The Cornish Heiress (30 page)

The settled fixity of that purpose both startled Philip and
soothed him. Ever since Falmouth he had intended to make his relationship with
Meg permanent, but the idea had been vague and nebulous, something to be
considered seriously only after he was back from France. Now he was back, and
his brief experience with Désirée had clarified and reinforced his desire for
Meg. The trouble was that the unformed notion that he “would manage something”
evaporated with the other vagueness.

Philip had no time for more than a bare glimpse of the
complexities involved in arranging such a relationship. Maneuvers such as
Pierre had carried out to avoid the ships they had sighted required every hand,
and Philip had been as busy and as exhausted as any other member of the crew
before they made a safe haven at Kingsdown. There Pierre had paused no longer
than necessary to set Philip ashore. He would beat back across the narrow
strait to the French side, he told Philip, and wait in safety until whatever
emergency had made the navy as thick as flies over bad meat subsided.

“If I am not there before you, when you get back to
Cornwall, tell Meg, I am safe in England and I will come to her as soon as I
can finish my business,” were Philip’s last words as they parted.

However, after he had got to Stour, where Leonie and his
father should be established for a few weeks at this season of the year, any
hope of preceding Pierre to Cornwall faded. He found only Leonie in residence.
At first this did not surprise him. As Roger’s involvement with the government
of the nation at large had become deeper and had taken more and more of his
time, Leonie had assumed the management of their estates. There were, of
course, bailiffs and estate factors, but Leonie had seen too vividly the
results of absentee ownership in her native France. She not only checked the
accounts herself but personally made the rounds of the tenant farmers to be
sure there was no discrepancy between the bailiff’s reports and the actuality.

The violence of Leonie’s joy in greeting gave Philip a hint
that there was more to the separation than he originally thought. And when
Leonie immediately made ready to accompany him back to London, Philip realized
that their anxiety over him had been so acute that his father and stepmother
had, probably for the first time in their married lives, been more comfortable apart
than together. Not that Philip thought either blamed the other for allowing him
to go; only together they could not leave the subject alone, and each infected
and reinfected the other with fear.

Philip was aware, of course, of how dearly he was loved by
his father and stepmother, but this new evidence brought their devotion into
renewed sharp focus and added to the problem of his relationship with Meg. The
one deep sorrow of his father’s and stepmother’s marriage was that Leonie was
apparently barren. The situation had been eased by his presence and by the
recovery, soon after Leonie and Roger were married, of her Uncle Joseph’s
younger daughter, Sabrina. But Sabrina was God-knew-where with her diplomat
husband, and she was a worry also. Philip had guessed that Leonie was not as
happy with Sabrina’s marriage as she should be.

William, Sabrina’s husband, was the best of good fellows, but
perhaps he was a bit too good-looking, and Philip knew William had been rather
heavily into the petticoat line. Since Philip had been oriented in the same
direction, he could not afford to criticize William—only William preferred the
excitement of an “affair” to the simpler satisfaction of buying his pleasure.
After he had declared himself to Sabrina, that had stopped naturally. It was
obvious enough that William couldn’t look at anyone else once he’d seen
Sabrina. But now that he had her…

Was William finding marriage too tame? Mindful of painful,
and embarrassing entanglements, Philip (except for one experience) had confined
his dalliance to paid companions, but William seemed actually to take pleasure
in the alarms and excursions of illicit love affairs. Probably that was what
worried Leonie. Of course, if Sabrina never knew… Anyway, Philip wished most
sincerely that Sabrina would get with child and stop traipsing around with her
husband. That would solve a lot of problems. What she didn’t know couldn’t hurt
her, and Leonie would be so concentrated on the forthcoming child that, with
luck, she wouldn’t worry about him.

Even as the thought went through his mind, Philip knew it
was ridiculous. Leonie’s heart was bigger than her whole body. There was room
for everyone in it and unfortunately fear is proportional to love. It wasn’t
her concern for him that Philip was trying to deflect; it was the desire she
had, and his father too—although neither had ever said a word about it—for him
to produce children. Meg’s children? Philip felt sick. How could he present the
children of a maidservant, a female smuggler, to the St. Eyres and the daughter
of the Earl of Stour?

All the way to London that unpalatable question rattled
around in Philip’s head. Various expedients passed through his mind. Some
disgusted him; some he knew Meg could not or would not accept. It was an
enormous relief to be plunged, hardly half an hour after his father’s ecstatic
greeting, into a whirlwind of reports and questions.

It took over a week and about ten different people had a go
at him, including the past Prime Minister, Mr. Pitt, who, it was thought, might
soon be back in office. Philip felt as if his brain had been picked apart, but
a good deal more was found in it than he had realized was there, so he could
not complain. Besides, everyone was so happy, so complimentary; he was not
actually called the savior of his nation, but no one hid the fact that the
information he had brought back—directly from the source—was as important as it
was unpalatable. Moreover, when the extensive probing was finished and all
departments felt they had drained him dry, Lord Hawkesbury handed him a draft
on the Bank of England that struck him mute.

This was fortunate, because if Philip had had the use of his
tongue he would have protested and handed it back. He had never thought of
himself as a paid spy. As it was, Hawkesbury, who did understand what he felt
and for once knew that talking would only make the situation more
uncomfortable, gently shoved him out of the office. Philip then voiced his
protest to his father, at whose town house he had been staying for convenience.
Roger laughed at him.

“I am paid for my services. Lord Nelson is paid for his. So
is everyone, down to the drummer boys. You have performed a service, a most
necessary one, and have done it well.”

“Very well,” Philip agreed, after a moment’s thought. “I can
return Leonie’s money, then.”

“Don’t you dare, you idiot,” Roger exclaimed. “You’ll hurt
her feelings. You could buy her a pretty trinket. She’d like that—but not too
expensive. That would worry her. By the way, do you remember that letter you
sent about Jean de Tréport?”

“Yes.”

Philip did remember it, but it seemed very far in the past
now, and all he really remembered vividly was Meg trembling in his arms after
the fight was over. Meg should never have been involved in such a thing. Again
he was flooded by anxiety for her. How could be have left her so
lightheartedly? He had to get back and get her out of this smuggling business.
It was an effort to wrench his mind from that to what his father was saying.

“Naturally we started an investigation as soon as I reported.
It is still continuing, although not much has been discovered. Either de
Tréport was operating individually, reporting only to one man who was clever
about not being seen with him, or he covered his tracks very carefully.
However, one odd thing turned up. Henri d’Onival who was known to spend a lot
of time with the young men who worked at the Horse Guards, was found murdered
in Hyde Park a few days after your letter arrived. He wasn’t a known associate
of de Tréport, but they did know each other.”

“You think d’Onival was involved too?”

“I think so—yes. He hadn’t been seen in London during the
entire period in which de Tréport was missing, and neither of them was at any
of the country houses they were known to frequent either.”

“But that would have made three—”

“No,” Roger interrupted. “There’s virtually no chance that
the man you shot outside of Exeter was actually a French agent. He may have
been hired to kill or rob you, but equally likely he was just an ordinary rank
rider on the high toby.” Roger laughed at the expression on Philip’s face.
“Don’t bother to feel guilty. You just exterminated some vermin. He was well
known in the area and badly wanted. You saved the country the cost of a trial
and a hanging by killing him.”

Philip was silent, staring into space.

“You mustn’t worry so,” Roger urged, clapping his son gently
on the shoulder.

“I was not thinking of that, sir, only wondering how Jean
got on my trail. You cannot really believe that he was skulking outside Lord
Hawkesbury’s house.”

“By God, I know he wasn’t!” Roger exclaimed. “He came here
not an hour after you left, asking about you. He said you had a dinner
engagement for the previous night and you hadn’t met him—did you?”

Philip thought back and shook his head. “I do not think so,
but I cannot swear to it. But, sir, if I had not come to dinner, why did he not
come in the morning to ask about me? Why wait until nearly two o’clock?”

Roger stared at his son, going pale. “Fool that I am,” he
breathed. “I could have killed you with my stupidity! It never occurred to me.
I could—”

“Now, sir, that is not kind,” Philip said, laughing. “You
should not make it so clear that you think me a helpless idiot who cannot take
care of himself.”

“I think nothing of the sort,” Roger protested. “What you
set out to do was dangerous enough without my stupidity complicating it. But
there’s no sense in worrying about that now. I take your point. Considering our
drive home and the time you took to make ready, plus the lapse of time before
de Tréport called here—someone heard of what went on in Hawkesbury’s office
within two hours of our leaving there. That’s too soon for Hawkesbury to have
blabbed the thing… No! Actually, it’s not. I believe be went to the Foreign
Office immediately after we left him and his head was full of your mission. I
wonder if it will be possible to find out to whom he spoke.”

“Good God, sir, that is nearly two months ago. No one would
remember—and it is barely possible that he met someone in a corridor or in some
other office so that it would not be in his appointment book.”

“I don’t think he’s that much of a blabbermouth. I wish I
could think of a—a tactful way to ask, but the government is so shaky now and
there are so many attacks on Addington that any questions are regarded as
implying distrust.”

“Yes, well, I do not think it would be a mark of confidence
to ask if the Minister of Foreign Affairs had just happened to confide the
details of a secret mission to the nearest French agent less than an hour
after—”

“Idiot!” Roger laughed. “That was not precisely the question
I was going to raise.”

“No, I suppose not, but it is not impossible. After being
shown around the installations at Boulogne by Bonaparte himself, I could
believe almost anything.” Philip hesitated, then went on suddenly, “Sir, there
is a simple answer that does not presuppose Lord Hawkesbury to be a fool. There
was another person present beside you and myself. Could d’Ursine not be what he
seems?”

Roger bit his lip. “It crossed my mind—yes, but I cannot
believe it. Really, it is unthinkable. He suffered very severely in the
Revolution. I believe his father was executed and his wife and children died
under brutal circumstances.”

“He went back,” Philip remarked tentatively. “Leonie would
not go back. She did not even want you to try to reclaim her estate.”

Doubt filled Roger’s eyes. “Well, it was easy enough for
her. That was so insignificant in comparison with the Stour lands. And you know
she felt it would be wrong to reclaim the lands when she could not live on
them. Her father gave her a horror of being an absentee landlord. I have had a
devil of a time convincing her not to sell the Irish properties because she
cannot be there to make sure they are fairly administered. It is a very
different thing for d’Ursine, who is virtually a pauper. I don’t believe he has
any income at all, except what he is paid by Hawkesbury. Naturally, he would be
eager to reclaim his French property which, I believe, was extensive.”

“I suppose you are right, sir, but there is something so—so
theatrical in his hate for Bonaparte… Leonie never—I mean, she does not wish to
go back, but she does not foam at the mouth when France is mentioned.”

“You mean to imply the hatred is assumed?” Roger mused.
“It’s not impossible, of course, but you mustn’t judge other people by Leonie’s
moderation. She’s a woman of quite exceptional generosity—not a hater by
nature—and also she… Well, Philip, you know she was always afraid to express
herself for fear she would instill hatred in you and Sabrina. That wouldn’t be
fair. Sooner or later this war will end and we must deal with the French in
peace.”

“Yes. But it is not my problem anymore,” Philip said
lightly.

Roger frowned. “That’s not quite true. It’s everyone’s
problem. What I said about d’Ursine I believe to be the truth, but that isn’t
going to stop me from digging around to be sure. I don’t dare accuse him,
Philip. As I said, what he has from Hawkesbury is all he has in the world, and
an unfounded accusation could ruin him, which would be dreadfully unfair. It’s
terribly hard to prove you
aren’t
a spy. And it isn’t as if he were at
the War Office or the Admiralty. It’s the exception rather than the rule that a
mission like yours goes through the Foreign Office. Still, it could do no harm
for you to dig around too, from the other end.”