Behind the Mask (House of Lords)

by Brooke, Meg

  “I just want to explain about the food,” Eleanor argued. “I’ll only be a moment, and you can stand in the doorway.”

  The man looked up and down the hall, and then with a sigh removed a key from around his neck and opened the door for her. Eleanor allowed him to go in first, and when he gave her a nod she followed. The prisoner was sitting on his haunches in one corner of the room, facing the east wall, but he turned to look back at her as she came in.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  He frowned. “I...what is word...I pray.”

  “Ah,” Eleanor said, remembering that people of his faith said their prayers facing their holy city. “Mecca is actually that way,” she said, pointing to the southwest corner of the room.

  The prisoner looked away. “Thank you,” he said quietly. Then he rose, slowly, favoring his injured foot. “What can I do?”

  Eleanor started to tell him why she had come, but then she paused. “What is your name?” she asked.

  “Meddur Udad, lady,” he said.

  “It’s ‘My Lady’,” the guard corrected.

  Udad bowed his head. “Sorry, My Lady.”

  Eleanor made a dismissive gesture. “I am Lady Eleanor Pierce,” she said, only stumbling a little over her new moniker.

  “You are his wife, the man with the...” Udad paused and held one finger over his upper lip.

  “The moustache, yes,” Eleanor said, smiling at little at the gesture. “Anyway, Mr. Udad, I came to tell you that the cook will be preparing you a halal meal from now on. I am sorry for the confusion.”

  The man blinked at her for a moment. “Why you do this?” he asked at last. “You...” he searched for the word, “you poison me?”

  “No!” Eleanor cried. Why was the man so afraid of being poisoned? “No, of course not. But you have not eaten in days. You must have something, and if you cannot eat the food Mrs. Parkinson prepares then she must make something else.”

  Udad looked away again. “She poison me,” he muttered.

  Eleanor laughed outright at that. “I will make sure she doesn’t,” she said. “Don’t worry. I must be going, but I will come again later to make sure you have eaten.”

  As she turned back towards the door, however, Udad said, “Why you help me?”

  She looked back and said, “I do not think you wanted to harm me, Mr. Udad. I do not think you want to harm anyone. No one who grieves so sincerely for a lost friend could wish to deprive a mother of her only daughter, no matter the cause. I am a human being, and so are you, and you deserve to be treated fairly, no matter what you’ve been accused of.”

  He bowed his head, “I thank you, My Lady.”

  “Don’t mention it,” Eleanor said, and she meant it. As she went back up the stairs she imagined what Colin would say if he knew she had been to see Udad, if he knew that she had spoken to him. So far he seemed to understand that she was able to take care of herself, but she had still seen his protective instincts get the better of him. She had to remember that, though he was her husband now, she had barely known him a week, and there were a great many things about him that she still did not know.

  Upstairs the hustle and bustle of a country house entertaining visitors greeted her, almost as though there were no prisoner belowstairs or assassins lurking somewhere in the Park. Maids and footmen flitted about, clearing the dining room and cleaning the floors. Eleanor passed Mr. Crawley in the hall, on his way out to meet Colin in the makeshift barracks.

  “Will you remind him that we are touring the grounds at one?” Eleanor asked. Crawley nodded and disappeared without another word.

  The day had dawned bright and clear, and already the air was warm, but Eleanor found most of their guests gathered on the terrace to the south of the house and in the gardens beyond, lounging on benches or walking idly beneath the trees. Eleanor saw Mr. Gascoyne walking with Sir John in the shade and Lady Winifred looking over Maris’s shoulder at the sketchbook on her lap. It was an idyllic scene of country harmony that belied the chaos going on behind the scenes. Eleanor cast a nervous glance towards the west side of the house and the stableyard, praying that she had planned the placement of the little collection of tents well enough that they could not be seen from the gardens. Fortunately the stable buildings and the trees hid the tents from view, and all that was visible were the rose bushes basking in the midday sun.

  The princess and her mother were sitting in the shade of the house. The duchess had some embroidery on her lap, but Victoria appeared to have nothing to keep her occupied. “It is lovely here, Lady Pierce. I do not like to travel very much,” she said with a pointed look at her mother, who kept her attention carefully focused on her embroidery, “but I should like to have a house like this someday, completely cut off from the world.”

  “It is very peaceful,” Eleanor agreed, taking a seat across from her. “But I find myself missing London at times.”

  “Will you return there before the winter?”

  “No. My new husband and I will likely travel to visit his parents in Staffordshire and then he will need to return to Brussels.”

  “Lord Pierce is a member of our diplomatic corps there, is he not?”

  Eleanor was surprised by the princess’s knowledge, but then she remembered that Victoria’s uncle was the king of Belgium. She would take an interest in the affairs of that country, Eleanor supposed. “He is,” she said.

  “I’m sure he does our nation credit,” Victoria said.

  Eleanor thought of saying that she did not know Colin well enough to be sure, but she and her mother had managed thus far to convey that her acquaintance with Colin was rather longer than it truly was, that their marriage had not been as hasty as it seemed. Eleanor agreed with her mother that the royal visit would lend crucial weight to her marriage, and that the opportunity ought not to be wasted. If the princess were seen to approve of the union, everyone else would have no choice but to do so as well.

  Soon it was time for them to take their stroll. Eleanor would rather have allowed the events of the day to flow naturally, but the duchess—or, more to the point, Sir John—had insisted on a regimented schedule detailing every moment of the visit. The back-and-forth that had taken place over the agenda had been part of the reason the masquerade had been planned—Eleanor had suggested the idea almost as joke in a moment of frustration, believing that the duchess would never approve an entertainment which her daughter could not even attend. But the duchess had been delighted by the thought of a costume ball, declaring it one of her chief pleasures in life, and had heartily approved of the amusement, much to Eleanor’s shock. So the evening of the ball had been set for the last night of the royal visit, the cap on a very full schedule. Now Eleanor was grateful for the endless parade of activities—it meant that she did not have to think about what would happen next, where she would take her guests, what they would do there. At least this part of her life could be mindless and carefree.

  Colin came out of the house, followed by Leo. Eleanor took up a place beside her husband, and Victoria joined them. From the way Colin looked at her Eleanor knew he had heard about her visit to Meddur Udad that morning, but she did not give him time to say anything—he could not, anyway, in front of the princess and all the other guests. When everyone was assembled, Eleanor led the way out of the gardens and into the shaded parklands.

  Smiling his most charming smile at his wife, Colin forced the fury he felt to the back of his mind. There was no sense being angry with her now, he told himself. That didn’t seem to help.

  When the guard who had just left his duty outside the dressing room came to him and said that his wife had been to visit Meddur Udad, Colin had felt an intense, wildly varied range of emotions. Rage and fear and awe at her bravery and gentleness had mingled in his mind. But in the end his anger had won out. She knew that he would not like her visiting the captive assassin. She knew that it was insanely dangerous. And yet she had done it. Even worse than the fury was the awareness that he could n
ot say anything to her about it, that having an argument about something so small as this single transgression would do neither of them any good and would cause far more turmoil than it was worth.

  As they paraded beneath the shade of the old-growth trees that filled the park, Colin allowed his anger and fear to fade, to be replaced by that other emotion, by his awe of her. Here was a man who had tried to kill her, and she continued to show him kindness and caring. She was a far stronger person than he. Colin had been betrayed more times than he cared to remember, and he could not imagine treating any of those who had turned against him with such grace.

  "What is Brussels like, Lord Pierce?" Victoria asked, her voice breaking through the cacophony of his thoughts.

  "Not as enlightened as London," he said, though he knew it was not strictly true. In many ways Brussels was far more advanced than London—certainly it was nowhere near as savage, for all that they had just come out of a revolution. But Colin could hardly tell the future monarch of England that her crown city was a cesspool of poverty and want, could he? She had been so carefully sheltered under the rigid Kensington System that she would not understand if he tried to explain the hunger or desperation people experienced. Indeed, Colin was not sure he would ever understand them either, coming from wealth and privilege as he did. It was one of the reasons he dreaded his father's death. He could not imagine taking up the earl's seat in Parliament when he was so far removed from the needs of much of the country.

  As they came out from under the shade of the trees, Georgina, who had stayed behind with a book, came hurrying across the lawn towards them. For and instant Colin felt a surge of fear, but her expression as she heard her sister held no terror, only confusion and worry. She spoke softly to Eleanor for a moment, and when she had finished his wife turned and came back to him.

  "Your parents have arrived," she said.

  Colin blinked at her. "My parents?" he asked.

  She nodded. "Did you invite them?"

  "Absolutely not," he insisted. "Are you sure it's them?"

  "I've never met them," she said with a trace of bitterness, "And I cannot see them now, so I cannot say. We shall have to go back to the house, I suppose." She went back to where the princess and her mother were still ambling beneath the trees. After speaking quietly to them, she came back to his side. "Shall we go in?" she asked brightly.

  He offered her his arm. "Certainly."

  They walked towards the house in silence. But as they reached the terrace he slowed his pace. "I did not ask them to come here, Eleanor," he said. "I wrote to them of our marriage, of course, but I did not invite them. I know that their coming will be a burden."

  "It's not a burden, Colin," she said earnestly. "We can make room for them, and I am excited to meet them. I would have liked a little more time to prepare, that's all."

  "I understand." He brushed the lock of hair that was always coming loose out of her face.

  "Do I look all right?" she asked.

  He kissed her forehead. "Beautiful, as always."

  She sighed. "No sense stalling," she said, more to herself than to him. He laid his hand atop hers where it rested on his forearm and led her into the house.

  His parents were waiting in the salon, looking rather travel-weary. The Earl and Countess of Townsley had always appeared to Colin as the ideal picture of nobility, firm and upright and always impeccably dressed and coiffed, and though they looked a little bedraggled they still did not disappoint. Colin had not seen his parents in more than three years. They had visited him in Paris before he moved on to Brussels, but since then he had not been home and they had not been to the Continent. In the intervening years his father had aged a great deal, his salt-and-pepper hair more salt than pepper now, the dark shadows beneath his eyes deeper. Colin had always found his father’s aging disconcerting, since he knew that he was looking at an image of himself in thirty years every time he saw the man. His mother, too, had new lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth, though she was still striking. The Countess of Townsley had never been a great beauty, but the word 'handsome' had often been used to describe her. It was true now more than ever, Colin thought as he watched his mother look his new bride up and down.

  "Father, mother," he said warmly. "May I present Eleanor, my wife?"

  There was a moment of silence that felt like an eternity. Then, smiling, his mother said, "Of course. It is a great pleasure to meet you, my dear." She held out her hand and Eleanor took it, once more the lioness. "My husband, Richard."

  "It is a great honor to meet you both, Lord and Lady Townsley," Eleanor said.

  "Please, call me Elizabeth," his mother said, grinning like a schoolgirl at her new daughter-in-law. Colin had never seen her look quite so overjoyed before, and he was even more surprised when she said, "Oh, Colin, you have done well. We couldn't be more pleased."

  "Thank you, mother," Colin said, trying to process this uncommon praise. He looked past her to his father, who still had not spoken.

  “Oh, Richard, say something to the girl,” his mother chided.

  His father harrumphed and said, “Welcome to the family, child. My son has made a wise choice.”

  From the way Eleanor’s head tilted slightly to one side Colin knew she was as puzzled by this remark as he, but she sounded grateful and pleasant as she said, “Thank you, My Lord. I cannot tell you how thrilled I am.” Her fingers tightened on Colin’s sleeve.

  Now that they had dispensed with the pleasantries, Lady Townsley transitioned to the slightly less polite part of the conversation. “We know you are entertaining guests, my dear...” she began, and then she looked at Eleanor, who seemed to recognize her cue.

  “Of course you must both stay,” his wife said smoothly, “at least for a few days, so that we can get to know one another.”

  “Oh,” Colin’s mother said, looking away gracefully, “we would hate to impose.”

  “No, no,” Eleanor assured her, “It would be a pleasure to have you. It’s no trouble at all, really. I’ll just go and find our housekeeper and give you three a chance to catch up.” Then, wrestling her hand loose from Colin’s, she swept elegantly out of the room. Both his parents turned to watch her go.

  “She is an angel, Colin,” his mother said when she had gone. “And so poised.”

  “Indeed,” his father said, “quite exceptional. How did you ever convince the chit to marry you?”

  Ah. There was the father he had joined the Foreign Service to escape. Colin could not resist saying, “I ruined her, of course.”

  His mother gasped. “Oh, Colin! How can you even joke about such a thing?”

  “Unfortunately it’s the truth, mother. Her brother insisted I marry her and I was more than happy to oblige. I thought you would be happy, father. She is the daughter of a viscount, and she had a dowry of forty thousand pounds.”

  “I’m ecstatic,” his father said sourly. “When may we expect grandchildren?”

  “We’ve only been married two days,” Colin said.

  “Sooner the better, I say. I could drop dead any day, and then you’ll have only Miles for an heir.”

  “Richard,” Colin’s mother scolded, “how can you say that? You’re as healthy as a horse.”

  “So they tell me,” his father grumbled.

  Colin heaved a deep sigh. “Well, pleasant as this has been, I must return to my duties. If you’ll wait here, I’m sure Eleanor will return shortly. I’ll see you both at dinner.”

  Then he turned and strode back out onto the terrace. He did not look back—it was pleasurable enough to imagine the looks on their faces.

  By the time Eleanor returned from muddling through the problem of where to put her new in-laws, Colin had disappeared, leaving them alone in the salon. Eleanor would have apologized for his behavior, but she thought they might be used to it by now, so she said nothing except, “I suppose you’d both like a little rest after your journey. I’ll show you upstairs, and a maid will be up shortly with tea.”


  “That’s very kind of you, dear,” Lady Townsley said.

  “Yes,” her husband agreed. Eleanor was having a hard time not staring at him. This, she told herself, was how Colin would look when they were old and gray.

  If she survived this week, that was.

  Eleanor was not certain she could handle one more surprise.

  She took them to the Queen Anne room, the only empty bedroom left in the whole house. The only reason it had not been allocated was that Eleanor had originally planned to put the duchess there, only to discover upon her arrival that Victoria’s mother shared her daughter’s room each night. You see, Eleanor reminded herself they progressed down the corridor, it could be worse.

  “What a lovely room,” the countess exclaimed when Eleanor had opened the door. “This certainly is a beautiful house, my dear.”

  Eleanor nodded proudly. “It is indeed,” she agreed, “though I’m sure it’s nothing to Townsley.”

  “I must admit I am rather partial to our home,” her mother-in-law admitted as the earl went into the little sitting room that adjoined the bedchamber and dropped gratefully onto one of the sofas. He looked rather silly sitting there on the plush pink cushions, and Eleanor wished now that she had had the foresight to put the princess and her mother in this chamber, leaving the slightly less feminine King Charles room open. There was nothing for it now, however.

  “I cannot wait for you to see Townsley,” the countess said now, taking her hand and leading her to the windows. They overlooked the terrace, and out on the lawn Eleanor could see the guests making their way back inside to refresh themselves before dinner. “You will love it there, my dear.” She cast a glance back over her shoulder and smiled. Eleanor followed her gaze and saw that the earl had dozed off. “Good,” Lady Townsley said. “Now I may ask you the real questions.”

  “Oh, Lady Townsley, I—”

  “Now, now, there’s no point protesting. We might as well get them out of the way now. Then we can turn to the pleasanter business of becoming friends. Tell me: did my son truly compromise you?”