Chapter 21
Nick would have to meet with Warwick that night to apprise him of his brother's success in Germany, but after seeing the earl with Fiona that afternoon, Nick was not sure he could even be civil to the man. The only thing Nick was sure of right now was his desire to run his sword through the foreign secretary.
For the sake of king and crown, though, Nick would set aside his personal dislikes.
After discreetly sending a note around to Warwick, Nick informed his wife he would not be taking dinner with her.
He tried not be affected by the forlorn look that crossed her face. “Why?” she asked, wide solemn blue eyes gazing up at him.
“Something's come up. Business.”
He braced himself not to be affected by the hurt look on her face. If she could stealthily meet with Warwick, she did not deserve his sympathy.
“But . . . Adam will be here. And Trevor, too. Could you not have told me earlier?”
He gave her an icy glare. “As a matter of fact, I could not. The important matter that calls me away has only just come up.”
She started to say something, then clamped shut her mouth.
That she had wanted to question him, he did not doubt. Fortunately, she was an obedient wife, complying with his request that they never discuss his business.
A pity she could not be so obliging in other matters. A pity Warwick had snared her heart before Nick ever got the opportunity to. Were it not for Warwick, Nick was certain he and Fiona would have suited very well.
Would have? His hands fisted, he cursed under his breath. He and Fiona
did
suit. Dammit! She was the most passionate lover he'd ever known. She was good to Emmie and to Verity, and solicitous of Nick's every need. So why could Nick not be grateful for all she had given him?
Because, he admitted ruefully to himself, he would never be content until he possessed her completely, body and soul.
Her brows lowered as she scanned his hardened face. “What's the matter, dearest? You're not yourself. You're angry.”
How could she call him
dearest
when she had just come from her lover? “It's nothing,” he snapped, storming from the house.
He had asked Warwick to meet him at a public house in out-of-the-way Hampstead, where Nick waited for some time, sipping his ale in the dark, firelit room before the foreign secretary finally arrived.
“It's rather difficult to extricate oneself from one's prying wife,” Warwick explained as he came to sit beside Nick, “when the secretive nature of our business cannot be revealed. But I suppose you know all about thatâbeing a married man yourself.”
“A married man who values honesty and fidelity in a marriage,” Nick said, scowling.
Warwick gave him a puzzled glance. “Another matter on which we are in agreement, then.” Warwick relaxed. “I take it you've had some communication from your brother?”
“I have,” Nick said in an icy voice. “He's depleted the major German cities of francs.”
“I thought he must have.” Warwick nodded. “My contacts in Paris tell me the French minister of finance is becoming nervous.”
Nick gave a sly grin. “And this is only the beginning. In two monthsâif our plan succeedsâthey will be frantic.” He paused, giving Warwick a quizzing look. “Do you think they suspect your hand in this?”
“All they know is that the Birmingham family is trying to manipulate the French currency. To my knowledge, they've made no connection between you and the English government.” Warwick frowned. “I would advise you and your brothers to exercise caution. There's the possibility French assassins may wish to put a stop to your âactivities.'”
Nick raised a brow. “My brother William is well guarded at all times.” That he or Adam would be in danger had not crossed Nick's mind until now, but he quickly realized Warwick was right to warn him. Adam, too, needed to be apprised of the danger.
“Yes,” Warwick said, “I suppose he would have to be well guardedâcarrying around such vast amounts of money.”
A moment later the foreign secretary said, “I feel obligated to ensure your family's safety. Perhaps I should assign Horse Guards to protect you, your brother, and your wife. They will, of course,
not
be in uniform.”
Fiona!
Surely no one would try to harm her! Nick would kill with his bare hands anyone who ever threatened his wife. He stiffened, his hands fisting as he eyed Warwick. “Birminghams take care of their own.”
“But no one's better trained than the Guards.”
“Be that as it may, can you vouch for their complete integrity?” Nick's simmering gaze locked with Warwick's. “A careless word from one of them could jeopardize my wife's safety.”
Warwick's face blanched, which did not surprise Nick. Of course he would worry about Fiona. He was in love with her. “We're speaking of his majesty's finest soldiers,” Warwick protested.
“I don't care who we're speaking of !” Nick snapped. “The fewer people who know of my involvement with you, the better.”
Warwick watched him with narrowed eyes. “I must insist that Lady Fiona be guarded at all times.”
“She will be, dammit! I'm perfectly capable of seeing to my wife's every need.” A pity their most well-trained men were on the continent. Nevertheless, before he returned home tonight, he would detail a pair of trusted employees to guard Fiona day and night.
The next few minutes were tense. Both men feigned a high degree of interest in the flames dancing in the room's fireplace.
“Where does your brother go now?” Lord Warwick finally asked.
“To Naples.”
“A brave man,” Warwick said, “given the fact that city's a French stronghold.”
Nick's gaze flicked to Warwick, silently cursing the man's exceptionally broad chest. “I'm hoping my brother's friendship with Napoleon's brother there will provide him immunity from danger.”
“Since Bonaparte rules the city, your faith is likely not misplaced.”
Nick's dark eyes sparkled. “Plus, my brother is adept at greasing the right palms.”
“Bribery's good,” Warwick said, grinning.
“Ale?” Nick asked.
“I believe I will.”
After a bumper of ale was placed on the well-worn table in front of Warwick, Nick drew in his breath. “As I was driving down The Strand today, I saw you with my wife.” Nick's eyes narrowed. “Do you care to explain?”
Stiffening, Warwick did not answer for a moment. Then he said, “I suggest you ask Lady Fiona.”
With a mumbled curse, Nick slammed his bumper onto the table and stalked from the establishment.
His fury with Fiona did not keep him from driving to James Hutchinson's establishment in Cheapside. Even if the man was asleep, Nick would have no compunction about waking him. The sixty-year-old Hutchinson owed his comfortable circumstances to the Birmingham coffers. It was Nick's father who had hired the former dragoon, who was as skilled with weaponry as he was with pugilism.
That a light shone at Hutchinson's upstairs window pleased Nick. He would not have to awaken him. Dismounting, Nick's gaze flicked over the establishment's bay window and up to the suspended placard that read, “Hutchinson's School of Fencing.” Paying students, of course, were never accepted. The school was a training ground for the Birmingham's private army of skilled guards, men who were paid generously enough to ensure their allegiance to the Birminghams, men who passed Hutchinson's rigorous tests.
“Mr. Birmingham! To what do I owe the pleasure?” asked Hutchinson as he swept open the rough timber door.
Nick would not answer until he was satisfied that no one could overhear them. Once he had divested himself of his coat, climbed steep wooden stairs to Hutchinson's living quarters, and sat in a comfortable chair facing Hutchinson's hearth, he answered. “I have urgent need for your menâour menâto guard Mrs. Birmingham at all times.”
From the grave look on Hutchinson's face, it was obvious to Nick that the man thought Nick distrusted his bride. “A man in my position makes many enemies,” Nick explained. “I should not like an enemy of mine to seek retribution on my innocent wife.” As angry as he was with her, the very idea of anyone injuring Fiona was unbearable to contemplate.
Hutchinson's bushy gray brows lowered. “Have there been any threats against Mrs. Birmingham?”
“No, but a good defense can unhinge the most aggressive offensive. Hasn't that always been our belief?”
Hutchinson's florid face brightened. “Indeed it has. On that, my dear sir, we are in perfect agreement.”
“Is anyone available?”
“As it so happens I've a pair of talented young men who've just completed their training. They're shrewd, good with their fists, and skilled with pistols and swords.”
Nick stood up. “I should like to see that they guard my wife day and night.”
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It had been a wretched night. Fiona had been so obviously upset at dinner that Adam and Trevor departed as soon as the plates had been removed. Even Verityâwho was the most amiable of creaturesâhad sensed Fiona's distress and leaped at the first opportunity to excuse herself from her sister's company. “If you should need someone to listen,” Verity had said in a grave voice, “I stand at the ready.”
Fiona's heart softened even more toward her sister. In her wisdom, Verity had not asked if Fiona were ill, nor had she intruded on Fiona's privacy by demanding to know the source of her misery. Intrinsically, she had connected Nick's absence to Fiona's sulkiness.
Fiona had thanked her, then went to her own bedchamber, weighed down by the almost unbearable grief of Nick's absence and the hostility of their parting.
Had he gone to Miss Foley or to the Duchess of Glastonbury? Dismissing her maid, Fiona collapsed on her bed. As hard as she had tried to be a loving, dutiful wife, she had failed. She could not even hold Nick's affection long enough to get her with child.
Before her own marriage, she had complacently accepted the fact that married men of the
ton
had their lady birds. Her own father had several over the course of his marriage, and her mother had known the identity of most of them. Even her mother had taken the occasional lover while maintaining a perfectly harmonious, affectionate relationship with her husband.
But Fiona was obviously not cut from the same cloth as her parents. Under no circumstances could she ever accept her husband taking a lover. The very thought was like a vise crushing and twisting her bleeding heart.
She wished to be angry with Nick, but how could she when love had never been part of their marriage? He had neither promised to love her nor asked for her love. He had fulfilled his part of the agreement by supplying the twenty-five thousand pounds for Randy's release and by giving Fiona his name and access to his vast wealth. In return, the house of Birmingham was uniting in every way with the prestigious Agar family. She sobbed. Was siring a child with Agar blood the only reason Nick had bed her?
Had he not shared that all-consuming hunger that had devoured her? A pity she lacked bedroom experience. How was she to know if his desire to make love to her was genuine? He had certainly given every indication that his hunger for her matched hers for him.
From her desk she took the slender volume that Nick had given her on Christmas morning. She clutched it to her breast for a moment before turning to the page featuring “The Garden of Love,” a morose poem she knew by heart, and with tears gathering in her eyes she read.
I went to the Garden of Love,
And saw what I never had seen:
A Chapel was built in the midst,
Where I used to play on the green.
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And the gates of this Chapel were shut,
And Thou shalt not writ over the door;
So I turn'd to the Garden of Love,
That so many sweet flowers bore.
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And I saw it was filled with graves,
And tomb-stones where flowers should be;
And Priests in black gowns, were walking their rounds,
And binding with briars, my joys and desires.
Now weeping, she extinguished all the candles and climbed upon her lonely bed. As she lay in the darkness of her bedchamber she wondered if her husband was lying beside Miss Foley or Hortense at this very moment. Would he remark on their beauty as he had on hers? Would his hands skim over their heated flesh while he proclaimed his affection? Would his lips taste the other woman's lips and neck; would his mouth close over her nipple in the same way he had tasted Fiona? The very memory of it made her throb deep and low.