The Deception (9 page)

I was beginning to feel as if I were invisible. “Mr. Harry will leave in half an hour, Mr. Noakes,” I said as firmly as I could.

Both men looked at me.

“Oh, all right,” Harry said.

“Very good, my lady,” Mr. Noakes said.

The old man fussed with the fire, asked us if we wanted more lamps lit, and finally left. Harry had looked as if he were gritting his teeth the whole time Mr. Noakes was in the room.

“How do you put up with that?” Harry demanded as soon as the door had closed.

“I am very fond of Mr. Noakes, and I want you to be polite to him,” I returned.

“If I am going to help you investigate the death of your father, I am going to have to visit you,” Harry pointed out.

“Of course you can visit me. You just can’t
stay
here.”

“It’s damn cold, riding fifteen miles back and forth to Greystone in the middle of winter,” he said grumpily.

“You won’t be at Greystone very much,” I said, “because the first thing you are going to have to do is find Paddy.”

Chapter Six

We plotted the search for Paddy on Harry’s subsequent visits. Since horses were the one thing that Paddy knew, I was quite certain that he would try to keep on with Papa’s business. This meant that the most likely place for us to find him would probably be at a racetrack. No racetracks were open in January, however, which put a damper on our plans.

“Where did you and your father usually spend January?” Harry asked me one cold afternoon as we sat around a cozy fire in Lambourn’s library. His visit had surprised me; he had been to Lambourn only the previous day.

I stretched my toes toward the warmth and wiggled them inside my soft leather shoes. “We frequently spent the winter in Ireland. Papa often bought young horses from small Irish breeders, broke them, and sold them in England for a good profit.”

“Do you think that Paddy will have gone to Ireland?”

“I think it’s very likely,” I admitted.

Harry looked disgusted. “Then we have no choice but to wait until the racing season in the spring to look for him.”

I sighed. “I suppose that is so.”

Harry puffed out his lips and contemplated his booted feet. I had had the feeling all afternoon that he had something to tell me, and at last he brought it out. “I received a letter from Adrian yesterday,” he said gruffly.

I felt myself stiffen. I said nothing.

He looked up. There was a worried look in his eyes, “He’s been involved in making the arrangements for the French loan.”

Since Mr. Crawford had very nicely arranged for me to receive regularly two of the London newspapers, I knew what Harry was talking about. “The loan with Barings so that France can begin to pay war reparations to the Allies?”

Harry nodded. “That loan.”

One of the provisions of the Peace of Paris that had been reached after Waterloo was that France had to pay an indemnity of 700 million francs to the Allies. As the French economy could scarcely support such a payment, the English had arranged a long-term loan from the British bankers Baring Brothers and Hopes.

“The contract for the loan is to be signed next month,” Harry went on. The worry in his eyes became even more pronounced. “Adrian is coming to London to make certain everything goes smoothly.”

I could feel the blood drain from my face.

“Exactly,” Harry said.

I chewed on my lip. “Is he going to stay in London or do you think he will come here?”

“He is certainly planning to come to Greystone Abbey,” Harry replied. “In fact, I rather got the impression that he was planning to
remain
in England. He wrote that he has been an absentee landlord for too long.”

I looked around the cozy, firelit room and stifled a mournful sigh. It had been lovely to live at Lambourn, but in my heart I had known it could not go on forever.

“If Adrian wants to divorce me, of course I shall agree,” I said to Harry. “But I won’t go back to my uncle. You have to find Paddy for me, Harry. I can live with him.”

Harry was scowling. “Adrian won’t divorce you, Kate! Think of the scandal.”

“If Lady Mary truly loves him, she won’t regard the scandal,” I said.

Harry was shaking his head. “Lady Mary don’t matter,” he said. “Adrian won’t divorce you.”

Perhaps it had to do with his going into politics, I thought. Perhaps divorce would be a stain he could not live down.

I had been thinking about our problem on and off all winter and now I mentioned the other solution I had come up with. “Perhaps he can arrange for an annulment. I am not certain what the requirements for an annulment are, but we have never had a real marriage. We have never lived together.”

Harry said gruffly, “If Adrian has any brain at all, he will hold on to the wife he has. He isn’t likely to do any better.”

I was touched. “That is very nice of you, Harry. But your brother thinks I was privy to Charlwood’s plot, you see, and so he doesn’t like me very much.”

“I will tell him the truth,” Harry said. “Anyone who knows you can see that you would never lend yourself to such a despicable scheme.”

I was feeling very low, and his confidence in my honesty was very welcome. “Thank you,” I said.

Harry gave me a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry, Kate. I’ll talk to him. Everything will work out for the best, you’ll see. Adrian is an honorable man. He won’t abandon you.”

“I am not a charity case, Harry,” I said irritably.

He didn’t reply. Nor did I press the matter. I was a solitary female, with no money and no family. If that didn’t constitute a charity case, then I don’t know what did. Needless to say, this was not a thought that brought much joy.

“Perhaps I don’t want to stay married to
him,”
I muttered childishly.

“Don’t be stupid, Kate,” Harry said.

I scowled but did not reply.

* * * *

The contract between Baring Brothers and Hopes and the French government was signed on February I0, I8I7, with the Earl of Greystone, representing the British government, in attendance. Two days later, the earl left London for his principal seat, Greystone Abbey near Newbury in the county of Berkshire. I knew this because Harry rode over to give me the news that Adrian would be arriving at Greystone the following day.

It took him three more days to come to Lambourn.

As you can imagine, this was not an easy time for me. The weather was good and I rode all of the horses in the stables every day. I couldn’t concentrate enough to pass the time by reading. There were no novels in the Lambourn library, so I had spent the winter reading
The Wealth of Nations,
which was not a book one could peruse with a distracted mind.

He came on February 16, at eleven o’clock in the morning. There had been frost that night and I was waiting for the ground to warm up before I went out to the stables, so he caught me in the house. Mrs. Noakes had been nagging me for days about my lack of appetite, and I was hiding out in the library to avoid her. I had been staring blankly into the fire for an hour when Mr. Noakes came into the room and said in a gentle voice that immediately put me on my guard, “His lordship is here, my lady.”

I jumped to my feet. Then Adrian walked into the room.

One forgot how big he was. His shoulders filled the doorway. “H-how do you do, my lord,” I said in a small, polite voice.

There was a startled pause. I suppose I had sounded as if I were meeting him for the first time. Then, “I do very well, thank you,” he replied. “I hope I find you well?”

“Yes.” I couldn’t think of a single other thing to say. I threw a beseeching look at Mr. Noakes, but he was poised to leave.

“Shall I tell Mrs. Noakes that you will be taking luncheon with us, my lord?”

“Yes, Noakes, thank you.”

Mr. Noakes left.

I was alone with my husband.

“Sit down, Kate,” he said. “I am not going to eat you.”

I sat on one of the blue fireside chairs and he came to sit on the matching one that Harry so often used. He wore a blue coat, buff breeches, and Hessian boots, and his face was ruddy from the cold. He had obviously driven over. I folded my hands in my tap and waited.

“You are certainly not a blabbermouth,” he said with amusement.

“I don’t know what to say to you,” I replied truthfully. I bit my lip. “I have behaved so badly to you, and you have been so nice to me. You make me feel ashamed.”

He raised his brows. “You can hardly think that my abandoning you for nine months constitutes being nice.”

“You gave me this lovely place to live in,” I said. “You even gave me an allowance. We both know the circumstances of our union, my lord. I think you have been very ...” I paused, searching for a word. “Magnanimous,” I pronounced at last.

This time only one eyebrow lifted. The firelight glinted off his hair, as it had so often glinted off Harry’s, but Adrian did not induce in me the easy, comfortable feeling I got from his brother.

He said a little abruptly, “Both my brother and my man of business have been urging me to believe that you were not a part of Charlwood’s plan, that you were just as much a victim of his plot as I.”

I leaned a little forward, anxious to convince him. “Truly, I did not know what my uncle intended, my lord. If I had known, I would never, never have gone with you! But...” I could feel the scarlet color sweep into my face. I had been meeting his eyes, but now mine dropped away like guilty things, unable to hold that steady gray gaze.

“But... ?” He did not sound angry, merely curious.

I brought it out in a rush. “I should have refused to wed you. I know that. It was cowardly of me to have given in to my uncle’s pressure. I am greatly at fault, and I am sorry. I told you once before that I will do whatever you wish me to...” My blush grew deeper as I recalled what had happened after that promise, and my eyes flicked upward to see if he recalled as well. His face looked grave. I rushed on, “If you wish to try for an annulment, I shall do all I can to assist you.”

“If I do have our marriage annulled, will you go back to Charlwood?” he asked.

“No!”
Even I could hear the panic in my voice. I swallowed, and forced my voice to a calm reasonableness. “I have been thinking,” I said. “I know you have many houses. Perhaps you might have need of a housekeeper for one of them?” This was an idea I had come up with only two days ago, and I thought it might serve my purposes very well.

“Are you proposing to turn yourself into a housekeeper?” He sounded incredulous,.

“Mrs. Noakes has taught me to cook,” I announced proudly. “And I have been watching her go about her duties all winter. I could do a good job. I know I could.”

“Kate, your grandfather was a viscount. You do not need to learn how to cook!”

He didn’t understand. I suppose I really hadn’t expected him to. “Well,” I said, “if I can find my father’s old groom, Paddy O’Grady, I am sure I can stay with him. He has known me since I was born.”

“You cannot live with a groom,” he said impatiently.

“Paddy is not just a groom,” I explained. “He is like my family.”

There was a hard look about his mouth. “If we have this marriage annulled, I will make certain that you have enough money to set up your own establishment and live in whatever way you choose,” he said.

“I could not take your money,” I said, and meant it.

Mr. Noakes appeared in the doorway and announced, “Luncheon is served, my lady. In the dining room.”

“Thank you, Mr. Noakes.”

As we left the library, Adrian asked me curiously, “Why did Noakes feel it necessary to say ‘the dining room’ in such a pointed voice?”

There didn’t seem any point in lying to him. “I usually eat in the kitchen,” I said, “but Mrs. Noakes doesn’t think it’s proper.”

All the leaves had been taken out of the dining-room table months ago, so even though Adrian and I were sitting at opposite ends of the polished mahogany, we were not that far apart. Mr. Noakes brought in plates of oxtail soup. I took one sip and put my spoon down. My stomach was in too much of a knot for me to eat.

Adrian had almost finished his soup when Mr. Noakes, who was standing against the wall waiting to remove our soup before serving the next course, said in a strangled kind of voice, “My lady, Mrs. Noakes is going to be very upset if you don’t eat that soup.”

Adrian’s head lifted,

“I am sorry, Mr. Noakes,” I said. “I am just not hungry.”

“Do you always monitor her ladyship’s eating habits, Noakes?” Adrian asked mildly.

The old man gave Adrian a wretched look. “I am sorry, my lord. I did not mean to intrude like that. It is just that her ladyship has eaten scarcely anything all week “ His voice trailed away.

“You could never intrude, Mr. Noakes,” I said firmly. “And I will try to eat the soup.” I swallowed a spoonful to demonstrate my good faith.

The remainder of the meal proceeded quite pleasantly, and I managed to eat enough of the subsequent courses to appease Mrs. Noakes. I asked Adrian about the French loan and he replied with all the good-humored readiness that I remembered from the early part of our disastrous drive, before the axle had broken. For a little while I managed to forget that he probably hated me.

I remembered, however, when we were once again alone in the library. We did not sit down, but stood on either side of the hearth rug, looking at each other. He said, “An annulment is not easy to get, Kate.”

“I would testify about my uncle’s perfidy,” I assured him.

His jaw set, “I’m damned if I want the world to know that Charlwood caught me with the oldest trick in the book.”

“It might be a little embarrassing,” I conceded. “But surely embarrassment is better than being shackled for life to a woman you don’t love?”

Silence. The velvet drapes were open and the sun slanted in through old panes of glass and pooled on the worn Persian rug. I watched the dust motes dance in its bright radiance.

Suddenly Adrian crossed the hearth rug and, taking my chin in his hand, he forced my face up to look at his. It surprised me to feel calluses on those strong, aristocratic fingers. “You are either incredibly naive or quite the cleverest young lady I have ever known,” he said softly.