A Sister's Secret (45 page)

‘Infatuation?’ ventured the duke.

‘You are thinking of what I felt for Clarence?’ Caroline shook her head and seated herself. ‘No, this is nothing like that. This is far, far worse, and makes love a desperate thing. And you are to blame, Father-in-law, for sending him to me.’

‘Am I so?’ The duke’s frown advanced.

‘Oh, that was not said in reproach, only in wryness. Father-in-law, what is this terrible thing called love? You are wise in your maturity, and in the service you have given to your government and its people. Your wife, the duchess, is still handsome and much to be admired. Do you in your wisdom and in the endearing wife you have, know what love is? Is one in love when one cannot sleep
and can scarcely eat? Does love give one no peace, only heartache?’

The duke sighed. ‘Only when it is not returned,’ he said.

‘And if returned, what then? I have known infatuation, but not love, which is new to me, even at almost twenty-five. So if it is returned, what then?’

‘Caroline, it is, when returned, the sweetest of God’s gifts to a man and a woman.’

Caroline, eyes dark, smiled wryly. ‘I vow, then, that I am deprived of this gift, for Charles Burnside shows not even affection for me. I suffered humiliation as Clarence’s wife, as you know. You were sad for me and in shame for your son. But that humiliation cannot compare with the dreadful, wounding misery of feeling myself unloved by a man I cannot live without.’

‘I am immeasurably distressed,’ said the duke, moved beyond anything by the calm way in which she was offering up her very soul for inspection. ‘You have truly come to find life unbearable without this damned fellow?’

‘Father-in-law, I shall quarrel with you if you call him a damned fellow.’

‘Damn him, all the same,’ said His Grace.

‘You are not to say that. My life is unbearable, because I
am
without him. He has gone. It is in that way that he has been a grievous disappointment.’ Caroline bit her lip. ‘Oh, why did he not stay to talk to me? You would never believe how many conversations we have had, and all such a joy to me. I can’t, I won’t, let him disappear or do nothing about helping him. A man will fight for what he wants, and I shall fight fiercely for what I want. Father-in-law, am I not a woman a man could love? Clarence did not love me. He saw me only as a new toy, because I had come young and untouched from America. And Charles
Burnside has walked away from me.’ Caroline could not bring herself to say that she herself had asked him to quit her life.

‘He may not have walked away out of indifference,’ said the duke.

‘Then could it have been because he knows himself for what he is, a wastrel? And perhaps worse? I am terrified there is something worse. I am sure you would know. So tell me, please, even if the truth is like to shatter me. I beg your frankness, and ask you to take no heed of my sensibilities, but to tell me if he has been guilty of anything which, if caught, would put him in danger of being hanged.’

‘Hanged?’ The duke looked aghast. ‘My dearest Caroline, never think I’d send you a man with a noose hovering over his head.’

Caroline breathed in relief. ‘Then he is merely faulty, but no more than many men? He is not a murderer or arsonist or highwayman?’

‘No, but he’s a damned scoundrel for laying his impertinent hands on my daughter-in-law, for feeding you sweet nothings, I don’t doubt, for giving you sly smiles that have caressed you …’

‘Father-in-law, I declare you out of order,’ said Caroline. ‘He has done no such things. He has never laid such hands on me or caressed me in any way. That has been no consolation to me. He has been so much the polite gentleman and put me into such perverse moods that I could have wished him to – to …’

‘Caroline?’

‘No,’ she breathed, ‘I cannot express my shamelessness to you. But how ruinous to a woman’s self-respect is the kind of love that makes her want a certain man to be no gentleman at all. You must never think Captain
Burnside behaved towards me in any way that would have offended you. He has been of all things protective towards Annabelle and me. He and a friend of his, Mr Jonathan Carter, were determined that Cumberland in his malice should not harm us.’

‘Ah, yes, Mr Jonathan Carter, the irreverent son of General Sir Laurence Carter,’ murmured the duke.

‘Father-in-law?’ said Caroline in curiosity. ‘How did you come to know of Mr Carter? And do you say he’s the son of a Sir Laurence Carter? Annabelle will burn at the things she said to him. Why, he was with her when I left to come to see you, but I was in too much of a hurry to speak to him. Father-in-law, what is going on?’

‘Ah, yes,’ said the duke ambiguously, and at once reminded Caroline of how evasive Captain Burnside was whenever faced with awkward questions. ‘Ah, Burnside reported to me when his – ah – work for you had come to an end. I instructed him to, for I naturally wished to know if he had come up to expectations.’

‘Which he had,’ said Caroline, eyeing her father-in-law with some curiosity still lingering, ‘and proved himself to have many good points. Truly, he has much to commend him. I must find him. If I had stopped to think instead of letting my mind run so wildly, I could have found him this morning by being at Collins Coffee House at ten o’clock. Father-in-law, do you know where his lodgings are? If he lives in some cheap, unsalubrious quarter of London, be in no fear for me, since I will take Sammy and other servants with me, and shan’t therefore lack protection. I must and will find Charles, for I mean to remove him from London, from the temptations he falls prey to, and take him to Great Wivenden, where I shall insist he learns how to plough a hard but straight furrow.’

‘Take him?’ asked the duke in slight shock.

‘My servants shall persuade him,’ said Caroline firmly. ‘I should not want to fail him through lack of purpose and audacity, and I would fail him if I left him to his weaknesses.’

‘I pray you aren’t serious,’ said His Grace, alarmed.

‘I have never been more serious. Heaven knows how he will end up unless I am brave enough to reform him. Unhappily, he has an exceptional talent for seducing middle-class girls into parting with what little wealth they have in the way of jewellery. One day an aggrieved father may catch up with him and force him to marry the deceived girl. He must be saved from such a dreadful consequence as that.’

‘Caroline, I cannot approve your intentions,’ said the duke earnestly. ‘It is not the kind of thing a lady should do. It would shock the whole of London.’

‘I do not propose to inform the whole of London.’

The duke, thoroughly alarmed, said, ‘You cannot use your servants to remove from London a man who has his obligations and responsibilities.’

Caroline, surprised by her father-in-law’s alarm, which was not at all the same as disapproval, said, ‘Obligations and responsibilities? Do you know more of Captain Burnside’s activities than you have told me? Is it not true that in his wretched indulgence of his weaknesses he is only irresponsible?’

‘Ah – not quite,’ said the duke, and Caroline suddenly found him suspect.

‘I vow it very odd,’ she said, ‘that an adventurer like Captain Burnside can claim close friendship with a man who you say is the son of a baronet. Would a gentleman of Mr Carter’s background not only become extremely friendly with a professional trickster, but also obey his orders? When I first met Jonathan, I thought him no less
dubious than Captain Burnside. Am I wrong? Is he an undeniable gentleman? Father-in-law, are there things you should have told me, but have not? I declare myself uneasy with sudden suspicions.’

His Grace sighed in resignation. ‘Some men don’t hold with thinking women, feeling they already own acute perception and intuition,’ he said. ‘It ain’t in the interests of most men to have women thoughtfully reflecting on the faults of all men, for those faults are legion. I see now that if I don’t give you the truth, you’ll come to it in time. In telling you precisely why I sent Captain Burnside to you, I pray it won’t destroy your regard for me, nor cause you to give him furious death—’ The duke allowed himself a slight smile. ‘For that is what he fears you will do. This, my dear daughter-in-law, is the way of it.’ And he proceeded to give Caroline the facts of the matter.

Captain Burnside had originally been sent to her by Avonhurst in order to relate to that which concerned the machinations of Cumberland, with whom she was in contention. Yet she was also inside his circle of intimates, mainly because he had designs on her. Captain Burnside was to enter that circle, to watch Cumberland and to study him. The captain had lately been in troublesome Ireland, where he had come upon rumours concerning a possible assassination plot. This was at once the subject of investigation in London, particularly when the rumours took a curious turn. Cumberland, it was said, had become aware of the plot, and intense curiosity was aroused by the fact that he had not made his awareness known. Who could not have been intrigued when Cumberland himself was threatened? The assassination attempt was to be aimed at him and his eldest brother, the Prince of Wales, heir to the throne. But Cumberland kept his silence. Nor did he demand protection for himself and Wales.

Captain Burnside’s task was to breach Cumberland’s citadel as discreetly as he could, and to look for anything that might point to the reason for the duke’s silence. There was, of course, a very real danger of being discovered in the act. In this event, he was to declare his clandestine entry was motivated by a wish to recover a letter sent to Cumberland by a certain unhappy lady, a letter that any true prince or gentleman would have returned on request, not used to make the lady unhappier. The captain would also declare he was acting for the lady’s closest friend, Lady Clarence Percival, who could not have denied it. He had thought, indeed, to gain entrance to Cumberland’s residence with her help, since it was known Cumberland was in love with her and that she had been entertained by him, with other guests. Captain Burnside had thought, in fact, to ask her to contrive at the unfastening of a suitable window, and to leave it unfastened, so that he might enter after she had gone.

‘A suitable window?’ Caroline, already icy, interrupted. ‘Do you mean a window in Cumberland’s bedroom?’

‘Not so, not so,’ said her father-in-law. ‘Any upstairs window …’

‘But that was what Captain Burnside had in mind, did he not? Cumberland’s bedroom? How dared he think or assume or suggest I was ever disposed so?’ Caroline was coldly bitter. ‘You may continue, Father-in-law.’

Caroline was meant to assume this ploy was solely for the purpose of gaining access to the letter, but it was also to give Captain Burnside an opportunity to examine Cumberland’s appointments diary for July. However, during the course of conversation with her, the captain realized that if she had ever engaged in meetings of an encouraging kind with Cumberland, she no longer did so.

‘I am grateful for that conclusion,’ said Caroline fiercely.

‘Alas, this is not a happy confession,’ said His Grace, and went on. Her relationship with Cumberland at that time was wholly concerned with how that letter might be retrieved and how to divert Cumberland from his obvious intention to seduce Annabelle. So Captain Burnside looked elsewhere for the help he required, and took up an acquaintanceship with a minor member of Cumberland’s civilian staff, a servant girl called Betsy. Not only was she able to let Burnside into the house, but she reduced the danger of discovery, for she knew who was in, who was out, and how to get him safely to Cumberland’s personal suite and his secretary’s room adjacent.

He had the good fortune to find the letter and also to discover a diary entry that was both interesting and mystifying. He left, taking with him food for thought. Subsequently, residing as he was in Lady Caroline’s house, he was within easy reach of his helpful confederate, Betsy, and of Cumberland. He continued his investigations in the comfortable guise of an officer and gentleman enjoying extended leave. He was most suitably circumstanced to be attentive to Annabelle, to play his agreed role with her. He found her a charming girl, well worth saving from Cumberland’s devilish designs, although he had no reason to believe he could win her over, for his reputation as a ladies’ man had no basis to it.

‘The basis lay on his tongue,’ breathed Caroline, ‘which is so forked it could deceive even a Cherokee chief.’

‘If you have a mind to cut it out,’ said His Grace, ‘that will not be less than he expects.’ He continued, saying Captain Burnside was only too aware he had conveyed a false picture of himself to Lady Caroline, and had recently been existing in the alarmed state of a man certain she would find him out.

During his excursions and investigations, he acquired
information that justified the belief in the existence of the plot. He was led to the assumption that Cumberland was engaged in an adjunctive plot of his own. An Irish Protestant was located. He provided many details of the conspiracy designed to blow Cumberland and the Prince of Wales to pieces. Incredibly, it seemed from a peculiar entry in Cumberland’s diary that his other three elder brothers would also become victims. Obviously, of course, Cumberland would place himself out of danger at the right moment, and so survive to become heir to the throne. However, certain steps had been taken, and other steps would also be taken, all to ensure the would-be assassins enjoyed no gain and the royal family endured no loss. Cumberland’s intentions, the devil’s own, if true, would be thwarted. His apparent attempt to secure silence from Lady Caroline and Annabelle, because Annabelle had overheard part of a conversation between himself and his secretary, Erzburger, added weight to the suspicions of what he was about. It was perhaps a little in Captain Burnside’s favour that Caroline and her sister had emerged safely from a crisis, but he knew his deception of Caroline would be an outrage to her.

‘As for my own part,’ said Avonhurst, ‘it was not the best thing I have done, nor will I seek to excuse myself, save to point out I did not anticipate anything would be of greater consequence to you than the recovery of the letter and the saving of Annabelle’s honour. The venture over, I assumed you would be only too happy to see the back of Captain Burnside. I did not think the impudent fellow, who is only the son of a bishop, would so rise above himself as to ingratiate himself with you to the extent that he has.’