by Joan Wolf
Adam turned his gaze to the flames of the fire blazing so briskly in the beautiful Adam fireplace, and began. His voice was deliberate, calm and uninflected. “You thought it was strange, did you not, when Gacé invited me to be a guest in his home? Well, I thought it strange also.” Adam’s eyes left the fire and moved to Menteith’s face. “Why do you think he did that, my lord?”
“A charitable impulse,” Menteith said gruffly.
A spark of amusement gleamed in Adam’s blue eyes. “I very much doubt that Matthieu de Vaudobin ever in his life suffered from anything so awkward as a charitable impulse.”
Menteith’s eyes fell. “Why, then, did he invite you, Stanford?”
“To give himself ample opportunity to pick my brain about the spring campaign. Which he tried to do, assiduously.”
“Gacé’s interest in the spring campaign is not evidence, Stanford. Menteith’s voice was harsh. “There are many possible reasons for his curiosity.”
“Perhaps. But it was enough to raise my suspicions.” The level, easy tone of Adam’s voice never varied; he might have been discussing a dinner menu. “I was also intrigued by the voluminous amount of Gacé’s mail. It came from all over Europe, and it made for very interesting reading.”
“You read his mail?” Genuine horror sounded in Menteith’s voice.
For the first time a hint of impatience crossed Adam’s face. “One can hardly engage in intelligence work and observe the rules of etiquette at the same time, my lord. If you had spent less time at the Horse Guards observing the social amenities and more time on security you would not have had information handed to the French with such alarming regularity. And a number of men I knew, who are now dead, would be alive and well.”
Menteith flushed and looked away from the bitter anger that had flared in Adam’s eyes. “
“What did you find in his mail?” he asked, ignoring Stanford’s last statement.
“His grace’s mail makes our own diplomatic channels look paltry. Furthermore, he has had access to information that would have been useful to us, and he did not communicate it.”
Adam paused.
“And then?” Menteith prompted.
Adam returned his gaze to the fire. “I had him followed. Then I fed him some information that would have been of interest to Paris.” Adam paused, flicked a glance at Menteith and turned back to the fire. “He met with a Frenchman named Bellay in a bookstore in Piccadilly. The information was passed in a book Gacé had been holding. This happened three times. The last time I had Bellay followed. He traveled immediately to Folkestone, where he met with the captain of a fishing vessel. The boat sailed on the next tide and Bellay returned to London, where he has lodgings near the river.”
Adam’s voice ceased and Menteith said nothing. The silence stretched on. If Menteith had not been convinced, Adam thought, his case would be desperate. The only hope of saving Nanda and the children from the consequences of Gacé’s treason lay in convincing her brother. Adam needed Menteith’s aid to accomplish his plan. The lines around his mouth were grim as he added, “I said I have evidence, but it isn’t enough to convict. To stop Gacé, I will need your help.”
The log cracked and fell on the fire. Menteith cleared his throat and spoke. “No,” he said.
The knuckles on Adam’s quiet hands suddenly showed white. “Why not?” He did not quite manage to keep the bitterness out of his voice.
“Because of Nanda, of course,” Menteith was speaking with barely suppressed violence. “The scandal would be intolerable. For her – for the children most of all. Their father hanged as a traitor! They would never recover from it.”
A wild relief swept through Adam at Menteith’s words. He waited until he was certain he had his voice under control, then said, “Why do you think I asked to see you alone? And here, at your home, not at the Horse Guards?”
Menteith said, almost pitifully, “Do you have a plan?”
“Yes.”
“We cannot try Gacé for treason.”
“I agree.”
Menteith pressed his hands to his mouth and shook his head. “Why did he do it? He has a good position in this country. He has money. Why in God’s name would he support Napoleon?”
“You’re brother Charles could answer that question,” Adam returned. “He once said to me that to Gacé the restoration of his own lands and titles in France far outweigh the restoration of the monarchy.” He leaned back in his chair and sighed. “I think he got tired of waiting, Menteith. It was beginning to look to him as if Louis would never be in a position to give Gacé what he wanted, so he decided to try Napoleon. He doesn’t care who wins the war; he only cares that Matthieu de Vaudobin should end up with the Chateau de Gacé. His egotism is colossal, you know.”
“I know.” Menteith suddenly looked much older. “I never should have allowed Nanda to marry him. It is the biggest regret of my life that I did so.”
“She wouldn’t agree with you.”
Menteith bent forward, staring hard into Adam’s eyes. What he saw there seemed to satisfy him and he leaned back once more in his chair. “So Charles was right,” he said. “You do love her.”
“I love her very much,” Adam said quietly.
Some of the tension went out of Menteith’s face. “Let me make myself clear, Stanford. It must be marriage. Nothing else is acceptable.”
“It will be marriage.”
Menteith nodded, folded his hands in his lap, and inquired, “Exactly what is this plan you have?”
When he had finished Menteith was silent, digesting what he had heard. Finally he said, “And you think Gacé will agree to what you propose?”
Adam’s eyes were very blue. “Really, Menteith, he will have no choice.”
Nanda’s brother regarded the transformed hard and merciless face of the young man sitting opposite him, and said slowly, “No. I don’t suppose he will.”
# # #
The evening after her conversation with Ginny, Nanda and Gacé attended a ball given by Lord and Lady Crosby. The Crosbys were devoted Whigs, and Nanda and Gacé had only been invited because Adam happened to be Lady Crosby’s nephew.
Lady Crosby had filled her rooms with all the great land-owning Whig aristocracy, and even Gacé’s snobbery was soothed by the amount of blue blood present. The Duc stayed next to his wife for the first hour of the evening, looking stiff and reserved, but when Lord Grenville, who was even more arrogant than Gacé, drew him away, he went willingly.
During a break in the sets, Lady Crosby came across the room to where Nanda was sitting with her last dance partner. “Anthony, my dear, would you be good enough to bring me a glass of champagne?’ she asked Lord Charlton, ruthlessly annexing his seat next to Nanda. “Now, my dear,” Lady Crosby said, when a reluctant Lord Charlton had gone, “I must thank you for taking such excellent care of Adam. From what my brother wrote to me, I had expected to find him a sad case indeed.” She looked shrewdly into Nanda’s face.
“You must thank Lord Stanford’s excellent constitution, Lady Crosby,” Nanda said serenely, “not me.”
“He was always strong as a horse, though you wouldn’t think it to look at him,” Adam’s aunt agreed. “And he is working with your husband at the Horse Guards?”
Nanda’s back was very straight. She said politely, but coolly, “I believe Lord Stanford is working with my brother, Lady Crosby, though my husband is attached to the Horse Guards as King Louis’ representative.”
“My, your family is certainly involved in the war effort,” Lady Crosby was beginning when the figure of her nephew stopped in front of her.
“I have come to escort her grace to the supper room, Aunt Frances,” he said firmly. “I have procured champagne for all your dowagers and been polite to at least three unattractive girls. I am now going to please myself and have supper with the Duchesse.”
Lady Crosby lifted her clearly defined eyebrows. “It may please you to have supper with the Duchesse, Adam, but does it please her t
o have supper with you?” She turned to Nanda and said comfortingly, “You needn’t go with him, my dear, unless you want to.”
Nanda managed not to smile at Adam and said to his aunt, “I should be pleased to have supper with Lord Stanford.” She rose and put her hand on his arm, looking fleetingly up at him from under her long lashes. He was watching her, and the meeting of their eyes was like a stolen caress.
Lady Crosby watched them cross the room together, a frown between her brows. That glance had told her all she wanted to know.
It’s serious with him this time, she thought worriedly. Lady Crosby knew her nephew quite well, which is why she was worried. Adam was not one to concern himself with public opinion; he did what he thought he should do. If he loved Nanda de Vaudobin, his aunt thought distractedly, God alone knew what he would be prepared to do about it. Lady Crosby’s enjoyment of her own ball had been quite effectively destroyed by that one revealing glance she had seen pass between her nephew and the Duchessee de Gacé.
# # #
Adam made a detour on their way to the supper room, steering Nanda into a small anteroom off the hall. He closed the door behind them firmly and in a moment she was in his arms, his mouth hard and hungry on hers. She closed her eyes and leaned into him, heedless of how he was crushing her gown.
It was he who made the move to separate them. “God, Nanda,” he said harshly, “I must see you alone.”
Her eyes drank in his face. “How?” Her lips barely moved.
“I have the key to a cottage in Hampstead.” He gave her the address. “Will you come?”
“Yes.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Yes,” she said again.
“Two o’clock. Take a hackney.”
“All right.”
There was the sound of voices outside the room, then silence. “We’d better go,” Adam said.
She nodded and turned toward the door. Then she spun around to face him again, saying urgently, “You aren’t planning to call Matthieu out, are you?”
His eyes widened in surprise. “Why would you think something like that?”
“You…you said that everything will come out all right for us, and I wondered…”
“You thought I might kill Gacé in a duel?” Amusement and incredulity both sounded in his voice.
“There are two people who may be killed in a duel,” she said grimly.
“Nanda.” He reached out to hold her close once more. “I have no intention of fighting a duel with Gacé. In the first place, I can hardly challenge him. One can’t call a man out because one happens to love his wife. He, of course, could always challenge me, but he wouldn’t want that kind of scandal attached to his name.” He loosened his arms and tipped her face up so she was looking at him. “All right?”
She nodded and laughed. “It was a stupid idea.”
Not so stupid at all, Adam thought. Nanda had seen that the answer to all their problems lay in the death of Gacé, and she had picked on the one way she could think of to achieve such a result. Adam’s plan was more discreet – if he could pull it off. I will, he told himself as he opened the door for her, I have to.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The sun was clear and warm on the streets of London when Amanda de Vaudobin, Duchessee de Gacé, got into a hackney carriage for the first time in her life. She scarcely noticed her changing surroundings as the cab left the city environs and entered the village of Hampstead. At last it stopped before a low, whitewashed cottage, surrounded by a garden filled with daffodils.
Nanda gave the man two guineas. “If you will come back for me in two hours, there will be two more guineas for you,” she told him.
The driver looked at the beautiful woman, whose elegant green pelisse and broad-brimmed bonnet clearly proclaimed Quality. She was up to no good, he surmised, but that was no affair of his. Two guineas was two guineas. “Aye, I’ll be back,” he said, and tipped his hat.
Nanda waited until he was out of sight, then turned, opened the white picket fence and walked toward the cottage. A part of her stood aside and watched, unbelieving, as she advanced steadily downs the path toward her lover. I must be insane, that small, sane part of her cried in protest; but she walked on, heedless of its warning.
The door opened and he was there. The look on his face as he saw her caught at her throat. She crossed the threshold into the low-ceilinged, immaculate room and was in his arms.
# # #
They lay in a wide bed, under the roof, with the sun streaming in the window dappling her skin. Nanda’s head was on Adam’s shoulder, her long hair falling across his chest.
“Who does this lovely cottage belong to?” She asked, her voice soft with contentment.
His fingers slowly caressed the smooth, bare skin of her arm. “I rented it.”
There was a hint of amusement in her voice as she answered, “Ever efficient.’
He touched her hair with his lips. “I know.”
She heaved a sigh of satisfaction. “This is dreadfully immoral,” she offered.
He was silent for a while, then he said, strain evident in his voice, “I swore I wouldn’t ask you this. I have no right…”
She lifted her head and looked down into his face, her hair streaming around them like a tent. There was a pinched look about his nostrils. “Ask me what, my darling?”
“Has Gacé made love to you since…” His voice trailed off as she moved away, laying back on her pillow and looking up at the ceiling.
He cursed. She didn’t recognize the word but she knew it was a curse. He leaned up on his elbow to look down at her. “I’m sorry, my love. I was a damned fool to ask you that.”
She moved her head back and forth in disagreement, and said tiredly, “No you were not a damned fool, and no Matthieu has not touched me.”
She saw the relief that swept across his face and returned her gaze to the ceiling. After a short silence, he said, “Then why do you look like that?”
She met his eyes. “I said before that this is immoral, Adam, but it isn’t. It’s my marriage to Matthieu that’s immoral. How can I remain his wife when I feel the way I do about you?” She lifted a finger and touched his mouth. “And Matthieu is not stupid.” Her eyes were solemn. “If I keep denying him he’ll suspect something.” She paused, then added, “He came to my room two nights ago. I sent him away, but he will come back.” “Six weeks,” he said. “In six weeks time it will all be finished, and you and I can be married.”
“And you aren’t going to kill Matthieu?”
“No. I am not going to kill Matthieu.” He smoothed a finger along her cheekbone. “I think it’s better if I don’t tell you, Nanda. You have enough to hide from Gacé as it is.”
“Perhaps it is better if I don’t know,” she agreed slowly. She turned her head so her lips touched his hand. “I must go.”
He kissed her throat. “Not yet,” he muttered.
Her hands buried themselves in his thick black hair. “No. Not yet.”
# # #
As the days passed, Nanda’s time was divided between the hours when she saw Adam at the cottage, and the empty hours in between. When she was with him, she felt confident that they would be together; but when he wasn’t there, she doubted that any real future stretched before them. So she clung to every hour of time that was left.
They tried to be discreet. They rarely attended the same social function, and, when they did, they never arrived together. Indeed, for the first time in their marriage, Gacé had become his wife’s steady escort. Nanda was afraid her husband might be suspicious about her feelings for Adam. If he did discover her affair, she wasn’t sure how he would take it. She thought that, for all his aristocratic cynicism, he wouldn’t like it at all. It wasn’t that he cared about her himself; it was more his sense of proprietorship that would be outraged.
One person their careful discretion didn’t fool was Charles Doune. He was standing at a reception at Lady Edgecombe’s one evening, talking to Miss Marrenby, wh
en he saw Adam come in. Charles noticed how his eyes swept quickly around the room, almost instantly locating Nanda. He watched his sister turn, as if she had felt his glance touch her. Their eyes met briefly, then Adam turned away and went to speak to Colonel Torrens.
Elizabeth Marrenby had observed the same thing as Charles, and now she looked at his handsome face, which was slightly puckered with a frown. “Your sister is so beautiful, Mr. Doune,” she said in her soft voice. “There is a kind of light shining out of her.” She hesitated, then went on, “I have always thought it was the light of goodness.”
Charles dark eyes looked at Miss Marrenby thoughtfully. “It surprises me to hear you say that,” he said; Elizabeth Marrenby’s partiality for Stanford had not escaped him.
A slight flush rose in her porcelain cheeks. “When I first came to London I was very unhappy. Mama knew so few people, you see; but then the Duchesse took me under her wing and introduced me .…” She broke off in some confusion.
“I understand perfectly,” Charles said. He had forgotten Nanda’s role in bringing this girl to the attention of the ton. He was slightly surprised to find that Elizabeth, now an accredited toast, still remembered Nanda’s kindness with so much gratitude. For the first time he looked at her with genuine interest, seeing not an heiress or an accredited beauty, but a nice girl who was aware of his distress and had tried to help. He began to see why Nanda had bothered with her. He smiled at her more warmly than he had yet done. “Would you care to drive in the park with me tomorrow afternoon, Miss Marrenby?” he asked, as two other young gentlemen bore down on them.
She gave him her sweet smile. “I should love to, Mr. Doune.”
# # #
While Charles, in his worry, turned more and more to the gentle, soothing company of Elizabeth Marrenby, Lady Crosby took more definite action. She had no objection to her nephew’s conducting a discreet affair with the Duchessee de Gacé, but her intuition, always keen when it came to matters of the heart, had been alerted by the look she had seen Nanda and Adam exchange at her ball. The passion contained in that look was the stuff that ripped apart the very fabric of social life. Lady Crosby had been born a Todd and she was not going to stand by while her brother’s heir, the future Head of the Family, did something that might bring about his own social ostracism.