She sat frozen on the chaise longue, turning pale. For a moment, Aidan feared that the paper might include some truth.
She slowly shook her head. “Treason? No one was more English than Tom, all king and country. We stayed abroad so long only because I wished it. Tom would have come home years ago. Then later, he was sick.” Her voice drifted off. “Why would someone kill a dying man? It makes no sense. And I . . . I never would have harmed Tom.”
Suddenly all her stoic reserve felt a fragile wall. Her shoulders began to tremble as if she had just come in from a cold night. Aidan placed his hand on her shoulder, its weight and warmth offering her some calm. But the touch was too much, and the contact set her weeping.
“I’m sorry, Sophia. When I opened the packet and saw the paper, I didn’t know what to think. . . .” He sat beside her, pulling her into his chest, letting her weep, and brushing her hair softly with his hand. “I believe you. But you are right: it’s time to return to London. We’ll leave in the morning, and when we arrive, I’ll set Aldine to investigate who might be spreading such malicious gossip.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Charters scanned the bar. Mostly old seamen and soldiers, hungry by the look of them. Now that the wars were over, too many wounded soldiers languished without employment or family. He didn’t see the man he’d come to meet, one of the proprietors of a gambling hell with extensive connections. Charters had been wary when the meeting had been set for outside the hell, wondering if it were an ambush.
“You might want to sit down, sir. . . .”
Charters stopped and turned. A light-haired man in his forties, one arm bandaged, sat at a three-legged table, the ground around him covered with wood shavings. The man picked up a new piece of wood, and Charters watched a shape emerge.
“I beg your pardon,” Charters stated.
“I been watching you. Wasn’t sure I knew you before tonight. But now I’m sure. We served together in the wars.” The soldier’s hands were steady, despite the appearance of a damaged arm.
“I didn’t serve in the wars.” Charters watched the wood turn. A round body with a long neck appeared, then two sharp cuts gave the head a beak.
“Depends on how you define service. Maybe you didn’t do service to crown or country. But you served a cause, all the same.” The soldier never looked up from his carving.
Charters wished he could see the color of the thin man’s eyes or his expression. Two long legs began to emerge from the wood. A heron, Charters realized. He might well know this man. He pulled out a chair. “I’m sitting. And I’m listening.”
The man laughed. “It’s as I expected. You were always a cold one. Waiting until you had enough information before you acted.” He turned the bird to smooth the edges.
“I’m not sure I have enough information yet. Who do you think I am?” Charters picked up a piece of whittling from the table and took a penknife from his pocket. He began to carve as well.
“You saved my life once. I expect I’ll be saving yours tonight.” The man’s hands were still calloused and worn, but his movements with the knife created delicate lines.
He’d been a big man, strong. Charters tried to imagine him hale and hearty, instead of wiry and thin.
“I suppose I should buy us dinner. I’d hate to have an empty stomach.” Charters lifted his hand to the barmaid and indicated two dinners. He wouldn’t eat, but the soldier might want both.
The men fell into silence. The wood was soft, easy to carve. Charters made a fat ship, with a raised deck at the front and rear. Then he scored the boat’s sides to signify cannon bays and windows.
The dinners came. Charters saw part of a naval tattoo on the lower part of the man’s arm when he raised bread to his mouth. Though it was clear he was hungry, he didn’t fall on his food. Instead, he ate slowly, watching the room.
“A man’s sitting in the back corner across from the bar.” The seaman didn’t look up when he spoke.
“I saw him when I came in.” Charters focused on his design, the line of the stern, the lift of the prow.
“He’s been asking after you. Seems you have some dealings he doesn’t like.” The man tested the base of his bird, seeing if it would stand on its own.
“I don’t know your name.” Charters turned to a second scrap of wood, made a mast with a small sail attached.
“My friends call me Flute.” The man brushed his mouth, not with his sleeve but with a handkerchief from his pocket.
“What should I call you?” Charters twisted a hole in the wood and set the mast.
Flute watched Charters’s carving take shape. “I knew you’d remember me.”
“Hard to forget dragging a man out of the ocean, then having him curse you for its being too cold.” Charters pushed his plate across the table.
“It was a nice fire you built, though,” Flute offered. He began to eat the second meal.
“I’m still not sure why I did it,” Charters acknowledged.
“I wasn’t sure at the time, but I was real grateful. Didn’t much want to drown that day.” Flute trimmed just a bit more off the bird’s base and pushed it toward Charters. “A memento for you of a good ship.”
“A good ship,” Charters repeated, surprised that he found conversation so easy with the former midshipman. He pushed the carved ship across the table to Flute. “I find I’m in need of an assistant; the pay may not be much at first, but I reward loyalty.”
“I’ve been listening to that man’s complaints for most of the last week. If half of what he’s saying is true, you need discretion as much as loyalty.” Flute smiled. “As for loyalty, I came home to a country that has already forgotten I served her; I serve myself now.”
“That’s the words of a revolutionary,” Charters said. “That kind of talk can get you transported, or worse.”
“Then call me a revolutionary,” Flute said, his expression turning hard. “I serve no king.”
“Then we’ll serve no king together. Now, how do we get out of here without either of us getting killed?” Charters asked, slipping the heron into his pocket.
“I’ve already worked that out.” Flute picked up the carved ship and smiled.
Chapter Thirty-Two
That night Sophia slept fitfully, her dreams only incoherent flashes. Tom in their library in Italy was showing her the pages of his manuscript. He pointed at the titles of the plants in her illustrations, but when she tried to read the words, they shifted to gibberish. The plants held a message. If she could only read the words or recognize the plants themselves, she was sure she would know something important.
The dream shifted: images of Aidan angry, the lines of his face hard, pushing her away. Flashes of Tom searching for Ian, but not finding him. The body of a dark-haired child floating in a pond, and Tom’s voice calling out to her.
She awoke, her pillow wet with tears.
* * *
Aidan rode outside the carriage. To keep watch, he said. But with the slanderous accusations in the newspapers, something subtle had shifted between them.
He’d worn so many faces in the past weeks, the solicitous old friend, the protective duke, the concerned elder brother, the attentive lover, and even, for some fleeting moments, a man she didn’t yet know, one who was all of those things, but somehow new. She’d first glimpsed that man in the folly when he’d looked on his own portrait.
Yet with the renewed threats, he had reverted to his role as the detached former officer planning some strategy. She wondered which man—if any—would come back to her in the end.
The countryside passed beyond the carriage window, the rolling hills, the thick green of the hedgerows of the enclosed land, the glimpses of open pasture beyond the stands of trees. She realized she had missed the English countryside, the way the light suffused a scene rather than shining directly on it. She’d loved the Italian sun, its warmth, its angles, but she’d missed the soft rain of an English morning, the gentle breeze of the afternoon, the smell of wet hay. Sh
e closed her eyes and listened to what seemed like purely English sounds: wood pigeons, collared doves, thrushes, jackdaws, the bleating of the goats at the crossroad.
She had believed that she could live to old age without coming back to England. But in truth, she had needed to come home.
When they finally reached London, Aidan escorted her into her hall. He consulted briefly with Dodsley, then took his leave, claiming an important meeting. He had showed her the newspaper, but not the letter from Walgrave that accompanied it.
Once Aidan left, she climbed the stairs to the family wing and Luca’s bedroom. Luca answered at the first tap, and a lithe child with thick black curls ran past him to embrace her. “Sophie, Sophie, Sophie!” Liliana hugged Sophia through her skirts, then hid in them as a game, making Sophia turn and turn to “find” her.
“Luca almost made me go to bed, but I knew you’d come today. He wrote you day before yesterday, so I knew you’d come today.”
Sophia picked the child up and hugged her to her chest, kissing her forehead. “I had to come. My sweet Lily was waiting for me. But it’s long past time for you to be sleeping.” She carried the child to the bed. “I see your brother has given up his room for you.”
“I’d rather be in the nursery with Ian. Where’s Ian?” Sophia tucked the coverlet under Lily’s chin and made her giggle.
Sophia considered her words, then decided Lily had seen enough to be told the truth. “There’s a man who knew your father, but didn’t like him. I was afraid he might steal Ian away, so I hid Ian with my cousins. So, I want you to stay very close to Luca or Dodsley, so the man can’t steal you either.”
“What about you, Sophie? Can I stay close to you?”
“Yes, my darling, you may. But for now—just for a little while—I want you to be very careful. Don’t talk to anyone that I haven’t introduced you to . . . and if someone tries to talk to you . . .”
“I’m to run and tell you or Luca.”
“Yes.”
“Luca already told me, and Mama told me I had to mind whatever you tell me to do. Do you like my English, Sophie? Luca has made me practice every day. No Italian.”
“Your English is beautiful.” Sophia remembered her determination to rear Lily as her mother had her. “Ian has a tutor, Mr. Grange; would you like me to ask Mr. Grange to teach you too?”
“Just like Ian?”
“Just like Ian.”
“Molto buono.” Lily grimaced and corrected herself. “I’d like that.”
“Then I’ll write and see if we can begin tomorrow. Sleep now.” Sophia brushed the child’s hair back from her face. Within moments Lily was asleep.
Luca understood the dangers. Whenever possible, they were to stay out of sight—the fewer people who knew he had returned the safer. Luca, devoted to his niece, proclaimed with honest fervor that he would not leave her side. He would play with her in the nursery unless Mr. Grange was available to tutor her.
Before she retired to bed, Sophia reviewed the mail Dodsley had stored in the study. A pile of invitations. She opened each one quickly, making two piles, future regrets and past apologies. Until the blackmailer was discovered, she would not be making social calls.
Before she retired, she wrote Mr. Grange a lucrative proposal, asking if he would be interested in educating her ward Lily as if she were a boy.
* * *
Walgrave’s letter had warned that new information might implicate her ladyship and had summoned Aidan to a secret meeting at his home. Aidan assumed that the new information was more than just society-page gossip.
Walgrave’s study was darkened when Aidan arrived. A low fire burned on the grate; a single lamp was placed next to an empty chair. Aidan paused, letting his eyes adjust to the half-light. From his armed chair, Walgrave motioned Aidan to sit. From the position of the lamp, Aidan would be illuminated, but would be unable to see past its light.
Walgrave stood and tapped on the butler’s entrance. A moment later, the door opened, and a figure entered the room. It moved deliberately but slowly to a chair set well in the dark. Aidan listened as he watched: the thump of a cane, the twist of the body as a foot dragged behind. A veteran, he thought, and then wondered, of what battles?
He acknowledged the wisdom of the man’s entrance: had he been in the room when Aidan arrived, the light from the door or the lamp between them might have revealed more to Aidan’s view than this method did.
As soon as the third man was seated, Walgrave spoke. “If anyone ever asks, you and I met alone.”
“Understood.”
“Someone in the Home Office owes you a favor. He has asked for me to convey a warning.”
“That could be many people. Anyone in particular?”
“I’m only at liberty to divulge that promptly at eight a.m. two officers of the court will arrive at Lady Wilmot’s house to search for documents tying her husband to instances of treason abroad. In particular they will be looking for evidence Lord Wilmot was involved in the death of a British courier in Naples.”
“What am I expected to do with this information?”
“They have it on good authority that the papers will be found in Lord Wilmot’s library. In fact, the informant is so trusted that a warrant has already been issued for Lady Wilmot’s arrest.”
“I’ve already reported there’s nothing there.”
“That’s why you are receiving this warning. You have a little more than eight hours. I suggest you find those papers before the officers arrive at Lady Wilmot’s door.”
“Is there no way to stop this search?”
“People aren’t sympathetic to traitors, particularly aristocratic ones. If you use your influence to keep Lady Wilmot’s house from being searched, and her enemy decides to place other advertisements in the daily post indicating your interference, she will appear guilty of something. With the times as they are, she will become a target for the discontented.”
“She won’t like this.”
“I’ll come with you. I visited the Wilmots in Naples. She won’t believe me in collusion with whatever ill designs you have on her.”
“Ill designs?” Aidan shook his head in exasperation. First Malcolm, now Walgrave.
“We can discuss that later. Her enemy is clever enough to gain the assent of someone high enough in government to approve the search of the home of a peer. She’s in trouble.”
Aidan nodded. “We should be going then; we have little time.”
“I’ll meet you in the hall,” Walgrave replied.
After Aidan shut the door behind him, Walgrave turned to the man in the dark. “Are you sure meeting with him was a good idea, sir?”
“I wanted to see him again. Besides, once you are dead, no one expects you to be alive. With this broken body, I could pass him on the street, and he would never give me a glance.”
“Won’t he wonder why someone in the Home Office is watching out for him?”
“He was a good agent; he has many friends. He will assume that I can’t reveal myself for other reasons.”
“Wouldn’t he prefer to know you are alive?”
“Perhaps. But if he knew I were alive, he’d feel compelled to step aside, to relinquish the dukedom in my favor. That’s the last responsibility I want.”
“But it is your right.”
“The king accepts my desire to live in shadows. He gives me an ample stipend, and I have no interest in being on display. As far as anyone will ever know, Benjamin Somerville died at Waterloo.”
* * *
Aidan and Walgrave arrived at Sophia’s house shortly after midnight. The curtains had been drawn in all the downstairs rooms, including the library. It was unlikely anyone would be watching the back of Lady Wilmot’s house, but Aidan wished to be cautious, and Walgrave concurred. They took the entrance from the side yard directly into the kitchen. There waking Dodsley, Aidan instructed the butler to keep watch at Lady Wilmot’s bedroom, and if she woke, to call for him.
An hour later, W
algrave opened a book supportive of the radical revolutionaries in Italy and found in it a small packet of pages carrying the broken seal of the British consul in Naples.
“I’ve found them.” Walgrave held out the papers. Dark rust-colored stains had caused the ink to run until the words were illegible.
“Blood?”
“The courier was stabbed several times in the chest before his body was cast in the river. He must have been carrying the papers close to his heart, and the blood . . .”
“. . . has made them unreadable.” Aidan placed a second set of papers on the desk. “I’ve found something as well. Bank notes. Forged.”
Walgrave picked up a one-pound note and held it to the light. “If it’s a forgery, it’s a very good one. How do you know?”
“Neither these notes nor those papers were here when last I searched.”
“So if we hadn’t found them first, she’d be a traitor and a forger. The officers could allow her to remain at home with the courier’s papers alone, but the forged notes would require her to be committed to jail until a hearing.” Walgrave ran his hand through his hair in consternation. “Whoever has crafted this net wishes to destroy her quite thoroughly.”
Aidan suppressed a desire to curse. “I think it’s time to talk to Lady Wilmot.”
* * *
When Sophia came downstairs, she took in the mess in the library in one sweeping look. Her resentment at the destruction and the invasion was palpable. This was fully the Sophia he knew in their youth, alive with ire and passion.
She looked at Aidan with barely concealed fury. “To what”—she clipped her words—“do I owe the pleasure of your company? If you wished some reading material, Dodsley could have delivered anything you wished to your homes.”
“My lady, I think . . .” Walgrave started forward to appease her, but Aidan held him back with his hand.
She turned on him. “You already knew what was in this library. We searched it together. If you believed there was something more to be found, why did you not call for me to help?”
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