by Liz Carlyle
Her stomach still churning with nausea, Xanthia watched Nash practically drag Mr. Hayden-Worth down the passageway in the direction of the library. She had been unable to miss the hurtful accusation in his eyes. Dear God. He knew. It was over.
Unthinkingly, she left her brother’s side and stalked into the Chinese salon. “How could you?” she hissed at de Vendenheim. “How could you do this to me?”
“To you, Miss Neville?”
“Yes, and to Lord Nash, for God’s sake!” she answered. “How dare you violate the sanctity of a man’s home—and under such circumstances? He has a houseful of guests—important guests. What are these people to think?”
“It is most regrettable, Miss Neville,” said de Vendenheim calmly. “But we received some urgent information. A load of American rifles is thought to be en route to Cherbourg—but we do not know precisely when, or under whose flag the ship will be sailing.
“And your interrogation simply could not wait?” she demanded.
“It could not,” said the vicomte quietly. “This ship must be stopped. Matters in Greece grow more perilous by the day. And I think, Miss Neville, that for your own sake, you should not be in this room.”
She felt Kieran take hold of her arm. “He is right,” Kieran warned. “If you remain, my dear, Nash will know you were a part of this.”
Xanthia whirled on him. “He already knows!” she cried. “Because he has brought Mr. Kemble!” She thrust a finger at de Vendenheim. “He saw him Kieran—weeks ago. It was at a distance, but yes, but he saw the man in my office. Nash already knows the truth, and it is his fault.”
“Miss Neville, how was Max to know we would find you here at Brierwood?” said Kemble soothingly. “Seeing both you and I here—yes, Lord Nash will likely put it all together. I daresay he has already done so. I am so very sorry.”
Xanthia wanted to weep with despair. “And you are so certain he is guilty!” she cried. “Yet you two have looked no further than the nose upon your face.”
“Xanthia, calm yourself,” her brother commanded. “Still, I think she is right, you know,” he said aside to de Vendenheim. “I have been asking a few questions of my own about this business. And Nash knows nothing. I am quite certain of it.”
“Regrettably, my lord, the facts rather speak for themselves,” said de Vendenheim.
Xanthia almost lunged at him. “There are other people who live here!” she interjected. “Mr. Hayden-Worth, for example? What of him? Have you thoroughly investigated his background?”
“We have not.”
“No, because he is wholly English—and a politician,” she said derisively. The tears were flowing now. “You suspect Lord Nash because of his foreign blood. And that is just vile, Lord de Vendenheim. It is bigotry, plain and simple.”
The vicomte’s mouth turned into a sneer. “I assure you, Miss Neville, that no one is more acutely aware of the difficulties foreigners face in this country than I,” he answered. “My suspicion of Lord Nash is based on fact. He does have regional ties to Eastern Europe. His family is known to hate the Turks. He has funneled at least one large sum of money to the French diplomats who are serving as liaison to the Greeks. And Brierwood is his home, no matter who may live here.”
Later, Xanthia was never sure just what it was that drove her. Instinct, perhaps? She jerked from Kieran’s grasp. “Stay here—all three of you,” she commanded, dragging a hand beneath her eyes. “There is something I wish to show you.”
Propelled by her anger, Xanthia flew up the stairs. She passed Mr. Hayden-Worth coming back down with two servants on his heels. She was so ashamed, she felt compelled to look away. And so she did not see the portmanteaus, which the servants carried, or the stark, bloodless expression on Mr. Hayden-Worth’s face.
Nash strode back through the west wing of Brierwood, his mind in turmoil. He had left the grooms in a panic, but by God he would have his carriage within moments—of that, he was sure. Of all else, he was less certain. But he pressed on, striding up the hill like an automaton, in part because he was afraid to slow down. Afraid to think. Afraid of the awful knowledge which was bearing down upon him.
But there was no escaping it. The bittersweet vignettes kept reappearing in his mind. Xanthia, chatting so casually about the turmoil in Greece. Teasing him about customs and taxation. Subtly suggesting that there were ways around such things. He had wondered at it, even then. Her words had seemed so disparate from her nature. But apparently, the woman was well schooled in deception. And it explained why she had followed him onto the terrace that very first night at Sharpe’s.
Yes, she had been very clever indeed. She had played hard to get like one of Drury Lane’s best. He recalled how he had seen her bent over the desk in his library, looking for the letter paper which had lain in plain view in the top drawer. Then there was the matter of Vladislav’s missing correspondence. She had probably taken it. But why? Was there no end to the woman’s audacity? How had he not seen it? Had he not chanced to see Mr. Kemble today—had something in the man’s face not driven him to distraction—good God. What a fool he had been about to make of himself.
His life—the life he had never really known he wanted—was over. He was a little ashamed to feel the hot press of tears behind his eyes. His hands curled into tight fists as he willed them to recede. And slowly, the grief began to boil down to a righteous fury, a simpler, safer emotion.
Nash strode into the great hall to find his stepbrother waiting. Tony still wore his whites, but Gibbons and Tony’s valet were ready with portmanteaus in hand, and fresh suits of clothing over their arms. Both servants looked unflappable.
“I apologize for the haste,” said Nash to the three of them. “The carriage will be coming round shortly. We should make the coast by nightfall.”
Just then, de Vendenheim stepped from the shadows of the salon, his footsteps ominous on the marble floor. “I hope, Lord Nash, that you do not mean to leave the country,” he said sotto voce.
“That is precisely what I mean to do,” Nash answered. “Have you sufficient evidence on which to hold me?”
De Vendenheim hesitated. “Not quite.”
“Then stand aside, sir,” Tony ordered, injecting himself into the conversation. “I scarcely know who you are, but I daresay you do know who I am.”
“Yes, Mr. Hayden-Worth.” De Vendenheim sounded inordinately weary. “I am all too aware.”
“Then impede us at your peril,” Tony snapped. “And kindly remember that I am not without influence in Whitehall.”
“Yes, that’s another thing I’m well aware of,” said the vicomte dryly. He returned his attention to Nash. “My lord, I must ask again that you remain in England, on your honor as a gentleman.”
“But my dear fellow, like you, I am scarcely a gentleman,” said Nash. “Indeed, I am scarcely an Englishman.”
De Vendenheim frowned. “Lord Nash, I really think—”
“And I think you have a lot of gall, invading the sanctity of my home,” Nash coolly interjected. “I am going to France, gentlemen—specifically, to Cherbourg—where I shall have the French police do what you people seem incapable of. And when I return, if I am feeling charitable, perhaps I will even bring you your foreign spy, de Vendenheim.”
De Vendenheim’s lips thinned with irritation, and he stepped away. It was only then that Nash noticed Xanthia’s brother hovering in the depths of the salon.
“Lord Rothewell,” he said curtly, “you and your sister will be so good as to leave my house—tonight if at all possible. Tomorrow morning at the latest. Do I make myself plain?”
Lord Rothewell stood impassively in the shadows, his face as veiled as his character. “You are making a grave mistake, Nash.”
“No, thank God, I am not,” Nash returned, his voice dangerously soft. “But it was a near-run thing.”
Just then, the clatter of a carriage sounded beyond the front door, which still stood open. Cutting one last look of contempt toward de Vendenheim, Lord Nash
went down the stairs, Mr. Hayden-Worth and the servants on his heels. In an instant, the coachman snapped his whip, and they were off.
“Maledizione!” spit de Vendenheim, pounding his fist on the doorframe.
“Well!” said Kemble with false brightness. “That could hardly have gone worse.”
Lord Rothewell and de Vendenheim glowered at him. Kemble was saved, however, by Xanthia. The carriage had not quite vanished by the time she came back down the stairs. She ran to the open door, and set one hand against the doorjamb, watching forlornly as the trail of dust vanished.
When both carriage and dust had disappeared, she slowly turned around. “He has gone to France, has he not?”
Mr. Kemble looked at her strangely. “Yes. How did you know?”
Xanthia dropped her chin, and blinked back what was left of her tears. “Come with me into the salon,” she said. “I want to prove to you Lord Nash’s innocence.”
Mr. Kemble set a hand over hers. “Miss Neville, you are distraught,” he murmured. “There is no need to do this now.”
Xanthia jerked away from him. “But I must do it now, don’t you see?” she cried. “Listen to me, Mr. Kemble—do you remember how you once told me about how conversational things written in letters might have special meanings?”
Kemble followed her into the salon. “Yes, but both parties must know which words mean what,” he said. “It is the simplest sort of code there is—and more or less impossible to break.”
Rothewell slid a hand beneath her elbow. “Nash has asked us to leave, Zee,” he said softly. “Perhaps we had best do so now?”
“No.” Xanthia sat down in a chair by the front windows and extracted the letter from Mrs. Hayden-Worth’s prayer book. She handed it to Kemble. “I wish Mr. Kemble to read this first.”
“What is it?” asked de Vendenheim, craning over Kemble’s shoulder.
Xanthia bit her lip. “It is a letter to Mrs. Hayden-Worth from her father,” she answered. “She is American. Did you know that?”
De Vendenheim and Kemble exchanged worried looks.
“No, I thought not,” she retorted. “Her father is a wealthy American industrialist. He lives in Connecticut, I believe. That is rather near Boston—precisely where your ordnance is being smuggled from, is it not?”
“Yes,” de Vendenheim admitted.
Kemble’s eyes were swiftly running over the words. “The letter is oddly brief,” he said, handing it back to Xanthia. “But other than that, what am I to see?”
Xanthia held the letter in one hand, and the prayer book in the other. “Do you not think the tone of the letter is strangely stiff?” she asked. “And the mention of a specific date—how was Mrs. Hayden-Worth to know that she was to be in Cherbourg on that particular day, so many months beforehand?”
“I cannot say.”
“It must have been a very important appointment,” said Xanthia. “And yet, when I first arrived here, she claimed to have forgotten she needed to be in France altogether. She flew out of here two days past in a very distracted state—almost on the eve of her mother-in-law’s house party.”
“What is your point?” asked de Vendenheim.
“How long does it take the post to go back and forth to America?” asked Xanthia. “This appointment was important enough that Mrs. Hayden-Worth wrote to father and remarked upon it. And important enough that he wrote back, repeating it. And then she forgot it?”
“Or perhaps not,” said Kemble in a low undertone. “You are suggesting that perhaps this letter was in fact the first time Mrs. Hayden-Worth had seen that date? That the letter might actually be a form of instruction?”
“Collusion or instruction—either is possible, I suppose.” Xanthia sighed. “Or neither. I am probably just clutching at straws.”
“Probably,” said de Vendenheim. But he was leaning over Xanthia’s shoulder now, and there was a little edge of hope in his voice.
Xanthia handed him the letter. “Are you a married man, Lord de Vendenheim?” she suddenly asked.
The vicomte’s dark eyebrows lifted. “Yes, happily so.”
Her eyes ran over his obviously expensive clothing. “I daresay your wife is very lovely, and dresses elegantly,” said Xanthia. “Does she ever wear seed pearls? The little ones which are sometimes stitched onto one’s gowns?”
De Vendenheim nodded. “Catherine often wears them on her evening dresses.”
“And where does she get them?”
De Vendenheim looked at her oddly. “They come that way from the dressmaker,” he said. “But wait—I see your point. Catherine keeps a little boxful on hand, for repairs and such. She sews them on herself. But I haven’t a clue where she gets them.”
“In Oxford Street, I daresay,” said Xanthia. “They are unaccountably common, and not frightfully expensive.”
“So why would she write to her father and ask for them?” murmured Mr. Kemble. “Any woman would know that seed pearls can be had almost as easily in London.”
Xanthia lifted her gaze to Kemble’s. “When I met Mrs. Hayden-Worth, she seemed preoccupied,” she mused.
“And she has gone to Cherbourg,” murmured Kieran. “What an odd coincidence.”
De Vendenheim’s olive skin had slowly turned a strangely ashen shade. “There is no such thing as coincidence,” he said grimly. Without another word, he tucked the letter into the pocket of his coat.
“Cherbourg,” muttered Mr. Kemble. “It is a reasonable location for American merchant ships to refit on this side of the Atlantic, is it not?”
“Not the most likely,” said Xanthia. “But reasonable, yes.”
Kem lifted his gaze to Max’s. “Perhaps we have the wrong brother, old chap,” he suggested. “Perhaps we should look more closely at Mr. Hayden-Worth’s loyalties. It would not be the first time an M.P. had his hand in someone else’s pocket.”
“Or perhaps he is as ignorant of all this as his stepbrother,” interjected Rothewell.
Suddenly, the salon doors flew open, and Lady Nash rushed in, Phaedra on her heels. “Oh! Oh! What has happened?” she cried, clutching her hands together. “Where has Nash gone in such a rush? Where is my Tony?”
Xanthia went to her at once, and took one of her hands. “Do not worry, Lady Nash,” she said, her voice surprisingly calm. “They have had to go to France. A minor emergency—but all will be well, I do assure you.”
“An emergency?” Lady Nash pressed one hand to her cheek. “Oh, dear! What has happened?”
Xanthia was scrambling for a good lie when Mr. Kemble approached. “Mrs. Hayden-Worth has been taken ill,” he said.
“Ill?” shrieked Lady Nash.
Kemble seized the other hand, and began to pat it. “She was ill,” he corrected. “But she is better now. Just a little mal de mer. Still, Mr. Hayden-Worth was worried.”
“As well he should be!” cried her ladyship.
“And you know how he does dote on her,” said Mr. Kemble.
“Yes. Yes. He does indeed!” said her ladyship. “Tony is a devoted husband.”
“Oh, what a pack of nonsense!” said Phaedra, looking at Kemble suspiciously.
“We all of us show our fondness in our own unique way,” said Mr. Kemble a little snidely. “Mr. Hayden-Worth is worried sick.”
Phaedra drew back. “Who are you?” she demanded. “And what are you doing in our house?”
Lord de Vendenheim stepped forward. “We are with the Home Office.” Smoothly, the vicomte made the introductions. “We work for Mr. Peel.”
“Oh!” said Lady Nash. “Mr. Peel is very important, is he not? And Tony is very well thought of in the Government. I daresay they must have sent you?”
Kemble was still patting her hand. “Lord Wellington himself insisted, ma’am,” he answered. “He wished Mr. Hayden-Worth to hear the news at once.”
“Oh?” Phaedra set her hands on her hips. “And just how did Lord Wellington catch wind of this dire tragedy?”
Xanthia caught Phaedra’s g
aze and lifted her finger to her lips.
Phaedra’s brow furrowed in confusion, but Mr. Kemble seized the moment. “The Prime Minister heard of it through his important secret channels,” he said knowingly. “He had a spy, I daresay, on the very same ferry. And even though Mrs. Hayden-Worth is feeling much better, he knew her husband would not rest until he was by her side and reassured of his wife’s good health.”
Phaedra crossed her arms over her chest. “And Nash had to go along to help, did he?”
Kemble smiled down at Phaedra as if she were a prodigy. “Yes, of course,” he said. “Mr. Hayden-Worth was in no shape to travel alone.”
“Just because Jenny cast up her accounts on a ferryboat?” Phaedra clarified.
“Quite so.”
“Yes, it all makes perfect sense now.” Lady Nash was dabbing at her eyes with a lace handkerchief. “And Nash is always so very thoughtful. Poor, poor Jenny! I daresay she will wish now she had stayed for my birthday party!”
“Yes,” murmured Lord de Vendenheim dryly. “I daresay she soon shall.”
Xanthia crossed the room to Phaedra’s side. “I rushed upstairs to get this,” she said, handing Phaedra the prayer book. “I thought it might comfort her, but they drove off before I could return. It is Jenny’s, is it not?”
Phaedra took it. “Yes, where did you find it?”
“Inside the sitting room secretary,” said Xanthia. Lightly, she touched the gilt initials. “This must have been Jenny’s before she married.”
“Oh, yes, she brought it from America,” said the girl. “See? J-E-C. Jennifer Elizabeth Carlow.”
Mr. Kemble’s head jerked up, and his gaze snapped to Xanthia’s. “Carlow?”
Phaedra looked at him disdainfully. “Yes? What of it?”
De Vendenheim stepped nearer. “Her father is a wealthy American industrialist,” he murmured, as if to himself. “How remarkable. I do not suppose…”
“Yes?” said Phaedra impatiently.
De Vendenheim lifted his eyes to Phaedra’s. “That would not be the Carlow of Carlow Arms Manufacturing, would it? The rifle works in Connecticut?”
“Why, just so!” cried Lady Nash. “Rifles! I have had the most frightful time recalling it. In any case, Mr. Carlow is such a dear—and he just adores Jenny.”
