The Admiral's Daughter

by Francesca Shaw

  Of Adam there was no sign. The dancer removed her penultimate veil and the men began to shout at her to wait. ‘Where’s Darvell? Damme, he can’t miss this!’ one young buck yelled. No one had yet spotted Helena, rooted to the spot on the threshold.

  ‘In the library with you know who—I don’t think he’ll want to be disturbed,’ one of his companions responded. Her heart sinking, Helena backed into the hall.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ Portia whispered.

  ‘Find him, of course. I wonder which is the library?’

  ‘No, Helena, do not go in there! What if he is—?’

  ‘Oh, never mind, that does not matter,’ Helena retorted impatiently, throwing open one door after another. She was greeted with cries of ‘Get out!’ from one room, and found another empty except for a number of discarded garments.

  Pausing before the last door in the hallway, she took a deep, tumultuous breath. How could she prepare herself for what she was going to find behind its concealing panels? With a trembling hand she turned the knob and pushed open the door. The room was lit with one branch of candles and the light of the fire. At the sound of the door opening, the two figures on the hearthrug turned from their mutual absorption. Across the room Helena’s wide eyes met and locked with Adam’s shocked gaze.

  Chapter Thirteen

  ‘Helena!’ Adam straightened up, looking at her with a thunderstruck expression that held none of the embarrassment she had expected to see written there. ‘What the devil are you doing here?’

  Someone cleared his throat, and Helena, dragging her eyes away from Adam’s, saw clearly for the first time that his companion was not female. Both men, who had been standing in conversation at the fireside, had turned at her entrance.

  ‘Mademoiselle,’ the Frenchman said gravely, placing his glass of brandy on the mantelshelf before bowing formally. It was the man from St Mary’s and from Vaux-hall Gardens. ‘We meet at last: Adam has told me so much about you that I feel that I already know you. But then…’ his thin lips twitched with suppressed amusement ‘…you have been at my heels for some while, n’est-ce pas?’

  Adam, too, put down his glass. Any amazement he had felt at seeing Miss Wyatt in his country house at three in the morning was no longer evident on his expressionless face. ‘I feel the time has come to make my friend known to you, Miss Wyatt. May I present Henri, le comte de Provins.’

  Utterly bewildered, Helena permitted her hand to be taken and her fingertips kissed with utmost Gallic gallantry. It was almost as if she were outside her own body, observing herself go through these ludicrous social formalities. ‘Monsieur le comte,’ she murmured in response.

  Then through a haze of tiredness her brain began to work again. ‘You are a Royalist?’

  ‘Mais oui, mademoiselle. What did you think I was? Surely not a supporter of that usurping Corsican dog?’ He turned and spat into the fire, the sizzle demonstrating his contempt for Napoleon Bonaparte as words could not. ‘Pardon, mademoiselle,’ he apologised swiftly.

  Suddenly Helena’s legs could support her no longer and she sat down hastily in the nearest wing chair. ‘Thank heavens,’ she whispered, ‘thank heavens I was right.’

  Adam was by her side in two swift strides, his hand on her arm. With his other hand he gently smoothed back her disordered hair and looked deep into her eyes. ‘Helena, tell me, why are you here? How did you get here?’

  ‘I have come to warn you that Daniel Brookes believes you are a traitor and has set a trap for you. Portia and I drove down together as soon as I discovered what he intended.’

  ‘But you do not believe I would betray my country?’ He was looking down at her steadily; behind him, the Count melted tactfully into the shadows. ‘You were spying on me at the inn, were you not?’

  ‘I did not set out to, but what I glimpsed, did, I admit, make me suspicious. Adam, I could hardly credit what I feared, but I had to be sure. I am, after all, an admiral’s daughter—one who gave his life for his country.’

  ‘So at what point did you decide to trust me?’

  ‘When we were boarded by the excisemen—I knew you were hiding something before you gave me the packet of papers.’ Helena shook her head, as if to clarify her thoughts. ‘It was strange, I could not have put into words why I trusted you, but I did. I sensed, I think, that you were a man of honour, one who, if he truly believed in the revolutionary cause, would have gone openly to fight for the Emperor, not traded in secrets for his own gain.’

  She bit her lip and could not meet his eyes. ‘There is something else, is there not?’ he asked gently.

  ‘Yes…I knew you would do nothing to hurt me. If those papers had been treacherous, you would never have entrusted them to my care, knowing that if they had been found on me, it would have been my neck in the noose as a result.’

  Adam half turned away, pushing his hair back with one hand. ‘You trusted me, yet I did not behave like a gentleman to you on the Moonspinner, did I, Helena?’

  ‘And I did not behave like a lady, as you told me on the beach that Sunday morning,’ she said calmly, meeting his gaze again. ‘You did not force me, Adam, and I know you would not have taken…advantage of me.’

  ‘But Brookes—why the devil did you play with fire with him? Why did you let the engagement go so far?’

  ‘Because he was blackmailing me.’

  ‘I know that…’

  ‘No, Adam, he was threatening not just to ruin me, but to expose you and whatever your activities were.’

  ‘But you have just said you believed me, that I could not be a traitor.’

  ‘It is not that simple. How was I to know what the real truth was? You could be innocent of treachery, but still be smuggling! I did not want to see you hauled off to prison and that man triumphant.’

  Adam fell to his knees beside her chair and took her cold hand between his own warm ones. ‘Why did you not tell me this the other evening when you came to me?’

  ‘I was determined never to do anything to put you in a position where you again felt obliged to marry me.’ Despite the fact that I love you, she wanted to shout out, but she could not.

  ‘And yet tonight you put yourself in peril for me.’ There was an unspoken question in his voice.

  ‘Adam, I had to…’ But she was unable to finish. In the hall outside the heavy front door swung open with a crash, there was the sound of boots on the marble and the shout of orders.

  Helena sprung to her feet, her hands pushing Adam back towards the curtained window. ‘The dragoons! You must both run or he will have you shot out of hand!’

  ‘Dragoons? Who the devil—’

  ‘It is Daniel Brookes’s doing. Adam, I told you, he thinks you are a traitor and by exposing you he will do his own career much good—you must flee, both of you.’

  ‘I will be damned if I will be chased like a dog from my own home by that bastard. Wait here,’ he snapped at Helena as he strode to the door, his face like thunder.

  Neither Helena nor the Count obeyed him, but the Frenchman held Helena back in the doorway, drawing her back into the shadows of the room. ‘Wait,’ he said, low-voiced. ‘He would not want you to be seen by the soldiers.’

  The hall was a scene of chaos. An elderly, portly butler confronted a sergeant of dragoons and his six men, their rifles glinting menacingly in the candlelight. The four young men had spilled out of the dining room: two were hastily pulling on their jackets while the others pushed the girls back into the room and firmly shut the door on their excited chattering.

  ‘What is the meaning of this outrage?’ the butler was demanding. ‘How dare you enter his lordship’s house without his leave?’ His grey hair was disordered and his face an alarming shade of puce.

  The sergeant sneered at the elderly man, pushing him hard in the chest. ‘You just get out of the way, granddad.’

  He had hardly a chance to turn before a crashing right hook caught him on the chin and sent him sprawling across the chequered marble. Adam stood
over him, rubbing and flexing his fingers. ‘That will teach you to have a little more respect for your elders and betters.’ He shot a hard glance at the soldiers who had stepped forward, weapons at the ready. ‘Stand back! If your sergeant has no more sense than to make a scene in a private house without authority, then you should have.’

  ‘But, my dear Darvell,’ a voice said silkily, ‘they have every authority—the King’s authority. And you,’ Daniel Brookes said with a look of pure venom as he stepped into the light, ‘have now added assault to a long list of treasonable activities.’

  Henri stepped forward to his friend’s side, his hands clenching. ‘You insult my friend monsieur, you will answer to me.’ It was a clear challenge to a duel and Daniel’s face darkened with anger.

  ‘I do not duel with spies and foreigners, only with gentlemen,’ he snarled back.

  One of the young blades by the door straightened up, a look of purpose on his face. ‘Sir,’ he said, looking directly at Adam, ‘this has gone far enough. Shall we throw them out?’

  The look on Daniel’s face would have been comic if there had been any room for humour in the situation. For the first time he looked round, taking in the four men who now stood, sobered and grim, by the dining-room door. ‘Frensham! Cooper? My God, are you all in this?’ The sergeant groaned, rubbing his jaw and Brookes shoved him in the ribs with his foot. ‘Get up, man, and arrest the lot of them!’

  Adam stepped forward, facing his enemy across the sprawled soldier. ‘I warn you, Brookes, you are making a very grave mistake.’

  Helena, unable to bear the crackling tension any longer, took an involuntary step forward to Adam’s side.

  ‘So—’ Daniel grinned without humour ‘—your whore is here too. How very indiscreet of you.’

  ‘You will withdraw that remark immediately, sir, and apologise to the lady, or meet me and answer for it,’ a voice cut across Adam’s furious response.

  ‘Uncle Robert!’ Helena ran across the hall and threw herself into her uncle’s arms. He hugged her close, pressing her face against the buttons of his full dress uniform.

  ‘There, there, dear. Sir William and I came with all dispatch as soon as I received your note. Now, you go with Mrs Rowlett and find the housekeeper, we will attend to this.’

  Dazedly Helena realised that Portia was standing with Sir William Thorn, concern and dismay on her pretty face. Helena gazed in disbelief at the Commodore whom she had met only hours before in her uncle’s house.

  ‘You men,’ Sir William ordered, ‘get out and take your sergeant with you. I am Sir William Thorn of His Majesty’s navy and I am taking command here.’ As the door closed behind the baffled troop, Sir William turned to his colleague. ‘Commodore, you know perfectly well that naval officers may not duel.’

  ‘He has offered a very great insult to my niece,’ Sir Robert Breakey ground out between clenched teeth, ‘and he will answer for it.’

  ‘He has indeed insulted Miss Wyatt,’ Adam said pleasantly. ‘He has insulted her repeatedly, and for that he will meet me. And I believe you would agree, sir, that as he has publicly accused me and my guests of treason, my right to satisfaction takes precedence over yours.’

  ‘So be it,’ Sir Robert replied grimly. ‘So long as someone sees to the dog, I care not.’

  ‘He is not a bad naval officer, you know, Sir Robert,’ Sir William remarked judiciously, regarding with some amusement the flushed, scowling face of Daniel Brookes. ‘Unfortunately, he appears to have the morals and character of a total scoundrel.’

  ‘Your choice of weapons, Brookes?’ Adam demanded.

  ‘I say, sir,’ Frensham broke in, ‘isn’t that damned irregular? I mean, we need seconds and what have you…’

  ‘Be quiet, lieutenant,’ Adam commanded. ‘I intend to kill the swine now, not wait until he has the chance to bruit this lady’s name abroad any further.’

  ‘Lieutenant?’ Helena whispered, totally confused.

  ‘They all are,’ Sir William replied, low-voiced. ‘Part of my secret service—which does not exist, of course,’ he added with a twinkle.

  ‘And Adam?’

  ‘Oh, he is a civilian, I never could get him to obey orders, although he works with my group,’ the Commodore whispered back. So that was how Sir William had known so much about her! It was not her father, but Adam, who had spoken to him of her.

  ‘His friendship with the Count and others like him bring us constant intelligence. Darvell uses his parties as a cover to exchange information and to brief my young officers. No one questions the presence of numerous young men at one of his lordship’s notorious weekends.’

  He broke off to eye the preparations for the duel. ‘Darvell warned me that Brookes was getting too close—his hatred for Darvell and his overwhelming ambition have pushed him to act beyond his remit or orders. His lordship and I became so concerned that I decided to speak to your uncle yesterday. Darvell was determined that the engagement should be broken.’ Sir William looked at her wryly. ‘His lordship was extraordinarily insistent on that point.’

  Helena shook her head dazedly; it was all too much to take in. A few hours ago she would have been in heaven to know that Adam’s name was cleared of all suspicion, that she was free from Daniel Brookes. But now there was the impending duel to face.

  ‘Swords,’ she heard Daniel say, and she gasped at the memory of Adam’s joking words in Vauxhall Gardens about Daniel’s inability with a pistol to hit the nearest barn door, but his expertise with a rapier.

  ‘Adam, no, please do not fight him,’ she implored, running to his side and grasping his arm. ‘I am free of him, it does not matter what he says, he is too discredited for anyone to pay any heed.’

  Firmly but gently Adam pushed her back into her uncle’s arms and turned to his butler, who was proffering an open case of duelling swords to Brookes.

  Daniel took one and flexed it with an evil grin on his face. ‘A grave mistake to challenge me, Darvell. Have you forgotten how at Eton I would best you every time we fenced?’ He shrugged out of his coat and threw it onto the hall chest, then turned back his cuffs and stood waiting.

  Adam too discarded his jacket and flexed the remaining weapon. The others pressed back against the walls to leave the centre of the long room clear and Portia tried, vainly, to pull Helena back into the library.

  ‘En garde!’ the Count called and the rapiers engaged with a sickening clash and scrape. Helena clenched her fingers on Portia’s arm and fought down a wave of nausea and dizziness. How could it have come to this? But she knew she was powerless to prevent Adam defending both her honour and his own, even though it might end in his death.

  The two men prowled and circled, sizing each other up, each seeking for a sign of weakness and advantage. Suddenly there was a swish of steel through air and Adam lunged forward. Daniel parried skillfully, his own blade sliding off Adam’s own, then with lightning speed he lunged himself.

  Adam jumped back, his sword up to meet the challenge and guard his heart and with consummate skill Daniel turned his wrist at the last moment and brought the point of the rapier scoring down his opponent’s arm.

  A sharp line of red stained the white linen and Helena bit back a cry of horror. The candlelight flickered, the duellists seemed to ebb and flow in her unfocused sight, the gorge rose in her throat and she clenched her fists until the nails bit painfully into her palms. Portia put a supporting arm around her friend, but made no further attempt to remove her from the scene of the duel.

  Adam stepped back with a sharp hiss of pain, then thrust forward again. His rapier began to flicker and dance and he began to beat back Daniel’s challenge, sending the other man backing down the length of the hall. ‘It is a long time since we were boys at Eton, Brookes,’ Adam said, his breath coming short with exertion. ‘I have learned a few lessons since then.’

  He appeared to drop his guard fleetingly. With a grunt of triumph Daniel lunged, then reeled back as the point of Adam’s weapon buried itself in h
is right shoulder. His sword fell, clattering to the marble, and he staggered, holding the wound as the blood welled between his clenching fingers.

  Frensham jumped forward, a linen napkin bunched in his hand. ‘Sit down, man, let me see the wound.’ He looked up and addressed the room at large. ‘He’ll live, but we better get him to bed and send for the surgeon.’

  Sir William regarded the fallen officer with a frown. ‘You will not want him on the premises any longer than is necessary, my lord. When the surgeon has patched him up I will take him back to London with me.’

  ‘What are you going to do with him?’ Sir Robert asked grimly.

  ‘He is too good an officer to lose in time of war. I think a spell in the West Indies would suit his talents and keep him out of mischief, provided, that is, he does not succumb to the fever. Come on, get him up to a bed-chamber.’

  The hall seemed suddenly empty, with only Adam, her uncle and Portia left. The butler was wrapping a clean white cloth tightly around his master’s forearm.

  ‘It’s just a graze, man, do not fuss.’

  ‘Adam…’ It was all Helena could manage to stammer out. She was weak with relief, too unsteady to walk towards him.

  He met her gaze, and for the first time she saw in his eyes a longing that in its very intensity caught her breath in her throat.

  When he spoke it was as though there was not another soul in the room. ‘You are free now, Helena. You do not have to marry Brookes, you do not have to marry me. But one thing you do need to know: I love you, Helena. Do you understand me, my darling? I only want what is best for you, and if that is your freedom, well, I will accept it.’

  Portia caught her breath on a sob, but Helena did not hear her. The room tilted and swayed and she fell, a long way, down into darkness.

  Before she succumbed to the depths of it she was vaguely conscious of strong arms encircling her, lifting her; of lips in her hair and warm breath as someone murmured words she could not discern, before oblivion swept over her.