A Wicked Lord at the Wedding Page 18

  There wasn’t a wile in her book of naughty secrets that would seduce him. She wouldn’t have insulted him by trying, even though she teased all the Boscastle men when she met them at a party.

  Audrey might envy the women these beautiful men had married. Nevertheless, she would not give up her freedom for anyone.

  Loyalty, however, needed to be repaid with interest.

  She kissed Heath’s cheek as he entered her private suite. He had come within an hour of her message.

  His black hair was swept back from his strong face. His intelligent blue eyes took in every detail. Lean and impeccably dressed, he was a masterpiece.

  He unbuttoned the three lower buttons of his dark-gray greatcoat and sat in the chair by the door.

  A Boscastle always sent invisible sparks through a room.

  Some of them set fires by merely smiling.

  Heath had a habit of looking into one’s eyes during his conversations. He had perfected the art of the unnerving silence.

  Audrey suspected that he could interpret what wasn’t said as fluently as he could what was spoken. Only after they parted did she realize that while she had shared secrets she’d vowed to take to the grave, he had not revealed anything about himself. Or about anyone else, to his credit.

  “How may I help you, Audrey?”

  She shook her head. The house was quiet this early in the afternoon, and she preferred loud noises, disruptions, to the stillness. She had wrestled with her decision for hours after she realized whom exactly she had unmasked last night.

  It went against her instincts to betray a woman in trouble, but she trusted Heath’s judgment better than her own.

  She wasn’t certain that in abetting Eleanor Boscastle she had done her a service.

  He waited.

  If she changed her mind and asked him to leave, he would go without another question. The quiet had become too unsettling. She glanced down at the newspaper covered beneath her yellow riding gloves, then looked up.

  Not quick enough.

  His gaze followed.

  He’d seen the headline. He needed little else to put everything together.

  “You’ve read about my exciting confrontation?”

  He smiled thinly. “You were brave to beard such an infamous miscreant and turn his description over to the police.”

  “You think that it was brave of me?”

  “I thought that it was … interesting.”

  “And?”

  “I’m certain that your reason for doing it was interesting as well.” He exhaled, glancing down at the paper. “And that however it involves me shall soon be revealed.”

  He paused, allowing her time to respond. She didn’t say anything. He gestured with his hand. “… shall soon be revealed.”

  She stared at him.

  “Soon,” he said. “This afternoon would be nice.”

  “A member of the Boscastle family is in trouble,” she said finally.

  He laughed. “Did the sun rise this morning? One of us is always in trouble. But surely you didn’t ask me here to—”

  They both stared down at the cartoon of the bare-buttocked poseur who had made more than one dowager call for a vinaigrette in her drawing room that same morning. Heath had endured a similar embarrassment himself three years ago, only then it had been a sketch of his privates that had taken London by storm. A man never lived that down. Especially when those parts were involved.

  “I can’t say I recognize anyone in my family having that big a behind,” he said. “Well, possibly an aunt or two. And there was a time when my cousin Gabriel was suspected. But he’s not—”

  “It isn’t your aunt. Nor Gabriel. It’s your cousin-in-law.”

  Once Audrey started to confess, of course, she couldn’t stop.

  Nor did he interrupt again. She felt relieved to have unburdened herself, for now Eleanor’s fate was no longer in her hands. God knew Audrey despised those who passed judgment on others.

  Heath, naturally, did not offer any opinions on the behavior of Eleanor Boscastle.

  He thanked Audrey for her trust in him and took the letters Eleanor had sought. He was as cool as always when he left.

  In fact, he was so cool that she wondered whether she had enlightened him, or whether he had known the Masquer’s identity all along.

  If so, then Eleanor Boscastle did indeed work for the good of England. And Audrey was glad she had followed her instincts and let the Masquer escape.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Eleanor looked up from her writing desk to see Sebastien emerge from his dressing closet in a walking cape and black woolen evening wear. She was still in her Chinese silk robe, comfortable from a hot bath and a cup of chocolate.

  “Have I forgotten an entertainment?” she asked, studying his elegant figure.

  “I have an appointment.”

  He didn’t elaborate.

  She put down her pen. “It’s almost dark. And it’s misting.”

  “It’s still early.” He paused behind her chair. “I’ll take Teg along for the walk. You’ll have an hour to catch up on your neglected correspondences.”

  She lowered her gaze. “We have not discussed how to find the last of the letters in Castle Eaton.” She glanced up. “On the coast.”

  “I know where the castle is.”

  She sifted through her tray of letters, waiting for an argument. After a moment passed she swiveled around and said, “The earl is an eccentric. His current wife has ruled his life for the last five years and is said to have tricked him into marriage. One would assume the countess would not dispose of any incriminating letters when she could use them for future insurance. If I were her, I’d hide them under lock and key.”

  He straightened. “Well, you’re not her, and you’re not that other fellow anymore, either. And I have my own way of finding what is hidden, even what is under lock and key.”

  “Oh, yes. Those ways you have.”

  She lowered the letter she was holding to her lap. “Have you already made a plan to infiltrate the castle?”

  He sat in the chair across from her.

  “Perhaps,” he said cautiously.

  She drew in a breath. “Without me?”

  “Without you? No. The Masquer, however, has retired.” His demeanor grew pensive. “It’s time for a new strategy. A plausible one with references of character.”

  She cast him a cynical smile. “So you’re planning to assume a new identity?”

  “I can grow a mustache.”

  “How superior of you.”

  “And a beard. I speak passable Italian.”

  She studied the cards on her lap, unable to resist teasing him. “I can just picture you at the castle revels. Scaramouche with his sweeping cloak and melodramatic prose. Very subtle. Quite the dashing scoundrel. Perhaps you could do a sword fight up and down the stairs.”

  He looked undeterred. “We agreed that I would run the risk from now on.”

  “What if you are recognized?”

  “I won’t be caught.” He stretched back in the chair. “Better yet, you won’t be placed in jeopardy.”

  She rose, tossing her letters back onto the desk. “I suppose you’re right. Loveridge’s plan would never have worked.”

  “What was his plan?” he inquired curiously.

  “I was to appear during the party as a new chambermaid, a position that affords access—”

  “—to gentlemen who wish their beds warmed by more than a hot brick,” he said sourly. “I do not like the idea of my wife attending a party at which debauched acts are a possibility.”

  “A possibility?” She picked up his gloves from the dressing table. “The guests attend for no other reason. But that is neither here nor there.”

  He took his gloves from her and reached across the bed for his hat. “Not that I’m rubbing your whiskers in it, Cat, but after last night’s capture, you have no choice but to let me assume command.”

  “Perhaps I overreacted last night.
”

  “No, darling,” he said quietly, and drew on his gloves. “We can discuss my plan when I come back.”

  He ran down the stairs, still early for his meeting with his London contact. The dog was howling in the garden, locked out by the servants who had gathered in the street to watch an Italian puppet show. As he let Teg into the house, he noticed a boy sitting on a bench by the back door. He clutched a small pouch in one hand, and a stone in the other, which Sebastien guessed would serve as a weapon in case the howling Teg attacked.

  “What are you doing here?” Sebastien asked.

  “I’ve medicine for her ladyship. I knocked, but no one’s ’ome.”

  “Medicine?” Sebastien confiscated the pouch and stone. He peered inside at a green phial of a substance that looked disgusting.

  “It’s a blood tonic,” the boy said, grimacing. “Don’t drop it. It stinks to ’ell. She’s gotta drink up fast.”

  “A blood tonic?” Sebastien said in concern.

  He fished in his pocket for a coin. A guinea. Too much, or not enough? He had never seen Eleanor take a drop of medicine since he’d known her.

  He stared dubiously at the phial. He didn’t want to think of Eleanor sick. She never fussed about such things. But he remembered that her mother had died young, of a mysterious ailment that had stopped her heart. There was an odd astrological marking on one side of the bottle, and tiny seeds floating about in amber oil. He squinted to read the inscription: Agnus Castus.

  “What are you doing here, Alex?” a crisp voice of authority demanded over Sebastien’s shoulder. He lowered the bottle, the seeds sinking to the murky red-amber dregs.

  The boy backed away from the bench.

  Mary, Eleanor’s maid, marched out onto the step in a mist-sprinkled shawl. She nodded at Sebastien. “I’ll take that, my lord. It makes a hideous mess if it isn’t tightly stopped.”

  “It’s for my wife?”

  She nodded. “You wouldn’t want to take it, trust me.”

  “Why would I want her to drink it, then?”

  “It’s a help to females for babies and things I don’t wanna know about,” the boy muttered, glaring back at Mary’s tight, indignant face. “Well, sorry,” he said defensively. “No telling how it’d influence his manhood if he drank it.”

  “I shall report your impertinence,” Mary cried as he scampered off with a grin. “You aren’t paid to blether or to dispense medical advice.”

  Sebastien handed Mary the bottle. “I’m late. Will you give this to my wife—assuming it is safe for her to take?”

  “I’ll be happy to, my lord.”

  “I—thank you, then.”

  “It tastes worse every time,” Eleanor said a few minutes later, handing Mary the silver spoon with a grimace. “Should I take another? No. Listen to me, the surgeon’s daughter. More is not better.”

  “Dr. Went’s is the best apothecary in town.” Mary put the elixir in the closet cupboard. “It’s behind the other bottles, my lady.”

  “Do you think it will work?” Eleanor asked.

  The maid hesitated at the door, allowing herself a smile. “It worked for me. But I—”

  “You haven’t spoken of Harold in two months. I know you’re worried, but perhaps he’s turned himself in.” Mary’s only son had written last spring to ask for cash, claiming he was buying a small shop. Another letter arrived a few weeks later from Mary’s brother, warning her that the boy had stolen a carriage and that the shop had never existed. “How old is he now?”

  “Twenty-two.”

  “Give him time. Perhaps it was just a prank to impress his friends.”

  “He has no friends,” Mary said. “None that are decent.”

  Time might heal some wounds, but it made others fester. “Perhaps he could come here to visit you. Or we could find him a position in the house.”

  Mary shook her head. “He’s better off in the country. The city is too full of temptation for a boy like him.”

  “I’m sure there’s more good than bad in him, if he’s anything like you.”

  “I hoped that once, too. But he’s got his father’s ways. Running off after one scheme or another.”

  Eleanor nodded, trying to look as if she understood. Was it possible to lose hope in your own child?

  “I don’t know how it happened,” Mary said quickly, turning her head before Eleanor could see her crying. “One day his father turned into a man I’ve never met, and then his son grew up in his image. If I’d known before I never would have—”

  Married him? Not conceived the child who now caused her so much heartbreak? Would every woman go back if she could and make another choice? Eleanor remembered stolen kisses on a sultry summer night in Spain. Would she give up Sebastien to have made a safer marriage?

  “There’s still time for your son to change,” she said.

  Mary glanced back. “True. But he’s done things that nothing can change.”

  “It can’t be that bad.”

  Mary’s silence said it was. Her son had committed other crimes.

  Mary gave her a watery smile. “Don’t forget your cordial, Lady Boscastle.”

  She nodded. Some instincts were stronger than death or destiny. If a woman listened to every warning about the woes of loving men and having children, she’d run before that first kiss and refuse to hold an infant niece or nephew in her lap at a dinner party. She would never, ever breathe in the scent of a newborn baby’s skin. If she chained up her heart the first time she heard that love could change frogs into princes and forest huts into enchanted castles, she would become a well-respected witch in her own right. She wouldn’t be tempted to buy slippers that hurt her feet or prick her own finger in her father’s tent and wait for the one man to walk in and make her believe in magic.

  He pondered his last conversation with Eleanor on his way to the wharf to meet his London contact. A chambermaid, indeed. It was enough to addle his brains. Fortunately the sight of Lord Heath Boscastle seated in the shallop’s cabin brought his mind back into focus.

  So this was to be his home contact. They had been boys when they’d last met.

  Since then, Heath had become a respected officer, a spymaster and code-breaker whose sense of honor had inspired commissioned and irregular soldiers alike.

  For a very brief moment, as Heath rose to grip his hand, they were merely cousins again.

  “It’s been a hell of a long time,” Sebastien said, laughing.

  Heath shook his head. “I can’t quite believe it.”

  “Nor can I.”

  Sebastien and his brothers had raced against the other Boscastle cousins at picnics and birthdays. On the rare occasion Sebastien had gone over to the London side, but not for long. The respective brothers always ended up back together before they went home.

  By the time they’d piled into their carriages, calling out threats and insults to one another, the bond of family relations had become rather frayed. But it had never been completely severed. It was only after the death of Sebastien’s father that his branch of the family had broken off from the London Boscastles. It was a shame, really.

  “It’s good to see you again, Heath.”

  “And you.”

  Heath sat again, facing the door, in exactly the same spot Sebastien always occupied. He even wedged his left shoulder against the wood shelf of a mermaid’s bosom, which to anyone else might have appeared as if he were simply making himself comfortable. But Sebastien recognized a man who never let down his guard when he met another man.

  He waited, curious, as Heath reached into his waist pocket to withdraw two letters tied with a crimson ribbon.

  “These are yours,” Heath said with a fleeting smile. “Courtesy of a well-wisher who advises me she is glad someone has use of them.”

  Mrs. Watson’s letters. So it was true that she had a weakness for the Boscastles. He couldn’t wait to see Eleanor’s reaction. Would she be indignant? Relieved?

  He hoped she would be impressed.
How many wives in England would treasure forgotten letters over diamonds and social status?

  Only his.

  “Have you read them?” he asked.

  “No. It’s your game. However, if you require my advice, I’m not hard to persuade. I enjoy solving puzzles, if that is what this is.”

  A modest admission.

  “I may indeed ask for your help.”

  Sebastien put the letters down on his desk. His hand still trembled at unpredictable intervals. Most men didn’t notice. Others assumed he was prone to drink. But when Heath looked up, there was understanding in his eyes.

  “I know you have only recently come home,” Heath said. “Because of your past experience, I deemed it necessary to tell you we have reason to believe an assassination attempt will be made against Wellington.”

  Plot. Purpose. The tide always came in. “By whom?”

  “We have our eye on a group of home-bred radicals. We thought them to be harmless at first, but current information suggests otherwise.”

  Sebastien stared past Heath as a barge drifted along the river. A British prime minister had been assassinated in the House of Commons only four years ago. “The duke isn’t home until Christmas.”

  “This is what he told the duchess,” Heath said. “But you and I know that he is determined to set both the world and his country to rights and will sacrifice to do so.”

  “Between Paris and London any number of political causes might divert him. An ambush, perhaps. What do you wish me to do?”

  “Be alert. As you know, these plots usually blow over before they come to anything.”

  “Perhaps I should not go to this masquerade at Castle Eaton that my wife is set on. You wouldn’t believe what she is planning. Or perhaps you would. You know about Mrs. Watson.” He laughed. “Chasing after frivolous letters when a plot is in progress makes little sense.”

  “But a marriage is a priority, is it not?”

  “I shouldn’t be surprised that you understand.”

  Heath stood. “I shall be in touch. And if your wife wishes to go to that party it can be arranged. Sometimes one gleans useful information from gossip.”