Lina pulled her cloak around her face and tapped the knocker. She wasn’t sure if there would be servants and so she invented a plausible tale in the event—although there were few available to explain an unaccompanied female visiting a widower’s quarters. Thank heaven for the temperance group.
As it turned out a tale wasn’t needed; Carstairs himself answered the door and pulled her inside with little ado. She walked into his arms and he held her tightly, then kissed her. “Thank God.”
“Let me take off Maisie’s cloak—I am heartily sick of it. And I did not lose your hat.”
“Good.” He took it and set it aside. “I am fond of that hat.” Nevertheless she could sense his underlying anxiety as he took the cloak from her while giving her an assessing glance. “You are well?”
“Perfectly,” she assured him, cradling his face with her hands. “Forgive me for my abrupt departure, Lucien—it could not be helped and I shall tell you the whole.”
“I felt guilty enough to pay for the stolen horse,” he admitted, lifting her hand to kiss it.
She laughed. “Then we are out of pocket—I arranged to have her sent back. We are honorable thieves, it seems.” Leaning into him, she breathed his wonderful scent, feeling as though she had arrived home at long last even though she had never been to this place before.
He put an arm around her waist and walked with her to the stairway. “Would you prefer to eat or wash first?”
She grimaced. “I have not been very hungry today.”
He bent and placed his forehead against hers, pulling her gently into his arms. “Constance. Or Jameson.”
“Yes; Constance or Jameson.”
“Then wash first. We’ll put together some tea and toast and hope for the best.”
“Is Maisie about?” Maisie would know what to do with the mass of tangles that currently constituted her hair.
He tilted his head in apology. “I sent her on home—it would look strange, otherwise.”
With a teasing look she began unbuttoning her bodice. “I may need some assistance, then—with the bath.” There was a tried-and-true method by which she could ease his mind, and the spirit was willing even though the flesh was exhausted.
With a smile, he kissed her again, lingeringly. “I will assist—although I may need some instruction.”
Twining her arms around his neck, she murmured, “Then I will show you where everything is.” She had the satisfaction of hearing him chuckle against her temple; she had treated him ill this day and wanted nothing more than to make it up to him.
As was expected, the bath soon evolved into a very satisfying and vigorous lovemaking session, and at its conclusion they sat propped up in his bed, she leaning back against him, wrapped in a voluminous robe while he coaxed her to eat.
“I do feel much better—I believe you have found the cure.”
He kissed the back of her neck and stole a triangle of toast from her lap. “The cure is the same as the cause, then—how ironic.”
She said without preamble, “I went to see Jenny Dokes. She had sent me a cipher and wanted to warn me of something.” Best not to mention the visit with Brodie at the warehouse; Carstairs would send her straight back to Sussex.
Leaning forward, he pressed his cheek against her temple so that his mouth was near to her ear. “Dokes sent you a note out of coverage?”
Lina pretended to consider, although she had little doubt that Carstairs knew of the whole subterfuge—it had been his trap and seizure, after all. “She said she wished only to advise me of what she had learned about Henry Grant, and of his suspicions about me.” She turned her head so as to see his face. “Did you know Grant was tainted?”
“Yes,” he said, and offered nothing more.
She turned around again and nestled into him. “Mãe de Deus,” she expostulated mildly. “No one trusts me anymore.” She ran her fingers along the muscles in his forearms, clasped around her. “Speaking of which, how goes your plan to clear my taint?”
“It is aborning.”
“Ah.”
He gently nipped at her neck. “You must stay hidden while I arrange the details. You continue dead.”
“As does Marie. You must have a care, Lucien, or you will acquire a reputation—quite the Bluebeard. Or Samson, from the Bible.”
He stilled, and a small silence stretched out while she could feel his breath on her neck. “Should I tell you of Marie?”
She gently squeezed his wrists, where her hands rested. “If you would—I’d as lief not sleep with one eye open.”
His tone was grim. “Mine is also not a pretty tale.”
But she shook her head slightly. “Oh-ho, my friend—mine trumps yours, surely.”
After a moment, he spoke slowly from behind her head. “Marie did die at my hands; but there were extenuating circumstances.”
She traced a finger along his capable hands, wondering if he had strangled pretty Marie. “I am all attention, then.”
He began his tale, and Lina could hear the constraint in his voice as he tried to give the report without emotion. “Marie was born Marie D’Amberre. Her father was a vicomte in Normandy, and had a large estate along the coast. Her father and her brother were executed during the Terror but not before her father arranged to smuggle her mother and the two daughters to England. Her mother later remarried a fellow expatriate.” He paused.
“An ordinary tale, thus far,” Lina prompted. “Well—not ordinary, but certainly not unusual.”
He continued, choosing his words carefully as he played with her fingers on the coverlet. “Marie was old enough to remember her life before the Terror. They were very wealthy but had to leave it all behind when they fled to England; the new stepfather was penniless. Her mother—” Here he paused for a moment. “Her mother was affected by the tragedies and was an unstable woman. She bitterly resented her reduced circumstances, and her attitude infected Marie, even after I married her and was able to provide for all of them. They could not come to terms with the blow that fate had delivered upon them.” He paused again, remembering. “They were constantly recalling their former situation, and nothing was ever enough.”
Poor man, Lina thought with sympathy—in the unfortunate role of trying to please the unpleasable. She could guess the rest. “And so Marie had a weakness.”
“Yes. She was susceptible to bribery.”
Lina shook her head in genuine bewilderment. “It is incomprehensible to me—there is not enough money in the world to tempt me to aid Napoleon.”
There was a pause while she could feel his chest rise and fall as he took a deep breath. “I am glad to hear of it.”
She smiled at the irony in his tone. “You may believe me or not as you choose, but it is the truth. Pray continue—did you attempt to rehabilitate her as you do me? You have a calling, methinks.”
But he was in no mood to joke. “I caught her once; she was copying the key to a cipher I kept in the safe. She wept and disclaimed, and I didn’t want to believe it, but the evidence was there, right before my eyes. I kept her on a very short string from then on, and our marriage suffered greatly as a result.”
“Another disloyal spouse,” commented Lina, struggling to conceal her revulsion. “We were unlucky, the two of us.” Santos, but she’d rather have a weak and frightened husband willing to barter his wife to save his life than a treacherous wife willing to ruin the country that took her in for nothing more than greed.
“I reported her actions to the church hierarchy—how could I not?”
“You had little choice.” Lina remembered how the Vicar had just warned her that Carstairs would not put his personal loyalties before his loyalty to England. There had been a precedent, then.
“The Vicar was very unhappy; he believed she was the one who provided a list of our operatives on the Continent to Rochon last fall—I had kept a copy in my safe.”
Lina carefully controlled her reaction. “Did she indeed?” Mãe de Deus—Mãe doce de Deus—the irony was thick on the ground; indeed, one did not know whether to laugh or to cry; it was Marie, of all people, who had betrayed her to Rochon.
Carstairs continued, “The Vicar thought to put her to use; to double-cross her and use her to plant false information, but I refused to allow it. In hindsight perhaps I should have, to let her atone for her treachery—albeit unknowingly—and to let her suffer the consequences when the French eventually discovered her information was faulty. Whatever allegiance I had to her had been irrevocably destroyed.”
“But you could not allow it, of course—you are loyal to the bone, my friend.”
“Perhaps,” he admitted reluctantly, his arms tightening around her. “It was a damnable situation.”
“And then?” Lina sensed he was avoiding the completion of the tale and wanted him to get on with it; she was sleepy after her long ride and the session of lovemaking in the bath.
“I’m afraid I was inveigled.”
Lina clasped his hand between hers. “You are certainly not the first man and you shall certainly not be the last.” She knew of what she spoke—being a master inveigler herself.
He sighed. “One night she detained me as I left for a church meeting. She made a tearful plea that I stay with her—that we try to reestablish our marriage.”
Lina was surprised by the stab of jealousy she felt at the idea of Carstairs abed with his late wife. “So you stayed.”
“No; I carried important information to the Vicar and could not tarry with her. Instead I left on a promise that upon my return we would discuss it over a glass of wine.” He paused. “I was nearly to the church before I realized she had lifted the document when she embraced me.”
“Oh, Lucien—how miserable for you.” Lina was truly shocked; Marie had not seemed capable of such cunning, but one never knew, in this business.
His voice roughened, remembering. “I raced to return and found her in the garden speaking with the Comte deFabry.”
Lina nodded—he was the aristocrat whose name she couldn’t remember, the one whom Jenny Dokes had mentioned as a suspect.
“I shouted and they broke apart—the comte sprinting for his horse tied at the back gate; I couldn’t allow my stupidity to result in any more deaths, and so I leveled my pistol and fired. In the darkness I hit Marie—she must have turned to shield him.”
He was quiet for a moment, and Lina lifted his hand to gently place it against her lips. “I am so sorry, querido.” Privately, she thought it unlikely that a renowned sharpshooter like Carstairs could so badly mistake his target—his prowess had been legendary among the guerrillas, after all. “But the comte managed to escape?”
“He did; I carried Marie to the house and shouted for the servants, but it was too late. I discovered she still held the papers tucked in her bodice; I imagine she was demanding more money.”
Or tarrying with the comte, thought Lina, but did not say it aloud. They sat together in silence for a few minutes, her head against his shoulder as she watched the fire and thought about what he had told her. Brodie was right—the war was indeed wretched. It allowed any flaws or weaknesses in one’s character to be laid bare; flaws that may have never been revealed but for the exigent events the war inspired—the difficult choices of loyalty and allegiance, of life and death.
“You and your dead wives,” she commented. “You must have a care or you will raise an unhealthy suspicion in the Bow Street magistrate’s breast.”
“He believes Marie died of a brain fever. And although you are missing, you are not, in fact, dead.” He bent his head forward so as to speak in her ear. “Although I have been toying with the idea of Vidia’s presumed death just before a new and different person named Lina arrives on the scene to attract my grieving attention.”
“Deus,” she observed. “You go through wives like other men go through cravats.”
“I think it could work,” he insisted stubbornly.
Brutally, she scotched any such plan. “It won’t work; I have been told I am as recognizable as the Prince Regent.”
“The snail could shed the shell; adjustments could be made—and those who know your true identity are unlikely to grass on you.”
She sighed and sank down lower in the bed. “This sounds complicated and I am too sleepy to follow.”
“All right; we will speak of it later. However, I’m afraid Brodie must be allowed to think you have drowned—at least for the time being.”
“Did you tell Maisie not to tell him? She is the weak link, here.”
“I did ask her to keep it quiet. Do you think she will?”
“She will follow orders,” Lina assured him, and smiled to herself. “Dear Maisie.”
He chuckled at her tone. “Will she come with us to Suffolk?”
“I would assume so—I am a continuing project for her.”
“And for me.” His mouth was warm against the nape of her neck. “I would like to marry you tomorrow morning, if you are available.”
There was a small silence as his lips paused on her neck. He raised his head and pressed his cheek to hers. “Come, then. Tell me.”
“I do not have fond memories of marrying you, Lucien.”
His arms tightened around her. “It would be done quietly—just you, me, and the Church of England—to correct the improprieties of the first ceremony.”
“Not just yet,” she repeated.
He was surprised, she could feel it. He said carefully, “If you were married to a peer, you would have certain protections.”
She sighed. “Poor Lucien—you are also on a knifepoint of agony.”
“Pardon?”
Turning around to face him, she twined her arms around his neck and embraced him tenderly. “Never you mind—I love you and I cannot imagine loving another and I shall marry you; my hand on my heart. Only not just yet.”
He thought about it, his hands stroking her back. “All right.”
She was nearly undone by a wave of affection. He was not going to press her—he was a fine, fine man—despite the occasional uxoricide. She had best see to it that all plots were resolved in a satisfactory manner, and soon.