Passion and Pride (A Historical Romance) (22 page)

Evan glowered.

“…yes,” he finally said.

“‘Yes,’ you joined together in the bliss of earthly delight?”

“I wouldn’t go quite that far.”

“You made the beast with two backs? You ‘knew’ her in the Biblical sense? You – ”

“Yes, yes, for God’s sake, just shut up.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“Afterwards, when I tried to make amends for my less than stellar performance, do you know what she said to me? ‘I am not trying to find another husband, Mr. Blake. Even if I were, I would seek to marry up, rather than down.’”

Pemberly looked at Evan as though he were waiting for the resolution to a joke. When it did not come, he frowned comically. “
That
is your great and terrible crisis?

“I never said it was a – ”

“I never thought of you as a social climber, Blake.”

“I’m
not
– good God, what do you think I – ”

“I mean, she
does
have a point, after all.”

Evan yelled in his exasperation. “Pemberly, what the Countess said to me is exactly what I said to Marian before she left!”

Pemberly froze on his sofa.

“Ah,” he finally said.

“Not in so many words… but almost the same,” Evan finished lamely.

“I see.”

“Do you understand now why I am so upset? I have only just realized how cruel I was to her – how much I must have hurt her – ”

“If you knew then what you know now, would you have married her?” Pemberly asked.

Evan slumped back in his chair and stared at the wall.

“…I don’t know.”

“You don’t know.” Pemberly cleared his throat. “Well, then this is a great hullabaloo about nothing, isn’t it? You don’t even know if – ”

“Yes, I would have,” Evan interrupted.

Pemberly stopped in shock. “You would have married her?”

“Yes.”

“Inheritance and title be damned?”

“Inheritance and title be damned.”

The two men sat in silence for a long moment.

“But what good is this, hm?” Evan chuckled bitterly. “I cannot go back and undo the past, so this is just the drunken talk of a self-pitying fool, and nothing more. Never mind me.”

“What would you do if you could make things right?” Pemberly asked quietly.

“I
can’t
, that’s the whole point – ”

“What if you could render her a service that would set things right? Would you do it?”

“Of course.”

“Even if it meant putting your life at risk?”

“Well, as I said before, death is the least of my worries,” Evan said flippantly, and downed the last of his wine.

“I am being serious,” Pemberly said – and he was, more serious than Evan had ever seen him before. His voice was quiet, his face an impassive mask.

“Pemberly, what the devil’s gotten into you?”

“Just answer the question. Would you render her a service that would set things right, even if it meant putting your life at risk?”

“Of course – without a second thought.”

Pemberly nodded slightly, then rose from the sofa. “I have a meeting tomorrow at lunch. You should go with me.”

Evan frowned incredulously. “After all this talk of ‘putting my life at risk,’ all you have to say is you have a meeting? What is this?!”

“You should go with me,” Pemberly repeated, and walked out of the room. “Don’t drink any more, dear fellow, you’re going to have a devil of a hangover tomorrow as it is. I’ll have Williams wake you at ten, we’ll have to leave by half past eleven.”

“Pemberly – what the hell is this meeting?”

“Get some sleep,” Pemberly said, and then went upstairs to bed.

Evan followed Pemberly through Brooks, the gentlemen’s club in St. James Street founded by members of the Whig party. During this early afternoon hour, the rooms for gambling, socializing, and relaxing were only half-filled. By dinner they would be packed with powerful men looking to escape the pressures of their everyday lives.

As the son of a Marquess, Pemberly could have taken a seat in the House of Lords. However, he had declined it the grounds that he had no patience for politics. A more plausible explanation was that his tenure would have been marred weekly by some new outrage involving public drunkenness or ladies of the night.

Pemberly did, however, possess the flair of a natural politician. He had managed to obtain not only a membership at Brooks, but also one at White’s, the club belonging to the Whigs’ political adversaries, the Tories. Few men in London held that distinction – but Pemberly, if not exactly a welcome face at formal functions, was a popular guest of honor
when the wee hours came and festivities turned towards the scandalous.

Evan winced as they walked up a flight of stairs to the second story of the club. “Why are we here?”

“I told you to stop drinking last night,” Pemberly chided as he led the way into a small library.

“I did – after I finished the bottle. Again,
why
are we here?”

“To meet with this gentleman,” Pemberly said as he closed the door behind them.

In front of the unlit hearth stood a man. He was slightly paunchy, with a long, sharp nose beneath his powdered wig.

Evan drew in his breath sharply.

The man was Edmund Burke, one of the most influential members of the Whig party, and thus one of the most powerful men in all of England.

“Mr. Burke, may I introduce to you Mr. Evan Blake. Blake, Mr. Burke.”

“Sir, how do you do,” Evan said, bowing deeply.

Burke bowed less deeply. When he spoke, it was with the trace of an Irish brogue. “Pemberly, I realize it is a indelicate question, but – ”

“You can trust Blake, sir. In fact, I have him in mind for the very business at hand.”

Burke grunted and studied Evan’s face.

Evan looked at Pemberly with a questioning gaze.

“Shall we sit?” Pemberly said, gesturing to the leather-upholstered chairs in the center of the room.

The three men took their seats.

“How easily can you get the papers into Paris?” Burke asked.

“It’s becoming a bit of a problem,” Pemberly answered. “I don’t want to compromise Dardanelle in any way, but I can no longer find a messenger in France that I trust. Hence Mr. Blake.”

Evan frowned. “I’m sorry, I’m a bit behind here…”

“You haven’t told him?” Burke asked in alarm.

“I think – actually, I am sure – Blake will comply when he finds out what is at stake. But I thought that hearing it from you might impress upon him the gravity of the situation.”

“Pemberly…” Evan whispered, not at all comfortable.

Burke fixed his hawk-like gaze on Evan. “You know that I am very much against the Revolution in France, do you not?”

Evan nodded. Burke was one of England’s most passionate voices against the political upheaval in France – to the point where he wanted England to declare war in order to protect the French monarchy. Less than a year ago, he had written a pamphlet titled
Reflections on the Revolution in France
that had caused something of a firestorm across Europe.

“You also know that I am overwhelmed by dissenting voices in Parliament?”

“Yes.”

Burke was opposed by many, both in his party and outside of it. The Prime Minister, Mr. Pitt, opposed the Revolution, but refused to support a war against France.

Burke glanced at Pemberly, who nodded reassuringly.

“Despite this, I have attempted to make what one might call unofficial attempts at private diplomacy. My own son has carried papers to the
émigré
army, French gentlemen who were forced to flee France and who are now fighting to restore the nobility’s proper place. And Lord Pemberly here has been good enough to transport secret papers into Paris on a half-dozen occasions.”

Evan stared at Pemberly. He did not know what was more shocking: that Burke, one of the most powerful men in England, was embroiled in what would become a national scandal if it became known… or that Pemberly was playing a part in it.

Libertine, immoral, apolitical Pemberly.

“My publisher friend, Laurent Dardanelle, is a Royalist,” Pemberly explained. “Since we… ah… share a certain well-known writer…”

Marian. He means Marian,
Evan realized, and his heart skipped a beat.

“…our correspondence is expected, necessary, and regular as clockwork. So, I’ve been slipping in missives from Mr. Burke here, which Dardanelle passes on to his friends.”

“The situation in France is deteriorating, Mr. Blake,” Burke said. “As you well know, shortly after the storming of the Bastille in ‘89, the King and Queen were forced from Versailles and into the Tuileries Palace, where they are to this day held prisoners in fact if not in name. At the end of last month, a mob stormed the Palace and abused them horribly, even at one point forcing a red cap upon the king’s head!”

The red cap was the symbol of the revolutionaries, and was worn by many of the poor men of France. Evan could only imagine what outrage would follow if a throng of dissidents forced their way into the Royal Palace and forced a knit cap onto the head of King George III. It would have been grounds for mass executions, which would have been supported by nearly every person in England, whether noble or common-born. One did not approach the King unbidden, much less touch him.

But in France, such an action was no doubt seen as a great victory for the common man.

“Now the head of the Prussian and Austrian armies has written a manifesto threatening to retaliate against the French population if the King and Queen are harmed. Their soldiers will carry out an ‘exemplary and eternally memorable revenge,’” Burke snorted. “I appreciate the sentiment, but it will do nothing to help Louis – instead, it will make it seem as though he’s conspiring with foreign armies against the French people! The situation grows worse by the day, and it will positively explode when this is made common knowledge! Other highly-placed spies within France tell me – ”

Here Burke leaned in and dropped his voice to a whisper, though there was no one else in the room to overhear his words.

“ – that the Jacobins and their ilk will soon start massacring members of the aristocracy.”

Blake leaned back in shock.
That
was astounding. To imagine that he and Pemberly might be marked for death, if they had only been born a few hundred miles away…

“We need to get certain messages into Paris immediately. It is a matter of life and death,” Burke finished as he gazed steadily into Evan’s eyes.

Evan stared back at Burke… until he realized the statesman expected something of him. He turned uncertainly to Pemberly.

“…and you think
I
am the man to go into Paris?”

“That’s more or less the gist of it,” Pemberly smiled.

Evan could not have been more shocked if George III had barged into the room and announced he was abdicating the throne and crowning Evan the new King of England.

He took a moment to compose himself before answering.

“While I am not insensitive to the terrible plight of the King and Queen of France, and while I am in no way a supporter of the methods that the Revolution has employed, no one has died, correct? The reports you have been given are, at this point, speculation – ”

“Political prisoners are being taken every day!” Burke interrupted. “They have a new contraption called the guillotine, some beastly machine to take people’s heads off with one swipe, that they made the official means of execution back in March! Already they are executing convicts – soon it will be innocents! They are laying the groundwork for a bloodbath!”

Evan put up his hands to try to calm Burke. “While that sounds truly horrid, I have no particular connection to the situation, other than a sympathy for those involved. I do not see any reason why you or Pemberly think me the man to risk my own head for the King and Queen of a foreign power.”

“If revolutionary fervor crosses the Channel, you and Pemberly are done for, do you realize that?” Burke snarled. “The same mobs that will soon be calling for the heads of Louis and Marie Antoinette shall call for yours, simply because you own property and have titles of nobility!”

Evan sat up straight, his hackles raised. “From what I understand, the French aristocracy treat their poor abominably. In contrast, the men and women who are tenants on my father’s land are treated well. Our family is just and lenient in all our dealings with them, and we have gone out of our way to make sure the poor are given help and the hungry are provided with food in times of need. I confess, I do not see the same conditions in England that have provided the kindling for the fire now sweeping France.”

In reality, it was Evan who continually pressed for the fair treatment of his father's tenants, and who made sure that the poor never starved. His father was only interested in money. But Evan saw no reason to aggrandize himself or implicate his father.

“If I may speak to Blake alone for a moment, Mr. Burke?” Pemberly asked deferentially.

“If this is your idea of an ideal messenger, Lord Pemberly, I would hate to see a less-than-ideal candidate!” Burke growled, just before he stood and walked out of the library.

Evan turned on his friend. “What the hell is going on, Pemberly?”

“Calm down.”

“I will not calm down! You are apparently putting forth my name for all sorts of foreign intrigues – and what are you doing mixed up in this mess in the first place?”

“It’s something to do with my spare time.”

“That’s no kind of answer!”

Pemberly sighed. “When Marian went to France, I was worried. The Bastille had only recently fallen, and the French government was in turmoil. I began making enquiries, which led to a great deal of distressing information – which only got worse with time. My interest in the matter was noticed by men in Burke’s circle, and I was eventually approached with the question of whether I might aid his backdoor diplomacy. I agreed.”

“But why me? Why involve me?”

“You told me last night that you would do anything, even put your own life at risk, to make right your treatment of Marian. Do you remember that?”