A Whisper of Treason

by Connolly, Lynne

“Yes, indeed. Her ladyship has been most kind to us.”

  Signor Raffetti bowed, and wished her good day.

  She had turned to walk to the Trensom house, when another man bowed to her. Lord Joshua Stuart.

  Damnation, she would have to face him, after all.

  So she paused to speak to him.

  “May I walk with you? Are you on your way to the Duke of Trensom’s? I have a little business with the attaché.”

  He offered his arm. She slid her hand under it, since to refuse would be churlish. But they were in public, with other people taking the air.

  He looked very fine today, dressed formally, in curled white wig, the skirts of his green coat stiff with buckram, his neckcloth a snowy perfection of folds.

  “I want to apologize to you, as I could not at the ball. That wouldn’t have been appropriate,” he said quietly. “The disturbance at Kilsyth’s—I was shocked, taken aback. I acted on the spur of the moment.”

  “I understand.” She wouldn’t let this upset her day. Despite the work they still had to do, a sense of buoyancy remained with her.

  They walked briskly, so when a carriage door opened in front of them, Lord Joshua nearly walked straight into it.

  The horses, four of them, were chafing to be gone, the harness clinking as they stamped and huffed.

  Without warning, Lord Joshua seized Delphi’s waist, lifted her, turned and threw her into the vehicle forcing her to pitch forward. Shock arced through her like lightning.

  Shouts of “Stop him!” and “Get them!” came from somewhere behind her.

  She landed on the floor of the coach. She had little time to speculate because a heavy weight landed on top of her, knocking the breath from her body. She heard an ominous crack and pain jolted through her. Whoever had dived in rolled off her almost immediately, but the coach was in motion now, the horses setting a fearsome pace.

  “Oh, dear, that was unfortunate.” Lord Joshua reached out and grabbed the door strap, dragging it closed at the vehicle picked up pace. He didn’t sound half as out of breath as she did. If he hadn’t winded her, she could have shouted and raised the alarm.

  The footman assigned to take care of her was not with them. At least someone would have seen the move, so quick and smooth most would not have seen it.

  She rolled up, sitting on the floor of the coach, still too out of breath to do anything more. Glancing out of the window, she saw landmarks that indicated they were heading out of the city at full-tilt, taking the route she had once before when she’d visited Lady Billingham.

  Gasping, she managed to speak. “What are you doing? Where are you taking me?”

  “We’re going to visit a friend,” he said.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Knowing his lady wife was safe, Adam made his way to the piazza. The usual crowd was there, sitting outside the café and gossiping, exchanging the time of day, and watching the activity in the square. Several hailed Adam, and he forced a smile and touched his hat in acknowledgement. He wasn’t here for them.

  He went to the shop. The proprietor, seeing Adam, nodded and beckoned to the back of the establishment. “I have something back here that you will find of interest, excellency,” he said. “I have saved it for you.” He spoke in Italian.

  Adam tucked his hand in his pocket, touching the purse he had there. He left his footmen outside the shop, and edged his way past the newly carved statues and “ancient” paintings where the paint was still wet, to the private room.

  In the back room, a small statue stood ready, placed on a rough table pushed against the wall. Another man was working at the other side, stroking something brown onto a piece of marble. “Ageing it,” his contact said. The room stank of vinegar and coffee, a thick aroma of burning wood overlaying it all.

  “You are so blatant that you do it on the premises?”

  The man shrugged. “Not usually. But this is a special order. You know what we do, Signor.”

  Adam admitted that he did.

  “I know nothing of anything else.”

  Adam nodded. Seeing art entering and leaving the premises would make nobody suspicious. Having people entering and leaving without taking anything at all would alert anyone watching that all was not what it seemed. The shopkeeper could also plead ignorance if he was caught.

  Adam ran his hand over the statue. The rough finish abraded his palm. “Who is it?”

  “Hercules.” The man paused. “Penso che.”

  Adam doubted it, too. Perhaps even the sculptor didn’t know. This statue was much lighter than the other; he suspected a plaster base under the mottled faux marble. “Grazie. Half for you, half for the other.” He handed over the purse. The man weighed it in his hand and nodded.

  “A moment,” Adam added. “Do you know anything about a sparrow?”

  The man stared at him, but before he could speak, another voice came from behind Adam. “He does not, but I do.”

  “Frederick!”

  Spinning around, Adam welcomed his brother with open arms.

  After much hugging and back slapping, and Frederick’s hearty congratulations on Adam’s marriage, they finally separated, and Adam had the chance to study his brother.

  Frederick looked thinner, but fit and well. Adam was satisfied. “You shouldn’t be here,” he said. “You’ll be in too much danger.”

  Frederick shook his head. “I’m found out. Or they are. I don’t know. The people I knew, the ones I thought were my fellow conspirators have evaporated like water turning into steam. Nowhere to be found. Presumably they’ve gone to ground.”

  “So, what next?”

  “I’m done.” He grimaced. “I’ve been getting nowhere. We meet, they talk, discuss schemes and then in the next meeting, they do it all over again. I can identify the ones I met, and that will have to serve.” He shrugged. “I can do no more. Either they don’t trust me, or they’re a group of wheedlers.”

  “You’re sure?” Adam tried in vain to quell the rising happiness in his gut.

  Frederick nodded. “I’m not made for spy work, for which I’m heartily glad.”

  He looked it, too, his face clear for the first time in a while. Certainly since Adam had seen him last.

  “And I’m sure I know who the ringleader is.”

  That was news. Adam gave himself a moment to absorb the casually-given information. “Who?”

  “Let me explain.” Frederick perched a buttock on the end of a bench nearest to him. It held. “The poor woman who was murdered gave me the clue.”

  “Mariella Passero?”

  As he said the words, he made the connection. “Oh, God. Passero is Italian for sparrow.” He struck his forehead with the heel of his hand.

  “Yes, it is. Did you not get the reference? I sent you the note in the old code that we used as boys.”

  That was news to Adam. “After much effort, we managed to translate it. I don’t remember using a code like that. Ever.”

  Frederick rolled his eyes. “We spent a whole morning developing it when our tutor was ill. You remember, you must. It was the same day Mother gave you your first horse.”

  He remembered the horse well enough. “The day she finally decided I could ride a proper horse instead of a pony? And then gave me Bonner? That day?”

  “Yes, that was the horse’s name, of course. Yes, that day.”

  Adam couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You think that I’d remember a dry academic exercise on the day I was given my first horse?” It was his turn to roll his eyes. “How could you expect me to remember anything else?”

  He remembered the day, and his excitement when his mother had called him to the stables and given him the chestnut gelding. Adam had loved him from the first moment he’d set eyes on him. These days, Bonner lived in honorable retirement in Adam’s stables, eating oats every day. Too old to be mounted, but still much loved. Unlike his brother, who, despite Adam’s delight in seeing him again, he was minded to beat to a pulp.

  “I don�
��t remember anything except Bonner.”

  “But I sent you messages in code after we invented it.”

  “Did you? I don’t remember them.”

  Frederick frowned. “I’m sure I did. Wait.” He bit his lip. “Maybe it was John Anderson.”

  The steward’s son, and their childhood playmate, who took lessons with them. A studious boy, who was currently a professor at Oxford, thanks to Adam’s patronage. “That would be more interesting to him. If I got a note, I didn’t take any notice of it.” And Frederick had assumed that Adam would remember the code. With a touch of malice, he added, “Delphi soon broke it, though.”

  “She did?” He slapped Adam on the back. “Congratulations. News like that even penetrated my fastness. That was what spurred me to act. I’ve been bumping along, getting nowhere. From what I’ve heard of her, you have a pearl beyond price in that woman.”

  “I know it.” And he did. “Heath provided the Gaelic.”

  “Didn’t Father insist that you learn it?”

  Adam nodded. “He did, but Mother countermanded the order when the government banned it. I’m not exactly fluent.”

  Enough of reminiscing. They didn’t have time for that. “So you believe Mariella Passero is the sparrow?”

  Frederick’s mouth flattened. “Of course she was. Mariella had caches all over Rome. She preferred to bury her gold rather than leave it in a bank. She didn’t trust banks.”

  “So she put your list in one of those caches?”

  Solemn now, Frederick nodded. “I’ve seen the list and memorized it. But not the leader, not at that point. She must have been on her way home when she was waylaid and murdered. Most likely by her lover.”

  “Why do you say that?” He wouldn’t say the name here, because walls had ears. But Lord Joshua Stuart was the last lover she’d had that they knew about.

  “Because I saw him as I was going home. I avoided him, in case he recognized me, but I saw him. By Trajan’s Column. Loitering, evidently waiting for someone.”

  “Do you have any other evidence?”

  Frederick nodded. “One of the conspirators, a man we knew as Exeter, referred to their leader as Stuart. Just once. He was usually known as Plymouth. But that once, he said it, and I heard it, though I pretended not to. At the time, I assumed it was The Old Pretender. He’s the usual Stuart, is he not?”

  “And you went to him.”

  “I did. And gave him the brooch as a token.”

  Adam grunted. “At the time, I thought he had captured you and locked you away somewhere. He said you’d given it to him, but he could have taken it, couldn’t he?”

  Frederick shook his head. “You thought he was involved, didn’t you?”

  The sounds of the workshop, steady hammering of metal on stone, and the smells of burning reminded Adam of reality. This conversation was as real as that, as real as his marriage. “Yes. He wanted to know what Trensom was up to, used the brooch to make me think he had you.”

  “Not the conspiracy. That man has spies everywhere. The more information he has, the happier he feels. And he wanted to turn you into one of his spies.”

  “But he didn’t. And he’s not involved in the plot, although he knows about it. He told me, and I believe him, that he would never agree to a conspiracy that resulted in the deaths of kings. He still believes that kingship is God-given. To conspire would put him on the same level as Cromwell.”

  “To conspire with lesser mortals, to plot an assassination, is wrong. According to their morals, at any rate.”

  “Not The Old Pretender, then. What about the younger?”

  Frederick nodded. “He’s a broken man, Adam. He drinks, he has doubled in weight, he argues with his mistresses and knocks them about. That’s all he does these days. You saw him, didn’t you?”

  Adam grunted. “When I was looking for you, yes. In fact, he’s a drunk. But people might construct a conspiracy around him.” Having tested the theory, he found it wanting. “No. His father has him watched. He wouldn’t allow it.”

  “My thoughts exactly.” Frederick slipped off the table and took a few steps into the room. Then he paced back. “But Lord Joshua Stuart, mind, he could do it. He is related to the royal Stuarts. Several generations back, but it’s there.”

  “You think Lord Joshua wants to be king?” Adam asked. He tried to reconcile himself to the idea. He was predisposed to like Stuart, even though he’d been Adam’s rival for Delphi’s hand.

  The idea of the affable Joshua Stuart having aspirations to the throne sounded foolish at first. Until he thought some more. As he’d told Delphi, the Stuarts fell into two types. The clever, cynical sort, and the idealistic but not bright sort. A terrible generalization, but the pattern had held. Joshua had considerable intelligence, and he had made his own way, much as King Charles the Second had done in exile. He lived in Rome. He could be a Catholic. And if he had a claim to the throne of Britain, he might have worked towards making it even more likely.

  Frederick was right. With the new information reverberating in his mind, Adam gave his brother a short nod. “Beauchamp is sitting in the café, Lord Joshua’s brother. I saw him as I crossed the square. Let’s go and talk to him.”

  Beauchamp’s friends were just leaving his table, and the duke with them. Adam checked him with an upraised hand, palm out. “Do you have a moment, your grace?”

  Beauchamp’s lined face screwed up in annoyance, and he opened his mouth to what Adam could see was a refusal. Then he looked over Adam’s shoulder and saw who was standing there. His face smoothed out, as much as it could. “Who is this?”

  Adam stepped aside. “May I introduce my brother, Major Lord Frederick Glinn? Frederick, this is his grace, the Duke of Beauchamp.”

  The men exchanged punctilious bows.

  “A soldier, eh?” the duke said. “Why aren’t you in uniform?”

  “I’m on leave,” Frederick answered tersely.

  The duke raised his brows, but nodded and indicated the seats his friends had just left. “Please, sit.” He raised his voice slightly, so his departing friends could hear him. “I’ll catch up with you.”

  Two of the half-dozen people waved their acknowledgements as they walked away.

  Beauchamp signaled for service and a waiter returned to the interior of the café.

  “I do admit to liking this practice,” Adam said easily. “A place one can come with one’s womenfolk and share the day.”

  “As long as the womenfolk are respectable,” the duke added. “Do you have a fancy-piece in keeping?”

  Adam answered the intrusive question with equanimity. “No, sir. Do you?”

  The duke held out his hand and waggled it, in a maybe, maybe not gesture.

  “We are both newly married, after all,” Adam said. “And you have some excellent news.”

  “My wife has proved perfectly satisfactory. I have high expectations of ousting my brother from the succession.”

  An unpleasant way of putting it, but at least Adam didn’t have to bring the subject of Lord Joshua into the conversation.

  The duke jabbed a finger at Frederick. “Have you met him? My brother?”

  Frederick scratched his nose. In Adam’s experience, it was a sign of discomfiture. “I’ve not had the pleasure, your grace. He seems a sensible, intelligent man.” A good, neutral assessment, leaving plenty of room for Beauchamp to add his own comments.

  Beauchamp growled. It sounded as if he were about to clear his throat. “Far too intelligent for his own good. I have suspicions about that young man. He’s like my Uncle Charles, too volatile, and certainly not suitable for the honor of the title. Why do you think he’s spent all this time abroad?”

  Adam leaned back to allow the waiter to place their coffee on the table. “I assumed he found a way of making a living.”

  “He did that all right and tight.” Beauchamp didn’t sound happy. “Told me that he deals in antiquities. I’ve seen no proof of it. I think he’s getting his money in other
ways.”

  “The antiquity market is flourishing,” Adam commented. “Considerable fortunes can be made.”

  Beauchamp raised a sparse brow. “You doubt my word?”

  Adam shrugged. “Not at all, sir. Merely an observation.”

  Beauchamp grunted. “He has become involved with some extremely unsavory characters. I prefer that my wife doesn’t pay him too much attention. He seems charmed by her, but then the duchess has that gift. She is too trusting and too generous.”

  That didn’t sound like the Elizabeth Adam knew. But this time, he kept his counsel. “Indeed, sir, you are to be congratulated. How do your daughters feel about the news?”

  He shrugged. “How do I know? I rarely have reason to communicate with them. I did my duty, and found them good husbands.”

  Adam said, “I found husbands for my sisters.” But in reality, they had found their own. He couldn’t imagine treating his sisters so casually.

  But his words seemed to satisfy Beauchamp. “A man has to ensure his fortune the best way he can. The world is an unforgiving place.”

  It certainly was, with people like him in the House of Lords.

  Adam disliked Beauchamp with every cell in his body, but he would not allow it to affect his behavior now. But when he returned to Britain, he was damned if he’d ever willingly entertain the man again. Beauchamp made his skin crawl.

  “Has the duchess taken your brother’s side?”

  Beauchamp scoffed. “Of course not. She does as I tell her. I presume the same can be said of your new wife?”

  “Naturally.” Adam suppressed his laughter. If he ordered Delphi to do something she didn’t agree with, she would never meekly bow down and obey. He admired the independent thought of his wife. He would continue to encourage it.

  “Hmm.” The duke slurped his coffee. Presumably, his teeth didn’t fit all that well. Adam wondered who had sacrificed their teeth so that Beauchamp could sport them. “She has a tenderness entirely suitable for a female, but I do not wish her to consort with him.”

  “You say he knows unsavory people,” Adam said, keeping his face and voice cool. “That sounds alarming. Will you rein him in?”