Everything I Ever Wanted (20 page)

There had been rain here as well, India saw. Drops of it still glazed the cobblestones and fell intermittently from the emerald hedge. She breathed deeply, drawing the damp into her lungs but recognizing something more than the vestiges of rainfall in the air. She smelled a hint of the sea in that breath and tasted it on the tip of her tongue. Once more she wondered where South had sent her. And surely sent was the proper word. Once he left her with Darrow, she no longer felt as if she were being accompanied to a particular destination, but rather that she was being delivered to one.

"You go on up, Miss Parr," Darrow told her. "I'll see to these trunks and bags."

"In a moment."

It did not matter that the cottage was framed by pale gray skies that were darkening by the minute, or that the sharp wind was pressing her pelisse to her legs. She wanted to stand just as she was and indulge in the utter foolishness that she had come home.

The cottage sat back some twenty yards from the road, separated from the hedgerow by a thicket of flowers that had ceased to bloom in the absence of the summer sun. The roof sloped steeply and overhung the threshold, creating a deep shadow that was an invitation to India because of its mystery. The twin chimneys were smokeless, but she did not think of that as a cold welcome, merely one that could be made to embrace her when the fires were burning hotly in the hearths. Rough-hewn timbers and pale golden walls defined the outside of the cottage. The windows were small, but their placement suggested they could be used to good effect when the sun was out and a warm breeze was upon them.

"It's lovely," she said, glancing over her shoulder at Darrow. "Don't you agree, Mr. Darrow? It is Mr. Marchman's property. Is that correct?"

"Aye." He hefted a trunk onto his shoulder. "You can lead or follow, Miss Parr, but either way, I'm taking myself to yonder door."

"I'll lead." She hurried up the walk, ducking her head against the buffeting wind as she went.

Darrow set the trunk inside the door and returned to the carriage while India began exploring. With the exception of the cheerless fireplaces, the cottage had been made ready for their arrival. The furniture was uncovered and freshly polished. Though sparsely appointed with rockers, spindle-legged chairs, and a settee, all of it was of good quality. The striped damask upholstery, where such provided a covering, was gold and green. The woodwork was painted white, and the walls were awash in the palest of yellow hues.

India swept through the small kitchen at the back, sat at the window seat in the receiving room, and tripped lightly up the stairs to the bedchambers. There were two, almost identical in the simplicity of their appointments. "I shall take the sage room," India called down to Darrow when she heard him stomp his feet at the entrance. "Will that suit you? You shall have the blue."

"Begging your pardon, Miss Parr, but there's quarters that do for me above. I'll happily be staying there once his lordship returns. Until then I'll make a pallet for myself down here."

India came to the top of the stairs and peered down. "But there is no need of that. You'll be so much more comfortable" She stopped because he was shaking his head firmly. "Oh, I see. You are afraid I will attempt to quit this place."

"I'm not afraid of it, Miss Parr. He is. Though I can't properly explain it. The way I'm told, the ladies like it here."

"The ladies?" India asked.

His head bobbed once. Normally one to keep his own counsel or make the briefest of replies, Darrow was nonetheless weary and wet and a little in awe of his present company. India Parr was someone he had seen onstage, and her position at the top of the stairs made him think of that again. She had glowed then. In his eyes, she glowed now. His tongue simply could not stop working. "I think I heard of one that was moved to say it was enchanting."

"Enchanting," she echoed.

"Devil of a time getting any of them to leave it behind. The last mistress cozied here was so put out by her marching orders that she's done nothing but make his lordship's life a bloody hell."

"I see. Well, we would not want to be so tiring as to repeat that effort." India started grandly down the stairs. "Take the trunks back to the carriage, Mr. Darrow. We shall be leaving at once."

That was when the steady, reliable Mr. Darrow dropped in a dead faint at her feet.

It was a somber group that gathered at the club that evening. They could not rouse themselves to humor or find the wherewithal to make a wager of no consequence. They sat for long periods without trading conversation. They drank little. No one disturbed them.

West eyed his companions over the steepled points of his fingers. Stretched out as he was in the high-backed chair, his posture was not one of prayer but rather of lazy contemplation. The subdued air of their group was giving rise to glances in their direction, and talk among the other members of the club. People acquainted with the news of his father's death would also understand he was not in deep mourning. "We're causing a stir, you know."

Eastlyn glanced around and saw it was so. He shrugged. "Must be South. He is looking rather disheveled this evening. Bound to cause talk."

South roused himself enough to ask, "You are referring, perhaps, to the flecks of mud on my boots?"

The marquess could have named a number of other things that contributed to Southerton's less-than-tidy person, but he settled for the mud-flecked boots. "That's right. Never say Darrow has left you."

"It is more to the point that I have left him," South said. His head rested against the back of his chair. Through half-closed eyes he regarded the tips of his offending boots. It had been a hard ride from the middle of nowhere back to the center of London. "It is a temporary state of affairs." He added this in the event East had some notion that he might tempt Darrow with an offer to come into his employ. "He is not available to you."

"Pity." Eastlyn sipped his port, and in due time his attention swiveled to Northam. "You are particularly introspective this evening," he said. "It cannot be solely on account of West's father."

Northam absently raked back his hair. "It's not." His slim smile communicated his apology to West.

"Elizabeth, then," Eastlyn said. He held up his hand, staying North's reply. "No, don't answer. I should not have asked. It is none of my affair."

There was a visible change in the set of Northam's shoulders as he relaxed his guard. He did not mind that the others knew things were not at all as they should be in his marriage, but he had no desire to share the blow-by-blow. Just as they had all come together for West, he knew his friends would rally if he required anything of them. He had only to look at Southerton to see the effort that would be made if necessary.

North inclined his head slightly in South's direction and caught his friend's eye. "Where were you when you heard the news?" he asked.

South wondered that he had tried not to let the strain of his journey show. Perhaps a stranger would not have recognized his taut expression for the deep weariness that it was, but these men were his boon companions. They knew him too well to suppose that he had been merely indisposed when he was apprised of the old duke's death. West, in particular, had reason to understand the pains South had taken to return to London, for he had made the arrangements to ready the cottage at Ambermede.

A small smile eased the lines of tension about Southerton's mouth. "More than halfway there," he said quietly. "I was more than halfway there."

North's own expression was wryly appreciative of the enigmatic response. "So far."

"Indeed." South pushed himself upright in his chair. "I suspect the return will take somewhat longer."

Eastlyn chuckled softly, the first any of them had laughed since coming together. "Especially if your intention is to arrive at some end. You cannot travel halfway and halfway again and expect to get there, South. Or did they teach you something different on board His Majesty's vessels? If they did, I should like to know." He raised his glass of port, his expression sobering. "How long will you remain in London?"

"Another day," said South. "Two at the most."

East nodded. His voice dropped so that it could not be heard beyond their small circle. "You will call on us, will you not?" he asked. "If there is a need."

"If there is a need," Southerton repeated in the same grave intonation. "I would not have any of you compromised."

One of Eastlyn's chestnut-colored brows rose in a perfect arch. "So that's the way of it." He needed to hear nothing else to know that South was engaged in ferreting out a spy. It was the sort of work the colonel often laid in his own lap or assigned to West, but he did not question Blackwood's judgment in using South on this occasion. It said something about the nature of the trap if South's talents were being put to good advantage. "You won't have to recount the entire history of Henry VIII's reign, will you?" Eastlyn asked. "If you have to extricate yourself from some exceptional coil, I mean. I don't think I could sit through that again."

North nodded. "I am with East there. You cannot expect so much of us this time, South."

"No matter that it was a score of years ago," West said. "The memory resides painfully in my arse." That comment immediately drew three pairs of amused glances. He returned their gaze, his own innocent. "What? Cannot a duke speak of arses?"

"A duke may speak of anything he wishes," South said. "Especially one so recently acquiring the title, the lands, and the fortune."

"You mean some allowance will be made for a bastard son suddenly acquiring legitimacy," West said.

Southerton continued as if his friend had not spoken."But unless you want others to hang on your every word and have the same come back to you, it is usually a thing better done quietly."

"Bloody hell," West said under his breath. "Bloody, bloody hell."

His disconsolate manner first raised identical grins from all of his friends, then their rousing laughter. They fell into the moment without examining it too closely, letting their laughter speak for them when they could find no other words that would do so well.

The following afternoon, Southerton found himself wishing there might be some cause for amusement. He stood beside the green-veined marble mantel in West's drawing room, giving a good account of himself as someone who was politely interested in the conversations humming nearby, even though he took no part in them himself. His eyes slid surreptitiously toward the clock. It was disheartening to realize he had looked in that direction only minutes earlier. It had seemed to him that half the hour had passed.

He managed not to sigh, but the urge to do so was sharp. The service for West's father had been interminable by anyone's reckoning. The fact that the old duke was not particularly well liked made it an onerous duty for most of the gathering. South looked over at his friend, who was engaged in a rather one-sided conversation with Lady Benton-Reade. West seemed to be holding up well in spite of the fact that he had in no way come to terms with the altered circumstances of his life.

It was Northam and Elizabeth who rescued West from the lady at his side. South realized they were offering their condolences and preparing to take their leave. If North's manner had been slightly aloof last evening, it was positively chilly now. South had no sense that it was directed in any way toward West, or indeed that it had anything at all to do with this place and time. Although North remained close to his wife's side, Southerton could not help but think it was Elizabeth he was freezing out. Her complexion was pale. Her solemn countenance, while appropriate for the occasion, could barely contain her pain. Feeling like an intruder on their private grief, wondering at what he had done in having a hand in bringing them together, South turned away.

He waited until they quit the room before he excused himself from those closest to him and went to find the colonel. Blackwood had not attended Westphal's service, but he had come to West's home to pay his respects. South found the colonel sitting alone in West's study, a rug pulled over his thin legs, his expression every bit as pained as Elizabeth's.

The colonel did not look up when South closed the door behind him. He rolled himself closer to the fire and warmed his hands. "You have something to say." It was not a question.

"You, sir, are a bloody bastard."

A ghost of a smile touched the colonel's features. "If this is a revelation, then I have vastly overstated your intuition and sound judgment to others." He glanced at South, one brow arched. "Or is it only that you have found the courage to say so?"

Southerton ignored him. "Elizabeth and North have just taken their leave. I cannot imagine a more unhappy pair, and I can find no pleasure in having had even a small part in helping the thing come about."

The tension in Blackwood's face eased. "Then you must be thankful it was only a small part, though I have no doubt that, should I be proved right, you will want congratulating that it was all your idea."

"Admit to having a hand on Cupid's bow?" South snorted. "You may rely on my discretion never to avow such a thing. The fact that they came together at all has much to do with you. What they make of the marriage has everything to do with them."

"Just so. You are well out of it."

Southerton sat down on an upholstered bench not far from the colonel. He did not feel well out of it, not when North was his friend and he had such regard for Elizabeth. "I saw Elizabeth escort you to this room earlier. A private audience?"

"Something like that. She wants me to remove Northatn from his assignment. I refused, of course. Northam would not have brooked her interference if he had known what she was about."

"So he is still to find the Gentleman Thief."

"Yes."

Southerton nodded. It was not a complete picture of what had occurred in West's study, but it was encouraging to know that perhaps the rift between North and his countess did not yawn so widely as he first suspected. "Have I truly never called you a bloody bastard before?" he asked absently.

The colonel's chuckle was low. "Not to my face."

"I cannot imagine why not," South said with perfect candor. "I've thought it often enough."

Blackwood accepted this without rebuke. "I should be far more concerned if it had never crossed your mind. And do not worry that I will demand satisfaction for the slight, though if you had called me crippled I should have had to run you through." He was gratified to see the shock on South's face. Blackwood liked it that he still had the capacity to turn the preternaturally self-possessed Southerton on his ear. Chuckling more deeply, he adjusted the blanket over his legs and angled his chair away from the fire so he could face South squarely, "Now tell me what you have done with Miss Parr. She is with you, is she not?"

"She is with my man. And she is safe."

"You might have told me." There was disapproval in his tone. "Who else knows?"

"West knows only that I wished to use the cottage at Ambermede, and assured me everything would be in readiness. If he had suspicions as to the identity of my companion, he did not give voice to them."

"He would have wondered at your judgment, the same as I. You escorted her there yourself?"

"No. I learned of Westphal's death and returned immediately. Darrow has my instructions. Miss Parr was not entertaining notions of running off when I left her. I cannot think anything has happened to make her change her mind."

"If she's been cooperative it is because you have not yet confronted her."

Trust the colonel to present the facts plainly. South nodded.

"It is just as well. Do you know what you are about?"

He wasn't entirely sure, but he wasn't about to reveal that. "How did you know she was with me?"

"There was your striking absence after West sent a note around about his father's death, then Miss Parr's missed performance soon after. You returned but she did not. I am given to understand the audience rather loudly expressed its disappointment but stopped short of burning down the theatre. It may be more difficult to contain them this evening or the next."

Since India Parr would be gone from Drury Lane much longer than a few nights, Southerton supposed her admirers would have to contrive some other means of entertaining themselves. "They're a fickle lot, though I doubt she will be entirely displaced in their hearts."

Watching South carefully, the colonel asked, "Would it be the same, do you think, if they knew she had committed treason?"

"We do not know that she's done it either."

"The evidence is mounting. Some of it you have gathered yourself these last weeks. There is Kendall. And the business with Macquey-Howell and the Spanish consul. Last year there was the attempt on the life of the Prince Regent after the opening of Parliament. I am concerned that Miss Parr figures rather largely in these things."

Southerton said nothing. His expression remained neutral.

The colonel went on. "She knows something, South. Something she is not telling because she is afraid or because she is involved. Either may be true. Perhaps it is both those things, but you would do well to find out. I have no wish to learn that your body has been pulled from the Thames."

"I can assure you, Colonel, I have no wish to come to the same end as Mr. Kendall."

"Then see to it that you do not come to the same end as Mr. Rutherford."

"Rutherford?" South's eyes narrowed. "Rutherford took the Cato to the United States. I spoke to witnesses who saw him board. An agent remembers him purchasing his passage. He fled to escape his creditors."