The Secret to Seduction (27 page)

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

I
RONIC THAT THE sunlight forcing its way into his cell should land a beam on the floor in the shape of a cross, Morley thought, given that the slits had been cut in the Tower wall for some soldier’s arrow centuries ago, and were meant to abet the shedding of blood.

Two hatches, vertical and horizontal, bisecting. A symbol of God, a symbol of war.

He grimaced at the direction of his thoughts. There wasn’t very much to do in the Tower, so his mind had begun to fix upon minute things, dissecting them hungrily for every particle of meaning and distraction, rather like a man tearing into a small loaf of bread. He almost sympathized with Bonaparte exiled in St. Helena. A man of action and intelligence and leadership, Bonaparte was reduced to a quiet retirement, which seemed rather a pity for such a resourceful and energetic man. He’d wanted to be exiled to London, once, Bonaparte had. The very idea had always struck Morley as very funny: London never could have contained him. He would have escaped, or started a revolution.

Morley imagined a peaceful exile would make short work of the emperor.

Of course, the emperor would not be facing the gallows.

He’d been in the Tower for nearly a month now. Sir Walter Raleigh had lived for thirteen years in the Tower, and he’d managed to write his memoirs and conduct scientific experiments before they took off his head.Morley wondered if he would live in the Tower long enough to write his own memoirs. In the long moments of silence and solitude, he’d run through his memories, thinking to find distraction or ease, but they’d begun to all feel the same: all of them, the pleasant and less pleasant, made him restless, only reminded him that the balance of his life would be lived out inside a cell of whitewashed walls.

He would not apply the word “regret” to any of his memories; he had always done what he’d needed to do to achieve his ends. He’d accomplished more, acquired more, than many men would ever dream. He’d done some good in the world; he’d done some bad in the world.

He’d had many political allies at one time; some members of the Commons considered him a friend. He’d dined with earls and viscounts. He’d made love to some of the
ton
’s most beautiful women, and he suspected he’d loved only one of them.

None of them had come to visit him in the Tower, of course. Not when the son of the powerful Earl of Westphall, Kit Whitelaw, had been the one instrumental in arresting him.

He leaned heavily on his cane and turned to his lawyer, Mr. Duckworth, who had been ushered in by guards. Mr. Duckworth was a juiceless man, with a permanent-looking pallor born of spending nearly the entirety of his life indoors. Thin lips, thin arms, thinning hair, as befit a creature who willingly deprived himself of sunlight. Morley briefly thought of the roses on his country estate, which would be dormant now, but which unfolded to greedily drink in the sun in late spring.

England’s profligate king, always desperate for money, had no doubt seized his estate.

Duckworth’s spectacles glinted in the light from the narrow slit, so that Morley couldn’t see his eyes. But they were brown, Morley knew, and shrewd.

It was Mr. Duckworth who’d been presented with the thankless task of defending Morley against the extraordinary charges against him: conspiracy to sell information to the French, and conspiracy to murder Richard Lockwood, a beloved politician, seventeen years ago.

Treason and murder, in other words.

“The evidence is exceptionally damning, Mr. Morley. The documents found by Viscount Grantham are thorough and convincing and the witnesses could not be more credible. And your assistant, the little man, Mr. Horace Minkin—”

“Horace Minkin?” Morley frowned.

“You call him Bob, Mr. Morley.”

“Ah, yes. Mr. Minkin,” Mr. Morley said soberly. He’d never known Bob’s actual name. He’d never wanted to know it.

“What Mr. Minkin lacks in character and credibility, he more than makes up for in the sheer volume and detail of his stories. Coaches and adders, Mr. Morley?” Mr. Duckworth shook his head.

And Bob, Morley knew, had rather a lot of stories to tell. Until he’d encountered Kit Whitelaw, Bob had been remarkably useful.

“In short, in all likelihood, you will rapidly be convicted of murder and treason.”

“Rapidly?” Morley repeated ironically. “In an English court? And I’ve only just begun enjoying my trial.”

The lawyer offered him a thin smile. Appreciating the dry wit. “I believe you know the punishment for treason and murder, Mr. Morley.”

I wonder where they will hang me?
Morley thought. In public, as an example for anyone tempted to treason, or on the Tower Green, as befitting someone who had also managed to do some good for his country, despite the way he’d set out to do it?

“Did you come here to tell me what I already know, Mr. Duckworth, or because you enjoy my company?”

Mr. Duckworth turned toward the shuttered windows and gestured. “May I?”

Morley nodded. Apparently Mr. Duckworth was having difficulty with the confines of the cell. It had taken some time, admittedly, to become accustomed to them. Morley kept the shutters closed; the cold air in the cell made the ever-present ache in his leg nearly unbearable.

He opened one, and the gust of cold air, painful in its reminder of the world outside, rushed in. Morley blinked in the sun, an assault of light.

“Far be it from me to say that I do not enjoy your company, Mr. Morley. But I fear today’s visit is not a social one. I’ve come with an option.”

And Duckworth turned a faint smile toward Morley. Mr. Duckworth might harbor as much belief in Mr. Morley’s guilt as he did in the existence of a Creator, but he was still, at heart, a lawyer. And Morley, for the first time in weeks, began to feel a prickle of anticipation of a more pleasant variety.

“Do share, Mr. Duckworth.”

“I have done some discreet questioning on your behalf. His Majesty would, of course, be fascinated to learn of any other members of the Commons or Lords who may have—shall we say—an ambivalent relationship to the law, or who might have assisted you in any way in your allegedly criminal activities. Particularly those of, shall we say, higher station. His gratitude for relevant information would of course be reflected in your sentence. Perhaps even the charges brought against you. Depending, of course, upon the nature and magnitude of the revelation.”

And suddenly the fresh air gusting through the cell was a promise, and not a taunt.

In other words: hand us a lord on a platter, Mr. Morley, and we might consider not hanging you. Perhaps you’ll even see your roses again.

Morley smiled faintly. “Were you born a lawyer, Mr. Duckworth?”

Mr. Duckworth merely smiled his thin-lipped smile. “Since you’ve a good deal of time to review your memories and associations, I suggest that you use it wisely. I stand ready to hear anything you wish to share, when and if you wish to share it.”

Sabrina almost wished he hadn’t come at all. That he
wouldn’t
come at all. But wishing wouldn’t undo her marriage or the circumstances of it, and if there was anything she’d learned in her life, it was how to make do. She would learn how to make do.

She didn’t know what Rhys did in London, but she truly wanted no part of it: the very idea of hordes of people living stacked virtually atop one another, skies dimmed with smut from thousands of coal fires, crime and squalor. She knew Mary considered it glamorous. And perhaps there were things she would like to see and do there. Museums. Galleries of art. But for adventure, Sabrina still would very much have preferred to visit another land populated by people who
weren’t
English. She preferred room to run and stretch.

But her days eventually, haltingly, acquired a rhythm of sorts. She stopped in to speak with the cook and the housekeeper about meals; she read, glutting herself on the library until she thought her head might pop from the diet of words; she rode out to Buckstead Heath to the vicarage to visit with Geoffrey, to listen to him rehearse his sermons and offer up her opinions on them. She liked to think they had settled into a friendship, she and Geoffrey. And as they were related now, it could hardly be considered improper, could it?

And each time she left, Geoffrey asked whether she’d spoken yet to Rhys about his mission.

Geoffrey was growing thinner, she noticed. He jumped at loud sounds. Perhaps he needed more beef in his diet. She would speak to the cook and have some sent to him.

Or perhaps he was pining the loss of his dream. His hope tore at her.

“The next time I see Rhys, I shall speak to him on your behalf,” she promised Geoffrey.

And God only knew when that would be.

At the end of the week she stopped into the kitchen to discuss the evening meal with the cook and Mrs. Bailey—she would be dining alone, of course, but it was a pity to not take advantage of the wonderful cook, and she’d tried all manner of delicious new things since she’d married the earl. Again, she could not discount the myriad advantages of being married to an earl.

“Poor old Margo Bunfield has lost part of her roof,” Mrs. Bailey was saying to the cook just as Sabrina arrived.

“I beg your pardon, Mrs. Bailey, but who is Margo Bunfield?” Sabrina asked.

“Oh, Lady Rawden!” The two servants spun about and curtsied. “Mrs. Bunfield is an elderly widow who lives at the edge of Buckstead Heath,” Mrs. Bailey told her. “And her roof was damaged in the blizzard. Nearly gone, in fact.”

“Oh, dear! Did much of the village sustain damage, then? It truly was a rare storm.”

“A number of roofs, Lady Rawden. And I’ve heard the mill suffered, too.”

Sabrina heard the siren song of people needing help. “My goodness, perhaps I should see to them.”

Mrs. Bailey apparently had no opinion on this subject, for she remained silent.

And then Sabrina dared to ask the housekeeper the question that had taken up lodging in her mind.

“Mrs. Bailey, did you send a note to my husband about the carpet?”

“Yes, Lady Rawden,” she answered without a moment’s hesitation.

Sabrina needed to ask her next question, though she suspected the answer had something to do with the fealty the housekeeper felt. It was the earl, after all, who paid her wages. Still, the faintest sense of betrayal was in her tone as she asked.

“
Why
did you send a note?”

And here there was a pause.

The housekeeper answered surprisingly gently. “He came, didn’t he?”

Sabrina went still, staring in wonder at Mrs. Bailey.

And when it became clear the countess didn’t intend to say anything more, Mrs. Bailey curtsied and strode purposefully away to see to the business of La Montagne.

Rhys jammed his hat onto his head as he departed White’s. He had an hour or so to prepare for a soiree at which Sophia Licari was performing. She’d extended yet another invitation, a direct, explicit one; once again, he saw no reason not to accept.

He swiveled suddenly in the street. A woman had walked by on the arm of another man, and something about her—perhaps her slim shoulders—called Sabrina to mind.

He stared after her a moment, felt a peculiar pierce of something that felt like—

“Heard you just returned from the Midlands, Rawden. What takes you to the country these wintry days?” It was Lord Cavill, emerging from White’s at the same time. “Surely the amusements in London can keep a man warmer?”

“Business at La Montagne,” Rhys answered curtly.

“Would that business be a…wife?” The man raised furry brows. And then actually wagged them.

Rhys glared at him. Though he wasn’t precisely trying to keep his marriage a secret—in fact, some women vastly preferred dalliances with married men—he hadn’t made any effort to announce it, either. How on earth had word got out? Wyndham? No. More likely word of the issuance of a Special License to the Earl of Rawden had spread. No doubt everyone in the
ton
was amused.

“Carpets,” he said shortly.

There was a message waiting for him at his town house, along with the perspiring messenger, who had been sent with it posthaste, apparently.

Rhys now recognized Mrs. Bailey’s script. It was the writing of someone who only trots out her ability to write for dire or special occasions. He sincerely doubted Mrs. Bailey was inviting him to a birthday party.

He broke the seal.

Inside was more of her script:

Dear Lord Rawden,

I apologize for troubling you, but I thought it best to inform you that Countess Rawden has been seen on the roofs of the Buckstead Heath.

Your servant,

Mrs. Margaret Bailey

Sweet
merciful
God. Rhys flung the note down.

What on earth could that possibly
mean
? Had Sabrina gone mad, imagined she was a pigeon and was perching on roofs? Was she threatening to dash herself off one in sheer protest of not being able to give away the carpets?

Granted, both of these scenarios were remarkably difficult to imagine, given how sane and frank Sabrina tended to be. But the message was precisely cryptic enough to give him no choice in the matter, and he wondered if the bloody housekeeper had intended it that way. He wondered if housekeepers were capable of that degree of subtlety.