A Necessary Deception (10 page)

“But I’m talking to these—oh, all right.” She flashed the gentlemen a brilliant smile. “Do call at our next at home. I’d like to know more about your plans.” She took Whittaker’s arm. “It’s so fascinating, Whit. There’s a Russian man trying to affix propellers to a balloon . . .”

Her voice faded into those of the crowd and the beginning of
Macbeth
, which no one seemed to notice. Not even Mr. Barnaby, who was still engaged in subdued conversation with Frobisher and the other man. The latter kept glancing across the opera house. Lydia followed his gaze but couldn’t work out to which box it was directed. Not the royal box at any rate. That meant nothing. The royal box was empty.

Wishing theirs was too, Lydia strode to the curtain at the back of the box and glanced down the corridor toward Cassandra and Whittaker. He gripped her hands and gazed down at her, his brows still furrowed and dark. Cassandra blinked up at him with nearsighted vagueness, her lips pursed, her chin set, and a muscle jerking at the corner of her jaw.

Lydia took half a step forward, not certain whether or not she should intervene. She’d been so concerned about protecting her family from her own blackmailer, especially protecting Honore from Frobisher’s attentions, that she hadn’t considered needing to protect Cassandra from her fiancé. If he was just as domineering as Father, preventing a Bainbridge daughter from pursuing an interest that hinted of independent thought, something must be done about it. Cassandra mustn’t end up feeling as inadequate as did her older sister, nor as lonely.

Lydia took a step forward.

A hand landed on her arm. She jumped and turned to see Mr. Barnaby standing beside her.

“I beg your pardon, my lady. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“It’s all right. How may I assist you?”

“We need to talk someplace where we will not be disturbed. Will you please ride with me in the park tomorrow without any interference from others?” His tone, his expression held an intensity that sent a frisson of apprehension down Lydia’s spine.

She licked suddenly dry lips. “Could we take a carriage? I prefer that to riding, if I’m to talk.”

“Of course.” He released her arm and bowed. “Tomorrow at eleven o’clock.”

“I’ll be ready.”

To hear what? Truths or lies?

“Now, if we may be so impolite, my lady,” Barnaby said, “Gerald and I must take our leave. We are committed elsewhere.”

“All right.” Lydia stepped aside.

Barnaby, Frobisher, and the other man to whom they’d been speaking swept past her. The latter two engaged in dialogue still. The word
faro
drifted back to Lydia.

So they were off to a gaming party. She curled her lip and turned back to the box to chaperone Honore and the gentlemen remaining in her company.

“What do I have to say?” Cassandra’s voice rang down the passageway. “Five words, Whittaker. We are not married yet.” She wrenched her hands free of her fiancé’s and dashed along the corridor.

“Cassandra, don’t,” Lydia and Whittaker called together.

Catching up with her, Whittaker reached out to grab hold of Cassandra.

Lydia stayed his hand. “Let me go after her. You’re making a scene.”

“She’s making the scene. I only want—”

Lydia grasped his shoulder and turned him toward the box. “Look after Honore. I’ll be right—”

A cry rang above the tumult inside the auditorium. Lydia swung around in time to see Cassandra miss her footing at the top of a flight of steps and begin to tumble to the bottom.

Christien’s shoulder throbbed. The numbing effects of the laudanum had worn off, and now his head was clear, his memories sharp.

He lay half propped up in the big bed, listening to the sounds of the house. It ticked and creaked, as did most houses at night, but no one seemed to be about. He hadn’t heard a single voice or footfall on corridor or step in the past half hour of wakefulness. Someone had been in his room, but long enough ago the fire burned low along with the candles on the mantel, and when he struggled to rise, he found the water in the pitcher tepid at best.

A bell pull dangled in one corner of the room, a thick rope decorated with gold embroidery. He stretched out his left hand with the intention of pulling it and requesting fresh candles so he could read, a pot of tea or coffee to drink, perhaps some food to eat.

He curled his fingers around the pull. Silken threads dangled halfway to the floor and twisted above to the ceiling and the mechanism that would ring in the kitchen below stairs. Long and soft like Lydia’s hair. Or as he imagined her hair would be flowing down her back. The curls that perpetually escaped their pins and bounced against her cheek right in front of her ear charmed him, lured him. He’d longed to stroke it, even cut it off in that prison office when he feared he would never get released from the living death of Dartmoor. In the parlor, in the park as she attempted her less than graceful mounting of the gelding, that curl bounced and swayed, shimmering with blue-black lights.

He released the rope without tugging it and pressed a hand against his brow. He must think of something about Lydia other than his attraction to her—whether or not to take her into his confidence. He hoped it would compel her to leave London, as much as he wished for her to remain near, selfish man that he was. He wanted her to take her family and return to Devonshire, where the men who wanted him dead couldn’t include her in the accident that would again befall him. The fatal accident, if they had their way.

Now that he’d been introduced to a few important hostesses, he didn’t need Lydia’s company. That he wanted it didn’t matter. Her safety did. And if he told her the truth, she wouldn’t betray him. The blackmail assured her silence.

“
Quel désastre!
” Christien pressed his left hand against the pounding pain in his right shoulder. The agony was beginning to seep up to his head the longer he stood.

He sank onto the edge of a chair and propped his chin in his hand. The shoulder would hold him back for more days, possibly weeks. He needed to move, to work. Lydia was his only hope.

Another reason to take her more deeply into his confidence and pray she believed him.

He feared his prayers would not be heard. His work had forced him to tell too many lies over the years, lies that sometimes caused harm to others. They were necessary. This was war. Yet righteous as his actions might be in the eyes of man, Christien feared they were not in the eyes of God. Telling the truth to someone would feel like a spring shower washing the grime of winter away from cobblestones, brick, and mortar.

But the other man calling himself Mr. Lang, the one who had blackmailed Lydia, would too likely stand in his way, having convinced Lydia that Christien was an enemy of England. His own Mr. Lang, the legitimate government agent who had directed Christien’s path for a decade, hadn’t made contact since reaching London. Christien’s messages had gone unanswered.

Many explanations occurred to Christien as to why. Lang often got called away, had to slip into France to rescue an agent. With matters going badly between England and America, he could have been sent to the other side of the ocean, trusting Christien to follow instructions and work on his own, as he had so often managed over the years.

Lydia didn’t trust easily. With a husband like Sir Charles Gale, Christien understood why. He had been a neglectful and selfish husband.

An unfaithful one.

Christien hadn’t liked him, even while he helped him. He needed to help him. It made up for those he’d hurt in the performance of his duty to his country. But for a man with a beautiful, intelligent, and talented wife like Lydia to die with the name of another woman on his lips . . .

Christien’s left hand curled into a fist. “How could he wrong her like that?”

Gale’s behavior had opened the way for the second Mr. Lang, the wrong Mr. Lang. But how to convince Lydia that Christien knew the right one, or a different one, for that matter?

The letters of introduction, of course. Sometimes the differences in handwriting could be difficult to detect, but it was worth a try.

He’d suggested she look and tell him what she found. She never had. She hadn’t remained in his chamber long enough to say anything beyond courtesy and had never been alone long enough to give herself the opportunity to share a word with him.

Despite the pain, he must not let himself take medicine again. Despite the pain, he must learn what she had. He could wait and ask her the next time she deigned to visit him, or . . .

He glanced at the brass clock on the mantel. The hour was early by ton standards. The first act of the play would scarcely be over. No doubt the servants all lounged in their hall, enjoying their night off from tending to the family. He could go to her room and look for correspondences with no one the wiser.

He knew the location of her room. He’d heard her talking. He couldn’t hear words, only the rich timbre of her voice. She’d been scolding the cat. He caught the meow responding as though they shared a dialogue. He’d smiled.

He didn’t smile now. His face tightened with every step toward the door. Putting his foot down, however gently, sent fresh pain shooting through his shoulder. No matter. He must go, must find out, must make plans in the event the two handwritings were the same.

If they were the same, he must abort his mission and flee—with Lydia.

Awkward in a nightshirt, with one sleeve cut out to accommodate the sling, and a dressing gown only draped over the right shoulder, he haltingly made his way to the door and pulled it open. In the opening, he stood and waited, listening. Inside, the house lay quiet. Outside, carriages rumbled past, and some drunken-sounding young men stood in the square and sang off-key. He couldn’t hear so much as a mouse creeping about, let alone a member of the family or staff. Not even the cat.

Reassured, his way lit by candles in sconces affixed at intervals to the walls, he painstakingly began his way up the steps. He needed to grip the banister and take one step at a time, setting first his left foot on the tread, then his right. One . . . two . . . three . . .

He reached the next landing. Two doors opened off it. More rooms ran through the house toward the front, but because of the window tax, they wouldn’t have direct access to the outside. The notion of sleeping in one of those chambers made Christien shudder. It was too much like the black hole, the windowless chamber at Dartmoor where the guards tossed prisoners for punishment.

He’d gone there for two days when he’d insisted once too often he should be released.

Shivering in the chilly air of the stairwell, he turned to his left and gripped the door handle. It lifted under his fingers. The door swung inward. He stepped over the threshold to a soft Aubusson carpet in blues and lavenders, silk draperies and cushions, and that sweet, crisp scent of honey and citrus that Lydia wore.

He couldn’t close the door or he would have no light. No matter. He could see her desk, the most likely place for correspondences to lie.

He also saw the cat. A ghostly image against the carpet, drifting toward him. “
Me-ow?
”

“I’m just intruding for a moment.” He wanted to stoop and stroke the feline’s fur but doubted his ability to rise again. “Perhaps we can get acquainted later.”

He limped into the room and pulled open the top drawer of the desk.

And three floors below, the front door opened to a rush of excited female voices.

“I can walk.” Cassandra pushed against Whittaker’s shoulder. “Let me down.”

“You shouldn’t. Where should I take her?” He looked toward Lydia.

Cassandra clenched her fists. “You may ask me, sirrah. I am nearly one and twenty, quite old enough to make my own decisions.”

“Up to her bedchamber,” Lydia said.

“And have to endure Honore’s sulks.” Yet Cassandra was the sulky-sounding one at that moment.

“I’ll take her to the library,” Whittaker suggested. “I have a thing or two to say to her—”

“I won’t endure you sounding like my father.” Cassandra spoke through clenched teeth.

“Children.” Lydia sighed. “But the library—”

“Just set me down and go away,” Cassandra commanded.

“Take her into the library,” Lydia said. “I’m not certain she needs a physician, but some cold compresses won’t go amiss. Barbara?”

“I’m here.” Barbara headed for the kitchen. “We should have ice enough to make a cold compress, and I’ll get some tea going.”

“You’ll get a servant to get tea going.” Lydia pursed her lips for a moment. “If you don’t, our little cook will be outraged.”

Barbara sniffed and pushed through the green baize door behind the staircase.

“Set me down or I’ll be outraged.” Cassandra struggled in Whittaker’s hold.

“Go ahead and be outraged. It won’t compare to how I feel right now.” His mouth was grim, his eyes cold.

Cassandra shivered. “You needn’t be. I—”

Two footmen appeared in the corridor. “Not here,” Lydia said with a quick jerk of her head.

“Lady Bainbridge has gone to bed,” one of the servants said. “Shall I light candles and lay the fire in her sitting room?”

“Yes,” Lydia said.

“No,” Cassandra said.

“I may as well go to my room and pack for the journey home.” Honore flounced toward the steps. “My Season is ruined. I’ve never been so humiliated in my life, dragged away from all those young men. I’ll never find a suitor . . .” Her voice grew fainter as she stomped up the steps.

Lydia sighed and pressed her fingertips against her temples. “How I wish we could go home. But there’s Honore’s coming-out ball and your wedding—”

“If Whittaker doesn’t set me down,” Cassandra blurted out, “there won’t be that trouble.”

“Cassie.” Pain rang through Whittaker’s voice.

Pain ricocheted through Lydia’s head. She would leave them alone to finish their argument.

“I’ll return in no more than a quarter hour.” She started up the steps to soothe Honore’s ruffled feathers.

The family had come home from the theater hours early. Christien stood frozen in the center of Lydia’s bedchamber, listening to the voices, the patter of feet on steps, the bang of a door, for only moments. They were precious seconds lost. He couldn’t get away, couldn’t run, couldn’t sprint down the steps and slip into his room, as innocent as a babe.

But he tried. Favoring his right side, he limped to the open door and started into the passageway. A voice on the lower landing sent him slipping backward and closing the door. It wasn’t Lydia. It was one of her sisters, her voice lighter, a little petulant, growing closer with a rapidity that suggested she raced up the steps. Seconds after the latch clicked, leaving him in near total darkness, the top tread squeaked, then a skirt rustled on the other side of the panels. Finally, the door across the way slammed.

“So where is her ladyship?” Christien addressed the cat circling his ankles.

“
Ma-row?
” the feline responded. He rose on his back legs and pawed at Christien like a dog. “
Ma-row.
”

“Down, you. Those claws are sharp.”

“Ma-row.”

“I can’t pick you up with only one hand.”

But if he could carry the cat, or persuade him to follow, he might be able to bluff his way out of trouble with his gracious, albeit reluctant, hostess.

“All right, come with me.” Christien opened the door.

The cat began to knead his claws on Christien’s dressing gown, right through the heavy silk and into his knee.

“Arretez-vous.”

Whether the French cat didn’t speak French or chose to ignore the human, he continued to sharpen his claws on Christien.