Maggie MacKeever (33 page)

Quickly, Clea continued: “We couldn’t get back inside because the gate was stuck and the other entrances weren’t within reach. So I hit one of them with my lantern, and Julie stuck another with her sword — or Francis Wakely’s sword, not that I imagine he’d begrudge us the use of it — and we ran away.”

Julie flopped back on the bed and stared up at the ceiling. “He said I’d be an old hand at it soon enough.”

“Francis Wakely?” Who was Francis Wakely? Rose was having trouble following this account.

“Cap’n Jack. At the nunnery. I saw his face.” Julie closed her eyes. “He was going to give me to Mick and Pego when he was done with me. Said Ned would no longer want me then.”

Clea looked up from her playing cards. “I probably shouldn’t be hearing this.”

“You probably shouldn’t be having anything to do with the likes of me,” Julie muttered.

“Why not?”

“Are you daft? Because if you hadn’t, you wouldn’t be here.”

“
We
wouldn’t be here if
I
hadn’t been daft enough to force open that gate.” Clea uncovered an ace, and placed it in position. “Anyway, this isn’t so bad.”

Julie propped herself up on an elbow. Rose contemplated Clea over the rim of her teacup. Both looked skeptical.

Clea shrugged. “I spent a few days in a cow shed in Portugal. Along with the cows. That was a great deal less comfortable than this. Ned’s not like that, you know.”

“Like what?” Julie asked.

“Like the Cap’n said he’d be. Ned truly likes you. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him like anyone so much before.”

Julie liked Ned, too. Liking Ned had complicated both her life and his. Now that she had left his house, it would be best for both of them if she never returned.

Arse over teakettle, reflected Rose. She recognized the signs. Her own young lover had proven no less faithless than the ones who came before him, alas.

Clea uncovered another card. “I had an admirer once. Don
Miguel Sanchez, one of the Portuguese
guerrilha
chiefs. His idea of a romantic gesture was to present me with a captured Frenchman.”

Julie stared at her, distracted. Rose asked, “What happened to Don Miguel?”

“I broke his heart.” Clea grinned. “Or so he claimed. Don Miguel already had a wife, as well as a sweetheart in every village he passed through.” Furthermore, Don Miguel had been almost as old as Bates.

Her smile faded as she wondered how long it would be before Bates realized they were gone.

Ned would worry. Clea hated the thought. Maybe Kane might also worry, which she wouldn’t mind. “This is like one of the priest holes in Wakely Court, isn’t it? We will hide here until the danger has passed.”

“Or until we can figure how to get you safely home,” said Julie. “Snug as three bugs in a rug.”

Get ‘you’ home safely, Clea noted; not ‘us’. Rose raised the bottle to pour more gin into her teacup.

Suddenly, the door burst open, with a great crack of breaking wood. Julie grabbed for her sword. Rose froze with the gin bottle hoisted in mid-air.

In the doorway stood a tall dark-haired, dark-eyed man. “Surely you didn’t think you would so easily escape me,” said Cap’n Jack.

Chapter Thirty-Five

He who would not be idle, let him fall in love.
— Ovid

At last, peace was to be proclaimed in London. The day dawned clear and bright. Early in the morning persons from every walk of life congregated on Hyde Park, not to satisfy their curiosity concerning the Royal Visitors, for the novelty of those dignitaries had long since passed, but to observe the great military review. By nine o’clock the entire area from Tyburn to Hyde Park Gate was covered
with soldiers dressed in their finest regimentals. By almost eleven the various corps were at last satisfactorily arranged. Throughout the morning, military bands played brisk martial airs.

The trees were laden down with people; as were every balcony, window and roof with a view. All eyes were fixed on Hyde Park Gate, where the Distinguished Personages were to make their grand
entrée.

All eyes, that is, save those of Lord Saxe, who would have been more pleased than not to never again espy the Notable Pests. His attention was fixed on his companion, who was wearing a dark blue velvet riding habit with long tight sleeves and a black top hat. “How much longer will you stay in London, do you think?”

“Who knows?” Sabine’s own attention was on the Hyde Park Gate. “It is almost morning, darling
.
You wouldn’t want to wake and find me in your bed.”

Hubris, Kane reflected. His arrogance had caught the attention of the gods, who as
punishment had sentenced him to wanting Sabine in his bed morning, noon, and night.

A salute of twenty-one cannons announced that the Royal Party was en route. Another discharge heralded their arrival at Hyde Park Gate. A detachment of the Greys moved forward to meet the newcomers, who were received with cheers and shouts. The Prince Regent — accompanied on one side by the Emperor of Prussia, and on the other by the Russian Czar — removed his hat
and bowed respectfully to his subjects, who for the most part ignored
him, but at least did not hurl rotten fruit. Count Platoff, who was accompanied by a small detachment of his Cossacks, and Field Marshal Blücher received the loudest applause.

Kane glanced down at Sabine. The bright sunlight was unkind, revealing fine lines around her eyes, and flesh at her jaw line that was not so firm as once it would have been.

Her skin was so pale that he could see the veins beneath. Kane sometimes thought he knew her no better now than ever, despite the nights they shared a bed.

She caught him watching her. “You’re thinking that I look my age.”

Kane was thinking Sabine was older than he was, and that he didn’t give a damn. “Nonsense. You are ageless as well as beautiful.”

“And you are the consummate diplomat.” She turned away to watch the regiments passing in review. At this rate the heralds, who had assembled at eleven to read the peace proclamation, wouldn’t be able to start their tour of the city until after four.

Kane wondered what had really prompted Sabine’s return to London. Castlereagh seldom acquainted his left hand with the workings of his right.

Tomorrow the Illustrious Irritations were scheduled to depart for Portsmouth, there to disembark from England’s shores. Later in the year the struggle to determine the new boundaries of France would resume in Vienna, little progress having thus far been made.

Kane would also travel to Venice, to witness firsthand the scramble for land and influence and power. He wondered if Sabine would be there.

She nudged her dappled mare closer to his black. “Who do you think pushed Miss Wynne?”

Kane wasn’t surprised by the change of subject. Sooner or later, Sabine’s conversation always came back to Julie Wynne. “My money is on Lady Georgiana. She was the only one who stood close enough.”

“Why would Lady Georgiana do such a thing?”

Kane withheld comment. He had, after all, been tempted to push Julie in front of a carriage himself.

Sabine’s expression was ironic. “You haven’t shared your suspicion with Ned.”

“I can’t be sure.”

“You mean you don’t want to see Ned stand his trial for murder. Why do you disapprove of his feelings for the girl?”

“He deserves better.”

“Piffle. You’re jealous.”

He was nothing of the sort. Was he? Kane reminded himself of stolen jewelry, and codebooks. Taweret. Blackmail. Women who hanged themselves.

None of which, if Miss Wynne could be believed, was entirely
her fault. Kane recalled being told he’d been born with a silver teaspoon shoved up his arse. The accusation stung.

He paused to watch as the r
egimental review culminated in the firing of a
feu-du-joie.
Bands played “God Save the King” as the Royals passed by.

“Tell me more about Julian Faulkner,” Kane said, when the hubbub had subsided sufficiently to hear another person’s voice.

“What do you want to know?”

“Were you in love with him?” Kane asked, then scowled. That wasn’t what he’d meant to say.

Sabine looked amused, which irritated him more. “I told you: Julian was my friend.”

“Why do you keep his miniature? If he was merely your friend.”

“Why does one keep anything? Have you no mementos?”

Kane opened his mouth, then closed it, uncomfortable with what a lack of mementos might reveal about him. He was uncomfortable with any number of the things he was discovering about himself.

Sabine unpinned the cameo from her high-necked habit shirt and fastened it to his lapel. “Now you have something by which to remember me
.
”

The lady was in a deuced odd mood. Kane wondered why.
Before he could ask her, if he had dared to ask her, further tumult swept through the crowd. Ned rode toward them, scattering by-standers before him like ninepins.

His face was as grim as if he’d been assigned to redesign the map of Europe himself. “How nice that you could bring yourself to join us,” Kane greeted him. “Castlereagh wishes to speak with you. Perhaps he wishes to tender his congratulations. Having read the account of your betrothal this morning in
The
Times.”

Sabine had not read the newspapers. She drew in a breath.

“Congratulations are
not
in order,” snapped Ned, who had woke up to find himself of even greater interest than the royal visitors; next to a good scandal, the ladies of the
ton
adored to hear that another gentleman had got caught in parson’s mousetrap.
“And t
hat’s not important now.”

“How is it not important?” protested Sabine. “If Bianca follows through on her threat to bring a breach-of-promise suit
. . .
”

“This is Hannah’s doing. I’ve already told her that it won’t serve.” Ned had in fact dragged his cousin from her bed, and the wretched woman had been gloating even as she protested she’d merely lent a hand. All Hannah had ever wanted (she said) was for Ned to get himself a proper heir. After meeting Bianca, she saw that in comparison no ordinary young female would do.

Hannah had no longer been triumphant after Ned finished making his displeasure known, along with the circumstance that he would not be taking Bianca as his bride and residing at Dorset Hall, breach-of-promise suit or no; and furthermore announcing that he seriously questioned further exposing his sister to the influence of someone so wanting in wit as to think the mistress of a notorious Portuguese
bandido
would make him a suitable bride. Ned had left his cousin as overset as ever Lady Georgiana had pretended, and it hadn’t improved his spirits one whit.

“None of that matters,” he repeated.

“Then what
does
matter?” inquired Kane.

They were interrupted by another burst of applause and music. Ned stroked Soldier’s neck and wished someone might similarly soothe him. Specifically, he wished Julie might do so, but he must find her first.

“What matters is that Julie and Clea are missing. You may tell Castlereagh that I’ll do anything he wishes if you turn your resources to finding them.”

“What do you mean, they’re missing?” demanded Sabine.

“I mean they’re not at Wakely Court.” Ned could still feel Julie sprawled atop him. Draped across him like a blanket. Weeping in his arms. He shouldn’t have let her out of his sight. Hadn’t meant to, certainly. Now he was terrified she was lost.

After his encounter with Bianca, Ned had got deliberately cupshot. On his return to Wakely Court, he’d avoided the turret room, feeling Julie deserved far better than that he go to her foxed. When he finally climbed the stair to the attics, upon his return from browbeating Hannah and setting in motion numerous other attempts at damage control, he’d discovered that both Julie and Clea were nowhere in the house.

“Bates doesn’t know how long they’ve been gone. He thinks they may have been exploring and something caused them to run off. We found a broken lantern and a pruning saw in the street outside the old garden wall.”

Francis Wakely’s smallsword was missing. Ned hoped Julie was putting it to good use. What had Clea been thinking, to take her out the midden gate?

Ned daren’t dwell on Clea, or the disservice he had done his sister by allowing her to run wild. Had he made the slightest effort to curb Clea’s adventurous nature — or to rein in his own reckless infatuation with Julie — she would be snug and safe at Wakely Court. “I’ve already been to the Academy. According to the servants, Lilah left town on an emergency of some sort two days past.”
Ned could hardly blame her for saving her own neck. In releasing Julie, Lilah had defied Cap’n Jack.

Kane was unusually silent. Ned had anticipated a scathing denouncement, which would have been another waste of time, since Kane could say nothing Ned hadn’t already said to himself. “You’re too calm about this.”

“I have a certain Bow Street Runner in my keeping.” Kane took up his reins. “One who’s prepared to talk in return for preventing his neck from being stretched. You might care to join me in hearing what he has to say.” He looked around, and frowned. Odd that in the midst of all Ned’s trouble, Sabine should have stolen away.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Heavens! What thick darkness pervades the minds of men.
—  Ovid

The nursery was bleak and dusty, furnished with cast-off bits and pieces. The windows were barred. Julie said it felt like a prison. She should know.

Rose’s wig resembled a frizzed bird’s nest, and her ugly dress was torn. She had lost much of the putty from her face, as well as the wart from her chin. Twenty pounds of strawberries and two of raspberries, she promised herself, as she shifted uncomfortably on the narrow iron cot and waited for the door to open; berries crushed and thrown into a bath from which she would emerge with her skin freshly perfumed, soft as velvet, and tinged with a delicate pink. This event, if unlikely to occur in her near future, was considerably more pleasant to contemplate than a recent conversation concerning the popularity of Englishwomen in foreign brothels, even Englishwomen of her advanced age. Clea stood atop a wooden chair on one side of the door, a broken slate in her hand. Julie waited on the other, clutching a length of splintered wood. Desperate times called for desperate measures. Rose wished they could have kept the sword.