by Hazel Hunter
“Thank you, sir.” He suppressed the sudden urge to lunge at his superior. “I should like to return to France as soon as may be arranged.”
“I am afraid that Arthur Pickering did not share your opinion.” The older man pocketed the cipher. “I received a report from him last week concerning your fitness for duty. For many reasons, including your inheritance of the barony, he felt this operation should be your last. I am inclined to agree.”
Greystone shrugged. “I liked Pickering, but he was just a courier. I am more than willing to continue serving.”
“We do not always inform our agents as to who they work with, or what their real responsibilities are,” the spymaster chided. “Arthur was my most trusted analyst, and evaluated for me the performance of all our overseas operatives.”
So Arthur had had other motives for bringing him to Renwick. Greystone didn’t know what to say in his defense. All he could think was what the vicar had said to him just before they had routed Catherine’s men.
The spymaster took out his pocket watch to check the time. “I am due to brief the Prime Minister and the Secretary at War within the hour, so I must keep this brief. In a few days we will let it slip that Arthur Pickering was the Raven, so the French will believe they have achieved some small victory over us. We will arrange to have the merchant, Guillame Girard, die in a tragic carriage accident while traveling in Provence. Ruban will go to the gallows, and her family persuaded to talk, unless they wish to suffer the same. I expect they will hang rather than cooperate.”
It took William a moment for him to gather enough breath to speak. “What am I to do, then?”
“Why, you will now retire from our service, William, and return to the life you should have had these seven years—with our gratitude, sir.” The spymaster touched his shoulder. “I suggest you take some time for yourself. The transition will be made easier that way. Perhaps a long holiday in the country will help.”
Could it be this simple? “Sir, what am I permitted to tell my family?”
“You may tell everything to those you trust to keep it to themselves. Your mother, certainly. No harm can come from it now.” The older man grinned. “After all, the Raven is dead. Long live Baron Greystone.”
The ancient butler who opened the door to the London house looked down his nose at Greystone. Since he was a head shorter, that required a remarkable arrangement of his neck and head. But John Morris had a lifetime of service to the Gerards, as well as the baron’s chilly example, which had helped perfect his disdainful posturing.
“Her ladyship is not receiving,” the old man told him in a tight, disapproving tone. He didn’t have to add ‘you, ever’ to the end of that statement.
“Get out of my way, Morris, or I will move you.” Greystone looked down at the cane the butler had butted against his belly. He felt a flicker of admiration for the old man, who he could probably snap in half. “Permit me inside, and it will be the last time I darken these premises. I swear it.”
Morris’s nostrils flared, but he didn’t move out of the way.
“I have spent seven years dealing with the mess my father made of my life.” He was coming perilously close to shouting, but he didn’t care. “I was never allowed to tell my mother a word about it. Father forbid that, and he never told her. Today I have been released from my duties to the crown, and from my promises to him. By God, she will know the truth now, if I must stand out in the street and shout it at her window.”
“It is all right, Morris,” a tired voice said from the hall behind him.
As soon as the butler lowered his cane and stepped inside Greystone crossed the threshold, and saw his mother standing outside her morning room. She wore lavender for half-mourning, her gown a simple but elegant style. Although her shoulders had grown slightly stooped, and her hair had gone completely silver, she had changed little over the last year. Yet in her eyes was the same melancholy he had seen at his father’s funeral.
Suddenly Greystone didn’t know what he would say to her. “Thank you for seeing me, my lady.”
“Morris, please advise the Cook that we will want coffee, not tea.” The baroness retreated into her morning room.
Much of the interior of his parents’ home had changed since his last visit; he could see his mother had softened the starkness his father had preferred with pleasant colors and more comfortable furnishings. In the morning room she had a large standing embroidery hoop by her chair, on which she had stitched a panel with flowers and birds. He admired her handiwork for a moment before he went to sit down across from her.
He waited until a maid brought the ordered coffee and left before he said, “You told me to remember my choice. I wish you to know that I never made that choice. Father took that from me.”
His mother poured a cup for him and added cream but no sugar, just as he had always preferred it. “You blame my husband for your behavior, then. How commonplace of you. I suppose I am to blame as well for your heartlessness.”
“You are not, my lady,” Morris said from the doorway. The old man regarded Greystone. “Do not do this thing, sir. If you tell her, it will crush her.”
“What are you talking about?” Lady Greystone looked astonished. “Morris?”
Before he had become the baroness’s butler, Greystone recalled, Morris had been his father’s valet.
“Do you have any notion of what it has done to me?” he asked the old man, who hung his head and then hobbled off. He turned to face his mother. “I did not choose to abandon Jennet Reed seven years ago. Father commanded me to.”
The baroness went still. “Why in Heaven’s name would he do such a thing?”
The day before his wedding William Gerard spent the morning finishing the final fitting for his new dark blue cut away jacket, which had required a slight adjustment to accommodate his broad shoulders. It matched his skin-tight knee breeches, which were all the fashion now, and made the spotless white muslin of his shirt look as if it had been woven of swan’s down. His choice of an apricot-colored silk cravat and a scarlet waist coat had met with supreme disapproval from the tailor in London, but he didn’t care. He wanted to make his lady smile when she saw him waiting for her at the altar.
He returned to Gerard Lodge, where the housekeeper informed him that his mother had gone to the village church to check the flower arrangements.
“The baron has returned from London, Mr. William,” she added. “He bade me ask you to attend him as soon as you arrived. He’s reading in his book room.”
William went to the back of the house, where his father kept a large room filled with the books that he collected during his travels. Most were in French, but the baron seemed indifferent to how unpatriotic his selections could be viewed. He often spoke in the same language sometimes without thinking.
“Welcome home, Father,” he said as he came in, and then stopped when he saw how pale and gaunt the baron appeared. He also reclined on a chaise, something he had never seen him do. “Never tell me that you are unwell. I am to be married tomorrow.” When his father simply looked up at him, he said, “I will send for Dr. Mallory at once.”
“Do not bother. He cannot help me.” Charles Gerard set aside the book he had been reading, and sat up. “Come here to me, boy. We have much to discuss before your mother returns.”
William had never been openly affectionate with the baron, who discouraged such emotional demonstrations, but he had always respected his father. Slowly he came to sit beside him on the chaise. “What is it? Mother said that you had a minor cold.”
“It seemed so, at first, and then I felt pains in my chest. I went to see my physician in London before I left the city.” The baron’s voice had grown ragged, and he cleared his throat several times before he said, “He found fluid in my lungs, and an alteration in the function of my heart. These can be treated, and with care I may live several more years, but there is no cure.”
His father had always seemed indestructible to William, and the thought of him d
ying had never entered his thoughts.
“Surely we must obtain another opinion,” he said. “Perhaps on the continent. They say the Swiss doctors are some of the finest in the world.”
Charles shook his head. “This is the same malady that killed my grandfather. As a boy I watched his decline. It began as my own did, with weakness in the limbs, and breathlessness after even the slightest exertion. He became bed-ridden after a year. I expect the same will happen to me.”
“Then we will look after you, mother and I,” William assured him. “You will want for nothing, I promise you.”
“I never expected that it would come over me so quickly,” his father said, almost as if he were talking to himself now. “My grandfather was ten years my senior when he took ill. I should have noticed the signs earlier, but this damned war…”
Now William felt confused. “What has the war to do with your condition?”
The baron stared at him for a long moment. “It is like gazing into a mirror, when I look upon you. Even our voices are indistinguishable. I wish you to know that is what led to my resolve. I do not wish to encumber you with my burdens, but it seems I must.”
“Anything, Father.” William took hold of his hand. “Tell me what I can do.”
Once Greystone finished relating the details of that conversation, and everything that had followed it, he rose and went to the window to look out on the street. The elegant lords and ladies passing by in their barouches and curricles appeared happy to be out driving around town. Soon they would begin making their afternoon calls, and then attend whatever entertainments they had arranged for the evening.
Lady Greystone came to stand beside him, and watched for a moment before she said, “Tell me what I can do.”
That she had unconsciously repeated his own words to the baron made him smile a little. “Forgive me. Father swore me to secrecy for as long as I served as the Raven. If you would, please advise Morris that I have your permission to come and call on you now. I have missed you so much, and I think I will have great need of your wisdom now.”
Her eyes shimmered as she looked up at him. “I loved your father, but dear God. I could kill him for what he has done to you.”
“Too late, Mama,” he said gently.
With a sob his mother embraced him, and he led her back over to the settee and held her as she wept. Once she had regained control of herself she told him that he must return home and live with her now, so they might make up for all the years they had spent apart.
“I have one more confession to make,” Greystone admitted. “I must go back to Renwick and see Jennet.”
The baroness rose and went to her writing desk, where she took a small box from a drawer and brought it to him. “You will offer this to Miss Reed.”
He took the box and held it in his hands. “She will throw it back in my face.”
“Then you will offer it again, and again, until the lady changes her mind about you.” His mother smiled. “I expect that will take some time. I will pack up the household and move into Gerard Lodge. You will need a place to sleep, and I do not wish to be far from you again.”
He nodded, and then recalled what Morris had said. “Have I crushed you, Mother? I know how devoted you were to him.”
Lady Greystone gave him an impatient look. “You ask me that, after what he did to you? I have never been so angry with your father in my life. I daresay I could dig up his grave and set fire to his bones.” She let out a breath. “It does explain, however, his last words to me. He asked me to beg your forgiveness for the burden he had given to you. I never understood that until now.”
“Do not dig his grave.” He kissed her brow. “Pack up the house and go to Gerard Lodge. I will see you there tomorrow.”
Chapter 23
A week after the masquerade at Dredthorne, Jennet returned from attending to some errands in the village to find her mother anxiously awaiting her.
“Oh, you are alive, my dear, thank Heavens.” Margaret embraced her as if she had returned from a year-long absence. “When Debny told me you had left, I thought I might swoon with terror.” She stepped back and held up her hands. “No, I am not doing this again. I knew you would be fine. I must rid myself of these pointless anxieties.”
Jennet drew back and smiled. “I went only to fetch that lace you ordered last month, and some supplies for Mrs. Holloway.”
She had also casually inquired if Greystone had by chance returned to Gerard Lodge, but all she learned was that he remained in London. That meant he had probably already left for France.
“I do not like it when you leave me,” Margaret said. “But I am determined to improve on myself, and learn to trust you will come back to me.”
“I always will.” She stroked her mother’s back. “All of the danger is over now, Mama.”
“I try not to think on poor Mr. Pickering and his men, snatched so cruelly from life,” her mother said as she walked from one window to the next to peer out at the gardeners. “And the Tindalls, whom we considered very good friends, exposed as French spies and carted off to the gaol. Try as I will, I cannot help but to envision what new terrors will befall us next. Does that monster Bonaparte plot to invade Renwick some night soon, and murder us all in our beds?”
“Wellington will never allow that, Mama,” Jennet told Margaret as she poured a cup of chamomile tea for her. “Come and sit down. You will wear out the rugs if you keep pacing so. Besides, I asked Cook to make fairy cakes for your tea.”
Her mother stopped in her tracks. “The little ones with the butter icing?”
“The very same,” she assured her, holding out the tea.
The treat lured Margaret to her favorite spot by the hearth, where she sat and nibbled while Jennet related the least alarming news from the village. That included the long-awaited engagement of Prudence Hardiwick.
“Lady Hardiwick must be none too pleased that her daughter has accepted Peter Mason,” Margaret said. “His means are quite modest, and he looks after his widowed sister.”
“Her ladyship told me herself while I was in the haberdasher’s shop.” Jennet had felt pleased to hear it as well, for it proved Prudence had taken her reading to heart. “She seems more relieved than annoyed, and plans an early spring wedding.”
“As naughty as Prudence can be? I should obtain a special license and have them to the church by week’s end.” Her mother dabbed at her lips with a napkin. “Oh, these cakes are delightful. You always know how to cheer me, my dear.”
That she did, Jennet thought, feeling a little depressed now. She had nothing to regret, of course, and felt quite capable of managing anything after surviving that night at Dredthorne Hall. In the weeks to come she would learn if there would be a child, and if so she and Margaret would act on the plans they had made. Doubtless they could find a pleasant cottage in a small Scottish town where she could spend her confinement. Having her mother with her would be a great comfort when the baby came.
“I think I will take a turn out of doors before it grows too cold,” Jennet said, refilling her mother’s tea cup before she rose. “I will return in half an hour.”
“Please stay to the gardens, where I can see you,” Margaret asked, and then grimaced. “I know I am being ridiculous again, but it comforts me to keep you in my sight.”
“You have always kept me safe, Mama.” Jennet bent to kiss her mother’s brow. “There is nothing silly about that.”
Outside clouds blanketed the November skies, and the bite of the breeze made Jennet wrap her cloak more tightly around her. She walked out from the terrace to where she might sit by the fountain. But she stopped in her tracks when she saw the man who waited there, his wind-swept hair now gleaming black, with only a few strands of silver. He regarded her with his hooded green eyes, beneath which lay the dark smudges left by what she assumed had been several sleepless nights.
Good, then he had suffered as much as she, Jennet thought, and not gone to France. Perhaps she was the love of his li
fe, then. He was certainly hers.
“You stole my cloak,” Greystone said as he watched her approach.
She glanced down at herself. “You traded it for a coat before you rode off with Catherine to London. It is now my cloak.”
“I have come for you,” he told her. “Not the damned cloak.”
“Whatever for?” Her gaze went to his hands, in which he held a small ring box, and she skittered backward. “Oh, no. Not again. We have already done this once, sir, and it ended very badly for me. Go back to France. You seem much happier when you are killing people.”
Greystone gave her an exasperated look. “My superiors have let it slip that Pickering was the Raven. Guillame Girard, the merchant, has died in France. I am to return to a private life as a gentleman. You are my wife now in everything but name. For God’s sake, Jenny, put me out of my misery and marry me.”
Jennet knew there was more to it than that, and sat down beside him. “You still have secrets. I can see them in your eyes.”
“I came to tell you the last of them,” Greystone said. “And then I meant to propose.”
“You’ve done one,” she said. “Now the other.”
“My father was the Raven,” he said, and looked out at the horizon. “He created Guillame Girard and served the crown as an assassin for many years. It was why he was away from home so often, but not even my mother knew. Seven years ago, Father began to have pains in his chest and difficulty breathing. The doctors told him that his heart and lungs were failing, and he could no longer exert himself as he had. That was when he told me the truth, because he needed me to be the Raven.”
A terrible certainty filled her. “Your father asked you to take his place.”