“Can we shoot her?” she whispered to Blake, who was already heading down the stairs ahead of her.
“Keep your fire poker handy,” he suggested. “I can’t throw her a facer as I did her brother.”
“Out of my way, chien! You cannot keep me from my family.” Below, Antoinette was wielding her beribboned parasol to beat back the footman. Seeing the Earl of Danecroft step from the study to investigate her shouts, she flew in his direction. “Where is my Albert?” she cried. “And where is that incompetent oaf who left me waiting in the cold all these hours?”
Blake finished the last few steps on the fly, grabbing the parasol in midswing and yanking it loose from Antoinette’s grip.
Jocelyn sighed. It seemed the evening’s entertainment was not quite over.
While Blake and Fitz held her sister-in-law’s wrists, Jocelyn descended the stairs expecting Antoinette to foam at the mouth any moment.
“You!” her charming witch of a sister-in-law spat when she quit shouting long enough to see Jocelyn approach. “Why could you not invite us with all your other friends! There would not be such a scene if I had been here. Men are not to be trusted! They are all oafs. I could have had the birdies and been gone!” She twisted at the hands binding her. “Let me go, bâtards!”
Fitz nodded his head toward the study door. “The other two are ratting each other out as we speak. What do we do with this one?”
“We could just throw them all in the cellar with her brother and see who comes out alive,” Blake suggested.
“We have guests,” Jocelyn said, nodding toward the parlor, where she’d left Lady Danecroft and Lady Belden. “They might object to barbarity.”
At Antoinette’s continued shrieking of epithets, she turned and slapped her sister-in-law’s face. The effect was immediate. Antoinette shut up and glared sullenly. “If you cannot behave with decorum,” Jocelyn told her, “you may join Albert in the cellar.”
With the shrieking silenced, Blake dragged his prisoner toward the study. The instant Antoinette saw Harold bound and trussed, she screeched again and berated him with a barrage of French and English that brought both ladies from the front parlor.
Jocelyn grimaced. She didn’t understand the French, but enough of the English implicated all of them in parrot theft, if naught else.
“I will not tolerate such language in front of my wife. One of you must sacrifice your neckcloth,” Blake demanded. “Tie her up and heave her in the cellar like the rat she is.”
He used his own neckcloth to bind Antoinette’s mouth, blessedly silencing the shrieks. Even Harold didn’t complain as Atherton happily contributed his linen to tie the viscountess’s hands. Jocelyn thought her brother just looked defeated, but Harold had stolen her necklace and ruined her party, and she had no sympathy for him.
Lord Quentin prodded their new prisoner out of the study, nonchalantly bowing to the staring ladies in the hall as he did so.
The men returned to interrogating their two aristocratic prisoners as if Jocelyn were not there. Apparently while she and Blake had been upstairs, both Ogilvie and Harold had squealed on each other, like the bullying cowards they were.
Ranting and shouting and throwing accusations now ensued—until Jocelyn grew tired of the senseless arguments. She left the study and summoned the maids hired for the evening to gather the remains of the buffet table and carry them to the front room.
When she returned to the study to announce that refreshments were being served, the lot obediently followed her out, keeping Ogilvie and Harold tied with wrists behind their backs.
Once she had the men sipping coffee and brandy and nibbling on sandwiches, she could breathe. Almost. She did not perfectly understand what treason Harold and Antoinette had perpetrated, but she was furious enough to lop off their heads.
“From what they’ve told us so far, Carrington’s wife is a traitor, but we cannot prove that the viscount is more than an incompetent thief and bully,” Blake told the duke. “He aided Albert in hiring a ruffian to break into the house and steal back Percy, so he is a danger to my family and cannot be trusted, but you know perfectly well that charging him with treason means his property and title will be forfeit and the reputations of innocent family members will be destroyed.”
My family. Jocelyn wondered if he heard himself. The man who had wanted to be left alone was now claiming her and hers as his. She wouldn’t argue with that. She had just discovered she liked being part of a pair, especially now that her educated husband had learned to listen to her.
“You would tar my nephew with the same brush!” the duke roared, as he had since he’d arrived. “I will not have it. He’s an imbecile, not a traitor. Your wife’s father warned me years ago that something was amiss with those birds. I couldn’t nab both of them when Harold sold them, but I got the one and told Bernie to keep an eye on it. And that’s what he’s demmed well nearly killed himself doing.”
“While attempting to kill me in the process,” Blake asserted. “I was nearly maimed by a burr under my saddle acquired in your stable after an argument with your nephew.”
An argument, balderdash, Jocelyn thought. It had been a duel. But she held her tongue and let Blake speak his piece while idly wondering why a mighty duke had bothered to accept her humble invitation. His arrival was a trifle too convenient.
“I almost broke my neck stumbling over an andiron after we had another confrontation, and an ale barrel nearly crushed me after a contretemps at the club. I cannot say Bernard is innocent,” Blake continued. “He conspired with Carrington to steal birds that concealed the key to a French spy code. If my wife and her family are to be tarred by the taint of treason, then I demand equal treatment for your nephew.”
Jocelyn tried to follow his logic. If Harold was a traitor, then she supposed the crown might reclaim his title and estate, not that he had much. But Richard, as his heir, would lose everything, and her sisters and all her relations would suffer abject humiliation.
Blake was trying to protect her family—by forcing the duke to condemn his nephew? Or by asking that he let Harold go? That did not sound right—unless he personally meant to tar and feather Harold and run him out of town on a rail. Then what would he do with Antoinette?
Lord Quentin had returned from placing her in the cellar and now stood in the doorway, hands behind his back, observing the shouting match. Lady Belden offered him a sandwich plate.
“Who the devil are you to tell me how I should conduct myself!” the duke raged, stalking up and down the small parlor.
“Blake is the man who both caught a French spy and broke their code.” Jocelyn finally entered the fray on a note of exasperation with men who thundered and postured but could not communicate effectively.
“Blake can show the War Office how the code works,” she continued. “He can give them the invention that Harold is claiming he was threatened into stealing, and teach the parrots to reveal more, if you like. Shouting at each other solves nothing.”
“May I suggest, Your Grace—” Quentin started to say.
“It’s your suggestion that brought me here, Hoyt! Why the devil are you and the rest of these young scoundrels still about?” The duke scowled at Blake’s friends. “Where did Lord Eldon and Westmoreland go? Weren’t they just here? Let’s hear from men with experience!”
“Your Grace.” Jocelyn stood and stepped in front of the pacing tiger, handing him a glass of brandy with a practiced curtsy, hampered somewhat by her swinging panniers. “Our friends are here to vouch for Blake. He had naught to do with Harold and Bernie except catch them stealing my birds. Lord Westmoreland and Lord Eldon were friends of my father, and you may call on them as you like for their opinions, but Harold and his wife affect me and Mr. Ogilvie affects you, so it would be simpler to decide their fates quietly among ourselves. Albert is not English, so you may do as you wish with him.”
Lady Belden and Lady Danecroft had refused to depart as long as the men were allowed to stay. They murmured appr
ovingly and sipped their tea, forcing the men to choose their words carefully. Jocelyn imagined steam emerging from the duke’s ears as he muffled his curses and was forced to think instead of shout.
She sent Lord Quentin a thoughtful glance. She appreciated his subtlety. The man never appeared to participate in events, but he was always behind them. He was the reason the duke had unexpectedly arrived on her doorstep.
In a distant corner, Harold protested, “I am no spy! Albert and his henchmen threatened to kill me if I didn’t stop Montague from figuring out the bird code. Spying is for filthy tradesmen!” He shot Lord Quentin a look of scorn.
“You stole Lady Belden’s necklace while trying to slit your sister’s throat. You’re a thief, worse than any pickpocket.” Unlike their other guests, Quentin had worn boots beneath his domino, and the kick he gave Harold shut him up.
Looking dangerously competent in his role as guard, Mr. Atherton crossed his arms and leaned against the wall, standing over a sullen Mr. Ogilvie, who was too cowed by his noble uncle to speak or run.
Lord Danecroft flipped cards from one hand to the other with a player’s skill while observing the scene.
“You can keep the parrot, Montague,” the duke grumbled. “I’ll find an estate in Scotland to stash Bernie where he can do no harm. But what the devil am I to do with Carrion there, if his wife is a traitor?”
“If I might?” Danecroft intruded quietly. At the duke’s glare, he continued, not intimidated. “Montague has an encyclopedic mind. He has been trying to tell the War Office of Jefferson’s code wheel for some time now, but they are in such disorder that they did not listen.”
The earl waited a moment to see if the duke would deny the charge. When he didn’t, he continued. “When the War Office ignored his warnings, Blake created a code wheel of his own and deciphered a French missive by using the key Harold’s wife had taught the birds. Then he set a trap and caught the traitor. If Jocelyn’s brother is charged with treason and brought to trial, Montague’s affiliation with a traitor will ruin him for his efforts, and England will lose the use of his brilliant mind.”
Jocelyn wanted to cheer for the earl’s wisdom in grasping the crux of the problem. Really, people ought to celebrate intelligence more often. She would kiss the earl’s cheek, but the petite countess would probably bash her with her Queen of Hearts scepter.
“And society will lose Jocelyn’s refreshing company,” Lady Belden added. “She has her father’s astute political mind, Your Grace. You might well use her talents.”
Since Jocelyn was sitting there in bedraggled silks from a bygone era, her hair all a-tumble, and a sticking plaster on her throat, she did not think this a convincing argument, but she appreciated the support.
“Lady Bell’s man of business has been investigating for me,” Jocelyn said. “It seems Harold and his wife have run up gaming debts so steep they can never buy their way out,” she explained, hoping to exonerate the Pig from treason, for Richard’s sake.
“After you learn all from them that you can, they really need to be deported like common criminals, Your Grace,” Quent suggested. “Would that not solve the problem better than a charge of treason that can only hurt the rest of the family, all of whom are innocent of treachery? I daresay you can interrogate Albert and charge him with spying without a public trial.”
The duke rubbed his iron gray hair and nodded wearily. “The late Viscount Carrington was a friend. He warned me of his suspicions about Antoinette and her brother. I hate to see his heir—”
He shook his head in dismay, then straightened his broad shoulders and glared at everyone in the room. “I will hand the French spy over to the War Office for questioning and justice. Montague, I would speak with you in private. The rest of you—can I trust you to haul Carrington and his wife to a ship sailing for the penal colonies and heave them on it? I have it on good authority that Colonel Macquarie will be the next governor of New South Wales. I’ll ask him to keep them under guard and well occupied. I’ll take care of Bernie.”
Jocelyn had never seen a room empty so fast, on such an air of triumph. Blake’s friends were not only large and fiendishly attractive—they were also loyal and smart. Lord Quentin’s shipping connections alone would answer the duke’s orders. And Nick, the dandy, seemed to enjoy hauling Harold around like a trussed goose.
The penal colonies were said to be a terrible place, but she did not waste time pitying a bully. When a kitten leaped to her lap to comfort her, she buried her face in its fur.
The duke might think he was in control, but her world depended on the choices of one man. After this evening’s events, she willingly surrendered her role as her family’s protector and placed her future in her husband’s competent hands.
35
In the wee hours before dawn, Blake entered the bedchamber he shared with Jocelyn. After closing the door behind him, he sagged wearily against it. A candle still gleamed beside the bed, and his annoying, marvelous, terrifying wife sat ensconced against the pillows, petting a kitten and scratching a happy Bitty with her blanketed toe.
“I thought we agreed the pets belonged downstairs,” he said, because saying that was easier than saying anything else that was in his head at the moment. Knowing she had waited up for him restored his draining energy. Understanding that she’d trusted him to decide her brother’s—and her family’s—future overwhelmed him and filled him with gratitude and bone-deep satisfaction, of a sort he’d never before experienced. He had a notion he would come to enjoy shouldering family responsibilities.
“They deserved a reward,” she said. “And I needed company while I waited for you to decide what will happen to us.”
She didn’t speak with condemnation, just her usual acceptance that her fate rested in the hands of others. Blake needed no further incentive to cross the room and climb across the covers to sit beside her. His Jocelyn was a skilled and daring manipulator when it came to protecting those she loved. He would teach her that she could trust him as a partner in her endeavors.
He drew her into his arms until her head rested against his shoulder. He would not be so foolish as to underestimate her ever again. Had she not fought Harold and encouraged Blake to do as he must, the culprits would have absconded, and the evening would have ended very differently.
“I don’t plan to die anytime soon, superstition or not,” he declared firmly. “So your future is here, with me. Is that acceptable?”
She wiggled closer, and Blake was grateful the covers separated them. They needed to talk first. He prayed this was the end of the restraint between them, but he took nothing for granted.
“Very acceptable,” she agreed. “May I say I love you, without fear of suffocating you?”
His dense genius might not readily recognize the value of others or how to respond to overtures such as this one. What he did know was that he wasn’t idiot enough to deny his wife’s worth any longer. He pressed a kiss to the thick cascade of hair she’d brushed out of its elaborate coiffeur and sought the words she needed to hear. “I nearly went insane tonight fearing I’d lost you. I think I understand better now why my family has fretted over me all these years. The thought of losing a loved one is crushing.”
Startled blue eyes turned up to meet his gaze. “Loved one?”
“You,” Blake admitted, holding her gaze and baring his heart. “I love you. I think that’s what it means when I fill with gladness every time I set my eyes on you, and panic like Richard if I think you’re hurt. I don’t want to imagine a world without you sitting across the table from me, even if you’re mocking me or paying more attention to a damned dog.”
She hastily scooped up her pets and returned them to the floor, then burrowed back against his side. “Love is a kind of madness, is it not? I love and adore you, but I will never be the clever, obedient sort of wife you wish.”
Briefly, Blake closed his eyes and let her declaration sink in. Love had been a smothering emotion until Jocelyn entered his life. Now, he could
see the freedom it offered.
“‘Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds,’” he quoted, leaning over to kiss the upper curve of her lip. “Why would I be so dunderheaded as to wish to change anything about you?”
“Oh, unfair,” she murmured against his mouth. “Does that mean I cannot try to change your manly stoicism and persuade you to tell me what you are refusing to say? I must accept your silence to prove my love?”
“If you are any more clever, you will outwit me.” He chuckled and leaned back again. “I believe I have lost Quent his bays. You must teach me diplomacy so I might break the news without getting punched in the nose.”
“I will punch Lord Quentin myself should he dare!” she said fiercely, before flinging her arms around Blake’s neck, letting the covers drop away. “But he wagered you would have what you want by spring. Does his losing mean you are staying home?” she asked, trying to hide her trepidation.
“Ummm, not quite.” Drowning in voluptuous breasts and diaphanous silk and an abundance of fair tresses, Blake lost his train of thought. He ran his hands up his wife’s slender back and gave thanks that she had come to no harm. He needed to hold her for all the rest of his nights. He tugged the covers from between them and angled her so that she was kneeling astride his lap.
“Tell me that all you want is to stay home so we may play house,” she whispered tauntingly, nibbling his ear and rubbing seductively against his trouser placket.
“I cannot say I’m staying home if I must spend my days in London,” he warned, although he knew this would be no discouragement to his wife.
As expected, she covered his face with more kisses, and her wicked fingers began removing what remained of his attire. “We’ll rent a flat,” she declared happily. “Mother and Richard will be fine here alone. This can be our country estate.”
“We think alike,” he agreed, filling his hands with her breasts and hoping she unfastened his trousers soon. “In London, you may scream as you please when we make love.”
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