“Tradition and custom say that we as females are better fit to watch the great events of the world than to participate in them. This may be true; I don’t know. What I do know is that at times action is required, and that sometimes the best man for an undertaking is a woman.”
A LADY’S GUIDE TO PROPER BEHAVIOR, 2ND EDITION
Bartholomew was beginning to wish he’d kept his damned mouth shut. No, Theresa didn’t need to physically stand beside him all evening, but he much preferred her there to where she was currently—dancing in the arms of Lord Montrose.
She’d also managed a quadrille with General Mayhew, which actually hadn’t annoyed him nearly as much and had gained her the admiration of Violet. But Mayhew was an enemy, easily catalogued and easy to deal with. Montrose was more complicated.
“I still know some lads,” Lackaby muttered from behind him. “It’d be my honor to see the marquis there accidently shipped off to join the Royal Navy.”
Bartholomew studied Theresa’s face. She was so damned good at being charming that seeing through her mask was nearly impossible, but as far as he could tell she was strictly being polite. “Not necessary,” he returned in the same tone, rubbing his chin with his thumb and forefinger. “Though that may change.”
“Aye.”
Bartholomew nodded, his gaze still on the waltzing couple halfway across the room. “Whatever comes of this, thank you, Louis.”
“If ye want to thank me, stop trying to sack me. And don’t call me Louis.”
“I can likely guarantee one. But not both.” With a grin, Bartholomew glanced toward the door again, to see a tall, broad-shouldered man with dark hair and steel gray eyes stroll into the ballroom. Finally. “Wait here,” he said, pushing to his feet and reaching for his cane.
The Duke of Sommerset, unlike many of the other high-ranking peers in London, did not seem to travel with a band of sycophants and other hangers-on. In fact, most the times Bartholomew caught sight of the duke, he was alone. As he was now, thankfully.
Once His Grace arrived at an event, however, the scene was very like Moses gathering the faithful. Bartholomew pushed through a group of chattering young ladies, rendering them momentarily speechless, and stopped in front of the duke. “Your Grace.”
“Tolly. Is it my imagination, or is your leg improving?”
“Have you made your inquiries at the War Office?” Bartholomew asked, speaking in a low voice.
Sommerset’s expression went flat. “Not here.”
“I am running out of time, Sommerset. If you can’t get me answers there, I’ll go and look for them myself.”
“I said, not here.” The duke took a breath, glancing toward the dance floor as the waltz ended and a cotillion began. “Come to the club tonight after midnight. Then we’ll talk.”
“Yes, we will.”
The duke faced him, and Tolly straightened from his three-legged stance to stand at his full height. Eye to eye, they glared at one another. “You will address me properly in public, Colonel,” Sommerset finally stated, his voice low and even.
“Then yes we will, Your Grace.”
Sommerset nodded. “Much better.”
A moment later the usual hangers-on began to arrive around them, and Bartholomew slipped away without much notice. Apparently chatting with a duke outweighed avoiding a liar in the eyes of the ton. That didn’t even surprise him. Not any longer.
“The way I figure it,” Montrose said from close behind him, “you don’t want to be labeled either a coward or a liar. So what are you going to do, look for other attack survivors and see if they’ll defy the East India Company for you?”
Bartholomew slowed. “What the devil do you care what I’m about?”
“I don’t, really. Though I do favor you beginning a battle—a war—with anyone but me.”
“If that’s meant to provoke me, it’s a fairly feeble attempt.”
The marquis put a hand over his heart. “I don’t want to provoke you. I’m glad to see you alive and in less than stellar form.” Montrose indicated the cane. “Apparently at the moment you’re just helpless and harmless enough to attract female attention. Begin a scrap, and your attractiveness disappears.”
Ah, so that was what this was about. “Female attention, or a particular female’s attention?” he queried. “You’re jealous. Now you look more familiar to me.”
“Say whatever you like, James. Just remember that I’m willing to offer you help in your battle. Unobtrusively, of course. I doubt you’ll find many more allies.” Turning his back, Montrose strolled away again.
Well, that was interesting. And in a sense, it was encouraging. Tess had clearly informed her premiere beau that the situation had changed. She’d spoken publicly about—what? About her affection for him? About her decision to stand with someone to whom she was nearly related? About her decision to stiffen her spine and step forward? It could be any of those. Damnation.
He turned around. “Montrose.”
The marquis stopped his retreat. “What?” he asked, facing around again.
“Just to be clear, she’s mine.”
“This evening, perhaps. Tomorrow? Well, we’ll see, I imagine. The race isn’t run yet.”
As the marquis left him standing there again, Lackaby appeared with the chair. “Here ye are, Colonel.”
“I really don’t like that man,” Tolly said, taking a seat and stifling his responding sigh.
“I heard there’s a navy ship leaving Northampton day after tomorrow,” Lackaby said conversationally. “Headed for Tahiti and the Pacific. It’d be a year or more before he managed to make his way back here. If he were to be aboard, that is.”
“Don’t bloody tempt me. Over there, if you please. And stop eating where everyone can see you.”
He motioned toward where Stephen stood with his bride, both of them smiling and looking happy—more than likely because he’d been on the other side of the room. Bartholomew scowled. If there was a way to make his point without pulling his family into scandal, he would do it. But he needed them now. They helped tie him back to the ton, to respectability. And for Theresa’s sake, that was where he needed to be. At the end of this, he needed to be respectable enough to offer for her.
Once the next dance began, easing the crowding of the rest of the ballroom just a little, Bartholomew had the valet push him up to his brother and sister-in-law. “You aren’t dancing? I hope that’s not on my account.”
Amelia smiled. “I’m not dancing on account of a new pair of shoes that looked darling but aren’t at all practical. He’s not dancing in protest of my not dancing.”
“Ah. Have you heard anything interesting?”
“No one’s saying much about you to us,” Stephen commented. “Lady Weller—Grandmama Agnes—did say that Lord Hadderly more than likely employs the Thuggee to line his own pockets.”
“Not fond of Hadderly then, is she?”
Leaning closer, Amelia hid a smile behind her hand. “Lord Hadderly raises very large dogs. My grandmother is obsessed with cats.”
Well, under the circumstances, he would even accept feline alliance. “I’ll remember that,” he said aloud. “No large dogs.”
“What about you?” Stephen asked. “I saw you talking with Sommerset. If anyone outside the Company has contacts in India, it’s Nicholas Ainsley.”
“I don’t know if he’ll cooperate or not,” Bartholomew hedged, hoping his brother wasn’t the only one to notice him speaking with Sommerset. The more pressure he could put on the duke to assist him, the better.
“And Montrose? What did he want?”
“He offered his assistance.”
“What?” Amelia exclaimed. “He’s in purs—I mean, he and…I would never have expected that.”
“I know quite well that he’s offered for Tess,” he returned. “He seems to think my ruination will aid his cause.”
“That’s devious of him.” His sister-in-law scowled.
Bartholomew, though, shrugged. “He wants Theresa. I can hardly fault him for that. Though I do mean to best him in it.”
Because he was looking for it, he saw the shadow cross Amelia’s face, the doubt that he could possibly be what Tess wanted. After all, apart from whatever wreck might come of his reputation, he couldn’t even dance.
If he lost to the lies of the East India Company, clearly he would lose everything. And any reason to continue fighting. In that instance, perhaps he might find employment in America. He could still ride, after all, and he was a better than fair shot. Anywhere but England would do, he supposed. Or India. That left a great, wide, empty world if…
He shook himself. This was his second chance. Before he’d met Theresa, he hadn’t thought to look for one. He hadn’t thought he deserved one. The damned Company had sparked a fire in him, but it was Tess who’d sent it into an inferno. Even if he didn’t deserve this, he bloody well meant to fight for it—for her—anyway.
“Excuse me, Colonel,” Theresa’s soft voice came from just beyond Amelia, “but I believe this is our waltz.” She stepped around her cousin, emeralds glinting in the chandelier light.
For a moment all he could do was gaze at her. His. Until the world came crashing down around his ears, Theresa Weller was his. And whatever happened, he meant to take full advantage of every moment of it. “So it is,” he said aloud.
He stood again, offering his free arm to her. “Might I suggest a limp through the garden?”
Warm fingers gripped his sleeve. “That would be delightful,” she said, a smile in her voice. “I need to practice my limping.”
“Very amusing.” They headed out the nearest door that opened onto the terrace. She almost seemed to float beside him, all grace and beauty next to the limping, three-legged wreck that was he. “I want to kiss you, Tess.” Bartholomew stopped to face her the moment they were out of sight of the ballroom windows. “I want more, actually,” he continued, unable to keep the low growl from his voice, “but a kiss will do me for the moment.”
“Well, then,” she whispered, and lifted up on her toes.
He closed his eyes at the soft touch of her lips to his. Time seemed to stop there in the Tomlin-Reese garden. Cupping her face with his free hand, he deepened the kiss, the warmth of her seeping into his bones, into his soul.
Slowly she lowered herself onto the ground again. “You are very distracting,” she murmured, her gaze still on his mouth.
“Me? Have you looked at yourself lately?” He smiled. “I saw you dancing with Mayhew,” he said. “You’ve won the lemon ice, I think.”
She chuckled. “I detest him, but he dances well enough. And he refused to say anything kind at all about you. Something about your gall in disputing the claims of an enterprise that’s made Britain great.”
“Hmm. And to think, all I’ve done is get shot in the knee and not die. Wait until I actually have evidence to support my view.”
“Have you found someone, then? Anyone to corroborate the danger of the Thuggee?”
“Not yet. I’m to meet someone tonight. Hopefully I’ll learn something useful, then.”
“Who?”
“I can’t tell you.”
She frowned. “If you can’t even meet with this person publicly, how large a chance is there that he’ll say anything you can actually use to help us?”
He sighed, running his thumb along her lower lip. She’d said “us.” “Not much. But it’s a chance.”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” she said, twining her fingers into the sleeves of his red coat. “If no one else comes forward, perhaps you might write a book.”
Bartholomew frowned. “A book? What the devil for?”
“It’s just a thought. But everyone’s read the newspaper, if not the East India Company’s actual report. And then they see you, claiming to have been attacked but not providing anyone else to join their experience to yours. And they don’t know any of the details of what happened to you.”
“You’re the only one who knows,” he muttered. “You and my commanding officers. I have no desire to advertise my mistakes, Tess.”
“And what will happen to the next colonel who escorts a group of locals somewhere and is befriended by a jolly old monk who doesn’t want to travel alone? Especially if no one is allowed to breathe a word to that colonel about the Thuggee?”
The jolly old monk was dead, and so were most of his men. From what Bartholomew had been able to discover, though, Parashar’s assassins had only been one clawed finger of the insidious beast called Thuggee. And Tess was absolutely correct; the other side of the East India Company’s attempt to increase trade and travel to India was that everyone would think they were safe.
Soldiers would look for pickpockets and ham-fisted highwaymen, not pleasant fellows who befriended them and then slaughtered the entire trusting party en masse for their money and belongings. The murderers and their victims would all vanish—the killers back into the hills to wait for the next group of well-heeled travelers, and the dead into the dirt or deep dry wells or some lost, rocky ravine never to be seen or heard from again.
“Tolly?”
He blinked, then leaned down and kissed her again, hard and deep. “I’m very glad I met you, Theresa Weller. If nothing comes of tonight, I think I’ll try my hand at writing a book. I should be able to make it hair-raising enough that the East India Company can say whatever they wish. People will be afraid, and they will be wary.”
“It’s not a perfect solution, you know,” she returned. “It might save lives, but not your reputation. The questions will be whether you wrote the book for profit, or if it’s full of lies just to save your own reputation, or worse yet, if you just intentionally wrote a novel.”
“A novelist? I shudder at the thought.” Tolly favored her with a hopefully encouraging grin. “I suppose the reasons won’t matter, as long as it’s read.” Inside the ballroom, the waltz ended. She would have her next partner waiting for her. Letting her go, though, was another matter entirely. His heart skipped a beat. Silently Bartholomew tilted her chin up with his fingers. “What about you, though?”
“Me? This isn’t about me, Tolly.”
“Yes, it is. Could you…could you tolerate life with a crippled, disgraced novelist?”
Theresa felt all the blood leave her face only to rush forth again, roaring in her ears. She tried to string together a logical line of thought—what she’d thought to make of her life, what had changed since she’d met Tolly—but everything crashed together in her skull, a mishmash of fears and guilt and well-hidden hopes and dreams. She pulled in a hard breath, trying to steady herself. “Are you asking—”
“My apologies,” he interrupted, grabbing her shoulder before she could back away. “That was shabby of me.”
Then he wasn’t asking? “Make up your damned mind about what you intend to say before you speak to me again,” she snapped, jerking free of him.
“That’s why I apologized,” he retorted, cutting off her retreat with apparent ease, despite his bad leg. “Asking something that…important shouldn’t be done so badly that you can’t decipher what I’m saying.”
She glared at him. “And?” she prompted, trying to ignore the furious pounding of her heart.
“I can’t kneel,” he said quietly, dropping his cane and taking both of her hands in his.
“I don’t care.”
“No, you don’t, do you?” he murmured, his gaze mesmerizing even in the dim, flickering torchlight. “I have to put a condition on this,” he continued after a moment. “If everything collapses and I end up arrested, I won’t hold you to anything. I know your sensitivity to—”
“Ask me the question, will you?” she broke in again, beginning to wonder whether he would talk himself out of it. If the question he was attempting to ask was the one she wanted to hear, that was.
“When I returned to England,” he said slowly, “I had already given myself up for dead. You are my miracle, and I can’t imagine any sunrise without you in my life.” He cleared his throat. “Would you do me the very great honor of marrying me, Theresa?”
Now that was a proposal. “Before I met you,” she returned, “men followed me about because I’m wealthy and had impeccable manners. I wouldn’t have married any of them, because they wanted someone I wasn’t.”
“And?” he prompted, much as she had a moment ago.
“And then you brought me back to life, Tolly. I love…I love you. And it would be my honor—and my pleasure—to marry you.”
For a long moment he just stood there, gazing at her. Then Tolly wrapped his arms around her waist and lifted her into the air. “Thank you,” he whispered, kissing her. “Thank you.”
Theresa flung her arms around his neck. She wanted to thank him back again, but between the kissing and the laughing, she couldn’t muster enough breath even to speak. Then abruptly she was tumbling to the ground, Tolly swearing and then twisting her around so that he went down beneath her.
“Apologies,” he grunted, wincing even as he continued to grin at her.
She steadied herself across his thighs, still holding on to his shoulders. So many people were angry or about to be angry at him, it didn’t seem fair that all on her own she could add a dozen thwarted beaux to the list. “We shouldn’t say anything about this.”
Tolly tilted his head at her. “If you’re ashamed of me at this moment, the next few weeks are going to be intolerable,” he said carefully, his amber eyes going distant. “Perhaps you should change your answer.”
“That’s not what I meant,” she retorted. “Montrose, Henning, Lionel Humphreys, Henry Camden—they’ll all be out of sorts. You don’t need more enemies.”
“Ah.” His expression eased. “Nor do you.” Reaching back, he found his cane. “Help me up, then, and we’ll keep this our secret. For the moment.” Slipping his free hand to cup the nape of her neck, he kissed her again. “Though I mean to remind you on every possible occasion.”
Thank goodness. “I do hope so.” Standing, Theresa straightened her skirt and then offered him a hand. He nearly pulled her over, but between her, the cane, and a nearby tree trunk he managed to climb to his feet again. “Who are you meeting tonight?”
He glanced sideways at her before offering her his arm. “I’ll tell you tomorrow, if I can. It’s a bit of a sticky situation.”
“You can trust me, you know.”
“I know that. It’s not my secret to keep.”
“Oh.” Leaning into his arm while they still had the privacy of the garden, she walked with him back toward the terrace. “It’s a matter of honor, then.”
“Somewhat. I owe this person a favor.”
“Is this the person with whom you stayed before you returned home?”
His jaw tightened. “I wouldn’t have you be less bright than you are, but you’re going to have to be patient. And stop asking so many damned questions tonight. I just proposed to someone, and I’m a bit…disconcerted.”
Theresa laughed. “Good. I was beginning to think you were Achilles, with your knee your only vulnerable spot.”
“Achilles,” he repeated, grinning back at her. “I like that.”
“Hmm. You would.”
The moment they stepped back into the ballroom, the noise and smells and sights rushed back in on her. Compared to this, the garden seemed a veritable Eden. Her partner for the cotillion was pacing the side of the dance floor, looking for her, and with a sigh she squeezed Tolly’s arm and left him.
“There you are,” Lionel said, scowling as he looked past her at Tolly. “Not still lending an ear to that fool, are you? You know they’re saying that he led his men into the wilderness, got lost, and then was the only one to find his way out.”
She kept her charming smile carefully on her face. “You never fail to make me laugh, Lionel. Though I’m not certain the stabbing, strangling, and shooting deaths of eight soldiers should be the subject of a jest. I’m certain the soldiers’ families don’t think it’s amusing.”
He stammered. “They found his men?”
“Of course. Didn’t you read the newspaper when he returned? His commanding officer praised his courage and intelligence. It’s just a shame now that his brave deeds fall contrary to the East India Company’s pocketbooks.”
“Yes,” he said uncertainly, following her onto the dance floor and taking her proffered hand. “A shame.”
As she turned and dipped and hopped in time with the music, she kept half her attention on Tolly. Most people who passed by ignored him, or even went out of their way to pretend not to notice him. He was definitely a striking presence, but also a very direct one. No, this time she had the advantage. She had spent years learning precisely how to be the most charming. And everyone knew that more snakes had been caught with a smile than with a sword point. Or some saying like that, anyway.
But that very realization worried her where Tolly was concerned. He’d been too hurt to be easy on anyone. And if this mysterious person he was to meet felt the same, things could get very dangerous. Which left her, she supposed. A very nervous, very unskilled, very loyal her.