“Yes, I am well acquainted with the problems due to the quarantine, sir. Are you sure of this? Did he speak of it in detail?”
“Oh yes,” replied the baronet. “When he had been drinking, anyway. He consumes the most prodigious quantities of alcohol.” It was a relief to say something truthful. “And when he does, he becomes very chatty, even more so than normal. We talked in detail about how he could charm the young lady into becoming his wife, on which subject I consider myself particularly well qualified to give advice, having succeeded in obtaining the hand of my own exquisite lady here!” His hand fluttered out, and Beth hurriedly removed hers out of reach before he could inflict another passionate gesture on her. “We discussed the presents he should buy for her and so on and what he should wear on his wedding day. He opted for the blue silk in the end. A wise decision, and I am proud to say I had not a little influence on him in this matter. The colour will complement his eyes magnificently.”
The envoy looked about to explode with frustration.
“I think Sir Horace means did he discuss the reasons why he wishes to marry the princess, Anthony,” Beth prompted gently. “Political reasons.”
“Oh. Well, no. I assumed he was in love. Why else would anyone wish to marry?” he said naively, smiling affectionately at his wife.
“Did Charles mention his impending nuptials to your good self, Lady Elizabeth?” Sir Horace asked somewhat desperately.
Sir Anthony coughed delicately.
“No, he did not,” replied Beth. “He was too busy droning endlessly on about Bernini, and the glories of ancient Rome. In fact, this is the first I have heard of it myself.”
“Is it really, my dear?” asked her husband. “I thought I had mentioned it to you. I certainly intended to.”
“I wish you had,” she replied, irritated. “If he had, Sir Horace, I assure you I would have asked some pertinent questions. But my husband has a tendency to be a little forgetful at times, particularly when he is drunk.”
“I was not, at any time, drunk!” protested the baronet. “Only a little…ah…tipsy on occasion. I merely attempted to keep up with Charles. A man is expected to be able to hold his liquor, and I couldn’t have my manliness called into question by abstaining. You will understand this of course, Sir Horace, being a man of breeding. But I was most certainly not drunk!” He glared at his wife, who returned his look with equanimity.
“If the tipsy state of my husband on his return home from drinking sessions with Charles was anything to go by,” she said coldly, “and the ability to consume vast quantities of spirits is the measure of a man, then Charles is most certainly a formidable specimen of masculinity.”
Philip had stopped writing. Sir Horace stood.
“I thank you both for your endeavours. I will take up no more of your time for the present. You must be tired after your long journey, and in need of rest. I trust I will see you at this evening’s reception? Although it goes without saying that you will mention nothing of the conversation we have just had to the company.” It was a statement, not a request. “I have been assured by many of my guests that they consider my house to be a home from home. I hope you will feel happy here,” he added coolly.
“We already do, Sir Horace,” said Beth, standing. Sir Anthony, belatedly comprehending that they were being dismissed, also came slowly to his feet. “Our rooms are delightful. It is a shame that we will only be able to accept your hospitality for one night, or two at the most.”
“Why, no, my dear Lady Peters. I expect you to stay here for at least a week. And after that I have reserved rooms for you at the Hotel Margherita. You will of course now be staying in Italy until the spring. Tonight I will introduce you to a number of English people who are also wintering here. You may as well stay in Florence, where you will be amongst friends.” Sir Horace smiled at the young lady. She really was adorable. Such a pity that she was wasted on that vacuous idiot. What had possessed the duke of Newcastle to recruit him? True, he had come up with one piece of astounding information, but only by mistake, and having apparently won the Pretender’s confidence, had failed utterly to capitalise on it.
The adorable young lady was now looking quite anxious.
“No, Sir Horace, it is quite imperative that we return to Britain at the earliest opportunity. You really are most kind, but it is unthinkable that we can stay in Italy. We must cross to France as soon as possible.”
“My dear child, you are surely not entertaining the notion of crossing the Alps in December? It will be a dreadful journey, at the least perilous, if not absolutely impossible.”
“Nevertheless,” said Beth determinedly. “I mean to try. I will not have my first child born anywhere other than in England, and if I do not leave now, then my condition will certainly render me unable to travel by the spring.”
“I had no idea…I congratulate you. Both of you,” Sir Horace replied, looking doubtfully at the baronet. “But Sir Anthony, you really cannot contemplate attempting a winter crossing of the Alps, with your wife in such a delicate state.”
If Sir Anthony was surprised at the unexpected news that he was soon to be a father, he showed no sign of it.
“Could you deny her anything, if she were your wife, sir? She is the most delightful creature! And as strong as an ox!” He smiled down at the delicate figure of his wife. Anything less ox-like could hardly be imagined. “I think one should indulge one’s dearest spouse wherever possible, and especially when she is soon to make me the happiest of men!”
Or especially when it is the line of least resistance, thought Sir Horace as the simpering baronet followed his wife from the room. How the hell such a limp creature had managed to impregnate his wife at all was a mystery. It would be no loss to the Hanoverian world if the man were to be swept away by an avalanche. Shame about the woman though. With a small effort he dismissed them from his mind. If they wished to commit suicide in the Alps, so be it. They were of no further use to him.
Had he been a witness to the whispered scene that took place in the bedroom five minutes later, he would have revised his opinion somewhat. No sooner had the door closed behind them than the limp baronet picked his wife up and swung her round in the air as though she were weightless, with scant regard for her condition.
“That was a stroke of genius!” he whispered ecstatically, crushing her to his chest briefly before releasing her. “I do take it you’re not really with child?” He raised his voice. “This room is quite the most beautiful one we have stayed in, do you not think, my dear?”
“Of course not!” she replied in a low voice. “If I was, don’t you think I’d have told you first? Would you be disappointed if I was? Yes, it is delightful, although I thought the apartment at Nice just as lovely, if a little more gaudy.”
“Perhaps you are right, although I am a great lover of gold work myself,” he trilled in reply. “God, no, I’d be delighted,” he whispered. “Although it would be a little inconvenient at the moment. But even so…” his voice trailed off wistfully. “We have plenty of time to have children,” he continued. “And the making of them is great fun.”
He reached for her, and she slapped his hand away.
“Not now,” she replied softly. “I think Sir Anthony would be more likely to lie down quietly for an hour than to engage in relations with his wife which will no doubt be overheard by the person listening in the next room.” She adopted a bored tone for the next sentence, before lowering her voice again. “You should rest for a while, Anthony, you know how fatigued you become if you do not have a nap in the afternoons. I take it then that it is as likely Charles is to marry the princess as it is that his eyes have become blue overnight.”
“How considerate you are, my dear. Yes, I shall lie down directly.” He moved towards the bed, taking off his coat and sitting on the edge. She sat next to him. “You’re right. But it provides a reason for him going to France, if he chooses to, and will hopefully throw Mann off the scent until after the invasion is launched. I
must write to Charles at the earliest opportunity and tell him that he has a spy amongst his guards. Did you see Mann’s reaction to my avowal to defend you?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “But isn’t it most likely that the guard Charles dismissed has betrayed him?”
“Probably. But we can take no chances.”
He kissed her, passionately, once. Then he lay down. For the remainder of their time in Florence both in public and private, Alex made no further appearance, and Beth was made fully aware of how unbearably tedious her life would be if she were indeed the wife only of a superficial, gossipy, frivolous fop, as everyone else thought. It was only three days, but the fact that she missed Alex intensely during that time, told her that she really did now think of him and Anthony as two distinct beings. And that told her that, overall, she was probably performing the role of Lady Peters quite well.
By the end of the three days Sir Horace was so desperate to be rid of Sir Anthony, who embroiled him at every opportunity in a lengthy discussion about the quality of silk, or the intricacies of the embroidery on whichever hideous waistcoat he was wearing at the time, that he became positively effusive about the mildness of the weather at the moment, and now considered their chances of crossing the Alps safely to be excellent. When Sir Anthony, seconds before they were due to leave, asked the envoy if he would be so kind as to provide a letter of recommendation to ease their way through the remaining Italian customs posts, Sir Horace agreed without hesitation, and rang the bell for his clerk. When neither Philip nor his underclerk Nathaniel made an appearance, an unprecedented event, the envoy hurriedly penned a letter in his own hand, unwilling to delay Sir Anthony’s departure any longer than was necessary.
It was with the greatest relief that he waved the baronet and his wife off, noting with disapproval that Sir Anthony was even too much of a coward or a fool to discipline his own footman, who after having kept his master waiting for a few minutes, strolled casually round the side of the house whistling, and leapt into the coach without receiving any rebuke at all.
That evening, in their local drinking establishment, Philip and Nathaniel greatly increased their popularity amongst the assembled company by performing an extremely indecent song, complete with very explicit actions, concerning a young lady who became curious as to what was to be found beneath a Scotsman’s kilt, and was answered by that native of Caledonia in a very direct and hilarious manner. It had taken the Scottish footman some time to teach them the whole thing, which comprised some ten verses and a particularly rousing chorus, but it had been worth it, they felt.
So did the Scottish footman.
CHAPTER TEN
Paris, December 1743
Dear Isabella,
Thank you for your letter, which was waiting for me when we arrived here. It has been a long and sometimes difficult journey from Florence, and I am very relieved to have arrived safely at last.
She was, but not for the reasons given here.
The journey over the Alps was particularly difficult, but had to be attempted if we were not to be stranded in Italy for the winter, which we were most anxious to avoid. We could not make the return journey by sea, as the feluccas rarely put out in the winter, and so we had no choice but to travel over Mont Cenis. One cannot traverse this pass by coach, so our carriage was dismantled and taken by mule.
Sir Anthony and I were taken by chair, carried by two men. At first I must confess that I was very alarmed at the idea of trusting my life to total strangers, and spent some time in trepidation that they would lose their footing and drop me over the side of the mountain, but they are remarkably sure footed. They leap about the rocks like mountain goats and can seemingly walk on sheet ice without slipping at all.
The mountains are spectacular; it is impossible to describe their enormity and grandeur. The sight of the sun rising over the Alps, turning the peaks rose pink and causing the snow to sparkle as if one were travelling over a carpet of diamonds, is one I shall never forget, and certainly took my mind off the fact that for much of the journey I had no feeling at all in my hands and feet, so cold was it. We were most relieved not to encounter any brigands or the Spanish, and we travelled on to Geneva without any incident worth repeating, where Sir Anthony paused briefly to visit some acquaintances.
Beth had been surprised when he had stopped their reassembled carriage outside a small church nestled on the slope of a hill on the outskirts of the town.
“Why are we stopping?” she asked. The Calvinist church was rectangular, stone built and without ornamentation, surrounded by a small, well-maintained graveyard. Nothing that would merit a stop, particularly when they were in such haste.
Angus shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. He had no idea either.
“I wish to make only a brief halt, to visit some people to whom I owe a great debt, my dear,” Sir Anthony said, climbing down from the carriage and holding out his hand to assist his wife to descend. The postillion sat resigned to waiting in the bitter cold, hunching his body deep into his heavy cape.
Instead of going to the church itself, as both Angus and Beth expected, he took the small path around the side of the building, and came to a stop in front of a large, recently-erected stone, its edges as yet unweathered, the lettering crisp and clear.
“He has done it, then,” Sir Anthony murmured mysteriously.
Beth moved round to his side, partly to use him as a shelter from the biting wind, which he seemed not to notice, and partly so that she could read the lettering.
Erected In Loving Memory of
Anna Clarissa
widow of Sir John Anthony Peters
who departed this life on 7th February 1740
in the 45th year of her life.
Also in memory of their three daughters
Anna Mary
3rd June 1715 – 10th February 1740
Caroline Anne
12th December 1716 – 6th February 1740
Beatrice Elizabeth
25th March 1719 – 25th February 1740
May they rest in the eternal peace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Sir Anthony knelt down by the side of the grave, leaving Beth exposed to the wind. She gasped, but not because of that. After a moment she crouched down next to him. Angus remained discreetly in the background.
“They were real?” she asked. She had always thought the Peters family to be a fabrication of Alex’s sponsor, whoever he or she was. She had never imagined for one moment that they had really existed.
“Yes,” her husband replied simply. “My sponsor erected the stone last year at my request, but they were real. It wouldn’t have been practical to wholly invent a family. If we had done that, even the most cursory investigation of my background would have revealed that Sir Anthony didn’t exist. As I said, after my father died I returned to Scotland to lead the clan, not really having any intention of continuing with the idea of espionage. In the April of 1740 I received a letter from my sponsor to say that he had found a possible identity for me, if I was still interested.”
“And you were,” she said.
“Yes. There wasn’t much going on in Scotland at the time, nothing Duncan couldn’t deal with. So I made a trip down to…my sponsor’s house, and the rest is history, so to speak.”
She looked again at the gravestone.
“They all died within days of each other,” Beth commented. She shivered, and not wholly because of the wind. “What did they die of?”
He turned to her, his painted face blank.
“Smallpox,” he replied. “Which is why their son wears so much paint, as the sole survivor of the family, although horribly scarred, of course.”
She considered for a moment, laying aside the sympathy she felt for this tragic family, and dwelling on more practical matters.
“But in spite of the fact that there is a real Peters family, would it not still be easy to prove you don’t exist?” she said. “Anyone going to Cheshire would soon discover from the registers that Sir J
ohn and Lady Peters had no son.”
“No, they wouldn’t,” he replied. He plucked absently at a small weed struggling to grow in the shelter of the costly marble stone. “They did have a son. Anthony was born in Cheshire, in 1713. Sir John died six years later, and the family left the country soon after.”
“You mean Sir Anthony really exists?” she cried. She thought for a moment. “What happened to him? Is he dead?” she asked, and her husband smiled, having followed her thought patterns and been satisfied with the conclusion she had come to.
“He died in France in 1720, weeks after they arrived, which can’t have done Anna’s state of mind any good. He’s buried in a small church near Blois.” He reached down and ran his fingers across the four inches of smooth marble that separated Beatrice’s date of death from the wishes for their souls. “I owe him a debt,” he said earnestly. “Which is why, one day, when it no longer matters, I will add his name and date and place of death to the stone, so that anyone who cares to investigate will know that Sir Anthony Peters, court fop and Jacobite spy, was no relation whatsoever to this poor, tragic family. I will not sully their name. They deserve that, at least.”
He straightened, brushing the dirt from his gloves.
“Shall we go?” he said. There was a pale green stain on the fingers of his right glove, from where he had uprooted the small weed, which now lay wilting on the ground, its tiny roots exposed to the icy wind.
We stayed for a night in Geneva before travelling on to France. Really, the customs men are nothing short of robbers, and in spite of the numerous letters of safe conduct that my husband had obtained before leaving England (you, of course, dear cousins, know how numerous and influential are his acquaintance),
It would do no harm to remind them of this. Although the letter was addressed to Isabella, all of the cousins and probably Richard too, would read it.
The Mask Revealed (The Jacobite Chronicles Book 2) Page 20
