Royal Regard (46 page)

Ah, yes, the convenient lie offered at the
Blue Bear, which he would now be more than happy to accept, honor
be damned. At least someone had considered the consequences of his
actions.

“The problem is no one believes them.” Would
nothing go Nick’s way in this debacle? “Too many bruises on the
cadaver, too many people watching you darken his daylights, and too
much public money spent by the king on behalf of personal friends.
‘Nobles getting away with murder’ and all that, I’m afraid.”

“Of course.” He didn’t want to ask, but could
no longer avoid it: “Will I be executed?”

Firthley unbuttoned his coat. “I think it
unlikely. However, there will be an inquiry and His Majesty will be
drawn in, which means a reckoning at some point, even if you don’t
swing for it now. I am sure you are aware involving your sovereign
in a sordid criminal matter bandied about Town is not ideal for
sovereign or criminal?”

Nick moaned, dropping his head into his hand,
“I hadn’t thought of that. I haven’t thought of anything but
Bella.”

“For which no one faults you, including His
Majesty. He has not passed judgment on either of you—yet.”

It would not take long. Prinny’s mood could
turn with no warning whatsoever. The king might invite Nick to play
cards and have him carted away before he bet a shilling. He could
send Bella roses and have her in irons before the flowers were in
water. Or he might bestow new peerages and ten thousand acres of
arable land for their trouble. The last thing Nick should do is
remind the Crown of his existence.

“You may be sure, Wellbridge, my barristers
and yours have things well in hand.” Firthley tapped his fingers
against the desk and sat back in his chair. “It was great good luck
I could give an account, and I have already repaid the public
funds. For all intents and purposes, I am Bella’s closest male
relative, and it is what Huntleigh would expect until such time as
you have married.”

“You need not—”

Cutting him off, Firthley topped up his own
glass of brandy, but Nick placed a hand over his when offered. Once
Firthley had replaced the crystal stopper, he set the decanter
aside, out of Nick’s reach.

“Whether or not you appreciate it, His
Majesty and Parliament will know you did not act alone, Malbourne
posed a more-than-sufficient threat to warrant lethal force, and
your heroic actions have earned the deep gratitude of the countess’
family. If the ghost of Myron Huntleigh has done his part into the
bargain, the matter will be adjudicated with no need for barristers
at all.”

A tentative knock was followed by the
clearing of a throat in the hall.

“Yes, Corbel?”

Without opening the door, the butler said, in
a tone low enough for discretion, while still loud enough for the
two men to hear, “My lord, the General has arrived.”

Nick caught his breath and eyed the decanter.
More bad news. He could feel it in his marrow. More information he
didn’t want to hear, more questions he didn’t want to answer, more
reminders that his beautiful Bella might soon be gone. If she were
to die, Nick wasn’t sure he could—

“Send him in, please.” Firthley stood and
crossed the room to welcome the General, on the way replacing the
brandy on the sideboard, presumably to keep Nick from becoming any
drunker or more mawkish.

The Major-General of the Royal Horse Guards
bowed when he came into the room, his deep blue jacket—for which
the regiment had earned the sobriquet ‘the Blues’—unusually dusty,
his face showing deep lines of apprehension, almost fear. Prinny
must have rung a peal over the man’s head for taking so long to
carry out his orders.

“Your Grace, Your Lordship, His Majesty sends
his regards. He wishes me to remind you his staff is at your
service.” Nick noted it was Prinny’s personal household placed at
their service, not the House of Hanover. None of the king’s
siblings had chosen to involve themselves.

Nick waved the man to the second visitor’s
chair before the desk while Firthley poured a drink.

Mentally, Nick shook himself, concentrating
on the General to keep from falling apart. “You may tell His
Majesty I thank him for his assistance,” he intoned, picking up
what remained of the brandy he had been planning not to drink.

“I should have expressed my gratitude before
now. And to your men. I will find a better way to convey my
appreciation once we are through this muddle.” The brandy sloshed
in the glass as he waved it toward the soldier.

The General acknowledged Nick with a bob of
his head as he was handed his glass, “No need for thanks, Your
Grace. It is our pleasure to assist. His Majesty is quite concerned
for Lady Huntleigh.”

“Most appreciated, you may be sure,” Firthley
acknowledged. “Might we get to business with no further delay? We
would both prefer to be concentrating on other concerns.”

“Of course.” It gave Nick pause when the man
took a long, slow draught from his glass before he began. Whatever
was about to be said, Firthley was right: Nick would rather be
hiding in Bella’s bedchamber with the door locked than listen to
another word about the crimes against her.

“You know the identity of the woman
identified as Michelle Delacroix, Your Grace?”

“I have made the duke aware, yes.”

Nick drummed his fingertips impatiently on
the desk.

“Before her marriage,” the General began,
“Lemaître was lady’s maid to the duke’s sister, then his wife. Her
mother had been a cook under the previous duke, but when Malbourne
inherited the title, he replaced all of the servants, including her
mother. She stayed until he bolted just ahead of the Revolution,
and she married into the
bourgeoisie
. Presumably she was his
light o’ love.”

“Presumably.” Firthley’s lip curled.
“Deplorable to make a mistress of a woman in one’s employ.”

Nick nodded agreement, but kept his attention
on the soldier.

“There was some talk of a babe, but no child
to speak of now,” he continued. “It may have been farmed out or may
not have existed at all.” Nick and Firthley traded an ominous
glance and the General’s solemn expression mirrored theirs. They
all knew what a peer might do to cover up the existence of an
unwanted child, and none of them wanted to voice it. “Once widowed,
she worked as every kind of servant, but lady’s maid for one of
Napoleon’s toadies for seven years before she reunited with
Malbourne.”

“This seems rather more detailed than I would
expect,” Firthley noted, “even for a contingent as thorough as
yours.”

On reflection, Nick agreed. It wasn’t as
though Bow Street Runners would have had time to go to France and
report back by now, even had anyone been dispatched there.

The General sat up, tugging at his coat,
appearing inordinately pleased with himself. “We had a French agent
placed in Boney’s service who has since removed to London—one
Pierre Bouchard. A mercenary soldier for Malbourne and nobles like
him, turned spy against the
provocateurs
,
then for anyone working against Napoleon.”

“And our government held the heftiest purse,”
Firthley deduced.

“Indeed. When made aware of the circumstance,
he reported to the Foreign Office straight away.”

“How extraordinarily fortunate.”

“Quite, my lord. Malbourne had paid him a
great deal of money to keep silent about past engagements at
Château de Fouret, but since the duke is now dead, he no longer
felt obligated to keep the man’s secrets.”

“Lady Amelia Dewhurst?” Nick guessed.

The General sat back, stunned. It took him a
moment to restrain his lips, opening and closing in disbelief, but
at the same moment he spoke, Firthley did, too.

“How do you know that name?”

“Who is Lady Amelia Dewhurst?”

“The last Duchesse de Malbourne,” Nick
answered, “an Englishwoman.”

Steepling his fingers, Firthley sat back as
Nick went on, “Huntleigh had been trying to find Bouchard. He knew
Lady Amelia as a child and suspected Malbourne had done her ill.
One of the
château’s
former servants suggested Bouchard
might know something if he could be found.” Nick sat back and
crossed his right ankle over his left knee, waving his hand and
shrugging his shoulder. “I know nothing more. I haven’t the
resources of the Foreign Office.”

The General finished the brandy in his glass,
so Firthley poured more. Once the soldier had taken a goodly
mouthful, he filled in the blanks.

“As you say, Your Grace, Lady Amelia Fouret,
née
Dewhurst, was the only child of a minor baron whose
title is now extinct. From what we understand, Malbourne told his
wife’s family she died in childbirth, but Bouchard said there was
no evidence of that. He said…” The man almost retched up his brandy
when he recounted, “Bouchard said she hadn’t enough unscarred flesh
left on her bones to carry a babe. He was the one to bury her, you
see.”

All three men sat silently as they finished
their glasses, remembering what had been found when they combed
through the two small rooms Malbourne had rented in the East End.
In the earliest hours of Bella’s return to London, when the doctor
would still not allow anyone into the room, Nick had insisted on
joining the Bow Street Runners and the Royal Guard in the search.
Firthley had come along to ensure Nick’s safety, and that of
everyone around him should the duke’s fury again explode.

Nick hadn’t been able to hold back a roar at
the sight of the bed frame. Presaging another murderous rage, he
had taken in the shackles and straps and iron posts, all tools to
facilitate the worst forms of torture anyone in the room could
imagine and many they never wished to. Seeing the
armoire
filled with every kind of instrument of pain, birch rods to
thumbscrews to branding irons, Nick had slammed his already-pulped
fist into a wall. However, angry as he had been, as soon as he laid
eyes on the devices meant to pierce and scar a woman’s intimate
parts, he cast up his accounts and Firthley had taken him to the
carriage, ashen and stumbling.

Three hands reached for the decanter, but
Firthley took the prerogative to refill each glass.

Nick spoke first, “Huntleigh would be
gratified to know Lady Amelia’s fate has been discovered and
avenged, though it is unfortunately too late to bring anyone
peace.”

“What I know would not bring her family
peace. And truth to tell, I am relieved not to have to make an
accounting to her father.” The General’s face was disturbed in a
way no military man’s ever should be—eyes as haunted as any man who
seen his own woman and children killed before his eyes. As
disturbed as Lady Amelia’s father might have been.

Firthley took up his glass and gave a
half-cynical, half-virtuous toast, “To the belated righting of
wrongs, gentlemen.” All three men drank, all three faces grim.

Before Nick could dwell further on what might
have happened to Bella had they not found her in time—as though her
current unresponsive state weren’t enough—the General said, “I do
not wish to cause a disruption in Lady Huntleigh’s protection, but
The Blues cannot spare a score of men indefinitely, as she can by
no stretch be considered Royal Family.”

“Oh,” Nick responded blankly, “of course.”
Another thing he hadn’t considered. Prinny had sent the nearest
available men when he heard the news, members of his own guard, but
strictly speaking, they should never have been assigned the
task.

A tap on the door revealed Corbel, whose face
was so still there must be a story behind it.

“My lord, one of the gentleman of our
military guard requests an audience. First Major John Smythe.”

The General swore under his breath.

Corbel coughed to clear the room of
profanity, and continued, “He is rather more
insistent
than
one might expect of an officer. He will not be moved, Sir.”

Firthley held out his hand to invite the
General’s explanation for a military officer in the receiving
room.

The soldier’s lips stretched across his face
in what might loosely be called a smile. “As I was saying, my lord,
the Coldstreamers will take our place here in the morning, and we
will keep them in your service as long as they are needed. Longer,
if I have my say, and I frequently do.”

“Our thanks, Sir,” Firthley acknowledged.
Picking up the quill from the standish, he pointed the feather
toward the soldier, prelude to the question he need not repeat.

The General’s face might split at the jaw if
he pulled his mouth unto a tighter smile. “We have had one stroke
of luck. One of our ranking officers in that unit, Major Smythe,
the young man trying to force his way into your study, appears to
have a vested interest in the countess’s safety.”

Firthley queried, the end of the goose
feather trailing across the desktop, “Why is that?”

“As he tells it, they have been estranged
many years, but I am given to understand he is her brother.”