A Wicked Gentleman

by Jane Feather

  “He’s staying with the marquess of Coltrain, I’ll send him a note.” Aurelia handed her back the sheet and went to the door. “Are you coming down?”

  “Later. I want to finish sewing this braid.”

  “You could do that in the parlor,” Aurelia pointed out, watching Cornelia closely.

  “Yes, I could,” Cornelia agreed, recognizing that insistence on solitude would actually stimulate the questions she was trying to avoid. “I’ll come down.” She slipped the thimble from her finger and dropped it into the workbox before gathering up the jacket and braid and following Aurelia downstairs.

  Harry glanced impatiently at the clock on the broad mantel in the paneled chamber at the War Office. The discussion had been going on interminably and as far as Harry was concerned to no good purpose.

  “If I might make a suggestion, sir,” he said politely, breaking into the minister’s monologue.

  The minister for war pulled on his bushy white moustaches. “What is it, Bonham?”

  “Before we continue this discussion as to the importance of the information contained in the dispatches…” Harry indicated the documents in front of him on the table. “I think we should consider the possibility that the information itself is compromised.”

  The six other men around the table looked down at their own piles of papers as if the documents themselves might suddenly break into speech.

  “Compromised? How so?” The minister frowned, his beetle brows meeting above the bridge of his nose. “This is the most comprehensive description of the plans for a meeting between Alexander and Bonaparte ever to fall into our hands. How should it be compromised?”

  Harry sighed a little. “As you say, sir, the most comprehensive description ever to fall into our hands. A gift horse you might say?” He raised an eyebrow. “I think we should consider the possibility of a Trojan horse.”

  There was a short silence. “You’re saying this may be misinformation, Harry?” The prime minister sounded incredulous and not for the first time Harry wished he still worked for the formidable brain of William Pitt. But Pitt had died the previous year. The duke of Portland had succeeded him, and in Harry’s opinion very much to the detriment of the country.

  “I’m almost certain of it, sir,” he said calmly, concealing his irritation.

  “But how could that be?” His Grace continued to sound incredulous. “It was brought to us by one of our most credible agents.”

  “Even credible agents can be fooled, sir.” Harry picked up the documents and looked around the table. “Gentlemen, I cracked this code in approximately thirty minutes. Now I’m willing to concede that I am rather good at my job, but for a document of this importance to be encrypted in a code I can crack in half an hour defies belief. I suggest that they wanted us to crack it, and crack it quickly. And why would they want that?”

  He smiled amiably around the table and let them answer the question themselves.

  “To mislead us?” the prime minister said.

  “Precisely, sir.” Harry gave him the nod of a schoolmaster congratulating an apt pupil. He glanced again at the clock. It was four in the afternoon, and he hadn’t been home in two days. An urgent summons to the War Office to deal with a courier’s delivery of encrypted documents had kept him chained to his desk. They had not all been as simple to break as the one presently under discussion.

  Now he had better things to do with his time.

  “If that’s so, what do you suggest we do, Bonham?” one of the other men asked.

  “Provide them with some misinformation of our own,” Harry said, as if the answer was obvious, as to him it was. “They’re playing games, so we play them too. I’ll craft an encoded document describing how we’re going to respond to this information.” He tapped the papers in front of him.

  “I’ll ensure that they can break my code relatively quickly, not quite as fast as I did theirs, however.” His mouth twisted in an ironic grin. “I obviously have more respect for their encrypters than they have for ours.” He flicked disdainfully at the papers. “This was an insult.”

  “And they’ll believe we took this information at face value?” His Grace was still uncertain.

  “Some of them will, sir,” Harry said. “But there’ll be someone somewhere who’ll see the joke. There always is. At best it’ll tie them up for a while, at worst they’ll be hopping mad that we saw through them.”

  “But what if this information is correct?” The prime minister peered at him through his lorgnette. “I don’t see how we can afford to take the risk that it isn’t.”

  “That, sir, is a matter for the War Office,” Harry said, beginning to put his papers together. “If you think it wise to make contingency plans, then it’s not my business to stop you. But I do think it would be wise in addition to let me fashion some misinformation of our own.”

  “Indeed, Prime Minister, Viscount Bonham’s advice has been proved right on many occasions,” the minister said.

  The prime minister grimaced at the tabletop, then said decisively, “Very well, Bonham. Make your document, and we’ll send it through the usual channels.”

  Harry rose to his feet and bowed. “It will be my pleasure, sir. You’ll have it in the morning. Gentlemen, I wish you good afternoon.”

  He strode to the door and attained the relative peace of the corridor with a sigh of relief. A passing ensign saluted him. Harry made a halfhearted gesture in response and hurried to his own office. The task would take him about two hours using a code that he’d used before, with a few minor changes that might puzzle the French decoders for a short while. But nothing arduous…then he would be free.

  Free to plan his next meeting with Nell.

  For the first time that he could remember, his utter concentration on his work had been invaded by errant memories. Her scent, the feel of her hair, the softness of her skin, the luscious moist warmth of her sex. The folds of flesh that had opened to his touch, the urgent press of her loins as her climax had neared. The way her eyes took on the depth and glow of sapphires as she held his gaze, drawing his self into hers as she drew his body within her.

  He had made love to many women, but he’d never experienced anything like those two hours with Nell.

  Anne. No, there had been only duty there. She had not enjoyed their lovemaking, and so he had not either. Of course he hadn’t known about Jeffrey Vibart. Had he known, he might have felt less responsible for his wife’s clear lack of enthusiasm for the act of love.

  He slammed the door to his office behind him as he went in. It was a cramped space befitting a man whose work was basically unacknowledged. It was war work that carried no honor, no grandeur, no martyrdom, and as such was regarded as a dirty necessity, one that didn’t have to be openly designated.

  He sat at his scratched desk, sharpened a quill, and began work.

  It was dark when he’d finished. He folded the parchment and opened the door to the corridor. “Stewart?”

  “Yes, Lord Bonham.” A young man appeared instantly from a door opposite, his hair tousled, his myopic eyes blinking behind spectacles, his black coat seemingly coated with a fine layer of dust. “Is it finished, sir?”

  “Finished,” Harry affirmed, handing him the document. “Check it through thoroughly in case I’ve made a mistake.”

  “You never make mistakes, sir,” the young man said with a degree of reverence.

  Harry smiled wearily. “There’s always a first time, Stewart. You know the code, make sure there are no slips, and then send it down the usual channels.”

  “At once, my lord. You’ll be at home if I need to check anything with you?”

  “I’ll be asleep, Stewart, so be absolutely certain your questions are necessary before you wake me,” Harry warned. He was smiling, but his assistant was in no doubt as to the seriousness of the warning.

  “Yes, sir.” He disappeared into his own cubbyhole.

  Harry stretched, hearing his shoulders crack. He needed fresh air and exercise b
efore he could sleep. And he needed sleep before he could see Nell.

  Nigel stared down at his hand of cards, trying to remember what card the banker had laid down last. His head seemed full of fluff. He couldn’t think straight. He was aware of the soft voices of the groom porters calling the odds, the sibilant swish of cards being dealt, the brilliant illumination of the candelabra throwing light across the baize tables, the slightly raised voices as players gestured with an empty glass to a servant hovering with a decanter.

  He had never played in a gaming hell before. Mac had told him that Pickering Place was the most exclusive hell. Everyone who was anyone played here. But Nigel had not seen at the tables Viscount Bonham, or any of the gentlemen who seemed the viscount’s especial friends.

  His head ached. He laid down the queen of hearts and watched the banker cover it with the king. He had no idea how much he’d lost as he scrawled yet another IOU. He felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up into the face of a man he hadn’t seen before.

  “A word with you, Mr. Dagenham,” the man said courteously, but the hand was tight on his shoulder, and Nigel saw that he was flanked by two other dark-clad gentlemen.

  Nigel was aware his smile was feeble as he said with an appearance of composure, “Of course. What can I do for you?” He rose from the table, twitching the hand from his shoulder, and taking out his snuffbox.

  “Perhaps we could talk in private,” the man said, waiting while Nigel took a pinch of snuff that he didn’t want. “If you’d be so kind as to follow me.” He gestured to a door at the side of the room.

  Nigel followed him, numbed by the sense of inevitability. He followed the three men into a small inner chamber, and the man who had spoken to him said pleasantly, “May I offer you a glass of cognac, Mr. Dagenham?”

  “Thank you,” Nigel said, hearing his voice as if it came from somewhere outside himself. He took the glass offered to him and declined the seat also offered.

  His interlocutor smiled, but it was not the nicest smile. “We seem to have a little problem, Mr. Dagenham. These, I believe, are all yours.”

  Nigel saw with a shock that the man held a stack of IOUs. “Not tonight,” he stammered. “It’s not possible I ran those up tonight.”

  “No, of course not,” the other said in soothing tones as he riffled the papers as if they were a pack of cards. “Not tonight, no. But…uh…over the last few weeks, shall we say?”

  Nigel swallowed, his mind trying to grasp the fact that this man appeared to be holding all his IOUs garnered at the tables in every gaming club in Mayfair. “How…how did you get those?” he managed at last.

  The man smiled and laid them down on the desk. “Don’t worry about that, Mr. Dagenham. Let’s concern ourselves more with how you intend to pay them.”

  Nigel glanced around the room. There seemed to be no way out apart from the door behind him, and the two other men stood on either side of that door. There were no windows, and the lamp on the desk threw an uncertain light.

  “What business is it of yours?” he demanded, finding strength in desperation. “I understand that my debts in this place might be of interest to you, but those…” He flung a hand in a gesture that he hoped was carelessly dismissive. “Those can have nothing to do with you.”

  The man looked a little sorrowful. “Ah, well I have to inform you, Mr. Dagenham, that you are unfortunately mistaken. I acquired these debts of honor.” He raised the papers and waved them in a gesture rather similar to Nigel’s own. “And I am now your creditor.” His eyes narrowed suddenly. “And I ask you, again, how you intend to settle your debts, sir.”

  Nigel licked his lips. Nothing here made any sense. He had gambled in all the clubs of the ton. In White’s and Watier’s and Brookes’s. The most elite members of society held his notes. So how had those notes ended up in a hell on Pickering Place in the hands of a man who was not, most definitely not, a gentleman?

  “I don’t understand,” he said. “Give me my notes!”

  The man tucked them away in a drawer in the desk. “I can’t do that, sir. These belong to me.” He gave Nigel a flickering smile. “You should be grateful, sir. Your debts of honor are all paid, as, indeed, is your debt to Havant and Green. Your credit is good…except here.”

  Nigel struggled to grasp the fact that all his debts had been cleared. It explained why when he’d ventured into White’s the previous day he had not been ostracized, something he’d been terrified of. “Why?” he demanded. “Why would you settle my debts?”

  “Ah, well someone else can explain that to you, sir.” The man smiled his flickering smile and turned a key in the drawer where he’d placed Nigel’s IOUs. “If you’d wait here, sir, he’ll join you immediately.”

  Chapter 15

  HARRY DISMOUNTED AND HANDED the reins of his horse to Eric. “Take him home, I’ll walk back,” he instructed before ascending the stairs to the front door of the house on Cavendish Square. He raised the knocker and let it fall, then stepped back, waiting. It was always interesting to see who would open this door. One of the women, or the taciturn and disapproving Morecombe.

  He was kept waiting for long enough to know that it would be the retainer, eventually. Nell and her friends tended to be much swifter in their responses. The door creaked open, and, as he’d expected, Morecombe peered at him through the narrow aperture.

  “Aye?” he demanded.

  “Is Lady Dagenham within, Morecombe?” Harry asked, pushing the door wide and stepping inside past the retainer. He took off his hat and tossed it onto the bench.

  “She could be,” Morecombe said. “Haven’t seen her go out.”

  “Then perhaps you’d announce me.” Harry offered a genial smile as he shrugged out of his greatcoat. “Viscount Bonham, Morecombe,” he reminded gently when the man stood seemingly irresolute, gazing blankly at him.

  “Oh, aye.” Morecombe nodded. “The ladies are in the kitchen.” He shuffled off to the nether regions of the house, leaving Harry standing in the hall.

  Harry shook his head in resignation and looked around, noting the polish and the wax and the luster of the chandelier. Matters had improved considerably on Cavendish Square. He took a look in the salon and nodded his approval. He was about to investigate the dining room on the far side of the hall when he heard the step he’d been waiting for.

  Cornelia emerged from the gloom of the corridor behind the stairs that led to the kitchen. She paused for an instant before stepping into the full light of the hall, gathering herself. Then she came forward, hand outstretched.

  “Lord Bonham, we’ve missed you the last few days.” Her voice was socially polite, her smile the same, but her eyes told a different story.

  “Ma’am.” He took her hand and kissed it, his gaze holding hers for an instant. “If it had been possible, I would not have been absent so long.”

  “Ah?” She tilted her head to one side and regarded him with a quizzical smile. He was as always a vision of understated elegance in fawn buckskin riding britches and a dark green coat. “Business, sir?”

  “Unfortunately,” he agreed, still holding her hand. He could feel the tremor in her fingers, and his own closed more tightly over hers. “A nuisance, but unavoidable.”

  “I see. How unusual, my lord. Most gentlemen about town manage to avoid unavoidable business.”

  A smile licked his lips. “And what makes you think, my lady, that I fall into that idle category?”

  “A foolish error, forgive me,” she returned, a tinge of color blossoming on her high cheekbones. “Experience should have taught me better.”

  “I would think so,” he said solemnly. “Did you receive the list of names I sent you?”

  “Yes, and we’re most grateful,” she said, finally taking back her hand. “Come into the parlor. May I offer you a glass of sherry?”

  “Thank you.” He followed her into the shabby informality of the parlor. The tension in the air was a palpable force, a wicked energy that flowed between them, made all the
more exciting by this game of ignorance. “Where are Lady Farnham and Lady Livia?”

  “Liv is walking the dogs, and Ellie is making junket for Franny,” Cornelia said, pouring two glasses of sherry. The mundane statement brought them both down to earth, but even so did little to dissipate the tension. She handed him a glass and raised her own to her lips.

  “How is the dressmaking going?” Harry inquired. Cornelia was wearing one of her usual plain round gowns, her hair twisted into a heavy chignon on her nape, nothing about her indicating a smidgen of interest in fashion.

  She was abruptly aware of her unmodish appearance. “Oh, rather well,” she said airily. “You wouldn’t believe it to see us now, but we all three have magnificent outfits. We simply await the opportunity to burst upon the town in all our finery.”

  He laughed a little. He wanted to reach for her, pull her to him, run his hands over her body, reminding himself of its indentations and curves. He could catch her scent, lavender and rosewater, and beneath just the hint of female arousal.

  “Nell,” he said softly, his eyes narrowed. “Nell?”

  “No.” She put out her hands as if to ward him off. “Don’t speak in that tone, Harry. It’s hard enough to hold myself together without that. And anyone could walk in.”

  He bowed his head in acknowledgment. “I will come to you tonight.”

  “No,” she said, but without conviction.

  Before he could question her denial, the door opened. Aurelia came in holding a jelly mold. “Nell, would you believe…oh, Lord Bonham. We were wondering where you’d been hiding.”

  “Nowhere, Lady Farnham,” he said, raising her free hand to his lips. He glanced interrogatively at what she held in her other hand.

  “It’s a jelly mold,” Aurelia said. “I thought it was in the shape of a rabbit, but—” She began to laugh. “It’s too absurd, but what on earth was Aunt Sophia doing with this in her kitchen?” She held up the mold.