A Necessary Deception (4 page)

A vain hope. As London began to fill with persons preparing for the Season, many noticed that the knocker hung on the door of Number Ten Cavendish Square, and calling cards began to appear on the entryway table. Lydia wished she could sweep them up and use them for tinder in the fires, but she knew not returning the calls meant social ostracism for her sisters. As their chaperone, she needed to advance their status, not decrease it.

So on the Monday after their entry into town, she ushered the girls to the homes of ladies in their neighborhood. The day was clear and fine, and the Bainbridge ladies walked the short distance to the first house, directly next door to theirs. They stayed only long enough to leave their card and mention the date of Honore’s coming-out ball, a terribly late May 11, then they proceeded to the next house.

And so March passed without a hint of anyone arriving at Bainbridge House demanding an introduction to Society on the word of Mr. Lang. Peace settled over Lydia. She even began to enjoy wearing fine clothes again, scouring bookshops, and chattering lightheartedly over cups of tea. Perhaps this would all go well after all.

Then, on Good Friday, the twenty-seventh day of March, as they readied themselves for church, Mama emerged from her usual place beside the fire in her sitting room. “We must begin to receive callers, girls. I’ve decided that Mondays will be our at-home days beginning with next Monday.”

Mama’s color looked better than it had since Lydia met the family in Plymouth. Lydia wondered if she could go home once the girls were outfitted.

But of course she couldn’t. Mama had spent quite a lot of money on outfitting her eldest daughter too, and Lydia had given her word.

Her word given to Mama to help launch Honore. Her word given to her husband to help the Frenchman who had helped him. Her word given to a man with a nefarious purpose to help his agent. She must cease giving her word to anyone. Commitments bruised, cut, destroyed.

A commitment to the Lord didn’t destroy, of course. Of course. Of course. But sitting in the pew at St. George’s Hanover Square, Lydia pondered what good it had been to her lately. She’d done what she thought was her Christian duty in an attempt to make up for being a poor wife, a wife who couldn’t keep her husband with her, and now she jumped at every rap of the knocker, every click of heels behind her, every shadow caught from the corner of her eye. She, the lady who had blithely resided beside Dartmoor with only a cat and a companion for company although her family begged her to return home, had turned craven. It must stop. She declared to herself that she would work for her country, even while being forced to work against it to protect her family and not let them down, as she had too many times in the past eight years. Yet she had avoided the opportunity to do so, to ferret out the real traitor who would knock on her door one day.

When the first knock sounded on the door the thirtieth day of March, the Monday after Easter, Lydia didn’t hear it. She stood in the middle of her bedchamber with her hair tumbling down her back and Hodge sprawled at her feet amidst a pile of hairpins, purring as though he were laughing.

“If we had a garden,” she declared, “you’d be banished to it.”

Hodge batted at a hairpin. It bounced away from him and he pounced.

The gold-ended clips seemed to have caught his attention. Moments before, as Lydia had slipped the last one into her coiffure, he’d sprung from the bed and grabbed for the shiny object. It flew from Lydia’s grip, taking her carefully arranged curls with it.

“Barbara, are you anywhere around?” Lydia called.

Silence.

“Cassandra? Honore?”

The upper story rang with the hollowness that spoke of no one nearby. She feared callers might be arriving two floors down, and Mama expected Lydia to pour tea and ensure that everyone received a cake or sweetmeat, enjoyed the company of someone in the room, and found her gloves before she departed.

“Help?” The request emerged in a feeble, resigned tone.

Careful not to crumple her blue muslin gown, Lydia crouched and gathered up her pins. Before she began to pile her hair atop her head again, she grabbed the playful cat and locked him in the dressing room. He commenced yowling as though she were sticking sewing pins into him instead of hairpins into her hair. Those she poked and prodded with more haste than style, gathering, twisting, anchoring the heavy black tresses and wishing she’d cut her hair when doing so had been the fashion. At the least, she needed to hire a lady’s maid. Barbara knew less about hair styling than did Lydia.

Appearance presentable, she draped a paisley shawl around her shoulders and descended to the drawing room on the ground floor. The clink of china and hubbub of several conversations reached her on the first landing, warning her that their Monday at home had drawn a number of guests. All acquaintances and friends?

Her stomach in a knot tighter than her skewered hair, she rounded the corner to the final flight.

Not all acquaintances. Two strangers stood in the entryway, presenting their cards to Lemster—their cards and what looked like a folded and sealed sheet of vellum.

Lydia froze. Her fingers turned white on the banister. Her stomach rolled. She swallowed against a taste of bile, turned to go back to her bedchamber, and the step creaked.

“Ah, Lady Gale, there you are.” Lemster’s voice rang up the stairwell, reminding her to be brave and fight back. “I was telling these gentlemen I didn’t know if you were at home, but here you are.”

“Yes, I’m right here.” Smile tight over her teeth, Lydia faced the butler and callers and completed her descent to the entryway. “How may I be of service, gentlemen?”

“We have a letter of introduction, my lady.” The speaker was a man of average build, a bit taller than Lydia, and average looks—mousy brown hair and blue-gray eyes, regular features and pale complexion.

In contrast, his companion embodied Society’s definition of an Adonis. His guinea-gold hair curled just so around a well-formed scalp. Blue eyes the color of sapphires sparkled in a lightly tanned face with the classical features of a firm chin and full mouth, a strong nose that wasn’t too large, and high cheekbones. His physique, clad in a fine blue coat and biscuit-colored breeches, did justice to his face.

“From Elias Lang,” the first man concluded.

The silk shawl wasn’t heavy enough to stave off a wave of cold seeping through Lydia’s bones. She managed to keep smiling as she took the letter from the man and read Elias Lang’s request that she make his dear friends George Barnaby and Gerald Frobisher welcome, as they were recently arrived in London and knew no one of any significance.

The moment of truth had arrived. She could do as the letter requested, or she could expose these men for the traitors to England they surely were. But she would only harm her family. The man calling himself Lang would declare she had aided the escape of a paroled French officer, and the war of accusations would be on. She had no proof against these men; Lang held proof against her.

She took a deep breath to settle her stomach. She reaffixed her smile. She held out her hand. “Welcome to London. Do come in and allow me to introduce you to our other guests.”

“We are obliged, my lady.” The younger man, the Adonis, spoke in a voice as melodious as he was handsome. “Do, I pray, stay close to me. I’m newly finished at Cambridge and am afraid I may still have some of my poor student habits.”

“Are you a scholar, sir?” Lydia made herself take his arm as Lemster opened the drawing room door. If he was, she would steer him clear of Cassandra.

He laughed. “My mother wishes, but alas, I was better at rowing than learning.”

They stepped into the room. Conversations ceased. A dozen pairs of eyes swiveled toward the doorway, and ladies began to wave their fans. Especially Honore. She took one look at Mr. Frobisher and her eyes widened, her lips parted as though she were gasping for breath, and color tinged her cheeks, making her even prettier.

Not my little sister.
Her throat closed to keep herself from crying out.
Honore must have nothing to do with these men.

Honore glided forward. Her pink sprig muslin skirt swayed and floated around her like sunrise-tinted mist. The scent of lilacs drifted along with her. She smiled at Frobisher. He smiled back. He bowed. She curtsied. They stood with gazes locked. Two beautiful young people coming face-to-face set the hairs rising along Lydia’s arms.

“Honore,” she managed with as much calm as she could summon, “may I present Mr. Gerald Frobisher, the friend of a . . . friend back in Tavistock.” The last words choked out. “Why don’t you fetch Mr. Frobisher a cup of tea.”

“I need nothing.” He glanced at a nearby settee, woefully empty. “Perhaps Miss Honore can tell me about the best sights in town.”

“I’d be happy to.” Honore accepted the unspoken invitation and settled herself on the settee, which was covered in deep blue velvet that brought out the gold of her hair and rich lapis of her eyes.

“I don’t think that’s wise,” Lydia said. “You don’t know him.”

“The purpose of an at home is to get to know people.” Honore smiled at Lydia, then Frobisher.

Lydia wanted to scream with frustration. Beyond making a scene, she could do nothing to stop the tête-à-tête.

“I’ll return in a quarter hour.” It was the best she could do—remind Honore of the restriction of time spent with a single guest.

Lydia spun on her heel and stalked across the room to where Mr. Barnaby leaned on the back of a winged chair talking with Mama and another older lady. A snatch of conversation told Lydia he amused them with an anecdote about traveling to town on the mail coach after his carriage threw a wheel. Again, she couldn’t interrupt the dialogue without looking foolish, without causing trouble for her family.

Her temples began to throb. She refused to give in to the pain. She needed to think, to watch, to get to know these men and find chinks in their polished social manners, to discover what they were up to and how she could stop them.

Or be reassured that all was well after all?

She started to return to Honore and Mr. Frobisher, but a flurry of movement at the door announced the arrival of more guests. Lydia moved forward to greet them. Another group departed with promises of invitations and admonitions to call on them. Then Cassandra’s fiancé slipped into the drawing room unannounced. Lydia stepped out of the group of ladies surrounding her and opened her mouth to welcome him.

He held his finger to his lips and glided up behind Cassandra. She sat with a book on her lap while she gazed at two gentlemen as though she didn’t quite see them, which was probably true, nearsighted as she was. Lydia headed toward the group, not certain what Geoffrey Giles, Earl of Whittaker, was up to and wanting to be near to prevent any mishaps should his actions be unwise or Cassandra’s reaction unfortunate. But yet more guests arrived, and Lydia diverted her trajectory back to the door.

“Good afternoon, Lady Jers—”

A shriek ripped through the subdued chatter. Silence fell. Lydia whirled around in time to see Whittaker drop the book Cassandra had been holding, his face stricken, and Cassandra standing in front of her chair, hands upraised as though preparing to fight.

“Dear me,” Sally Jersey drawled. “And here I thought Miss Bainbridge was a quiet young lady.”

“She is.” Lydia struggled for words. “He must have startled her. She isn’t wearing—” She snapped her teeth together.

Another secret—Cassandra and her spectacles. Lydia felt like all the secrets inside her would send her exploding and whirling in a circle like a balloon that had lost its hot air.

“She looks quite well dressed to me,” a soft voice said from behind Lydia. “I love her gown.” The speaker hurried forward on too many pink flounces. “Did Madame Lettice make it, Cassie?”

Lydia didn’t know the young lady but loved her. Her remark and action broke the awkward moment, and the room returned to normal. Lydia sidled toward the couple and friend of Cassandra’s in time to hear Whittaker stammering out an apology.

“I wanted to surprise you, not scare you.”

“I—I’m sorry.” Cassandra’s face glowed the color of a ripe cherry. “My book just disappeared and . . . Oh, Whittaker, you’re a beast.”

The latter emerged with such affection and such a brilliant smile that Lady Jersey fanned herself. When Whittaker rounded Cassandra’s chair to take her hands in his and return her grin, more ladies drew handkerchiefs from their reticules to dab at their eyes.

“Young love.” Lady Jersey sounded a bit wistful. “When is the wedding, Lady Gale?”

“At the end of June. Whittaker will be completely out of mourning for his brother by then. May I fetch you a cup of tea, my lady?”

So Lady Jersey, as one of the foremost patronesses of the assembly rooms, would use her social powers to ensure that Cassandra and Honore, especially Honore, received their vouchers for Almack’s.

“I’d prefer lemonade, my dear. Now I must go see your dear mama and meet the latest Bainbridge beauty.”

“Honore is the true Bainbridge beauty.” Lydia smiled at her sister, though she wanted to scowl at the way she gazed into Frobisher’s eyes.

First Lydia must fetch the lemonade. Next she would break up that interlude. Sally Jersey had given her the perfect excuse.

She fetched the fruit drink for the countess, then headed for Honore. Many ladies and gentlemen stopped her along the way. They hadn’t seen her in years and wanted to know how she fared. They admired her gown. They hinted that she was on the lookout for another husband. To all comments, Lydia murmured some appropriate response—“Well, thank you”; “Thank you”; “Not while Honore is in competition”—and maintained her forward momentum toward her sister. By the time she reached the far side of the room, Frobisher had departed and two other young men had taken his place.

“May I go for a drive with Mr. Taft?” Honore asked. “He’s Whittaker’s cousin, you know.”

“Yes, you may. Fetch a warm pelisse. The weather is still chilly.” Lydia was so pleased that Frobisher had departed that she would have allowed Honore to go riding with pretty much any other gentleman.

But he and Barnaby hadn’t departed. Lydia saw Honore off with a beaming Mr. Taft and found the two newcomers blocking her return to the drawing room.

“We’re taking our leave now,” Barnaby said with a little bow. “Thank you so much for welcoming us into your lovely home.”

Lydia merely inclined her head.

“We would like a few invitations to parties,” Barnaby continued. “The Tarleton Masquerade, a dinner party with your father’s political cronies . . .”