Never Doubt I Love (37 page)

Zoe tried to look excited. “Is it from my papa, ma'am?”

“'Tis not his writing. I have a keen eye for handwriting and would most certainly have recognized it. And since 'tis improper for a gel to receive letters from Unknowns, I think—I really think I must demand to know what it contains.”

Staring at her, Zoe was so astounded by such barefaced hypocrisy that she was temporarily incapable of responding.

“Ah, but you are speechless with delight.” The thin smile that seldom reached her ladyship's eyes spread across her teeth. “You may open it, but I require to know at once from whom it is come.”

Zoe yearned to scratch the bony hand that thrust the letter at her. It was indeed Travis' letter, very neatly re-sealed. “'Tis from my brother, ma'am,” she said, and thought, ‘As you know very well, you wicked creature!'

“But how charming. Filial loyalty is always to be applauded. Very well. Enjoy it, my dear gel.” And with a stern admonition to Gorton that Miss Grainger's gown looked as if she had worn it while grooming the horses, Lady Buttershaw marched to the door. Gorton ran to open it, and she was gone, calling stridently for Hackham.

Zoe sank weakly onto the bed.

Gorton flew to kneel beside her. “She
give
it you, Miss!”

“Yes.” Zoe broke the seal and her eyes travelled the page, half expecting it to be a re-worded forgery. But nothing was changed. She'd been so sure the woman would have insisted on knowing where Travis stayed, and why he had been so mysterious in giving his direction. Instead, not one quesiton had been asked.

Scanning her face anxiously, Gorton asked, “What is it, Miss? Has it been altered?”

“No. And I cannot understand why I was not made to explain…” Zoe closed her eyes as the answer came. “Oh, how can I be so dense?”

“That you're not, Miss! But I am. May I ask—what your brother has done?”

Zoe smiled at her fondly. “My faithful Elsie. He has done nothing wrong. But he has brought a—a certain letter back from India. 'Tis a letter Lady Buttershaw wants very badly. I think she would stop at nothing to get it.”

Her eyes round with dismay, Gorton whispered, “No one dare go 'gainst her! If your brother writ down his direction, she's likely got that letter already!”

“He told me where he stays, yes. But in a sort of code we made up as children. I was sure Lady Buttershaw would try to force it from me. I should have known better! She has no need to know where he is now. He says in this letter that he will call on me here. All she has to do—is wait.”

“Oh—
Lor
'! Then—then you still want to try and send him that note?”

Zoe nodded. “He is ill. I must help him. Elsie—
please
—if I give you the note, can you get Cecil to deliver it?”

Gorton hid her face against Zoe's knee and trembled. Stroking her shoulder, Zoe said, “As soon as I can be sure my brother has my note, we will run away to my aunt in Richmond. She is a very kind lady. I know she will take me in. Elsie, I
promise,
when I leave, you will go with me!”

Gorton blinked up at her tearfully. “C-Cecil, too?”

Surely, thought Zoe, Peregrine, or Sir Owen, or perhaps Maria, would help her to keep her word. She said firmly, “Cecil, too!”

*   *   *

Struggling with the straps around his leg, Cranford swore blisteringly. He had returned home to find his rooms empty and no sign of Florian, nor the note he would usually leave if he'd gone off somewhere. “Just when I most need him,” he muttered, pulling the straps tighter.

He'd sent the house messenger boy off to the Madrigal, with a note for Sir Owen, but there had been no response as yet. He stood and tested the foot and was heartened to find he'd evidently adjusted it properly, for it felt quite secure. It had better be!

By the time he'd checked his pistol and slung on his sword-belt, the boy returned with word that Sir Owen had not been at the Madrigal. He'd even asked for him at White's, “But he wasn't there, neither.” And, yes, he did know Mr. August Falcon. “Everybody knows
him,
” he said, with the suggestion of a sneer that vanished when Cranford's cold stare turned his way. “He was riding along the Strand,” he vouchsafed hurriedly, “with Mr. Fowles.”

Cranford stiffened. Fowles? Why the deuce would August Falcon consort with that vicious slug? He said, “Do you mean Sir Gilbert Fowles?”

The messenger boy looked dubious. “Dunno,” he said with a sniff. “The one with all the teeth, what's got his own chair, and changes the side panels and the chairmen's coats to match whatever he's wearing. Proper high-stepper, he is.”

Cranford grunted, and tossed him a coin. He would wait here no longer. Nor did he propose to waste more time in scouring the Town to find his friends. He wrote a brief note to Florian, then donned cloak and tricorne and went out into the fading and wet afternoon.

*   *   *

Zoe sat down at her dressing table, folded her hands in her lap, and made a strong effort to compose herself. It seemed an age since Elsie had left with Travis' letter and the bribe, a florin, which would likely seem a fortune to the fireboy. He was just a scrap of a lad, Gorton had told her, but she had once saved him from a beating, and out of gratitude he sometimes risked carrying a message to her beloved.

Their whole dependence was on the boy being able to smuggle Zoe's letter to the coachman, and impress on him that the letter must be taken
at once
to Mr. Andreeni at the Inn of the Silver Cat on King William Street. Gorton had said that if her Cecil couldn't slip away himself, he'd likely entrust the letter to a link boy he knew, and with that Zoe had to be content.

It had been her intention to send her brother to Peregrine, and not until she was already writing the letter had she realized that she had not the least notion of where he lived. He had mentioned the street once, but all she could recall was that it had something to do with chickens. Sir Owen Furlong was her next choice. Peregrine had mentioned that Sir Owen had loaned his house to friends, and was at present staying at his club, but—which club? Again thwarted, she had to discard Sir Owen.

Relations, or old family friends, might be watched. There was Maria Benevento, of course. Dear Maria had offered to help, and represented the ideal solution. No one would suspect Travis to be acquainted with her, and she could at once apply to Sir Owen for help. It seemed wrong to involve her in such a dangerous enterprise, but, unable to come up with an alternative, Zoe had overcome her scruples. She had written warning her brother that under
no circumstances
was he to come to Yerville Hall, but instead he must go to Miss Benevento at once, as the lady was a good friend and was, furthermore, acquainted with Peregrine Cranford.

She stood and paced about restlessly. She had done all she could. Now she could only wait and pray that Travis would receive her message in time. Pausing she looked once more at the clock on the mantelpiece. Only twenty minutes past three? It seemed as if it must be at least six o'clock! She whirled around when the door opened.

Gorton hurried in with a tray. “You never had any lunch, Miss,” she said.

There was no need to ask how her mission had prospered; her face was alight with triumph. Running to her, Zoe whispered, “Cecil has my letter safe?”

“Better than that, Miss. The link boy set off half an hour since. Your brother is likely reading that letter this very minute!”

Suddenly, Zoe was very tired. Closing her eyes, she breathed, “Thank God! Oh, thank God!”

“Amen to that, Miss,” said Gorton devoutly. “Now, you just eat up some of this nice cold meat and fruit Ay have brought you. Ay fancied you'd rather have lemonade than milk. Are you hungry, Miss?”

“I am ravenous!” declared Zoe, and devoted herself to the sliced beef and crusty buttered bread, while Gorton bustled about, gathering washing for the laundry maid. “If Ay dare ask, Miss,” she said, “what do you mean to do now?”

Zoe looked up with the bright sparkle restored to her eyes. “I must wait until I am certain my brother has my letter. And then, dear Elsie, tonight, with luck, we shall be off to Richmond-on-Thames! We must drink to our success! Or we would,” she amended, “if you had a glass!”

Gorton brought the water glass from the bedside table, and they poured half the lemonade into it and toasted each other merrily. Returning to her belated luncheon, Zoe exclaimed, “Oh, if you knew how relieved I feel! My brother is home at last, and Mr. Cranford must be pleased with me when he finds out Travis is safe at Miss Benevento's house.”

Gorton finished her lemonade and asked curiously, “Is that where you sent him, then?”

“Yes. The lady has been such a good friend to me, Elsie. So kind. And so beautiful, do not you think?”

“Oh, I do.” Gorton smothered a yawn, and apologized. “One of the two loveliest ladies in all London Town. Though I never thought I'd say that of two foreigners, Miss Zoe, least of all, a Frenchy.”

“Do you mean Miss Katrina Falcon? I hear she is judged the leading Toast, but I'd understood she has only some Chinese ancestry.”

“That's right, Miss. And a very nice lady, in spite of what people say.” Gorton giggled. “Lady Buttershaw, you know, is mad for her brother.”

“Yes, I know. But you are mistaken, Elsie. Miss Benevento is Italian, not French.”

“Is that a fact? So that's why her name is different. I fancied 'twas just that gentlemen's names change when they inherit titles, you know. Do you suppose 'twas a second marriage, then? They must have the same parent on one side, surely, for my Cecil says that Miss Benevento looks very much like her brother.”

“Ah, I remember she said she was most fond of her brother. How came Cecil to meet him? Elsie…?”

Gorton pulled back her head and blinked rapidly. “Oh, dear! I am sorry, Miss. Cannot seem to keep my eyes open. I 'spect 'tis all the … excitement.”

“Yes, but you must not fall asleep now! Tell me about Miss Benevento's brother.”

“Well, I've heard of him, of course. Everybody has. But I've never seen him. My Cecil did whilst he was in the Low Countries, and says that for all he's a Frenchy, he's a brave man and a credit to his country. I'm s'prised he would've gone … so high if he's … half”—her head nodded—“half-Italian.”

Chill little fingers were creeping down Zoe's spine. “Elsie?”

Gorton snored softly.

Zoe stood, and shook her. “Wake up! Who is he? Tell me his name.”

“What?” Gorton blinked at her drowsily. “Oh—you mean the Marshal.”

“The …
Marshal?
” whispered Zoe.

“Mmm … He's got two first names … them Frenchies is so strange … Marshal Jean-Jacques…”

“Barthélemy?”
gasped Zoe.

Gorton mumbled something, bowed forward on the table cushioning her head in her arms, and fell fast asleep.

Watching her with eyes dilated with horror, Zoe knew that she would be unable to awaken her. They must, she thought numbly, have put something in the lemonade. Elsie had finished her glass, whereas she herself had only taken one mouthful.

With a faint sob, she flew to the door. The latch lifted, but though she pulled with all her strength, the door would not move an inch. She beat against it foolishly and unavailingly, and shouted, then screamed demands that she be let out at once. And at last, slowly, wretchedly, she sank to her knees, leaning against the door and facing the hideous truth. Maria Benevento was Maria Barthélemy, sister to the great French soldier Travis had discovered to be aligning himself with the League of Jewelled Men. From the very start, the friendship between beautiful sophisticated Maria and countrified Zoe Grainger had been a ruse, designed only to lure her into betraying her brother.

Huddled against the door, tears of guilt and rage streaked down her cheeks.

There was no one to help her undo the terrible thing she had done.

Poor Gorton was in a drugged sleep.

She was locked in and quite helpless.

And she had sent the brother she adored … to almost certain … death …

A thunderclap woke her. For a moment she was bewildered and could not think where she was. Then everything rushed back, and she realized that she must have swallowed enough of the lemonade to cause her to doze off. It had likely been a brief doze, because the room was not much darker than it had been before. Lightning flashed blindingly, and rain was beating furiously against the windows.

The windows! What a dunce she was! Kneeling here, snivelling, when she might be knotting sheets together so as to climb down. They'd likely not felt it necessary to keep watch, believing her to be sound asleep.

Clambering to her feet, she flew across the room and threw the casement open.

From outside there came an explosive, “Deuce take it!”

And she was staring down into the drenched but indignant features of Peregrine Cranford.

The upper half of the window was designed purely for the admission of daylight and was immovable, and only the lower section could be opened. The casement was small, but Zoe leaned out, and as he stepped closer threw her arms about his neck and hugged him, laughing and crying and babbling of her joy and relief.

Grinning broadly, Cranford gasped, “Let go, you wild woman, else you'll have me off the ladder!”

The ladder! Dashing away tears, and sniffing, she peered downward. “Oh! My heavens! Perry—how ever could you climb up a ladder?”

“By wearing that stupid artificial foot, and 'tis blasted uncomfortable, I can tell you! 'Twas only by the greatest luck that I saw Gorton moving about in your room, else I'd have had the deuce of a time finding you. And then what must you do but dashed near guillotine me when you flung the casement open!” Despite the scold, his eyes were tender, and he asked then, “Am I to take it that you are pleased to see me? I was half-inclined to force my way in the front door, but they said you were not at home, so I thought I'd best make sure before—”