DEVILISH

by Devilish (lit)

  Rothgar let Sir George wring his hand, then left him to deal with his son. He turned to see the accuser struggling away through a hostile crowd.

  He caught up. “Mr. Stringle.”

  The man turned. “You’ve got your young friend off, my lord. Are you after me now?”

  Rothgar took his arm. “I merely mean to see you safe to your horses.” Though scowling, the crowd fell back, leaving a path clear to the door.

  Stringle’s arm was stiff in his grasp, but he walked to the door and through it. “What now, my lord?” he asked, hard-eyed.

  Rothgar let him go. “I just saved your neck.”

  The man stayed silent.

  “I know the man you work for—rather unpatriotic, wouldn’t you say?—and I suspect that this plot was aimed largely at me.”

  Stringle flinched, but didn’t admit guilt. Yes, he was good. Rothgar wouldn’t mind employing him if the man knew who was master.

  “You could be of use to me, Mr. Stringle. There is a lady in London, living at the queen’s court. The Countess of Arradale. I am particularly concerned that nothing happens to distress or inconvenience her.”

  The man looked genuinely startled. “What would I have to do with a lady of the queen’s court, my lord?”

  “Perhaps nothing. If you were to go to London, however, and put yourself at the disposal of the gentleman who hired you, you might be surprised.”

  “I’m a country horse trader, my lord. What would I do in London?”

  “Oblige me.”

  The man paled at the tone. “I could just disappear.”

  “You would find it very hard to go beyond my reach.”

  The man’s eyes met his resentfully. “I go to London and hang around a certain man’s house, and let you know if anything turns up about the lady. Then what? When am I free? My trade is horses, my lord, and I’d rather stick to it.”

  “Wiser to have done so all along, wouldn’t you say? When Lady Arradale returns to her lands in the north, you may leave London. In the meantime, if you hear anything about her, or any plans concerning her, send a message to me at Malloren House. I am also very interested in the activities of a Frenchman called de Couriac. You will be well paid, and I will do you no harm if you serve me well.” He left the alternative unspoken but clear.

  After a moment, the man nodded. “I’ll do your will, my lord.”

  “I thought you might,” said Rothgar, and watched as he strode off.

  Chapter 23

  Rothgar arrived back in London the next day with only enough time for the tedious preparations for court. After the levee the king summoned him as usual to review recent events, and to debate again the fate of Dunkirk. It became dismayingly hard not to snap at him.

  He escaped at four. Since the king was returning for dinner with the queen, it was out of the question to visit the Queen’s House. Besides, he told himself firmly as he returned home, he would have the opportunity this evening to make sure Lady Arradale was well and safe. That was soon enough.

  Once out of court clothes he went to his office to methodically work through the stacks of work awaiting him. His mind tried to wander, but he kept it to the tasks before him. All these documents represented people and issues needing his attention.

  Most were administrative papers to do with his estates and business affairs. He knew Grainger, Carruthers, and other employees would have gone through them carefully, but he read each one as was his practice before signing it.

  There were also letters and reports connected to the many charitable matters he supported, and the usual solicitations from artists and publishers. An agent reported the finding of some jewels perhaps belonging to King Alfred, and another a portrait of an ancestor he’d been trying to add to the family collection.

  He was tempted to put aside a dauntingly thick report on some land he had acquired in the colonies, but he knew where his weak-willed mind wished to go so he pinned it to trade.

  Eventually, however, all was done and he looked at his empty desk with some grievance. Hard work had provided the closest thing to peace he’d experienced in days. He looked ironically at the sketch of himself on the study wall, the one done in preparation for his stern portrait.

  Where was that confident, invulnerable man?

  He rose abruptly and sought distraction elsewhere—in the room where Jean Joseph Merlin and an assistant were working on the drummer boy.

  “When will it be mended?” he asked, wincing to see the figure stripped of clothes, with many of its pieces spread around on white cloths.

  The young man looked up, but with a hint of impatience. “Within days, my lord,” he said with an accent. He was Flemish by birth. “As you said, the damage is not great, but it has stood idle so long that I wish to check all the parts. There was rust,” he added, with the hint of a shudder.

  “No other breakage?”

  “No, my lord.” Merlin relented and walked over to the heart of the machine. “It is a masterpiece. Vaucanson, for sure, and of a complexity I’ve rarely seen. The subtlety of movement—”

  “You operated it?” Rothgar asked sharply.

  “Of course not, my lord. I can read cogs and levers as Mr. Haydn reads music.”

  “My apologies.” Rothgar couldn’t help but touch the lad’s lifelike head, stroking the subtly colored skin.

  “Wax,” Merlin said. “Again, a masterpiece. One could think he would breathe. In fact… it could be done with the addition of bellows. I have heard of one that actually plays a flute.”

  “No.” The notion of this child taking its first breath was appalling. “Leave that to God.”

  “As you wish, my lord.”

  “Is there any way I can help?”

  “If you are willing to clean and polish, my lord.”

  It was a familiar arrangement when Merlin was here, and Rothgar could steal the time. There were any number of other things he should be doing, but he sat at a table and began to clean the complex pieces of metal. Almost immediately, his tension eased.

  Perhaps it was a flaw to find clockwork mechanisms so soothing, but if so, it was one he permitted himself. If he gave up court he might study the subject further, and perhaps become able to read cogs and levers like music.

  He smiled at the thought of himself as an eccentric, living in comfortable robes, and shuffling around Rothgar Abbey fiddling with clocks.

  Alone.

  It was not particularly amusing, after all.

  “Now the war is over,” he said after a while, “perhaps you would like to visit Monsieur Vaucanson in France.”

  Merlin looked up, eyes bright. “I would indeed, my lord.”

  “I will arrange it. He has also done a great deal of work on industrial machinery.”

  Merlin grinned. “Never fear, my lord. Any machine enthralls me, and I will report back on everything.”

  Rothgar smiled and returned to his task.

  As he polished a piece with fine grit, he glanced at the child’s head. He rose and carefully moved the head so it was looking directly at him, then sat again to his work. Merlin and his assistant glanced over, but without particular curiosity.

  The head was astonishingly realistic, and on top of the rods of the mechanism, it looked disturbingly like the victim of an execution exposed on a pike.

  Alas, poor Yorick, Rothgar mused, thinking of Hamlet with the skull. This was no skull, however, or rotting head. This was a clever child with a hint of willfulness and mischief in the curving lips and large, adventurous eyes.

  This was the young Diana.

  Rescued and about to be made whole again.

  Life, however, was not a machine to be cleaned of rust and fixed so it ran to order once more.

  The adult Diana could be rescued from an unwanted marriage, but he doubted she could be made whole again. If she returned home unwed, she would be shackled by awareness of the king’s suspicious watchfulness.

  Then there was the other thing. Their foolhardy night at the White Goo
se. In bringing her to life in that bed he had created a break in her, and not in her nonexistent hymen. By any normal standard, after taking a lady’s virginity a gentleman was honor bound to marry her, but it was even more unfair to introduce a virgin to pleasure and abandon her.

  Would Diana live in chastity for the rest of her life? Or would she marry out of desperation? Or, even worse, would she become the sort of woman who took lovers carelessly whenever she felt the need?

  Of course she’d challenged his resolve not to marry. She needed marriage now to be whole.

  So tempting to save her. To follow the path of conventional honor to the place he longed to be. Had that lurked in his mind in the White Goose, leading to that weak folly?

  Intolerable if true.

  He gathered willpower and pushed aside temptation again. What he wanted, what she wanted, must not, should not, be.

  The child’s clear eyes challenged him as hers had challenged him yesterday. With a Malloren, are not all things possible?

  “No.”

  When the two men looked at him, he realized he had spoken aloud. Talking to himself? Wasn’t that a true sign of madness?

  As the men returned to work, Rothgar looked back at the child, quirking a brow as if they shared a secret. It almost seemed as if the child’s smile deepened. Ah, to have a son like this, to share innocent secrets with.

  I am your son. If you have courage to find me.

  He looked away then, down, to the complex curve of metal in his oil-stained fingers. Not Diana, but a child of theirs, and now it too challenged him for its very existence.

  Was his denial courage?

  Or despicable weakness?

  Folly again, but it was as if the child were lost, wandering the same bleak road that he wandered through life, crying for someone to find him and care for him, someone to take him home.

  He could not bear to leave a child crying—

  A knock on the door broke him out of these Gothick thoughts. Carruthers came in. “Your pardon, my lord, but some messages came which you might think important.”

  Rothgar rose, both relieved to escape, and reluctant to abandon the child here in the hands of strangers.

  He made a sudden resolution, and put it into silent words, looking into the drummer boy’s eyes. I promise you this, at least. If Diana is with child, I will marry her. No child of mine will ever cry alone.

  He picked up a spare cloth and wrapped it around the exposed mechanism beneath the child’s head, like a blanket.

  “Dust,” he said blandly to Merlin and the others, and left the room.

  The messages were indeed important, especially the copy of the one from D’Eon to Paris complaining that de Couriac was mad and uncontrollable. D’Eon asked urgently that the man be recalled to France before he created more mayhem.

  As he’d thought, de Couriac was D’Eon’s man, but one known to the official powers in Paris, not to the secret ones run by de Broglie. It was also clear that the attack on the road had not been D’Eon’s plan.

  This all made de Couriac dangerous, but also useful if he could be found.

  It was intriguingly unclear whether D’Eon knew where the man was now or not. If de Couriac was serving the official French powers, he might have sought refuge in the embassy, and D’Eon might not feel able to dispose of him himself.

  Stringle might turn out to be very useful indeed.

  He dressed in finery again, for this afternoon was the day for his own levee, when all gentlemen who wished could come to his house to speak to him. He chose black to suit his mood, but richly decorated with jewel-like flowers. In powdered wig and glittered orders, he entered his reception room and indicated that the doors of the house be set open.

  Because he’d been out of town the previous Friday, the levee was heavily attended, though most of the men who passed through his reception room were merely paying respects. A few had more serious matters to discuss with him, however. As always, they wanted the king’s ear. He used that privilege sparingly, as he explained to them. There were written petitions here too, which he passed to the attentive Carruthers.

  It passed the time and occupied his mind, and when it was over, a number of the men had been invited to dine. They would all go on to the Queen’s House afterward for the presentation of the French automaton.

  Where he would see Lady Arradale at last.

  It only occurred to him then that the clothes he wore were the ones he’d worn to the ball at Arradale over a year ago. She had worn magnificent red silk, and it had been like a very interesting clash of blades.

  Once weakly opened, the door could not be shut. His mind slid to memories of their dance then, when he’d been probing to see if she was the sort of woman to drug a man and then demand sex from him.

  He’d soon decided she was not. Oh, she played the game well, but was far too skittish over any serious move toward seduction.

  He remembered her retreat, but he also remembered the look in her eyes when she’d asked, “What would have happened, my lord, if I had not objected to…”

  Ah, that had been a warning of all that had followed. He hadn’t heeded it, however, because unconsciously he’d already been intrigued and attracted.

  “To my kissing your palm? Why, we would have indulged in dalliance, my lady.”

  “Dalliance?” she’d asked.

  “One step beyond flirtation, but one step below seduction. ”

  “I know nothing of dalliance then.”

  “Would you care to learn?”

  Thinking back, he wasn’t sure exactly what he’d intended then, what he would have done if she’d taken him up on the cynical offer. It had been the unrecognized beginning, however, and he had eventually taught her. At Bay Green.

  Catching a surprised look from Walpole, he knew he’d missed something.

  “I was merely pondering one of life’s mysteries,” he remarked. “That momentous developments sometimes start with careless impulses.”

  “Like the war of Jenkin’s ear, my lord,” said Walpole.

  “Precisely.” Rothgar followed that line into war and international relations, which was what he should be concentrating on anyway. Paying attention to the conversation this time, he inserted delicate warnings about France, and about the Chevalier D’Eon’s finances and motives. Some of the men present were ministers of the crown, so they were fertile ground.

  All the men were wealthy, so he also managed some personal business and gained their support for Elf’s latest charity for the support of war widows and orphans.

  However, despite politics and benevolence, he was aware that the passing hours were just that—time to pass before he could travel to the Queen’s House for the evening.

  Fred Stringle left his horse at the stable attached to the French embassy, and walked up to the back door to knock. He gave his name, and asked to speak to Monsieur D’Eon.

  “Why should he speak to the likes of you?” asked the tired maid. “Anyway, he’s off to court at any moment.”

  Stringle pushed in past her. “Just send the message, luv.”

  In minutes he was being led to a room on the ground floor. A simple reception room, but on the right side of the house, the gentlemen’s side.

  The little Frenchman came in, stepping crisply, frowning, all a-glitter with satin, lace, jewels and fancy orders. “What are you doing here? What has happened?”

  “Trouble, sir. That’s what’s happened.”

  “Trouble? What trouble? You have not entangled young Ufton in something?”

  “Oh, aye, I entangled him all right. Horse thievery. A hanging matter if it really stuck.”

  The man’s eyes fixed on him. “So? What trouble?”

  “All would have been well if a bloody marquess hadn’t thrown his weight around.”

  The little man sucked in a breath. “Rothgar? But he is in London.”

  “Yesterday, he was in Dingham Magna rescuing young Georgie Ufton from his fate.”

  The sharp eyes
narrowed. “And you came here? Why? You are nothing to do with me, nothing.”

  “I wasn’t followed, sir, if that’s what you’re worried about.” It amused him to add, “No one knows I’m here except those who already know. But things got a bit hot in Dingham, you see. Perjury and the like. I thought it’d be wise to disappear for a while, and where else but here?”

  This was the tricky part, because he wouldn’t put it past this fire-eating little Frog to stab him where he stood.

  But D’Eon only hissed between his teeth. “Very well. In fact, you could be useful to me. Developments have made it difficult for me to use my countrymen at the moment.” He looked at Stringle. “The marquess is a very astute man. He must have realized you were causing difficulties.”

  Another tricky spot. “Aye, and he tried to find out who set me up to it, but I slipped away.”

  The Frenchman smiled. “He will guess, I think. It is no bad thing to know that we are at war.”

  Stringle would rather have the damned marquess ignorant of his very existence, but he risked a question. He thought of himself as a man without allegiance, but the marquess’s comment about patriotism had stung. He’d entangle a naive lad for money, but he didn’t like the thought of serving the king’s enemies. “War over what, sir?” he asked.

  “Over power, of course. What else is war ever about?” With an airy gesture, the Frenchman said, “Find yourself a room here and keep out of the way. I will tell you when I think you can be useful.”

  Stringle left, glad now to be working for the marquess to thwart the enemy.

  * * *

  The Chevalier D’Eon left the room disappointed, but only mildly so. He had set a number of traps to make distracting trouble for the Marquess of Rothgar, and hadn’t expected all to succeed. He could sigh for Stringle’s plan, however. A young neighbor in danger of hanging would have taken Rothgar away for days, now, adding to the void created by his sentimental absence in the north. To leave the center of power for a mere wedding! D’Eon felt close, so close, to his goal, to persuading the English king to countermand the order to destroy Dunkirk.

  The plan with de Couriac would have been even better if the fool hadn’t bungled it. The thought of the marquess bedridden with a wound, perhaps for weeks, far away in the north, was enough to make him weep.