When Amy was ten, the illustrated newsletters announced that the Scarlet Pimpernel had retired upon discovery of his identity – although the newsletters were rather unclear as to whether they or the French government had been the first to get the scoop. SCARLET PIMPERNEL UNMASKED! proclaimed the Shropshire Intelligencer. Meanwhile The Cosmopolitan Lady’s Book carried a ten-page spread on ‘Fashions of the Scarlet Pimpernel: Costume Tips from the Man Who Brought You the French Aristocracy.’
Amy was devastated. True, the Pimpernel had botched her father’s rescue, but, on the whole, his tally of aristocrats saved was quite impressive, and who on earth was she to offer her French language skills to if the Pimpernel retired? Amy was all ready to start constructing her own band when a line in the article in the Shropshire Intelligencer caught her eye. ‘I have every faith that the Purple Gentian will take up where I was forced to leave off,’ they reported Sir Percy as saying.
Puzzled, Amy shoved the paper at Jane. ‘Who is the Purple Gentian?’
The same question was on everyone else’s lips. Soon the Purple Gentian became a regular feature in the news sheets. One week, he spirited fifteen aristocrats out of Paris as a travelling circus. The Purple Gentian, it was whispered, had played the dancing bear. Why, some said Robespierre himself had patted the animal on the head, never knowing it was his greatest enemy! When France stopped killing its aristocrats and directed its attention to fighting England instead, the Purple Gentian became the War Office’s most reliable spy.
‘This victory would never have happened, but for the bravery of one man – one man represented by a small purple flower,’ Admiral Nelson announced after destroying the French fleet in Egypt.
English and French alike were united in their burning curiosity to learn the identity of the Purple Gentian. Speculation ran rife on both sides of the Channel. Some claimed the Purple Gentian was an English aristocrat, a darling of the London ton like Sir Percy Blakeney. Indeed, some said he was Sir Percy Blakeney, fooling the foolish French by returning under a different name. London gossip named everyone from Beau Brummel (on the grounds that no one could genuinely be that interested in fashion) to the Prince of Wales’s dissolute brother, the Duke of York. Others declared that the Purple Gentian must be an exiled French noble, fighting for his homeland. Some said he was a soldier; others said he was a renegade priest. The French just said he was a damned nuisance. Or they would have, had they the good fortune to speak English. Instead, being French, they were forced to say it in their own language.
Amy said he was her hero.
She only said it to Jane, of course. All of the old plans were revived, only this time it was the League of the Purple Gentian to whom Amy planned to offer her services.
But the years went by, Amy remained in Shropshire, and the only masked man she saw was her small cousin Ned playing at being a highwayman. At times Amy considered running away to Paris, but how would she even get there? With war raging between England and France, normal travel across the Channel had been disrupted. Amy began to despair of ever reaching France, much less finding the Purple Gentian. She envisioned a dreary future of pastoral peace.
Until Edouard’s letter.
‘I thought I’d find you here.’
‘What?’ Amy was jolted out of her blissful contemplation of Edouard’s letter, as a blue flounce brushed against her arm.
A basket of wildflowers on Jane’s arm testified to a walk along the grounds, but she bore no sign of outdoor exertion. No creases dared to settle in the folds of her muslin dress; her pale brown hair remained obediently coiled at the base of her neck; and even the loops of the bow holding her bonnet were remarkably even. Aside from a bit of windburn on her pale cheeks, she might have been sitting in the parlour all afternoon.
‘Mama has been looking all over for you. She wants to know what you did with her skein of rose-pink embroidery silk.’
‘What makes her think I have it? Besides,’ Amy cut off what looked to be a highly logical response from Jane with a wave of Edouard’s letter, ‘who can think of embroidery silks when this just arrived?’
‘A letter? Not another love poem from Derek?’
‘Ugh!’ Amy shuddered dramatically. ‘Really, Jane! What a vile thought! No’ – she leant forward, lowering her voice dramatically – ‘it’s a letter from Edouard.’
‘Edward?’ Jane, being Jane, automatically gave the name its English pronunciation. ‘So he has finally deigned to remember your existence after all these years?’
‘Oh, Jane, don’t be harsh! He wants me to go live with him!’
Jane dropped her basket of flowers.
‘You can’t be serious, Amy!’
‘But I am! Isn’t it glorious!’ Amy joined her cousin in gathering up scattered blooms, piling them willy-nilly back in the basket with more enthusiasm than grace.
‘What exactly does Edward’s letter say?’
‘It’s splendid, Jane! Now that we’re no longer at war, he says it’s finally safe for me to come back. He says he wants me to act as hostess for him.’
‘But are you sure it’s safe?’ Jane’s grey eyes darkened with concern.
Amy laughed. ‘It’s not all screaming mobs, Jane. After all, Bonaparte has been consul for – how long has it been? Three years now? Actually, that’s exactly why Edouard wants me there. Bonaparte is desperately trying to make his jumped-up, murderous, usurping government look legitimate…’
‘Not that you’re at all biased,’ murmured Jane.
‘…so he’s been courting the old nobility,’ Amy went on, pointedly ignoring her cousin’s comment. ‘But the courting has mostly been going on through his wife Josephine – she has a salon for the ladies of the old regime – so Edouard needs me to be his entrée.’
‘To that jumped-up, murderous, usurping government?’
Jane’s voice was politely quizzical.
Amy tossed a daisy at her in annoyance. ‘Make fun all you like, Jane! Don’t you see? This is exactly the opportunity I needed!’
‘To become the belle of Bonaparte’s court?’
Amy forbore to waste another flower. ‘No.’ She clasped her hands, eyes gleaming. ‘To join the League of the Purple Gentian!’
Chapter Two
The Purple Gentian was not having a good day. Lord Richard Selwick, second son of the Marquess of Uppington, prime object of matchmaking mamas, and chief foiler of Napoleonic ambitions, stood in the front hall of his parents’ London home and scuffed his boots like a sulky schoolboy.
‘That will be enough of that.’ His mother shook her head at him in fond exasperation, setting the egret feathers precariously perched on her coiffure wafting in the still air of the front hall. ‘It’s an evening at Almack’s, not a firing squad.’
‘But, Mother…’ Richard caught the whine in his own voice and winced. Bloody hell. What was it about being home that instantly drove him back to the manners and maturity of a twelve-year-old?
Richard took a deep breath and made sure his voice came out in its proper register. ‘Look, Mother, I’m quite busy right now. I’m only in London for another two weeks, and there are a number of things…’
His mother made a noise that in anyone of lower rank than a countess would have been given the unmannerly name of snort. As a cowed member of the ton had once commented, ‘Nobody harrumphs quite like the Marchioness of Uppington.’
‘Tush!’ His mother waved his words away with a sweep of her feathery fan. ‘Just because you’re a secret agent doesn’t mean that you can put off settling down forever. Really, Richard.’ She took a furtive look around the hall to make sure no servants were in evidence, as, after all, it wouldn’t do to have her son’s secret identity getting out, and servants did gossip so. Having ascertained that none were about, she warmed to her theme. ‘You’re nearly thirty already! Just because you’re the Purple Gentian – ridiculous name! – doesn’t mean that you don’t have responsibilities!’
‘I’d say saving Europe from a tyrant is a jolly
good responsibility,’ Richard muttered under his breath. Unfortunately, the marble foyer had excellent acoustics.
‘I meant responsibilities to your family. What if the Uppington title were to die out entirely because you couldn’t be bothered to spend one little evening at Almack’s and meet a nice girl? Hmmm?’ She cocked her head to one side, narrowing her green eyes at him, green eyes which were, Richard thought sourly, altogether too shrewd for either his good or hers. His mother, as he knew from unfortunate past experience, had the rhetorical slipperiness of Cicero, the vocal endurance of an opera singer, and the sheer bloody-minded tenacity of Napoleon Bonaparte. Sometimes Richard had the sinking suspicion that he had a far better chance of preventing Bonaparte from conquering Europe than he had of thwarting his mother’s plans to see him married off within the next Season.
Nonetheless, Richard battled on valiantly. ‘Mother, Charles has produced a child for every year he’s been married. I sincerely doubt that the title is in any danger.’
His mother frowned. ‘Accidents do happen. But that’s not even to be thought of.’ Reconsidering her tactics, Lady Uppington began to pace along the expanse of the foyer, bronze silk skirts swishing in time to her steps. ‘What I meant to point out was that sooner or later you’re going to have to give up playing at espionage.’
Richard’s jaw dropped. Playing at espionage? He shot his mother a look of equal parts outrage and incredulity. Just who had provided Nelson the intelligence that destroyed Napoleon’s fleet at Aboukir? And who had prevented four determined French assassins from murdering the king in his gardens at Kew? Lord Richard Selwick, alias the Purple Gentian, that was who! Had he not been constrained by the immense respect and filial affection he bore his mother, Richard would have produced a harrumph that would put the marchioness’s to shame.
But as all this never made its way from Richard’s mind to his mouth, his mother blithely carried on with her lecture. ‘All this gadding about on the Continent – you’ve been at it for almost a decade, Richard. Even Percy retired after he met his Marguerite.’
‘Percy retired because the French discovered he was the Scarlet Pimpernel,’ Richard grumbled unthinkingly. Hit by a sudden, horrible surmise, he jerked his head up. ‘Mother, you wouldn’t…’
Lady Uppington paused in her perambulations. ‘No, I wouldn’t,’ she said regretfully. For a moment, she gazed dreamily off at an arrangement of flowers in one of the alcoves in the wall. ‘Such a pity. It would be so effective.’
Shaking her head as if to whisk away the temptation of the thought, she resumed her brisk progress around the room. ‘Darling, you know I could never sabotage you. And you know both your father and I are terribly proud of you. Don’t think we don’t appreciate that you trusted us enough to confide in us. Look at poor Lady Falconstone – she only found out her son was an agent for the War Office after he was captured by that French spy and they started sending her all of those nasty ransom notes in French. And he never even had a special name or made it into the illustrated papers.’ The marchioness indulged in a maternal smirk. ‘We just want to see you happy,’ she finished earnestly.
Sensing another maternal oration coming on, one of those I-bore-you-and-thus-know-what’s-best-for-you lectures, Richard made a pointed move towards the door. ‘If that’s all for the moment, Mother, I really must be off. The War Office…’
The marchioness gave another of her infamous harrumphs. ‘Have a good time at White’s, darling,’ she said pointedly.
Richard paused halfway out the door and flashed her an incredulous look. ‘How do you always know?’
Lady Uppington looked smug. ‘Because I’m your mother. Now, shoo! Get along with you!’
As the door closed behind him, Richard heard his mother call out gleefully, ‘Almack’s at nine! Don’t forget to wear knee breeches!’
The banging of the door drowned out Richard’s heartfelt groan. Knee breeches. Bloody hell. It had been so long since he had last been dragged by the ear through the dreaded doors of Almack’s Assembly Rooms that he had completely forgotten about the knee breeches. Richard looked understandably glum as he headed down Upper Brook Street towards St James Street. The prospect was enough to send anyone into a precipitate decline that would make the consumptive Keats and drugged Coleridge look like strapping specimens of British manhood. How did his mother contrive to rope him into these things? If the Foreign Office had thought to let his mother loose on France…she’d probably have the entire country married off within a month.
‘Afternoon, Selwick!’
Richard absently nodded to an acquaintance in a passing curricle. As it was just after five, the hour for flirting while on horseback, a steady stream of fashionable people in carriages or on horseback passed Richard as they made their way to Hyde Park. Richard smiled and nodded by rote, but his mind was already slipping away, across the Channel, to his work in France.
When he was very little, Richard had resolved to be a hero. It might have had something to do with his mother reading him the more stirring bits of Henry V at far too young an age. Richard charged about the nursery, duelling with invisible Frenchmen. Or maybe it came from afternoons playing King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table in the gardens with his father. For years Richard was convinced that the Holy Grail lay hidden under the floor of the ornamental Greek temple his mother used for tea parties. When Richard appeared with a shovel and a pickaxe while the Dowager Duchess of Dovedale was partaking of an al fresco tea, his mother was not amused. She declared an end to the grail-searching sessions at once.
Sent to Eton to learn the classics, Richard raced through the adventures of Odysseus and Aeneas, earning an utterly undeserved reputation as a scholar. Richard burnt for the day when he could set out on his own adventures.
There was only one problem. There seemed to be very little call for heroes nowadays. He had, he realised, the ill fortune to be living in a time of singular peace and civility. Other employment would have to be found.
With that in mind, Richard looked first to estate management. He did have his own little estate, but the steward was a genial man of middle years, universally liked and unusually competent. There was little for Richard to do but ride about making polite conversation with his tenants and kissing the occasional baby. There was certainly something satisfying about it, but Richard knew that playing the role of gentleman farmer would leave him bored and restless.
So Richard did what any other young man in his position would do. He set out to become a rake. By the time he was sixteen, the second son of the Marquess of Uppington was a familiar figure in the fashionable gaming dens and bawdy houses of London. He played faro for high stakes, drove his horses too fast, and changed his mistresses as frequently as he did his linen. But he was still bored.
And then, just when Richard had resigned himself to a life of empty debauchery, good fortune smiled upon him in the form of the French Revolution. For hundreds of years, the Uppington estates had adjoined those of the Blakeneys. Richard had spent countless afternoons hunting with Sir Percy, raiding his kitchens for tarts, and kicking about the Blakeney library, reading Percy’s extensive collection of classical works, all of which contained bookplates with the Blakeney coat of arms, which happened to contain a small scarlet flower. When the Scarlet Pimpernel began making headlines, it didn’t take much for Richard to put two and two together and come up with the fact that his next-door neighbour was the greatest hero to appear in England since Henry V.
Richard had begged and pleaded until Percy agreed to take him along on a mission. That one mission went well, and became two, and then three missions, until Richard, with his gift for the heroic, became absolutely indispensable to the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel. So indispensable that Percy and the others had forgiven him when… No. Richard squashed the thought before it could grow into memory, stomping up the steps to his club with unnecessary vigour.
Richard felt himself relaxing as he entered the masculine stronghold of White’s. The sm
ells of tobacco and spirits hung heavy in the air, and from a chamber to his right, he could hear the heavy thud of darts being flung against a target – and missing, if the curses coming from that room were any indication. Meandering through the first floor, he spotted several hands of cards in progress, but none that he cared to join. One of his sister’s many suitors made enthusiastic welcoming motions at Richard from the small table where he was ensconced with two friends over a bottle of port. Unfortunately, his welcome was a little too enthusiastic. He toppled himself right over the side of his chair, taking the table, port decanter, and three glasses with him. ‘Well, that’s one person we won’t be seeing at Almack’s tonight,’ murmured Richard to himself, as he nodded in passing at the flailing boy and his port-sodden companions.
Richard found his quarry in the library.
‘Selwick!’ The Honourable Miles Dorrington flung aside the news sheet he had been reading, leapt up from his chair and pounded his friend on the back. He then hastily reseated himself, looking slightly abashed at his unseemly display of affection.
In a fit of temper, Richard’s sister Henrietta had once referred irritably to Miles as ‘that overeager sheepdog,’ and there was something to be said for the description. With his sandy blond hair flopping into his face, and his brown eyes alight with good fellowship, Miles did bear a striking resemblance to the more amiable varieties of man’s best friend. He was, in fact, Richard’s best friend. They had been fast friends since their first days at Eton.
‘When did you get back to London?’ Miles asked.
Richard dropped into the seat next to him, sinking contentedly into the worn leather chair. He stretched his long legs comfortably out in front of him. ‘Late last night. I left Paris Thursday, stopped for a couple of nights at Uppington Hall, and got into town about midnight.’ He grinned at his friend. ‘I’m in hiding.’
The Secret History of the Pink Carnation Page 3