The Spider's Touch (29 page)

“I have no message from James. My errand to England is quite otherwise. I was asked to discover from Ormonde when he will give the signal for the rising.”

“And have you? What has his Grace said?”

Her question astonished him. “Why, he’s told me nothing at all! Surely you would be informed well before me?”

She turned to speak furiously to her daughter in French. “What did I tell you? I am beginning to doubt that Ormonde has the courage to lead. He will insist on listening to everyone who counsels him to wait.”

She cursed in French then turned back to Gideon, and without excusing her rudeness, said tersely, “I had hoped that another gentleman would be able to rouse him, but you were unsuccessful, I comprehend.” She railed, “If I had only been a man, that cuckold would already be hurrying back to Hanover with his horns between his legs!” When Lady Oglethorpe gave in to anger, her French took over.

Anne seemed every bit as distressed as her mother, the exception being that where her mother’s primary emotion was anger, Anne’s looked like fear. Other than that, she was very much like her mother and her sister—tall and elegant, but with an intensity that would make every man within her sphere either gather near as if to a magnet, or make a run for the first hiding place.

Although Gideon found them both beautiful, he also saw them lacking in the sort of gentleness that usually drew him to women. To him, a generous and accepting spirit was at the very core of womanhood. Not this grasping, self-centeredness, which one often saw in men, and which he despised in his own sex, too. This latter thought led to a revelation—that the quality he was thinking of had nothing to do with a person’s sex.

“It is not Ormonde I came to talk to you about.” He noted that his hostess was too nervous even to invite him to sit down, though three chairs had been drawn up by the fire. That suited him fine, since he had no wish to linger, but he wondered what had set Lady Fury off. “I have come to ask what you know about Sir Humphrey Cove’s murder and the men who were in his box Saturday night.”

At the mention of Sir Humphrey, her head shot up.
So that was it
. Cove’s murder had rattled her.

“I know nothing about it,” she exclaimed in a near-hysterical voice. “How could I know anything? Humphrey was nothing—a lamb. How can anyone have wanted to kill him?”

Lady Oglethorpe had started pacing back and forth. Gideon looked to Anne, in the hope of gathering more information.

Anne said, “It is true what
Maman
says. Sir Humphrey was no danger to anyone.”

“But he was a Jacobite, wasn’t he?”

Lady Oglethorpe made an impatient gesture. “Oh, he thought he was—
yes—
and it gave him great pleasure to think of himself as a conspirator, but he did it in the same way that he thought of himself as a hunter or a courtier. It was no more real to him than a hand of piquet. He
played
at being one of us. I cannot tell you the number of times he would write me from his home in the country and ask me how the rebellion was coming along—as if he were inquiring about the weather!”

Gideon frowned. “But wouldn’t his letters have been opened by the government?”

“Sûrement!
But I tell you, that is how naive he was! Do you think I ever answered his questions? Me? If I had, then we all should have been arrested. But even the government could not take Humphrey seriously. If I had risked responding, he would long since have forgotten his question anyway. To Humphrey our cause was something he inherited from his family—like his estate or his religion. It gave him something to talk about to his friends about and nothing more.”

Gideon did not like the easy way she dismissed her murdered friend. Lady Oglethorpe spoke of Sir Humphrey with something near contempt. He began to see how she had earned her nickname, Fury. Nevertheless, he was certain that Sir Humphrey Cove had not been deep in the conspirators’ confidence.

“I heard that you know all the gentlemen who were in his box that night.”

She halted in her paces, staring furiously at him as if he had accused her. “I do not know
Mr. Dudley Mayfield
, nor could I be said to know your cousin Harrowby very well. Or do you prefer that I refer to him as Lord Hawkhurst?”

Gideon knew she had made that thrust to punish him for what she perceived to be an insult, if not an outright accusation.

He bowed low enough for an apology. “I’m afraid you have misunderstood me, my lady. I only wonder what you can tell me about the gentlemen, since none of them are known to me.”

“What is your interest in this affaire, St. Mars? I sought you were here on his Majesty’s business.”

“There is no news I can carry to James right now. If there were, I would take it. Ormonde has instructed me to wait.” He did not tell her that he would go only when he was sure that Mrs. Kean was safe and satisfied that her cousin was not going to be charged with the murder.

Nor would he tell her what his real motive was, so he simply said, “As you have pointed out, there were also members of my family in Sir Humphrey’s box. I may have lost my estates,
madame
, but I have not lost my responsibility to them.”

A knowing glimmer came into her eyes, so Gideon could hardly be surprised when, with a sly look, she said, “And there is one member of this family that you are still very eager to protect. Eh?”

She was talking about Isabella, he realized, not Mrs. Kean, whom she would not regard as worthy of his notice. But he had not thought of Isabella at all. In fact, she was never in his thoughts now, and he wondered how he had ever become so obsessed with her.

But he would not discuss the change in his feelings with this woman, of all others, so he ignored her implications. “I do have a personal interest in bringing Sir Humphrey’s murderer to justice, yes. I would be very grateful if you would tell me what you think of the gentlemen you do know who were in that box. Colonel Potter, for one.”

Lady Oglethorpe acted as if she considered this a great waste of her time, but she finally acquiesced with another one of her impatient gestures. At Anne’s suggestion, Gideon was finally invited to sit down. He did take a chair, but only in the hope that their sitting would encourage his hostess to be more forthcoming.

“Colonel Potter is a Jacobite, I’m assuming, which is why he was cashiered from the Guards?”

She nodded bitterly. “Yes, what do the Scots call him—the ‘wee German lairdie’—has been purging his army of James’s men. There are still many more that he knows nothing about. I tell his Majesty, he will be gratified when he sees how many men in the army will rally to his cause.”

He did not want to let her wander too far away from their subject. “But George did find out about Colonel Potter. Not enough to prosecute him, I suppose, or he would have been arrested?”

Anne answered him this time. “No, there is nothing the Colonel has done to warrant arrest. We do not know why the government has grown suspicious. But it would have been very useful to us to have him in the army. His role was to try to turn as many of his men as he could before the rising.”

“He applied for a place in my cousin’s household. He was refused because Sir Humphrey let it slip that Colonel Potter’s loyalty was being questioned by the King.”

Lady Oglethorpe gave Anne another furious look. “You see! It would have been better if we had never made friends with Sir Humphrey. He was much too open to be trusted.”

Anne’s face held even more fear now. She looked suspiciously near tears. “My poor Harley! Do you think Sir Humphrey could have told anyone about him?” She asked this of Gideon and her mother, both.

Gideon knew that Anne had been Lord Oxford’s lover for many years. He was married, but Anne was his true love. She had sacrificed a chance for home and family to be his mistress, but with the upbringing her mother had given her, she was destined to lead a life of sacrifice to some man, whether it be her sovereign James or another.

Evidently the fear Anne felt was not for herself, but for her lover.

Gideon answered her question with one of his own. “Has Lord Oxford considered leaving for France?”

She shook her head. “He cannot leave. He is not well enough to travel. But when he went to the House of Lords to justify his conduct on Saturday, there was no one with the courage even to acknowledge him as a friend. Even Lord Poulet was shy of him, he said!

“If only Ormonde would act, there would be no reason for him to flee!”

Gideon nodded. He worried for them all, but tried not to show how troubled he was. If Ormonde did not act quickly, it would surely be too late for Anne’s lover. And Gideon had come away from the Duke with no sense that he planned to move any time soon.

He tried to steer the conversation back to Sir Humphrey’s murder. “It would seem that Sir Humphrey was a danger to someone at least, however unwittingly. If he had no discretion, as you say, then he often would have made free comments about his Jacobite friends.”

He moved on. “Who is Mr. Blackwell?”

Lady Oglethorpe looked startled. Gideon could see her struggling over an answer.

She took the safest route. “I do not see what Mr. Blackwell can have to do with Humphrey’s murder. He scarcely knew him.”

Gideon directed her a look, meant to show that he would not accept an evasion. “And, yet, he was a guest in Sir Humphrey’s box. He disappeared before the performance was over. During the
intermezzo
, which was when Sir Humphrey was killed.”

“I fail to see why I should be questioned about my friends when you should be asking Mr. Mayfield why he killed him! Perhaps the lady who informed you about my friends had reason to leave out the news that he tried to murder Sir Humphrey over a simple game of a cards.”

Again, she implied that Isabella was his informer.

“Not at all,” he said, letting amusement show. “I was told of that incident. I would like to know who informed you of it, though.”

Lady Oglethorpe was a woman very accustomed to hiding secrets. He could not tell if she was lying, as she smoothed her skirts and shrugged. “It is all over town. A story like that is certain to be repeated. I will not hide from you that Mr. Mayfield is strongly suspected of the murder. If you wish to be his friend, you should help
him
to leave the country before it is too late.”

“I would hardly be the man to encourage that course,
madame
. Not unless there were no other choice.

“But you say this Blackwell is a friend of yours? He has been described to me, and it appears that he has spent a great deal of time in France.”

“You English are all alike! You think that only villains can come from France!”

Gideon tried to stem her temper with a loud sigh. “You forget that my estates and my title come from your country,
madame.
That is not an accusation that can be made of me. I merely point out what is generally known about the gentleman. And if you wish to defend him, then the truth will be best.

“Besides, have you forgotten who sent me? I never should have been here at all, if not for your daughter Eleanor. I have come at her bidding, so I hope you will trust me.”

For that was her reason for refusing to give him the information he sought, Gideon realized. His questions made her nervous. For all she knew, he could be an agent of the government trying to discover who was implicated with the Jacobites.

Lady Oglethorpe squared her shoulders more calmly then. “I know who sent you. It was I who suggested it. I know that you did not kill your father. But since you did not seek to help his Majesty on your own, your loyalty to him must not run very deep,
monsieur,
surely not as deeply as your father’s did. And there must be other ways to regain your estates.”

She had practically accused him of spying for the government. That did not bother him nearly as much as her comment about his father had pricked him. He tried to shove that hurt aside, so she would not see how effective her barbs had been.

“I told your daughter and your husband the truth, and I will tell it to you now. I am not convinced that another civil war is the best thing for England and Scotland, no matter how just James’s claims are. I agreed to discover what his adherents’ plans are and to report back to him. I did not promise to fight. But should I find the rebellion just and right, I shall fight for him and never for George.”

She almost sneered at this. “Then you are no better than many of his so-called friends, who wait for someone else to incur the risks.”

“That may be. I do not pretend to be a hero,
madame
.”

Irony lit her eyes. “But you should be,” she said. “Was it not a Gideon who led the armies of God,
monsieur
? If you have not read the
Bible,
as you Protestants are reputed to do,
I suggest you read that part and ask yourself why your father chose such a name for you.”

She was trying to shame him. And doing a fairly decent job of it, he thought with a burning pang. Gideon did not trust her enough to let her sway him, though. He would never believe that God sent messengers in the form of Lady Oglethorpe, nor would he liken a Jacobite rebellion to the armies of God. He did not know why she had bound herself so tightly to the Stuart cause, but it seemed that her very nature demanded that she be a partisan. And, once committed, she would hold to that side until every resource at her command was exhausted.

He tried to calm his anger with the thought that whether his father had liked her or not, he would have honoured her for her devotion to the cause.

“I did not come here to talk about me,
madame.
I came for your help. If Sir Humphrey was indeed your friend, I fail to see why you would not want to help me catch his murderer. And if none of these gentlemen killed him, I will discover that, too.

“Who is Mr. Blackwell, and where do I find him?” he asked again.

It was Anne who finally volunteered the information. “Blackwell is not his real name. His name is George Menzies. He travels back and forth with messages and money to Boulogne. He takes whatever money can be raised in England to Lancelot Ord, his Majesty’s almoner in France, who uses it to pay the Irish troops living along the coast.”