The Lady By His Side

by Stephanie Laurens

  She pointed at the carver. “For God’s sake, sit, before you fall down.”

  With a small, quite gentle smile, Drake moved to obey.

  Antonia found herself staring at the dark circles around Drake’s hooded eyes. His habitual languid drawl had sounded more drawly than usual, and the way he moved… She’d never seen the normally vigorous and virile Drake so drained and depleted. He looked as if he might collapse in a heap at any moment.

  He made it into the chair, sinking into the embrace of the carver as if he was a much older man. But his golden eyes had already surveyed the dishes and their plates. “Is that oyster soup?”

  “Yes.” Antonia reached out and picked up the soup ladle. When Drake handed her his soup plate, she took it, added two ladlefuls of the creamy liquid, then handed it back. “Eat. You look like a shadow of your former self.”

  His long lips twitched. He exchanged a look with Sebastian. “I understand you’ve rushed up nonstop from Kent.” He paused to take a mouthful of the soup. “Against that, I’ve been traveling for the past two days, some of it running. Literally.”

  Leaving him to eat—and hopefully recover his strength along with his usual incisive wits—Antonia set aside her emptied soup plate and served herself a helping of what appeared to be braised venison. She passed the dish to Sebastian, who handed her a dish of assorted boiled vegetables in return.

  While they ate, she was aware of Drake’s eagle’s gaze assessing them—something that bothered neither her nor Sebastian. They’d long grown used to Drake’s rather acute scrutiny; there was no real way to avoid it, and it was only an issue if one had something one wanted to hide.

  Speaking of which…Antonia noticed the knuckles on Drake’s right hand were scraped. She contemplated the sight, then glanced to her right, at Sebastian’s hands. Looking again at Drake, she caught his eye and nodded at his hand. “You should have worn gloves.”

  Drake glanced at his knuckles and faintly winced. “Gloves wouldn’t have fitted with the costume. I shouldn’t have been there at all, but…” He shrugged.

  “I mean,” she persisted, “that if you want to pass for someone of lower station, you need to wear gloves. Your hands”—with her gaze, she directed his attention to Sebastian’s—“are like his.” Long fingered and elegant. “They immediately mark you for what you are.”

  Drake looked mildly taken aback. “Perhaps that was it…”

  From which Antonia deduced he’d been playing one of his charades, had been found out, and had had to fight his way free.

  Drake finished his soup and pushed aside his plate. After a moment, as if infused with renewed—renewing—energy, he sat straighter. As he helped himself to the venison, he murmured, “You both look rather rumpled—definitely not your usual debonair selves. I take it your day was eventful.”

  Sebastian had cleared his plate and was feeling human once more. He set down his cutlery, pushed aside the plate, reached for his wine glass, and leaned back in the chair. “Let’s see—dealing with a Scotland Yard inspector and a magistrate, both engaged in investigating two murders, then riding out searching farmhouses, cottages, haysheds, barns, and the like for barrels of gunpowder, then scrambling down a cliff face, trudging through sand, following a tunnel into a dark cavern, finding evidence of ten barrels of gunpowder having been stored there, being shot at and having to take a dive, then racing back out to the beach, scrambling back up the cliff, riding like the wind across the estate, then riding out again in pursuit of the murderer—also the only one we knew of who could tell us about that gunpowder—only to find the man dead. Shot.” Sebastian arched his brows. “Then we had to pack and drive up to town. So yes, eventful enough.”

  Drake had frozen in the act of skewering a potato. “Gunpowder.” He stared at Sebastian, then looked at the potato, stabbed it, transferred it to his plate, then imperiously waved at them both. “Start at the beginning, and if at all possible, leave nothing crucial out.”

  Sebastian settled to relate all that had happened from the moment they’d arrived at Pressingstoke Hall. Antonia added her observations as appropriate.

  When informed of Ennis’s last words, Drake frowned. “Gunpowder here.” After a moment, he shook his head. “At least you managed to find it.”

  “Unfortunately not—we only found where it had been.” Sebastian continued describing all the pertinent events up to the point of them discovering the imprint of ten barrels in the cavern off the beach, and their deduction that the barrels had been moved during the previous night.

  “So most likely into a wagon and most likely ferried up to London.” Drake paused, then refocused on Sebastian. “And then?”

  With several interjections from Antonia, Sebastian recounted how they’d been shot at by the man involved, who had proved to be Connell Boyne, how they’d missed catching him at the house and had given chase, and subsequently found him murdered in the coppice.

  Drake had finished eating and, like Sebastian, was now sitting back in the carver and sipping wine. He grunted. “Dead men pass on no information.” He sipped, then frowned. “But why was it necessary to kill him? Why not just spirit him away?”

  Sebastian shrugged. “Too risky now the authorities knew who they were looking for?”

  Drake’s golden eyes narrowed. “Possibly.” After several moments, he said, “The way I see this, Ennis, as well as his brother, Connell, had been secretly supporting the Young Irelander movement, but in Ennis’s case, that support was by donation and encouragement, rather than by being actively involved. Connell, on the other hand, appears to have been seduced into actively working for the cause. Given he spent most of his time on the Ennis estate in Ireland, it’s not hard to see how that might have come about.”

  “Possibly without Ennis knowing,” Antonia said. She, too, was sitting back, cradling her glass, and listening avidly.

  Drake inclined his head in agreement. He focused on the goblet he was slowly twirling between his long fingers. After a moment, his eyes hooded, he continued, “I was summoned to Ireland because my sources had heard whispers of some major plot being afoot. By the time I arrived in Dublin, they’d heard that the plot involved gunpowder. Subsequently, I learned that a group of Young Irelanders had secured a quantity of gunpowder—exactly how much, I didn’t find out—and it had been dispatched to somewhere in England’s south. The ship had already sailed from Limerick. The choice of port seemed odd at the time, but it might be explained by the Ennis estate lying in the countryside north of the town. Unsurprisingly, I decided we needed to know more about where the gunpowder was destined and for what purpose it was intended, so I worked my way deeper into the movement’s hierarchy.”

  He frowned. “The strange—and to be truthful, troubling—fact was that no matter how high I went in the movement’s upper ranks, no one seemed to know anything about this plot. No one was in charge of it, and it hadn’t been discussed at any of the various inner council meetings.”

  “Did you reach deep enough—high enough—to be sure of that?” Sebastian asked.

  Drake’s expression hardened, and he glanced at his scraped knuckles. “Yes—that’s what nearly broke my cover. I kept going higher in the organization. But I should have been following a solid trail from the foot soldiers who arranged the shipment—the Connell Boynes of the enterprise—to the upper echelons, but the moment I stepped away from the field, as it were, there was no trail—seemingly no connection whatsoever.” Drake raised his lids, and his golden gaze met Sebastian’s eyes. “And that makes me question whether this is, in fact, a Young Irelander plot at all.”

  It was Sebastian’s turn to frown. “If not them, then”—he spread his hands—“who?”

  “That, indeed, is the question.” Drake drummed a finger on the table. “Someone over there in the higher ranks should have known about this plot, but no one did. Of that, I’m quite sure. While the Young Irelanders, like any movement of its kind, has its more militant arms, I’ve never heard of a scheme of this ilk
being run purely by the lower ranks with no one in the upper echelons even being told of it. No well-organized movement encourages such things—renegade actions, those implemented without the knowledge or approval of the higher councils, risk said higher councils losing control of the movement.”

  Drake fell silent, then his finger stilled. After a moment, he murmured, “I wonder…could someone have seen the Young Irelander hotheads as potential hands to exploit?” Abandoning his sprawl, he leaned forward; with both forearms on the table, he cradled his goblet between his palms. His golden gaze was sharply intent and focused unseeing down the table. “Has someone been clever enough to manipulate a group of Young Irelander foot soldiers, including Connell Boyne, into thinking this plot is an officially sanctioned Young Irelander plot, even though it isn’t?”

  “That would certainly account for Ennis suddenly wanting to speak with you.” Sebastian sipped, then lowered his goblet. “Consider this scenario—Connell, believing he’s acting for the movement, arranges in secret for the gunpowder to be shipped, then comes to England to visit with Ennis at Pressingstoke Hall and discuss the harvest and other estate matters as he always does at this time of year—and while he’s in Kent, to receive and hide the gunpowder, presumably directly off the ship, then to lead the men who arrive to take it on to London to the cavern. Either Ennis or Connell had to be there to show the ship’s crew where the entrance to the cavern was and, later, to guide those who came with a wagon to take the barrels away.”

  “But,” Antonia said, “Ennis knew nothing about the plot, not until Connell arrived at the Hall and told him of it.”

  Drake was nodding. “Do you know when Connell arrived in Kent?”

  Sebastian exchanged a glance with Antonia. “I believe it was a week before the house party.”

  “Yes.” Antonia said. “Cecilia confirmed that.”

  “The timing fits,” Drake said. “Connell tells Ennis as soon as he arrives at the Hall. Assuming Ennis has been a supporter for years—and it’s Ennis who has the money in the family—then Connell would have expected Ennis to be as committed to the plot as he himself was.”

  “Speaking of money”—Antonia glanced at Sebastian, then turned back to Drake—“we forgot to mention that we found a half-burned envelope in the grate in Ennis’s study after he was murdered. On the envelope was written ‘Three hundred pounds for’—but the rest had burned away.”

  Drake nodded. “And that fits, too. It would have fallen to Connell to pay the ship’s captain for transporting the gunpowder, and so he had to tell Ennis all about the plot. Connell expected to have Ennis’s full and unequivocal support. But Ennis saw the plot differently—he wasn’t enthused at all. To his mind, such a plot would be a step too far—out of keeping with the movement’s direction and very possibly not in its best interests. Open rebellion on home soil and protests in London and in parliament are one thing. But blowing up some building in London? Ennis was politician enough to know what that would lead to.”

  Sebastian snorted. “Even more heavy-handed repression.”

  “Indubitably.” Drake paused, speculation growing in his golden gaze. After a moment, he went on, “I can imagine Ennis being prepared to give Connell the money to extricate Connell from this plot, even though Ennis intended subsequently to reveal all to the authorities—namely, to me.”

  Sebastian nodded. “That’s why he insisted on meeting face-to-face. He would have demanded clemency, if not an outright amnesty, for his brother in return for revealing the details of the plot. Family loyalty—something to which we can all relate.”

  “Unfortunately,” Antonia said, “in this instance, attempting to save his brother got Ennis—and his wife, too—killed.”

  Both Sebastian and Drake grimaced, but neither disagreed.

  After a moment, Drake said, “For all their hotheadedness, the Young Irelander movement is not stupid enough to do something like this—not even their militant arms. As matters stand, there’s no real benefit for them in it.”

  Sebastian concurred with a grunt.

  A moment elapsed, then Sebastian looked at Drake. “That brings us back to your earlier supposition. Idealistic young men are notoriously easy to recruit and also to mislead—for instance, by someone who thinks like you. Or your father.”

  Drake swallowed a mouthful of wine. “There aren’t, thank God, that many people in this world who think like His Grace.” He quietly added, “It would be frightening if there were.”

  Antonia looked from one to the other. “Frightening or not, time, gentlemen, is getting on, and we have ten barrels of gunpowder that are presumably somewhere in London, in the hands of unknown plotters whose intentions we can’t begin to guess. So what are we going to do?”

  Drake looked at her, then looked at Sebastian and straightened in his chair. He set down his goblet. “Aptly put.” He drummed the fingers of one hand on the table, then said, “I suggest we leave aside the question of exactly who is behind this, at least for now. Given that the only real use for ten barrels of gunpowder is to blow something up, the more pressing questions facing us are”—he raised his hands and ticked off each point on his fingers—“what are they planning to blow up, when, and where is the gunpowder now?”

  “Arguably the most pertinent of those questions as of this moment,” Sebastian said, “is how long we have before they act. How long do we have to stop them?”

  “That,” Antonia put in, “and how are we to approach answering Drake’s three excellent and very pressing questions?”

  All three of them looked from one to the other. Silence reigned, deep enough for them to hear the ticking of the long-case clock in the corner.

  Then Drake grimaced. “I fear I’m not at my best at this moment, and, I suspect, neither are you. Despite the likely urgency, making decisions in a fuzzy-headed state is never wise.” He glanced at the clock. “It’s almost midnight. I suggest we reconvene tomorrow, after we’ve all had a decent night’s sleep.”

  “An excellent idea.” Sebastian pushed back his chair.

  “Motion carried.” Antonia waited until Sebastian and Drake rose, and Sebastian pulled out her chair.

  As she got to her feet, Drake said, “We can meet here again—the parents are at Elveden, and my brothers will be out, so we’ll have the house to ourselves.”

  Sebastian and Antonia nodded. With Drake, they walked slowly into the front hall, where Hamilton was hovering.

  They strolled up the black-and-white tiles and halted before the front door. Hamilton retrieved their coats and Antonia’s bonnet; after he’d assisted her to don her cloak, Antonia left him to help Sebastian while she turned to a large mirror and adjusted her bonnet.

  When they were ready, Drake, who had been studying the floor, swung to face them, an amused light in his golden eyes. “As I take it you two have parents to see, arrangements to discuss, and announcements to make”—his smug expression made it clear that, without any word of it passing their lips, he’d guessed their intentions—“and I need to catch up on rather a lot of sleep, shall we say two o’clock?”

  By ton schedules, that was still early in the day.

  Antonia arched a haughty brow. “Two o’clock will suit admirably.” She nodded to Hamilton, and he opened the door. With a dismissive, “Goodnight, Drake,” she walked briskly out onto the porch.

  Sebastian grinned, and he and Drake followed.

  Drake halted on the threshold.

  About to follow Antonia onto the porch, Sebastian halted and, curious, met Drake’s eyes. “Aren’t you going to wish us well?”

  The light wasn’t strong, but he would have sworn Drake faintly colored.

  Drake glanced at Antonia, who was waiting, one brow arched expectantly, for his reply, then he looked back at Sebastian. “I would—I do.” He looked uneasy—an odd look for Drake. “Except”—he grimaced—“once you make your announcement…” He met Sebastian’s gaze. “I’m older than you.”

  Sebastian laughed and clapped Drake
on the shoulder; he exchanged an amused look with Antonia, then murmured to Drake, “Perhaps it’s time you faced the music, too.”

  Drake’s expression turned genuinely horrified. “Thank you, but no.” His features set, and he reached out and seized the door.

  As, chuckling, Sebastian walked onto the porch, joining Antonia, Drake stepped back and firmly shut the door behind them.

  Antonia laughed softly. She looped her arm in Sebastian’s, and together, they descended the steps to the pavement. A wide smile on her lips, she murmured, “Poor Drake.”

  They set out to walk the short distance to St. Ives House, and Sebastian observed, “Matrimony appears to be one challenge our fearless Drake is in no hurry to face.”

  A few steps later, Antonia tilted her head; when Sebastian glanced her way, she caught his eyes.

  The obvious yet critical question hovered between them.

  They were ready to face what Drake still shied from, weren’t they?

  The answer was there, in their eyes, clear enough for the other to see.

  Their expressions eased. As one, they faced forward.

  As one, they lengthened their stride.

  Chapter 16

  Whether it was simply relief—to be home again, safe, with their part in the unfolding drama successfully played, at least to the end of this act—or welling exuberance over their triumph in having established a personal partnership that felt so very right, they were both smiling, and Antonia was actively reining in her delight, when she swept into Sebastian’s room.

  There’d been no staff downstairs to witness their entrance, just a lamp left burning low to light them up the grand staircase. In the gallery, his hand riding at the small of her back, Sebastian had guided her along the corridor into the east wing, then down another corridor to the room at the end.

  Antonia walked confidently across the large room.

  Over the years, she’d become familiar with much of St. Ives house, but she hadn’t ventured into any bedchamber except for that of Sebastian’s sister, Louisa, which was in the west wing. As it happened, Sebastian’s room was the mirror of Louisa’s in placement and size, with a wide bank of windows directly opposite the door through which they’d entered, and a secondary door in the wall to Antonia’s right that she knew would lead to a large bathing chamber. The two doors on either side of the main door would each open into one of the rooms back along the corridor; one room would be Sebastian’s dressing room, with the other the room—very likely rooms—reserved for his marchioness.