A Necessary Deception (8 page)

“Barbara, be respectful,” Lydia chided her companion in a gentle voice. “He cannot change his birth any more than a cat can be a mouse.”

“More like a rat.” Barbara thunked her tray onto the bedside table. “I’ll serve him.”

He wasn’t certain he wanted her to. She might be inclined to dose him with the sort of poison she might use to kill off a rat.

“Please do, Barbara.” Lydia took up a position at the foot of the bed so she looked Christien full in the face. “I have to believe, monsieur, that this was all an accident. Surely not even your kind could plan such a debacle just to—what?”

“What indeed, madame?” He held her gaze without flinching, despite the sparks flickering in their velvety depths. “I am not in the habit of placing myself into such ignominy for any reason; thus, my imagination does not stretch to the lengths of yours. Pray, tell me, what you are thinking I am guilty of?”

“My sister was alone with Frobisher—” Lydia’s eyes flicked to Barbara, who had poured his chocolate and now stood away from the bed but held her gaze on him, making no pretense of turning her attention anywhere else. Flexing her fingers around the rail at the foot of the bed, Lydia returned her concentration to his face. “The thought occurred to me that . . . Never you mind. If you can manage without further assistance, Barbara and I will leave you be.” Without further ado, she spun on her heel and swept from the room, her now bedraggled riding habit dragging behind her.

The little companion scurried in Lydia’s wake. Christien lay alone, hurting, but not enough to need the laudanum or to reason or speculate over what Lydia had decided not to tell him.

She’d told him enough for him to make some guesses. Her sister had been alone with the young man, the friend of Barnaby, because of the accident. No one had caused Lydia to fall from her horse. The rest, however, could appear contrived to a lady with reason to be suspicious.

She suspected he and Barnaby had cooked up the idea of him planning a delay so that the young couple would be alone. He would nip that notion in the bud as soon as he found the opportunity.

Which came far sooner than he thought. Within the hour, Lydia reappeared in his chamber, a book tucked under her arm. “I thought perhaps you could do some beneficial reading while you’re stranded here.” She set a Bible on the table beside him. “It’s the smallest one I could find so you can hold it with one hand. If you cannot manage, I’ll send Barbara in to read to you. She has a lovely reading manner.”

“Thank you, I’ll manage.” He smiled at Lydia, trying to convey some of his feelings for her in his look. “Your thoughtfulness knows no bounds.”

“I . . . well . . .” She glanced past him to the window, her face the same becoming pink as the rosebuds on the gown she’d changed into. “It’s the least I can do, and you did claim to be a Christian.”

“
Oui
, through my American maman.” His heart ached with longing for his family, for his soft-spoken mother. “
Mon père
was with Lafayette fighting in the American war for independence and met her.”

“Lafayette?” Her gaze snapped to his. “And the French revolutionaries wanted to kill him, all of you, anyway?”

He flinched, realizing his error, realizing how his family history enforced her suspicions. “Not everyone in the mob understood that nobility did not mean that we wanted France to remain as it was.”

“And perhaps now you think England should change?” Her tone held as much curiosity as accusation.

“England is not France. We are all much better off here.”

He didn’t add that some things needed to change. She would brand him a revolutionary for certain if he mentioned one word of the machines putting men out of work—whole families out of work—or laws that kept food prices so high the poor went hungry.

“Not everyone thinks so.” She backed toward the door. “I mustn’t stay. Even as a widow, I must mind my reputation.”

“But of course.” He held up his hand. “But one matter very small . . .”

She paused, her hand on the door handle of the portal she hadn’t quite closed, her eyebrows raised.

“I did not plot to have myself injured,” he said, “in order to allow Monsieur Frobisher to press his attentions on your sister. Trust me in this, madame. I would have been more creative.”

Her face remained expressionless for a moment, then she smiled. “I do believe you would, which is why I said nothing earlier. Still . . . it’s all odd. Mr. Barnaby appeared to be a far better horseman than his loss of control demonstrated.”

“
Biensur.
An excellent horseman is Mr. Barnaby, one who can make his horse do whatever he likes.”

“I don’t know about that. I didn’t see him ride long enough—” She gasped. Her face paled. “Monsieur, are you implying—no.”

“We can hope not.” Christien bowed his head. “But the notion came to me that his horse was nowhere near where you fell. We were a dozen feet behind. But suddenly it reared up so much it kicked me? If I had not turned to take the fall instead of you, that hoof would have struck my head.”

“And now you’re all but accusing Mr. Barnaby of trying to kill you.”

Loyal to the English Crown, or French revolutionary?

Meeting and holding Christien’s gaze from across the bedchamber, Lydia no longer believed she knew the answer with the certainty she’d felt since he sauntered into her mother’s drawing room. Or perhaps earlier. More likely since the man in the garden informed her that the man from the prison had departed from England. She’d been ready then to send him to the Tower as a spy. Now . . .

“But Mr. Lang sent you both to me,” she mused aloud.

“Did he?” Christien shifted on his pillows, a grimace twisting his features. “Had you seen his handwriting, madame?”

“No, but it proves nothing.”

Except that she was not particularly bright when it came to intrigue. Then again, she didn’t want to be involved with intrigues.

“It disproves nothing either.” He shrugged, paled, and closed his eyes. “Neither does it demonstrate any ill will Monsieur Barnaby may hold toward me. Please forgive me for any distress I may have caused you. I believe I will rest now.”

“Yes, do so, and take some laudanum. You look in pain.”

Indeed, beads of perspiration dotted his high, smooth brow. With an effort, she resisted the urge to cross the room and wipe a damp cloth across his forehead and face, to pour out the drops of medicine herself and ensure he swallowed all of it, to sit beside him and read until he slept, as she would for the children she’d never had.

Her head ached with the possibilities, the suspicions, the agony of knowing too much and too little at the same time. Leaving this man to take the medication for pain and sleep would do her good too.

“I’ll bring you more books later,” she offered. “Any sort you prefer?”

“Anything but a Richardson novel.”

Laughing at the notion of the Frenchman reading Samuel Richardson’s treacle-like tomes of
Pamela
or
Clarissa
, Lydia slipped from the room and closed the door all the way. She needed to find Honore and ring a peal over her head about riding off alone with Mr. Frobisher. She needed to find Cassandra and give her a dressing down about not being ready on time. After that, she would collect her paint box and pencils and Barbara, take advantage of the chilly but bright day to sit in the grassy circle at the center of Cavendish Square, and create the first picture she thought might gain her some attention with a printer.

She must work out who was the true Mr. Lang, find some key—

Of course!

She spun on her heel and darted up the flight of steps to her bedchamber. In her desk she would find the two letters from Mr. Lang. Though she had crumpled them, the handwriting should be clear and distinguishable. If they were two different men, even slight variations in the letter formations would give the game away.

She opened her bedchamber door. Hodge greeted her with a flash of green eyes before he pounced on a curl of paper and sent it flying across the room with the bat of one fluffy paw. Smiling at his antics, Lydia paused to watch. With a crow of triumph, he pounced on the twist of vellum as though it were a fleeing mouse and proceeded to worry it between his claws.

“Silly creature.” Lydia stooped to rub him between his pointy ears.

He spun and wrapped himself around her ankle. His purr rose like carriage wheels rumbling over cobbles.

“Are you lonely, my pet?” Lydia scooped him into her arms.

He butted his head against her chin, as though saying, “Yes, I’m all alone here.”

“Do you like Frenchmen? You are French, after all.”

“Me-ow?”

“Yes, I think I’ll introduce the two of you. You can charm his secrets from him.”

And speaking of secrets . . .

She set Hodge on the floor and picked up the curl of paper to toss for him. It nestled in her hand, unfurled enough for her to see writing slashing across the surface. Only a few letters, a partial word. No, part of a name—
de Meu
.

Sending the scrap sailing across the room like a misshapen sparrow, she leaped in the opposite direction and yanked open her desk drawer, where she kept her correspondences.

Where she
had
kept her correspondences.

The drawer wasn’t empty. Indeed, it appeared fuller than it had when she’d slipped both Mr. Lang’s letters of introduction there the day before to receive invitations to parties, and a letter from her mother-in-law pregnant with the same old refrain—she never came home.

As if the manor in the Yorkshire West Riding had ever been home. But now the letter from Charles’s mother and the invitations—once gilded and leafed, embossed and engraved—lay in shreds. Sunlight caught a flash of gold here, of silver there. A word or number or curlicue design peeked out amidst the jumble of foolscap and vellum. Discovering which scraps belonged to Mr. Lang’s letters of introduction, making comparison of handwriting between the two missives, was now impossible. Not a slip of paper large enough to use as a fire spill remained.

Someone had destroyed them all. The intruder hadn’t just destroyed them, he had destroyed them in such an obvious way she couldn’t doubt it was deliberate. She could never think she had simply misplaced the letters.

She dropped her face into her hands and rubbed her temples. None of it made sense. A floor below her, a man she suspected was working for the French claimed he was not the enemy, while the Englishmen made no claims for whom they worked. Christien declared he had been with Mr. Lang in Hastings the night Mr. Lang met her in a Portsmouth garden.

“Lord, I just want to get my sister married off and Honore at least through the Season without trouble. I can’t manage my own life with any success. How can I end up in the middle of a spy network and not get hurt?”

Hodge meowed at her feet, as comprehensible as any responses she’d ever received from God. As a woman who called herself a Christian, she was supposed to serve God, yet God seemed like one more father wanting to control every aspect of her life, stopping her from the pastimes she enjoyed. She had a talent for painting, but her father disapproved of it so much she had crept around before marriage in order to paint or even draw beyond what was acceptable for a well-educated young lady. In the week she had lived with her husband after marriage, she had tried painting once, had begun the portrait of him. When he’d found her in the garden—

She slammed the door on that memory of the argument between them, him yelling, her trying not to weep. “You will not—” He sounded like her father, ordering her as he had a right to by social custom, by law, caring nothing of what pleased her in any aspect of their time together.

She strode into the corridor. She still needed to find a book for Christien. She needed to get outside and draw. She needed to take the next step forward.

She headed down to the library, muttering, “What next? What next? What next?”

“Did you say something, my dear?” Mama called out as Lydia passed the sitting room.

“Just talking to myself.” Lydia moved to stand in the doorway. “Do you know where Honore is?”

Mama set down her needlework. “She’s out shopping with Lady Trainham and her daughters. Is our patient resting well, the dear man?”

“Dear man?”

“But of course, my dear.” Mama gave Lydia her gentle smile. “He saved you from injury and was injured in the doing.”

“Yes. Yes, he was.”

Injured on purpose, perhaps.

A shudder raced through Lydia at the thought. If Christien was right, then they were on the same side. But which side was which?

How to know the truth?

“I’m going to the library to find some books for him,” Lydia said. “He’ll have a dull time of it up there otherwise.”

“Indeed. If only your brother or father were here. But your father doesn’t arrive until Saturday. At least that’s when he plans.”

“Wonderful. Is Cassandra in the library?”

Mama pursed her lips. “I can’t recall if she’s there or out shopping with Honore.”

Lydia laughed. “She’d rather be in the library unless the shopping included a bookshop.”

Lydia descended the steps and entered the library. The door stood open and no fire burned on the hearth. The room lay in shadow save for light ebbing through the windows that overlooked the mews and a branch of candles set atop the desk. Although Cassandra’s Greek texts lay on the desk, the covers were closed and the stopper protruded from the top of the ink bottle.

That Cassandra would go shopping without a fuss raised Lydia’s eyebrows, and she thought to hunt for her sister in her bedchamber after she found some books for de Meuse. If Cassandra had been awake late reading the night before, she could be taking a nap before the evening’s outing to . . . Lydia couldn’t remember in the hubbub of the day. She would look at her calendar, work out what to wear.

She trotted into the chamber and to a section of literature de Meuse might find entertaining. Sir Walter Scott? Tobias Smollett?

She tugged out a volume crammed into the crowded shelves. Its mates came with it, thudding to the floor.

Behind Lydia, behind the library door, a gasp sounded. Fabric rustled.

Lydia whirled, sending the book in her hand flying across the room in one direction and her gaze in the other.

Cassandra, her face red, her hair disheveled, stood in the circle of Whittaker’s arms.

“For shame.” It was an exclamation worthy of a matron twice Lydia’s age, but it popped out of her mouth. Her own cheeks burned. An aching void opened inside her, a memory of being in love, a longing to experience the kind of wanting that compelled one to steal kisses from one’s fiancé behind a door.

Yet this was her younger sister, sweet, bookish Cassandra, with swollen lips and a whisker burn on her chin.

“Don’t go all missish on us, Lyd.” Cassandra slipped from Whittaker’s embrace and glided forward, her hands extended. “You know you did your share of kissing Charles before you were wed.”

“Yes, but I—”

“Was a year younger than I am.” Cassandra smiled.

“That doesn’t mean it was right of me.” Lydia glared at Whittaker.

He met the look with bold brown eyes. “I take complete responsibility, Lady Gale. I was annoyed with Cassandra over being late this morning. We exchanged some harsh words and . . .” He faltered, though when his gaze strayed to Cassandra, his expression softened to adoration. “We were expressing our regret.”

“Express it in a more decorous fashion.” Lydia spoke more harshly than she intended. “It’s unseemly. It’s indelicate. It’s—”

“Don’t say disgraceful,” Cassandra interrupted, sounding bored. “Kissing is not wrong, and we . . . I . . .” Her face flamed. “Oh, you know what I’m saying.”

“No,” Lydia said, “I don’t.”

“I would never dishonor her,” Whittaker said.

“I should think not. But have a care.” Lydia gentled her demeanor. “Others don’t think being alone is proper, let alone any touching. So mind your manners. The wedding is in less than three months.”

“And it’s been postponed for a year.” Cassandra’s pretty mouth drooped.

“And that gives you reason to misbehave?” Lydia asked. “Truly, Cassie, with the way you try to avoid sessions at the dressmaker’s, I’d think another year wouldn’t be enough.”

Whittaker’s eyes twinkled down at Cassandra. “Be kind to your sister and go to the appointments. I expect she spends enough time with you in bookstalls.”

“No, but perhaps we can work out a deal?” Cassandra grinned at Lydia.

“If you can be on time for every appointment for a week, I’ll take you to every bookshop or stall in London.” Lydia retrieved the book she’d inadvertently thrown across the room. “Now go keep Mama company. I don’t want you two alone any longer. No, wait, Cassandra, you go make yourself presentable. Mama wasn’t born yesterday.”

Singing some nonsense ditty about shopping for books, Cassandra darted out of the library and headed up the steps.

“I’ll pay a visit to Lady Bainbridge, if you’ll excuse me.” Not waiting for Lydia to do so, Whittaker followed his fiancée out of the room.

Smoothing out the pages of the Smollett book, Lydia wondered if she’d been too harsh on the couple. Cassandra and Whittaker were responsible young persons, faithful to morality and the Lord. They wouldn’t take things too far, would they?

Honore, on the other hand, needed a constant chaperone to keep her out of mischief, especially mischief involving that upstart Mr. Frobisher.

Another one of Lang’s “friends.”

Mr. Lang enjoyed far too many friends, or one powerful enemy. If they were all men he sent, likely they were supposed to look out for one another to remain true to the cause. If they came from separate sources, then Lang’s secret was out and someone was using his tactics to find the enemy.

But whose enemy?

Lydia slammed the book onto the library table and gathered up the other two volumes that had fallen. She needed fresh air. She needed her pencils and sunshine and the smell of grass to remind herself she was nothing more than a widow who had gotten herself into a muddle by being kind.

Books in her arms, she climbed the two flights to Christien’s room without stopping to find Barbara as a chaperone. No one responded to her light tap on the door. Good. He must be sleeping. She would return later, probably with Barbara in tow for the sake of her own reputation.

Sometimes propriety was such a burden, especially when she knew her actions were above reproach.

Most of them.

She climbed the flight to her own room and set the books on her desk, then located her sketching materials. She should have an hour or two left of good light in the square.

Barbara grumbled about accompanying Lydia out to the circular patch of grass in the middle of Cavendish Square. Lydia ignored her companion and commenced producing sketches she later intended to turn into paintings—a street urchin grinning as he caught a coin tossed by a passerby, a group of boys bowling a hoop back and forth across the grass, an old man gazing into the window of the cabinetmaker near the corner. With a few deft strokes, she caught the essence of each moment. She could fill in the details later.

When the sun began to slip behind the houses, she rose, a little stiff from sitting in one position for so long, and returned to the house.