A Sister's Secret (42 page)

Captain Burnside scrutinized her. ‘Then you can choose from the whole of London,’ he said, ‘for I don’t doubt the whole of London loves you for yourself.’

She examined her gloved hands. ‘The whole of London, Captain Burnside?’

‘From which I hope you’ll choose the best and most deserving man,’ he said.

‘The whole of London?’ she reiterated.

‘Oh, gentlemen and beggars, merchants and princes,’ he said.

‘And ruffians and blackguards?’

That visibly startled him. ‘They won’t offer a worthy choice,’ he said.

‘But you will allow me to make up my own mind?’ she said.

‘No, not if it points you at the wrong man. I admire you too much, marm, to let you—’

‘Caroline. Must I keep reminding you?’

‘Damn it, I can’t forsake all my principles.’

‘I thought, sir, we had already dismissed your principles as fiddlesticks.’

Downstairs, in the main kitchen, Jonathan examined a long copper cooking pot. ‘That, Miss Howard, is for steaming a fish, a fine salmon, say.’

‘How boring,’ said Annabelle.

‘Now, now,’ said Jonathan amiably, ‘food ain’t boring, nor are the ways of cooking it.’

‘Oh, tush,’ said Annabelle.

‘It ain’t wise for a young lady to come ignorant to marriage,’ said Jonathan, his cheerfulness undaunted by all rebuffs.

‘Precocious and detestable beast, do you think I wish to marry a kitchen?’ said Annabelle. ‘Why are you so interested?’

‘I like food,’ said Jonathan, ‘don’t you?’

‘I do not gobble,’ said Annabelle, fidgeting.

‘Or wine?’

‘Nor do I guzzle,’ said Annabelle.

Jonathan laughed. From the other side of the kitchen, Mrs Hetty Simmons, the well-upholstered cook, smiled at the young couple. Miss Annabelle had found herself a very amiable gentleman, although she was playing him up a bit. Usually, whenever she appeared at Great Wivenden, she was sweetly engaging. Such a pity she and Lady Caroline
did not come more often. Most of the time one was only cooking for the permanent staff. Lady Caroline was an exceptionally gracious lady, even if she was American. She had more style than some English duchesses.

‘Do you know what that is?’ asked Jonathan.

Annabelle regarded a peculiar-looking machine with the mystification of a young lady who had rarely entered a kitchen. ‘Oh, do, I pray, inform my ignorance,’ she said.

‘Well, in the first place, it’s a singularly secretive device,’ said Jonathan confidentially. ‘It ain’t every household that owns one. Come closer. I don’t want to shout.’

Annabelle, warm body gowned in muslin, kept her distance. ‘Oh, you are so boring,’ she said, ‘and who cares what the thing is?’

‘Who cares? Well, you should, because if I bundled you into it and turned that handle, you’d come out as mincemeat. But keep it to yourself, or terrible things will happen to young ladies pretty enough to be eaten.’

Mrs Simmons hastily muffled giggles. Annabelle stared at Jonathan as if he represented all that was pitiful.

‘Sickening beast,’ she said.

He moved to inspect a long iron spit mounted on the hearth. ‘That,’ he said, ‘would take an ox … Hello, hello, where are you, infant?’

‘Miss Annabelle slipped out, sir,’ said Mrs Simmons, hiding a smile. ‘She went through that door.’

‘Oh, ain’t she a contrary madam?’ he said. He found her on the terrace, at the rear of the house, its handsome façade rising to command the countryside, its many windows blinking in the sunlight. ‘This won’t do,’ he said.

‘It will do for me,’ said Annabelle. ‘You may go.’

‘No, I ain’t supposed to let you go wandering off into trouble, though I don’t know who would want to harm a sweet little girl like you.’

‘Little girl? Oh,’ breathed Annabelle, ‘never did I meet such a baboon. I would have you know, you odious specimen, that I am admired and favoured by a gentleman of high and noble majesty, beside whom you are low and common. Go away.’

‘Can’t be done,’ said Jonathan.

‘Tiresome creature,’ said Annabelle, ‘I did not know what misfortune truly meant until you appeared to take charge of me.’

‘Bless you, my infant,’ said Jonathan, ‘tomorrow when we return to London, misfortune will depart at speed from your life, for I shall be gone in a puff of smoke.’

‘Choking to death, I hope,’ said Annabelle, and Jonathan laughed aloud.

Caroline and Captain Burnside appeared. Caroline looked as if she had found the atmosphere of the library entirely elevating. The captain looked as if he had found it all of mystifying.

‘We are taking dinner and supper here,’ said Caroline, ‘and also staying the night. We can bring our luggage from the cottage this afternoon. Captain Burnside has been sweetly reasonable.’

‘I’ve known Charles to be fairly reasonable,’ said Jonathan, ‘I ain’t ever known him sweetly so.’

‘And I,’ declared Annabelle, ‘have never known him to be less than sweet in all things. Charles is adorable. You are a baboon.’

‘Ain’t she delicious?’ said Jonathan. ‘Beg to suggest, Lady Caroline, we all take a saunter around your gardens before dinner.’

‘How lovely,’ said Caroline.

‘Beg further to suggest Charles gives you his arm,’ said Jonathan, ‘while I take care of our delicious infant.’

‘Oh,’ cried Annabelle, ‘I vow myself utterly despairing.’

They were back in the London house the following afternoon. Caroline’s first thought was for a bath, a warm, soapy and cleansing bath, wherein she could relax and dream while ridding herself of the dust of the journey.

Jonathan bowed himself out, saying goodbye first to Caroline and then to Annabelle. Annabelle expressed a polite and slightly distant farewell.

‘Shall you be returning home to Charleston and the family bosom?’ he asked.

‘I do not think I have ever discussed my home and family with you, Mr Carter,’ she said, ‘nor whether or not I intend to return.’

‘Well, you ain’t, no, that’s a fact,’ said Jonathan.

‘And I’ve no wish to detain you by discussing them now. You surely have many things to hurry to, such as kitchens and pots, brooms and dusters. Goodbye, sir.’

‘Ain’t you a mettlesome young filly?’ said Jonathan, and departed as cheerfully as he had arrived.

The moment Caroline was in her bath, Captain Burnside excused himself to Annabelle, advising her he had a little matter of pressing business to attend to.

‘Oh, bother everything,’ said Annabelle to herself. With both men gone, she felt unaccountably flat.

‘H’m,’ said His Grace, as distinguished a figure as ever.

‘Quite so, sir,’ said Captain Burnside, ‘a little matter of flying too high. I exaggerated the probable, and took off at the expense of the logical. I overlooked the obvious, which was that Miss Annabelle would refuse to stand up against Cumberland, and that, even if she did, Cumberland would reduce her to a total lack of credibility.’

‘Myself, I’m not so sure,’ said His Grace. ‘Cumberland, fearing his back was to the wall, could be as wickedly lethal as Macbeth.’

‘Ah, Lady Macbeth?’ suggested the captain.

‘Woman deadlier than the male, eh?’

‘Except Cumberland’s capable of living with his ghosts, sir.’

‘True, true. So you’ve brought Lady Caroline and her sister back. Well, I trust they’ll come to no harm. I also trust Lady Caroline don’t discover the truth about you. If she does, I’ll have you packed off to India in the employ of the East India Company. How does that fancy take you?’

‘It don’t have irresistible appeal, Your Grace.’

‘Well, I’m not quarrelling with you yet, since I’m not too dissatisfied with results.’ His Grace permitted himself a slight smile. ‘Damned if I wouldn’t like to see Cumberland’s face when he discovers nothing comes out of tomorrow except an empty silence. There’s no chance he knows the four papists are under lock and key?’

‘Not unless he’s put his nose inside the Tower,’ said Captain Burnside.

‘And you are sure the Protestant fellow will hold his tongue? While he remains at Aldgate South, there’s the risk he’ll wag it whenever Erzburger calls on him.’

‘He ain’t without wits, sir. It wasn’t too difficult to guide his mind into taking hold of the strange fact that Cumberland hadn’t had the papists apprehended. Acting in my assumed capacity as a guardian of the law—’

‘You’ve a talent, sir, for making yourself sound damned self-important,’ said His Grace brusquely.

‘So-so, when required,’ said the captain. ‘I assured him, as a guardian of the law, that I knew no such arrests had been made. On our behalf, he’ll hold his tongue. He sees the danger he’s in without our help. But to have moved him would have alerted Cumberland, and I believe what you believe, Your Grace, that Cumberland deserves the chagrin and discomfiture of the empty silence.’

‘So he does, damn him. By this time tomorrow his plot will have collapsed like an empty sack.’ His Grace paused to make a thoughtful study of the captain. ‘So then, you now have no need to continue your association with Lady Caroline. You may pack your bags, sir, and leave tomorrow, counting yourself fortunate she has not found you out.’

Captain Burnside rubbed his chin. ‘I thought to ease myself out of her life in more kindly fashion,’ he said, ‘coming to it gradually.’

‘Kinder fashion, sir? What’s this, you blackguard, what are you up to with Lady Caroline?’

‘I can only tell you she is frankly not in the mood to allow me a sudden departure.’

‘Not allow you?’ His Grace’s countenance darkened. ‘What the devil does that mean?’

‘Ah – she considers friendship has obligations.’

‘Friendship?’ His Grace simmered. ‘By God, sir, have you permitted yourself the damned liberty of rising above your role?’

‘My role, sir, and my accomplishments—’

‘Accomplishments?’

‘I am quoting Lady Caroline. They have resulted in arousing her excessive gratitude, and a wish for an enduring friendship.’

‘Good God,’ said His Grace.

‘And I repeat, sir, she considers friendship has obligations. Beg to point out she’s American and owns the proud blood of the founding fathers of the United States. She don’t take friendship lightly.’

‘Don’t she, by God. Well, sir, you’ll take it in no wise. You’ll pack your bags and leave tomorrow, first thing. I’ll not have you risk the inevitable by lingering. She’ll come to have her suspicions, if they ain’t already stirring in her mind now, and you’ll come to a confession. I’ll not risk having that lead to me. You’ll depart, by God, without a single word of confession.’

Captain Burnside looked as if self-dislike had come to plague him. ‘I ain’t precisely happy about it,’ he said, ‘but at least, while she’s still unaware she’s been deceived, I’ll escape without having her take my head off.’

‘Be in no doubt, Lady Caroline would not forgive either of us,’ said His Grace, frowning. ‘This evening, by the way, you and your atrocious friend Carter will see to it that a sergeant and a corporal are placed with Maguire to ensure his safety, for the first thing Cumberland will do, when he finds nothing has come out of Maguire’s information, will be to send an executioner to Aldgate South. Oh, and put the fear of death into the man who’s watching Maguire.’

Caroline, restless, was standing at the drawing-room window that gave a view of the street. She conceded her feeling of upset might be unreasonable. She really had no right to expect him to ask permission of her whenever
he needed to go out. But where had he gone? And on what little business matter? Was he conducting one of his affairs with an innocent young lady who owned a few trinkets? He was always coming and going without ever being specific about what he was up to.

The palms of her hands were hurting. Her fingers were clenched, her nails biting. Dear heaven, her feelings bore not the slightest resemblance to those she had experienced when infatuated with the handsome and amusing Lord Clarence Percival. She understood now the difference between what was the shallowness of infatuation and what was the torment of love. But after Clarence, how could she have come to love a smooth and plausible trickster?

She saw him then, coming along the street, walking slowly, top hat at a slightly rakish angle and a cane in his hand. He nearly always carried a cane. It complemented his debonair façade. But beneath that façade, he was surprisingly strong. As a man who engaged in such disreputable fashion with life, he had no right to be so physically fit.

He turned in at the house.

Caroline was seated when he entered the drawing room a minute or so later. He did not know the giddy turn he gave to her heart when he smiled at her.

‘Why, there you are,’ he said.

‘And here you are,’ she said lightly. ‘Where have you been?’

‘Oh, a little business appointment.’ He was as light as she was.

‘Really?’ Caroline did not want to make the mistake of examining him censoriously, but she could not refrain from asking, ‘What would have happened if we had not returned today?’

‘I should have disgraced myself,’ said the captain,
looking down at her. She was gowned in rich peach, fashion dictating the revealing lines of her décolleté, and the application of comb and brush had burnished her hair. He acknowledged her peerless looks with another smile. ‘I should have been considered unreliable. Extremely damaging to a professional’s reputation. I did inform Annabelle I had to go out. Where is the dear girl?’

‘The dear girl is in her room, resting from her exertions in Sussex and basking in relief now your friend Mr Carter is no longer around to badger her.’ Caroline forced a smile. ‘I’m afraid that until supper you will have to put up with me. Do you remember we spoke yesterday of how you were to wind up any outstanding business affairs?’

‘I think there was a suggestion that honest endeavour should take the place of dubious activities,’ he said, standing with his back to the tapestried fire screen and making an abstract survey of the carpet. ‘I was deeply touched.’

‘You surely were not,’ said Caroline, ‘you spent much time wriggling. It made no difference, of course. I am uncontradictably determined. May I ask if you have just come back from winding up an affair?’