The Tudor Signet (15 page)

Mariette’s glare was almost as indignant as Miss Thorne’s. If he loved her he’d have the delicacy to show her to her chair without reminding her of her embarrassing injury. So he didn’t love her, so how lucky she had not asked him to explain his conversion to a belief in love at first sight.

In response to her glare, he merely smiled and patted her hand.

The dining room was large enough to seat eighteen or twenty, but the table was of a convenient size for their small party. Emily had explained to Mariette at luncheon that a number of leaves could be added to enlarge it, a device she thought most ingenious. At home, she and Uncle George and Ralph ate at one end of the huge old dining table.

Lord Malcolm seated her and then politely held the chair next to her for Miss Thorne, who thanked him with a frosty nod. He took the end of the table, beside Mariette.

She began to feel more confident. Though Miss Thorne would disapprove whatever she did, the only stranger, Captain Aldrich, was not likely to pay attention to anyone but Lilian. Besides, Lord Malcolm said it was an informal dinner, so surely the rules could not be too complicated. Even the bewildering variety of gleaming silver knives, forks, and spoons before her could be sorted out by watching what the others used.

When Blount and Charles served the soup, she waited to see how everyone else dealt with it before she ventured to take a mouthful herself. Concentrating on the way people ate as the first course proceeded, she soon realized that all the delicious dishes were easy to eat with a fork alone. Lilian had ordered the meal to accommodate the captain’s difficulties, just as she had for Mariette while she could only eat lying down.

What a splendid person Lilian was! Mariette vowed not to disappoint her.

She redoubled her attention to her manners. Nonetheless, she gradually relaxed enough to listen to the conversation, though she did not join in. Captain Aldrich was talking about places he had visited, all over the world, places she had read about.

He told of an elephant hunt he had witnessed on the island of Ceylon. A herd of the gigantic animals, to be tamed not killed, were driven into a water trap by men with trumpets and drums, torches and fireworks. His description was much more vivid than one Mariette had once read, and differed in several respects. She would have liked to ask about the differences, but she was afraid of seeming to contradict him.

To her surprise and delight, Lord Malcolm asked precisely the questions which hovered on the tip of her tongue. He too had read Captain Perceval’s book!

For all his admirable qualities, she had not known he liked to read anything more serious than Madame D’Arblay’s novels. She wondered whether he was interested in history as well as travellers’ tales.

He was asking about the sacred footprint on the island, ascribed to Adam by the Mahomedans, to Buddha by the Buddhists.

“I didn’t see it,” said the captain. “It is on top of a sacred mountain in the interior. But yes, it is reputed to be two feet in length, or more.”

Emily held her hands about two feet apart. “Good gad,” she exclaimed.

“My dear, pray mind your tongue!” said Lilian, shocked.

“But I have heard Mar...” Emily glanced at Mariette, whose face was burning, and changed her excuse. “I have heard Uncle Malcolm say it, Mama.”

“I plead guilty,” said Lord Malcolm at once, “and I wager Des does, too.”

Captain Aldrich grinned. “Oh, undoubtedly. I’m afraid we sailors are not noted for the purity of our speech, Lady Lilian.”

“Gentlemen are permitted a great deal more laxity, Captain.”

“Which is shockingly unfair,” Lord Malcolm pointed out. “But as it is so, we also ought to mind our tongues, for if a lady never heard such expressions, how could she repeat them?”

“Very true, Malcolm,” said his elder sister severely. “You are to blame for the whole thing and we shall now forget it.”

“Humph!” said Miss Thorne, and sniffed.

Mariette did not quite dare raise her gaze from her plate, but she felt immeasurably better than she had scarce a minute earlier. In a way Lilian was right, it was Lord Malcolm’s fault she had used that expression before Emily.

She remembered from her childhood that certain words were not to be pronounced by polite people. Which words, she had no way to tell, nor had she realized the rules for ladies were different from those for gentlemen. Hearing Lord Malcolm, the epitome of the Polite World, say “Good gad,” she had not hesitated to say it herself. And she had been trying so hard!

The others were talking about the captain’s voyages again. Lord Malcolm leaned across the corner of the table and whispered to Mariette, “Don’t do this, it’s very bad manners, but I must apologize for being a bad example. Forgive me?”

She smiled at him and nodded. All the same, and in spite of Emily’s quick thinking, she knew she had once more proved herself no lady.

At last the meal ended and she trailed out of the dining room after Lilian and Miss Thorne. Emily took her arm.

“I’m dreadfully sorry,” she hissed.

Mariette hugged her. “Don’t be, goose. You did not mean to give me away. Indeed, you tried very hard to swallow my name.”

“Well, I have heard Uncle Malcolm say it, too. He was prodigious quick to admit it, was he not? I believe he likes you.”

“He has grown accustomed to protecting me from disaster,” Mariette said firmly, and changed the subject.

She did think Lord Malcolm liked her, at least a little. Unfortunately she wanted a great deal more. She wanted him to look at her the way the captain looked at Lilian, as if she were the most precious object in the world.

Small hope of that! As she had already told herself, a gauche, shabby, shatterbrained nobody could not hope to attract the fashionable, top-o’-the-trees son of a marquis.

At least she hoped to have his friendship. An interest in books could be a bond between them, especially if he chanced to love history as she did. However, if he was ignorant he might be embarrassed by her asking. She decided to try to find out from Lilian first.

When they reached the drawing room and Emily went to practise her sonatina one last time, Mariette apologized to Lilian for having precipitated her daughter’s faux pas.

“My dear, I don’t regard it,” Lilian assured her. “If you knew everything I should not have offered to teach you. I said it should be forgotten, and it shall. You did very well at dinner.”

“I was very careful. Lilian, does Lord Malcolm like history?”

“History!” She looked startled. “Whatever gave you the notion that he may?”

“He had read the same book about Ceylon as I had, and since I enjoy learning about both other lands and other times, I thought perhaps he might. History is my favourite reading.”

“Oh dear, never say you are a bluestocking!”

Puzzled, Mariette stared at her. How had the conversation suddenly turned from books to clothes? “No, my stockings are black,” she said. “I have white ones for the summer.”

Lilian burst into laughter. Mariette had not heard her laugh so wholeheartedly before and in a way she was glad to see her so merry, though at her own expense. She could not help smiling.

“What have I said now?” she asked resignedly.

“Oh, my dear, I do beg your pardon. That was prodigious rude of me and not to be copied! A perfectly natural mistake, once again the result of using colloquial language. A bluestocking is a name given to an excessively bookish female.”

“Why?”

“Truth to tell, I have not the least notion.”

“I suppose only a bluestocking would want to know why. But what is wrong with being bookish?”

“Gentlemen do not care for overmuch learning in a woman,” Lilian said firmly. “Now, let me explain to you how a formal dinner party differs from our dinner this evening.”

Though Mariette listened attentively, at the back of her mind a little voice rebelled. Not against the rules of precedence or against speaking only to one’s immediate neighbours, but against gentlemen who did not care for bookish females. She was not going to give up reading history and philosophy for anyone.

After all, the little voice argued, she had no expectation of meeting any gentlemen whose opinion she cared for. Lord Malcolm already knew the worst; one more oddity would not shock him.

All the same, she resolved not to approach him on the subject of history.

* * * *

As the ladies left the dining room, Malcolm and Des resumed their seats. Blount set glasses and decanters of port and brandy on the table and withdrew.

“Brandy?”

“If you please,” said Des. “I admit I’ve never developed a taste for port.”

“I know rum is a sailor’s tipple,” Malcolm observed, pouring, “but I always thought they had a liking for port. A girl in every...?”

Des flushed. “Devil take it, don’t bring up that old canard.”

“Sensitive on the subject, hey? No, no, old chap, don’t call me out, I can see it’s not like that with Lilian. I wager you’ll be playing host here next time I visit.”

“Don’t be a sapskull,” the captain advised, his face redder than ever. “Your sister has only met me twice. Besides, the daughter of a marquis and a penniless, crippled sailor...It just won’t fadge.”

“A dowager viscountess,” Malcolm pointed out. He lounged back, glass in hand. “She’s had her lord and now she can please herself. Oh, Frederick was a nice enough fellow, but she never looked at him the way she looks at you.”

“She didn’t?” He gazed into the depths of his brandy glass, then took a hearty swallow. “Do I take it you’d have no objection to my courting Lady Lilian?”

“Not the least in the world. I’m not saying it would all be smooth sailing, mind you. There’s the rest of the family may blow up a storm.”

Des quailed. “Lord and Lady Ashminster, Lord Radford, Lord Reginald, Lord Peter, Lord James, and doubtless any number of uncles, aunts, and cousins.”

“By the dozens.”

“It’s a wise seaman steers clear of the shoals.” He heaved a deep sigh and held out his glass to be refilled. “We had best meet in Plymouth in future.”

Malcolm shrugged his shoulders. He thought Des and Lilian would be good for each other but it was none of his affair. “To business, then,” he said.

“Yes. Do I gather Miss Bertrand is going home tomorrow?”

“She insists,” Malcolm said gloomily.”I can’t even try to dissuade her without suggesting her blasted uncle and cousin don’t give a damn whether she is here or there.”

“Then you don’t believe her return home will make any difference to Riddlesworth’s forays to Plymouth?”

“He’ll not stay home for her sake, if that is what you mean. The wastrel hasn’t come to visit her once!”

“I wondered whether hers might be the master-mind behind the selling of our secrets, but from what I have seen of her she hasn’t the brains.”

“Miss Bertrand is exceeding clever!” snapped Malcolm indignantly.

“In that case she dissembles exceeding cleverly. Perhaps things will change when she is in charge again.”

“She is not in charge, I swear it. If she’s involved at all it’s only to protect her damned cousin by her silence.” He found himself suddenly madly jealous of Mariette’s loyalty to young Riddlesworth. “What changes do you expect?” he grunted, swigging down the rest of his brandy unappreciative of its excellence. “What has been happening?”

“The latest sphinx letter, the one Justice Penhallow turned over directly to you--that was a complete copy Jessup brought me?”

“I copied every last word in my own fair hand before I sent it on to the Admiralty.”

“So I assumed. It contained not a word of any of the false information my men have been feeding to Riddlesworth.”

Malcolm set down the decanter, sat up straight, and pushed his glass away. “Not a word?”

“I should know. You left me to invent that hocus as well as the Banbury tale we wrote under your sphinx seal for Penhallow to give his tame smuggler to turn over to the Frogs.”

“So everything in the letter Penhallow passed on to me was the genuine stuff?”

“It was. Stuff we’d not have the French find out for all the tea in China,” Des said grimly.

“Riddlesworth must have another source he considers more reliable if he’s discarding your fellows’ cozenage.”

“We can’t be sure he’s discarding it. It’s my belief he’s waiting for Miss Bertrand to decide whether it’s reliable.”

“No!” Malcolm ran his fingers through his hair. “Though I suspect you’re right that there’s someone else in it with him. We’ll unearth them. In the meantime, where is he getting his information? Who, besides you, knows about all those shipping movements?”

“Only one person has all the information,” said Des reluctantly. “Unless we have several babblers or traitors, the only possibility is my superior, Rear-Admiral Gault.”

“A turncoat admiral! Good Lord, that would set the cat among the pigeons.”

The captain hurried to disclaim. “I don’t think for a moment he’s a deliberate traitor. He’s pretty plump in the pocket, so he’d not be tempted to betray his country for money, and his son was killed at the Battle of the Nile, so he’s no lover of Bonaparte, or the Frogs in general. In fact, his wife even avoids the only French dressmaker in Plymouth, though Madame Yvette is an emigrée who loathes Boney.”

“Who claims to loathe Boney.”

“What? You think...? It’s possible, of course, and I daresay we had best keep an eye on her, but I wager we’ll find Gault’s been babbling in the wrong quarters. There’s no denying he’s a regular bagpipe, squawks away like a whole flock of gulls.”

“It does sound as if he’s our man.”

“The trouble is, he doesn’t frequent the coffee rooms and taprooms where Riddlesworth lounges and gambles. In fact, as far as I can find out, the two have never met.”

“Oh hell!” said Malcolm. “I must say I don’t care to spy on an admiral without more evidence--or authority from the Admiralty. I’d best write a letter at once and Jessup can set off with it tonight.” He pushed back his chair. “Come on, there is writing stuff in my sister’s study and no one will disturb us there.”

“You don’t need me,” Des protested. “I’ve told you all I know.”

Malcolm grinned. “All right, you go and join Lil--the ladies. Tell them I’ll be along shortly.”