Behind the Mask (House of Lords) (14 page)

“He is doing his duty,” Lady Sidney said with admiration and pride in her voice. “Do you think, Lord Pierce, that my son will be able to convince the Duchess of Kent and her comptroller that they ought to return to London rather than coming here?”

Colin shook his head. “I have my doubts, My Lady. Leo is certainly better placed to succeed that Mr. Strathmore would have been alone, but I am afraid that Sir John does what is in his own best interests, and it is to his benefit to continue the progress.”

“And if she comes, we must receive her,” Miss Chesney put in. “We cannot possibly close our doors and insist that she return to London without welcoming her.”

“No, indeed,” Lady Sidney said, her tone implying that the very idea of such a thing horrified her. “But, oh, what a terrible thing to happen! Why, there hasn’t been a murder in this area in…well, it must be fifteen years or more. The villagers must be so frightened. We will all have to go to church tomorrow to show that we are not afraid. That is, unless you think there is some risk to my daughters, Lord Pierce?” She looked pleadingly up at him, as though he might somehow make all this trouble vanish with a wave of his hand.

“It is my belief that the assassins will go to ground now. They took a great risk in abducting Mr. Yates, and they will be more careful until they are ready to strike. I do not believe there is any immediate threat, but you and your daughters will have all the protection I am able to offer, My Lady. I hope that within a day or two we will see some reinforcements from the Foreign Office, and perhaps the militia as well.”

“The militia? At Sidney Park?”

“I am sorry, My Lady, but it cannot be helped.”

Lady Sidney reached out and gripped Miss Maris’s hand. “And the assassins?”

Colin cleared his throat and shifted uncomfortably. “As I said, I don’t believe there is much danger from them now. They have made a crucial mistake in killing Yates, and they know it. They will go to ground now, but I do not think they will go far. I mean to search the entire park and the areas beyond for them.”

“And I will help you,” Miss Chesney said.

“Eleanor, no!” Lady Sidney cried, leaping up from her chair.

“He does not know the area, Mama,” she protested. “He does not know where the most likely hiding spots are, or the dangerous places. And it will quell suspicions if I am seen with him. People will not suspect our purpose if we appear to be a young couple, exploring the Park together. If he tries to recruit men from the area to help him search people will begin to think something is wrong, that they are still in danger, and there will be panic.”

Colin stared at her. For a moment he considered arguing that it was too dangerous, that there were too many risks involved, but when he really allowed himself to consider it he was able to recognize that she was right—he
did
need her help. He simply did not know the park well enough.

Lady Sidney nodded, though she looked unconvinced. “Very well,” she said. “When do we expect Leo to return?”

“Tomorrow, with any luck,” Colin said. He was certainly hopeful that they would see Leo soon, for there was very little he could do until the lord of Sidney Park returned. Miss Chesney and her mother could make many of the decisions, of course, but only Viscount Sidney could allow a militia to occupy the grounds and approve assistance from the crown. Without Leo, none of the protections he hoped to put in place before the princess’s visit would be workable. Colin wasted none of his energy hoping that Sir John would decide to turn tail and take the princess home. He knew as well as the rest of the employees of the Foreign Office and the Privy Council that there was little chance of the Duchess of Kent’s comptroller backing down once he had set his sights on something.

“Well, then,” Lady Sidney said, “we must await his return and hope that Sir John will make the right choice.”

“Of course,” Colin replied. Then he bowed his head and went downstairs to find Mr. Jameson. He still had servants to interview.

After Lord Pierce had gone, Eleanor stared at her mother and sisters for a long moment. None of them seemed to know what to say. Maris had pulled Lady Sidney back onto the sofa and was holding her hand. Georgina was gripping the back of her chair, her knuckles white. Eleanor took a few deep breaths.

“Lord Pierce will take care of us,” she said at last. “There is no point in tormenting ourselves with worry.”

“Of course not,” her mother said woodenly. “There’s only a dead body in the village doctor’s rooms, a band of assassins on the loose, and the heir to the throne coming to stay in four days. Why on earth should we worry?”

Eleanor went to take the empty seat on the other side of her mother as Maris said, “Now, Mama, try to stay calm.”

“I am perfectly calm,” Lady Sidney said, her voice still even and toneless. “I believe, Eleanor, that I am bearing up remarkably well under these terrible circumstances.”

“Yes, Mama.”

Her mother rose. “I believe I shall go and lie down for a while,” she said. Maris, mouth set in a frown, stood and followed her out of the room.

Georgina stared silently after her. It was several moments before she turned to Eleanor and said, “Is there anything you’re not telling us?”

Eleanor shook her head. “I have told you everything Lord Pierce told me.”

“Then is there anything
he
is not telling
you
?”

“I have no way of knowing. I’m sure there are details he cannot reveal.” She put her face in her hands. “Oh, I wish we had never agreed to invite the princess here.”

Georgina rose and came to sit beside her. “It will be well, Eleanor. When Leo returns we will all go back to London for a while, and when it is safe we will return to Sidney Park, and all this trouble will be forgotten.”

“I do not think Lord Pierce believes Leo will be able to dissuade Sir John Conroy from bringing the princess here. You have not met the Duchess of Kent, but I have. She is a silly, frivolous woman who thinks very little of the welfare of others. She will not care about the danger, so long as she is able to carry out this ridiculous plan of hers to parade the princess across the country. Or if she does accept that there are risks, she will dismiss it as some trick of King William’s to stop her from making these progresses. I think it is very unlikely she and Sir John will agree to take the princess back to London. And now I must find a way to incorporate a militia and half the Foreign Service into our plans.”

Georgina put a gentle hand on her shoulder. “If anyone can do it, Eleanor, you can. You always do the right thing.”

Eleanor laughed bitterly. “Do I?”

“For as long as I can remember, you have never put a toe out of line. You have always done the sensible thing. That is how I know you will be able to manage this as well. You are the strongest of us, Eleanor.”

“Fine praise, indeed,” Eleanor said. She thought of what Leo had said to her on the drive not an hour ago. Was that really how her family saw her: the staid, solid, sensible sister who never did anything wrong or made any mistakes?

Georgina smiled. “There is a letter here for you,” she said, rising and crossing the room to the desk. “It came with the rest of the correspondences.”

“It is from the Countess of Stowe,” Eleanor said happily. “I hope she has included some details about the school. I have been wild with anxiety about the preparations.”

Georgina sat back down at the desk and picked up her pen as Eleanor tore open the letter. “You enjoy being involved in the school, don’t you, Eleanor?”

She nodded, looking down at the letter. “It is worthwhile work, Georgie. There is nothing quite so satisfying as doing something meaningful.”

Georgina chuckled, but did not look up from her own letter. “Does that mean that floral arrangements and masquerade balls are not meaningful work?”

“Not to me,” Eleanor said. “It is invigorating to have a useful profession. I wish I could take a teaching position at the school, but Mama would never allow it.”

“No, indeed,” Georgie said. “Allow her eldest daughter to spend her days wiping noses and tying bootlaces? She would be horrified.”

“It’s not all drudgery. I have met some of the children who will be boarders at the school already. They are such dear little things. It would be hard work, teaching them the manners and skills they never learned on the streets, but I do not think you can argue that it would not be satisfying.”

Now Georgina put down her pen and turned. “I did not think you liked children, Eleanor.”

“Whatever do you mean?”

“Only that...well, you have never seemed particularly interested in them. The Countess of Stowe’s babies, for instance. I don’t believe I have ever seen you holding one of them.”

Eleanor looked away, out the window at the blue summer sky. “I did, once,” she said. She could not bear to explain to her sister the strange ache she felt every time she looked at Clarissa Rennick’s twins and thought that she might never have children of her own. For despite the fact that she was young yet and had many seasons before she would really be a spinster, Eleanor had begun to realize that she was not the sort of woman men of the
ton
appreciated. She had had suitors, of course, but they had all melted away when she opened her mouth and began to speak about the Knightsbridge School or her charity work. The matrons of society had labeled her a bluestocking, and that sort of epithet stuck. No man wanted a bluestocking, who might besmirch his good name with her involvement in unsavory endeavors such as caring for the poor or reforming the prisons, for a wife. Oh, they would dance with her and flirt with her because she was pretty—Eleanor had no illusions about that. But once they discovered what lay beneath her looks, they vanished back into the crowd, seeking out partners who would not try to discuss Parliament or the Poor Laws.

“Eleanor?”

“I’m sorry,” she said. Out in the corridor the supper bell rang.

“You looked a thousand miles away.”

Eleanor smiled, folded up her letter, and rose. “Perhaps I was,” she said as she went out.

TEN

Eleanor could easily have spent the entire evening in her room mulling over everything that had happened in the last two days, which was why she forced herself to go downstairs the moment she was dressed. If she allowed herself to begin ruminating, she knew, she would never stop.

She knew no one else would be dressed, so she brought the letter from Clarissa along with her down to the drawing room. Once she was seated on the sofa she opened it, eager for news from London. Of course, the first part of the letter was all about the twins, Henry and Eloise, who were very nearly one now. Clarissa and her husband Anders, the Earl of Stowe, were doting parents who clearly relished every moment they could get with their children. Eleanor sometimes envied Clarissa for the way her husband had thrown himself headfirst into fatherhood. Not one in a hundred men, she thought, would be so enthralled as to spend whole afternoons playing in the nursery. Leo had told her that only a few weeks earlier, just days before the close of the Parliamentary session, Anders had left the chamber in the middle of a speech after receiving an urgent message. When Leo had gone to Stowe house a few hours later to find out if anything was amiss it had been to discover Anders and Clarissa upstairs in the nursery, marveling as little Eloise took her first steps. He had told the story with a note of awe in his voice, as though the very idea of fatherhood mystified him. But Eleanor knew that Leo also respected Anders a great deal—indeed, not long ago he had hoped that there might be a match between his best friend and his oldest sister.

It would never have worked, of course. Eleanor had known Anders since she was an infant, for he had spent many summers and holidays at Sidney Park after his mother had remarried and moved to Kent with her new husband. The Earl of Stowe was like another brother, and Eleanor could never have thought of him as a potential spouse. Seeing how well he and Clarissa fit together made her envious not because she wished she had married Anders, but because she was beginning to feel a longing for the life Clarissa led. She had a husband who respected her, valued her opinion and never ignored her. She had two beautiful children. She had a place of her own. When Eleanor allowed herself to consider what her life would be like if she continued as she was, never marrying, always filling the role her mother would not take up, she sometimes wanted to scream. But it was not Clarissa’s fault that Eleanor could not be satisfied with her lot. She read the details about the twins and the party Clarissa was planning for their first birthday with joy in her heart.