by Jane Feather
Everard stretched his feet to the andirons and sipped his spiced wine. He had few men in London, so these two would be welcome additions as he started this new operation. Ducasse knew, of course, that his old nemesis was in the city. Everard had made no attempt to conceal his presence. The émigrés he was keeping under surveillance were all to be found in the same five square miles that also contained Ducasse, and he could not watch each and every one of them from some remote corner of London, so he moved around on the outskirts of fashionable Society, not a full participant but a familiar and unremarkable figure who drew little attention to himself. It was inevitable that Ducasse would be aware of his presence. So the element of surprise was lost to him.
There had to be some other way to snare the bird. He leaned forward for the jug on the hearth and refilled his goblet. Ducasse was not a man who could be snatched from the street or ambushed in some dark alley. He was too formidable a swordsman and marksman for such an attack to be certain of success, and Everard knew there would only ever be one chance. So he had to take a more roundabout approach.
Unless . . . A slow smile curved his thin lips. There was a full frontal approach that could surprise his quarry. If Everard were suddenly to be seen in Society, at Almack’s, riding in Hyde Park, at Tattersalls, innocently attending the more public social events, no longer on the fringes of Society but a visible and active participant, Ducasse would certainly be taken aback. A cultivated French émigré would draw no remark in fashionable London. Indeed, the Chevalier Everard Dubois would probably be welcomed as a refreshing addition to the usual social circle. And such a position would afford him much greater access to Guillaume Ducasse. There would be some soft point in the man’s armor that could be exploited. Everyone had something.
No, brute force was not the answer; subtle pressure might well be.
He drained his goblet and went downstairs to the noisy ordinary for his supper.
It was almost noon when William reached his lodgings on Half Moon Street after his visit to Knightsbridge. He was oddly restless, and he didn’t have to look far for the reason. Hero. Last night’s encounter had thrown all his carefully assembled detachment to the four winds. He wanted to see her . . . no, he had to see her. She had become a compulsion he could not resist.
But what did it matter now? Once they had met again, the dam was breached. Besides, he needed to talk with Alec, who was so much in his twin sister’s company that it was inevitable they would come face-to-face. Better to control those meetings himself and thus ensure that Hero’s impetuosity was kept on a tight rein. Even as he told himself this, William knew he was desperately rationalizing his submission to that irresistible compulsion.
He changed from his riding britches into dark silk knee britches and coat, a plain black stock at his throat. The days of sansculottes and the red bonnet were long gone. He walked from Half Moon Street to Grosvenor Square and crossed the square garden, where the leaves, already reddish brown, were beginning to fall and crunch beneath his feet. He bent to pick up a shiny conker from beneath a horse chestnut tree. It was large and luscious and reminded him of his childhood so vividly he could smell the roasting chestnuts on the braziers around the gardens of the Tuilleries Palace, where he had often played as a small boy, and hear the satisfying smack as his conker struck true against his rival’s. His mother had taught him the game. It was one beloved of English children, and his own boyhood friends had taken to it with his own eagerness. He dropped his prize into his pocket and looked for another. Next time he saw Marguerite, he would teach her how to play.
A clear, light voice behind him said, “I’ll challenge you to a game, sir.”
He spun around. Hero came towards him along the narrow gravel path, a bright shiny conker in her hand. “Alec and I still play for hours.” She regarded him with her head slightly tilted, a questioning gleam in her green eyes, a quizzical little smile on her lips. “Although I daresay he’ll be too busy for some weeks for such frivolity.”
“Oh? How so?” He held himself back from her with supreme difficulty.
Her smile widened. “I think you should let him tell you himself. Were you coming to see him?” Carefully, she had not included herself in the question, although the unspoken words hung between them.
“I thought to do so,” he replied. “I had a question for him.”
“Then come and ask it, but don’t be at all surprised if you find him less than coherent.” She took his arm in the most natural gesture in the world, and he could not for the world find an objection. “Is it not the most beautiful day?”
William couldn’t help smiling at her bubbling pleasure in the crisp, sunny autumn day. She was bursting with some secret, her step more of a dance than a sedate walk as they crossed the road and mounted the short flight of steps to the front door. Hero rang the bell, and it was opened immediately by a bowing footman.
“My lady . . . Viscount St. Aubery.” He bowed them into the hall.
So William had been here before, Hero thought, and wondered when. She certainly hadn’t seen him. Alec seemed to be getting rather proficient at keeping things from her. “Come above to the small parlor. Alec will most probably be there.”
William followed her up the wide sweep of the horseshoe staircase, aware of the atmosphere of excitement in the air. The maids they passed all seemed to be smiling, and even Jackson, who appeared on the landing as they reached it, bore an expression that could almost be called a smile.
“His lordship is in the small parlor, my lady,” the majordomo said, moving to open the door for them.
“Oh, has Nan chased him away again?” Hero said with a chuckle. “Alec, dearest, you have a visitor.”
Alec, who had been standing dreamily gazing into the fire, whirled around, then beamed as he saw William. “Come in, come in. Sherry or burgundy?”
“Sherry, please.” William perched without ceremony on the arm of the sofa. “So, children, tell me what is going on.”
“Marie Claire had her baby last night, a little girl,” Alec informed him in a rush of pride.
“Congratulations, dear boy.” William shook his hand heartily. “And they are both well?”
“Oh, splendid. Yes, indeed, doing splendidly, and Marie Claire was such a trooper, you wouldn’t believe.” He handed William a glass.
“Yes, I would,” William corrected. “She always was.”
“Yes, of course. For a moment, I was forgetting.” Alec’s expression dimmed a little but then brightened. “But that’s all in the past. Her name is Fleur.”
“Very pretty.” William approved, and his mind went for a moment to Marguerite, another delicate flower in the world.
Hero felt a strange shift in time. It was once again the three of them, in that easy fellowship they had developed during the terror and beauty of their escape.
But of course, it wasn’t. “I’ll go up and see them. William had a question for you, Alec, and I don’t think I’m included.”
Alec looked uncomfortable, but William’s unperturbed expression didn’t change. “Yes, thank you, Hero,” he said.
She left them, managing not to flounce as she did so.
“Can you not take her into your confidence, William?” Alec asked as the door closed behind his sister. “You know she would never betray you. Has she not earned your confidence?”
William sipped his sherry reflectively. “Yes, of course she has. But I don’t want her involved, Alec, and neither should you. She needs to put such adventuring behind her and start living the life she was born to.”
“I wonder if that’s your decision to make for her,” Alec said, looking straight at him. “You have no claim on her; you have always made sure of that.”
“True enough. But I know, as Hero doesn’t, as I suspect you don’t, what happens to a woman when she becomes a social outcast. I cannot bear the thought of that happening to Hero.”
Whatever Alec was about to say was cut off as the door opened and a voice trilled, “Such an exquisite baby, such a dear little thing, Alec, my dear boy. I have just been worshipping at the cradle, oh, and dear, sweet Marie Claire, how well she looks after such a dreadful ordeal . . . Oh, my goodness, why didn’t someone tell me we had a visitor? Goodness me, sir, forgive my inattention.”
The speech emerged from a small round figure trailing shawls and scarves and surrounded by the unmistakable aroma of sal volatile and lavender water. She flapped a fan in her obvious consternation as she bobbed a curtsy in William’s general direction.
“Aunt Emily, may I present the Viscount St. Aubery,” Alec said, stepping forward hastily. “William, the Lady Emily Harrington, my sister’s companion.”
“I am honored, ma’am.” William swept her a courtly bow. “I was just congratulating Alec on the wonderful news. Lady Bruton is doing well, I trust?”
“Oh, yes, indeed, sir, splendidly.” Emily plied her fan vigorously. “I cannot imagine the torments she must have endured, and I heard not a sound.” Then she blushed as if realizing that the subject of childbirth was not one generally discussed in male company.
“A glass of sherry, Aunt Emily?” Alec offered opportunely.
“Just a small one, just to give me a little strength. I did find myself rather weak this morning.” The lady sank onto a daybed in a silk and cashmere sea of shawls. “A little sal volatile, I think . . . I must have it somewhere . . . oh, where could it be?” Distressed, she fluttered her mittened hands among the scarves until she found a small reticule. “Oh, dear me, how silly of me. I’m always forgetting things.” She lay back on the daybed, dabbed the bottle beneath her nose, and took the glass of sherry Alec brought her. “I do trust I’m not interrupting any business,” she asked after a moment, looking at the two men, her faded blue eyes suddenly wary. “I would not intrude for the world.”
“Indeed, you’re not, ma’am,” Alec said swiftly. “But we were about to adjourn to the library as you came in. May I send for Harper?”
“Oh, yes, you may. Thank you, dear boy. I shall ask her to rub my temples with a little lavender water. I feel the headache coming on . . . all this excitement, you know.”
“I will fetch her at once.” Alec pulled the bell rope and went to the door, and when a footman arrived in answer to the summons, he gave instructions to fetch Lady Emily’s maid. “William, shall we go down to the library?”
“With pleasure. Your servant, Lady Emily.” William offered another sweeping bow to the lady and followed Alec into the hall. “That lady, estimable in every way, I am sure, considers it her duty to chaperone Hero?” He sounded astounded.
Alec laughed. “Yes, absurd, isn’t it? But Hero is very fond of her, as am I, and it suits Hero very well not to be chaperoned in any conventional way.”
“Quite,” William said drily. “Which takes us back to our earlier conversation.” He followed Alec downstairs to the hall and along a corridor behind the stairs which led to the library at the rear of the house.
“I think that is a conversation you had best have with my sister,” Alec stated. “I am not her keeper or her guardian. And if you want to set yourself up as either, I wish you luck.”
William shrugged. He’d come to much the same conclusion himself. “Well, I would ask that you keep my confidence in this matter for the moment, Alec.”
“Of course. So what do you need me to do?”
William walked to the fireplace, putting one booted foot on the fender as he looked into the flames. “The Lizard is in town.”
Alec whistled softly. “He cannot threaten you here, surely?”
William gave a short laugh. “Of course he can. Not in the same way, certainly, and for the last couple of weeks, he hasn’t been particularly attentive. But I need someone to watch our contacts, to let me know if the Lizard or, indeed, any Frenchman unfamiliar to them approaches them in any way. I cannot have eyes everywhere. I know Barras has to have other agents operating in the city, and I’m trying to identify them all, while gathering what information I can on those with the resources to aid the Duc d’Enghien and his Army of Condé.”
“What of Marcus?”
“He has his hands full, as I do. We need more help, Alec.”
“Of course,” Alec agreed readily. “I will do what I can, gladly, but . . . well, with the baby and Marie Claire, I am not expecting to be much in company in the next few months.” He regarded William anxiously, unwilling to refuse his help but at the same time certain of his priorities.
William looked at him with a half smile. “No, of course you’re not, and neither should you. Marie Claire has been through enough on her own without sacrificing time with you at this juncture.”
“Hero will do it.”
William groaned. “Does neither of you understand anything I’ve said?”
“Yes, of course we do. But I don’t agree with you when it comes to wrapping my sister in cotton wool, quite apart from the fact that you won’t be able to do it anyway. Why not accept her for who she is and let her help? She’ll be every bit as good as I would be, in fact probably better. She knows more people and makes friends as and where she chooses. If you ask her to become acquainted with some of the émigré families who don’t frequent the usual circles, and there are plenty of them who can’t afford to put on the necessary show to participate, she will do so easily. She has a talent for making friends.”
William frowned. Once again, he felt he was choosing between his need for Hero’s help and his responsibility to keep her safe. A self-imposed responsibility and one he knew Hero would fight tooth and nail. And once again, he knew which way he would eventually choose, and he would have to live with stress and unease as a result. But there was an inevitability about it.
An inevitability about Hero herself.
FIFTEEN
Hero stood at her chamber window, looking down onto the street, watching for William’s departure. She was ready to go out, wearing a dark green ermine-trimmed cape over her muslin gown and half boots of soft green leather. Her eyes held a mischievous gleam as she gazed intently into the street, and the moment the front door opened and William emerged onto the top step, she was moving swiftly to the chamber door.
William stood for a moment, as always glancing around, assessing his surroundings. He could see nothing out of the ordinary, a footman carrying parcels and hatboxes into one of the houses along the street, a lady’s maid walking a small, fat pug dog, a groom holding the heads of a fine pair of grays in the traces of a phaeton outside a house around the square. A perfectly peaceful scene on an autumn day in one of London’s most fashionable squares. He trod lightly down the steps to the street and crossed over into the square garden.
He heard the front door of the Bruton mansion open as he stepped onto the gravel path that led beneath the horse chestnut trees to the far side of the garden. He paused, glancing over his shoulder, his senses instantly alert. Hero came running across the street, waving merrily.
“I said I would challenge you,” she called, holding out her tightly fisted gloved hands towards him. “Which do you choose?”
He stood, hands on his hips, watching her approach. She came up to him, her cheeks delicately flushed, her vivid green eyes shining, her hair coiled in two fat caramel- and honey-colored plaits around her bare head. And as so often in the past, he had the greatest urge to loosen them and run his fingers through the shining multicolored cascade.
“Oh, you look just like some stuffy, disapproving old uncle,” she declared, missing the quick needle of lust that had come and gone in his eyes. “The garden is for playing.”
Opportunely, a pair of small boys emerged onto the path ahead of them, flourishing wooden swords and engaged in a mock fight, which seemed to involve a great deal of shouting and fierce war whoops.
�
�Come on, William, which hand?”
“You’re incorrigible,” he stated. “Why aren’t you wearing a hat?” He tapped her extended right hand with an air of resignation.
“You can’t play conkers wearing a hat,” she scoffed, opening the chosen hand to reveal a shiny chestnut on the end of a string. “They’ve both been soaked in vinegar, so they’re equally hard.” She opened her left fist and swung her own conker in a purposeful arc. “To the death?”
“To the death,” he agreed, and with a swift twist of his hand sent his conker flying on the end of its string to make contact with Hero’s.
She laughed, but even through her laughter and the sparkle of her eyes, he could see her determined purpose. He should have remembered that Lady Hermione Fanshawe was a deadly serious competitive fighter, whatever her weapon.
And suddenly, he found himself playing in earnest, as determined as she that his would be the winning chestnut, unbroken and still attached to its string.
Hero danced around him, and he matched her speed but realized early on that she had a more practiced wrist action than he did, her conker snapping and jumping against his own. And at the end, when his smashed into pieces, falling from the string to the ground, he was laughingly surprised to find that their little battle had drawn quite a crowd of small children and their nursemaids.
“You win, you outrageous creature,” he said, sweeping her a deep bow of concession. “How on earth did I allow you to engage me in such preposterous childishness? Now, take my arm as if you were a respectable lady, and we’ll stroll decorously around the garden in the hopes that we’ll cease to be a spectacle more suited to a zoo.”
Hero, still laughing, first curtsied to their audience, then obeyed, tucking her arm into his. He led her away from the little crowd and down a narrow gravel pathway between laurel hedges.
“Are you living in Half Moon Street again?” she asked, her tone now serious, the laughter fading from her eyes.
