Leopard in Exile (27 page)

had taken Meriel as well, why had he delayed long enough for her to write for help? Why had he left their

belongings behind for Sarah to discover? And if Sarah had found their possessions but not their persons,

what had she found afterward that caused her to vanish in turn?

"I have too many questions and not enough answers," he said aloud, rising to his feet with a sigh.

"Atheling, you may distribute these items to the deserving poor, and do something with the trunks as well.

We will retain Her Grace's possessions against her return."

"Very good, Your Grace."

Point: Sarah had been in Baltimore within the last six weeks, but for no more than three days.

Point: she had found Mend's lodgings, but the evidence was against her having found the girl herself.

Point: after that—with or without Meriel, but certainly without Louis—she had vanished herself.

Where? And most of all,
why
?

The Man Who Came to Dinner

(Baltimore, September 1807)

T
he following evening, at eight of the clock, His Grace presented himself at the Governor's Palace. The

day had been spent in frustrations large and small.

His first need had been for faster transportation than a borrowed carriage. The horses at the local

stables—for Wessex had not been able to bring Hirondel with him on the long sea voyage—were found

wanting, and so Wessex had taken one of them to pay a call on Mr. Bulford, regarding his hunter-hack.

Mr. Bulford's Further was an enormous bay with a mouth like iron and a stubborn and rebellious spirit,

but he was also a well-formed beast whose deep chest and powerful haunches spoke of considerable

stamina. Wessex bought him at once for very little more than he was actually worth and rode him back to

the stables, leading his hired horse.

Once mounted, he went to the docks to deal further with the wreck of the
Day-dream
. The investigation

had been unable to establish any cause for the fire, which did not surprise the Duke. He was also able to

discover that Sarah—or at least a woman masquerading as the Duchess of Wessex—had arrived about

a month ago in company with a tall, dark-haired gentleman on the mail packet from Boston. Hie

gentleman had boarded a Dutchman bound for Spanish Florida, and the lady had gone into the city and

not returned.

By then it was nearly noon, and Wessex repaired to a nearby tavern—which rejoiced in the cryptic

identification The Gun and Cameras—for a noonday meal. He had not yet been served when a seafaring

man came and sat down, uninvited, at his table.

Wessex tensed, fearing another confrontation with the White Tower. The man had a rough, almost

piratical look to him. His eyes were hazel, and he had a pronounced scar on his chin.

"I'm Pendray. My ship is the
Jahrtausendfeier Falke
. The word in the port is that you're looking for the

Duchess of Wessex."

Pendray told his story quickly and to the point He knew nothing of the Duchess, only that in the spring a

woman had come to him asking that a letter be delivered to her.

"I took it—aye, and delivered it, too. T'was the least I could do for a countrywoman." His description

matched Mend's closely, and Wessex recalled that the Highcleres held land in Cornwall, and that Meriel

had been raised there.

"Did the Duchess come, then? The maidy thought she would," Pendray said.

"She did. But as for what happened then—" Wessex stopped abruptly.

"It was your ship as burned in the harbor yesterday, was it? You could see the blaze two miles out to

sea. Aye, and the maidy did look as if she were being hunted by ghosts. There was that iron in her soul,"

Pendray said consideringly.

"Whoever is hunting her will find me hunting them," Wessex said mildly.

"Then good luck to you, me lord," Pendray said, rising to his feet. "I've done what I came to."

Wessex accomplished little more before he retired, in a black and dangerous mood, to dress for dinner.

Atheling still had not found the girl who had served Sarah, but the inn's servants had been happy to

gossip, and so Atheling knew that Her Grace of Wessex had vanished between sundown and sunrise,

and that her room had been locked from within.

"You're sure of that?" Wessex demanded.

"It is an article of faith below stairs," Atheling answered reprovingly. "Beyond that, Your Grace, I could

not venture to speculate. But I have taken it upon myself to examine the rooms in which Her Grace was

lodged, and the lock of the door has indeed been replaced within the month, I should say, which would

be consistent with the aftermath of some individual breaking down the door."

The broken lock would not be a key-lock, of course, but a draw-bolt such as was on the door of

Wessex' own rooms. The door could not be locked if the occupant were absent, but when one traveled

with servants such a lack was of little moment.

Wessex wished with all his heart that he and Koscuisko were working together on this. His partner had

many strange interests, and magic was among them. He could at least have ruled out the possibility that

Sarah had been removed from her rooms by some unnatural agency.

"Well, there's a pretty puzzle," Wessex grumbled.

The Governor's Palace was a tiny scrap of England transported to an alien land. Though it had been

begun barely a hundred years ago, uncounted craftsmen had labored to give stone and timber, glass and

plaster, all the might and power of the Crown itself.

Wessex's arrival had been made the excuse for a gala, and the Duke was resigned to a tedious social

evening of the sort he despised. There was the faint enlivening possibility that those responsible for the

Day-dream's
burning would attempt to murder him again, or that Lord Q might send further agents to

entertain him. Though he knew it was childish, Wessex hoped that either or both possibilities would

obtain. Otherwise, the only prospect before him was a toweringly dull evening which he must spend

doing the pretty instead of searching for his wife.

The current Governor of Maryland was Caleb Mandragore, Lord Chesapeake. The Earl, who was born

in New Albion and educated at Oxford, had been chosen for his stolid unimaginativeness and unswerving

loyalty to the Crown. It was possible, King Henry had once confided to Wessex, to predict what Lord

Chesapeake would do in every possible situation, and therein lay the Earl's value. When men like Burr

and Wilkinson planned new configurations of power in New Albion, Chesapeake stood unswervingly for

the Crown's interests, no matter how much he personally stood to gain by a weakening of ties to the

mother country. Rebellion, or even insubordination, would never occur to him.

Wessex arrived at Mandragore House a little before the hour. The drawing-room was already filled with

guests, the cream of County society, but as he had rather expected, Wessex was ushered up to the first

floor and into Chesapeake's library.

"Good heavens—is that what they are wearing in London these days?" Chesapeake asked, as soon as

initial pleasantries had been exchanged. He raised a quizzing-glass to his eye and inspected Wessex's

toilette critically.

Both men wore the silk stockings, knee breeches, and tailcoats that Fashion demanded for evening, but

where Chesapeake's substantial personage was upholstered in an ice-blue satin brocade, with wig to

match, Wessex wore his own hair, and a soberly immaculate black broadcloth. His cravat was snowy

white, fixed in place by a pearl hardly less immaculate, and his waistcoat was of unembroidered

oyster-colored satin, as plain as the buttons on his coat. Save for a single elegant fob and his pearl

cravat-pin, the only jewelry Wessex wore was his ducal signet.

"It is what some men wear," Wessex admitted. "Prince Jamie was ever one to lead the style, though of

course one suspects his valet, Brummell, of being its true instigator."

"Hem. Well! Could I help Your Grace to a glass of sherry before dinner? It's the last of the Spanish I laid

down last year, and when I shall be able to obtain more, I cannot say. Curse this foolish war—it makes

life intolerable, I tell you!"

"So I understand," Wessex murmured amiably, and suffered himself to be helped to a glass of what even

he had to admit was a quite tolerable sherry. Now that Spain had declared for Napoleon—and, more to

the point, now that d'Charenton had the Port of Nouvelle-Orléans in a stranglehold—the clandestine

trade between Louisianne and New Albion, to which King Henry and his ministers had turned a forgiving

eye, would cease.

Wessex forced himself to engage in idle chit-chat, until at last the Governor brought himself to broach his

reason for this private interview.

"So, Your Grace. We rarely see men of your caliber travel to the New World on pleasure. How

unfortunate that the letter announcing your visit went astray, for we are ill-prepared to greet so illustrious

a visitor. I am sorry as well to hear that your visit has come at so high a price."

"I am sure I shall easily be able to replace the ship, my lord. But I am afraid my visit to your beautiful

country is not entirely a matter of pleasure. In fact, it was arranged in some haste."

"Ah, yes. The young woman who paid a call on me, not three weeks past."

"My wife," Wessex said, in tones that brooked no further discussion of the matter.

"Naturally I did all that I could to help her," the Earl said, shifting his course slightly at this new

intelligence. "It isn't pleasant to think of Baltimore as a place from which people simply… disappear."

"Perhaps you could tell me precisely what she was looking for?" Wessex asked, his tone once again

agreeable, and Lord Chesapeake was happy to oblige.

"She was seeking news of a young woman, who had lately been a resident of one of the less-reputable

lodging houses of our fair city. She could not provide a name, but she did sketch a very fair likeness."

The Earl took a curl of parchment from the tea-chest at his elbow and passed it over to Wessex. The

Duke gazed down at what was indeed a very fair likeness of Meriel Highclere-Capet, done in Sarah's

hand.

"I know the girl. She is the daughter of the Earl of Ripon, a young friend of Her Grace. We had feared

Lady Meriel found herself prey of an… unscrupulous adventurer." Wessex felt little guilt in slanging Louis'

character so, for he believed that the young King was in all probability dead. If news of him had not

surfaced in the four months since his vanishment, there was scant other conclusion for a suspicious

political to draw.

"Then I am sorry I could not be of more help. No such person has come to the attention of the authorities

in Baltimore or the surrounding districts, nor has a body which answers such a description gone

unclaimed. I offered to send to New York and Boston for news, but Her Grace was certain Lady Meriel

was in Baltimore."

"And so was I. But perhaps she has left," Wessex suggested idly, for it would never do to disclose how

ardent his interest in the matter was.

"If she went by ship, there will be a record of it."

If she traveled under her own name
—
or her own will
, Wessex thought grimly. "Could she have gone

by road?"

"A woman traveling alone?" the Earl scoffed. "My dear Duke, outside the city there are no roads to

speak of, and the city is surrounded by native peoples who act as if they own the place! Unless she went

to the Indians, she will have gone by water, mark me on this."

"I suppose you are right," Wessex said reluctantly. It seemed that Lady Mend's trail was as cold and

untraceable as her husband's.

"Will Her Grace be joining us this evening, Your Grace?" the Earl asked.

Wessex hesitated, fuming inwardly about being caught in so neat a snare. "Indeed, I am certain she

would, did I know where she was. But it seems she has followed Lady Meriel into oblivion. It is

awkward of you, my dear Chesapeake, to misplace so many young ladies so cavalierly. I should look

into the matter, were I you," Wessex said, neatly turning the admission into a mild barb.

The Earl set an excellent table, and populated it with the cream of Baltimore society, including several

samples of the native aristocracy, who wore silk and egret feathers as easily as their European

counterparts.

Wessex conversed easily on the news from England, and with only a fraction of his attention on his dinner

partner. The Earl had said that no one left Baltimore overland save by the help of the native population,

and Sarah had claimed ties to one of the local tribes, Wessex remembered. Would she have gone to

them after conventional methods of discovering her friend's whereabouts had failed?

At the same time, the part of his mind that was a trained political was busy, putting all the tit-bits of news

he had gained into some coherent mosaic. D'Charenton's harsh rule would create even more unrest along

the southern border, unrest the more radical factions in New Albion would be quick to capitalize upon.

But he cared little while Sarah was among the missing. Wessex realized with a distant incredulous

amusement that he was prepared to consign the entire chessboard of New World politics to the devil if

he could only guarantee his wife's safety.

It was a lowering realization, but it did not keep him from maneuvering to gain a private word with the