Playing with Fire (2 page)

Randal gazed at Sir Julian through a shimmer of tears. “I ab going to barry Abanda, and there is nothing you can do about it. Perhaps you should regard it as a chance to bake abends for the bonstrous accusations you hurled at by father when your idiotic theories about hieroglyphs were set before the Society of Antiquaries.”

Sir Julian regarded him across the candle flame. “They were not my theories. Your father presented them as mine, after destroying all my work.”

“I ab shocked that you should speak ill of the dead. Ah, but we bust not forget that the rift between you and my father concerned far bore than a bisunderstanding between brother philoaegyptians. It involved by dear baba’s adventures outside the barital bed. She was your bistress, was she not, Richardson?”

Sir Julian’s heart sank, but outwardly he remained composed. If it was the last thing he did, he would protect Felice’s good name. “What on earth are you talking about?” he inquired, feigning complete bewilderment.

Randal smiled again. “Bethinks you know exactly what I ab talking about.”

“Your mother, God rest her lovely soul, was not my mistress, nor indeed any man’s mistress.” Sir Julian met Randal’s eyes squarely and stroked Ozzy, who began to purr.

“Liar,” Randal breathed.

Sir Julian coolly changed the subject. “Sanderby, my niece Amanda may be beautiful, and an heiress, but you obviously feel nothing for her. If you had an ounce of decency, you’d withdraw from this shabby contract right now.”

Randal blew his nose again, then sniffed. “And who, pray, are you to lecture be on decency? Don’t think you can deflect be from by purpose, because no abount of denial will alter the fact that by adulterous baba adorned your bed.”

“You are wrong, but it is your prerogative to think as you please.”

“I think a great deal where you are concerned, Richardson. You oppose by barriage to Abanda for purely personal reasons. After all, she will hardly be baking a bisalliance, will she?”

“Any alliance with the Fenworths is a misalliance.”
And never more so than if you are the bridegroom,
came Sir Julian’s added thought, which he kept to himself.

Randal spread his hand, seeming the picture of innocence. “Why? Ab I or ab I not one of the forebost earls in the land?” But in spite of the apparent absence of guile in his voice, his red-rimmed eyes were fixed upon Sir Julian, watching, waiting, alert.

“Oh, I’m well aware of your lofty title and its ancient lineage; make no mistake of that! My family only descends from a successful Bristol merchant who flourished early last century; you, however, can name your noble ancestors as far back as Crecy. Or so I believe the story goes.”

“Oh, the story goes, Richardson, the story goes.” Randal felt the onset of another bout of sneezing. Dear God, why couldn’t the old fool have had a dog?

Sir Julian stopped stroking Ozzy. “Look, Sanderby, I don’t know exactly what your purpose is in all this. A note would have sufficed to tell me your so-called good news.”

“A note? Ah, yes, the power of the written word.” Randal gave a thin smile to see the mask that was Sir Julian’s face. “I can see in your eyes that it is true about you and baba. Oh, the ghosts that are with us now, eh?”

Ghosts indeed, Sir Julian thought. Esmond had died in a duel with a man he tried to cheat at cards; Felice, so adored by her lover, so held in contempt by her so-called husband, had died alone of influenza at Sanderby Park in Westmorland. Sir Julian managed to hold back his tears. “Who told you this fairy tale about your mother and me?”

“By father left a diary, which I have only recently discovered. It was in very poor condition, and in light of its contents, you bay be sure I have been careful to destroy it.”

Ozzy ventured to growl again, then paused in anticipation of his master’s tapping finger on the top of his head. When none came, he continued to growl, curling his lips back to show a fine set of needle-sharp teeth.

Sir Julian gave a short laugh. “Well, I do not doubt that any journal composed by your father contained as much pure fiction as the theories he pretended were mine.”

Randal’s watering eyes were reptilian. “Have done with the pretence, Richardson, for I ab not gulled. She is long gone and cannot suffer now. We are alone; so what possible harb can it do to confess the truth?”

“Only someone who is not a gentleman could express such a view.” But even as he spoke, Julian knew that his own gentlemanly conduct did not extend indefinitely. Felice, beloved as she was, was in fact his
second
consideration; the first was, and always would be, a young man whose whereabouts remained as much a mystery now as it had all those years ago. Did Randal also know about him?

Randal’s gimlet gaze remained fixed upon him, “Well, I suppose dear Abanda bust weigh your conscience a little. It wouldn’t do for society to snicker because the bride’s uncle once had a passionate affair with the bridegroob’s bother.”

Sir Julian’s dislike bubbled up. “Dear God, you are a mirror of your vile father.”

“Oh, I do not deny that Papa had his bad points, but it obviously has not occurred to you that it bay have been the result of being barried to a whore. One always has to wonder which cabe first, the chicken or the egg.”

A nerve twitched at Sir Julian’s temple. “Get out of this house,” he whispered, and Ozzy, sensing the intensifying atmosphere, spat at Randal.

The latter deemed it a prudent moment to comply. “Very well. I’ve had enough of these pleasantries, anyway. I cabe to test the lie of the land, and I fear you bake me very nervous, Richardson. So be rebinded of by fabily’s botto,
Noli tangere igneb”
He meant to say
ignem,
but Ozzy’s fur prevented that. The motto meant
Do not stir up fire.

“Maybe your own fingers will be burned, or had that not occurred to you?”

“You are no batch for be.” Randal gave a mirthless chuckle that was stopped by another drenching sneeze. He blew his nose like a trumpet, then continued. “Your lips will rebain sealed because Abanda is going to wear by ring and grace by bed. Oh, and her fortune is going to fatten by purse. It seebs a shame to leave poor Tansy out of things, but she really isn’t worth having. But then again, plain and penniless febales often learn arts to bake them bore interesting between the sheets, so I bight bake her by bistress. To return your favor of the past, so to speak.”

“Lay one finger upon Tansy, and I swear I will—!”

“You’ll what?” Randal’s glance was freezing.

Sir Julian despised the other so much that for a moment he could not even bear to look at him. Tansy was the only child of his younger brother, Bertram, who had died two years ago, and she had gone to Constantinople to live with Franklyn as company for Amanda. Franklyn was with the Foreign Office, and until recently had been appointed to assist Lord Elgin, British ambassador extraordinary to the sultan of Turkey. Now had come the new post in Australia, to which his daughter and niece were clearly no longer accompanying him.

Sir Julian had never been entirely happy about Tansy residing with Franklyn, suspecting she would be treated little better than a servant. Her father, Bertram, had been something of a ne’er-do-well, squandering his fortune and leaving his motherless daughter with nothing, so that she was reliant upon the rest of her family. Sir Julian wished she had come to Chelworth, but at the time it had not seemed suitable because he was a bachelor, and anyway, in Constantinople she and Amanda would be company for each other. He had worried about her since she left.

Randal’s taunting voice broke into his thoughts.

“What is the batter, Richardson? Don’t you think I ab ban enough to satisfy both your nieces?”

Ozzy couldn’t bear Randal’s presence any longer, and loosed a blood-chilling yowl that made Randal start with fear. “Sweet Jesu—!”

Sir Julian barely trusted himself to speak. “Just get out, Sanderby, before I let him have you. He’s more ferocious than any dog.”

Randal turned on his heel and hurried toward the window. Ozzy immediately leaped after him, and Sir Julian had the satisfaction of hearing Randal’s frightened curse as he just managed to get out ahead of the tomcat. Ozzy was furious, and he scratched wildly at the bottom of the door until Sir Julian called him off.

Outside, the blustery night air swept over Randal, clean, sharp and tasting of salt from Chelworth Bay. He felt his eyes and nose begin to clear as he crossed the terrace and went down the wide flight of steps to the grassy, bracken-covered slope that undulated down to the sea. His steps quickened toward the woods in the narrow valley that formed the boundary of Sir Julian’s Dorset estate. There, in the winding lane that led off the road between Weymouth and Wareham, his carriage was waiting.

Behind him in the library, Sir Julian sat weakly at the desk with his head in his hands. With so very much in the past, he had always dreaded a confrontation with Randal, but never had he imagined it would entail the added problem of a match with Amanda. Ozzy returned to the desk and sat beside the fragment of papyrus, regarding Sir Julian in puzzlement. After a moment he stretched out a paw to pat his master’s tasseled nightcap. Sir Julian looked up. “Oh, Ozymandias, what am I going to do, eh?”

The tomcat squeezed his eyes and began to purr, which prompted Sir Julian to smile. “It is all so easy for you, isn’t it? Would that my situation were as simple. I cannot allow Amanda to marry that…that maggot! I know he’s right about one thing, however, and that is her character. She is indeed a spoiled, vain creature, and she will not take kindly to my efforts to dissuade her from the match. But I must try.” The tomcat yawned, and Sir Julian raised an eyebrow. “Well might you show your boredom, sir, but it is a very great problem for me.” His glance moved to the life-size statue of Isis that stood to one side of the fireplace. The god Osiris graced the other side, but it was only at the goddess that Sir Julian looked, for her headdress contained a secret compartment. In that compartment was Felice’s parting letter, written when the husband she despised compelled her to stay with him. If made public, the letter would ruin Randal, as it would have ruined his father before him, but Felice had begged her lover not to tell, and he had given his word.

“Do you think Sanderby knows about the letter, Ozzy? Do you think his wretched father mentioned that too in his diary? I pray not, for he is the one person in all the world who would benefit from the letter’s destruction.” Sir Julian looked at the candle flame and thought again of the Fenworth family motto.
Noli tangere ignem;
Do not stir up fire. There was only one person in the world capable of prompting him to stir up this particular fire, but the likelihood of that person being found after all this time was so remote as to be almost impossible. Felice’s reputation would therefore remain unharmed, and her letter a secret; but the letter would remain intact too, just in case the impossible happened. Then, and only then, would Felice’s good name be sacrificed.

“Oh,
Tansy, I’m never going to escape from here alive. I know I’m not! If the Mamelukes don’t kill me, the French surely will!”

Amanda’s selfish wail was almost lost in the windswept Egyptian darkness as she stood sobbing on the bank of one of the many narrow channels that fanned crookedly across the Nile delta. The Mediterranean storm howled and blustered, and the shower of hail and rain that had fallen after sundown gave the air a raw edge more worthy of the North Sea than these southern climes.

It was February, 1801, four months after the bitter confrontation between Sir Julian and Randal in the library at Chelworth, and Randal’s nineteen-year-old bride-to-be was a very sorry sight. With wet blond tresses fluttering forlornly around her shoulders, mud on her face, and Nile weeds clinging to the remains of her costly cloak and sapphire satin dinner gown, she little resembled the delightful creature of the miniature that had been sent to Randal. That gentleman could not have known how accurately he had foretold the hazards his bride might encounter before reaching England. Storms, shipwrecks, and pirates had already struck. Only the French remained.

However, although Amanda’s situation was unfortunate to say the least, her customary disregard for others remained constant. She was devoid of concern for her two female companions, her cousin Tansy, and Mrs. Hermione Entwhistle, the clergyman’s widow engaged as the cousins’ chaperone for the voyage. All three had been together since the naval sloop
Gower
weighed anchor in the Bosporus, and all three were now in the same plight, wondering if they would ever again be safe. A few yards away from where they stood among the reeds and irises on the riverbank, the felucca on which they had been abducted slid silently beneath the deep, sluggish water. There was no sign of the six pirates, who had saved themselves when the felucca first began to founder.

“Please don’t cry, Amanda, for I’m sure we will be rescued.” Tansy put her arms around Amanda’s shaking shoulders and tried to sound heartening, even though she too was cold, wet, and frightened. She was twenty-three, with short, dark brown curls, freckles, a generous mouth, and expressive gray eyes. Her cloak was one of Amanda’s castoffs, and her mustard velvet dinner gown was as plain and simple a garment as her cousin’s was rich and ornate.

Amanda was too distraught to be comforted. “How can you say that? We were shipwrecked, then kidnapped by pirates. Now we’ve been shipwrecked again, and marooned in the middle of nowhere in a land overrun by the French!” she cried with a stamp of a foot that was always pretty, no matter what. “Sometimes, Church Mouse, I think you are stupid beyond belief!”

“Try to be optimistic, for I am convinced we will be rescued,” Tansy insisted, trying not to be pricked by the unkind nickname. Even now Amanda could not miss an opportunity to remind her of her less fortunate background.

Mrs. Entwhistle came to Tansy’s rescue. “Your cousin is quite right, Amanda. Of
course
we will be rescued,” she declared stoutly, although the look in her thoughtful green eyes was anything but hopeful. Hermione Entwhistle was about fifty, and had been described as embonpoint. She had small hands and ankles, salt-and-pepper hair, a button nose, and was the sort of person who kept to herself. Beneath her sodden cloak she was wearing a modest wine-red velour gown that had seen faithful service over a succession of Mediterranean winters. Although she never wore black on his account, she had been very fond indeed of her late husband, who had passed on some ten years ago. The only thing her two charges could say of her with certainty was that she enjoyed crochet. Having a dry sense of humor, she once quipped that she’d set herself the target of trimming every tablecloth, cushion, and pillowcase in the Levant. Tansy saw the funny side of such a ridiculous claim; Amanda took the remark literally, and sneered about it.