“Do ye intend to tell me what ’appened or not?”
“I scared you, and for that, I am sorry. It couldn’t be helped.” Gillian moved to the washbasin to cleanse her hands.
Cora harrumphed. “It will take more than a colossal stranger callin’ in the dead of night and takin’ me to a place I’ve never been to scare me, Baroness.”
That much was true. One of Cora’s responsibilities was to dress Gillian’s wounds when the situation called for it. “The man you speak of is Goodayle. He’s Lord Danbury’s butler.”
“Lord Danbury!” Cora’s mouth formed an O, but she covered it quickly with her hand. “Is this ’is townhouse?”
“Shh.” She waved her hands to calm Cora down. “It is, and I haven’t quite decided what I think about that yet.” She sat back down on the bed and lifted the platter cover. Cora had brought her plum cake, eggs, and ham. There was also a pitcher of tea and chocolate. “How divine,” she said on a sigh. When had she last eaten? She couldn’t be sure. “Thank you, Cora. You take such great care of me.”
Cora beamed proudly. “’Tis me job, m’lady. Ye tend to think of everyone else but yerself. ’Igh time that changes, I say.” She rushed forward and pointed to the tray. “And look! Someone slipped ye a note! Who do ye think it’s from?”
“Lord Danbury,” she said. “I recognize his handwriting. Only he and his staff know that I am here.”
“Well, go on, open it,” Cora insisted. “Whatever it is, it must be important.”
Gillian nodded. She popped the red wax seal and opened the missive, folding back the foolscap edges and revealing the perfectly formed script. She read the note, then dropped it in her lap. It was an invitation.
“Well?” Cora asked, crossing her arms and tapping her foot. “What does it say?”
She locked eyes with Cora. “There’s to be a meeting here tonight. Lord Danbury requests my presence.”
“What kind of meetin’?”
Gillian’s blood stirred. “The kind involving secrecy.” She clamped the missive in her lap as butterfly wings fluttered to life inside her. Simon had been true to his word: he meant to include her in Nelson’s Tea. This was her chance to honor Lucien, to continue his work.
“Is it wise to continue this way of life, Baroness?” Cora asked, as if reading her mind. “Assassins ’ave come after ye on numerous occasions, and ye’ve barely escaped. Ye do not ’ave nine lives.”
“Of course I don’t. I am not a feline.” She cut a glance at the widow’s garb behind Cora. The gown was draped over the back of an overstuffed chair by the hearth. Its very presence forewarned what lay ahead. Men lived and died serving the crown. But she was determined to do what Lucien had trained her to do, to give her life meaning. “I must be honest with myself. I have been given a taste of danger, and it is in my blood now. What else am I to do, Cora?” she asked. “You know how much I enjoyed working alongside my husband.”
“The baron would likely want ye to continue to fight in ’is rebellion, but at a safe distance.” Cora took Gillian’s hand in hers. “But ’e is gone. We cannot go back to Kent. Not after—”
“I know.” She nodded. “Lord Danbury is forming a clandestine organization that Admiral Nelson intends to use against Napoleon, Fouché, and Barère.”
“Admiral Nelson?” Cora smiled broadly. “The very same ’oo won the battle of Copenhagen?”
At Gillian’s nod, Cora left Gillian and crossed the room. She picked up the bloody apron. “I cannot tell ye what to do, m’lady, but one way to ’onor yer ’usband’s memory would be to carry on ’is good work. The people of France be sufferin’. We’ve seen it.”
Gillian chuckled. “Lord Danbury used the same argument with me.” She smiled at Cora fondly. “The baron would approve of your wise counsel.”
“It isn’t ’is approval I seek, m’lady.” She dropped the apron. She approached the copper tub and dragged her finger around its lip on her way to the fireplace. “Be there another reason ye doubt yer decision?” she asked over her shoulder as she dropped to bank the fire.
“I’m not sure,” Gillian lied. She paused a beat, then gave in. Cora would figure it out sooner or later. The woman had a knack for deducing Gillian’s thoughts. “Yes. There is . . . As you said, it isn’t safe in Kent. If I don’t agree to help Lord Danbury, I shall have to move far away.”
Cora glanced over her shoulder. “What are ye not tellin’ me?”
“You wouldn’t approve.”
Her maid rose to her feet with a hot poker in her hand. “What ’arm could there be in not attendin’ the meetin’?”
“As you know, Lord Danbury meant something to me once.”
“And?” Cora asked. “Are ye afraid yer affection for the gentleman will be rekindled?”
It already had. “I went to visit Lady Danbury last night.”
“Whatever for?”
“She was dying, Cora,” Gillian said, her voice breaking, as Cora dropped the poker and rushed to her side. “When Goodayle told me Lady Danbury was sick, I was beside myself with worry. I’ve never wished her ill. I thought . . . I thought to help her, you see.”
“And did ye?” Cora asked, sitting on the bed beside Gillian.
She shook her head. “Goodayle failed to mention how badly the lady’s health had declined. My heart ached when I saw her. She was incredibly thin, pale, and near death.” She shivered uncontrollably. Cora laid something warm about her shoulders as Gillian explained the state in which she’d found Lady Danbury, the smell of saffron and laudanum that permeated the woman’s room, and the conversation she had with Simon’s wife. Gillian even told Cora that she was almost killed while returning to the townhouse and shared that Simon had come to her room.
“So, you see, it will be impossible to join Nelson’s Tea and be impartial to Lord Danbury, especially after his wife made me promise to take care of him.”
“Oh dear,” she said. “And did she die?” Shock registered on Cora’s face as Gillian nodded. “Poor man. But yer choice should be easy now. Ye loved ’im once.” Cora inclined her head. “Is it possible ye love ’im still?”
“It’s too soon to say.” Indeed, the odds couldn’t be more against them. She’d lost her husband violently, and Simon had just lost his wife to a lengthy illness. What would people say?
“Then ye owe it to yerself to stay and find out. After all, ye promised the lord’s wife.”
Gillian could always count on Cora to speak plainly and get to the heart of a matter. Lucien had hired her, and she’d been invaluable to Gillian since she’d come to work for her in Kent. She was tight-lipped, trustworthy, and reliable, qualities one did not always find in a servant. But Cora had become more than that. She was Gillian’s confidant and friend. Her advice had never faltered before.
“Very well. I’ll stay . . . for now.”
She speared another piece of plum cake with her fork and sighed. She wasn’t certain she could live so close to the man she’d loved and lost without forgetting her place. And could she openly hide her love and affection from the rest of the world, in keeping with her role as a widowed baroness?
“‘Take thy seat of actors first,’” she quoted Jubilee aloud. “For such thy art, thou seem’dst as thou wert born for the stage only—yet thy manners such, thy probity so great, thou seem’dst unfit to have been there—” She stopped, unable to continue.
“I wish I could ’ave seen ye on the stage, Baroness. Ye must ’ave earned great praise.” Cora disappeared behind a door and returned with a freshly pressed black gown devoid of frills. She laid it on the corner of the bed and put her hands on her hips. “What made ye think of that particular passage?”
The fork clattered to Gillian’s plate as she put her hand on her chest. “It seemed appropriate somehow. What we do henceforth will force us to hide who we truly are.”
Ten
“And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history . . .”
~William Shakespeare, As You Like It
Several days later, Simon and many of the men he’d selected to join Nelson’s Tea waited in his library for the meeting when the door to the library opened. “The Honorable Henry Dundas, former Secretary of State and War Secretary,” Goodayle announced.
Dundas moved into the room and bowed to the group gathered there. “Good evening, Danbury,” he said with a lilting Scottish accent.
“Dundas,” Simon said, bowing his head. “Welcome.”
Dundas, a well-known curmudgeon who left his position at the War Office in May after Prime Minister William Pitt’s resignation, gave Simon a nod and then moved away, carrying a ledger and grumbling something about timetables as he walked over to Simon’s desk. There, he sat down, turned to a specific page in said ledger, and picked up a quill to jot something within it.
“The Most Noble Lord Horatio Nelson, Viscount and Baron Nelson, Knight of the Bath, Vice-Admiral of the Blue, Duke of Brontë.”
Staccato footsteps clicked against the marble floor of the foyer as Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson entered the library. He came to an abrupt halt as the entire assembly rose to greet him. Nelson rose to his full five-foot-seven-inch height. He reached up and removed his hat, turned, and offered it to Goodayle, who grasped the bicorn like a prized piece of porcelain. “Thank you, Goodayle, for that magnificent introduction.”
Goodayle maintained his poise in the presence of his old commander and backed respectably out of the room.
A feast to the eyes, Nelson was dressed in military blue, his buttons shining a brilliant gold. His right sleeve was pinned conspicuously as he had no arm to fill it. He wore polished black pumps and formfitting white stockings. Dark circles shadowed his eyes, and he appeared drawn and tense, the effects of another bout of malaria having taken its toll, it seemed. His military bearing—posture, enthusiasm, and confidence—had been strictly enforced by his uncle throughout his career, evident by his firm constitution, the set of his brow, and the smile that didn’t quite reach the eyes, affirming he’d seen and done things no man should.
Nelson stood stiffly in all his glory as he spotted Simon, clicked his heels, nodded, and then bowed a greeting. “Lord Danbury.”
“Lord Nelson,” Simon said, bowing in return. “Welcome to Number Eleven Bolton Street.”
The awe the vice-admiral inspired was a rallying cry among the British people. For men of action, living a dual existence was no real hardship. One did what one had to do. But how did Nelson manage? He was married to a woman who would not give him a divorce. He flaunted a mistress before his wife, the Admiralty, and the ton, caring not a whit for public speculation and nearly making himself look ridiculous. And yet, Nelson held the hopes and dreams of the countless wives and children of the men who followed him.
Even now, Simon struggled to retain his height under the weight of twenty lives perched on his lapels. Nelson stood proudly, having balanced far more his entire life. He’d come to meet each and every man Simon had recruited, measuring them for muster, and the vice-admiral’s approval was paramount to their success. Overlooked by Parliament, the House of Lords, the ton, and the merchant class, the men that would make up this clandestine organization stood to serve England under the command of a man who’d lost an arm and the sight in one eye for the cause.
“Lieutenant Frederick Langford and Mr. Tom Allen,” Goodayle announced next.
Nelson’s two aides stepped into the room.
“Danbury,” Nelson said. “My condolences regarding the loss of your wife.”
“Thank you, my lord.” Simon swallowed thickly as he motioned for the vice-admiral to move farther into the room, dismissing his personal difficulties. They had no place here. He extended his hand. “We are ready.”
“And they said it could not be done,” Dundas interjected. “I shall be quite pleased to see my contemporaries in the War Office change their tune.”
Goodayle reappeared with a tray of glasses filled with amber liquid that sloshed around as he made his way through the library from Nelson and his aides, to Simon and Dundas, and then to the men they’d assembled in the room, chief among them Percival Avery, the Marquess of Stanton; Lieutenant Henry Guffald; and Garrick, Viscount Seaton.
Vice-Admiral Nelson surveyed the room. He lifted his glass, as did the others. “To England!”
“To England!” the men repeated.
Nelson downed the liquor in one gulp. When Goodayle returned, Nelson placed the empty glass on the tray and reached for another. “I’m indebted to you . . . Goodayle, isn’t it? It’s not every day a man meets another who’s actually chosen to step down the social ladder.”
Goodayle beamed. “Every man should do his duty.”
“You’re a good egg, Wittingham,” Nelson said, using Goodayle’s real name as he patted him on the shoulder.
Simon nodded to Goodayle. “As you’ve said many times, my lord, ‘To be sure, there is no doing anything—’”
“Without trying,” Nelson finished. He studied Simon. “A man can do anything he sets his mind to do. And yet, there are many who do not see things the way you and I do, Danbury.”
“I heartily agree,” Simon said.
He would never forget his brother’s words: Presumptuous pup. Why can’t Nelson’s current squadrons of officers and sailors band together? Why must it be you?
Because Nelson’s seamen were needed elsewhere, he’d told his brother. Because British lives were at risk unless he, or someone else, kept Napoleon’s armada from pirating or blockading trade and put an end to the plots against the monarchy.
“Stanton!” Simon hailed. “You are the first man I shall introduce.”
Stanton left his position by the hearth, cocked his hip, and swaggered closer. “Egad,” he said, jutting out his chin above his starched cravat. “I’m all aflutter to be in your presence, my good sir. What a fabulous honor it is to meet England’s savior at last.”
Nelson narrowed his good eye and studied Stanton. Today, he wore a powdered wig to flaunt his wealth—taxes on powder having increased—and he’d added a mole on his powdered cheek, next to his nose. A beribboned queue matched his flamboyant green-striped suit with its embroidered rose-colored waistcoat. His shoes had been spit-polished to a glistening sheen. He looked like a man who’d stepped out of an eighteenth-century painting.
Both ingenious and ridiculous.
It was a performance that left Simon no doubt that a warrior primed for battle lurked beneath the disguise. But Nelson didn’t know that—yet.
Simon regarded Nelson. “May I present Percival Avery, the Marquess of Stanton.”
“Your father is the Duke of Blendingham, is he not?” Nelson asked.
“You’re quite astute, good fellow,” Stanton said. “He’s a member of the House of Lords.”
“Will your participation pose a problem? You are the duke’s only son, if I am not mistaken.”
Percy tossed his quizzing glass upward, caught it with lightning-fast reflexes, stashed the fob in his waistcoat, and with a comical gyration of his hips, straightened his spine before accepting Nelson’s extended hand. “My father has his way of serving the king; I have mine.”
Nelson nodded, and another man stepped forward.
“Lieutenant Henry Guffald,” Simon announced.
Blond, blue-eyed Guffald, his uniform pristinely ornamented, bowed and then sharply rose to attention. “It’s my honor to be of service, my lord.”
Nelson grinned at Langford. “Guffald reminds me of Lieutenant Parker.” Parker had been one of Nelson’s beloved aides-de-camp. “Damned unfortunate I lost the boy in Boulogne.” He inspected Guffald. “An officer who wins the love of his men will work wonders where a leader of a different stamp will fail. Wisdom before honor, Lieutenant. Make me proud.”
“Aye, my lord.” Guffald nodded.
A tall, wide-shouldered man with long, loose-hanging hair and icy-blue eyes sauntered forward. He laid a jeweled hand on a silver sword scabbard at his w
ide leather belt and regarded Nelson’s aides with distrust. “Garrick, Viscount Seaton, privateer, and the Earl of Pendrim’s son,” Simon said as he introduced the wayward, seafaring captain.
Seaton towered over Nelson by a head or more.
“Privateer, eh?” Nelson peered sideways at his aides, who suddenly appeared thunderstruck.
“Aye, sir. The best there is,” he said proudly.
“Ah,” Nelson said, stretching out his hand. Seaton took it and gave it a solid shake. “It will be good to have a man with your . . . experience on our side. War is beyond England’s shores, not within it.”
Seaton grinned. “I’m eager for a fight.”
Simon introduced the remaining men he’d gathered: Captain Collins, Lieutenants Winters and Edwards, Clemmons, Stanley, Moore, Randall, Forsyth, Douglas, Whitbread, Russell, Milford, Holt, Walden, Chapman, and Hamlet. Vice-Admiral Nelson shook each man’s hand. After a moment of contemplative silence, he asked, “Where is my Lady Nelson’s twin?”
Simon furrowed his brows. “Who?”
“The courageous widow,” he said, smiling. “You know, the one who warned us in the Theatre Royal.”
“I am here,” Gillian said, entering the library on cue, her black hair parted down the middle. She’d obviously taken great care to downplay her appearance, likely in an attempt to avoid drawing attention to herself in order to fit in—if that was possible in a room full of males. But the black gown only seemed to enhance her oval face and the intensity of her intelligent brown eyes. She’d failed miserably in Simon’s mind. She would always be his light beckoning him from afar, no matter how long it took to properly grieve for his dear wife.
“Lord Nelson.” Gillian walked up to the vice-admiral, bowed her head, and curtsied. “I pray my performance didn’t disturb Lady Hamilton overmuch.”
“On the contrary.” Nelson puffed out his chest and rose on the balls of his feet as if to feign a greater height. She’d always been taller than the other ladies onstage. “Lady Nelson is a patient and forgiving sort, except when it comes to me,” he said. “She prefers the country and I . . . well, I am energized by the masses.”
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