‘Then I shall see you there.’
He stood along with the rest of the gentlemen when his aunt nodded to the ladies and rose from her seat at the foot of the table. Ezra watched Lady Adela until she disappeared from view. She didn’t once look back.
*
Adela left the room, feeling hot with embarrassment. Had she just made an assignation with a single gentleman on her second full day back in London? Papa would be appalled. Or perhaps not. He had always been highly individual too, and tended, despite the military discipline that was second nature to him, to do more or less as he pleased, not caring what people thought of him.
She burned to know what it was that Lord Bairstow so urgently needed to talk to her about. She was not foolish enough to believe that he wanted to get her alone for amatory reasons, which is why she had decided to protect his reputation. It clearly hadn’t crossed his mind that calling upon her while she was unchaperoned would make problems for him. It would not go unnoticed by her servants. Everyone knew that servants were the most terrible gossips and word would inevitably leak out.
If her irreverence had sparked his interest in her as a woman, he would have called openly and ask her mother’s permission to pursue that interest. He was too gentlemanly to behave otherwise. Adela chased away the brief feelings of regret that her sound reasoning engendered. She really wasn’t looking for a husband. And even if she had been, Lord Bairstow could do a great deal better than her. Therefore, she would protect him against his own impetuosity and try to ignore just how attractive she found him.
She had been surprised when he had made a point of singling her out. She had noticed him immediately she walked into Lady Blenkinsop’s drawing room. A tall gentleman with a sweep of thick dark hair and intelligent grey eyes, he was difficult to miss—and he was easily the most attractive and interesting person in the room. She clearly wasn’t the only lady present to hold that opinion, and could think of no reason why he had made himself agreeable towards her.
Lady Sandwell looked as though she wanted to devour him whole. Adela had not taken to her. She seemed remote, uninterested in anything Adela had to say. Lord Sandwell was a charming gentleman, albeit somewhat older than his wife and, according to Mama, as rich as Croesus. Adela sensed that his lady did not take her marriage vows too seriously. But then that was true of a lot of society’s females, she had been told. Marriages were arranged without taking the feelings of the parties concerned into account. Once a lady had produced the necessary legitimate heir, she often sought discreet distraction wherever the fancy took her.
But Lady Sandwell was anything but discreet. Adela was not accustomed to the ways of society but even she had seen her not-so-subtle attempts to attract Lord Bairstow’s interest. When he had instead opted for safety and taken Adela into dinner, Adela had been obliged to withstand Lady Sandwell’s angry scowls from across the table for the duration of the meal. Adela had no time for such pettiness and ignored the silly woman.
The ladies returned to the drawing room while the gentlemen enjoyed their port. Adela accepted coffee from Lady Blenkinsop, thanked her and withdrew a little way to sip it in peace. Her mother was enjoying herself in animated conversation with the other matrons, so Adela’s mind was free to wander. Or would have been, had not Lady Sandwell taken it upon herself to join her.
‘May I?’ she asked, indicating the chair beside Adela’s.
‘By all means.’ Although why Lady Sandwell chose to sit with her was hard to fathom.
‘How are you enjoying your return to London?’ her uninvited companion asked.
‘We have only been here for two days, but so far it has been very interesting. I cannot pretend that it isn’t a relief to feel safe.’
‘From the guns perhaps, but there are other dangers lurking ready to trap the unwary.’
‘Fortune hunters, you mean.’ Adela shrugged. ‘Thank you for your concern, Lady Sandwell, but I am not that green, and I am unlikely to be taken in.’
‘Then be especially careful of Bairstow.’ There was an edge to Lady Sandwell’s voice. It was almost as though she didn’t know how to handle Adela’s maturity and forthrightness. ‘He might seem more sophisticated than Taylor et al but his intentions are just as devious.’
‘Oh, he wants to marry me for my money too, does he?’ Adela offered her poisonous companion a disingenuous smile. ‘Thank you so very much for the warning.’
‘Hardly, my dear.’ Lady Sandwell’s responding smile was patronising. ‘Excuse my bluntness, but I mean to put you on your guard. He is not looking for a wife but might well enjoy a dalliance with an innocent young woman not versed in our ways.’
Adela laughed aloud, causing a hiatus in the conversations taking place around them. ‘He makes a habit of despoiling virgins?’ She wrinkled her brow. ‘In which case, he would be required to marry his victim. As a gentleman, he would feel obliged to do the honourable thing.’ Adela’s smile abruptly faded. ‘He doesn’t want you, does he?’ she said softly. ‘Perhaps you shouldn’t make your desire for him quite so obvious. I may be inexperienced, but even I know that it’s not in a man’s nature to want what is too readily available.’
Lady Sandwell’s mouth fell open and her cheeks flooded with colour. ‘Well, excuse me for trying to put you on your guard.’
She stood up and swept away, leaving Adela at leisure to ponder upon the odd nature of her warning. She was jealous of Adela because the man she had in her sights had taken her into dinner. If Lady Sandwell had made more of an effort to be friendly, Adela would happily have told her that Lord Bairstow wanted to talk about her father. Even so, a small part of her felt glad to have roused such a beautiful woman to jealousy.
The gentlemen rejoined them, bringing Adela’s solitary reverie to an end. Taylor and the other young man—whose name she had forgotten and from whose attentions Lord Bairstow had temporarily rescued her—made a beeline for her as soon as they walked into the room. One of the young women took up a place at the piano. Her performance was tolerable. Despite what Adela had told Taylor, she herself was a proficient pianist, but played only for her own amusement. She would not inflict her efforts upon an audience too polite to show their boredom.
The evening eventually came to an end and Adela and her mother made their escape.
‘Well, my dear,’ Mama said as they journeyed back to Eaton Square through the mild spring evening. ‘You certainly seemed to make a good impression upon Lord Bairstow. Lady Blenkinsop said she had never seen him so interested in any young lady before. Yes indeed, the signs are most encouraging. I knew I was right to insist upon returning.’
Adela shook her head and looked out of the window, not bothering to set her mother straight.
Chapter Four
Ezra left his aunt’s establishment and kept an engagement in a Whitechapel tavern, where he hoped to gain more insights into the possible identity of the traitor from a well-placed ostler who saw and heard just about everything. As he made his way there, he marvelled at Lady Adela’s level-headedness. Idiot that he was, it hadn’t occurred to him that calling upon her in the morning would start tongues wagging. He chuckled to himself as his carriage rattled towards his destination, thinking that he had met arguably the only young woman in all of London who would not have manipulated that situation for her own advantage.
Frustrated when the ostler failed to tell him anything worthwhile, Ezra went to White’s and idled away a few hours in convivial masculine company.
He left for the park early the next morning. Despite the fine weather, the park was almost deserted at such an unfashionable hour. He saw Lady Adela long before she noticed him, bending over a bed of spring flowers, presumably to enjoy the fragrance given off by the blooms. With all his responsibilities, it was a long time since Ezra had given a passing thought to such simple pleasures.
‘Lady Adela.’ He raised his hat as he neared her position. She looked up at the sound of her name, stood upright and smiled at him.
‘Lord Ba
irstow. This is a pleasant surprise.’
‘I usually have the park to myself at this hour of the day.’ She looked as fresh and vibrant as the flowers she had been examining, her complexion smooth and creamy, her eyes alight with mischief at their “accidental” meeting. She wore a pretty checked walking gown in vibrant yellow with matching pelisse and bonnet. The colour suited her disposition and showed off her fine figure to a distracting degree. ‘Most ladies are not early risers.’
‘I, my lord, am not most ladies.’
‘Evidently.’ He proffered his arm. ‘Shall we walk together?’
‘By all means.’
They followed the gravel path, a few feet of daylight separating their bodies. Lady Adela’s maid dutifully fell into step a few paces behind them.
‘Thank you for being here,’ he said softly. ‘I was not sure if—’
‘I always keep my word, Lord Bairstow. Besides, my curiosity is piqued. I cannot think of anything you could possibly want to say to me that anyone could not hear. Oh look.’
A lovely smile broke out across her face as she nodded towards a mother duck and her eight babies, swimming haphazardly across the Serpentine. Lady Adela laughed as she pointed to the babies’ feet, paddling furiously just beneath the clear surface of the water. The smallest duckling struggled to keep up with its brothers and sisters.
‘I do hope the little one will find a way to survive,’ she said anxiously. Ezra didn’t want to warn her that her own life could very possibly be in danger, thereby eradicating her vivaciousness, but he would be failing in his duty if he didn’t find a way to put her on her guard.
‘You have a soft heart.’
‘I am a pragmatist. I’m well aware that in life only the strongest seem to thrive. Goodness alone knows, these past ten years ought to have taught me at least that much. But I have a great deal of sympathy for that little chap and badly want him not to be eaten by a greedy predator.’
‘I would appoint myself his protector just to please you, but for the fact that I’m unsure if I could live up to your expectations.’
She sent him an assessing look, then turned to watch as the smallest duck reached the safety of the centre of the water. ‘I doubt that you ever disappoint once you put your mind to a particular purpose,’ she remarked as they continued to stroll.
‘Even so, the local fox population would likely get the better of me. They are known to be cunning for a reason.’
‘What did you want to talk to me about?’ she asked after they had walked a little further. They were passed by a few single men on horseback, but no one appeared to pay them much attention, and they were the only people on foot.
‘Shall we sit?’
He steered her towards a bench on the far side of the water. Her maid took up a seat on an adjoining bench, adopting a position from which she could see her mistress but not overhear their conversation.
‘It’s with regard to your father.’
She nodded, but her complexion lost some of its colour and she absently touched her cheek with one hand.
‘I’m sorry. Is the subject still too raw?’
‘Not at all.’ She turned to give him her full attention and he could see then that she was worried, rather than distressed. ‘You imagine, I suppose, that his death was not from natural causes.’
It wasn’t a question, and Ezra didn’t insult her intelligence by attempting to deny it, especially since he had been trying to think of a subtle way to broach the possibility himself. ‘I had my doubts as soon as I received word regarding the nature of his demise.’
She nodded. ‘I thought it odd all along, although why would anyone wish to kill him?’ She glanced at the water, its surface ripped by a sudden breeze that made her shiver and cross her arms. ‘If he had made an enemy on our own side, offended a soldier beneath his command perhaps with a harsh punishment that the recipient thought unjust, the disgruntled party had plenty of opportunity to do away with him on the battlefield.’
‘A rather extreme response to military discipline.’
‘Yes, it would have been, I grant you that. But my point is, with all the confusion at the height of battle, no one would have noticed if Papa was struck down by one of our own. He did tend to lead from the front, you see. He was always in the thick of things. So if he was deliberately killed, then presumably one of our enemies—enemies we must now look upon as friends, although I find that hard in the circumstances—must have found a way to put poison in his food.’ She blinked up at him from beneath the brim of her bonnet. ‘But why?’
‘You did not voice your concerns at the time. I am glad of that,’ Ezra assured her, not waiting for a response. ‘It would have been impetuous and foolhardy, since you had no proof.’
‘You are not the first person to accuse me of impetuosity, I can assure you of that,’ she said with a negligent shrug. ‘If an idea pops into my head, no matter how unlikely, I cannot seem to help blurting it out.’
‘But you have not shared your suspicions over your father’s death? I imagine you were too distraught.’
‘Shocked, more like. Besides, there was no time. He died within a day of taking to his bed, and everything was in such confusion afterwards. Not that he intended to stay confined to his room.’ She shook her head to emphasise her point. ‘Papa was a robust, battle-hardened solider who did not, he indignantly informed me, allow a trifling cold to keep him from his duties.’ Her sad little smile reflected the degree of affection she felt for her father. ‘But he never left that bed again and died in agony. My one comfort is that his suffering was not prolonged.’
‘You mentioned poison earlier. Is that what you think happened?’
She sent him a sharp look. ‘Why are you so interested in my opinion?’
‘The particulars of your father’s death reached my ears shortly after it happened. The symptoms seemed to indicate poisoning. I have had some experience.’ He held up a hand and smiled at her. ‘I have neither administered poison nor, thankfully, been on the receiving end of it. But I have seen men suffering from its affects and they mirror your father’s symptoms as described to me.’
‘I will not ask who did the describing, or why, because I am perfectly sure you will not give me a truthful response. I did think at the time that something wasn’t right, but everything was in chaos. Mama was hysterical. Naturally, she was my first priority and I was left to cope alone. By the time I had partially recovered from my own grief and thought to question his passing, it was too late. He was already in the ground and no one in the military would listen to me. They insisted he had died from food poisoning and that the slight chill he had contracted at the same time proved fatal.’
‘You didn’t believe that?’
Lady Adela flapped a hand. ‘Not for a second, but no one was prepared to take my allegations seriously. We had dined together the previous night. We all ate from the same dishes and neither Mama nor I suffered any ill-effects. But the authorities dismissed my claims as those of a deranged female.’ Her voice took on an edge of bitterness. ‘I have many shortcomings to which I will happily admit, but I have not to the best of my knowledge ever been deranged.’
‘I have known you for less than a day, and have already decided that you are level-headed and sensible. If that were not the case, we would not be having this conversation.’
‘And you would not have to risk being seen alone with me.’ She sent him a sparkling smile. ‘This business must be very important to you, as it is to me. Nothing can bring Papa back, but I should very much like to know why he was killed and bring the person responsible to justice, if humanly possible.’
‘I can enlighten you in some respects but first, tell me what happened next.’
‘Everything was in a state of chaos by the time I started asking questions. Napoleon had already been defeated—hopefully for good this time—and our troops had their minds focused upon an orderly return to England. No one had any time to listen to me.’
‘Have you tried agai
n since your return? Spoken to anyone here?’
‘No, I have only just reached London, as you know. There was no one in Ripon to speak to. Certainly not my cousin,’ she added, shuddering. ‘Anyway, what would be the point? Anyone in a position of authority would simply give me a pat on the head and tell me not to tax my simple mind with matters I could not be expected to understand.’
Ezra chuckled. ‘Anyone who attempts to patronise you is braver than I will ever be.’
She fixed him with a penetrating look. ‘Why are you so keen to talk to me about Papa? What is it that you think you know? Or do you imagine I have information that might be useful to you? Presumably spies do not retire simply because the hostilities are at an end. In fact, I would imagine that’s when a lot of the work actually starts.’
Ezra inclined his head, impressed by her perception. ‘I will answer all your questions in good time, but first, have the goodness to answer a few more of mine.’
‘Very well.’ She folded her gloved fingers around the reticule resting in her lap, smiling at a governess as she walked past with two inquisitive charges and a lively puppy in tow. ‘What do you need to know?’
‘Did your father ever talk to you about his activities?’
Lady Adela raised a brow. ‘About his soldiering, do you mean?’ She chuckled. ‘All the time. He used to discuss his strategies with me and pretend to listen to my suggestions. I know more about military campaigns than half the men who fought in them.’ She paused. ‘But that isn’t what you meant, is it?’ She focused her gaze upon his profile, as though attempting to read his thoughts. ‘I assume Papa was more than just another colonel fighting for the British cause. Was he a spy, too? I cannot think why else you would be so interested in him. He was one of thousands of brave men who gave their lives for the sake of freedom from oppression.’
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