Lisbon

by Valerie Sherwood

  And because he respected her action and how she must feel, he left her to her own devices and repaired to his room without disturbing her that night.

  In her bedchamber Charlotte was standing before the window in the dark. She was shaking. Just now, when her guardian had looked up, she had seen him, not as he stood quarreling with Rowan, but killing Tom. And instantly she had hurled the poker. She had come near to killing a man tonight. The thought made her feel suddenly weak.

  In the days to come, Charlotte learned much—mainly by inference—of what occupied her husband with odd visitors and at odd hours. Robert Walpole, who had resumed the post of First Lord of the Treasury in 1721, and whose power far exceeded that of the king, was determined to hold England on a course of peace and prosperity —and was willing to meet the demands of corrupt parliamentary politicians to do it. ‘Every man has his price,” was Walpole s cynical and outspoken belief, and he employed the services—at whatever price required—of those skillful enough and able enough to effect his new designs, which included intricate intrigues in Europe, where wars were always breaking out.

  Rowan—who had not, she had by now learned, any great fortune, despite his extravagant manner of living— was one of these men. He was sent on mysterious missions, sometimes to Europe—and came back enriched; Charlotte learned not to ask why, or what he had done to deserve his new wealth.

  The only time she asked him was one evening in the dining room. Rowan had a glass of ruby port in his hand and he looked across it with deliberation at his earnest young wife before answering her, all the while keeping her under the scrutiny of those intense brooding dark eyes.

  “You might say that I am a creature of the First Lord,” he told her dispassionately. “Walpole considers me mad— but extraordinarily useful. In truth, I suppose I am an Arranger—I arrange for those to meet who cannot meet and perhaps should not meet, I arrange for secret talks and negotiations which ambassadors must keep clear of. I find people who cannot be found. I bring messages and receive information and sometimes pass on large sums of money.”

  “You are a spy.”

  He sighed. “No, I am much more. Sometimes I even make things happen.” He touched his sword significantly.

  Charlotte stared at that sword. “You are an assassin?” she breathed.

  “An ugly word. ” He tossed off his drink and waved his hand carelessly. “Let us say that when I am presented with a problem by the First Lord, I assess what is best to be done to correct the situation.”

  “You are a statesman,” she amended, fascinated.

  He gave her a droll look. “Occasionally—and more. When I have decided how best to gain an objective, I carry it out with dispatch. At whatever cost.” It was tempting to brag before this beautiful woman whose clear honest gaze was so puzzled. “The rewards are phenomenal,” he added dryly, and then his gaze hardened. “You will never mention to anyone this conversation between us.”

  “No, never,” she murmured, looking down into her glass.

  “You will forget what I have said. It is a side of my life about which you need know nothing. It need not concern you.”

  And she had to be content with that. But when she saw flickering candlelight coming through to her bedchamber from the dark hall outside and heard footsteps and then saw the light fading away, she came to realize that it meant that Yates had rushed upstairs to wake Rowan in the bedchamber next door and that Rowan had slipped away downstairs to meet some furtive messenger, or perhaps to accompany him into the dark byways of London. Sometimes he was gone all night, sometimes longer. He never mentioned where he had been or that he had been gone at all. She was expected to accept his comings and goings without interest, as normal. That too was hard to do.

  I loved a man who had come from a wicked life and sought an honest one, she thought wryly. And now I am half in love with a man who came from an honest life and prefers to seek a wicked one. It was a strange realization for the lighthearted girl from the flowering Scilly Isles to come to. And she thought on it soberly, remembering Tom’s willingness to help another creature—once he had winced from an old leg injury and told her he had gained it from trying to save another man who was falling from the rigging, and both had crashed to the deck together—was that not why he had torn his leg falling from the rigging, to help someone else? Was that not why he had been kicked over a cliff, trying to save her? Just as the shining qualities she had seen in Tom had brought him to his death, so Rowan’s single-purposed violence—despite all his self-evident brilliance—would one day bring him down.

  She supposed there was no way to stop it. Not Tom, not herself, not Rowan—no one could be saved from the on-rushing winds of fate.

  She wondered suddenly what would be her fate—and found no answer.

  21

  Just before Christmas they received word of Russ’s death. He had left a gaming hall drunk and sodden, fallen off his horse in the darkness, and frozen to death in an icy alley. When he was found the next morning his purse was gone, along with his hat and his coat and his boots. The thieves that had left him unprotected against the bitter weather were long gone.

  Yates brought them the news as they sat at the breakfast table. Charlotte was wearing a shawl, for despite the fire, drafts crept in from the cold hall and the room was cold. Outside, through the windows they could see sleet beating down on streets still iced and slippery from last week’s storm. The kind of weather that men shivered in—and sometimes died in.

  “I will not mourn him,’ Charlotte said through her teeth when she heard. “I shall wear no black, no mourning ring. Nor will I alter one whit our Christmas festivities!’’ Rowan was amused. “Not a hypocrite, at least,’’ was his comment. “Although it might be more politic to do so. Russ’s friends will be shocked to hear of your hard heart. He chuckled.

  “He was an evil man. You know. You told him to his face that he had stolen my fortune. ”

  “A guess only,” he told her blandly. “I had not enough money at that moment to pay off the note of hand he brought. Luckily, my wild stab struck home.”

  Charlotte caught her breath. Rowan could always surprise her. “With my own eyes I saw him do murder!" she flashed. “He kept me in rags, he tried to force me into a frightful marriage. I will not pretend to grieve—indeed I should celebrate!"

  In her fury she had risen to her feet, almost knocking over her chair. And now Rowan came around the table and took her by the arms, laughing down at her. “No matter," he said. “We will have the body sent back to Aldershot Grange for interment in the family plot. I will announce that that was Russ’s wish. In your condition, you will not be expected to travel so far."

  “Nor will I wear mourning nor drape the house in black!"

  He shrugged. “I will say that black frightens you because of your impending confinement. I myself will wear a black band on my sleeve to show proper respect.

  “Ha!" said Charlotte bitterly. She pulled away from Rowan and paced around the room, breathing hard as she remembered her uncle s perfidy.

  “I will also say that he has left Aldershot Grange to you."

  “To me?" Charlotte stopped pacing indignantly at her husband s smooth words. “Indeed he would not! I am convinced he hated me—or at the very least despised me as being beneath notice."

  “I bought Aldershot Grange from Russ," explained Rowan. “And then gave him back a life tenancy." He laughed wryly. “Which I did not expect to be of such short duration. ”

  “Why . . . why did you do that?" she faltered. “Why did you buy Aldershot Grange?"

  His dark gaze was unfathomable. “It was a condition of our marriage."

  “Then . . . then you had no need to fear pursuit when we fled to Scotland and were wed at the smithy?"

  “No need at all," was his cool reply. “It had all been arranged while you lay swooning."

  Charlotte took an involuntary step backward. Rowan had betrayed her! His “note of hand" had not been given to Russ for some gaming
debt, as she had thought, but for her Rowan had bought her from her uncle just as surely as Pimmerston was going to!

  Fury swept over her. “Then you lied to me!” she accused. “For at the time you said—”

  “I lied to gain a wife,” he cut in. “A beautiful one that I cherish. Had I not made the deal that night on Kenlock Crag, Russ would have tried to palm you off on Pimmerston anyway. Would you have preferred that, Charlotte?” His voice sharpened.

  Charlotte hardly heard him. Her blood sang in her ears. She was overcome by a wild desire to fling something at this man who had tricked her into marriage, and then to storm out of his house forever. She was about to turn on her heel and make for the door when sanity returned. Cold and merciless.

  Things were different now. She was pregnant . . . there was her unborn child to think about.

  She closed her eyes to shut out the sight of Rowan standing before her. But his voice still beat at her. “Would you have preferred Pimmerston, Charlotte?” he demanded savagely.

  Trembling, Charlotte remembered Russ’s cold promise to Lord Pimmerston that if she turned out not to be a virgin, he would himself make Pimmerston a widower. A shudder went through her slender frame. Very possibly Rowan, “the Arranger,” as he styled himself, had saved her life by “arranging” to buy Aldershot Grange. She could see that Rowan might prefer that fact not to come out—it would make them the talk of London and cast doubt on her “inheritance.”

  “No,” she admitted in a muffled voice, “I would not have preferred Pimmerston.”

  “Look at me when you speak to me.”

  Charlotte opened her eyes. Rowan was regarding her stonily. She realized in panic that she must not be cast out, she must get along with this man—whatever she now thought about him.

  “I am sorry, Rowan,” she mumbled, trying to force sincerity into the words. “I did not think. I ... I had forgotten about Pimmerston.”

  “No, you did not think.” His voice grew suddenly tender, indulgent. “Perhaps that is what so charms me about you, Charlotte. You throw yourself fiercely into the fray, no matter what the cost. It is a laudable but”—he sighed— “perhaps an unlucky trait, and one which I hope you will not pass on to our son.”

  Charlotte felt drained. “How do you know it will be a son?” she asked dully.

  “I spoke in jest. Indeed I do not care whether you bear me a son or a daughter—I would welcome either one.” And he must keep on thinking that. . . . With an effort, Charlotte managed a wan smile. “I will at least stay close to the house,” she promised, “and in that way not shame you for my lack of respect for my uncle s passing.

  “It would be wise for you to do so anyway in this bitter weather,” he counseled. “Those who venture out invite frostbite.”

  So their Christmas was celebrated snugly there in the house in Grosvenor Square that had once sheltered a king s mistress. They ate roast goose stuffed with chestnuts, and a blazing plum pudding, and toasted each other with eggnog and smuggled brandy—for England was still groaning under the heavy excise tax. Nobody came to call, and Charlotte was not surprised, for she had already learned that Rowan s “profession,” if one could call it that, did not fit in with the kind of warm friendships that had people running in and out of the house at all hours. They did go out during the Twelve Days of Christmas—to music halls, to plays, to dine at inns. They shared in the gaiety of public places, laughed with strangers—but Charlotte could not but feel a pang when she saw parties of revelers laughing and calling out to each other as they trudged by on foot or dashed by in sleighs. And once or twice her violet eyes filled with tears when she heard the sound of Christmas carolers and remembered how in the Scillies her hospitable mother had always invited the carolers in for tea or hot chocolate—a practice that Rowan deplored.

  “We will not fill up the house with strangers,” he told her firmly, intercepting her as she was about to open the front door.

  “But, Rowan, the carolers are outside, and cold. They—”

  “No. We do not know who they are.’’ He shot the bolt so hard that it made a noise the carolers must have heard and wondered about.

  Charlotte turned away confused and feeling depressed.

  “Cheer up,” he said. “We will attend a play for Twelfth Night.”

  Charlotte forbore saying she would rather have opened up their doors to the world and invited the carolers in.

  Since Rowan never chose to introduce her to anyone (she had decided that the set he had belonged to in London must be made up entirely of gamesters he did not particularly want his wife to meet), she found herself entirely dependent upon him for companionship, and it was a blow when he told her he would be taking a trip right after Twelfth Night.

  “Will you be gone long?” she asked forlornly, for she knew these last three months of her pregnancy would find her far less mobile and it would be depressing without him.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “But you will be all right. Yates will take care of you. If you are asked, say that I have gone north—to Aldershot Grange.”

  She looked up quickly. “Will you sell the property now?”

  “No,” he said surprisingly. “I intend to keep it.”

  But perhaps that too fit into the plans of one who made hurried secret journeys in and out of the country, she decided. Rowan could disappear from London at any time on the pretext of visiting his “north-country estate,” and who would make that long trek to check up and find out if that were true? Indeed he could go to Aldershot Grange and have Livesay announce to all and sundry that he was ill and keeping to his room—and actually be off to Europe on some mission for the First Lord.

  She wondered suddenly if she would ever see the north country again.

  Rowan departed into a cold gray dawn right after Twelfth Night, and Charlotte was left to cope. And that wasn’t easy.

  Indeed she was entirely baffled by Rowan s household— both by its lopsided opulence and by all the things it seemed she was not to change. Of the servants, only Yates, the butler, and Clover, the cook, lived in. Clover was a picturesque woman, plump and ruddy-cheeked and taffy-haired and with a warm sunny smile. She was a mute as the result of some childhood accident and could neither read nor write, but she was quick and clever and understood orders well.

  The giant Yates, she knew, she would never like. She found him taciturn, answering questions in monosyllables, and she did not like the way he looked at her—with only half-concealed distaste, as if he did not approve his master’s choice of brides. Yates never changed, nor did relations between them ever improve. He was loyal to Rowan only—Charlotte was not included. Yates hired the servants— Rowan had told her she was not to interfere in that. And he kept them in awe. He hovered over the chambermaids and scullery maids, a changing group who came in only by day, until they scurried away. And if he found any of them chatting with the mistress of the house, they were promptly dismissed.

  Charlotte found it hard living there on Grosvenor Square, for she had practically no communication whatever with other human beings: Cook couldn’t talk, Yates wouldn’t talk, and the chambermaids were afraid to talk. On the several occasions she tried to strike up conversations with them, they seemed very subdued, and melted away at Yates’ approach.

  “Yates frightens people,” she had once complained to Rowan. “He’s so huge and his manner is so menacing.”

  Rowan had cocked a sardonic eye at her. “That too has its uses,” he had told her cryptically.

  But useful or no, Charlotte found life cooped up in a household that went silent at her approach unbearable, and sometimes—despite the weather and her advanced pregnancy—she ventured out on chilly wind-buffeted walks around the square.

  On a late-February day, feeling desperate after being housebound by terrible weather for a fortnight, she decided to go still farther.

  “Yates.” She caught up with the giant in the lower hall. “Please have the coach brought round. I’m going shopping. You can take me to Chea
pside and I’ll take a hackney back when I’ve finished.’’

  Yates looked as if he might say no. He eyed her thickening figure warily. “ Tis icy,’’ he demurred. “The master wouldn’t—”

  “The master is not here, Yates. I am in charge.” And when still he hesitated, “If you do not bring the coach at once, I shall have one of the chambermaids find me a hackney coach.”

  Yates shrugged and soon their coach was making good time toward Cheapside, considering the icy roads, the traffic, and the insolent sedan-chair men who were supposed to keep to the center of the road but seldom did. Charlotte could hear one of them swearing at Yates in an angry Irish brogue as they rounded the imposing domed pile of St. Paul’s Cathedral. She was surprised when he let her off without a murmur.

  The weather had turned warmer, and despite the hazard of melting ice underfoot, Charlotte was enjoying her walk and the crowds. She had never really intended to go shopping—indeed she had no desire to carry packages, she felt heavy enough already, but she wanted to be out in the bracing air. She strolled along admiring the big ironframed signs that protruded out over the street on long brackets. Even more she enjoyed the carved wooden or molded ironwork that identified the kind of shop: three hats to signify a hatter, three sugar loaves to designate a grocer, three great golden balls to identify a goldsmith. As the afternoon wore on, the wind came up, whipping through the crowded streets, loosening the roof tiles, one of which rattled down upon the icy cobbles nearby, causing pass-ersby to jump nimbly away.

  Charlotte was about to signal a hackney coach to take her back to Grosvenor Square when above her there was a cracking noise, then a sharp cry of “Look out!” and she was abruptly seized from behind and jerked backward off her feet by a strong arm—just as a huge iron-framed sign commemorating a chocolate shop, and thick as a paving stone, crashed to the street where she had been standing a moment before.