by Mary Nichols
She crossed the room to look out of the window over rolling countryside. ‘Why, I do believe I can see the sea,’ she said, catching sight of sparkling water. ‘How far away is it?’
‘Five or six miles as the crow flies,’ he said. ‘But it is The Wash, not the open sea.’
‘And there is a ship out there, I can see its sails.’
He picked up a telescope from the table and trained it out to sea. ‘It is early,’ he murmured.
‘Early?’
‘It is a cargo ship. I have an interest in the freight it carries.’
‘Oh, do let me see.’
He handed her the telescope and she trained it on the vessel. It looked small at that distance, its sails bowed out as it used the wind to sail westwards. ‘Where will it put in?’
‘King’s Lynn. I expect it will dock tomorrow.’
‘Shall you go to meet it?’
‘Yes. Would you like to come?’
‘Yes, if Aunt Lane agrees.’
The outing was a pleasant carriage ride and Jane enjoyed the sights and sounds of the busy port. There were hundreds of vessels, fishing boats, lighters and cargo boats in the harbour and seafaring men and dock workers scurried about their business. ‘They export all manner of produce,’ Mr Allworthy explained. ‘Corn and wool principally, but also manufactured goods. And they import things like wine and tea.’ He paused as one of the dockers came towards the carriage, obviously intent on speaking to him. ‘Would you and your aunt care to wait in the carriage while I do my business? It will not take many minutes and then I shall be free to show you round.’
He left them and they watched as he had an animated conversation with the man, before leaving him to go aboard a vessel on whose side Jane noticed the name, Fair Trader. A few minutes later he rejoined them. ‘All very satisfactory,’ he said, smiling easily. ‘Now, shall we take a stroll?’
He helped them from the carriage and offered an arm to each lady and they walked towards the town. The streets were narrow but well paved and there were a good number of shops and hotels. From the London road they turned on to an avenue lined with lime and chestnut trees and continued to the inner bank of the ancient town walls. Here they rested on a seat in the shade before returning to the carriage and the ride back to Coprise Manor. Mr Allworthy was a perfect guide and host and Jane’s anxieties faded to nothing. London seemed a long, long way away.
Harry strode off towards Horse Guards. He could no longer fight in the field, but surely he could continue to serve his country in other ways? The problem had been taxing his brain ever since he returned home. When he wasn’t thinking of Jane, that was. While he had been away he had almost convinced himself their parting was the best thing for both of them. They had been too young to know what they really wanted. In London in 1808, away from home for the first time, he had been glad to see someone he knew, someone safe and comfortable to be with, someone who was not for ever scolding him for his shortcomings, or looking down their noses because he was a mere lieutenant. Jane had looked up to him, hung on his every word, until the scandal broke and then she had angrily turned him away. He had dealt with it by enlisting and enthusiastically embracing the life of a soldier.
Since his return, seeing and talking to her again, he had known there could be no other woman for him. Oh, he might pretend he did not care that she had found someone else, might deny his feelings, might even assure Jane herself that he had no interest in her, but it was all a pose, his way of dealing with it. She was in his blood and in his bone, in the very essence of the man he was; she was not so easily dismissed. Anne knew that, but then Anne was his twin and they had always been close enough to read each other’s minds. It made no difference. What had happened in the past could not be undone, harsh words could not be unsaid, and Jane’s imminent engagement to Allworthy could not be refuted. That had been the final straw.
He squared his shoulders as he turned into Horse Guards, glad that he had decided to wear his uniform. The place was busy, with officers going hither and thither with sheafs of paper, others standing conferring in groups, still more standing about or sitting disconsolately waiting to be seen. There was a lieutenant sitting at a table, evidently there to ask everyone’s business and direct them wherever they should go. Harry approached him, gave his name, asked to see Colonel Clarence Garfitt and was told to wait.
He paced the floor, if his limping gait could be called pacing, and tried to assemble his arguments, expecting a long wait, but it was only a few minutes before he heard his name. ‘Harry Hemingford, by God! It’s good to see you.’
Harry turned to face the officer who had dashed down the stairs to greet him. ‘Colonel, your servant.’ Clarence had done very well for himself and Harry wondered fleetingly if he had bought his colonelcy by the back door. He did not doubt there were other avenues besides dukes’ mistresses; captain to colonel in the space of two years was a pretty sharp rise.
‘I read your intelligence reports and first class they were, but nothing since you were reported lost. You must tell me all about it, but not now. There is a big panic on to get reinforcements out to Wellington; he is pushing forward again, you know.’
‘Yes, I did know.’
‘I will meet you at Boodle’s. Three o’clock suit you?’
It left Harry kicking his heels for two hours, which he decided to spend sparring at Gentleman Jackson’s; there was nothing like physical exercise to clear the brain. At five minutes to three o’clock he wandered into Boodle’s and found an empty table in the corner of the dining room, ordered a bottle of claret and sat down to wait.
Clarence strolled in at five past and joined him. ‘Have you ordered food?’ he asked as he sat down.
‘No, waiting for you. I’m told the beef pie and the pork chops are both good.’
They ordered and it was not until they were tucking into the pie that Clarence looked up and raised his glass. ‘Your health, Hemingford. Tell me what you’ve been up to since we last met. Two years ago, it must be.’
‘You know it was.’
‘Yes, but it soon blew over. You did not have to resign, though on reflection I think the Prince of Wales was relieved, considering he imagines he is in command of the regiment. It reflected on him. It was why he did not step in to help his brother, though he has since reinstated him…’
‘We don’t need to go into that again, Colonel, all over and done with.’
‘And now, I suppose, you want me to use my influence to get you a company?’ he said, when Harry finished.
Harry smiled and tapped his wounded leg. ‘Not possible, I am afraid, not active service, but I would like you to use your influence in another way. I want something to do, something useful. Anything. Intelligence, perhaps.’
Garfitt sipped his claret, looking thoughtful. ‘There is something…’
‘Go on.’
‘Not abroad. Here in England. What do you know about guns?’
Harry laughed. ‘As much as any rifleman, perhaps more than most.’ He had been an excellent shot ever since the gamekeeper at Sutton Park decided he was old enough and strong enough to hold a sporting gun. When he could hit a target with consistent accuracy, he had been allowed to try his hand at something that moved, pigeons for the most part. Then he had been taught to stalk his prey—deer, rabbits, bigger birds—until he could beat his mentor. It was why he had made such a good rifleman, why he had often been chosen to lead small patrols, to creep silently on the enemy and take them unawares. He could stalk an enemy patrol unseen and unheard for miles, and he could pick off a lookout from a window or a tower at two hundred yards.
‘There is someone running guns to the enemy. The navy recently intercepted a shipload of rifles intended for Calais. We don’t know who is behind it nor where the weapons are being manufactured and bought. If you could discover that for us and bring the traitor to justice…’
‘Glad to be of service,’ Harry said, his heart quickening at the idea. ‘Tell me all you know.’
‘I need a cover, something to hide behind,’ Harry said, thinking quickly as he warmed to his subject. ‘An interest in the manufacture of an improved rifle, perhaps. I could make it known that I was interested in developing a superior gun, one that could be loaded from the breech…’
‘There are people working on that idea already, it is a long way from being perfected.’
‘I know. If I went to the War Department and asked them to fund such a development, what would they say?’
Clarence laughed. ‘You know the department. They would not put up the blunt before they had seen the finished product and knew it worked.’
‘Then I let it be known I am bitterly resentful. I do not have the wherewithal to finance myself and am looking for funding elsewhere. Nor am I particular as to who provides it. Do you think that would serve?’
‘Probably, if the word went round. I will send you that list and leave you to do whatever you think fit.’
Harry returned home, his head spinning and his thigh aching. But he was more cheerful than he had been for some time. He found Anne sitting in the drawing room with her needlepoint on a frame in front of her, though the needle in her hand was idle. She looked up as he came wearily into the room and flung himself on a sofa.
‘You are exhausted,’ she said. He looked white and drawn and his eyes were full of pain. It was not simply physical tiredness that ailed him, she knew. She supposed it was seeing Jane again and knowing she had gone off with that mushroom, Allworthy, that was pulling him down, making it more difficult for him to regain his health and strength. ‘I think you should go home and see Grandpapa. A rest in the country will do you good. It will give that wound time to heal properly.’
‘I’d rather face a dozen Frenchmen armed with muskets than that old man,’ he said, unable to tell her the real reason why he was not free to go.
‘Don’t be a ninny. He cannot eat you.’
He considered it. Sutton Park was in Lincolnshire, near enough to check on the busy ports of Wisbech and King’s Lynn. It might not be such a bad idea, after all. He chuckled suddenly and for a moment he looked more like his old self. ‘Very well, so long as you come too.’
‘Of course I will. You need looking after. And I shall make sure you rest properly and then we will come back in time for the Regent’s banquet at Carlton House.’
‘Great heavens, you have never been invited to that, have you?’ The Regent, fat and fifty, having decided that his father was never going to get over his madness and that he was king in all but name, had decided to hold a banquet to celebrate. Everyone among London’s ton was waiting with breath bated for an invitation and for the last week the talk had been of nothing else.
‘Not only me but you too, to represent Grandpapa. The invitation came while you were out.’
‘I cannot believe it.’
‘It is true. Look at this.’ She produced a huge gilt-edged invitation card from the mantel where she had propped it against a porcelain figure of a milkmaid with a cow. ‘It just goes to show you have been forgiven for your earlier indiscretion and are now the hero of the hour.’
He laughed. ‘Hero, eh? I wonder how that will go down with those I hope to persuade to help fund my little scheme.’
‘What little scheme?’
He had done enough intelligence missions in the past to know how vital it was to maintain secrecy; though he knew he could trust Anne, he decided, for safety’s sake, not to tell her his real mission, but to stick with his cover story. He sat down opposite her and explained about his idea for a new gun and the need to find a backer. While he talked he grew animated; the tiredness seemed to leave him, and Anne marvelled. So this was his way of coping with Jane’s betrayal, she decided, this was how he masked his hurt. There he was talking about guns, very little of which she understood, and there was Jane pretending to be in love with Donald Allworthy. If only she could get them in the same room, she would knock their heads together and make them see what was staring them in the face. ‘You think the Regent might be interested?’
‘In making rifles?’ Harry laughed. ‘You would have more chance of gaining an ear there if you were selling gold braid or field marshal’s batons. No, I must look elsewhere.’
‘Why don’t you put the idea to Grandfather?’ she suggested. ‘He will be a better bet than bankers and money lenders.’ She could not understand why he laughed.
It was surprising how swiftly two weeks passed. There was no grand ball, but her aunt had been right about the entertainments; they had ridden out almost every day, had walked the whole way round the lake, paid calls to Donald’s near neighbours, gone for more than one picnic, been entertained at musical evenings and dinners, attended a botanical lecture in Holt, and had tea with an old general who fought the battles of thirty years before all over again and flirted outrageously with Aunt Lane.
‘You must not mind him,’ Donald said, when they left and were riding back to Coprise Manor in his carriage. ‘He is harmless.’
Jane smiled and turned to look out of the carriage window at the landscape just fading into dusk, a dark purple kind of dusk which made her think it might rain. Their stay had been perfect, their host perfect, their every want satisfied and yet… What was missing?
She was still pondering as she went to bed on the last night of their stay. It was too perfect. Surely, the man had a little fault, something she could latch on to and say, ‘That I cannot tolerate, for that I cannot marry you.’ But there was nothing. She had no reason to refuse him. He had said he would make her love him. Had he succeeded? Even if she was not head over heels in love with him, she liked and respected him, and as her aunt had so succinctly pointed out, she could not afford to be particular.
She woke next morning to hear the rain lashing against the casement. It was as if the heavens had decided her idyll had gone on long enough and she must come back to earth and her humdrum life as her father’s scribe. But it needn’t be. She had only to say yes and she could live here permanently. She dressed and went down to breakfast.
Donald was already at the table, but he rose and kissed her hand and took her to her seat. ‘Did you sleep? I was afraid the thunder would keep you awake.’
‘I did not hear it.’ She looked at his handsome but inscrutable face. ‘I have loved being here. It is such a lovely house and everyone has been so agreeable.’
‘Enough to make you wish to make it your home?’
‘Mr Allworthy, I beg you to be patient a little longer.’ She turned as her aunt bustled into the room. ‘Good morning, Aunt. Did you hear the thunder?’
‘Indeed I did. I barely slept a wink.’
‘Perhaps you would prefer not to travel today?’ Donald said. ‘You are welcome to extend your stay.’
‘Thank you, Mr Allworthy, but the post horses have all been arranged and the Countess is expecting me the day after tomorrow. She has invited a few friends to see her in her court dress before she goes to the Regent’s banquet.’
‘And Papa is expecting me,’ Jane put in, smiling at the thought of the pretentious Countess showing off her finery. ‘But you will come back to London soon, Mr Allworthy?’
‘Not until after the harvest, I am afraid. But I shall come, you may depend upon it and, in the meantime, if you allow it, I shall write frequently.’
‘Of course.’
‘Expect me in the third week of August and by then I hope you will have arrived at a decision.’ He rose, went to a side table and picked up a small box that he took over to her. ‘A gift to be a remembrance of me until we meet again,’
he said. ‘It came in on the Fair Trader.’
She held it in her hands. ‘But Mr Allworthy…’
‘Please open it.’
She did so and found herself gazing at an exquisite necklace in silver and amethyst. ‘Sir, I cannot accept this,’ she said. ‘It is too costly. It is the sort of gift—’
‘The sort of gift a man in love might give to the woman he hopes to marry.’
‘But I have not said I will marry you.’
‘No, but you did say I might hope and you would not have come here if you had been intending to refuse me.’ He put his hands over hers, enclosing the box, and held them there, looking at her with an expression of such tenderness that she did not have the heart to thrust it back at him. She looked at Aunt Lane, hoping she might help her out, but her aunt was nodding and smiling.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘It is beautiful.’
‘Wear it while you travel home and think of me, waiting here in expectation of your answer.’ He took it from its box and fastened it about her neck.
She touched it with her fingers. It was cold and hard and a small knot of hardness grew inside her chest and a voice in her head whispered, ‘Traitor!’
‘It’s pelting with rain.’
‘Do you think we should delay setting out?’
‘If we don’t, we’ll miss the Regent’s banquet.’
‘I don’t care a pin for the banquet, but with Grandfather being so obdurate, I really cannot stay a moment longer.’
The Earl of Bostock had received his errant grandson with a jaundiced eye, but he had not forbidden him the house. ‘You are here now,’ he had said ungraciously when Anne had produced him, like a rabbit popping up out of a burrow. ‘Might as well stay.’
It was anything but welcoming, but Anne knew the old man was pleased to see the prodigal; he simply found it difficult to say so. She had spent the first meal they had taken together telling him of her brother’s exploits; when she became too enthusiastic Harry broke in to correct her, making the old man smile. ‘So, it made a man of you, did it?’ he asked.
