Dangerous Deceptions (35 page)

“Matthew.” I laid my filth-encrusted hand over his pale one.

His eyes flew open.

“Oh, lord, don’t look at me,” I said. “I’m a horror.”

“You’re here,” he said. “You’re alive.”

Without ceremony, Matthew pulled me down to him and kissed me. If I had not loved this man before, in that moment, I loved him more than life itself.

Shortly after this reunion, the entire school moved itself to his—our—assistance. I remain uncertain whether this was a measure of the esteem in which Matthew Reade was held or a measure of the artistic love for drama of all sorts. Water was heated, and screens were raised around great copper kettles that could be used as hip baths. The models who let themselves be drawn from life proved kind and practical women. They lent me enough articles of clothing—a shift, a plain woolen dress, stockings, slippers, a cap—to make me minimally decent. A collection was taken up so that bread, cheese, mutton, and pease pottage could be procured from the public house in the next street. A maid was persuaded to give up her room for at least a few hours so that I could sleep, although I left Matthew’s side only when he told me that my presence was interfering with his own ability to rest.

That I slept like the dead goes without saying.

When I woke, it was to darkness, panic, and no memory of how I came to be in this room. Then I saw the candle burning on its pewter dish and Matthew sprawled in the battered chair at my bedside. His bandaged head lolled back, and a snore of remarkable length and volume rumbled from his open mouth.

I smiled and turned over and went back to sleep.

When I woke the second time, it was to the press of a callused hand holding mine. I opened my eyes to see Matthew smiling softly down at me.

I think I meant to speak his name, but I had no chance, for he was kissing me with infinite gentleness. All memory of pain and fear and fury fled as I gave myself over to this moment and the simple, joyful act of kissing my paramour. It was not until we parted that I realized there were voices in the room. Over the curve of Matthew’s shoulder, I saw my father standing in the corner, talking softly.

The person he was talking to, as it happened, was Mr. Tinderflint.

I’m afraid the next words that came out of my mouth would have done Mr. Pym proud.

“Rest easy, Peggy Mostly,” said Matthew as he gripped my shoulders. I was attempting to kick back the covers and scramble to my feet. “Easy!”

“I am not a horse, and you will let go of me, Mr. Reade!” I snapped or, rather, croaked. My throat still seemed to be suffering from its prolonged contact with the Thames. Regardless, I had no intention of telling my patron what I thought of him and all his doings while flat on my back like an invalid. I was going to look him right in his watery eyes.

This mildly admonishing discourse caught the attention of both men, and they turned toward me.

“It’s all right, Peg,” said my father.

“Why on earth should I listen to you, sirrah!” I swatted at Matthew’s hands, but he didn’t let go. I was forced to remain in the bed unless I wished to apply some of Monsieur Janvier’s teachings, which, I will say, was not entirely out of the question. Matthew did at least permit me to sit up.

“You’re a lying blackguard, and you’re standing there talking with another!”

My father sighed and cast a sidelong glance at Mr. Tinderflint. “She has a point.”

“You will find, my friend, that she generally does, and a good one at that. A very good one.”

“Just like her mother.”

Mr. Tinderflint nodded until all his chins flopped.

I looked at Matthew. “Let go of me,” I ordered. “I’m going to murder them both.”

“No, you’re not,” Matthew answered with infuriating calm. “You’re going to trust me when I say that if murder were called for, I would have already done it.”

I had no immediate answer for that.

“My dear—” began Mr. Tinderflint.

“Don’t you
dare!
” I cut him off. “You’ve done nothing but lie to me! You ruined my uncle once before. You put me up to this business of maid of honor and spy and the rest of it to ruin him again,
and
my cousin! You led me on with all those stories about my mother, and you knew all the time where my father was, and you have the gall to call me “dear”! And you!” I turned to my father. “You let him! You let him! I could have died right along with Mother for all you cared!”

“You know that’s not true,” said my father.

I fell back against the pillows and folded my arms tight across my chest. My cheeks were hot, and my eyes burned, but no tears fell. Matthew squeezed my shoulder. He said nothing, only made sure I knew he was there.

“Mr. Reade, if you would give us a moment?” inquired Mr. Tinderflint.

“No,” said Matthew.

Mr. Tinderflint looked at my father. “Let him stay,” said Father.

Mr. Tinderflint shrugged. “Very well.” Someone had moved a battered wingback chair into the room, and Mr. Tinderflint lowered himself into it. “Now, Peggy, I’ll tell you. Yes, I will.”

I did my utmost to make sure he saw that this story had better be a good one. I was gratified to see him blanch, just a little. A thorough rinse in the Thames evidently did wonders for a person’s powers of glaring.

“Our late Queen Anne’s death was a slow, sad time coming,” said Mr. Tinderflint. “There was, as you must understand, a great deal of jockeying for position and power while it was happening. There was also much going back and forth over whether Hanover or Stuart would take the throne. The power games were deep and complex. They played out for money and patriotism and religion and a thousand other reasons. Then, as now, some plots were true threats to the nation and the throne, some were nothing but air and the dreams of drunken men.

“Those of us who were ready to declare for Hanover knew it would be vital to tell the difference between the two. We had to put in place our best men to learn the differences and report back. One of these men was your father, Mr. Jonathan Fitzroy.”

“Johnny Leroy,” I said. Father bowed his head in acknowledgment. His hair had been combed and pulled back into a respectable queue. His beard was also trimmed, and he now wore it in a neat point that made him look worldly, French, or devilish. Possibly all three. I turned my eyes away.

“Your mother stayed behind, of course,” Mr. Tinderflint went on. “To look after you and to do what she could for our cause in the drawing rooms of London. It was a great shock to us all when she died.”

“I thought I’d die myself when I got the news,” Father said softly.

“Die, but not come back,” I reminded him.

“I couldn’t, Peggy.” His eyes pleaded with me to understand. Unfortunately for him, I felt my sympathies had been much overtaxed of late.

“Are you going to blame duty or loyalty?”

To my surprise, a small smile formed on my father’s face. “Actually, I’m going to blame old Louis XIV. He had me in the Bastille at the time.”

“Which was where I had initially sought him,” said Mr. Tinderflint. “I was somewhat surprised to find my information rather dated.”

“Not by as much as I would have liked. I was five years getting out,” Father said. “And no, Peg, the process is not something I care to share with you. But by the time I made my way back to the Royal Embassy in Paris, there was a new crisis, and a serious one. Some of the lords in the southeast of England were making a determined play to get money to the Scots rebels. Someone had to go in and find out how this was being done. I received my orders, and I went.

“My only defense, Peggy, is that I thought you were safe. I never, ever thought for a moment that your uncle would risk his neck and his family by getting involved with the Jacobites again.”

“Maybe he couldn’t make his fortune any other way,” said Matthew. “Who would deal with a ruined man but other men risking ruin?”

Mr. Tinderflint looked startled. “That might be true, Mr. Reade. It very well might.”

“So Uncle Pierpont really was funneling money to the Jacobites?” Olivia would be pleased. Olivia would be shattered.

“And taking a healthy percentage of every exchange for himself,” said my father. “It worked well, until the Sandfords and the baron came into it. Lord Lynnfield, it seemed, had his own ideas about how things should be run and was ruthless enough to enforce them.”

I did not want to think about Lord Lynnfield. I did not want to hear the scream and the splash of his dying. I did not want to think there might be two ghosts coming around the next time I closed my eyes. Three, for there was Mr. Pym as well.

“Was it money that Uncle Pierpont and Mother quarreled about all those years ago?” I asked.

“No,” said Mr. Tinderflint. “They quarreled because she tried to warn him that he was suspected of moving moneys about for the conspirators in the earlier uprising. One of the earlier uprisings, I suppose I should say. For his part, Sir Oliver thought a sister should shield her brother, no matter what, and blamed her for setting the interests of the Crown over those of family.” Mr. Tinderflint leaned forward. “Peggy, I did not know where your father was when I came to you. I did not even know for certain if he still lived. I sought you out because I had a great need and I hoped to find your mother’s spark and talent in you.”

“And that you surely did, sir,” said Father.

“Oh, yes. I did indeed.”

I took my aching head in both hands and pushed my hair back from my face. What was I to say? What was I to think? I looked at the two men, the lean and the plump, the plain and the glittering. I wanted to hate them. I wanted to love them. I wanted to trust them, and I wanted to throw them out of my room and never see either of them again. In truth, I wanted too many things to be encompassed by my poor wounded heart.

“Why did the Sandfords insist on my being married into their family?” I asked.

“That is not yet entirely clear. My best guess is that they wanted a hostage.” Mr. Tinderflint said this with remarkable calm. “Unlike my poor self, they seem to have known that Fitzroy was active and in pursuit of their confederates. If you, Peggy, were in their house, they would have a final ace to play should he turn up.” Mr. Tinderflint paused. “Speaking of cards and turning up aces, I heard about your little game with Mr. Julius Sandford. Remarkable. Wholly and entirely remarkable.”

Against all judgment and good sense, his praise sent a flicker of warmth through me.

“So all that business with the sugar plantations being lost, what was that?” asked Matthew. “A distraction?”

“Yes, to cover the whole family’s return to England and their entrenchment in their home county,” said Father.

Mr. Tinderflint favored Matthew with his most careful look of appraisal. I found I did not like this at all. I did not want Matthew to come to Mr. Tinderflint’s attention. Those of us who did tended to fare rather badly.

“The Swedish ambassador, Gyllenborg, had been reaching out to the Jacobites. King Charles XII of that nation is in need of money to fund his own wars, and, incidentally, to keep Hanover and Hanover’s allies in check. King Charles knew the Jacobites would pay for arms.”

“So it was silver to the Swedes, arms to the Scots, death to George, and long live King James III,” my father finished for him.

“What will happen to Uncle Pierpont?” I asked.

My father was silent for a moment. “It’s already happened, I’m afraid. He’s dead.”

“Dead?” I echoed. The word made no sense. How could Uncle Pierpont be dead?

“There was a fire,” said my father gravely. “It began, they think, in his book room.”

A fire. In the book room, with all that paper. All that incriminating paper, which could, I now knew, prove him to be a traitor. Fragile, flammable paper that could send him to the tower and his widow and orphan daughter to the streets. I pictured him in the darkened room with a single candle in his hand, making up his mind. Hadn’t I stood in that room myself and thought of burning? No one was going to say the words, I knew that. They didn’t have to. I could see him carefully and methodically locking the door and then setting the candle’s flame against one pile of paper after another.

A tear trickled cold and slow down my cheek. “And Olivia?”

“With her mother at Leicester House,” said Mr. Tinderflint. “They are in the very capable hands of Molly Lepell and Mrs. Howard until you can return to them. There will be scandal, and grieving, but that is all.”

Because my cold, unerringly practical, hardhearted uncle had done the last service he could for his only surviving child and destroyed the evidence. All of it.

“What of the Sandfords?” asked Matthew. I suspected he did this so I would not have to.

Mr. Tinderflint gave a gusty sigh. “Mr. Julius Sandford is now, technically and possibly temporarily, Baron of Lynnfield. He is at this moment speaking with certain ministers and other important personages about this scheme of silver, arms, and oatmeal. In some ways, he is most fortunate indeed.”

“In what ways?”

My patron’s expression was a wry one. “His father is dead and so may easily be blamed for a great many things. And since this whole enterprise looks to have been the king of Sweden making a deliberate move against the king of Greater Britain, the new Lord Lynnfield becomes a very small fish indeed. If he tells enough truths, and swears to enough ignorance, he himself may be let off with his title and lands intact.”

“He knew all of it, from beginning to end,” I said. “I would swear on the Bible to that.”

“As would I,” replied my father. “Unfortunately, I cannot prove it, and Mr. Julius—the new Lord Lynnfield, I suppose we must say—is making a great show of surprise and sincerity. He was, after all, in Barbados while the foundations of the scheme were being laid.”

“And he’s a peer of the realm,” added Matthew. “The rules are different for them.”

“But surely they’ll listen to what you say about the brothers,” I protested to Mr. Tinderflint. “You’re Earl Tierney, after all.”

My patron bowed. “Unfortunately, I am Earl Tierney who is not at all trusted.” He smiled modestly at my expression. “No, Peggy, it is not just you. I have made myself the object of suspicion in a great many circles.”