by Mary Balogh
“Probably,” John said. “It seems to be the order of the day.”
“I’m going there,” Christopher said resolutely. “I accepted my invitation before I knew that all this would keep me from going. I want to see her. I want to know that she is safe. Is it selfish of me to want to go when I promised to give her this one last evening with Poole?”
“Utterly selfish,” John said. “If I were in your shoes, I would not be able to resist going.”
“You wouldn’t?”
“No way on this earth,” John said.
“Can that horse of yours gallop?” Christopher asked. “If not, I shall have to leave you behind. I have a very tonnish affair to get ready for—all within the hour.”
Martin cursed and punched one fist sideways against a panel of the carriage. Not satisfied, he turned and kicked the paneling and swished his riding whip viciously against it. Only then did he become aware of the silent witness of his impotent rage and humiliation.
“You!” he said through his teeth, pointing upward to the box of the carriage. “You dared to speak insolently to me a few minutes ago? You dare to sit there now, watching me? You need a lesson in manners, you French bastard.” He swished his whip viciously at Antoine.
Antoine jumped down from the box, and by the time he landed in the roadway in front of Martin, there was a knife in his right hand. The whip leaped out at him again.
“Your brothers ’ave pity on you, m’sieur,” Antoine said, “because you cry the real tears like a baby, non? And so they leave you alive to ’urt people who are weaker than yourself, mostly women, oui? I am glad they ’ave the pity. They leave you to Antoine.”
Martin eyed the knife. “You are a savage from the wilderness,” he said contemptuously. “Trevelyan should be shot for bringing you to a civilized country.”
“Sacré coeur!” Antoine said. “In the wilderness, m’sieur, we do not savage ’elpless and innocent women. We kill those who do.”
Martin laughed. “In England,” he said, “murderers hang by the neck until they choke to death if they are not fortunate enough to break their necks on the drop. And there are about to be witnesses to your crime. Get this carriage turned around and on its way back to London and I may consider not bringing charges of assault against you.”
Antoine grinned as a carriage approached, traveling in the direction of London. Its coachman drew it to a stop a short distance away and yelled at the two men to clear the road. A lady’s head appeared out of one of the windows. She called to her coachman to ask what was the cause of the delay. She sounded rather fearful, as if she suspected that the scene ahead of her was a highwayman in action.
“Ah, but, m’sieur,” Antoine said, taking a step closer to Martin, “I am pleased to ’ave the witnesses. I would not ’ave either my master or the colonel blamed for what Antoine Bouchard ’as done. I do this, not for all your evils known and unknown, but for one particular evil. You die for Winnie, Monsieur ’Onywood.”
The knife went in skillfully beneath Martin’s ribs, angled upward until the point penetrated his heart, and was withdrawn again. The other coachman was still yelling out in annoyance and the lady was still making fearful inquiries as Martin looked at Antoine, surprise on his face, and a trickle of blood flowed black in the darkness of the night from one corner of his mouth, and he fell forward, dead, on his face.
Antoine held up the knife with its darkened blade until the other coachman’s tone changed and he babbled with fear. Then the knife disappeared and Antoine vaulted back up to his seat on the box, turned the carriage with some difficulty in the roadway, and made off back in the direction of London.
He had maybe a few hours, he reckoned. Maybe until morning. Maybe.
Chapter 30
ELIZABETH and Lord Poole dined with acquaintances and arrived early at Carlton House as most of the other guests seemed to be doing. There was a general fear of being late though everyone knew very well that the state dinner would run at least an hour later than planned and that far more time than expected would then elapse before the queen was seated in the throne room and ready to nod graciously to her subjects as their names were announced and they filed respectfully past her throne.
They were at least an hour and a half early, Elizabeth estimated, looking about her in awe at the entrance hall, which appeared massive with its open screen of Ionic columns on every side and its high coffered ceiling. One felt dwarfed, overwhelmed. One felt like a subject approaching one’s monarch.
They were gradually ushered, along with everyone else, through an octagonal room and two anterooms into the antechamber to the throne room. It was already crowded with gorgeously clad men and women. She had felt overdressed until she arrived, Elizabeth thought. She normally did not wear satin, but it seemed that no other fabric would do for a presentation to the queen. And she certainly did not like the fashion of wearing high plumes in her hair. But tonight she wore them as did all the other ladies present.
The antechamber was a large and splendid apartment. But then she had heard that it had once been the throne room itself until the Regent had decided that an even larger and more imposing room was needed for the purpose. The walls, and even the large mirrors in each wall, were draped with gold-trimmed light blue velvet hangings. A magnificent chandelier hung from the center of the gilded ceiling. Large portraits of members of the royal family were mounted in gilded frames on the walls.
She was nervous, Elizabeth realized in some surprise. Her heart was beating uncomfortably and she felt breathless. How foolish of her! Yet seven years had passed since her first presentation to the queen at her come-out. She could remember the terror of that occasion. She turned to Lord Poole for reassurance.
But he was not at her side. He was talking with a Whig friend of his, a man whom Elizabeth disliked for no reason that she could ever articulate. It was very warm in the room, she thought as Lord Poole returned to her and they began to mingle with the crowds. He was not in a good mood. He had been rather cold and remote all evening. She smiled at him, determined that for this evening at least there should be no rumor of an estrangement between them. Tomorrow she would find a way of telling him the truth in private. She hated the thought of the embarrassment and perhaps even pain she would cause him.
The wait was quite as long as Elizabeth had guessed it would be, and it seemed twice as long as that. The room grew hotter and hotter—she had heard that heat was a characteristic of all the Regent’s residences. The scarcity of chairs forced the vast majority of those in the room to remain standing. No refreshments were served.
And surely, Elizabeth thought as time went on, she and Manley were becoming more and more the focus of attention. Surely she must be imagining it, she thought at first. How foolish and conceited of her to believe that so many members of the beau monde were looking at her and talking about her. And if they were, then they were really looking at Manley and remarking on his behavior of the evening before. She guessed there would be some who would admire him and others who would censure him.
But it was not her imagination. And it was not Manley who was taking their attention. When he was called away for a few minutes by another acquaintance and she stayed where she was, attention did not drift with him but stayed on her.
Of course she was imagining things! She looked deliberately to one side, to a large group of elderly people. Several of them let their eyes move casually away from her as if they had merely been engaged in a visual survey of the room’s inhabitants. When she looked the other way, the same thing happened except that one dowager continued to look directly at her with haughty disapproval.
Manley could not have been gone from her side for longer than a minute at the most. But suddenly she felt very alone and very exposed to view. She smiled at a lady of her acquaintance who was standing with a group close by and took one step closer. She had a remark on her lips ready to deliver. But the lady turned her back and addressed the group herself. Because she had not seen Elizabeth or realized h
er intention of joining the group? Or because she had intended the genteel snub?
Elizabeth began to feel hotter.
When Manley rejoined her, his manner was colder and stiffer than before. He stood farther back from her than he had before. He was tight-lipped.
“What is it?” she asked him.
“Nothing.” His voice was icy, abrupt.
“Nothing?” She frowned. “Manley—”
“This is neither the time nor the place to discuss it,” he said. “My God, everyone knows. We are the center of attention. May you rot in hell for this, Elizabeth.”
“What—?” She felt as if she had stepped into some nightmare. Had news of her wedding leaked out? And was Manley now the laughingstock? Oh, please, God, no, she prayed silently. Please don’t let him be hurt and humiliated in this way.
Her question could not be completed. At long last and yet quite suddenly the great doors into the throne room were thrown back and a buzz of heightened excitement in the antechamber faded to a hush. The state dinner was over, the Regent and all his illustrious guests were beyond the doorway, and the queen was seated formally on the throne ready to receive the homage of her subjects. The people waiting in the antechamber began to take their prearranged places.
Christina was fast asleep in Nancy’s room despite her excited claim when she arrived that she was going to stay awake all night. Nancy was sitting quietly reading in the sitting room. At least, she had a book open on her lap. In fact she was thinking and dreaming. Christopher had told her everything while he was getting ready hurriedly to go to Carlton House.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a knock on the door. Her heart leaped as Winnie opened the door and she recognized the voice of the man who was outside. A moment later she was in John’s arms and they were hugging each other wordlessly. Winnie had disappeared.
“My love,” John was saying. “I am so sorry. Forgive me. I could not kill him for you. Evil and pathetic as he was, Nancy, he was a man and my brother. At least that is how I saw him at the time. I could not kill the man who committed such ugliness against you.”
She lifted her face to kiss him. “I am so glad you did not,” she said. “Leave him to your father and his own conscience, John. Christopher thinks perhaps he will go away, leave the country. It will perhaps be the best solution.”
“I could not kill him,” he said. “I have killed dozens of men, Nancy, without a qualm of conscience.”
“Killing in battle is not like killing your brother in cold blood,” she said. “Oh, John, he is your half brother. Christopher told me.”
He hugged her to him again until she led him to a sofa, where they sat, his arm about her, her head on his shoulder, and enjoyed peace and quietness and long minutes of comfortable silence.
“It’s over,” she said at last. “The past is over and there are only the present and the future to be concerned with. I feel lightheaded, John, as if a great burden had been lifted from my shoulders.”
“I thought I had failed you,” he said.
She smiled and touched his lips with the fingers of one hand. “I love you so much,” she said. “You cannot imagine what a happy ending this is for me, John.”
He tightened his arm about her and kissed her.
Winnie had not been able to eavesdrop on the conversation between her mistress and Christopher. And she had not been able to bring herself to ask Nancy. She longed to know what had happened. She had sagged with relief when Antoine had finally come back almost an hour after Christopher.
Now her curiosity could not be quelled any longer. After letting John in, she knocked timidly on the door of the little room next to Christopher’s dressing room, where Antoine slept. The door opened immediately. He was dressed for the outdoors. There was a bundle on the bed behind him. Winnie knew immediately.
“You are leaving,” she said, her voice a whisper.
“Yes, ma chère,” he said. There was a look in his eyes that she had not seen there before, but it softened as he gazed at her. “The time ’as come. There is a ship sailing on tonight’s tide. I found that out this morning. It is time for me to go.”
“You found out in case you needed to leave in a hurry tonight,” Winnie said, looking earnestly at him. “And you do need to. Did you kill him?”
Antoine cupped one hand about her cheek. “You must not worry about ’im any longer, ma petite,” he said. “ ’E will not ’arm you anymore.”
“You killed him,” she said. “I am glad it was you and not one of them. I wanted it to be you. Yes, you must leave. They will hang you if they catch you, Mr. Bouchard. You must hurry.” Her manner was very calm and matter-of-fact.
He cupped his other hand about her other cheek. “Remember,” he said, “that you are white and clean and innocent as a little lamb, Winnie. Remember that, mon amour.”
“Yes,” she said, lifting a hand to set over one of his. “You have made me clean again, Mr. Bouchard. And you have killed him and put yourself in grave danger because of me. And I know what those words mean. I asked lady Nancy. They mean ‘my love.’ ”
Antoine kissed her lightly on the forehead and turned to pick up his bundle.
“Are they just words like the other ones you use?” Winnie asked. “I can smile at you and say good-bye as I promised. I can let you go and set you free. But if by any chance you mean those words, Mr. Bouchard, I can be ready to go with you in five minutes.”
“Winnie.” He turned back to her. “You do not know what it is like to live in a foreign country, not even knowing the language. You do not know of the ’ardships of living in my country. All would be strange to you, my little one, and you would soon be ’omesick, non?”
“You would not be strange,” she said. “And you are all the home I will ever long for, Mr. Bouchard. Now and for the rest of my life even if I do not see you again after tonight. I will be homesick here in England. Just say the word—yes or no. But quickly. You need to be gone.”
“Yes, mon amour,” he said. “I need to be gone. Two people saw me plunge the knife into ’is black ’eart. And saw the carriage—the Earl of Trevelyan’s carriage. Come then, ma petite, if you will marry a murderer. Antoine will spend ’is life loving and protecting you from ’arm.”
“And I’ll spend mine making you comfortable,” Winnie said, smiling radiantly and turning to race from the room.
“Five minutes, ma petite,” Antoine said urgently. “No longer.”
“Four minutes,” she said. “Three, Mr. Bouchard.”
Four minutes later they were hurrying down the stairs of the Pulteney, Antoine with two cloth bundles thrown over one shoulder. They were well over an hour ahead of pursuit.
Christopher was looked at askance for arriving so late at Carlton House. The liveried servant who led the way toward the throne room showed him all the contemptuous courtesy that many servants were so expert at.
And yet, Christopher discovered when he had finally been abandoned to his own devices in the doorway of the antechamber to the throne room, the presentations to the queen had barely begun. The doors into the inner sanctum were open, and people were beginning to file through, but the antechamber itself still swarmed with people.
And Elizabeth was still there, he saw, hanging back so that she would not see him. He should not have come, he thought immediately. She would be annoyed to see him there. She would think that he did not trust her. But he had wanted to see her more than anything in the world. And there had been almost a compulsive need to see her, as if even now she was not safe from all harm.
She was with Poole close to the door into the throne room. But she was looking pale and bewildered. And he was looking stiff and furious. Alarm bells sounded in Christopher’s mind. Something was wrong. She had not after all been able to resist telling him the truth. Or more likely he had discovered it for himself somehow. They were not about to have a public row, were they?
And then someone touched his sleeve. He nodded politely at Lord Hardinge, hu
sband of one of Nancy’s newly formed friends. But the man had not approached him merely to greet him.
“A word with you, Trevelyan,” he said, and they stepped back, just beyond the doorway into the antechamber.
Christopher raised his eyebrows.
“I saw you arrive,” Lord Hardinge said. “You may wish to turn tail and make your way back the way you came, old chap. The cat is out of the bag.”
Poor Elizabeth, Christopher thought. Her efforts to save Poole from public humiliation were about to explode in her face. Someone had heard wedding bells.
“Someone—I have no idea who—has circulated the rumor that you were the masked rider who kidnapped Lady Elizabeth from her wedding to Poole a while ago,” Lord Hardinge said. “And that the two of you spent a few weeks, er, cohabiting. I don’t know if there is any truth in the story, old chap, but there does not need to be in a situation like this. And Landsdowne has just been idiot enough to whisper the story in Poole’s ear. A nasty situation, Trevelyan. I would make off with all haste if I were you.”
Christ! It was far worse than he had thought from that one glance he had had of them. And somehow, Christopher thought as he nodded a curt thanks to Lord Hardinge and turned to stride into the antechamber rather than away from it, Martin was responsible for this. What better way to stop Elizabeth from marrying Poole and to ensure that she would want to leave London behind her for a long time to come?
Elizabeth and Lord Poole had reached the open doorway by the time Christopher had elbowed his way toward them. A gorgeously uniformed court official had turned toward them for their names so that he could lead them forward to the throne and present them to the queen. But Lord Poole stopped to face her, and he spoke to her in an appallingly distinct voice. It carried at least halfway across the antechamber.
