Stephanie Laurens - A Lady of His Own

“What did you find?”

“Not so much found as recalled. Papa and Amberly grew up together-they shared a schoolroom, went up to Oxford together, did the Grand Tour together. They were only distantly related, but very close friends, and the connection continued all their lives. Papa started collecting pillboxes when he was staying in Paris with Amberly, who at that time had a minor role in our embassy there.”

Charles said nothing; his eyes locked on her face, he nodded for her to continue.

“The other pertinent facts are that Amberly was Granville’s godfather, and his guardian after Papa died. And Nicholas and Granville knew each other, how well I don’t know, but Granville often visited Amberly’s house, so presumably Nicholas and Granville were frequently in each other’s company.

“And as I told you earlier, when Nicholas arrived unheralded in February, the week after Elaine and the girls had left for town, he spent five days contacting all the local smuggling gangs. According to Mother Gibbs, he was putting it about that in the matter of Granville’s activities with them, he was Granville’s replacement. Anything to do with Granville, they should see him-send word via the grooms at Wallingham Hall, and he’d come down and speak with them.”

“What did the local lads think of that? Were there any takers?”

“No.” She hid a ghost of a smile. “They see Nicholas as an outsider, almost a foreigner, but more than that, I don’t think they actually understand what fish he’s trawling for.”

“Very likely.”

Charles heard his voice, deep, resonant, cut across her lighter tones. She shouldn’t be involved in any of this, but she was. Leaning back in his chair, he caught her eye. “So you believe that Granville, possibly with your father’s connivance, was running secrets to the French via the smuggling gangs. He got said secrets from either Amberly or Nicholas, but regardless, Nicholas at least is involved.”

She nodded. “Yes. And-”

“You don’t think Granville enlisting to fight the French at Waterloo argues against his involvement? Or that perhaps he wasn’t aware of the nature of what he was doing?”

She met his gaze. “No. Granville…he was ten when you left to join the Guards. You didn’t really know him. He was a reckless, feckless boy, and he never grew up. Yes, he was spoiled, indulged in every degree, but as he didn’t possess a malicious bone in his body, everyone simply smiled, shook their heads, and let him be.

“Ferrying information to the French? He’d have considered that a great lark-the thrill, the danger, would have seduced him. He wouldn’t have really thought about what he was ferrying, that wouldn’t have been important. Pursuing excitement and thrills-that was Granville’s sole purpose in life. That was why he joined the army for Waterloo. Any contradiction honestly wouldn’t have occurred to him.”

He studied her eyes and thought she was wrong, but she’d pushed herself to accept what was for her a hugely painful interpretation. No hypothetical argument was likely to sway her.

And what she thought-the question of whether Granville and, the point she was trying to think of even less, her father before him had been knowingly involved in treason-was not of immediate importance. Not with her “cousin” Nicholas about, ferreting around, stirring up things even more effectively than he himself was.

She was watching him measuringly, lips and jaw set. Before he could speak, she did.

“If Granville is labeled a traitor, even posthumously, Elaine will be ostracized, to a lesser extent Constance-she’s now Lady Witherling-will be, too, and neither Emma nor Holly could hope to make a decent match. No gentleman of the ton will want to marry a traitor’s sister.”

She paused, then added, her gaze steady on his, “I would prefer not to be known as a traitor’s half sister, either, but at twenty-nine with my fortune my own, at least my future doesn’t rest so completely on society’s opinion.”

He waited, but she didn’t ask for any promises or assurances that he would keep her family safe, that he would find some way to protect them from the consequences should the truth prove as dire as she thought.

All of which made him even more determined to do so.

She’d trusted him with all she knew; he was tempted to ask what in their conversation last night had tipped the scales, but he wasn’t sure he truly wanted to know. She saw through him, to the real him, more easily than anyone save only his too-perceptive mother.

“I should mention that my commander, Dalziel, has investigated thoroughly but could find no evidence of any sensitive information from the Foreign Office actually reaching the French.” He grimaced. “Indeed, until I realized you’d already stumbled on something illicit, I was half-inclined to think the affair might prove to be all smoke and no fire.”

He caught her gaze. “However, even if we prove that what you suspect is true, and Nicholas is apprehended, the details will not be made public. Nicholas won’t stand trial, nor, indeed, will most of England even know of his apprehension or his crime, and even less of any others he might name as coconspirators.”

She frowned. “You mean it’s simply buried? Not”-she gestured-“paid for?”

“Oh, no-if he’s been involved in treason, he’ll pay.” He smiled one of his coldly dangerous smiles. “It’s just that no one will hear of it.”

She blinked. “Oh.”

While she digested that, he rapidly reviewed all she’d told him, all he now accepted, all he now suspected. “The first thing to do”-he looked up as her eyes snapped up to meet his-“is to take a look at this pillbox collection.”

“MY APOLOGIES. I’D THOUGHT YOU WERE EXAGGERATING.”

The look Penny threw him wasn’t difficult to interpret. She turned back to her self-appointed task of counting the dozens of pillboxes ranged on shelves in the ancient priest hole concealed behind a wall panel in the master bedchamber of Wallingham Hall.

She’d been right; this wasn’t a collection it was easy to explain away. Row after row of superb examples of the jeweler’s art glowed and winked and tempted. Charles wondered if she’d realized there were too many boxes to have been amassed over only a decade of spying. Too many boxes for the collection to have been Granville’s work alone.

He glanced around, mentally orienting the six-foot-by-twelve-foot chamber within the walls of the old manor. They’d ridden over, arriving midmorning, prepared to engage Nicholas in a discussion of the estate if he was there and they couldn’t avoid him. He was there, but in the library. As the house was Penny’s home, there was no reason to announce her arrival, or, therefore, his; regardless of his years away, the staff knew him as well as the Abbey staff knew Penny. She and he had walked upstairs, straight to the master bedchamber, to this hidden room.

One tiny window high on one wall let in a shaft of light. The walls themselves were solid stone. As in many priest holes, there was a second door, a narrow wooden one set low in the wall opposite the main entrance, by the corner with the outer wall. An old key sat in the lock. The escape route of last resort for any priest trapped there.

They’d closed the door to the master bedchamber, but left the hinged panel wide open. Charles caught the sound of footsteps plodding up the stairs. Penny continued counting, unaware. More out of instinct than real concern he moved to the priest hole’s threshold; Nicholas was not yet master there-he wasn’t using the master bedchamber.

He was, however, heading for it.

Charles cursed beneath his breath, caught the edge of the panel, and hauled it shut. Penny looked around, straightened, but blessedly made no sound as the panel dully clicked into place.

He looked at her; she stared at him. Beyond the panel they heard the sound of a boot step on the floorboards.

If Nicholas wasn’t using the room, then why had he come there?

Charles grabbed Penny’s arm and drew her to the small door. Grasping the key, he turned it, trying to be careful, but eventually had to force it; the lock hadn’t been used in years. It grated, then the bolt clunked over.

Just as the faint whirring of the panel’s mechanism reached them.

The panel popped open. The catch to release it was concealed in the ornate mantelpiece surrounding the fireplace farther down the bedchamber.

Charles wrenched the narrow door open, unceremoniously thrust Penny through, and followed on her heels. He pulled the door shut, fast and silent, rammed the key into the keyhole, turned, and heard the lock fall home.

Just as the panel hinges squeaked.

They held their breaths. Nicholas took a few steps into the priest hole, then stopped.

Penny closed her eyes, then opened them. There was no real difference in what she could see. Blackness.

The…corridor?-wherever they were was narrow, musty, and dusty; the wall against which Charles had crammed her was cold, hard stone. The space hadn’t been designed for two people; they were jammed together, his shoulder wedged against hers, her back to the wall opposite the wooden door.

She could hear her own breathing, shallow and rapid. Her senses were in knots, reacting to the black prison on the one hand, Charles’s nearness on the other. Her skin started to chill, then flushed, prickled.

Through the darkness, Charles found her hand and gripped reassuringly. She gulped and fought down a mortifying urge to grab him, to cling and burrow against his solid warmth.

He shifted; releasing her hand with a gentle pat, he slowly crouched, his shoulder and back sliding down her.

Her legs weakened; mentally cursing, she stiffened them.

A pinprick of light glowed faintly. She blinked, blinked again, realized Charles had extracted the key from the keyhole.