Antoine had included his direction, the inn in the village where they had all taken tea, and Ianthe thought of how she might get there tomorrow without Fox (or Cherie) finding out. She might enlist a maid, she supposed, but that would prove questionable. A sturdy footman or groom would be better, but even that … she had not been here long enough to accurately divide the servants into Lady or Lord Fox's camps. She thought the former camp was liable to be much smaller, but one might just hit on the wrong person.
Could she drag Sally into this? No, too much risk to her reputation. She was still surveying her options when she fell asleep.
***
Mounting Sapphire, the next morning just after dawn, Sally Richards was told that the Marquis of Audley was already gone, as were his guests, except for Mr Steadman. Sally felt strangely bereft, and she hardly noticed that Ianthe, too, was unusually quiet.
She vaguely saw, when they returned from their ride, that Ianthe seemed to be looking from one groom to another, as though searching for someone in particular. When Mr Steadman appeared in the yard, her friend dismounted quickly and went directly to him, having a quick conversation before she jumped up onto the waiting gig. Sally joined her, and was swift about it, impelled by Ianthe's urgency, and was a little surprised when Mr Steadman's horse followed behind.
Could it be that Ianthe favoured this serious man? He was certainly handsome, in a quieter way than say Audley of course, and very manly, but his personality was so at odds with Ianthe's that Sally looked at her askance. 'Are you quite alright, my dear Ianthe?'
'I have mischief brewing, only. Do not fear for me, my dear.'
Sally had surprised a look of satisfaction on Mr Steadman's face, and was slightly intrigued as to what it could all mean. However, her own slightly flat mood gave way to her reveries. It was wonderful to ride Sapphire still, of course it was, but the atmosphere today had not been so jolly. No doubt the Curtis problem had pulled them both down, and she knew Ianthe had been affected somehow by the appearance of the exotically handsome comte, and none of it had anything to do with the absence of a bronze-haired host at all.
The marquis would be in London now, seeing to the business that prised him away. He seemed to think it would be a long business, too. If they should never visit London again she might, she now realised, never, ever see him again. That would be a pity, that was all, for he made her laugh even when she was cross with him. Even if the Houstens took them to London next Season, they might never speak. It was only on race day at Housten Hall that she had ever previously been by his side. She had had him pointed out at the races and once at a ball, but she had been far from him. On such an occasion now, if he did but see her, he would of course come and make her a bow, but there was no guarantee that he would see her — it was not as though his friends would alert him to the presence of a middling sort of woman. Not in the way the crowd might say, "Oh look, it is the Marquis of Audley!" This kind of thinking got her all the way to the side door of Studham and she jumped down with the aid of Mr Steadman. She was surprised when Ianthe remained seated and looked back. 'Are you not coming?' she said.
'I have a headache,' said Ianthe with a smile down at her. Sally frowned a little before she caught on.
'Ah, so now I can honestly say that you said so if Lady Fox should be down for breakfast, by any chance?'
'Yes, it may be that your mother might have the headache too.'
Sally looked a little panicked.
'Don't worry, I think Her Ladyship herself will not be anxious to rise before her time after the events of last evening. She won't appear.'
To Sally's astonishment, her mama, wearing a plain cape and carrying a boulle work box, ran from the house. Mr Steadman wrested the box from her hands, placed it under the seat of the gig, and handed her tenderly into the carriage, then he mounted his horse again.
'Oh Sally—!' said her mother, but Ianthe had whipped the horses, and they were gone.
As the threesome entered the inn some twelve minutes later, Ianthe had the notion that she spotted the bald headed, burly back of Stephens the groom in the taproom, and wondered if Fox might find out about this expedition rather earlier than she had anticipated.
Chapter Twenty
In London
The Marquis of Audley arose from his mistress' bed and began to dress. She still slept soundly beneath the silken coverlet, and he looked back at her red curls on the pillow, at her shapely white limbs, and sighed. He had pretended too much wine last night and had just held her, but the lady had discerned something, nevertheless. 'You will not come again, my lord, will you?' she had said against his chest. He had remained silent. 'It is quite alright, my dear. I do not need a passionless lover. I have my husband for that.'
He'd kissed her head and sighed. 'It has been a beautiful diversion, has it not?'
'Just go to sleep.'
Now he dressed. He saw the little bunch of rosebuds that had decorated the bodice of her dress last night, and he unpinned them and quietly stepped back to the bed and placed them on her pillow.
'Farewell, Jinny,' he said softly, and left. As he walked the almost deserted London streets, he wondered why he felt so dull. Every diversion was before him. He had plunged himself into it with a supper party and then a ball, and then the familiar rooms of Jinny, her husband once more absent. In the arms of another, too. What lives they led. All the freedoms he desired, that he was protecting. Discarding one today just meant more for tomorrow. A two-year liaison ended so easily. He should look about him for another.
Maybe not yet. He needed other diversions. He would box at Jackson's this afternoon, make a bet at White’s with anyone who thought they could beat his greys, drink gin this evening and pick up racing tips from the jockeys at Easy Joe's and go to bed a free man.
That was the plan. He put his hand in the pocket of his coat and calmed himself by rubbing a finger over the raised letters on the fine linen handkerchief. M-N-M.
***
Barely two hours after the Fentons' arrival in London, a cheery little individual in a moleskin waistcoat, crumpled woollen coat and buckskins arrived in Grosvenor Square and was shown in.
'Mr Mosely!' cried Lady Aurora, looking up from the latest novel. 'How lovely to see you again.'
'What a welcome, my lady!' said the little man, making a low bow. He winked. 'You look pretty as a peach if I may say so.' This was impertinent from a person whose clothes, plus the pinched face of generations of London poor, declared him far beneath her in class — but Lady Aurora did not seem to mind.
'What can we do for you?' she asked warmly. 'Do you have an investigation on? How thrilling!'
'You husband bade me come on a matter of business, my lady.' He moved around the room a little, at ease, then he remembered something. 'The other week, my lady, when I was walking down the Mall, I saw Miss Oldfield — I should say Viscountess Durant now — and blow me if she didn't stop her carriage and come right up to me! Very grand she looked, too. I was pleased as punch. Other gents in the street couldn't believe the way she was greeting a shady cove like me, taking me hand and all.'
'Felicity would have been so very happy to see you, too, sir. You are her saviour after all.'
'And the other young 'un? I forgot to ask the viscountess.'
'Oh, the Black-Hearted Lady?' Lady Aurora laughed. 'Lady Letitia is well, and still firm friends with Felicity.'
'That's alright then.' Mr Mosely smiled.
Mr Fenton entered, and after greetings took the unusual step of shaking Mosely's hand.
'You have something already?' he asked.
'Just a little, Mr Fenton. It looked like it might be somefink urgent. I'll take the mail coach tonight, if you tell me what's what, like.'
After being forty minutes with Mosely in his study, Fenton laid his long limbs on a sofa opposite his wife.
Lady Aurora looked on affectionately. 'Something to think about, Wil dear?'
'Mmmm.'
She continued her book, and Fenton c
losed his eyes, staying thus for close to an hour. Then: 'Am I a fantasist, Aurora? Do I indulge in flights of fancy on a regular basis?'
'You do not.' His wife's reply was definite.
'I have had several seemingly unconnected pieces of information given me today. They should not fit together, but they do. One piece I should reject, but I cannot. There has been a dreadful fraud perpetrated — that is established, I think. But the other thing … It cannot be true. But so many fingers pointing to it in my head …' He sat up. 'It cannot be. It has been almost a year since … Still, whether I look a fool or not, I should alert Edward Nicolls.'
'Who?'
'An officer garrisoned in the South Atlantic Ocean.'
'South Atlantic Ocean?' mused Her Ladyship, frowning prettily. 'Is it something to do with trade, the East India Company, perhaps?'
He did not answer directly, but sought his wife's beautiful eyes. 'What can make a man turn away from his beliefs, risk his all, take an enormous, ridiculous gamble?'
'Money. Love.' His wife answered quickly.
'Yes. If I am right, it is lunacy, plain and simple. And wicked, too.' Fenton sighed. 'But some things I can, at least, do.'
'Does Mr Mosely start for Kent today?' asked the quick Lady Aurora.
'I have delayed him with other matters. We may both go tomorrow.'
'You wish me to stay here,' she said sadly.
'I think it best…'
'As you will, my dear!'
Mr Fenton began a letter to Edward Nicolls.
Sir,
It is many years since our paths crossed, perhaps we did not part on the best of terms, but I hope you give this communication your attention, nevertheless.
There is a tale that I am in the midst of unravelling — a tale of innocent maidens, rich jewels and star-crossed lovers, but none of this is your concern. In the process of doing so, however, I came to find some other perplexing thing. The purpose of your stay on Ascension Island is also mine in writing to you. A fantastical plot may be in train, but my facts are slim at best. Here they are:
A Frenchman came to England a short time ago. This man has posed as a friend to our enemy for many years, but was in fact a Royalist, passing information to the British. He now lives under the French King and has been rewarded with a title.
The man suddenly has more money than his position suggests likely. A great deal of money.
Some others came on the ship with him. Two names are known to me as staunch friends of our enemy. Men of great wealth and European influence. Others I must deal with, in regard to the part of the story that is not your concern. However, there was someone else, someone whom my informant's informant says spent a deal of time with the Frenchmen on the voyage — a Chinese scholar.
This last gave me pause. Are there not still hundreds of coolies working in that other place now, since slaves no longer are? Chinese.
Far-fetched, impossible. But perhaps not a direction you might have considered danger could arrive from.
This letter must surely reach you before the plot, if plot there is, advances.
I will pass these wild speculations to someone at the Alien Office, of course — you may not know, but I had a connection to that office since Wickham's time - but I think they are mostly asleep these days, feeling the threat disposed of. Thus, I wrote to you directly.
Until I next beat you at cards,
Wilbert Fenton
PS At our last meeting, you accused me of fuzzing the cards. I cannot well remember after this long time if it was true on that occasion, but it very well might have been. I remember Glenfield was of our company, and I had a score to settle with him. Do not allow my status as a rogue to impair your reading of this letter. I have never been more serious.
There were other letters that Mr Fenton had received that day, and there were more to come no doubt, but he had to leave with Mosely and speak to Fox. Because his friend Antoine was more desperate than Fenton had thought. In their cups on several occasions, Joseph, Cherie, Antoine and he had discussed the general, that revolutionary who now wore a crown.
There was a certain order that the general had established in French affairs, a certain stability to the country that must be admired after the bloodbath of the Terror, had said Antoine. The Englishmen had conceded that much, but all three of them had seen that this man also sought to expand his Empire and that his greed might never be assuaged. Antoine, too, found his person objectionable, for there was about him an arrogance that flaunted his power. The spilling of French blood on battlefields might never end as long as Napoleon was Emperor, Antoine had said. Fenton would wager that Antoine's true inclination was against the Empire — so why now? If it was for Ianthe, if it was all to gain Ianthe, what more might he do?
He had to see Audley before he left.
He tracked him down at a gaming hell in Sutton Place, much the worse for wine.
'You started early,' Fenton remarked.
'Fenton! Have a glass.'
'I won't. I'm off to Kent early in the morning.' Fenton stood close to the marquis after sparing just nods for his similarly inebriated table fellows. He talked lazily, but under his breath.
'You are?' said Audley, pouring himself another glass idly, spilling wine. 'Stay at Audley. Give the old place my regards. I cannot return for two months at least.'
Fenton raised an eyebrow. 'What will you then do when she arrives in London?'
'How did you—?' the marquis started. Then pulled himself up, but one elbow slid off the table, causing him to have to master his resources to pull up again. 'To whom,' he said with dignity, 'do you refer?'
Mr Fenton sighed. 'I did not come to speak of that. I need you to do something. My wife will open my correspondence tomorrow, but you, Audley, must be ready to go back home with the letters if there is anything important on Ianthe's problem.'
'There is hardly time to have a reply from the letters you sent after Cherie visited.'
'I know, but I had sent earlier requests after Ianthe told me about the jewels. I had an express this afternoon. You know Chaumet's?'
'The jewellers on the Place Vendôme? Of course I do.'
'That is where Ianthe sold her jewels. I thought it an unusual arrangement when I heard. They only sell their own designs.'
'And?' Audley was shaking his head in a bid to focus his scattered wits.
'They accepted the jewels, appraised them fairly and paid her, but I have discovered that the comte had already visited them, arranging the whole thing. For a commission, they simply handed the jewels back to him.'
'So, he had them all this time? Why did he not just—?' Audley frowned, then led by Fenton's cynical eyebrow he said, 'Ah, to make it seem difficult. To demonstrate his devotion.' Fenton inclined his head ironically. 'But why,' wondered the marquis, dragging his fingers through his bronze locks, 'do you need me to read the answers to your posts? Have them forwarded by a servant.'
'I cannot entrust the kind of information I may receive to a servant.'
'Sinister goings-on in Paris are not my business, however devoted I am to Ianthe. And she has you and Fox looking out for her. I cannot go back to Audley at present.'
'Think, man. Would I have spoken if the problem were merely fraud?'
Audley stared at him, his eyes finally focused. 'How can there be any more to that old trade? We are at peace.'
'Check any correspondence tomorrow,' Fenton said only, and turned to go. 'Oh, and Audley, these pleasures,' Fenton pointed to the cards and the wine glass while looking at his most sardonic. 'You used to indulge in them with style. They do not sit well on you tonight. From bon vivant to a drowning man. If you can no longer carry it off with élan best not do it at all, my boy.'
Audley sprawled back in his chair and looked at Fenton's back, watching his leisurely stroll to the door, greeting friends briefly on the way — and muttered curses under his breath.
'I thought Fenton was to join us. What ails him?' said one of the other gamesters.
&n
bsp; 'He smiles, but I always mistrust those eyes,' said another.
Audley regarded his friends. 'Fenton is leaving London tomorrow to stay at Audley.'
'Without you? That's a strange start. Anyway, deal the cards.'
The marquis got unsteadily to his feet. 'I leave you, gentlemen. I fear I must be up early tomorrow.'
'Audley!'
'Leave him. He's been in a foul mood all night anyway.'
Chapter Twenty-One
The Visit to the Inn
Ianthe had chosen the longest table at the inn to sit, which accommodated six. This was not a major post road, so the inn was not bustling with people, just a few respectable looking guests eating their breakfasts, stealing looks at the beautiful lady in the cerulean blue riding habit, with the matching hat set high. The lady smiled at anyone whose eyes she crossed, and the spectators seemed to be dazed by her magnificence.
'If only,' remarked Lady Richards sadly, 'you were not wearing that particular dress, Ianthe, we might have been less remarked. I should have brought a cape for you, too. But I was in such a rush.'
'I may be remarked, I suppose, but I have you and Mr Steadman here to give me countenance. I thank you both.'
'You wish to speak privately with the gentleman?' asked Mr Steadman with his customary directness.
'I do.'
'Then, ladies, please rise and Lady Richards, will you take off your cloak?'
Doing what Mr Steadman said seemed a given, and he disposed of the cloak on the seat Ianthe had vacated beside Lady Richards. He moved the rosewood and boulle work box onto the seat next to him, saying, 'Let us make ourselves more comfortable.'
Ianthe and the Fighting Foxes: The Fentons Book 4 Page 16