by M. J. Logue
Rupert blinked those crow-black eyes, slowly. “Major Russell,” he said blandly, “are you suggesting that I might be in a position to direct my nephew’s gaze elsewhere? Do you presume so much, sir?”
And Russell blinked back at him, equally blandly, thanking God for that cicatrice on his cheek that made it perfectly possible to look inscrutable whilst his guts were in a quaking knot. “I, my lord? I suggest no such thing. I – muse. I wonder. If someone attaches more importance to me than I merit. I was an intelligencer. I have been removed from that post, due to this vicious gossip. I am, if you would have it so, harmless. Worthless, almost –“ and he could not help the smile, “save to my wife. I mean to do no more than return to Buckinghamshire, and live in quiet seclusion –“ well, all right, he was perhaps laying it on too heavily, so he stopped, and cocked his head brightly, looking at the spot where Rupert’s eyebrows met. “You might, perhaps, be in a position to pass on that information, though. Into an appropriate ear?”
“My lord Downing?” Rupert suggested.
There was a long pause. That bloody French clock was still ticking brightly into the silence, and Russell could willingly have thrown the damnable thing into the fire. Tinkling the quarter-hour, and somewhere in the house a woman was singing about her work. He wanted to look away., and he would not. “I think I am no friend to Sir George,” he said eventually, because he must say something. “I –“
“Wonder if perhaps someone has been passing on information to Sir George already,” the Prince said, reaching out and stroking the rim of his coffee-cup with a delicate forefinger. “I believe that my lord Downing is hot for the war, Major Russell. Now tell me. Are you?”
He did not know how to answer that, and so he did not. “I am not a traitor, sir.”
“Which is not the question I asked you. But is an answer. You think, then, that someone seeks to discredit you with George Downing, who may be my nephew’s spymaster, but is not your master? Interesting.”
“I – yes. Possibly. I don’t – I don’t know, in all truth. I do not think Master Jephcott was strangled because he saw too much. I think the intent was always to kill him. Someone. It." And suddenly it was too hot in that airy room, and his cheek was locking up on him again, his voice starting to slur now, because this was not a thing he had ever said aloud, either. "It mirrors my sister's death, d'you see? She was done to death in a fire. At ho- at Four Ashes. And that bloody fool Charles Fairmantle had made this common currency, when I first came back to Court after some time in – in my service elsewhere."
"In Europe?" Rupert said, and Russell nodded abruptly.
"Antwerp. To be specific. So I had not known of her death until - then. He is - he was - my neighbour, in Buckinghamshire. And an utter bloody fool. If brains were gunpowder, that rattle-brain would not have sufficient to blow his hat off." He shuddered. "Which is unkind in me. He is a harmless ninny, and he has been nothing but kindness itself to Thomazine and I, throughout this time. I just wish he would mind his own business, and not look on every man's misfortune as his own personal gossip-mill...Well. He did not mean harm, but he did harm. Every man and his dog knows my personal affairs. And someone has made use of that information, to oust me as a, an -"
"Agent," Rupert finished, rather kindly, and inclined his head.
"There was not a mark on my Persephone, who is known to deal with the Dutch East India Company. But the Ariadne will be out of the water for the better part of six months till they make her good again, and that's before they can even start fitting her out for her next voyage. That's a lot of trade to lose for our East Indiamen, for she'll lose the fair weather, and I doubt she'll leave Wapping till next spring, once the autumn gales set in. I am not always a soldier, sir. I find commerce endlessly fascinating: God willing, there will be peace in my lifetime, and I would have a trade to follow when there is no more need for soldiers."
"Intelligencing is a trade, Major Russell," Rupert said, and blinked.
"Surely. And no trade for a gentleman with a wife and a family."
"Ah? I was under the impression that your courtship was very much the blind for your intelligencing, sir. I liked to think that the lovely Thomazine had been much taken with - now, what was it, that Killigrew was squawking about so horribly - a lacquer box, was it? From China?"
Russell closed his mouth with a snap. He had known all along, the smooth swine. "Japan. Brought her a little jade hare - now that's precious - too."
"Ah. Now this -" Rupert stroked the figured silk of his dressing-gown with a tender hand, "this is from China. Pretty trinket, no? Remind me, next time I get sight of any, I'll send her a length."
Yes, Russell rather thought he would as well, the horny old goat, and narrowed his eyes a little.
"D'you want to take it up again?" Rupert said, and for a minute Russell thought he meant the box, or the dressing-gown, and said nothing. "Do you want your post back, major? Though, possibly, not working for Master Killigrew, this time, but direct to the Admiralty. In an unofficial capacity, you understand. As an administrator, or similar. You know the trick. You've fiddled enough books in your time to know the way of it."
"I have not!" he yelped, nettled, and Rupert's lean, dark face broke into a slow grin.
"I hoped you'd say that."
61
She stood watching the straight tail of his barley-pale hair, so distinctive against all those monstrous curled periwigs, until he was out of sight.
He could not mean it, of course. He could not mean that she must go straight home, for she had to tell Chas Fairmantle, or burst - well, apart from anything else, she had to let him know that he might start to noise it abroad that someone had made a fatal mistake, and he was a friend, and it would make him happy to know that his friend was exonerated. And so as soon as he was gone from her sight, she caught Deb, and they escaped to Birstall House - unannounced, unceremoniously, but with tidings of great joy.
But it didn't make him happy. It made him very angry, and that was a thing she had never seen before, and it scared her a little, as she stood in his drawing room. She was not dressed for formal visiting, and she was flushed and sweaty and her hair was coming a little unpinned, and she only had Deb for company, but that was how it was, in Essex - and, she presumed, how it was in Buckinghamshire: if you had an errand, or a matter of some import that you must tell a neighbour, you did not stand on ceremony for the doing of it, but went, like a person of sense. But then he was not dressed for formal visiting, either, but was in his undress, wearing an embroidered cap over his close-polled head and a long, padded chamber robe lined with pink and white striped satin.
"Well, that is not how it is in London, madam!" he snapped at her, "and the sooner you realise that the better it will be, for you draw attention to yourself!"
"But this is important!" she snapped back at him, and he did not laugh, his face did not soften the way it usually did.
"Indeed, and you not bringing the eye of half the world to my threshold is important, madam, I have business to transact!" And then his face softened, and he looked down, looking almost ashamed of his outburst. "I'm sorry, Mistress Russell, but you have been much on my mind, lately, and I can help you no further, I think."
"But Chas -"
"No, dear, I mustn't. And I think I must be Master Fairmantle, or Lord Birstall, from now on."
"But I don't -"
"I know you don't, dear. And that's why it must be." He sighed, and gave her a rueful smile. "Oh, there, now, you're looking at me like a kicked puppy, and that breaks my heart. Come. Sit down, and - how does that old poem go, now? Since there's no help, come let us kiss and part. We are, I hope, still friends?"
"I do not understand," she said firmly. "Should we not be?"
He rang the little bell over the mantelpiece, his pink face reflected drooping in the big gilt mirror there.
"I imagine I should call for a dish of tea, shouldn't I? Or something fashionable? But you, my little country mouse, would like a mug of w
armed ale, or a similar rustic pleasure, I imagine. You never really have taken to the metropolis, have you?"
"I should like to try tea," she said. And then, stiffly, "But not if it is any trouble to you. My lord."
He gave the order for it. He was right, of course, and she would have preferred ale: her mother's, for preference, and warm, and a little spiced, and buttered. Not that she was going to tell Lord Birstall why her stomach was in need of settling, not if he was minded to cast their friendship aside. Though she might have told Chas, once. And tea, to be fair, was not that marvellous, but she sipped it politely, from its shallow dish, fragile as a thrush’s eggshell. "We have dishes like this at home," she said coolly, in case he thought she was so much of a country mouse she did not even know real China porcelain when she saw it. "They were a wedding gift."
"Well, you have some very generous friends." He smiled, and sat down on one of the stiff, upholstered chairs opposite her. "Now, dear. I have cudgelled my poor brains to think of a way round this, but I am glad you have decided to make an informal call - a very informal call, dear," he said reprovingly, taking in her mud-splattered skirts and pattens, "it saves me the trouble of attending on you. A thing I should rather not do, I fear."
"What have I done?" Her voice sounded like a hurt child's, and she tossed her head, wanting to look as if she did not care.
"You have done nothing, bless you. Oh, dear, what a tangle. And I had grown so fond of you, dear. Well. Mistress Russell, you should never have married that man," he said, and his lips pursed into a little pink drawstring of disapproval.
"I beg your pardon!"
"Well. You did, you have, and there it is, we have made our beds and we must lie on them. I’m sure he is a sweetheart, madam, in his way. But you should never have married him."
Thomazine surged to her feet, and did not care that the fragile dish slopped its fragrant contents over her skirts. "I will thank you not to speak of my husband so!"
"Oh, sit down, madam. I'm sorry, Mistress Russell, I am a member of Parliament, and I am, I flatter myself, a man of some standing in society, and I cannot continue to lend countenance to a murderer. No matter how fond I may be of his wife."
She wondered if this was how it felt to faint - not a thing she had ever done in her healthy life, but suddenly it felt as if her head were as empty as a bubble, all her skin shrinking cold on her bones -
And then she was sitting down again, with no idea how she got there, and Fairmantle was eyeing her anxiously, as if she might do something unpredictable any minute. "Oh my poor girl - my poor girl I did not mean - oh dear - "
"He is not a murderer," she said, and all the stiffness came out of her suddenly, like a starched cap dropped in a puddle, and her eyes and her nose began to run simultaneously. "He is not, Chas, he's not, and you know he's not! And that's what I came to tell you, he isn't, he isn't, he can't be -"
He did not touch her. "Thomazine -"
"He did not hurt that poor man, he did not hurt anybody," she sobbed, "and we can prove that he did not, there is a doctor, a man in the Royal Society, he said he could prove it, he had evidence, real proof that could not be argued - Thankful is turning it over to the authorities even as we speak, to investigate properly, to clear his name once and for all -"
He hushed her, gently, as you might a fractious child. "I know he did not, dear. I know he did not, and he could not. But Thomazine - oh, my poor girl - this is what I have agonised over, dear. He did kill his sister."
And she said nothing, for she had no answer to that, she felt as if all the air and all the words had been punched out of her, and her fingers crept all involuntary to her wedding ring. She saw his throat move as if he choked a little on something.
"I have known him - well, all our lives, you see, and he was always - I pitied him, poor boy that he was, I pity him still, do not think for one minute that this is easy. She - his sister - you know she was older than he? That she had the care of him since he was a small, a very small, boy. Barely lisping his first prayers, the poor mite. She was - she was zealous, I think you know. He has said. She was more zealous than perhaps is - natural, or normal, for a woman to be. And she hurt him."
Thomazine could not breathe. She could only stare until her eyes felt dry as sand.
"She hurt him very badly, dear. Some people might say she tortured him, poor little mite. And we all knew of it, everyone knew that she was cruel to him, that she - she made him a little mad, I think. More than a little. There is only so much torment a little boy might bear, you see, before he might - well. He thought, in the end, that he deserved it. That he was a bad, horrible, worthless little boy, and that he did not deserve to be loved. I was at school with him, dear. I grew up with him. I wanted to be his friend -" and rather horribly, Fairmantle's eyes were filling with tears, too, and his hands were trembling, "you have no idea how much I wanted to befriend him, the poor lost soul, but he would never let me. Oh, Thomazine, he was so lonely, you have no idea, he would stand watching us at play, and he did not know - he would just stand, staring at us, with those dreadful greedy eyes, and we would never let him in, and I am so, so sorry: I am sorrier than you could ever imagine, that we did not let him be one of us, for he would have grown up with - "
He squeezed her hand very tight, and gulped. "You know all this, dear, I think. He grew up a very sad, and very lonely, little boy, with no more idea of loving than a beast of the field. I probably don't know most of what she did to him. He never told. He doesn't, does he? And - oh, Thomazine, I am so sorry. They hated each other at the end, and he killed her, so that she could not carry on hurting him. He was frightened. I think he has always been frightened. That she would tell you what a bad, horrible, worthless child he had been, and what a worthless man he was, and - " he seemed to shrink a little, "that you would not care for him, any more. I cannot blame him, dear, for if she had been my sister I should have killed her years ago. She was a dreadful woman, and I cannot blame him for it, but -"
He blinked at her, wet-eyed, and squeezed her hand again. "I think we need a drink, dear. Not tea. For myself, I think I stand in need of a restorative."
And stood up, and took a turn about the room, stopping in front of her so that when she raised her head her eyes were on a level with the silver filigree buttons on his straining waistcoat. "You must know that he doesn't love you, don't you? He would, if he could – poor soul, he wants nothing more than to be – to be like other men, but she took all that away from him. He feigns it, because of all things he has learned how to dissemble - to appear like any other, as if he thinks and feels just like any of us, but he doesn't, Thomazine, he can't. He doesn’t know how to. And it doesn't matter how much you love him, because it can't be enough. It can never be enough. Like pouring water into a hole, dear - and I've tried, God knows I have tried, to stand his friend, but he will not let me. "
Her face felt stiff, and numb, as if it was made of marble. She had to remember how to move her lips, her tongue. "I." The oddest shrinking feeling about her bones, a cold, prickling sensation. "I know it. I know of her. She -"
Fly Coventry had not broken him. She had not. Thomazine would not have it so.
"How can it be enough, Thomazine?" he said sadly. "You deserve better than a man who will not love you. He will not ever love you. He has not the capacity."
It would be enough. Because she was a daughter of blood and fire, and born when the world was turned upside down, and she did not retreat. Not ever. It did not have to be a storybook love. She'd never took much to Sir Lancelot anyway. She lifted her head and looked squarely into Charles Fairmantle's moist, doggy eyes, and she said, "He will. He does. That will be his revenge, sir. To be loved."
- and she almost believed it.
"You will stand by him?"
"Always," she said, and it was starting to come easier. It was someone else's voice coming out of her mouth, but they were her thoughts, at least.
He nodded. "I am fond of you, Thomazine. Were I not - did
I not think we were, truly, friends - I would not tell you this. I feel sorry for Thankful, I feel dreadful that I knew what was done to him as a child and I did nothing, but it must stop. I cannot stand by and allow him to continue. I can't. I - well, if you had been unhappy, if he had treated you ill I should have helped, I would have given you money, found you a place, but -"
"I am well content, my lord. My husband -"
"Thomazine, I have spent the last quarter-hour very delicately trying not to tell you, and since you are determined to stay set on your misguided course; if you will have it in plain linen, mistress, if you persist in being obtuse, I will give it to you in plain words - your husband is a spy for the Dutch, my lady,” he said stiffly, and she bridled.
“He is not –“
"Will you listen to me! Do you understand nothing of what I've been telling you? That woman twisted him, she warped his loyalties, his honour, his –“
"That is not true!" she shouted back.
"Is it not, madam! Is it not! Then you will not mind, my lady, if I pass what I know to the authorities, either, will you? About how a retired Army officer on half pay might afford silks, and porcelains, and all manner of pretty things from his friends in Europe - he has never changed, Thomazine, can you not see that? He has never changed, and he will never change, he is exactly the same damnable anarchist he was twenty years ago!"
His face had grown red, and he was leaning down into her face, but she wasn't afraid of him.
"Then I am glad you consider our friendship at an end, my lord, because I certainly do! How dare you - how dare you call him a traitor -"
"Because he isn't, mistress, not in his head, can you not see that? That is what I am saying to you! He is possibly the most fiercely loyal man I have ever known, but he has never changed his loyalties, madam. Since - since Edgehill, I'll warrant! He is still loyal to his, his bloody puritanical, Dissenting, republican roots - well, I cannot stand by and let him do it, Mistress Russell, and I will not. I give you two days to make a decision: he either leaves this country and takes refuge with his dubious political friends on the Continent - and I will say no more of it, I owe you both that much, in friendship - or he remains here and I hand over what I know to His Majesty. I know he killed his sister, and I know he burned her body to hide his crime, and God alone knows what else he might have done, Thomazine, for I fear there may be no end to his hunger for – for vengeance, mistress, I think he hates the world for what it has done to him, poor child that he was, but I must see justice done, can you understand that? I cannot keep this to myself any longer. For I fear - I very much fear, by the nature of the crime at Wapping, that someone else knows it, too. And for his own sake - and for your sake, dear, to save you from the shame of it - well, I must. And I hope you will forgive me for it."