adam never suspected him of, Beauchamp leaped to his feet and called for his servant. “Get the carriage!”
He rushed off as Raffetti said, “I have my curricle ready. It is at your service. I will drive you.”
“You know the way?”
“I do. Come.” He took them to a street at the edge of the square, where a curricle waited, a groom leading the horses up and down. The vehicle had one broad seat and a smaller one behind. He issued instructions to the groom. “Go and tell my master what has happened. We will take the carriage.”
Adam lost no time climbing into the passenger seat. Frederick swung up behind, where the groom would usually sit. “Who is your master?” he asked as Raffetti settled next to them.
Raffetti offered him a glance as he guided the horses along the street. “My master is the sensible Stuart. The Old Pretender and The Young Pretender live on his bounty.”
“Cardinal Henry Stuart,” Adam said heavily. The Old Pretender’s youngest son, the one that accepted reality and found a different career.
“Si. He asked me to watch and report back, but I do not think he will be sorry that I help you now.”
“Then whip ’em up.”
“Very well. There are weapons under the seats.”
So the frivolous Signor Raffetti had hidden depths, did he? Adam could only be thankful for it. Without him, they’d have been stuck in Beauchamp’s carriage, and he didn’t trust that man further than he could throw him.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“You broke my hoop,” Delphi pointed out. That had been the cause of the crack when Lord Joshua had unceremoniously thrown her into his carriage.
“Ah, yes, I’m sorry about that.”
Now that he had her, Lord Joshua seemed less on edge. Now Delphi was on edge, and that was putting it mildly. “What’s all this about? Or to put it another way, what in all Hades do you think you’re doing?”
“Ah, yes. I should explain.”
“Yes, you damned well should.” She was past ladylike language. She’d passed that point when they’d sped past the Colosseum.
The coach door wasn’t locked. She could leap out once the vehicle had slowed its mad dash, and she had every intention of doing so. She took care not to glance at the lock to double check. Instead, she gripped the seat behind her and hauled herself up into it, letting out an involuntary groan as her incipient bruises told their own tale. When he reached out to help her, she said, “No,” and did it herself. At least that put her further away from him in this cramped space.
He drew his hands back and clasped them tightly in his lap. The frown between his eyes deepened as he watched her. “I’m sorry about everything,” he said.
Delphi didn’t care. “That doesn’t really help. What is this abduction about? You know my husband will come ventre à terre, don’t you?”
He leaned against the side of the coach, his elbow on the rest, his dinger to his chin, watching her intently. “He does not know where to come.”
Delphi closed her eyes. This carriage had no crest on the door. “He will.”
“By then, we will have concluded our business.” He glanced out the window. They were bowling through the countryside now, although jolting might be a better word.
She decided to be peevish. If he was abducting her to compromise her, she’d let him know what he was getting. “You still haven’t told me why you’re doing this.”
Although she suspected. He’d wanted her, so he would have her. Except she’d never known him to behave anything less than courteously—except that time Adam had struck him down. Twice.
Even when he’d begged her not to marry Adam, he hadn’t shown her the kind of passion she might expect from a spurned lover. He seemed more intent on her not marrying Adam than having her for himself.
When he leaned forward, she shrank back, as if afraid. Of course she felt fear, but her fury overrode that. “I was to find you alone and bring you,” he said.
Somebody else was involved? “Bring me? To whom?”
Oh, that. Was he part of the conspiracy? Why hadn’t she seen that before? His name, his vague explanation of his prosperity, it all added up.
“Wait and see. I have a story to tell, but it involves more than me.” He closed his mouth firmly, as if refusing to say anything more.
“What story? What is all this about, my lord?”
“Oh, I think we’ve
come further than that.” He smiled, but without humor. “Call me Joshua.”
She refused to give him permission to call her Delphi. She gripped the edge of the seat, lest she follow her instincts and go for him, claws extended. How dare he do this?
They would hold her somewhere, ensure through her that Adam and Frederick did as they were told.
The Old Pretender wanted none of it. But what about The Young Pretender? He was, by all accounts, both impulsive and foolish. He’d visited Britain several times covertly, all but danced in front of the authorities, dared them to take him, but they had turned their backs. They had more to lose by taking him prisoner and making him a martyr to his cause than they did by keeping a close eye on him. The man had given up military might in favor of negotiation and diplomacy. He’d converted to Protestantism, not that it made much of a difference to his day to day life. He’d tried to open negotiations with the government. So in despair, would he fall in with a conspiracy to assassinate the current occupant of the British throne, and his heirs?
Yes, he would. But had he?
Joshua’s family name was Stuart. Was he, after all, a Jacobite, even though he’d denied it to her? Was his game deeper than anyone imagined?
He seemed such a pleasant man, and Delphi had discerned no vaulting ambition in him.
Oh, Delphi wished Adam was here to talk things over with! But if he was, they wouldn’t be here, if that made sense.
“Why are you doing this?”
He spread his hands. “I was requested to do it. Please don’t ask anything more. We’ll be there in half an hour.”
He was too calm to be a frustrated lover. He wasn’t doing this to avenge himself on her husband.
“Where?”
“There.”
She was getting nowhere with him.
The carriage was bouncing over ruts, threatening with every bend in the road to overturn and kill them all. She had no opportunity to throw the door open and leap out. If she did, she’d probably break her neck. That would hardly put her in better case.
Her thoughts ran around like a rat in a trap. She could think of no way she could get out of this situation without endangering her own life. They did not mean to stop anywhere. All she had in her pockets were a card case, a handkerchief and a few small coins.
If they were arriving in half an hour, they were probably no more than ten miles from Rome, even traveling at this pace.
He leaned back, crossed his legs. “We mean you no harm, I swear, but we have to talk to you. That is all. Nothing more.”
“Why me?”
He shook his head and closed his mouth. Again.
Eventually, the carriage pulled up before a pleasant-looking villa, similar to the one owned by the Billinghams but somewhat smaller. An elegant, private residence that, in Britain, Delphi would consider a mansion or a hunting box, middling size. Like the mansion house her brother had owned in Hampshire before he had inherited the earldom. The white stucco covering this villa gleamed in the sunlight. Like the Billingham villa, it had a portico, similar to the house by Palladio that had started the fashion for that design all over Europe.
Delphi tried to memorize all she saw, from the clipped lawn at the front to the blue drapes at the windows.
It was two stories high, box-shaped, with the columned portico at the front and a shallow dome on the roof. There were no other houses nearby, she noted, her heart sinking. But she’d know this place again.
As the carriage came to a halt, the shiny black-painted front door opened, and a man stood in the opening. He looked like a butler, plainly dressed.
When Delphi alighted, striving for dignity despite her lopsided appearance, he bowed. Definitely a butler, then.
She had no choice but to enter the house. Were there stables at the rear of the house? Could she steal a horse and ride for freedom?
The coolness of the interior struck her first. The entrance hall went the height of the building and, above, the lantern at the top of the dome let in the daylight. Gracious, but nowhere near as welcoming as Lady Billingham’s villa. She wished she was there. If she knew where she was, she might be able to get help, but what did she have to bribe a servant with? Nothing save her wedding ring, and the thought of parting with it gave her too much pain.
The man led them upstairs. At the main floor, Joshua bowed to her and left her. “Go with Cardoza. He will show you a room where you may freshen up. Do you require a maid to assist you?”
“No.” She changed her mind immediately, thinking of her plan. “Yes. Send a maid, and tea.” She might as well take advantage of the services offered her, right down to the help. And perhaps, she’d find a friend.
The room she was shown to was a comfortable bedroom. Nothing personal decorated it, no family portraits, but one of the pope gave her pause. The Stuart royal family lost the throne because of its adherence to the Old Faith.
The maid arrived bearing a light cane hoop, as well as a tray of tea-things. “The signora told me you would need this,” she said in Italian.
Delphi answered in the same language. “Chi è la signora?”
But the maid refused to tell her the identity of the “signora”. She set to work in silence, helping Delphi out of her ruined hoop and tying the new one in its place. The small cane hoops were exactly what Delphi had broken, fashionable, small and light, giving her the fashionable full-skirted shape without weight and keeping the fabric away from her body.
Delphi kept trying, but mustering her Italian hampered her efforts. “I have been—stolen. Please tell someone. Send to my husband, the Duke of Kilsyth, back in Rome. You will be paid well. He will be glad to have me back.”
The maid gestured to the chair before the dressing table. While she dressed Delphi’s hair, she put hairpins between her lips, as maids were wont to do. It meant she couldn’t speak.
But Delphi could. She tried again, but had the same result. The maid dealt with the birds’ nest her elegant hairstyle had turned into, pinned Delphi’s cap into place, then crossed to the side table where she’d put the tea tray. She poured a dish of tea, and left it on the tray. Then she curtseyed and left the room.
No help there, then.
Although she listened, Delphi did not hear a key turn. She had expected the maid to lock her in, once she’d seen the key in the lock as they’d entered.
Feeling better, even though she had only had her appearance restored, she went to the window. A pretty garden met her gaze, but no sign of any house nearby, not even a cottage. That building at right angles to the main villa was certainly stables, though. The carriage they had arrived in stood outside it, the horses gone and the shafts resting on the ground. Were there riding horses in there? Delphi had learned to ride in the country, but she was not comfortable on a horse. Still, she could probably stay on a well-mannered one long enough to find help.
Other than that, there was nowhere she could run to and plead for help. A series of gentle hills rose, blocking her view. Perhaps there were houses on the other side, but was it wise to go there on the chance?
If she had to, then she would. The window was on the second floor, so she couldn’t jump, or even risk climbing down. Besides, she’d never been good at climbing, unlike her two sisters, who both scaled trees with aplomb. Delphi preferred to stay on the ground.
If she slipped, she might break a limb—or worse.
And they’d left the door unlocked. Of course, there could be a burly footman on the other side, just waiting for her to open it. No, she’d stay.
Besides, she needed to know what they wanted with her, and who “they” were. So she waited, sipping the excellent tea and nibbling on the bread and butter provided. She didn’t want anything to eat, but she might need the sustenance. Who knew what lay ahead? A light tap on the door heralded the reappearance of the maid.
The maid took Delphi down a floor and to a door with two footmen on guard. They stared straight ahead, as if she didn’t exist. Well trained, then. They wore no livery
, so she still had no clue who this house belonged to.
One of the footmen threw open the double doors, but didn’t announce her. Thank God.
Delphi swept through. She was greeted with the unpleasant view of Lord Joshua in a deep embrace with—surely not, but yes, it was true—the Duchess of Beauchamp.
Shock turned her rigid.
They broke apart, but Delphi wasn’t fooled. If they hadn’t heard her footsteps, they’d have heard the doors opening and closing. They meant to be caught in flagrante.
Lord Joshua seemed the most put out, flushing. His inamorata merely folded her hands and greeted Delphi with a basilisk stare. Then, to Delphi’s surprise, her gaze fell. If anyone was expert at staring a person out, it was the Duchess of Beauchamp.
They waited. Delphi was supposed to condemn them, she supposed. So she did not. “I appear to be very much de trop here. Perhaps if you could call the carriage, I’ll be on my way.”
“Oh, no.” The duchess motioned. “Won’t you take a seat?”
Two could play at duchess. Delphi glided to the chair she’d indicated, and sat. “Perhaps an explanation might be in order before I go, your grace.”
The room was elegantly furnished, but in a modest way, and nowhere did she see a personal touch. A hired villa, then.
The Duchess of Beauchamp gave a dismissive wave. “May we dispense with titles? Elizabeth will do while we’re here. We don’t have much time if we’re to get you back to Rome by nightfall. The less time spent on formalities, the better.”
“It could get awfully confusing,” Delphi cautiously conceded. The rush of relief flooding her at the mention of returning her home was almost ridiculous in its intensity.
“Are you all right?” Lord Joshua said, concern in his eyes. “I had not realized you could be so worried.”
“You couldn’t?” Delphi turned on him, fury rising. “You throw me into a carriage, refuse to answer any questions, and bring me to a place I don’t know? What kind of person do you take me for? And there’s someone wandering around Rome murdering people! How did you think I’d react?”
A Whisper of Treason Page 25
