“Your brother stole the Duke of Alcester’s cane?” she asked, her eyes widening. “My gracious, Lander—no wonder you’re so wretched at domestic service. You have not the family temperament for it.”
He looked at her as if she had spoken in some foreign language. To clarify her point, Folie added, “Perhaps next time you ought to impersonate an army officer, or something more suited to a bold and enterprising nature.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” he said solemnly. “I shall consider your advice.”
“Shall I buy you an officer’s commission, Lander?” Robert asked, grinning. “God knows I owe you that much.”
“Perhaps I’ll ask you for a different favor, sir,” Lander said, “at a more salutary time.”
“You’ll have it.” Robert sat back on the seat. “But you were about to tell us what you’ve learned.”
“One plot,” Lander said, “but several aims among the plotters, it would appear. This potion—or powder, rather— is some Indian brew used to induce religious visions, I gather. I’m not certain where the duke obtained his information about it—”
“He had a number of correspondents in India,” Robert said. “He and my father were great cronies, and I know he had other friends high up in the Company. He used to put his money in some Indian and Chinese ventures, when my father advised him.”
Lander nodded. “Yes, sir. Your father did well by him, it would seem. But after your father’s death, he seems to have gotten into some very bad investments.”
“He wrote me. Afterward. Kept commanding me to increase Phillippa’s allowance.” Robert frowned. “I just told the secretary to give her whatever she wanted without ruining me entirely. But I wonder...”
“Perhaps she sent funds to her father,” Lander said.
“Yes...” Robert rubbed the shadow of beard beginning to show on his chin. “I didn’t pay it much mind—but. .. ten thousand a year. Even she couldn’t have been spending so extravagantly on herself.”
“Ten thousand a year?” The conjurer made an overly dramatic face of astonishment. “You did not pay it much mind, sir?”
“I didn’t spend a great deal of time at home,” Robert said shortly.
“It makes sense,” Lander said. “Perhaps, sir, after your wife passed away, he could no longer appeal for money from that source.”
“Oh, he appealed,” Robert said dryly.
“Just so,” Lander said. “If you didn’t endear yourself to him by obliging with funds, he may not have felt much compunction toward you. He made some desperate financial moves—the details remain to be seen, but they must have been extreme, because his goal appeared to be the entire destruction of the East India Company.”
Robert swore softly. He nodded. “The charter.”
“The charter. Up for renewal before Parliament and Crown. By controlling the Prince Regent, he meant to see the monopoly broken. No renewed Company charter ever signed by the Crown—or, at least, delayed until the shareholders tore the Company apart.”
“So he was drugging the Prince! Just as Robert said!” Folie exclaimed.
“Yes, they’d infiltrated this Dr. Varley into Carlton House, and begun to administer their potion, just enough to cause the headaches that the excellent doctor knew precisely how to cure. They felt sure they knew how to measure their dosage—having tested it thoroughly on you, sir, before the first drop of the stuff ever left India. They knew how to induce visions and how to decrease the measure to relieve the hallucinations without the—subject—regaining his full acumen.”
Robert closed his eyes and laid his head back. “A test.”
“Yes, sir. I’m sorry, sir.”
He drew a deep breath. “I don’t even remember. I remember her funeral. Time after that...a long time of just...everyday sorts of things.” He opened his eyes and looked briefly at Folie. “Drifting, I suppose. As if I didn’t know what to do with myself. But I could not tell you when those visions began. Or how I ever got out of there.’’
“You simply vanished,” Lander said. “General St. Clair believes you had friends among the natives, who spirited you away.”
“Mr. Ramanu,” Folie murmured.
Robert nodded slowly. “Perhaps. Yes.”
“By that time, the duke had gotten Mr. Inman as an accomplice,” Lander said. “Which changed the color of things considerably. The duke’s intentions ended with blocking the charter, but Inman claims he wasn’t going to be satisfied with less than the whole ruin of the Government. He’s talking all sorts of mayhem—I think that clip on the head has dissolved whatever prudence he ever had. He despises the duke. But he couldn’t waive a chance to make the Prince Regent go mad as his father did—he’s even hinted that there may be another plot, still in motion if we can’t track it down, to assassinate the Prime Minister. Throw the Government into complete chaos.”
No one spoke for a moment, absorbing this alarming news. A stray dog ran alongside the carriage, barking fiercely until they outpaced it.
“I would not have believed it,” Robert said. “My God. There were times when I was certain I must be insane, that it could be nothing else.”
Lander nodded solemnly. “Aye, sir. And they meant to keep it that way. After you got away from them in Calcutta, they were intent upon tracking you, since they couldn’t be certain of what you knew, or might piece together. Once you made it to England, the duke insisted that you must be kept under the influence of the drug, to prevent anyone from taking you seriously if you did talk. You may thank General St. Clair for your life, because Mr. Inman thought that killing you would be much the simplest—they got into quite a dispute over it again just now. But at any rate, the general seems to have prevailed.” Lander scowled, an unhappy expression darkening his square face. “I don’t know quite how he became involved in this—he has a reputation as an excellent officer—but I suspect that he was in on some of the duke’s more—questionable—investments.”
“Blackmailed into it,” Robert said.
“Most likely. The prison hulk was his notion...Inman says even now that all three of you ought to have been ‘eliminated’ at Vauxhall.”
“Eliminated!” Folie said, sitting up and leaning forward. “And Sir Howard!” she said fiercely. “He did pass that note to Robert, to lure him there, but I cannot conceive—why did he help them, even a jot?”
Lander shook his head. “I can only conjecture at this point, ma’am. I think...perhaps...the maid, you know.” He gave her an embarrassed look. “Mr. Inman went to Solinger searching for someone he could coerce. I think—uh—that Sir Howard did not wish for his wife to, um, discover his—mistake.”
“Oh,” Folie said. “Yes. I—yes.” She blushed. “I see.”
“How love will make a fool of a man,” Robert remarked.
“I do not think he made that ‘mistake’ out of love!” Folie said indignantly.
“No,” Robert said. “But perhaps if he’d been less in love with his wife, he’d not have been so beef-witted as to knuckle to the likes of Inman just to keep her from finding out.”
“I suppose she’ll forgive him,” Folie said, with a small frown. “Even now.”
“Well, of course,” Robert said dryly. “Anyone but Dingley could see that. Which is why he’s a beef-wit.”
“And I suppose you would shout it to the whole town rather than submit to blackmail, if you made the same mistake.”
He lifted one eyebrow. “I do not intend to make that particular blunder, my dear.”
“Good,” Folie said. She swept a regal glance about the carriage. “Perhaps you have all learned a salutary lesson from Sir Howard’s distress.”
“Distress!” the conjurer said. “I should call it torture, myself.”
“Purest agony,” Robert said.
“I cannot even imagine the pain, ma’am,” Lander added humbly.
“Yes, and I happen to know that you are all three incorrigible, irredeemable frauds,” she replied with a snort. “You need not suppose you can b
amboozle me!”
Cambourne House seemed silent, almost unfamiliar, as if everything that had happened since she had left for Lady Melbourne’s party had changed the house—and herself—in some irrevocable way. No one answered the door when they walked up the front steps. All of Lander’s hefty footmen were gone. Entering in the marbled hall, with its white pilasters and elegant chandelier, Folie felt like a child in a bedraggled party dress, wandering in off the street.
She was not even certain, suddenly, if she was quite welcome here. Lander had not left the carriage with them, but gone on to make his report in Bow Street. Folie paused as Robert pulled the front door closed behind them.
“Gracious,” she said, with a little laugh. And then felt exceedingly foolish.
They both stood awkwardly, as if someone ought to tell them what to do next.
He looked down at her from beneath his dark eyelashes. “You must be tired,” he said.
“Oh, yes. Though I vow if I laid my head down I could not close my eyes. I must write a letter to Melinda. Or—or perhaps I should—I suppose—’’ She could not seem to reach the tail of the sentence. “Is it safe for me to return to her now?’’
“You wish to?” he asked.
“I wish to see her as soon as I may.”
“I’ll take you there,” he said. “If that is what you would like.”
Folie looked about at the staircase and the hall as the echo of his voice died away. She ought to be exhausted— she was—and yet the sun was coming up.
“We are free, Robert,” she said wonderingly. “How strange it seems!”
He had a fleeting way of smiling at her—she had always felt it, but just now recognized it as a particular smile, a strange tender amusement on his satanic features. The way a demon would look, she thought, if one ever caught it smiling with affection. “Yes,” he said. “We’re free.”
“I don’t know what we will do with ourselves.”
“Take you to Melinda. Go and get your things.”
“Now?” Folie felt consternation. “But—you are not too fatigued?”
“I’m no more ready to sleep than you. There’s nothing to stop us. Besides, after ruining her season, the least I can do is present her with an excellent parti as a suitor.”
“A suitor! Who might that be?”
“What do you think of Lander?”
“Lander?” Folie squeaked. “I beg your pardon! He will not do!”
“But I owe him a favor,” he said.
“A favor! That is nothing to the point. I’m very sorry, but it is quite out of the question. I’ve never wished for her to marry an earl, or a marquess, or any such thing as that, but I cannot countenance her marriage to a man so far beneath her.”
“He seems perfectly gentlemanly.”
“Perhaps so, but what are his prospects? His connections? Why—where would he take her to live? In Bow Street? Has he spoken to you about it, or is this some absurd scheme of yours?”
“I am her guardian, you know. I think Lander might do very well.”
“She will not have him!” Folie said.
“You don’t think she ought to be the one to decide?”
“That is precisely what I mean. Melinda is far more of a stickler for her position than I am, I warn you! Why, she would not even consider him! It is very kind of you to think so much of Lander, and I’m sure he’s done more than we can ever repay, but—’’
“Would it help any if he were the youngest son of the Marquess of Hursley?”
She pursed her lips at him. “Robert Cambourne, you are a very odd man.”
“Not half so peculiar as you, my dear.”
“I am not at all peculiar. I am perfectly ordinary.”
“Yes, you and your man-eating ferret. And since you see fit to pucker your lips in that provocative fashion, madam, I rescind my offer to convey you to Melinda. You may convey yourself upstairs directly into bed.”
“Oh?” Folie looked at him warily.
He smiled again, in that diabolical way.
“Robert,” she said, taking a step backwards.
The hint of laughter in him vanished at her move. He pushed his hands into the pockets of his coat as the moody demon seemed to rise in a black scowl. “No. Never mind. Get your things,” he said in a flat tone. “We’ll go to Melinda.”
Folie hesitated, bewildered by him. It was as if he went away, retreated into some far place inside himself where she could never go. And suddenly she wished to do the same herself. He made her angry, this way in which he enticed and teased her and drew her to him with the promise of warmth, and then as suddenly, for no reason she could ever seem to fathom, pulled back into his bleak solitude.
She turned away. She meant to walk up the stairs, her back stiff—she could lock herself up, too; she could lock her bedroom door, if he supposed he had any access to it. She went as far as the foot of the stairs.
Then she turned, her hand resting on the newel post. “Robert,” she said, staring at a corner of the hall, “we are married, but we need not live as man and wife. I find it very difficult to bear, this—this way you have. Of making me feel wanted—and then leaving me.”
“Then don’t go away from me,” he said angrily, turning aside. “Don’t step back away from me.”
Folie watched him standing with his eyes fixed on the floor like a sullen schoolboy. “I only did because—” She made a sound of despair. “I do not really understand it. Robert, I have not the nature to resist when I do not wish to do so. When you do that—when you go away just as...” She took a deep breath. “It is—humiliating.”
“I know,” he muttered. “Believe me.”
She sank down upon the step, resting her forehead in her hand. “I suppose we will never understand one another. I suppose we will be like the Dingleys. You will find some consuming interest—keeping prize red hens, or translating Hindu texts into Greek tragedies—and I’ll play the pianoforte very badly and stare out of windows.” She swallowed. “Only...only there won’t be any Robert far away for me to write to, and dream about—’’ Her voice cracked. She swallowed hard again. “Because you are the only man I’ve ever loved. Or ever will. Even if you are as beef-witted as Sir Howard. Perhaps even stupider.” She sniffed. “In my opinion.”
“Never worth a dog’s damn,” he said mockingly.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, fumbling for a handkerchief she could not find. “That made my blood boil, when he said that! But what verily makes me want to scream is that you listen to it.” She snatched the linen that he held out to her and blew her nose.
With an effort, she recovered her composure. He said nothing, only stood there with that constrained, persecuted air of a gentleman with an unhappy female—as if she were impossible to comprehend and her presence was barely tolerable. It was maddening, Folie thought fiercely, when he was the one who had upset their friendly accord for the most inconsequential reason. She had stepped back away from him. Whatever did he make of that, the silly man? That she could not suffer him to touch her?
The thought struck her. What had they said about Phillippa? That his wife had not treated him kindly. That she was a devil’s daughter. Or an angel. Never once, in his letters, had he mentioned her name with affection—never mentioned her at all—or even hinted at her existence.
“I am not Phillippa, you know,” Folie said, crumpling the handkerchief tightly in her fingers. “Whatever she was—whatever happened—”
He looked around at her sharply. “I know that you aren’t,” he said. As he looked at her, his tone softened a little. “I know that.” He turned away again, but she could see his face reflected in the big gilded mirror on the wall. “Your letters—knowing you were there, just knowing you were there—” His mouth twisted wryly. “In Toot-above-the-Batch, with the geese and river and the white-faced cattle—” He shrugged.
“It was a difficult marriage,” she said, a faint question.
“It was hell.” He took a deep breath. “But perhaps I un
derstand her a little better now.”
Their eyes met in the mirror. Folie waited.
He shook his head. “You don’t realize, do you? About her.”
“Realize what?”
He shook his head again. His jaw was tight, as if he were imprisoning the words. He looked about at the walls and ceiling like a man searching for a way out of a locked room. “I don’t want you to understand,” he said at last, his voice breaking.
Folie rose. She went to him, reaching up to touch his cheek. She ran her fingers along the dark stubbled line of his jaw, felt the muscles set hard. “Then do not tell me,” she said quietly. “Perhaps it’s better so. Only remember—when you get lost in her dark places...remember that you have a way home.”
He closed his eyes. She could feel a tremor in his jaw. “Folly,” he said roughly. “You love me, Folly?”
She took a step back. “Oh,” she said, nodding to herself, “he really is a stupid man!” She looked up at him over the handkerchief pressed to her nose. “What I should like to know is whether you love me!” she said flippantly, to prevent herself from breaking down into nonsensical tears. “But do not put yourself out by saying so, Robert Cambourne. You warned me once that you could never fall in love by letter!” She turned her back on him. As well as possible in a wrinkled and tattered ivory gown, with all the bows untied and most of the seed pearls missing, she flounced up the stairs.
She did not know what time it was when she woke, but it was certainly afternoon, for the sun shone in the windows she had forgotten to cover. Her eyes felt gritty. And she was cradled in a warm embrace.
It seemed to take a moment to sort that out. She was not accustomed to waking in a man’s arms. In fact, she could not recall that it had ever happened before. For a time she lay there, hardly breathing, just feeling the long contour of heat pressed to her back. His bare arm lay over her shoulder. In his hand was a note, turned so that she could just read the words aslant.
My Sweet Folly Page 40