It only took a moment for him to undo the strings of her bonnet. Another moment to pull off the gloves she still wore and toss them aside.
“Harry?” she asked uncertainly. “What are you doing?”
“Repeating, I think, what my oh so proper brother and his wife just did in this room.”
Prudence blinked at him. “Lord and Lady Darton?”
Harry solemnly nodded and Prudence first stared then began to giggle. “Just what I thought,” he told her teasingly.
She reached up to wind her arms around his neck. “And where should we start?” she asked.
In answer, he bent his head to kiss her. And for the first time since the battle he let his hands touch her, really touch her.
She pulled back. “Harry?” she asked uncertainly.
“Yes?”
“Are you well enough for this?”
He kissed the tip of her nose and grinned. “I think so. And more importantly, so does the rest of me. But perhaps not in here, after all.”
In an instant she was off his lap and on her feet. As she gave him a hand to help him up she saw him wince. “I hurt you!” she said in dismay.
He winced again. “Perhaps a little,” he allowed. “I ought not to have had you sit on my lap quite yet, I think. But,” he told her, kissing the hand holding his, “do not think that means I intend to let you escape, madam.”
“No?” a half-hesitant, half-teasing note crept into her own voice. “What do you mean to do with me?”
His eyes were warm on hers and his voice was husky as he said, “Perhaps we should go to my room and I can simply show you.”
“Perhaps.”
They were smiling foolishly at one another as they slipped down the hallway to the colonel’s room. There they found Wilkins straightening Harry’s things, but he took one look at the pair, grinned impertinently, and said, “I can see you won’t be needing me for a bit, sir.”
Then they were alone together. And if it was not perfect, nonetheless it was a promise of what the future might hold as Harry healed even further.
Chapter 16
Prudence couldn’t have said exactly when the notion came to her. Maybe it was overhearing Harry talking quietly with Lord Darton about their father. Maybe it was seeing the shadows in his eyes as he stared at a painting of the man. But at some point she knew she wanted to do something to help him and she thought she knew perhaps what would.
She couldn’t help remembering the letter that Harry had mentioned that day in France. The one that had so angered Monsieur Gilbert. Ever since then, she had been wondering who it might have been meant for and she thought perhaps she knew. But she had no proof, nothing beyond her suspicions. There it might have stayed had she not seen the notice in the paper. The very man she suspected was writing his memoirs and wished for an assistant to help him. Why not, Prudence asked herself, apply for the position?
She could claim that she and Harry needed money. It was no doubt true and it would give her the chance to find out more about the man and maybe even proof that he was the traitor she suspected he might be.
Prudence did not tell Harry, of course, what she intended. He had too much pride to like the notion of his wife solving his dilemmas. Too much pride to wish to think she could protect him, instead of the other way around. Indeed, too much pride to accept the idea of her taking such a position at all.
So she simply acted.
* * * *
Harry stared at his bride. And she glared back at him. “Why should I not?” she demanded.
“Because you are my wife and it is for me to support you, not the other way around!” he thundered. “I will not have my wife become some sort of servant. And especially not to Lord Brandon.”
“Oh for heaven’s sake!” Prudence exclaimed in exasperation. “I would not be a servant. I told you: Lord Brandon merely needs someone to help catalog his library and sort out his papers. Since he knows my uncle well and knows that I have been in many of the same places he has been posted, Lord Brandon thought I might be able to be of some assistance in writing his memoirs. But if you do not wish me to do so, then of course I shall not.”
This last was spoken with such a meek voice that it startled a surprised laugh out of Harry. “Of course?” he echoed, raising his eyebrows endearingly.
“Well,” she amended, “of course I shall not, given how agitated the thought makes you and how the surgeons have told me it is important not to let you get upset.”
Harry’s chin tilted up and he turned his back to her. His posture was stiff and the hands clenched behind him turned almost white, so tight was their grip.
Over his shoulder he said, “It always comes back to that, does it not? My injury. Even a decision such as this is made not with respect to my wishes but because you dare not upset the invalid.”
She ran to him then and he could hear her soft footsteps behind him. Still he flinched when she put her hands on his shoulders and rested her head against his back. But she did not let go, she only gripped tighter.
“If you think that,” she said into his coat, “then you are an idiot! A lovable idiot but an idiot nonetheless.”
Now he turned to look at her and what he saw in her face almost undid him. But he swallowed hard and persisted.
“Am I? You have such a high opinion of me, it seems, madam.”
“No. Not at the moment,” she said with a shake of her head. “Indeed, I find it hard to reconcile this side of you with the quick-witted fellow who saved us so often with his hastily crafted tales in France.”
He wanted so badly to unclasp his hands and hold her. But he could not. “I see no reason for levity,” he said, hearing the petulance in his voice and unable to prevent it.
She slipped an arm through his elbow and looked up at him affectionately. “Of course not,” she said. “Ever since you were wounded you have been unable to see a reason for levity anywhere. You are wrong, of course. But your feelings are entirely understandable.”
“They are, are they?” he growled down at her. “And what else, pray tell, is understandable?”
But she did not quail before his anger. Instead she met his eyes squarely, her voice steady as she said, “It is understandable that you think yourself less a man even though all the rest of us know you are not. It is understandable that you should wallow in self-pity but I think, perhaps, it is time for that to be at an end.”
“Self-pity?”
She nodded, her expression tranquil. He wanted to shout at her, to rail at her words, but his voice trailed off before he even began. Because he could not, however much he wished, deny the truth of what she was saying.
“And if,” he said, his voice stiff with hurt, “you were right, what then do you suggest? How ought I to perceive my injury?”
She stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek, surprising him yet again. “I do so love you,” she sighed.
“Because I shout at you?” he asked, his forehead creased in a quizzical frown.
She shook her head but did not answer him. Instead she said, tugging him to a seat at the window. “I think you ought to ask at the War Office or perhaps the Horse Guards if they have work for you. Even if it is but for a short while, surely you could be of use? There must be dispatches to be read or messages intercepted or decisions to be made that might be helped by what we saw and learned in France.”
She paused then added, “I have written my uncle. And received a reply. Our news came too late and the damage is already done. He does not say so, but I think England shall regret the treaty that was made. You will be needed when that time comes. Perhaps more than if you were at Wellington’s side on the battlefield.”
He pressed his lips together in a thin, angry line. But there was a tiny corner of his heart where he hugged her words close to him, and knew she might be right.
First one corner of his mouth quirked up, and then the other, and then he felt himself smile. He raised both her hands to his lips and kissed them. “Confess,” he said.
“You threatened to work for Lord Brandon only to confound me and bring me to this point!”
She smiled in return but shook her head. “No,” she said in the same tranquil voice as before. “I intend to help Lord Brandon because he needs my help and I can give it. Besides,” she added, a mischievous twinkle in her eyes, “I have heard all my life tales about some of his wilder exploits and I should very much like to know if they were true. And how better to learn than to read a man’s memoirs?”
At this Harry’s eyes widened and he could not help but object. “You tell me this and think that it will improve my temper? Soften my attitude toward the man? You think that it will make me more eager to allow you into his house, into his company? What if he should offer you some insult?”
Again she shook her head, still smiling, completely unabashed. “Oh, no. Lord Brandon’s tastes run to women of a different sort, I assure you.”
Harry gritted his teeth. “There are other reasons,” he said, “that make it ineligible for you to be there.”
“What other reasons?”
“I cannot tell you.”
Prudence looked at him, tilted up her chin, and said, “Whatever your reasons, if you will not tell them to me then you cannot expect me to be bound by them. I am going to help Lord Brandon, with or without your permission.”
He wanted to argue. He wanted to shake her. He wanted to remind her that she had said, but moments before, that she would abide by his command, that she did not wish to upset him. But he would not plead the cause of his injury, he simply could not do so.
Harry had, moreover, a strong notion it would be of little use and he had been a military man long enough to know that there were times when it was wiser to retreat, to regroup one’s forces for a later attempt, than to throw oneself into certain defeat. So now he merely settled for saying, in a mild voice, “Very well. But at the first instance that proves you wrong you are to leave, is that understood?”
“Yes, Harry.”
He trusted her meekness no more than she trusted his. Which was wise on both their parts. It was sometimes, he thought, a difficult thing to be married to a woman raised in diplomatic circles and who had, he suspected, learned every trick there was to know about negotiations and even, perhaps, invented a few of her own.
* * * *
Prudence had not lied to Harry when she told him why she wished to go to work for Lord Brandon. But neither had she told him the entire truth. So it was with a twinge of guilt that she prepared to go to his house later that afternoon. Still, if she were right, in the end Harry would thank her. She hoped.
It was bad enough that she was undertaking this project. Prudence had no wish to flout convention any more than was absolutely necessary, so she took her maid with her. Or to be more precise, one of Lady Darton’s maids. She had no doubt the woman would act something in the nature of a spy for her mistress but as Prudence had no intention of doing anything that could be construed as improper, she did not care.
Lord Brandon lived in a neat little town house not far from Lord Darton and his servants were expecting her. The maid was directed belowstairs and Prudence was shown at once into his lordship’s study.
“Prudence, how are you!” he said, coming forward to greet her with a jovial grin. “I hope you will not begrudge me the familiarity. I have, after all, known you since you were but a girl.”
It was impossible to resist his good humor. Prudence smiled in reply. “I am in excellent health and how about you, sir? When last I saw you, in South America, you were starting to feel the first signs of gout.”
He waved away her concern. “Nonsense! I am perfectly fine. And if I feel a twinge or two, upon occasion, it is no more than one would expect. I eat and drink as I please and shall continue to do so up until the day of my death. But you, my dear! I should say that marriage pleases you. I used to worry about you, you know. There was always just a hint of loneliness about your eyes and I do not see it there today.”
Her eyes twinkled. “It took me some time to find a man to suit me, but Colonel Langford does so nicely,” she agreed in her most demure voice.
Brandon gave a shout of laughter, then waved her to a seat. “I don’t know why you should be willing to bother with an old man like myself when you have such a handsome one at home, but I am grateful for your help.”
For all the lightness in his voice, there was a question in his lordship’s words. A question that must be answered if she were to avoid suspicion.
She met his eyes squarely and spoke what truth she could. “When I was very little, I remember Papa speaking of you with the greatest affection. And Mama saying there was no man, save Papa, who could hold a candle to your talents. When I heard you needed assistance with your memoirs, well, I could not resist the chance to discover if the rumors I have heard all my life are true.”
He gave another shout of laughter. His jovial humor was one of the things Prudence had always liked best about the man and she felt a pang of guilt at how she meant to traduce him. But she dared not think about that now. All her focus must be on him.
Lord Brandon wagged an admonitory finger in her direction. “You ought not to admit to such things!” he told her with a twinkle in his eyes that belied the sternness of his voice.
She opened her eyes wide, her hands folded demurely in her lap. “I should never dream of telling anyone but you,” she said.
“Mmmm. Well, we had best get started. I cannot think your young husband will be willing to lend you to me often. So the more we can do today the better.”
“I agree. Where should you like me to start?” Prudence asked, leaning forward.
Moments later they were deep in discussion and within the hour she was taking notes as he talked in grave tones about matters few women, or even men, were ever privileged to know about. And the more she heard, the more certain Prudence felt that she was right.
It was a very good thing, she thought, that she had taken this post. What she meant to do, no one else could have accomplished. As for the consequences, well she would simply not think about those until she had what she wanted in hand. Then and only then would it matter.
Meanwhile, she had best do what Lord Brandon thought she should. And in truth it was no hardship to transcribe the words of a man who by his own account had lead such a fascinating life.
Chapter 17
The small party Lord and Lady Darton planned to hold to introduce Harry and his wife to the ton was the subject of a great deal of conjecture. There were those who called upon Lady Darton hoping to catch a glimpse of the couple beforehand.
They were all disappointed. Prudence went to Lord Brandon’s town house every day to help him with his memoirs and Harry had taken her advice and was now working at the Horse Guards. He held himself stiffly at first, expecting to find a desk job sadly depressing.
But it wasn’t. Instead he found he enjoyed the daily discussions over the meaning of intercepted messages or speculation on what Bonaparte meant to do next. To be sure, he found the situation with the former colonies most distressing but even there his opinions were solicited with gratifying frequency. And Harry began to feel that perhaps he was not so useless after all.
And at night he had Prudence to share his bed. Though his leg still pained him and he could not have sat on a horse, there were other things he could do. Particularly when Prudence showed her inventiveness. And when she sometimes called him “Alain”, as if they were still in France, he almost felt happy again.
Indeed, Harry had nearly been lulled into a sense of complacency when the first hint of trouble crossed his desk. It was a copy of a report dated from almost a year before and dealt with the escape of prisoners from Dover Castle. Immediately Harry realized the danger in that. For Dover Castle was where James had arranged to send his signals from. The signals that Phillipe Thierry and Bertrand Vallois in France were collecting and sending on to Wellington. If escaped prisoners took word back to France of what was going on there, the entire project might well
be in danger.
“But that was more than a year ago,” Sir Thomas pointed out when Harry brought it to his attention as they sat quietly in a corner of White’s. “If there were going to be trouble as a result of it, surely it would have already occurred?”
“There is reason to believe the men were recaptured and only recently escaped again,” Harry said. “Sir, you helped us plan these signals. What damage do you think such news could produce should word of them reach France?”
The elder barrister was silent for several moments then he sighed. “Unless they could break the code or catch our men receiving them, very little I should think.”
Harry nodded. “That does make sense,” he admitted. “It is the whole reason we set things up as we did.”
“Still, you would wish to warn our man in France?” Sir Thomas suggested shrewdly. When Harry nodded again he said, “Well, that is easy enough to arrange. Let us have Philip’s wife put the information in the next article she writes for the paper. Your man will have it within the week.”
“That also makes sense,” Harry agreed grudgingly.
Sir Thomas regarded the younger man shrewdly. “There is something else bothering you, isn’t there?” he asked.
Harry hesitated, then grinned wryly. “No wonder you are so successful in court,” he retorted. “A man can hide nothing from you.”
“I should hope not,” Sir Thomas said with patent surprise. “It is my job to discern the truth. But you will not divert my attention with flattery. What is troubling you?”
“Do you know Lord Brandon?” Harry asked.
It was the barrister’s turn to hesitate. “Y-yes.”
Harry raised his eyebrows at the curtness of the other man’s tone. “Something to his discredit?”
Again the hesitation. “Nothing certain. Perhaps I should ask why you wish to know.”
“My wife is working for him.”
Now Sir Thomas sat abruptly upright. “What?”
There was unmistakable alarm in his voice. And that only added to Harry’s unease.
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