Airborne - The Hanover Restoration (25 page)

Not quite the praise a new bride wishes to hear. I sighed and patted his hand. “A little sleep and you’ll feel more the thing.” Unwise words—evidently the final straw for a man accustomed to being in charge.

Julian straightened in his chair, regarding me more like a stern parent than a husband. “Minta, we are talking about the future of the country. You are entitled to keep your rosy view of our situation, but it is my responsibility to look to the worst that can happen. Particularly as I have failed so abominably over the past few days. I appreciate your attempt to cheer me up, but kindly remember who must say yea or nay to this enterprise.”

Thoroughly rebuked, I sat back
in my chair, tears threatening.

Silly twit.

Coward.

Am not!

Well?
my annoying inner voice and my common sense chimed in unison.

Fine. There had to be
something
. . .

“Rochefort?” I ventured. A grunt was my sole reply. “We must go to London. Not just send someone, but go ourselves. I have business there, after all. I must make sure Papa’s engineers are maintaining his high standards. And naturally, as my husband, you would accompany me.”

“Leave the Abbey? Leave the
queen
? Are you mad?”

“Then I will go alone.”

“You will not!” Across the twelve inches of space between our chairs, we glared at each other. “I’ll send Drummond,” Julian asserted.

“Londoners confide in a Scot? Don’t be daft!”

Julian heaved a sigh, ran a hand through his already tousled hair. “I’ll think on it,” he conceded.

Which meant he’d confer with Lord Carlyon, Lord Wandsley, and Drummond, leaving Lexa and
me
with no say at all. Not that I had any right . . . but I was Lexa’s friend. I cared what happened to her. As a person, not solely as a queen.

A wave of goosebumps shook me. Had Papa known about the long-term monarchist plot when he sold me to Rochefort? Had he realized he was gambling my life for Elbert? Or had he thought to tie me to the tail of a comet, my life and Julian’s soaring with the rise of the girl destined to be queen?

A serious gamble.

An exciting one.

The sword of Damocles hung over our heads, suspended by a thread, yet, to my astonishment, I realized there was no where on earth I would rather be.

Chapter 19

We didn’t go to London, of course. If the Abbey weren’t so solidly constructed, the chorus of protests that met Rochefort’s announcement would have blown the roof off. The gist of it seemed to be that Julian was too well known and too vital to the cause. And a disguise was out of the question. I might pass for a flower vendor or even a milkmaid—I had an ear for the varied accents of London’s streets—but Rochefort? Quite impossible. He’d never look or sound like anything but the aristocrat he was.

When we faced reality, the solution was obvious. Who better suited to find out what was happening on the streets of London than Matt Black? Who more worthy of Rochefort’s trust?

Well-armed with a jingling money pouch, Matt took the next train to town. While we waited, the tension was so thick we could almost slice it and serve it for supper. We might as well have, for we had little appetite for the fine food Mrs. H labored to put on our plates. Was London ready to rise for its true queen? Or would Matt find a vast sea of red coats waiting with swords, rifles, and cannon?

Or, worst case, would he find both factions with roiling tempers, the threat of blood running like a river through London’s West End?

Surely all those military sons of peers in the House of Lords would come down on the side of monarchy? And those who remembered what had happened the last time we strayed from monarchy—the turbulent times when Cromwell seized power? And those who simply reveled in the pomp and circumstance of royalty, so much more colorful and inspiring than an aging, autocratic field marshal, who was beginning to act more like his ancient foe, Napoleon Bonaparte? Could Wellington truly compete with a fresh-faced young queen who radiated the hope of new beginnings?

Keep this up and you’ll begin to feel sorry for the old crank.

I stopped pacing the drawing room carpet and told my inner voice to be quiet.

Perhaps he’s ready to retire
, I countered
. And far too full of himself to think anyone in the present government can take his place.

“Melbourne . . .” As if echoing my conversation with myself, Lady Thistlewaite’s voice rose above the voices at the card table. “Are you sure he’s with us? If Wellington names him his successor, will not the role of emperor triumph over our offer of Prime Minister?”

“He is not ambitious,” Rochefort intoned from the far side of the room, where he stood stiffly, hands behind his back, obviously even more worried about Matt than I was. “It was not easy to get Melbourne to consider the post of Prime Minister, and I can guarantee the thought of reigning as uncrowned emperor, as Wellington has, chills him to the soul.”

“All those troubles with his wife—God rest her soul,” Lady Thistlewaite declared. “I fear they scarred him for life. Twelve years a widower, and he’s never remarried.”

“Can you blame him, poor man?” Lady Wandsley huffed.
”

“Melbourne’s much too kindly to follow in the Lord Protector’s footsteps,” Lord Wandsley barked. “Not even sure he was the right choice for P.M., but beggars can’t be choosers. All too many willing to be followers, but few enough ready to stand up and declare openly for the monarchy.”

“What about the Lord Chamberlain and Canterbury?” Lady Thistlewaite asked.

“Pale but willing,” Carlyon returned after a snort of derision. “At the moment the fence is decidedly crowded. Everything depends on how well we carry off our part in the plot.”

“The power of the ultimate presentation,” Lady Thistlewaite pronounced in ringing tones. Proving that, on occasion, my mother-in-law and I could actually agree.

Silence reigned, signaling, I was certain, a whole host of prayers being sent heavenward from the Abbey drawing room.

The heavy silence was broken only when Jacob brought in the evening tea tray. After I poured for everyone and passed around a plate of Mrs. H’s delicacies, I took a deep breath and said, “I have an idea I’d like to suggest.”

I was the same age, size, and coloring as the future queen of England, and they looked at me almost exactly as they looked at Lexa. As if the teapot had suddenly decided to enter the conversation. Well, not Julian perhaps, but the way the others were regarding me . . . Me, Araminta Galsworthy, who had been raised in a household where new ideas were our life’s blood. Literally. How else could we afford to live in relative luxury? But to these people who had never earned a single penny in their entire lives—”

“Go ahead, Minta,” Julian said, his tone hedging a trifle too close to indulgence. “Tell us.”

I ceased my mental grumbling and got on with it. “Even if Matt brings back good news, even if London is waiting for its queen with baited breath, there’s bound to be resistance. An attack could come from Cumberland’s mercenaries almost as easily as from the Lord Protector’s soldiers.”

“Cumberland?” Lady Wandsley exclaimed.

“His son may be blind, but his ambitions run high,” Rochefort responded. “What is Hanover when he could have Britain?”

“We think he is more likely to be behind the violence against us than Wellington,” I added.

“Merciful heavens,” Lady Wandsley murmured, while the others registered varying degrees of surprise that I had dared speak for Rochefort as well as myself.

“But what does that mean?” Lexa asked, speaking up for the first time.

“There was something odd about Prince George’s visit,” I began.

“Agreed,” Rochefort interjected.

Encouraged, I plunged ahead. “He may have come solely on his own behalf, sniffing after the role of Prince Consort, but it’s possible Rochefort was right all along, that Prince George was an emissary from Wellington.” I paused for effect. “But not in the way we imagined.”

A ring of doubting eyes surrounded me, but at least I had their full attention. “I had the strangest feeling the prince was trying to tell us something he couldn’t say out loud. As if, perhaps . . . Wellington has run his course.” I spoke slowly, struggling to grab threads of random ideas and organize them into coherent thought. “He is a man who has held great power since his days long ago on the Peninsula. An abrupt, autocratic man who seized the government because he felt he must. As he saw it, the monarchy was failing in leadership while spending the country into oblivion.”

A sound much like a growl came from Lord Carlyon. “Which, damn the king and his profligacies, was all too true.”

Heads nodded, lips pursed, but I had caught their attention. “In many ways the Lord Protector did us a service, but he proved he was all-too-human when he let power go to his head.” Soft murmurs of agreement flowed around me. “But possibly, just possibly,” I continued, “now that he is past seventy, he has begun to recognize his faults. Or perhaps he is simply tired and ready to give it all up—”

“Unrealistic,” Lord Wandsley snapped. “Typical female maunderings.”

“I’ve told you, Minta, we must always plan for worst case,” Rochefort added, shifting from patronizingly tolerant to stern. “We can’t afford to be influenced by wishful thinking and girlish speculation.”

He would pay for that. But I forged ahead, determined to make my point. “Worst case or best case,” I declared in a voice that carried over the murmurs of agreement with Rochefort’s words, “we need a diversion.”

Julian promptly topped his condescending attitude by sweeping my suggestion aside, saying we needed to hear what Matt had to report before considering any additional plans. Sensible perhaps, but that didn’t keep my feelings from being hurt. Just wait until I got him alone . . .

No, a quarrel with Rochefort over such a slight would be Childish. But if I weren’t in my room when he came to me . . .

My lips tended to twitch as I presided over the evening tea tray, smiling graciously while my thoughts were elsewhere. My duties as hostess had kept me from my beautiful workshop—for which, admittedly, I had Julian to thank. But there was no reason, other than the thought of ghosts, goblins, and long-dead monks, that I could not work at night. Particularly now that a diversion was needed. I might be the sole person who saw the benefit of it, but when the time came I would be ready.

Later that night, a shocked Tillie helped me out of my gown and corset and into a loose-fitting fustian gown that had been new when Elbert was still on the drawing table. “M’lady, you ain’t never going down t’the cellars at this time of night.”

“When else?” I responded lightly. “By day, I must play Lady of the Manor, coping with a houseful of guests, some more than a trifle demanding, I might add.”

“M’lady! A man was murdered down there. Less’n a week past. It’s not right, m’lady, not right a’tall.”

“Nonsense!” Determined not to be in my room when Rochefort came to me, as he had every night since we were married, I stomped my feet into the comfortable boots that had been lying in the back of the wardrobe since I arrived at Stonegrave Abbey. I stuck out a foot and, reluctantly, Tillie knelt to lace them up.

“Mad as a hatter,” Tillie mumbled, adding a few more epithets I couldn’t quite hear. As she reached for the other boot, she paused, her face brightening considerably as she looked up at me. “Take one of the guards, m’lady. That’d be sensible-like.”

Sensible-like.
Tillie couldn’t be more right. Truth was, as much as I longed to indulge myself in the wonders of my very own workshop, it was only my desire to show Julian my back that was driving me into the cellars at night. The very thought of traversing subterranean corridors that were eerie enough by day turned my bones to water.

Coward!

My Galsworthy ancestors might roll in their graves, but I couldn’t agree more. My common sense applauded Tillie’s advice to send for a guard.

I considered the logistics. Tillie would have to find a footman still on duty. The footman must then locate someone other than Rochefort with enough authority to assign a guard to me. By that time, an hour might be gone, Julian at my door, and no work done on the project I was determined to insert into the monarchists’ plans.

“It’s all right, Tillie,” I said as she finished lacing the second boot. “I will take my gun. It is double-barreled, and I assure you I know how to use it.” Stiffly, she rose to her feet, lips clamped shut, her face funereal. “Thank you for your concern, Tillie, but I promise you I’ll be fine. I’ve been wanting to find time for my workshop ever since Lord Rochefort showed it to me. Nighttime seems to be the only solution. You may go, Tillie. Good-night.”

She wavered a moment before bobbing a curtsey and adding an infinitesimal shake of her head before departing, closing the door softly behind her.

My hands shook as I lighted an oil lamp, which would be less likely to fail me in the tunnel-like corridors below. I fixed a picture of Julian’s wondrous gift in my mind. That was my goal. Once I got there, I could bar the door and work in perfect safety.