A Lady of His Own

by Stephanie Laurens

  A gust of wind splattered rain across the window. It had been pouring for the last twenty minutes. At least Nicholas wouldn’t be scouting about tonight; she wasn’t missing anything.

  As soon as the first course was served, Charles signaled Filchett, who, along with the footmen, withdrew.

  Charles turned his gaze on her. “I checked in Debrett’s. Amberley, Nicholas’s father, was with the Foreign Office.”

  She nodded and continued eating her soup. She waited as long as she dared before replying, “He retired years ago—’09, or thereabouts.”

  What else had he pieced together? There was only one major fact she knew that he still didn’t. Would he guess…or might he connect Nicholas directly with the smugglers and not realize there was—had been—an intervening link?

  Setting down her spoon, she reached for her napkin, glanced at him as she patted her lips. He was finishing his soup, his expression uninformative, but then he glanced down the table and caught her eye.

  He’d seen the alternatives.

  She looked away as Filchett and his minions returned.

  Leaning back in his chair, Charles waited until the main course had been served and Filchett had once more retreated. “Did Nicholas visit Wallingham often over the years before Granville’s death?”

  She kept her gaze on her plate. “He’s visited off and on since he was a child—Amberly and Papa were close friends.”

  “Indeed?”

  The word sounded mild; she wasn’t deceived.

  “But Nicholas hasn’t been a regular visitor here over the last decade?”

  She wished she could lie, but he’d check and find her out. “No.”

  To her surprise, he left it at that and gave his attention to the roast lamb.

  From beneath his lashes, Charles watched her, and let her nerves stretch. She was waiting, keyed up to meet his next tack, his next inquisitorial direction. In lieu of intimidating her in any other fashion, he’d opted for demonstrating that he wouldn’t retreat, but instead, question by question, would press harder until she capitulated and told him all she knew.

  The time he was willing to give her to think had become severely limited the instant he’d realized Arbry was involved; it had shortened even further when he’d learned Amberly had been with the Foreign Office, the very office the putative traitor was supposed to have graced.

  He held his peace until Mrs. Slattery’s lemon curd pudding was set before them and Filchett departed. Lemon curd pudding was his favorite; delicious, it was gone in too few bites. Lifting his wineglass, he sat back and sipped, and looked down the table at Penny.

  “You’re protecting someone, but it isn’t Arbry.”

  She looked up; he trapped her gaze.

  “So who else? Your family is all female, as is mine these days. None of them are involved.”

  She swallowed her last mouthful of pudding. “Of course not.”

  “So who else could be involved in running secrets out of the Fowey estuary—who that you would feel compelled to protect?” That was what was fueling her refusal to tell him; that was the point he needed to attack.

  When she set down her spoon and looked back at him, unmoved, he arched a brow. “The staff at Wallingham, perhaps?”

  Her gaze turned contemptuous. “Don’t be silly.”

  “Mother Gibbs herself?”

  “No.”

  “Her sons, then—are the Gibbses still running the Fowey Gallants?”

  She frowned in mock confusion. “I’m not sure how to answer—yes, or no. But yes, they’re still in charge of the Gallants. I daresay they always will be—Gibbses have been Gallants for over four hundred years.”

  “Do they still meet at the Cock and Bull?”

  “Yes.”

  So she’d been there—followed someone there—recently. “Do you have any idea if they’ve been involved in running secrets?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “So which other gangs are still operating?”

  He took her on a seemingly peripatetic ramble around the district; often it wasn’t her answer that enlightened, but the fact she gave any answer at all that told him who she’d recently had contact with, or thought to ask about.

  It was the speed at which his questions came that finally opened Penny’s eyes. They were immersed in a rapid-fire discussion of the Essington brothers, Millie’s and Julia’s husbands, when the scales fell. She stopped midsentence, stared at him for a moment, then shut her lips. Firmly.

  He accorded her glare no more than an arched brow, a what-did-you-expect look.

  Indeed. Tossing her napkin on the table, she rose. He, more languidly, rose, too.

  “If you’ll excuse me, I believe I’ll retire for the night.”

  She turned, but by then he’d reached her. He walked beside her to the door. Closing his hand about the knob, he paused and looked down at her. Waited…until she steeled herself, looked up, and met his eyes.

  “No game, Penny. I need to know. Soon.”

  They were no more than a foot apart; regardless of her senses’ giddy preoccupation, the look in his midnight eyes was unmistakable. He was deadly serious. But he was dealing with her straightly, no histrionics, no attempt to dazzle her, to pressure her as only he could.

  He had to know he could; that moment in the orchard had demonstrated beyond question how much sensual power he still wielded over her.

  If he wished to use it.

  Tilting her head, she swiftly studied his eyes, realized, understood that he’d made a deliberate choice not to invoke their personal past, not to use the physical connection that still sparked between them against her, to overcome, overwhelm, and override her will.

  He was dealing with her honestly. Just him and her as long ago they’d used to be.

  Moved, feeling oddly torn—tempted to grasp the chance of dealing openly with him again—she raised a hand, briefly clasped his arm. “I will tell you. You know that.” She drew in a tight breath. “But not yet. I do need to think—just a bit more.”

  He searched her eyes, her face, then inclined his head. “But only a little bit more.” He opened the door, followed her through. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

  She nodded a good night, then climbed the stairs.

  Charles watched her go, then headed for the library.

  In one respect his prediction went awry; he saw her next very late that night.

  After spending three hours leafing through Burke’s Peerage and Debrett’s, studying Amberly’s connections, then looking for locals with connections to the Foreign Office or other government offices, trying to identify who Penny might feel she should protect, all to no avail, he turned down the lamps and climbed the stairs as the clocks throughout the house struck half past eleven.

  Halting on the landing, he looked up at the huge arched window, at the stained glass depicting the St. Austell family crest. Rain beat a staccato rhythm against the panes; the wind moaned softly. The elements called, tugged at that wilder, more innocent side of him the years had buried, teased, tempted…

  Lips curving in cynical self-deprecation, he took the left branch of the stairs and climbed upward, heading not for his apartments as he’d originally intended but to the widow’s walk.

  High on the Abbey’s south side immediately below the roof, the widow’s walk ran for thirty feet, a stone-faced, stone-paved gallery open on one side, the wide view of the Fowey estuary framed by ornate railings. Even in deepest night with the moon obscured by cloud and the outlook veiled by rain, the view would be magnificent, eerily compelling. A reminder of how insignificant in Nature’s scheme of things humans really were.

  His feet knew the way. Courtesy of the years, he moved silently.

  He halted just short of the open archway giving onto the walk; Penny was already there.

  Seated on a stone bench along the far wall, one elbow on the railing, chin propped on that hand, she was staring out at the rain.

  There was very little light. He co
uld just make out the pale oval of her face, the faint gleam of her fair hair, the long elegant lines of her pale blue gown, the darker ripple of her shawl’s knotted fringe. The rain didn’t quite reach her.

  She hadn’t heard him.

  He hesitated, remembering other days and nights they’d been up here, not always but often alone, just the two of them drawn to the view. He remembered she’d asked for time alone to think.

  She turned her head and looked straight at him.

  He didn’t move, but Penny knew he was there. To her eyes he was no more than a denser shadow in the darkness; if he hadn’t been looking at her, she’d never have realized.

  When he didn’t move, when she sensed his hesitation, she looked back at the wet night. “I haven’t yet made up my mind, so don’t ask.”

  She sensed rather than heard his sigh.

  “I didn’t realize you were here.”

  He’d thought her in her chamber; he couldn’t have known otherwise. She returned no comment, unperturbed by his presence; he was too far away for her senses to be affected—she didn’t, otherwise, find him bothersome to be near. And she knew why he’d come there—for much the same reason she had.

  But now he was present, and she was, to o…she tried to predict his next tack, but he surprised her.

  “You weren’t that amazed to learn I’d been a spy. Why?”

  She couldn’t help but smile. “I remember when you returned for your father’s funeral. Your mother was…not just happy to see you, but grateful. I suppose I started to wonder then. And she was forever slipping into French when she spoke to you, far more than she usually does, and you were so secretive about which regiment you were in, where you were quartered, which towns you’d been through, which battles…normally, you would have been full of tales. Instead, you avoided talking about yourself. Others put it down to grief.” She paused, then added, “I didn’t. If you’d wanted to hide grief, you would have talked and laughed all the harder.”

  Silence stretched, then he prompted, “So on the basis of that one episode…”

  She laughed. “No, but it did mean I had my eyes open the next time you appeared.”

  “Frederick’s funeral.”

  “Yes.” She let her memories of that time color her tone; Frederick’s death had been a shock to the entire county. “You were late—you arrived just as the vicar was about to start the service. The church door had been left open, there were so many people there, but the center aisle had been left clear so people could see down the nave.

  “The first I or anyone knew of your presence was your shadow. The sun threw it all the way into the church, almost to the coffin. We all turned and there you were, outlined with the sun behind you, a tall, dramatic figure in a long, dark coat.”

  He humphed. “Very romantic.”

  “No, strangely enough you didn’t appear romantic at all.” She glanced at him. He was concealed within the shadows of the archway, leaning back against the arch’s side, looking out; she could discern his profile, but not his expression. She looked back at the rain-washed fields. “You were…intense. Almost frighteningly so. You had eyes for no one but your family. You walked to them, straight down the nave, your boots ringing on the stone.”

  She paused, remembering. “It wasn’t you but them, their reactions that made me…almost certain of my suspicions. Your mother and James hadn’t expected to see you; they were so grateful you were there. They knew. Your sisters had been expecting you, and were simply reassured when you arrived. They didn’t know.

  “Later, you explained you’d been held up, and that you had to rejoin your regiment immediately. You didn’t exactly say, but everyone assumed you meant in London or the southeast; you intended to leave that night. But it had rained on and off for days—it rained heavily that night. The roads were impassable, yet in the morning you were gone.”

  She smiled faintly. “I don’t think many others, other than I presume the Fowey Gallants, realized your appearance and your leaving coincided with the tides.”

  Minutes ticked past in silence, the same restful, undisturbing silence they’d often shared up there, as if they were perched high in a tree on different branches, looking out on their world.

  “You were surprised I didn’t return for James’s funeral.”

  She thought back, realized she’d felt more concern and worry than surprise. “I knew you’d come if it was possible, especially then, with James’s death leaving your mother and sisters alone. Your mother especially—she’d buried her husband and two eldest sons in the space of a few years, something no one could have foreseen. Yet that time even more than the previous one, she didn’t expect you; she wasn’t surprised when you didn’t appear—she was worried, deeply worried, but everyone saw it as distraction due to grief.”

  “Except you.”

  “I know your mother rather well.” After a moment, she dryly added, “And you, too.”

  “Indeed.” She heard him shift, heard the change in his tone. “You do know me well, so why this hesitation over telling me what you know you should?”

  “Because I don’t know you that well, not anymore.”

  “You’ve known me all your life.”

  “No. I knew you until you were twenty. You’re now thirty-three, and you’ve changed.”

  A pause ensued, then he said, “Not in any major way.”

  She glanced at where he stood. After a moment she said, “That’s probably true. Which only proves my point.”

  Silence, then, “I’m only a poor male. Don’t confuse me.”

  Poor male her left eye. Yet revisiting her knowledge of him, talking matters through with him, was helping; she was starting to grapple with the new him. The irony hadn’t escaped her; she’d deliberately avoided thinking of him for the past thirteen years, but now fate and circumstance were forcing her to it. To understand him again, to look and see him clearly.

  She drew breath. “All right—think of this. I saw you with Millie and Julia today. The charm, the smile, the laughter, the teasing, the hedonistic hubris. I recognized all that, but now it’s subtly and significantly different. At twenty, that was you—all of you. You were the epitome of ‘devil-may-care’—there wasn’t anything deeper. Now, however, the larger-than-life hellion is a mask, and there’s someone behind it.” She glanced at him. “The man behind the mask is the one I don’t know.”

  Silence.

  Charles didn’t correct her; he couldn’t. He knew in his bones she was right, but he wasn’t sure how the change had come about, or what to say to reassure her.

  “I think,” she continued, surprising him, “that perhaps the man behind the mask was always there, or at least the potential was always there, and the past thirteen years, what you’ve been doing during that time, made him, you, stronger. More definite. The real you is a rock the years have chiseled and formed, but what smooths your surface is lichen and moss, a social disguise.”

  He shifted. “An interesting thesis.” He couldn’t see how her too-perceptive view would improve his chances of gaining her trust.

  “A useful one, at any rate.” She glanced at him. “I note you’re not arguing.”

  He held his tongue, too wise to respond. She continued to gaze at him, then her lips lightly curved, and she looked out once more. “Actually, it will help. If you must know, I’m not sure I would have trusted the hellion you used to be. I wouldn’t have felt certain of your reaction. Now…”

  He let minutes tick by, hoping…eventually, he sighed and leaned his head back against the arch. “What do you want to know?”

  “More, but I don’t know exactly what I’m searching for, so I don’t know what questions to ask. But…”

  “But what?”

  “Why did you leave London to come here? I know your ex-commander asked you to look around, but you’re no longer his to command—you didn’t have to agree. You’ve never willingly run in anyone’s harness—that I’m sure hasn’t changed—but more importantly you knew what hopes
and, well, dreams your sisters and sisters-in-law were nurturing when they went to London. You—helping you find a wife, planning your wedding—gave them purpose, invigorated them; they were so excited, so flown with anticipation.”

  She stared out at the rain-drenched vista. “If you’d stayed there, indulged them, teased, laughed, and joked, and then gone your own way regardless, I wouldn’t have been surprised. But you did something I never would have predicted—you left them.”

  Her struggle to comprehend colored her tone. “It’s as I said before—I had it right. You fled.”