The Perfect Princess (43 page)

Rosamund said, “I suppose Stapleton told her that he would marry her and that she would enjoy a life of luxury she could only dream about?”

“Something like that.”

After a long silence, Justin said, “Did you ever find out how Digby knew to look for you in Dunsmoor?”

“Yes,” said Richard. “Because I was careless. Because I was a damned fool. Because, out of sheer sentiment, I kept a painting of Dunsmoor on my study wall.”

“That’s not it,” said Caspar. “Stapleton saw at once that the painting in Richard’s study was second-rate, while all the other paintings throughout the house were good enough to hang in the Royal Academy. That, of course, piqued his interest. The name of the house was written, bold as brass, above the front porch. Dunsmoor. And that jogged Stapleton’s memory. He’s really quite intelligent. He plotted Richard’s movements and decided that Dunsmoor was either his destination or close to it.”

“It was a lucky guess,” said Richard irritably.

“Who is this second-rate artist who painted Dunsmoor?” asked Justin innocently.

“Richard, of course,” replied Caspar, and everyone laughed.

The groom of the chambers arrived at that moment with two footmen, who dispensed long-stemmed glasses of champagne. “And there are two more bottles, Your Grace, in the pantry,” said Turner. “Just ring if you need them.”

When he and the footmen had bowed themselves out, the duke got up. Everybody else, of course, got up as well.

“Will you sit down!” roared the duke. “You’re giving my new son-in-law the wrong impression. This isn’t a state occasion. There’s no need for formality here.”

Everyone sat. Caspar and Justin managed not to exchange glances.

His Grace lifted his glass to give the toast, then his eye fell on Harper, who was sitting in a corner, off by himself. “Sergeant Harper,” said the duke, “will you do us the honor of proposing the toast?”

Harper reluctantly got to his feet. “I don’t know about that,” said Harper. “I’m a simple man, Your Grace. I don’t have the gift of words like you gents.”

“Which is precisely why you should give the toast,” responded the duke.

“Well,” said Harper, “wife number three was fond of—”

“Harper!” interrupted Richard on a warning note.

Harper cast his mind further back, to his mother and what he had learned at her knee. He raised his glass. “Fight the good fight!” he said simply.

The duke beamed. Everyone got up. “Fight the good fight,” they chorused.

Some hours later, Richard and Rosamund retired to bed. They would have gone earlier except that the servants were unpacking all the boxes that had been brought from Richard’s rooms in Jermyn Street and others that he’d left at the Black Friar. Now everything was tidied away and they were alone at last.

Richard said, “Shall I call your maid to help you undress?”

Rosamund laughed and dragged her hands through her hair. She’d had more than her fair share of champagne and it had gone to her head in the nicest possible way.

“It’s true what they say, isn’t it? Men never notice anything.
I choose my clothes so I can dress and undress myself now. Callie says—” She stopped.

Richard’s smile faded. He wasn’t sure what to do or say for the best, so he sat on the edge of the bed and said carefully, “I’m sorry about your friend.”

She turned her head and looked at him. “I’m not. Oh, I’m sorry she turned out bad, but what she did was unspeakable. And she did it without remorse, not a ripple of conscience.”

“It was the same with Stapleton.”

“Her soul mate, she called him,” said Rosamund, and shuddered. “For me, she felt nothing but contempt. She’s destroyed the happy memories I had of us growing up together. She always hated me. But what’s worse is that she seemed to blame me and my family for making her what she was.”

When he patted the bed, she crossed to it and hoisted herself up beside him. “When people go bad,” he said, “they justify themselves. It’s always somebody else’s fault. They distort events. Believe me, Callie and Stapleton chose their own paths. No one else made them what they became.”

“Oh, I know that! If I’m grieving, it’s for something that never was. I’ll get over it.” She touched a hand to his face. “Thank God there are people like you who have made it your life’s work to unmask all the Callies and Stapletons in our world.”

It was the opening he had been waiting for. He took her hands in his and pressed a kiss to first one then the other. “I want to talk to you about that,” he said. “I think it’s time for a change.”

“A change?” she said carefully.

He nodded. Trying to sound eager, he said, “Now that I’m a married man, it’s time I had a more regular life. Dunsmoor gives me an adequate income, but I think we can improve on it if we take up residence there. There’s money to be made in sheep, and we could breed horses.
I’ve given this a great deal of thought, and though I don’t know much about farming, I could learn. I think we would be very happy there, don’t you?”

She was astonished. “You, a farmer? A country squire?” She began to laugh. “Oh, yes, I can just see it.”

He let go of her hands. “I refuse to live off my wife’s money like a parasite!” he said.

“Then we won’t live off my money. As you said, Dunsmoor provides you with an adequate income. I can live as simply as you. Richard, I won’t let you sacrifice yourself just to keep me in luxury.”

“Oh, your father would love that—his son-in-law chasing after murderers and anarchists. When I married you, I knew I would have to give up that life. Your family expects it.”

“So that’s it!” She slipped from the bed and began to pace. “I thought you were over these silly prejudices. This isn’t about living off my money! This is about keeping up appearances.” She turned on him, hands on hips, eyes spitting fire. “I’m disappointed in you, Richard, first because you have insulted my family. As though they care how you earn your living. In fact, my father is proud of you. But even if my whole family were as pompous as you make them out to be, that’s no reason to kowtow to them. I thought you were a fighter.”

He was becoming amused. When she paused for breath, he said, “And secondly?”

She had lost her train of thought. “What?”

“You were enumerating my failings, if I remember.”

She let out a huff of breath. “Secondly, a wife likes to be consulted about these things. If you think you’re going to bury me in the country while you have adventures, you can think again. No, don’t interrupt. That’s what’s going to happen. I can just see it. Special Branch will call you in to help on a particularly difficult case, then another, and another, and before you know it, you’ll be
spending all your time in town while I’ll be left at Dunsmoor to play Little Bo-Peep.”

Now he was laughing. “Come here,” he said, holding out his arms. When she was sitting beside him on the bed again, he said, “All right, I’m consulting you. What do
you
want?”

She answered him seriously. “I want you to take up your job as chief of staff at Special Branch. I know the prime minister offered it to you. Caspar told me. Richard, this isn’t a job to you. This is your vocation. Without men like you, people like Callie and Stapleton would run amok, and that can’t be allowed to happen.”

“I’m not the only one who can do that job.”

“Maybe not. But it’s what you want to do, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned from this horrible experience, it’s that we should do what is right for us, not what others think we should do. All my life I’ve been the duke’s daughter. I don’t want to be the duke’s daughter any longer. I’d feel stifled in that role. So if that’s what this is about, if you’re giving up Special Branch for me, think again.”

He gave her one of his quick, warm smiles. “Supposing I do go back to Special Branch, where will you be? What will you do?”

“I’ll be at Woodlands. It’s ideal for raising children, and maybe a few horses, and you’ll come home to me every night. As for what I’ll do,” her eyes sparkled, “why, we’ll go over your cases together, and I’ll help you with them. You can’t deny that I have an aptitude for solving crimes.”

Smiling, he threaded his fingers through her hair. “If you were a man,” he said, “I’d make you my second-in-command.”

“If I were a man,” she scoffed, “I’d apply for the position of chief of staff.”

He gave a hoot of laughter and rolled with her on the bed. After a long, lingering kiss, a thought occurred to him, and he said, “Do you think you could ever be comfortable at Woodlands after what happened there with Callie and Stapleton?”

“What happened? My life was miraculously saved; Harper and the caretaker recovered from their wounds; you avenged Lucy Rider’s death, and finally had the means to clear your name; and two remorseless, cold-blooded killers came by their just deserts. If I were superstitious, I’d say that Woodlands is a lucky house, lucky for us and those we love.”

She got up, looked around for her reticule, and came back to the bed with the scorched chess piece Richard had given her for her birthday. “Or maybe we owe our luck to this. He goes everywhere with me now.”

“You are
my luck,” he said fiercely. “If you hadn’t come to Newgate, God only knows how things would have turned out for me.”

“It’s the same for me.” She smiled up at him. “What a story we’ll have to tell our grandchildren one day.”

He lowered his head so that their lips brushed. “You’re ahead of me. I was thinking of our children. That’s where we should make a start.”

She shivered when his hand cupped her breast. “I’ve always admired your intelligence,” she said, and she drew his head down so their lips met.

She came awake on a cry of panic. Tears streamed down her cheeks. Richard wakened in an instant, and gathered her in his arms.

“Shh,” he crooned. “It’s just a dream.”

“It was Callie,” she cried, and clung to him.

“She can’t hurt you now.”

“No. You don’t understand. We were swimming in the
sea. We were too far out. I wanted to go back, but Callie kept on swimming. I screamed for her to come back with me, but she wouldn’t listen. She laughed and kept on swimming. Then, I don’t know, there was a huge wave, then there was nothing.”

Her shoulders began to heave as she sobbed out, “I called and called and called, but there was no Callie. She’s never coming back! She’s never coming back!”

He pulled her under the covers and cradled her in his arms, rocking her, soothing her with words he might have used to a frightened child. Eventually, she slept.

A few days later found them packed and ready to make the journey to Woodlands. Their bedchamber was strewn with boxes. As Rosamund finished dressing, Richard read out extracts of letters he had received from friends and well-wishers.

“This one’s from Hugh,” he said. “He and Abbie are coming up to town next week and they want to hold a party in our honor. This one’s from Jason Radley. I’ve mentioned him and his wife, Gwyneth, haven’t I? They’re back from their honeymoon.” He chuckled. “I’m surprised the notepaper isn’t scorched. Jason has a few choice words to say about friends who don’t call on friends when they’re in trouble. They want to hold a party in our honor as well.”