“Er, of course, Lieutenant Aston. I shall be right back to claim my dance,” he told one of the young ladies.
Val drew him into one of the anterooms. “Have you contacted our man yet?” he asked bluntly.
“As a matter of fact, I have. I was going to send a note ‘round in the morning. He is coming to see me tomorrow at three.”
“I’ll be there,” said Val.
“But what is going to happen?” Devereaux asked anxiously.
“We will just have to see, won’t we, my lord?” Val left him standing there, imagining all the possible scenarios, regretting he had ever opened his mouth.
As Devereaux made his way back to claim his dance, he was waylaid by Lucas Stanton.
“I just saw Faringdon’s bastard come out of that anteroom and then you emerged. Whatever could he have to say to you, my lord?” Stanton asked suspiciously.
“He was, uh, wondering if there were some posthumous honor that could be award his half-brother, my lord.” Devereaux was amazed he had been able to think of anything resembling a reasonable explanation.
“Full of brotherly concern, is he?”
“Actually, it was quite touching, my lord,” he continued, almost getting caught up in his own lie.
“I am sure,” said Stanton with a derisive laugh. But he watched the viscount return to his friends with a speculative look on his face.
* * * *
The evening seemed endless to Val once he had talked to Devereaux and he was very glad when Elspeth approached him and suggested they say their good-byes. “Your father is looking tired, Val,” she told him. “Of course, we could have his carriage come back for us, if you wish to stay?”
“Only if you do, my dear.”
“No, I have had a lovely time, but I am not one of those who must stay until the last dance has been played.”
* * * *
“I am sorry to leave you to your own devices today, Elspeth,” Val apologized as they sat over a late breakfast the next morning.
“You will be calling on James?”
“Yes, and then I am off to Whitehall. But once this is all settled, we’ll go to Portugal,” he said with a reassuring smile. “And tell your parents we are married,” he added, his smile fading.
“I believe they will be pleased, Val,” Elspeth reassured him, “although my father may be angry at first that they did not have a chance to be there.” She hesitated. “I only wish that you and your father had more time together.”
“I did not realize you were such a sentimental woman, my dear,” Val replied with a touch of irony.
“It is not sentimental to wish that you and he would get to know one another better now that Charlie is gone.”
“I am sure I am only a reminder that the wrong son died,” Val said bitterly.
Elspeth looked as though she wished to argue with him but only said quietly, “I will not discuss this with you this morning, Val. I wish you well in your visit to James and beg you to be careful later. If the instigator of all this is Lucas Stanton, he will be angry to have been exposed.”
“Thank you for your care, Elspeth, but I am sure you need not worry. I will see you early this evening.”
Chapter 36
Val walked around the square three times before he finally made himself knock on James’s door.
“The family is not receiving yet,” the butler told him.
“I know it was a late night for them, but this is a matter most urgent,” Val told him. “Would you please inform the marquess that Lieutenant Aston must speak with him?”
“Come in, sir, and I will see,” replied the butler, reluctantly admitting Val to the foyer.
When he returned, he issued him into the library. “The marquess will be down directly. He is still getting dressed,” he added with a censorious look at Val before he left.
Val was too restless to sit and he was pacing the carpet when James came in a few minutes later.
“Good morning, Val. Or should I say good afternoon? The festivities went on long after you left, and none of us is fully awake yet, I fear,” he said with a grin.
When Val gave him no answering smile and remained standing after his friend gestured him to a chair, James said more seriously, “I take it this is a matter of some importance? Has there been word from Wellington? Why do you look so grim, Val? And if you won’t sit down, then I will,” added James, perching on the edge of his desk and looking over at Val expectantly.
He didn’t look at all worried, thought Val. Wouldn’t he be, if it were all true?
“I have been working on something for Captain Grant these past few months, James.”
“Yes?”
“It seems Massena was receiving advance information about the political situation here in London. Captain Grant asked me to investigate.”
“I see,” James replied calmly. Val was watching him carefully and detected no change in his expression.
“We had three suspects: Trowbridge, Stanton…and you.”
James was disconcertingly silent as Val continued. “I was unable to discover anything myself and so I recruited Mags Casey to help us, since she had easy access to all of your tents.”
“Indeed she did. Then the attack on Mags…?”
“Was no robbery, James. We are sure she was seen coming out of Stanton’s tent.”
“Surely you don’t think I am capable of brutalizing Mrs. Casey,” protested James.
“I don’t know what I think, James,” Val said quietly. “I know what I don’t want to believe: that you are the traitor. Mags found a letter in Stanton’s tent which revealed that he was blackmailing a former classmate for a capital offense.”
“He could have been referring to anyone, Val.”
“Yes, except that at the same time I was investigating in Portugal, there was someone digging here in London. Lord Devereaux has confessed, James, and named you as the traitor.”
Val watched his friend turn white and become very still.
“I see,” was all he said.
“You see, James? You see? Is that all you are going to say in your defense? Tell me Devereaux is lying, even if that is a lie,” Val asked him in an agonized voice.
“It would be a lie, Val, and I could never lie to you.”
“You could never lie to me, but you could betray your country. And Devereaux could pass on information that cost the lives of hundreds of our allies but not betray his honor by telling me the name of the man who suggested the whole thing! I tell you, James, I am happy to be a bastard, if this is what being a gentleman means.”
“I doubt that you will understand, Val, but I had no choice.”
“Did you need money that much, James? Was Maddie’s ball more important that the fate of Europe?”
James stood up and went over to stir the fire. When he turned back to face Val, his face was angry and hard.
“I assure you, money had nothing to do with it.”
“Then why, James? You are not like Devereaux. You knew your decision would have consequences.”
“I would never have passed on information regarding troop strength or strategy, believe me. Not that I am excusing myself. Of course I knew there would be consequences. I was hoping the Regency Bill would be passed sooner and that Wellington would be recalled before too many Frenchmen died of starvation.”
“So you are that much a radical, James, even after seeing what Bonaparte has done to Europe,” said Val unbelievingly.
James gave him a wry smile. “It is ironic, is it not, that of the two of us, it is the man with rank and privilege, not the illegitimate son, who is the Whig?”
“I am not as amused by the irony as you are, James.”
“Sit down, Val.”
Val just glared at him stubbornly.
“Oh, for God’s sake, sit down. I am not going to escape you or the consequences. I can’t,” James added wearily.
The pain in his friend’s voice finally reached Val and he sat down on the sofa. James gazed int
o the fire and then, turning to Val, gave him a smile so full of affection that it wrung Val’s heart.
“You don’t know, do you, Val?”
“Know what, James?”
“Oh, God, this is difficult. There are capital offenses other than treason, my friend,” James pointed out dryly.
“They are innumerable, James, but somehow I can’t picture you as a poacher,” Val replied sarcastically.
“Why do you think I have never married, Val? Never developed an attachment to any woman?”
“Why, you were abroad…your father’s gambling….” Val’s voice trailed off as the unthinkable finally occurred to him.
“You are not…you cannot be….”
“A catamite? A molly? But I am.”
“I can’t believe it!”
“Whyever not? Charlie had no trouble believing it,” James told him with a quizzical grin.
“Charlie! He knew this?”
“I do believe you have always underestimated Charlie, Val. I think many people did. But just because he was such an openhearted young man didn’t mean he was naive about the ways of the world. He guessed my secret shortly after he got to Oxford.”
“But Lucas Stanton is the one who…?”
“Buggered young boys?” James said sarcastically. “I told you then, Val, that Stanton would have rogered anything available.”
“You protected them from him….”
“Whenever I could. Of course. I don’t bugger young boys, Valentine.” He paused and said more gently, “It is not all about buggery. For me it is about whom I love.”
“Then you have…loved men?” Val asked, trying unsuccessfully to hide the distaste in his voice.
“Oh, God, Val,” groaned James. “What are you asking? Have I made love to men? Yes, I have. Not often, because of the risk involved. Have I been in love with a man? Yes, I have. I met him in Oxford. He was a year ahead of me and quite…wonderful. Not really handsome, but quick and brilliant. And betrothed since childhood to his next-door neighbor’s daughter,” James added, the pain in his voice almost palpable.
“So he was not, er, like you?”
“Oh, he was exactly like me,” James replied with a wry smile. “We fell madly in love. I tried to convince him to give it all up, to come to the Continent with me. But he couldn’t do it. Said he couldn’t disgrace his family, his future wife….” James looked bleakly at Val.
“So he married her?”
“Yes. I was at their wedding. She is a lovely girl. If he had to marry anyone, I would have wished someone like her…but….”
“But?”
“He is living a lie with every good-morning kiss; with every breath, Val, he denies himself. I couldn’t do it then. I can’t do it now.”
“So Lucas Stanton knew?”
“I think he probably suspected it at the Hall, though God knows why, for I never let myself get close to anyone there. Except for you, Val,” he added. “You were an outcast too, just like me, though of course you could never see it. We were both born something we had no control over: you a bastard, and I a man who happened to love men rather than women…. Anyway, Stanton saw me with a man in Lisbon almost a year ago. It was no one important, but enough for him to gain a hold over me.”
“And so he threatened you?”
“I would have resisted him, I think, if the information seemed more crucial. But the more he threatened me, the more I realized what would have happened to Maddie should the truth come out. My father’s behavior was hard on her, but this would have destroyed her and any chance of a good marriage.”
“I can see that,” Val admitted quietly. “So you took money to pay Lucas Stanton off.”
“Yes. I had enough, just barely, after selling off one of our small estates and settling my father’s debts, to bring Maddie out. But certainly not enough to pay Lucas’s blackmail.”
“But he doesn’t need money.”
“Of course not. He gets pleasure from causing people pain, Val. You saw that at school. The money was only incidental.” They were both quiet for a moment and then James continued, “I don’t want to make myself out such an innocent in this, Val. The truth is that, while I do not support Bonaparte, at least he did keep the reforms established by the Revolution. In Europe, under Napoleon, I would be able to live my life without fear. I suppose the contrast between their laws and ours had some sort of influence on me also,” he added bitterly.
“I can even understand that, James,” Val confessed. “I never thought much about the laws against, er, men like you.”
“Two of us were hanged last year, you know.”
“I feel a fool compared to Charlie,” Val said. “I never guessed.”
“Charlie and I had a longer acquaintance, Val, so in some ways it is understandable.”
“You were my first real friend, James,” said Val, working hard to keep his voice from betraying his emotion. “You saw me for myself, not just as the bastard son of Faringdon. You always acknowledged me as your equal.”
“Because you are any man’s equal. I can see I’ll have to start supplying you with Whig pamphlets, Val,” he added with forced humor. He fell silent and then asked, “What are you going to do? I don’t ask so much for myself, but so I can prepare Maddie for whatever comes.”
“They are not going to prosecute Devereaux because of his father’s influence. The least that could happen to you, James, is that you lose your commission. I don’t think they want a scandal just as Wellington is pushing the war into Spain, but you are guilty of treason and…sodomy,” Val added uncomfortably. “I suppose they could transport you….”
“What if I resigned my commission and exiled myself to Italy or Greece? It would save Whitehall and the army the scandal and would also spare my sister and the rest of my family.”
“I will do my best to persuade them, James. Of course, that means Stanton may escape punishment also,” he added bitterly.
James’s hands, which were still holding the poker, tightened and he lifted the piece of iron as though it were a weapon and then got up and replaced it carefully by the hearth.
“There is nothing you or I can do about that, Val,” James declared, keeping his voice calm.
“I know,” said Val with suppressed fury. “But it galls me to think that someone so despicable might get off scot-free. It is one thing to have Devereaux learn his lesson. But Stanton…damn his rotten soul to hell!”
“He will be returning to Spain, won’t he? He may well be in hell sooner than we think, Val,” replied James with a wry smile.
“But he will know what it is to live with fear, James, I swear. I will make sure of that,” Val said vehemently. “For now I have information that could hang him.”
“Be careful. Lucas Stanton is not a man to play games with.”
“Believe me, James, I am not playing,” Val told him. He stood up. “I can delay sending my news to Captain Grant, James. And then it will take several weeks for my dispatch to arrive. You have some time to do what you need to do….” Val’s voice trailed off unhappily.
“Thank you, my friend. I can still call you that?” asked James with a smile that could not hide his vulnerability.
“Of course, James,” Val replied, offering his hand stiffly. He cursed himself for his formality when he saw the look in James’s eyes as their hands touched only briefly. But he felt so awkward. He loved James, almost as much as he. had loved Charlie, but however could he express it, now that he knew what James was?
* * * *
Val had almost an hour to waste before his appointment at Whitehall and as he walked down the street, he realized he was only a block away from Faringdon House. It was utterly irrational, he told himself as he found himself walking in that direction. He had nothing to say to his father. But he had nowhere else to go and there he was, lifting the knocker.
“Is the earl at home, Baynes?”
“Yes, sir, in the library.”
The earl was behind his desk again and looked
up with a hesitant smile when Val was admitted.
“It is good to see you, Valentine,” he said, coming around the desk. “Bring us some sherry, will you, Baynes?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Sit down, Val.” The earl looked expectantly at his son.
“I was in the neighborhood and thought I would call and see if you had recovered from last night,” Val explained stiffly.
“You don’t ever need a reason to call on me, Valentine,” the earl told him quietly. “You are always welcome here. Indeed, I wish you would consider it your home also.” As the butler came in with the sherry, the earl thanked him. “Just put the glasses down here. Will you have a glass, Val?”
“Thank you, sir, I will.”
They sipped their sherry, each keenly aware of the tension between them. Finally Val said, “I don’t know why I am here. Perhaps it is because of Charlie….”
The earl looked up from his glass. “Even though he had been in the army for a while, I still think he will bound down the stairs for breakfast,” he confessed with a sad smile. The earl cleared his throat. “Well, whatever brought you, I am glad you came, Valentine, for I have something to discuss with you. I know you intend to return to Spain.”
Val nodded.
“I am proud of you, of course, but I feel as though I have already given enough,” the earl said softly.
“It is my job, sir. And now I have a wife to support.”
“Yes, that is what I wish to talk about. When you first came to Faringdon and we discussed your future, one thing I mentioned to you was managing one of my estates. Do you remember?”
Val nodded, his eyes on his glass as he swirled the amber liquid. He tried to keep his emotions under control.
“I have made a new will, Val. If it were allowed to me under the law, I would make you my heir and you would inherit Faringdon. But since I can’t, I have made sure that you inherit everything I have that is not entailed. Faringdon will go to my second cousin, but you will still be a wealthy man.”
“I don’t want your money,” Val replied stiffly.
“Then you can always give it away, can’t you?” said the earl with wry humor. “And I am a healthy man, Valentine, so no use getting angry about it yet! In the meantime,” he continued, “I am putting you in charge of my Yorkshire estate. You may apply the income from the estate to upkeep and any improvements you deem fit as you raise your family. And since it is not part of the entailment, it will be yours after I die.”
Red, Red Rose Page 32