by Louise Allen
‘It is Major Carlow,’ Julia said without thinking, and the pair pecked as though the reins had been jerked, just as her heart beat seemed to jolt in her chest.
‘Carlow? You know him?’ Fordyce’s normally pleas ant voice was cool.
Hal’s wretched reputation, he did warn me about that too… ‘He rescued me from a man who accosted me in the Parc,’ she said. ‘And he introduced me to Lady Geraldine at once; that is how I met her.’ She managed what she hoped was a light laugh. ‘I under stand he is the most terrible rake, but on that occasion, I would have welcomed the assistance of Bonaparte himself.’
‘Who would have been rather less detrimental to your reputation, I imagine,’ Charles said, sounding intolerably stuffy.
‘I am sure that would be the case, if I had continued round the Parc in Major Carlow’s company,’ she said stiffly. ‘As it was, he took pains to limit any damage that might arise from sanctimonious persons getting the wrong idea.’ Oh dear, now that sounds as though I have accused him of being a prig. And if only he knew it, he is right: Hal is dangerous.
Mr Fordyce obviously thought so too. ‘An unmarried lady cannot be too careful,’ he snapped. ‘One can only speculate upon why he has chosen to ride beside this carriage.’ He turned more obviously and stared at Hal. ‘I’ve a mind to call the fellow out—’
‘No! My goodness, please do not do any such thing!’ Julia grasped his forearm. ‘He is said to be lethal.’
‘—but I will not, lest your name were to be linked to the affair,’ Charles said, as if she had not spoken. ‘You will not, naturally, have anything more to do with him.’
‘What?’ Julia gasped. ‘I have no intention of doing so, but you have no business telling me with whom I may, or may not, associate, Mr Fordyce!’
‘I most certainly have, unless you have been playing fast and loose with me, Miss Tresilian.’ It was not easy, quarrelling in a moving carriage behind a team cantering through near darkness, but Charles Fordyce was obviously set on it.
‘You, sir, have been leaping to quite un war ranted conclusions,’ Julia snapped.
The big grey suddenly surged ahead of them, crossed between their team and the rear of the Masters’ carriage in front and was brought round to canter close beside Julia.
‘What the devil!’ Fordyce exclaimed.
‘Miss Tresilian, do you need assistance? You sounded distressed.’
Julia glared up at Hal, suddenly completely out of charity with the entire male sex. ‘I am perfectly fine, thank you, Major Carlow. Will you please go away?’ I would be as calm as a millpond, if it were not for you, she wanted to throw at him, confused at her own anger.
‘Ma’am.’ He spurred the horse ahead without looking back, leaving Julia fulminating beside an equally furious driver.
‘He has the nerve to ask if you are all right when you are driving with me?’ Charles Fordyce demanded. ‘That hell-born blood thinks you need protection from me?’
‘Mr Fordyce!’ Julia grabbed the side rail as the carriage lurched. ‘Will you kindly look to your horses and stop lecturing me and ranting about Major Carlow?’
‘Certainly, ma’am,’ he said between gritted teeth. ‘I apologise for boring you.’
‘Not at all,’ she replied, equally stiffly as they drove on in seething silence.
Well, at least I know he has an unpleasant jealous streak. Better to know now than after I have agreed to marry him, Julia thought, wondering how she was going to explain the disappearance of one of her handful of suitors to her mother and Lady Geraldine.
Chapter Five
Hal woke with a thundering hangover. He lay flat on his back trying to work out why, when he could recall no party. He was still in shirt and trousers and was wearing one boot; his mouth felt as though a flock of pigeons had been roosting in it over night and his head was split ting.
When he sat up with a groan, keeping his stomach in its right place with some difficulty, he saw the bottles on the floor and realized why. There had been no party. He had been drinking brandy—his foot knocked against a black bottle that rolled away and crashed into the others with nerve-jangling effect—and claret, all by himself.
‘What the hell?’ he enquired of the empty room as he squinted at the clock. Ten. He wasn’t on duty until the afternoon, thank God.
Julia. He had kissed her. Oh God, he had more than kissed her. He had almost debauched her, right there in that glade.
Hal got to his feet and lurched for the bell pull. Trying to think was damnably painful, and he didn’t seem to be doing very well. Keep going, he told himself. It will make sense eventually. But why? What came over me? There was only one answer to that: lust. Then he had seen Julia in the carriage with that smug secretary of Ellsworth’s so he had ridden along side, just to keep an eye on her. And she had been upset, he could hear it in her tone as she talked to the man, even if he could not hear her words. So he had asked her if she was all right, because no-one was going to distress Julia while he could help it—except, obviously himself—and something had gone wrong…
And then he’d been angry and… He couldn’t recall anything else. But whatever had happened, it had not involved either Julia or any other sort of satisfaction, otherwise he would not be ankle-deep in bottles.
‘M’sieu?’ The waiter flung the door back with his usual enthusiasm.
‘Silence!’ Hal started to shout, then dropped his voice to a hiss. ‘Coffee. Strong, black. Lots of it. Toast. Dry. And is Captain Grey in his room?’ The man nodded nervously. ‘Then ask him if he will come here, will you? Quietly.’
‘Headache?’ Grey asked with a cheerful lack of sympathy five minutes later, picking his way through discarded bottles and clothing.
‘You might say that.’ Hal sat on the edge of the bed and waited for the room to stop moving.
‘I thought you had the hardest head of any man I know,’ Grey observed with a grin. ‘How gratifying to find you are human after all.’
‘I do have the hardest head. And just now, the most painful. Will, did I challenge anyone last night?’
‘What? To a duel? No.’
‘Thank God for small mercies.’ So, he had ridden away, not challenged Fordyce for whatever quarrel he and Julia had been having. Such restraint surprised him.
It was not until he had drunk three cups of coffee, forced down two rolls and stuck his head into cold water that he remembered that Julia had told him to go away in a voice icy with anger, and he had gone, because, much though he wanted to quarrel with her companion, he wanted her to forgive him. And she was angry with him, not just with Fordyce.
‘There’s post.’ Will Grey strolled back in and poured himself some coffee from the second pot that Hal was working his way through. He tossed the heap onto the table, ignored Hal’s wince, and sorted through it.
‘Who’s that?’ Hal pulled the top one in his pile towards him. ‘Don’t recognize the writing.’
‘Open it,’ Grey suggested as he broke the seal on one of his, scattering wax shards all over the table. A waft of heavy perfume filled the air, revolting Hal’s stomach. ‘Ah, the divine Susannah.’
Hal opened it and glanced at the signature. Your obedient servant, Mil den hall, the strong black signature said. What the devil was Monty, Viscount Mil den hall, doing writing to him? He’d been at Monty’s wedding to Midge Hebden, back in February, but they were hardly regular correspondents, despite having both served together before Monty left the Army.
Despite his aching head, he grinned at the memory of the most chaotic wedding he had ever attended. The groom had dragged his bride up the aisle of St George’s, Hanover Square, and demanded that the vicar marry them, the vicar had protested that the bride was obviously unwilling, her relatives were swooning from mortification or glowering like thunder clouds, depending on their sex, and the bride was arguing with almost everyone. At this point Hal had been forced to stuff his handkerchief into his mouth and duck under cover of the pew in order to stifle his laughter.
Monty, a man of quiet determination, had not been an effective officer for nothing. He overcame both bride and cleric, and the couple were duly wed. It was not until Hal and his brother Marcus were back at the wedding break fast that Rick Bredon, Midge’s step-brother, drew them to one side to explain the chaos.
Hal’s reminiscent grin faded. Midge had been stopped on the steps of the church by a man claiming to be her half-brother, Stephen Hebden. Midge, affectionate and impulsive as ever, had wanted him to come into the church, only for him to be violently rejected by her uncle until Monty, marching out to find his bride, had stopped the argument. By which time the man had gone.
Rick, whose father had tried to find Midge’s half-brother for years and believed him dead, was adamant that the man was an impostor, but Hal had known better. Stephen Hebden, also known as Stephano Beshaley, was the illegitimate son of Midge’s father and his Gypsy lover and a sworn enemy of the Carlow family, and of the family of Marcus Carlow’s wife, Nell Wardale.
The reason for his hatred was a mystery that they were only slowly unravelling. All they really knew was that it reached back twenty years to the days when Hal’s father, the Earl of Narborough; Nell’s father, William Wardale, the Earl of Leybourne and Midge and Stephan’s father, Kit Hebden, Baron Framling ham, had worked together to unmask a French spy at the heart of government.
Hebden, the code breaker, had been murdered, apparently by Wardale, who went to the gallows for the crime while his best friend George Carlow, Lord Narborough, stood by, convinced of his culpability. His father, Hal knew, had never recovered from his sense of guilt over that. With their title and their lands attaindered, the Wardale family had slipped into poverty and lost contact with each other. Midge’s mother had remarried.
And then, for some reason no-one could fathom, the old scandal had resurfaced last year in a series of attacks on the three families that all seemed to centre on Stephen Hebden. Hal felt the cold anger sweep over him again as he recalled the night mare.
But the more they had discovered, the more people who were drawn into the mess, the less they under stood, even with the assistance of old family friend Robert Veryan, Lord Ked din ton. Although Veryan was high in government circles, even he could not explain it.
When Hal was last home on leave, Marcus had said that he suspected someone else must be involved, that it could not just be Stephano Beshaley, ruthlessly fulfilling his mother’s dying curse on the three families.
Hal shook his head, winced and focused on the letter.
My dear Carlow,
I have been in some trouble to decide what best to do in this matter, but, given that I know you better than your brother, I have decided to write to you.
You will recall the events that disturbed my wed ding in February. Despite my best efforts, my wife continues to associate with her half-brother, Beshaley. Midge, bless her, would believe the best of Beelzebub.
Damn it, this was what he feared. Had another of Beshaley’s calling cards—silken ropes that recalled the execution of a peer—been found? If it had, danger at worst, scandal and ruined reputations at best, were to be expected.
You will for give me, I hope, for refer ring to the gossip that arose when your sister-in-law resumed her place in Society. That, and the other incidents affecting the three families, have been well-managed by those concerned. But now murmurings have come to my ears from busy-bodies who delight intelling me gossip affecting Midge. Speculation is resurfacing about the old scandal.
To be frank, there is doubt thrown on Wardale’s guilt as the murderer. Hebden died in your father’s arms, out side your father’s own study. I will tell you this bluntly, as in your shoes I would prefer to be told—there are whispers at the highest level that it is suspicious that Lord Narborough did nothing to help clear Wardale’s name, despite the fact that they were close friends.
I have tried, discreetly, to find the source of these rumours, for the respect I have for you from our days fighting together, and for the friend ship Midge has for your sister Verity. But it is like chasing a wisp of smoke.
Nothing is spoken of that links your father’s name with the spy’s treachery—that aspect of the original murder is still not common knowledge. But whispers about Wardale’s liaison with Midge’s mother are circulating, along with comments that your father is known to hold the strongest of views on marital infidelity. Without an understanding of the work the three men were engaged on, a puritanical aversion to adultery is no motive to be taken seriously for murder. But once spying is added to the mix, at this time when the whole country is in uproar over the renewed French menace, God knows what stories will be spun.
I hope this warning will suffice to put you on your guard to protect your father and your family. I imagine you could well do with out this news, just when the great confrontation with Napoleon is looming. I envy you the opportunity to take part in that fight.
For myself, with a happy event expected in the autumn, I only want to keep Midge safe from the poisonous webs her half-brother weaves.
Believe me, my dear Carlow,
Your obedient servant,
Mildenhall
‘Hell and damnation.’ Hal tossed the letter onto the table and tried to think. He had two conflicting duties, but the priority was clear. He must not follow his immediate instinct and go home: Napoleon could make his move at any moment, this was no time to take leave. All he could do was to write to warn Marcus.
‘Problems?’ Grey raised a languid eyebrow. ‘I’ll swap you for my mail; it is all bills—and Susannah wanting a new gown. Could I have spent so much at my snyder when I was last in town? Hard to believe.’
‘You don’t want this,’ Hal said casually. ‘Legal problems with some tiresome old family legacy. And yes, I can believe your tailor’s bill is astronomical.’ He stood up, letter in hand. ‘I’d better write to my brother, I suppose.’
‘I’ll leave you to it.’ Grey ambled out, coffee cup in hand. ‘See you at luncheon?’
Hal shuddered at the thought of food, although he knew he was going to have to eat. ‘Yes.’ As the door shut, he flipped open his writing desk and un screwed the top of the ink pot. Best to send Monty’s letter as an enclosure, save rewriting the lot.
Marcus, he scrawled.
Read this. What the hell is going on? Can’t some one put a bullet in the bastard?
Say the pretty to the parents and my love to Nell and the girls,
Yr. affect. brother,
Hal
Not his greatest literary work, but the best he could do with this headache. Hal folded Mildenhall’s letter inside his own, sealed it in four places and wrote the country address on it, adding To be for warded, just in case Marcus had taken it into his head to travel. He doubted it. His sister-in-law was increasing again and Marcus, deeply protective, was certain to have her tucked away in deepest Hertfordshire.
Monty about to be a father, Marcus with a little son already and another child on the way. People no sooner got married than they were fathering brats, he thought irritably, despite the fact he was fond of young William George Carlow. He was half way to the bell pull to have the letter taken down, when a mental picture of Julia with one hand resting protectively on the swell of her belly hit him like a blow.
He made a sharp gesture of shocked repudiation. First he had almost ravished her, now his imagination had made the wild leap to her carrying his child. Which she might well be, if some shreds of self-control hadn’t saved them both yesterday. He tried to recall what had stopped him, but he couldn’t, it was all too confused. But one thing was clear: this could go no further. There was no way he could allow himself to see her again.
Julia tried hard to look regretful while Mama and Lady Geraldine regarded her with expressions of deep disappointment over their tea cups. She was not used to disappointing anyone and it was an unpleasant novelty. ‘You quarrelled with Mr Fordyce?’ Mrs Tresilian said in tones of disbelief. ‘But you never quarrel with anyone, Julia. Y
ou would never do anything so un lady like, surely?’
‘He was priggish and jealous beyond bearing,’ she said, setting her cup down with a rattle. So much for making a clean breast of it—of some of it, she corrected herself—you got lectured. Being a fast and disobedient young lady was beginning to have its attractions. ‘I was sharp with him.’
‘Jealous of whom?’ Lady Geraldine enquired. ‘Mr Smyth or the colonel?’
‘Major Carlow,’ Julia said, hurling oil on flames.
‘Hal Carlow!’
‘But you said he was a rake, Julia,’ Mrs Tresilian said into the silence that followed Lady Geraldine’s exclamation. ‘What could you possibly have done with him to make Mr Fordyce jealous?’
‘Nothing,’ she denied vehemently, managing to blush rosily at the same time. She had done nothing that Charles Fordyce knew about, that was true. But she had done more than enough with Hal Carlow to send her mother into fits of the vapours.
‘Julia,’ her mother began as Lady Geraldine’s eye brows arched in surprise.
‘I let slip that I know him. So Mr Fordyce treated me to a lecture on the danger to my reputation. Which he had no call to do,’ she added hotly, guilt making her protest too much. ‘Anyone would think he had made me an offer.’
‘Who?’ Mrs Tresilian gasped. ‘Which of them? What kind of offer?’
‘Mr Fordyce. Marriage,’ Julia said, hanging on to her temper with difficulty. ‘But he has not.’ What was the matter with her? She never lost her temper, never answered Mama back. And now listen to her!