by Katy Moran
‘John Edward Tristan Helford, Earl of Lamorna.’
Crow, he thought. Just call me Crow.
18
That afternoon saw Kitto at Nansmornow, sitting with his back against the locked door of his brother’s wine cellar. One of his eyes was still swollen shut, but he could see enough to watch dust motes chasing each other through the silver light streaming in at one of the narrow, barred windows that gave on to the gravelled path at the side of the east wing. In truth, he’d lost track of the days since his incarceration, but it was early enough in the morning that dewdrops still clung to the dandelion growing on the path outside the window. He’d been a fool to listen to Dorothea and Count Lieven with all Dorothea’s honeyed words as if he might rejoin his regiment as though nothing had happened, were he only to prove his own innocence by coming back to the house. He leaned back against the door as the light changed, an unseen sun moving across the sky, remembering another imprisonment in another cellar, long ago, and the terror and relief he’d felt in equal parts to be retrieved from the French by Crow at his most intimidatingly furious. And so Crow was gone, surely hanged by now. Kitto felt only curious, uncaring emptiness, forcing himself to move when an unfamiliar voice ordered him to shift, and the door swung open, letting in light from the whitewashed passage outside. He followed the cavalryman without a word, ignoring the rough grip on his arm – the man wasn’t even of the officer class. Rage kindled again as he was hauled through the deserted servants’ quarters of his own home, though the silent kitchen where as a child he’d been given bowls of bread, milk and sugar, or a slice of dark, gelatinous plum-pudding, and where Crow had more recently prised a bullet from his shoulder. Baskets of spring greens were laid out on the table alongside a joint of mutton tied with string and the striped earthenware jug, but there was no sign of anyone, no familiar face. In the family quarters the great hall, too, was empty of servants – two soldiers of the Northumbrian regiment sat slouching on the bottom step of the stairs, watching him pass with insolent curiosity.
By the time the private pushed him through the library door, Kitto was ready to explode with fury, and he did, turning on the man and shoving him so hard that his head struck the doorframe. ‘Get your fucking hands off me.’
‘You little bastard – you’ll soon learn,’ the private sneered, revealing brown, tobacco-stained teeth. Kitto rushed him, grabbing the sweat-yellowed fabric of his stock.
‘Darling, I think that’s quite enough, don’t you?’
Shoving the Northumbrian away, Kitto turned around to face Dorothea Lieven sitting alone in his father’s old chair by the fire, the fine satin skirts of her gown puddling on the floor at her feet. She flicked her pale fingers at the Northumbrian in an elegant gesture of dismissal.
The soldier hesitated, glancing at the door. ‘With respect, milady, it’s not safe to leave you alone with him.’
Dorothea raised her eyebrows, managing to convey both astonishment and unspoken anger at his presumption. ‘I’ll be the judge of that. Wait outside.’
She didn’t speak until the private had gone, closing the door behind him. ‘Yes, I thought it might go better with you if we met alone, Kitto, without any other man to confuse matters. You’re very angry, and I can understand that, but you need to listen now, and you need to listen carefully.’
Kitto forced off a wave of debilitating shame at appearing in the company of a woman of his own class filthy and stinking. ‘Where is my brother? Where are Hester and the baby?’
There was no servant in the room with them – what had become of them all? – and Dorothea got up and crossed to the crystal decanter and glasses laid out on the sideboard beneath a portrait of Kitto’s mother, whom he had never met. She held out a glass of cognac, but he shook his head – it made him think of Crow. She was going to tell him that Crow was dead; that he had died shamefully, on the gallows. Wentworth had taken that bullet in the side of his skull, it was said, and Crow would have been hanged for murder by now, Lord Lieutenant and Chief Justice of Cornwall or not. Kitto turned away, unable to look at her, walking rapidly to the window. He remembered Crow coming home on leave for the first time in his own living memory, when he was in his fifth summer. Side by side, they had lain in the grass on the muddy bank of the carp pond beneath the beech trees. Dip your fingers into the water and move them like this, see? Crow had been a traitor to England, opening fire on British troops – there could be no argument about it. And yet Wentworth had been making ready to fire on innocent people. Kitto thought of his brother with a rope around his neck, heavy around his shoulders, and he turned to face Dorothea, his sight blurred.
‘Where are they?’ He immediately spun away from her again, staring out of the window at the mist settling on the parkland tumbling away towards the home wood. Beyond that, there was only moorland, cliff-edge and the Atlantic.
‘Your brother is not dead,’ Dorothea said. And Kitto leaned hard on the windowsill, still unable to breathe, unable to turn and look at her. ‘Fortunately, my husband was one of a few who persuaded Lord Castlereagh that his immediate execution would only play into revolutionary hands – Cornish or English. Dissent in Cornwall or not, he’s still remembered as the man who freed Wellington from French captivity, and he distinguished himself at Salisbury, which was such a decisive battle when it came to expelling the French from your shores. Ultimately, it would be counterproductive to risk public ire in Cornwall or England by making a martyr of Lord Lamorna – both of which would be entirely likely—’
‘Then where is he?’ Kitto demanded.
‘That’s not your concern at the moment; in fact, the less you know, the better.’
‘Then where is Hester? And my niece?’
Dorothea frowned a little. ‘I’m afraid I can’t give you a very precise answer to that question, Kitto, either. Lady Lamorna and her servant Catlin Rescorla were seen on St Mary’s, boarding a boat bound for France – the Curlew. Naturally, there were several parties who were keen to find them, and so we’re quite sure of our witnesses.’
Kitto let out a long, shuddering sigh of relief, no longer caring if he offended her in his foul and unwashed state. ‘Oh God,’ he said, and he closed his eyes and remembered the wreck of the Deliverance, the caravel herself twelve hours at the bottom of the bay and her drowned crew washing up on the beach, and he thought of Hester coming to his bedside no more than a few weeks ago with the child hitched up against her hip and setting the maid down upon the counterpane to grab fistfuls of the quilted faded cotton, and how, long ago, when he had felt quite alone, and desperate, Hester had held him close as if she were his mother. One just had to assume that they would be safe – and so they were, beyond the reach of Lord Castlereagh.
‘You haven’t asked what’s to become of you,’ Dorothea said lightly. ‘You can’t remain indefinitely imprisoned in your brother’s wine cellar.’
‘What then?’ Kitto demanded. Was he to join Crow in gaol?
‘Well, you were unquestionably involved at Newlyn,’ Dorothea said, watching him with unsettling perspicacity. ‘However, it’s felt that in light of your youth and the strength of public feeling towards your family, clemency is the least disruptive policy. Believe me, Lord Castlereagh took some convincing, but you’re to return immediately to your regiment. The Grand Duchess Maria has been in London, and the royal yacht sails from Plymouth to Petersburg in a week’s time. It seems in everyone’s best interests if you join her on the voyage, with as little fuss as possible.’
Kitto closed his eyes and thought of the domed, golden Petersburg rooftops, and the ugly statues in the hedge-lined gardens at Tsarskoe Selo, and the ice-choked expanse of the Neva as he had last seen the great river, and hoped that Alexander would decide to finally side with Napoleon or England, and that he could run towards the sound of cannon-fire again, breathing in the stink of smoke, the smell of blood, and that he could forget everything, and that it would all be over.
19
Later that same day, Crow was e
scorted by English soldiers up the steps at Boscobel Castle, still prison-cell filthy. These Cornish acres fell outside the marches of his own considerable earldom: he was now on duchy land controlled by the English via the social pretensions of Hawkins Boscobel, a lethal combination. The familiar sensation of being found wanting crept through him: long dead, Papa walked at his side. His father was as tall as ever, the Lamorna black hair streaked with grey, his lips still tinged with blood, stark red against pale lips, pale skin. Even in death, he hadn’t lost that expression of gelid, unspoken fury, so familiar from mornings in the breakfast-room at Lamorna House in London. Crow wanted to tell him that he knew very well he left so much to be desired, even though he was no longer the young idiot who had scandalised the capital, but the shade of his father faded from sight, leaving him with only the breathless, thirsty anticipation that always came before going into battle, except that this time he had no weapon, not even a knife. It was very lowering, to be sure, to arrive under prison guard at the nouveau riche palace of a man whose grandfather had been lord of all he surveyed in his very own candle-shop in Truro. Crow had scarcely reached the topmost step with his guards when the right-hand door was pulled open just enough to allow him to follow the first soldier inside, swiftly followed by the second. The door was closed behind him with a smart, well-oiled click and Crow turned to face the Boscobels’ butler, Williams, who twenty years ago had caught him breaking a window in the orangery and clouted him so hard that his ears still rang the following morning.
Crow was ready to kill if he had to, but here he heard himself speak with measured courtesy. ‘Good morning, Williams. How is your wife? Does she still suffer with the lumbago?’
Williams preserved an expression of well-trained indifference and looked through both guards. ‘Betty does as well as can be expected, my lord, and I am sure would wish to pass on her fondest respects to you.’ Without any indication that he was aware of either the soldiers’ presence or Crow’s filthy, unshaven appearance, Williams swept up the wide staircase and announced Crow without a flicker of discomfiture, as if he had come for a morning visit. Crow absorbed the elegant proportions of the drawing-room, the faded but respectable brocade curtains, the fantastically ugly oil paintings of various Boscobels along with their overfed spaniels and horses, all so familiar. He’d thought he would never set foot in such a place again, that like Nathaniel Edwards he would die in the squalor of the prison-yard at Bodmin. Two men sat in armchairs by the fire, including Hawkins Boscobel himself, who had the temerity to look uncomfortable at receiving the Earl of Lamorna in such circumstances, when he had not the decency to resist putting the Deliverance out to sea when she was unseaworthy, and neither the compassion nor the good sense to relieve the poor on his own estate. The other was Lord Castlereagh.
Castlereagh looked up as if they had just met in the drawing-room again after a day’s hunting on Crow’s own land, this man who had broken all ancient laws of hospitality, of honour, only to further his political ambition. ‘My dear Lamorna. How good of you to join us.’
Crow inclined his head; it was a moment before he could trust himself to speak. ‘Are we to bore Hawkins with this discussion?’ He failed entirely to conceal his fury. His own people had been murdered at Newlyn on the orders of this worthless person; because of Castlereagh, his wife and child were both far from the reach of his protection.
To Boscobel’s credit, he heaved himself to his feet, wheezing with the effort, buttons straining at his buttercup-yellow waistcoat. ‘Ring, and Williams can bring you anything you’re needful of. I’ll away to my library.’
When the door had closed behind him, Crow looked away from the fire and turned back to the prime minister. ‘Where in Christ’s fucking name are my wife and child? My brother?’ It was a grave mistake to lose his temper, but he could do nothing to stop himself.
‘My dear boy,’ said Castlereagh, making a church steeple with his fingertips, ‘would even the Duke of Wellington himself have promised you carte blanche to conduct yourself exactly as you please if he supposed that it was not the greater good of the country that you served? In truth, you serve the interests only of Cornwall and therefore also of yourself, given that you are so rich not only in the spoils of maritime trade but also in the misguided loyalty of the Cornish people. Your duty is to suppress insurrection here and instead you foment it and allow the poison to spread.’
‘My duty is to protect my own people. Where are my wife, my child and my brother?’ Crow repeated, fighting the intense need to crush Castlereagh’s throat with his own hands.
Castlereagh smiled. ‘If you value their safety, don’t insult me with pretended ignorance about your own intentions. There are so many rumours about a Cornish uprising with which your name always seems so peculiarly connected that it has become quite impossible to ignore them. Your actions at Newlyn have only confirmed everyone’s suspicions.’
Crow watched him; he had evaded the question. In that moment, he was almost sure that Castlereagh didn’t actually know where Hester was, or the little maid, or Kitto. Thank God, thank God. ‘What do you want from me?’ he said. ‘The government under your command controls the Duchy of Cornwall, and therefore all the bits of the county I don’t happen to own. Do you want my share, too? Is that it?’
‘Don’t be obtuse, Lamorna.’
Briefly, Crow closed his eyes and saw himself slamming Castlereagh’s head against the hearthstone until his skull cracked and pale, greyish brain matter fell in clots upon the Turkish carpet. He must force himself to speak; he must navigate this battleground. ‘Where does all this lead, Castlereagh? Have you not enough to occupy yourself with leading the country? Why do we have no king or queen to relieve you of the responsibility? It’s been nearly a year since we forced Napoleon into ordering his troops to leave British soil.’
‘Which brings us at long last to my point.’ Castlereagh smiled without a trace of mirth. ‘If you were me, Lamorna, which of the surviving royals, illegitimate or otherwise, would you choose as our monarch?’
‘Oh, don’t play games with me. The princess royal,’ Crow said. ‘Charlotte might be a woman but she’s at least old enough to know her mind, and she knows how to rule. She’s had a hand in managing the duchy since long before her husband died, but if you wanted an experienced woman in her middle years with ideas of her own, Charlotte would have been on the throne for months. You want a young and impressionable puppet. Who is it to be?’
Castlereagh poured himself another glass of port, but Crow held one hand over his own glass. ‘I suppose you’re too young to remember the rumours about the princess royal’s sister Sophia? You would have been scarcely more than an infant when all that happened, but I’d wager your father had a hand in covering it up.’
‘That? It’s true, then? Princess Sophia really did go away to deliver an illegitimate child?’
‘In the summer of 1800, yes. And Sophia was a great deal more careful over her child’s welfare than the rest of the royal family were about their own offspring, wrong side of the sheets or not. That child has been in Russia since long before Bonaparte escaped Elba in ’15.’
Crow knew what was to come. ‘Who was the father, then?’ he asked. ‘And where is this child?’
‘Russia,’ Castlereagh said, simply. ‘The father was Alexander himself.’
Crow suppressed a sensation of incurable weariness. ‘Alexander Romanov? The Russian tsar? Where exactly is all this leading, Robert?’
‘A youthful peccadillo before Alexander took the imperial crown,’ Castlereagh said smoothly. ‘The year before he succeeded, the young tsar enjoyed rather more than a state visit to England. It’s not generally known – or at least, not here. The Russians are far less exact about such matters. I want you to go to St Petersburg, Lord Lamorna, and find out where that girl is, Alexander’s daughter. Princess Sophia’s daughter. She is known, I believe, as Nadezhda Sofia Kurakina, and was brought up as the foster-child of a Russian count who had lost a fortune at gaming, and
now lives in some out-of-the-way province. A young, malleable queen with ties to Russia – even illegitimate – would be of the utmost use to us at the moment.’
Crow laughed. ‘A bastard queen? Castlereagh, I wish you all the very best of good luck in foisting an illegitimate heir on the clergy, even if you can get it around the populace, with all those clever stories you like so much in The Times and the Morning Post.’
‘Oh, don’t be so deliberately oafish,’ Castlereagh said. ‘After all your subterfuge you should know better than anyone how easy it is to make matters appear as they are not. We already have official documents pertaining to a secret marriage that never took place between Sophia and one of the Romanov cousins, now dead. God knows it’s easy enough to make the populace believe anything anyone wants – the Kurakina girl can be made respectable enough whether the Russians like it or not. If the tsar doesn’t wish his cousin’s name to be taken in vain, what can he do about it once our own population have come to fervently believe in the brat’s legitimacy?’
‘Yes,’ Crow said, ‘well, you certainly found it easy to firmly convince most of the middling sort and all of the haut ton that the peasantry are a vicious mob who must at all costs be terrified into submission with regular hanging and transportation, and that devout Methodist congregations in Cornwall, on my own land, are dangerous killers. My days of subterfuge, as you call it, are long gone. Find someone else to snare your bastard princess.’
Castlereagh watching him, unsmiling now, said: ‘At this precise moment in time, Lamorna, you are also a danger to the security of the nation. I know you’re not afraid of death, but find Nadezhda Sofia and bring her here to me: you won’t relish the consequences if you don’t. Had you not long enough in prison to consider how it will be for your wife, child and brother to learn what it is to exist as the dependants of an executed traitor? Do you think we don’t know exactly which ship your wife and child sailed on, and that we won’t eventually find them, that we can’t reach your brother the moment he rejoins his regiment?’