A Lady of His Own

by Stephanie Laurens

  He closed his eyes. She paused, then asked the one question he’d hoped she wouldn’t, “Why?”

  He stifled a sigh. How had he allowed things to develop to this pass? Given the bafflement in her voice, he couldn’t very well not explain.

  “I…” Where to start? “The work I was engaged in, in Toulouse, involved…a great deal of deception. On my part, primarily, although sometimes, through my manipulation, others deceived others, too.”

  “I imagine spywork rather depends on deceit—if you hadn’t lied well, you would have died.”

  His wry smile was spontaneous; he opened his eyes, but didn’t look her way. Talking to her—someone who’d once known him so well—in darkness sufficiently complete that he couldn’t see her expression and knew she couldn’t see his, was strangely comforting, as if the dark gave them a degree of privacy in which they could say almost anything to each other in safety.

  “That’s true, but…” He paused, conscious that telling her the rest would be the first time he’d put his feelings into words. Decided it didn’t matter; it was the truth, his reality. “After spending thirteen years living a deception with lies as my daily bread, to return to the ton, to the artful smiles and glib comments, the sly falsity and insincerity, the glamour, the patent superficiality…” His face and tone hardened. “I couldn’t do it.

  “Those chits they want me to consider as my bride—they’re not so much witless as intentionally blind. They want to marry a hero, a wild and reckless handsome earl who everyone knows cares not a snap for anything.”

  Her laugh was short, incredulous. “You? A care-for-naught?”

  “So they believe.”

  She snorted. “Your brothers may have been the ones trained to the estates, but it was always you who knew this place—loved this place—best. You’re the one who knows every field, every tree, every yard.”

  He hesitated, then said, “Others don’t know that.”

  His deep rapport with the Abbey was why he’d retreated there, irrevocably sure that despite his desperate need for a wife, he couldn’t stomach a marriage of, if not outright deceit, then one built on politely feigned affection. Feigning anything of that ilk was now beyond him, while the thought of his wife being only superficially fond of him, smiling sweetly but in reality thinking of her next new gown…

  He drew in a deep breath. He knew she was watching him, but continued to stare out at the black night. “I can’t pretend anymore.”

  That was the crux of it, the source of the revulsion that had sent him flying from London to the one place he knew he belonged. The one place where he didn’t need to fabricate his emotions, where all was true, clear, and simple. He felt so much cleaner, so much freer, there.

  When he said nothing more, Penny looked away, into the darkness broken by the constant curtain of the rain. She knew without doubt that he’d spoken the truth; he might be able to lie to others, but he’d rarely succeeded with her. Tone, inflection, and a dozen tiny hints of stance and gesture were still there in her mind, still familiar—still real. Looking back, between them there never had been deceit or lies; misunderstanding or lack of perception yes, but those had been unintentional on both sides.

  What he’d revealed in the past minutes, over the past day, had reassured her, made her believe she could trust him. More, his words, his attitudes, had convinced her the man he now was was stronger, more hardheaded and clear-sighted, more committed to the values she valued, more rigid in adherence to the codes she believed important than the hellion of his youth had been.

  But she couldn’t yet speak; she still needed to think about what she knew to tell. That was still not clear in her mind. So she let the silence stretch. They were comfortable in the quiet dark; neither felt any need to speak.

  A light winked, far out in the night.

  “Did you see it?” she asked.

  “Yes. The Gallants are out.”

  She thought of Granville, thought of the nights he must have spent out on the waves. She could imagine him clinging to the side of a boat, a wild and reckless light in his eyes. If ever there had been a care-for-naught, it was he. “At Waterloo, did you hear anything of Granville?”

  “No.” After a moment, he asked, “Why?”

  “We never really heard, just that he’d died. Not how, or in what way.”

  She could almost hear him wondering why she’d asked; on the face of things, she and Granville hadn’t been all that close. She kept her counsel. He eventually asked, “Were you told in which region he was lost?”

  “Around Hougoumont.”

  “Ah.”

  “What do you know of it?” It was clear from his tone he knew something.

  “I wasn’t close, but it was the most fiercely contested sector in the whole battle. The French under Reille thought the farmstead an easy gain. They were wrong. The defenders of Hougoumont might well have turned the tide that day. Their defiance pricked the French commanders’ collective pride; they threw wave after wave of troops against it, totally out of proportion to the position’s strategic importance.” He paused, then more quietly added, “If Granville was lost near there, you can be certain he died a hero.”

  She wished—oh, how she wished—she could believe that.

  She asked no more, and he volunteered no more. They remained on the walk, watching the rain, listening to the steady downpour, the constant drum on the lead above, the merry gurgling in the gutters, the splatter as spouts of water hit the flagstones far below. Three more times they spotted flashes out at sea, out beyond the mouth of the estuary.

  At last, she stood; shaking out her skirts, she regarded him across the shadowed space. “Good night. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  He considered her for an instant—an instant in which she had no idea what he was thinking. Then he swept her a bow, all fluid masculine grace.

  “In the morning. Sleep tight.”

  She turned and left him, going through the archway into the west wing.

  At eight o’clock the next morning, she walked into the breakfast parlor, sat in the chair Filchett held for her, smiled her thanks, then looked up the table at Charles. He’d looked up when she’d entered, was watching her still.

  “Granville was involved.”

  Charles’s gaze flicked to Filchett.

  He stepped forward and lifted the coffeepot. “I’ll fetch some fresh coffee, my lord.”

  “Thank you.” The instant Filchett had left the room, closing the door behind him, Charles transferred his gaze to her. “What precisely do you mean?”

  She reached for the toast rack. “It’s Granville I’m protecting.”

  “He’s been dead for nearly a year.”

  “Not him himself, but Elaine and Emma and Holly. And even Constance, for all that she’s married. Myself, too, although the connection is less direct.” Elaine was Granville’s mother, Emma and Holly his younger, still-unmarried sisters. “If it becomes known Granville was a traitor…” Charles had unmarried sisters, too; she was sure she didn’t need to spell it out.

  “So Granville was the link to the smugglers.” He looked at her, not uncomprehending yet clearly not convinced. “Start at the beginning—why do you think Granville was a traitor?”

  Between bites of toast and jam, and sips of tea, she told him. Filchett didn’t return with the coffeepot, probably just as well.

  The frown remained in Charles’s eyes. “So you never had a chance to tax Granville with this?”

  “I had taxed him over what he was doing with the smuggling gangs—I’d known of his association with them for years, at least since he was fifteen. But of course I never got any answer other than that he was just larking about.” She paused, then added, “I never suspected there might be more to it until last November.”

  “Tell me again—your housekeeper knew of this priest hole?”

  “Yes. I gather Figgs has always known it was there, but that Papa and later Granville had insisted it be left alone, that they kept importan
t things in there they didn’t want the maids disturbing. So Figgs never told the maids, but when it came time to prepare the master bedchamber for Amberly’s first visit—he came in early December—Figgs thought it must be time to clean and dust in there, so she asked me if she should.”

  “When you went to check, did anyone go with you?”

  “No. Figgs told me how to open it—it’s easy enough if you know what to twist.”

  “And you found a large number of pillboxes.”

  She sighed. “ ‘A large number’ doesn’t adequately describe it, Charles. Trust me—Papa was a collector, but I never knew he had boxes like these. They’re…wonderful. Gorgeous. Some jewel-encrusted, others with beautiful miniatures, grisailles, and more. And I’ve never seen any of them before—not the ones on the shelves in the priest hole.”

  Setting down her teacup, she looked at him. “So where did he get them?”

  “Through the trade, collecting. Simply buying.”

  “I kept the estate accounts for all the years Granville was earl, and I checked the ledgers for the years before that. Yes, Papa did occasionally buy pillboxes, but those purchases were relatively few and far between, and, tellingly, those are the boxes in the library display cases. The boxes he bought, he kept openly. Why did he hide these others—so much more beautiful—so completely away? I didn’t know of them, and I’d swear no one else in the household other than Granville has seen them.”

  “A clandestine pillbox collection.”

  “Yes!” She narrowed her eyes at him. “There’s no viable conclusion other than that those hidden pillboxes were payment for something. And it’s something Granville knew about. But initially I couldn’t think of anything either Papa or Granville might have to ‘sell,’ as it were.”

  “Indeed. Neither Granville nor your father ever had access to sensitive information, the sort the French would pay for. So it can’t—”

  “Wait!” She held up a hand. “I said initially—there’s more. After finding the boxes, I shut up the priest hole and put Figgs off. Amberly and Nicholas arrived; the visit went smoothly. Then, on the last day they were there, I heard from the grooms that Nicholas had been asking after Granville’s friends, those he spent time with in the neighborhood, where he went in the evenings when on his own, what taverns he frequented.”

  “Maybe Nicholas wanted to find a place to drink?”

  “Are you playing devil’s advocate, or are you just being difficult?”

  He smiled. “The former, so go on.”

  She cast him a repressive glance, then reassembled her train of thought. “When they left, I checked the priest hole. Someone had been examining the boxes. Many were out of line, turned around, that sort of thing.” She sighed. “I went down to dinner, trying to puzzle it out. Elaine was telling the girls how distinguished Amberly and his branch of the family were. She mentioned that Nicholas was following in his father’s footsteps—at the Foreign Office.”

  “Ah.” Charles sat up, all expression leaching from his face.

  “Indeed.” Feeling vindicated, she nodded. “So now you see why I started to seriously worry. And the further I looked, things only got blacker.”

  “What did you find?”

  “Not so much found as recalled. Papa and Amberly grew up together—they shared a schoolroom, went up to Oxford together, did the Grand Tour together. They were only distantly related, but very close friends, and the connection continued all their lives. Papa started collecting pillboxes when he was staying in Paris with Amberly, who at that time had a minor role in our embassy there.”

  Charles said nothing; his eyes locked on her face, he nodded for her to continue.

  “The other pertinent facts are that Amberly was Granville’s godfather, and his guardian after Papa died. And Nicholas and Granville knew each other, how well I don’t know, but Granville often visited Amberly’s house, so presumably Nicholas and Granville were frequently in each other’s company.

  “And as I told you earlier, when Nicholas arrived unheralded in February, the week after Elaine and the girls had left for town, he spent five days contacting all the local smuggling gangs. According to Mother Gibbs, he was putting it about that in the matter of Granville’s activities with them, he was Granville’s replacement. Anything to do with Granville, they should see him—send word via the grooms at Wallingham Hall, and he’d come down and speak with them.”

  “What did the local lads think of that? Were there any takers?”

  “No.” She hid a ghost of a smile. “They see Nicholas as an outsider, almost a foreigner, but more than that, I don’t think they actually understand what fish he’s trawling for.”

  “Very likely.”

  Charles heard his voice, deep, resonant, cut across her lighter tones. She shouldn’t be involved in any of this, but she was. Leaning back in his chair, he caught her eye. “So you believe that Granville, possibly with your father’s connivance, was running secrets to the French via the smuggling gangs. He got said secrets from either Amberly or Nicholas, but regardless, Nicholas at least is involved.”

  She nodded. “Yes. And—”

  “You don’t think Granville enlisting to fight the French at Waterloo argues against his involvement? Or that perhaps he wasn’t aware of the nature of what he was doing?”

  She met his gaze. “No. Granville…he was ten when you left to join the Guards. You didn’t really know him. He was a reckless, feckless boy, and he never grew up. Yes, he was spoiled, indulged in every degree, but as he didn’t possess a malicious bone in his body, everyone simply smiled, shook their heads, and let him be.

  “Ferrying information to the French? He’d have considered that a great lark—the thrill, the danger, would have seduced him. He wouldn’t have really thought about what he was ferrying, that wouldn’t have been important. Pursuing excitement and thrills—that was Granville’s sole purpose in life. That was why he joined the army for Waterloo. Any contradiction honestly wouldn’t have occurred to him.”

  He studied her eyes and thought she was wrong, but she’d pushed herself to accept what was for her a hugely painful interpretation. No hypothetical argument was likely to sway her.

  And what she thought—the question of whether Granville and, the point she was trying to think of even less, her father before him had been knowingly involved in treason—was not of immediate importance. Not with her “cousin” Nicholas about, ferreting around, stirring up things even more effectively than he himself was.

  She was watching him measuringly, lips and jaw set. Before he could speak, she did.

  “If Granville is labeled a traitor, even posthumously, Elaine will be ostracized, to a lesser extent Constance—she’s now Lady Witherling—will be, too, and neither Emma nor Holly could hope to make a decent match. No gentleman of the ton will want to marry a traitor’s sister.”

  She paused, then added, her gaze steady on his, “I would prefer not to be known as a traitor’s half sister, either, but at twenty-nine with my fortune my own, at least my future doesn’t rest so completely on society’s opinion.”

  He waited, but she didn’t ask for any promises or assurances that he would keep her family safe, that he would find some way to protect them from the consequences should the truth prove as dire as she thought.

  All of which made him even more determined to do so.

  She’d trusted him with all she knew; he was tempted to ask what in their conversation last night had tipped the scales, but he wasn’t sure he truly wanted to know. She saw through him, to the real him, more easily than anyone save only his too-perceptive mother.

  “I should mention that my commander, Dalziel, has investigated thoroughly but could find no evidence of any sensitive information from the Foreign Office actually reaching the French.” He grimaced. “Indeed, until I realized you’d already stumbled on something illicit, I was half-inclined to think the affair might prove to be all smoke and no fire.”

  He caught her gaze. “However, even if we p
rove that what you suspect is true, and Nicholas is apprehended, the details will not be made public. Nicholas won’t stand trial, nor, indeed, will most of England even know of his apprehension or his crime, and even less of any others he might name as coconspirators.”

  She frowned. “You mean it’s simply buried? Not”—she gestured—“paid for?”

  “Oh, no—if he’s been involved in treason, he’ll pay.” He smiled one of his coldly dangerous smiles. “It’s just that no one will hear of it.”

  She blinked. “Oh.”

  While she digested that, he rapidly reviewed all she’d told him, all he now accepted, all he now suspected. “The first thing to do”—he looked up as her eyes snapped up to meet his—“is to take a look at this pillbox collection.”