Behind the Mask (House of Lords) (5 page)

“Come into the study,” Danforth said. “It’s not too early for a brandy.”

When they were both seated before the great fireplace in the duke’s study, Danforth looked thoughtfully at him. “Well?” Colin said. “Have I been found wanting, Your Grace?”

The duke grinned. “Call me Charles, if you would. You seem like a decent enough fellow. And Leo trusts you, which is perhaps more important than anything else. I value his judgment.” From his pocket Charles drew a letter, still neatly folded, and handed it across to Colin. “Read it if you like.”

Colin unfolded the paper. It was a short note from Leo, explaining in bare terms the basic purpose of his mission.
He is one of us
, Leo wrote at the end.
Trust him as you would trust me.

Nodding, he handed the paper back to Charles, who said, “I can tell you that there have been no suspicious visitors to this area. I rode out with my steward this morning after I got this letter and we visited most of the houses in the parish. I would imagine, though, that the men you seek would put in closer to Gorleston.”

“That was my guess as well,” Colin said.

“And who do you believe they are?”

Colin thought for a moment. He had been instructed not to reveal his purpose to anyone except Leo, but Leo trusted this man implicitly. It would do no harm to tell him the truth. “A group called the Serraray. It comes from the Berber translation of a phrase from the Quran, the Muslim holy book, roughly translating as ‘We hear and obey’. They are a fringe group devoted to the overthrow of the French occupation of Algeria.”

“I see. How will murdering Princess Victoria help them to achieve that end?”

Colin shrugged. “It won’t, at least not directly. It is a show of strength, an act of intimidation. They have an opportunity, and they mean to take it.”

Charles sat back in his chair and rubbed a hand thoughtfully over his chin. “Was there no thought of asking the Duchess of Kent not to take her daughter on this journey?”

For a moment Colin stared at him. “Have you never met Sir John Conroy?” he asked.

Charles laughed. “I have met the man. I assume you mean to imply that when that viper gets an idea in his head it is well nigh impossible to dissuade him, and I suppose you are correct. But could not the Foreign Secretary appeal to the duchess for her daughter’s safety?”

“I am afraid that question is above my pay grade,” Colin said ruefully.

Now Charles leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, a conspiratorial look in his eye. “Why is it,” he said, “that the heir to the Earldom of Townsley even
has
a pay grade?”

Colin tried not to bristle at the question. “I find the work fulfilling,” he said. “Far more fulfilling than idling about London waiting for my father to die.” When Charles frowned, he added, “Forgive me. I did not mean—”

“No, no,” Charles said, holding up a hand. “I understand. My father and I were not on the best of terms either, and there were many times when it would perhaps have been better to have a whole continent in between us.”

Out in the hall, the bell to dress for supper rang. Colin rose and Charles called a footman to escort him to his rooms. As he went towards the door, however, the duke said, “It’s my fault, you know, that Leo had to stay in town.”

“Is it?”

“I wanted to get my wife home before she gives birth to our child. Otherwise I would probably have stayed to deliver the Lord Chancellor’s plan. But you will take good care of the ladies, won’t you?”

Colin smiled. “I give you my word.”

“Oh, good,” Eleanor’s mother said when they gathered in the hall for supper. “I’m glad you chose that gown, dear. It is one of your most becoming.”

Eleanor stifled a groan. If she was going to have to put up with several more days of this she might run mad. “I chose it specifically for Lord Pierce,” she said.

“I’m pleased to hear it,” Lady Sidney replied, ignoring her daughter’s sarcastic tone. “Are your sisters on their way?”

“I’m here,” Georgina said, coming down the stairs. As usual, she was dressed quite conservatively. Eleanor was certain that when Maris appeared her gown would be the polar opposite of Georgina’s staid pale green frock with its high neckline. But that was Georgina, always the willing counterpoint to her twin. Sometimes Eleanor wondered why she bothered minding their vivacious sister. Georgina had prevented far more disasters than she, and Maris always forgave her.

The duke and duchess came down next, Danforth holding his wife’s arm securely as she descended. She looked rather embarrassed by his attentions, but she bore them admirably. It was their first child, after all, and Eleanor knew that Cynthia longed for the baby as much as her husband, and nearly as much as her father, the Earl of Sheridan, though he was prevented from openly rejoicing in the impending birth by the fact that Cynthia was his
natural
daughter, a child he could not publicly acknowledge. It didn’t prevent him from doting on her, of course, but it did mean that he had to be more circumspect than other men expecting their first grandchild might be.

That afternoon as they sat in the parlor, Eleanor had asked whether the earl would be traveling up to Starling Court for the birth. Of the dozen or so people who knew the truth of the Duchess of Danforth’s parentage, Eleanor and her mother and sisters were four, and their brother a fifth. Indeed, they had learned the truth only hours after Cynthia herself, just before her marriage to the duke back in January.

Cynthia had smiled. “He will be here next week,” she said. “No doubt he will torment Charles to no end—he does enjoy a joke now and then, and unfortunately my husband does not have the keenest sense of humor. But it will be good to have him here.”

“And when we journey back down to London after Christmas we will be able to see your new son or daughter,” Maris had said cheerily.

“Will you stay in Norfolk the whole autumn, then?”

“Maris and Georgina and I will,” Lady Sidney said. “But Eleanor insists on going back down to London to help with the school.”

Cynthia took Eleanor’s hand. “And I am grateful for it, Lady Sidney. Since I will not be able to be of much assistance, I am fortunate to have friends like Eleanor to help me. The school was, after all, my idea.”

“And we are all so glad that you thought of it,” Eleanor said earnestly. When Cynthia had come to her in the spring and said that she and Charles were purchasing a house in Knightsbridge with a view to turning it into a school for impoverished and abandoned children, she had jumped at the chance to help, to
do
something rather than idling uselessly for the remainder of the season, attending parties and balls and the theatre. The idea of having meaningful work appealed to her immensely, and she had thrown herself wholeheartedly into the scheme. The princess’s visit had thrown her plans off kilter, but she comforted herself that it was only a short hiatus, that soon she would be back in London with Imogen, Charles’s sister, and they would get to work once more.

Lady Sidney pursed her lips at Cynthia’s praise but said nothing. Eleanor knew that her mother did not approve of the school or her work to get it up and running, but she had decided that she did not care. She spent so much of her time trying to make her mother happy that, deep down inside, some rebellious little fire had sparked and she had made up her mind to do this one thing to make
herself
happy.

Now, as they waited for the youngest Chesney to come down, Lady Sidney leaned close under the pretense of adjusting her sleeve. “Don’t mention that school to Lord Pierce, darling,” she said softly. “Men don’t like a woman with an occupation.”

Eleanor nodded, but she was not really listening. After all, Cynthia had been working as a tutor when she met the duke, and it hadn’t kept him from marrying her. Besides, she thought, Lord Pierce seemed like the last man on earth who would find a woman with an active occupation unattractive. He struck her as the sort of person who could not bear to be idle, just like her.

As if thinking of him had summoned him Lord Pierce appeared at the top of the stairs with Maris beside him. She was wearing one of her most daring evening gowns, a deep pink affair with a low cut neckline that was perhaps more fit for a ballroom than supper in the country. But there was no denying she looked ravishing, and it was clear that Maris knew it, for she was smiling her most charming smile as Lord Pierce said something, and then she laughed prettily.

“All assembled, then,” the duke said when they had reached the bottom of the stairs. “Shall we go in?”

Starling Court apparently had two dining rooms, one that was smaller and more suited to intimate gatherings, and a larger one that had once hosted a state dinner for two hundred when King George III had visited. It was into the smaller dining room that they went now. The room was arranged for a convivial dinner among friends rather than a formal affair where one only talked to one’s table partner, which was for the best since there were only two gentlemen and five ladies. Eleanor found herself seated between Cynthia and Lord Pierce, with Georgina across the table.

As they started in on the first course, Lord Pierce began quizzing Cynthia about the house. She answered the first few questions before deferring to her husband saying, “I have always considered myself to be a quick learner, Lord Pierce, but architecture is not my strong suit.”

Charles laughed. “And what makes you think I have any greater knowledge than you, darling?”

“You’ve lived here all your life,” she protested, smiling.

“I suppose that’s so,” he replied, though Eleanor noticed that he still did not offer any information about the house.

The discussion moved to other topics: the weather for the shooting season, the progress made during the Parliamentary session that year, Lord Pierce’s experiences on the Continent. When the duchess asked about Lord Pierce’s impressions of Vienna compared to Brussels, he said without looking up from his plate, “Brussels is far less...exciting.”

It was such a cryptic statement that Eleanor was intrigued. The Belgians had barely finished fighting a revolution to establish themselves as a country and installing a new king on the throne. What could be more exciting than that? From the meaningful looks Lord Pierce exchanged with Charles, Eleanor decided she would dearly love to be present when the two men remained in the dining room after supper. But of course that was not possible, and when the meal had ended she was forced to follow the ladies into the drawing room, where the talk turned to how Georgina and Maris had enjoyed their second Season, prompting their mother to launch into an elaborate retelling of every ball and gown and dance partner. Even Maris, who loved the glittering whirl of the Season above anything else, seemed rather exasperated by the time the men finally joined them. Then Cynthia excused herself saying, “I tire so easily these days!”

Charles, Georgina, Maris and Lady Sidney sat down to play cards, leaving Eleanor and Lord Pierce sitting on the sofa. For a while they sat in companionable silence. Eleanor had a book on her lap though she was not really reading it. It was Honoré de Balzac’s
Eugénie Grandet
, which she had read last year just after its publication. She had enjoyed it immensely then, even though she found the ending rather unsatisfying, but tonight the French words seemed to run together on the page.

Lord Pierce seemed to have noticed her occupation, for he said, “You read French?”

She nodded. “And Russian and German, though neither of those are my strong suit.”

He seemed impressed. “You must have had a singular governess.”

“She was a formidable woman. I don’t know where mother found her. She was a Russian immigrant, the daughter of a princess. She spoke Russian to us in our childhood, but when our father commanded her to stop she switched to teaching us to read it instead. She had a rebellious soul, I think, which might have had something to do with why she left Russia in the first place. French and German I learned at the Moreton School.”

“I see,” he said. “And your sisters—do they read French and German as well?”

Eleanor was sure she blushed. “I was a good student, My Lord, and a quick learner. I found the study of languages and history far more intriguing than the harp or embroidery. It is not difficult to learn something when one is given time to apply oneself wholeheartedly.”