Barbara Metzger (22 page)

“What, and leave me here all alone, Senta? Don’t be cruel!”

Chapter Ten

“That was mean, sister, teasing the poor man like that. Why didn’t you stay, anyway? I even left you alone so you’d have privacy. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

They were in the grand ballroom so Senta could decide about the decorations. How could she concentrate on wall hangings, though, and floral arrangements, when her mind kept having untoward thoughts of her husband upstairs in bed?

“Well, yes, I did—I do—want a real marriage. But he didn’t really want me. That is, that’s all he wanted. Oh, how can I be talking about this to a…to a…”

“Friend?” Sir Parcival offered.

“I suppose, in a way.” Senta was used to the spirit’s odd appearance. Now, for instance, he was dressed in black leather, with fringes. She thought she’d seen something like his outfit at a masquerade, complete with bow and arrow. She was sympathetic of his faulty memory, and had even learned to ignore the awful tic he was afflicted with that made one side of his upper lip twitch. And no one else understood at all.

“He never said he loved me,” she confessed now. “He is lonely and bored, most likely grateful for my nursing. That’s all.”

Sir Parcival did that thing with his lip again. “He was worried sick about you. He cares about your safety and wants you with him all the time. If that’s not loving you, I don’t know what is.”

“He still needs an heir, and I seem to be the only woman to hand.”

“I’ve seen the way he looks at you. No man looks at a broodmare that way. Well, at least you’re not crying all the time anymore.”

“No, he…he does like me, I think. I’ll learn to be content with that. Besides, there’s too much to do to fall into the doldrums today. I need to figure how many yards of lace to order, and how much satin ribbon.”

“Blue,” was all he said.

“No, I told you, I refuse to be blue-deviled today. I have to make this ball perfect so Lord Maitland will see I’m no harum-scarum female. I want his respect, in addition to his…his carnal desires.”

Senta was afraid her companion would be sneering again at her girlish dreams, but Sir Parcival was smiling, making him look so astonishingly handsome that Senta almost wished she were better with her paints, so she could do his portrait for when he was gone. Perhaps on black velvet, which was all the crack now. She caught herself having nearly carnal thoughts about a man—or wraith—not her husband, and blushed. She quickly amended: “And at the ball we’ll catch the scoundrel who’s been causing such trouble. I just know it.”

“All I meant was you should do the ribbons and fluff up in blue. Looks good. This old barn of a place will look prettier’n that grand old opera place we went.”

“I know blue is your favorite color, but this is a Valentine’s Day ball! We have to have red hearts and flowers, pink streamers, and, yes, pink candles in all the chandeliers and wall sconces. Cook has already ordered
raspberry ices from Gunter’s. Why, whoever heard of a blue Valentine’s Day?”

“Whoever heard of a blue Chr—Nah, you’re right.”

*

A few days after the invitations to the ball went out, Senta had an unexpected visitor. Most of her friends in Town knew she’d be too busy for morning calls, so they just sent notes asking after the viscount’s welfare. Many wrote that they were dismayed at the dreadful state of society when a peer of the realm could be cut down in broad daylight for his pocket change. What was the world coming to? As for Society, they all wrote that they were coming to her party, with eager anticipation.

Lieutenant Theodore Sayre sent in his card with the corner folded down to show that he had called in person, and asked for a moment of Lady Maitland’s time. Senta dropped her sewing—the thousandth satin heart, it seemed—and hurried to the morning room, where Wheatley had left the young officer.

The lieutenant was a good-looking young man, scarcely older than Senta, with reddish blond hair and military sideburns that earned Sir Parcival’s approval. He was quite dashing in his scarlet regimentals, his arm in a sling, but Senta thought he seemed terribly ill at ease. Suspiciously so.

She invited Sayre to be seated and rang for tea. “Or would you prefer something stronger, Lieutenant?” She was hoping to calm his nerves—and loosen his tongue.

He sat, awkwardly, at the edge of his chair. “Tea is fine, ma’am, that is, Lady Maitland. I wouldn’t be bothering you, never been introduced and all. Not the thing, with you planning a ball and his lordship knocked cock-a-hoop. That is, everyone’s talking about the attack on Lord Maitland. And here I thought the Peninsula was dangerous.” He tried to smile at her, but the light never reached his shadowed eyes. “The thing is, I hoped to see Lord Maitland.”

Senta busied herself pouring out the tea and fixing a
plate of Cook’s delicacies. She placed both on a piecrust table so the lieutenant wouldn’t have to juggle them with his one good arm. Meantime she was wondering if Lee would murder her for sticking her nose into his business. Well, her husband getting his brain split open
was
her business, she reasoned. “I left his lordship asleep, but he should be awake shortly. The doctor says he is recovering nicely, thank you, and I know he will be pleased to see a new face if you could wait a bit. We could become acquainted in the meantime.”

Teddy felt the urge to loosen his collar. Instead he took a deep swallow of his tea, which was too hot, and burned his tongue. “Agh, ah, that would be my pleasure, ma’am.”

Senta was beginning to suspect that the poor boy’s nervousness was due more to shyness than to guilt, especially when he sat mumchance after that. Senta asked if he’d received her invitation.

He patted his pocket and turned nearly as red as his coat. “Meant to thank you right off. Honored to attend, my lady.”

Another silence. “Are you well acquainted with my husband?” Senta asked.

“Not as well as with… That is, never got a chance to pay my respects to him, about Michael and all, being wounded at the time. Then when I got your invite”—he patted the pocket again—“and saw you were in Town, I came right up from Bath. Need to ask his lordship about…about…”

“He has a great deal to ask you about, too. You were a good friend of his brother’s, then?”

“Best friends, ma’am, and proud of it. Michael saved my life when I took this hit and got thrown. He got down in the middle of a pitched battle, dragged me across his own horse, and led me out. Then he went back and finished off a few more of Boney’s men.”

“So you don’t think he could have sold information to the French?”

Teddy’s cup rattled on its saucer. “Michael a traitor? Never. He was as loyal as they come. I’d stake my life on it. Did, in fact.”

Senta crumpled a macaroon, thinking how angry her husband was going to be. “The reason I ask is that some nasty rumors are going around that someone did betray Michael’s unit to the enemy. Lord Maitland is very upset over these rumors.”

“I heard something about that before I came home. Headquarters was pretty sure there was a spy at first, but then they dropped the investigation. It couldn’t have been Michael anyway, not in a million years.”

“But who else knew about the troop movements? I assume they’re always supposed to be secret. There’s no sense in telling the enemy where you’re going to march. The general trusts his staff implicitly, I’d guess.”

“I should say so. If there was a turncoat at headquarters, we’d never push those Frogs back.”

“But there were other men who had to know, to lead the troops. Michael knew.”

“Of course he did. That doesn’t make him a traitor. I knew, for that matter. Michael came to the hospital to tell me before they moved out.”

Senta just looked at the lieutenant over her teacup.

Sayre jumped to his feet, spilling tea onto his trousers. “You’re not thinking that
I
sold out the men! Dash it, Lady Maitland, that’s not the thing to say to a chap.” He dabbed at his pants with the napkin she handed him. “It’s no wonder your husband got coshed, if you go around accusing honest Englishmen that way. I wouldn’t be surprised if he finds himself challenged to duels every afternoon. Illegal and all, but to cast doubt on a fellow’s honor… Not the thing.”

Ignoring his indignation, Senta asked, “Could anyone have overheard your conversation, yours and Michael’s?”

“I don’t know. I was too delirious at the time.” The lieutenant thought a moment while he chewed a biscuit. “But no, Michael would have kept an eye out.”

“You were in a fever?” Senta remembered Lee’s disordered babbling before his fever broke. Some of his rambling made sense, as when he called her name or Michael’s, or shouted for his horse and pistol. “Could you have repeated Michael’s orders, in your delirium?”

“I suppose I could have, ma’am, but there are no spies at the field hospital. Wounded French prisoners are kept separate, and the sawbones don’t need the additional work they’d get, sending our men into ambushes.”

“Of course not.” Senta changed the subject. “You didn’t have to sail home on the hospital ship, did you? I hear they are appalling.”

“No, my brother and his friend came to fetch me in Northcote’s yacht.” He shook his head. “Oh, no, you don’t. My brother’s a rattle, always under the hatches. He’s a gambler, don’t you know, not even a good one. But he wouldn’t sell out his country.”

“And this Lord Northcote”—whose invitation to the ball was even then being inscribed in Senta’s mind—“did he visit you in hospital, perhaps while you were speaking in your sleep?”

“Lud, I suppose so. Randy kept popping in to see when we could leave. He was that anxious to be gone before the sawbones gave my release.” Teddy took up a poppy-seed cake. “Never understood what my brother saw in Northcote. He’s a gambler, even worse than Randy, older, too. Northcote likes to play with green ’uns, johnny raws who are easier to fleece. His dibs were in tune on the ride home, though. We had the best accommodations, the highest-quality horseflesh at the changes. No breakdowns for Baron Northcote. I appreciated it at the time, ma’am, but I do remember being surprised a cold care-for-naught like Northcote would go to so much trouble. Do you think… That is…could I have been the one who gave the information that cost all those lives?” Gone was his soldier’s erect bearing. Lieutenant Sayre was slumped into his chair, almost swallowed in its depths.

“Not intentionally, I’m sure, Lieutenant. Never that. You’d better talk to my husband, hear what he has to say. Someone was a traitor, and someone tried to blame Michael for the crime. We think they might have killed him.”

The officer whistled. “I never bought that faradiddle about Michael’s rifle misfiring.”

“What the army believes is that he killed himself over his dishonor. Now someone is trying to get my husband to pay silence money to keep that quiet. That’s what the attack on his lordship was about, you see, although we are not revealing the truth to anyone.”

“You can trust me, ma’am. I’m not delirious anymore. I wouldn’t let Michael down again, I swear.”

“And I believe you.” How could she not, when he’d already put his life on the line for his country?

“What can I do to help find the dastard who caused all the trouble? I’ll see him hanged, even if it’s my own brother. Lud, I hope it don’t come to that. How could I explain to my mother?”

“We do have a plan, Lieutenant, and it involves the ball. I’m sure Lord Maitland will be happy to assign you a part in the trap we’re setting. I’ll just go see if he is awake yet.”

The young man stood when she did, but stared down at his highly polished Hessians. “Before you go, ma’am, I need to ask a favor.”

“Of course, Wheatley will show you where to go.”

His face went scarlet again. “Not that. I, ah, did come to pay my respects and all, and I knew it was a bad time with his lordship laid up and a ball to plan, but there’s something I just have to know. I’m sorry, but I can’t find out anywhere. Michael had a…a friend.”

“Mona?”

“You know about Mona? Do you know how she is? Where she is? Did she have the baby? I’ve been worried sick. Couldn’t get word of her from anyone, and the mails are so slow. I know it’s not at all the thing to ask you, you being a lady and all, but I had to try.”

“Yes, Mona said you were friends. I’ll put you out of your misery. She is here with her baby, a darling little girl who we all adore. Mona is acting as my companion until we get this matter resolved and make other arrangements. She calls herself Señora Vegas.”

Senta found her hand being shaken so vehemently, she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to write out those last invitations. “You’re a Trojan, Lady Maitland. Not every woman would take in a female like that with a baby and all. My own mother wouldn’t. I asked, in case I could find Mona and get her to come to me in England. Not that Mona isn’t a lady, ’cause she is and I’ll take on anyone who says otherwise. She’s good and kind, and properly reared. Michael was all set to marry her as soon as he had time to find a willing priest, the lucky dog. It was the war that got in the way.”

And it was Michael who got in Lieutenant Sayre’s way, Senta guessed. With the wind in that quarter, she’d have something else to work on after the ball. Lieutenant Sayre could be the answer to another big problem if his intentions were as honorable as Senta thought. “Private Waters looks after her,” she told the young officer, so he would know Mona was not to be treated lightly, just in case.