Stephanie Laurens - A Lady of His Own

“And they continued to be taken in?”

“Yes. At that time, he’d been their ‘advisor’ for decades and had, as far as they knew, never let them down. He’d also encouraged them to think he was addicted to his collecting.” Nicholas shrugged. “I’m not sure that he’s attached to the snuffboxes themselves so much as that they represent each ‘triumph’ he’s had in misleading the French.”

“I take it,” Charles said, jumping ahead, “that the murderer has been sent here to, in effect, render punishment?”

Nicholas’s expression turned grim. “That seems to be the case.”

“You said they found out after Waterloo.” Penny’s head was reeling. “How? What happened?”

“Remember what it was like then,” Nicholas said, “just a year ago? The near frenzy, tales of the ‘Corsican Monster,’ and so on. My father was tired of it-he wanted an end. Especially when Granville insisted on enlisting.”

Penny straightened in her chair. “Your father came here, just before Granville left. He tried to talk Granville out of going-I heard him.”

Nicholas nodded. “He didn’t want Granville to go. He tried to convince him by sending a last message to the French, tried to get Granville to believe that that was enough for him to do. Granville ran the message, of course, but he wasn’t about to stop there. He still rode off the next day.”

“What was that last message?” Charles asked.

Nicholas met Charles’s eyes. He was patently exhausted, but gamely went on, “My father knew very little of Wellington’s plans. No one did. But through the years of the Peninsula campaigns, my father had, through misdirecting the French, learned a great deal of Wellington’s strategies. When it comes to predicting how people will react when faced with given situations, my sire possesses an innate flair. So he tried to predict Wellington.

“He had access to excellent maps. He studied the terrain, and accurately picked the battlefield. He wanted a snippet, something to divert French attention, just a tiny push in the wrong direction. And this time he didn’t care if they found him out, because he knew this time the dice were being rolled for the last time.”

“What did he tell them?” Charles was leaning forward, elbows on his knees.

Nicholas smiled. “He told them precious little, but he dropped one place name.”

Charles stared at him, simply stared. “Don’t tell me. It begins with an ‘H.’ ”

Penny glanced at Charles, surprised by the sheer awe in his voice. She looked back at Nicholas.

Who nodded. “He told them Hougoumont.”

Charles swore softly, at length, in French.

“Indeed.” Nicholas shook his head. “For all that I think he’s a madman-” He broke off, gestured. “What can you say?”

Charles swore again and surged to his feet. He paced back and forth, then halted and looked at Nicholas. “I was on the field, not near Hougoumont, but none of us could understand why Reille was so obsessed with taking what was simply a protective outpost.”

“Precisely. He thought it was more than an outpost, because he’d been led to think so. My father is a past master at planting ideas without ever actually stating them.”

“Hell!” Charles raked a hand through his hair. “The French will never forgive him for that.”

“No. And I don’t think it’s only that, either.”

Charles looked at Nicholas; after a moment, he nodded. “Once they had reason to suspect, they looked back, and realized…”

“With the passage of years there would now be enough information available-diplomats have a terrible tendency to write memoirs-to expose at least some of his early ‘advice’ as completely bogus.”

“And once they started looking…good God! Talk about rubbing salt into an open wound.” Charles slumped back in his chair; his expression grew distant and progressively stony. “That’s why,” he said softly, “they’ve sent an executioner.”

Nicholas studied his face, then asked, “Are you using that term figuratively, or literally?”

Charles met his gaze. “Literally.” He glanced at Penny, verified that although she was pale, she was her usual composed self. “In the world of informers and ‘advisors,’ there are such people.”

After a moment, he frowned at Nicholas. “Why didn’t you tell me this as soon as I informed you why I was here?”

Nicholas looked back at him. “Would you have believed it?”

When Charles didn’t immediately answer, Nicholas continued, “Think back to what you said last night. You had most of the information, and from it you deduced we, the Selbornes, had been passing secrets for decades. The evidence is the boxes-the pillboxes here and the snuffboxes my father has. Who would believe they’d all been paid for essentially by one man’s imagination? You know more than most about the business, yet you admitted you found it difficult to believe.”

Nicholas paused, then said, “There is no evidence my father passed concoctions and not the truth. It’s much easier to believe, given the boxes and their value, that he passed real information for decades, and for some reason has now fallen out with his ex-masters.”

Charles held his gaze, then straightened in his chair. “You’re right except for one piece of information, and that you don’t know.”

“What?”

“There’s evidence by default that whatever your father passed, it wasn’t real. My ex-commander, Dalziel, is very good as his job, and he never could find evidence of any F.O. secrets actually turning up on the other side.” Charles stood, and stretched; at long last, the whole jigsaw was in place, barring only the executioner’s identity. He looked at Nicholas. “If it comes to it, and I don’t believe it ever will, not now, I’m sure Dalziel will be able to trace, and prove, instances of your father’s misdirection.”

“Oh.” Nicholas blinked up at him, then asked, “So what do we do next?” He grimaced. “I hope you’re reading your ex-commander correctly because you haven’t seen the snuffboxes.”

“Knowing Dalziel, he’ll be more interested in talking with your father.”

“In that, I wish him joy. The old man drives me insane.”

Charles grinned. “He’ll probably take to Dalziel.” He studied Nicholas’s careworn face, and sobered. “When did you learn of”-he gestured-“your father’s wild game?”

Nicholas snorted and closed his eyes. “He never told me. He, Howard, and Granville all knew I wouldn’t approve, that I’d force them to stop, so they kept it their secret.”

“They didn’t tell me, or anyone else, either,” Penny said.

Nicholas nodded. “I found out last December when by chance I came upon him in the priest hole here. He was examining the pillboxes. Once I’d seen them, they had to be explained. That was the first I’d heard of it.”

Charles hesitated, then said, “Your father retired from the F.O. in ’08.”

Without opening his eyes, Nicholas nodded again. “But I was there by then, and senior enough to have dispatch boxes frequently with me at home, preparing them for the secretary or the minister, or analyzing the latest developments.” He sighed. “My father was always a night owl. He knew how to handle the boxes. It was easy to take a peek when everyone else was abed. I never guessed…”

“Why would you?” Charles paced. “When the murderer killed Gimby, you must have suspected what he was after. Why didn’t you leave?”

Eyes still closed, Nicholas’s lips twisted. “Granville was gone, and so was Howard. The French didn’t know me specifically, but I assumed whoever they’d sent would believe that, as my father’s son, I’d been a player in the game. Then when Mary was killed, I realized he must have been sent to get some of the boxes, too…” He shrugged, winced, and caught his breath as his wounds pulled. “It seemed wiser to stay, and give him a target here…and you were here, too.”

“Better here than at Amberly, or in London?”

Nicholas’s lips quirked, but he didn’t reply.

Charles looked at Penny, read her concern; Nicholas was wilting fast. “The next thing we need do is to lay the whole before Dalziel-we can work on that tomorrow. There’s nothing more to do tonight-we may as well retire.”

Nicholas nodded, opened his eyes, and struggled to sit up.

Sliding a hand beneath Nicholas’s arm, Charles helped him to his feet. Nicholas stood, almost swaying, then he gathered himself. “Thank you.”

Penny rose. She and Charles walked with Nicholas, one on either side, up the stairs. When they reached the top, Nicholas smiled, tired but faintly amused, and saluted them. “I can manage by myself from here.”

Impulsively, Penny put a hand on his arm, stretched up, and kissed his cheek. “Take care. Ring if you need help. Charles has guards doing the rounds all night, so don’t be surprised at the footsteps. We’ll see you at breakfast.”

Nicholas nodded and turned away. They watched him walk slowly to his room, open the door, and go inside.

Together, they turned. She slipped her hand in Charles’s arm, and they headed for her room.

Ten minutes later, she slipped under the covers, and snuggled up against Charles. He was lying on his back, hands behind his head, staring up at the ceiling. One hand on his chest, she pushed back enough to look into his face. “What are you thinking?”

His gaze flicked down to meet hers. “That strange though it seems, having disliked him and having him dislike me on first sight, I now have a certain sympathy for old Nicholas.” His lips curved. Drawing his hands from under his head, he closed his arms about her and lifted her so she lay atop him. “He’s had to deal with the Selborne wild streak, and he’s really not up to it.”

She arched a brow. “And you are, I suppose.”

He smiled, devilishly, and shifted beneath her. “Oh, yes.”

THEY RECONVENED OVER THE BREAKFAST TABLE THE NEXT morning and decided on their way forward. Nicholas and Charles would work on a detailed report for Dalziel. Penny, meanwhile, would make a detailed inventory of the pillboxes.