Laura nodded gratefully, but her expression was still guarded as they mounted the steps to the front door. It was a shiny black with two panels, gleaming brass knobs and knockers, and a semi-circular fanlight. Geoffrey banged one of the knockers briskly.
The left-hand panel opened a scant thirty seconds later, revealing a footman wearing navy-blue livery with silver buttons and a crisp white shirt and cravat. Geoffrey didn’t recognize him, but that wasn’t a particular surprise. Staff in a London household tended to turn over fairly rapidly, and Geoffrey had not been there in almost three years.
The servant—a handsome young man with the broad-shouldered, trim-waisted physique favored by fashionable members of the ton in footmen—examined Geoffrey without registering recognition, and then studied Laura with similar results. It was only when he spotted Sabine standing a little to Laura’s left that his face brightened.
“Oh, Mrs. Pearce!” he gushed enthusiastically. “The family has been expecting you for days.” Looking back at Geoffrey, he sketched a deep bow. “You must be Lieutenant-Colonel Langston, sir. I see the family resemblance now, of course. Welcome home.” With that acknowledgement, the young man pulled open the second door panel and stepped aside to allow them to enter the foyer. “I will let her ladyship know you’re here and then see to having your belongings taken to your rooms.”
“Mr. Pearce and I shan’t be staying the night, Harbon,” Sabine said. “We will be going on to his brother’s as soon as the Langston's bags have been unloaded.”
“Very good, madam,” Harbon responded promptly, and with another somewhat less obsequious bow, departed for the rear of the house.
Laura gaped after the servant and then at their surroundings. Since the house occupied a corner lot, it was larger than many of its neighbors, and the entry hall’s proportions as well as its decoration had been designed to flaunt this fact. A full ten feet square, the room boasted a marble floor, intricately paneled and brightly painted walls, and a faux dome, from which hung a spectacular chandelier.
Hell and damnation, why hadn’t he thought to prepare her for this? Because, he thought self-critically, he was so accustomed to this degree of luxury that he gave his family’s wealth and privilege very little consideration. The Langstons were rich and titled. It was who they were. But now, for the first time in his life, he found that he was more than a little ashamed of who they were. Who he was.
He’d lived on that farm for five months, and he had certainly been aware that the Farnsworths, despite possessing a successful business, lived far more simply and modestly than he had ever done, even when on a military campaign. But rather than pitying the relative austerity of their existence, he had admired the fact that everything they possessed had been a product of sacrifice, determination, and hard work. How had he not translated that in the other direction and imagined how Laura might feel when confronted with the true scale of his family’s prosperity, especially in light of the fact that they earned most of the income from the labor of others less fortunate? Rich and titled and parasitic, that’s what the Langstons were.
Before he could voice these thoughts aloud, however, his sister-in-law, Tish, swept into the entrance hall in a swirl of pale yellow muslin sprigged with tiny embroidered flowers. Her dark golden hair was streaked with more silver than he remembered, but the bright strands had the incongruous effect of making her appear even younger than her forty-three years. She flung her arms around Geoffrey’s neck and kissed him on the cheek, joy pouring from her like water from a fountain.
“You are alive! And you have come home.” She raised her face to look him over, and her eyelashes were spiky with tears of happiness. “Nash will be so relieved. And Walter and Freddie too, of course.” Impulsively, she hugged him again. “Thank God.”
Geoffrey decided now was probably not the time to explain that, while he was alive, the condition might be all too temporary. “It is good to see you, Tish. Where is Nash?”
Stepping back from the embrace, she frowned in mock disapproval. “He is at his club, of course. ‘Tis the height of the legislative season, you know, and he hopes to browbeat of a few of his adversaries into voting in favor of one or two of his reform bills. I’ve already sent Harbon to fetch him. He would never forgive me if I waited even one second longer than necessary to let him know you’ve been delivered safe to us.” At this statement, she looked past him to the still-open doorway. “We cannot thank you enough, Thomas.”
On the basis of these words, Geoffrey presumed Thomas had finished directing the coachman as to which bags belonged to which couple and had made his way up the stairs. An over-the-shoulder glance proved this to be the case; Thomas was just stepping into the foyer behind his wife.
“Don’t thank me yet,” the younger Pearce brother said darkly. He touched Sabine gently on the arm. “We should go now. If we don’t leave soon, Marie and Jasper will already be in bed when we get to the house.”
While the Pearces made their goodbyes with promises that they would return the following morning, Geoffrey felt Laura standing poker-straight beside him. If his sister-in-law had been radiating streams of joy, then his wife was emitting sparks of apprehension in equal measure. Thus far, Tish had not seemed to notice her, which was hardly surprising under the circumstances, but he could sense Laura girding herself for the inevitable introduction.
Clad as she was in an unembellished gray gown and dark brown woolen coat, Laura could not help but be aware that by comparison to the fashionably coiffed and attired viscountess, she must look more like a maidservant than his wife. And while Sabine had been correct to tell her that such things would not matter in the slightest to Tish, who was as unconventional in her own way as his sister was in hers, the chasm between the two women could not be more starkly delineated. Not only that, but it was apparent to him, at least, that his sister-in-law had taken Laura for a servant, because when she failed to leave with the Pearces, Tish’s eyes widened just a fraction.
Geoffrey slid his arm around his wife’s waist. “Tish,” he intoned, allowing the love and respect he felt for the woman he had married to swell in his voice, “I would like to introduce you to my wife, Mrs. Laura Farnsworth Langston, of Plattsburgh, New York.” He made a point of including her former surname because he knew how much it meant to her to continue to honor the memory of her deceased husband. “Laura, this is Viscountess Langston, my brother Nash’s wife, but I am quite sure she will tell you to call her Tish, just as the rest of us do.”
His sister-in-law recovered herself so swiftly that he thought it was possible that Laura had not even noticed the other woman’s surprise. Tish extended a white-gloved hand, which Laura accepted as gracefully as she could, given that her own hands were encased in a pair of oversized and well-worn black leather gloves. As the two women clasped hands and shook, some of the tension eased out of his wife’s posture, and he was suddenly exceptionally glad that Sabine had given her those books by A Lady to read. Had Laura not read them, he doubted she would have understood the true meaning of Tish’s gesture: You are my equal.
“It is truly a pleasure to meet you, Laura,” Tish effused. Then her cheeks colored a trifle and she added, “I may call you Laura, mayn’t I? Calling you Mrs. Langston, while accurate, seems rather confusing under the circumstances.”
Laura’s answering smile was broad and genuine. “Of course, my lady.”
Yes, she had learned a lot from those books.
Releasing Laura’s hand, Tish waved her arms. “Oh, heavens. Just Tish, please. And never Letitia. Only my governess ever called me that!” She looked back at Geoffrey. “We’ve been standing here in the hall long enough. The two of you must be exhausted. Come up to the parlor, and I’ll ring for tea and biscuits, and then you can tell me how you, of all men, came to be married.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
“You are sure you remember nothing that could help us in your defense?” Rupert Bellamy, Esq. was, according to Geoffrey’s brother, Nash, the finest criminal de
fense solicitor money could buy. He also looked as if he won in court by putting his face in front of the prosecutor’s fists, as opposed to by arguing the merits of the evidence. Burly to the point of excess, his nose had a flattened, bumpy appearance, and his eyes were so deep-set that they appeared almost blackened. But those eyes were also uncannily sharp.
Geoffrey frowned and shook his head. “Not a blessed thing. It’s all a blank from the night before the battle to the day I woke up in my wife’s house.”
Laura, who sat beside him in one of the two leather-upholstered chairs that faced Bellamy’s large, squat desk, tightened her hand on his. “Do you not think, sir,” she asked the bulldog of a man gently, “that there is a fair amount of evidence that casts doubt on Major Shelley’s version of events?”
The solicitor leaned back in his chair and sighed. “We can cast doubt, Mrs. Langston, but I fear what we have now is not likely to be enough to discredit Major Shelley as a witness. I do not want to give you the impression that all is lost, however. We will make our case as best we can, and there is ample opportunity to trip Major Shelley up in a lie during cross-examination. Add to that your husband’s stellar service record and the testimonials being offered by both General Lord Cathcart and—” here, Bellamy paused and shifted through the papers on his desk, “—ah, yes, your former second-in-command, Lieutenant Colonel Jack Prescott, and we may yet win the day. But it would be a damn sight more useful if we knew what actually transpired that night instead merely having to poke holes in Shelley’s account.” He turned his gaze to Geoffrey. “And I must say that the fact that you came back to face trial of your own volition stands you in good stead, as does the Crown’s willingness to grant bail. By precedent, you still ought to be locked up in Newgate. The fact that they’ve decided to let you walk free suggests to me that the prosecution isn’t as certain of its case as it tries to appear.”
Although the barrister was doing his best to project confidence without making any actual promises, Geoffrey knew his situation was considerably less than ideal. But he had to put on a brave face for Laura, so when they left Bellamy’s office twenty minutes later, he suggested they stroll over to the British Museum, which was only a few blocks from Bellamy’s office near Russell Square, before having the coach take them back to Langston House for tea. It would be, he thought, a nice break from the whirlwind of activity and anxiety that had beset them since their arrival.
First, of course, Geoffrey had to break the news of his arrest and the charges against him. And he’d had to do it three times, because Thomas had refused to explain the situation to Freddie and Conrad, so he’d had to explain to them, and then he’d had to go over it again a few days later when Walter and Artemisia, informed that Geoffrey had returned safely to London, rushed from their tiny village in Cumbria, all six of their minor children in tow. Their eldest, a daughter, was now eighteen and had stayed behind to look after things at home.
Once the entire family had collected and were nearly bulging out the windows of Langston House, Nash had made his brother’s presence in the city known to the British Army, and they’d arrived within half an hour to escort Geoffrey to “suitable” quarters. Meaning, of course, a cozy cell in the “nice” wing of Newgate—which was not particularly nice at all—where traitors on the chopping block went to await their fates. To be fair, the accommodations were clean and quite comfortable, but the atmosphere left a great deal to be desired.
As Bellamy’s comments suggested, Geoffrey had fully expected to remain under lock and key until his trial, but to his utter amazement, he had been released to his brother’s custody the very next day. The judge-advocate of the panel that would hear the court martial had been persuaded by multiple factors—Geoffrey’s surrender to the authorities despite multiple opportunities to escape, his exemplary record as an officer, and his brother’s willingness to stand a substantial sum in return for the promise that he would appear in court—that allowing him to remain a free man during the intervening weeks represented no significant risk. Thus he found himself once again ensconced in the chaotic bosom of his family and, most importantly, the loving arms of his wife.
His wife, who after two weeks under the wing of the viscountess would have been indistinguishable in clothing, coiffure, and bearing from any other woman of good birth and sizable fortune. Having declared Laura’s wardrobe wholly unsuitable to the role of a British officer’s wife, Tish spared no expense in outfitting her new sister-in-law with an entire closetful of gowns and accompanying fripperies in an astonishing variety of colors and fabrics, all in the latest mode. Which was not to say there was anything de trop or pretentious about the items Tish selected. On the contrary, every item was the perfect combination of tastefulness and suitability for a lady of Laura’s age and social standing.
Geoffrey understood and approved of the rationale behind the transformation. As the wife of a British officer on trial for treason, it was essential that Laura look like a respectable British matron, even if her accent would give lie to the façade the moment she opened her mouth. Laura had resisted the effort and the expense quite vocally. A waste of money better spent on other causes, she’d told him, and he had been forced, in the privacy of their rooms, to agree. In the end, however, Bellamy had come down on Tish’s side, and that had been the end of the argument. But Geoffrey still found himself startled when he looked over at her and saw the polished shell that now encased the true pearl that was his beloved.
Today, she was clad in a long-sleeved gown in a dark blue fabric with thin white stripes that ran diagonally across the bodice but vertically down the sleeves and skirt. Her hair had been coiled at the nape of her neck, as it usually was, but the dark mass was almost entirely concealed by a straw bonnet with a blue silk ribbon tied beneath her chin. She wore a pair of wrist-length white gloves with a tiny pearl button at each pulse point, and beneath the hem of her skirt, he could make out the pointed tips of black leather half boots.
Laura caught him studying her and looked down at herself. “Did I forget something in Mr. Bellamy’s office?”
“No, I don’t think so. I just—” He shrugged, unable to verbalize precisely what troubled him about her appearance, which was, by any possible accounting, perfect.
Too perfect. Unreal.
Perhaps that was it. Nothing that had happened since the morning the soldiers had knocked on the farmhouse door seemed real. Not the trip in cuffs from Plattsburgh to Quebec City, not the voyage across the sea, not the charges against him or the upcoming trial. The only solid and unchanging thing in his existence since that moment had been Laura, and now even she had been altered to fit into the strange storyline his life had become.
Confound it, he was sinking into self-pity, and that wouldn’t do anyone any good.
Shaking himself out of his funk, he smiled at her and said, “I was just thinking you look incredibly lovely, as always, and I am the luckiest of men to be married to you.” He held out his arm, pointing in the direction of the façade of Montagu house, now visible from their position on Malet Street. “There’s the museum. Tell me, how do you feel about feet?”
She arched her eyebrow, her sky-bright eyes lit with puzzled amusement. “I find them useful for walking on. Why do you ask?”
He thought of the colossal foot of Apollo, which he hoped was still on display in the Greek and Roman Antiquities room, its big toe alone larger than a man’s hand, and grinned. “You’ll see.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
The post in London came three times a day—morning, noon, and evening—except on Sundays. When she initially learned of this, Laura had found it yet another aspect of the extravagance upon which the English seemed to depend. After all, who needed to receive letters more than once in a twenty-four-hour period? But with the opening of the court martial looming ever closer, she began to hover near the entry hall at the times when she knew the postal delivery was imminent. Surely by now she could hope to receive General Macomb’s answer to her letter.
Assuming Daniel had sent it promptly, which she had every faith he would have done, the message would have been in Macomb’s hands by the time their ship had left Canada. She supposed she could not count on his having read the letter immediately. The general was undoubtedly a busy man. But even if he had waited a week to read and respond, it could not be too soon to expect that response to arrive in England.
Of course, there was no guarantee that Macomb would respond. He might have read her letter, determined the matter was of no consequence to him, and tossed in the trash. Or—perhaps more likely—one of his aides had read it, decided it was of no consequence to a man of Macomb’s importance, and tossed it in the trash. And even if he had read it and written in response, the letter might never reach England. The ship carrying it could be lost at sea, just for a start.
Yet she lived in hope. And each day her hopes were dashed. Three times.
Fortunately, Geoffrey did not appear to notice her avid interest in the arrival of the post. Perhaps he thought the regularity with which she excused herself from whatever family gathering was underway at the appointed hours was due to her “delicate” condition. Given the large number of people currently in residence—by her count, there were six adults and eight children plus nannies, governesses, and God knew how many servants—her comings and goings were hardly likely to be remarked upon by anyone else, either. Who could keep track of who was where and when? Which was why it came as a shock to her when Walter Langston caught her lurking in the dining room in anticipation of the arrival of the midday mail three days before the court martial was set to begin.
“Ah,” he said mildly, “I thought I would find you here.”
Of Geoffrey’s three siblings, Walter was the one who most intrigued her. Although her husband was obviously every bit as fond of his older brother the viscount, and his sister, who was a countess by virtue of having married an earl—why she was not an “earl-ess” was a mystery to Laura, as were all the strict rules of address and accompanying hierarchies the British nobility insisted upon—it was Walter he had spoken of most often and Walter whose counsel and opinions he most valued. When Walter had arrived from the northern village where he served as vicar, the reduction in her husband’s tension had been palpable.
Sleeping with the Enemy: Lords of Lancashire, Book 4 Page 18
