He suspected it was already too late for him.
Chapter Thirteen
Anna, however, was having too much fun in the present to be thinking of the future. The thrill of all the new feelings aroused by Louis combined with the mystery of Gosselin and the secret meeting in Blackhaven to make life irresistibly exciting. It did cross her mind that she was not carrying out the precise duties Henry had assigned to her—a fact brought home when she returned to the castle that morning for breakfast and found a letter from Christianne awaiting her.
Apart from her sister’s usual everyday doings which included a large dinner party, a trip to the theatre, and the ordering of a new evening gown, there was a promise of wonderous news when Anna came home again.
Anna paused at that. Home. Frightening as the prospect had once been, she and Christianne were no longer part of the same whole. Her home was no longer with Christianne. Nor was it here with Rupert, for it wasn’t really Rupert’s home either. Braithwaite Castle was Serena’s brother’s, and as soon as Tamar Abbey was fit to receive them, the marquis and marchioness would make their home there. This comfort, this happiness Anna had found here, was only temporary.
She returned to her letter. Apparently, Henry was put out because of Sir Anthony Watters’s resignation from the Foreign Office. Christianne couldn’t work out why, but he seemed to think Anna would understand. I did not even know, Christianne wrote, that you were acquainted with Sir Anthony or Lady Watters.
Neither did Anna. But there was a reason he was telling her. There was always a reason for his innocuous little messages.
Between ourselves, Christianne continued, he departed under something of a cloud, which has upset Henry and his colleagues.
Now that was interesting. Sir Anthony was a fairly senior figure. She would have expected his departure to have initiated a major jostling for position among his underlings. But to have left under a cloud…
Could Sir Anthony Watters be the man awaited by the hotel? Was he meeting Gosselin?
That was one aspect. The other was, why Henry, who knew nothing of this expected event, particularly wanted Anna to know about Watters’s resignation.
Watters. It was just a name to her, but she was sure she had heard it more recently than she had left London…
She became aware that she was frowning directly at the nervous Mrs. Elphinstone the governess. Who had been employed by Lady Watters for many years.
Anna laughed, and Mrs. Elphinstone’s expression grew positively alarmed. “Forgive me,” Anna said easily. “Was I staring? In truth, my mind was miles away and my eyes fixed on you without purpose. I did not mean to be rude.”
Mrs. Elphinstone claimed to have been accosted by a Frenchman during her day off when she had been in Whalen. She had described the escaped prisoner accurately, causing the patrols here to be sent to join those at Whalen. And so, Captain Alban had been free to land his wife at Blackhaven Cove, unobserved by any but Louis.
But surely that innocuous event had not been Mrs. Elphinstone’s reason. Not if she was still connected to her disgraced one-time employer. Someone else was coming here by ship, just as Louis suspected. Someone no one else was meant to see.
Anna finished her breakfast unhurriedly, waiting until the girls had trailed reluctantly after Mrs. Elphinstone to the schoolroom. The poor lady did not have a great deal of time for spying, Anna reflected as she rose and made her own way to the library. Here, she penned a brief note and folded it before going out to the stables, seizing her cloak on the way.
It was simple to find her favorite stable boy and give him the note with one of her shrinking supply of coins. “Deliver it only to Sir Lytton,” she warned. “Not to any of the hotel servants. Bring any reply straight back to me.”
The lad tugged his forelock, grinned, and ran off, no doubt glad to escape his duties for an hour.
Although she wanted to keep her time free to discuss her new discovery with Louis, she had promised to accompany Serena to help the vicar’s wife in some charitable work. When she received no immediate reply to her note, she went grudgingly with her sister-in-law, more concerned with the possibility of running into Louis in Blackhaven than with the plight of the poor souls to whom she found herself ladling soup and distributing gloves, coats, boots, and blankets.
It was only gradually that their tragedy began to move her. She recalled her early life at Tamar Abbey, when they’d given old clothes and food to the villagers who had needed them. And later, when her father had died, how they had had less and less to give. She and Christianne were reduced to words and taking the odd turn watching the sick and the dying. It had been one of the few things to pierce her protective armor, and so, she was glad to have left that duty behind when she went to live with Christianne.
Now, distributing things provided by other people to injured old soldiers and sailors, and to the poorest and least appealing of the town, the memory pushed through again. How was it that now she had more, she gave less? Because she didn’t like being reminded that there were people worse off? People who had suffered more than her and continued to do so.
She didn’t care much for this idea. She could pretend the work she did for Henry was great work for her country, but much of it, surely, was for Henry himself. And to combat her own boredom. As always, the shame and guilt made her smile more brightly, talking and laughing with the stream of broken humanity with whom she worked those two hours.
And they seemed fascinated by her, brightening when she did, grinning at her from across the room while they ate.
“They like you,” Mr. Grant said warmly. “It’s an art—being kind without appearing to be. Thank you.”
“It is easy,” Anna said. “I am not kind.”
It was only a couple of hours, but they shook her out of her comfort, and she did not even have the satisfaction of encountering, or even seeing Louis. Nor was there any message waiting for her back at the castle.
As she wandered restlessly, trying to think of the best thing to do, she came upon her brother in a room at the top of the old part of the castle. He and Serena had apartments lower down, but they seemed to have taken over several other disused rooms, too. Rupert had set up his easel and was painting the sea. He did that a lot, in different light and weather and time of day. Like Christianne, he always found the pleasure, the beauty in his surroundings.
“I hear Grant wants to employ you permanently,” Rupert said cheerfully.
Anna wrinkled her nose. “He wouldn’t if he had me there permanently.” She walked past him, poking among his brushes and paints until she found a long eye glass of the kind sailors used. “What is this for?” she asked, picking it up.
“It brings everything closer. Helps me to see the movement of the waves and the ships.”
Ships. She put it to her eye and looked out to sea. Rupert leaned over and adjusted it for her. He was right. Everything was much closer and sharper, which did not interest her much when there was only the sea to gaze at. But passing vessels, anchored vessels, were another matter. From various places in the castle you could see right around the headland, the town, the harbor and, beach, Blackhaven Cove and, of course, the beach below the castle.
“Fascinating,” she murmured. “Rupert, may I borrow this?”
“Whenever you like. Just put it back here when you’re finished so I always know where it is.” He gave a quick, slightly sheepish grin. “It was a gift from Serena.”
“I always thought you would end up married by accident to some tavern wench or a harridan you were too polite to refuse.”
He cast her a sardonic glance. “Did you?”
“You didn’t even marry her for her money.”
“No,” Rupert agreed. “Although I almost didn’t marry her because of her money.”
Anna hesitated. She was growing soft, but she wanted him to know she was glad for him. “Christianne will like her,” she said abruptly, then left him.
*
With Rupert’s eyeglass, she kept a look-out for
distant ships, especially anchored ones that might disgorge boats to come ashore at night. But in truth, the weather was so bad that she barely saw any vessels at all. No one would choose to sail at such a time who didn’t absolutely have to. If they came at all, the visitors Louis expected would surely arrive by land.
Not that she had the chance to give him her opinion, for he did not contact her that day. Nor did he meet her in the woods the following day. They had made no definite assignation, but still, it had become such a regular meeting that Anna was somewhat piqued by his absence. And then worried.
“I think I shall go out this afternoon,” she said at lunchtime. “A long ride is just what I need.”
“Not too long, I hope,” Serena said. “We are expecting guests for dinner this evening.”
Anna hid her impatience. “Who is coming?”
“Oh, just the Benedicts, the Grants and the Winslows,” Serena replied. She cast Anna a quick, teasing smile. “And Major Doverton and Sir Lytton to make up the numbers.”
“Is Sir Lytton still in Blackhaven?” she asked, deliberately careless.
“Well, he was this morning,” Tamar said. “I met him in the coffee house. He didn’t mention leaving.”
And that was almost worse. While relieved nothing had befallen him, she could not understand why he was ignoring both her letter and her person.
Because he has always been using you and no longer needs you. His care, his tenderness, were all a sham.
Or for some reason he had come to believe hers were.
I have grown soft, but I will not be reliant. And she certainly would not rely on his assurances that he was watching Roseley. It was time she rode up there and saw for herself.
But even there, she was foiled. She had not been riding half an hour when Chessy went lame. Examination showed her the mare’s shoe was loose and she had to dismount and lead her mount back to the castle. By then, there was no time to ride to Roseley and back before Serena’s wretched dinner. She toyed with the idea of missing it and going to Roseley anyway, but for some reason it was not easy to be rude to Serena.
She stayed. Perhaps night was a better time to go anyhow. And at least she would see Louis at dinner.
Louis, however, was the last to arrive, full of apologies to Serena. If he had ever been the “street brat” he called himself, that child had vanished long ago into the charming, polished gentleman who greeted her with a smile, but no more warmth than he accorded Serena or Catherine Winslow.
“How do you do, Lady Anna?”
“Very well,” she replied gravely. “How do you do, Sir Lytton?”
But there was no secret smile in his eyes. He merely moved on to Mrs. Winslow.
At dinner, Serena had placed her between “Sir Lytton” and Major Doverton. Catherine Winslow was on Louis’s other side, and he seemed more inclined to speak to her. Anna laughed and flirted with the appreciative Major Doverton, until, finally, Louis turned to her as they finished the fish course.
“And what have you been doing since I last saw you?” he inquired.
She searched in vain for the warmth, the veiled teasing in his eyes, and again found nothing. “Writing letters, mainly,” she replied, and lowered her voice. “Did you not receive them?”
“Of course,” he replied.
“Then you have been busy?” Too busy to reply remained unspoken.
“Oh, terribly,” he assured her. “Taking the waters, strolling about the town. When did you say were returning to London?”
The pain was so unexpected, so sharp that she could not breathe. With cool eyes and bored, careless tongue, he was annihilating her. Only now did she realize how far she had fallen, how much she had given and expected in return. She, who had never been fooled or taken advantage of since she was fourteen years old, had been used up and discarded. As she had meant to do with him, before…
Before what? Before he had beguiled and enchanted her? Before she had turned into this needy, weak woman she despised.
“I don’t believe I did say.” Somehow, she managed to turn away from him as the servants cleared away the plates and brought in the next course. By then, she was going through the motions, talking and smiling with Major Doverton while ice reformed around her heart like a life-saving dressing.
Never, ever would she admit to this pain. She could not bear to think just yet of what to do with him, now that he had so clearly decided he did not need her. But she could and would carry on with the task Henry would have given her had he known anything about it. Then, she would deal with Louis.
When the ladies finally left the gentlemen to their port and brandy, she excused herself and went to purloin Rupert’s eyeglass once more. It gave her something to do while she planned her next move, which would be to ride in secret to Roseley and discover if Mrs. Lamont had visitors.
She didn’t really expect to see anything of interest, so when the glass revealed the dark ship anchored beyond the town, she had to look twice to be sure. Partially hidden by the headland, it appeared to be in darkness save for the odd light that came and went.
It could have been just a ship anchoring to wait out a coming storm. But if anything, the weather seemed calmer, the winds lighter, the air warming enough to begin a thaw. The sea was a little wild, perhaps, but not dangerously so. She wondered if it was Captain Alban, returned with a guest for the vacant hotel rooms…or with whoever Lady Arabella was cleaning the house at Roseley for.
And where the devil was Banion?
Excitement surged within her. Tonight, surely, the mystery would be solved. But first, she had to get through the remains of the evening. Joining the ladies in the drawing room, she allowed herself to be pulled into conversation which was, fortunately, entertaining for the most part. Catherine Winslow was quieter than most, although she appeared to regard Serena and Kate Grant as her friends. The senior Winslows clearly had a soft spot for Mrs. Grant but were somewhat aloof with Mrs. Benedict, who, as the governess, had married out of her station.
More for contrariness than compassion, Anna chose to sit by Mrs. Benedict, whom she found to be both wittier and more intelligent than most and was actually in the midst of genuine laughter when the gentleman entered the room.
Just for an instant, she caught Louis’s gaze on her. She might have imagined the sudden spark in his eyes, or the way they lingered, but it was enough to jolt her, to make her question everything all over again. Though not to change her plans.
When Serena poured the tea and she took Louis his cup, she murmured, “You should check the hotel tonight.” He inclined his head, accepting the cup.
Only later, as everyone moved and changed places, did she find him beside her. “Why tonight?” he murmured, as if there had been no interruption to their conversation.
“There is ship anchored beyond the headland. In darkness.”
“Show me?”
She did not answer him, but went to speak to Major Doverton, who had just asked her to sing.
Only as the guests were leaving, and she joined Tamar and Serena in waving them off from the front steps, did she linger beside Louis, who had ridden up to the castle.
“Follow me,” she invited, waving the carriages on their way, before she flitted around the side of the castle toward the cliffs. There, she looked again through Rupert’s purloined glass, and then passed it wordlessly to Louis.
“I think it’s the same ship,” he said. “Alban’s.” He spoke calmly, but his body suddenly seemed full of controlled energy.
“They could have come ashore by now. You should hurry back to the hotel.”
He cast her a quick, amused glance. “Thank you. I’m not convinced they will go to the hotel. Alban’s connection is with Roseley.”
“I will go there,” she said, turning away.
“No,” he said flatly.
She ignored that, holding out her hand for the glass. “We might meet in the morning to exchange discoveries. If you can spare the time from your hectic schedule.”
Mechanically, he dropped the glass into her waiting hand. “Anna—”
“Goodnight,” she said, walking away.
“Anna, don’t go up there,” he warned, leaping in front of her. “You don’t know who you’ll be walking into. And Alban’s men are not…gentle! Promise me you will stay in the castle and I will tell you everything I discover in the morning.”
She laughed. “I promise you nothing and I owe you nothing. Certainly not obedience, Colonel Delon.”
Perhaps it was foolish to reveal that she knew his identity, but she wanted to stamp on his arrogance for many reasons, at least some of which had nothing to do with her task. But she wouldn’t think of those, only watch his reaction.
His gaze fixed on her face. His own gave little away, and yet she knew, perhaps from his very stillness, that she had taken him by surprise. And then he smiled. Strangely, it wasn’t an unpleasant smile at all. It was almost…proud.
“Why, Anna,” he said softly. “You knew all along. Who has been playing with whom?”
She laughed as though she didn’t care, had never cared, and walked past him back to the front door. He didn’t follow. She thought she might have won back her pride, but it didn’t make her feel better.
*
By the time she had returned the glass to Rupert and changed into her boy’s clothing—pantaloons, shirt, coat, and overcoat, with thick leather gloves and sturdy boots—she had done all she could to suppress and banish her own intolerable feelings. Her only thought was to find out who was visiting Roseley. Perhaps then, she would know why and what, if anything, she should do about it. It wouldn’t necessarily be the same as Louis—Delon—might want to do, but that was neither here nor there.
Some of the stable boys lived in the rooms above the stables. But everything was dark and quiet all over the building as Anna crept in with her lantern. Chessy, her shoe repaired, snorted gently when Anna opened her stall door. She slipped on a bridle and saddle, then led the mare from the stable as quietly as she could.
The ground outside was soft from the melting snow, muffling the sound of hooves. When they were some distance from the stable, Anna mounted astride and pointed Chessy toward Roseley.
Blackhaven Brides (Books 5–8) Page 58