by Sandra Heath
“Then ... you believe me?” Hope tried to stir through her, but she forced it away. Victory was not hers yet, not by any means.
“I certainly believe everything you’ve said, although, like you, without proof ...”
“At least promise that you will confront her about Freddie Forrester-Phipps.”
He nodded. “I will.”
Ellie gazed at him. “And what will you do when she denies it all and then dissolves into more virginal sobs, quivering lips, and helplessness?” she asked softly.
He couldn’t answer.
Ellie went to pick up the candle. “I think you are quite right, Athan,” she said, her voice barely audible because she was so choked with tears, “things must be completely ended between us. Chance tried its best, but Fleur Tudor and your sense of duty have combined to play a winning hand.”
“Don’t leave like this, Ellie,” he begged, taking a step after her.
She turned, and something in her eyes halted him. “Fleur did tell me about the post with Lady Brecon, you know; indeed, she threatened all manner of things if I didn’t take it, including telling you of some particularly disgusting and untrue things about Uncle John and me.”
Athan stared. “Surely that cannot be!”
“Oh, it can, Athan, it can. She told me she had spoken to your agent about it and persuaded him to write a letter that would be sent if I did not bow to her wishes about Lady Brecon. Well, I didn’t bow to her wishes, so I imagine the letter was sent. You, of course, have returned earlier than anticipated, but believe me, she will tell you about the rumors, although not that she invented them, of course. Oh, yes, poor dear Fleur is quite ruthless when it comes to getting what she wants.
“And I, fool, had actually been cowed into silence about everything. Well, you have cured me of that. Anger and outrage are sterling remedies for stupidity, and although I realize that I may not have helped Uncle John’s situation by parting from you like this, I’m glad I’ve spoken my mind.”
“Nothing you could ever say or do to me would make any difference to my regard for your uncle, who I know would not be involved in the things that appear to have been suggested. Heaven knows, if there’s one thing John Bailey wouldn’t do, it is conduct an affair of any sort with a woman! And even if he were to be so inclined, it wouldn’t be with his own niece. As for you, my darling Ellie, I know your qualities as I know my own, and so I would never give such a filthy rumor a hearing. So if Fleur, or anyone, repeats such a thing to me, they will receive short shrift, of that you may be sure. Please, Ellie, what more can I say?”
“Please? Please what, Athan? You came here to end whatever it is that has been between us. Well, you have accomplished your purpose, and from now on we will be as formal toward each other as we should have been all along. There isn’t anything more to be said, except, perhaps, that I cannot stay here at Nantgarth.”
“Don’t say that,” he said quickly, knowing he could not bear to lose her.
“You ask too much, Athan. How can I remain here now? I have said things that I should have kept to myself, and now I no longer have the courage or fortitude to exist here in misery while your new life with her unfolds at the castle. I must leave; surely you can see that? Perhaps the best thing after all would be for me to write to Lady Brecon.”
“And become a governess? Oh, Ellie!”
“Why not? It is better than being a scullery maid.”
“I love you, Ellie.”
She looked at him in the swaying light of the candle. “Please go, Athan,” she said softly.
“Ellie ...”
“Just go, for this achieves nothing. Your decision has been made, and so has mine.”
He considered standing his ground, even considered going to her and forcing kisses upon her unwilling lips that would make her change her mind, but her gaze forbade everything. With a heart that was suddenly even heavier than it had been when he arrived, he turned and left.
The candle fluttered as she hurried to push the bolts across the doors, as if by so doing she could end this brief but vital chapter of her life, but she could only fumble with the cold metal. Her fingers seemed incapable of performing such a simple act, and her eyes were blinded with tears.
The candle slipped from her fingers and extinguished as it fell with a clatter upon the cobbled floor. She pressed her hot forehead to the door, her eyes tightly closed as she tried to compose herself. It was over, over, and she had to get on with the rest of her life.
She closed her eyes and sank slowly to her knees, careless of the chill stone. Wishful thinking could be so cruel. In her secret heart of hearts she had believed what appeared in the teacup, believed that she and Athan would one day share a wedding night, but now she knew it would never be so.
Then, as she knelt there so brokenly on the cobbles, it seemed she could hear Gwilym’s voice in the distance. Call him back, Miss Ellie. Call him back, for all is not yet lost....
Her eyes flew open again, and she scrambled to her feet to open the door. But as she ran out into the misty dawn she could already hear the diminishing sound of Athan’s horse along the lane. He had gone back to the castle, back to Fleur.
* * *
Gwilym stood by St. Dwynwen’s well, his face contorted with concentration. Up here the first rays of the sun were beginning to finger the eastern horizon, but down in the valleys everything was still swathed in mist.
“Call him back, Miss Ellie,” he said softly. “Call him back, for all is not yet lost....” But he too could hear the echo of hooves in the hidden lane, and when he looked at the handkerchief that was spread upon the well, it remained very still. A chance of happiness had just been there for the taking at Nantgarth House ... but had been dashed aside by folly.
Chapter Twenty-one
The next night found Athan struggling to appear as if all was well, Fleur exulting that her hold upon him seemed as strong as ever, and Ellie worrying John by retiring early to her bed, from where he could hear her stifled sobs. In London, however, events were in progress at the Tower that were about to have the entire capital in uproar, and that would affect the lives of everyone at Castle Griffin and Nantgarth House.
As promised to Valentin, Major Carver started the fire that was intended to be at its height at midnight, when the Thames tide was at its fullest flow. It was half past ten when a sentry on duty near the Martin Tower, where the jewel house was located, noticed the unusual croaking and flapping of the famous ravens. Then his attention was drawn to a billow of smoke coming from an open window. He raised the alarm by firing his musket, and the entire complement of Inniskilling Fusiliers immediately turned out.
Carver found himself briefly in command, his senior officer having been invited out to dinner, so he himself ordered the nine Tower fire engines to be brought into action. But soon flames began to lick into the night, and engines from all over London were sent for. He requested floating engines on the river, and sent to another barracks for men to control the vast crowds that soon gathered on Tower Hill to watch a conflagration that no one had ever thought to see.
There was nothing the brave major did not do to try to save the Tower of London from disaster. He would be highly commended for his strength in the face of adversity, and would even be promoted, and all for a fire he’d started himself because he was being blackmailed.
His commanding officer returned at last, and took over, paying heed to Carver’s advice that the jewels and regalia were about to come under threat in the Martin Tower, and should be carried to safety at the Governor’s house. An urgent search was made for the keys to the sturdy metal cages containing the jewels, but they could not be found, so crowbars were used. The precious items were carried across the flame-reddened grass of Tower Green, where acrid smoke drifted and the soldiers’ hurrying figures loomed like wraiths.
Carver went too, of course, seeing to it that everything was taken into a delegated room. He oversaw everything, and was there to carefully palm the red diamond when it wa
s placed on a table with other small jewels. No one saw the swift movement of his hand, or missed the jewel, because the soldier who’d brought it was already hurrying back to the Martin Tower to see if there was anything else to be rescued.
It was almost midnight when the collapse of a floor in the tower where the fire originated caused such confusion and extra alarm that the good major was able to slip away unnoticed. There was so much smoke that he could barely be seen as he slipped out of the Tower and made his way swiftly down toward the stairs, where Valentin waited in a small rowboat.
The boat swayed as Valentin stood, an anonymous cloaked figure in the darkness. Carver descended the steps to where the high tide lapped, and now and then the row-boat nudged the stonework. After glancing around, to be sure there was no one near enough to see what followed, he took the diamond from his pocket and held it up for Valentin to see.
“The fake, if you please,” he said.
Valentin produced the counterfeit gem, and for a few moments both were in full view, glittering, red, and indistinguishable from each other. Then they changed hands and were once again hidden from view.
Carver lingered. “This is definitely the last I will hear of you or your uncle?”
“But of course, Major, for we are men of our word.” Valentin smiled, his teeth gleaming in the flame-ridden darkness.
A retort burned Carver’s lips, but he thought better of it, and simply inclined his head before turning to make his way back to the Governor’s house. But it was already too late. He reckoned without the vigilance of the soldier who’d brought the real diamond from the Martin Tower, and who had taken something else to the place of safety, only to immediately observe the diamond’s disappearance. After glancing all around, he mentioned it to the nearest officer, who also searched for any sign of it. Within minutes another alarm had been raised, this time for theft.
Valentin was already rowing away into the middle of the river, the diamond secured against his very heart. He heard the whistles and shouts of the fresh alarm, but didn’t realize what they signified.
Carver knew, however, and his dismay was huge. He hesitated, knowing he did not dare be caught with anything on his person. He drew briefly into the shadow of a deserted sentry box and, with one mighty throw, hurled the fake into the Thames. For a second it caught the light of the conflagration in the great fortress, then disappeared forever beneath the tidal waters.
Carver hurried back to his duties, blending among his fellow officers and men as if he’d never been away. His involvement in the diamond’s disappearance would never be known, although it would haunt him for the rest of his career. Fear of discovery would eat away at him and make him a very bitter man.
Valentin rowed right across the river to the curiously named Pickle Herring Stairs on the opposite shore. Crowds of onlookers had congregated there too, but no one paid him much heed as he made the boat fast and then pushed up through the press to the equally curiously named Pickle Herring Street.
There, some way from the stairs, a hackney coach waited for him, the driver having been paid very well for his patience. Soon Prince Valentin Andreyev and the famous red diamond were being conveyed back into London, across London Bridge and through the City toward Mayfair, where he alighted as if from an evening in the stews of Southwark. Feigning inebriation, he wove unsteadily across the pavement to the front door of Athan’s Berkeley Square town house, and allowed the servants to take charge of him.
Later, as the London newspapers prepared headlines about the great fire at the Tower, and the audacious stealing of the famous diamond, Valentin lounged comfortably on his bed, still wearing his boots, and drinking vodka from a bottle. He smiled as he brandished the bottle at the air. “Well done, Uncle Paul. Now all we have to do is get the little red bauble out of Britain and into the czar’s hands.”
The first steps toward accomplishing that would commence tomorrow when he traveled to Wales. All that was to be hoped was that the china maker proved as easy to coerce as Carver, and that he performed his unwanted task with equal ingenuity.
Come the following day, the newspapers would be filled with claim and counterclaim about events at the Tower. Had the fire started accidentally, or was it arson? Had the diamond been stolen, or had it simply rolled away underneath something and was waiting to be found? No one would believe the latter possibility, of course, because everyone knew the diamond was one of a pair, and that the Czar of All the Russias not only possessed the other, but wished to have both.
So vociferous and aggressive would the press become in the coming days, and so heated its accusations against the czar, that the Russian ambassador, Vorontzov, would feel obliged to lodge an official complaint. So too would Novosiltzov, the special envoy Alexander had sent to rally British support against Napoleon. For Prime Minister William Pitt and his cabinet, the whole thing would threaten to become a full-blown diplomatic incident of sufficient magnitude to render cohesion against Napoleon impossible.
And all because of the double-dealing machinations of a slippery St. Petersburg courtier who may indeed have wished to see his nephew and heir reinstated to imperial favor, but whose real purpose was to destroy the Englishman who’d once stolen the heart of a handsome young man named Nikolai Trepov.
* * *
As the flames and smoke at the Tower lit the skies above the capital, at Castle Griffin a newborn foal, still wet and bewildered by her new life, struggled to her long legs, encouraged all the while by the gentle nudges of her dam. Lantern light slanted across the stable as Athan and Gwilym watched. They grinned at each other, for it had been a long and difficult birth, requiring all Gwilym’s skills, but all was now well, the mare was unharmed, and her new daughter was perfect.
“Let’s hope this scene is repeated in St. Petersburg,” Athan said, knowing that the stud’s reputation hung upon such things.
“It will be, my lord, for I have chosen with care, and St. Dwynwen granted her blessing.”
“Would that the sainted lady bestowed her favor upon everything,” Athan murmured, half to himself, half to the night air beyond the stables. The stars were out, and it was very cold and still—as cold and still as his heart had been since he’d betrayed his love for Ellie. If ever a man was in a cleft stick, it was him. No one should ever have to choose between love and duty, for it was the most cruel choice in the world.
He’d made his decision, but could he abide by it? All he knew was how overjoyed he’d been to receive John Bailey’s message saying that he—and therefore Ellie—would definitely go to St. Petersburg after all. The voyage was several months away yet, but it would come, and with it the chance to be with Ellie again.
Gwilym looked at him. “St. Dwynwen smiled upon you, my lord, but then withdrew her blessing.”
“Mm? What was that?” Athan roused himself from his thoughts.
“She sent her eel, my lord. She helps animals ... and lovers.”
Athan straightened and regarded the housekeeper’s son more intently. “You know, don’t you, my horse-charming friend? You know about Miss Rutherford and me?”
Gwilym nodded. “Yes, my lord.”
“Am I still to marry Miss Tudor?” Please say I am not.....
Such a craven question should not have been asked, not even thought of, yet Athan couldn’t help himself. His desire to escape from the now unwanted match had been there since he’d met Ellie, but had become greater now that he knew how Fleur had conducted herself in his absence. He had also spoken to his agent, and knew that Fleur had indeed claimed to have heard vile rumors about the relationship between Ellie and her uncle. As a result, it was all he could do to be civil to Fleur, let alone gently disposed.
Gwilym’s eyes flickered to the stable entrance beyond Athan, as Fleur herself suddenly appeared there. She had put a warm cloak over her green silk dinner gown, and the diamond comb in her hair sparkled in the light from the lantern. Her breath was silvery as she came in.
“But of course you are to marry me,
Athan,” she said in a light, almost-kittenish tone that belied the stab of alarm she’d felt on arriving just in time to hear the question. She was aware of an inexplicable cooling in his manner over the past day, and was so troubled about it that she’d simply had to come out here to the stables, even though she loathed the very thought of observing the birth of a foal.
Athan turned to her, masking his dismay with a quick smile. “Forgive me, Fleur. I was just testing Gwilym’s power to predict.”
“Maybe he can tell us the exact date of our wedding,” she murmured, smiling as she came to link her arm through his. The scent of lilies coolly drifted over him, and there was something distinctly chill about the feminine rustle of her clothes.
“This is perhaps not a suitable moment for such a discussion,” he answered, knowing there would never be a suitable moment.
She managed to keep smiling and looked instead at the new foal. “How charming. What shall you call it?”
“Would you like her to be named after you?” Athan suggested.
“Well, I ...” Have that clumsy, gangling creature bear her name? Fleur thought not!
Gwilym glanced at her. “Perhaps Miss Tudor would prefer the foal to be called by the Welsh word for flower.”
“And what might that be?” Athan inquired, not being particularly accomplished in the language.
“Blodyn,” Gwilym answered. He didn’t know why the suggestion had entered his head, just that it had, and that it needed to be uttered. He was agreeably surprised by the effect his words had upon Fleur. Her breath caught, and her green eyes became visibly alarmed. Gwilym wondered why, but no answer came.
Athan pulled a face. “Fond as I am of all things Welsh, I cannot say that I much admire any of the female names that commence with Blod. I find them singularly unbecoming.”
Fleur remained ominously silent, and the gaze she darted at Gwilym was both frightened and poisonous. Then she changed the subject in a way so obvious that it was clumsy, and she could not hide the sudden unease in her voice. “How ... how long will you be out here, Athan?” she asked, clinging to his arm like a helpless kitten.
