“Do not toy with me, Sir Lyle. I know how grave the situation is.” Catherine hoisted herself up from the chair. She saw Sir Lyle’s expression. “Yes, I know,” she said irritably. “I am large and unwieldy and should not be troubling myself with matters too complex for my female mind. The cooler months are upon us, and I am fast becoming exhausted and demoralised. It is enough that I have waited this long for your reply to my letter.”
“But what do you expect me to do, Lady Catherine?” Sir Lyle’s question was gentle.
“Avebury told me to call upon you should I have need.”
“Did he now?”
Catherine looked at him sharply, but his expression was bland. “Yes. And I do not know why, except that perhaps you are better acquainted than I assumed.”
“We are both men with our fortunes at sea, Lady Catherine. We have an understanding. Nothing more.”
“You are lying,” Catherine said, trying to control her anger.
“What a harsh mistress you are,” Sir Lyle said mildly. “I ask again, what would you have me do?”
Catherine walked slowly in the direction of the French doors. Her gait was becoming more and more awkward as the growing child caused her weight to shift. The doctor had warned her to avoid risking a fall that might harm the unborn child, so she had curtailed her walks and was more careful than usual on the stairs. Her health was good, but she directed every ounce of her energy toward her child, and there was none left to spare.
“I want him freed,” she said.
“And how would I do that?”
“You have your ways. I know that you do.”
“What makes you think so?”
“You know that world – that world of seafaring men.”
“And why would I be more capable than you would, O Countess? Daughter of the Earl Delamare? Countess St Clair of Wales?”
“You mock me cruelly, Sir Lyle.” Her voice caught. “I love him, you know.”
“That does not surprise me, although I would have made you a better husband.”
“We will not discuss it. It was … improper of me not to decline your offer immediately.”
“Oh, ho?” Sir Lyle laughed harshly. “And now you expect me to do something for you for no compensation at all?”
There was a deep silence. A breeze blew gently through the barren shrubbery outside, only the occasional leaf rolling by. The laughter of the servants echoed down the hall. Someone was telling a joke.
The quiet was brittle and ready to crack.
“Forgive me,” Sir Lyle said into the silence. “It is my cursed male pride. I envy Avebury. He has what I do not.”
Catherine half-turned. “If you will not help, I will go to London and handle it myself.”
“That would be a most foolish course of action.”
“It would be my only recourse. Beaseley has done all he can. Perhaps I can do more.”
“If it is the only way to stop you, I will do whatever I can to help. You cannot wander around the halls of the Admiralty in your condition. You will hurt him more than you will help.”
“I thought I was the Countess St Clair? All-powerful?”
“Forgive me. I was rude. Your refusal of my hand left me bitter and angry.”
“Would it not be natural for a wife to support her husband? Why would it be so strange for me to try?”
She felt him come up quietly behind her. For a terrible moment, the air crackled; she thought he would embrace her, put his arms around her shoulders. She stiffened. But the gesture did not come.
“You are an impressive female.”
“I only love my husband.”
“You try to control the winds of fate.”
“I will not let events I neither know about nor care about ruin my life. Or the life of my child.”
“Tell me, Lady Catherine. Does Avebury know that you love him?”
“Why-why …” The words would not emerge. “Why, of course, he must.”
There was a rustling noise as Sir Lyle moved away. “Good,” she heard him say softly. “Very good.”
She was afraid to turn around. She was afraid that he still meant to refuse her. She stared out of the French doors into the distance.
Eventually, she heard him open the door and leave.
A note arrived the next day:
My lady, I am off to London. I will do my best. Do nothing foolish. L.
She had almost breathed a sigh of relief when another note arrived, this one from LaFrance.
He was going to offer “limited private showings” of the portrait to men “of the first circles,” he wrote. This would not harm her in any way, he assured her, since no one was likely to know what she looked like – given that she had spent much of her life in Bath and its environs. He wanted to use the portrait to amass a steady income from a well-paying clientele. Of course, he had no intention, absolutely none, of selling it.
Catherine called up to Lydia. She was to pack immediately for a trip to London.
Chapter 28
Sir Lyle arrived at his London house in the dead of the night to find a guest awaiting him. He was not surprised, for he had asked the small, weedy-looking man to meet him.
“I need all the information you can gather on Jocelyn Avebury. Captain, Royal Navy, recently married to the Countess St Clair. There may be some confusion about the countess – she is the daughter of the late Earl Delamare, and her title comes to her through the maternal line.”
“Ah, one of those.” The little man cocked his glass of whiskey at him.
“Yes. I expect you are familiar with such titles since they are more common in your part of the world.”
The man inclined his head. He was Irish.
“There is something a little odd about Avebury. I would like you to find out what it is. He is accused of murder. He is not guilty, of course, but an investigation was called for, nonetheless.”
“Is he one of your contacts?”
Sir Lyle laughed shortly. “No, which is a shame, since he is rumoured to be a smuggler. In that respect, he is as straight as a die, a thoroughly honourable man. Not at all like the ones I am accustomed to dealing with.”
“Then the problem—?”
“I don’t know. There is something odd about his accent, his behaviour. I want to know who his people are, how he came to join the navy. Everything.”
The little man put down his glass. He nodded. “That should not be difficult.”
“Perhaps.” Sir Lyle rubbed his forehead. “It depends on what he is trying to hide.”
* * *
Why don’t they just hang me?
The thought entered his mind over and over again as he peered through the clouded windowpane at the street outside. Smart carriages rolled by, street urchins screeched and threatened the traffic that seemed about to squash them at every turn. After the quiet of Wansdyke, the din was bewildering. It seemed bizarre to react so when he had spent several years of his young life on streets much like these. But that boy had come to the ruckus of London from the tranquillity of Yorkshire, and had then left for the relative quiet of the sea. Noise should have played a bigger part in his life than it had.
The rooms were rented and plainly furnished but much nicer than those he would have chosen before marrying Catherine. Marriage to a peeress, he reflected bitterly, had made him proud.
In point of fact, he had selected them because he was reluctant to embarrass the golden-haired, steel-nerved beauty who had got herself with child by a slippery fellow like Sir Lyle and then convinced a sailor to give the baby a name.
He was never going back to Wansdyke.
But when would she realise that?
She was a fool! She had thought to gain an earl by simply standing up with him in church. She had thought to be revenged on her cruel father. She had thought to win the respect of society. She would gain an earl, possibly. But nothing else.
He regretted the marriage. He, too, had been a fool. But what had motivated him? A ship
. Escape to the sea. He had thought she could extricate him from his troubles, somehow get him a ship.
But she claimed to be in love with him. He snorted. If she were, she truly was a fool.
And what on earth was wrong with Sir Lyle? Was he such a scoundrel that he would take away a maiden’s innocence and then refuse to marry her? What made Catherine Claverton such a poor bride? Had he been put off by her leg? If so, then Sir Lyle was a fool as well.
Damn it all to hell! He loved her, God knew. He loved her desperately, for her strength and her fire and her passionate hold upon life.
Restlessly, he pulled away from the window and paced before the fire. A pot of tea sat, untouched, on a tray. A collection of political treatises lay beside it.
They were taking so long, taking such care over this so-called investigation. A slight acquaintance, whom he had come across while pacing the halls of the Admiralty, told him that the family of Lieutenant Bright had complained to those as far up the chain of command as they could reach – and they were wealthy and powerful. “It’s a plague of red tape,” he had said, “but you’ll be cleared soon enough, my dear fellow.”
Right.
There had to be more to it than there first appeared, Jocelyn thought again and again. There simply had to be more. Since the botched-up Indian commission, the confrontation with Bright and the brawl in Gibraltar everything had come crashing down. Something that didn’t fit in with the orderly pattern of sailing life was needed to explain why it had happened all at once.
He had been waiting for it, he thought. Waiting, and waiting. He had known all along that he couldn’t maintain the farce forever. What an idiot he had been! Had he been intelligent enough to leave the navy with his fortune, to hide from the all-seeing eye of His Majesty’s commanders, perhaps he would have been safely ensconced on a country property by now. With a roly-poly wife and a pack of children.
No, it had been bound to come out at some point. It had merely been a matter of time.
Would they hang him?
Were it not for the public humiliation involved, he would almost welcome that. It would be like coming full circle, coming home. A relief, of sorts.
But he couldn’t bear the thought of what it would do to Catherine. It would rip the soul right out of her. And, even if the child were not his, he had no desire to do to a child what had been done to him. The thought of the heavy burden his public humiliation would place on a baby’s shoulders made him feel queasy.
He wondered if the baby would be an earl or another golden-haired countess.
He wondered if there was any possible way for Sir Lyle to rescue the child.
Catherine’s letters had been just like her, full of fire. Pages and pages of descriptions of the things he liked best about Wansdyke, the movements of the baby. No tears, no plaintive requests for his return. At the end of each letter, the same sentence:
I await your return with all my heart. C.
He had saved the letters, tying them in a neat little bundle with a blue ribbon he had bought for the purpose. I’ll leave them to the baby, he thought vaguely.
* * *
“Captain Avebury, do you say that you speak the Hindu tongue?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did you acquire it through self-study?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you have a particular interest in the country?”
“No, sir. I enjoy languages and, while on board, I made a study of as many as I could find texts for.”
“What other languages do you speak?”
“Arabic, Malay, Spanish, and extremely poor Chinese – the dialect of the southern coast. There was a Chinaman on one of my commands.”
“Yes, yes. We have noted that from the lists. Now, was this Lieutenant Bright also a studious fellow?”
“No, sir.”
“Did he not accompany you about your business in the port of Bombay?”
“No, sir. I took with me some able seamen who were familiar with the local traditions.”
“So Lieutenant Bright had no direct knowledge of your activities ashore?”
“That is correct.”
“When you received word that Jonathan Waters – Viscount Roland – was trapped in the city, you left to search for him, without informing your lieutenant.”
“That is correct.”
“Is that usual?”
“Perhaps not, sir. But Lieutenant Bright was thoroughly occupied with the loading of provisions, and we were well aware of the time for the rendezvous.” Hesitation. “I take full responsibility for the missed rendezvous, sir.”
“I realise that, Captain Avebury. We appreciate your willingness to accept responsibility. What we are trying to understand here is Lieutenant Bright’s accusation that you kept your movements in Bombay a secret, and that you rewarded the able seamen for doing the same.”
“That was not true, sir. I understood from Viscount Roland’s man that he was in trouble, and I went to investigate. That was all.”
“Were Lieutenant Bright’s accusations believed by any of your crew? Any at all?”
“I do not believe so. At least, I believe the subsequent brawl was due in part to Lieutenant Bright attempting to convince the crew that I had delayed the ship on purpose to sabotage the intelligence effort.”
“An unfortunate incident.”
Shuffling of papers, squeaking chairs.
“Captain Avebury, I must enter a line of questioning that may be uncomfortable. It concerns how you came to join the navy.”
“Yes, sir.”
It was over, Jocelyn thought. Once he had answered these questions, it would all be over. He tried to keep his breathing even, slow. He meditated on each breath, paying careful attention to filling his lungs so that he did not become faint.
“You were assisted by … an uncle, I believe.”
“Actually, he was a distant cousin, although I called him uncle, sir.”
“How old were you?”
“Twelve, sir.”
“And your parents? They did not object?”
“They were dead, sir. I was the ward of another cousin, an attorney-at-law in London.”
“Did you have no wish to apprentice yourself to this cousin, the attorney-at-law?”
“He had several children, sir. The house was cramped and circumstances were difficult.”
Jocelyn waited. But, amazingly, the question he dreaded did not come. He waited and waited. It was not asked. At least not out loud. But he could imagine it – and what might follow – all too clearly:
What happened to your parents?
My mother died of fever and my father was hanged, drawn and quartered as a traitor when I was seven. I was passed to a reluctant cousin in London who finally got rid of me by changing my name and sending me to sea. Better that a child drown than that his traitor blood taint them all.
Long live the King! I would give my life to defeat His Majesty’s enemies. What a dreadful irony that three faithful subjects were executed because I was late to a rendezvous – late because I was rescuing a good-for-nothing officer from certain death in a Bombay brothel. I did indeed keep my business in Bombay a secret – because I knew that my senior officers would discourage my effort to save Lord Roland. I had no desire to be involved, but nor had I any desire to let a young Briton die.
But that was before I knew that Lord Roland is the half-brother of my enemy, Sir Lyle.
Sir Lyle the fornicator and fatherer of bastards. Violator of my wife. False friend extraordinaire.
Chapter 29
They travelled at night. Catherine did not tell Beaseley where she had gone, and left word with her household that she was visiting a desperately ill friend in the country. She and Lydia hired a conveyance at an inn just beyond the edge of town and, upon their arrival in London, went directly to a modest boarding house known to Lydia. No one there would recognise Catherine or ask questions; indeed, most of the other patrons were engaged in shady business of their own, and wer
e as disinclined to notice their fellow travellers as they were willing to be noticed themselves.
Catherine was exhausted by the time they arrived. Without the comfort of her own well-sprung carriage and perfectly matched team of horses, she had been jolted and jostled and was nauseated and nearly delirious with fatigue. Lydia was heartily against the journey from the start, but set about her duties with the ferocity of a whirlwind when she saw that her mistress would not be dissuaded. At the boarding house, she ordered meals and changed the sheets on the beds before sending Catherine to her room with strict instructions to bathe and rest.
But Catherine was too nervous to relax. She paced, one hand braced against the small of her back as she lurched from side to side, her leg buckling. It was early December. There were still three months until the child was due, and she was already so heavy and uncomfortable that she could not imagine worse. The doctor had said apologetically that it was on account of her bad leg she felt so uncomfortable and unsettled, but she was sure in her heart that there was something more.
Jocelyn. She wanted him back with a feverish intensity that became a dull ache in her heart. In her letters to him, she disguised her despair and her fear. She would not burden him with her love. After all, he had married her only to give her an earl and to go back to sea. She was sure that he loved her, but she would not make him say it. It would be enough if they could be together – if not for always, then at least occasionally.
And she would not allow the likes of LaFrance to jeopardise her almost-happiness. The portrait had been a stupid mistake of her youth. She would make him give it up. She had as much money, as much patience, as much determination as the task required.
The Portrait Page 17