Behind the Mask (House of Lords)

by Brooke, Meg

  Eleanor blushed and looked back out over the garden. “I think that we compromised each other,” she said.

  Lady Townsley smiled again. “That’s as it should be, I suppose. I can’t stand a weak-willed woman.” She sighed and leaned on the windowsill. “Colin believes that his father and I don’t approve of him, and he is correct. The manner of his marriage is another in a long string of disappointments. It doesn’t mean we don’t love him, of course, but we have always wanted a different path for him.”

  Eleanor stared at her mother-in-law. She had never heard a woman admit so unabashedly to being disappointed by her child. “I think, Lady Townsley, that if you look carefully, you will see much in Colin of which you may be proud. He is not, perhaps, the consummate British gentleman. But he has other qualities that are far more...important.”

  Lady Townsley stared right back at her. “You love him, don’t you?”

  Eleanor did not know what to say to that. Did she love him? She had never been in love, not truly. Certainly she wanted him, but she could hardly say that to his mother. But she also admired him. She prized both his good and bad qualities. Perhaps that was love.

  “I must go see to the other guests,” she said, and like a coward she fled before Lady Townsley could ask her any more questions.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Colin went out with the afternoon patrol, desperate to escape the great house and the mortification of his parents’ sudden appearance. He had never known them to do such a thing, had never imagined when he wrote to them that they would immediately climb into their carriage and hie off to Norfolk simply because their son announced he was getting married. But that was apparently exactly what they had done. By the time he rode back from an uneventful circuit around the Park, he had still not quite recovered from the shock of seeing them standing in the salon.

  And he had left Eleanor alone with them. He felt like a coward. He hoped they had not terrorized her. But Eleanor could stand up to them—she could stand up to anyone.

  When he rode into the stableyard he found Strathmore preparing to go out with the next patrol. “Crawley’s going to take the midnight circuit,” Strathmore said.

  Colin nodded. “Everything all right here?”

  “It’s almost too quiet,” Strathmore said. “I can’t help but feel that something’s bound to go wrong any moment. What are they waiting for?” He stared agitatedly out at the northern hill, as though expecting the Serraray to come barreling down any second.

  “The right moment, I suppose,” Colin said. “The most we can do is keep watching.”

  “Perhaps I’ll ride past Havenhall again,” Strathmore offered.

  Colin had still not told Strathmore about the visit he had paid Toby Hollier. He had not decided whether to trust his aides with the information that he was ruling out suspects. “You can if you like, though I believe all the Holliers will be at dinner tonight.”

  Strathmore grinned wryly, but rather than make a snide comment he said, “I understand your parents are with us, too.”

  “Unfortunately,” Colin said. “They invited themselves to the house party.”

  “Well, it’s a visit you can cross off your schedule.”

  Colin had not thought of that—if Eleanor had met his parents, there was no real reason for them to go to Townsley. It would allow them to leave for Brussels sooner than he had expected. “Perhaps I should be grateful to them, then,” he said, laughing as he left Strathmore and went into the house.

  He barely had time to dress before the guests began assembling for dinner. It was only as he came in and Eleanor assigned him to his partner that he remembered that in addition to the Holliers and his parents, there were other guests at dinner that night. The woman Eleanor paired him with was none other than Lady Pennethorne.

  “Lord Pierce,” the wife of the great Lord Pennethorne murmured as he held out his arm for her. She was a striking, raven-haired woman who had been a great society belle her first season. There were rumors that she had had a dozen offers for her hand within a week of her come-out, and yet she had chosen Lord Daniel Pennethorne, who was more than fifteen years her senior. Colin wondered if there was any affection between them. He could not imagine Pennethorne, who had always been a bit of a cult hero around the Foreign Office, enjoying a marriage to a blushing debutante. Since Colin had always avoided the great champion of espionage, he had not had much opportunity to observe the union. But the Pennethornes had been in Brussels his first year there, and they had been on the guest list of every soiree and ball and salon, so he had been forced to develop an acquaintance with them. Lady Pennethorne clearly remembered him, for as they went into the dining room she asked him about the climate in Brussels and friends she still had there.

  “Did you know that the Duchess of Wittelsbach is my cousin?” she asked.

  Colin had to stifle a groan as he wondered what the duchess had told her cousin about him. When he had left Brussels she had been rather doggedly pursuing him, clearly hoping for some sort of affair. From the way Lady Pennethorne smiled as she dropped the woman’s name, she knew more than Colin would have wished. He steered the conversation to safer topics, and somehow he managed to make it through the meal without her mentioning her cousin again.

  When he glanced down the table he saw Eleanor sitting beside Lord Pennethorne. He had not seen the man escort her in to dinner, but he must have. Eleanor was listening to something the Duchess of Kent was saying, and her face was turned away from him. When she did look in his direction, she shifted her gaze away again quickly, a forced smile coming to her lips.

  Instantly Colin was on edge. Had Lord Pennethorne said something to her? The man was one of the few who knew what had happened in Vienna, and he had always disliked Colin almost as much as Colin disliked him. Would he have seized an opportunity to reveal his shame so quickly?

  There would be no opportunity to find out until the ladies went back into the drawing room after dinner, and there were still six courses to be endured.

  “Lord Pennethorne,” Eleanor said merrily as the man came in, his wife on his arm. “Lady Pennethorne. How splendid to see you both again.”

  “Miss Eleanor,” Lady Pennethorne said, and then immediately corrected herself. “I should say Lady Pierce, of course. Our felicitations, dear.”

  She sounded like an old matron, Eleanor thought uncharitably, for all that Lucy Pennethorne was no more than six years her senior. Perhaps being married to man of forty when one was twenty-three made a woman old before her time. Still, the Pennethornes seemed happy enough.

  “Thank you,” Eleanor said. “Lord Pierce will be down soon, of course, but come through to the drawing room. We’re gathering for dinner.” The Pennethornes were the last to arrive. Eleanor had already endured a stony stare from Toby as his parents gushed about the wedding and their excitement at the prospect of meeting the princess. Now, as she guided Lord and Lady Pennethorne into the drawing room, her eyes found him again. He was glowering at her from across the room, though he was pretending to listen to something Sir John was saying. Lady Pennethorne went over to make her curtsey to Princess Victoria and her mother, but Lord Pennethorne stayed at Eleanor’s side.

  “I must confess I was surprised to hear that Lord Pierce was back in the country,” he said.

  Eleanor knew that Lord Pennethorne had once worked for the Foreign Office, but she could not decide if she should share the real reason for Colin’s trip to Sidney Park. Instead, she asked, “Why were you surprised?” It was just the sort of question a gossipy young wife would ask, and she despised herself for falling into his trap.

  He appeared more than ready to take advantage of her lapse. “I had imagined he would allow a little more time to pass, for people to forget about Vienna.”

  Now her curiosity got the better of her. “Vienna?” she asked, remembering that that was where Colin had been before Brussels, back when he had said he was working as a spy. What did Lord Pennethorne know about her husband’s time in Vienna? />
  “You didn’t know?” he asked. “An unfortunate business. The woman...well, I shouldn’t really say any more, Lady Pierce. It would not be my place to tell you such a sordid tale.”

  Eleanor stared at him, seething. She had never really liked their neighbor, and now she found that she detested him. How dare he plant suspicions in her mind? She had walked right into the snare, of course, despite the fact that it had not been very well concealed. Still, that did not give him the right to feed her the beginning of a story she would not be able to endure not having finished. He knew she would demand answers of Colin. Did he mean to sow seeds of strife between Eleanor and her husband? Why would he do such a thing?

  These questions roiled through her mind all through dinner, and she thought it might be more than she could bear to leave Colin sitting at the table with the man when the ladies withdrew after the meal was over. Fortunately for her—though perhaps less than fortunate for their guests—a faint rumble of faraway thunder echoed across the Broads as the last dishes were being cleared.

  “Perhaps we should depart early,” Lady Pennethorne said to her husband, casting a nervous glance out the window at the darkening western sky.

  “That might be best,” he agreed. “If you will forgive us for taking our leave, Your Highness?” He looked to the head of the table, where Princess Victoria smiled stiffly.

  “Of course,” she said. “It would be terrible to be caught out in a storm.” From her expression, Eleanor gathered that the rumors of the princess’s fear of lightning storms were true. The poor little mouse, she thought.

  The Holliers expressed their desire to get home before the storm hit as well, and carriages were called. Eleanor and her mother went out into the salon with the departing guests while the ladies left the remaining gentlemen to their port and withdrew to the drawing room.

  “We cannot express how grateful we were to be invited, Eleanor,” Mrs. Hollier said as they waited. “It was such a thrill to see the little princess. I don’t suppose she’ll be attending the masquerade on Saturday?”

  Shaking her head, Eleanor said, “No, she is rather young for that. But the duchess and the other ladies will be there, and a great many others as well.”

  “We shall look forward to it eagerly,” Mrs. Hollier promised. Toby glared at her, but said nothing. Her husband patted Eleanor’s hand and wished her good night as they went out to their carriage.

  Lady Pennethorne seemed equally excited by the idea of a costume ball. “It will be quite the event,” she said. “What a lovely way to celebrate your marriage.”

  “It is not for us, of course,” Eleanor said, “but it will provide an opportunity to introduce Lord Pierce to all the local gentry.”

  “I am sure you will be proud to show him off,” Lord Pennethorne said.

  Eleanor balked at his rudeness, but there was no time to reply, for he was handing his wife into their carriage. Then they were speeding away down the drive.

  “Lord Pennethorne is perhaps the strangest of our neighbors,” Lady Sidney said as she and Eleanor returned to the drawing room.

  Eleanor could not help but laugh. “And that is saying something,” she said.

  The storm hit just as everyone was going up to bed. Colin had not seen Strathmore come in, but he must have, because as he was getting ready to turn in himself he passed Crawley in the hall on his way out to take Strathmore’s place.

  “No one will be out in this weather,” Colin said to him.

  The hulking agent frowned. “All the same, My Lord, I think it’s best to keep up the patrols.”

  Colin clapped him on the shoulder. “Stay dry.”

  Crawley laughed as he went out into the first drops of rain. The man was a veritable beast, Colin thought. He wondered where Palmerston had found him.

  In the upstairs corridor her met Sir John. “Everything well?” the duchess’s comptroller asked.

  “It appears so. We’ve seen nothing suspicious today.” Colin carefully omitted the discovery of the body in the tunnel the day before. He had instructed his men not to tell Sir John about the dead assassin—it would do no good. The man would refuse to take the princess back to London in any case, and the more people who knew about Udad’s murdered cousin, the more likely those who should not know would find out.

  “Very good,” Sir John said. “You see, it is as I said. Everything will be well. I have faith in you and Colonel Taylor, Lord Pierce.”

  Colin thanked him through clenched teeth and escaped to his room.

  When he reached it, however, he realized that escape was not likely to be found in the same space as his wife.

  Eleanor was waiting for him, sitting cross-legged in the middle of the bed in her robe, her hair neatly plaited. She looked severe and unyielding, which Colin imagined was intentional. He had almost allowed himself to forget about the strange look on Eleanor’s face as she sat beside Lord Pennethorne at dinner, but now it all came rushing back.

  “Well, then,” he said, taking off his coat and draping it over a chair. He loosened his cravat as he walked slowly toward the bed. “I suppose he’s told you everything.”

  “He hasn’t, actually,” she said. “Just enough so that he knew I would have no choice but to confront you.”

  “Damn him,” Colin swore. “The man may be a hero, but he’s also an accursed meddler.”

  Eleanor brought her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. Outside lightning flashed through the sky, the roll of thunder that followed immediately afterwards so loud that the windowpanes shook. “You’d better tell me,” she said.

  Colin sighed and sat on the edge of the bed. “There’s nothing for it now,” he said as he kicked off his shoes. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  “Warn me?”

  “That you’d rather not know.”

  She shrugged. “I don’t think there’s any turning back at this point.”

  With another sigh Colin leaned back against the bedpost and closed his eyes. “Five years ago, I received my first assignment with the Foreign Office. They sent me to Vienna, where all the spies on the Continent go to play. There were Russian and French and Greek and British agents intermixed with the Viennese and Hanoverian nobility. Every night they congregated in some social setting or another, and I was thrown right into the thick of it. Wellington was still Prime Minister, and he and the Earl of Aberdeen trusted no one. There were so many people being watched that I had to keep notes just to remember who I was supposed to be following that week. It was a heady time, and right in the thick of my first year there I met Angeline Meltzen. She was a glorious soprano, young and vivacious and completely irresistible, and I, convinced I could do no wrong, began an affair with her.”

  He heard Eleanor’s sharp intake of breath, but he didn’t open his eyes. In his mind he saw Angeline, brassy and bold, standing before him in her girlish nightdress. What a fool he had been! “It went on for almost a year. I was convinced I was in love with her. Then one night she told me that she had been receiving threats. The men who sent them said they would kill her unless she began passing on secrets I might share with her. What I didn’t know was that she had already been doing just that for more than six months. I was young and stupid and I wanted to prove that I was more important that I really was, and I had dropped some casual comments about my work that revealed far too much.”

  “So they had already been blackmailing her?” Eleanor asked hopefully.

  He shook his head and opened his eyes, meeting hers resolutely. “She was a Russian spy. The act of the ingénue she had showed me was all a farce, a role she had played with other young men before. In her defense, I think she had little choice. She was born an impoverished Jew in a Russian slum, and though she had a golden voice, more was needed to get her out of Russia. The Imperial Court sponsored her career in exchange for secrets.”

  “So why tell you that she was being threatened?”

  Colin pinched the bridge of his nose. The air had grown so
heavy that his head was beginning to pound. Outside fat raindrops bounced off the windowpanes. “She had gone too far. She had become a double agent, working for both the Russians and the French. It was the Russians who were threatening her, who had discovered her duplicity. She wanted protection from the British, which of course I could not give, though I tried, God help me. And then one night everything fell apart.” He paused, trying to collect his thoughts.

  Eleanor put a hand on his knee. “You don’t have to tell me,” she said softly.

  But he did. He had gone too far into the story not to finish it. Taking a deep breath, he said, “I had made a contact in the French government, someone who thought they could give me information about a plot to overthrow the new Belgian king. We were to meet in an alley near the Louvre. But Angeline had also found out about the meeting—Lord knows how. By then I had become circumspect enough not to reveal any more to her. She had decided to try and buy back some credit with the Russians by telling them about the meeting, and when they appeared on the scene I panicked. Swords were drawn, reckless words were exchanged, and before I knew it two of them were dead. The third fled, and, convinced that Angeline had betrayed them, tracked her down. We found her body on the edge of the Seine a week later.”

  Her fingers were trembling on his knee. “How awful,” she said.

  “It was,” he agreed. “Needless to say, I was given a thorough dressing-down, sent off to Paris to lick my wounds for a few months, and then exiled to Brussels.”

  “And you believe it’s your fault she’s dead.”

  Colin closed his eyes again. “Not really,” he said. “Once I did. But after they told me what she had been, after I realized that she had been using me...well, let’s say that I’m no longer convinced. She had dug herself into a very deep hole by the time I met her. Still, the whole thing was a debacle, though I think the younger men at the Foreign Office see me as some sort of hero for killing those men.”