Fortune's Lady

by Patricia Gaffney

  She slept late the next day, but so did the rest of the household. A maid brought her tea and toast in bed, and later she had a bath. She was dressed and seated before the dressing table mirror, letting Ellen style her hair, when a knock came at the door.

  “Colin, good morning—or good afternoon, I should say. Come in. It’s all right; Ellen’s doing my hair.” It occurred to her that she had Aunt Beth to thank for one thing, at least—teaching her the proper, or improper, way to greet a man in her boudoir. She was relieved when he didn’t send the maid away, but leaned against one of the bedposts and watched her in the mirror. He looked immaculate in a bottle-green coat and buff breeches.

  “Good morning, my dear. There’s no need to ask if you slept well; I can see it in your face. You look radiant. Ah, how I envy the resilience of youth.”

  She made a face. “Oh, indeed, you’re such an old man, it’s a wonder you didn’t expire along the journey! Give me another minute and I’ll help you down the stairs.”

  He laughed appreciatively and reached into his waistcoat pocket. “Here,” he said, placing a small box in front of her on the table, “this is for you. Open it.”

  She did, with a pleased smile, while Ellen stood back respectfully and waited. “Why, it’s—it’s—” She had no idea what it was. It looked like a piece of wood.

  He laughed again, amused at her confusion. He leaned over and spoke softly in her ear. “I’ll tell you what it is later, perhaps tonight. There are so many things we have to talk about, Cassandra.” He put his lips against her cheek and then straightened. “Now, hurry down, my love. There’s a light meal in the dining room, and then we’re all going shooting.”

  She watched him go, wondering what he could want to talk to her about. She and Ellen examined the sharp sliver of wood on the bed of crushed white velvet but try as they might, they couldn’t guess what it was.

  An hour later she was walking among a group of ladies and gentlemen over a rough, stubbly field toward a wooded area in a far corner of Wade’s estate. One of the errant chaises had arrived in the night, swelling their number to fourteen. They were an interesting assortment, Cass reflected as she tried to remember all their names. Most of them seemed to be capable representatives of the bored and idle rich—a viscount and his lady friend, a newly married and embarrassingly amorous couple, three giddy sisters named Lloyd whose first names all began with L, and a corresponding number of unattached young men. The two exceptions were Mr. Sherwood, a man in his late forties who rarely spoke and had spent most of the trip with his nose in a book, and Mr. Sloan, a young, impoverished law clerk who seemed devoted to Wade and hung on his every word. Walking beside her now was Mr. Everton, or Teddy as he insisted she call him, one of the unattached young men, who evidently found her better company than any of the Lloyd sisters and had hardly left her alone in two days. A gaggle of servants trailed behind, carrying guns and chairs and umbrellas and hampers of food and anything else one could think of for the comfort and convenience of the gentry.

  “What are we going to shoot?” asked Cass, to make conversation.

  “Anything that moves,” answered Teddy with a smile. He was good-looking and smooth-talking, and Cass had known a hundred men exactly like him. “Do you shoot?” he asked.

  “No, there wasn’t much opportunity for it in the Palais Royale,” she said, straight-faced. She felt comfortable with Teddy.

  Perhaps too comfortable, she thought a few minutes later when they arrived at the park. “Anything that moves” meant rabbits, squirrels, and birds, she discovered. The ladies quickly grew bored and sat down on blankets away from the shooting. When Teddy offered to teach her to shoot, she readily agreed, already tired of the women’s idle conversation. He led her away with a hand on her waist and pointed to a tree stump about twenty feet distant. “We’ll try that first.” He put his arms around her, ostensibly to show her how to hold the rifle, then stole a kiss on the cheek. She was used to such freedoms and admonished him good-naturedly. She took aim at the stump and fired, missing, and the unexpected recoil sent her back into his arms, where he promptly kissed her on the mouth.

  “Don’t, Teddy,” she said, with considerably more force. “Colin would be furious,” she added when he still didn’t let her go.

  “I’ve already asked him,” he whispered, trying to nuzzle the nape of her neck. “He said it was all right.”

  She went very still. “You already asked him what?”

  “You know.”

  “No. Tell me.”

  He had the grace to look a little embarrassed. “If he’d mind if you and I…became friends.” He grinned engagingly. “Colin’s a very generous man.”

  She regarded him steadily. “Indeed he is, but sometimes he’s forgetful. He forgot to ask me.” And she pushed him away and strode off to rejoin the ladies, where she remained for the rest of the afternoon.

  She wondered why the incident surprised her. She’d known Wade had no real feelings for her, but usually a man’s pride, if nothing else, made him want the woman he was with at least to simulate fidelity. Colin Wade was a puzzle to her, and the longer she knew him the more pieces he revealed; but she got no closer to solving it.

  Dinner was a crowded, sumptuous affair. Cass saw more food brought out than she’d have thought any regiment of hungry soldiers could devour, but almost every tray was sent back empty. Shooting at small animals built prodigious appetites, she decided, watching as course after course covered the huge table. There was also wine with every course, and by meal’s end they were a very merry group indeed.

  She sat at Wade’s right, with Teddy Everton on her other side. Her earlier rebuff had left him unfazed; he flirted outrageously as if nothing had happened. She paid only token attention to him, and instead concentrated on studying the other guests. Were any of them Wade’s cohorts in treason? She discounted the ladies, and the silly young men who attended them. Certainly not Mr. and Mrs. Gonne; they were too wrapped up in each other to spare a thought for the overthrow of the monarchy. The Viscount St. Aubyn? She doubted it. He epitomized upper-class English hauteur, and Cass couldn’t imagine him taking steps to tear down the very social structure on whose pinnacle he proudly stood. Mr. Sloan, the fresh-faced law clerk? Possible, but not likely; too puppyish, too young, too…conservative. That left the silent Mr. Sherwood. He was about her father’s age, she guessed, or a little older. Had they known each other? Could it as easily have been he as Patrick Merlin at the end of the hangman’s noose? If so, did that make him her enemy? Or her friend? He looked up from his plate at that moment, catching her in her intently focused stare. She flushed and smiled, then quickly looked away.

  After dinner, the ladies rose to leave. Hateful custom, thought Cass, trooping out with them. Doubtless the men would discuss politics now; if she could stay, she might learn something important. But no, she had to retire to the drawing room, where the conversation was insipid beyond belief, while the women waited for the men to rejoin them and life to begin again. She recalled a dozen stimulating conversations she’d had with Riordan. He enjoyed her company and had genuine respect for her ideas—she wagered he wouldn’t send her out of the room after dinner like a child.

  At last the men arrived, and the servants began setting up tables in the drawing room for gambling. Cass won eighteen pounds at loo from a two-pound stake, then quit despite all the urgings to continue. Gambling, she was thankful, was not one of her vices.

  The Lloyd sisters complained that there was no music, and thus no dancing. Wade gallantly promised to send for some musicians tomorrow, and in the evening they would have a ball. To this there was enthusiastic applause. Cass noticed that he was drinking more than usual tonight; he was loud and talkative, and his eyes glittered with an excited light. When he invited her to go with him, alone, to the billiard room so that they could talk, she had trouble hiding her nervousness.

  The billiard room was on the second floor. Servants brought refreshments and lit branches of candles at Wade’
s request, then scurried away, leaving them alone.

  “Do you play?” he asked, chalking one of the cues and setting out the three balls, two white and one red. When she said no, he shrugged and took a sip of his claret, set the glass on the mahogany edge of the table, and began to play by himself. Cass had watched men play billiards before and the object of the game had always eluded her, even when it was explained. She watched with no more comprehension now than ever, waiting for Wade to introduce the subject that was on his mind.

  “Did you solve the mystery of my little gift yet?” he inquired presently, banking the red ball off the cushion and into the spotted white.

  “No, Colin, I didn’t, and I’m dying of curiosity. You must tell me.”

  He smiled. “Very well. I’ve given you something that means a great deal to me, and I hope you’ll treasure it as I have.”

  “If it means a lot to you, then it does to me, too,” she responded dutifully, wondering if he was pulling her leg. “What is it?”

  “It’s a piece of the Bastille.”

  “A piece of the Bastille?” She conquered a swift, horrible urge to laugh and composed her features to reflect the right amount of awe. “Really? Truly? Oh, Colin.”

  “A close friend of mine took it out of the rubble in ’89 and sent it to me. I wanted you to have it.”

  “Colin, I’m so moved. I don’t know what to say.” This was quite true.

  “I’ve been watching you these past few weeks, Cassandra. I’ve wanted so much to confide in you, but I haven’t been sure I could trust you. Now I believe I can.”

  “You can!” she assured him fervently, resting a hand on his arm.

  A quick spasm passed over his face, but he turned back to the table before she could read it. “Once I told you I knew your father slightly,” he said, examining the tip of his cue. “That wasn’t true. I knew him much more than slightly. We worked together, wanted the same things.” He laid the stick down and faced her. “What I’m trying to say is, it was only through a quirk of fate that Patrick was arrested last May. It could just as easily have been I.”

  Cass’s astonishment was real—she’d never thought he would say this to her. “You—you mean you’re one of them?” she gasped, “one of my father’s group of friends who tried to—”

  “I’m not only one of them. I’m their leader.”

  Her hands flew to her mouth. “Colin!”

  “What do you think of me now?” he asked curiously. “How do you feel?”

  “I feel…frightened and excited, and—and glad! Oh, Colin, it’s wonderful! Here I’ve been trying to be a little bit of help to my father’s cause through you, and all along it’s really been you I’ve been helping. If I’d only known, I could have done so much more!”

  “That’s precisely what I was hoping.” He went to her and took her hand. “I hope you know I’d rather die than put you in any danger, but time is growing short. If England declares war on France, our cause here is lost. Besides that, I have reason to think the authorities are beginning to suspect me.”

  She widened her eyes in alarm.

  “There’s nothing to fear yet, but it means we have to move much more quickly.”

  She spoke hesitantly, praying she wasn’t going too fast but unable to keep herself from asking. “And—is the goal still—the same as my father’s was?”

  “Yes,” he confirmed readily.

  Cass was filled with an almost unbearable excitement. This was the very thing Riordan and Quinn had needed to know—if Wade’s target was still the king or if by now it was someone else—Pitt, or one of the more virulent anti-France ministers. It was the first really vital piece of intelligence she’d been able to glean in almost two months. She could hardly wait to get back to London and tell Riordan. “What can I do to help?” she asked sincerely.

  “Exactly what you’ve been doing—stay close to Philip Riordan and pump him for information about the next term in the House.”

  “Yes, of course. You have a plan, then?”

  “Yes, we have a plan. I can’t tell you what it is now, but to put it into effect we have need for the kind of information that can only come from a Member of Parliament.”

  She had to bite her tongue to keep from badgering him for more. “Colin, I feel honored to help you, and so grateful for the chance to strike back with one little blow against the men who murdered my father.”

  “Not so little, I hope,” he said, taking her other hand and smiling grimly. “If we succeed, my dear, you’ll have helped topple a vicious, despotic regime.” For one moment a gleam of pure fanaticism shone in his cinnamon-colored eyes. Then it was gone and he took a step away from her, all business. “Now, I have to ask you something, and I hope it won’t alarm you. Are you absolutely sure that our friend Riordan is as reckless and apolitical as he seems?”

  “Why, what do you mean?” She stifled a flutter of panic.

  “I may be wrong, but sometimes I’ve had the feeling that some of his excesses are an act.”

  “Really?” She looked away as if she were thinking, then shook her head positively. “No, Colin, I don’t think so. I would know. It couldn’t be an act.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because I’ve seen him any number of times when he’s had so much to drink it’s taken three servants to carry him home. No one could pretend to that extent.” Wade looked thoughtful. “No, I’m sure you’re wrong. He even drinks in the morning, Colin, before he’s gotten out of bed.” She kept talking, aware of the implications of that piece of information. “Can you imagine? It’s the most extraordinary thing—he says it helps clear his head from the night before.”

  Wade raised skeptical brows. “Perhaps you’re right, but it bears watching.”

  “And I shall, I assure you.” She was practically hopping with frustration. She knew she should stop now, but she couldn’t help herself. “Isn’t there anything you can tell me about your plan? I can’t help feeling if I knew what it was, I could help you so much more. For one thing, I’d know what to try to get out of Riordan.”

  He came toward her again; his eyes were gleaming with excitement. “I want to tell you,” he admitted, “and someday I will. But for now it’s too dangerous.” She pouted prettily. He smiled and put his arms around her. “One thing I can tell you.”

  “What?”

  “It’s going to happen in November.”

  “November!”

  He nodded and then pulled her up against him in a tight embrace. He was much stronger than he looked, she had time to think before he kissed her, hard. In a rush, all her fear of him returned. He backed her up against the edge of the billiard table and seized her wrists, pinning them behind her back. “Do you like to be tied, Cassandra?” he asked conversationally, watching her face.

  “No. No, I don’t.”

  He bent her over backwards until her head was almost touching the green baize of the table. She could smell the wine on his breath. “Have you ever tried it?”

  She shook her head unthinkingly, but answered, “Yes, once. It frightened me, I didn’t like it. Let me up, Colin.”

  He smiled at her with his lips, but his eyes were as cold as stones. After another moment he let go of her hands and stood back. “Perhaps you and I are better together as friends than lovers, my dear,” he said softly.

  She rubbed her bruised wrists and stared past him, struggling to mask her horror. “Yes,” she said when she could speak. “Yes, I think we are.”

  A few seconds later the door opened and all three Lloyd sisters tumbled in, clamoring for billiard lessons. Cass excused herself and went upstairs to her room. Wade’s last words had reassured her, but that night, as soon as Ellen left, she locked her door.

  The next morning she rose early. After bathing and drinking a cup of chocolate, she went downstairs. As she’d hoped, no one was up yet except the servants. “May I have some tea in the library?” she asked one of them. That would establish her whereabouts for the next thirty m
inutes or so. While she waited for the tea, she prowled around the bookshelves, examining titles. Riordan’s library was much better, she thought with a silly flutter of pride. Some of these volumes had never even been opened. More to the point, none seemed incriminating in any way—no Layman’s Guide to Regicide, for example. She sighed with disappointment.

  A maid came with a tray. She thanked her and waited until her footsteps died away, then went to the door. The hall was empty. On tiptoe, she scurried across it to the room directly opposite, opened the door, slipped through, and closed it silently behind her—then chided herself for not knocking first. What if Wade had been there, sitting at his desk? But he wasn’t, thank God, and she leaned against the door, waiting for her heartbeat to return to normal.

  The study was small; there would be little to search except the desk and an unlocked cabinet under the window. She set to work briskly, ignoring the dampness of her palms and the tight, airless feeling in her chest. She was taking an awful risk, but the opportunity was too good to miss. Last night Wade had admitted everything, but that was worthless as far as Mr. Quinn was concerned. He would want evidence, material evidence, and this was the first chance she’d had to look for it. She searched neatly and diligently, pausing every few minutes to listen for sounds outside. What she needed was a letter, a paper, even a cryptic note with an incriminating name on it.

  But there was nothing. Nothing but bills, accounts, ledgers, and receipts, all related to the running of Ladymere. She found a bill for the services of a nurse-companion for Mrs. Wade in Bath. Mary, was her name. She felt a moment of compassion for the unknown Mary Wade. But there was nothing else.

  She gazed around the room. There were no family portraits, no personal items that might have revealed something about the man who owned this house and occasionally lived here. A stag’s head over the mantel told her he liked to shoot animals, and that was all.