The Mask Revealed (The Jacobite Chronicles Book 2) (26 page)

He reached for her, and she slapped his hand away.

“Not now,” she replied softly. “I think Sir Anthony would be more likely to lie down quietly for an hour than to engage in relations with his wife which will no doubt be overheard by the person listening in the next room.” She adopted a bored tone for the next sentence, before lowering her voice again. “You should rest for a while, Anthony, you know how fatigued you become if you do not have a nap in the afternoons. I take it then that it is as likely Charles is to marry the princess as it is that his eyes have become blue overnight.”

 “How considerate you are, my dear. Yes, I shall lie down directly.” He moved towards the bed, taking off his coat and sitting on the edge. She sat next to him. “You’re right. But it provides a reason for him going to France, if he chooses to, and will hopefully throw Mann off the scent until after the invasion is launched. I must write to Charles at the earliest opportunity and tell him that he has a spy amongst his guards. Did you see Mann’s reaction to my avowal to defend you?”

“Yes,” she whispered. “But isn’t it most likely that the guard Charles dismissed has betrayed him?”

“Probably. But we can take no chances.”

He kissed her, passionately, once. Then he lay down. For the remainder of their time in Florence both in public and private, Alex made no further appearance, and Beth was made fully aware of how unbearably tedious her life would be if she were indeed the wife only of a superficial, gossipy, frivolous fop, as everyone else thought. It was only three days, but the fact that she missed Alex intensely during that time, told her that she really did now think of him and Anthony as two distinct beings. And
that
told her that, overall, she was probably performing the role of Lady Peters quite well.

By the end of the three days Sir Horace was so desperate to be rid of Sir Anthony, who embroiled him at every opportunity in a lengthy discussion about the quality of silk, or the intricacies of the embroidery on whichever hideous waistcoat he was wearing at the time, that he became positively effusive about the mildness of the weather at the moment, and now considered their chances of crossing the Alps safely to be excellent. When Sir Anthony, seconds before they were due to leave, asked the envoy if he would be so kind as to provide a letter of recommendation to ease their way through the remaining Italian customs posts, Sir Horace agreed without hesitation, and rang the bell for his clerk. When neither Philip nor his underclerk Nathaniel made an appearance, an unprecedented event, the envoy hurriedly penned a letter in his own hand, unwilling to delay Sir Anthony’s departure any longer than was necessary.

It was with the greatest relief that he waved the baronet and his wife off, noting with disapproval that Sir Anthony was even too much of a coward or a fool to discipline his own footman, who after having kept his master waiting for a few minutes, strolled casually round the side of the house whistling, and leapt into the coach without receiving any rebuke at all.

That evening, in their local drinking establishment, Philip and Nathaniel greatly increased their popularity amongst the assembled company by performing an extremely indecent song, complete with very explicit actions, concerning a young lady who became curious as to what was to be found beneath a Scotsman’s kilt, and was answered by that native of Caledonia in a very direct and hilarious manner. It had taken the Scottish footman some time to teach them the whole thing, which comprised some ten verses and a particularly rousing chorus, but it had been worth it, they felt.

So did the Scottish footman.

CHAPTER TEN

Paris, December 1743

Dear Isabella,

                     Thank you for your letter, which was waiting for me when we arrived here. It has been a long and sometimes difficult journey from Florence, and I am very relieved to have arrived safely at last.

She was, but not for the reasons given here.

The journey over the Alps was particularly difficult, but had to be attempted if we were not to be stranded in Italy for the winter, which we were most anxious to avoid. We could not make the return journey by sea, as the feluccas rarely put out in the winter, and so we had no choice but to travel over Mont Cenis. One cannot traverse this pass by coach, so our carriage was dismantled and taken by mule.

Sir Anthony and I were taken by chair, carried by two men. At first I must confess that I was very alarmed at the idea of trusting my life to total strangers, and spent some time in trepidation that they would lose their footing and drop me over the side of the mountain, but they are remarkably sure footed. They leap about the rocks like mountain goats and can seemingly walk on sheet ice without slipping at all.

The mountains are spectacular; it is impossible to describe their enormity and grandeur. The sight of the sun rising over the Alps, turning the peaks rose pink and causing the snow to sparkle as if one were travelling over a carpet of diamonds, is one I shall never forget, and certainly took my mind off the fact that for much of the journey I had no feeling at all in my hands and feet, so cold was it. We were most relieved not to encounter any brigands or the Spanish, and we travelled on to Geneva without any incident worth repeating, where Sir Anthony paused briefly to visit some acquaintances.

Beth had been surprised when he had stopped their reassembled carriage outside a small church nestled on the slope of a hill on the outskirts of the town.

“Why are we stopping?” she asked. The Calvinist church was rectangular, stone built and without ornamentation, surrounded by a small, well-maintained graveyard. Nothing that would merit a stop, particularly when they were in such haste.

Angus shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. He had no idea either.

“I wish to make only a brief halt, to visit some people to whom I owe a great debt, my dear,” Sir Anthony said, climbing down from the carriage and holding out his hand to assist his wife to descend. The postillion sat resigned to waiting in the bitter cold, hunching his body deep into his heavy cape.

Instead of going to the church itself, as both Angus and Beth expected, he took the small path around the side of the building, and came to a stop in front of a large, recently-erected stone, its edges as yet unweathered, the lettering crisp and clear.

“He has done it, then,” Sir Anthony murmured mysteriously.

Beth moved round to his side, partly to use him as a shelter from the biting wind, which he seemed not to notice, and partly so that she could read the lettering.

Erected In Loving Memory of

Anna Clarissa

widow of Sir John Anthony Peters

who departed this life on 7
^th
February 1740

in the 45
^th
year of her life.

Also in memory of their three daughters

Anna Mary

3
^rd
June 1715 – 10
^th
February 1740

Caroline Anne

12
^th
December 1716 – 6
^th
February 1740

Beatrice Elizabeth

25
^th
March 1719 – 25
^th
February 1740

May they rest in the eternal peace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Sir Anthony knelt down by the side of the grave, leaving Beth exposed to the wind. She gasped, but not because of that. After a moment she crouched down next to him. Angus remained discreetly in the background.

“They were real?” she asked. She had always thought the Peters family to be a fabrication of Alex’s sponsor, whoever he or she was. She had never imagined for one moment that they had really existed.

“Yes,” her husband replied simply. “My sponsor erected the stone last year at my request, but they were real. It wouldn’t have been practical to wholly invent a family. If we had done that, even the most cursory investigation of my background would have revealed that Sir Anthony didn’t exist. As I said, after my father died I returned to Scotland to lead the clan, not really having any intention of continuing with the idea of espionage. In the April of 1740 I received a letter from my sponsor to say that he had found a possible identity for me, if I was still interested.”

“And you were,” she said.

“Yes. There wasn’t much going on in Scotland at the time, nothing Duncan couldn’t deal with. So I made a trip down to…my sponsor’s house, and the rest is history, so to speak.”

She looked again at the gravestone.

“They all died within days of each other,” Beth commented. She shivered, and not wholly because of the wind. “What did they die of?”

He turned to her, his painted face blank.

“Smallpox,” he replied. “Which is why their son wears so much paint, as the sole survivor of the family, although horribly scarred, of course.”

She considered for a moment, laying aside the sympathy she felt for this tragic family, and dwelling on more practical matters.

“But in spite of the fact that there is a real Peters family, would it not still be easy to prove you don’t exist?” she said. “Anyone going to Cheshire would soon discover from the registers that Sir John and Lady Peters had no son.”

“No, they wouldn’t,” he replied. He plucked absently at a small weed struggling to grow in the shelter of the costly marble stone. “They did have a son. Anthony was born in Cheshire, in 1713. Sir John died six years later, and the family left the country soon after.”

“You mean Sir Anthony really exists?” she cried. She thought for a moment. “What happened to him? Is he dead?” she asked, and her husband smiled, having followed her thought patterns and been satisfied with the conclusion she had come to.

“He died in France in 1720, weeks after they arrived, which can’t have done Anna’s state of mind any good. He’s buried in a small church near Blois.” He reached down and ran his fingers across the four inches of smooth marble that separated Beatrice’s date of death from the wishes for their souls. “I owe him a debt,” he said earnestly. “Which is why, one day, when it no longer matters, I will add his name and date and place of death to the stone, so that anyone who cares to investigate will know that Sir Anthony Peters, court fop and Jacobite spy, was no relation whatsoever to this poor, tragic family. I will not sully their name. They deserve that, at least.”

He straightened, brushing the dirt from his gloves.

“Shall we go?” he said. There was a pale green stain on the fingers of his right glove, from where he had uprooted the small weed, which now lay wilting on the ground, its tiny roots exposed to the icy wind.

We stayed for a night in Geneva before travelling on to France. Really, the customs men are nothing short of robbers, and in spite of the numerous letters of safe conduct that my husband had obtained before leaving England (you, of course, dear cousins, know how numerous and influential are his acquaintance),

It would do no harm to remind them of this. Although the letter was addressed to Isabella, all of the cousins and probably Richard too, would read it.

 we were not allowed through until a substantial sum of money had changed hands, after which we continued on to Lyons, where we stayed for two nights to recover from the rigours of travel. Although one is sitting in a coach for most of the day, it is still incredibly tiring. The jolting on badly-maintained roads, the tedious halts at post-houses while the horses are changed, and the dubious nature of some of the accommodations, are quite exhausting. At this time of the year there is also the weather to deal with, and in spite of my furs and the bags of heated semolina that Sir Anthony was kind enough to procure for me to warm my hands and feet, the cold does take its toll.

Shortly before Lyons, it started to snow heavily, so we cut short our journey and put up at a small inn for the night. It was, thankfully, warm, due to a large log fire in the main room, which was consequently crowded. Unfortunately a small pony, who had been left untied outside, kept expressing his desire for shelter by butting open the door of the inn with his nose, letting in flurries of snow and a howling wind. The sensible thing would have been to go and stable him, but the landlord, not wishing to venture out into the snow, contented himself with closing the badly-latched door in the face of the unfortunate animal, which after a few minutes would repeat its performance. After several repetitions we moved from our seat near the door into the interior of the room.

It was as well that they had moved into the shadows. Five minutes later the door had opened again to a general groan from the company, but instead of the chestnut nose and soft pleading eyes of the pony, in had come a heavily cloaked and hooded man, brushing the snow off his shoulders and stamping his booted feet before entering the room.

Sir Anthony observed the traveller, who threw back his hood as the landlord approached him. The baronet started visibly, then leaned over to Angus and hurriedly whispered at some length into his ear, relying on the chatter and general noise to cover up what he was saying. Angus stood, and taking an extremely circuitous route round the room, finally approached the stocky red-headed stranger from the other side. Beth leaned forward to get a better look at the man, who now greeted her brother-in-law with recognition, although not affection. A sharp tug on her arm pulled her back into the shadows.

“Really, my dear, the noise and the smoke in this room are giving me the most dreadful headache. Why don’t we retire to our chamber? Jim will ask the landlord if he will be so kind as to provide us with a hot meal of some sort. I really feel quite unwell.”

Unwilling as she was to forsake the warmth of the common room, which was just starting to dislodge the cold from her bones, she knew an intrigue when she saw one. The landlord was now talking to the newcomer, who was shaking his head and moving across to a table, his face pale and lined with exhaustion. Angus took up the conversation on the stranger’s behalf, and that was all she saw before Sir Anthony led her up the wooden staircase to their small, but at least clean, bedroom. There he had explained, his breath forming small clouds in the frosty room, that the man was William MacGregor, or Drummond, of Balhaldie, chief by election of the MacGregor clan, although in Alex’s view not fully worthy of the title, and that he knew both Alex and Angus well enough for it to be inadvisable that he meet the former in his present disguise.