Belgrave House www.belgravehouse.com Copyright ©1978 by Joan Smith NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only...
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Belgrave House www.belgravehouse.com Copyright ©1978 by Joan Smith NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.
Chapter One In a small oak-paneled office in the labyrinth of Whitehall, Sir Edgar Hopley sat twiddling his thumbs and thinking. He looked a jolly little gnome with a fringe of white hair around his face. It was the sharp blue eyes that indicated the man had more to consider than the gyrations of his thumbs. There was information of a delicate nature leaking out of the sieve of the Horse Guards, and Bathurst was down his neck to discover the source of the leak. The place was riddled with dipsomaniac old crones of the Prince Regent whose tongues wagged freely after their second bottle. The “filing system,” as they called it, had to be seen to be believed. The last missing document, an important letter from the Duke of Wellington, had been found in a waste basket after Sir Edgar had gone through every file and folder in the office. With that sort of carry-on, they expected to keep the nation's secrets from the cleverest bunch of French spies ever assembled in one city. And the chief suspect in the case was not to be investigated, or followed, or even suspected! He thought the world had run mad. That tasty French tart, la Comtesse de la Tour, was living with the Foreign Minister of England, if you please. Had managed to get herself accepted by Lady Castlereagh, patroness of Almack's, wife of the Foreign Secretary and Leader of the House, and one of the greatest sticklers in the kingdom. While it was known that she was a French aristocrat, widow of an illustrious comte of academic leanings and daughter of a fermier-général, it was also known she was the ex-mistress of Napoleon Bonaparte. This fascinating interlude in her history appeared to have been brief. During his forced retreat to Paris after his defeat at Leipzig, he had met la Comtesse and she stayed with him till his abdication in April of 1814. Some said Napoleon had broken with her because of supposed treachery and double-dealing; some said she had transferred her fickle affections to his chief aide-de-camp; and others claimed she had broken with him because of his abdication, and because he would not divorce his Austrian wife, Marie Louise, and marryher. It was known they had parted in great anger, with la Comtesse becoming an inveterate foe of the Emperor. This being the case, it was not wondered at that she hopped the first lugger which could transport her to England when he suddenly came marching back from Elba, gaining power as he advanced. And since she hated Napoleon as violently as the most patriotic Englishman, the English were ready to take her to their bosoms and make her a heroine. While Napoleon battled it out with the Allied armies in this spring of 1815, the French tart flaunted herself in London in gowns no self-respecting female would be seen in. Dined with the Prince Regent and his mistress, was seen at the opera with the Prime Minister, Lord Liverpool and his party, drove in the park with illustrious peers, and went to the Chapel Royal on Sunday to pray amongst the mighty. Hopley's heart pounded in anger to think of this Frenchchancre thriving under Castlereagh's roof. The house was littered with red—whyred, the most attention-grabbing color in the world?—dispatch boxes from the Foreign Office, for the sly little Frenchie to open up and peer into. Her ear could be put to the keyhole any time a courier went to Castlereagh with news too important to commit to paper. As well hold their secret meetings in public, and publish the minutes in theObserver. How was a body to plug a leak with this sort of shenanigans going on?
And the Frenchie had the backing of them all, from Liverpool himself down through Bathurst and the lot. They all agreed la Comtesse de la Tour was not to be considered suspect. He wondered at times if the government had turned French and forgotten to let him know. But if they had,he had not. He knew his duty as an Englishman, and the Comtessewould be suspected, and followed, and investigated—and found guilty too, by God, or his name was not Edgar Hopley! There was a sharp tap at the door, and his thumbs became still. “Come in,” he called. A tall, dark gentleman wearing a well-cut jacket of sober hue entered and said, with no ceremony whatsoever, “What's up, Ed?" “Not consols, eh Dashford?” he replied, and laughed at his joke, till he recalled how pitifully the stock was down, and his fortune with it. “You must have got out before the crash to be able to joke about it. But I'm not here to discuss finances, am I? Tierney is our financial expert, you recall." “No, by God, it's not money that's troubling me. It's treason! Treason is what you're here to discuss." “How interesting,” Dashford said in a bored voice, and took a chair beside the battered desk of Sir Edgar, the head of Intelligence. “I wondered at your calling in a Whig; because really, you know, we are not interested in throwing over the government, except by an election. Nor even in assassinating Prinney. We just want to put a lock on the national treasury, before he breaks us with his openhandedness. He's costing us as much as the war." “Treason in high places,” Hopley went on, “and I can't get a Tory to listen to reason; so in desperation I'm turning to the Whigs. We're all Englishmen, I hope, and you've done the odd job for me before, Dashford. This ain't the sort of thing I can entrust to a commoner. You lords have your uses." “I suppose this involves Bonaparte's escape from Elba?" “Aye, his escape, and his getting information funneled out of the Horse Guards." “I'm not in a position to do much about that. Prinney has his creatures cluttering up the place. I have no friends on Bathurst's staff." “I'm glad to hear it, for I begin to think there's not a man jack of them to be trusted." “That sounds like treason all right. What is it you want of me?" “I want you to flout the Prime Minister's orders, and the Foreign Secretary's orders, and the orders of the Secretary of State for War and the Colonies—Liverpool, Castlereagh, Bathurst—the lot of them. They're all grown senile, or I am. “I'll opt for the old boys. Go on." “Well, you know Boney beat us at Ligny—and if he didn't have information to let him avoid Wellington and Blucher and get to Charleroi, I'm a monkey's uncle. And where is he getting his information? Bathurst's office, or Castlereagh's." “Or from spies on the continent, within the rank of the army itself. But I'm aware things are in a muddle at the Horse Guards. What is it you want of me?" “To do what you do best, Dashford. To make love to a pretty woman, and find out what she's up to."
“La Comtesse de la Tour?" “None other. She is considered to be above suspicion by the wise heads that rule this country. She, a Frenchie living with the Foreign Secretary, and sleeping with him for all we know. Partying and drinking with all the top dogs. God only knows what she hears, and what she does with what she hears. But she is not to be investigated. Oh, no! Madame la Comtesse is not to be known to exist, so far asI am concerned. I am to turn a blind eye like the others while she seduces our ministers and pries their secrets out of them, and runs to her Corsican lover with our plans." “You actually haveorders not to check up on her?” Dashford asked, his face a picture of astonishment. “Orders from the Prime Minister's office. So what I'm asking you to do amounts to treason, I suppose. Will you do it?" “I'll be delighted, but I don't see what I can accomplish. Lady Castlereagh is her chaperone, and you may imagine my chances of getting into that Tory citadel." “La Comtesse goes everywhere. You may meet her with no trouble; I'm surprised you haven't already. What you must do is convince her you are enamored of herbeaux yeux, and weasel your way into her heart—if she has one. It's our only chance to discover what she's up to. See who she's close to, watch her at parties. I'm putting some other fellows to follow her. Tonight she attends a musical soirée at Lord Eldon's in company with the Duchesse de Noailles—a friend of the Prince Regent's who was rescued by him at Brighton when she escaped the Terror in France. We'll put our knowledge and suspicions together and see if we can catch la Comtesse in the act. If we catch her red-handed, Liverpool must listen, or admit outright he's turned Republican." “What excuse do they give for not having such an obvious person investigated? I half thought Castlereagh had taken her in to keep an eye on her. Having befriended such an ardent Bourbon supporter as she has become since being jilted by Napoleon would put him in Louis’ good books after this damned war is over, too." “No such thing! Castlereaghpersonally vouches for her integrity. It is enough." “It is, you know. I loathe every bone in the man's body. He is wrong on all matters of social policy—so reactionary and repressive—but it was he who led the coalition against Bonaparte. He has made it a personal crusade to crush the Emperor. He is wrongheaded, but he's unquestionably loyal, and he is no fool. I can't believe his flint-like heart is touched by the Comtesse's beauty. He is using her, very likely, for some purpose of his own. We don't want to upset whatever he's up to." “It won't upset anything for you to keep an eye on her. I'm not asking you todo anything but watch her, talk to her, and see what you can find out." “I don't see that there can be any harm in that. I'll try to scrape an acquaintance, but I doubt I'll be allowed to get on any intimate footing with her. She does not indulge in tête-à-têtes with young gentlemen, despite all the tattle. There is Maldon, of course, but I imagine she plans to marry him eventually. Her other escorts are elderly gentlemen, friends of Castlereagh. I have not been completely unaware of la Comtesse's presence amongst us, as you can imagine. She goes everywhere, but she goes guarded like a vestal virgin." “Her behavior is not so vestal-like as it could be. Am I correct in thinking the idea of a flirtation with her has already occurred to you?” Hopley asked with a quirk of his white brow. “She does have those awfullybeaux yeux, Ed, and I was always partial to red-heads."
“That'll be news to your latest lightskirt. A blonde, ain't she?" “No, no, that was last month. She's a brunette, but I'm broad-minded." “See she don't turn you into a Frenchie, like the others." “I'll watch out for that,” Dashford laughed. He rose to saunter to the door, fairly filling it with his broad shoulders. “I'll be in touch as soon as I've made contact." “I'll be waiting,” Hopley called after him. “Oh, Dashford, before you go—this is private. Don't run to Brougham with it." “My party leader ought to be informed of this, I think." “We'll inform him right enough when we find anything. Meanwhile, it's justentre nous." “Very well,” he answered. “It might be best to keep him out of it, in case it becomes messy." “You'll go far,” Hopley said with a shake of the head. As cool a cucumber as there was in the city, and the very one to handle a Comtesse. Lord Dashford's curricle was waiting for him a block away. It was not necessary for Hopley to give him the hint his meetings were secret. He hopped up and took the reins from his tiger, and drove himself home to Belgrave Square to consider in private how to proceed with his assignment. It was an affair much to his liking. Like all the other gentlemen, he had been watching la Comtesse, and looking for an excuse to meet her. This business of her being in Lady Castlereagh's charge was an impediment, but Whigs and Tories mixed socially, and if she was not at Almack's assembly tomorrow night he would be much surprised. Dashford did not attend Eldon's musical evening, and would not have done had he been invited, despite Hopley's information that la Comtesse would be there. He went instead to a large ball. Before he reached home he heard for a second time where she had spent the evening, and in whose company. If she had got la Duchesse de Noailles to accept her, she was indeed a clever woman. His own companion consisted of a different red-head, one not nearly so attractive. She had fashioned her titian curls in the style of la Comtesse, wore a black patch at the corner of her eye to ape la Comtesse's natural beauty spot, and peppered her speech with many French phrases, whereas the original was reported to speak faultless English without a trace of a French accent. An oddity, when one came to consider it, but then there were so many oddities in the affair that this minor one had not attracted much attention. It was no easy matter to arrange an introduction to la Comtesse de la Tour. The Marquess of Dashford had the entrée to all the best homes, and had for a number of years engendered unfulfilled hopes in the bosoms of noble mothers and their nubile daughters. He was known to favor high flyers for his flirts, and that this highest flyer of them all should capture his interest would cause no suspicions of anything other than another affair. His plump pockets would not be unwelcome to la Comtesse, whose own wealth was understood to have been lost in the jumble of revolution, Directory, empire and monarchy that had recently been France's lot. But even for Lord Dashford the introduction was not easy. Besides the length of the line of black coats waiting a chance to stand up with her, there was the invincible Countess of Castlereagh, who appeared to have abrogated all her other chores at Almack's to devote herself to this one guest. Dashford soon realized that if he was to get within speaking distance of the French beauty, it must be through that dame's good offices. It was she who personally presented one male after another to the woman, putting her stamp of approval on him as a partner. Undaunted, he approached the countess, under the protection of a Tory friend, and made a few polite sallies as to the great success of the élite club of Almack's of which the lady was so proud. He praised her wisdom in closing its portals to all but
the chosen few, and spoke mendacious words of his pleasure in knowing that at least at one club one was sure of good company. As the cotillion in progress drew to a close, he said, as though in afterthought, “I see you have brought your French guest with you this evening. I have not had the pleasure of her acquaintance." Lady Castlereagh eyed him narrowly and tallied up his points. There was that whopping Whig label on the debit side, and of all Whigs, it was Dashford who was anathema to Lord Castlereagh, for he was the Wing critic for foreign policy. He was the honorable member who would undoubtedly be Foreign Minister himself when and if the Whigs ever came into power. He had been fighting tooth and nail with Castlereagh for years, and the feelings between them were of mutual white-hot hatred, tempered with cold respect for a worthy foe. But on the credit side there was his unexceptionable breeding, his tall and handsome frame, his eligibility, and his youth. It was necessary to find Renée's escorts amongst her husband's friends, and they were of an age with himself or older—late forties, fifties, even sixties. There was no reason why the girl shouldn't have a spot of romance to cheer her in her time of trouble, and Lord Dashford could supply it admirably if he chose to. And after the trouble was over, as it must be sooner or later, she would require a very respectable husband indeed to reestablish her. These many considerations flitted through her head in a second, and she answered with no perceptible pause, “Have you not, Dashford? I can't think how that came about. I thought I had introduced her to all the eligible gentlemen.” She laughed and made a joke of it, but she made the desired introduction all the same, and smiled graciously as Dashford led Renée to the floor for the waltz. They were a beautiful sight to behold, the dashing red-head and the dark-haired gentleman, a head taller than she, inclining his head to hear what she said, with a look of open admiration on his face. There was a trace of surprise on that face too, though the countess didn't mark it. She's not a day over twenty, Dashford was thinking, and was startled to make the discovery. Not a wrinkle or a sign of a crow's foot marred that pale ivory face, with the natural beauty mark at the left eye's outer tip. Her easy, coquettish manners as seen from afar had bespoken an older woman. La Comtesse had been married five years ago to the Comte de la Tour. She must have been married from the schoolroom. Not uncommon in France, he supposed. The accent, too, surprised him. Not the slightest trace of her French ancestry was revealed in her speech. Even those sounds usually difficult for a Frenchman to enunciate were spoken clearly—the final r's all pronounced, the stresses on the proper syllable. “You are to be commended on your excellent English, ma'am,” he said. “Thank you. I had English nannies and governesses, and have spoken English as well as French practically from the cradle. In fact, I had last an Irish governess for five years, and some people find a trace of an Irish lilt in my speech." He had not remarked it, but when she mentioned it, it was noticeable. He remembered that Castlereagh was from Ireland, and wondered if there could be a connection. A clue for Hopley, for what it was worth. To try to confirm it, he asked, “Where was she from?" “From Killyleagh, in County Down,” she answered readily. Yes, and Lord Castlereagh was from the same county. “What was her name?” he asked, as though making polite conversation. “Molly,” she answered with a smile, which told him exactly nothing, and a query as to the last name would be too obvious. “A good Irish name,” he answered blandly. “Have you been to Ireland?" “No, this is the first time I have left France, but for a short visit to Italy when I was very young. I have no
memories of it." “You did not meet the Castlereaghs there then?" “No, I didn't,” she replied unhelpfully, and smiled again, lifting the beauty mark at the corner of her eye a fraction. “Were you at the Congress of Vienna?” she asked, adroitly steering the conversation away from her background. “Unfortunately no. It was impossible for me to go. I had no official capacity—a member of the opposition in the House, you know—and had not the time to make it a holiday." “Oh dear, am I standing up with aWhig?" she laughed. “Your chaperone is becoming derelict in her guardianship of you. Take care or you'll find yourself standing up with lepers and Methodists. But really, you know, we Whigs are not all blackguards. In fact, you should be one yourself. You are patched for it on the right side, which is to say theleft side. It was the custom in England some years ago for ladies to show their political preference by such a patch." “A custom long forgotten, I hope. I cannot well move my patch to the proper side unless I remove a portion of my skin with it." “In my opinion, the patchis on the proper side, ma'am, and very fetching it is, too; but I suppose I'll never convince you of that." “I am convinced already, Lord Dashford. You are not the first to say it is fetching." He stared at the vain woman, and decided to give her a setdown. “I meant rather to imply I would not convince you of the correctness of its position. You possess, no doubt, a mirror to convince you of its attractiveness, without requiring gentlemen to assure you." “I find the English to be without a sense of humor. Iknew what you meant, milord." He saw then the teasing laughter in her eyes. “Amongst our many faults is a lack of levity, which we look to charming French ladies to teach us." “Your Lord Byron is droll, and he is a Whig, too, I believe." “He is indeed, and a good friend of mine." “I suppose he would be. But in any case, poetry takes precedence over mere politics, and I insisted on meeting him, despite his leftist tendencies." “We have something in common. Pulchritude also takes precedence over politics, andI insisted on making your acquaintance, despitemy leftist tendencies." “How gallant of you,” she answered easily, not flattered or flustered at his compliment, but apparently bored at it. Compliments would get him nowhere. “How do you like your first trip to England?" “It is beautiful. Very lively and gay,” she replied dutifully. “We make no claims to gaiety in comparison with you French. We have not the Gallicjoie de vivre. But
I am happy you like England." “The people are very kind. I had not expected that.” The wistful face, so characteristic of her, looked up at him, and she smiled sadly. For a moment Hopley's fears that she had transmogrified the whole cabinet to Frenchmen seemed justified. Here was a face a man would risk his country for. “What's the matter?” he asked, the first words to leave his lips on impulse. “Matter? Why nothing is the matter,” she answered, smiling brightly, but he saw at this close range that it was a spurious smile: The eyes remained clouded. “You must think me confoundedly hard to please, to be unhappy when surrounded by so many good friends and so much goodwill. And when standing up with the handsomest man in the room,” she added impishly. This was the sort of conversation he expected from la Comtesse, and he fell into line with it mechanically. “With the most fortunate man in the room, in any case, to have the honor of your company,” he replied with a bow. There was no sparkling rejoinder, only a mechanical smile that did not lift the beauty mark. “Our Frenchmen have the reputation for dalliance, but it is youmauvais anglais that must be watched, I think." “Only when confronted with irresistible temptation, Comtesse. It takes a Frenchwoman to raise our sangfroid to a warmer temperature. May I have the pleasure of calling on you tomorrow?" “Oh, I don't think the countess— That is—well, you are a Whig!” she laughed, to cover the awkward pause. “So was Castlereagh, once upon a time." “Yes, I remember.” That appeared to have slipped out unnoticed, but Dashford leapt on it in a moment. If la Comtesse remembered anything of the sort, she remembered it from her cradle. Castlereagh had switched coats in 1795, when he doubted very much that this ravishing lady had even been born. If she “remembered” it, she remembered having heard it spoken of, and that bespoke a longer connection with the Foreign Secretary than was generally thought to be the case. More tidbits for Hopley. His idea of striking up an acquaintance with her had not been a bad one. But how did she come to be so indiscreet? A French spy used in such a delicate position ought to have been much more subtle. “I'll speak to Lady Castlereagh, if you have no objection?” he asked. “I have no objection,” she said, and looked at her partner with a new interest. He was pleasingly different from her other escorts. It was actually possible tolike him, and that might be dangerous, considering his politics. It would even be possible to do a good deal more thanlike this man. She had seen him lurking in the background for two weeks, looking at her with his dark, probing eyes, deciding whether to take her up. The dance continued to its conclusion with a little more light flirtation, and then la Comtesse was being handed back into her chaperone's capable hands, to stand up with a young Tory peer—an Irishman, Dashford noticed and recorded mentally for Hopley. “She is charming,” Dashford said to the countess, allowing a moonstruck look to settle on his strong features, as he followed la Comtesse around the room with his eyes. “She is, is she not?” Lady Castlereagh asked happily. “And she seemed to like you prodigiously. You must call on us one morning, Dashford."
“I hardly dared to ask permission, ma'am. Would I be vulgarly eager to suggest tomorrow?" “You are never vulgar, Dashford, and in such a case eagerness is no fault. Call on us, and take Renée out for a drive. It will do her a world of good to get away from the old fogies. Try to cheer her up. She is not happy." “I noticed." “You are observant. With her country in such turmoil, it is not to be wondered that she is worried." “She is surely safe from reprisals by the Emperor here, on English soil?" “Oh yes,she is safe enough, I suppose,” the careless dame answered, opening up a plentiful field of conjecture. Dashford bowed himself away, and soon left the assembly, as he had achieved his night's aim and the rigorous rules of Almack's did not recommend the place to him. He considered neither lemonade nor orgeat a treat, and they were the only beverages served. The countess's statement seemed to indicate the presence in France of someone dear to la Comtesse who wasnot safe—the cause of those pitiful smiles the world wondered about. Was it the Emperor himself? Odd how one went on calling Bonaparte the Emperor, though he had been stripped of his title by the Congress of Vienna. Perhaps, too, one went on thinking of him as her lover after he had ceased to be one. Did she nurture still a secret passion for the little Corsican adventurer? Her husband was dead, and obviously in no danger from Bonaparte nor anyone else. Have to ask Hopley about her family, relatives, other lovers. Have to be careful, too, that she didn't change him into a Frenchman, with those dangerous green eyes. Chapter Two Lord Dashford reported his meager findings, suspicions really, to Hopley, where they were treated as gems of a rare price. “I knew it! I knew it all along,” he crowed happily. “There is something going on between la Comtesse and Castlereagh. If she ain't his lover, she's his daughter, that's who she is. And this Irish governess is her mother." “Surely la Comtesse de la Tour is to be found in the French version of the peerage, whatever they call it. What was her maiden name? What is her ancestry?" “She was a LaMartine according to that. Her father a tax collector, what they call fermier-général. Pirate, in other words. And don't think everything you read in the peerage is true." “I don't. I have always considered Debrett's one of the more interesting works of fiction, but if LaMartine accepted her as his daughter it is a little late in the day for her to be blackmailing Castlereagh. You're barking up the wrong tree, Hopley. She bears no resemblance to that bedraggled-looking Castlereagh lot." “Castlereagh is considered a handsome man." “By some. What is the woman's age?" “Twenty-eight." “That old?" “Nearly twenty-nine, according to the records."
“She doesn't look that old." “The ladies have a way of painting to hide the ravages of time, and twenty-eight ain't over the hill exactly." “She is younger than that. I want you to look into her whole family. Who could be in France that she'd be worried about?" “There's a string of cousins as long as your arm, but the parents are dead. The father was killed in the Terror, and the mother died ten years later of natural causes. La Comtesse was the only child." “Lovers?" “That I don't know. I'll have to try to find out." “There are bound to be lovers." “I was just thinking—Castlereagh would have been about seventeen or eighteen when she was born. Just a nice, ripe age for kicking up a lark. I wonder if he was in France." “You're still harping on the idea he's her father? Why should LaMartine, a French nobleman, claim the illegitimate daughter of an Irish governess for his child? Had she been a male, and he with no heir, he might have been induced to do it—to keep some troublesome relative from inheriting, but she's alady. It would be utterly pointless. Besides, I doubt that even a green, adolescent Castlereagh would lay himself open to the difficulties of such a position." “True. He was born sly. I'll see what else I can come up with." “Let me know. I'm interested." “No more than interested, I hope. Bear in mind she's a dangerous piece, Dashford. It won't do for you to go falling under her spell. We need a clear head to keep track of the hussy." “I'm not likely to forget it. I'm calling on her this morning." “Good. You don't waste much time. Did the countess give you a hard time?" “Not at all. I was amazed at her easy capitulation. I think I am the first Whig to have been invited to the house to visit la Comtesse." “And thelast one old Castlereagh wanted, I bet. But the women have something to say in these matters. They're looking for aparti for her when her spying days are over. A marchioness ain't likely to be locked in the Tower." “She wouldn't be working for Napoleon if she thought he was going to lose." “It's known as hedging your bets. I'm surprised a gambler like yourself hasn't heard of the tactic." “I've heard of it, but I doubt she has. Besides, she has Maldon in her pocket." “Well, looks ain't his long suit. Maybe she plans to marry him and keep you around for amusement. Don't underestimate her." “Don't overestimate me. I am but flesh and blood. Warm blood, at that." “You ain't warm-blooded, just hot-headed. There's a difference."
"Vive la difference!Well, I'm off, Hopley, to pursue theincognita. I haven't so enjoyed a case before." This remark and the joyful accents in which it was delivered sent a furrow to Hopley's brow. If the sassy French piece had got Dashford under her sway, he might as well throw in the sponge. “She's a devil in petticoats is what she is,” he howled in chagrin. “Got the whole dashed cabinet tied in knots, and now she's getting to you." “Nothing has been proven against her. Innocent till proven guilty, you know." “As innocent as Lucrezia Borgia. By Jove, watch she don't slip you a poison drink, Dashford." “Interesting comment. Miss Borgia was a much maligned young lady, as it turned out. It was her associates using her as a tool that caused her poor reputation." “Don't go thinking that way, or you'll end up being petticoated like the others." “I'll keep an open mind, and an eye over my shoulder for a band of French assassins. Don't you think I need a bodyguard?" “You've had one for two days." “That feeble-minded lackey in gray fustian who has been trailing at my heels? I was beginning to wonder about him." After talking to Hopley, Dashford's mental image of la Comtesse underwent a change. He pictured her older, craftier, more hardened, and was surprised again at her youth, her apparent innocence, when he called to take her out riding. She wore a bottle-green suit, with a very plain dark bonnet over her red curls, and she seemed shy of him. This was due to a few wise words from the Countess Castlereagh as to his eligibility. She was looking at him as a potential suitor, which she did not do with her other escorts. The glittering smiles and flirtation she had displayed at the more public assembly at Almack's had deserted her, and she seemed ill at ease. They drove to Hyde Park, where the grounds glowed green in the spring sun, with the hedges forming an ornamental wall. “How lovely it is,” she said. “It reminds me of home, only it isgreener at home." “That is homesickness speaking. I have not observed France to be greener than England. Ireland perhaps is, but not France.” He didn't realize till he had said it the significance of his remark, but she gave a definite start. She immediately rattled on to mention the specific Parisian parks that were greener than Hyde Park and, he noticed, threw in a few French phrases in a manner she did not regularly do, as if to strengthen her French background. “Would it make you feel more at home to speak French?” he asked. “I am fairly fluent, and would welcome the practice." “Oh no,” she answered promptly. “When in Rome, one must do as the Romans do, and my nannies were always after me to speak English at every opportunity. This is an excellent opportunity for me. By all means, let us speak English." A gentleman could not press the matter, but he began to wonder whether her French were so good as her English. The doubt was removed not half an hour later when their carriage ran into that of the Duchesse de Noailles, and she pulled alongside to speak to la Comtesse. She chattered away in French, and his companion responded, also in good French, so far as he could tell.
“She is an old friend of the family,” la Comtesse de la Tour explained. “Perhaps you know her history. She escaped in a cattle boat at the time of the Revolution." “Your own parents escaped without coming to England, I understand?" “No, my father was executed, but Mama took me to the countryside and found safety with some farmers." This tallied with Hopley's story, and there was nothing to be discovered on that score. “Do you have any brothers or sisters?” he asked, though he knew the answers. He hoped for some small clue to surface. “No, I was an only child,” she told him. “And you?" “I have a sister, Beatrice, older than myself, married with three children. She doesn't go about much—a homebody,” he said, while another corner of his mind thought, Iwas an only child. Why ‘was'? “How odd, to think of you having a sister like that." “Yes, a gadabout model of insobriety like myself. I am very fond of Beatrice, however." “Of course, you must be,” she agreed, with a troubled look in her eyes. “I wish—I wishI had a brother. I have often felt the lack of one, with my father dead when I was very young, you know." Ah, an explanation for our little lapses of virtue, he noted silently. “You found friends to live with, you mentioned." “Yes. Oh yes, I had company; but one misses a brother. Not having a brother, I mean. Someone to—to share problems with, and to show one the ropes. A friend—a more than friend, that one can be quite comfortable with always." “It is difficult to believe la Comtesse de la Tour was without male friends. There must have been at all times a surfeit of gentlemen willing to ‘show you the ropes'." She bit her lip at this sarcastic remark. “Very true, but they have not all been so kind asyou, Lord Dashford,” she answered, smiling. “My kindness extends to showing you any ropes with which you are not familiar, Comtesse. I should be delighted to do so." “I shall bear it in mind, Lord Dashford,” she answered, not liking the ambiguous tone of their talk. She was oddly dissatisfied with Dashford that afternoon. There was something cold and distant in his manner that she mistrusted. Dashford, too, was unhappy with his findings. He found it interesting that the only French family with which she claimed any acquaintance had left the country while she was still a child, and could not vouch for her actual identity. The notion was taking root that la Comtesse was not la Comtesse at all, but an impostor; and Dashford put it to Hopley the next time they met. “She's no impostor,” he was told bluntly. “If she ain't la Comtesse, why would she be letting on she is? It is about the most dangerous disguise she could adopt. She has two and a half strikes against her before she starts, for her being who she is raises suspicions as to her intentions. No, there's not a reason in the world for her to be letting on she's la Comtesse de la Tour if she isn't. No point to it. She knew she'd be recognized, and had to admit bold as brass who she is, and talk them all into accepting her."
“Who is there to recognize her? The Duchesse de Noailles appears to be her sole French connection, and they cannot have met since 1789, when la Comtesse was what—two years old?" “There are all the Englishmen who have been to France for one reason or another. Dozens of people know her." “One heard widely conflicting reports about her appearance and so on. These legions of Englishmen cannot have known her very well." “Someone was bound to recognize her. Too risky by half to be posing as la Comtesse, and no reason for it." “I can see no reason myself, but it's strange." The strangeness of it continued to plague Dashford, but he eventually accepted Hopley's dictum that she was who she said she was, for nothing else made any sense. On the third day of her acquaintance with Lord Dashford, la Comtesse was told by Lady Castlereagh that Dashford was to take them to Covent Garden that evening. “Dashford again, ma'am? This is something new, for you to be giving me the same escort twice in a row. The duke will be quite sore with you." “Devil take Maldon. It's time you had a little fun." “I like Maldon. His being your cousin makes me feel quite easy with him. But as tofun at a time like this, it is impossible." “Well, romance then. You like him, don't you?" “Yes, I like him. But he—” His questions, and the sarcastic tone he adopted at times puzzled and bothered her. “He hasn't found out?" “Oh no, but he asks questions. Little things. Not intentionally, I suppose; but when one is with the same person too often, the guard is apt to be lowered." “That must not happen." “You don't think I might tell him? So many people know already, and as you seem to trust him—" “I don't trust him as far as I could throw him, my dear. Where did you ever get that idea?" “You have let him escort me twice, counting tonight." “Not because I trust him. I thought he might fall in love with you. He is a Whig; we must never lose sight of that. What Brougham wouldn't give to find out what we're up to, and make a scandal of it. It would be enough to topple the government." “Surely it is not so vital as that? I hadn't meant to involve you in anything of that magnitude, Lady Castlereagh." “It is exceedingly irregular and dangerous. Especially for you. If you feel Dashford is becoming inquisitive, we must curtail his visits. I wonder if Brougham has put him up to it, squiring you about to see what he
can discover. If I knew for sure, I'd cancel the play this evening." “His questions are not so pointed as that,” Renée defended. She was not at all happy to think of losing this new escort. “Still, I think we must see less of Dashford in future." “It is best to be careful,” Renée agreed reluctantly. But she would be seeing him this evening at least, and she made a careful toilette for the play. Her copper curls were piled on top of her head, with a few tendrils falling loosely about her ears. At her ears, peridot drops sparkled, in harmony with her eyes. She wore a sea-green froth of a grown, cut low to reveal her shoulders and a certain expanse of bosom. She also wore a nervous smile when Dashford called to take them up. Lady Castlereagh was to be accompanied as well, by a gentleman from her husband's office, Mr. Brownlee. “What are we to see tonight, Dashford?” Lady Castlereagh asked. “Only an inferior comedy, I'm afraid. By Vanbrugh, an architect and sometime dramatist. He was better at the former than the latter. He hammered his plays together with second-rate lumber." “At least it's a comedy,” la Comtesse said bracingly, while Dashford's dark eyes raked her gown and body with appreciative eyes. “You don't care for tragedy, ma'am?” he asked. “No, I'm tired of tragedy,” she replied, and sounded as though she meant it. “We see too much of it in France. Corneille and Racine, you know, are still popular." “So I hear,” Dashford replied, but he didn't think she meant dramatic tragedy, somehow. They proceeded to the play where, despite her preference for comedy, la Comtesse sat silent and unsmiling in the dark. Dashford felt a strong compulsion to reach out and touch her, to ask again what was the matter. The sadness seemed almost to exude from her body. He looked across in the shadows to see her profile, and thought she was not looking at the stage at all, but to a corner of the pit. At intermission, she took her glasses and trained them at that same spot, looking intently. “Do you see someone you know down there?” he asked her. “No,” she answered quickly, and put her glasses down. “But there is a funny-looking man wearing an old bagwig. He looks dressed for the play himself. Such a quiz." Dashford raised his own glasses and scanned a few boxes, where there was considerable moving about and visiting to give an excuse for his viewing. When Lady Castlereagh engaged Renée in conversation, he surreptitiously trained his glasses on that corner of the pit that had caught la Comtesse's interest. He looked hard, but he saw no man in a bagwig. He did see something of interest though—and thought it was the same person who had engaged his partner's interest. Monsieur LaRue was there, looking towards the Castlereaghs’ box. He was a French émigré of dubious background who had come to England two or three years ago and hung about the fringes of society, making his living, one heard, at cards. Now here was a person who might actually have been acquainted with the grown-up comtesse. He set his glasses down and said nothing about the gentleman. At the next intermission, he asked her if she would care to go out to stretch her legs and take a glass of wine before the last act. She agreed readily, and as they walked arm in arm to the counter where wine
was to be procured, her sadness fell from her like magic. She chattered on gaily, praising the absurd comedy which he was quite sure she had hardly observed. She nodded and waved to friends and acquaintances, stopping to chat with a few groups. Lady Jersey, always happy to insult the reigning queen of beauty, advanced at a mincing gait. “Comtesse, how lovely you look this evening. Like Venus rising from the waves in that seafoam of a gown. I daresay it was this very outfit that gave Canova the idea to use you for his statue of Venus. Only, of course, you are not posing in a gown, are you?" “No, Lady Jersey, I am not,” she smiled pertly. “I am not wearing anything to pose for Signor Canova.” There was a stunned silence, for to date the rumor of her posing nude had been only a rumor. “I am not posing for the statue, you see. Not everything you hear andsay of me is true. Only nine-tenths of it." “I will scotch the rumor for you,” Lady Jersey said. “Don't trouble yourself on my account. It will only be trebled and they'll have me posing naked for the Three Graces." By the time the curtain raised, it was being circulated that, unsatisfied with one flaunting of her body, la Comtesse was also to pose for the Three Graces. Before the play resumed, they also encountered a few other groups. Maldon advanced to accost them, raising his quizzing glass and smiling. “Comtesse, a feast for tired eyes,” he proclaimed. “It is only eleven o'clock, milord. Too early for your eyes to be tired yet; there is still one act to go." “What I have seen at intermission has refreshed them,” he replied with a bow, and a new friend approached them. There were half a dozen other groups lurking in the background, Dashford noticed with a twinge of impatience, and fled back to the box, to discover it full of Tories. “You'd have done better to bear the mobs outside,” la Comtesse roasted him. “Here you are surrounded by the enemy, with no escape." When the curtain was raised again and the box dark, la Comtesse took up her glasses and examined the same corner of the pit where Dashford knew LaRue to be located. He tucked the detail away for relaying to Hopley, and noticed that during the last act his partner fiddled nervously with her glasses, her gloves, and seemed happy when it was time to leave. In the throng milling about, waiting for carriages to arrive at the door, Dashford saw out of the corner of his eye M. LaRue walking towards them, alone. He stared at la Comtesse, who either didn't see or didn't choose to see him. He stopped a foot short of them, obviously waiting for her to spot him, but she took Dashford's arm and turned as if to leave. “Good evening, Comtesse,” LaRue said in a loud, clear voice. She raised her arched brows and looked, then nodded her head a bare fraction of an inch, and said nothing. “You're hard on your countrymen,” Dashford commented when LaRue had walked off. “That was M. LaRue, a French émigré. Are you not acquainted with him?" “I don't know him, and don't want to,” she said angrily.
“I assume you know somethingof him, if you don't wish for his friendship." “I know nothing of him—that is, the Castlereaghs have no opinion of him." “Shall we stop at the Clarendon for a bite?” Brownlee suggested. This was the favored spot for midnight suppers after the play, because of its excellent cuisine. “Must we?” la Comtesse asked wearily. “I am frightfully tired." As it was being discussed, Maldon and a group of five others advanced towards them and invited them to join parties to go on to the Clarendon. “Delightful,” la Comtesse said, smiling her agreement. Dashford looked at her in astonishment. “I can take you on home,” he offered aside. “There is no reason Lady Castlereagh must miss out on the party if she wishes to go, and no reason you must go if you're tired.” He was not ill-pleased at the chance of a little privacy with her, for though he had been three times now in her company, there had been little chance for intimacy. “Oh no, let us all go. A glass of wine and a little dinner is probably just what I need." She seemed to be correct, for she rallied to a height of merriment that was curious to see, after her lethargy and disinterest in the comedy she professed to like. Dashford had never been so puzzled and intrigued by anyone in his life. He couldn't make heads or tails of her, but was willing to go on trying. “May I call tomorrow?” he asked at the door of the house. It was Lady Castlereagh who answered. “You are monopolizing Renée's time,” she chided. “Several gentlemen have called me to account tonight for it. Maldon is taking you out tomorrow, is he not, my dear?” she asked of Renée. Maldon had mentioned no such thing, but Renée confirmed it with a smile of apology. “The next day then?” Dashford pressed on. “Drop by in a few days. We are pretty busy just at the present,” the Countess said vaguely, assuming a man of the world like Dashford could take a hint. A pity, but she couldn't trust the way Renée was looking at him. And she had been very upset over something during the dinner party, too. Too high-strung and overly gay. Dashford accepted the snub with good grace, and left. “What happened?” the chaperone asked her charge as soon as they were alone. “LaRue spoke to me after the play. Did you not see him?" “No, not a sign. I was chatting with Brownlee. So amusing. But what did you do?" “I didn't quite cut him. Dashford mentioned it, my curtness to a fellow countryman." “His eagle eyes don't miss a thing. We must see a good deal less of Dashford." “And of LaRue, I hope." “How very upsetting for you! That explains why you wished to skip the Clarendon. We might have done so easily enough."
“No, I must carry on. It is too easy to slack off.” She went to her room with a splitting headache, after the ordeal of the unwanted party. The gay French butterfly must continue to bat her wings, and smile and flirt, and stop seeing the only man she wanted to see. He had looked offended when Lady Castlereagh snubbed him. She could not think, herself, he was so much danger. Not official, political danger, in any case. Chapter Three Dashford's next meeting with Hopley was arranged to take place in an out-of-the-way restaurant to forestall any comments about a Whig member paying such frequent calls to the office of the Head of Intelligence. “Anything new?” Hopley asked, his blue eyes alive with curiosity. “Not much. What do you know of a certain Monsieur LaRue? A down-at-the-heels beau who dangles after minor heiresses, and tries in vain to attach himself to the ton?" “I know of his existence. Makes his bread and butter at being a Captain Sharp. One of my lads got into a game with him and says he used shaved cards. And pretty successfully, too, I should think. He has an apartment at Alvanley, a fancy setup. That's where this card game I spoke of took place. Got it rigged up with French furniture and velvet drapes and keeps a French chef. What makes you call him down-at-the-heels?" “He used to be, a year ago. He must have come into some blunt lately. Any chance he's part of the leak we spoke of?" “If he's a spy, he's not one of the ones we're keeping an eye on. We will do, if you think he's suspect. He isn't one of the old crew, and not one of the new lot that slipped in after Boney went to Elba. There were a dozen came sifting in around that time. Ought to have tipped us the clue Boney wasn't done for." “A loner is he, LaRue?" “Yes, he must be working some racket of his own. He has no friends amongst our crew of regulars." “If you know who the spies are, why don't you lock them up?” Dashford asked a question that had been posed to Hopley a hundred times. “We have a funny law in England: A man's innocent till proven guilty. Seems to me we mentioned it the other day." “I recall. You were reluctant to apply it to la Comtesse at the time." “You don't see her in manacles, do you? Diamond bracelets is more like it. We keep tabs on them, never fear. And when we catch them we chuck them into the Tower, or shoot them if they give us half a chance. In the meanwhile, they prove useful at times. Feed them a bunch of lies and hope they run home to confuse the enemy." “So you'll keep an eye on this LaRue fellow?" “That I will." “How did you make out with this business of la Comtesse's Irish connections, and the person in France she might be concerned about?"
“I've had an ear to the ground. They might just be one and the same. In the general rush to Vienna for the Congress, there was a pair from Ireland that hopped over and no one's heard of them since." “The mails are irregular." “Yes, it might be nothing; but most people had the sense to come home. This pair were a brother and sister, named Foster. The fellow is a sort of dreamy-eyed philosopher who writes tracts about Freedom and Liberty that no one reads, like our own lunatic Shelley. A secret admirer of Boney, very likely. You'd be surprised how many otherwise normal people are. They went to Europe and it seems they had some idea of going to France for the brother to talk to people who knew Bonaparte. Was going to write an Apologia on him, telling how he was really a Messiah in disguise. Something of that sort. It's a slim chance, but they might have run into la Comtesse." “It's pretty tenuous. Even if they met her—a slight acquaintance, an interview perhaps—it wouldn't have put them on such a footing that la Comtesse is worrying herself sick over them." “No, unless she and the Foster fellow became more than friends." “Lovers, you mean?” Dashford asked. “He might have fallen for her, all right; but I think we're looking for a closer connection than that. How about this long list of cousins of hers you mentioned?" “The fact is, she's related to a dozen families, but there was no very close association kept up with any of them. She was pretty well raised in the country and not much known to anyone who matters till she married the Comte." “About this Irishman—Foster, you said—what part of Ireland was he from?" “The coast—County Down,” Hopley replied. “And Castlereagh is from County Down, and la Comtesse's governess was from County Down. If Foster knew the governess, and Castlereagh knew the Fosters—is it possible Foster met la Comtesse through the governess, and when she came to England—the Comtesse—she went to Castlereagh as a friend of the Fosters, to throw herself on his protection?" “Why should Castlereagh accept her? Too dangerous for him in his position." “But think what interesting tales she might have to tell, Boney's ex-mistress!" “That's easier to believe than his doing it for sheer love of his Irish friends. But why flaunt her in the face of the world?" “Ah yes, that doesn't ring true, does it? Castlereagh is too sharp for that. He'd wring her news out of her and pack her off to America or somewhere, so that she wouldn't be an embarrassment to him." “Unless she's his daughter, or mistress." “Or mother. If she's twenty-eight, she might be sixty-eight. Don't overlook any possibilities, Ed,” Dashford said ironically. “I think you should send a man off to County Down to do a bit of digging." “I will. Find out if anyone there has heard from these Fosters, and just how close their place is to Castlereagh's, and how well they knew each other. Might get a line on this governess, too. Did you get her name?" “Only her first name—Molly. That will be an inestimable help to you. Do the Irish ever call their girls
anything else?" “Cathleen,” Hopley suggested with a twinkle. “We've eliminated half the women in the country, and have only the other half to look into." “Find out what you can about the Foster girl, too. Her age, looks. Or do you have that?" “The fellow was twenty-five, and the girl twenty. That's all I know. You're doing well, Dashford. Keep your ears and eyes peeled and keep coming back to me.'' “I probably won't get much more. I've been hinted away from la Comtesse." “By herself?" “No, by Lady Castlereagh." “Don't suppose she's tumbled to what you're doing?" “She suspects; she's bound to with my background, although I've been discreet. I think I must now assume the guise of a moonstruck swain and try to meet la Comtesse clandestinely. I doubt she's allowed to slip her leash at all, but I'll do my poor best." “Oh she slips the leash, all right. A bit of a high flyer, la Comtesse." Dashford's eyes leapt to Hopley's face. “Are you saying something, or just hallucinating again?" “Facts, Dashford. I've got a few hard facts, and much good they do me. They only relate to her love life. Not connected with the spying business. At least, I don't think so." “An English lover, as well as one in France?" “We don't know the one in France is a lover. It may be some old friend or relative." “Need I inquire the English gentleman's name? It's Maldon, is it?" “Yup. She's allowed to run around with him with no other escort, and they are seen in some very strange places." “Such as?" “Such as Shoreditch, the Tabard Inn—little hideaway places. Since I've had her followed, she has twice gone to quiet little inns with Maldon and stayed a couple of hours. Gone heavily veiled, and with great circuitous routes to be sure she's not followed. Both times on a Friday night, late. Very late. And it is reported to me that la Comtesse exits with a very satisfied smile on her French face." “And Maldon the same, I should think,” Dashford replied, with an angry thud of the blood through his veins. That innocent face! And the smiles that wreathed it when Maldon made his asinine compliments about her refreshing his tired eyes. “It is only eleven o'clock, milord. Too early for your eyes to be tired yet.” The words came back to him, and the flirtatious manner of their delivery. It seemed Maldon was acceptable as more than a respectable husband. “At what hour do the lovers keep their rendezvous? You said it was late." “After one in the morning. Sometimes as late as two."
“I assumed it would be later than eleven,” Dashford said coldly, and arose to leave his half-finished meal on his plate. “Here, Dashford, no need to go dashing off with your food in your throat!” Hopley called after him. But it was anger he tasted in his throat, not the pigeon pie he had been eating. Maldon was taking her out today, and it was when Maldon asked them to join his party that her fatigue had magically vanished. **** House calls from Dashford were prohibited for the present time, but as Renée had silver ribbons wound through her hair to match her silver-trimmed white gown that evening, she was not entirely devoid of hope that she would meet him at the Farnsworths’ ball she was to attend. Maldon, after having been deprived of her company on two occasions, was to escort her and the Countess to the ball. She liked him very much. Next to Dashford, he was her favorite escort. Not so elderly and dull as the others. And as he was one of the confidants in the case, being Lady Castlereagh's cousin, she could talk to him without fear of giving herself away. She felt secure with him, for he behaved very properly, and only flirted in company, unlike some of the other old men she had to accept because of her position. She wondered what the countess would think if she knew her great favorite Brownlee had tried to make love to her. Of course, Brownlee knew nothing. It was only too likely he would assume a lively French widow and acknowledged mistress of Napoleon to be open to an affair. It seemed the general opinion held of her. But tonight she needn't worry. She would be with Maldon, and if she were lucky, she would stand up with Dashford, too. The Castlereagh party was one of the smaller group invited to dinner before the ball. Renée's eyes flitted around the table, and she was disappointed to see Dashford was not amongst the group. But before partners for the opening minuet were chosen, he was announced and entered, looking about the hall. She thought it was for her that he looked, as his eyes stopped roving when they came to her party. She smiled and nodded her head graciously, and was surprised at the angry scowl he wore, though he bowed politely enough. Maldon again, and it isn't even Friday, Dashford thought. He knew she would stand up with her escort for the minuet, and decided to wait till a few dances had passed before coming to her. Mustn't worry old Lady Castlereagh. She was suspicious enough. At the end of each dance, Renée looked about for Dashford, only to see him bowing over a lady's hand, or walking towards some other woman. He had taken offense at Lady Castlereagh's cold treatment of him. He wasn't going to dance with her. But he couldn't thinkshe had turned him off. She must make it clear she still wanted his company. To inform him of the fact, she twice more smiled brightly at him, and twice he bowed back and turned away. The strains of a waltz were starting up, and she looked one last time for him. She didn't mean to smile in his direction again, and she didn't have to. At last he walked towards her. “Am I fortunate enough to find you with this dance not taken, Comtesse?” he asked. “Indeed you are, and it is better than you deserve after deserting me for so long,” she replied teasingly. “The desertion was forced on me by your chaperone. You heard how diligently I pressed myself forward the other evening. I desisted only to prevent the countess giving me the cut direct." “I am glad you know it was the countess, and not la Comtesse, who takes exception to your politics." “I doubt it was my politics she took exception to. She knew me for a Whig when first she permitted me to call."
“Is there something else to take exception to?” the lady roasted him. “I had not heard Lord Dashford was a rake, nor quite in the basket." “Oh no, but obstinately single-minded—ask her husband! It seems the countess's intention to spread your charms thin, amongst the whole of London." “I disagree with Lady Castlereagh on quite a few points,” she answered. “Her way of dressing a fowl, for instance, is not at all what I am used to." “They do it better in France—the dressing of both their women and fowl,” he said with a glance at her gown. “We make no claim here to eitherhaute couture norhaute cuisine. An English meal is only edible when it is prepared by a French chef." “Even then it is only edible if one is accustomed tocold ragout, which I must confess does not appeal to me." “You are well advised to stick to your own nation's food and gowns, though the English suit you wore the other day was well cut." “Upon my word, you are observant, milord.” She had worn a suit of English make to Hyde Park. He missed nothing. “One has few chances to observe anything else half so charming, Comtesse,” he answered. “You seem in better spirits tonight. No doubt it is because the weekend approaches.” It was then a Thursday; and it was, of course, the Friday meetings with Maldon that Dashford referred to in this ambiguous manner. “Yes, I always look forward to the weekend,” she said, smiling to herself to think how he had hit the nail on the head without realizing it. Dashford saw the smile and was goaded to the brink of indiscretion. “It is the Sabbath day of rest that appeals to your retiring nature, is it?" There was an edge of sarcasm to the words that could not be ignored. “You disapprove of myunretiring nature, I must assume." Wisdom overcame anger, and he answered smoothly, “I disapprove when I am deprived of it, ma'am. I mentioned my single-mindedness, and this surly tongue of mine betrays me into poor manners. I beg a thousand pardons." “I grant a thousand forgivenesses,” she answered, pleased more than she liked to admit by his jealous ardor. She smiled softly, and Dashford was hard pressed to remember he was holding in his arms an abandoned woman. She looked a very sweet child, with that smile. “You are generous with your pardons." “With my friends I am." It was on the tip of his tongue to inquire what else she was generous with to her friends, but he bit it back. He must on no account make an enemy of her. His aim now was to lure her into secret meetings. “Am I to consider myself a friend?" “I hope you are." “A close enough friend to see you tomorrow?"
“I should like to, very much, but Lady Castlereagh—" “Without her knowledge, I meant. It is poorly done of me to suggest it, but you are not quite a young girl. Surely a widow of twenty-eight years may see a friend alone without offending anyone's notions of propriety." “How did you know my age?” she asked. “You have few secrets, ma'am. Your age, weight, height, your beautiful hair, your preference for green to match your eyes: Everything about you is known and much discussed." “Well it is not nice for anyone to discuss my age,” she said with a pout. “It is discussed as one of the marvels of our times, that a lady at the advanced age of twenty-eight should be still in such a high state of preservation,” he laughed lightly. “What, have I offended you by mentioning it? I shall be more careful another time. But only nine-tenths of what one hears about you is true; so we'll make it twenty-five years of age. With you giving your pardons away in the thousands, you will soon run out of them. And you haven't answered my question, Comtesse." She considered the suggestion and hedged off, with no effort at concealing her reluctance. “I should like to see you again. Perhaps another time. The thing is, I have been particularly asked not to see you alone." “I understand. Such meetings as this, in public, are not forbidden?" “No. Oh no, she has not said that! Tomorrow night we go to the Pantheon masquerade,” she added. “It is a great secret. Robert would hate it if he knew—Lord Castlereagh, I mean. But Lady Castlereagh says that so long as we leave before the unmasking, there is no harm in it." “And you will wear a green domino, I trust, to match your eyes?" “Just so. Emerald green with an egret half mask, and I shall carry a large white ostrich fan. How shall I knowyou?" “That six-foot shadow that dogs your steps, wearing a black domino, will be me." “We plan to leave before the unmasking,” she reminded him as the dance ended. “At midnight I believe it occurs." “I shall be looking for you long before that. And at midnight it will be on to another party for the tireless comtesse?” he asked, remembering that it would be Friday tomorrow. “No, straight home to bed for me,” she answered. “No wonder I look my age, with all this racketing around. I need my beauty sleep." “There's nothing like bed to put that youthful glow back in the cheeks,” he said, without a trace of the sarcasm he wished to speak. He took her arm and looked about the hall for Lady Castlereagh. Lady Jersey walked quickly towards them, eager to examine the great beauty's gown and see how she had that ribbon woven through her hair. “La Comtesse istrès ravissante this evening,” she said to Dashford, giving the hair a close examination and hoping in vain to find a black or blonde root. "Comme toujours,"Dashford agreed. “Maldon will be jealous of you, Dashford, so often taking his place lately. He tells me he feels like a new man since Renée is going about with him."
“So did la Comtesse feel like one, and to my great fortune, she has chosen me,” he answered. “Oh clever Dashford! You must watch this one, Comtesse. He is sharp as a needle." “And as useful to the ladies I hope, Lady Jersey. May I get you a glass of wine?" “Champagne, if you please. Not that dreadful punch they are using to eke it out.” He left, and Lady Jersey turned a calculating eye on la Comtesse. “My dear, what does Lady Castlereagh say of your latest flirt?" “I imagine that, in common with everyone else, she says he is very handsome." “And very clever, milady. Whatever you are up to, watch out for him. Brougham's golden-haired boy, you must know. Very clever indeed.” Sally Jersey, nicknamed Silence in honor of her flying tongue, could never keep a thought to herself. Dashford, who had taken only a step before lifting a glass of champagne from a passing tray, turned to hear it. “Who is so very clever, Lady Jersey? Surely not my dull self. You must refer to my delightful companion." “Both of you, I make no doubt. Thank you for the champagne, Dashford. Ah, there is dear Lady Cowper preparing a fit of hysterics to see her sister-in-law attracting more attention than she is. I must console her. So divine to chat with both of you. See you at Almack's.” She turned away, her voice trailing after her, “Emily, my dear, too divine to see you." “Clever lady, shall we go?” Dashford asked, turning to see his companion eying him suspiciously. “Now what did that chatterbox say in thirty seconds to make you look at me so?” he asked, worried. “Nothing. She just said you are clever. Are you?" “I hope so, but surely that is not enough to give you a disgust of me." “No, of course not. I admire clever people,” she answered, and shook the little doubt away. They reached Lady Castlereagh, who already had a replacement for Dashford lined up, and the two parted. Dashford realized he ought to be pleased with the progress he was making. La Comtesse had not yet agreed to meet him alone, but she had done the next best thing. She was conspiring to meet him in corners at public functions. It would be but a step till she was slipping behind her chaperone's back to meet him alone. At inns, possibly. Her affection seemed genuine. She had nothing to gain by seeing him except romance. But he was not pleased. He resented deeply that she was open to advances of this sort, for it confirmed what he had no desire to believe, that she was open to loose affairs. That Hopley was quite right in thinking her late, very late, night meetings with Maldon were love trysts. After meeting him at the Pantheon, she would leave and go to some suburban inn to meet Maldon. Very likely Maldon would accompany her to the Pantheon, in fact. So handy. The strangest part of all was that Lady Castlereagh must know of it. Leaving for the four hours or so that going, having the visit, and returning would take could not be undertaken regularly without her knowing. She approved of her cousin Maldon, clearly. It even occurred to him that the two were engaged or married, but while this might alleviate la Comtesse's behavior to some extent—well, if they were married it was all right, of course—it made her arranging to meet himself worse. And why should any such marriage be kept secret? She was openly accepted by the Castlereaghs. No, there was no way out of it. She was a strumpet with the face of an angel.
Knowing that Hopley had men following her, he did not feel it necessary to linger long at the ball. He wouldn't be standing up with her again, and there was no one else of interest for him there. Much later, la Comtesse went home with a dreamy smile on her face. “You enjoyed yourself?” her chaperone asked her. “Very much. And tomorrow is Friday." “Yes, and you don't have to go dashing all over the countryside for the letter, either. It is arranged for LaRue to give it to you at the Pantheon. That was a good idea, going there. In a mask and domino, you will not be recognized, nor will he. Be sure to wear a snood over your hair, Renée. That carrot-top will be recognized a mile away." “Yes, my hair is much discussed,” she laughed. “Why, I think you are becoming vain, Deedee." “Don't call me that. I am Renée." “Tch, it slipped out; but we are alone." “Even when we're alone, or you'll slip into the habit. Who takes us tomorrow night, Lady Castlereagh?" “Maldon, of course; it's Friday." “I thought that as it is to be the Pantheon, he wouldn't be required. But it will be well to have him around, in case of trouble." “Yes, he is a boxer, Robert tells me. So vulgar. I don't know why the gentlemen enjoy beating each other to a pulp." “A gun would be more to the point." “No doubt he has that, too. Do you have that little pistol Robert got for you?" “I only carry it in my reticule. My evening purse is too small." “Get a bigger one, Renee. You know not the day nor the hour. That is what they say of death, isn't it?" The doleful phrase wiped the smile from la Comtesse's face, and when she mounted the stairs to bed, she wore a vulnerable, frightened expression. Chapter Four With a secret attendance at the Pantheon planned for Friday evening, some more public function was to be attended in the afternoon to keep la Comtesse before her audience. To a picnic at Richmond Hill, it was Mr. Brownlee, the most detested of her escorts, who was to escort her. He suggested the closed carriage, and the countess seconded his idea against Renée's protests that she liked the wind and sun and had never suffered from freckling. But he found only limited opportunities to molest her in broad daylight, and she was at pains to keep away from him as much as possible once they had arrived. She foresaw difficulty with him on the way home with the shadows lengthening, and took the precaution of inviting an elderly lady who had come in a phaeton to share her closed vehicle on the way home. The other members of the party automatically assumed she had had a tiff with Mr. Brownlee, and was showing him a lesson. Lady Castlereagh would have struck Mr. Brownlee from the list of escorts at a word from
Renée, but the Countess was already going to so much bother for her that she hesitated to complain and add to her worries. Mr. Brownlee was a great favorite of the Countess. Dinner that evening was taken with a select party of elderly Tories, and before the card tables were set up, the Castlereagh party left, claiming fatigue on the part of la Comtesse after the afternoon's picnic. They had their dominoes and masks waiting in the carriage to avoid the necessity of returning home, and were soon on their way to Oxford Street to that magnificent structure known as the Pantheon. La Comtesse's two partners—Maldon was with them—attributed Renée's high spirits to the letter she would be receiving, and perhaps the unaccustomed party in masquerade, but it was in truth the promise of a black domino dogging her steps that had her eyes sparkling and her cheeks glowing with a becoming bloom. Lady Castlereagh was surprised and happy to see she was not the only respectable dame at this déclassé do. She had the private excuse of making the receipt of the letter easier, but she wondered to herself what Lady Annesley was doing there. There was no mistaking her purple hair—such a very odd shade she was tinting it this year. She attached herself to this group, which included as well Lady Annesley's husband and son, and explained away her own presence by saying la Comtesse was curious to see a masquerade. “Oh yes, she would,” Lady Annesley said, in a tone that cost her daughter a voucher to Almack's. Another effect of the announcement of la Comtesse's presence beneath the green domino was to send both the husband and son scuttling off to find the ravishing redhead, who had gone to the dance floor with Maldon. The two matrons were grossly offended at their desertion, but were soon joined by a young clerk from the Foreign Office who was eager to be on terms with the Foreign Secretary's wife, and so they were protected from the non-existent host of bucks they feared would be trying to overpower them. Lord Dashford, there a half hour before them, was so enraged when he recognized Maldon's sloping shoulders accompanying la Comtesse that he seriously considered leaving without making himself known to her. But as he watched from the anonymous throng of black dominoes around the room's edge, he noticed her apparent lack of interest in her partner, and relented enough to step forward for the second dance. “You see I am come as I promised, and wearing my green domino so you would know me,” Renée said, smiling such a dazzling smile at him that his heart lurched in his breast. Only half of her face was visible, but her smile bewitched him. “You didn't promise you would come withMaldon," he replied. “Oh Lord Dashford, you are surely not jealous ofhim?" she laughed delightedly. “How pleased he would be to hear you say so. He tells me I use him like a puppy." “Yes, like a lapdog." “Don't sulk; I am come as I said I would." “And I am here to dog your every step, another puppy trudging at your heels. I fancy that with nine out of ten gentlemen wearing black dominoes, we might have two or three dances together tonight without anyone being the wiser." “It's a beautifully degenerate place, isn't it? I like it excessively,” she returned, which sent his hopes for her salvation plummeting. But the remark was good for business, and he followed it up with alacrity. The hall was vast, with columns and gilt trim and glittering chandeliers just bordering on the garish.
Numerous boxes overlooked the main floor, and below them there were several alcoves before which red velvet curtains hung discreetly, to conceal the more practical wooden doors. “There are an even more degenerate set of private parlors, over behind those red velvet drapes,” he said leadingly. “Indeed!” she said. It was such a prissy, British reply that he knew instantly he had offended, and didn't think for thirty seconds that the Britishness of it was odd on a French lady's tongue. “For those who wish to make use of them. It is by no means compulsory to be degenerate,” he backed off. “No, I should hope not. I am happy you warned me of their existence.” But it was no warning, she said to herself. It was a suggestion. He's just like all the others. There was a noticeable decrease in both the quantity and quality of her smiles after this. For two minutes they danced without further comment. “Itwas a warning, you know,” he said at last, to appease her. “Was it, Dashford?” she asked, doubtingly. “Wrong answer, milady. A woman of the world would pretend to believe me, and keep her distance another time." “But I don't want to keep my distance. I mean, if you're telling the truth." “Ladies and gentlemen don't lie to each other in England,” he said, and hoped to smile away the contretemps with such a foolish, rash, and untrue generalization. “How different they must be from the rest of the world! Youwere warning me, then?” she inquired, with a most unladylike, or un-English, lack of reliance on his veracity. “During all these dances we are going to have together this evening, you will observe that I at no time twist your arm behind your back and drag you screaming towards the red velvet curtains, Comtesse. Lavish another thousand pardons on me, and let us be friends again. I have looked forward to this evening too long to have it spoiled by a careless word, spoken in jest." She allowed herself, with reluctance, to be cajoled back into good humor. She too had been looking forward to the evening. “What did you do today?” he asked, both to institute some harmless talk and to discover what he could. “I went to Richmond Park and admired, for I think the third time, the trees and flowers." “With Maldon?” he asked. “No such luck. With Mr. Brownlee, and he is horrid." “He can't help not being Maldon, poor fellow. No doubt he would be happy to change characters if he could." “It is not his not being Maldon that I object to, but his being Mr. Brownlee, with seven or eight grubby little hands, every one of them bent on mischief. I daresay an English lady would not voice such a complaint as that, either; but it is an English gentleman who causes it." The urge to slay Mr. Brownlee was now posited on top of that to kill the duke. “I would suggest that a
lady of any nationality inform her chaperone when an escort behaves so ill." “I can't. Lady Castlereagh is already overburdened with looking after me. I shouldn't have said anything. I can't think why I did say it toyou; for I haven't complained to anyone else. But if you're going to be jealous of anyone, it ought not to be of John." That Maldon was “John” to la Comtesse did nothing to calm Dashford's exacerbated nerves. “Tell me, Comtesse, is it only Tories who are allowed to be on a first-name basis with you? I have a name that should be very easy for a French lady to pronounce, for it is of French origin, but has got deformed a little in translation. It was originally Louis, I fancy, but has been changed to Lewis. If you find it difficult to say, you might call me Loo, like the card game. You have mastered that, no doubt." “Oh, yes. I have an uncle Lewis, in fact. Louis, I mean,” she amended hastily. “But he, oddly enough, has his nickname after a different game. He is called Cricket." “He stands still for that, does he?" “He has no choice, poor little man. He is not up to my elbow." “Is it the game or the insect he is named for?" She looked taken aback a moment. Such a foolish slip! It was indeed the little insect that gave Cricket his name, and the pun she had made unthinkingly did not apply in French. “Oh, the game, of course. He adores your cricket." “AndI would adore it if you would call me Lewis, or even Louis. I have nothing against the French. In fact, I am becoming very fond of one of them." “My name is Renée,” she offered with a shy smile, and a breath of relief that her gaffe had been covered. “May I call you so?" “If you like." “Lewis. Now that we are on a first-name basis, our duty is to use the names at every possible opportunity, to consolidate our little gain, Renée." “Ah, I understand you now, Lewis. I thought for a moment there you had got our names mixed up and were callingme Lewis, Lewis. But it was a very foolish mistake on my part. Lewis." “That's better. You will be on to it in no time." “Renée,” she added with a quizzing look. He repeated after her with a bow, “Renée." They conversed in a frivolous fashion, using their first names, till the joke was worn thin, and a little beyond. La Comtesse's nerves had been stretched taut for several weeks now, and she was sorely in need of amusement. She was attracted to Dashford, and knew her opportunities of seeing him would be few after this evening. With the mask to conceal her from the mob, she could relax and enjoy herself. A feeling of daring recklessness came over her. She was gay, and flirted with Dashford in a manner that led him to wonder whether they wouldn't be behind the red velvet curtains before the night was over, without the necessity of twisting her arm.
He did not dare to suggest it; but as the night wore on, la Comtesse several times glanced towards the private parlors. Dashford was confused more than ever as to the nature of the woman he was trying to figure out. This was a new Comtesse—no wistful smiles tonight, no glittering mouth smiles either, with the eyes clouded. She was happy. She laughed and joked and teased. She seemed, in fact, to be in love with him, and he realized that beneath that miasma of mistrust and confusion in his own mind, he was in a similar state himself. But while he was enjoying himself and seeing a new Comtesse, he was discovering virtually nothing for Hopley. With a regret and a stab of conscience, he went back to work. “You seem more French than usual tonight,” he said. “I feel, somehow,on doit parler français." “I speak French as little as possible. It is a matter of policy. I wish to disassociate myself from France." “It is a drastic step, to disavow your country because of one man." “It is not only one man; it is a régime." “When the Bourbons are restored to the throne, will you go back then?" “I will never go back." “What of your lands, your money?" “You forget I am a female." “Not for a moment, I promise you." “Well, so far as hereditary rights go, it is no good thing to be. If either my father's or husband's estates are ever reclaimed, which is doubtful, they will be claimed by a male. My cousin Lucien in the case of papa—he lives as far as I know—and by my husband's nephew, as I have no male child." “That's true, but your family would provide for you, surely. Or have you no dower rights?" “They are not worth the bother." “Nomale child, you said—" “No daughter, either. No children at all. As a female would fare no better than myself, I spoke only of a son. There is no significance in it. Why do you look so mistrusting?" “Do I? I'm sorry. I trust you implicitly, ça va sans dire.” He smiled grimly at the irony of the speech, when he mistrusted every word that left her gorgeous lips. But one thing cheered him a little. He had taken up the idea that it was no lover la Comtesse worried about in France, but a child. Her own child. He would have Hopley look into it. “Tu parles français, Lewis,” she chided. Dances with Dashford were interspersed with other partners—Maldon, the Annesley gentlemen, and a few sharp-eyed individuals who recognized la Comtesse beneath the green domino and egret mask. But Dashford danced with no one else. It was eleven-thirty. He knew she was to leave before the unmasking at midnight and was watching her closely to take his leave. She was with Maldon—for the third time— and Dashford hastened towards them as the dance finished. He lost sight of them in the crowd, but strode on to where they had been when the dance finished, and began looking through the throng for a green domino. It had vanished. There were red, pink, blue, and a multitude of black ones everywhere, but no green outfit. He stood still a moment, stunned at this magical disappearance; then he noticed the
red velvet curtains at his back, and scowled. She had gone with Maldon into one of the private parlors. He was trying to decide whether to barge in on them or leave when he felt a hand on his arm and turning, he recognized Maldon. “Looking for the comtesse?” he asked in a friendly voice. “Yes, where is she?” he demanded. “Slipped away to the ladies’ dressing room,” Maldon told him. The duke was an intimate in all matters pertaining to Renée, and knew of Lady Castlereagh's hope to attach Dashford. He himself liked Renée very well, but found her too overpowering to love, and felt Dashford the very man for her. To give some inkling of this, and to lessen his hostility, he decided to drop a hint that there was no love affair between la Comtesse and himself. “She's really a charming woman,” he said, in what he hoped was an objective voice. “I have noticed you find her so." “Oh, everyone does—including yourself, I think." “Yes, I share the commonly held opinion that she is exquisite." “And nice,” Maldon pointed out. “Not at all spoiled and phony, like most beautiful women. “Unexceptionable in every way,” Dashford agreed angrily, mistaking the import of the words. “About me and her, Dashford,” Maldon said more directly. “Don't undertake to hint me away, Maldon. I know of the friendship between you two, and am undismayed by it." “Good,” Maldon said with relief. Dashford stared in astonishment. “Only friendship, you know,” he went on. “Fact of the matter is, I have quite another lady in mind to marry." “That explains a great deal that has been puzzling me,” Dashford said with a flash of anger in his eyes that knocked Maldon bandy. The secrecy surrounding their affair was now explained clearly. Maldon and la Comtesse were enjoying an illicit affair, but the bride must be hoodwinked. Some dupe must be held up to distract attention from the real lover, and he had the honor of being chosen. “Don't expect to use me as a tool to deceive your bride." “You don't understand!” Maldon said. “I understand perfectly everything except why you chose to tell me this. I must confess that is a mystery to me. Why do you tell me?" “I thought you loved her." “Not that much!” he said, and walked away, his face a thundercloud, trying to think what it meant but unable to think at all for the red anger raging inside him. He went on to the ladies’ dressing room, to wait outside the door to deliver a few unwise homilies to la Comtesse before leaving the building. Maldon took up a post outside the red curtains, frowning in perplexity. While her two gentlemen cooled their heels in this manner, Renée stood with bated breath inside the smallest of the private parlors, eagerly watching the door for Monsieur LaRue. He had said eleven-thirty on the dot. A masked man stepped in and bowed to her, speaking in the unmistakable accents of the
French enemy. “Have you got the letter?” she demanded urgently. "Oui, madame. J'ai le billet-doux." “Give it to me,” she said, reaching out her hand. LaRue took the hand and raised it to his lips. She snatched it away. “Don't touch me, you filthy beast. Give me the letter." “I am unhappy with you,ma chère comtesse," he said gently. “Such ingratitude. It is dangerous for me to obtain thebillets." “You're well paid." “I am not well paid by madame." “You have my silence." “Yes, even when we meet in public, madame is silent. It is not wise to provoke me, Comtesse." “Nor is it wise for you to provoke me. Give me my letter." He dangled it before her eyes, but held tightly between his fingers. She reached for it, and he raised it just beyond her grasp. “There is a forfeit tonight,” he said meaningfully. “What do you want? Money?" “We are fortunate milord Maldon is absent for once. A kiss, and thebillet is yours." Her hand swung out and caught him across the face with a loud smack. “I don't kiss pigs,” she said angrily. “Madame will regret that,” he said coolly, his eyes burning at her through the holes of his mask. “You observe I saymadame, not comtesse,” he added. “But I should say,peut-être, mademoiselle." She stared at him contemptuously. “Say what you like, but give me the letter." He put it back in his pocket and smiled. “When mademoiselle's manners have improved she will have the letter. Not before. A curious fact has come to light. A young lady, a red-haired lady, was found buried in a shallow grave near Meaux." “What is that to me?" “And Mam'selle Foster, though the records show she left France, has not arrived home in Ireland." Renée stood silent, breathing rapidly with shallow breaths. “She spoke of visiting the Highlands,” she said. “Relatives there—an aunt, I think she said." “You are sure she did not speak of visiting England—London to be precise?" “Quite sure, monsieur. “Because if sheis in England—” He smiled and hunched his shoulders."Cela change tout," he said. Renée wished with all her heart she had Maldon with her, instead of standing guard outside to ward off Dashford."Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose, as our countrymen say, monsieur. Perhaps
Mademoiselle Foster knows as much as la Comtesse—myself. I shouldn't take any foolish chances if I were you." “But I do not think Mam'selle Foster can know so much. She was not the chatterbox, our sly Renée. Nor would her word carry the weight with milord Castlereagh and company that the word of la Comtesse would.En effet, mam'selle, plus ça change, plus ça change. Tu comprends?" “Give me the letter!” she said, desperately. “Give me the kiss,” he answered, and bolted forward to snatch her into his arms. She had time to emit one frightened squeal before he clamped a hand over her lips. The shout, though faint, was heard by Maldon, who stood close outside the curtained door, already worried at the length of time the business was taking. Dashford, too, was pacing nervously ten yards away, and when he saw Maldon's precipitous entry into the private parlor, he was hard at his heels. LaRue was already stretched out on the floor when he arrived on the scene, with Maldon leaning over him, going through his jacket pockets, while la Comtesse stood with her mask off and tears in her eyes. “Dashford!” she said, in tones of warning, and Maldon jumped up empty-handed, silently cursing this beau who was botching their plan. “What's going on?” Dashford asked. “This fellow was molesting Renée,” Maldon said, shooting a speaking look at la Comtesse. “I was just checking to see he doesn't have a gun." “Yes!” Renee joined in hastily. “I—I just stepped in here to catch my breath, seeing it was empty." “You said she went to the ladies’ dressing room,” Dashford said to Maldon. “I was going to, but this was so much closer, and it was empty. Then this man came in." “Who is it?” Dashford asked. He leaned over and pulled off the unconscious man's mask. “It's LaRue,” he said. “Isthat who it is?” Renée asked in apparent surprise. “I might have known. He has pestered me before. You remember, Dashford, at the play.” Glancing up, Dashford saw with no mistake the secret, conspiratorial look the two exchanged. His mind working furiously, he thought that if he could get Renée alone, he might get the truth out of her. “Come, I'll take you home,” he said. “No!” she answered quickly. “No, Maldon will take me home. He brought us, Lewis—Lady Castlereagh and myself—and she will think it odd if he doesn't take us home." “Do you not mean to tell her what happened?" “There is no need for her to know. It will only disturb her." “Maybe it's time she was disturbed,” Dashford said. “I'll stay with LaRue till he comes round then,” he offered, and watched in amusement as this plan too was talked away. “We'd better stay, too,” Maldon offered. “I'm the one hit him, and if I've killed him, I'd better find it out before I go. I'll tell you what, Dashford, why don't you take Renée along to Lady Castlereagh, and she'll take her home. Tell them not to wait for me."
“Very well. Come along, Renée." “Oh, but I—I think Mr. LaRue is coming around now." “You and Dashford go on ahead!” Maldon said, in the tone of a command. Their urgency to be rid of him, to get him out of the parlor, did not escape Dashford's notice, and he wanted very much to stay to hear what LaRue had to say. “Let's see if LaRue's all right first,” he answered. LaRue groaned, and Maldon was instantly at his side, making a barrier with his back between the prostrate man and Dashford. “Lewis!” Renée said in a dying voice, “I think I'm going to faint.” She took a reeling step towards him and he caught her in his arms as she toppled forward. His next minutes were occupied in getting her to a chair, fanning her with her ostrich fan, and trying to discover whether she were actually feeling weak at all, or only playing her part in the charade. “Where is it?” Maldon asked in a low voice of LaRue, who was now conscious. “Not here,” LaRue cautioned, looking towards Dashford. “Tabard Inn—tonight. One o'clock." Maldon became aware that between his ministrations to Renée, Dashford was glancing towards them with lively curiosity. “He's coming around all right,” Maldon said, arising from LaRue's side. “Let's go." “You and Renée go on. I'll stay a minute,” Dashford suggested. “Come with me, Lewis, please,” Renée said, rapidly regaining consciousness and holding out her arms in a beseeching gesture, her eyes sorrowful. He was not deceived for a moment into believing she wanted his company. She wanted to keep him away from LaRue, but if he insisted on staying, it would be clear to them he suspected some chicanery. He'd get back to LaRue, but for the moment he was forced to give Renée his arm, while Maldon took her other, and the three of them returned to Lady Castlereagh and the Annesleys, to pretend nothing was the matter. “Better put your mask back on,” Maldon cautioned, and she did it. “How are you enjoying the masquerade, Comtesse?” Lady Annesley asked. “Very much,” Renée smiled, and was soon engaged in some bantering flirtation with the son. After what she had just been through, the performance was difficult to credit, but it was executed faultlessly, Dashford saw; and he could only marvel at her histrionic abilities. The woman was a consummate actress. Chapter Five Dashford kept a sharp eye on the red curtains, as did the duke. When LaRue emerged, Dashford took a step forward, and Maldon grabbed his arm. “Let him go,” he said. “He's had his lesson. He won't try this again. Lady Castlereagh wouldn't want any scandal, you know. He's been bothering la Comtesse a good deal lately. It had to come to a head, sooner or later. As well it happened here, where we managed to keep it quiet." Lewis pretended to accept the explanation. He could hardly do otherwise, but he formed the resolution
that he would call on Mr. LaRue at Alvanley very soon. It was rapidly approaching midnight, and as it had been established beforehand that the Castlereagh party would leave before the unmasking, they did not have to make any change of plans, or proffer awkward apologies to the Annesleys. They left, and did not invite Dashford to accompany them, which seemed singularly pointed after his involvement with them the whole evening. This time, he didn't think it was entirely Lady Castlereagh's doing, either. Renée, after flirting with him throughout the evening, was brusque to the point of giving offense in her leave-taking. “Thank you, milord. A most enjoyable evening,” she said, with a sweeping curtsy. “The pleasure was entirely my own, Comtesse,” he replied politely, reverting to titles, as the lady had done. Then they left, and he remained standing behind with the Annesleys. “Shabby treatment, Dashford,” Lady Annesley said. “Rag-mannered, I call it." “It must be the company she has been keeping,” he said with a sneer, and strolled off. “Does he mean the Castlereaghs?” Lady Annesley asked her husband. “No, Mama, he means us,” her son replied. “I'm sure he means the Castlereaghs. Dashford was never uncivil before." “He was never jilted before,” the son answered, and seemed well pleased with the circumstance. Dashford was in a mood to be rude to an archbishop at the moment. He had been conned into believing Renée felt some attraction for him early in the evening, but after her virtuoso performance, no acting job could be considered to be beyond her. She had been using him, and the reason why was now clear. Maldon's bride must not become aware of the carrying-on between them. This brought to the surface of his mind something that was not deeply submerged at any time—that it was Friday, and very late Friday was the time set aside for meeting Maldon in various inns. Where, he wondered, were they to go tonight? Hopley, no doubt, could inform him tomorrow; but he felt he must know that night, and decided to follow them, to see for himself the pleased smile with which la Comtesse departed from the inn. The streets were well traveled at the hour when parties were beginning to break up, and he did not think his dark carriage was observed as it followed the Castlereagh coach through the city. Lady Castlereagh alone dismounted and entered the mansion. So the grande dame was in on it, he thought. They even used her carriage for their visits to the love nest. Why didn't they just fit Maldon up with a room at the house and have done with it? It was necessary to fall a greater distance behind their carriage as he followed them along the Strand, past Blackfriars’ Bridge, and on to London Bridge. The Tabard Inn again tonight. They were becoming careless, or had found a compliant innkeeper and had set up permanent quarters. He did not actually see them leave the carriage; it wasn't possible to keep that closely behind them, but he drove into the stable yard, and saw the Castlereagh coach there, then turned around at once and drove out again, in case the grooms should recognize him. Keeping his horses standing in the road for two hours did not appeal to him, and he drove a mile north to stop at another small inn, but the pointlessness of his vigil was soon borne in on him, and he drove back to the city at a fast pace. It was during this time that the folly of his night's work occurred to him. If la Comtesse was having an affair with Maldon, it was no business of Hopley or anyone else. He was a solid Englishman whose friendship could in no way endanger the country. He held no government post except Lord of the Pantry, and if those two were jauntering around to inns it was for their own enjoyment only. He could tell her nothing she couldn't read in the papers for herself. No secret documents were passing through Maldon's hands, and this was what he was supposed to be investigating. This temporary lapse on his part was not hard to explain. He had been led by infatuation with her considerable charms into forgetting his mission—had been
petticoated, as Hopley warned him he might be—and it wouldn't happen again. What he should have done was go and seek out LaRue immediately he left the Pantheon; and it was inexcusable that he hadn't done so. If there had occurred anything of significance the whole night long, it was the imbroglio with LaRue, and their enthusiasm to keep him away from the Frenchman should have been enough in itself to send him hot on his tail. If la Comtesse was using him as a courier to send messages to France, her anger with him at speaking to her in public was easy to understand. But if that were the case, why should she raise a hue and cry at his following her into the parlor at the masquerade? That was unexplainable. Possibly they were telling the truth on that one point, and LaRue was only a foolish man who had become enamored of la Comtesse, and taken the opportunity of being alone with her when he saw her go behind the red curtains. It was easy enough to credit. Brownlee forced his unwanted attentions on her, and God knew who else. Still, he'd call on LaRue before going home, and mention his name to Hopley, too. He stopped at Alvanley and talked his way past the French butler with a tale of urgency and a guinea, but was soon convinced that LaRue had not come home after the masquerade. His eyes took in the newly acquired opulence of the apartments. Good furniture, expensive—and a year ago LaRue had been punting on tick, living in a furnished flat! He had come into some money lately. Spying paid well for a professional. But Hopley already knew about the fancy flat. He took his leave without giving his name and went home tired, disgruntled, and frustrated. **** While Dashford followed his unfruitful course, la Comtesse and the duke of Maldon received the letter from LaRue at the Tabard Inn and heard information that sent them out the door with no pleased smiles on either faces. “What are we to do?” Renée asked in a worried voice. “He suspects. And where am I to get five hundred pounds to keep him quiet?" “I don't think you ought to give him a penny. He ain't to be trusted." “I daren't take the risk of refusing." “Well if you must, Castlereagh will drum it up. This is official business." “I won't ask him for it. I'll pawn my diamonds first." “No need for that. It will be remarked if you don't wear them." “The season is nearly over. It is May the twenty-eighth, only a week." “Officially it's over June fourth; but people linger on, and I expect you mean to do so." “Of course, but I needn't go about so much. It is well known I am here. I have been parading myself in the public eye three times a day for a month. Do you think we can trust LaRue to keep his suspicions to himself?" “He's turned his coat a dozen times, and would be glad to turn his skin if it weren't attached to his back. If you come down heavy he might keep mum. Your best hope is that there's no need for his services if they thought you weren't la Comtesse de la Tour. It depends on which way there's more blunt in it for him—bleeding you, or selling the truth to them. Renée, I'm worried about Dashford. I think we ought to tell him." “Impossible! Castlereagh wouldn't hear of it—him, of all people."
“We don't have to tell Castlereagh. He's as suspicious as a cuckolded husband, and as mad as a wet hen. He's very influential, Renée, and would break his back to help you if he knew the truth. It's plain as a pikestaff he loves you. Lord, so jealous of me I was afraid he meant to land me a facer and I told him about Mary, too. Don't think he believed me, though." “You shouldn't have told him anything." “Well, Mary knows; I don't see why you can't tell Dashford." “Do you want to have done with trailing around at my heels, John? Is that it? Castlereagh will get me someone else if you've had enough. I don't blame you in the least if that's it." “Well that ain't it! I like doing it; it's exciting, and sets me above the common herd, too. The thing is, Dashford is suspicious, and if he ain't told the truth, there's no saying what he'll take into his head to do. He won't just sit still and do nothing—that I promise you." “I can handle Dashford." “Don't count on it." “I can't tell him! I promised the Castlereaghs. They've put themselves in a deuce of a predicament for me. It would be too low a trick to play them." “Well, you'll have to lull his fears to rest, Renée. Enact him a fine melodrama, let him hold your hand and comfort you, and cry on his shoulder about how LaRue has been ogling you." “I doubt the Countess will let him see me." “She must. If he takes to investigating LaRue—or you—the jig's up. The Whigs would love to get their fangs into this story." “At least Michael is safe. The letter is authentic ... I glanced at it while you spoke to LaRue. We must play for time. I'll pawn my diamonds and pay him, and hope Michael is out of there soon, before he asks for more." “Another thing. Dashford is rich as Croesus. He'd stand buff and you wouldn't have to sell your necklace. I'd be glad to forward you the money myself far as that goes." “Oh John, how kind you are. But at least I don't have to take your money." “It's here if you need it." “Oh, if you weren't going to marry Mary Ogilvy, Dashford would have good cause to be jealous of you.” She smiled at him fondly. “So he would, by Jove. I'd give him a run for his money,” he agreed, and moved an inch farther away from her in the darkness of the carriage. **** On Saturday morning, Lord Dashford was intrigued to receive a charming note from Renée, signed with her name, not title, asking him to call that afternoon. Now what is the little bitch up to? he wondered to himself, and went to call on Hopley before answering the summons. He relayed his findings of the previous evening and mentioned his suspicions regarding her having a child held to ransom in France, but Hopley squashed the idea.
“There was no record of such a thing. Le Comte de la Tour died without issue. The title has gone to a nephew. Good God!” he shouted suddenly, and smote his brow with his hand. “Is it possible Napoleon sired a son by her? You can imagine their eagerness to find him if that is the case!" Dashford sat stunned, feeling acutely unwell as this idea penetrated his mind. “He has a legal son by Marie Louise,” he pointed out. “He would take precedence over a bastard." “Oh precedence, bah! He'd give his eyeteeth to have another, in case anything happens to the one. Let's see now, he went to Elba in November—she broke with him in October. This is the end of May. No, not time enough. She's been here a month, as thin as an elf." It was with relief that Dashford computed the months for himself, and found the bizarre idea to be impossible. “Unless it was a premature birth,” Hopley went on, disliking to give up the fantastical idea he had stumbled on. Dashford's blighting eye recalled him to reality. “If it's a child, at all—no saying it is—neither the husband nor the Emperor is necessarily its father. Could be some other fellow she bedded down with. Might be anyone, and I don't suppose the father would make much difference to her. A woman always seems to feel concern for her brats, whoever sired them. Even bad women. I wonder if you haven't hit on something, Dashford. The child would have been left with some country woman, a wet nurse. She wouldn't want to be flaunting it in the Emperor's face. She might have taken her own chance to escape, then got to feeling guilty after she got here, and be trying to get her baby back." The feeling of nausea returned to bother Dashford at this cavalier discussion of Renée's motherhood, but he realized only too well after last night at the Tabard Inn that it could be true. “Anything on LaRue?” he asked in a hard voice. “The man following him hasn't reported today, which leads me to hope the Frenchie has gone on a little trip—to Dover perhaps. And no word from the gentleman in County Down, either. Hasn't been time for him though, and I hope he finds something. We'll keep in touch.Bonne chance, Dashford." “I was at LaRue's last night late. He wasn't home." “Oh yes, you'd have gone there right after leaving the Pantheon, of course,” Hopley replied, and Dashford kept his tongue between his teeth, ashamed to admit his lapse. Hopley would know about the Tabard Inn incident, so he felt free to conceal his own knowledge of it. “Glad to see la Comtesse hasn't got your head screwed on crooked yet,” Hopley laughed, and Dashford smiled a false smile in agreement. Going directly from Hopley to la Comtesse, the duplicity of his position was forcefully borne in on Dashford, but it bothered his conscience not a whit. He was glad to know that if Renée thought she was winding him around her thumb, he was doing a little winding of his own. He'd keep his wits about him today. But when she was called down to the Blue Saloon, he felt again those misgivings, so impossible to root out, at her youth and innocence. So young, so fair. So deceitful, he forced himself to add, as he bent over her hand and expressed every concern for her lacerated feelings after her harrowing night. “It was of all things the most foolish I could have done, after your warning regarding the private parlors,” she confessed humbly. “I don't know what you must think of my lack of wits—so scatterbrained of me! But a couple had just come out, and I saw through the door the room was vacant, and wanted only to sit and rest a moment before having the last dance. I never dreamed that dreadful Monsieur LaRue was watching me. In mask and domino, you know, there was no recognizing anyone. He has tried to make advances to me before now. I should have taken your advice and complained of him to Lady
Castlereagh—only it was Mr. Brownlee we spoke of in that regard, I believe." “It was unfortunate in the extreme, but understandable enough how it came about,” Dashford allowed. “Of more importance is your feelings, your health. You suffer no ill effects, I trust. I must say, you look as beautiful as ever." “A little shaken,” she said, and took a seat on the blue velvet settee, with an invitation in her smile for him to join her. “I am thankful for one thing,” he said. “It was a Frenchman who attacked you, and not amaudit anglais." “I am sure an Englishman, who never even tells a lady a little white lie, would never do such a thing,” she replied archly. “Unless his name were Brownlee,” Dashford replied. “But you have only half the statement I made, Comtesse. I said English ladies and gentlemen do not lie to each other." “Why, Lewis, you are forgetting to consolidate our little gain. You called me Comtesse." Her playful manner invited dalliance, and the invitation was accepted eagerly. He reached out and took her hand in his. She made no effort to withdraw it, and he raised it to his lips. “I think the rumors about you are true, Renée. You areméchante. You called me ‘milord’ last night as you were leaving, causing me to lose a whole night's sleep in repining at my fall from favor, and I think you did it on purpose to vex me." “No, how can you think so poorly of me? Only in front of the countess, Lewis.Entre nous, we are still fast friends. Good enough friends, I hope, for me to ask a small favor from you." But the countess presumably knew he was here, alone with her charge. And why the devilwas he? “You disappoint me that you make it only a small favor. I am entirely at your disposal." “Will you take me to Hamlet's this afternoon?" "Hamletis not playing, but I shall speak to Kean personally if madame desires to see it." “Oh, no,” she laughed. “Hamlet the jeweler. I have got a stone come loose in my necklace, and wish to get it repaired for the ball tomorrow night." “It is too small a favor—a favor to be asked of a foot-boy. Let me bring you the moon—or Napoleon's head—on a platter." “I shouldn't know what to do with the moon, and I am no Salome, to want my enemy so butchered. But I would like to get my necklace fixed." “If you won't allow me to be a hero or protector, then I graciously accept your offer to be your lackey. But there is no necessity for you to come with me. It will give me an excellent excuse to come back and see you again." “If we go together, we may be together for an hour. You aren't using your head, Lewis." “I lost my head several nights ago. You must use it for me, for it is in your keeping." Renée looked at him suspiciously. The tone was forced. There was none of the light, natural foolishness of the evening before. The compliments were labored, and there was no ‘Renée’ to accompany any
comment. “I'll get my wrap then,” she said, and left him alone. Her beaded reticule sat on the settee where she had left it, and with a glance at the door to ensure privacy, he picked it up and opened it. The diamonds he saw were already there, wrapped in silver paper, but of more interest was a snub-nosed silver pistol with mother-of-pearl mountings on the handle. How careless of her to have left this incriminating evidence for him to discover! Really, as an intriguer la Comtesse had a good deal to learn. He rifled through the usual feminine jumble of handkerchief, comb, small change, and a rabbit's foot on a chain—a good luck charm that he found oddly touching. He had no sooner snapped the reticule shut and shoved it aside than Renée was back with her wrap, which she handed to him to help her put on. He held it from behind, and as he put it across her shoulders, he folded his arms around her, drawing her close against him, but in a backwards position. He leaned his head forwards over her shoulder and placed a kiss on the corner of her chin. “One small favor deserves another, Comtesse,” he said in a caressing tone. He heard a little gasp of surprise, and felt her give a jerk, but when she turned her head she was smiling saucily. “Next time I shall ask a larger favor, that your reward may not be so small,” she replied. Comtesse! He kisses me, but calls me Comtesse! And those eyes, as cold as ice. “The world would be yours if it were mine to give. I hope the next time is not far away,” he said, and offered his arm. “Should you not tell the countess where you are going?" “She knows." “And approves?" “Not entirely, but I have something to say in the matter. I am not seven years old, after all." She asked him to wait in the curricle while she went in to Hamlet's shop, and it seemed a long time that he walked his horses up and down in front of the small shop. It was more than a quarter of an hour before she emerged. “Did you get the stone tightened?” he asked, offering his hand to help her mount into the carriage, and holding it a little longer than was necessary. “Yes, I'm sorry it took such an age. Hamlet was busy, and I had to wait." “I should have thought any of his men could tighten a stone in a necklace." “No doubt they could, but it is a valuable piece of jewelry, and I didn't wish to have anyone but the master himself attend to it." And even so, I shouldn't have thought Hamlet would keep la Comtesse de la Tour waiting, he thought, and said nothing. “Shall we go for a drive? It's early yet, and I was more or less promised an hour of your time. I discount the quarter of an hour you gave to Mr. Hamlet, you see. I make it forty-five minutes you owe me." “There's a little parlor on Bond Street that serves the most delicious ices,” she suggested. “I know the place well. I often take my niece and nephew there." “It will be full of nannies and children. May we go?"
“Your tastes are catholic. Certainly we may go, but it will require a reward." “I consider it still asmall favor,” she replied. “You mentioned only the children and nannies. There will also be a roomful of dandies and bucks to ogle you, and perhaps draw me into a brawl to protect your honor. We shall see how small a favor it turns out to be." “Oh dear, you frighten me, Lewis. I'm not sure I want an ice that badly." “Of course you do. I am hoping for a duel myself. That, you must agree, would merit a larger reward than a peck on the cheek." “I wish you wouldn't talk like that,” she said suddenly, with a frown. “Oh, I know you are joking. I know that." “If it displeases you, I shall stop." “No, don't stopjoking. I like to hear you in a good humor, but don't joke about that." Only a very good actress could pull such an earnest expression from nowhere. Only a divinely beautiful one could make him feel like a wretch for an innocent, bantering flirtation; but that was how Dashford felt, and he stopped trying to flirt with her. They went to the ice cream parlor, which was full of children and nannies, and Cits’ daughters and dandies, and had a pleasant half hour, during which Renée consumed two ices and Dashford three. She seemed amused and pleased at the simple entertainment, and again his doubts came to plague him, till he remembered the night before, and the Tabard Inn. As if to firm his resolve to distrust her, Maldon was strolling down Bond Street, and called their carriage to his side. While Renée leaned over to talk to him, Dashford noticed the clasp on her reticule had come unfastened and glanced inside. The gun was still there, but the silver paper that had held the diamonds was gone. In its place there was a thick wad of bills. She had taken the diamonds to be sold, not repaired. Why should la Comtesse suddenly require a large sum of money? LaRue's ferret face came into mind, and the suddenly lavish apartment he had set up. When Maldon walked on, he said, “Your bag is open. You'd better see if your diamonds are safe." She peered into the bag and patted it. “They're here,” she said calmly. “You're lucky. And very careless, Com—Renée." “I'm not so lucky,” she answered enigmatically, and fell silent till they reached the door. “Do you go out tonight, or are you still too shaken?” he asked, as she was about to enter. “We go to the opera. An Italian tenor I understand is the star of the show.” Her tone was one of resignation. “Why do you go? Why don't you stay home and rest?" “Lady Castlereagh has arranged a small party." “And an escort, I suppose?" “Yes, the duke goes with us." “Maldon again! And you expect me not to be jealous of him?” He hardly knew whether the speech was
real or acting. “Oh but it is not considered afavor on his part, Lewis. There is no reward attached to it." No, not on a Saturday! The reward was given a night in advance. “I suppose I shall go and listen to the abominable Italian tenor as well, then. I shall be in your box at intermission, if you don't object?" “Yes, come at the second intermission,” she said. “The first will already be too long to wait.” “The second is a longer intermission, and when I usually go to take some refreshment,” she pointed out with a smile promising great things of the intermission. “We might make up a party afterwards and go somewhere for dinner." “I look forward to the second intermission,” he said with a bow, and they parted. Chapter Six As confused as Dashford was in his mind about la Comtesse, she was more perturbed by his seeming two-facedness. He could be a handsome, dashing, infinitely amusing friend and companion; and he could be a cold-eyed, smooth-tongued seducer like the others, promising her the moon on a platter. About the only difference was that she did not deplore his advances. She even, she admitted frankly, enjoyed them, or would if she thought they were not an act. Impossible to be pleased when he kissed her cheek and called her Comtesse in that civil tone. If he tried to kiss her when his eyes were smiling and he was calling her Renée, he would not meet with a great deal of difficulty. But the worst of it was that it was Lord Dashford who kissed her, and Lewis whom she loved. She shook her tousled red head, as if to shake this worry from her mind. She had more pressing problems than a difficult lover. As she sat before the mirror in her room, Lady Castlereagh came in and sat on the edge of the bed. They hadn't met since la Comtesse's return from the jeweler, and the chaperone said, “Did you succeed in calming Dashford's suspicions, my dear?" “I don't know,” she answered truthfully. “I think I did. He is to come to our box tonight." “Not at the first intermission, I hope!" “No, I put him off till the second." “You and Maldon have a little business to transact. It would look very odd indeed to Dashford should he see you meeting with LaRue after last night. I don't see why Maldon can't do it tonight. There is no letter. LaRue insists you go in person to get the letters, but for this Maldon would do, and if Dashford comes popping in early I shall give John the nod to go on alone. I think you have made a conquest with Dashford, Renée. Maldon tells me he is jealous as a green cow, and it isn't like him to pursue a lady when she doesn't give him her full attention." “I suppose he has had the full attention of many ladies over the years. How long has he been on the town? What age is he?" “Thirty-one or two, but he has been a serious politician for years, and associates with older men. He was never one of the Corinthians, to fritter away his time in sports and flirtations. Oh, that is not to say he shuns the ladies. No such a thing! But they are not his first concern—only a pastime. I don't remember
his ever deserting the House the way he has been doing since dangling after you. I come to believe he is serious." “His reputation is good, then?" “He's no angel, but he wouldn't press himself on a lady if she resisted him. Certainly not an innocent young girl." “La Comtesse is not that." “No, indeed not! I have a piece of news that may cheer you. I have been talking to Robert. He says the government will reimburse you for the diamonds, by the way." “I don't care about the diamonds!" “That was not the news, you impetuous child. The news is that as LaRue has turned suspicious on us, plans will be rushed ahead to get Michael out of France. They have discovered where he is kept, and it is not in the Conciergerie, as we feared. It is nearly impossible to get out of there, you must know. The Admiralty spies have discovered a deal of action going on at Rochefort, a little coastal place; and it has come to light there is a red-haired Irishman incarcerated there. It must be Michael. He is not so heavily guarded as we feared. I suppose Michael, for all his importance to us, is not much to them. They have bigger fish to worry about. Robert doesn't trust LaRue not to tell, despite taking your money, and I dare say he's right. He is very clever, my Robert." “And you are both very kind." “Poor dear! It will soon be over. You must come to Cray's Foot with us for a holiday after this. It is in Kent, a nice quiet place." “I expect Michael will want to go home." “Yes, there is that. It might be best to get right out of England altogether for a while and let the talk die down." “The talk—scandal I know there will inevitably be—would it bother a man like Dashford?" “He is a political animal, ambitious. He wouldn't like it. But there is that streak in him—loyalty, or independence, call it what you will. He has risked his party's displeasure in the past by voting against them when he believed them to be wrong. That is considered a serious thing by the members—quite dangerous to his career. But he did it, and wasn't cast out. If he has decided to have you, he won't be put off by a whiff of scandal, I think. Lord knows the Whig party is buried in scandal, as far as that goes. The Oxfords a byword, with her divorced and no one who matters going next or nigh her—and old Devonshire marrying that woman, his wife's companion. Has it actually come to the point of his mentioning it—marriage?" “Oh, no! I am only daydreaming." “Good. That's what a young girl should be doing. Wear something pretty tonight. Something very décolleté and daring. That will make him sit up and take notice." “I had thought to wear the white chiffon, but it needs the diamonds." “Wear mine. What's the difference? They all look pretty much alike. I'll wear my pearls."
When the Castlereagh party entered their box at the opera, la Comtesse was stunning in a white gown that showed off her impertinent shoulders, a set of diamonds larger than those she usually wore, and a laughing smile. She waved across the auditorium at a dozen admirers, and was in high spirits. Dashford had come with his sister and her husband, a dull barrister who was there under duress, wishing he were at home. He snored throughout the performance. Lewis was the recipient of one of Renée's waves; and his sister, Lady Beatrice, immediately turned to him. “Don't tell me you are acquainted with that French hussy everyone is gossiping about, Loo!” she asked, amazed. “Of course I am. You forget I am still a foot-loose bachelor, whose duty is to be acquainted with all the dashers." “I thought her being under Castlereagh's protection must keep you safe from her. I hear she is deep into an affair with Maldon, and carrying onà suivie flirtation with a dozen others. Why, I even heard she has stolen Lady Castlereagh's favorite flirt, Mr. Brownlee, from her. There's gratitude for you, biting the hand that feeds you." “I think it is more likely to be Brownlee's hand she bites. It is the style to believe only nine-tenths of the rumors regarding la Comtesse de la Tour." “Well, I know I am not stylish, but if one-tenth of the stories one hears are true, I cannot like to think of your knowing her." “Don't think of it then,” he replied brusquely. “I can't think of anything else,” Beatrice confessed, training her glasses on la Comtesse. “How very low she wears her gowns, when she bothers to wear any. She is posing completely déshabillée for Canova, you know." “I know she is not!" “Really? Well I had it of Lady Sefton, and she must know, Loo." “She knows nothing about it." “And you do. I see it all now. You are become one of her confidants. Tell me at once what she is really like." “She's young and innocent and sad. Or seems so to me, at least." “Yes, if that laughing eye doesn't denote utter despondency, I'm sure I don't know what does,” Beatrice rejoined, looking across the hall again. “She's twenty-eight, guilty of at least one affair outside her marriage—probably a dozen—and if she's so heartbroken, why does she run to every rout and ball in town?" “You asked for my opinion. I gave it. I am not a confidant." “Yes, but how does she behave? Does she flirt with you? Do you make love to her?" “Yes and no, respectively. She flirts in public, and is a nun in private. With me, at least." “Well, if she don't letyou make love to her, I can't believe she lets that poor chinless Maldon. Can you imagine kissing a man with no chin? One would slide right off his face."
“You amaze me, Beatrice. I had no idea your imagination was so active.” He spared a glance for his sister's husband's chin, and smiled to himself. “She's looking at us now,” Beatrice warned, and put down her glasses. The music was bad, and it seemed a long time till the first intermission. Across the hall, Dashford saw Maldon and la Comtesse arise to go out for a walk. “I see Harry is still dozing,” Beatrice said to her brother. “It seems a shame to disturb him. Shall we leave him in peace, Loo, and go on out by ourselves?" “Yes, let's go,” he said, walking at a quick pace to the hall, to scan it up and down for a redhead in a white gown. “There she is,” Beatrice said, pointing Renée out before he spotted her. “Who's with her? Oh, Maldon of course. Let's follow them. There, they are going around that corner to get away from everyone." “There is no one else going that way. It is too obvious. We'll wait till they come back. Would you like to meet her?" “Oh, dear! I look a fright." “Bea, you ninny! If you're well enough groomed to show your face to the whole hall, you're well enough to meet one little—French countess." “Oh, but she's so stylish and elegant. She'll think me a quiz." “So you are, Dowdy, but I have already warned her and she isn't expecting a fashion plate." Lady Jersey, eager to discover what on dits were circulating in the corridor, rushed up to Dashford. “Dear Lady Beatrice, what a delightful surprise to see you in public again. I hear that naughty Sir Harold keeps you chained to the furniture. Too gothic of him, my dear. Are youenceinte again?" “No, not at the moment,” Beatrice replied, astonished at such plain speaking. “Five, isn't it, you have in the nursery now?" “Three!" “And you, Dashford.” Lady Jersey turned to her other victim without bothering to listen for an answer. “I see our comtesse has reverted to herold man this evening. It will be another new one before the evening is out, I daresay. Fickle as the wind. One cannot but wonder what she sees in that scarecrow of a Maldon that she favors him so. Smitten by a passion for his fallen shoulders, no doubt, or by his dukedom. Do you think we will see her made a duchess before the season is out?" “She is the season's acknowledged queen. I cannot think she will wish to lower herself to a mere duchess." “No, lowering herself forms no part of her plans, you may be sure. But I am happy to seeyou are on to her, and have given her hercongé ." “Oh, Lewis likes her excessively,” Beatrice said, with native simplicity. Lady Jersey's eyes lit up, and she was off to spread the word that that baroque creature of a Lady Beatrice had let the cat out of the bag, and Dashford was turned off, brokenhearted, by la Comtesse.
“Thank you, love,” Lewis said to his sister. “I was very happy to set her straight,” Beatrice said graciously, with no notion that she had been anything but wise. They were joined by intimate friends of Lady Beatrice, who stood chatting with them till intermission was about over. Dashford glanced occasionally to the corner around which Renée and Maldon had disappeared, and saw out of the corner of his eye that they were hurrying back to reach their box before the second part of the performance. “We'd better go,” he said to his sister. “Oh, and I didn't get to meet la Comtesse,” Bea replied, glancing to the same corner. “Why, here they come now. Oh no, it's only some man alone." Looking back, Dashford saw LaRue saunter casually forth. His mind was busy during the second part of the music, and he didn't hear a note the Italian tenor sang, any more than the snoring Sir Harold did. La Comtesse had that day sold her diamonds and had a purseful of money. Then she had a secret meeting with LaRue, whom she claimed not to know, or want to know. If the Frenchman didn't have that wad of bills in his pocket at that very moment, Dashford would be greatly surprised. And LaRue had been away, Hopley said—perhaps to Dover, to the coast, from where a message might be sent to Calais. La Comtesse ferreting out secrets, sending them to France via LaRue! What else could it possibly be? Her position in Castlereagh's house put her in contact with all the influential men in the country. Why had she made a fuss about LaRue at the Pantheon? Was it possible she hadn't recognized him in his mask and taken him for a buck trying to molest her? And Maldon, the damned fool, in on the whole of it. Hopley must hear about this. So the mystery of la Comtesse's infatuation with the sloping shoulders and lack of chin might have a simple explanation, too. Payment in favors for his help. But why was his help necessary? And why choose Lady Castlereagh's cousin? To blackmail the Castlereaghs if she slipped up? For that matter, why encourage himself to trail around after her? Castlereagh might have thought of it to involve the Whigs if he were in on it, but it was impossible that Castlereagh knew what she was up to. His head throbbed with trying to figure it out. And he had to go to her box at the next intermission! He feared his acting abilities were not up to hers, and he'd reveal his disgust. Before the tenor stopped his caterwauling, Dashford's stomach was in knots. He looked over at la Comtesse, the cause of his misery, and she sat enraptured by the music she professed to abominate, whereas she had yawned her way through the beloved comedy. She couldn't even tell the truth about such a simple thing as a preference in the arts. A constitutional liar. The second intermission came at last. Harold was awake, but showed no desire whatsoever to meet the Talk of London. No, no, didn't think it became one in his position to be seen flirting with the fastest woman in the country. Not the thing, but let Dashford run along. Beatrice would stay behind and bear her husband company. With some reservations about being presented to theincognita, she agreed to stay behind and view the meeting through her glasses. She soon saw her brother bow over la Comtesse's fingers, saw the enchanting smile the lady bestowed on Lewis, and wondered at the strangeness of it all, that her little brother, whom she thought of as a boy still because he was five years her junior, should fly so high. "Ravissante,as usual,” Dashford said with a smile forced out of him at great cost. “I see you wear your diamonds a day early. You had them repaired for a ball tomorrow, I believe." “Yes, thanks to your kindness, I wear them without fear of losing a stone. It was this one that was loose,”
she replied, pointing out a large brilliant-cut stone at the front. “Who are the party you are with?" Liar! Inveterate liar, pulling silly, unnecessary lies out of thin air! “My sister—I mentioned Beatrice to you —and her husband, Sir Harold Walmsley,” he answered mechanically, trying to determine whether he had not seen those diamonds before. They were not the set she usually wore, but he was not sure they were large enough to be the famous Maldon necklace. “I should like to meet her,” Renée said promptly, and smiled and nodded towards Dashford's box. Beatrice nodded back, but Harold turned his head the other way. “Harold, don't be so gauche,” his wife chided him. “Nod to Loo's friend." He looked to the box and nodded, without a vestige of a smile. “Has it been arranged we go to dinner after the concert?” Dashford inquired, exerting himself to be attentive. “Yes, will your party join us?" Dashford knew very well Harold would have no part of such an outing, but accepted for himself, and possibly his sister. He asked la Comtesse to join him for a walk in the hall outside the boxes, and she agreed, quite eager to be alone with him. But there was never any being alone with la Comtesse when a throng of society was close by; and it was a repetition of the evening at the play. A half dozen friends stopped for a chat, amongst them Lady Bathurst, who looked quizzingly at Dashford. “Dare we hope la Comtesse is straightening out your ideas in politics?” she asked Dashford. “That is too much to hope, ma'am,” la Comtesse replied. “We have agreed to disagree on that one point, but have come to terms on the merit of the evening's performance." “There can be no question of Borsini's genius,” Lady Bathurst replied. “None whatsoever,” la Comtesse answered, with a tightening of her fingers on Dashford's arm to indicate to him their shared joke. And as they strolled on she said aside to him, “We are agreed, I think, that Borsini ought to be drawn and quartered as a menace to the ears of society." “I assumed madame would favor the guillotine,” he responded. “Oh no! Having escaped it myself, I would not wish it on my worst enemy—not even an Italian tenor." Before another two steps they were stopped again, and after three more exchanges of salutations, it was time to return to their boxes. Lady Beatrice was persuaded by her home-loving husband that two hours of having their ears tortured by that infernal screeching was enough pleasure for one evening, and they should return home without the enjoyment of an overly rich dinner at the Clarendon. “We'll have cook make us up a nice bowl of gruel,” he said with relish. Dashford shook his head in rueful silence and took his leave of them. Renée seemed genuinely disappointed that Dashford was alone and asked bluntly, “Is it me your sister does not wish to meet? Is that it?" “No, she is looking forward to meeting you. The laggard in the case is Harold. He's tired after his two hours’ nap and wants to get home to bed."
Dashford drove alone to the hotel, and met the other party there. He was sorry to see their small group augmented by Lady Bathurst's party of six, and when places were taken at the table, he was far enough away from la Comtesse that it was impossible to speak to her, or even see her, as they were at opposite ends of the same side. She would be returning in Maldon's carriage, and the evening appeared to be over, so far as discovering anything further mattered. He was hardly sorry. He didn't want to see her at that moment. Suddenly there was a commotion at the far end of the table, and la Comtesse jumped up with a shout. It was seen that she had upset a glass of wine down the front of her gown. Lady Castlereagh was sponging at it and assuring her it was nothing, but la Comtesse twice repeated her desire to go home. “But I don't wish to break up the party,” she added. “Perhaps someone"—she glanced in Dashford's direction—"will be kind enough to accompany me." “Maldon,” Lady Castlereagh said, turning to him. “Be very happy to,” he answered, putting down his serviette. “Allow me,” Dashford interposed, as he saw the looks Renée sent in his direction. “Oh, thank you, Dashford,” la Comtesse said. With a dozen apologies and farewells, they were off. Why had she done it? Why did she want to be alone with him? “Did you do that on purpose?” Lewis asked directly. “Good gracious no! This is my favorite gown, and I doubt it will be able to be worn again. Why should I do anything so foolish?" “I prefer the green one you wore the other evening. But I have revealed my vanity in thinking it was an eagerness for my company that led you to ruin your gown. I hadn't realized it was a favorite. Even my conceit doesn't reach such heights as that." “It would not have occurred to me to do anything half so clever. But if I had thought of it, I might have done it on purpose." “We must remember you have only a fraction of the cleverness Lady Jersey imputes to you." Renée looked at him in a wounded way at his ironic tone, and he schooled himself to play his role more carefully, at least till he had her in the carriage. He was by no means sure he could control himself after that. The abuse was choking him. “I am flattered you accepted my escort rather than Maldon's, in any case.” What a beautiful, public occasion on which to make known Maldon was not the reigning favorite. The carriage was brought to the door, and they entered. “Let us drive through the park,” Dashford suggested. “No one will see your gown, and Lady Castlereagh won't be home for an hour yet." “We won't be able to see anything in the dark,” she pointed out. “Really, Renée! I thought you were at least clever enough to see that advantage in the plan. No one will be able to see us, either." “I can't think this is at all a proper thing to do, Lewis." “It isn't. Will you come?" “All right,” she agreed, with hardly a moment's hesitation. “But you must behave.” She knew it was a fast
thing to do, but the evening had given them so little chance to be together that she hated to see it end so soon. “Certainly one must behave in one fashion or another." “I mean, of course, that you must behave well." Of course you do, hussy! Why else would you agree to drive through a deserted park at midnight, with a single gentleman who has already made improper advances to you? “Very few ladies complain of the manner in which I behave with them when we are alone,” he answered ambiguously. She mistrusted that ironic tone, and wished she could see what face he wore when he spoke. Her evening bag—a largish one, he had observed—sat between them; and with his hand he felt for it, to confirm that it held the pistol. Silently and unseen, he lifted it to his own far side, beyond her grasp, before possessing himself of her hand. She sat irresolute, trying to decide what to do. She had half expected some mild overture at love-making. Would, in fact, have been disappointed had he said or done nothing. She allowed him to hold her fingers for a moment, but when his other arm reached for her waist she pulled back, becoming rather frightened. “I cannot think your friends are overly nice in their notions, if they don't complain at such behavior as this,” she said in a breathless voice, drawing away. “I take care to choose my lady friends from amongst those who are not overly nice in their notions,” he replied reasonably. “Then I fear you have made a mistake in choosing me, milord." “Yes, I usually demand alittle discrimination without being overly nice; but the choosing in this case was not entirely my own." “What do you mean?" “I have not been discouraged, shall we say, in my efforts at befriending you. I think you find me useful." “Take me home. I don't want to go to the park. Take me home at once." “I can't get out. The carriage is moving." “Tap on the window. Tell your driver—" “He's stone-deaf. Frightened, Renée?" “Yes." “You have good reason to be,” he answered, and pulled her back into his arms. “It is time to repay me for the use you have made of me—you and Maldon,” he said grimly, and kissed her with a passionate intensity that was half hatred. He thought to encounter a token of resistance, but was surprised to feel clenched fists pummel his ears and neck, and to feel her writhe like a tiger in his arms. “Is this the French style of love-making? I don't like it half so well as their cuisine. I'll teach you English manners,” he said, and grabbed her jerking head, holding it steady with one hand. As he pulled her head towards him, she raised a hand and he felt the rasp of fingernails against his neck. “A cat's trick!” he said; and released his hold to grab her arms. A strangled sob escaped her. “Don't, please,” she said in a frightened voice. He was shocked at her obviously genuine fear, and dropped her arms. “What did you think I was going
to do?" She whimpered, and buried her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking. “Aren't we overacting just a trifle, Comtesse? When a widow accepts a drive alone at night in a gentleman's carriage—" “I didn't expect it ofyou!" she said angrily. “I thoughtyou were different. You're just like all the others." “You have known a considerable number of others by which to judge me. There was the Comte, and Napoleon, and Maldon. I expect I've missed a few, but you are discreet." “Don't add Maldon to my list.He is a gentleman!" “Was not the late Comte? And even the lately deposed Emperor, though he has been called a good many things, is surely not a commoner. And so wouldI be a gentleman, too, if I had half Maldon's advantages. What is the requirement for being invited to the Tabard Inn, Comtesse? It is vulgar trying to make love to a woman in a jostling carriage. I see it has wounded your sensitivities." “You've beenspying on me!” she squealed. “It is just as Lady Castlereagh said. Brougham has set you to spy on me." “No, no. Give credit where credit is due. It was completely my own idea. I was always intrigued by loose women. That aura of availability is rather attractive." “I am not available except by marriage." “Ah, well! I certainly hadn't thought tomarry a little French strumpet. Are you quite sure Maldon understands the terms of the visits to the Tabard Inn? One hears he has other plans, so far as marriage goes." “What else do you know about besides the Tabard Inn?” she asked in a hard voice, armoring herself against his vituperation to discover what she must know. “I've only tumbled to Maldon. As I am myself the wax dummy held up to fool the world, I didn't foolme. Are there others? Not the grubby octopus Brownlee, surely?" “If I were a man I'd run you through for that." “And if I hadn't taken the precaution of removing your bag, I gather you'd shoot me with that pretty little pistol you pack." She felt about the seat for her bag, and turned on him in wrath. “Is it nice being a spy, Lord Dashford? Don't tell me Brougham hasn't put you up to this! Do you enjoy making love to ladies while you rummage through their private possessions behind their backs?" “You should know, Comtesse. You have been at it longer than I." “You are the lowest creature I have ever encountered." “And that I should think is pretty low indeed. The scum de la scum." She raised an arm to strike him, and he caught it effortlessly between his fingers. “And I bet you were schooled in a convent, too. You're not home yet, Comtesse. You had better watch those French manners or I may have to teach you a lesson yet."
She wrenched her hand free and sat erect, breathing hard. “You may say what you please of French manners—they are not so low, so vulgar, so utterly animal and disgusting as English manners, where ladies are concerned. I have never been so mauled and tortured in my life as since I came here." “And yet you continue to flaunt yourself half dressed, and flirt with every low English animal you encounter. Is the reward worth the price? One must begin to wonder at some point." “Yes, it's worth it! You haven't discovered the reward yet, Lord Dashford. You are as poor a spy as you are a lover." “I seldom have the opportunity to work with such professionals in both lines as yourself." “You're not going to goad me into telling you anything to run to Brougham with, so don't think it. You would have done better to go on pretending you liked me." “I wasn't pretending." “Too late, milord. I am not clever, but I am not twice taken in by the same line." “Renée, tell me what's going on,” he said simply. His first spasm of anger was subsiding, and her remarks, her obvious fear of his advances, led him to believe that even if she were a spy, she was not a wanton; and this, it seemed, was of more importance to him. “Discover it for yourself, if you can." “I know you're in trouble. What is it? What have you done? It may not be too late—" “I have friends. I don't have to depend on the likes of you." “Are you sure your friends are to be trusted? What sort of friends are they who put you in this position? Who throw you at the mercy of any man who wants to take advantage of you? Tell me. I'm not without influence. If it's someone—someone you love—who is caught in France, it may be possible to get him out without whatever it is you're doing here." La Comtesse knew without benefit of seeing her companion's face that it was Lewis to whom she was speaking; and her heart softened a little, but not her resolve. “Don't meddle,” she said curtly. “How can you expect me not to, when I see you so troubled." “Troubled? It is you who are causing me the trouble. Leave me alone." “I'll try,” he said, and took her hand. He did no more, and she made no move to pull away. They drove in silence through Hyde Park, where they were not so alone as they had thought they would be. There were many dark, anonymous carriages tooling through the roads, and several more pulled into spaces between the hedges. The carriage rode through rather quickly, and was soon back on Piccadilly Road to take them home. “Is the gun really necessary?” Dashford asked, handing her the bag. “Yes, it is very necessary,” she said listlessly. At Castlereagh's house the carriage stopped, and Dashford descended. to see her to the door. “If I can be of help to you—toyou personally, and not your cause—let me know." “You can best help me and my cause by leaving me alone."
“I am not interested in helping Napoleon Bonaparte." “Neither am I. How can you think that of me? Do you think Castlereagh would lend himself to such a thing? It has nothing to do with that." “Does Castlereagh know what you're doing? Give me your assurance he does, and perhaps I can see that you're not bothered. If it is a personal affair—trying to help someone—" “Not bothered by Brougham? Don't be naif. There's nothing he'd like better than to discover Castlereagh is mixed up in this." “Won't you trust me, tell me what it is?” Impossible to believe this white-faced, frightened young girl was evil. “I can't tell you. Don't ask it. Goodnight, Lewis." “Goodbye, Renée. I wish we might have met under different circumstances. I wish I might unsay many foolish things, too." “It's all right. It's only what everyone thinks,” she said sadly; then the chin tilted up in defiance. “Much I care what they say." He watched her march up the steps with her head high and her back straight and a tear glittering in her eye, to give the acting away. The tear remained unshed as her woman prepared her for bed, brushing out the titian crown of curls and removing Lady Castlereagh's diamonds. She was as much perplexed by Dashford as ever, he had shown himself to be exactly what she feared he was and hoped he was not; and yet—he could have overpowered her in the carriage if he had wished to. Her going with him under such circumstances had led him to believe she was open to advances, but she could not help regretting his willingness to make the advances. At the end he had sounded sincere. But his spying on her could not be his own idea; it must have been Brougham's. He had had instructions to sweet-talk her, to find out what she was up to. How right Lady Castlereagh had been to warn her! He even knew about the Tabard Inn, and about the special someone in France. Did he know it was Michael? He had said “he.” A million unanswerable questions reeled in her brain. He knew about the pistol; and if he knew that, likely he knew, too, about the large sum of money she had carried out of Hamlet's yesterday. Her bag had been open on the seat beside him. That's when he had seen the gun. It wouldn't have taken him long to notice the diamonds weren't in her bag. What had he made of that? And to think, she had even pointed out to him the imaginary stone that had been tightened! She could not be too hard on him when she considered her own duplicity—and his knowledge of it, too. He took her for a spy, and spied on her in turn. She could not disparage a man for his patriotism, however unpleasant she found it to be the butt of his work. She stayed up till Lady Castlereagh came home, and dutifully told her those portions of the story she must know. That Dashford worked for Brougham, and how much he had discovered. She did not feel it necessary to tell of the attempted love-making. “How in the world did you worm it all out of him?” the chaperone asked. “He was jealous of Maldon,” she answered vaguely. “Mercy, he must have been awfully upset to tell you so much with so little provocation. I had some reservations to see him take you home, but it has turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Now we know
the worst, and must be very careful. Robert will be interested to hear Brougham is investigating. Unlike Dashford to let the cat out of the bag. He is usually an oyster." “Yes, he seemed very upset." “Poor fellow,” the countess laughed. “Hit by Cupid's arrow at last. And to think it must turn out so for him! But it's early days yet, Renée. We'll keep him at a distance till this business is over, and then— Well, Downscourt is close to Cray's Foot. That is Dashford's place, also in Kent. A very pretty place. How nice it would be to have you for a neighbor." With this unlikely thought to cheer her, la Comtesse crawled between the sheets in middling spirits. Chapter Seven It was Sunday, May twenty-ninth, a week till the King's birthday party that officially closed the season. George III was mad and his son, the Prince of Wales, reigning as the Regent; but Queen Charlotte continued to celebrate the occasion on a much diminished scale. By tradition, it had become the day that saw the closing of the shutters along the fashionable streets of the West End and the removal of the door knockers. But there was still one week to go, and many parties to be attended in this last mad flurry of socializing. On the morning following the opera, Dashford went to Hopley's home to report, as he was not in his office on a Sunday. He intended to terminate his involvement in the case. This job that he had undertaken so lightly and from which he had foreseen so much pleasure had turned into a nightmare, and he was anxious to be rid of it. He had never thought to find himself tied in Renée's toils. Impossible to even consider what he was strongly tempted to do—offer his name and protection to this French adulteress, ex-mistress of Napoleon and the scandal of London—though half, not one-tenth, of the rumors regarding her were untrue. He owed more to his noble family, to his party, and to himself than that. “I can be of no further use to you,” he said to Hopley, as they sat in a study that was almost a replica of his workday apartment. “I ampersona non grata at Castlereagh's." “After taking la Comtesse home alone last night via Hyde Park?” Hopley roasted him, his bright blue eyes twinkling. “I made sure you'd be running tame at Grosvenor Square by today. You must be slipping, Dashford." “So it seems, but I have a few more kernels for you." “Let's hear them." He imparted the information of the sold diamonds, the money presumably given to LaRue, and Maldon's being used by la Comtesse. “I figured LaRue was in on it somewhere after the Tabard Inn business,” Hopley said, nodding his head sagely. “What had he to do with that?” Dashford asked, looking up sharply. “He was there. They met him there night before last, and the feller who tails them says the same bloke was at Shoreditch. We weren't following LaRue at the time, and nothing was made of it, but it seems now as if all these out-of-the-way meetings had to do with him." “She gave him the information at these meetings, and paid him off last night for passing it along, you mean?” Dashford asked. It was an infamous thing to do; but she was, after all, a Frenchwoman, and that
made her conduct less heinous. He had spied for his country in the past, and could not condemn another for doing the same. And it put a much more acceptable interpretation on the trips to the inns with Maldon. “Where had LaRue been, did you discover? Was it Dover as we thought?" “No, he didn't go to Dover. He just vanished. Lying low in case of a visit from you, maybe—after the Pantheon fracas. No, as it turns out, he had nothing to do with getting the news to France, nor la Comtesse either, though she was obviously paying him for something." “What do you mean?” Dashford asked, his eyes burning with emotion. “Well, maybe she's up to a spot of spying too; but we caught the big fish—and it ain't her, and it ain't LaRue. You'll never guess who it is, Dashford." “What? You've found the leak at the Guards?" “The deluge is more like it. Morton—you know him?" “I can't say I recognize the name. Who is he?" “A damned little gray-haired clerk that's been in the King's service for forty years. Started out as an errand boy in 1775 and in that length of time has worked himself up to a clerk and copy boy, at three guineas a week. Nobody! That's who they've entrusted to make copies of important documents; and he's got a magnificent memory that seems to be able to record in his mind every word he sees or writes down. Amazing memory, really. Makes up another copy when he gets home, and sells it. Knows who all the agents are from hanging around at doors with his ears stretched, and has been selling stuff for years, I dare say. A pair named LeBlanc and Vachon were his contacts. They took turns, which confused us a bit." “How did you find out?" “He got careless in his old age, Morton did. Dropped a copy of a letter he'd written up at home the night before—word for word identical with the original. He was waiting to pass it along at his noon hour. A cheap little restaurant in Haymarket is where he met the courier. Where Morton always eats. The original was so hot our people had committed it to memory and had all copies destroyed. Luckily, it was old Paddington who picked up Morton's dropped copy. Sharp as a tack, Paddington, and due for a promotion after this. There was a great thundering brouhaha, with everyone blaming everyone else, and at last the story came out. Morton told the whole thing— half proud of himself, I believe. You know how people with some minor accomplishment are happy for a chance to show it off. Yes, been selling our secrets at bargain prices for years, and had the whole lot of money chucked away in a trunk under his bed. Didn't even have the sense to enjoy it, and he's going on seventy." “But what about la Comtesse?" “There's another story. I don't know yet what she's up to, but her hands are clean in this matter. Morton had never heard of her. I'll keep watching her all the same." “You mean she's not a spy at all?" “Lord only knows. If she is, she ain't the one I've been looking for. It was Morton, all right. But I don't for a minute think she's innocent. Just what she's guilty of, though, looks like something else entirely. LaRue isn't part of the regular spy network; I'm pretty sure of that. We took a look around his flat after he was spotted at the Tabard Inn, and found an interesting piece of paper. About those Fosters we
spoke of, in Ireland." “Yes, what about them?” Dashford asked eagerly. “It's like this. My man is back from Ireland, and it didn't make much sense to me till I heard from him. The sister, the Foster girl, is a redhead, it seems; and in LaRue's note it said— Well here. Take a look at it yourself. It's in French." Hopley handed him a small piece of paper and he translated, “'Re Foster. The body of a young red-haired lady has been unearthed in a shallow, unmarked grave between Paris and Meaux.’ That's all?” Dashford asked. “That's all. No envelope, nothing. And no money, I might add. If la Comtesse paid him off, he must have had the blunt on him." “ReFoster, it says. Odd it doesn't say ‘the Fosters'." “How's your French? They don't put ans on family names, do they?" “My French isn't quite that precise. And you think this young red-head is the Foster girl?" “It says ‘re Foster'. What else could it mean? And that ain't all. I told you my man had got back from Ireland. She never got back, the Foster girl, but shedid leave France. Checked the records, and it wasn't an easy job. She got out before Boney's boys got back into command." “I don't follow you. She can't be both out and buried in France." "Cherchez l'autre femme. La Rousse,"Hopley advised. “La Comtesse got out using the Foster girl's passport. She must have, and if she didn't knife her lover's sister in the back to get ahold of the passport, it's more than I bargain for." “Impossible!” Dashford said firmly. “Devil a bit of it. This note and LaRue's connection with la Comtesse points up the connection between them. She had the Foster fellow under her thumb, and what's got her in a pucker now is that he'll manage to get out and find her and kill her. LaRue knew all about it, and likely as not that's why she's hawking her diamonds—to keep him quiet." “Why should she go about so publicly? She'd take up some alias if that were the case. Dye her hair, hide out in the country." “Not that saucy piece! Can you see her in the country? It's the bright lights for her. She looks to Castlereagh to protect her. Or someone. Interesting that after selling her diamonds, she came up with another string to wear last night. She's got some rich lad showering her with gems. Maldon, likely as not. The Foster boy, I assume, knows nothing of his sister's death, or of la Comtesse's part in it, in any case. And it's this death—murder to call it by its right name—that's making LaRue a rich man." “You're fabricating a story out of thin air, Hopley. There's no saying the red-head in the grave is Miss Foster; and if she is, there's no saying Renée killed her. Anyone might have done it. In the state of chaos when Napoleon came back, God only knows how many innocent people were killed." “It's her, all right. Re Foster, LaRue's note says. And la Comtesse is paying off LaRue. It's blackmail, for sure. No doubt in my mind."
“You shouldn't have taken the note. He'll know you were there." “Thanks for the tip, but it's a copy, bucko. I've been at this business longer than you." “I don't believe it. Ican't believe Renée would do such a thing." “Try believing la Comtesse de la Tour would do it. Try believing Napoleon Bonaparte's mistress would do it. Try believing a whore that grabs diamonds out of nowhere would do it. She did it all right, and if Foster don't get her, I will. You've let thebeaux yeux fool you, Dashford. It's high time you were retired from the case." “She didn't do it. You push credulity too far to suggest cold-blooded murder. She may be involved. I don't say she's completely innocent. But she didn't stick a knife in anyone's back." “We don't know it was a knife. It might have been a bullet, or poison. Yes, I rather fancy poison would be la Comtesse's weapon. A nice Borgia-like touch to it." “She didn't murder anyone." “Well, got someone to do the job for her. It amounts to the same thing. She seems to have the knack of making men forget their moral scruples,” Hopley said pointedly. “So do you! You've led me to believe she's a spy, to harass and humiliate her and myself; but you won't make me believe she's a murderess. I'm not that lost to moral scruples, to think a young, frightened girl— " ''Going on twenty-nine." “I don't give a damn if she's going on ninety. She's too softhearted to tell Lady Castlereagh that damned jackass of a Brownlee is trying to seduce her; and I refuse to believe she murdered her lover's sister to save her own skin." “Brownlee, you say? No, Lady Castlereagh would send her packing if she tattled on him. Quite the favorite of the old lady." “You don't know a thing about her. You've had her a spy, Castlereagh's daughter and mistress, you've had her seducing the whole Tory party—all without a shred of evidence, and all wrong. But when you make her out a murderess, you go too far.” Dashford arose in a high temper and tugged at his cravat. “I see you've been wounded in battle,” Hopley commented, noticing the marks left by la Comtesse's fingernails. “Clawed by a cat, were you? You should wear the Oriental, or some higher style, till you're healed." “TheTrône d'Amour, perhaps, would be appropriate,” Dashford replied, and left—his mind in a whirl. That Renée was a spy and half a whore he had assimilated with difficulty, but that she was also a murderess was too much to swallow. Whatever the truth of the red-head in the grave, he could not believe it was that. She might have used the passport after the girl's death by some other means, but she could not have killed her in cold blood. Maybe LaRue was accusing her of it, and maybe she was paying him off to keep him quiet, though even that was mere conjecture. He must see her and discover the truth from her own lips. He went straight home and wrote a note requesting an interview, and received within the hour a polite refusal, saying she was indisposed. The only consolation in the note was that it was phrased in a manner to suggest indisposal, and signed with her name, not the formal title.
She recovered from her indisposition sufficiently to be at a small rout the next evening, but her white, pinched face gave evidence of its truth. Dashford accosted her in a moment when he found her alone. “I must talk to you,” he said. “Not yet,” was her answer, and before either could say more, Lady Castlereagh was upon them, pulling Renée away to meet a gentleman who was come all the way from Cornwall especially to meet her. The next day he sent another note, which was also answered with a refusal to see him. He went to three parties before he found her that night, and Lady Castlereagh was as watchful as an Argus, with all hundred eyes trained on himself. Renée nodded to him once silently and turned away, with such a tortured look in her eyes that he longed to offer her some comfort. There were dark smudges under her eyes, and in three days he thought she looked noticeably thinner. It was criminal to drag the poor girl about into society when it was so clear she was unwell. He called three times on LaRue, and was told he was out of town; so there was no learning anything from that quarter. In desperation, he even went to see Hopley, and was told in a Delphic way that the affair was being followed. It was from his sister, of all unlikely people, that he learned where la Comtesse was to be found the next afternoon. “You'll never guess, Loo. I am going to tea at Mrs. Simpson's this afternoon, and your friend, la Comtesse, is to be there." “At Lucy Simpson's?” he asked. Mrs. Simpson was an unfashionable friend of his sister. “Yes. How do you suppose she got to know la Comtesse? I shouldn't have thought they traveled in the same circles. Lucy is dowdier than I am. But she knows the Castlereaghs rather well, and that must account for it." “Does Lady Castlereagh go, too?" “No, Lucy says not. She is preparing for the remove to Cray's Foot, and la Comtesse is coming without her." “I'm going with you,” he said. “What, to Lucy Simpson's? You'll he bored to flinders. There won't be anyone there but old biddies." “There will be la Comtesse." “I didn't think it was a sudden desire formy company that nudged you out to an afternoon tea party. Don't flirt with her too hard. Lucy is such a stickler." “I'm not bent on flirtation." “Oh no? It's more serious than that with you two, is it? I don't think I'd like having a Frenchie for a sister-in-law, and neither would Harry." “There's no danger of it. And if it should come to pass, I will be sure to make you both profound apologies, in French and English." “Much good that will do." “I have accepted the biggest bore in the country for a brother-in-law without a whimper; and if you don't like Renée, you may both go to the devil." “I see,” said Lady Beatrice, rather inadequately, but her knowing eyes expressed volumes.
La Comtesse was at the Simpsons', and she was alone, having been dropped at the door by Lord Castlereagh himself. She arrived before Dashford and his sister, having been sent to distract her thoughts from her worries by introducing her to a new set of company. She started from her chair when they entered, sending a slop of tea down the front of her Indian muslin gown. Dashford's heart was touched to see her so pale and wan, and to see her discomposure upon finding him there. He was instantly at her side, taking the cup and saucer from her. “Shall I take you home again, Renée?” he asked with a smile in his eyes. “No, that won't be necessary. It's only a drop,” she answered, patting at her gown with a napkin, and obviously more flustered than a spilt drop would warrant. “You're devilish hard on your gowns. Is this a favorite, too? Very handsome." She made no reply. Lady Beatrice advanced to cluck at the accident and be introduced to the French lady. That she could meet the dasher with a spotted skirt, fresh from the sort of accident she so often perpetrated herself, made her feel kinder. The girl was younger, prettier, shyer than she had thought to find her. She felt capable even of bringing Harold around to accepting her. She took a seat beside la Comtesse de la Tour, and found her conversable, and not at all Frenchified. The lady listened without yawning to endless tales of children with measles, and with tendencies to pour porridge in their hair and perform other cute pranks of which their doting mama was proud. Dashford sat silently, listening and looking, and occasionally addressing a few remarks to an aged spinster on his other side who wanted to know if it was true Tierney meant to lock up the Prince of Wales and make his brother, the Duke of York, Regent in his stead. An hour passed in this tedious fashion, and at last Lady Beatrice ran out of stories. “Shall we go, Loo?” she asked. “May we offer you a drive home, Comtesse?” Dashford asked, directing a pleading glance at her. “Lady Beatrice comes with us. We go directly home." With these two safeguards to protect her, la Comtesse said, “Is Grosvenor Square on your way? Could you drop me off en route to Lady Beatrice's place?" “My sister lives in Berkeley Square.” This was between the Simpson home and Grosvenor Square. “She will stay with us while I take you home, if you wish." “Very well,” she said, and the three took their leave together. Dashford's next move was to arrange to be rid of Beatrice so that he might have a private conversation with la Comtesse, and he was fairly sure it was her intention to forestall it. “Would you ladies like to take a drive along Bond Street before we go home?” he asked, to remove them to a district from which it would be at least feasible to take his sister home first. Renée opened her mouth to decline, but Lady Beatrice said happily, “How nice, Loo. The very thing. We have time; it's early yet." “I can't get out. My gown is stained,” Renée pointed out, not liking to object when it appeared to give Lady Beatrice such pleasure. “No, no, I don't mean to walk,” the matron assured her, appalled at the idea of taking exercise in mid-afternoon.
The drive was completed, leaving them at the corner of Piccadilly, where they turned west. In this manner, Berkeley Square was reached before Grosvenor Square further north, as la Comtesse and Dashford both realized. The latter realized as well that he had killed sufficient time for his sister to want to get home to see to dinner. They kept country hours even in the city, unless they were going out or having company in. “It will be more convenient to drop my sister off along the way,” Dashford said to Renée, “if you have no objection." “It is getting rather late,” Beatrice said, making Renée wonder whether she were not in her brother's confidence, and possibly even employ. Actually the matron's only concern was to speak to Cook and see she had the goose in the oven; for Harold didn't like a late dinner. “I wouldn't want to be an inconvenience,” Renée said, with a cold stare at the deceitful creature who had broken his word. “Itis getting rather late,” Renée said, as soon as they were alone. “I trust your carriage has no more little tricks it means to play on us before I am delivered to Grosvenor Square." “No, it is not that bad a carriage, I promise you. I had to speak to you alone. Please forgive the manner of arranging it." “What is this urgent matter that demands discussion?" “Miss Foster,” he said. Her eyes turned to him—wide, dilated, frightened. She remained totally silent. “You know who I am speaking of?” he asked. “What about her?” Renée asked, in the voice of a ghost. “That is what I am hoping you will tell me." “I can tell you nothing." “Youwill tell me nothing, you mean. You know where she is?" “Don't ask. This is none of your affair." “I am making it my affair. Is it Michael Foster you want to get out of France? Is that it?” This variation on the theme had not come from Hopley but had been hatched by Dashford himself. It had often been mentioned that la Comtesse had a lover in France; and her association with the Fosters made him wonder if Michael Foster were not the lover. Her worry could as well be for his safety as for fear he meant to chase, and kill her. “How much does Brougham know?” she asked in a cold voice. “He knows nothing. Yet. My interest is personal." “You're not lying to me, Lewis? You didn't tell Brougham? Oh, if Castlereagh discovers this, I'm done for,” she said, and covered her eyes with her gloved hands, shaking her head in acute misery. “Renée, for God's sake, tell me before it's too late!” he said urgently, putting an arm around her shoulder. “I'll help you if I can." “You can't. Only by your silence.” She lowered her hands; and her eyes, which he thought would be
tear-stained, were dry and desperate. “You must tell me. You realize the positionI am in. I know your own is worse; but if you are at least innocent of espionage, if it's only Miss Foster's death, murder, whatever it is— Iknow you didn't kill her. Tell me what happened, how you came to escape France with her passport." A desperate calm descended on la Comtesse. Thank God he doesn't know the truth, she thought. He must be fobbed off—told some story to stop him from running to Brougham. She sat a moment collecting her wits, and when she spoke her voice was low, with only an occasional tremble to reveal her emotion and lend an air of authenticity to her incredible tale. “First, you must tell me how you learned of the Fosters,” she bargained. Without a flicker of the eyelids he answered, “LaRue." “That swine! I knew he wasn't to be trusted. What did it cost you?" “Plenty." “If he says I killed Miss Foster, it's a lie." “I knew it was. Tell me the truth." “She is dead, however,” she admitted, as he already knew about the body, or seemed to. “I know that. How did it happen?" “It's a long story. I'll tell you from the beginning.. You know whoI am. That I was Napoleon's lover before he abdicated." “Yes, I know all that,” he said, brushing it aside angrily, impatiently. “I became aware of certain information, secret information, while living with him. People who helped plan his escape—it was all conceived before he ever was sent to Elba, you know. There were people ostensibly on one side who were in fact on the other, or both. I speak not only of Frenchmen, you understand. Englishmen, too, were involved. Naturally when Napoleon came back triumphant, it was necessary for me to leave the country." “I see that. Such information would be dangerous; but I would have thought it necessary for you to leave long before that, as soon as he abdicated. Surely those people, especially Englishmen, would have wanted you out of the way as soon as he abdicated." “I managed to lose myself. Those who were on the Emperor's side were toothless—locked up, half of them. There was nothing to be feared from them." “Yes, but the ones who werenot locked up—surely they were the ones you had to worry about." “The most dangerous ones were still in England. They were sending help—money and information—from England, and I had plenty of time to conceal myself from them. There were a few unknown French turncoats who feared me. I had some narrow escapes, but I managed to get away. With the Bourbon faction back in power, they concentrated their efforts at making themselves useful at court, and didn't worry too much about me. With Napoleon back, it was different. With him, it was a personal vendetta. He would hunt me out and kill me. Now we come to the Fosters. They came to Paris a month before Napoleon returned. I met them through a professor at the Sorbonne who had been corresponding with Michael. My husband was a friend of the professor, as I was myself. Michael wanted to meet people
who had known Napoleon. He was doing a treatise on him; he half thought him a hero. I was happy to disillusion him." “Your governess, Molly, was not instrumental? I thought she might be, since she was from County Down, like the Fosters." This interjection made Renée realize how carefully her every word had been weighed, and she tried to remember what else she had told him. “No, Molly is dead,” she said. “I saw a good deal of the Fosters. Michael liked me. The girl, Deirdre, didn't—much.” She tossed her shoulders in indifference. “But I liked him. He was going to take me to Ireland with him and marry me, when word came of Napoleon's escape.” The rest of it would be tricky, and Renee held her head in her hand a moment, as if to recover her composure. Dashford sat silent, thinking and waiting. After a moment she went on. “In the end, we got married." “Married!” he shouted. “Yes, I am Mrs. Foster. Michael thought it would be safer for me—easier to escape—but the marriage ceremony was performed by an English minister in Paris and is not actually legal in France. There is so muchtapirsserie —legal documents and so on, you know—to get married in France. We were married by Doctor Hunt, from Somerset, and hired a little house in the countryside east of Paris, just outside of Meaux. We meant to hide out there till Michael could arrange some safe transport for us all. The sister was with us. But Michael was not very effectual in those practical matters. We remained in France too long. One night there was a knock on the door. We all fled out the back window, and the men came after us—” Her voice broke, and a tear welled up over her eyelid and coursed down her cheek. “We were running together through the darkness; luckily, there was no moon. Michael said we should go different ways to confuse the soldiers following us. He made a lot of noise, thinking to lure them after himself; but it was, of course,me they wanted, and they must have followed us two girls. Perhaps they could distinguish skirts from trousers. There were several shots. None of us knew who had been hit, or if anyone had. After all sound of the men was gone, I wandered for hours trying to find the others, all night long. We were to meet the next morning at daybreak at the old mill—a landmark known to us all, but not in operation and quite deserted. But it was only Michael and I who met at the mill. We went back over our traces in daylight and found her body, with a bullet through the back. There was hardly any blood. We buried her under a tree, using an old scythe Michael found to dig the hole. We couldn't make it very deep. He cut his hand,” she said, and this irrelevant detail set the seal of truth on the story in Dashford's mind, though her stricken face and the way she told it, as if remembering every horrible detail, hadn't left him in much doubt. This was not acting. Not even a superb actress could do such a convincing job as this. “How did you escape?" “They were letting British visitors leave without too much trouble. Michael said that because of his involvement with me, he would be detained if he tried to leave legally, and he would try to get across on a smuggler's vessel. But his sister, he thought, could go without trouble. I used her passport. It is quite vaguely worded. The age—I don't look so old, and my knowledge of English helped. I got out with no trouble. It would have meant certain death, sooner or later, had I remained behind. I didn't want to leave him, but he convinced me I should, and I thought I could be of more help to him here. So I came to the Castlereaghs, old friends and neighbors of the Fosters from Ireland, to ask help. And they gave it. They have helped me very much." “What does he hope to get out of it?" “Information. What I know of Napoleon—his friends, his plans, his supporters. Especially his English
supporters, who pass for solid John Bulls." “And when was Michael captured? How did you discover that?" “I waited a week at Dover, hoping to see him on every boat. We had agreed in advance that if he didn't come within the week, I should proceed to London. I had money from Michael." “And in return for your information, Castlereagh is to get Michael out? Well, I didn't think he was doing it for old times’ sake. That makes more sense." “Yes, and it is a good thing I came, too. It isn't really Michael Napoleon wants, you see. It's me. If he had us both, he'd kill us. But with me here—" “I don't see what good that does Napoleon. You've been here a month. You've had plenty of time to tell Castlereagh what you know. Michael seems to me an irrelevance." “He is no irrelevance!” Her eyes flashed dangerously. “I keep silence for his safety. That is the bargain." “Napoleon can't be so trusting as that. How is he to know you aren't secretly telling Castlereagh all you know?" “He sees no action is taken against those whom I could cause action to be taken against. He has eyes everywhere, don't worry. If I talked today, he'd know tomorrow, and kill Michael. To ensure Michael's safety, I get a letter from him once a week, and send back a letter asking questions of a personal and family nature that he must be alive to answer. There is no way anyone else could answer them. It is my insurance policy that the bargain is kept on their side." “How are the letters received? Through the courtesy of LaRue?" “Yes." “At the Tabard Inn?" “Sometimes. Other places as well. Shoreditch once. That night at the Pantheon he was to give it to me at the private parlor." “Why, then, did you shout and call attention to yourself?" “He became offensive. He wouldn't give me the letter unless I— He is a pig. I haven't lied to you any more than I had to, Lewis. A little prevarication was necessary. You were too inquisitive, too observant." “Was it Castlereagh's idea for you to take me up, to involve the Whigs should the affair blow up in his face?" “Indeed it was not! It wasyou who tookme up!" “I suppose they were afraid to give me short shrift, in case I became suspicious. But as the government is involved, why was it necessary for you to sell your diamonds to pay LaRue? Surely Castlereagh would have stood the bill?" “I was bribing him to try to find out where Michael is held,” she answered. “We weren't sure." He accepted this without asking why Castlereagh didn't pay the bribe, as she feared he would. The question had caught her off guard, and she hadn't a lie ready. His mind was off in quite a different direction, she soon saw.
“I don't understand why it was necessary for you to appear so much in public. I am convinced you would rather have been at home half the time you were at parties. Especially the last few days." “They must know I am alive and well. If anything should happen to me, Michael is as good as dead. They must know and be reminded every day that I am here, in the midst of Castlereagh and Liverpool and the rest of them, to tell what I know if they break their word." “One detail seems to have escaped Castlereagh's attention. It must be the first object of every spy and traitor in England to eliminate you. Your life is a constant threat to them. Dear girl, do you not realize the danger? And that foolish gun you carry—I doubt you even know how to fire it—is little enough protection." “I know how to fire it. I had lessons in Castlereagh's cellar from Joseph Manton himself, and one night late I went to Manton's Shooting Gallery. I am an excellent shot." “Yes, when you manage to hold on to your bag." “I didn't feel it would be necessary to shootyou. You were not one of the names on my list of turncoats,” she answered calmly. “Still, you might have been shot at any time, walking about so freely as you did." “I am safer in public than at home, for that matter. It would be easy to slip into the house late at night, though Castlereagh has set a constant guard at both doors. I am not likely to be shot at the opera or at Lord Bathurst's house, or in a public street. Those cowards would choose a more private spot, where they are less likely to be caught." “Such as the Tabard Inn, or Shoreditch. And you go with only that foolish Maldon to protect you." “He's no fool! And I have my own pistol." “It is only a matter of time till you're killed. Renée, for God's sake, give it up!" “It is only a matter of time till Michael is safe. We know where he is now." “Where is he?" “I can't tell you, Lewis." “You can tell me. You know I mean you no harm. It must be possible to get him out, with a small band of men, carefully chosen.” Already his mind was running over his cohorts in this second line of work he occasionally embarked on. “The Conciergerie is a regular fortress, but it can't be impossible to break in." “He isn't at the Conciergerie. We thought so at first, but if he was ever there, he has been moved." “You trust LaRue's information?" “Castlereagh confirmed it. He has sources, too." “A pity you paid a diamond necklace for the information, then. But if he's not at the Conciergerie, it's a piece of cake. Why hasn't Castlereagh sprung him?" She half regretted she hadn't taken Dashford into her confidence when she first met him. He was so eager to help, and Castlereagh so hesitant to make any move; but plans were afoot now to free Michael, and there was no turning back at this late date.
“He will. We have only lately discovered where he is." “Let me go with the group. I have some experience along these lines." “Don't think of it. Please, don'tyou put yourself in danger for my sake, too. I have enough on my conscience." “These risks you take daily must be salve enough for any danger you've caused your husband. Don't you want him rescued?" “Of course I do! More than anything, but not at the cost of your life.” She looked at him earnestly, a frown puckering her brow. “Please, promise me you won't do anything foolish, Lewis. Castlereagh is looking after it." “Oh, Castlereagh! If he goes about it in the way he behaves in Parliament, he'll set up a dozen committees and discuss it for two months before he takes a step. You'll be dead and the war over before he does anything." “He is not so dilatory as you think,” she defended staunchly. “And I am not in so much danger as you think, either. He came up with a very good idea—the result of a committee, incidentally. I have written up what I know in a document, and it is with a solicitor—to be given to Castlereagh if anything happens to me. LaRue knows; he has told them in France." Dashford considered this. “It's all that's keeping you alive. If LaRue ever gets hold of that document, your life isn't worth a groat." “He's not likely to. He has no idea who has it.” Nor any idea either that no such document exists, she added to herself, and turned a shade paler. The carriage entered Grosvenor Square and their discussion was at an end. Dashford could think of no more questions, no more arguments to make her convinced of the danger she was in. She was willing to risk her life for her husband; that was all. And this was the lady Hopley had accused of murdering an innocent young girl to save her own skin. Of carrying on intrigues with half the Tories in London, and making sordid love trysts with Maldon in seedy inns. There was scarcely a vice that hadn't been laid at her door over the past month, and she had borne it all in silence to protect her husband. The only sin he knew of was her affair with the Emperor. What woman would not be the lover of her country's ruler if she had half a chance? The ladies tumbled over each other to hop into Prinney's unappetizing bed, and considered it quite an honor. “Did you love Napoleon?” he asked. “Ihated him. One does not refuse him, however, if she values her skin." He accepted it without a doubt. “I am honored to have met you, Comtesse. And I still wish we had met under other circumstances." “So do I,” she said simply, with one of her wistful smiles that wrenched his heart. “I have behaved very badly to you. I'm sorry." “That apology wasn't necessary, Lewis. I have behaved badly, too. I don't usually. Goodbye again." “Au revoir, Comtesse. We may meet again one day, under different circumstances."
“I hope so,” she said, and waved from the corner of the walk. He sat in the carriage till she was safely in the house, then had the carriage turned around to go to the Upper House. Before she had entered the door, la Comtesse's wistful smile had turned to a frown. But why should LaRue tell him Renée murdered Miss Foster? she wondered. She finally ascribed it to double-dealing on the traitor's part—a lust for money, and a willingness to tell any lie to get it. Chapter Eight “Is there any news?” Renée asked Lady Castlereagh the moment she entered the house. “Nothing." “Lord Castlereagh said several days ago they were going to try to get Michael out. What can be taking so long? It's only a few hours across the Channel. Three days should be enough. How long must this go on?" “Try to bear up, Renée. It can't be long now. Any day now we'll get word. Was that not Dashford's carriage that let you off? Don't tell me you met him at Lucy Simpson's?" “Yes, he was there with his sister." “I wonder how he knew you'd be there,” she said, not deceived as to there being any other reason for his visit. “You didn't tell him anything?" After having told him nine-tenths of the truth, Renée answered, “Nothing that matters. He won't cause us any trouble.” Of that she was sure. He had said he wouldn't tell Brougham, and he wouldn't. The only uncertainty with regard to Dashford was that he'd take it into his head to try to rescue Michael himself; so she had been sure not to tell him where he was locked up. “That's good. Are you up to a small do at Carlton Place tonight? Only fifty people or so." “Yes, Carlton House is always an amusing distraction. The company is uninspiring, but there are the sights to see." “And the heat to endure. I hope Prinney hasn't his usual two dozen fires burning in June." “I hope he doesn't try to lure me into his oriental study again, to show me his Chinese sketches." “The cost of being the reigningincognita, my dear. But he is quite harmless, you know. He only likes to be in style, and it can't hurt to humor him. Borrow my diamonds again. The Prince likes his ladies to glitter." “He manages to out-glitter us all. What a popinjay." “But the First Gentleman of Europe, my love. Quite an honor for you." Renée accepted the honor glumly, knowing she was unlikely to see Lord Dashford at this gathering of Tories, and went with a heavy heart to view the artistic atrocities of the Prince Regent's London mansion, where hundreds of lights shone everywhere, brighter than daylight, to be picked up and repeated in the walls of mirror, and to glow in the porphyry columns, to sparkle everywhere in the layers of gold upon gold that decorated every nook and cranny. She thanked him very kindly for his various marks of attention, and assured him that she had indeed had the pleasure of admiring his new Chinese sketches— twice.
He had not quite two dozen fires burning in those suites where the party took place, but still it was lamentably hot. A headache had been nagging at the back of Renée's temples since late afternoon. Between the noise and the heat, the worry and the strain on her eyes from the overly ornate décor, and particularly the unwelcome advances of the First Gentleman of Europe, it became unbearable. If only I could go home and lie down, she thought; but one did not leave a party before her Prince Regent, who appeared to be in such merry gig that he would be good for several hours yet. She sipped a glass of wine to give her strength and spirits to endure two more hours of this ordeal. The headache became sharper, till at last it was like a knife being driven in one side of her head and out the other, and she could stand it no longer. The Prince, with a sharp eye on the languishing beauty, noted her pallor; and when she told him in weak accents of her problem, he was all solicitude. “Home and bed for you,” he ordained genially—music to her ears! “I'll give you a phial of my own drops I use for the migraine. I am subject to it myself, and know its tortures." He sent a hovering footman off for the precious royal medicine, and within two minutes it was being pressed into her hands, in a lavish cut-glass container with a golden stopper. A wholeobjet d'art to hold a few drops of headache remedy. She doubted the medicine's efficacy, but her relief from the party was certainly welcome. “I must tell Lady Castlereagh,” Renée said. “I'll tell her for you, my dear Comtesse. And see you into your carriage myself.” Here was condescension of no small magnitude, and Renée felt she ought to do more than try to smile; but even a smile was an exertion almost beyond her. The carriage was called. The corpulent reigning monarch—resplendent in a new uniform comprised of white inexpressibles stretched taut across his frame, a white satin jacket embellished with much lace and gold trim and a dozen stars and other decorations bowed her into her carriage, kissed her hand, and then hastened back into his nice warm mansion, hoping he hadn't taken an earache from this fit of chivalry he had engaged in. Silly French chit hadn't been half appreciative, either. Foreigners! Bah, they were all alike! With a sigh that was half a moan, Renée leaned back against the squabs of the carriage and closed her eyes. The driver gave the horses their heads, and the coach lunged forth into the night. It was not a cold evening; but after the excessive heat of Carlton House, it felt chilly, and she reached out a hand to pull up the rug that had fallen to the floor. It resisted and she gave it a jerk, thinking it had become caught in the door. It remained tightly lodged, and she felt to see if one corner wasn't loose, that she might throw half of it over her lap. As it came away, she saw that there was something beneath it. Even as she wondered, the something got larger, rose from the floor, and took on the form of a man; and a long-barreled pistol was pointed at her chest. It's happened, she thought. I always knew there was a possibility of this. Keep calm. Remember what Castlereagh told me to do. The knife pain in her head grew sharper, her vision blurred, and she fell forward against the gun. In her last moment of consciousness she fully expected to hear the report of the gun going off. She felt the metal hard against her chest, and then experienced a moment of blackout. When she came to, the man—she couldn't see his face for a dark hat that was pulled well forward over it —had tied her hands, but otherwise she was free. He spoke rapidly in a low voice with a French accent. “Do not panic, Comtesse. Make no sound and you will not be hurt." Through the stabbing pain of the headache, she sat perfectly still, thinking, My gun, I must get my gun.
And then—Comtesse. He doesn't know. Not LaRue's boy, then. And the others don't know. Thank God, they don't know. Michael is still safe. They daren't kill me. Not while they think I am la Comtesse. “This is very foolish,” she said in a voice remarkably calm, considering the state of her nerves. “You know of the document I have left, in case anything should happen to me." “We know all that, clever Comtesse, and that is why we don't kill you, as weshould kill a traitor. But you will tell us where is the document before the night is over, I think." “Where are you taking me?” she asked, glancing to her purse, and to the gun that waved beneath her nose. “When the carriage passes the corner of Charles Street and Berkeley Square, there will be a small surprise for your driver. Three surprises,en effet. Or four. One, there will be no lights.C'est dommage —the little link boy, but it will be only a tap on the head, that, to assure he does not relight the lamps we have extinguished. The other three surprises are my friends. They will ask, very politely, the driver to stand and deliver—you. And so, Comtesse, they have the so-carefully-prepared document, but we have you; and before morning, we will have the document, as well. Before milord Castlereagh knows what has happened to you. He will wait till morning, I think. La Comtesse has stayed out late before." She had not foreseen this ghastly possibility. She had thought the alleged document must ensure her safety. They dare not kill her, but why had neither she nor anyone else thought of her being kidnapped, forced—by what exquisite torture?—to tell where the document was kept. She noted they were driving north up the Queen's Walk, with the corner of Charles and Berkeley Square only one long block ahead. Was it the east or west corner where the surprises were to take place? No point asking. She put her hands in her lap and began surreptitiously, with minute movements, to wiggle them free. They were not very well bound. Her assailant hadn't had time to do a thorough job. And didn't expect any tricks, she supposed, from a lone female. She had never suspected them to be so audacious as to wangle their way into the Prince Regent's own stables, either. One would think that when the Prince of Wales put her into her carriage, she must be safe; but as she was not, it was well she had her gun, and knew how to use it. The driver, too, always carried a gun when he had herself for a passenger. Four ofthem —three surprises and this one. Three on her side—the driver, the footman, and herself. Did the footman have a gun, too? Very likely. If only she could let them know. But she had now half a block at the least reckoning, a block and a half at the most, to get her hands free—let alone get a message to the men outside under the nose of this man with the long-barreled pistol. A warning was out of the question. She must count on their alertness. She knew they had been warned a dozen times. Yet despite the warnings, a French assassin had gotten unseen into the carriage while it stood unguarded in the stable. And they could not have known Lady Castlereagh would not be with her. That had been an unexpected piece of luck on their part, to find her all alone. They had been ready to risk kidnapping not only herself, but the wife of the Foreign Minister as well, to get her. “Why did not the Lady Castlereagh come with you?” the assailant asked suddenly. He had seemed rather preoccupied the last few minutes. “She follows me in another carriage,” she answered—hoping to frighten him, to give an illusion of help close at hand. He craned his neck out the window and looked behind them, giving her an opportunity for some more strenuous wiggling of her hands, which were now coming free. But they were not free yet, and the corner of Charles Street and Berkeley Square was looming close. It was within sight, the east corner, and she
saw it was still lit. The west corner of the Square, then. Another block. “We must have the Lady Castlereagh, too,” the man said, worried; and this set Renée to thinking wildly. Oh God, what have I gotten her into? was her first thought, soon followed by other, more practical ones. Why do they want her?I am the one they think can harm them.I am the one they think can tell them where the document is. The truth came to her almost as quickly as the questions. They think Castlereagh will let me go, let me be killed—and open the secret document. It was Lady Castlereagh who was to be held for ransom with it.I was to tell them where it is kept, that they might send a man to watch the place and prevent tampering with it; while Lady Castlereagh was held captive to ensure its not being opened and read before it was handed over. They've only got half of what they wanted. I am useless to them. That Lady Castlereagh was following in another carriage was a lie to confuse and frighten the man, but it would be true in a matter of time. She would be coming home, and in another carriage if this one wasn't sent back for her. They would manage somehow, these fearless men who dared to enter the Prince's stables and hide in her carriage, to kidnap the countess if she didn't stop them. And already they were entering into that part of the block where the lights had been extinguished. Somewhere nearby a little link boy was lying, tied up perhaps, with a knock on his head. The carriage became very dark as they progressed, so that she could work her hands more violently; and at last she felt the ropes give, slide noiselessly into her lap. She reached her hand out for her reticule, undid the clasp, and felt the reassuring touch of cold metal. She should shoot him now, before they got to the corner, to the three other surprises. She raised the gun in the total darkness. He might have time to shoot her back, but that wasn't what stopped her. She had never killed anyone or anything, not even a rabbit or a bird, in her life. She hated to see Michael shoot a pheasant, and when it had been necessary for him to shoot his lame horse; she couldn't bear to watch, or think of it. How does an ordinary person become a killer? She found it didn't happen in sixty seconds. She held the gun, pointed at the man's chest, and her hand froze. She couldn't, literally, move a finger to save herself. They'd have to capture her, torture her, do whatever they meant to do. Even the thought of the unwitting countess soon to walk into the same trap couldn't compel her to shoot. They wouldn't kill the countess. They'd never even get their hands on her. She'd be brought home in some other carriage, with no man lurking inside it with a gun. The carriage stopped very suddenly, before there were any shouts to stand and deliver. The driver, suspicious of the darkened streets—having been, in fact, warned of this very occurrence by the wily Castlereagh—turned the carriage about and backtracked to the east corner of Charles Street and Berkeley Square. The Frenchman in the carriage with Renée was confused. He looked at her, suspecting some trick, while she held her hands over the gun in her lap, as though she were still bound. He had no time to formulate a new plan. “Get out!” he ordered, reaching for the door. The precious moment when the carriage had been stationary to turn around was lost, and it had resumed a faster pace. He jerked open the door. “Out!” he repeated in a louder voice. “Surprise,” she said in a sardonic voice, and in the light from the corner lamp he saw the flicker of her gun. A string of French curses poured out. For one split second she read the hate in his eyes, and saw his gun rise; but the imaginary document saved her. He threw himself from the moving carriage and dashed for the concealing shadows of the nearest building to lose himself. The carriage pulled to a stop and in an instant the driver was at the door, which was hanging open and waving back and forth. “What was that?” he asked, and looked in shock at the gun in her hand. “A trap,” she answered in a dead voice, drained of all emotion. “There was to be an ambush at the next corner—the darkened one. You were very alert to suspect it, Backman, and turn the carriage around.
Take me home at once. Better drive over to New Bond and up to Oxford, and come to Grosvenor Square from the north. Then go back at once and get Lady Castlereagh. Take more boys with you. They are after her, too." “Was that aman in there with you?” he asked, in a purely rhetorical spirit, for he had clearly seen the man run off. “No, a dog." “How did he get in?" “While the carriage was stabled, I presume. He was here when I entered, but I didn't see him for a moment. Another time you'd better leave a man to guard it, and check it before you bring it around." “Are you all right?" “Yes, I'm fine,” she said, and laughed in a way that suggested the onset of hysterics. The driver thought it wise to have the footman join la Comtesse for the remainder of the short trip, and with a bodyguard now that he was no longer needed, they drove home safely in silence. “That one's a corker,” the footman said to Backman as they tooled together at a brisk pace back to Carlton House. “She ain't fly to the time o’ day. She coulda pegged that Frenchie. Had her gun on him." “Happen he was armed hisself." “Maybe,” the driver said, and spat over the side of the carriage. “I suppose this will be laid atour door,” the footman went on. "Yourdoor,” the driver corrected him. “Idrive, and luckily didn't go driving into no pitch-black streets neither, as I've been warned against.You're the one ought to have seen the carriage was safe." “Nobody said nothing to me about checking the inside of the carriage,” he defended; but he knew he was at fault, or at least to be blamed. Within an hour Lady Castlereagh was home safe and pelting Renée with questions. She told the story simply, with less horror than she expected to feel. Even her headache was gone, blown magically away without the aid of royal medication. “The worst part of it is that they planned to useyou ,” Renee apologized. “I never foresaw anything of the sort." No more had Lady Castlereagh, and she was in one hundred-percent agreement as to the worst part of the ordeal having been avoided. “Robert must be told of this the minute he comes in,” she said. It was strangely not Robert that Renée wished to tell, but Lord Dashford. She had a sure feeling that if he had been her escort that night, none of these horrible things would have happened. His sharp, all-seeing eyes would have noticed the carriage rug on the floor. He would have pulled it out and never allowed her to enter into such danger. He would have dealt with the Frenchman in some proper manner unknown to her, but one that did not involve killing him. They discussed for some time the daring of the French spies to invade the Foreign Minister's carriage while it rested in the Prince of Wales's stables, the quick-wittedness of the driver at turning back at the
darkened street, the stupidity of the footman at not investigating the carriage before admitting la Comtesse de la Tour, and various other now useless events that might have taken place to make the situation either better or worse; till at length Robert came home from a meeting that had ended in a game of cards, and set about to clear up the loose ends. He knew it was pointless to go looking for skulkers at street corners; but at Renée's insistence, he sent the footboys out, with special orders to find the link boy, which they did. He had been trussed up, gagged, and shoved under a bush, where a stray dog had befriended him and brought the footboys’ attention to him. No announcement was made to the world of the incident, but it was of course important that it not be repeated. Castlereagh decreed that in future he would personally escort his wife and Renée on any excursion they must make. He then went quickly on to warn them that with the whole Cabinet in a tailspin over the state of affairs in Europe, he would be completely tied up in the House and they had better plan to stick pretty close to home. "Ihave an appointment tomorrow to play loo with Lady Liverpool,” Lady Castlereagh said to her spouse, and he was too shrewd to underestimate the importance of such an engagement. The Prime Minister's wife, after all. But he insisted an extra brace of footmen would accompany her, and the carriage would be checked out before going and returning. “Let Renée stay home,” he finished up. “No harm can come to her here." He met with no opposition from the young lady, who never wanted to do anything again but stay home and hide her head under a cover. Chapter Nine After Lord Dashford had left la Comtesse and gone to the House, he found himself unable to fix his attention on the business going forth. A vision of her pale face was at his elbow and he felt uneasy, as though he should be doing something. At the first break, he was treated to some good-natured jeers as to his frequent absences lately, and more than one innuendo as to the cause. Remarks were passed back and forth. “Lucky Dash—I wishI had such an interesting alternative to work.” Then more pointedly, “Who'd bother with Parliament when he might be—hmm, never mind. I guess we know what you and la Comtesse are up to!” Any denial would be taken as ritual protection of the lady's not-so-good name; and so he left. Unable to bear either his own or his usual company, and unwilling to go to a party, he called on the least demanding people he knew, his sister and Sir Harold, to consider amidst their dull domestic chatter what he should do. Dandling their youngest, Boo, on his knee, he decided to go to Hopley and remove at least that one burden from Renée's back. He put little faith in Castlereagh's intention to free Michael, and had decided to undertake the job himself. Hopley would have to help him. But first he must discover Michael's exact whereabouts. Renée knew and Castlereagh knew, and LaRue knew. LaRue was out of town. He might as well ask the doorknob as Castlereagh. He must get it out of Renée somehow. She had already refused to tell him once. As much as she loved her husband, she didn't want to riskhis life to save Michael's. There was some small consolation in that. The next morning early he tooled his curricle to Whitehall and went storming into Hopley's little office. “I want you to call your dogs off la Comtesse,” he said bluntly. “Turned you into a Frenchie, too, has she?" “You were wrong about her, Hopley. I have the whole story now, and it is as I suspected from the start. Castlereagh is using her, for no unpatriotic ends you may be sure. It has nothing to do with spying, and I
want you to leave her alone." “I'll have to hear more than that, Dashford. The whole of it, if you please." “You'll hear the whole, for I need your help,” Lewis replied willingly, knowing the story was safe in Hopley's discreet care. He should have been in on it from the beginning, and he'd have had Michael home long ago. It was only Castlereagh's mania about secrecy that had kept the information from the man who ought, in fact, to be handling it. Hopley sat nodding throughout, asking a question here, straightening out a detail there, and in the end was satisfied. “Seems to me they could have trusted their own Intelligence Officer with the story. Ain't a dashed Nobody, after all. Castlereagh takes too much on himself. Always did." “No, and you ain't a dashed Tory either, Ed. This sort of thing they must keep within their own party. A risky, irregular business. Brougham would make hay with it if he could." “And you'd help him mow it, if you hadn't gone falling for la Comtesse. I never thought I'd see the day you put a woman above politics. And a married woman, at that! It beats the Dutch how she does it. But I still should have been told. I'm above politics, in my position. I serve whatever government is in power without fear or favor. Especially favor." “So you'll help me get Michael out of France? Once he is safe in England, there is nothing to prevent la Comtesse from telling what she knows. Some juicy morsels in there for you. There are Englishmen as well as French who favor Napoleon's victory." “There's jackals in every country. England is no exception. But where the deuce is he? We can't go searching through every rural roundhouse for him." “I'll have to discover it from la Comtesse." “Why not LaRue? He'd sell his soul for a couple of hundred guineas." “He's skipped town. I've been there many times recently. I'd give a pony to know what he's up to." “He's back. I wasn't able to discover where he's been, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was Worcester. Plenty of Bonapartistes in that part of the country, thanks to our enlightened and liberal-minded politicians who saw fit to grant Lucien Bonaparte refuge there three years ago. Set him up as a country squire, to spread his propaganda and give Napoleon a nicepied à terre within our country." “When did he get back?" “He landed in last night." “I'll go to him right away and cross his palm with gold, or possibly his chin with my fist." “Better keep it friendly. He might have something worth buying along other lines. There's that about these fellers with the convertible jackets. What they have is for sale to the highest bidder. We'll keep a sharp eye on him, and pick him up when he ceases being of use." “I'll get right back to you,” Dashford said, already making a line for the door. His breakneck speed through the crowded city streets upset the stand of a fruit peddler, but he was not aware of it, nor of the shouts that followed him for a half a block. Within a quarter of an hour he was pouncing up the steps of Alvanley House, to be informed by a French butler that monsieur was out.
Persistent questions as to where and when he might return were futile. He was just out. Even a bill of a large denomination waved under the butler's nose elicited nothing; so Dashford assumed the butler was really uninformed, and with a sense of urgency mounting by the minute, he decided to tackle Renée on the matter, if he could find her. While dashing down New Bond Street to Mayfair, Dashford encountered the Castlereagh carriage and hailed it, hoping to have discovered Renée this easily. It was only the countess who was within, however, and he put his question to her. “Where's Renée?” he demanded boldly. “At home. The hair cutter is gone to give her a trim." “Thank you,” he called over his shoulder as he rattled on. The countess was thrown into a pelter, and to protect Renée from Dashford's questions, she immediately had her carriage turned around and followed him back to Grosvenor Square. Dashford arrived ten minutes before her and was in the hallway arguing with the butler—a person of no little consequence, Lord Castlereagh's butler—when the countess came panting up the stairs. “What is it, Meaken?” she asked. “His Lordship wishes to see Lady de la Tour, but she is not at home." “She is at home to Lord Dashford,” the countess corrected, with a smile of condescension to the marquess. “Philippe is come to do her hair. Fetch her at once. What is it, Dashford? Why must you see her?” She assumed from his fine anxious face that it was an affair of the heart, and was not too reluctant to grant the interview, so long as she was there to audit it. Soon this business would be over, and it was a pity to lose Dashford after having put up with his bothersome presence through the worst of it. “It is a private matter of the utmost importance, ma'am,” he replied evasively. “I must see her alone." “Alone? Is it—is it anoffer, milord?” she asked eagerly, smiling. “Yes,” he replied without a hesitation. “Call her at once, Meaken." “The comtesse is out,” he repeated. “Out? No, no, she is only out to callers,” the countess contradicted. “She's really out,” Meaken insisted. “Impossible! I told her not to leave under any circumstances. Where did she go? She was here not half an hour ago,” the lady stormed. In the moment free to consider, it occurred to Dashford that Lady Castlereagh must know of Renée's marriage to Michael. Why should she so obviously welcome another offer? But his thoughts were soon diverted. “She received a letter,” Meaken said apologetically, fearing this trip of the comtesse's—flight really, for she had dashed out in a pelter—would be laid at his door, and how was he to have held back a French fireball who told him to hold his tongue or she'd box his ears when he had suggested the countess desired her to remain at home? “Who was the letter from?” Dashford asked. “Did she say where she was going? You shouldn't have left
her alone, ma'am." This last remark raised doubts in the countess's breast as to the extent of Dashford's involvement in the affair. He must know something of her danger to be so worried. She eyed him narrowly. “I know the whole of it,” he answered her unspoken question. “This is the letter,” Meaken said humbly. “She told me to give it to your Ladyship immediately you got home." Dashford reached out without ceremony and snatched the letter. “You may go, Meaken,” Lady Castlereagh said, and read over Dashford's shoulder the short missive. “If you want to see Michael, come at once alone to my flat. Tell no one. L.” They both read and translated rapidly the message from the French. “It came in a bouquet of flowers,” Meaken said over his shoulder as he left. “She can't have been foolish enough to go there alone,” Dashford said, looking to the countess for reassurance. “She's gone,” was the unanswerable reply. “The thing is, we have been expecting him every day, though I shouldn't have thought LaRue would be the one to bring him. But perhaps he is—I mean—" “Not a chance. Castlereagh isn't that big a fool. It's a trap.” Dashford turned on his heel and bolted to the door, leaving the countess to digest his piece of impertinence. “I'll come with you,” she said, following hard on his coattails. “No, get word to your husband. Send some men over after us." “I have no idea where Robert is!" “In God's name, milady, tellsomeone !” he shouted back at her, and left. “Well, upon my word!” she gasped, in high dudgeon. But the moment was too crucial to waste time considering the ill manners of the Whigs, and she stood in the empty hallway, turning this way and that, wondering whom she should tell. “Meaken! Meaken, come at once!” she yelled. “Oh, why is the pest of a man never here when you want him?" Her butler, not far enough removed to have missed out on a single word of the interview, glided forward, smiling widely. “I'll go!” he volunteered happily. “Yes, go at once." “'Where?" “Oh dear, I don't know. Alvanley House—yes, that's it. One of the apartments." “Which one?" “I've no idea. You'd better take a couple of footboys with you, and guns." “Harper! Muggins!” Meaken shouted into the vacant hall, then ran with coattails flying to the lower regions of the house to snatch his two favorite servants from the silver-polishing chore they were engaged
in, to grab unloaded pistols from his lordship's bureau, and go dashing in her ladyship's own crested carriage to Alvanley House to do they knew not what, nor precisely where. Better informed, Dashford made only one short stop to borrow a loaded pistol from Manton's Shooting Gallery, closer than his own home, before going directly to Number Six Alvanley. As he drove he considered, among other things, why she had asked if he had come to offer for Renée. Was it that the marriage was not legal, even in England? Renée had mentioned it was not legal in France. Had there ever been any marriage at all? Was Michael dead? And underneath these considerations, there grew the dread of what was going forth at Alvanley House. **** Her nerves drawn gossamer-thin by the long ordeal of waiting and worrying, Renée had received LaRue's letter, carefully concealed in a bouquet of flowers to escape detection by the countess or servants. She half suspected a trick, but there was a chance it was true; and she couldn't pass up any slim chance. She had dismissed Philippe before he had snipped a single lock of her hair, and checked her reticule to see she had the gun. If necessary, she was prepared to use it. As an extra precaution, she had left the letter for Lady Castlereagh. LaRue wouldn't dare harm her when it was known exactly where she was gone, and she meant to tell him what she had done with the letter. Lady Castlereagh had the town carriage out, and she had had to walk down the street and hire a passing hackney coach. When LaRue sent off his note, he had more time to consider his actions than the young lady, and he set his plans carefully. First meet her at the door of his apartment and send away the carriage she came in. He was happy to see it was hired—not much chance of its being traced to this address. Then into his own plain black anonymous coach, the replica of a hundred others in the city. The lady objected to this change of venue for their meeting. “You said to come to your apartment,” she said suspiciously. And she had left the letter as a safeguard— useless if they were to go elsewhere. “And I am here waiting for you, to take you to your brother." “But why is he not here?" “Because he is somewhere else,bien entendu. He is unable to travel, unfortunately." It was fatally easy to believe Michael lay wounded—she had imagined it a hundred times the last month, and it silenced her—till he closed the carriage curtains, when she became alarmed again. “Why do you do that? Why are you hiding?” She feared he meant to try to make love to her again, but he sat sedately on his own side of the carriage and made no move to touch her. “There is no need to advertise our business to the world." She remained alert, but not yet in a state of panic. It seemed a long time they traveled, but the noises from without told her they had not left the city. Carriage wheels and human voices shouting were discerned quite clearly. Once she lifted the curtain to peep out, and he did not try to stop her, but in fact pointed out the dome of Saint Paul's Cathedral, some distance ahead, on their left. She thought they were going to the Tabard Inn and was glad, for she had now a few acquaintances there. But they did not cross the bridge at the time she estimated they should. They turned left instead of right. Shoreditch then, she supposed, still not greatly dismayed. But the carriage stopped far short of Shoreditch, in a part of the city she could not immediately recognize. She took a good look around her as they dismounted, to be sure she could know the spot again. A large tavern on the corner. She assumed this was their destination, and took a step towards it.
“This way, mam'selle,” LaRue said, and took her arm, pointing to the rambling old house with its gray paint peeling and its windows half covered in oilskin paper. “You have never brought Michael to this filthy hole!” she charged angrily. “He was not dressed for the Pulteney. Come along.” He gripped her arm more firmly and propelled her towards the dilapidated house. A feeling of foreboding amounting almost of doom overcame her, and her resolve to accompany M. LaRue weakened. One thing to go with him into his apartment in a good part of town, with Lady Castlereagh knowing where she was and sending someone after her within the hour. But to enter this ominous-looking place in a rundown neighborhood! And what if Michael were not here? That was always a possibility. She had never more than half believed LaRue had Michael. She dug in her heels and stopped. “I'm not going in,” she said, and jerked her arm free. “Michael will be sorry to hear it." “Send him out to “I told you he is not well." “Send him to the window then, to assure me he is inside." LaRue shrugged his shoulders."C'est à vous, mam'selle. If you don't want to see your brother after coming so far—” He turned and took a step back towards the carriage. Had he tried to force her to enter the house, she would have put forth every resistance, but his indifference unsettled her, made her waver. Her fingers felt the bag with the gun safely inside, and with a measuring glance at LaRue she said, “Very well. Take me to him,” and stepped into the dank building of her own accord. The malodorous fumes of cabbage and gin assailed her nostrils. In a dingy corner a mouse, or rat, scuttled into a hole. “This way, mam'selle,” he said, indicating the stairway. She walked up it before him, and had the feeling he had arranged their ascent thus to prevent her turning and fleeing, as she had every wish to do. He unlocked the door himself, but there was a butler within. The apartment was furnished poorly, and was very dirty. She did not think it was regularly inhabited by anyone. She fully expected to hear him lock the door behind him, but realized only too well that with two strong men to control her there was no need of it. “Where's Michael?” she asked, the panic rising now to her breast. “He will come very soon,” LaRue answered politely, and ushered her into the first door on the left. “We shall have a drink while we await his arrival. See we are not disturbed, Lalonde,” he said in a significant voice to the butler, and closed the door behind them. The leering smile on the butler's face told the whole story. Whether or not she was ever to see Michael she did not know, but she knew pretty well she would have to deal with Monsieur LaRue's amorous advances first. “Let me take your bag and wrap, mam'selle,” LaRue said punctiliously, and with plunging hope she handed them over. To resist would lead him to search the bag instantly, and she had a little hope she might recover her gun, for she knew as surely as she had come to this place that she would have need of it.
LaRue, having learned from his own sources that Michael Foster had escaped; saw an end to his financial profit in the transaction. His days in England were numbered. He was being watched, his apartment searched, strange men coming to his door to ask awkward questions. He must leave—leave London and possibly England—but before he left he meant to avenge himself on this uppity girl who insulted him, called him pig, and slapped his face. She did not look so uppity now. Very frightened and respectful. He leaned back and smiled, and proceeded to play a little game of cat and mouse, pretending to know where Michael was. Chapter Ten The door of Number Six Alvanley was reached in a short time. Dashford tried the knob; and finding it locked, he raised his booted foot and kicked it in without a moment's hesitation. This caused some little disturbance in the street. Two persons passing by stopped, and one mentioned calling a Bow Street Runner till he noticed the smart yellow curricle standing at the curb. He recognized the team of grays drawing it, and whispered a few words to his companion that caused them both to walk on with unseeing eyes and deaf ears. Dashford entered the apartment with a shout, hoping to bring LaRue to the hallway, where he had every intention of putting a bullet through him—a shoulder, at least. But the shout echoed through empty chambers. The very echo had a sound of the place being vacant, a hollow, empty sound. He dashed from room to room, throwing open doors with no attempt at silence, and banging them noisily after him. They weren't here. The letter clearly said to come to this apartment, but though Renee had left Grosvenor Square little more than half an hour before, she was not here. His head was not in a fit state for rational consideration. His whole instinct was to run shouting into the streets, to stop that cold-fingered clutching at his heart. He willed the panic down with a conscious effort and stood in the center of the empty hallway, breathing quickly from his search, trying to think. Not here. All right—gone somewhere else. Where? Where, where, where in God's name had he taken her? Hopley had mentioned Dover—was he taking her to France? No, he hadn't gone to Dover after all. Worcestershire, too, had been mentioned. Too far—he wouldn't risk taking a recalcitrant girl so far. Not alive anyway. Had he—? No! He hadn't killed her here and stuffed a dead body into a carriage in broad daylight. That was panic feeling—not thinking. Probably never had been here at all. Where—where— where? There was no trace of them. Renée would have left a clue behind—a glove or a handkerchief. Then it hit him with the force of certainty. This was a new apartment, a fancy expensive place set up recently since LaRue had begun getting money for delivering the letters. Where had he been staying a few months ago? A cheap furnished flat it had been in those days. He must have kept it up—a handy spot to hide out in when Hopley and others were looking for him. What had his friend said to him—the one who had got into the card game with LaRue? A rickety old place on Bishopsgate Road, and the noise from the Boar's Head next door so loud you couldn't hear yourself think. The Boar's Head Tavern was on the corner—it must be that ramshackle old clapboard place next to it. He was already hastening to the door as these priceless recollections from the past surfaced. As he swung open the door, he remembered the recruits Lady Castlereagh was sending, and he felt he would have need of them. He grabbed a pen from a desk in the hallway and scribbled a note. “Send help to the house next door to the Boar's Head Tavern, Bishopsgate Street. Urgent. D.” With an ornamental brass letter-opener on the same desk, he pinned the note to the wall just inside the door, where it could not be missed, and ran to his curricle. His team fidgeted, unused to being left alone; but they had not wandered from the spot. He drove at a racing clip along the street to the Strand and Fleet Street, down Blackfriars Road, then east to Bishopsgate Street. The minarets of the Tower rose on his right, and he wished with all his heart to see LaRue placed in it for execution. During the last short part of the drive north, a deadly calm descended on him. He had traveled some distance, sure they were here. What if they weren't? What if the flat were deserted, or inhabited by some other set? She was there. She had to be there. And this time
he wouldn't rush in half-cocked. Go carefully—feel his way. At the doorway of the run-down house next to the Boar's Head Tavern, there was a handwritten list of names posted. Scanning them quickly, Dashford saw no M. LaRue and fell into shock. There was a Mr. Street at Number Four, however. For purposes of concealment, LaRue had translated his name to the English. It must be—it was too much of a coincidence. He walked very quietly up the steep, uncarpeted steps, cursing every squeaking board. At the door to Number Four he hesitated a moment. No sounds from within. He decided against knocking and thus giving warning of his presence. He turned the knob silently and walked into the hall, his pistol drawn. The same French butler from Alvanley met him in the hallway, his presence and his startled countenance confirming what was suspected. He said demurely that no one was home, while he looked at the pistol in uncertainty. Dashford turned the gun in his hand without a word and crashed the butt of it across the side of the butler's skull. He dragged him to the front door, shoved his inert form into the hallway and locked the latch behind him. The encounter with the butler had been quiet, there had been no knocker sounded to warn of his presence, and he stood motionless—listening in the hall, with his pistol raised, to try to discover behind which of the three closed doors LaRue had la Comtesse. He heard muted voices issue from the oaken door on the left, and tiptoed to put his eye to the keyhole. His first impulse to barge in had been checked on second thought. LaRue might have his own pistol drawn. He didn't believe for a moment that delivering Michael Foster to his wife formed any part of LaRue's plan. If Castlereagh had indeed managed to get him out of France, it was not LaRue who had been used for it; and he wondered in the midst of his worries that Renée could have believed such a fairy tale. Michael would be delivered to Grosvenor Square—not left to cool his heels in this traitor's apartment. Her mind must be distracted with the worry. LaRue was after either more money, or la Comtesse herself. After the assault at the Pantheon, he feared it was the latter. The angle at which they stood within the room made vision impossible through the keyhole, but the first words spoken by Renée confirmed his fears. “There's no need to wave a gun under my nose,” she said in a voice of bravado, but it shook noticeably under her playacting. “There is also no need for mam'selle to back away from me.” This sounded strange, somehow, but at that moment a pale yellow skirt floated in front of the keyhole, across the room, and Dashford's attention was riveted on it. Her hands hung by her side, and he knew that she was unprotected. The reticule containing her pistol—if she had brought it—was laid aside on a table. The gun, Renée, the gun, he groaned to himself. She inched towards the table, and without even being able to see her face, he knew she was inching her way towards it. LaRue couldn't know about the gun. “So, mam'selle, you have the price. The whereabouts of your brother for your—favors." Dashford's hand went to the doorknob and was arrested an inch from it. “A fair bargain, monsieur, but first you must reassure me that you have Michael. I must have proof." “What proof do you require? A hair from his head?" “Don't jest, monsieur. One black hair is much like another." “True, but you don't catch me with such a simple trick, mam'selle. Your brother's hair is red, like your own.” He laughed. “Would a finger convince you, or a hand?" Her fingers stretched towards her reticule. Dashford could see they trembled violently, but he was hardly aware of it. “Your brother"—the repeated “Mam'selle"—the something odd he had not pinpointed. Renée was not la Comtesse; she was Miss Foster! He was momentarily weakened at the knowledge,
flooded with relief and joy that were instantly replaced by a new dread. A simple, unworldly Miss Foster who was such a guileless spy, who left her bag hanging open when it contained a gun and a fortune in bills, who came running at such a transparent hoax as this one LaRue had perpetrated, was much less able to deal with this wily Frenchman than la Comtesse de la Tour would have been. And less able to deal with those pushy lechers that had been plaguing her. Why had she done it? Why? Her life was in more danger the whole time than he had ever realized! Once her deception was discovered, she was as good as dead! “If you touch so much as one hair of his head, you ugly pig, I'll kill you,” she spat out angrily. A soft, silken laugh came from the corner beyond Dashford's vision. “I am not easy to kill, mam'selle. Others have tried before now. Standing is not good for the nerves. We shall sit, here on the sofa, together.” She remained motionless. “Come!” he said sharply, and she walked slowly towards him. “You have given me no proof you have Michael." “But you can see for yourself, with your big green eyes, that I haveyou, ma mie . Also I have a gun.” The nose of the gun just flashed within view of the keyhole. Dashford knelt with his heart in his throat, and his face white with the strain of holding himself back. Open the door and fire, he thought. As if a devil were on the other side of the door, LaRue took the girl's hand and led her to the sofa, with herself between LaRue and Dashford's gun. And with LaRue's gun at her other side. He looked around the apartment, wondering if there were another entrance to the room, or other servants about. And how long the butler would remain unconscious outside before coming to, and hammering at the door. The butler was not so foolhardy. He had regained consciousness outside and let himself in by some other means. His angry—but also frightened—face peered around the corner at the end of the hall. Dashford saw it from the corner of his eye and leveled his pistol at the man's eyes. With a jerk of his head, he summoned him. The man advanced, big-eyed, muttering a string of idiomatic French, unintelligible to Dashford. “Shut up,” he told the servant in a low voice. “I want to get into that room. Show me the other door, and no tricks. This pistol is dying to splatter your brains on the floor." The man stared a moment, dubious. Dashford cocked the pistol, the click sounding loud in the hall. “Now,” he said. With a shrug, the liveried butler pointed to a door, the one next to that behind which LaRue held the girl. There was no sound coming now from that quarter. The silence was as ominous as a shout. With his gun pressed hard against the butler's back, Dashford urged him forward, reached out himself and opened the door silently. He saw on the left wall a door which must give entry to the other room. Raising his arm, he once again floored the butler, caught him as he fell to muffle his fall, and tiptoed to the door. It was ajar an inch. In the few moments since he had left the keyhole, Miss Foster had managed to get hold of her reticule. A miracle—but she had done it, somehow. LaRue had both his arms around her, one of them still holding the gun, and was trying to plant his embraces on her averted face, that held an expression of terror and revulsion never to be forgotten. She eased the bag open with one hand, and extracted the pistol. LaRue seemed to become aware of this unusual motion on her part just as it happened. He jumped up and raised his gun at her. They stood facing each other, for Renée—Miss Foster—had jumped up, too, as soon as she was released. They stood facing each other, each with a gun. It was Miss Foster who faced the adjoining door. Her face was bone-white, with two terrified eyes staring mesmerized at
LaRue's gun. Her hand shook like a leaf in the wind. Dashford took aim, and fired at LaRue's back. He remained standing a moment, then heaved forward, half turning, to see from where the shot had come; for Miss Foster still stood irresolute. As he turned he fired his gun, and a ball slammed into a painting of a marine scene on the opposite wall, knocking it askew to jiggle and settle at an angle, with a black hole at its center. He settled into a heap on the floor. Dashford ran into the room, and Miss Foster turned on him in wrath. “You've ruined everything!” she screamed at him, and ran to LaRue to lift his head in her arms and try to revive him. Dashford's head began reeling. He stared, bewildered, at the bizarre scene before his eyes. She was nursing her assailant with every show of concern and tenderness. “He was going tokill you!” he shouted back. “You've killedhim! He's dead. Oh God, what am I to do?" “Renée! Miss Foster!" “You've ruined everything! Why did you have to barge in when I begged you not to? Oh, I'll see you hang from the gibbet for this." There was a scrambling noise behind them, and the battered butler, rubbing his head, looked at his master sprawled on the floor."Il est mort?" he asked. No one answered. He walked forward and prodded LaRue with a toe."Mort!" he decided, and walked away out the door. Neither of the living stopped him. “Renée—oh damn, whatis your name?” Dashford said, becoming rattled at the girl's strange behavior. He feared she had become irrational. “Miss Foster, you've got to get out of here. I'll take you home." “I'm not leaving. You go. Get out and don't ever come back." “Why are you angry? What have I done but save your life? You're hysterical.” He was not far from it himself. “He has Michael hidden. I'll never find him now. He'll starve, locked up in some garret or attic, after getting this close to freedom." “Use your head. He hasn't got Michael. How could it be possible? If Castlereagh got him out, you may be sure LaRue wasn't in on it." “You've been busy, Lord Dashford. I suppose it's too much to hope you haven't run to Brougham with your news. You broke your word about not meddling, and I make no doubt you've been keeping the Whigs informed about what else you've discovered." “I haven't informed anyone. Lady Castlereagh sent me here—well, she knows I am come, at least. She showed me your note. Why in God's name did you come alone? You must have smelled a trap a mile away." The girl looked dazed, beyond understanding what he was saying to her. He looked about for a decanter, and splashed a half glass of brandy out for her. “Drink this,” he said, pressing it to her lips. There was a polite tap at the front door. “Oh God, what now?” Dashford said. “We'd better not answer, with this corpse littering up the floor." The tapping continued; the butler appeared to have left the premises. It became more importunate, and
was soon followed by human voices, “Comtesse! Lord Dashford!” They exchanged puzzled looks. “It's Meaken!” Miss Foster announced, dazed. “What on earth canhe be doing here?" “She can't have sent Meaken to our rescue!” Dashford howled, but was soon amused at the incompetence of women in these matters. They were admitted, and the butler and his two henchmen stood smiling and looking vastly important, with their unloaded guns concealed in paper bags. “We are come!” Meaken declared in the tone of a major about to lead his troops into battle. He strode with a swagger into the room where the Frenchman had just been killed, his henchmen at his heels. The butler's eyes fell on LaRue's body and he turned a sickly yellow. “That there bloke's dead,” he said to Dashford. “I noticed. Take—la Comtesse home. I'll be along directly.” Turning to Miss Foster, he added, “I'll look about here—go through his pockets. If there's anything to discover, anything relating to your brother, I'll find it." Her green, accusing eyes were turned on him. “I'll never find Michael now,” she said, and broke into sobs. “What you want is the Bow Street Runners,” Meaken informed them, having recovered his spirits. “His Lordship places great faith in Mr. Townshend. What you've got to do, your Lordships—your Ladyship —is call Mr. Townshend. He'll discover who done this deed." “I did it,” Dashford told him calmly, and picking up Miss Foster's gun, which lay on the floor where she had dropped it, he handed it to her. “Thank you,” she said, through her tears. “Eh?” Meaken asked, in the direction of Lord Dashford. “Take her home,” his lordship repeated. “What did you go and do that for?” Meaken enquired, deciding he must be a Bow Street Runner himself in Mr. Townshend's absence, and do a little investigating. “Because I felt like it,” Dashford answered. “Who is he anyways?” Meaken persisted, looking about for a pen and paper. “Monsieur LaRue. Now get Miss—la Comtesse home." “A Frenchie?” Meaken asked. “Yes,” he was told in a rising tone. “Oh. Well inthat case, your ladyship, come along,” he commanded, and offered her his arm, tucking his bag under the other. She took the arm and was led to the countess's waiting carriage, with Harper and Muggins jostling each other for the honor of opening doors. Dashford, with a great deal of disgust, went through the dead man's pockets, discovering a large sum of money, which he removed to his own pocket, and nothing else of interest. He made a cursory search of the apartment, then went around to tell Hopley to complete the job
and get rid of the corpse as he saw fit. He had discovered nothing of interest and didn't think Hopley would, either. “So la Comtesse has turned you into a murderer,” Hopley gibed, his eyes twinkling. “Just for that, you can discover the truth for yourself,” Dashford laughed. “I was about to unfold before you a story of mystery and intrigue, of masquerade and mayhem, but you may go to the devil. And the next time you have an assignment for me, please get your dramatis personae straight. It makes it easier to follow the play. See you in court, Ed.” He turned to walk towards the door. “Eh, eh? You'll not be charged with it, Dashford?" “Not with the murder, but treason, perhaps—and you too." Dashford was gone, and Sir Edgar Hopley went rifling through his law books to see how a trial against a baronet was conducted, and whether he was entitled to a jury of his peers. Chapter Eleven At Grosvenor Square, Lady Castlereagh was vastly relieved to have Renée, as she still called Miss Foster, home safely. “What made you do such a shatter-brained thing, Renée? LaRue is not the one who will bring Michael to us." “How do you know? He is used as a go-between. He might very well be the one who has him. And if he is—was, we'll never find him. Lord Dashford has seen to that." “My dear, it is not at all possible. Dashford says it is not so; and he did quite right to go after you, though I cannot think it was at all necessary for him to swear at me, but I daresay he was upset. And what would have happened to you otherwise? It was rape—oh dear, such a thing to say to you—butthat was what that vile Frenchie had in his mind, you may be sure. Why, you recall at the Pantheon he did not behave at all well." “I know what he had in mind, and it would have been worth it to get Michael back. What do I care about one more assault? I've been pinched and pestered by every old libertine in the city. One more wouldn't have made any difference." “But my dear, you should have told me! Renée, I trust it has not come to—that no one has—that you are notruined !" “Not raped, if that's the ugly word you can't bring yourself to say again, Lady Castlereagh." “Even if LaRue had had his way with you, there was no guarantee you would have got Michael back. Thank God, you left the letter. It is all that saved you." “I wish I had taken it with me." “Tch, there's no talking sense to you. I'll send a batch of boys around the city, to the House and so on, and see if they can find Robert. He is in London, at least. He'll tell us what we must do." “I've got to go back to LaRue's apartment. Dashford is there, seeing if he can find anything—a note, something to tell us where Michael is." “I'd have thought Dashford had more sense than to waste his time hunting mares’ nests. There will be nothing there. You're not to go out yourself, Renée. Wait till Robert comes."
It was a long hour before Castlereagh arrived, and when he came, Dashford was with him, having hauled him out of a Cabinet meeting for the purpose. “Dashford has told me the whole,” Lord Castlereagh said to the room at large. He was a tall, thinnish man, handsome still in his mature years. His voice, developed in long dissertations in the House, was deep and sonorous. It was strange to hear that authoritative voice issue from a slight man, but when he spoke he assumed an air of command. “What are we to do, Robert?” his wife asked, and very relieved she was to have her lord and master here to tell her. “Poor Renée is run distracted. She wants to go running back to LaRue's place to look for clues, but I convinced her not to." “LaRue knows nothing,” Castlereagh stated conclusively. “That demmed fellow is used for nothing but carrying messages. He heard in some manner of Michael's escape, and thought to make gain from it. I wouldn't trust him with my barber's life, let alone Michael Foster's. Has Michael got here yet?" Miss Foster bounced from the sofa, her face rejuvenated from the downcast mold of a moment before. “Is he really coming? Have you truly got him out, milord?" “Should be here any time. Some boys, no need to mention names, left three days ago. I expect them here today, if all goes well." “Oh—but perhaps all hasn't gone well,” Miss Foster said, uncertainly. Castlereagh looked uncomfortable. It was impossible to assure her there would be no setbacks. It was no easy thing to sneak a boatload of Englishmen into France and steal a locked-up prisoner from his cell under the noses of his guards, and then to get him out of the country once the alarm had been raised. A dozen things could go wrong, and it would only take one. The joy in her face faded, and a veil of misery took its place. “What do you think is thelongest it might take them?” she asked, steeling herself for more waiting. There was no other course open to her. “There's no saying, my dear,” Castlereagh replied in a consoling voice. “Dammit, give us an idea,” Dashford spoke out vehemently. “She can't go on suffering indefinitely. Let us know the worst." Castlereagh turned a cold eye on this interloper from the Whig camp who had pushed himself by unknown means in where he was most definitely not wanted. “Your guess is as good as mine. You see the potential problems." It was true, and there was no point antagonizing the great man. Dashford went to the foot of the sofa, and gently taking Miss Foster's arm, urged her to sit down beside him. “There's nothing to do but wait,” he said with a sigh of resignation. “There's a good deal to be done,” Castlereagh corrected him snappily. “There's the man you murdered to be hidden—got rid of somehow. There's an explanation for the papers to be made up, whether Michael gets back or not. There's Hopley to be let know, so he can question Michael if he comes. And there's this young lady to be got to bed,” he finished, looking to his rather unwelcome house guest, whose shoulders had drooped disconsolately forward. “You do look burnt to the socket, Deedee,” Lady Castlereagh said, advancing towards her.
“I couldn't possibly sleep,” she answered. “A few drops of laudanum. Tell her, Dashford." “Go and rest, Miss Foster. It will do you good.” Dashford added his entreaties, but she shook her head obstinately and remained rooted to the sofa. “We'll leave you two,” Lady Castlereagh said, with a commanding glance at the Foreign Minister, who ignored it as he ignored most of his wife's suggestions. “I want to talk to you, Robert,” she was obliged to say. “No need for Dashford to remain,” Castlereagh said. “We'll go on looking after la Comtesse, as we have done." “You don't have to call me that any longer,” Miss Foster told him. “We do till we hear whether Michael has got home safely,” Castlereagh told her. Her shoulders sagged lower at every thoughtless word he uttered. “I don't think much of the way you have looked after Miss Foster,” Dashford said coldly. “I should prefer to stay, if you don't mind, milord." It was said in the voice Castlereagh knew and hated from their arguments in the House, and his blood rose to meet the challenge. “It so happens—” he began, but was for once outspoken by his wife. “It can do no harm,” the countess said, and propelled her lord bodily from the room by the arm. “Dashford can be very useful,” she cautioned, as soon as they were beyond the door. “I don't see how, the troublemaker. He'll go running to the Whigs with the whole story for a certainty. If Michael doesn't make it home, the whole effort has been wasted. We have involved ourselves in an off-color masquerade to no end. How you came to letthat fellow taggle at her skirts is beyond my comprehension." “He will not be overly eager to raise any great scandal about the woman he means to marry,” his wife told him knowingly. “Dashford will never marry Miss Foster! Not a title in the family, and as poor as church mice. He will look to make a better match than that." “You are quite out, Robert. He came this afternoon to make an offer in form, andhe knew everything. You must have observed how he looks at her. It has been obvious this past week he is caught. Such a feather in Renée's cap.'' “Yes, well you're forgetting Deedee ain't la Comtesse. He may have been open to a flirtation with a French widder, but that ain't to say he'll marry Miss Foster. Though he did look moonstruck, now you come to mention it,” Castlereagh ended with a frown. “My dear, he was never interested in the politics of the case in the least. He is in love with her, and he will stick to whatever story we put about, to keep her name as clean as possible. Lord, but how shall it be managed?" Mumbles regarding ‘the Committee’ were his answer, and after harumphing a few times, the Foreign Secretary admitted with a chuckle that by Jove, he thought his wife had hit on a capital scheme, for once.
“Hesaid to me when he called me out of the Cabinet meeting that he was investigating it on his own; but I was sure he'd been put up to it by Brougham. There is no trusting either of them, but if it's romance he has on his mind, we will put it to account. And if worst comes to worst, at least there's a Whig with half a hand in it, to help share the blame." “Just so, my love,” Lady Castlereagh smiled happily, and wondered how soon she might see Deirdre safely out from under her roof. Meanwhile Miss Deirdre Foster sat on the sofa, allowing her hand to be held by Lord Dashford, while she stared into the cold grate. To distract her thoughts from Michael, and to learn a few points that still bothered him, Dashford tried to lead her to talk. “Do you know, Miss Foster, I still don't know your first name. It cannot be Deedee, as Lady Castlereagh called you." “My name is Deirdre, and since you know it now, I hope you will never again call me Renée. But I think I told you my name when I was speaking to you about my escape. That is..." “Yes, I know what you mean. You may have mentioned the name, but I didn't know it was yourself, and didn't remember it." “Iloathe the name Renée and the title la Comtesse. It was the worst part of this awful nightmare, to have to answer toher name." “Why did you do it?" “For all the reasons I told you. It was all true but for the fact that it was she who got killed that night. When Michael and I met the next day, he begged me to leave. He insisted on staying behind to see if he could discover who killed her. He had some romantic idea of revenge, but I knew it to be irrational. I tried to persuade him to leave with me, but as he refused—adamantly—I conceived the idea of the masquerade to try to help him. It was actually Renée who gave me the idea. The one useful thing I got from her. I saw her one day, going through my luggage and examining my passport. She said she was looking for a pair of stockings. She just took what she wanted, without even asking. It was typical of her. She mentioned that a passport was not very specific—no picture you know—and said she thought she could pass for Miss Foster, in a laughing way, but with a look in her eyes that made me suspect her intentions. I hid my passport under the carpet after that. But when she died, I decided to pose as her, to try to protect Michael. I would not have been clever enough to think of it all on my own." “You may not be clever, but you are an excellent actress. You convinced me, and everyone else." “They were not hard to convince. She had met hardly any English people. We were of the same size, and had both red hair, so that anyone who hadn't seen her but once some time ago might take me for her." “And how did you think to fool them in France? By burying the body? Surely there was a risk it would be unearthed, as it was." “It is unlikely Napoleon ever saw the corpse, and his men couldn't know who they had killed. With la Comtesse dead, there was every reason to kill Michael. He was the likeliest one to know her secrets— whatever it was she managed to wangle out of Bonaparte. It was not certain Michaelwould be captured; but when he failed to show up after a week, I assumed the worst. I decided that if the French believed la Comtesse was alive, and in England, they would be careful what they did to him. And it worked. I talked the Castlereaghs into accepting my plan, for old times’ sake and for what they might learn from Michael when—if—he gets back. I made my very public debut, and was accosted by LaRue the second day of
my public appearances. It was exactly what I had hoped for. He arranged the details with Castlereagh. I don't know what proof LaRue offered; but Lord Castlereagh accepted his bona fides, and it was done. The few who had known her at all well were, of course, informed of the masquerade. Castlereagh decided to bring la Duchesse de Noailles in on it to lend support to my disguise. She had never seen la Comtesse, but was eager to aid any scheme that offered to thwart Napoleon. Maldon, whom you dislike so much, was only chosen because of his relationship to the family, and because he wanted to do something for England's cause against the French. His position as premier duke of England makes it ineligible for him to undertake active soldiering duty, and he was never much interested in politics. I personally hoped that my going about with him would lead people to think it was a romance, and help to keep other gentlemen at bay; for in my role as la Comtesse, it was necessary for me to be an incorrigible flirt. But it seems la Comtesse was not to be satisfied withone unexceptionable admirer." “It was even worse than I thought,” Dashford said, shaking his head. “Bad enough for la Comtesse to expose herself so, but foryou! The minute it was discovered you weren't la Comtesse—that in fact you were perfectly expendable, with no secret document to be handed over to Castlereagh if you met with an accident—your life was in constant jeopardy. And with so many knowing it, it's a wonder the secret wasn't out ages ago." “The discovery didn't come from any of the many in England who knew without telling it. LaRue discovered it from France, and even then all he knew was that a red-haired corpse of a young woman was discovered. He didn't know for sure it was la Comtesse. But in any case, I saw no particular advantage to their killing me, and never even thought of kidnapping." “Well you should have, for it might very easily have happened." “Might have—Oh, Dashford, you don't know about last night!" “Don't tell me something else happened to you last night? Renée—! Miss Foster—!What?" “Oh, what hasn't happened to me this last week,” she said, with a rueful smile that held much of a frown in it. “Let's hear it,” he said, bracing himself for the worst. She unfolded her story, diminishing nothing, for she found a certain satisfaction in his grave, tense face, and the way his fingers tightened on hers without his being aware of it. She didn't mind the pain at all. “You are not getting out of my sight again,” he said when she finished. He swallowed a heart-sized lump in his throat and went on. “To think I sat doing nothing all evening but watch Harold eat a bowl of gruel and listen to Beatrice describe the sleeves of a new gown she is having made up. I might have been with you. Why the devil didn't you let me know?" “You may be sure I would have, had I had any inkling of the little surprise in store for me. But I was quite unprepared for it, as you may imagine." “Why didn't you shoot the man while you had the chance?" “My finger froze on the trigger. I couldn't do it. I don't know how anyone can." “And you couldn't shoot LaRue today, either, even when he had his pistol drawn on you.” He shook his head. “You have no business being mixed up with people of this sort. It is madness, what you've been doing. You don't realize the ruthlessness of these, men. They're not playing games. They'd put a bullet through you as quick as they'd look at you, and never give it a thought. I suppose you think me a
murderer to shoot LaRue in the back. It isn't my favorite target—a man's back—but I didn't have much choice." “I'm glad you did it, of course. You saved my life." “You didn't sound glad. Turned on me like a virago, whatever that is. I thought you'd run mad. You looked as if you wanted to shoot me." “Iwas half mad. I must have been, to think LaRue had Michael and to take such a risk after last night. But I knew last night had nothing to do with LaRue, for they still thought I was la Comtesse. Anyway, if Michael gets home safely, it was worth it." “He will get home. Don't give up hope. Why else would LaRue have pulled that stunt this afternoon, if he hadn't heard Michael had escaped? He'd not be likely to call a halt to such a profitable rig as he had going for himself. He knew it was over.” But Dashford knew as well that it might be ‘over’ in more than one way. By Michael's death, for instance, while trying to escape. “You mentioned hating la Comtesse, disliking using her name. What was she like, the real comtesse?" “Like me, at my worst,” she admitted with a rueful laugh. “I copied her way of batting an eyelash, of flirting. Wore her gowns, a few of which I brought with me, and had others made up of the same sort. She measured poor Michael up like an ell of muslin and decided to make use of him the first half hour they were together. They met as I told you—through a professor at the university. Molly was a red herring, thrown in to account for that trace of an Irish accent I couldn't quite hide. La Comtesse was pretty, beautiful perhaps, if one likes that bold, calculating sort of a woman. She wanted out of France, and she saw a useful tool in Michael. He was infatuated with her on the spot. He hasn't much experience with women. Just one girl at home he liked—Margaret McCarson. So she got him to marry her, but by then their connection had become known. We were watched all the time. I lived with them, of course. We sneaked out to the countryside to try to shake off our shadows, but they weren't long in finding us." “You should have left long before, when he first took up with her." “Oh Lewis, to abandon him to that hussy! I tried to open his eyes to her. She'd have turned him over to the enemy in a moment if there had been the least advantage to it. She was utterly unscrupulous. But there was no advantage, luckily for Michael. It was her they wanted, not him." “Could our embassy not have helped you?" “It was in a state of chaos. The whole crew there fled at the first sign of trouble." “If only you had told me at the beginning! Castlereagh moves so slowly. He must, in his official position, with so many to account to. Your brother might have been got out long ago. But there's no point discussing what might have been." “I couldn't tell you. Lord Castlereagh had gone out on a very long limb for me. The least I could do was keep up my share of the bargain and tell no one, much as I wanted to. And especially I could not tellyou, because of your being in the Whig party." “Thank you for wanting to. You might have spared me some lurid hours of imagining your scarlet past. La Comtesse's, I mean. And yourself from at least one animal-mannered English libertine." “You weren't as bad as most of them,” she said, with a forlorn sigh that set the blood flowing angrily through his arteries. But this was a poor time for jealousy. “If it wasn't Brougham that set you on to investigate me, Lewis, who was it?"
“Idle curiosity, at first. Like everyone, I was curious about you.” It was important that Hopley's name not arise. From Deirdre it was too likely to get to Castlereagh; and that freemasonry that exists amongst gentlemen of the espionage calling was not to be breached, even to a lover. “Curious enough to follow me to the Tabard Inn, and to rifle through my bag and find my gun?" She looked at him, almost through him, with those clear green eyes. Such acts as she mentioned had no excuse outside of spying, and they both knew it. He compressed his lips, and frowned at the dilemma her perceptive question posed. “Come now, you knowall my secrets, and it is only fair you tell me yours,” she said. “I was very jealous,” he essayed. “That might possibly excuse following me and Maldon, but how about your going through my reticule? You were not jealous of my loose change and handkerchief." “Oh yes, a regular Othello, jealous of a handkerchief!" “I am fortunate I wasn't strangled in my bed, then, like poor Desdemona! No, that would do perhaps for Lord Dashford, but not for Lewis." “We are one and the same, ma'am." “You aren't, you know. You are as different as la Comtesse and Miss Foster. I knew exactly when you were being the one, and when the other. Your eyes changed, and your voice—and the words the voice uttered, too. Also, upon consideration, your behavior changed. I prefer Lewis." “To all others, I hope." “Yes, but you didn't answer my question. Who put you up to it?" “Will it be sufficient—I see you won't accept my original explanation—if I say it was a party who had every right to be concerned? A party other than Brougham, I mean. It was not a matter of party politics at any time." “I suppose it must be sufficient, as you have no intention of telling me. It really doesn't matter, so long as I know youhad a reason." There was no dinner served at the Castlereagh residence that evening, but there were several bottles of wine drunk. Six o'clock came and went, then seven and eight. And every moment nerves were stretched tighter, waiting—waiting. Chapter Twelve Lady Castlereagh came and went in the Blue Saloon, addressing words of encouragement to Miss Foster, urging drinks and biscuits on them both, and looking sharply for signs of love-making, without much success. Twice Lord Castlereagh went in, trying to be friendly, but finding himself unable to say a kind word with his foe making himself at home in his Saloon. “No word yet” was his twice-repeated comment, and on the second visit he mentioned to Dashford that he, Castlereagh that is, was staying away from an important meeting to be there, just in case. Now that it appeared Miss Foster was to become Lady Dashford, he wished it to be seen that every precaution was being taken for her comfort and safety.
“I appreciate it, milord,” Deirdre answered. Darkness had fallen. Muted sounds of carriages passing in the street bearing passengers to evening entertainments were audible through the curtains, each one causing eyes to turn hopefully to the window, only to see the lights pass by without stopping. And when Michael finally came, it was on foot, accompanied by only one man dressed in common gray fustian. He himself wore the garb of a French peasant—a twilled smock over nankeen breeches with gaiters, and a misshapen cap held in his hand. They entered the house through the kitchen, passing in this elegant neighborhood for common workmen. The escort sought out Lord Castlereagh, but Michael asked to see his sister first, and as the long-case clock in the corner chimed nine, a very grubby looking gentleman with two weeks’ growth of bright red stubble on his chin peered hesitantly into the Blue Saloon. “I say, it's a hideous room, ain't it?” was his first comment, uttered in a lilting voice. “Michael!” Deirdre shouted, and catapulted herself from the settee, bounded across the room like a gazelle, and pitched herself laughing and crying into his arms. “Watch it, Dee. I'm weak as a kitten from eating nothing but gruel for a month,” he said scoldingly, and held her off. “You'll knock me off my pins.” Then he cocked his head to one side and laughed merrily. “Good God! What have you done to yourself?” he asked, examining her from head to toe. “Got your hair all chopped off, and rigged out like a French pastry." “I have become one, you recall,” she replied. His light blue eyes darkened at this reference to his wife, and all the trouble lately endured by them both. “Was it very bad for you?” he asked. “No, not as bad as it was for you,” she assured him, looking at his worried face, the jaws sunken slightly beneath his oncoming beard. Dashford sat silently on the settee, observing the pair. What a girl! He arose and was made known to Michael Foster, the cause of this fiasco. He couldn't feel the fellow was worth the high price of purchase. A bit of a fool was his first impression, though the unbecoming outfit and his cavalier treatment of his sister undoubtedly had something to do with it. Castlereagh was not tardy in coming to claim Michael and see what he could discover from him. His first idea was to remove him from the Whig's presence for the interview; but Michael, with a mind of his own, crowded himself onto the settee that held two comfortably, making a crowded third with Dashford and Deirdre, neither of whom minded the enforced proximity. “I haven't much to tell you,” he said bluntly. “Renée doubtless knew more than she ever told me; I never pressed her, not foreseeing anything of this sort developing. But I hope to give you enough to repay you for your trouble, milord." “We'll get names later,” Castlereagh interjected hastily, with a jealous eye at Lord Dashford. “Not the names you want, I fear,” Michael said, not realizing the significance of either Dashford or the speaking glances Castlereagh was shooting at him. “Holland, Hobhouse, even Capell Lofft—none of those in England suspected of harboring a secret love for Boney—were known to my wife at all. I did ask her that, just for my own interest. She mentioned a few names, but of the nature of Jones and Brown —very minor personages, and probably aliases to boot." “I don't see that such names as thosedo repay us for our trouble,” Castlereagh said, becoming testy.
“They don't, of course. They are useless, but I heard some rumors at Rochefort. The place itself is a hive of activity." “We know Bonaparte's men are meeting there. It is our looking into the activity that brought to light your own whereabouts." “Oh, is that how you found me? I tried to work an anagram into my last letter, starting each line with a letter of the place, so that it would read my location down the side of the letter, but I didn't get past R— O—C. I daresay you missed it, Dee." “I never thought to look for such a thing!” she exclaimed in chagrin. “Oh how stupid of me." “Three letters would not have told us much,” Castlereagh said. “Were you allowed the freedom of the place? How did you discover this activity?" “No, no, I was kept pretty well locked up, but I passed for not knowing French at all, you see." “That was well thought of, Michael. Glad you came up with that,” Castlereagh congratulated him. “I didn't, actually. I couldn't understand a word the common fellers who were guarding me said. Frightful French they speak. Well, I'm lost when the English break into Cockney, as far as that goes; and I suppose this was some French version of the same sort. They must have told the bigwigs I didn't speak the lingo; for when I was put out for a daily spot of exercise the French gentlemen hanging about the yard spoke pretty freely, and I could understandthem. I was questioned a dozen times in English, too, by some higher-up fellers—even a General once—and the men doing it spoke among themselves. I memorized their names, and picked up what I could." “What did you manage to find out?” Castlereagh asked eagerly. He would have to trust to Dashford's infatuation with Miss Foster to hold his tongue still. He could not contain his impatience to hear all. “Morale is very low, for one thing." “Wellington will be pleased to hear that!" “The talk is all of how to get Bonaparte out of France when he's defeated. They scarcely speak of a victory at all, except as a miracle, or something to be prayed for. Fouché was there a dozen times, and if he bears the emperor any love I'll eat mychemise. It was his decision that Bonaparte should retreat to Rochefort when he's defeated." “Impossible!” Castlereagh said. “The worst spot they could possibly choose. It will be Le Havre, undoubtedly." “No, it will be Rochefort." “What, with three islands directly off it? And he must escape through a narrow channel? It is the easiest port in France to guard. If Fouché has chosen Rochefort, he means to hand the emperor over to us." “They have three ships ready for him—theSaale, theMéduse , and one other—I can't recall the name at the moment. I didn't dare to write anything down, you know. But there are boxes and cartons coming into the building every day. Books, money, silver and gold plate, I think—along with personal mementoes." “Well, and where do you think he will make for, if he squeezes past us at Rochefort? I'll give Rear Admiral Hotham this to ponder."
“Either America or England,” Michael answered with great certainty. “England!” Castlereagh and Dashford shouted in unison. “There is a large faction that favors it,” Michael assured them. “I was stunned myself when first I heard it, and thought I wasn't translating accurately; but it was repeated so often that I became convinced at last." “By God, let him come. We'll give him a welcome he won't forget,” Castlereagh laughed. “Las Cases and LaValette favor it, but I think they could be talked into America if you would provide him a safe conduct." “A safe conduct! To let him run to the renegade colonies and recruit a band that would be only too happy to have at us again? The man has run mad. I half suspected it. That would be Fouché putting him up to that absurd idea,” Castlereagh said, wide-eyed with astonishment. “I got the impression the Emperor himself favored England,” Michael offered. “Las Cases definitely believes it his best bet." “England has done similar things in the past,” Dashford reminded the Foreign Secretary. “His brother Lucien was kept at Thorngrove in Worcestershire only three years ago." “Yes, keptlocked up at Thorngrove!” Castlereagh pointed out. “On rather a long leash,” Dashford parried. “There was Saint-Evremond during the revolution—even buried at Westminster Abbey. And all the Huguenots given leave to settle in London when the Edict of Nantes was revoked. Why, Paoli was even given a pension by the government." “A bunch of refugees and persecuted Protestants are not the same as Napoleon Bonaparte!” Castlereagh declared. “I'm not suggesting it is, but a few years ago—in the 1790's I believe—Las Cases himself was here. Likelyhe has given Bonaparte the idea we'll take in anyone. Michael mentioned Las Cases favors England." “If that is the case, he has done the general a disfavor. I'd ship him back to France so fast his head would spin, and let Louis take care of him, as we should have done the first time. But I can't think they'll try that," Castlereagh said with a fair degree of certainty, and was of course proven wrong in little more than a month, when Napoleon did exactly that. Michael spoke on at length of other plans—of spiriting Bonaparte across the ocean to America in a cargo of brandy, of hiding him out in Ireland, and even of his brother Joseph masquerading as the emperor at Aix while Napoleon escaped. After a considerable time, Castlereagh said, “Well, Michael, perhaps itwas worth our while, after all. A pity you couldn't have gotten a little more concrete information out of la Comtesse about these Englishmen who have decided to wear the fleur-de-lys, but what we have will keep us thinking. I'll get on to Hotham and Liverpool and Hopley tomorrow. I daresay you could use a bed now." “I could use a bath and a leg of mutton first, not necessarily in that order, if it ain't too much trouble,” Michael answered. It was nearing eleven o'clock when the strange party sat down to a cold supper. Spirits were high, but still there remained problems to straighten out.
“Are we safe yet?” Deirdre asked. “Safer than you've been any time this month,” Castlereagh assured her. “You can at least lie low. The season is ending, and you can go with my wife—you and Michael—to Cray's Foot, my place in Kent, and recoup your spirits. There might be a spot of trouble yet; but it is time to announce the masquerade, don't you agree, Dashford?" “I don't see that it makes any difference. With both of them safe in England, the French will know they've told their news. It will be locking the barn door after the horse has bolted. If any action is taken, it will be in the nature of a reprisal, and is as likely to be perpetrated against Miss Foster as la Comtesse. Deirdre must be removed quietly from London. I do think, Lord Castlereagh, that Cray's Foot is the first place she'd be looked for. Her connection with yourself makes it the obvious choice." “Very true,” Castlereagh replied. “Maldon's place in Surrey would be safer." “Her connection with Maldon has also excited a good deal of comment. I was going to suggest that Deirdre and Michael come to me, at Downscourt. Only fifty miles from Cray's Foot, too, if it should be necessary for you to speak to them, but far enough away that anyone looking for them at your place is not likely to stumble on to them." “Very suitable!” Lady Castlereagh said, with a piercing glance at her spouse. Despite the romance between Miss Foster and Dashford, Castlereagh could not like the enemy to harbor Michael, who might have still a few interesting facts to relate. “There is something in that,” he admitted. “But not for a few days. There are some gentlemen who will want to talk to Michael. He is bound to remember other things, after he is rested up. We'll keep him here for a few days, and see if we can't fill out those lean cheeks. And take a razor to that red brush,” he added, with a look askance at Michael's disheveled beard. “I don't quite understand where Lord Dashford comes into the picture,” Michael remarked. “Just a good friend of the family, Mr. Foster,” Dashford informed him, with a satirical smile at Castlereagh, who harumphed and took a long pull of his claret. Chapter Thirteen There was heavy traffic to and from Grosvenor Square during the next two days. An informed bystander would have recognized such various eminent personages as Lord Liverpool, Lord Bathurst, Eldon, the Lord Chancellor, and Lord Van Sittart, the Chancellor of the Exchecquer. But there were no bystanders. The street was covered with hay and word put about that a neighbor lay dying, to discourage traffic. London found life dull with la Comtesse out of circulation. It was reported that she had a serious case of flu, which sometimes became pneumonia and once, hopefully, smallpox. In any case, it was affirmed by all that she would rusticate till the fall Little Season. When the engagement of Lady Mary Ogilvy to the Duke of Maldon was made public, the wiser heads nodded and assumed that losing her favorite flirt had occasioned la Comtesse's attack of flu. Three days after Michael's arrival, a heavily veiled lady and two tall gentlemen were escorted to an unmarked carriage and team of four spanking bays with six outriders, all armed, to make the trip to Kent. They took a large basket lunch with them, and other than stopping for a change of team, they dismounted at no inn. In the late afternoon, just before dusk, the carriage wended its unmolested way up a long gravel drive to Downscourt, a spreading Gothic castle set in a green valley. There was a larger than usual number of gardeners tending the grounds—an army of them in fact, ostensibly preparing the place for Lord Dashford's annual public day. The men seemed to have very little idea of the gentle art of gardening.
Their time was spent poking around behind every tree and bush in the park, and besides their rake or scythe or spade, they carried each a loaded pistol, concealed under a jacket or in the bottom of a basket. Lord Dashford's house guests, reported to be a young pair of newlyweds from Scotland, went very little about the countryside, but were not confined completely to the house. Company was discouraged, as they wished to be alone at this special time of their lives. On a fine morning or afternoon they were taken for rides about Lord Dashford's sprawling estate, tried their hands at casting a fly into the trout stream, had a picnic at the seaside, and once drove into the village in a closed carriage, without dismounting, to go through the shops. Their evenings passed peacefully and pleasantly at cards, reading, and music. Miss Foster's cheeks bloomed from the ivory pallor adored by her city suitors to a tint much preferred by both gentlemen, and Mr. Foster's face lost its lean and hungry look. But he soon became restless. As June approached its middle, he began to speak of returning to Ireland. There was no saying how long the war would last, and they couldn't billet themselves forever on Lord Dashford. His sister thought she knew the reason for his homesickness, and rejoiced. “Have you written to Margaret?” she asked. “Only a note, to let her know I am safe in England. I didn't tell her exactly where I am, and she can't answer me. She don't know la Comtesse is dead,” he reminded his sister. “I did write her of my wedding, but she may not have received my letter at all. There was some Englishman sent around last month asking a great many questions—a fellow named Hopley told me about it.He says that no one in Ireland knew of my marriage; so either Margaret didn't have my letter, or didn't tell anyone. Castlereagh decided, of course, not to put the announcement of our masquerade in the papers till the war is over, to lessen its impact." “Soon she'll know the whole story, Michael,” Dee consoled him. “I don't suppose she'll want a thing to do with me after all this. What a foolish thing it was for me to do! My only consolation is that I was in good company. Napoleon Bonaparte himself loved her; andhe , you know, in spite of what is said of him in England, is—" “Say no more, Michael. You were infatuated with la Comtesse and are still infatuated with Napoleon. Forget them both. The one is dead, and the other soon will be." “I can't forget them here. I want to go home, where I belong. We babes in the woods are out of our league here." “I'll ask Dashford to write to Castlereagh." “Why shouldhe do it?" “He is a friend of the family,” she answered, coloring up brightly. “Ours, or Castlereagh's?" “Both, I hope." “I must say, Dee, I don't still understand where he comes into it. I got the feeling Castlereagh didn't like him above half, and there doesn't seem to be anything between him and you, as I half thought the night I arrived. But I suppose it was the counterfeit comtesse he fell for, and he don't like Deedee Foster half as well,” Michael said with a careless laugh. So far as he had been able to discover, Lord Dashford behaved very much the same to his sister as he did to himself. Dashford's opinion of Michael had
improved upon closer acquaintance. They would never have a great deal in common, Lewis being basically a pragmatist, while Michael was a dyed-in-the-wool dreamer. Deirdre's face was pensive, but Michael was already turning to walk towards the stable. A horse breeder himself, he found plenty to interest him in that quarter. Since removing herself from the public eye, Deirdre had put off la Comtesse's fashionable gowns and arrayed herself in those remnants of her own wardrobe that had come to England with her in the bottom of her trunks. Her diamonds were gone to pay LaRue, her hair no longer tended by Philippe, her fan not used to flirt with her brother and Lewis; in short, she had returned to her own personality. She walked with a lagging step to the apartment set aside for her use at Downscourt and surveyed her face in the mirror. So that was why Lewis was behaving so very properly. It was two weeks now they had been at Downscourt, and not a single word of love-making or anything remotely like it had passed his lips. When compared with his former behavior, it was hard to put any other conjecture on it than the one Michael had stated. Just as she had no real love for his alter ego, he didn't care for her real self. It was her detestable imitation of Renée that had excited any interest he may have felt for her—if there had ever been any real interest. Very likely it was all an act to con her into revealing her secrets. She debated with herself what course to follow—whether to resurrect la Comtesse and try to win him with those artificial arts, or to give it up and go back to Ireland with Michael. The whole idea of ever acting that role had been detestable to her, and if a lifelong imitation was the price to pay for winning him, she must decline. She dressed herself in her plainest blue silk gown for dinner, without a bead or a ribbon to enliven it. She ran a brush through her tousled mop, and it was left unadorned, too, to sink or swim on its own intrinsic merits. With a defiant lift of her chin and a toss of her head, she was off to sit sedately through dinner, hardly speaking except to answer a question, and not once smiling. Looking at her across the board of the table, Dashford thought she had never looked lovelier. There was a dignity and reserve in her that was sadly lacking in la Comtesse. But he thought she seemed rather out of sorts. The interminable dragging on of the war and the constant wondering how long she must hide out here were held to account for it. After dinner, the gentlemen joined her in Dashford's spacious Red Saloon, and Michael broached the matter of returning to Ireland. Deirdre sat with her hands folded in her lap. “Yes, it is time we were both getting back,” she added to Michael's hints. Dashford looked a question at her, but she took up her embroidery and concentrated her attention on it.. “It happens I must go to London tomorrow,” Lewis said. “I'll speak to Castlereagh, see what he thinks." “Why are you going?” Michael asked. Miss Foster's ears were alert, but she made no show of interest in either his going or the reason. “Business,” he answered vaguely. “Iam a Member of Parliament, you know. Besides, consols have gone down to 42, and there's money to be made on them when the war is over. I mean to load up on them. I take for granted an allied victory." “Of course,” the Fosters stated in unison. “You could do worse than to buy now, in my opinion,” Lewis added to Mr. Foster. “With what?” Michael asked frankly. “I'd be happy to advance you some cash, if it is difficult for you to get ahold of funds in England."
“It's just as difficult in Ireland,” Michael confessed. “We ain't rich, Dashford. Oh, we have a big spread, and it ain't mortgaged, either. But our holiday in Europe pretty well wiped me out of ready cash." “I can lend you some, Michael,” Deirdre offered. “My dowry—" “No, no.” Michael waved it aside. “I've never played the stocks and ain't about to start. If I won, it would only lead me on to invest in something else; and I'd lose my shirt sooner or later, like Cricket." “An uncle, isn't he?” Dashford asked, with a smile at Deirdre. “Yes, so small we call him Cricket,” Michael answered. “I believe your sister mentioned it,” Lewis said, still smiling. “Well, I wish you luck,” Michael said to his host. “Thank you. Deirdre, if you want me to invest some part of your dowry for you, I really think it an excellent chance to make a good profit." “But what if I lose it?” she asked. “I don't like to gamble; it's too risky." “That fromyou?" He stared. “This is only money. It doesn't matter so very much if you lose a little." “I've only got a little. Just five thousand pounds. It is important tome, and will be to my husband one day, too, I expect." “I see,” he replied, with a rather self-conscious smile, and turned the talk immediately to other matters. As he was to make an early departure in the morning, they all retired early and arose at a good hour to see him off. With Michael standing by, Deirdre felt constrained to hold back the million questions she wished to ask him before he left. With a slightly embarrassed glance at her brother, she announced that she would see Dashford from the door, and once she was alone with him she asked, “How long will you be gone?" “Not a moment longer than I must be,” he answered with pleasing promptitude. “But you are in no danger here, if that is the source of your concern. We have the place surrounded with a hundred men. I wish you and Michael would stay close to home, though—within the grounds preferably." “Yes, we shall." “I don't want anything to happen to you at this late date, Comtesse,” he said, and raised her fingers to his lips. “I've asked you not to call me that!” she said sharply. Any slight gesture of more than friendship had to be accompanied by a reference to Renée. “A thousand pardons.” He waited a moment, then said, “No thousand forgivenesses today? I trust I haven't used up all your charity." “Oh, no! It is you who have been charitable all these long two weeks." “I have in mind a very large reward for my charity,” he warned, in a quizzing way; but she was downcast at his leaving, and made no reply. “Poor girl, you are worn to a frazzle with all this waiting. It can't be long now."
“No, I can soon go home." “Can you not contrive to feel at home here?" “You have been very kind. I hope I am not unappreciative, but one never feels quite at home in another's house. Especially such a huge one." “I am sorry to hear it. I had hoped that in mine you would be completely easy,” he answered, and left with a little frown between his brows. He was gone three days, and when he returned, he brought with him news of so momentous a nature that anything else was forgotten. There was general rejoicing throughout the land, for Napoleon had been defeated at Waterloo. He had not seen Castlereagh personally, but had heard through an aide that a piece was to be in the next day's papers outlining the true history of la Comtesse de la Tour, where it would hopefully pass with little gossip due to the greater news of the Allied victory in Belgium. “So, it's over at last,” Deirdre said with a peaceful smile. “Yes, and we can go home now,” Michael said, with an eagerness that spoke ill of his gratitude at the kingly treatment he had been receiving at his host's hands. “And you can call off the hundred guards,” Deirdre said to Dashford. “We are of no importance now, and in no danger." “I trust this is the end of it,” he agreed. “Can I write home now and tell Marg—tell everyone that la Comtesse is dead?” Michael asked. “It will be in tomorrow's papers. I can't see any harm in it,” Lewis replied. “I'll do it right now,” Michael said, and nearly ran to the door. “Come back when you've finished,” Dashford called after him. “We must toast the victory in champagne. It isn't every day we hear of Napoleon's downfall." “I hope Castlereagh remembers what I said about Rochefort. That's where they'll find him,” Michael called back, and was gone. Then Lewis turned to Deirdre. “A happy day for you,” he said. “The happiest day of my life,” she answered, but it was not true. Her visit to Downscourt was now drawing to its inevitable close. “I hope there is to be a happier one yet in store for me,” he replied leadingly. “You refer to your stocks? How long will it take for them to go up?" “No, wretch, I do not refer to my stocks. I refer to my girl,” he said, taking her hand. “How long will it take her to forgive me?" "Forgive you?For what?" “For being a base English animal, who attacks her in dark carriages. For being a poor sort of a fellow who roots through her bag and follows her around spying on her. For obtruding his company on her when she wishes to be alone, and for a million other indiscretions—sarcasm, innuendo. For harboring
belief for one moment in half the monstrous lies that were circulated about you." She shook her head and smiled. “Oh, but that wasn'tyou, Lewis." “No, it was that scoundrel, Dashford. I've spoken some harsh words to him, and he has been behaving much better lately, if you've noticed." “Isthat why you haven't—" “The only reason in the world—to try to convince you I am not totally lost to all sense of decency. But truth to tell, even Lewis is becoming impatient with this spirit of rectitude that presently prevails between us. Yes, and to confess to the whole dreadful truth, Lewis sat right there in our dark carriage with us and didn't lift a finger to protect you. He wanted to take a lunge at you himself, I don't doubt. But we blame it on Mother Nature." “What has she to do with it?" “She is the awful genie who reigns over the birds and bees and other libidinous creatures. You must have heard of her, even in Ireland. In fact, especially in Ireland— with the highest birth rate in the civilized world." “I can't think you ought to be talking so broad in front of me, Lewis." “Quite right. I'd do better to go behind your back.” He did so, but she turned around, laughing at his foolishness, to face him, and to catch him with his arms reaching to encircle her. Undeterred, he continued reaching and soon had her firmly in his arms, kissing her with the pent-up passion of his long restraint, till she felt forced to object. “Another couple of hundred pardons?” he asked fearfully. They were no sooner granted than he repeated his offense. “I have been thinking these two weeks you didn't like me,” Deirdre said, pulling away to straighten her gown. “That will teach me to let our pious friend Lewis get the upper hand. Do you suppose there's a little something of la Comtesse in you, after all?" “No! Just something of Mother Nature. But won't it be embarrassing for you to marry me? That is—I assume—" “Quite rightly, too!" “How horrid! I didn't mean toask you." “What's a little proposal between friends? I am honored to accept your offer, Miss Foster. But you were going to ask whether your worse half won't be an embarrassment to me?" “To your career, I was thinking. As a Member of Parliament, you know." “And the white hope of my party. I am earmarked for Castlereagh's job if Prinney ever tires of Lady Hertford and takes up with a Whig hostess. I think Lady Melbourne could get him if she'd only leave off chasing Byron and—" “Lady Melbourne! But she'sold! You can't mean she and Lord Byron—"
“They just sit and gossip and hold hands, which is about all Prinney demands of his flirts. Now I grant you Prinney's hand is not nearly so attractive as Byron's, but—" “Good grief! If that is how they all carry on, I can't think they will object tome! Or even to la Comtesse." “Possibly to your innocence, but never to la Comtesse. She is quite in their own style. She is not in mine, however; and we shall bury her once and for all in a good deep grave this time, after the story is made public tomorrow." “Yes, and I shall bury her gowns, too, or burn them." “Not the green one you wore at the play,” he pleaded. “Why? Did you like it? Of all her immodest outfits, I hate it the most. It was the one she wore to seduce Michael the first night we met. Indeed, all her gowns are very improper." “And very becoming, on you. But if you particularly hate the seafoam gown, I will be satisfied with Venus's other outfit. The one reported to be worn for Canova's statue." “Lewis! I hope this is not a preview of— Really, I don't know what you can be thinking!" He grinned wickedly. “No idea at all?” he asked. “I shall have to take your education in hand." “Oh, I think you would have dealt very well with la Comtesse. Much better than poor Michael. He was too innocent for her." “I deal very well with the only incarnation of la Comtesse I ever met." “Well, the incarnation you are dealing with now would not sport such gowns in public." “Ah, that is where the misunderstanding arises. I didn't mean you to wear them in public, but onlychez nous, for my own private enjoyment. For going about in the world you must get something between these nunly habits you have lately been flaunting yourself in and the other lady's dashing skirts." “I think you like la Comtesse better than me. I don't intend to try to live up toher reputation, Lewis." “No, live it down is more like it, and be sure to tell your chaperone—me—if anyone mistakes you for la Comtesse. I am not so easily hurt as Lady Castlereagh, and will be happy to deal with the obstreperous." “No doubt my reputation will cling to me for a while." “I doubt it will linger long about the marchioness. Do you think we may create her in a great hurry, before Michael dashes off to Ireland? It would be nice to have some of your family here for the wedding." “He wants to leave very soon." “That's good. The sooner the better. Oh not that I dislike his company, but it gives us an excellent excuse for a scrambling, hasty wedding." “It will take time for the banns to be read, and—" “My family's motto isSemper Paratus —Always Ready. For anything. Did you not wonder at my trip to London? I went to procure a marriage license. Would tomorrow do? We could go up to Liverpool for our wedding trip, to see him off. It would certainly be a novel choice of place for a holiday, and we would escape the wagging tongues, too, when the announcement of your masquerade is made."
“Maybe we could go to Ireland." “Why not? I've given the House two whole days this month. They can't expect all my time. Oh, I have a surprise for you; odd Castlereagh didn't attend to it.” He drew her diamonds from his pocket, still wrapped in their silver paper. “So youdid know about my selling them. I wondered." “We spies know everything. Bear it in mind, and behave yourself like Caesar's wife." “Michael will pay you,” she said, accepting the necklace. “Michael's in the basket, you recall." “Oh no, we are not actuallybroke, just a little short of cash." “They are paid for already. No, not by me! I recovered your money from LaRue when I was rifling his pockets. Really, I should try to break myself of that habit. I look to you to mend all my wayward tendencies. Except this one,” he said, and pulled her into his arms, where he reverted to being Lord Dashford. **** While the Marquess and Marchioness of Dashford honeymooned in Ireland, the strange history of Lady de la Tour and the Fosters was made public, followed shortly by the wedding announcement. It caused only a ripple in the world at large, but a small tidal wave in London society, where not even the Battle of Waterloo completely dwarfed it. “I never thought for a moment she was French,” Lady Jersey confided to her rival, Lady Cowper. "Not French?"Emily asked in astonishment. “My dear Sally, you must know it is all a hum that she is Irish. She is indeed la Comtesse. I had it of a friend of Maldon's, andhe would know. Since Dashford means to have her, however, they are pretending she is some little innocent from Ireland. It is all a farradiddle. And theydo say Dashford is to turn Tory, to be made Foreign Minister in the next cabinet when Liverpool steps down and Castlereagh becomes Prime Minister." “No, love, you have got itall wrong. Castlereagh is to go back to being a Whig. He and Dashford have been close as inkle-weavers this month past, and there was a secret meeting with Brougham and the whole thing will be announced any day. The Marchioness is indeed Irish, lives right next door to Castlereagh's old tumble-down place in County Down. One can't but wonder what Dashford sees in her. Irish, my dear, and not a title in the family. Some minor gentry. What an extraordinary pinnacle to top that career she erected for herself. And the brother is nothing but a breeder of horses." “No, no, a poet!” Emily corrected. “And what did thereal comtesse see in him?” She reverted quite readily to this other interpretation of the story, and was ready to add to it. “I can't imagine, but I hope he comes back to England with them. I must own I am dying to see him. They say he has red hair, like la Com—the marchioness." “Too young for you, love; and Palmerston says he is engaged." “Ah, then too young for you, too, Emily. And Palmerston wouldn't like your taking a new cicisbeo. One hears you are always faithful—to your lover, of course, not your husband." Lady Cowper smiled sweetly and retaliated, “No one ever accusesyou of being faithful to either one,
love. But to business. What of Miss Pringle? Do we let her have a voucher to Almack's?"
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