02 The Grand Tour Page 13

  Thomas came to fetch me down and with a single glance took in my frame of mind. "Goose." He crossed the room and took me in his arms. I rested against him, sending up a silent prayer of thanksgiving that my husband was not one to ask what was the matter or to need things explained. "It's all right, you know." He drew back a little to take a better look. "You do know, don't you?"

  "I know." My words came out in a very timid way. "I'm just a coward."

  Thomas made a noise expressing disagreement and disbelief. "Gammon. You're aware of the possibilities, that's all. Social acuity is an asset."

  "I'm well aware of the possibilities. I'm aware that I have hardly dropped a crumb in days. What are the odds that I spill something sticky on someone important tonight?"

  I could tell Thomas was thinking it over. "You're right. You haven't had anything turn awkward since you dropped that jam-side-down slice of toast in your lap at breakfast last week."

  I'd forgotten that. "I was thinking of the sauce I spilt on my bodice at dinner five days ago."

  "Five whole days? You're right. Steps must be taken." Thomas chose a glass on a tray left on the tea table and poured water from the accompanying carafe until it reached the rim. "Hand that to me, please."

  I picked it up and the inevitable happened. An ounce or two of water spilt from the glass to the tray. Thomas took the brimming glass from me and put it back on the tray. "There. We'll see if that helps, shall we?"

  I mopped up the spill with my handkerchief. Thomas took the sodden bit of fabric away from me. "Find yourself another handkerchief, my dove, and we will go down to put it to the test."

  I couldn't think of anything to say that wouldn't sound like shirking or whining, so I just looked at him. He held me. "You needn't come down if you don't wish to, but I hate the thought of you alone up here, castigating yourself."

  "I'm so afraid I'll do something to embarrass you." In fact, I had a strong presentiment I was doomed to. Not all the preemptive water spilling in the world would save me from my fate. "I just have a feeling I might—"

  Thomas put me away from him, suddenly all decision. "I don't like the cut of this coat above half. If you feel it coming on, spill something on me. It would give me a good reason to be rid of it." Thomas put my hand on his sleeve and we left the room to proceed very slowly and very carefully down the stairs.

  James looked as stylish as Thomas did, all sign of his indisposition gone. Cecy was resplendent in a green gown that did wonderful things for her eyes. Lady Sylvia, as ever, was the personification of breeding and taste. Her gown was simple to the point of severity, her jewels understated yet profoundly impressive. She leaned upon an ebony walking stick, her air one of perfect ease, ready to greet her old friends. It was her past we were meeting that night, her comrades in arms, her allies. As her guests arrived, I marveled at the army of affection she commanded, all the while I took pride in the role I played in her family.

  Chicken stakes. The phrase makes wagering sound rather fun. Insignificant losses balanced against the insignificant wins and the all-important amusement of oneself and one's friends.

  Perhaps my dread of embarrassment turned on itself somehow. For whatever reason, I found the prospect of playing cards for an evening held no appeal. Indeed, it filled me with misgiving. Each time I inspected my hand, I asked myself if this was how Georgy had started on her road to disgrace.

  It was my social duty to play cards, to help amuse Lady Sylvia's guests. Therefore, I played cards. Yet my careful cheerfulness didn't fool Thomas, for after the first change of tables, he collected me from the group I'd been about to join and beckoned a friend over to play in my place.

  "My apologies, ladies and gentlemen," Thomas said as he took my hand. "I will return her eventually. For now, duty calls."

  One of the men at the table knew Thomas of old, it was clear from his mocking tone. "You're a dutiful man, Schofield. I've always said so. Don't let anyone tell you differently." We were chaffed good-naturedly, but they let us go.

  Thomas escorted me out of the card room. In the small room adjacent to it, we were able to converse in an undertone.

  "Kate, what is it? Do you have a headache? Have you torn your gown? I've been watching you play, and with every hand you look more and more unhappy."

  "No, do I?" I felt dismayed. I'd been trying so hard to conceal my feelings.

  "What's the matter?"

  "Nothing. I don't object to playing cards since it is to oblige Lady Sylvia." I trailed off before Thomas's penetrating glance.

  "Out with it." Thomas was stern. "You don't object to playing cards. Now that we've established that, what do you object to?"

  "I'm being foolish."

  "I'll be the judge of that. I am the arbiter of all things foolish, at least in this arrondissement. Ask anyone. So. Whatever it is that's making you look so sad, tell me."

  "I wish I didn't have to gamble."

  Thomas looked adorably confused. "What are you talking about? You aren't gambling. This isn't Watier's. It's a simple card party."

  "But I am gambling. We all are."

  Thomas shook his head slightly, as if to clear it. "We're playing for chicken stakes. Nothing more. That's not real gambling. Gambling is when there's a stack of guineas the size of your head riding on the turn of a card or the throw of the dice." Thomas did not seem to find this an unpleasant thought.

  "Chicken stakes," I repeated. "That's how Georgy began. Soon enough she had to borrow my jewelry to cover her losses."

  "She's your sister, so I will use moderate language, no matter how great the provocation." Gravely, Thomas held my gaze with his own and I could not doubt his sincerity. "Georgy is an utter peagoose. You are not."

  "Georgy began by playing in a setting very like this, and she is now so hardened a gambler that she must at all costs be kept from it."

  "You, my buttercup, are not your sister. For which I offer frequent prayers of gratitude to a merciful God."

  At times, Thomas's choice of endearments can be distracting. I believe he does it on purpose. I let the buttercup go and kept to the point. "You asked me what was troubling me and I am trying to explain. Georgy takes after Grandfather. I am his grandchild just as much as she is, and I'm afraid I will take after him, too."

  Thomas was much struck by this reminder. "Faro Talgarth, they called him. I'm sorry, Kate. I'd forgotten that."

  "He was clever about wagers, most of the time," I conceded. "With all the practice he had, I suppose his expertise was almost inevitable."

  "He made quite a name for himself at the tables, I can't deny it. I apologize. I wasn't thinking." Thomas took a quick look to be sure we were unobserved, and kissed me.

  "You do that so well," I told him. "Apology accepted."

  "I should apologize well. With all the practice I've had?" Thomas looked back into the card room. "They all look happy as children, even Old Hookey. You've not been missed by now, so you won't be missed in future. I can think of several ways around the problem. I'll leave it to you to choose. I could hereby forbid you to play, even for chicken stakes. I don't recommend that alternative. It would be quick and easy, but, unfortunately, it is as good as a public statement that I don't trust you not to have the family failing. Now, almost as easy, since we have an audience conveniently at hand, I could make a point of cajoling you to play cards."

  "But I don't wish to play cards," I protested. "Really, I don't."

  Thomas was all patience. "Yes, Kate. That's precisely what you say. As many times as necessary. Tell me you'd rather sit by me as I play my hand, smile at me with insipid sweetness, that sort of thing."

  "Oh." Belatedly, I saw Thomas's point. "I suppose I could do that."

  "Or you could simply say you don't know any card games and you refuse to learn. No one minds a touch of the farouche in a new bride."

  I tried out an insipid smile. Thomas seemed to find no fault with it. "I'd rather sit by you and watch you play your hand."

  "So you shall, then."
Thomas looked a little wistful. "It's the best choice. Some other time I will come the stern husband and forbid you to do something."

  "Oh, are you looking forward to that?" I asked.

  "Yes, very much. Some other time you will obey me, as you vowed at the altar when we were married."

  I felt a pang of pure sentiment. My affection for Thomas surpassed even my gratitude for his ready understanding and sympathy. "I shall obey you, as I love and honor you."

  Something in my words seemed to touch Thomas deeply, for he looked at me with such an expression of soft and open affection that my breath caught. He said, "With my body, I do worship thee, Kate." After a moment, he murmured in my ear, so close his warm breath tickled me. "We'll have a spot of that later, if you've no objection."

  "Not the least objection in the world," I assured him with heartfelt sincerity.

  From the deposition of Mrs. James Tarleton, &c.

  A card party sounds as if it must be the most pedestrian entertainment possible, but from the moment responses to Lady Sylvia's invitation began arriving, it was obvious that an invitation from her carried the weight of a royal command. His Grace, the Duke of Wellington, was perhaps the most illustrious of the guests, but there were sufficient lesser luminaries present that when he arrived and glanced around, he asked Lady Sylvia whether she had ambition to take the place of the late Madame de Stael as the heart of intellectual Paris.

  "None whatever," Lady Sylvia replied. "If Paris wishes to have an intellectual center, she must make her own arrangements. I have quite enough to do already."

  His Grace gave her a sharp look down his long nose. "Indeed?"

  "Indeed," Lady Sylvia said. She made a completely unnecessary show of consulting the schedule of tables and said, "We shall be partnered later this evening. If you still wish to hear my views on Madame de Stael, you may inquire then." Firmly, she introduced him to Kate and me and sent him in to mingle with the other guests.

  For the first few rounds of play, we were all separated, doing our duty at different tables. I soon became accustomed to shifting partners periodically, and to hiding my annoyance when my partner misplayed and lost us the hand. I was quite enjoying myself when, at the end of a particularly good round, James appeared to collect me for the next game.

  Since a number of the guests had elected to trade positions, and several had abandoned the card tables entirely for the refreshments at the end of the parlor (thus totally confusing Lady Sylvia's careful arrangements), I was a little surprised to see him. We repaired to a table that had been set up in a rather cramped alcove in the library. Lady Sylvia and the Duke were already waiting, seated across from each other, so that James and I would play against them.

  "Here you are at last," Lady Sylvia said. "James, will you deal?"

  "My pleasure," James said as he took his seat. "Though there's hardly any point to it, with you two against us. We might as well concede right now."

  "Concede?" His Grace said with mock horror. "My dear Tarleton! Surely you learned better than that on the Peninsula."

  "I learned never to bet against you, Sir," James said as the cards flew through his fingers.

  The Duke of Wellington gave a great neighing laugh, and we settled down to play. He and James quickly fell into military reminiscence, which occupied the first hand. James and I lost.

  "Very good," Lady Sylvia said as she gathered up the cards and began shuffling them. "Now you must have a chance for revenge. Cecy, dear, will you cut?"

  As my hand touched the cards, I felt the barest frisson of magic. I looked at Lady Sylvia. She nodded encouragingly, so I did as she had asked. She smiled and dealt the next hand, concentrating as she did. As each card landed, the steady rumble of the talk around us became more muffled, until the sound was as distant as if the crowded tables were in the next room with the door closed.

  "There," Lady Sylvia said, setting the pack on the table and picking up her hand. She smiled at His Grace's intent expression. "It is so difficult to speak both privately and unobtrusively at a gathering such as this. Much better to speak privately in public, I think."

  Wellington's eyebrows rose. "You and I are not the only wizards here. The Comte de Villiers is no dabbler, nor is Lady Marchant, to name only two."

  Lady Sylvia smiled. "That is why I gave James the first deal. I assure you, Your Grace, no one will notice this particular spell. I was quite careful; setting it up took the better part of the week."

  "In that case, I should welcome a detailed description," the Duke said. "The usual cantrips are all far too obvious for the sort of diplomatic work I find myself doing these days."

  "I shall send it to you tomorrow," Lady Sylvia promised. "On condition that you apprise me of any improvements that may occur to you."

  "It is agreed," Lord Wellington said. "Now, I assume you did not go to all this trouble in order for us to make ourselves obvious, so we had better bid the hand. Then you can tell me what is behind all this."

  We commenced play, and through the first several rounds Lady Sylvia described the arrival of the Sainte Ampoule, the failed attempt to steal it in Calais, and the successful theft on the road to Paris. The Duke looked more and more thoughtful as the tale went on, and played at least one card quite at random.

  "I see," he said when Lady Sylvia finished. "I might have guessed that Captain Tarleton did not get himself shot engaging in senseless heroics. Reasonable heroics are much more his style. Even so, we'll have no more of that, if you please," he told James. "I can't be losing any more of my family now that we're at peace." For a moment, his eyes clouded, and I realized he must be thinking of all the officers who had died at Waterloo—James told me once that the Duke often referred to them as his family.

  "Never fear, Sir," James replied. "I'm already under similar orders from my wife."

  "Ah, then I need not worry." The Duke of Wellington smiled warmly at me. "You have found a pearl, James— wise as well as discreet. You've been in Paris more than three weeks, and I haven't heard a whisper of this business."

  "You have reason to expect that you would have, had one of us been... talkative?" Lady Sylvia said. "Possibly you have already heard of this from another source?"

  "But who else—" I paused. The only people Lady Sylvia had told of the Sainte Ampoule were the Bishop, whom I could not imagine informing anyone, and... "Not Mr. Brummell?"

  The Duke did not answer, though he gave Lady Sylvia a quelling look (which appeared to have no effect whatsoever). He studied his cards, then played the nine of diamonds. He waited as the play went around the table. Then, as he collected the trick, he said, "I believe Captain Winters told you of the business at Sainte Chapelle?"

  We all nodded.

  Wellington frowned. "It's a much bigger business than you may realize. Someone is up to something."

  "What sort of something?" James prompted. "Or do you know yet?"

  "That's the trouble," the Duke said, half to himself. "It's a different sort of battlefield." He shook his head and looked at Lady Sylvia. "There have been other thefts," he said abruptly. "An ancient coronation robe in Spain—God knows why the French didn't cart it away when they had the chance, but they didn't. It was moldering in some fortress in Castile until a few months ago. And just this morning I received word that a royal ring has gone missing in Aachen that dates back to before the Holy Roman Emperors. Someone seems to be collecting royal regalia."

  "But from different countries," Lady Sylvia said. "And is it a single item from each place? That seems unlikely for a mere collector. Also, you would not be so concerned if you thought that was all there was to it."

  "Ah, there's the rub," said the Duke of Wellington. "I don't know anything. I suspect a good deal, but I can't look into things any further without causing all sorts of difficulties. There are already whispers—rumor includes at least one plot to assassinate or to enchant each member of the French royal family, and most of the members of the Estates-Generale as well, individually and collectively. And th
ose are just the reasonably plausible ones."

  "Well," I said, "if you don't know anything, what do you suspect?"

  His Grace gave me a penetrating look. "I suspect someone of plotting to put Napoleon's empire back together. Possibly with Bonaparte himself at the head of it once more, though there has been enough activity in Austria lately that it may be the son they're considering."

  I blinked. "How is stealing a lot of old coronation garb going to put Napoleon's empire back together? It's not as if anyone is going to be impressed because someone is wearing a moth-eaten robe and a secondhand ring."

  The Duke gave another loud laugh, but he sobered quickly. "That is one of the questions for which I would very much like an answer," he said. "There's magic involved, of that I'm certain, but what sort of magic and who's behind it..." He shrugged. "At one time, I had hopes of learning something from Sir Hilary Bedrick—he was just the kind to get mixed up in that sort of experimental magic without thinking too much about what the consequences might be."

  "Or without caring about them," James said.

  "True. But when that business came out about his attempts to steal other wizards' magic—well, I didn't think he'd have had time to be involved in any other plots. And once the Royal College of Wizards stripped him of his magic, he would have been no use to them. And if he was no use to them, he'd have had no information for me."

  "So you thought," Lady Sylvia said.

  His Grace nodded. "So I thought. Then he was killed under... peculiar circumstances, and I wondered. Now you tell me that he was in possession of the Sainte Ampoule at the time of his death, and I've no way to discover whether it was by accident or design."

  "Mr. Strangle might know," I said. His Grace looked at me inquiringly, so I explained about Mr. Strangle's previous association with Sir Hilary. Before I finished, James was shaking his head.

  "Harry Strangle is a nasty piece of work, I grant you," he said. "But it's bad enough that Thomas has a bee in his brain about the man. There's no reason to think he's had anything to do with Sir Hilary since Sir Hilary's expulsion from the Royal College."