At Your Pleasure (22 page)

“Alarm?” Cosmo blinked. “Perhaps the wrong choice of words, coz. Lord Rivenham’s presence commands my . . . respect, better say. There are those who dislike having to answer to a turncoat papist—great men, who had the power to ensure that Rivenham’s fate matched your father’s. But they underestimated him, you see. He did not waste his time kissing her majesty’s skirts, as did your lord father. Instead he played the suitor between Anne and her cousin George. Now, as the new king dotes on him, he prospers. Yet his enemies never diminish. I will respect such a man, undoubtedly . . . but not love him, I think. And indeed, Rivenham is far better at inspiring hatred. I assure you, his enemies still nurse their grudges most keenly.”

She searched Cosmo’s face. This speech did not paint any clear sense of his own allegiances. But such ambiguity must be a choice in itself—a significant one.

“You mean to walk the middle ground.” The road of the coward who would refuse to commit himself until he saw which way victory lay. “You will take no side in these great matters upon us.”

He let go of his cup and folded his hands together in his lap, a neat, prim posture that annoyed her. “If I were to exercise such restraint, you would rightly be glad of it. It would advance your welfare, too.”

She stabbed the needle into the cloth and cast it aside. “I cannot imagine how my welfare would be concerned in it.” No decision had been reached regarding a marriage between them. “Your presumption—”

“Be grateful for it.” His voice was suddenly cold. “You sit in a vipers’ nest, Lady Towe, and the vipers are stirring. A fortnight ago, the Earl of Mar raised the Jacobite standard at Kirkmichael. The Duke of Argyll has taken command of the army. It will be war in the north, and these Scottish affairs have a way of spilling into Lancashire. One wrong step and your guests will bite you to death. You are, after all, your father’s daughter.”

She sat frozen for a moment. “It has begun, then.”

“Yes.” He retrieved his glass. “I cannot say if Lord Rivenham knows it yet. The news of Kirkmichael was fresh yet in London.” He took a long drink. “Hark, it seems I did bring you a present after all:
wisdom
. If you wish to survive, you must trust in me. We leave this place tomorrow, together.”

Leave?
Abandon Hodderby? “Cousin, my brother himself gave me the care and keeping of this estate—”

“Plans have changed,” he said. “That is what I am come to inform you.”

Suddenly she could not abide the smugness of yet another man, instructing her to cede her will and free thinking to him for her own protection. She rose. “I will not say it again, sir: I am
none
of your concern. Nor is Hodderby!”

He looked up, mild surprise in his face. “But of course you are. You are my betrothed.”

For a moment she felt sure she had misheard him. His arrogance amazed her. “I am not and will never be.” Had any doubt remained, his manner here would have ended it!

He came to his feet, frowning. “Can it be that your brother did not tell you? My lady, we finalized the contract before his departure.”

“No.” David would never have taken such a step without consulting her. He could not dispose her without her consent. “I have signed no contract!”

He shook his head, looking mystified. “A small formality—one your brother gave me to believe you would be eager to remedy!”

Her hand closed on the back of her chair as the floor seemed to shift beneath her. This feeling of betrayal was too sharp to compass in words.

“Listen here,” he said more gently. “This is all of a plan, cousin. As Hodderby was never entailed, it will make your brother’s marriage gift to us. Should his fate resemble your father’s, should his . . .
adventures
go awry, then we, you and I, will wed directly. Between the two of us, we will keep these estates in the family.
That
is the central concern, is it not?
That
is the cause of our marriage.”

His reply had the ring of truth. Yet if Cosmo’s claims were true, then David had fixed her marriage with no care for her consent. The notion swam through her like a toxin, turning her stomach.

She tried to reason with her growing panic. If David had done this, it was to safeguard Hodderby. Of that, she
must
approve.

But must
she
be the sacrifice that safeguarded it?

Cosmo misread her face. Stepping toward her, he said, “Do not misunderstand me. You know my love for your brother. Can you doubt it? He and I hatched this plan together—should it come to the worst.”

Some strangled noise escaped her. It stopped him dead. Putting his hands behind his back, he rocked on his heels, eyeing her as though at any moment he expected her to scream or collapse.

She turned away from his prying eyes, staring blindly at the china cabinet that sat in the corner. How had David committed her without consulting her? What had possessed him?

Her cousin’s voice came from behind her, tentative. “The journey left me famished for a proper meal.”

If she opened her mouth to reply she would shriek like a madwoman. She had given David every support! She had suffered against her will his journey to France. She had let him persuade her to countenance the gunpowder, though even now it sat like death beneath her feet, ripe to kill them all. Not a single cause had she given him to keep these plans from her.

Was she to be sorted and disposed with the same careless handling as his guns?

“Cousin.” Cosmo’s voice was brusquer now. “I am hungry. You would do well to call Lord Rivenham and Lord John to the table.”

Bile churned in her stomach. Already, she thought, he led her like a husband.

Adrian had called his men to gather in the great hall, around a long, scarred table where Colvilles had feasted when Hodderby was yet a hunting lodge. The atmosphere was primitive; rough-hewn stone buttresses supported a ceiling lost in darkness far overhead, and torches fixed in recesses spilled a violent light across the uneven flagstones.

This chamber had witnessed the strategizing of war parties in times when bloodshed had been the mark of manhood. It was not a room for hesitation or scruples, and his mood allowed for none. He felt ablaze, as though victory was already his.

He fully expected her anger once she discovered the whole of it. But by then, she would have no say in its outcome. Hatred was the privilege of the living, whose minds could be changed. And he would change hers. Eventually she would understand that he’d had no choice in it. Even in this civilized age, the games of kings did not allow mercy for women who aided treason. She would be made to see how Adrian’s actions had spared her from sharing her brother’s fate.

Around the table, his men took their seats restlessly, drumming fingers and tapping feet. Over the past five years, he had enlisted each of them precisely for the qualities that made these past few days such a trial. A soft bed, a warm fire, regular meals—had these men craved such, they might have followed their fathers’ footsteps, becoming cobblers or craftsmen, wherrymen or tailors. But to a man, they had rebelled at their families’ legacies.

His enemies sneered at his followers’ motley genealogies.
It did not bother Adrian. He understood the advantage of tradesmen’s sons turned soldiers, having experienced firsthand what unique zeal was born of being told, again and again, that one’s nature made one unfit for one’s appetites.

Lord John entered last, sullenly, his right eye swollen to a slit. He took a seat slightly apart from the other men. For all that his father had spoiled him with indulgences, he had been born with a backbone; he took care to fix Adrian with a defiant look as he whipped out his knife—though his courage then failed him, for after a moment’s hesitation, he put himself to trimming his nails.

Braddock caught Adrian’s eye and loosed a speaking snort.

Adrian allowed himself a smile. “Grooming,” he said. “You would do well to master the concept.”

Braddock, understanding him perfectly, ran a hand over his scraggly beard and chuckled.

Without further preamble, Adrian lifted the letter he’d received on his return to the manse this afternoon. “Lord Mar has raised the Jacobite banner at Kirkmichael,” he said.

Silence fell.

“He leads a progress to gather recruits. Parliament has authorized additional troops to be mustered to Fort William to answer him. The Duke of Argyll has taken the command.”

Mutters rose from his men. “Action?” Henslow inquired.

“As of yet, very little,” Adrian said. “A failed attempt to seize Edinburgh Castle.”

Braddock whistled. “Seize the castle? There’s hardihood.”

Peters, short and deceptively slim, guffawed over his cup. “Or lunatic stupidity.”

“The latter,” Adrian said. “The castle guards were waiting—forewarned by the wife of a conspirator’s brother, who overheard his plans. The rebels were killed.”

Snickers all around, building into guffaws. It suited these men’s notions of the rebels to imagine them undone by a gossiping housewife. Only Lord John, at the far end of the table, retained his composure. Laying down his knife, he looked across the company with open contempt.

Adrian kept an eye on him while waiting for the laughter to subside. “A pretty picture, no doubt,” he said as his men quieted. “But if four men died every time a housewife gossiped, the toll would quickly steepen. Our job is to end the matter, and let the women turn back to their needlework.”

Nods traveled the table.

“I know that your patience has been sorely tested,” he went on. “Counting sheep and walking the lines is no fit test of your mettle. You will notice two men missing from your ranks: Lovatt and Dutton stand guard in the bailey, where I have quartered Cosmo Colville’s men-at-arms. His visit interests me. It suggests some intent concerning his cousin, David.”

Anticipation thickened the air. Someone scuffed his boot against the stone floor. Henslow coughed. But every man’s eyes rested rapt upon him, and no one spoke now.

“David Colville must be captured alive,” Adrian said. He gave them a moment to absorb this, to adjust their
expectations. “But as his arrival draws near, I find I have no care for the condition in which you deliver him.”

Comprehension was quick to develop in their faces. Henslow smiled. Braddock nodded. Lord John, scowling, leaned forward as if to object. He alone knew the precise terms of their instructions: to deliver David Colville in sound health to London for interrogation and trial.

But Adrian had decided to adjust those orders. He himself would discover what answers might be pried by pain from David Colville’s lips. He, not some stranger in London, would learn first whether any of these answers happened to touch on Lady Towe. And if they did . . . why, he would adjust them as well.

As for the explanation for his delay in delivering Colville to London, that would be simple: he planned to ensure that David Colville’s health would be ailing upon his capture. The man would require time at Hodderby to recover from his wounds.

“Indeed,” Adrian continued, “I encourage you, in delivering him to me, to abandon your natural restraint.”

That inspired a grim round of laughter. None of these men had been chosen for a merciful disposition.

“And how, pray tell, may we be so certain that he will come to Hodderby at all?”

Lord John’s surly tone drew several sharp glances.

“His men operate in this area,” said Adrian. “Did you not know?”

A snort came from Henslow’s direction. The boy’s good eye narrowed. “Oh? I suppose you have some proof?”

With a sharp curse, Braddock made to rise. Adrian laid a hand on his shoulder to forestall him.

“Lord John asks a fair question,” he said, “and is owed a fair reply. Yes. I have proof.”

When the following silence made it obvious that he did not intend to share this proof, Lord John colored. Adrian could see the wheels of his mind turning, directing him back to the night he had passed unconscious—a night that might well have counted as proof, had the cause of it not been dismissed as spoiled food.

“I see,” the boy said in an ugly voice. “So, his men are hereabouts. His cousin. And his lady sister, of course.” He took up his knife again, standing it by its point to give it a spin. “A pity my lord Rivenham forbids others to question her. I believe my knife could make her sing quite sweetly.” He glanced around the table, seeking support for this proposition.

The boy was damnably green. His own manner had alienated those who otherwise might have agreed with him.

Adrian waited for Lord John’s attention to return to him. Then, very deliberately, he smiled. “Hark, sirs: this man appears to nurse some doubt regarding my interrogation.”

“Only that I do wonder,” Lord John said sharply, “whether it was an interrogation, or something more luxurious. It was in her bedchamber that you . . .
spoke
with her, was it not?”

Braddock slammed his palm onto the table. “Look here,
boy
—”

Lord John exploded to his feet. “I am not your
boy
!”

“Indeed,” Adrian said, “do not provoke him. Can you not see Lord John’s bruises? A difficult day it has been for him. Let us indulge him, then; let us hear what devices his imagination has wrought.”

“If nothing else, it will entertain,” muttered Peters.

Lord John slammed his dagger into the tabletop. The steel shuddered, pinging. “I will not be mocked! I will be addressed with respect, as befits my station!”

“But by all means,” Adrian said. “Sirs, show Lord John the respect he is due.”

As if on cue, the men loosed their choked-back laughter.

Lord John stood gawping for the space of a breath; then he snatched up his dagger and spun on his heel. His stalking exit only heightened the mirth around the table.

Braddock leaned toward Adrian. “Shall I follow?” he asked in an undertone.

Adrian nodded. “But lift not a hand,” he said. “For all that he’s a fool, he’s his father’s fool, and Barstow requires his return in one piece.”

A blind man would have known that something ailed their hostess. Her distress seemed to consume the available air in the room. Against the backdrop of Indian curtains of scarlet and gold, she sat silently, her supper plate untouched, her face pale. Here was the mask Adrian remembered from London: the brave blankness of a tragic heroine.