The Heart That Hides (Regency Spies Book 2)

by April Munday

  It had been Meldon’s intention to reach London in one day, in order to spare Finch, but it proved impossible and they had to put up at an inn overnight. The Frenchwoman had managed to delay them at every point. Until Meldon had threatened to leave her by the side of the road if she was not ready to go with them.

  “Tomorrow,” said the Frenchwoman, “Mr Finch and I will travel in my carriage. It is more comfortable.”

  Mary wondered that she hadn’t suggested it before. Meldon had given her no choice about the seating arrangements this morning, but she would be forewarned for tomorrow.

  The following morning the Frenchwoman did indeed try to persuade Meldon to leave Finch with her in her own carriage, but Meldon was not to be persuaded and they reached Meldon House without a change to his plan.

  “Hello Uncle Edmund.”

  Finch groaned, then opened his eyes. Even the few days’ rest he had had since their arrival at Meldon House had not prepared him for this meeting or made it more palatable.

  “Hello, John.”

  John Warren was resplendent in his uniform. His face and hands were tanned and he appeared to have lost weight. The overall effect was not displeasing. He thought Sophia would find him attractive.

  “Isn’t it time you stopped calling me ‘uncle’? Won’t Finch or Edmund do?”

  Finch found many things annoying these days and being called ‘uncle’ by a man to whom he was not related was, he discovered, something else to add to a list that increased by the hour.

  “We are not so much of an age that we should be so familiar and ‘uncle’ is a reminder that we are only acquainted through my Uncle George.”

  And not by choice, thought Finch.

  “If you do not wish us to be acquainted at all, I think you are old enough to make the choice.”

  “Yet I must ever see you at my mother’s house or at my uncle’s. You will doubtless be my cousin’s godfather.”

  Finch tried to ease himself into a sitting position, but John offered him no help and he couldn’t manage it alone.

  “The disadvantage,” he said, as he gave up trying to make himself comfortable, “is that then I must call you John.”

  The shot hit home and John flushed with anger.

  “This is not why I came to talk to you.”

  This was what Finch had hoped to avoid.

  “You haven’t married Sophia.”

  This was, of course, the reason for John’s visit.

  “Did you expect me to?”

  The question showed Finch that he had not yet sufficiently recovered his wits; John’s accusation showed exactly what he had expected. Finch shifted again, hoping that the pain was the sole reason for his confusion.

  “But she loves you,” John said.

  “I don’t love her.”

  John considered this for a moment.

  “Why should that matter?” he asked defiantly.

  “For so many reasons.” Finch sighed, partly from exasperation and partly because the constant pain in his side was making itself felt and he had no idea how to obtain help from Mary or Perkins, for he seemed to be alone with John. “If I did marry her, I might learn to love her, but she could just as easily learn to hate me.”

  “She’s a wonderful girl,” protested John.

  “She’s a wonderful woman,” countered Finch. “Would you mind calling Miss Wilding or Perkins?”

  “In a minute. Do you mean to imply that I haven’t treated her as I should?”

  “I mean you have not courted her as she deserves. She’s an intelligent woman and you have rushed at her like an eager puppy. She likes you, John and if you’d given her a few months she would have forgotten me.”

  “Forgotten you! She loves you.”

  “Please lower your voice, unless you’re going to call Miss Wilding.”

  In his efforts to ease his pain Finch was fidgeting, trying to find, if not a comfortable position, then one that was less uncomfortable.

  “You’re a blackguard.”

  “Why? Because I won’t reduce someone we’re both fond of to prostitution?” Pain made him sharper than he had intended and John’s eyes widened in shock. “Call her, John. Please get Miss Wilding here.” Finch was starting to feel unpleasantly dizzy.

  “Uncle Edmund...?”

  John jumped up and ran to the door. Mary must have been waiting in the passage for she preceded him into the room. Although she hurried, she was calm and her very presence soothed Finch.

  “Are you just uncomfortable or do you want some laudanum?”

  “Just help me to sit up a bit.”

  With practised ease she raised his shoulders and placed some pillows under them. He was aware that his breathing was too fast and too shallow. Mary placed her hand on his forehead. Whatever that told her seemed to satisfy her.

  “Is that better?”

  “Yes, much. Is John still here?”

  “Yes. I’m sorry. I didn’t realise you were in so much pain.”

  John was pale. Finch knew that the younger man hadn’t really learned much in the army. He was still preoccupied with himself and what he wanted.

  “Some days are worse than others,” said Finch.

  Mary handed him a glass. He knew it contained water and whatever medicine Perkins had concocted for him.

  John looked frightened.

  “Miss Wilding, please tell Mr Warren... I’m sorry, Lieutenant Warren, that I’m not going to die.”

  “I think he knows that.”

  “Do you, John?”

  The younger man nodded.

  “You will see much worse... do much worse,” said Finch as kindly as he could. It disturbed him greatly to think that this man he’d known since he was a child still in dresses would soon be killing other men, perhaps... No he couldn’t think of John dying. The reason that he did what he did was so that young men like John wouldn’t have to go and kill and die. If John died it would mean that he had sacrificed his soul for nothing.

  “I know. I will see and do dreadful things.”

  “You will be afraid.”

  John glanced at Mary, who said, “I shall be outside if you need me.”

  She left them alone again.

  “I will leave nothing behind me, if I... if I die.”

  “Then you should be talking to Meldon. He had no wife or child before he went off to fight.”

  “That’s not what I mean, not quite. I’ve done nothing. My uncle had already made his mark on his estates. Sophia was right, I’m just a boy pretending to be a man.”

  Had she said that? It didn’t sound like her.

  “I know few people less likely to pretend than you.”

  Finch didn’t think that John had the imagination to pretend to be anything. He wasn’t sure that he would learn it in the army.

  “But I did pretend. I...”

  He stooped and hung his head. There was hope for him if he could regret his behaviour rather than Sophia’s response.

  “Do you intend to see her while you’re here?”

  “No. I won’t see her until I come back, if I come back.”

  “Please see her, John.”

  If he were stronger, Finch could have been more forceful. He was convinced that Sophia was now in love with John, had probably always been in love with John, but John shook his head.

  “When I come back I shall be a man.”

  “Be careful, John, about what you think it means to be a man and don’t assume you know what Sophia wants.”

  “You don’t imagine I think Sophia will want me then, do you?”

  Finch thought exactly that. Sophia had the imagination that John lacked and she would make a good wife for a diplomat.

  “I think we can’t see the future,” he said.

  “Perhaps I won’t want her.”

  That had also occurred to Finch. There would be many temptations for a handsome young officer and Finch wasn’t sure that John was strong enough to stand against all of them. He lacked his mother’s sen
se and his father’s pragmatism.

  “Don’t throw yourself away,” he heard himself saying, but he knew that that had been John’s intention from the start, even if he was in two minds about it now.

  “You should have married her. There is still time.”

  “I love another.”

  “Sophia is worth ten of her.”

  The surge of anger that almost overwhelmed Finch was gradually tempered by the realisation that John didn’t mean Mary, but the Frenchwoman.

  “She’s worth ten of most women,” he muttered. “Please get Miss Wilding back. She knows how to be quiet and peaceful.”

  John left him alone and this time didn’t return when Mary came back into the room.

  “He has tired you. I’m sorry. We thought there would be no harm in allowing him to be alone with you.”

  “No. I knew I would have to see him.”

  “But he’s angry with you.”

  “He’s in love with Sophia and thinks I should marry her. That’s why he’s angry. The fool.”

  “When he sees her, she will put him right.”

  “He says he won’t see her.”

  “Then they will both be sad.”

  Mary looked sad herself. He knew that she had met Sophia a few times since their return to London, but Mary had said nothing of their conversations. Finch attempted to lighten her mood.

  “It sounds like a plot Mrs Radcliffe would be proud of.”

  “I doubt she appeals to Lord Meldon enough to find a place in his library, otherwise I would read to you from her works.”

  “Meldon finds much to admire in her work and has everything she’s written, here and in Meldon Hall. I, on the other hand....”

  Finch preferred poetry and he thought Mary knew his taste. She was hesitant when she made her next suggestion.

  “Lady Meldon has given me a book of poems by a new poet I very much enjoy, Jonas Smith.”

  “Ah,” Finch smiled, “I have had the pleasure of meeting Mr Smith, but I’m not familiar with his work.”

  “She’s his patroness and will soon be paying to publish a second volume of his poems.”

  “Lady Anna has impeccable taste in poetry.”

  “Then you would not object if I read from his work.”

  “Miss Wilding, you could read me the housekeeper’s laundry list and I should be happy.”

  He smiled and she blushed. Then she laughed, as he had intended.

  “John has been in London.”

  Sophia sat in a chair by Finch’s bed. Mary was sewing by the window. Finch glanced at her, saddened by the idea that it was accepted that Sophia needed a chaperone and she did not. Mary had spent hours alone with him since they had arrived in Meldon House and he had told her that they should not be alone. Her only reply had been to open the door and continue with whatever she had been doing before he had made his protest.

  In a way Finch appreciated the irony. He loved Mary, yet was permitted to be alone with her; he did not love Sophia, but could not be alone with her. It was most improper for Sophia to have visited him while he was still bedridden and he was interested in understanding what this revealed of her character. Since their mother had run away with her lover, the Arbuthnot sisters had done everything they could to avoid further scandal, but now Sophia seemed to have a cause that was more important to her than her own reputation.

  “Yes, he came to see me.”

  It was an effort to drag himself back to the conversation with Sophia. He found being with anyone other than Mary exhausting. Even Freddie on his best behaviour demanded more attention than he could give at the moment. Politeness demanded that he try to stay awake when he had visitors. It was only when he was with Mary or Meldon that he felt he could drift in and out of sleep without insulting them. They also seemed to accept that his attention wandered and he couldn’t always follow a conversation. Everyone else tried to call him back from wherever his mind had taken him, making him confused and angry. Dimly he was aware that Mary was shaking her head at Sophia. Then she smiled and nodded at Sophia who spoke again.

  “He did not come to see me.”

  “No. He said he would not.”

  Sophia glanced across at Mary, whose head was now bent over her sewing.

  “Mary,” she said.

  Mary looked up.

  “You know that I made a fool of myself with Mr Finch.”

  Mary nodded and Finch began to feel uncomfortable. He doubted Sophia was going to make any further imposition on him; he had known for some time where her heart lay. What concerned him was the implication that there were no secrets between Sophia and Mary. Did Sophia know about his proposal?

  “Please join us, I am as much in need of your counsel as I am of Mr Finch’s.”

  Mary looked at Finch. This was most irregular. She shook her head slightly. Finch was exasperated. Did she mean that she hadn’t told Sophia everything or simply that she was being involved in the conversation against her will?

  “Mary and I are friends,” explained Sophia, “as you intended we should be.”

  “I gathered that from your use of her name. Come, Miss Wilding, let us all be friends together.”

  “There is no need to insult her.”

  “He intends no insult,” said Mary.

  “I do not need you to speak for me,” said Finch.

  Both women looked at him.

  “I apologise,” he said. “I am uncomfortable and it makes my tongue sharp.”

  “Is there anything I can do to make you more comfortable?” asked Mary.

  It was a mark of her respect for his ill temper that she had not moved from the window. Normally she would have been adjusting his pillows or his blankets to try to ease the pain as soon as she was aware of it. Finch longed for her touch, but controlled himself. He would give himself away if he was not careful and she would be gone.

  “No, thank you,” he said. “Perkins warned me that there would be days like this. It’s a sign of healing, apparently. Come closer, Miss Wilding, please. It tires me to look from Miss Arbuthnot to you.”

  “Are we back to Miss Arbuthnot?” asked Sophia scornfully.

  “I think that would be for the best,” said Mary, as she put her sewing on the table by the window and carried her chair across the room so that she could sit beside Sophia. “Is this more comfortable for you?”

  “Yes… Thank you.”

  Finch began to feel that he was outnumbered. Although he was grateful for Mary’s presence, since she alone of the three of them seemed to be able to remain calm, it seemed that she was Sophia’s ally in this rather than his. He berated himself for taking her support for granted. Sophia was Mary’s friend; he was merely her employer.

  “Just a moment,” said Mary as Sophia opened her mouth to begin.

  Mary rose from her chair and approached the bed. She raised Finch’s shoulders from his pillows with great care, rearranged them and lowered him back onto them. She moved the glass of water on the table next to the bed so that it was marginally closer to him.

  “Better?” she asked.

  “Much.”

  Finch felt himself relax as his eyes followed her as she returned to her chair. He was aware of some silent communication between the women, but he didn’t care. Mary had touched him and made his comfort her concern.

  After a while he realised that his attention had wandered. Had he slept?

  “Forgive me,” he said.

  “There is no need,” said Sophia. “I know that you suffer.”

  She looked again at Mary, who nodded. This conversation was Mary’s idea, then.

  “I love John.”

  “Yes,” said Finch.

  “You knew!”

  Sophia stared at Mary accusingly.

  “Miss Wilding has divulged none of your secrets. Your own tears have betrayed you, if you must take it as a betrayal.”

  Now Finch wished desperately that he could be alone with Sophia. Talk of love with Mary in the room must surely expose his
own feelings and he had no wish for her to know them, not yet. Perhaps not ever. The thought filled him with sadness.

  “Should I fetch Mr Perkins?”

  Mary had risen from her chair.

  Finch wondered what despair his face had betrayed and forced himself to smile.

  “No. Please. It was a momentary twinge.” He had lied to her; he didn’t think he could do it again. “Please, sit down, Miss Wilding. There is no need for concern.”

  She complied with his request, but her eyes remained fixed on his face, her hands clasped tightly in her lap.

  Sophia looked from one to the other, then repeated, “I love John and I wish to help him.”

  The easy and doubtless expected protest that she was a woman and could not died in Finch’s throat. Sophia was an intelligent woman; she had something in mind. Finch hoped that it was what he had first seen in her at Lady Caroline’s ball.

  “You have something to propose,” he prompted, “otherwise you would not be here.”

  “I have,” she agreed.

  Again she glanced at Mary, but Mary’s eyes remained fixed on Finch’s face.

  “This is what you wished to discuss the night before we left London.”

  “Yes, but Mary wouldn’t let me wait for you.”

  “And what do you have in mind?” asked Finch with a measure of exasperation. “I shall probably fall asleep in ten minutes. I don’t know what it is that Perkins doses me with, but I sleep a great deal.”

  “He doesn’t give you anything,” said Mary. “It is your body that makes you sleep, so that you may heal.”

  They had spoken of this many times, but Finch had been injured in the past and had never slept as much as he did now. This was something that annoyed him, for his time with Mary was precious and he seemed to be sleeping through most of it. She could spare him little enough time from the schoolroom as it was.