Simon shoved his hand through his hair. “My wife—God rest her soul—was an uncomplicated creature. She was genuine and loyal, dutiful and kind, as you generously pointed out.” He puffed on his cigar, glanced at the fire, and then moved toward it to throw the stub into the flames.
“She was in love once, as we were,” he said, looking her direction. The word once fractured Gillian’s heart. “But her parents thought the man she wanted to marry only desired Edwina for her money. Unfortunately, that may have been the case. Her parents, the Landon-Fitzhughs, caught the man attempting to whisk Edwina off to Gretna Green in the middle of the night to be married. Desperate to save their daughter’s reputation, they turned to my father. A contract was made up that would impact my social status and naval career.”
She nodded slowly to show him she was listening, though the pain she saw in his eyes made her yearn to throw her arms around him and hold him.
“Sir Landon-Fitzhugh had connections within the Admiralty, you see. After I was injured aboard HMS Captain, my father, a powerful man I dutifully strove to impress, worried about my future. I was informed about Edwina’s situation and asked to step in honorably to save her reputation. It would be a career move, as well, assuring me a place in politics. I had no interest in government at the time. My loyalties lay elsewhere with Admiral Nelson.”
He stopped to stare at the fire. “I sought the admiral’s help, knowing he would give me the best advice. He said the connections I could make within the Admiralty would allow access to information he could not readily get, reminding me of the countless times he’d asked for more frigates, only to be ignored. Shortly afterward, I agreed to the contract. I was bound to honor that contract when I met you, as much as I wished otherwise.” He began to pace the carpet before the hearth. “Edwina was devastated by her lover’s desertion, and I—loving you as I did—stood by to watch you marry someone else.”
She’d been so caught up in the whirlwind that had been her wedding day—cursing Simon’s indifference—that she’d neglected to consider how her marriage had affected him. All this time, she had believed he’d never loved her. How could a man love a woman he so easily cast aside? But she’d been wrong. She raised up in the tub, desiring to comfort him, not knowing if she could bear any more.
Firelight highlighted his body as he turned back toward the hearth and borrowed the mantel for support. His voice was thick and unsteady as he continued pouring out his soul to her. “Edwina and I married unified in the hope that we could make the best of our situation. We never spoke of our heartbreaking losses again.”
So it had all been an illusion. Simon had been wearing an iron mask. That revelation shattered the last of the walls surrounding her heart.
His voice was uncompromising but surprisingly gentle as he added, “Edwina is gone now. She told me she was grateful you came to her.” He cleared his throat and turned to face her. “She likes—liked—you. And as she drew her last breath, she made me promise never to let you go.”
He left the fireplace, limped toward her, and knelt down before the tub. “As she requested, I have come to you, Gillian. I am here, body and soul. I am now at liberty to ask for your pardon. Could you ever forgive me?”
His entreaty combined with his nearness stirred her senses to dizzying new heights. “There is nothing to forgive, Simon.” In truth, there wasn’t. She’d yearned to hear him apologize for his deceit but knew she was as much to blame for their past as he was.
“Truly?” His unrelenting gaze searched hers. “I cannot bear the thought of your derision.”
Her heart hitched. She wasn’t the doe-eyed girl Simon had met at Drury Lane. She was a seasoned woman, a widow mourning those who were no longer parts of their lives: Lucien and even Simon’s wife. But his apology, no matter how long she’d yearned for it, was too much, too soon. “I have learned that channeling my energy where it can be most effective can help me accept what I cannot change. Life is too short to harbor ill will.”
He shook his head. “Time has been good to you, Gillian,” he said, his voice a silken caress, if not sorrowful in its delivery.
She trembled, resisting her desire to touch him. “To you, as well.”
She shrank back in the tub, feeling awkward and embarrassed again, as her emotions swirled inside her—fear of herself and what she might do in light of the sadness that settled over them like a shroud. Concern for what their confessions might bring, as the threshold they just crossed tore at the fragile boundary between them.
“You are tired,” he said. “How long has it been since you have slept?”
She’d forgotten. How long had it been? She’d only been able to doze off and on while traveling from Kent. “Forty-eight hours, perhaps?”
He leaned forward, his arm brushing against hers as he reached for a cloth and a bar of soap.
“What are you doing?” she asked, suddenly apprehensive. She watched him lather the cloth. Did he actually mean to bathe her like a child? Torment began to gnaw at her belly. And yet, her body refused to move.
“I used to bathe Edwina like this.” He was so close, his breath sent tendrils of fire racing through her veins as he began to stroke her shoulders. “I cannot lose you again, Gillian.”
“Simon.” Her heart turned over in her chest, and she gazed into his eyes. Emotions she’d held in check burst forth, and she unleashed her misery, sobbing out her despair with abandon. Life was unfair! Lucien and Lady Danbury were dead; several men had tried to kill her. And now the pain she’d tried so hard to bury had been yanked to the surface.
Simon knew these things, too, and he drew her close, allowing her time to expend her sorrow as he traced an imaginary path across her back, comforting her in ways only he could. When at last her tears were spent, he guided her to her feet and wrapped a dry towel around her. Then with gentle ease, he lifted her into his arms and carried her to the bed.
“Simon, no,” she rushed out on a gasp.
He couldn’t possibly mean to—
“Shh,” he cooed. “If I don’t get you into bed, you will catch a chill. The water has grown cold.”
He laid her down gently, as if she were a babe, and pulled the sheets over her body. When the counterpane was tucked around her, he reached for her hand, interlocking their fingers. “You are more beautiful than I ever imagined anyone could be.”
“Don’t say that, Simon,” she said. “I am many things but not beautiful. I am weak, addle-headed, and a heartless wanton because I am not running as far away from you as I can.”
“You are wrong. You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.” He let go of her hand and placed it beneath the covers. “I will not ask you how blood got splattered on your clothes. I have seen with my own eyes that it isn’t yours, and that is all that matters. Sleep now. You are safe. We will be at it again in the morning, hammer and tongs.”
“We?” she asked, unable to snuff out the hope that filled her breast.
His stare raked boldly over her, heating her blood. “I like the sound of that, though the cost weighs heavily on my soul.”
Gillian smiled. “Mine too.” She closed her eyes, but she knew sleep wouldn’t easily come. One question still plagued her mind: what would tomorrow bring?
Nine
“His youthful hose, well saved a world too wide
For his shrunk shank, and his manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes . . .”
~William Shakespeare, As You Like It
Hours after he’d left Gillian’s room and the hackney driver had delivered him home, Simon sank into a leather chair in his study at Number Seventeen Curzon Street. The weight of the world settled on his shoulders as he contemplated the somber quiet that filled the townhouse. He was accustomed to schedules and unsettled by the thought that there would be no more doctors coming and going at all hours. He took a generous sip from his second tumbler of brandy. At this point in his life, he cared not a whit what condition Archer found him in whe
n the sun rose through the study windows and his butler entered through the large oak doors.
Surrounded by a menagerie of bookcases, journals, and maps, Simon was at a loss. He didn’t know where to begin. It was his duty, however, to take the situation in hand. The Landon-Fitzhughs were on sabbatical in Bath, where Sir Landon-Fitzhugh partook in the medicinal waters. It fell to Simon to inform them of their daughter’s death, and it was information that needed to be delivered with care via a courier. A carriage also needed to be sent to retrieve them in their bereavement.
Until the Landon-Fitzhughs arrived, funeral rites would be discharged and Edwina’s body prepared for burial, a matter that needed to be taken care of without delay. At most, a body lasted two weeks before decay set in, depending on the weather, except for those who’d endured lengthy illnesses or addictions of some kind. At least that’s what he’d been told. And that meant Edwina’s body would need to be laid to rest as soon as possible. His course of action would also be determined by Edwina’s parents, of course. He knew they would want to bury their only daughter in the family crypt on their country estate, but Edwina’s relationship with her family had suffered greatly after she and Simon had wed. Her parents had never quite forgiven her disobedience and nearly tarnishing their good name.
Simon leaned back, resting his head on the tall chairback. Edwina had been particularly fond of Chelsea, and in particular St. Luke’s Cemetery where Sir Thomas More, Lady Jane Cavendish Cheyne, and Sir Hans Sloane were interred. “Holy ground,” she’d called it.
Devil take it, to hell with what the Landon-Fitzhughs desired. He’d write a letter to Mr. Crofton, the vicar at St. Luke’s, and make arrangements for his wife to join the likes of great men and women who’d found their heavenly reward. It would be a sensible gesture to have Chauncey’s body collected from Kent and delivered to St. Luke’s, as well, though he would have to get Gillian’s approval first.
His mind made up, Simon opened his lap desk, set a piece of parchment on the writing slope, and picked up a quill. He thoughtfully crafted a letter to the Landon-Fitzhughs, considering the shock and their emotional state as he wrote, then sprinkled sand over the script and folded the missive. When that was done, he took off his signet ring and pressed his family crest into the foolscap, sealing the note in wax before putting it aside. He’d have Archer arrange for his correspondence to be transported to Bath via one of his coachmen.
The preoccupation of his mind and courtesy to Edwina’s relatives in place, he turned his attention to his second order of business—one crucial to Britain’s political climate. Instructions would need to be sent to the men he’d enlisted to join Nelson’s Tea so they could be introduced to Vice-Admiral Nelson, learn what was expected of them, and discover what their first mission would entail.
It had taken Simon a year to locate and recruit the most trusted and capable men he could find. And now, with the attempt on Vice-Admiral Nelson’s life, Philippe d’Auvergne’s work with émigrés in Jersey and his forgery of French assignat notes at thirty thousand pounds a year in jeopardy, and the added loss of Chauncey, they could not risk waiting to put their men into the field. Obtaining genuine intelligence took time, and time was of the essence. The United Irishmen and the Corresponding Societies plotted to topple the monarchy. Henry Dundas claimed there was also something else afoot inside the War Office, shifting alliances that endangered England’s shores.
With so much at stake, the Marquess of Stanton would need to be contacted first. Stanton would handle the arrangements, taking Vice-Admiral Nelson’s and Hendry Dundas’s schedules into consideration. Goodayle would prepare the servants and the town house at Number Eleven for twenty-one people, not including Simon. And Gillian, if she agreed to join Nelson’s Tea, would act as hostess.
Once the men were assembled, the organization would stretch its arms across Scotland, Wales, England, and Cornwall, to France and Spain. In addition to the twenty-one members of the group, there were others who would work behind the scenes to ensure the operation was a success abroad, such as d’Auvergne—already in place and working for the Admiralty—and Don Alberto Ramon Vasquez in San Sebastian, and Filbert Seaton, the Earl of Pendrim, in Cornwall. The two men were old acquaintances and free traders capable of smuggling men and supplies between England and Spain. The connections were vital to their success.
Keeping track of the group would be a challenging endeavor, however, a distraction Simon needed, especially now. Some at the Admiralty claimed their objective was impossible, but Simon meant to prove the naysayers wrong. He had the former war secretary’s approval, and King George III’s, the Prince of Wales’s, and Nelson’s support. All he needed now was for Gillian to agree to join their cause.
She’d proven her loyalty by fighting alongside her husband until the bitter end. She’d even been able to neutralize Chauncey’s assassin, successfully warn Nelson, and defend herself from her attacker at the theater. He also suspected she’d had another encounter with the enemy on her way home from his townhouse. The blood on her disguise hinted as much. Nelson’s Tea could use a woman of her caliber, a female spy capable of infiltrating the upper crust. He prayed she’d join him in the endeavor, that she wouldn’t allow their past to cloud her decision.
He put down the quill and wrapped his hand around his tumbler before draining his brandy once again.
Gillian wasn’t the woman he’d once loved. She was better, stronger, more enticing now than she’d ever been. The scars Simon had seen on her body—her shoulder blade, left hip, right knee, and ankle—indicated that the life Chauncey had trained her for had been a perilous one. Simon had been forced to grit his teeth when he’d helped her out of the tub and seen evidence of her previous wounds, just to keep from asking her about them. He was the one who’d arranged for her to marry the baron to keep her safe, not put her in danger.
Guilt unlike any he’d ever known assailed him. He blamed himself for Edwina’s illness and her descent into addiction, as well as Gillian’s widowhood. If he hadn’t allowed Edwina to keep trying to give him a child, if the doctors he’d hired had been able to determine what ailed her and hadn’t provided the laudanum she’d become addicted to, and if he’d never sent Chauncey to France, perhaps Edwina would still be alive and Gillian wouldn’t be a widow. But he had done those things. He was responsible.
He pressed his lips together, choking back the fury that made his pulse race. There was nothing he could do to turn back time. Not one blasted thing. The cards had been dealt, and war was an art that knew no master.
Simon picked up his quill again and twirled it between his fingers. He dipped the hollow shaft of the molted feather into an inkwell and began writing the first sentence of many dispatches he’d be sending throughout the day. No matter the personal tragedies any of them faced, they could not falter.
Gillian awoke and wiped the sleep from her eyes as a knock sounded on the door.
“Enter,” she said, shifting on the pillows.
The door slowly opened and her maid, Cora, appeared. In her hands, she carried a tray of food. She curtsied, walked toward Gillian, and lowered the tray to the nightstand. “Good mornin’, m’lady.”
Gillian smiled, pleased to see that Cora had been safely delivered to the townhouse, just as Goodayle had said. “Good morning, Cora. You had no trouble arriving here, I hope?”
“No trouble a’tall.” Cora turned back to the door and closed it. She scurried to Gillian’s bedside and made a good show of plumping the pillows behind Gillian’s back so she could sit up more comfortably. “I am so ’appy to see ye again, m’lady. When ye didn’t return to the Bull and Mouth, I was beside meself. Thought ye’d been killed, I did.”
She moved to the windows and busied herself opening the heavy drapes to allow decadent rays of rare London sunshine into the room. “Brought ye up a tray. I figured ye’d be ’ungry since ye’re normally up afore dawn.”
“Thank you, Cora.” Her maid was right. Oversleeping wasn’t her normal routin
e, but her life had changed drastically and this wasn’t her room. The bed, nightstand, wardrobe, sideboard with wash basin, and bric-a-brac on the mantel weren’t hers, though she appreciated the almost imperceptible door cloaked by wallpaper beside the fireplace, which offered a quick escape should the need arise.
Sorrow filled her as images of the past several days flooded her mind. Lucien. The theater. Simon. The assassins.
Remnants of Simon’s spicy cigar lingered in the air. The copper tub still sat before the fire. She was safe, cared for. Simon had stepped in to help her. When all appeared lost, he had a tendency to swoop in like an avenging angel to calm her spirits and usher her through the darkest turmoil. “Life always finds a way,” she said softly.
“What’s that ye say, Baroness?” Cora began to tidy up the room. She picked up the maid’s uniform Gillian had worn the night before and looked at her, bewildered. “Please tell me this isn’t yer blood!”
“It isn’t,” she said truthfully, then gave a dismissive wave of her hand. “Oh, I am famished. What have you brought me to eat?” she asked quickly.
“No, ye don’t. Ye’ll not be changin’ the subject on me.” Cora examined the uniform more closely. “A neck wound, I wager, by the angle of the stain. Tell me that ye didn’t ’ave a run-in with more assassins,” she said, her voice quivering.
Cora had been working for Gillian for too long; the woman could always see past Gillian’s facades.
Gillian climbed out of bed and stepped behind the screen, using the privacy to allow herself more time to think. She had much to ponder: what to tell Cora, whether or not she’d stay and join Nelson’s Tea, her feelings for Simon. When she appeared moments later, Cora was standing there waiting, her arms crossed over her chest. She’d already straightened the sheets, plumped Gillian’s pillows again, and placed the breakfast tray on the bed.
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