by Joan Smith
“I believe I have convinced him of the truth, Bunny.”
“He believes you. You’re a woman. He half suspects I was in league with Depew. Told him about the prince’s buttons. Said Depew had to turn ‘em in. Either stole someone else’s, or had a set forged. I noticed he didn’t dare wear ‘em but the once, to fool us. What was a man to think? Prince’s own buttons.”
“Where is Depew?”
“Arrested yesterday in Atherton. Followed Snoad and Fairfield. Explains why he didn’t want my escort. Hid behind a tree and took a couple of shots at ‘em. Fairfield winged him. They caught him, and turned him in. He fed Snoad a load of rubbish that we was in on the whole thing. Spiteful wretch! Been thinking—you remember how excited Depew was at Brighton when he heard your father’s body came from London? He must have figured the Horse Guards did it. Was worried they’d learn something.”
“Yes, and we know now why he did not want us listening at doors, too—in case we learned the truth.”
“Can’t count on Depew to back us up. There’s always America. I ought to go home and pack, just in case.”
“I’m sure it will be all right.”
“I’m not. Not by a jugful. Soon as Snoad brings back my mount, I’ll scramble off home. You’ll let me know how it turns out? A note in the blasted pine ...” he added, with a wan smile at our folly. “It was a nice adventure, wasn’t it, Heather?”
“A lovely adventure.”
We discussed it a little longer, until we heard the sound of a carriage heralding Lord Castlereagh’s arrival. Bunny went and hid in the cellar, in case he might be arrested. I felt Kerwood had gone to meet Castlereagh to save us that gentleman’s ill humor when the truth was revealed. I could only assume he had done his job uncommonly well.
Lord Castlereagh was charm personified. Instead of menaces and manacles, he came in with smiles and compliments. The likenesses I had seen of him did not begin to do the man justice. He had such an air of dignity, and such well-tailored jackets, that he quite bowled Auntie over. And such names as dropped from his lips! “The Prince Regent was saying t’other night,” and “As Liverpool mentioned to me in cabinet” were impressive, but it was his nonchalant mention of Princess Caroline and Lady Jersey that put us ladies on the edge of our seats. From his conversation, I cannot think he knew a single commoner. It was all royalty and nobility that he spoke of.
Just before he retired to Papa’s study with Kerwood and Fairfield, he grasped my hand and shook it. “Young Maitland tells me it was you who secured the message from Caesar, Miss Hume. Well done! You have performed an invaluable service for your country.”
“Thank you, milord,” I said in a breathless voice. My eyes flew to Kerwood, standing behind Lord Castlereagh. He smiled and shrugged, as if to say, “All in a day’s work.”
“Mr. Smythe was also helpful,” Kerwood said. “Where is Mr. Smythe, Heather?”
“He—had to step out. He will be back presently.”
I sent off to the cellar to tell him the coast was clear. He was very much relieved to hear the news. “Any chance of that baronetcy?” he asked, flying from despair to foolish optimism.
“For that, you will have to volunteer your continuing services.”
“Believe I’ll pass. A nice little adventure, but I wouldn’t care for a steady diet of being tied up and beaten.”
Lord Castlereagh honored us by remaining for luncheon, and praising everything on the table to the skies. Yet I was not disappointed when he said he was afraid he would have to eat and run. Urgent matters awaited him at Whitehall. He got me aside again and said, “I do not like to impose on your good nature, Miss Hume, but would it be possible to continue using Gracefleld as a relay point until Maitland can arrange another spot?”
It took me a moment to realize that Maitland was Snoad. And he was planning to leave! “You are welcome to use it as long as necessary, milord,” I assured him. “Indeed I cannot imagine why you would want to change relay points, when everything is in operation here.”
“I own that was what I hoped you would say,” he replied, with a triumphant look in Kerwood’s direction. “Your father, I feel, would want it so. A brave man. His death was a tragedy that was strongly felt at Whitehall. He would be proud of you.”
Then he bowed, and went to say a few parting words to Mrs. Lovatt and Bunny. Fairfield was to follow him to London. Kerwood accompanied them out to their carriages. When he returned, he said he had business to attend to in the loft. His eyes moved to mine. I read, or imagined, that he wished me to accompany him.
“I’ll be toddling along,” Bunny said. “Mama will want to hear all about Lord Castlereagh. Is it all right to mention he was here? I know the rest of it is a great secret.”
Kerwood accompanied him to the door, talking intently as they went. I assumed he was warning Bunny that he could not betray a word of what he had witnessed. Whether the servants would be similarly mute was another matter. There had been no bones about calling Lord Castlereagh by an assumed name, or pretending he was just a passing friend or relative.
“Would you care to join me for a few moments in the loft, Heather?” Kerwood asked when he returned.
No frown creased my chaperone’s brow. Her face was wreathed in encouraging smiles.
“Yes indeed,” I said at once. “I shall take more interest in Papa’s work in future. Perhaps I can lend you a hand with the pigeons from time to time.”
Kerwood offered his arm, and we moved to the staircase. While we were still within Auntie’s earshot, he spoke most discreetly. “That would be very kind of you. There are times when I would welcome a little break.”
As we mounted higher, the words took a more indecorous turn. “Or even a little company. It is lonesome up there, alone in the clouds. I cannot think of anyone whose company I would enjoy more.”
“We shall assign you whatever help you require. Another footman could easily be spared.”
“A footman is not what I meant, wretch,” he said, pinching my arm.
We reached the loft, and he held the door for me. “Alone at last!” he said. As soon as the door was closed, he pulled me into his arms. “I thought Castlereagh would hang on forever.”
His lips found mine and we embraced, up in the clouds, with the pigeons cooing in approval. I had feared that the embrace would have lost some of its charm, now that Snoad was Maitland, and perfectly respectable. That thrill of the forbidden would be gone, is what I mean. That particular aura was indeed missing, but the relief of knowing it was my future husband who assaulted my lips more than compensated for it. Thrills and danger were still there in plentiful supply.
“Let us go out on the bartizan,” I said. It was a more romantic spot.
The ocean gleamed like tarnished silver in the distance, and the breeze carried the tang of the sea. We took one look at the view, then came together again. As naturally as breathing, his arms enfolded me, and I put my arms around him. It seemed both natural and miraculous all at once, that I should be there with Snoad.
“What’s your name?” I asked, and laughed at the absurdity of not knowing.
“Kerwood. I knew Fairfield would blurt it out, so decided to call myself Kerwood, as I had never been called by any Christian name here. Fairfield had been at Branksome Hall a few times. He knew I was working here, but was unaware of the alias I had assumed. I didn’t want him to reveal the truth.”
“So that is why you rushed in to establish that you were posing as a servant from Branksome Hall. I thought it uncommonly encroaching of you. Is Kerwood Snoad your name?”
“Milverton is my family name.”
“Kerwood Milverton. Why did you choose a horrid name like Snoad?”
He looked at the scratches on my wrists, and shook his head. Then he lifted my hands and kissed the scratches. “You ought to put something on them,” he said, before answering my question. “Why was I called Snoad? It seemed to suit the person I had to become. Once I met you, I regretted I had chosen such a lowl
y disguise. I might have been a gentleman scholar instead. It was really up to me. I wanted to be able to correspond with Mama without much difficulty, so I pretended I had worked for her, and that made me a servant.”
“Why not come as yourself?”
“The powers that be feared my presence might elicit curiosity, and gossip. It is well known in some places that my mother and I breed famous homing pigeons. That is why Branksome Hall was considered ineligible as a relay point. A sharp marksman could pick the pigeons out of the sky as they neared home. Your father bred racers, easily converted to homing pigeons without anyone being the wiser. We made a point to continue racing some birds. If Lord Maitland had suddenly moved in, however, it would not have been long before the real reason for my being here seeped out.”
“I fear there will be gossip over Lord Castlereagh’s visit,” I said. It was hard to carry on a sensible conversation with Kerwood nipping at my ears and nuzzling my throat, and holding me tightly against him.
“It is not a secret. In fact, I think we ought to have it put in the local journal.”
I thought he was joking, and slapped his wrist. “Surely that is going a little far!”
He grabbed my hand and squeezed it. “Not at all. He came to meet Lord Maitland’s fiancée. Ah, did I remember to propose, Miss Hume? I recall your sad words that you must marry a gentleman. Was that the only impediment to our match?”
His cocky assurance required a setdown. “Certainly not. I have upped my demands to a title. Your potential dukedom will do, I daresay.”
“Sorry I couldn’t be a prince. I’ll try to be charming at least. A duke charming.” He bowed playfully.
“But no one knows you are Lord Maitland.”
“They can know it now. My being engaged to you—soon married, I hope–gives me an unexceptionable reason to be here. All the world loves a lover, you must know. They will not suspect skulduggery from one.”
“How did I meet you?”
“Why, it was that race your father went to in Bath a year ago. I was struck dumb at your beauty. Couldn’t get you out of my mind. In fact, I have been composing verses to your charms ever since, as you, I think, are well aware?”
“Love verses? I thought they were spy messages.”
“Really!” he said, offended. “I’ll show them to you. They’re quite marvelous.”
“They were horrid. And I do not have gray eyes. They are green.”
“Memory played me false. I didn’t get much chance to gauge your beaux yeux.” He examined them then. “They do have a tint of gray—a reflection from the sky, I think.”
“I thought it was some sort of code. I hardly noticed they rhymed. And furthermore, I didn’t go to Bath with Papa for that race.”
“Nor did I. No one will remember. And I trust no one outside of this house will recognize me as Snoad, once I am properly outfitted. I haven’t met many people. In any case, all this won’t be for long. Wellington is chasing the French over the Alps. Within the year, it will be all over. Lord Maitland, of course, cannot spend all his time at the loft. You will want to parade your trophy amongst your friends. In a small way, of course, considering we are in mourning.”
I was gratified that he said “we.” I think he really was fond of Papa.
“I’ll have Mama send some trained men to oversee the routine work,” he added. “I can handle the sending of the messages.”
“Where do you hide the code book, Kerwood?”
“In here,” he said, and drew a tiny little book from his inner pocket. It was two inches by three, as Depew had said, but thin enough to lie flat without causing a bulge. “Depew must have got wind that an important message was on the way. Anyone who studies the journals knows a crisis is approaching. He meant to kill me and Fairfleld, and get into the loft to intercept it. He knew from his days at the Horse Guards that the messages were coded. They would have been no good to him without this.”
“I expect that is what he was looking for when he broke into my father’s office.”
“I would think so. I took the gun before Depew came. I went after it the night I met you there. After your father’s murder, I felt it was well to be armed. I returned later and got it. I wanted to tell you the truth that night.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“My orders were to tell no one. Later, I learned that you had met Depew in Brighton. He has coerced or duped patriotic people to help him before. You were angry at your father’s death. If you felt the men using him had let him down—well, people have acted from revenge before now. But really, until the ambush, I felt you were an innocent dupe. That felt like a betrayal, though one really ought to put the good of the country above personal feelings.”
I wondered if I would have sacrificed Kerwood for the good of the country. I was glad I did not have the choice. “How did my father come to die, Kerwood? Who killed him?”
“Fairfield told me, after you had fed me that foolish story about his being at the fish market, that your father returned to change for dinner and caught Depew searching his room. For a message, or the code book, or even something he could use as blackmail. Depew had a gun. Your father turned to bolt out the door for help. Depew lost his head and shot him. He then dashed a water jug to the floor to explain the noise if a servant came to check. A passing servant did stop, I believe. She mistook Depew for the legal occupant of the room, and thought little of it. We had a man in the hotel. He investigated the noise and soon learned of the death. He missed Depew, but he managed to get hold of the pigeon cages from the stable. They wanted to salvage those valuable trained homing pigeons.”
“And it was your man who said my father had died of a heart attack?”
“Yes, to conceal that he was involved in spying. Everything about the business is kept dark. Mrs. Mobley came to the hotel shortly after, asking for him. She was told he had had some sort of stroke, and died. Then, of course, it was impossible to have a local doctor, in case she learned the truth. So his body was taken to London. Unfortunately, his case got left behind in the rush.”
“Why did you want his boots? Did you think there was a message in them?”
“No, I didn’t want them, actually. Williams offered them to me. I could find no excuse to refuse such a generous gift without inciting curiosity, so I accepted them. Cassidy tells me they will just fit his papa.”
“Was my father delivering a message when he was killed?”
“Not that time. He was merely delivering our birds, to be conveyed to the next relay point, on the south tip of France, and receiving birds for us to send out messages. Sometimes he did deliver or receive messages from London to bring me. We liked to vary the means and the messenger. There was some trouble with the relay point in London—they suspected a leak, and weren’t sure at the time who it was. But that was straightened out, and we were flying the messages on to London again. We never dreamed your father was in mortal danger, or we would not have let him go alone. He wanted to do it. He was ... seeing Mrs. Mobley in Brighton, and so it was convenient.”
“That woman has been the bane of our lives. She nearly destroyed Papa’s marriage when Mama found out he was seeing her. I cannot imagine why he would want to see her again.”
“A man gets lonesome. Shall I tell you about the nights I have spent up here, thinking about you? And when at last you began calling, I had to mistrust you.”
“That did not seem to deter you much,” I reminded him.
“You are very much mistaken. I felt I could finally tell you who I was, and how I felt—only to learn you had become Depew’s unwitting ally.”
“You should have told me. Nobody tells me anything. One would think I were a child.”
“I cannot speak for the others, but I no longer think anything of the sort. I would never do—this to a child,” he said, and kissed me in a very mature fashion.
There is definitely some magic in the loft. The ocean breeze floats over you. The soft waves lap on the shore below, hinting at eternity, wh
ile all around the doves coo like love birds. And, of course, it will always be associated in my mind with Kerwood, and his own special brand of danger.
Copyright © 1992 by Joan Smith
Originally published by Fawcett Crest [0449219496]
Electronically published in 2010 by Belgrave House/Regency Reads
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This is a work of fiction. All names in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to any person living or dead is coincidental.