Lady Hawk's Folly (21 page)

“Well, I nearly did,” Ramsay confessed, “for I can tell you I was never so astonished. I mean, I thought d’Épier was a right one, and here he was practically ordering me to discover the damnedest things. You can imagine my feelings. But I realized in the nick of time that it wouldn’t do to put him off entirely until you could discover what devilry he’s up to, so I said I’d do my possible. Was that right?”

“Very right. But tell me exactly what he wants. No, wait, that door is open. We shouldn’t be discussing this here, in any case. Come into the sitting room, or, better yet, we’ll go down to the bookroom. Go to bed, Mollie. We’ll finish our discussion tomorrow.”

“We shall not!” She glared at him, outraged. “What I mean is you’ll not go off and leave me like this after saying so much. I intend to know what is going on, my lord.”

But he would not be gainsaid, and a moment later she found herself alone in her bedchamber, surrounded by the wreckage she herself had created. Her first inclination was to slip downstairs after them and attempt to overhear their conversation, but Hawk had ordered her in no uncertain terms to stay put, and he was already angry enough with her that she dared not try his patience further. Besides, she told herself, he would be certain to satisfy himself that no one was listening, since he had made it clear he wanted the discussion to be a private one.

She did not immediately prepare for bed, however, choosing instead to clear away the mess. The last thing she wanted was to give Cathe any reason for impertinent speculation the following morning when the maidservant brought her chocolate. It took a good deal longer to clean the room than it had to create the mess, but her thoughts were busy while she worked.

It was perfectly clear now that d’Épier was indeed a spy of some sort, and she did not have to tax her brain to recognize his motive. Other members of émigré families, who were too young to remember the terrors of the Revolution and who were dissatisfied with their lot in England, had had occasion before now to throw in their lot with Napoleon in hopes of future favors from the emperor. But what would happen now? She knew that Hawk, in the midst of a challenge that must delight him, could be depended upon to tell her nothing. Her only hope was that she might learn more from Ramsay.

Brummell’s invitation to the dandies’ fancy-dress ball at the Argyle Rooms arrived as promised the next day, and since the ball was scheduled to take place shortly before the Colporters planned to leave town, Mollie’s time was filled with preparations for their departure as well as the choosing of costumes for herself and the others. She decided to attend as Queen Elizabeth, with Hawk as the Earl of Leicester, and Lady Bridget and Lord Ramsay would also wear sixteenth-century attire.

She saw little of Ramsay for several days, and when she did chance to meet him, he always seemed to be in a hurry. Hawk made no further attempt to call her to book over the scene with the prince either. Indeed, he seemed preoccupied. Mollie found both men’s behavior frustrating, but though she was tempted more than once to do something to focus Hawk’s attention upon herself again, she was not so foolish as to encourage Prince Nicolai to dangle after her when they chanced to meet, as they still did, often, in other people’s homes.

What with packing and shopping for things that were needed at Hawkstone, where they would stop briefly on their way to Brighton, plus the necessity for several protracted sessions with her dressmaker, Mollie was too busy to worry about the men and their spy hunt more than once or twice a day. But at last the packing that could be accomplished ahead of time was done, and the costumes were ready the day before the ball, so Mollie was able to spend that afternoon at her leisure. She had no sooner settled upon her favorite settee in her sitting room, however, than Lord Harry bounded in, his face alight with excitement.

“Mollie, Ramsay says he will take me to St. Margaret’s Parish to follow the lamplighter on his round. They have the new gaslights there, you know, and I have been forever asking Bates to take me, only he never will, because he says it is too dangerous. But that is stuff, because they hardly ever explode, and this afternoon he has gone to visit an aunt, so I have a holiday, and Ramsay has said he will take me.” He caught his breath, then regarded her in the manner of one offering a treat of the highest order. “I came to invite you to go with us. You will like it above all things, Mollie!”

She nearly told him she had already had occasion to see the lights, though she had never been so fortunate as to see one lit by a lamplighter. But then it occurred to her that it would be an excellent opportunity for private speech with Lord Ramsay. While Harry focused his attention upon the lamplighter, she would have Ramsay as a captive audience. If she could not worm the details of his dealings with Hawk out of him under such advantageous circumstances, she did not know her own capabilities. Consequently, she informed Harry that she would gladly accompany them to St. Margaret’s. It was Ramsay himself who nearly foiled her plan by informing her, when she and Harry joined him in the hall, that she couldn’t go.

“Nonsense,” she retorted, “of course I can.”

“Not dressed like that, you can’t,” he told her firmly, gesturing toward her stylish lemon-colored walking dress, broad gypsy bonnet, and tan half-boots. “You’ll have all the rustics gaping at you. You just can’t go gallivanting after them like the veriest urchin.”

“There will be a crowd?”

“Usually is. Certain to be if they see you in that getup. Sorry, Mollie, but there it is.”

“No, it isn’t,” she assured him. “You wait right here, and I’ll be ready in a trice. Now, mind,” she added, glaring at him, “don’t go without me, or you won’t believe the dust I’ll raise, the both of you.”

Ramsay regarded her warily but said nothing, and Harry only grinned, so Mollie flew back upstairs, where she unearthed the gentleman’s clothes she had not forgotten to bring with her and flung them on as quickly as she was able. The arrangement of a cravat was beyond her, so she merely flung one around her neck, snatched up her beaver hat and a long cloak, and hurried back downstairs.

“You’ll have to help me,” she told the astonished Ramsay. “No, don’t,” she added when he opened his mouth to expostulate with her. “Just fix this stupid neckcloth and let us be off. I’ve a mind to see the lamplighter, and no mere matter of dress is going to stop me.” She tucked her hair firmly under her hat while Ramsay quickly did what he could with the cravat.

The boy chuckled. “By the Lord Harry,” he said, “you make a bang-up gentleman, Mollie, but what if Hawk catches you?”

“He won’t. He’s gone to White’s for the afternoon, and we shall be back long before he is. Did Bates know you intended to leave the house, by the bye?”

“Oh, of course,” the boy replied carelessly, adding as he moved toward the front door, “I’ll just call up a hack. We don’t want to make a stir by taking the coach.”

“Good Lord, no,” his brother agreed. “The coachman would recognize Mollie in a trice.”

The oil lamps in the parish of St. Margaret’s, in Westminster, had been replaced by gas nearly six months previously, but crowds of the curious, hoping to witness an explosion, still followed the lamplighter on his rounds. The Colporters found a number of such people awaiting the arrival of that worthy when their hackney coach set them down in Margaret Street just across from the New Palace Yard. They discovered that they would have some minutes yet to wait, however, for as one rather ragged, bewhiskered fellow told them, talking around a bite of fish taken from a chunk wrapped in greasy newsprint, “The lamplighter dassn’t begin till nigh onto dusk, me young coves.”

Harry was fascinated by the myriad of folk gathering for the event, and Mollie took her opportunity while his attention was diverted to speak to Ramsay. He had clearly been awaiting her questions.

“I can’t tell you a thing,” he said flatly. “Hawk said we must keep the lid on it.”

“But I wouldn’t say anything to a soul,” she promised him. “You know I wouldn’t. Was he angry with you about the money?”

He grimaced but assured her that Hawk had not been nearly so angry as he might otherwise have been.

“Because of what you discovered about d’Épier,” she put in shrewdly. “That he is a spy?”

“Now look here, Mollie, you cannot go about saying things like that. This is a public place, after all. The Lord knows who might overhear you.”

“Pooh. No one is giving us a second glance. They are all on the watch for Harry’s lamplighter. So you might just as well tell me why he wanted you to spy on Hawk?”

“We should never have said so much in front of you,” he said distractedly. He gave her a long look. “Very well, Mollie, I’ll tell you what I can, but you must say nothing to anyone else until Hawk and Bathurst can get proper evidence to hang the fellows.”

She paled. “Hang them?”

“Well, of course. What else does one do to traitors?”

Mollie thought about it and could come up with no satisfactory answer. She stared at Ramsay. “What is your brother mixed up in, exactly?”

He admitted reluctantly that he did not know. “Not exactly, anyway. I have been putting d’Épier off as much as I can get away with it by telling him all the information he wants is in Hawk’s and Bathurst’s heads, that in order to prevent information from falling into the wrong hands, nothing has been written down. He thinks I have been pumping Hawk over the port after dinner, or some such stuff, when in fact Hawk decides just what I am to tell him. I say, Mollie, you won’t tell Hawk I’ve spilled the gaff, will you? He’ll be angry, since he said I was to keep mum.”

“You haven’t told me anything he would care about,” she reassured him. “I’m sure he doesn’t want the news bruited about town, but I shan’t tell anyone, so you needn’t fret. Where has Harry taken himself, I wonder?”

They found him, and the lamplighter came at last, but darkness had fallen and it was much later than they had expected it to be when their hackney coach returned them to Grosvenor Square. It was decided that it would be safer for all concerned if the coachman were to let them off on Upper Brook Street near the mews road, so that they might take advantage of the rear entrance to the house. Realizing that she would have to hurry if she was to be dressed in time for dinner, Mollie hurried on ahead, and while Ramsay was paying off their driver, she slipped through the garden gate and in at the back door. She made it safely to the upstairs hall, but as she hurried across the landing toward her bedchamber, Hawk, elegantly attired in leg-hugging gold tights, a green velvet doublet, and green trunk hose slashed with gold satin, stepped into the hall from her little sitting room. She stopped dead, regarding him in dismay. He lifted his quizzing glass and peered at her, his right eye horribly magnified.

“Where the devil have you been in that rig?” he demanded, both eyes narrowing. “By heaven, Mollie, if I find you’ve been meeting—”

“I’m sorry to be late, because I know you wish to leave directly after dinner, but truly, we—”

“We? Who, pray tell, is ‘we’?” There was a clatter of footsteps on the stairs behind her, and Mollie stepped aside to give him a clear view of his two brothers as their heads cleared the landing. “What the devil?” Hawk repeated, lifting his glass again.

It was Harry who answered him, looking anxiously from Mollie’s worried face to his older brother’s angry one. “She went with us to watch the lamplighter light the gaslights, sir. We thought you would not mind her going if she took care not to be recognized as a lady.”

Hawk’s stern gaze turned upon the boy. “I’ll deal with you later, young man. Right now you may go up to the schoolroom and explain to Mr. Bates how it comes about that the lessons he assigned for this afternoon have not been attended to. He has been looking for you.”

“By God, you rascal,” Ramsay exclaimed on a note of exasperation, “you assured me that you had Bates’ permission for this outing!”

Harry made no attempt to answer him or to meet Mollie’s reproachful look, but Hawk informed Ramsay that he would have to wait his turn if he wished to scold the boy.

“I’ll have a word or two for you as well, sir, on the subject of escorting ladies who dress in male attire,” he added sternly, “but for now you may as well go to your rooms and get dressed for the evening.”

“Dear me,” said Lady Bridget, appearing in the doorway to her bedchamber at the end of the hall, “what is all this row?” Then, as she recognized Mollie, “Good gracious, Mollie, never tell me you have dared to wear those clothes here in town! Whatever will people think? Gavin, you ought never to have allowed such a thing.”

“I did not allow it,” he replied grimly, turning back to face Mollie. “May I assume from her words, my lady, that you have made it a common habit to don such clothing for occasions other than to practice your archery?”

Much as she would have liked to be able to deny the charge, Mollie didn’t dare. “There have been certain other times,” she said carefully, meeting his gaze as steadily as she could.

“I cannot think she has been wise to do so, Gavin,” Lady Bridget said with unaccustomed firmness, “and so I have told her a number of times. Perhaps you will be able to convince her that the practice is an unwise one.”

“Indeed, I shall,” he promised her. “Do not wait dinner for us, Aunt Biddy. This may take a while. I shall join you, however, in time to depart for the Argyle Rooms. Mollie, I fear, will not be going with us.”

“Not going!” Mollie stared at him. “Of course I shall be going. Do not heed him, ma’am. I shall be down to dine directly.”

“Oh, no, you won’t,” Hawk informed her, taking her arm in a firm grasp. “I have been a deal too easy with you, my girl, but the time has come for a reckoning between us. Your folly seems to know no bounds, but I intend to see an end to it tonight, once and for all.”

P
ULLING OFF HER BEAVER
hat as she entered the sitting room, Mollie shook her long hair free and turned to face her husband. Without taking his eyes from her, he shut the door carefully behind him. Mollie tossed the hat into a nearby chair.

“What are you going to do?” she asked.