Love's Reward (26 page)

The door slammed shut behind her.

“For God’s sake!” Richard leaped to his feet and tore open the packet.

Lady Carhill tugged Quentin by the sleeve. “You will let her escape?”

“Sit down, Quentin.” Fitzroy leaned back as Richard scanned the papers. “She wins this round. Wellington’s life is far more important than hers. We must read what she leaves us.”

“But she said the plot is for tomorrow,” Joanna said. “Even if the entire navy attempted it, you cannot get warning to France in time, and you are wounded.”

“My dear wife, have a little faith.” Fitzroy opened one eye to look at Richard. “Well, Lenwood?”

“It’s all here,” Richard replied grimly. “Wellington will be ambushed as he returns to his headquarters in Cambrai. They plan to use a crossbow. It may sound medieval, but it’s just as deadly as a rifle, and completely silent, of course. It’s a hideously simple plan. The assassins have every chance of getting away with it.”

“Oh, no!” Lady Carhill cried, still clutching at Quentin’s sleeve. “Wellington must be warned. You will ride immediately for the coast, Lord Lenwood?”

Richard flung down the papers and ran his hands back through his blond hair. He was gaunt.

“Impossible,” he said. “Joanna is right. By the time any messenger from England arrives in France, he will be days too late.”

Fitzroy smiled at Joanna before forcing himself to stand.

“But what you don’t realize, Lenwood, is that we Mountfitchets regularly deal in signs and wonders. We have all the birds of the air on our side.”

With a gasp, he sat down again. “Sadly, I don’t believe I can ride.”

Quentin gently disengaged Lady Carhill’s fingers. He looked grim and shaken.

“Then I suppose it’s up to me to save the peace of Europe, brother.”

Fitzroy nodded to him. “Do it, sir. There’s still no time to be lost.”

“Quentin?”
Joanna said. “But he’s been in league with that woman from the beginning. How can you trust him now?”

“Sweetheart, there are times we must trust what we believe we know about another person’s heart. Though we’ve been apart for most of these last years, we were boys together once.”

Quentin tried to grin at her and failed. His skin was chalky.

“Don’t listen to Fitzroy’s attempts to reclaim me, Joanna. I’m past redemption, a damned drunkard.”

“But you didn’t know what she really was.” Lady Carhill’s eyes were enormous. “None of us knew. We were all pawns, weren’t we?” She turned to Fitzroy. “Those men you mentioned: Green, Herring, Flanders. Carmen had them killed?”

Fitzroy nodded, still watching his brother.

“It’s a little disconcerting,” Quentin said with a desperate attempt at bravado, “to know that one has taken a murderess to one’s bed. You’re right to have no faith in me, Joanna. We may have been the unwitting dupes of a vicious woman, but we weren’t innocent. How the hell can I trust myself?”

“By staying sober, sir.” Fitzroy smiled with the old deviltry. “And, besides, Joanna’s brother will go with you.”

“Go where?” Richard said.

“To the bottom of my garden. What do you know about pigeons?”

* * *

Quentin and Richard left at the gallop to attempt to get a message to Wellington in time. Quentin would dispatch the Belgian carrier pigeons, while Richard rode on to Whitehall to inform Lord Grantley.

Joanna and Fitzroy traveled back to London in Lady Carhill’s carriage.

It was a silent journey. Fitzroy slept with his head against Joanna’s shoulder. Lady Carhill stared from the window at the passing countryside and said nothing.

They arrived back at Fitzroy’s house as the day drew in.

Menservants carried their master up the stairs to his bedroom. The paint-stained sheets were gone, silently changed by the efficient household staff.

Joanna glanced at the slim volume of Wordsworth and the note Fitzroy had written, which she had tucked inside.

Joanna. Remember. Whatever happens later, I love you.

Fitzroy was placed in the great bed, his face as white as the sheets, his disordered hair raven in contrast.

The doctor came. Fitzroy was bled, bandaged anew, and given a sleeping draught made from poppies. He slept heavily.

Nothing more could be done.

Joanna sat and studied his sleeping features, her heart filled with fear.

At last the door opened. She turned as Richard and Quentin came in.

“We sent four pigeons,” Quentin said with an attempt at gaiety. “The message is attached to their legs. If they survive hawks and bad weather, they will arrive at their home loft in Belgium in four or five hours. If Fitzroy’s man finds them there, as he should, it will only be a matter of a couple more hours hard riding to get warning to Wellington in Cambrai.”

“So it’s now in the hands of Fate and our feathered friends,” Richard said.

“I shall tell Fitzroy,” Joanna replied, “in the morning.”

“So how is the fallen hero?” Quentin asked lightly.

Her control snapped. “He’s very ill. Don’t you care?”

Total blankness came over Quentin’s handsome features.

“I care damnably, as it happens. But what the devil can I do about it now? Do you think that what I’ve done can be forgotten overnight, like the name of someone you hope not to meet again? Fitzroy is the only brother I have. Believe it or not, I’d rather he lives to rain curses at me if he wants to.”

“It was my sword did the damage,” Richard said. “I was momentarily insane, I think.”

“But I was the man he should have been able to rely on, wasn’t I? Yet I believed all those lies about him. Now, pray, where is Lady Carhill?”

Joanna blushed, still angry. “She’s waiting downstairs. She thought perhaps you would like a ride back to town in her carriage.”

“An excellent scheme.” Quentin strode to the door.

He turned as he opened it and tried to wink at her. His eyes were glazed.

“We shall know in a day, perhaps, if the pigeons were successful, and by morning if I am. Thank God I’m free of Mrs. Barton-Smith—or Carmen, I should say—at last. I was afraid to replace her, and rightly as it turned out. Who knows? The knife might have been for my back next.”

Richard watched Quentin leave.

“Dear God, what a family!” He looked drawn, tired. “Must I apologize? I did not mean . . . You have a damnable husband, Joanna.”

“Don’t say it, Richard. Fitzroy is everything you feared and more. He’s the most infuriating man I ever met. I don’t blame you at all for perforating him so liberally. Perhaps a little blood-letting will relieve his evil humors.”

Joanna walked up to her brother and put her arms around him.

“But?” Richard asked gently.

“But it’s too late to nullify our marriage. And I want to have his babies.”

Her brother kissed the top of her head. “Then there’s no more to be said, sister mine. If he’s to father nephews and nieces, I don’t want his death on my conscience, after all.”

“He won’t die. I shan’t let him. Go home to Helena and Elaine and get some rest. Helena will be worried, since you no doubt rode away like a banshee bent on murder and mayhem. I’ll send word to Acton Mead as soon as there’s news.”

“Very well. But first I shall see that you bathe, and we shall both dine. Tarrant won’t wake for hours yet, and his man will watch over him. Go, Joanna! Call your maid and take a hot bath.”

She did as Richard bid her, merely because she was too tired to argue.

They ate a simple meal and talked quietly about Fitzroy, about long-ago adventures in the Peninsula, and about Juanita.

“I never understood him,” Richard said quietly at last. “He must have guessed what had happened to Juanita in Badajoz. Yet he married her anyway.”

“Don’t you see? He married her because of it.” Joanna broke the remains of her bread into crumbs. “I don’t know whether he tried to convince himself that it wasn’t really true, or if he believed he could make amends. Either way, it was the action of a fool. Carmen was right.”

Richard silently handed her his handkerchief, before he kissed her again and left.

Joanna ran back to the shadowed chamber to be with Fitzroy.

He slept on, oblivious to her presence, his face white, his breathing a little too fast and shallow.

She paced the quiet room, thinking through everything that had happened. There were still great gaps in the story that she knew, but she didn’t care any longer.

Fitzroy moaned and moved.

Joanna raced back to the bedside. He still slept, one hand flung out on the pillow.

Please, Fitzroy, don’t die now!

She took his hand in her own and held it.

‘
Who’ll be chief mourner?’ ‘I,’ said the Dove, ‘I mourn for my love, I’ll be chief mourner.’

What was the nature of love?

Joanna had discussed it once with Helena at Acton Mead.

“Love is not something that happens to you,” Richard’s wife had said thoughtfully. “Love is something two people create. That initial fall helps, of course, when you believe you’ve met a prince from a fairy tale. Your heart lifts at the sound of his footfall. You’re entranced by the very shape of him, and the way he moves. You look at each other and feel a melting somewhere deep inside. But real passion is liberated only by trust and honesty tempered by kindness, with eyes wide open to all of his faults, as his are open to yours. Then I believe you can grow old together and still be in love.”

“I don’t know,” Joanna had replied. “Love must be more than kindness. You make it sound so tame.”

“I assure you that it’s not tame to be kind. Not striking back when you’ve been wounded takes every ounce of courage and conviction you have. But you must both do it. Otherwise you will burn each other until there’s nothing left but ashes. It is when the person you love behaves badly that the first test comes, and you must return generosity for pettiness.”

“And let him walk all over you?”

Helena had grinned at Joanna’s expression. “I don’t mean you should be Patient Griselda. Far from it! I’m talking about compassion and generosity based on mutual respect, and that’s something that’s earned. It’s what real love is, and what makes the deepest passion possible.”

It had all seemed impossibly pious to Joanna.

She closed her eyes. Helena was a naturally sweet-natured person. Richard was normally the soul of courtesy and consideration. Of course, they could have a civilized marriage.

The quiet spaces of the night closed around her.

Still holding Fitzroy by the hand, she slid her head onto the pillows next to him.

At last Joanna slept.

* * *

Strong fingers tightened around her own. She opened her eyes.

Fitzroy was gazing down at her.

Sunshine streamed in at the window. It was morning. And very possibly late morning, the dawn chorus was obviously long over.

How long had she slept while Fitzroy watched over her?

“Well, Joanna,” he said with an infuriating grin. “Now your brother has suitably chastised me, am I forgiven?”

His pulse beat against hers, quick and fast.

She sat up. “I don’t know. I don’t know what our marriage means. What about children?”

“Ah.” He closed his eyes. “I know what I said. Petty, malicious words, aimed only to hurt. I felt such rage at my father for forcing my hand and making me face my destiny. Can you forgive me for that, too?”

She felt an infinite distress. Too much yet lay unresolved, didn’t it?

“You said I look like Juanita. I can see how hard that must have made things.”

“No, Joanna. You’re nothing like her.” He opened his eyes and studied her face. “I know you want to be an artist and don’t want children. Your mother told me. If you don’t abandon me as I deserve, and will still allow me into your bed, I can be careful, sweetheart. There won’t be babies. But, dear God, I should be honored if you would bear me a child. Crazy as it may sound, I like children.”

“I know. I saw you with little Tom. I do want to paint, but I don’t see why I can’t have babies, too. I should like a son. He would be as black-browed as we are, and just as difficult.”

He gazed at her with open astonishment. “And if we have daughters?”

“They will run away from school with ineligible rakes. But children alone don’t make a marriage, do they? And what kind of father would they have? How dare you take it for granted that we have a future together?”

Someone made a slight noise behind her. Joanna turned to see Lady Mary at the door.

“Is Fitzroy—?”

“Come in, Mary.” Fitzroy held out his hand. “I am.”

* * *

Joanna left Fitzroy alone with his sister. Lady Mary came down half an hour later to say that Fitzroy was asleep again, and to share her own news.

“I’m still to go to Switzerland,” she said, smiling shyly. “But the doctors are confident now of my complete recovery. Indeed, they say that, although I have suffered some inflammation and weakness, there seems to be no permanent condition of the lungs, after all. A stay away from all this smoke and damp is sure to send me home perfectly well.”

Joanna felt the joy of it like a bright quaff of champagne.

“Oh, Mary! I’m so very glad. But still, I have something for you.”

She led Lady Mary to her studio and unveiled the portrait.

Fitzroy laughed back at them, lighthearted, filled with joy.

“I hoped it would cheer you, if I painted him like this.”

“But it’s wonderful! Perfect! Joanna, you’re a genius, truly.”

Joanna gazed at the painting she had labored over so hard.

She had thought she was in love with it. Now it seemed shallow, like a watercolor wash that was unfinished. Yet it wasn’t a lie. It was just a partial truth.

With a certain sense of revelation, Joanna realized that the whole truth was what she wanted. A portrait complete with depth, shadows, and layers of complex glazes.

If only she could find her way there.

* * *

A steady stream of visitors came all morning.

Knowing that Fitzroy still slept, drugged with opium, Joanna dealt with them all in the formal drawing room, refusing them permission to wake him.