Lisbon (62 page)

His face, which might have been too good-looking had it not been for the sinister addition of a couple of dueling scars, was smiling reflectively. He leaned his elbow upon the coach’s open window, grateful for the breeze that blew against his tanned forehead and tawny hair as he was carried through Lisbon to a well-known tavern.

The prince would be pleased, he thought, with this day’s work.

Cassandra, preoccupied with her search for her mother, and dejected at finding her grave, for she had nourished the hope that her mother was still alive, had not even noticed Leeds Birmingham hovering in the background. Nor had she, on returning to the Green Island, observed the remarkable performance of the dark-haired gentleman who had bolted back up the stairs at sight of her and was at this moment seething with unrest.

He paced the floor. Surely she had not recognized him! No, of course not, that was ridiculous. He had seen
her 
when she was going to school back in Cambridge—and no one could forget that face! Indeed, it was that face that had made him show an interest in her little sister, in hopes of wangling an introduction to the Beauty, as the Cambridge students had dubbed Cassandra. But—he bit his lip and thought back—she had run away from the school before he had had the opportunity to meet her. Phoebe might well have described him to her in detail, but that description would fit a thousand men. Cassandra would have no way of remembering him unless he had, by some unlucky chance, been pointed out to her.

Still, it was a chance he dared not take. He dashed out and knocked on a door down the hall—the door of a much more resplendent room than his own.The lady’s maid answered and showed him in.

A young girl, rather mousy in appearance despite the elegance of her gown, greeted his distraught expression with an anxious, “Clive, what on earth is the matter?”

“I have heard a rumor, Della,” muttered Clive, looking 
about him as if the walls might have ears, “that there may be a case of plague here at the Green Island. ”

“What?” Della jumped to her feet. “But we must leave Lisbon at once then! I will hurry next door and tell Mama that we must pack for England!”

“No need of that yet, Della. Indeed, it may not even be true.” With a masterful gesture, Clive—Phoebe’s Clive, Lord Houghton—barred her rush to the door. “I have a far better solution. There is a place I am told we must visit, and it is some distance from Lisbon, near the fishing village of Cascais. We could pack our things, leave this inn at once, and journey there. We could travel in leisurely style, and if we hear there is plague spreading in Lisbon, we will not return, we will simply journey on to Oporto and take ship for home from there.”

“Oh, Clive, all your ideas are so splendid!” Young Della’s gaze upon him was adoring. “I will hurry to tell Mama. If there is even a
thought
of plague here at the inn, I am sure she will be eager to leave at once!” She paused in the doorway. “Where did you say we are going?”

Well, he had got out of that one very nicely!
Clive grinned. “It is at Estoril and is called the Boca do Inferno— the Mouth of Hell.

Della gave him a doubtful look. Then her trusting smile flashed again. “We will be ready in an hour, Clive.”

Back in his own room, Clive mopped his brow. He had been living a lie these past weeks and he had no intention of letting it all crash down on his head. The ladies he was traveling with—Lady Farrington, her daughter Della, and their respective maids—considered him a highly eligible, if slightly tarnished, bachelor.

He intended for them to hold that belief.

Clive had made a career of lying. Blessed with social position, family wealth, a doting mother and a certain stripling grace (his friends told him he had the melancholy air of a poet), young Lord Houghton had cut quite a swath back in England. Then had come an assortment of disgraces—scrapes with women, welched gambling debts, being barred from certain London clubs—which even his tolerant mother, the dowager Marchioness of Greensea, 
had frowned upon. With the intent of “making a man of him, ” she had cut off his funds while he was at Cambridge.

Phoebe had heard about that. And she had put out rumors that she was a great heiress. Clive had not entirely taken the bait. He had seduced Phoebe—or rather he thought he had, actually it was the other way around—and had found her both enterprising and ingenious in bed. Such talent at her age surprised him. With that as a lure, he had consented to take her to London and enter into a Fleet Street marriage. He had reasoned that if Phoebe was 
not
an heiress, he would be no worse off, for Fleet Street marriages were hardly legal, and if her claims turned out to be true and she actually was heiress to large holdings in the colonies, he would parade the fact that he had debauched her and her father would promptly force him into marriage.

In London, after their Fleet Street ceremony, he had heard about Rowan Keynes’ prowess with the sword and that had changed his plans somewhat. He was glad enough to flee with Phoebe into the countryside and await developments. And for a time Phoebe’s inventiveness with landlords and tradespeople, her flair for arranging escapes—she was not Rowan’s daughter for nothing—had held him in thrall. But no money had been forthcoming, and when they returned to London he had had every intention of abandoning her and trying to make his peace with his mother, who had refused to see him ever since he had taken up with the wayward Phoebe.

He had overlooked but one thing—the passage of time. Rowan Keynes had descended upon him and explained matters at the point of a rapier. Forced into marriage with Phoebe—and he went docilely enough, once it was borne in on him that he was already her husband by common law and that if he satisfied her father with a church wedding there would be a large dowry—he had tried to reconcile with his mother.

But the dowager Marchioness considered Phoebe’s behavior scandalous and her son’s only a little less so. She wept but she steadfastly refused to receive them. She tore 
up his letters unread and so did not learn that her son had married his paramour in a church.

Cast back upon their own, the pair set themselves up for a time in Kent, but soon Clive’s gaming and Phoebe’s extravagance had eaten away her generous dowry and they were again on the run from their creditors.

Their next years were stormy ones. When they were in funds, they had lived high. When they were not, they quarreled. Sometimes Clive threatened to leave her—and once or twice he had. Always she had found him again, and with money—money she had wheedled out of Rowan Keynes, who found her requests hard to refuse—they had been reconciled. Eventually Phoebe had reduced her father to penury and after that lost touch with him.

Clive had brightened at the news of his father-in-law’s death but it seemed Phoebe would receive nothing from the estate. The house on Grosvenor Square had long since been sold for debt. Phoebe had no known prospects; she was estranged from her older sister, who lived at some unlikely place—Cumberland, he thought.

Their situation, when Clive had assessed it, was hopeless.

He had left Phoebe in Liverpool, telling her that he was going to make one more effort—this time alone—to get his mother to accept them. Phoebe had been glad to wait.

But his method of getting in to see the Marchioness would have caused even Phoebe’s stout heart to waver. He sent in word that his “mistress” had run away with a sea captain to America and that he was most heartily sorry for all the trouble he had caused.

He was received as a penitent. And after all, why not, reasoned his mother. Clive’s reputation was a little tarnished, but he might still make a good marriage.

Instantly she set about it. Two of her good friends, Lady Rhoads and the Countess of Scattersby, were on the brink of leaving for Portugal in the hope that the more equable climate of Lisbon might cure the Countess of her painful rheumatism.
And
they were taking with them Lady Farrington and her daughter Della, who, though a mousy girl who had made little impact during her first London season, would now become heiress to a large estate, for 
her half-brother Roger had died in the spring and her elderly grandfather, who had intended to bequeath his fortune to Roger, now intended to leave everything to young Della.

Ah, Della would cut a swath in London season, prophesied Lady Rhoads, for word of her newfound fortune would have got around by then!

No, she would not!
silently vowed the Marchioness.
For by then her son Clive—a thoroughly eligible scapegrace
— 
would have plucked the golden apple from the tree!

“Lady Rhoads has graciously accepted you into her party,” she told her son. “I know that Della is not pretty, but she will inherit half of Northumberland.” (The Marchioness was given to slight overstatement, but her son got the drift.) “I expect you”—she leaned forward, frowning to emphasize her next words—“to return from Lisbon betrothed to Lady Farrington’s daughter!”

And to further that end, she financed Clive’s trip and sent him off to his former tailor to make him “presentable. ”

It had been so wonderful to be back with his own set, spending money again, with not a care in the world other than the fit of his new clothes! And he had made himself so agreeable and paid such ardent court to the susceptible Della all the way to Portugal that when word reached them in Lisbon that Lady Rhoads’ husband had died and she and the Countess hastily embarked for England, Lady Farrington had decided to stay on in the Portuguese capital “since Clive and Della were getting along so nicely.”

Busy enjoying the delights of Lisbon, Clive had actually forgotten Phoebe for a while, waiting for him back in Liverpool.

But the sight of Cassandra, incredibly strolling into his very inn in Lisbon, had promptly restored Phoebe to his memory. And sent him off with his party to visit the Mouth of Hell. For Cassandra was certain to know that Clive and Phoebe were legally married at last, and she must not meet Lady Farrington or Della. If she did, the truth was sure to come out and his own chances would be ruined.

Cassandra was entirely unaware of the stir she was 
causing. Back at the inn, after she imparted to Wend the gloomy news that she had found her mother s grave, her thoughts had drifted back to Cumberland—and Drew, and Aldershot Grange. She wondered wistfully if Meg was getting enough exercise, if Clover was getting enough cream.
Of course they were,
Wend scolded her, for had not Livesay promised to see both himself? And Cassandra sighed and agreed, for like Wend, Livesay was more than a loyal servant—he was an old and trusted friend.

Still, in the morning light, the day after she had visited the cemetery and the house in the Portas del Sol, Cassandra was half-regretting this hasty trip to Portugal. In making her rash decision—and she was a woman given to rash decisions—she had given no thought at all to how difficult it would be to make inquiries in a foreign country where one did not speak the language. Indeed, she had had some difficulty finding out what the words
“Ate ofim do mundo” 
inscribed on her mother s footstone had meant.
“Until the end of the world.”
It brought a lump to Cassandra’s throat. And made her realize anew how hard it was going to be to try to learn more about her mother.

Perhaps she had been wrong to come. . . .

Restless now, after breakfast she took a walk. There was the Rua do Ouro, the Street of Gold—and there the Street of Silver, and there the Gilders’ Street, famous for gold leaf. And everywhere the streets were full of carriages and coaches and sedan chairs and horsemen. Cassandra roamed about looking in shop windows and occasionally going inside.

And all the while she was shadowed inconspicuously by Leeds Birmingham, who this day was roaming the shops too, having last night gotten the prince’s blessing upon this endeavor.

Strolling along, Cassandra paused at a milliner’s. She had actually opened the door and glanced into the interior when she told herself sternly she did not need another hat and closed it again.

Leeds Birmingham had observed this maneuver and was about to stroll on past the milliner’s when the door suddenly burst open and a woman dressed all in black 
arrived into the street with a bound. She was tall and dark and reed slender. She had sharp features and an exceedingly hard face—a face Leeds Birmingham knew all too well. He melted back behind two wrangling gentlemen who were trying to persuade each other to go in different directions, and watched.

The woman in black took a step forward after Cassandra and then suddenly whirled and went back into the shop. A moment later a young lad left the shop running, almost caught up with Cassandra, and then settled into step behind her, pacing her.

So there was more than one watcher following the lovely English girl. Birmingham’s hard crystal eyes narrowed. Perhaps the beauteous Cassandra was not such a wise choice after all. For why had Madame de Marceau, Lisbon’s most expensive milliner—and a known agent of the Marques de Pombal—rushed into the street at sight of her and then sent someone hurrying after?

After all, everyone knew that the Marques de Pombal, who hailed from near Coimbra and five years ago had been appointed Secretary of Foreign Affairs, was fast emerging as Portugal’s strongman. A man of enormous energy, Pombal was also a master of intrigue—as Leeds Birmingham had good reason to know. Leeds knew as well—for at Prince Damião’s suggestion he had had the place watched—that various of Pombal’s agents visited Madame de Marceau’s exclusive millinery establishment at odd hours, often arriving or leaving by the back door. It was clear to Leeds that Pombal had recruited—God alone knew how!—this irksome Frenchwoman whose past seemed to defy exploration and was doubtless making good use of her in spying on the aristocratic ladies who frequented the shop and whose thoughtless comments might at the least furnish useful information and at best might implicate their husbands and friends in treasonous plots against the Crown— for Pombal was ever zealous as the king’s right hand.