Dangerous Deceptions (36 page)

“You sound almost proud of that,” I said. “What of Sebastian?”

My father shook his head. “Unless he is willing to bear tales against his elder brother, no one particularly cares what becomes of the younger Mr. Sandford.”

“I’d be surprised if Sophy Howe wasn’t trying to talk him into doing just that,” I muttered. “She’d like a collaborator with a title and some money.”

“Ah! That reminds me. It reminds me.” Mr. Tinderflint patted his coat pockets. “A note for you, Peggy.”

He handed the letter across to me. For a single alarmed moment, I thought it must be from Sophy. But then I saw the seal and realized it was much worse. It was from Her Royal Highness.

Matthew squeezed my shoulder again as I broke the seal.

Miss Fitzroy
(I read):
I look forward to your returning safe and resuming your position. At that point, I shall expect a full account of your most recent adventures.

All the breath rushed out of me, pushed by the force of my relief. But on the heels of this came the question. Did I wish to return? To return would be to plunge myself right back into those same intrigues that had come so close to killing me, not once but twice.

I looked up mutely at Matthew. He read the question in me, and I watched a wish pass behind his eyes. He wished I would refuse, that I would answer this note by tendering my resignation and retiring to some country spot.

“It’s up to you,” he said. “I am with you, no matter what.”

I thought of the princess. I thought of Olivia. I thought of barrels of silver and oatmeal and yet another scheme to bring down a war upon us. Did I care whether Stuart or Hanover held the throne? I liked my mistress, and her daughters, and even the puppies. I suspected I was a fair way to being charmed by the prince. Did they hold the throne by right, though? How was I to tell?

What I could tell was that I did not want war. I did not want to play into the hands of men—like the Sandfords, like my uncle—who would use rebellion to line their own pockets and increase their own power. And it happened I was in a position to do something about this.

That notion, I found I liked very much.

“I’ll go back,” I announced. “After all, I have family to care for now. Olivia and Aunt Pierpont need me.”

I said this directly to my father. I waited for him to bluster and insist he would and could care for us all. He did neither of these things. Instead, he just turned to Mr. Tinderflint and Matthew. “May I have a moment with my daughter?”

Both these worthies looked to me, and I nodded, although seeing Mr. Tinderflint patting Matthew on the back as they left the room awoke fresh qualms in me.

The door closed, and I was once more alone with my father. I might be rather cleaner and more comfortable this time, but I was only a little less confused.

“The next months will be difficult, Peggy,” he told me. “I cannot say for certain what will happen or how it will end. I ask only one question of you.” He paused, and I think we both were waiting to see what he decided to say. “Do you think you might be able to forgive me?”

I looked at him, my hated, beloved, long-absent father. This was the man I had blamed for ruining my life, and who had so recently returned to save it. I thought on all I had been through, and all that was yet to come that I could not see. There would be Olivia’s troubles added to mine now. And mine already included small details, like the fact that Sophy and Sebastian were still at St. James’s Palace and that Julius Sandford might very well escape punishment. All of this had been set in motion by the choices this man had made—he and my mother together.

“I don’t know if I can forgive,” I said. Then I reached out and took his hard, stained hand. “But I know . . . I would like to try.”

CHAPTER ONE

London, 1716

I must begin with a frank confession. I became Lady Francesca Wallingham only after I met the man calling himself Tinderflint. This was after my betrothal, but before my uncle threw me into the street and barred the door.

Before these events, I was simply Margaret Preston Fitzroy, known mostly as Peggy, and I began that morning as I did most others—at breakfast with Cousin Olivia, reading the newspapers we had bribed the housemaid to smuggle out of Uncle’s book room.

“Is there any agony this morning?” asked my cousin as she spread her napkin over her flowered muslin skirt.

I scanned the tidy columns of type in front of me. Uncle Pierpont favored the
Morning Gazetteer
for its tables of shipping information, but there were other advertisements there as well. These were the “agony columns,” cries from the heart that some people thought best to print directly in the paper, where the object of their desire, and everybody else, would be sure to get a look at them.

“‘To Miss X from Mr. C,’” I read. “‘The letter is burnt. I beg you may return without delay.’”

“A Jacobite spy for certain,” said Olivia. “What else?”

“How’s this? ‘Should any young gentleman, sound of limb, in search of employment present himself at the warehouse of Lewis & Bowery in Sherwood Street, he will meet a situation providing excellent remuneration.’”

“Oh, fie, Peggy. How dull.” My cousin twitched the paper out of my hands and smoothed it over her portion of the table.

As I know readers must be naturally curious about the particulars of the heroine in any adventure, I will here set mine down. I was at this time sixteen years of age, and in what is most quaintly called “an orphaned state.” In my case, this meant my mother was dead and no one knew where my father might be found. I possessed dark hair too coarse for fashion, pale skin too prone to freckle in the sun, and dark eyes too easily regarded as “sly,” all coupled with a manner of speaking that was too loud and too frank. These fine qualities and others like them resulted in my being informed on a daily basis that I was both a nuisance and a disappointment.

Because I was also a girl without a farthing to call my own, I had to endure these bulletins. As a result, I was kept at Uncle Pierpont’s house like a bad-tempered horse is kept in a good stable. That is, grudgingly on my uncle’s part and with a strong urge to kick on mine.

“Perhaps it’s a trap.” I poured coffee into Olivia’s cup and helped myself to another slice of toast from the rack. I will say, the food was a point in favor of my uncle’s house. He was very much of the opinion that a true gentleman kept a good board. That morning we had porridge with cream, toast with rough-cut marmalade, kippered herrings, and enough bacon to feed a regiment. Which was good, because that regiment, in the form of all six of Olivia’s plump and over-groomed dogs, milled about our ankles making sounds as if they were about to drop dead of starvation. “Perhaps the young man who answers the advertisement will be tied in a sack and handed to the press gangs.”

“There’s a thought. They might be slavers and mean to sell him to the Turks. The Turks are said to favor strong young English men.”

It is a tribute to Olivia’s steadfast friendship that my urge to kick never extended to her. My cousin was one of nature’s golden girls, somehow managing to be both slim and curved, even before she put on her stays. She possessed hair of an entirely acceptable shade of gold and translucent skin that flushed pink only at appropriate points. As if these were not blessings enough, she had her father’s fortune to dower her and a pair of large blue eyes designed solely to drive gallant youths out of their wits.

Those same gallants, however, might have been surprised to see Olivia leap to her feet and brandish an invisible sword.

“Back, you parcel of Turkish rogues!” she cried, which caused the entire dog flock to yip and run about her hems, looking for something very small they could savage for their mistress’s sake. “I am a stout son of England! You will never take me living!”

“Hurray!” I applauded.

Olivia bowed. “Of course, Our Hero kills the nearest ruffian to make his escape, the rest of the gang pursues him, and he is forced to flee London for the countryside—”

“Where he is found dying of fever in a ditch by the fair daughter of Lord . . . Lord . . .”

“Lord Applepuss, Duke of Stemhempfordshire.” Olivia scooped up the stoutest of her dogs and turned him over in her arm so she could smooth his fluff back from his face and gaze adoringly down at him. “Lady Hannah Applepuss falls instantly in love and hides Our Hero in a disused hunting lodge to nurse him back to health. But Lord Applepuss is a secret supporter of the Pretender, and he means to marry his daughter off to a vile Spanish noble in return for money for another uprising—”

“And as she is forced onto a ship to sail for Spain, he steals aboard for a daring rescue?” One of the dogs decided to test out its savaging skills on my slipper. I gave it a firm hint that this was a bad idea with the toe of that selfsame slipper. It yipped and retreated. “Can there be pirates?”

“Of course there are pirates.” Olivia nipped some bacon off her plate with her fingers. “What do you take me for?” She turned to the dogs and held the bacon up high so that they all stood neatly on their hind legs, and all whined in an amazing display of puppy harmony.

“You really should write a play, Olivia,” I said, addressing myself once more to my toast, coffee, and kippers. “You’re better at drama than half the actors in Drury Lane.”

“Oh, yes, and wouldn’t my parents love that? Mother already harangues me for overmuch reading. ‘A book won’t teach you how to produce good sons, Olivia.’”

“That just shows she hasn’t read the right books.”

Olivia clapped her hand over her laugh. “You outrageous thing! Well, perhaps I shall write a play. Then—”

But I never was to know what she would do then. For at that moment the door opened, and to our utter shock and surprise, Olivia’s mother entered.

My aunt Pierpont declared she could not bear the smell of food before one of the clock, so she daily kept to her boudoir until that time. My throat tightened at the sight of her, and my mind hastily ran down a list of all my recent activities, wondering which could have gotten me into trouble this time.

My cousin, naturally, remained unperturbed. “Good morning, Mother. How delightful of you to join us.” Olivia possessed admirably tidy habits when it came to other people’s property and forbidden literature. She folded the paper so its title could not be seen. “Shall I pour you some coffee?”

“Thank you, Olivia.” Aunt Pierpont had been a celebrated beauty in her day. She still carried herself very straight, but time and four babies had softened and spread her figure. Twenty-odd years of marriage to my uncle had wreaked havoc upon her nerves, and she was forever clutching at things: a handkerchief, a bottle of eau de toilette, an ivory fan. This morning it was the handkerchief, which she applied to her nose as she drew up her seat next to mine.

“Good morning to you too, Peggy. I trust you are well this morning?”

“Yes, Aunt. Quite. Thank you for asking.” I slipped a glance at Olivia, who was busy pouring coffee and offering it to her mother with sugar and cream. Olivia shook her head, a tiny movement you wouldn’t catch unless you were looking for it. She had no notion what occasioned this unprecedented appearance either.

“Isn’t the weather fine today?” Aunt Pierpont’s hands fussed with her lacy little square, as if about to pull it to bits. “Olivia, I think a stroll in the garden will be just the thing after breakfast.”

This was too much for even Olivia’s composure. A flicker of consternation crossed her face. “Yes . . . certainly. We’d be glad to, wouldn’t we, Peggy?”

“Erm, no, my dear. I thought just you and I. Surely, Peggy won’t mind.”

“No, of course not.” My mind was racing. What could Aunt have to say to Olivia that I couldn’t hear? Had Olivia received a marriage offer? Her looks and her father’s money meant she had cartloads of youths chasing after her. Worry knotted in my stomach. What would I do in this house without Olivia? Uncle Pierpont often grumbled about sending me off to Norwich to “make myself useful” to his aging mother, thus saving himself the cost of my keeping.

“Well.” Olivia delicately blotted her mouth with her napkin. “Shall I fetch my bonnet, then?”

“Yes, yes, do.”

Olivia scurried from the room, the canine flock trailing behind. Left alone with my aunt and my now thoroughly queasy stomach, I found it difficult to fit words to my tongue.

“Peggy, you know we are all very fond of you.” Aunt Pierpont squeezed the much-abused handkerchief in her fist.

“Yes, Aunt.” I stared at that strangled bit of lace and fancied it might soon yield some milk, or a plea for help.

“And we’ve always had your welfare at heart.”

This is it. I am bound for Norwich and a damp cottage and a deaf old woman who can pinch a sixpence until it screams
. I’d been there once before, one interminable, gray winter, to nurse the dowager Pierpont through a cold. She’d made up her mind that if she was to have nothing but gruel and weak tea, no one else need have anything better. I must have written a thousand murder plans in my diary in those months. Had her serving girl been able to read, I would have been hanged straightaway.