At Your Pleasure

by Meredith Duran

  Her knuckles throbbed with the force of her grip on the windowsill. Such company Rivenham brought to her house!

  She took a deep breath to calm herself, and then another. The late-summer day had dawned cloudless, and a cool breeze came off the nearby field of rapeseed, carrying a pungent scent that prickled in her nose like pepper. At least there would be no rain today.

  More raucous laughter rose from below.

  Come to search the premises, had they? These men were gamboling like boys on holiday!

  But of course they were. Searching the house was only the pretext for their visit. In truth, they had come to ambush her brother. Rivenham had said as much.

  Her grip loosened. Last night, in her anger and panic, his admission had sounded like a threat. Now, in the bright light of the morning, she saw it differently. He’d had no need to tell her his true intent.

  Could he have meant to warn her?

  She spun toward the open door. “Grizel!”

  Her maidservant appeared, a cup of tea in hand. “My lady? Will you drink?”

  She waved away the cup. “The tenant whose son broke his leg two days ago. John Plummer, was it not?”

  “Aye, the Plummers,” Grizel said. “John and Mary, son by the name of William. Last winter the arm, and now the leg: that’s the clumsiest boy God ever designed.”

  Nora smiled. “Do they still live near the apple grove on the eastern border?” The river Hodder had flooded two years ago, displacing many of the tenants.

  Grizel nodded. “Now same as then.”

  “Then fetch me a new quill.” Nora crossed to her writing desk. That apple grove was where she found the correspondence that did not come through the post—and where she left her own secrets, when she had cause to share them.

  Lord Rivenham had told her that she could not stir beyond the grounds of Hodderby. But the grove lay within them.

  The telescope took Adrian by surprise.

  He laid a hand on the finely grained beech wood, stroking it once before lifting the machine from its pedestal. The inlaid brass was brightly polished, the dial well oiled.

  He wondered how it had won pride of place in Lord Hexton’s library. She would have had a difficult time explaining to her father how it had come into her possession. The glass had been crafted in Bohemia, to Adrian’s specifications in conference with Mr. Newton. The beechwood body and brass fittings had been assembled in France. He had spent two quarters’ allowance on it and consequently lived a hard winter at La Flèche, dependent on the goodwill of his fellow collegians to keep him from freezing after his store of coal ran out.

  He’d given it to her without a moment’s thought for its loss.

  So full of wonder she had been, back then. To see it spread over her face when she’d first looked through the telescope had been like to seeing the sun rise for the first time in his life.

  Oft she had looked at him with the same expression. Perhaps the boy he’d been had even deserved it. In those days, his hands had been unstained, his sleep untroubled.

  One could envy the pleasures of innocence, he thought. But the fate of innocents—how easily their gullibility led them to slaughter—that was worth no envy. For the sake of his soul, he should pity those who trusted in the goodness of the world to safeguard them. But when he thought of the boy he had once been, pity was harder to feel than contempt.

  He had trusted her completely. What fool did such a thing, and then dared to mourn when betrayed?

  “Find something?”

  He looked up. Braddock, twisted at the waist atop a short ladder that rested against the bookcase, watched him quizzically.

  I have found a piece of foolishness, he thought. She should have destroyed the instrument. It would have been safer for her.

  The woman she had become . . . he would have sworn that woman would destroy it very easily.

  “Nothing of note,” he answered. Because he did not like the feel of the instrument in his hands, the solid, undeniable weight of it, he returned it to its stand. The odd feeling he put down to fatigue. He had not slept well last night. This place, more than most, inspired twisted dreams. “And you?” he asked Braddock. “You’ve been poking at those books long enough to learn to read.”

  Braddock gave him a wry smile. “What do you reckon?” He leapt off the ladder, landing easily despite his bulk. Ruddy and dark, he was the son of a wherryman who had earned his living steering boats on the Thames. This made Braddock an unlikely man at arms, but sure-footed on any surface, with skill to navigate so long as there were stars.

  His complaints were not so useful. “Here’s a waste of our time, searching,” he went on. “A nice pantomime, when where we should be waiting is Dover, to hunt the bastard down like a dog.”

  Adrian lifted a brow. “Barstow’s son said much the same over breakfast this morning.”

  Braddock grimaced. “Now you wound me, you do. To sound the smallest bit like that puling milksop—”

  “Then distinguish yourself by using your brain. The cause here is not war but the prevention of it.” The recent Riot Act had gone far to quiet the disturbances that had swept England during the spring, but Adrian had taken note of the mood in the towns they had passed on their journey here. At the taverns, in the coffeehouses, an ominous silence had greeted their appearance, and he had seen more than one man pass his wineglass over water before offering up toasts to the king.

  These silent tributes to the pretender did not trouble Adrian so much as the boldness with which they were essayed. The kingdom was a powder barrel in want of a spark.

  “Slaying a man in the street would not be restful to the public mood,” he said.

  Braddock gave a sigh. “Aye, I suppose. So we sit here in wait of him like a cat at a mouse hole. Simple work, if a mite slow.”

  Adrian shrugged. This task was simple for those under his command, but for himself, there was danger in it. He understood that better, even, than the king did. George Augustus was shrewd, but he was not English. One day he would learn to divine the murky undercurrents of Parliamentary politics, but at present, his logic and intuition often combined to point him down the wrong path.

  The king himself recognized this weakness, and depended on English advisors. He had asked certain men in Parliament to choose a reliable man to corral a traitor. Let it be a man of stature, he had said, with the authority and the willingness to complete the task peaceably or bloodily, as the situation requires.

  He had not realized that his advisors’ recommendation of Adrian was an attempt at political assassination. Somerset and Lord Huthwaite in particular disliked the prospect of a former Catholic drawing so close to power. Should Adrian fail to capture David Colville, they would ensure that his religious history shed a particular light on his failure. Soon, he would be the one to whom the whiff of treason attached.

  He had safeguarded himself as well as he could by securing Lord John’s company in this work. The boy’s doting father, Barstow, was cousin to Somerset and friend to Huthwaite. Should anyone allege wrongdoing on Adrian’s part, they would have to incriminate Lord John, and thereby antagonize Barstow as well.

  Still, that was not surety enough for comfort. Adrian’s own people posed him troubles. His younger siblings lived but a day’s ride away, at Beddleston. Adrian had fortified that manor, but lacking an army it would not stand against a prolonged assault, particularly if those who worked his lands, so many of them Catholic, turned against it. Moreover, should they rise, their rebellion would be blamed on their master. And this said nothing of his innumerable cousins across the northwest, or his sisters who had married within the Catholic faith, whose husbands’ treason, if they pursued it, would taint Adrian and all those he sought to protect.

  The easiest and most convenient course lay in making a spectacle of his loyalties. He would deliver David Colville to the Tower—publicly, with loud fanfare. Then, in good time, with this Jacobite nonsense extinguished, he would deal with his detractors. Make a private peace, if
the terms suited him—or a private war, depending.

  He found himself looking at the telescope again. Impatient, he passed a hand over his eyes. With so much hanging in the balance, he should not be loitering over curios. Here was no mystery, no wonder, only a piece of a past best forgotten.

  What chafed him, then, in the sight of this instrument so boldly displayed?

  Once upon a time, surely, he had known his own mind. But he could no longer say what lurked in his own depths. Other men looked to their emotions, but his had gone into slumber. They looked to God as well, but he had abandoned his faith and felt no welcome in any church.

  Cold logic was his only guide. It had served him well on his rise, and he knew its rules well enough. It did not allow for mercy or curiosity.

  Or regret.

  “Hey there,” said Braddock. With a frown, he made for the mullioned windows that overlooked the rolling parkland. “Who’s that out in the trees?”

  Adrian retrieved the telescope and joined him. A small figure in a shapeless cloak was disappearing into the woods.

  He lifted the instrument to his eye, flipping the dial and adjusting the lens.

  A rough cloak of undyed wool. A basket on one arm. “A woman,” he said, “adjudging by her size.”

  The woman paused to glance over her shoulder. Her pale face briefly filled his vision, and he bit back his curse. She looked nervous, as well she might.

  He lowered the telescope. “Make a count of the household,” he said grimly. “I want to know exactly how many people are under this roof at this moment. Once you’ve counted, make sure that number does not change.”

  “Aye, m’lord. Will you take a man with you? Henslow’s a sharp tracker.”

  “No.” He needed no help to track the Marchioness of Towe. He had chased her through those woods so many times in his youth that he would have been able to catch her blindfolded.

  For a brief moment he wondered if the skill would be his advantage, or his undoing.

  God damn it. He shoved the telescope at Braddock. “Put that away,” he said. A wiser man would have added, Burn it.

  The apple trees were finally coming into season, leaves bright and glossy. But the deluge of the past few weeks caused new fruit to grow but sparsely. As Nora climbed the gnarled limbs, her skirts knotted at her waist, she touched each apple she passed. Still small as nuts, they felt softer than they should.

  In the subtle man-made hollow hidden by the join of branch and trunk, a letter waited. Her urge was to open and read it immediately, but such business was more wisely done in a locked room with a fire burning within reach.

  She eased out the paper and tucked it into her bodice before putting her own letter into the nook. Then, crouching and setting her hands on either side of her feet, she swung to the ground.

  The thump of earth beneath her feet startled a laugh from her. She paused in the dappled sunlight, allowing herself a moment without worry, a smile for the simple pleasure of jumping down like a monkey. Gradually she was teaching herself this trick: to find beauty in small things. When she’d had a husband’s name to bear, and his honor to uphold, and the world watching and judging her, these little freedoms had been unimaginable. But now, for a brief period—even amidst so many uncertainties—she was free.

  She took a deep breath of the apple blossoms. So the fruit would not be plentiful this year. It would make next year’s bounty all the sweeter, would it not? In the meantime . . . oats and potatoes would serve.

  She picked up her basket and turned down the path toward the Plummers’ cottage. The sun was gentle on her face, and the wind sighed through the trees. Overhead, a circling hawk cried out. She felt safe in these woods, protected by the land, even with the Earl of Rivenham’s presence hanging like a shadow.

  If villains in London were conspiring to rob her family of this place—to strip the Colvilles of all their ancestral rights—then how could she object to her brother’s efforts to oppose them? She would live on oats until she died, if it so required.

  No sooner did the thought pass through her mind than she heard hoofbeats rapidly approaching. Her heart in her throat, she ducked behind a tree and pressed herself against the rough trunk.

  The horse drew up nearby. For a moment she heard only its puffing breath and the jingle of tack. Then came Rivenham’s dry voice: “You dropped a roll.”

  She bit her lip. There was no choice for it but to step into the open.

  The horse was chomping on one of her manchets.

  She forced herself not to look onward toward the tree she had climbed, but if she had dropped bread there as well, it would be as good as a flag in drawing his attention. “Your horse flatters my cook,” she said as calmly as she was able. The gelding had made quick work of the roll and now stepped forward to nose for more.

  “He’s generous in his judgments,” said Rivenham. “I am not.”

  She looked up. The sun was shining directly behind his head, obscuring his expression. “You forbade me to leave the grounds. Surely you recall where our lands end and your own begin.”

  His silence made for an ominous reply. The letter seemed to burn where it pressed against her breast. She reached into her basket for another bun and deliberately threw it a good distance away from the horse.

  “Minx,” Rivenham said softly as his horse fought to reach it. He swung off his mount. Now she could see his expression, and it surprised her: he was smiling.

  A quick, troubling throb moved through her. The wind wandered past, plucking a strand of his blond hair from its queue, waving it across his lips. Six years ago his hair had barely brushed his jaw, an effect of his time at French schools with Continental customs, where men went fully shorn beneath their wigs. In London, his courtly curls and powders had disguised the changes in him. But now he faced her bareheaded, undisguised in broad daylight, and she could see how the sun had burnt his skin too many times, tanning it to an unfashionable shade, the more shocking for the brightness of his hair. New lines feathered the corners of his eyes. There was no softness to him anymore: he had been baked and hardened like clay.

  But his smile remained the same. Slow to spread, it developed into something sly and playful and somehow knowing: a smile like a wicked invitation, or a suggestion murmured in the dark.

  Suddenly she felt dizzy. This smile, his easy posture, the woods breathing around them . . . Perhaps they had slipped back in time, and in another moment he would reach for her and draw her into his arms . . .

  And she would relive, all over again, the greatest mistake she had ever made.

  “You look happy,” he said, even as her heart turned to ice.

  “I am glad to be out of the house,” she said flatly. “Your men render it uncomfortable to me.” You render it uncomfortable.

  “Why is that?” He reached for a low-hanging leaf, fingering it idly. “Has one of them given you offense?”

  “Your very presence is an offense. You come to persecute my family—am I to welcome that?”

  He let go of the branch. The leaves shivered audibly. “Were you politic, you might pretend to welcome it.”

  Yes, perhaps it would be wiser to cultivate his kindness with false shows of friendship. But here, in this wood, she could not bear to pretend. Before she had met him, she had been happy; there had been no cause for false smiles or lies. Here in this wood he had lured her into betraying herself, and afterward everything had changed.

  She had made herself vulnerable for him once. She would not do so again.

  “I am not politic,” she said. “I never have been.”

  He lifted a brow. “True enough. And so what are you doing out here, impoliticly?”

  “One of the tenants is ailing.” She lifted the basket. “I go to visit.”

  He glanced to the basket, then back to her face. “How convenient for you.”

  Under his steady stare, she fought the urge to shift and fidget. “I have watched you wear this look before,” she said. “In London, when someone
was making an argument you found foolish, you made men stammer with this stare. But there is no argument to win here. I am truly only delivering food.”

  He slackened the rein, allowing his horse to reach the manchet. “You watched me in London, did you?”

  Why had she admitted that? It was these woods, she thought. Surely they worked some sort of twisted magic on her—and on him as well, for he took a step toward her now, saying more quietly, “I watched you as well. But I never saw you looking.”

  The words stopped her breath. I watched you. His presence now, his gaze upon her, felt like a hot, delicate touch all along her skin. She hoisted the basket, desperate to have something, anything, between them.

  “The first time I saw you afterward,” he said, “you flinched when he touched you. And it was all I could do not to gut him where he stood.”

  She searched for her voice and found nothing. Even her balance suddenly seemed effortful to maintain.

  “And then, for a time, I wondered if it was not you I should kill,” he continued, very low. “For if you had the courage to bear him, then it could not have been cowardice that drove you to spurn me.”

  It had never been cowardice. He knew it had not been cowardice. “I had no ch—”

  “You will be glad to know that hatred of you was a madness I overcame.” Still he spoke in that soft, deadly voice. “I remember the night I conquered it: you danced the saraband in wine-red velvet with the Duke of Or-monde. You stumbled, and someone near me wondered if you were with child. I found it easier, thereafter, not to think of you at all.”

  The light was too bright in these woods; it pricked her eyes to tears. What bitter irony lay in his remark! She remembered that night too well. Faced with her husband’s contempt and the court’s sneers, she had felt despair wrapping her soul in weighted chains. Everything had seemed black to her. One kind word from him would have meant . . . everything.

  But not now. She was no longer that weak, frightened, friendless girl.