Ducal Encounters 02 - With the Duke's Approval (16 page)

“We will. Your brothers and me. You can involve yourself as much as you wish.”

She sent him a disbelieving gaze. “Do you mean that?”

“I never say anything I don’t mean.”

She laughed. “I’m sure you are far too diplomatic to be so rash.”

Lord Romsey sighed. “You are very likely right.”

“I’m sorry, Lord Romsey. I did not mean to mock your achievements, or imply any criticism of who you are.”

“I know you did not.” He sent her a devastating smile. “Now, concentrate, my lady. We are getting closer to the wharf. Do you recognise anything?”

“Will this carriage not stand out in such a district?”

“At night time it would, and would most likely be set upon if I was foolish enough to bring it here. But at this time of day, all manner of people go to and from the docks, transacting business. No one will think it odd.”

Satisfied on that score, she looked intently through the window and shook her head. “Nothing looks familiar. How could it not?”

“I think you had more pressing matters on your mind at the time of your escape.”

“Yes, I suppose I did.” She paused, conscious of the street smells permeating the inside of the carriage, and wrinkled her nose. “I do recognise the putrid smell, but I don’t suppose that helps much.”

“Not a great deal, unfortunately.”

They turned another corner, and Anna could actually see the river, its water grey and angry looking as melting snow drained into it. Several ships swung on their anchors, waiting to offload their cargos. She could also see lines of warehouses dotted along the wharf, and instinctively stiffened. So many of them. It was sheer folly to imagine she could recognise one when she hadn’t even seen it properly. There were more trees than she had expected interspersed between the buildings, too. Even so, a sense of
déjà vu
gripped her. She had been in this spot before, and very recently, too. She knew it without understanding why.

“Ask Pierce to turn left,” she said, sitting forward expectantly.

Lord Romsey leaned out of the window and gave the instruction.

“And now right,” she said, her excitement increasing. “I think this is the way I came. I recognise that doorway. The most wretched creature was asleep there. I shall never forget that.”

“How long after you escaped?”

“Almost immediately.” She peered through the window, and pointed. “There!” she cried triumphantly. “That tree there is the one I climbed down. I would know it anywhere.”

Clarence tapped twice on the roof of the carriage with his cane, the signal for Pierce to drive back to a smarter district.

“Are we not going to get out and make enquires?” Lady Annalise asked.

“You are certainly not going anywhere near the place, nor am I for that matter. We don’t want whoever owns it to know we are on to them, if indeed they are involved in the plot. I shall send one of my people to ask questions later on.”

“Oh, I suppose that would be best.” She sent Clarence a wide-eyed look. “But how will you find it again?”

“I asked Pierce to drive in this direction for a specific reason. Given the amount of time you said the carriage took to bring you here, it seemed as good a place as any to start.” He glanced out the window. “Did you really climb down that tree, in the snow, in the dark with nothing but sacking on your feet?” He shook his head. “Quite remarkable.”

“Certainly I did, and there was nothing especially remarkable about it. I was very adept at climbing trees when I was younger.”

Clarence smothered a smile. “Evidently.”

“I am very annoyed that I slipped and displaced my shoulder. That was careless. How did you know how to fix it, by the way?”

“I was not always a safe distance away from the fighting during the war.” Clarence spoke with a lightness he didn’t feel as he recalled some of the horrors he had seen. “The battle of Chateau-Thierry was a total disaster for the allied forces. I happened to be there. The field hospital was overrun, and I did what I could to make myself useful. A harried doctor showed me how to put various joints back into place.” He shook off the images conjured up by that battle’s name, recalling Prussian forces had played a leading, not especially heroic, role in it. There was no escaping the Prussians at present, it seemed. “Don’t worry. You were not my first victim,” he assured his lovely companion.

“I am very grateful to you. You saved me from a lot of pain.”

“I did not explain in the hope of earning your gratitude.”

“Yes, I know that.” She looked away from him. “How will you find this warehouse again?” she asked after a brief pause.

“We are at New Gravel Lane now and the tree you used as a staircase is in Cotes Gardens. We shall find it again easily now we know where to look. And, if I am not much mistaken, there is an inn along here on the right which must be where you liberated Betty.”

Lady Annalise was quiet as the carriage made slow progress along the busy thoroughfare. Her hands trembled and he instinctively clasped it in one in his, telling himself he had only done so because she required comfort. The fact that he had been fighting the urge to touch her ever since he foolishly agreed to sit beside her had nothing to do with his decision.

“It’s all right,” he said softly. “You are perfectly safe in this carriage.”

“
You
make me feel safe, Lord Romsey,” she said, turning towards him, her eyes luminous, compelling. A man could drown in such captivating eyes if he didn’t have a care.

“Don’t say that. I don’t deserve it.” Her complete faith in his abilities made him feel inadequate. “I have already let you down.”

“I say it because it is true, and you have not let me down. It is you who ought to be disappointed in me. I never did learn to do as I am told.”

Clarence was at a loss to know what to say, a circumstance so unusual as to give him pause. In his time as a diplomat he had dealt with disquieted monarchy, heads of state who wished to tear one another to pieces, squabbling politicians of all persuasions, and had always known precisely what to say to defuse sensitive situations with tact and humour. And yet, a mere slip of a girl had left him speechless. Remarkable!

“There, up ahead, is the Three Bells,” he said pointing, glad of the opportunity to speak about something more mundane. “Does it look familiar?”

She bit her lip again and nodded. “That is where I concealed myself when I heard my captors talking to the night porter,” she said, pointing to a pile of barrels at the edge of the mews. The hand he was clasping continued to tremble. “I am absolutely certain about that.”

“Then I shall be able to make the appropriate recompense for the loss of Betty, and you will own her.”

“Thank you, but I am sure Zach will be happy to pay.”

“Perhaps so, but I insist.”

“Very well,” she said softly. “Have it your way.”

Clarence tapped his cane twice on the roof, and Pierce pushed the horses into a trot, taking Lady Annalise away from the scene of her nightmare as quickly as possible. Her captors had taken her a considerable distance from familiar territory, and she never would have made it home on foot, even in good weather, without being accosted. Or worse. The fact that she managed it on horseback still astonished Clarence.

“I assume you and Betty crossed a bridge over the river at some point.”

“Yes, I told Betty it was necessary and she found the way for me. I doubt I would have managed it alone.”

“Westminster Bridge, I dare say,” Clarence said, almost to himself.

“Perhaps. Does it matter?”

“Not in the least.” He smiled at her, seeing no reason to release her hand. “You have been a great help this afternoon, Lady Annalise, and I know it has not been easy for you. But at least now, we have something, a clue, to work with. ”

“Then I am glad. But I must be keeping you from important matters of state,” she said after a brief pause.

“My
only
concern at present is discovering what von Hessel is up to, and others are hard at work in that regard even as we speak.”

“Then I must be keeping you from your leisure pursuits.”

What the devil was she asking him? “Not at all.”

She fixed him with a penetrating gaze. “You do have leisure pursuits that help you relax, do you not, Lord Romsey?”

“I don’t have a great deal of time to please myself.”

“Oh, but that is so sad. Surely, you belong to clubs, like my brothers do, and…well, do whatever they do in those clubs. Play cards, drink more than you should, and relax without having to mind your manners because you are in all male company.” Her lips quirked. “But I suppose you belong to all the political clubs, so you are never really at your leisure.”

“Something of that nature,” Clarence replied in an absent tone he hoped would discourage further probing on her part. Naturally, it did not.

“When you are in Southampton, please tell me you hunt, and fish, and shoot.”

“Unfortunately I cannot often spare the time.”

Mischief danced in her eyes. “Shame on your, Lord Romsey.”

No one had ever asked him about his leisure pursuits before. Nor had it occurred to him to mind that he did not have any. He wasn’t about to tell her that he couldn’t remember the last time he had driven in the park, or that he only used the location for private meetings with diplomatic contacts whom it wouldn’t do to be seen with in society.

“You will wear yourself out if you do nothing but work.”

“I am not working now,” he pointed out mildly.

“In a sense you are, because we would not be here if it were not for what happened to me. And I wager the moment you return me home, you will bury your head in your dull papers again.”

It was the truth, and he saw little point in denying it. “I am entirely at your disposal, Lady Annalise,” he replied gallantly.

“I understand just how occupied the wicked foreign secretary keeps you nowadays, my lord, but what about when you were younger? What pleasures did you enjoy then?”

Clarence turned a splutter into a cough, convinced she could not realize what she had asked him. “The same things as your brothers, I dare say.”

“I saw you play cricket at the Park last summer, but I don’t suppose you make a habit of it. Do you enjoy long rides, just for the pleasure of riding? Did you swim in lakes during your holidays, or indulge your pugilistic tendencies? My brothers did all of those things, very frequently, and many others besides.”

“You forget I am an only child.”

“Yes, but you must have had friends to stay.” When he shook his head, she frowned, seemingly concerned about his lonely childhood. A childhood that had not seemed lonely until that moment. “Surely you did not spend the holidays alone?”

Images of sitting at one end of a long dining table with his austere father at its head filled his memories. His father conducted conversations with Clarence in Latin or Greek, or whatever language happened to take his fancy. Woe betide Clarence if he failed to understand or fluffed his responses. The parental punishments could be brutal, always humiliating, and often very public. Clarence felt his face flush with anger as he recalled the times he had been obliged to lower his breeches and bend over the table while his father birched his backside for some minor incorrect response, always in full view of the servants.

Often the questions would be on delicate political situations of the day, his pater demanded to know how Clarence would resolve them. Training, always training. It had seemed perfectly normal at the time, simply because Clarence didn’t know any better. The prospect of being punished, of failing to meet his father’s expectations, turned him into a diligent student who took pleasure from excelling.

“I ought to take you home,” he said abruptly.

“I’m sorry. I did not mean to speak out of turn. Sometimes, especially when I am nervous, my tongue runs away with me.”

“Do I make you nervous, Lady Annalise?” Clarence realised he had been scowling and softened his expression. “I can assure you that is not my intention.”

“No, not nervous precisely.” She did not elaborate, and Clarence didn’t invite her to. “Please don’t return me home quite yet,” she said softly.

Clarence fixed her with a look of polite enquiry. “There is something else you would like to do?”

“Yes, I would like to drive in the park, if you can spare the time to escort me.” Her eyes burned with an unfathomable emotion. “I need a little time to recover my composure before I face my family.”

“Of course.”

Clarence leaned from the window and gave Pierce instructions. He released Lady Annalise’s hand in order to do so and thought it wise not to recapture it. He studied her profile as they continued their journey in a taut, charged silence. She had handled the sight of the warehouse better than he had anticipated, but he could see she was still badly affected by the experience. Was that why she had enquired about his interests? She needed a new direction for her thoughts. Clarence was glad to have been of service, even if the memories his responses evoked had been difficult for him. Better he should be discomposed, rather than she.

“I doubt too many fashionable people will be in the park in this weather,” he remarked, just for something to say. “Shall you mind?”

“Not in the least.” She turned to face him, her eyes bright with expectancy. Expectancy of what precisely? “I need to do normal things, to feel alive, to…oh, I don’t know. Being at Sheridan House is not exactly a hardship, but I still feel too confined sometimes. City life does not agree with me. I miss the freedom of the country, you see.” She clapped a hand over her mouth. “Goodness, how can I complain about my privileged lot when I saw for myself how the wretched creatures in the east end have to live day in and day out? How quickly I seem to have forgotten their plight. Well, not forgotten precisely. Still, whatever must you think of me?”

Clarence couldn’t possibly answer without being economical with the truth. “Here, we are at the park,” he said, as the carriage reached Hyde Park Corner and turned in through the gate. “And, as I suspected, we have it almost to ourselves.”

The paths were clear, but snow still covered the grass. He noticed Lady Annalise’s expression brighten as she observed it.