My Sweet Folly (46 page)

Robert had no notion of what the man’s true name might be. But he had developed a profound respect for his chameleon tutor’s talents. When, after the morning lesson, Monsieur Belmaine transformed himself into Mr. McCann, his very cheeks seemed to grow rosy with northern winds, and it was hopeless to refer back to the French imposture—Mr. McCann would simply snort and fix Robert or Lander with an incredulous eye. “The French be damned to the De’il Himself!” he cried. “Say na’ more! M’bonny wife, ach!”

“Your wife?” Lander inquired. Mr. McCann always spun an amusing yarn if he had a little encouragement.

“T’were a French mahound, the bloody churl, wooed her yonder-away, so fair away!” he moaned.

“She left you?” Lander asked, looking oddly distressed at this farrago.

“Gone away. The world away,” Mr. McCann announced in a voice of doom. “Ye’ll not ken where to.”

“Where?”

“Japan.” Mr. McCann pulled out his handkerchief and blew his nose.

“Japan!” Lander said, shocked. “Good God.”

“It sounds an excellent place for a wife,” Robert commented. “Send ‘em all after her, that’s what I propose.”

Mr. McCann chuckled. “There. ‘Tis a canny lad.”

“Oh, come,” Lander said, with a little irritation. “A man must marry. They are not all so bad.”

“Ah. The word of experience!” Robert said.

“Well, I have not been married, of course,” Lander admitted.

“If you don’t need a successor—spare yourself,” Robert said pointedly.

“Aye, take a bonny lass to keep yer bed warm,” Mr. McCann suggested, nodding. “But stay off the church porch!”

Robert watched Lander’s reaction to this advice. The younger man smiled, but his face was a subtle study in disapproval. Robert had been practicing his lessons in observation and inference wherever he could. A man who could not take a joke about marriage was like enough to be a man deep in love.

Robert had his opinions on who the fortunate lady might be, but he did not speak of it before Mr. McCann. The rogue might well have drawn his own conclusions in any case—there was not a thing that escaped his attention. Observation, intuition, self-control: Robert had been training in the realms of the human mind as intensely as in sleight of hand.

If he thought he had made any progress, Mr. McCann set him back in that instant by putting his finger to his lips.

“Careful, my lads—we’re like to offend the lady herself.”

“The lady?” Lander asked curiously.

But Robert had caught McCann’s faint sign toward the door. It stood closed, but Robert obeyed his teacher’s warning signal. He stood up, drawing the pistol underneath his coat, and opened the door swiftly.

To his utter astonishment, Folie stood there, her hand poised over the knob. She stared wide-eyed down the barrel of his gun.

NINETEEN

“Folly!” Robert said blankly.

She made a small curtsy. “I’m sorry,” she said, feeling suddenly and intensely stupid for coming. “I know I’m not expected.”

In the face of his disbelief and the words she had just overheard, Folie rather wished that she might be transported to Japan with all the unwanted wives. She stood hesitantly in the doorway, hoping that at least Robert might lower the gun.

“Mrs. Hamilton!” Lander stood up, the first to react sensibly. “Is something wrong? Why are you here?”

“I’m sorry,” she said again. “No—nothing is wrong, nothing at the village—at least—I came at once because—’’ She glanced at the stranger. “Robert,” she said helplessly, “may I speak to you privately?’’

“Of course.” She watched him slide the pistol under his coat as naturally as if he were a thoroughgoing highwayman. “Come.”

Folie stood back, then followed him to the stairs. She paused at the bottom, biting her lower lip. “Robert—I did not have a full fare for the cab from the Post Office,” she said. “Someone must pay him.”

He stopped, one foot on the lowest stair. “My dear,” he said severely, “you should never have come here. I thought you understood that.”

Her cheeks flamed with windburn and mortification. “I must tell you something,” she said. “Something that I remembered about Vauxhall.”

His scowl relaxed a little. “I see. Go on up, then. I’ll have Lander see to it.”

Folie mounted the stairs slowly, feeling rather like a chastised puppy. The big drawing room was dark, the curtains still drawn. Folie went about pulling them open, letting the bright sunshine of a spring morning through. From the dust motes that sparkled down the beams, she thought the drapes had not been drawn open for the entire two weeks she had been gone.

“Don’t!” Robert’s abrupt command startled her. “Come away from the windows,” he said sharply. “Folie, for the love of God, have you no sense at all?”

She scooted away from the tall panes. “Is someone watching?” she asked anxiously.

“Come here.” He moved to a position near the white marble mantelpiece, pressing his back to the wall in an odd stance. As Folie came closer, he reached out, turned her about by the shoulders and held her back against his chest. “There,” he said. “Do you see him?”

From the strange position, she could see an angle of the street that was not visible from most of the windows. “I see a...oh, come, surely you don’t mean that child bowling his hoop? That’s only Christopher. He lives across the street.”

“No, the donkey with the cart beside him, of course!” Robert said, squeezing her shoulders. “My dear.” She could feel him shake his head.

“But I see no one else.”

“In the house on the corner. That left-hand window on the first floor.”

Folie squinted. “I can’t—” But then, as she looked, she saw that something moved in the opening—she realized that she could see right through it to the window on the farther side of the house. The light silhouetted a shape in side whenever it moved. “Goodness. What excellent eyesight you must have.”

“Lander has a bit more resource than ordinary eyesight,” he said. His hands still rested on her shoulders. “But yes, we are watched.”

She could feel the pistol under his coat. “Who is it?”

“Only a succession of petty rogues so far, unfortunately—some known to Bow Street and some not. One of the higher class—’’ He dropped his hands from her shoulders, clearing his throat. “I beg your pardon, a lady of light virtue—holds the lease. Lander is having her patronage investigated.”

“Oh,” Folie said. She moved away from him immediately, so that he should not suppose that she liked his hands upon her shoulders. “What jolly diversions you have been having here!”

“You said that you had recalled something?”

“Yes!” Folie turned to him. “Robert—I remembered about that note. I
did
write it to Sir Howard!”

Instead of the incredulity she had expected, he watched her without expression, as if he were still waiting for her to tell him what she had discovered.

“Robert, he must have arranged to have it delivered to you! Don’t you suppose? How else could it have gone from Limmer’s Hotel to wherever you were? I don’t even
know
where you were.”

“Yes. I’ve assumed that must be the case. Did you remember any more?”

“Well—” Folie was feeling rather flattened. “Perhaps this means nothing. But just after we arrived in London, Lady Dingley and I were returning from some calls, or shopping, I don’t remember clearly, but I believe that from the carriage, I saw Sir Howard standing on a street corner!”

“Yes?” Robert did not seem overawed by this information.

“But he should not have been here. In London! He had returned to Dingley Hall directly, you see! Or at least, that was what we all understood. And there he was in Bond Street, standing on the corner with a girl. I saw him. And he saw me, though I said nothing of it to Lady Dingley, of course.”

Robert gave her a narrow glance. “A girl? Do you mean a streetwalker?’’

“No, no—” Folie looked back at him, shocked. “I’m sure he would do nothing of that sort!”

His mouth curved mockingly. “Perhaps not.”

“She was dressed like a maid from the country. Her eyes were red, as if she had been weeping. I think...I believe I saw her once at Solinger, though I did not realize it at the time.”

“Good God—you just remembered this?” He took a step toward her. “At Solinger? In the house? Are you certain?”

She wet her lips. That stunning moment of recollection in the night, staring into her mirror, seemed distant now. “I—believe it was the same girl. I think she was a maid.”

“You’re not sure.”

“I am—certain. Almost certain.”

“Did Melinda see her?’’

“Well, I did not ask Melinda. I suppose—I should have. But she was asleep, and I wanted to warn you, in case you should be in danger.”

He gazed at her. “Folly—you came on the morning mail? When did you leave the house?’’

“At half past three,” she said, lowering her face.

“Melinda was asleep?’’ He seemed to home to her guilt instantly.

“Well—I did not wish to wake her. I left a note.”

His dark lashes widened. “Damn you, Folly! Damn you, do you tell me you left there without telling anyone?” He locked his arm behind his back and took a pace. “Of course you did! You would not have arrived here alone in a cab, if anyone with a grain of sense could have prevented you!”

She sank into a chair. “I’m sorry. It came upon me so suddenly—I was worried for your safety—I did not think.”

“You had better begin to think.” He stood still, facing away from her. She could see his fist working. “You might have sent a message, or waited for Lander—instead you put yourself in the most flagrant, unprotected situation, riding here on the bloody Royal Mail, marching up the front steps where anyone might see you! And what the devil are we to do with you now? You can’t go back.”

She lifted her head. “I can’t go back?”

“Certainly not! How am I to smuggle you out of here with any assurance that you won’t be followed? Lander and I are dogged wherever we go. And you cannot remain here, with no companion, in the same house with me.”

“No. No, of course not.” With a faint horror, Folie saw instantly that he was right. She could not remain in Cambourne House unaccompanied—without Melinda or Lady Dingley, not while Robert was here. It would be impossibly unseemly.

“I suppose none of that occurred to you in this mad rush to save my life from Dingley,” he said sarcastically.

“I had intended that I would go back on tonight’s mail,” she offered, to prove that she had at least planned that far ahead.

“A happy notion.” His lip curled derisively. “Doubtless we could expect to find you deported to Tasmania this time!”

“I apologize if I did not act in an ideal manner.” She gave a stiff shrug, goaded. “But why worry? Marry me for the sake of propriety, and then banish me to Japan!”

“You may believe me, it’s just this sort of half-witted female behavior that makes Japan sound an excellent notion!”

“Oh, the farther the better!” she retorted. “Why not the Arctic? Or the moon? We wives are perfectly at home with cold indifference.”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “Jest about it if you will,” he said with a sneer. “I’m not sure that I have much choice in the matter now, damn it.”

“I beg your pardon.” She leapt to her feet. “Pray do not feel obligated to offer yourself merely on this account, Mr. Cambourne!”

A belated look of consternation crossed his face, as if he had just heard his own words. He lifted his hand to arrest her progress toward the door. Folie knew before he spoke precisely what he was going to say.

“And pray do not declare that you did not intend
that
as it sounded!” she exclaimed, rounding on him. “I am well aware that you do not wish for a wife. Nor do I care for a husband, certainly not one forced to make his offer over a stupid idea of decorum. I am far too old to care for that! I had supposed that we were fast friends—that was why I came here so precipitously. It was a great misjudgment, clearly. But I am sure that the situation may be retrieved in some manner which will not inconvenience you
quite
so far as saddling us with one another for life.”