by Jane Feather
Hero unbuttoned her domino and tossed it over the back of a sofa. “Dearest, have you called Dr. Barrett yet?”
“Oh, yes, of course. He’s with her now. And Nan’s there, of course. But she’s hurting, and I don’t know how to help.”
Hero offered a reassuring smile. “I don’t know a great deal about these matters myself, Alec, but I think hurting is inevitable. And if she has Barrett and Nan in attendance, she could not be in better hands.” She moved to the sideboard to pour herself a glass of brandy and took it to the fire. Her apple-green gown was of the most diaphanous silk, as was de rigueur, the décolletage pronounced and the little puff sleeves offering no protection from drafts or the evening chill. “When did it start?”
“Just after dinner. We dined quietly—you know how Marie Claire tires so easily these days—and we were sitting to a game of piquet when the first pain came.” He looked distraught. “Oh, Hero, I wish I could suffer it for her.”
“I know you do, love.” She kissed his cheek. “But nature didn’t plan it that way. Where’s Aunt Emily?”
“Fast asleep. You know the last trump wouldn’t wake her once she’s taken her nightcap. She decided to have dinner in her own quarters, a quinsy developing, apparently.” Despite his anxiety, Alec grinned. Great-aunt Emily was always developing something or other. “Anyway, she has no idea the house is in an uproar.”
“Hardly an uproar,” Hero said with a responding grin. “Jackson would never permit it, baby or not. I’ll go up and see Marie Claire. Will you come?”
He shook his head miserably. “Nan told me to stay away. She said I was agitating Marie Claire.”
Hero couldn’t help a chuckle. Nan had been their nursemaid and the person most responsible for bringing them up. Their parents had had little or no interest in their offspring, once the heir was assured, much preferring the giddy whirl of London Society life, with frequent travels to Paris and Italy, over any form of domesticity. The twins had scrambled into adulthood under Nan’s direction and the rather ineffective schooling of a series of governesses, who did not last very long in the twins’ schoolroom, and rather more effective tutors, who remained for as long as they could hold their pupils’ interest in their subjects. Since both Hero and Alec had decidedly lively minds and much preferred to direct their own lines of educational inquiry, the tutors who did succeed in teaching them were those who were prepared to follow their lead. As a result, they were very accomplished in some subjects and woefully ignorant in others.
“Well, I’ll run up and see what’s going on. I’ll report back.” She hastened from the parlor and up the narrower staircase to the bedroom floor. She heard voices and soft moaning from behind the double doors to Lady Bruton’s bedchamber and opened it quietly, slipping into the room, where a fire blazed in the hearth and candles illuminated the large canopied bed. It was insufferably hot in the room, the windows closed tight against drafts and blocked by the long damask curtains.
An elderly woman turned from the foot of the bed at the sound of the door. “Ah, ’tis you, Lady Hero. Now, don’t you get in the way.”
“I wasn’t going to, Nan.” Hero stepped quickly to the bed. “How are you, darling?” She smiled down at the white face on the white pillows.
Marie Claire struggled to find a responding smile. “Well enough until the pain comes.” She put out a hand, and Hero took it in a firm clasp. “Is Alec all right?”
“No, he’s tearing his hair out, poor love,” Hero said. “He looks half demented. You know how he can’t bear not to be able to control things.”
Marie Claire smiled feebly. “Just like you, Hero.”
“True enough,” she said, then stopped as the other woman’s grip on her hand intensified and her face contorted with pain. Hero didn’t wince, although her hand felt as if it was going to break, but then Marie Claire’s grip weakened and she fell back against the pillows with a little sigh.
“Leave her be, now, Lady Hero,” Nan instructed. “There’s things we need to do.”
“I’ll come back later,” Hero said, bending to kiss her sister-in-law’s damp brow. She moved away from the bed, and the doctor followed her to the door.
“’Tis likely to be a long night, my lady,” he informed her with appropriate gravity, his somber black suit and the pince-nez swinging from a chain around his neck giving him a reassuringly professional air. “But everything is going as it should. Try to reassure his lordship.”
“I’ll try.” Hero moved aside as a maid came in with a pile of linen, followed by another carrying two jugs of steaming water. The landing was cold after the heat of the bedchamber, and she turned aside to her own room to fetch a wrap before returning to her brother.
Alec was standing in front of the fire when she entered the parlor. “How is she? Is it over?”
She shook her head. “No, love, it’s likely to be quite a few hours, according to Barrett, but she’s managing wonderfully. Better than I would, anyway.” Would or will? She dismissed the unbidden reflection instantly. It was irrelevant. She had no intention at this stage in her life of bearing children.
“I saw William at Ranelagh,” she said abruptly, almost as if her reflection had given birth to the statement.
“Ah.” Alec refreshed his glass from the decanter, his back to her.
Hero looked at him, her eyes narrowed. “You don’t sound surprised.”
He shrugged, still with his face averted. “I’m not, particularly. It was inevitable at some point.”
Hero perched on the arm of the sofa. “You knew he was in London.” It wasn’t a question.
“He’s been here for several weeks.” Finally, he turned back to the room, lifting the decanter in invitation.
She shook her head. “No, thank you, I’ve had my fill for tonight. Why didn’t you say anything?”
Her brother sat down with a sigh. “I was . . . am . . . sworn to secrecy, Hero.”
She frowned. “He’s on business, then?”
Alec merely looked at her, and she took his silence for an affirmative.
“And I’m not to know of it, is that right?”
“I’m sorry, love. I cannot break a confidence.”
“No, of course you can’t. But why? Does he think I can’t be trusted . . . after everything?” She couldn’t disguise her hurt and anger.
“I can no more speak for William than you can,” Alec responded. “He didn’t tell me as such that I shouldn’t confide in you, but, as I say, he swore me to secrecy with no specific exemptions.”
“He can’t be on the same business as before,” Hero mused, pressing her brother no further. “The Terror is over; Paris is quiet again . . . or at least, no longer rioting. The Directory is in charge after that Brigadier Napoleon finally defeated the mob with his ‘whiff of grapeshot,’ and now he’s commanding the army with a host of victories behind him. So I wonder who William is working for.” Alec said nothing, and after a moment, his sister asked, “Are you joined with him in this work, whatever it is?”
Alec sighed. It was impossible to keep secrets from Hero; he knew her technique all too well. She would duck and dodge around a subject until she somehow trapped him into giving something away. “Only very peripherally. Can we not talk of it anymore, please?”
“Well, it would take your mind off what’s going on upstairs,” she stated. “I won’t ask questions, but I’ll speculate and watch your face.”
“Hero, don’t do this . . . please,” he begged, half laughing despite himself.
She merely smiled. In truth, she was more interested in keeping his mind from his wife’s labor than anything else. It was going to be a long night, and Alec already looked worn to a frazzle. “So, is he spying for the French government or against them? He is spying, isn’t he?”
Alec stared into the fire, struggling to keep his expression neutral.
“Of course he
is,” Hero continued briskly. “It’s the obvious answer, after what he was doing before. So, is it his French or his English half that commands his loyalty at this point, I wonder?” She regarded her brother quizzically, her head tilted to one side, her eyes bright. “Or is he still an independent, managing his own operation? That would be most likely. He’ll be following his own true north, as usual, throwing himself behind whatever issue on either side catches his sense of fairness . . . ah!” She gave a little crow of triumph. “I saw your eyebrows move. I’m right, aren’t I?”
Alec shook his head in resignation. “So what if you are? Hero, you know him better than I do.”
“In some ways,” she agreed tartly. “But obviously not in others.” She stood up restlessly. “I won’t pester you any further. Would you like to play piquet?”
“I don’t think I could concentrate.”
“All the better for me, then.” She picked up the deck of cards that Alec and Marie Claire had discarded earlier and shuffled them. “Come, it’ll distract you a little, love.”
He nodded and took the seat opposite her at the table as she dealt swiftly. “Are you not fatigued? You must have had quite a night at Ranelagh.”
“Oh, I did. Tony was so besotted with drink he lost everything at dice and then tried to get me to stake my bracelet, and then two ruffians pursued me down one of the pathways. Oh, and of course, I met up with William,” she recited blithely, picking up her cards.
“I do wish you wouldn’t go to these public masques and ridottos, Hero.” He frowned at his hand as he sorted the cards. “You know it’s indecorous. Tom wouldn’t have permitted it.”
Her expression darkened, shadows dimming the luster of her eyes for a moment. “Tom would never dictate to me, Alec, you know that.”
“Maybe not, but he still had some influence on you. You were never so wild and reckless when he was alive.”
Hero called carte blanche on her hand. She had no answer to her brother’s statement. It was undeniable, but before Tom was killed, she had a sense of purpose, a sense of the future. Once he had gone, all that went, too. She only felt properly alive these days when she was walking some kind of tightrope. And at twenty-three, it was high time she stopped. But that dangerous, exhilarating time with William and his dedicated group had given her everything she needed, a purpose, a challenge . . . and, of course, the passion.
A sudden unearthly scream shattered the moment of silence in the parlor. Alec jumped up, his face ashen. “Dear God, it’s Marie Claire.” He started for the door, but his sister came after him, laying a hand on his arm.
“No, Alec, don’t go upstairs. You’ll get in the way, my dear.” Her own face was as pale as her brother’s, but her voice was resolute. “Let those who know how to help get on with their business. You can’t do anything for Marie Claire, and if she sees how distressed you are, it will only make things worse for her. You know how she frets over you.”
Alec resisted his sister’s restraining hand for a moment and then let his own hand fall from the doorknob. “I suppose you’re right. But I can’t bear it, Hero, to hear her in such agony.”
“I know.” She looked at him with compassion. It was always harder to bear someone else’s pain than one’s own. “I’ll go up and see if the doctor has any further news.” She left her brother and hurried back upstairs. Another scream assailed her ears as she reached the landing, and she shivered, telling herself that it was all perfectly natural, that women had suffered like this since the world began and would continue to do so until it ended. But the pragmatic acceptance of reality didn’t help much as she softly opened the door to the Marquess’s bedchamber and slipped inside.
Nan turned from the bed at the sound of the door. She came over to Hero. “I daresay Lord Alec is in a right state,” she commented. “Everything is normal. She’s a strong lady, for all that she’s such a delicate mite. It’ll all be over afore dawn. You go down and tell his lordship that.”
Hero glanced anxiously over to the bed. “What does Dr. Barrett say?”
Nan sniffed. “What does he know? Birthing is women’s business. And I tell you, Lady Hero, the baby’ll be born before the night is out. You can trust me for that.”
Hero smiled. She would trust Nan for anything. She certainly knew who she’d want at her bedside. She nodded and let herself out of the chamber, going back downstairs to report to her brother.
It was a long night, but just as the sky began to lighten and the first sounds of the dawn chorus came from the square, the door to the parlor opened to admit Dr. Barrett, looking as impeccable and unruffled as if he had not been up at his patient’s bedside throughout the night. “My lord, I am happy to announce that you are the proud father of a baby girl,” he pronounced with appropriate solemnity. “If you would care to go up, her ladyship and the child are ready to receive you.”
Alec sprang from his chair like a jack-in-a-box and sprinted from the room, leaving the doctor standing expectantly in the doorway.
“You must be in need of refreshment, Dr. Barrett.” Hero stepped into the breach, controlling her own impatience to worship at her new niece’s crib. “Her ladyship is really doing well?” She poured him a large glass of cognac.
“A little tired but very well otherwise. My thanks, Lady Hero.” He took the glass with an appreciative nod.
Hero poured a small measure for herself to join him in a toast to the new arrival and then escorted the doctor to the front door and saw him out into the cool early morning. Jackson appeared in the hall as she stepped back inside.
“I understand his lordship is to be congratulated, my lady.”
“Yes, and her ladyship,” Hero reminded him, wondering why it was always the man who was congratulated on the birth of a child, as if the poor woman who had labored to provide his offspring had had nothing to do with it. “A baby girl,” she added. “I am going up to see them now.”
She hurried upstairs to the bedchamber, where Nan still reigned supreme at the bedside. Marie Claire lay propped on pillows, her baby daughter wrapped tightly in a lacy shawl, lying on her breast. Alec sat on the bed beside them, gazing in misty-eyed wonder at his wife and child.
“Just a few minutes, now, Lady Hero,” Nan instructed, straightening the coverlet. “Mother and baby need to rest. And so do you, Lord Alec. Worn to a frazzle, you are.”
“What are you going to call her?” Hero asked, lightly touching her niece’s tiny dimpled fist. “She’s so delicate and new, like a rosebud.”
“Actually, she’s to be called Fleur,” Alec said proudly. “Fleur Elizabeth Louise . . . after Marie Claire’s mother.”
“How perfect.” Hero leaned over to kiss her sister-in-law and then hugged her brother fiercely. “May I hold the Lady Fleur Fanshawe for a moment?”
Marie Claire lifted the bundle from her breast, and Hero took the baby, gazing with wonder at the infant’s perfection. She had no experience of babies or children; her own parents had had no siblings, so there were no cousins in the family. In fact, when she thought about it, she and Alec had basically grown up with only each other for company. It was a wonder they weren’t more eccentric than they were, she reflected with a slightly cynical smile. And no wonder they were both drawn to people and worlds that were far beyond the run-of-the-mill company and experiences of their peers.
Dangerous men like William Ducasse, Viscount St. Aubery, and the equally dangerous world they occupied.
THREE
La Force Prison, Paris, 1794, thirteen months earlier
Merde.” The expletive emerged from a grimy bundle of clothes tossed onto the filthy, straw-covered floor of the prison cell. A large gray rat scuttled in alarm out of the straw as the barred gate clanged shut. The figure lay stunned for a few seconds before uncurling itself and jumping to its feet, turning to hurl a stream of vigorous street insults into the shadowy corridor beyond the bars.
The cell’s other occupant stood, arms folded, leaning against the corner of the far wall, his casual stance belied by the alert set of his shoulders as he regarded the new arrival from a pair of shrewdly inquiring tawny eyes, eyebrows quirked as he listened to the fluent stream of invective. When the new arrival paused for breath, he observed into the moment’s quiet, “I shouldn’t draw too much attention to yourself, if I were you. You’re lucky they didn’t realize what you are; otherwise, you’d be on your back in the yard with a stream of guards half a mile long waiting their turn.”
Slowly, the figure turned from the bars to regard the speaker warily. “How can you tell?”
“You should bind your breasts,” he said, looking at her more closely. As far as he could tell, beneath the grime streaking her face and the obligatory red cap pulled low over her forehead, she seemed quite young, athough unmistakably feminine. The swell of her breasts beneath her filthy shirt was obvious to his eye; he couldn’t imagine how it had escaped the guards. But they’d probably been too drunk to notice, at least for the moment.
“I did bind them,” the girl declared, vivid green eyes glaring at him in the gloom. She plucked at her coarse linen shirt with a grimace of disgust. “But the mob’s on a rampage, and I needed something to bind the wounds of a man they’d left bleeding in an alley.”
He nodded his comprehension. “It’s madness out there, I grant you. However, I doubt you’ll find it more peaceful in here.”
She gave an involuntary shudder as a scream pierced the rustling silence. “Who are you?”
He stepped slightly away from the wall. “Guillaume at your service, mademoiselle.” He swept her an elaborate bow. “But I do also answer to William,” he added in English.
A little frown creased her brow. “Is it that obvious?” she asked in the same language.
“Only to a trained ear. My compliments, mademoiselle, on your mastery of the language.” He bowed again. A lock of dark chestnut hair flopped onto his forehead, and he brushed it aside with the back of his hand.
