Dangerous to Hold (7 page)

Some time later, he made his way downstairs to the all-male sanctuary of the billiard room. He wasn’t interested in a game of billiards, but in escaping what passed for conversation in the ballroom. He could relax with men, especially those, like himself, who had seen active service, and there were plenty of those about.

He avoided Captain Gronow, who was regaling his audience with a thrilling account of the Battle of Waterloo. Out on the terrace, several gentlemen were smoking cigars. Unlike Gronow, who had entered the war in its last stages, these men were veterans. They’d served with Wellington so long that they’d come to think of themselves as professional soldiers. They didn’t talk much about their war experiences.

One of those gentlemen caught sight of Marcus and waved him over. Freddie Barnes was a year or two older than Marcus, the kind of man who seemed always cheerful. He never whined, never complained, and Marcus liked him for it. They had much in common. They had both joined Wellington at the start of the campaign, and served as Observing Officers—spies in uniform who rode deep into enemy territory, to report on the movement of French troops. They weren’t the cloak-and-dagger boys who mingled with the population, but crack cavalry officers who could ride like the wind. They had to be. More often than not, they were chased back to their own lines by French lancers.

It was on one of those missions that Marcus had run into a French patrol and
El Grande
had rescued him. Something similar had happened to Freddie. When Marcus was brought in, Freddie was already there and had been one of the officers who visited him while Marcus was recovering from his wounds. He had also been present at Marcus’s marriage to Catalina.

Freddie nodded in Gronow’s direction. “To hear him
speak,” he said, “anyone would think he had been everywhere at once. All I saw of Waterloo were horses’ arses and bloody hedges.”

This started a spate of humorous anecdotes, each more farfetched than the last. It served to distract their thoughts from their more harrowing experiences.

During a lull in the conversation, Freddie asked, “What news of your wife, Marcus? Is she in England now, or does she remain in Spain?”

This was a question that Marcus had been parrying all evening. It seemed that everyone was eager to make the acquaintance of Lady Wrotham. The rumors that circulated about his marriage were romantic but not unusual, for many English soldiers had married Spanish girls. In his own case, Marcus said as little as possible. How did a man explain to the world that he’d misplaced his wife? Even his own family had been kept in the dark. If he revealed the truth, he knew what would happen. He’d be deluged with girls all claiming to be Catalina, or there would be scores of people offering to tell him where she could be found—for a price. He chose to find her in his own way.

“Oh, she’s still in Spain,” he said, “but she’ll be joining me shortly,” and to cover the vagueness of his reply, he accepted the cigar Peter Farrel offered him, and turned aside to light it.

His delaying tactic worked, and the subject of Catalina was dropped. But he could not dismiss her so easily from his mind. The year before, when Napoleon was exiled on Elba and there was a lull in the fighting, he’d gone to Spain to try and find her. By this time, he was half convinced that something must have happened to her, that she and her brother must have perished in the fighting, else why had there been no word from either of them? He’d returned to the monastery where he’d first met Catalina without much hope of finding anything. To his great surprise, he’d found the monks rebuilding it.

From one of the monks, Juan, Marcus learned that
El Grande
was in fact el Marqués de Vera el Grande, a Spanish nobleman. His great villa on the outskirts of Madrid was a ruin. He and Catalina were the only survivors
in their family. The French believed they’d slaughtered them all, and that’s where they had made a costly blunder. On hearing of his family’s fate,
El Grande
had taken his sister and gone into hiding. Shortly after, he had emerged as the legendary leader of the partisans. Juan had told Marcus something else.
El Grande
had escorted Catalina to England.

Marcus hadn’t known what to make of this. By his reckoning, that meant they had arrived in England almost two years ago. He would have expected Catalina to stay with his family in Warwickshire or at least to demand as much money as she could squeeze out of them. He’d even looked forward to meeting up with her again so that he could punish her for what she had done. Since he’d last seen her, he’d spent many pleasurable hours inventing suitable punishments for a scheming adventuress who had forced him into marriage.

Catalina was wiser than he’d given her credit for. Evidently, she had no desire to fall into the hands of a husband who hated her.

From shipping records, he had verified that el Marqués de Vera el Grande and his sister had arrived in England. Since then—nothing. It was as though they had vanished into thin air. Strangely, Catalina hadn’t used her married name. What was she up to? When was she going to show her hand?

Then a few weeks after he had arrived back in England, something happened that turned his thoughts in a new, more sinister direction. There had been a vicious attack on him. It suddenly struck him that if he were to die, Catalina would be a very wealthy widow.

Marcus was more determined than ever to find her. There must be a way to lure her into the open.

His mind snapped back to the conversation in progress when he heard a name he recognized. “Lieutenant William Harris?” he said to Freddie. “Wasn’t he the young ensign who was with us at
El Grande’s
hideout?”

“That’s the one,” said Freddie. “A damn shame.”

“What is?” asked Marcus.

“To make it through the war, only to be killed in a boating accident.” He looked more closely at Marcus.
“Didn’t you read about it in
The Journal?
It happened in St. James’s Park some nights ago. He and his friends had been drinking.”

Marcus had an impression of the monastery in Spain, and a beardless youth who would sit silently on Catalina’s writing commode while Freddie and he talked. They’d tried to include Harris in the conversation, but he’d been too shy to say much.

“That leaves two of us,” said Marcus, voicing a stray thought.

“What does?” asked Freddie.

Marcus realized he had unwittingly piqued everyone’s interest. He said easily, “Of the five officers who were rescued by
El Grande
, only two of us are left. You and I, Freddie.”

“What happened to the others?” asked Farrel.

Freddie answered, “Well, first, when we left
El Grande’s
lair and tried to cross the border into Portugal, we ran straight into a detachment of French cavalry. In the skirmish, one of the Riflemen was killed, I forget his name. I didn’t see what happened to the other one.”

“I forgot about the Riflemen,” said Marcus.

“Shortly after, Major Sheppard accidentally shot himself while cleaning his pistol. Tragic business.”

“And,” said Marcus, “right after that, Captain Brinsley’s horse kicked his brains out. It was a freak accident.”

Someone said, “And Brinsley, I presume, was with you at
El Grande’s
hideout?”

“He was,” said Freddie.

Farrel exhaled a long plume of smoke. “Didn’t some footpad take a potshot at you in Hyde Park, Marcus? I thought I heard something to that effect.”

Marcus turned to look at Farrel. He was over six feet tall and gave the impression that he was a slow, plodding kind of fellow. Marcus knew that this impression was deceptive. Of all the soldiers who had served with Wellington, Major Peter Farrel was most often mentioned in dispatches.

“That’s right,” said Marcus. “Damn fool shot my hat clean off my head when I was walking on the bridge over
the Serpentine. Naturally, I jumped in after it. It was a damned expensive hat.”

After the laughter had died down, Farrel asked, “What about this
El Grande?
Who is he anyway?”

“That,” said Marcus, “is el Marqués de Vera el Grande, my brother-in-law.”

Freddie Barnes left Lady Tarrington’s house in a troubled frame of mind. Though he’d told a small lie, which bothered him, there was more to it than that. He hadn’t known about the attack on Marcus. Now that he did know, his mind was sifting through everything, trying to find a connection. Perhaps there was no connection between the accidents to Sheppard, Brinsley, and Harris, as well as the attack on Marcus. But it seemed an odd and frightening series of random events.

As the first heavy drops of rain splashed on his face, he turned up his coat collar and hailed a hackney. His rooms were in St. James’s, but the hackney did not stop there. It turned the corner into Piccadilly, and made for Bond Street. Freddie knew that he wasn’t expected. They had an understanding that they should meet only by appointment, but he felt that these were exceptional circumstances.

The moment he entered the vestibule, he could smell the sex. He heard a woman’s voice, crying out in pleasure, and the guttural sounds of her partner. He was enraged, and at the same time he was sick to his stomach. This was the real reason his lover didn’t want him to come to his rooms uninvited. He was a faithless, promiscuous libertine. All he cared about was the money Freddie Barnes supplied to keep him in style. There was one other thing his lover required from him and that was his silence.

He was turning to leave when the door to the bedroom opened, and his lover stood framed with the light behind him. He was dressed in a maroon brocade robe. When he saw Freddie, he closed the door with a snap.

“Freddie,” he said in a cajoling way, “I thought it might be you. You shouldn’t have come here like this.”

“No,” said Freddie, and couldn’t prevent his bitterness from showing. There was no remorse on his lover’s face. He didn’t even have the grace to look embarrassed. Freddie said, “Now that you’re here, I might as well return this.” He held out a key.

His lover came forward to within a pace of him. “Why? Because of the woman? Freddie, Freddie, you know she means nothing to me.” He placed a hand on Freddie’s shoulder, and squeezed gently. “I was lonely without you. She was there. It’s as simple as that.”

Though he despised himself, Freddie felt himself relenting. Love did this to a man. It made him weak. And he was a man, a real man, in spite of the scorn his friends would heap upon him if they knew of his secret life. He’d been an Observing Officer. He’d fought hand to hand with his enemies. He’d commanded men in battle. He was a man, but not man enough to finish with a young lover who made a fool of him.

He felt suddenly, desperately weary. “Look,” he said, “I met Wrotham tonight. No, I haven’t told him anything, not yet, but that’s not the point. There’s something strange going on. It’s probably nothing at all, but I thought you should know. There have been accidents, attacks. I’ll explain later. Just be on your guard, all right?”

“I don’t understand. You’re not making sense.” The young man looked over his shoulder at the closed door, then looked back at Freddie. “I’ll get rid of the woman. Why don’t you go on home and wait for me? I’ll be along as soon as I can. Then we can talk.”

A bitter retort formed on Freddie’s tongue, but he couldn’t bring himself to utter it. He hesitated, nodded, and turned to go.

“Freddie?” There was a moment of silence, then his lover said, “Does he know about me?”

Freddie stiffened. “I wouldn’t break your confidence without your permission.”

Those words were rewarded by a devastatingly sweet smile. “That’s what I like about you, Freddie. You are a man of your word. Go along, now. I’ll be with you very soon.”

Freddie was drooping with weariness when he entered
his own rooms. Why hadn’t he told his lover to go to the devil? Because then it would be over between them, and he couldn’t face that. Had he no pride, no dignity? He’d been thoroughly humiliated. God, what was the matter with him?

He poured himself a glass of brandy and drank it back in two long gulps, then he settled himself in front of the empty grate, brandy bottle in hand, and contemplated his future. He was thirty-five years old. He should get married and raise a family. That would please his mother. He gave a hollow laugh and poured himself another brandy. Sometimes, he wished that he were dead. His eyelids felt heavy and he closed his eyes for a moment.

He dreamed that he was drowning. Seaweed was wrapped around his throat. The pressure tightened horribly. When it came to him, finally, that this was no dream, and that someone was murdering him, it was too late to do more than put up a feeble resistance.

Ransom’s Bank was on the east side of Pall Mali, close to Charing Cross. Moments after the doors were opened for business, a hackney pulled up and a young gentleman of fashion descended to the pavement. When he entered the bank, he conferred with Mr. Stevenson, the under-manager, and was soon shown to a windowless room in the basement of the bank, just off one of the strong-rooms. Shortly afterward, a trunk was delivered and the customer was left to examine the contents in private.

It was a small trunk, and though the leather was old, it was well cared for. Brass studs decorated the sides and top. There was an oval brass plate on the lid, engraved with three initials, P.R.L. The young man used his key to open the trunk. This wasn’t the first time he had examined the contents. Everything was in order—everything that could propel him into the kind of life he had always dreamed of. One major obstacle stood in his way, and when he removed the obstacle, his patience would finally be rewarded. Three years he had waited, and now he could almost taste success.

His fingers delved into letters and documents and
came up with a white velvet pochette, yellowing with age. It was the sort of thing a lady might carry to a ball if there were no pockets in her gown. He emptied the pochette into his hand, and a bracelet nestled in his palm.

There were five cameos on it, all of ladies’ heads, all of them different and carved from different precious stones. The one thing that was uniform was the setting for each cameo. This was of filigreed gold, overlaid with vines and roses. It was an exquisite piece of workmanship, but more the point, it was his passport to a life of ease and wealth.