Falconer's Heart

by Janice Bennett

  She crumpled it once more and returned to the ballroom, which was almost empty now as the couples made their way down to the supper. She tucked the note back where she’d found it, though she had a strong suspicion Marie had received rather than written it and had now discarded it. This was too chancy a way to pass an important message.

  Now all she had to do was figure out how to get out of here herself and discover just what Mrs. Marley would do and whom she would meet—once that lady rid herself of David’s company.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The obvious solution struck Riki at once. A feigned headache had worked admirably for Marie Marley. Why shouldn’t it do the same for her?

  It should and it did. Half an hour later, Newly admitted Riki, with Felicity and Lady Prudence in solicitous attendance, into the house. Belmont and Hillary remained at the ball, under protest but also under obligation to their promised partners.

  “I do wish you would both go back,” Riki repeated for perhaps the twentieth time as they escorted her up the stairs to her bedchamber.

  “When you have been taken ill?” Felicity exclaimed, shocked. “Of course we will do no such thing.”

  “It is only a headache, after all. I will go to bed and probably to sleep at once. There is no need for you to miss the rest of the party. You cannot tell me you weren’t enjoying yourselves. Please, do not make me feel guiltier than I do already.”

  Felicity hesitated. “Why do not you return, Mama, and reassure Belmont? You know how anxious he will become if at least one of us does not.”

  To that Lady Prue agreed. As soon as she assured herself that all possible was being done for her guest, she took her departure. Felicity settled herself in a chair by the bedside, watching with a knowledgeable eye as Riki’s abigail placed a cloth soaked in lavender water on her forehead and waved burning feathers before her.

  “That is the awfulest smell!” Riki gasped. “Please get it out of here. It’s only making things worse.”

  The maid drew back, uncertain.

  “Yes, do go.” Felicity waved her to the door. “I shall stay with Miss van Hamel until she is more the thing.”

  “There is no need,” Riki assured her.

  Felicity regarded her with anxious eyes. “Are you quite certain?”

  “Yes. I just want to lie here quietly.”

  Felicity nodded. “Then I will wish you goodnight. Do not hesitate to summon me should you have need.” She let herself quietly out of the room.

  A long sigh of relief escaped Riki. Now, she mustn’t rush things, she still had well over an hour…

  She waited for fifteen minutes, until her nerves could take no more. What if Mrs. Marley left early? She might be about her business and Riki would miss her. Not daring to delay any longer, she rose, drawing off her nightdress and casting it aside in one swift movement.

  She pulled on a dark-green kerseymere gown, and by dint of some athletic contortions managed to button it up the back. She fastened the matching pelisse up to her throat and pulled a dark shawl over her head. A quick survey in the mirror satisfied her. If she kept her face covered, she would disappear nicely in the shadows.

  How, though, was she to get a hackney at this time of night? She hoped the few coins in her reticule would be sufficient. For that matter, how did she go about letting herself out of the house without raising the servants? Well, she could either sit here and worry and let her quarry escape, or find out by that good old-fashioned method of trial and error.

  She opened her door a crack, peered down the empty hall, then eased herself silently from her room, afraid to breathe for fear someone might hear and demand to know what she was about. At this time of night the main stair would most likely be safer—and less used—than the servants’ at the back of the house. She started for it.

  Before she had taken ten steps, a door opened and Riki spun about, her heart stopping. Felicity waved to her, gesturing for her to join her in her chamber. Riki took a long, steadying breath and complied.

  “Now what is this all about?” Felicity demanded.

  “I needed to go out for a few minutes.”

  Felicity pressed her full lips together but her twinkling eyes betrayed her amusement. “I can see that, silly. Where are you going? If you don’t answer, you know, I can make quite the greatest fuss.”

  “That I can believe. All right, I want to see what someone is doing tonight.”

  Felicity nodded in satisfaction. “I thought so.” She removed her dressing gown to reveal a dark-blue merino beneath. “You didn’t look to me like someone with a headache. Who are we following?”

  “We aren’t following anyone. I am.”

  “You sound exactly like Belmont,” Felicity giggled.

  Riki blinked. She had sounded exactly like him. And what was worse, she knew how Felicity felt, not wanting to be left out. Firmly, before she let sympathy get the better of her, she shook her head. “It might be too dangerous. Belmont would never forgive me if I let anything happen to you.”

  “Then you can come along to keep an eye on me, because I intend to prove to you that Marie isn’t a traitor and didn’t leave the ball early just to meet with some spy.”

  “You knew what I was doing!” Riki stared at her in dismay.

  Felicity returned the regard with surprise. “Well, of course I did. Are you coming or not? I can get us out of the house without being caught, which I’ll wager you can’t.”

  With the distinct feeling that the situation had been taken out of her control, Riki followed Felicity out into the hall and down the main stair.

  The girl did not go to the front door as Riki expected. Instead she slipped silently down the corridor to Belmont’s bookroom. There, as Riki watched in dawning alarm, Felicity jimmied up the window, perched on the sill and swung her legs in their narrow-fitting skirt over the edge to the outside. She eased herself to the ground with all the expertise of one who had practiced this particular unseemly maneuver on more than one occasion.

  Riki followed her example, found it more difficult than it looked and landed on her knees at Felicity’s side.

  “Hush!” The girl fought back a giggle as she helped Riki to her feet. “Do you want old Newly to hear?”

  Riki bit back her questions. Since silence was necessary, she had best keep her curiosity under control until they let themselves out through the gate into the mews. But once safely away from the house, she intended to demand a few answers from the girl.

  Felicity didn’t pause to give her the chance. Instead she set off briskly toward Piccadilly. “Shall I pretend to be your abigail?” she asked brightly.

  “How often have you done this?” Riki demanded, torn between exasperation and a reluctant appreciation of her companion’s resourcefulness.

  “Oh, lots of times when we were children. You won’t tell Belmont will you? No, of course you won’t. He’d want to know how you found out, and that you couldn’t tell him, could you?” She accompanied the remark with a look of wide-eyed innocence.

  It didn’t deceive Riki for a moment. “I’m beginning to sincerely pity your brother,” was all she said.

  Felicity just grinned. “Tell me everything.”

  Riki hesitated, then told her about the information she’d “let slip”, the note and Mrs. Marley’s sudden illness.

  The laughter faded from Felicity’s eyes. “I don’t believe it of her! You’ll see for yourself how wrong you are.” Her small hands clutched the edges of her cloak and she walked faster. “It’s cold, isn’t it?” she said presently.

  It was likely to get colder, Riki reflected ruefully, glancing up at the icy clear sky. Stars glittered, bright and piercing, and a half moon bathed the almost deserted street in light, making walking easy. But it left Riki on edge. Her skin crawled with an eerie sensation of being followed—or did she mean stalked?

  A noise reached them, a rumbling rattle that rose in volume…and settled safely into the sound of hoofbeats on the cobblestones. Riki let out a ragged
breath of relief, which she cut off the next second. Grabbing Felicity, she dragged her into the shadowed recesses beside some area steps, where they waited until two horses trotted past, drawing a covered carriage.

  Felicity giggled again, nervous. “How dramatic of you.”

  “We’re crazy,” Riki breathed. “For heaven’s sake, Felicity, can’t we hail a cab or something?”

  Felicity nodded. “We won’t find a hackney until we reach Piccadilly though.”

  Riki cast a quick glance up and down the street. Four young men—bucks, Felicity called them—laughing and conversing loudly, came out of a well-lit house and set off none too steadily in the opposite direction. The ladies started forward again, following them at a safe distance.

  Riki dragged her borrowed watch out of her borrowed reticule and peered at the face. One fifty. That left them only forty minutes until two thirty.

  She quickened her pace, and Felicity almost ran to keep up. If Marie went out to keep the appointment, who knew how early she’d have to leave? What if they ruined everything by being too late? Once someone checked the veracity of her information, they’d quickly discover it was a lie. Would they guess it was a setup?

  The young men ahead of them paused in heated argument, and Riki fumed at the delay as she waited, once again hugging close to the iron railing surrounding area steps. Whatever the cause of the altercation, it blew over quickly and both parties resumed their ambling stroll to the busier street that now lay only a few dozen yards ahead.

  To Riki it seemed an odd time of night for so many carriages to be out, but in the absence of television she supposed people held more parties. Card games, she had gathered, could go on until dawn.

  Felicity stopped abruptly beneath a glowing gaslight. “Wait here,” she ordered, then stepped to the edge of the street and waved at a passing hackney.

  The vehicle clattered by without so much as slowing. Felicity tried three more times before an empty carriage pulled up.

  She turned back to Riki and winked. “If you please, m’lady?” She spoke loudly so the jarvey would be certain to hear. “Mount Street, and hurry. Her ladyship’s frozen with the cold.” She swept Riki into the vehicle.

  “‘Her ladyship’?” Riki whispered as she seated herself.

  Felicity grinned and shrugged. “Why not?”

  Why not indeed? The jarvey probably thought her some not-so-respectable matron on her way to keep an assignation with her lover, afraid to call out her husband’s carriage on such an errand. It was probably more believable—and much more commonplace—than the truth.

  Inside the hackney it was not much warmer than outside. Riki huddled into her pelisse and looked out the window, wondering what they would encounter at their destination. An empty house? If Marie Marley really had retired to bed with the headache from which she had claimed to be suffering, they would never know. It could be a long, cold night ahead of them.

  She glanced at Felicity, who sat shivering and trying to pretend she enjoyed every moment of their adventure. Belmont would be furious with her for involving his sister—if he ever found out. And with her luck, he undoubtedly would. Riki forced down the surge of panic that accompanied that thought and bent her mind instead to figuring out how to make the inevitable interview with Belmont a little less traumatic.

  All too soon they were set down only a few houses from Mrs. Marley’s. Felicity, in her assumed role of abigail, paid the man and followed Riki as she crossed the street to the covering shelter of a tree.

  “Now what?” Felicity whispered.

  Riki glanced at her and saw the girl’s large eyes wide with excitement. “I haven’t the faintest idea,” Riki admitted, to Felicity’s obvious dismay.

  “We shall have to break in,” the girl promptly decided.

  “We shall do no such thing! What if we were caught?”

  That sobered Felicity but only for a moment. “We could say we were worried about her and called to find out how she goes on.”

  Riki threw her unwanted companion a withering glance. “We’re going to find ourselves a semi-comfortable sheltered spot and wait. Surely someone will either come out or go into the house soon.”

  From Felicity’s expression it was obvious she thought this dull work. Still, she did as Riki bade and descended the first few iron area steps into the shadowed recess of a home across the street from Marie Marley’s. The minutes ticked slowly by. Nothing happened. After half an hour a carriage turned onto the street, but it drove by without so much as a pause.

  “We should have brought a deck of cards.” Felicity sank down onto the top stair with a sigh and arranged her skirts decorously about herself.

  Riki drew out her watch once more. Only two forty-five. They’d been here in plenty of time—had she been wrong, and the note was about something else entirely? She refused to believe it. Yet she was glad she hadn’t run with this plan to Belmont. He’d be in the advanced stages of “I told you so” by now.

  Still, she determined to give it at least until four before she gave up and went home.

  Felicity yawned and shifted into a more comfortable position. At least they weren’t getting into trouble, Riki reflected, but at the moment that was poor consolation for the freezing night air when they might have been cozily asleep in their huge, down-shrouded beds. Felicity though, she wagered, would not have missed this for the world, even if it proved to be naught but a wild goose chase.

  And the wild goose, in this case, was probably sleeping peacefully in her own warm bed, her headache long faded away. Riki ground her teeth. As a spy, she was proving a pretty big washout.

  Felicity leaned against the iron railing beside her, her eyes closed. If it had been warmer out, Riki guessed her companion would have fallen asleep by now, despite sitting on the hard, cold step. She reached down to adjust Felicity’s slipping shawl but never got around to it.

  Another carriage pulled onto the street and Felicity sat up straight. She sank back, though, as it drove past Mrs. Marley’s house.

  That did it. “Let’s just—” Riki broke off.

  The carriage stopped four houses beyond them and a solitary cloaked figure climbed out, waved the driver on and turned to silently retrace the way in their direction. A pale ruffle showed beneath the dark folds of cloth and a glimmer of pale curls peeped out from beneath a hood.

  “Bingo,” murmured Riki, grinning.

  “What?” Felicity glanced at her.

  “That’s Marie Marley, isn’t it?”

  “Shall we make sure?” Felicity rose only slightly stiffly from her vigil, and would have hailed the figure if Riki hadn’t stopped her. “Why not?” Felicity mouthed, eager for activity after sitting for so long in freezing boredom.

  “We still have to discover whom she went to meet.”

  “You mean we aren’t to accomplish anything?” Felicity demanded, her expression comic in her dismay.

  “Oh yes. We’ve proved to my satisfaction, at least, that Marie is our traitor.”

  “Have we?” Felicity sounded doubtful. “All we’ve proved is that she went out tonight.”

  “Can you think of any reasonable explanation why she should, after that headache act she put on at the ball? Unless she wanted to meet someone other than David, of course.”

  The figure slipped up the steps opposite and was admitted at once by someone inside. The door closed so softly they couldn’t hear it. A minute later the wavering light of a candle showed briefly near a window then faded.

  Felicity bit her lip. “Was the…the false information you gave her that important?”

  Riki nodded. “It was. I indicated a completely different line of attack for the spring campaign. Napoleon would need word of it at once in order to alter his own plans to counter it. They would have to act immediately, without waiting.”

  Felicity shook her head. “I still can’t believe it. How…how could she?”

  “She’s had an unhappy life here in England. It wouldn’t surprise me if she’d been r
aised on stories of how much better everything was back in France.”

  Felicity nodded slowly. “She…she was. Oh, how dreadful it all is!”

  Riki closed her eyes, suddenly weary beyond reason. At least she now knew who was making such treacherous use of David. But she shied from sorting out what to do next. She was so tired she could hardly think straight. She yawned, unable to stop herself.

  “Let’s find a hackney,” she said.

  Riki rose at her usual hour in the morning, still tired and with a dull headache pulsing through her temples from lack of sleep. She yawned cavernously, donned the dress held for her by her abigail and set about making herself as presentable as possible without makeup. At last, abandoning the effort as a hopeless case, she stumbled her way downstairs.

  Felicity, she noted with a faint touch of amusement, was not present at the breakfast table. She couldn’t blame her. Nor had the others, with the exception of Belmont, emerged from their chambers yet. His lordship, Newly informed her, had left for Whitehall an hour before.

  That satisfied Riki. She wanted to conduct the upcoming and undoubtedly unpleasant interview with her cousin alone. She found paper and a quill pen in the bookroom and, after only three attempts, managed to compose a creditably neat note of summons that she gave to a footman to deliver for her.

  This done, she returned to the breakfast parlor, poured herself tea, selected a sustaining breakfast and settled down to wait. Outside the lace-curtained window, heavy clouds gathered, oppressive and threatening. How fitting, she reflected. Did they, perhaps, portend an electrical storm? With luck she’d be in need of one.

  David arrived just over an hour later as Lady Prudence and Hillary were finishing their breakfasts. Hillary raised a questioning eyebrow as Newly announced him, and Riki avoided his curious eye. With a murmured excuse, she hurried to the salon where her cousin awaited her.

  He came forward smiling and took her hands in greeting. “Good morning, Riki. What’s up?”

  “Quite a bit.” She pulled him down onto the sofa and sat beside him. “David, Marie Marley is a French spy.”