A Necessary Deception (6 page)

“Mr. Lang and his other friends. Not that he seemed much of a friend of yours when he confronted me.”

“What all of us?” Christien repeated. “Lang is my friend of many years and working with me alone.”

“Don’t ye be stoppin’ in the middle of the road, you blithering idgit,” a hackney driver shouted from behind them.

A few other drivers and small boys along the pavement began to pick up the chorus. They added some less savory comments to their catcalls.

Grinding his teeth, Christien snapped the reins to get the bays moving again and turned to Lydia. “Your statement implies that you have had other callers sent by Monsieur Lang.”

“As if you don’t know.” She curled her upper lip.

Kissing it would be a fine way to wipe the sneer away from her lovely mouth. One day. Not yet. Not while she thought of him what she should.

Thought of him what she should . . .

He concentrated on navigating the curricle between pedestrians and carriages. “
Vraiment
, madame, I know of no others Monsieur Lang has sent for your assistance.”

“Indeed. And do you know all of Mr. Lang’s dealings?”

“Thank
le bon dieu
, no.”

“No honor amongst spies . . . or traitors?” Her tone was mellifluous, her glance as sharp as a pickax.

Christien’s lips twitched. “What we don’t know, we cannot tell.”

“You admit it?” She jerked beside him, rocking the vehicle.

“I admit nothing.”

“But you said—”

“I have no secret that I am working with Monsieur Lang. That does not make me a traitor.” Christien let her stew over that one for a few moments while he maneuvered the team through the crush at the entrance to Hyde Park. They entered the procession of phaetons, curricles, and barouches taking advantage of the rare fine weather to parade down Rotten Row.

Most of the vehicles held couples—early Season courtships, the newly wed, others who gave Society a less than good name at times. He wondered why a Christian lady like Lydia would bring her younger sisters to London to find them husbands. It seemed the worst place for courtship if they were to make connections with godly young men. Whittaker seemed a nice enough fellow, but Christien had heard talk of the younger man’s escapades at university . . .

But men changed. He had through trial under fire.

Now to convince Lydia Gale of that fact. Or at least convince her of the facts he needed to tell her so she would work with him, not against him.

“I am not on the wrong side, Lady Gale.” He turned his head so he could look at her. “I have lived in this country since I was ten years old. England gave my family shelter and protection when our own people tried to kill us. An Englishman got us out of France and to safety. We bought land and have prospered. Why would I turn against all this to work for the Corsican monster?”

“You were in Dartmoor because you were doing just that.” She held his gaze without wavering. “You were with my husband at his death because of that—working with the Corsican monster.”

“Or was I working with your husband for England?”

Christien posed the question, then focused his attention on turning the curve in the lane without hooking wheels with a youth showing more enthusiasm than skill at driving.

Lydia said nothing. He felt her stiffness beside him. A glance told him she looked straight ahead. Those curls bobbed against her cheek, and the silk petals on her hat’s roses fluttered in the cool breeze. The rest of her remained still, motionless.

“You’re too polite to call me a liar?” Christien asked, flashing her a smile.

“Perhaps I’m too frightened to call you a liar.” The coolness of her voice evoked no hint of fear. Challenge, yes. Apprehension?

Christien slipped the reins into one hand and tucked her errant curls behind her ear. They were every bit as soft as he imagined they would be. “Then you’ll accept the possibility that I tell you the truth?”

“I saw you in that prison. Surely our government wouldn’t ask that kind of sacrifice, that kind of horror in prison, of you, of anyone working for them.”

“Ha!” His laugh burst from him.

Several matrons in a nearby carriage glanced his way, then took a second look.

He smiled at them and bowed from his seat, then he returned his attention to the lovely widow. “Men suffer far worse for causes in which they believe. Your husband saw the men go aboard the transports before going himself, and when the horses panicked, he saved men’s lives at the cost of his own, eventually. But it was a cause in which he believed—fighting Napoleon for his country.”

“Which only tells me that you endured prison for the cause you believe in—fighting the English for your country.”

Christien frowned at a pair of curricles ahead of them moving at an even slower pace than the sedate promenade that was normal in the park. A lady drove one and a gentleman drove the other. They appeared to be engaged in an intimate tête-à-tête and paying no attention at all to how they held up the progress of others.

“For a yard of tin to blow like the mail coaches,” he murmured.

Lydia laughed. “You’d probably start a stampede.”

“We’d be moving then, no?”

“Yes, we’d—”

A crunch of wood and iron colliding cut across her words. Ahead, the two curricles stood motionless with their wheels locked. The lady began to yell at the gentleman for not steering straight. He in turn made some rude remarks about ladies driving.

“I believe,” Christien drawled, “we will be here for a while.”

“You won’t go assist them?”

“Will you be here if I do?”

“You expect me to slip away from you and walk home the minute your back is turned?”

“I don’t know what to expect from you, Madame Gale.” Christien turned to face her. “You think I am up to no good. You do not like Monsieur Lang’s methods of getting you to cooperate with us.”

“Would you?”

“I don’t. I asked him not to do what he is doing, not to bring you into this. He did not listen to me. So here we are, stranded together.” He glanced toward the tangled vehicles.

Several young men had removed their coats and demonstrated their physical prowess by leading the horses out of the shafts and pulling the two curricles apart.

“They don’t need your assistance after all,” she said.

“No, but I need yours,
ma chère
.” He
tried to look into her eyes, but her hat brim frustrated his efforts. “Without entrée into London Society, I cannot succeed. I need to move freely around and through the ton to complete my mission. With you at my side—”

“Your mission.” She gripped her reticule so hard he suspected her knuckles were white beneath her leather gloves. “The man who blackmailed me into helping you said nothing of me remaining at your side after I make introductions.”

Guts twisting, Christien drew up on the side of the path so he could face her. “What do you mean by the man who blackmailed you into helping me? Lang is from the Home Office.”

“Don’t play the innocent with me, monsieur.” Her dark eyes flashed, and a white line formed around her mouth. “I am as well aware as you that our government doesn’t need to meet ladies in dark gardens to force them—”

Christien grasped her wrist. “What dark garden?”

“As if you don’t know.” She wrinkled her nose as though smelling something revolting. “Now let us be gone before we make more of a spectacle of ourselves than we already have.”

Carriages flowed past them, and many persons stared. They needed to move on, stop drawing so much attention, but Christien’s innards told him something was terribly wrong, and he wasn’t about to move until he got the truth from Lydia.

“Tell me what garden . . .
s’il vous plait
,” he persisted.

“The one in Portsmouth, six days after you escaped from England against the terms of your parole.” She spoke behind a stiff smile and clenched teeth. “You know that quite well.”

“No, Madame Gale, I do not. Monsieur Lang was with me that night.”

What ever had possessed her to purchase a red riding habit?

Lydia stared down at the deep wine-red jacket and skirt, then up at her reflection in the mirror. She didn’t look like a widow. With the red bringing out the roses in her cheeks and somehow making her hair glow with blue highlights, she looked like a lady in search of a husband, and with two men vying for her attention, that was the last impression she wished to give.

Not that they wanted her attention for any honorable reason. Barnaby and de Meuse needed her for her connections in Society. Seen with her, a widow above reproach whose ancestor had signed the Magna Carta, whose husband had died in the service of his country, the men would find themselves welcomed anywhere she requested they be welcomed.

Except perhaps Almack’s. No one told the patronesses whom to invite to those hallowed and—if Lydia remembered correctly—dull halls. But Lady Jersey had an eye for attractive men, and Christien de Meuse was certainly that—attractive, charming, treacherous.

If she could expose him first . . .

Yes, he should be the easiest man to be rid of, being French. Though émigrés dotted Great Britain—from kitchens as chefs, to dressing rooms as ladies’ maids, to drawing rooms as honored guests—the men and women who were or had served the aristocracy of France were not entirely liked or trusted.

With good reason. No one should trust Christien de Meuse. A mere month ago, he had been in Dartmoor, taken when the ship on which his regiment had been sailing was captured by the English Navy. She was supposed to believe he was a double agent, with England the country in which he placed his primary loyalty. That’s what he’d told her as they resumed their leisurely drive along Rotten Row and back. Mr. Lang was supposed to meet her in Plymouth and ask her to help. But a Mr. Lang had met her in Portsmouth and compelled her to help. No doubt, if asked, Mr. Barnaby and Mr. Frobisher would declare they were the loyal subjects of King George of Hanover and Christien de Meuse was the traitor, or the Frenchman in their midst would declare them traitors—Englishmen working for Napoleon.

“How to know the truth?” Lydia picked up her hat and perched it on her head at first one angle, then another.

Hodge leaped from the floor to a stool to the dressing table, then launched himself at the perky feather curling over the hat’s narrow brim.

“Beast.” Lydia jumped back in time to protect her hat and coiffure. “It’s not attached to a bird, I promise. Not that you’ve ever caught anything that flies.” Mice, on the other hand . . . Hodge earned his keep at the cottage. “Be a good kitty and I’ll take you for a walk in the mews later. Maybe even the park.” The idea sounded lovely even as she spoke it.

For now, she wasn’t riding out with de Meuse alone. She doubted she should be alone with any of the gentlemen, not in a carriage, on horseback, or in a parlor, regardless of crowds around them.

She wanted to stay alone in her room or find a quiet corner of the park to paint and think. But the hands of her clock pointed to 10:30, and Whittaker and de Meuse were expected any minute. Barnaby wasn’t expected for another half hour.

And there went the knocker. The banging of the brass ring echoed up the steps of the tall, narrow townhouse. Across the hall, Honore and Cassandra’s bedchamber door opened.

“Lydia?” Honore called. “Are you ready? I believe the gentlemen are here.”

Lydia joined her younger sister in the passageway. “You look lovely.”

“Not as pretty as you. How I wish I could wear that color.” Honore sighed.

“And I’m wishing I’d chosen your deep blue instead of red.” Lydia smiled. “But the blue suits you. It matches your eyes.”

“And Mr. Frobisher’s.” Honore’s eyes grew dreamy. “Did you notice that we have the same coloring? Don’t we make a nice picture?”

“If I say no, it would be a lie, but, Honore, you can’t be thinking . . . I mean, you just met him. You know nothing of him.”

“He’s a friend of your friend. Isn’t that enough? And in my novels—”

“Novels are called fiction for a reason, child.” Lydia smoothed a curling strand of hair off Honore’s face. “Life isn’t like that at all.”

“But you barely knew Sir Charles before you married him. Wasn’t that love at first sight? Didn’t you feel like your heart would just beat out of your chest when you looked at him, and get all warm—”

“That’s not love.” Lydia softened her tone. “Honore, love isn’t a feeling. It’s deeper. It’s friendship and understanding and—”

What did she know about love? Charles had departed for his regiment before the first blush of marital bliss had faded. He’d departed and doused the flames with the chill of rejection.

“We didn’t have friendship.” Lydia blinked against a mist in her eyes. “Get to know the gentleman a little first, Honore. He mentioned going to Watier’s. Men play a deep game there. You don’t want a gamester for a husband. And we don’t know if he’s a man of property.”

“I have a fine dowry.”

“Honore, please don’t toss your hat over the windmill for the first pretty face you see. Now, let’s be on our way. Monsieur de Meuse and Lord Whittaker are waiting.”

“Not Mr. Barnaby and Mr. Frobisher?” Honore’s full lips dropped into a pout. “But I understood they would be.”

“Perhaps later.”

God had ignored her prayers to keep the men away, at least until de Meuse had departed for whatever occupied his time. She didn’t want to pretend liking or even politeness with either man.

“Then perhaps I should wait.” Honore half turned toward her bedchamber door.

“You’re coming with us.” Lydia curved her hand around Honore’s elbow and steered her toward the steps.

“But there won’t be a gentleman to accompany me. I’m like a carriage with five wheels. It would look unbalanced.”

“My dear girl, if we don’t attract a whole platoon of eligible young men, I’ll be surprised. Now scoot.”

Honore scooted with enough alacrity to give Lydia hope that her younger sister liked the idea of other young men swarming around her. And surely they would. She was so pretty and sweet, if a bit too dreamy. Those dreams—the belief that attraction could be instant and permanent—caused trouble for too many young women. If Honore was one of them . . .

But she wouldn’t be. Lydia would make sure of it. That was one reason she’d asked de Meuse to come a half hour earlier than Barnaby and Frobisher planned to arrive.

With the time limit in mind, Lydia followed her youngest sister down the steps to the entryway. Honore stood talking to de Meuse and Whittaker, who poised beside them in a stance suggesting he intended to dash off somewhere at any moment.

“Where’s Cassandra?” Lydia asked.

“She’s not upstairs,” Honore volunteered. “I haven’t seen her for hours.”

“Hours?” Lydia gripped the banister and took a deep breath to stop herself from screeching. “Why didn’t you tell me she wasn’t ready?”

“Perhaps she is.” Honore shrugged. “I was in the music room playing the pianoforte and thought Cassandra had changed into riding dress before me.”

“Could she have gone out on her own?” Whittaker’s lips tightened. “She wouldn’t, would she?”

“Not for a minute.” Lydia finished descending the steps and patted his arm. “She’s in the house somewhere.”

“But did she not hear us knock?” De Meuse raised his brows. “I noticed she had the myopia, but—”

Lydia laid a finger across her lips. She couldn’t believe Whittaker hadn’t noticed that Cassandra barely saw more than a blur a yard from her face, but she thought he knew nothing and, for whatever reason, wished to keep it that way. It wasn’t Lydia’s or anyone else’s secret to share.

The notion that de Meuse had noticed without even spending time with Cassandra sent a chill rippling along Lydia’s arms, and she flashed a glance at Whittaker. He was speaking to Lemster and hadn’t apparently heard de Meuse.

“I’ll find her.” Lydia gathered up her train and mounted the steps.

A glance into the sitting room warned her that the hour approached with rapidity. If they didn’t find Cassandra and depart within the next few minutes, Barnaby and Frobisher would arrive.

She wished. She doubted.

Her heart as heavy as the extra long skirt of her woolen riding habit, Lydia pushed open the library door. She expected to see Cassandra bent over the desk with pen, ink, and half a dozen books in front of her. But the desk chair stood empty, the surface of the table clear of all but ink and quills. A quick glance hinted at an empty room. Lydia was about to close the door and search elsewhere when she caught the soft rustle of paper.

“Cassandra?”

A thud sounded from the far corner of the room, behind one of the long draperies that half covered the windows. “Who—? Oh.” Cassandra’s pale face showed from around the edge of the crimson velvet curtains that formed an alcove with a window seat. “I didn’t hear you come in. Did you need me for something?”

“We were scheduled for a ride in the park fifteen minutes ago.” Lydia spoke in an even tone with her jaw tight to stop herself from shouting.

“I thought we weren’t going until—dear me.” Cassandra rubbed her eyes. “I misread the clock. I’m sorry. Give me ten minutes more. I’ll be ready.”

Ten minutes more would take them too close to eleven o’clock.

“I’ll see if Whittaker wishes to wait.” Not daring to say more, Lydia spun on her heel and marched down the steps to the waiting group.

The waiting group, and Frobisher and Barnaby just entering through the front door.

Lydia sagged against the banister. “Cassandra will be delayed. Do you wish to wait for her, Whittaker?”

“Of course I’ll wait.” Whittaker’s smile was indulgent, his eyes patient. “She read the clock wrong, right?”

“Precisely. Good day, gentlemen.” Lydia turned her attention to the newcomers, her smile fixed. “Monsieur de Meuse, allow me to present Mr. George Barnaby and Mr. Gerald Frobisher. Though I expect the three of you are already acquainted, are you not?”

“We are not.” De Meuse’s tone was cold, his posture stiff.

Barnaby gave her an equally frosty glare and didn’t so much as nod to le comte. “We had an appointment, did we not, Lady Gale?”

“So did Madame Gale and I.” De Meuse looked down his high-bridged nose at the shorter man.

“I tried to tell you, Mr. Barnaby . . . I prefer to ride with my sisters.” Lydia glanced at her younger sister. “I couldn’t allow Honore to ride out alone with anyone I don’t know well enough to trust.”

Honore might as well have been alone in the entryway with Mr. Frobisher. They stood half a dozen feet apart but gazed into one another’s eyes as though breaking the contact would send them both crumpling to the floor.

Lydia felt sick.

“We need to be going.” Her tone was sharp, an ax to cut the contact between the two young people. Or chop the ice crackling through the air between de Meuse and Barnaby.

Would they lock her up in Bedlam if she simply began to bang her head against the nearest wall?

“The horses have been standing long enough.” De Meuse held out his arm to Lydia.

Before she could decide to take it, Mr. Barnaby stepped forward and took her hand. “I’m desolated not to have this opportunity to be alone, my lady. Surely we can ride ahead and talk.”

“I will ride beside my sister.” Lydia extricated her hand from his grasp and grabbed Honore’s arm. “Come along if you want to go.”

“What? Oh yes, of course.” Honore’s smile radiated enough light to break through a London fog.

The young lady showed to advantage atop her gray mare. She and Cassandra both excelled at horsemanship. Lydia had preferred a sedate trot to whatever site proved the best for her paintings or sketches.

Unbidden, an image floated into her head—an English bull mastiff facing a French boarhound across a frozen stream, with her stuck in the middle like some dinner table epergne. Her fingers itched to pick up her charcoal pencil and get to work.

She picked up her train instead and led the way to the door. Lemster, mouth grim, opened the portal for her, and she stalked down the steps to where several grooms held the horses.

“Lord Whittaker and Miss Bainbridge will be out in a few minutes,” she told the men holding their mounts.

“I’ll assist you in mounting, my lady.” Barnaby stood beside Honore’s mare.

“It is my honor,
non
?” De Meuse picked the right horse, a gentle roan gelding.

Roan indeed. Her wine-red habit would clash. All the better if she looked a fright. Perhaps she would embarrass the “gentlemen” so much they would choose to abandon her as their entrée into Society.

Barnaby’s eyes narrowed as Honore approached her mare. “I thought Lady Gale would want a more spirited animal.”

“Lady Gale is a gentle lady, an artiste,
n’est-ce pas
?” De Meuse cupped his hands together.

With the groom still holding the reins, Lydia had no choice but to accept le comte’s offer of a leg up. But she approached him with caution, another image of her sketch spreading through her head—her arms as bones over which the dogs were struggling, each trying to drag her to their side of the frozen stream.

Every nerve ending tense, she approached de Meuse. Always before she’d used a mounting block. Cavendish Square didn’t offer such a nicety, as did her family home in Devonshire. She knew how to mount with the assistance of a strong gentleman, and Christien de Meuse looked strong enough despite his prison stay—something that should have warned her then?—but she doubted her own strength, her own agility in gathering her skirts, holding onto the pommel, and launching herself high enough to land on the saddle and not fall short or go over the other side of the horse’s back.

“I won’t let any harm come to you, madame.” De Meuse smiled into her eyes. “That I have promised.”

“I ’ave ’er reins good an’ tight, m’lady.” The groom spoke up from the front of the gelding. “Nothin’ to fear.”

“Of course not.” Lydia made herself smile, then inserted herself between de Meuse and the horse.

Lydia grasped the pommel of the saddle, thanking God she was on the tall side and didn’t have to reach too far over her head. Then, bracing to keep her legs from shaking, she lifted her left foot and set it into the monsieur’s hands.