Behind the Mask (House of Lords)

by Brooke, Meg

  It was not to be, of course. Soon it was time for them to disband and dress for dinner, and she had to oversee the assignment of rooms and ensure that everyone was satisfied with their chambers. She had barely enough time to change her gown and rush back downstairs before dinner was announced. Then she found herself on Sir John’s arm being led in to dinner. He simpered unpleasantly as he held out her chair.

  The evening progressed smoothly, though Eleanor’s nerves were on edge. Any moment she expected an assassin to burst in, armed to the teeth. Fortunately the princess seemed blissfully unaware of the danger to her life as she spoke softly to her mother.

  More than once she glanced over at Colin to see him sitting with a haunted look on his face. She wondered if he was thinking of the dead man or of his cousin who was locked in the dressing room downstairs with him. As the rain began to fall at last and some of the pressure eased from the air, the tension that had been gripping the room seemed to lessen as well, but Colin remained tight-lipped and white faced.

  When the meal had ended Eleanor went to him, pulling him into the hall as the rest of the ladies returned to the drawing room.

  “What are you doing?” he hissed.

  She did not answer, simply led him into the library and shut the door behind them. Then she slipped her hands under his coat and went up on her toes to kiss him.

  His lips met hers eagerly, and his arms came around her, warm and solid and comforting. She sighed against his lips and relaxed into him. When they pulled apart at last he said, “What was that for?”

  She smiled and smoothed his waistcoat. “You looked so tense,” she said.

  “Kissing me like that will hardly help,” he muttered, shifting uncomfortably against her.

  “Then let’s go upstairs,” she whispered in his ear.

  He kissed her forehead. “We can’t,” he said.

  “Of course we can. No one will notice we’re gone, and if they do they’ll put it down to our newlywed bliss.”

  He chuckled. “We both know that’s not true.”

  She leaned her head against his shoulder. “Of course,” she agreed, though she felt as though she would scream if she had to go back into that drawing room. But she had had another motive for bringing him into the library. “Would you do something for me?” she asked.

  “What is it?”

  “Let me come with you tonight, when you bury that man.”

  He pulled away, holding her at arm’s length. “No,” he said gravely. “Absolutely not.”

  She shook free of his grip. “I’m coming whether you like it or not. You cannot forbid me.”

  “You are my wife,” he ground out, “I can forbid you anything I like.”

  “So you will lock me up?”

  With a groan he stepped away from the wall, running a hand over his hair. “I won’t forbid you anything, Eleanor. Of course I won’t. But it’s too dangerous.”

  “There is a man downstairs who is grieving,” she said. “For all that he has committed terrible crimes, or planned to do so at any rate. He deserves to have people at his side while he watches his cousin be buried.”

  He stared at her, and she realized that she had done what she had vowed not to—she had revealed her sympathy for the assassin. But instead of chastising her, he simply said, “All right.”

  “Really?”

  He nodded. “But you must promise to tell no one what has happened. Not your mother, not your sisters—no one, do you understand?”

  “Of course,” she said. “I promise.”

  He sighed. “I can see that you will not be the sort of diplomat’s wife who is content to ignore the less savory parts of the job.”

  “No, indeed,” Eleanor said, feeling rather indignant. Had he ever imagined she was that sort of woman? Still, she knew that he could have refused to let her come along, that he certainly would have been within his rights to lock her up if he pleased. So she crossed the space between them and kissed him again. “Thank you, Colin,” she said. Then she slipped out of the library, leaving him to stare after her.

  Hours later Colin stood waiting in their bedroom. At last Eleanor emerged from the dressing room, clad in a black riding coat and dark gray breeches that fit her like a second skin. She had pinned her bright hair back in a simple chignon, but her beauty was still starkly apparent.

  She looked up at him, resolute and grim as she draped a silk scarf around her neck. “Let’s go,” she said.

  He led her silently through the darkened house. Leo met them in the hall. He had been less than pleased when Colin had told him Eleanor would be coming along, but even he had seemed to understand that there was little point in trying to deny his sister.

  “She acts meek and obliging,” he had said with a wry grin, “but don’t let her fool you. She’s a lioness.”

  Now they waited, and presently Crawley emerged from the servants’ stairs, leading Udad by the arm. Then they went out into the stableyard. They would not be riding however—they did not have that far to go.

  They walked through the gate and out into the moonlit park, skirting the open areas for the shadows of the trees, their pace slow to allow for Udad’s wounded foot. Though the rain had stopped, the grass was wet and the air was thick with humidity. No one spoke. After about fifteen minutes they reached a little grove where the wagon bearing the body waited. Strathmore stood beside it, his dark clothes caked with mud, a shovel still in his hand. Beyond the wagon two soldiers in plain clothes were climbing out of the shallow grave they had dug in the wet earth. They had been working for hours, all the time that Colin and the others had been enjoying their lavish dinner. Now they leaned their shovels against the cart and came to help lift the body, wrapped in its thin shroud.

  Crawley led Udad over to the grave. The assassin glanced at Strathmore and nodded grimly as he passed, as though thanking the man for his work.

  Colin, Eleanor and Leo took their places on the opposite side of the grave. Without prompting, Eleanor lifted the scarf from around her neck and placed it over her hair, draping one end across her chest and over her shoulder. Colin was surprised by the astuteness of the gesture, and when he looked across at Udad he saw that he was as well. But then the body was being lowered into the grave, and Udad’s attention turned back to his cousin.

  As Crawley and Strathmore stood on either side of him, Udad began to recite in his native tongue. Colin heard a few familiar words, but mostly it was the emotion behind them that affected him. When he glanced over at Eleanor he saw that there were tears streaming down her cheeks, and he reached out and took her hand, lacing his fingers through hers, touched by her emotion. She had never known the man in the shroud, and her only encounter with Udad had been his attempt on her life, and yet she could feel pity for both of them. For the hundredth time Colin felt his good fortune. There were many diplomatic wives who had become so detached and jaded that they were almost like dolls. Eleanor would never be that sort of woman, not if he could help it.

  As he finished the last lines of his prayers, Udad fell to his knees beside the grave. Crawley and Strathmore pulled him back to his feet and turned him back towards the house. Eleanor took a step towards them, one hand held out, and for a moment Colin thought she would protest, but then she pursed her lips and stayed silent.

  Leo, Colin and Eleanor fell in behind the prisoner. Strathmore remained behind to oversee the burial, but the rest of them started back towards the house.

  When they had reached the hall again, Colin touched Eleanor’s shoulder. “I must go downstairs with them,” he said. “I’ll be up soon.”

  She nodded stiffly. Leo came to stand beside her as Colin went to join Crawley. But just as he was pulling open the door to the servants’ stairs, Udad turned and looked at Eleanor.

  “Thank you for your sadness,” he said. “Is not right word, I know. But I thank you for the honor you show my cousin.”

  Eleanor gave him a small smile and wiped at her cheeks. Then she turned and went into the salon, Le
o hard on her heels. Colin started down the stairs.

  “That woman is your wife?” Udad asked.

  Colin nodded.

  “You lucky man.”

  “I know,” Colin said, but he refused to say any more.

  It was not much later that he finally made his way up to their bedroom. Eleanor was sitting on the bed in the darkness, wearing a slightly less revealing nightgown, her hair once again tumbling in loose waves about her shoulders.

  Colin stood before her as he took off his coat and waistcoat. She got up and came to help him with his boots. When he was wearing only his smalls, she kissed him gently and led him to the bed.

  For a long time they lay there atop the coverlet, his arms tight around her. At last, she said, “That poor man. He cannot be much older than me, and yet he has lost everything.”

  “What do you mean?” Colin asked, his lips against her hair.

  “He can never go back home, can he? I am sure the Foreign Office will never let him leave England.”

  “No,” Colin said. “You are right there.”

  “And he has lost the only tie he had to his homeland, has had to bury his cousin in foreign soil. I cannot imagine his grief.”

  Colin propped himself up on one elbow and looked down into her eyes. “He tried to kill you, and yet you can feel pity for him?”

  “We don’t know that he meant to kill me,” she said. “You must consider that he may have ended up in my room by accident. You know, this whole operation seems almost haphazard to me.”

  He stared at her.

  “Just think about it,” she said, “So far they have killed one person, who was not their target, and lost two men in the process. Not a stellar record, in my view. Perhaps they need some help, someone smarter who can tell them what to do next. Maybe that’s what they’re waiting for.”

  “Indeed,” he said, wondering what she would think if he told her he suspected that very thing: that there was an Englishman helping the Serraray. He was still convinced it was the case, even though his chief suspect had been ruled out. “You may yet prove to be a better spy than I,” he laughed.

  “Are you a spy?” she asked, her voice serious again.

  He looked away.

  “Colin,” she insisted.

  “I was, once,” he admitted, to her and to himself. “Though no one ever told me that’s what I was. But there was a time when espionage was my chief task. I had very little talent for it, and it ended poorly. Now I stick to the lighter side of the foreign service.”

  “What do you mean, it ended poorly?”

  He rubbed his temples. His head was pounding. “Not tonight, Eleanor. I promise, I will tell you the story. But not tonight.”

  She seemed to accept that. “Very well,” she said, yawning. “I’m too tired to argue with you now.”

  “Thank the Lord,” he murmured, trailing his fingers down the bare, smooth skin of her arm. “Does that mean you are too tired for anything else, then?”

  She smiled that sultry smile he was coming to love and kissed him, and for a while neither of them thought of spies or assassins, but only of the way their bodies fit together in the moonlight.

  TWENTY-ONE

  September 4, 1834

  Colin woke Eleanor with a kiss before the sun rose the next morning. “I must go and see Colonel Taylor,” he said. “I’ll see you later.”

  “The princess wishes to stroll the grounds this afternoon,” Eleanor mumbled.

  He nodded and was gone. Eleanor rolled lazily across the mattress and into the warm indentation he had left. She could get used to being married, she thought, to having someone’s arms to sleep in, to having someone’s smile to awaken to. She wondered idly if they would have separate bedrooms in their own establishment. She hoped not. It had only been a few nights, but already she was growing accustomed to Colin’s comforting presence beside her.

  Eleanor could very easily have gone back to sleep inside the warm cocoon made by the coverlet and the sheets, but instead she made herself get up and choose a gown for the morning. One of the few things she usually loved about life in the country was that one did not have to change clothes four times a day as was often necessary in town. Eleanor sometimes thought she might tear her hair out if she had to change clothes again, what with the walking dresses and tea dresses and dinner gowns and ball gowns. But now that they had royal guests it was necessary to endure the endless parade of outfits once more, and so she selected all her gowns for the day as quickly as she could before Lily arrived and added her opinion to the muddle.

  When at last she was clothed and coiffed, Eleanor made her way down to the formal dining room, where all their meals would be served for the duration of the princess’s visit. She had heard that Victoria was an early riser, and so she was not surprised to find the girl already seated at the table with her governess, the formidable Baroness Lehzen, who appeared to care little for anything but her young charge.

  Still, Eleanor found that it was not difficult to engage the little princess in conversation once one found topics that interested her. Her spaniel Dash, for instance, who was sleeping contentedly at Victoria’s feet, was a favorite topic, and they managed to converse on that subject for several minutes before her mother came in, followed by the Duchess of Kent and Lady Winifred. Then the conversation turned to the planned activities for the day and the beauty of Sidney Park, and Eleanor was able to retreat silently into her thoughts.

  Tonight she would see Toby for the first time since her marriage. All the local gentry had been invited to the dinner that was being given in honor of the princess, and though he had not come to the wedding he could hardly refuse a royal invitation. Eleanor wondered what she would feel when she saw him, and what he would feel when he saw her. Would he be angry with her? He certainly had no claim to it, or to her for that matter. All that time he had been gone, and had never sent word, never written even one letter, not even to tell her that he was going to Algeria.

  Eleanor jumped in her seat.

  Toby had been to Algeria.

  He had come home just this spring.

  Colin had as much as acknowledged that the Serraray were incapable of achieving their goal on their own, which meant that he suspected someone was helping them.

  Eleanor leaped from her seat. When the ladies gaped at her she said, “Excuse me, Your Highness, but I have just remembered something I must tell Mrs. Clarence.” She curtseyed quickly and rushed from the room, hoping that Colin had not gone too far.

  She nearly ran headfirst into Mr. Strathmore in the salon. “Pardon me, My Lady,” he said, putting out a hand to steady her. “Is everything all right?”

  Eleanor stared at him a moment. He was one of Colin’s confidantes. Surely she could tell him what she suspected? “Come into the library with me,” she said.

  When they were safely behind the closed doors she asked, “Colin suspects that there is a traitor providing the assassins with support, doesn’t he?”

  Strathmore leaned on the great library table and crossed his arms. “I believe so,” he said carefully.

  “And he suspects Toby Hollier.”

  A stiff nod, but nothing more.

  “I have some information about him.”

  “I see,” Strathmore said, his tone still cautious.

  Eleanor took a deep breath, “Toby Hollier was in Algeria the last year of his time abroad.” When Strathmore only stared at her, she said, “Don’t you think that’s significant?”

  “It may be,” he said, “It just may be. I can take it from here, though, My Lady. You don’t need to trouble yourself with this.”

  Feeling rather put out at being relegated once more to the corner, Eleanor still could do nothing but agree with him. She could not possibly insist on having a share in her new husband’s work. She knew that was absurd. So she thanked Strathmore for his time and went downstairs, thinking that she might as well go and speak with Mrs. Clarence since that was the pretext under which she had left the dining room
in the first place.

  But when she reached the bottom of the servants’ stairs she found the kitchens in uproar. Mrs. Parkinson stood before her great worktable, flour-covered hands on her hips, glaring at Mrs. Clarence.

  “What is going on?” Eleanor demanded.

  “I’m sorry, Miss—I mean, My Lady,” Mrs. Parkinson cried, “but I won’t be cooking extra meals for a prisoner. He can eat what the rest of us eat.”

  “He will starve, then, My Lady,” Mrs. Clarence said, looking pleadingly at Eleanor, who was surprised by the housekeeper’s pity. “He refuses to eat the things we’ve brought him. He keeps muttering some strange word.”

  “Halal,” Eleanor said. She had read every book she could find on the religions and customs of India and its neighbors when Toby had first departed, and she imagined that many of the customs of the Muslims in that part of the world were the same for the prisoner and his people. “It means the things which are permissible under their religion. What are you trying to feed him?”

  Mrs. Parkinson cast a disparaging glance at the plate on the worktable. “Rashers and eggs,” she said indignantly.

  “But, Mrs. Parkinson, he cannot eat those things. He cannot eat anything containing pork.”

  “Why I should care I don’t know,” the cook grumbled.

  “He hasn’t eaten in days!” Mrs. Clarence cried.

  Eleanor took a deep breath. “Mrs. Parkinson, do you think you might prepare him some toast with a clean toasting fork, and perhaps some fruit?”

  The cook looked as though she would rather swallow her own bonnet, but she could hardly disobey Eleanor, so she nodded glumly.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Parkinson, you’re a treasure. I’ll go and speak with him now and explain.”

  Mrs. Clarence opened her mouth to protest, but Eleanor held up a hand to silence her and went back into the corridor. When the guard outside the dressing room saw her approaching he snapped to attention.

  “I’d like a moment with him,” Eleanor said.

  “I have orders, My Lady,” the guard said apologetically, “I’m not to let anyone but Lord Pierce or his aides in.”