He couldn’t restore what she’d lost, only offer compensation. “Do you suppose one could create such a garden in England?” He ventured to kiss her hand while he waited for an answer.
“I do not know,” she said. Pleasure and gratitude flooded his chest when she did not withdraw, a first step toward winning her forgiveness and, please God, regaining her love.
Chapter 22
Julian wanted the truth and he wanted it now so that he could lay it at Jane’s feet and join her in plotting the downfall of the betrayer. He paced around his suite of rooms, avoiding his guests. Jane was the only person he ached to see but he wanted to bring her news. He was sick of waiting for Windermere to return from London, but Damian was navigating the byzantine toils of the Foreign Office, and who knew when he would exit that den of liars in possession of the facts. The more Julian thought about it, the less likely it seemed that anything would come of his journey.
Meanwhile Radcliffe was here and if the baronet hadn’t actually betrayed the Fallerons, he’d wager the fox knew who had. Through the window he saw Radcliffe taking his morning exercise among the formal gardens, exuding self-satisfaction and obviously enjoying the amenities of the ducal castle.
His castle. His home. His dukedom.
Julian Fortescue had taken two years to reach the point of accepting his unexpected, unwished for, and surely undeserved position. He accepted it now and embraced it. He was a duke and he would behave like one, for his own sake, for Damian and Cynthia’s, and above all for Jane’s. The Duke of Denford would not let Sir Richard Radcliffe get away with his crimes. About to charge downstairs and confront the elegant old scoundrel, he stopped and thought.
“Ask Sir Richard to attend me in the library,” he told one of the footmen. The Denford book collection was housed in a vast chamber decorated in the Jacobean era with a heavy coffered ceiling, a massive fireplace, and lots of gloomy portraits of past dukes. The art wasn’t to Julian’s taste, yet waiting for Radcliffe he sensed the weight of history and the presence, even the approval of his predecessors.
Radcliffe entered, predictably undaunted by his surroundings. “I hadn’t been in here before,” he said, having a good look round. “Very fine collection, I have no doubt, Denford. If you are considering culling the books—”
“I am not,” Julian said coldly.
“Oh well. I’ll have to settle for the Falleron pictures once Louis establishes his rights.”
“That’s not going to happen. But I didn’t bring you here to talk about either books or paintings.” Radcliffe had reached the hearth, shadowed by the elaborate stone chimneypiece. Julian, years younger and a foot taller, wasn’t ashamed to use the advantage of youth and size to physically intimidate the older man. And his superior rank. “You are going to tell me all you know about the death of the Mademoiselle de Falleron’s family and the part you played in it.”
“Are you renewing your absurd implication that I had something to do with the matter?”
“Absurd? As an official at the Foreign Office you would have known about the affair. I’m tired of playing games and want the truth. Now.”
“I’m curious, Denford. If I know anything, which I by no means admit, why should I tell you?”
“Because I am in a position to make your life uncomfortable.”
“I doubt it.” The man’s confidence was impregnable.
“I could whisper a word into the ear of my new friend the Prince of Wales, who was quite delighted by the Bosschaert I gave him recently. I should thank you for that inspiration.”
“My felicitations. I didn’t know you had the gall.”
“You will find I have limitless gall and growing power.”
“The Prince of Wales is not the king.” Radcliffe sounded slightly less sure of himself.
“But since the recurrence last year of His Majesty’s illness, no one wants to displease the prince. Including your superior the foreign secretary, who owes me a favor because of some assistance I was recently able to render him over a by-election.”
“Is there more?” Radcliffe asked.
“There will be. But if you’re not convinced I don’t have any objection of beating the truth out of you.”
The baronet threw in his cards gracefully. “What do you want to know? Probably more than I can tell you.” Julian somewhat regretted his capitulation; he would have enjoyed applying just a little force to get at the truth. He still might have to, he thought optimistically.
“Were you conversant with John Smith’s plan to remove the Fallerons from Paris at the time?”
“I was not,” Radcliffe said. “It is a pity for I would have opposed it. It was ill conceived from the start.” Julian couldn’t argue with that. Just because Sir Richard was an untrustworthy reptile it didn’t mean he wasn’t a shrewd politician. “I learned about it later when I was looking through some files and the name Falleron caught my eye.”
“Because you knew of him as a collector.”
“He beat me to a couple of pictures back in the mid–1780s.” Radcliffe had been buying important paintings for decades, including some that Julian had wanted. “The story was odd. Falleron wasn’t connected to Louis XVI’s regime and was innocuous as far as members of the nobility were concerned. Early in the Terror passports were still obtainable. There was no reason why he shouldn’t have offered a hefty sum in the right quarters and got the whole family out of France. Why all this business about the pictures? Their value was far greater than necessary for a simple bribe. Why did he need you, or John Smith?”
“I thought you were going to answer questions, not ask them.”
“To get the real story I had to obtain the secret files, which wasn’t altogether easy.” With some reluctance, Julian decided Radcliffe’s tale had the ring of truth. He had never been able to work out a way that the baronet could have betrayed the Fallerons from his office in Westminster. “You can’t spread this tale, Denford.”
“I make no promises.”
Radcliffe raised his hands in surrender. “I don’t suppose it matters after all this time. John Smith was part of a British plot to rescue the Dauphin from the Temple prison.”
Julian whistled. All unawares, he had been caught up in a conspiracy that was far more dangerous than he knew. The so-called Dauphin, after the execution of his father Louis XVI, was the rightful King of France should the monarchy be restored.
“The eight-year-old boy,” Radcliffe continued, “was to be dressed as a girl and taken out of France in the guise of the youngest Falleron daughter while the eldest pretended to be the governess.”
The complicated nature of the plot finally made sense. The stakes were enormous and he had been played for a fool. A naïve, overambitious, twenty-year-old fool. He probably wasn’t supposed to get away with even his half share of the pictures.
“Who betrayed us?” He wanted the answer badly, mostly for Jane but also for himself. He had blamed himself for so long, yet he had been nothing but an impotent pawn. No man likes to think he has been played.
“I put quite some time and effort into that whole question. The consensus among the people who know this kind of thing”—Julian ground his teeth—“is that John Smith was double-crossed by the official you bribed and the ambush intended from the start, to obtain full possession of the pictures. I do congratulate you, by the way, on your presence of mind in keeping them all in your possession. But a different person betrayed the plot to rescue the Dauphin and thus sent the Fallerons to the guillotine. We never discovered who.”
“There must be any number of people involved who could have denounced the conspiracy,” Julian said.
“True. It was a rash endeavor with a high probability of failure. There were reports from our spies that the child was being subjected to unnatural abuse and his rescue was thought worthy of any risk.”
Radcliffe’s dispassionate speech aroused Julian’s ire. “Including the risk to a perfectly innocent man and his family?” He thought of the little girl
s he’d seen executed and Jane forced into virtual prostitution at the age of fifteen. “You and your kind make me sick.”
“As a loyal French monarchist, the marquis must have thought it worthwhile,” Radcliffe said.
“The marquis was terrified for his family.” Julian was cold with rage. “He repeatedly begged me for reassurances that I now know I had no right or reason to give. Quite the opposite, in fact.”
“I’m sorry, Denford,” Radcliffe said. “But you do understand that I had nothing to do with it. I am guiltless in the whole affair.”
The damn weasel wanted to make sure Julian didn’t make trouble for him. “I acquit you in this matter,” he said. “Now if you will excuse me, I have business to attend to.”
Radcliffe still needed to pay for his other sins, but they could wait. Jane must hear the news immediately.
Jane went out for an early walk, disturbed only by birdsong and the silent presence of laboring gardeners. All this could be hers: the shaded paths, the intricate parterres, and noble trees. She stood under the veil of a willow by the river and observed the fierce ramparts of the castle, smoothed and mellowed by the morning sun.
Julian had promised her a garden like that of Bel Etang if she married him. There were acres of parkland at Denford, plenty of room for a French garden with broad walks and classical statuary. They would stroll arm in arm discussing every topic under the sun, then they’d retreat to a library, a tower, or even a bedchamber and make love. She could have a busy, satisfying, stimulating life. She could be happy. She only had to forgive him.
That wasn’t all. Essentially she had forgiven him, or rather accepted that he was as much a dupe as her father, though with infinitely less dire consequences. He had blamed himself more than he should, as a very young man would, possessed of youth’s certainty that he was of supreme importance in the world.
Youth? She was only twenty-four years old herself. For more than a third of her life she’d been gripped by the ambition to do one thing. Could she embrace joy as long as her family’s killer was alive?
She had no answer and little optimism that she would ever know. The urbane Sir Richard seemed an improbable Jacobin informant.
Returning to her room, she found a letter on her bed. Her heart quickened, then sank; those were not Julian’s bold black words, but addressed, in the unmistakable penmanship taught by French masters, to Mademoiselle Grey. Written in French, it contained an invitation to discuss certain matters with a hint that Louis de Falleron, might, just might, be prepared to acknowledge her as his cousin. It was important that they meet in private so he suggested an assignation that morning in the très pittoresque et historique Maiden’s Keep.
What did Louis want? Not a tour of an historical monument in her company.
Her impulse to consult Julian startled her, accustomed as she was to facing her own problems and making her own decisions. She hesitated, not solely because she didn’t accept that he had a right to be consulted. There was something else, something she’d seen last night that had been nagging at a corner of her brain. Something about Louis.
She let her mind relax as she walked through the courtyard and climbed the hill. By the time she reached the door to the keep she had remembered, and by the top of the winding staircase she was sure of what happened, though not why.
“Bonjour, Jeanne.” He called her by her real name, leaning carelessly against the wall with his arms folded, elegant in the latest style of morning clothes from a first-rate London tailor. Now she knew how Louis had been able to live prosperously all these years. He had lured her to the top of a tower famous for the suicide of a woman, and Jane knew she was right.
“You have decided to accept who I am?” she asked, with feigned wonder. “That makes me so happy, Louis. We should love each other since we are the last of the family.” He’d made sure they were, the treacherous, lying rat. “What made you finally see the truth?” If this conversation were genuine, on both sides, they would embrace now. Loath to touch him, she hovered out of reach.
“I knew you from the start because I knew Jeanne had escaped. I wouldn’t have expected you’d possess the cunning to prostitute yourself and survive all these years, but your father always said you were his cleverest child.” He made no pretense of amiability.
“He often wished I had been a boy. It would have given him hope for the future of the family.”
“You are showing your claws, ma cousine.”
Jane walked forward, assessing the now familiar territory of the tower. Louis had taken up position to the south, near where the parapet was lowest, overlooking the river. Keeping her distance and her hands hidden by her full skirts, she veered to the opposite side, where she and Julian had made love against the wall.
“Why don’t we skip the politesse and talk about why we are here?” she said.
“I came to this party to get the pictures and I am not pleased that Denford decided to hand them over to you. It’s a high price to pay for services rendered. He must be infatuated.”
“Perhaps he possesses a sense of justice.”
“I am Falleron and the heritage is mine, no thanks to your father. What he did ensured the ruin of the family. The pictures are all that remains and I must have them.”
“Unleash your lawyers, then. Or should I say Sir Richard’s lawyers?” Although it might be wiser to let him think her naïve, she couldn’t resist offering a little provocation. “I think he may prefer to deal with me directly. It’s sad to see thieves fall out.”
A stiffening of his stance was his only reaction. “Your reappearance causes a little difficulty, my dear. While the domain lands would be mine by right, other kinds of property can be inherited by women. Even in the absence of your father’s will, judgment could go against me in the English courts. As for France, it appears that the barbarians have drawn up a new code of laws that abolishes primogeniture and gives daughters full rights of inheritance.” He sighed and shook his head at her. “I say this with all sorrow. There was no reason why you couldn’t have lived perfectly happily for the rest of your life as Jane Grey. But Denford had to interfere. With his support, I know you will easily be able to establish your identity.”
“So you decided to acknowledge me after all?”
She walked forward until only half a dozen feet divided them. Louis wore the expression of self-satisfied superiority with which he had always addressed his young cousins. Conceited to the core, he might claim to think her clever but in his eyes she was no match for his superior strength and cunning.
“I tried to save you by refusing to accept you as Jeanne but you insisted on making trouble.” Lunging forward, he seized her by the shoulders and swung her around, crashing her against the battlement next to the low opening. “I’ve written a new histoire, little cousin. As I claimed all along, you are an intrigante taking advantage of my family tragedy. You are also more than a little deranged. Now, overcome by remorse, and inspired by the sad story of the Maiden’s Keep, you have decided to take your life by jumping off this very convenient tower.”
As he pressed all his weight against her, one hand groped the base of her throat and squeezed, making her gasp for breath. She tightened her grip on the knife concealed by the folds of
her skirt and hoped she hadn’t overestimated her ability to fight him off.
“You said I was clever, Louis,” she gasped. “Did you really think I would come unarmed to a deserted high place to meet the man who betrayed my family?”
Julian was on his way to the schoolroom when accosted by three panicked young ladies.
“We were just coming to find you, Julian,” Maria said. “We are worried about Miss Grey. She thrust a paper into his hand. “Read this.”
“We didn’t mean to pry,” Laura said. “We went to her room to find her and I was looking at the papers on her desk because she never writes letters and this was underneath some blank sheets.”
“And it’s addressed to us so of course we read it.”
My dear children,
It is with great sadness that I take leave of you forever. I am sorry that I deceived you. I don’t know how to tell the whole truth. I don’t wish to lie to you any further or to your brother. I am not Jeanne de Falleron, neither am I Jane Grey. I killed the real Miss Grey and stole her name and her money. She told me all about the Falleron family and I decided to pretend to be the oldest daughter. But I know Louis de Falleron will expose me and I can no longer live with my guilt. I cannot face His Grace the duke again. Adieu, mes enfants.
Julian waved the sheet at them. “This is arrant nonsense. Is this even Jane’s handwriting?”
“It looks like hers,” Fenella said. “She told us she wrote like a French person because that’s what they taught on Saint Lucia.”
“I’ll wager Louis de Falleron writes like a French person too.” Julian folded his arms, closed his eyes, and forced himself to calm down. “Where can she be? You girls spread out and ask everyone if they have seen Miss Grey today. Tell them I want every servant on the estate looking for her. If you learn something, find me at once. I will go to Falleron’s room.”
“Do you think Miss Grey’s nasty cousin wrote that letter?” Fenella asked.
“I am sure of it. Every word is a lie. Besides, Jane would never leave without telling me. She hasn’t a craven bone in her body. Now run, all of you. We must find her.”
Louis de Falleron’s room was empty. Julian’s blood ran cold when he read the note again.
I can no longer live with my guilt. Suppose the writer of those words meant them literally.
He ran down the stairs to a hall bustling with curious servants bringing reports of places where Jane was not. Then a footman came in and informed His Grace that one of the gardeners had seen the governess climb the hill to the Maiden’s Keep.
The Duke of Dark Desires Page 26
