Courting Danger with Mr. Dyer

by Georgie Lee

  He took a deep breath, her continued belief in his goodness torturing him. If she railed at him or called him half the names the men he arrested did, it would make this easier. He could ignore the voice inside him demanding he stop and give a life with her a chance, except she deserved better than him. ‘It isn’t just me I have to think of, but you. Look at the risks you’ve faced these last few days simply for helping me. Imagine how much worse it might be if we wed. You’ll become a target like Lady Fallworth and I could lose you like Freddy lost her.’

  ‘I thought you were braver than this, Bart.’ She twisted out of his grasp, anger flashing in her eyes. ‘You talk about facing the dangers of thieves and scoundrels and yet the moment a little of it brushes past me you turn tail and run.’

  He pressed his knuckles into his hips, his pride chafing at her accusation. ‘You dismiss it now, but what happens when there are children? Will you be so cavalier when someone tries to kill one of them?’

  She shifted the clothes in her arms, her resolve weakening in the face of reality. ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Even if none of the awful people I pursue ever threaten them or you, it doesn’t mean they won’t continue to come after me. One of these times they might get lucky and then what? You watched one husband die. Do you want to do it again?’

  ‘If it means having a few years of happiness with you then I’ll gladly take the risk. I want to be thrilled and excited, to know there’s some kind of life both within marriage and with a man who loves me and whom I love.’

  The word love silenced them both. It’d never been uttered between them before, not even when he’d proposed long ago, and he hadn’t dared to explore it last night when she’d been one with him in spirit and body. Yes, he loved her and he was certain she loved him. It’d been in her trust and caresses, in her soft sighs in his ears, but love couldn’t protect her from reality. ‘You will find a man who loves you, Moira, but it won’t be me.’

  ‘You’ve never cared for me?’ Her lip quivered with her barely concealed pain.

  ‘I have, more than anyone else. I might have lost you five years ago, but it doesn’t mean I ever forgot you. If I could take you to the altar today, I would, in spite of your aunt or any other obstacles, but too much has changed since then. I’m not the Bart who proposed to you, the one who might have made you happy.’

  She swallowed back the few tears which hadn’t slipped down her cheeks to drop on her cotton chemise, then tuned on her bare heel and stalked to the still-open door to her room. She paused at the threshold to face him, her back straight in her attempt to be brave. ‘You say you never forgot me, but I never forgot you as well. Even when Aunt Agatha used to write to me about what you were up to with Freddy, and I thought I’d avoided making a disaster of a match, I always used to wonder if somehow she was wrong. The other day, you proved she was and that you were the honest, trustworthy and noble man I always believed you to be, until this moment.’

  Bart didn’t try to talk her out of her disgust. Let her think he was someone to be despised instead of admired, it would make it easier for her to forget him, freeing her heart for the man who would some day claim it, one who would be an excellent father and husband for her.

  Answered only by his silence, Moira slipped inside her room and closed the door behind her.

  * * *

  Moira’s hands shook as she tried to do up the buttons on her morning dress. She’d gone to sleep last night in a haze of bliss, naively believing she and Bart could reclaim what they’d been denied five years ago. Clearly too much had changed—he’d changed, but she hadn’t. She was still the woman desperate for affection and attention she’d been back then, except this time she should have known better. She had, but desperation had driven her to spin dreams out of nothing as easily as it’d driven her into Bart’s arms.

  She slumped down in a leather chair near the dark fireplace, the coals inside having burned out last night with no one coming in to relight them this morning. It left the room as cold as the hollow space inside her chest. She should’ve headed Aunt Agatha’s warnings, taken Freddy’s directive to not see Bart again. Instead she’d insisted on having her way and look where it’d got her. If she’d abandoned her family to marry him before, would a morning like this have happened after their wedding? It was difficult to imagine Bart being so callous after standing before a clergyman and swearing a vow, but after what he’d done, it was difficult to think charitably of him. He loved her, he always had and he’d possessed the courage to say it, but not even his love had been enough to overcome his reservations and allow them to greet the morning together. Instead, it’d pulled them, and her heart, apart.

  This cut deeper than anything else he’d told her.

  She reached back and at last slipped the buttons through their holes, then did up her half-boots before looking over the room, at a loss for what to do next. She couldn’t sit here shivering and starving while she licked her wounds, but she wasn’t ready to go downstairs and face the servants or Bart.

  She stared at the black and grey coals in the grate, Bart’s words coming back to her again and again. Tears streamed down her cheeks, but the anger she’d hurled at him during their parting wasn’t there. Everything he’d said was the truth and he hadn’t spoken it to be cruel, but to force her to face what she’d ignored last night. He was a man who’d seen a great deal of both the good and bad of human nature and how it could affect people. He understood better than she did how life was not a fairy tale and things seldom worked out as people planned. One would think, after her failed marriage and shortened childhood, she wouldn’t need to be reminded of that, but the girl inside of her had stubbornly held on to a few dreams.

  They were all gone now.

  * * *

  ‘You summoned me?’ Bart strode into Mr Flint’s office and sat before the desk.

  ‘I did. We interrogated Mr Roth last night. He was difficult at first, but we brought him around. It seems he knows more about Mr Dubois than he’d first let on. He’s heard the Rouge Noir is plotting to assassinate a number of government men tonight. Unfortunately, he didn’t know where, or how.’

  ‘I don’t know where, but I know how they intend to do it.’ He told Mr Flint about the missing gunpowder and his conversation with his father, then handed him the list with the names on it.

  ‘Holy hell,’ Mr Flint breathed. ‘It’ll be worse than if Guy Fawkes had succeeded.’

  ‘What government meetings are taking place tonight?’

  ‘I’ll find out. In the meantime, I’ll send men to investigate the buildings. If we can’t find anything, I’ll warn members off attending their meetings, but not until the last minute. We don’t want the Rouge Noir getting wind of our plans and disappearing only to have them re-emerge in the future more deadly than before.’

  ‘Did Mr Roth provide any names of the other people involved?’

  ‘Not beyond Mr Dubois, but there’s one more bit of evidence I’ve procured. It didn’t make much sense to me until I heard the attempted murderer’s confession. Take a look at this.’ He laid a piece of paper on the desk in front of Bart.

  It was a communication between the Comte de Troyen and Lord Camberline saying the details of their arrangement were at last in place and they would meet one final time this evening behind the Camberline Mausoleum in St Marylebone Burial Grounds to discuss the appropriate payment before they enacted their plan. Lord Camberline urged the Comte to act swiftly before they were discovered and stopped.

  ‘I want you and your men to search the docks and find Mr Dubois, then be there tonight when the Comte and Lord Camberline meet, but be careful,’ Mr Flint ordered. ‘With men of their status you must be absolutely sure they’re guilty before you move. Lord Camberline might be young, but he has a powerful name and an influential mother. He could be the ruin of you if you’re wrong.’

  ‘It must
be nice to be able to hide guilt with a title,’ Bart sneered, pushing back his anger, Moira’s words about not allowing these villains to define him ringing in his mind. She was right, this job had made him hard and these kinds of things would only make it worse unless he stopped it now, before more damage was done. ‘I’ve succeeded without the influence of great men and done my best to see the worst of the lot brought to justice. Let Lord Camberline or his mother strike at me if I’m wrong. I can handle the attack.’

  ‘I don’t doubt you can. It’s why I assigned you to this duty.’

  ‘And Lady Camberline?

  ‘You think she’s in on this?’

  ‘Based on the information Lady Rexford has obtained, Lady Camberline is either involved or has a good knowledge of the plot. Lady Rexford is no longer attending the dinner tonight. I sent her regrets to Lady Camberline before I came here.’ He explained about the attack outside the museum yesterday, doing his best to not think about what had happened afterwards, or this morning. She was no longer in harm’s way and that was what mattered, along with his stopping these people and he would. By tomorrow this would be over along with all reason for a connection between them. The idea hit him as strongly as learning with certainty the plot was coming to fruition tonight had. ‘I have a man inside the Camberline house who can gather information and possibly uncover who else is involved.’

  ‘A bad blow at a time when we need Lady Rexford there, but I agree with removing her. In the meantime, gather your men and see what you find at the burial ground.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Bart left the room to assemble his men and at last crush the threat to England. There was no more time to think about Moira and what had happened between them this morning. Tomorrow, when the realm was safe, he’d mourn their parting. Today, he must help save England.

  * * *

  Moira paced back and forth across the small bedroom for what seemed like the hundredth time today, the only difference between now and an hour ago being the setting sun. She lit a reed in the grate and touched it to the wick of the candle beside her bed, allowing the light to fill the room, but it did nothing to warm her soul. Bart had been gone all day and he hadn’t sent any word about where he was, what he was doing or when he might return. She should be glad he was gone, for it meant she didn’t have to endure any awkward meetings or conversations, but she wasn’t. She was bored and lonely.

  After he’d left, she’d pulled herself together and ventured downstairs to eat and chat with Mrs Roberts. It’d been a tolerable enough hour, but the housekeeper’s duties had summoned her, leaving Moira to poke around the bookshelf in Bart’s office to try to find something other than a law book to read. She hadn’t been successful, and the more she’d wandered around his house, the more isolated and upset she’d grown. There was nothing here to take her mind off Bart and what had happened between them, and it smacked of her time at Allwick Hall after she’d married Walter. The activity of the first weeks of learning about her new home and situation had quickly faded to endless hours of inactivity bleeding one into the other while she’d searched for some way to fill the long days. Walter had had his obsession with his health and his fossil collection to amuse him. Moira had had nothing except a desire to be useful, one Walter had blunted by limiting her duties to planning dinners and nothing else. It’d left her without any purpose in life, just like today.

  Moira sat in the chair, frustrated, hurt and at a loss for what to do. She could go to Fallworth Manor, tell Freddy he’d been right about Bart and ask to be accepted back into the family, but it galled her to go crawling back to them. They hadn’t valued all she’d done for them and if she returned, they would merely take advantage of her again, all the while holding her mistake with Bart over her head. She couldn’t go to her town house until Bart told her it was safe to return, but she didn’t want to remain here, forgotten, and of no use to anyone once again.

  She spied the red dress she’d worn last night draped over the arm of a chair where she’d discarded it this morning after changing into her morning dress. She picked it up and examined it in the fading sunlight. It was a touch wrinkled at the bottom from its time on the floor in Bart’s room last night, but it was still clean and fresh. She could put it on and go out, perhaps to the theatre or even, if she dared, Lady Camberline’s dinner.

  She clutched the dress to her chest, afraid and emboldened by the thought. Bart had told her not to go, but after defying her family and risking her reputation to help him, to think all her efforts had been a waste was as irritating as this feeling of uselessness. At the dinner, she’d have a purpose. She could eavesdrop on Lady Camberline’s guests and help England. If she learned anything pertinent, then it meant all her sacrifices wouldn’t be in vain. Yes, it might place her at some risk, but she doubted Lady Camberline kept assassins hidden in her drawing room. There would be others present, and if she was careful to never be alone with anyone, and to remain aware of her surroundings, then it would minimise the danger.

  If nothing else, being there tonight might offer her the opportunity to meet new people, maybe even a man who did want a wife and family, but who wasn’t encumbered by plots and treason. It would dampen for a few hours the loneliness inside her and offer her the chance to at last obtain something of the new life she’d come to London to find, the one she’d believed she’d found with Bart until he’d pulled it away. Let him live in his filthy world of spies. She would and could at last claim a future of her own.

  Chapter Twelve

  Bart stood on the far side of the cemetery behind a large statue of a winged angel, her carved stone face pitted by time and the elements. Across the rows of tilted and weathered gravestones, Bart watched as the Comte de Troyen entered the cemetery and made for a tall mausoleum near the back wall. Into the quiet, the bells of a nearby church suddenly sounded out the evening hour. Lord Camberline had disappeared behind the mausoleum some time ago, obviously waiting for the Frenchman to arrive and join him. Neither man took any pains to conceal their identities, but Bart wasn’t surprised. It was hubris and the mistaken belief they couldn’t be caught combined with the ineptitude which usually brought plotters down. It would be Lord Camberline’s and the Comte’s downfall, too.

  Around the cemetery, his men were positioned out of sight, waiting for his signal to pounce. Bart might have brushed off Mr Flint’s warning about evidence, but he knew it was essential to seeing the aristocratic members of the Rouge Noir convicted in the House of Lords.

  Bart, with the collar of his redingote tugged up high about his neck and his hat pulled down low over his eyes, moved quickly and quietly towards the Camberline Mausoleum while signalling his men to follow, but stay out of sight. Bart crept along the side of the stone memorial towards the back of it facing the high brick wall surrounding the burial grounds. The stone was cold against his shoulder as he pressed against it just near the edge where he could hear the two men speaking.

  ‘Is everything in place?’ the Comte demanded in his thick French accent. The languid man Bart had met the other night at the ball had been replaced by a hard-talking one and Bart could see at once the statesman Moira had described at the ball. If he was this duplicitous in his ability to present himself to the world, Bart could imagine how he might be involved in plots and assassinations.

  ‘Yes,’ Lord Camberline said, less confident than the man he spoke with. ‘I have a carriage prepared to take us to Scotland. By the time anyone realises what’s happened, it’ll be too late to stop us.’

  ‘And the money? Were you able to raise it?’ the Comte demanded.

  ‘It was difficult to obtain such a sum without my mother noticing, but I managed it. Despite my majority she refuses to acknowledge I’m an adult capable of making my own decisions. She’ll be sorry she didn’t do it sooner. She’s mistaken if she thinks she can control me any longer.’

  ‘As long as you don’t fail or you’ll regret
it. What time can I expect you?’

  ‘The dinner is at eight tonight. I’ll leave shortly after it starts. My slipping out should be easy once my mother is engaged with all her MPs and lords. I’ll meet you at the entrance to Westminster Hall and we’ll be done with this at last.’

  Bart had heard enough. He stepped around the mausoleum and revealed his presence. ‘Gentlemen, what a surprise to see you here. I hadn’t expected to encounter such august men in these dour surroundings, but I suppose a cemetery is a fitting place to contrive plots.’

  Lord Camberline, who’d been so full of confidence only a few seconds ago, wilted in the face of Bart’s unexpected appearance. He shifted in his boots as if he intended to flee, but two of Bart’s men stepped up on the other side of the mausoleum, blocking his exit. Bart heard the crunch of stones as Joshua and Mr Smith stepped up behind him, further penning in the two lords.

  ‘Who are you?’ Lord Camberline demanded, the two of them never having been introduced. ‘Who sent you here?’

  ‘He’s Monsieur Dyer, the famous barrister,’ the Comte answered, recognising Bart from their brief introduction at the ball. It gave Bart a grudging respect for the Frenchman. Bart thought the man had dismissed him, but like any true statesman he’d been observant of details, especially names and faces. ‘To what do we owe the pleasure of your company?’

  Bart was about to answer when Lord Camberline did first.

  ‘My mother must have discovered our plan and sent him,’ Lord Camberline whined to the Comte before turning on Bart and drawing on his lineage to shore up his backbone. ‘Have you given up trying cases in order to chase after young lords at the insistence of their mothers? Whatever she’s paying you to spy on me, I’ll pay twice as much for you to forget about us.’

  He spoke with all the contempt and arrogance of his station, but it had no effect on Bart. This wasn’t the first time he’d faced a lord who, in the wrong and on the verge of a judgement against him, had tried to sneer down his nose at Bart or buy him off. ‘I’m not here on behalf of your mother, but in search of traitors to the Crown about to commit treason.’