Emma Jensen - Entwined (18 page)

Only a man who did what St. Wulfstan did best would be allowed to flout regulations as he always had. What St. Wulfstan did best was make himself completely invisible when necessary. He would disappear for months on end, only to surface with information no one else could come close to obtaining. He was irresponsible, irreverent—and invaluable to the unit.

Nathan had never liked the man, but he respected his uncanny abilities.

"Should he deign to check in, I trust you will let me know."

"Of course." There was a rustling of paper. "The Winslow ball is tonight, is it not?"

"It is. I have arranged to meet my family there."

"Good, I have an invitation here somewhere."

While Gerard fumbled, just a bit drunkenly if the noises were any indication, through the piles of papers that were always on his desk, Nathan wondered what sort of greeting he could expect that night. Oh, Lady Winslow would be happy enough to see him. It was Isobel whose welcome would be questionable.

It had been expedient to leave her with his parents, even as it seemed cowardly. He knew her, far better than she thought, and knew she would have been uncustomarily quiet had he stayed. Family, to Isobel, was sacred.

She would have felt like an interloper and done everything in her power to stay in the background.

As it was, she probably felt like a cornered fox in hunting season.

She would see to herself. And, in the process, she might very well succeed in blazing a place for herself in the cool, controlled Paget clan.

Then again, she might already have fled for the relative safety of Mount Street, if not all the way back to Oriel Hall.

No, Nathan decided. Isobel would never take flight that way. Nor, he knew with utter, satisfying certainty, would she leave him alone. There was probably a Highland gale coming his way, but it would rise fast and blow hard, then whisper away.

From habit, he turned to face the window. He knew that Pall Mall was below, the Carlton House Gardens not more than a stone's throw away. If he remembered correctly, the Princess of Wales had insisted that yellow roses be planted there during the brief time she spent in residence. He wondered if the plants had survived her fall from grace.

He would have to ask Isobel the meaning of a yellow rose. That was, of course, if she was still speaking to him.

Restless, he turned back to face Gerard. "Let's get on with what we have, then. Back to Almeida. No, before that."

"I don't know if it will help. We were so confident then, so convinced of our cleverness."

Nathan smiled humorlessly. "And wholly ignorant. Take heart, Matthew. We might be just as blind, but we are infinitely wiser. Now, before our garrison at Almeida fell..."

"The Ten was still intact then, all somewhere on the Peninsula.

Dennison and Rotheroe were at Almeida. St. Wulfstan had yet to go into France. You and Rievaulx were working your way to Lisbon. Brooke, Montgomerie, and Brandon were at various points in the south, Harlow in Lesaca, and Witherspoon in Coimbra."

"All scattered," Nathan mused, "and constantly moving. What is the link, Matthew, other than that we each had to the others?"

"That
is
the link. The Ten."

Now there were five left: himself, Montgomerie, Brandon, Rotheroe, and St. Wulfstan. "All on the Peninsula," he repeated quietly, "all constantly on the move and not always where we were supposed to be."

Nathan had come to several realizations the first of which he knew he must share with Gerard, even though the man would, no doubt, refuse to believe it. If it was really true that someone was after the Ten, the most likely person to have known their identities and location was one of the members himself. If, in fact, someone was really after the Ten, one of the remaining five was quite possibly a traitor. And a murderer who had been able to get close enough to four men on the Continent to attack them, close enough in London to dispatch Dennison.

The second realization had come to Nathan fast on the heels of the first.

In coming to London, blind and essentially helpless, he could very well have placed himself in danger. Worse, he had been stupid—blindly stupid enough to drag Isobel right along with him.

CHAPTER 11

O, how full of briers is this working-day world!

—Shakespeare

Idiot!
Nathan cursed himself as he navigated the foyer of the Winslow townhouse.
Witless, foolish, idiot!
He had no idea what had possessed him to create this particular plan. It had seemed such a good idea at the time.

Now, as he gripped his walking stick with unnecessary force and hoped he would not encounter anyone requiring more than a polite nod, he tried to remember if Lady Winslow was the sort to fill her house with ridiculous china objects and chattering, prying people. Yes, he thought, she was.

Damn Gerard. Nathan had planned on his superior's being by his side.

Instead, he was at present where Nathan had left him, sprawled in his chair, the worse for too much brandy.

Gerard had been coherent enough until that second bottle. In the end, Nathan had had no choice but to leave him slumped behind his desk. Not that he begrudged the man one good escape into numbness. He had certainly had a few himself. But there was work to be done, and one of them lost to sentimental reminiscences was one too many.

What a pity he could not get his own image of Brooke's wide, earnest face from his mind.

He muttered something between prayer and curse as he made his way down the hall toward the ballroom. At least he hoped it was the ballroom he was approaching. The multitude of brightly colored skirts and bobbing appendages surrounding him were, no doubt, absurd feathered fripperies and would seem to indicate he was going in the correct direction. Of course, it was entirely possible he was about to stumble into the ladies'

retiring room. He had no idea how he would be able to explain that gaffe.

Arriving late was helpful in more ways than one. Even those people who had decided upon fashionable tardiness would have been present for some time, which meant he could likely reach the ballroom without meeting anyone he knew. Also, the later he was, the sooner the evening would be over. He was counting on having Isobel out of this place and home within an hour. London would have had its look at both the absent marquess and his surprise Scottish bride, and Nathan would have determined just how simple, or impossible, it would be for him to navigate another familiar haunt. He had done well enough that afternoon at Gerard's, treading halls he had trod a thousand times before.

With Isobel at his side, he was convinced he could navigate Hell. But Isobel was not presently at his side. No, she was somewhere among the sea of blurry revelers. The problem, he knew, was getting to her without falling on his face. Proverbially or quite literally.

He gritted his teeth and, cursing the faint sheen of sweat he could feel on his brow, took the first downward step toward the dance floor. He saw her before he took the second. There was no mistaking the fiery halo, even in the midst of a crowded ballroom. Isobel had seen him and, contrary to protocol and expectation, was fighting her way to him through the crush.

Nathan had a very good idea that more than a hundred heads were turning to watch the new Marchioness of Oriel all but sprinting her way across the floor to her grim, reclusive, and crippled husband.

Then she was there at the bottom of the stairs. Caution be damned, Nathan released the rail and, cane barely touching the steps, strode down to her side. "I am here," she murmured as her hand slipped through the crook of his arm.

"I could s—" Nathan silently cursed the near slip. He wanted to tell her, wanted so much to reveal what he could see. But she'd said there would have been no marriage had he not been blind. Foolish it might be, but he could not fight the feeling that she might leave him if she knew—if she felt herself no longer needed.

He cleared his throat. "I could only assume it was my wife being so forward with my person."

"You told me you would not arrive alone."

"My companion was unable to attend."

"You ought to have informed me."

"I managed, Isobel, and will thrive now that you have found me." He gently pressed her arm against his side. "You have fared well, I take it?"

She gave something between a laugh and a snort. " 'Twas a nasty thing you did, my lord."

"Throwing you to the wolves of the ton?"

Now she gave his arm a fleeting, warm squeeze. "Not at all. Throwing me into your father's company for such a time."

Damn.
Nathan had expected some reticence on his father's part in accepting Isobel, but he had not expected any true unpleasantness. Of course, she had spoken the words lightly. And he knew his wife. It would take a great deal more than one impossible old snob to wither her.

Unfortunate that Nathan knew they were surrounded by no less than a hundred impossible snobs of every age.

"Has it been so bad for you?"

Again the squeeze. "Judge for yourself."

No one stopped them as she guided him through the crush. Her grip was firm, her stride confident, allowing Nathan to move with far more ease than he had expected. Only once did his stick catch on someone's foot, and even then there was a muffled, "So sorry, my lord, before the offending appendage was hurriedly pulled out of the way."

Nathan thought he could pick out a few acquaintances in the crowd. He aimed a terse nod at a towering, dark head that could only be Rotheroe, caught a trilling laugh that was unmistakably Maria Sefton's, and guessed that one exuberant, flailing wave from a decidedly round little form was his welcome-home from Sedgwick.

He heard his father well before Isobel announced, "Here he is, as promised, Your Grace."

"Hmph,"
was the reply. "Took his sweet time, didn't he?" Abergele then deigned to address his son directly. "Lost your mother to that old biddy Winslow. She'll want to have a few words with you." The duke leaned forward, so close that Nathan could very nearly believe he could see the familiar, sharp amber eyes. "Damned shoddy business, young man.

Damned shoddy."

Nathan tried to read Isobel's stance through her hand. Oddly, she seemed perfectly at ease. No small feat considering what jabs her new father-in-law would have managed, even unintentionally, to aim at her. And it was his own fault she had been forced to face them alone.

"Sir, I cannot allow you to—" he began tersely, breaking off as his father's hand thumped like a mace onto his shoulder.

"Rotten business all around, leaving your wife to her first night in Society while you hied off to God knows where! But she's done splendidly.

Haven't you, girl?"

"I was in the very best of company, Your Grace," came her cheerful reply. " 'Twas a tense moment there when Lord Allenham began his lecture on the ills of Scotland, but you were the most gallant of rescuers. I daresay he will be prepared for your greeting next time. I have rarely felt so well protected as when your grip nearly brought him to his knees."

From the garbled noises that followed, Nathan could only surmise his father was speechless. And, if the gruff chuckle that followed was any indication, the old coot was smitten on top of it.

"Well, my boy," the duke said at last, cuffing Nathan's arm, "I must say I'd all but given up on you. After Cecily... er... dash it all. Bloody well about time. You've brought a jewel into the family coffers with this one."

"I am glad you approve, sir."

"Approve? Damn me, boy, you've made me bloody proud!"

It was on Nathan's tongue to inform his father that making him proud had not been among the first ten reasons for marrying Isobel. Pleasing the man had always been a task of Sisyphean proportions. Every milestone Nathan had rolled upward toward the ducal peak seemed to have been tipped right back at him. Marrying Isobel had been the one thing he had done purely for himself.

Sarcasm would serve no purpose. Still, he could not resist saying, "I have always done my best to see to your pride, Father."

He could not believe his ears when the duke replied, "You are my pride, Nathan. Always have been, even when you're breaking my heart." This time, when the hand descended onto Nathan's shoulder, it was gentle.

A distinct lump formed in Isobel's throat as she watched. Brusque and rough as the duke might be, there was no question that he did have a heart that ached for his son's plight and rejoiced in his return. She had seen, in both his eyes and his wife's, how Nathan's life had pained them. They had been forced to watch him ride off to war and then been denied the simple pleasure of having him come home to them.

It was time, Isobel decided, to fetch the duchess. Perhaps this family reunion would better have been conducted in more private surroundings, but the sight of father and son, dark heads close together as they talked, made it a moot point.

"If you will excuse me," she murmured, stepping away before Nathan could grasp her arm.

"Where are you going?" he demanded.

As she opened her mouth to answer, the duke slapped affectionately at her cheek and announced, "That's right, girl. Go off and find your friends.

My son and I have a bit of talking to do." Then he all but shoved her off into the melee.

Friends, was it? Isobel smiled a bit sadly. With the exception of Nathan and his parents, she did not know a soul in the very crowded room.

It was simple enough to make her way through the crush. As predicted, no one had dared snub her in the obviously approving presence of the Abergeles, but it was equally obvious that the ton was still reserving judgment on the new marchioness. Lord Allenham's gaffe had been but a taste of Society's idea of welcome. After several hours of audible sniffs and countless perusals through awful quizzing glasses, Isobel was quite convinced she had the ton understood. It was not a particularly heartening comprehension.

She paused for a moment, straining to locate her mother-in-law's towering turban among the multitude of towering turbans. It was a ridiculous fashion, as English in its absurd popularity as it was Eastern in origin. How very like the
Sasunnach,
she mused wryly, to revile those persons they conquered while making a perfect spectacle of their garb. No doubt tartans were due a turn in English high fashion sometime soon.