by Tracy Grant
Then before she could change her mind, she pulled a fresh sheet of paper before her and began a letter to Jared's father, Lord Anandale. This proved even harder than her letter to her mother. Caroline was furious with Anandale for his treatment of his son. Jared had been foolish beyond belief, but he had not been a vicious man. Lord Anandale had refused to acknowledge his son's weakness, but he had been all too ready to see his evil. He had spoken to him vilely, using words like a scourge, leaving Jared shaken and broken. Caroline would never forgive the old man. Still, Lord Anandale was Jared's father and he deserved to know how his son died.
Caroline read over her letter, then picked up her pen again. A death Lord Anandale could be proud of, she wrote. She owed Jared that much at least, and perhaps Anandale could be brought to think less harshly of his younger son.
The second letter done and sealed, Caroline crawled into the four-poster, cradled her daughter in her arms, and fell into an exhausted sleep.
The following morning Adam made his way to the shabby building on Downing Street that housed the Foreign Office, and climbed the corkscrew stairs that led to the office occupied by the Foreign Secretary. It was eleven o'clock, the hour specified in the note that had arrived that morning in answer to Adam's own. Lord Castlereagh was usually at his desk at Downing Street from eleven until three or four in the afternoon. The Foreign Secretary was not going to keep him waiing.
Lord Castlereagh received Adam with no particular cordiality, but his manner was little different from how it had been on the other occasions they had met. Castlereagh was a serious man, devoted to his work and convinced of its importance to his country's future. Adam suspected he had little use for Sir Charles Stuart, who had a frivolous turn of mind, and there was no reason he should welcome an encounter with one of Stuart's aides.
The Secretary quickly went through the dispatches Adam had brought from Sir Charles, frowning slightly as he read. Then, without comment or change of expression, he rose from his desk and said, "Durward, you'd oblige me by coming across the corridor."
The room to which he led him was dark-paneled and shabby. It contained a table and half a dozen chairs, two of which were occupied. One of the men Adam recognized at once, though he had not seen him in more than fifteen years. Earl Granby, Talbot Rawley's father. Granby had paid occasional visits to his brother, Lord Anandale, during the years Adam lived in Finley-Abbott, but it was doubtful if he had been aware of Adam's existence. Adam, on the other hand, remembered him well, a man of quiet speech and courtly bearing. He looked much the same today, though his hair had gone nearly white. He acknowledged Adam with a curt nod.
The other man was introduced as Lord Palmerston, the Secretary at War. He was about Adam's age, a handsome man with expressive dark eyes and long sideburns, worn perhaps to compensate for his receding hairline. He greeted Adam with a guarded smile and Adam warmed to him at once. Here at least was a potential ally. Adam had no idea why he had been called into this room, but he knew as soon as he entered it that the meeting would not be a friendly one.
"Durward went to the Peninsula with Sir Charles Stuart," Castlereagh said, as though reminding the others of what they already knew, "but in the last few years he has been seconded, as it were, to Lord Wellington." He turned to Adam. "You work, I take it, largely on your own."
"I have no particular mission, that is true." Adam did not know where the conversation was headed, and he was feeling his way. "I look for information that will be useful to the army."
"The British army."
"Good God, sir, what else?"
Castlereagh was unperturbed. "You have a gift for languages, I am told."
"I speak Spanish and Portuguese," Adam said.
"And French."
"Yes, I speak French as well. I am also fluent in Hindi and some other Indian languages. I can read Italian, and I have a smattering of German. Russian I do not know, nor other Eastern European languages."
Lord Castlereagh frowned as though Adam had been impertinent, which he had. Adam suspected the direction the questioning was taking, and he didn't intend to make it easy for the other man.
Lord Granby intervened. "In your search for—ah—information, you've become acquainted with many Spaniards."
"I have." Adam saw no sympathy in Granby's face. "I have spent a good deal of time in the north of Spain, meeting with the guerrilleros. The Spanish resistance fighters."
Granby put his fingertips together and tapped his lips. "I see. You have become acquainted with some Frenchmen as well."
"Of course."
Granby raised his brows.
"The French are our enemies, my lord," Adam explained patiently. "We need information about their activities. I've always found it simplest to go to the source."
"Meaning?"
"I ask them." Adam smiled and saw an answering smile on Lord Palmerston's face.
"I think," said Lord Castlereagh, taking control of the questioning once more, "that you should make yourself clear, Durward."
Adam leaned back in his chair and studied the three men sitting around the table. "With all respect, gentlemen," he said after a moment, "you may not understand the conditions on a field of war. British officers are well acquainted with their counterparts on the French side, and when they are not actually engaged in battle, relations between the two are frequently cordial. I have seen an officer's greyhounds chase a hare into the French ranks and seen the greyhounds returned to the British officer with great courtesy by the French. I assure you, these men do not fight any less well for acknowledging the humanity of the other side. Now perhaps you will tell me what it is you accuse me of."
Granby looked as though he would speak, but Castlereagh forestalled him. "You are accused of nothing, Durward. Not at this moment. But I am in receipt of a letter which Lord Granby received from his son, Colonel Rawley. It concerns your activities in Salamanca."
There was a moment of intense quiet. Adam swore to himself. He had been so worried about Caroline that he had not properly considered that Talbot might strike out at him.
"I should say that my son would not have involved himself in the matter were it not for his concern for his cousin, Mrs. Rawley," Granby said in his fine-toned voice. His expression indicated he wanted only to make the matter clear. "I understand she was traveling in your company."
"She was," Adam said, wondering what exactly Talbot had told them. "We went to Salamanca to retrieve her daughter, who had been abducted. While we were there, we were placed under arrest. We were taken to a Colonel Lescaut, who was sympathetic to our problem and aided us in the child's recovery."
Castlereagh cleared his throat. "Yes, Colonel Rawley mentioned the incident. You are well acquainted with this Lescaut?"
"I know him," Adam said cautiously. He did not want to get into the reasons for Emily's abduction and the attempted attack on Caroline.
"I believe you know him well." Castlereagh picked up one of two papers lying before him. "Colonel Rawley enclosed a deposition from a Spaniard named Limon. According to Limon you work closely with Lescaut and he and his men are under your command."
Limon must be the thin man. Adam felt the anger rising in his throat. "Limon, whoever he is, is wrong."
"Forgive me," Palmerston said, "but is this Limon a British spy? And if so, why is he reporting to Colonel Rawley who is an artillery officer? And if he is not, if he is only a poor man selling information for money, why would he go to Colonel Rawley in the first place?"
Silence filled the room. Then Castlereagh, looking uncomfortable, said, "There are obviously many things we do not know. Colonel Rawley is due home on leave,, and when he arrives we can no doubt clear up some of these questions." He turned to Adam. "We will want to talk to you again, Durward. In the meantime, we expect you to remain in London."
Adam nodded acquiescence, though he was seething inside. Talbot had arranged this. Talbot had made it impossible for him to go to Mulgrave, the Master-General of Ordnance. How could he accuse Talbo
t of complicity in fraud when Talbot had arranged for him to be accused of something far worse.
Castlereagh frowned. "You understand what it is we are concerned about?"
"Oh, yes," Adam said. He knew exactly where they were heading. "Treason."
Chapter Sixteen
Caroline took a deep breath and drank in the sight and feel of the Sussex countryside. The smooth, gently undulating ground. The lush, verdant grass and chalky white path. The deep blue sky cut with bold swaths of white clouds. Though the day was fine, the air was damp against her skin. Even the sunlight seemed softer than it had in Spain.
Caroline glanced at her sister. She and Jane had often walked along these paths together in the months when she was pregnant with Emily. So much had happened since then. Caroline couldn't think where to begin to tell Jane about it, yet she knew this would probably be their one chance for private conversation. At the suggestion of Jane's husband, Will, they had gone out walking alone, leaving the children with him and Elena and Hawkins.
As if sensing Caroline's reluctance to talk about herself, Jane had been giving her the latest news about the rest of the family. Fanny, their eldest sister, was already scheming to marry off her seventeen-year-old daughter. Sophia was expecting her husband, a naval captain, home on leave. James, their brother, was relishing his role as squire and becoming, Jane said, more pompous than ever. Their mother had been to visit Sophia but was now back home with James and his family in Finley-Abbott.
Jane tamed to look at Caroline, a shrewd look in her blue eyes. "Are you going to go back to Finley-Abbott?" she asked.
That, Caroline thought, was what came of not speaking herself. She did not want to talk about visiting Staffordshire, but now it was unavoidable. "When things are settled," she said, not specifying what she meant by 'things.' For Jane's sake, Caroline had decided not to tell her sister about their suspicions of Talbot Rawley.
Jane tucked a strand of fair hair beneath her straw bonnet. She had changed little in the past four years, Caroline thought, save that perhaps there were a few more lines about her eyes. "Mama's been worried about you, Caro," she said.
Caroline recalled her last visit home. Though her mother and James had not known the details of the fraud, they had known Jared was disgraced and that he and Caroline were in financial ruin. "How could you, Caroline," Mama had said, her soft, pretty face drawn into sharp lines. "How could you not have managed better? It's a wife's duty to keep her husband's affairs in order."
Caroline had not seen her mother since. Mama had written, but her letters contained little but superficial family news. "She didn't seem particularly worried at our last meeting," Caroline said, not trying to disguise the bitterness in her voice.
Jane bent down to pick a bunch of blue milkwort which grew beside the path. "I won't deny that Mama handled things badly five years ago. So did James. He was so worried about losing the favor of the Rawley family he couldn't stand up for his own sister. I can't say he's changed much since. But I know Mama feels badly. She can't understand why you went off to Lisbon."
"Mama never understood most of what I did." Caroline's rebelliousness as a child had been her mother's despair. Though in the end, Caroline thought, she had chosen the life her family wanted for her. If she had done differently, they might all be on better terms now.
A rush of water near at hand told them they had reached the small stream that was their destination. Without speaking, Caroline and Jane made their way to a sun-warmed slab of rock at the stream's edge where they had often sat and talked in the past. Jane linked her arms about her knees and looked out over the water. "You're never going to forgive them, are you?" she said.
"For not standing by Jared?" Caroline asked.
Jane shook her head. "For convincing you to marry Jared in the first place."
Caroline's face grew inexplicably warm. "At the time I thought I wanted to marry Jared," she said, not meeting Jane's gaze.
"But Mama and Papa and James and the rest of the family kept telling you how eligible he was and what a splendid life you'd have with him and how good the connection would be for the family." Jane twirled the milkwort between her fingers. "How's Adam?" she asked softly.
Caroline stared at her sister. Jane had known Adam when they were children, but Caroline had never talked to her about her own feelings for him. Though she had always been closer to Jane than to Fanny and Sophia, Jane was her elder by five years and they hadn't been confidantes as children. It wasn't until later, when Jane stood by her when the rest of the family did not, that Caroline really learned to appreciate her quiet, sensible sister. By then she had been too angry to mention Adam to anyone. But perhaps she should have realized Jane would guess at least some of the truth. Sisters always saw too much.
"I'm not blind, Caro," Jane said. "I saw the way Adam looked at you when Will and I visited Finley-Abbott the summer before you married Jared. And I saw the way you looked at him."
"How?" Caroline asked.
Jane smiled. "Like you'd discovered a wondrous secret and were terrified of its power."
"I couldn't have married Adam," Caroline said, with a sharpness that surprised even her. "We would have had nothing to live on. We'd only have made each other miserable."
Jane regarded her for a moment. "I didn't say anything about marriage."
Caroline swallowed. No, it was her own thoughts that had turned inevitably in that direction. She looked down at the cool, flowing water and had a sudden image of Will smiling at Jane before they left on their walk. That simple, easy, life-sustaining affection. It was as different as night and day from the web of anger and guilt, jealousy and desire, which bound her and Adam. Never, in her twenty-seven years, had she been so jealous of any of her sisters as she had in that moment. Yet the day Jane told the family about her betrothal to Will Fenton, Caroline had felt anything but jealous. She gave a helpless laugh.
"What is it?" Jane asked.
"I was just remembering how sorry I felt for you when you and Will got engaged," Caroline said. "Poor Jane, I thought, only a clergyman and not even particularly handsome." She looked at her sister apologetically. "I'm sorry, Jane, I'm sure to you he's the handsomest man in the world, but—"
"No," Jane said cheerfully, "not the handsomest. Just the best."
The comfortable certainty in her sister's voice brought a lump to Caroline's throat. "It wasn't until years later that I realized how much you were to be envied."
Jane regarded her shrewdly. "Marriage doesn't come easily to anyone, Caro," she said. "God knows Will and I have had our difficulties. Somehow we managed to muddle through them. It's amazing what two people in love can carry off."
Caroline returned her sister's gaze. Though Adam's name had not been mentioned, she knew they were speaking of him.
"We should get back," Jane said, standing and shaking out her skirt. "The children will be wanting dinner."
Caroline nodded, not sure whether she was glad or sorry that her sister had not pressed her further for the truth.
Hawkins shifted his position on the carriage seat, moving cautiously so as not to disturb Elena who was half-asleep, her head on his shoulder. They had all been in a cheerful, talkative mood when they left the Fentons' nearly four hours ago, but the movement of the carriage, the lateness of the hour, and the plentiful supper Jane Fenton had fed them had finally lulled them into silence. Emily was curled up on the opposite seat, her head in Caroline's lap. Caroline was leaning back against the squabs, her eyes closed.
Hawkins studied Caroline, noting how much she resembled her sister. The heart-shaped face was the same, and the delicately arched brows, and the pale hair with streaks of brown. But there was a quality about Jane that was different from her sister. She didn't have Caroline's look of haunting, finely drawn fragility. Of course Jane, who had borne four children and had not suffered the near-starvation of a Spanish winter, had a fuller figure than her sister. But Hawkins suspected it went deeper than external privations. The Fentons lived
on a straitened income, but there was a sense of contentment about Jane Fenton, the contentment of a woman whose world was securely ordered, a woman who had never doubted her husband's love or her children's safety.
Steadying Elena with his arm, Hawkins rested his head against the squabs. They were covered in a soft, worn leather, shabby yet comfortable. Like the Fentons' house. Hawkins recalled the crowded parlor with faded toys lying on the rug and the smell of children and dogs and freshly baked scones in the air. And he saw Elena, her face lit with laughter, bending down to speak to the youngest of the children, a boy of eleven months. Elena had been somewhat apprehensive about the visit, but she and Jane had taken to each other at once. When they hadn't been fussing over the children, the two of them and Caroline had been talking together about those mysterious sorts of things women only seemed able to discuss with each other. It was a long time since he'd seen Elena so happy.
So why did he have this uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach? Hawkins tightened his arm round Elena. They had reached a sort of accommodation on the Sea Horse. The close quarters had seen to that. But they hadn't spoken of the future. Hawkins knew what he wanted. That hadn't changed. The trouble was, he was no longer sure it was the best future, not for him but for Elena.
The familiar, musky scent Elena always wore brought memories of a time when life had been much simpler. It seemed marriage was a damn sight more complicated than giving a woman a ring and reciting some vows and signing a bit of paper. When they'd first arrived at the Fentons' it wasn't Jane .who had greeted them but her husband, holding one child in his arms while two more clung to his coattails. Will Fenton might not be wealthy, but he'd been able to offer Jane a home. He had a steady profession, a profession which didn't require him to spend months away from his wife and children. If the Fenton house was a happy one, it was because both Jane and Will worked to make it so.
Hawkins looked at Emily again, curled so trustfully against her mother. She had survived the past four years remarkably well. But Hawkins wouldn't want any child of his to experience what Emily had been through.
