A Lord Apart

by Jane Ashford

  “They do bully,” she replied.

  “They may try, but you shouldn’t be subjected to it.”

  “You want me to go away?” The idea was dismal.

  “No! It’s the last thing I want. I hate the thought.” The truth of this was obvious in his face. “But your well-being is more important than my…gratification.”

  He was so dear to her. “I wouldn’t leave you to those men. You don’t know how bad they can be.”

  “Even though you’re afraid.”

  She swallowed. “Yes. Some things are more important than mere fear.”

  “Mere fear. You really are the most amazing creature.” Whitfield’s hands tightened on hers. “This would all be simpler if you married me.”

  “What?”

  “That’s it.” He smiled as if all had become clear to him. “We’ll go up to London, get a special license, and tie the knot.” He might have been talking of some simple outing—a picnic or a drive in the country perhaps. “Let those weasels see how they like facing the Viscountess Whitfield. What a marvelous one you’ll make!”

  Penelope stared at him, stupefied. “Of course that’s impossible.” He couldn’t be offering the very fantasy she’d dreamed of.

  “On the contrary, it’s the obvious solution.”

  “Obvious!”

  “Utterly.” His smile was tender, devastating.

  “No. We can’t.” He didn’t understand.

  “Do you tell me that you don’t wish to marry me? Because that is the only factor that would weigh with me.”

  Penelope tried, but she couldn’t lie to him. “No, but you’d be ruined.”

  “So you do wish to marry me?”

  She nearly laughed, but he was taking this too lightly. “Marriage to me would pull you into my ruin.”

  Whitfield shook his head. “I have a certain amount of influence. And also, I don’t care a fig for society.”

  His hands were warm on hers. The look in his dark eyes heated her blood, and his sturdy figure felt like a bulwark. Penelope knew that she ought to continue resisting. But her dearest desire was being offered up with such generous enthusiasm. She’d vowed to take what she wanted. She found herself nodding.

  Whitfield laughed. He squeezed her fingers and bent to kiss her. “Splendid. We’ll leave tomorrow. In a few days we’ll be man and wife, and you will never have to leave me.”

  If she had anything to say about it, she never would.

  Sixteen

  They’d actually done it, Daniel thought as he stood beside Miss Pendleton—Penelope—before the church altar to be married. After two days of scrambling and some minor difficulties, they were ready to speak the words that would make them man and wife.

  He glanced at Macklin on his other side. The earl had been invaluable to their schemes. Naturally he was acquainted with the Archbishop of Canterbury, and he had helped get the special license in record time. Daniel had expected that the older man might argue against this marriage, but he hadn’t. Indeed, he’d offered them the hospitality of his town house, as well as a place to lock away the strongbox containing Daniel’s mother’s notebooks. Daniel patted his inner pocket. The key to the code rested there, and he would not be parted from it.

  Macklin had even left his valet at Frithgerd to distract the government men until they were well away. The fellow had expressed no qualms about his ability to do so, and they’d given the Foreign Office agents the slip. They hadn’t told the servants at Frithgerd where they were staying either. Daniel didn’t think any of them were official informers, but gossip traveled just as fast. Macklin’s town staff had been instructed to deny all knowledge of their existence. Such ruses wouldn’t hold up indefinitely, but they’d last long enough.

  The rector stepped forward to begin the marriage service. Miss Pendleton’s young maid and Tom sat in the pews, along with a scattering of strangers who’d wandered into the church. Daniel checked Penelope’s expression. Her face was hard to read just now. Happy but bewildered? Pleased but anxious? None of those?

  The clergyman spoke. “Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God.”

  Daniel had heard the words many times before, but today they were for him. A thrill crackled through him, tempered by a brush of apprehension. The responses he spoke—clearly, evenly—set a course for the rest of his life. He had no regrets, but the weight of the occasion affected him. “Till death do us part” was a portentous vow.

  Half an hour later, the deed was done. They had signed the register and come out into the sultry London morning, where Macklin’s carriage waited to take them to his home in Berkeley Square.

  “Did you see the dragon in the colored glass?” asked Kitty the maid. “St. George stuck him good.” She made a clawing motion.

  “It was his horse drew my eye,” replied Tom. “It’s all very well for a knight to be brave, but a horse who don’t bolt when a giant serpent curls around his legs, that’s something.”

  “War-horses are trained to endure the chaos of battle,” said Macklin, amusement in his tone.

  “The sound of cannons and all,” Tom replied with a sage nod. “But not a great fire-breathing beast with teeth long as your arm. There’s no training for that.”

  “Very true,” said the earl, as Daniel contemplated the somewhat eccentric nature of his wedding party.

  Macklin’s servants had prepared a wedding breakfast, even though no guests had been invited. Their excuse was that most of high society was out of town at this time of year, and indeed, Daniel’s particular friends were at house parties in the country. But they might have assembled a small group if they had not been more or less in hiding. They had sent an announcement of the marriage to the papers and left it at that. Neither of them had close family to include, after all.

  His new wife—his wife!—looked dazed, Daniel thought. She had every right to be fatigued. They’d raced through the last two days like sprinters. They could rest now, however. They would stay in London a while before returning to Frithgerd. A few days, a week, he couldn’t think that far ahead. His mind was full of the fact that this was his wedding day, and he and Penelope would soon be alone.

  Macklin came to stand beside him. “I find I need to go out of town,” he said. “There was a letter waiting here that didn’t get sent on to Frithgerd.”

  “Ah.” Daniel set aside his concern that this might disrupt their plans. “Nothing too bad I hope.”

  “Just a matter that requires my attention.”

  “We’ll go when you do.”

  “Nonsense. You will stay, as we agreed. Please treat my house as your own.”

  “That’s very kind.” It was also a relief. Daniel didn’t want to return to the worries they’d left behind.

  A footman appeared in the doorway. “Mrs. Thorpe has arrived, my lord,” he said to Macklin.

  Daniel wondered who Mrs. Thorpe might be. Then he turned and saw Penelope looking at him and forgot all else.

  The earl nodded. “Offer her refreshment, and tell her I’ll be there directly. Is Tom ready?”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  Macklin turned back to Daniel. “I’ll send word to Clayton to follow me as soon as you have no more need for him.”

  “I believe he’s done his part. You shouldn’t be deprived of your valet any longer. You’ve been more than kind.”

  Acknowledging this with old-fashioned courtesy, Macklin took his leave.

  * * *

  This place was beautiful, Penelope thought as she walked through the suite of rooms the Earl of Macklin had allotted to them. They were far from his own quarters, had he remained at home, and the combination of luxury and privacy was perfect. Their London host was a kind man after all. She’d felt no hint of the disapproval she expected from the haut ton. She hoped the problem that had called him away with such an intent expr
ession was easily solved.

  Movement in the corner of her eye made Penelope turn. A large mirror hung on the wall, reflecting her from head to toe. She’d been married in one of her everyday gowns, a pale-blue muslin, and a favorite straw bonnet with blue flowers, currently sitting on the dressing table. No wardrobe of new bride clothes for her or flurry of excited friends. Gazing into the glass, she saw a solemn young woman with pale hair and wide blue eyes, utterly familiar and yet somehow new. She was married, to the husband she’d longed for, like a wish come true in a fairy tale. The figure in the mirror grinned at her. “Pleased with yourself?” asked Penelope.

  The scent of roses drifted through the open window from the garden at the back of the house. Penelope went over and looked at the banks of flowers in the golden light of afternoon. A tray on a table beneath the sill held a bottle of champagne and a bowl of strawberries. The earl’s staff had thought of everything.

  The door opened and Whitfield—Daniel—came in. As easily as if they both occupied these rooms, together. Which they did. The thought sent a thrill through her. He held up her cashmere shawl. “Found it,” he said. “It had slipped down behind the drawing room sofa.”

  “I could have gone myself.”

  “But isn’t a husband meant to fetch and carry?” he answered with a smile.

  “Really? I hadn’t heard that.” He really was her husband. She’d actually done it.

  “Ah. Now I’ve dropped myself in the soup.”

  “Indeed. I’ll expect all sort of services.”

  One corner of his mouth quirked up as he met her eyes. A wave of heat moved from Penelope’s cheeks down her whole body.

  He put aside the shawl and went to the window. “Champagne. Splendid.” He twisted out the cork and filled two stemmed glasses. “We must have a toast,” he added, handing her one. “It’s traditional.”

  As most things about their wedding weren’t, Penelope thought.

  “To a long and—”

  Penelope moved. She set down her glass with a click and stepped close to him. In fairy tales, it was dangerous to predict happiness, or to ask for too much. Practically a guarantee of disaster. They mustn’t press their luck. She took his glass, reached to put it by her own, and set her hands on his shoulders. He was still looking down at her with surprise when she kissed him.

  Daniel was briefly startled. Then the touch of her lips, the feel of her leaning into him, set his body alight. He pulled her closer and sank into the kiss. Through a haze of desire, he thought that there was no one else like her in the world, and she was his for all his life.

  They were both breathless when he picked her up and carried her to bed.

  “It’s not even dark yet,” she murmured. “Are we to have a wedding afternoon instead of a wedding night?”

  “Both,” he replied. “And we will wake together tomorrow and every day after that.”

  They dealt with buttons and laces and hooks with soft laughter and a bit of fumbling. Eagerness on both sides made up for a lack of familiarity.

  Finally, they came together skin to skin, learning each other’s bodies with hands and lips. The consummation that Daniel had dreamed of for weeks was unutterably sweet, and he reveled in the sounds of excitement and satisfaction he drew from Penelope. There would be more of those, he vowed, as he discovered more about her.

  Afterward, as they lay entwined, it came to him that with her, he would find the home he’d never really had.

  * * *

  “I wonder what it would have been like if we’d met as children?” asked Penelope idly. It was their third day in London, and they were cuddled together on the sofa in their sitting room. “We might have so easily, since our mothers were friends. In fact, it’s odd that we didn’t.”

  “Mine was too immersed in her own concerns for visits,” replied Daniel. “You could see that in her letters.”

  “We don’t have them all.”

  “Or any reason to think the missing ones are different. And a good deal of evidence for my point.” The haze of happiness in which Daniel had been basking thinned a bit.

  “I can’t believe my mother would have cared so much for a cold person. She wasn’t the least bit foolish.”

  Daniel shrugged. “I can’t tell. My parents always felt like strangers to me. I really didn’t know either of them.”

  Penelope sat straighter, out of the circle of his arm. “We could look through the notebooks. They’re a record of your mother’s thoughts.”

  Much as he regretted the loss of their cozy interlude, Daniel was curious.

  “Unless you think we mustn’t,” she added. “Because of the secrets.”

  “They’re mine. I’ll look as much as I wish.”

  They fetched the metal strongbox from a locked cupboard and opened it. The pile of notebooks inside looked just as they had when they’d found them. Penelope lifted them out and put them on the table under the window. “Shall we just choose one?” she asked.

  “Why not?”

  “You do it.”

  Daniel let his hands hover over the stack. Feeling no particular connection to any, he pulled one out and set it before them. Penelope turned back the cover. “St. Petersburg, 1801,” she read from the top of the page. “Russia! Do you have the key?”

  Taking the folded sheet of paper from his inner coat pocket, Daniel admired the animation on her face. His wife would never be able to resist a puzzle.

  “I think we need a way to make notes about the substitutions,” she said. “It may be hard to keep track otherwise. We’ll burn them afterward.”

  Daniel went to Macklin’s library for paper and pen. Penelope was bent over the notebook when he came back. “Your mother listed the number of ships in the harbor and the regiments posted nearby. She used little drawings to write words when she didn’t have any set code for them. See?”

  He leaned closer to look at the line above her finger. The tiny pictures—birds, flowers, animals—looked like doodles rather than anything important. A stranger leafing through this journal would mistake his mother for a strange obsessive. Albeit one who could draw. Each image was distinct and identifiable. A rose, a fox, a magpie.

  Penelope looked back and forth from the key to the page. She wrote out a word, and another. “Great heavens, I think this says… Yes, it says the Russian tsar was killed.”

  “What?”

  Penelope worked through more of the code. “On March 23 in the early hours of the morning, the tsar was assassinated.” She looked at Daniel.

  They bent over the notebook together, but of course all he saw was gibberish.

  “I think these next words must be names.” Penelope jotted them down. “Bennigsen, Pahlen. They have the code for soldiers next to them. And then it says ‘killers.’”

  Daniel couldn’t quite fathom that his parents had been present for such events, still less that they’d been observing and recording for the British government. He’d always seen them as bland and heedless, their minds devoted to trivialities.

  “Do you remember such a thing? The assassination must have been mentioned in all the newspapers.”

  “It may have been talked of at school,” Daniel replied. “I’m afraid I was more interested in cricket when I was eight years old.”

  Penelope nodded. “I was too young to know anything about it.” She looked down the page, consulting the code as she went. “Look at this. She’s written ‘Alexander’ in her picture code, with question marks on either side.”

  “Isn’t Alexander the name of the tsar now?” They stared at each other, working it out. Then Daniel spoke slowly. “Is she suggesting that he was involved in his father’s murder?”

  “Or wondering anyway? It seems so.”

  “That would be…” He hesitated to finish the sentence.

  “Patricide,” said Penelope. “Treason. Rebellio
n of a sort. Certainly, it’s a question the tsar would not want raised. And hasn’t Alexander had some troubles with his people? Reformers?”

  “I don’t know.” He’d never paid much heed to politics, which his parents must have found shallow, even irresponsible, Daniel realized. Perhaps that was why they never told him anything.

  “I begin to see why the government wants these notebooks under their own care,” said Penelope. “This is inflammatory information.”

  “Indeed.”

  She turned the page, did some more deciphering. “They left Russia soon after that. By ship.”

  “Probably a good idea.” Daniel looked at the date on the page. “Late March. That would have been the end of term. I suppose I went to a friend’s for the school holidays. I generally did. And resented the necessity, more often than not. Though not the boys who invited me.” He’d made good friends at school, Daniel thought, and those holidays had been a big part of that. Should he have been more grateful? “I suppose I must admit that the death of a world leader was more important than where I spent my off time.” And yet he couldn’t quite forgive his parents’ long absences even so. He was glad to know they’d been dedicated and performed an important service, but he still wished they’d paid more heed to him.

  “Not to a child,” replied Penelope.

  “True. Still, I feel a bit petty.”

  “If it was me, I might wonder why it had to be my parents who gathered information. Out of all the people who might have served the British government.”

  She’d hit it exactly. “And your answer would be because your mother wished to,” said Daniel. “She dreamed of adventures. Not nursery duty.”

  “And whose dreams are more important? The parent’s? Or the child’s?”

  Could he choose his own comfort over his mother’s ambitions? Must these two things be in conflict? “I don’t know. Whose?”

  “I don’t know either.” Penelope shrugged. “But perhaps it’s a question to consider before one has a child.”

  Daniel stiffened. He hadn’t thought about being a father. Only a husband. And yet the one most often followed the other. Without much consideration, as far as he’d seen. It was expected that he would provide an heir to his title and estates. What more could he, would he, have to offer his offspring? “I understand responsibility,” he said, answering his thoughts as well as her remark. “I won’t be running off to Russia or elsewhere at every opportunity. Nor will you.” He felt a stab of anxiety at the idea of her leaving.