Lace for Milady (23 page)

“How does it come you use Frenchmen? I should think if you are going to break the law and smuggle, you might at least let the profits go to Englishmen.”

A look of guilty surprise flew across his face, and I suddenly realised he was lying still. “Clavering, you eel! You haven’t told me a word of truth. What
are
you up to?”

“Why would I tell you
lies
of a nature so unflattering to myself? Of course it is true. I use mostly Englishmen, but a few Frenchies help us.”

“I know perfectly well you are lying. I don’t know what you’re really doing, but I know it’s not this, or this is not all of it, at least.”

“Well, what do you think I’m doing? Smuggling arms to France for Boney to use against us? Sending money across the Channel illegally to finance him and his campaigns? Dammit, Prissie, I’m an
Englishman!
You’ve seen some of the brandy yourself. You know it’s there,” he said angrily.

"If I thought for one minute you were helping Napoleon Bonaparte I’d report you so fast your head would spin.”

“I would have a very poor opinion of you if you didn’t.”

“You
promise
me you’re not?”

“How can you doubt it?” he demanded, furious. "That damned upstart has spilled the blood of thousands of Englishmen, my own cousins and friends slaughtered, to say nothing of the country virtually bankrupted. This war has cost us close to a
billion
pounds and will exceed that before it’s over. This, while millions of our people go poor and hungry. Any man who would aid him should be drawn and quartered. It is the duty of each of us to do what he can..."

He pulled himself up to a stop. “Well, I may be a smuggler, but you may be sure I am not helping Napoleon Bonaparte in any way."

“So that’s it!” I said, and put down my coffee cup. I smiled at him. “You might have told me, Burne.”

“I have told you.”

“You haven’t told me what you are really doing, but I am not a complete ninnyhammer, I hope.”

“Priss, what do you..."

“I won’t ask embarrassing questions. I know you spies have to work in secrecy."

“What foolish notion have you taken into your head now?”

“I have taken the notion, not completely foolish, I think, for I had it of a gentleman whose intelligence I trust, that you are sneaking into France as a smuggler to find out exactly what is going on there. Looking to see if there is a surprise attack being planned, or some such thing."

“What, an attack with Boney’s hands full fighting the Prussians? What are you talking about?”

“I don’t know, but I expect you do. There is news to be picked up on the coast of France, I imagine.”

“The coast? Lord, no, you have to go farther inland than that,” he answered, abandoning his idea of keeping me in ignorance.

“Oh, Burne, I hope you are careful.”

“I am very careful, since I have so much to come home to. Louie tells me I’m turning chicken-livered, only because I refused to help him kidnap a French colonel we saw straggling along the streets of Amiens. But as we would have had to drag him sixty or seventy miles to our ship, I felt it better to soak his insides with brandy and strain out information from him there.”

“Is that the sort of thing you do?”

“We indulge in various pastimes. Loiter around the less genteel cafes and inns, and visit some known connections—paid informers. Not every Frenchman backs Napoleon.”

“Will there be an attack, do you think?”

“He could hardly muster enough men to launch a smuggling boat at this time. There are no troops built up on the coast to speak of. With the Prussians in the north and the Iron Duke coming up at him from the south, he hasn’t time to think of it. Next time I’ll try to make it all the way to Paris and…”

“Next time! You’re not going again?”

“Just have my leash ready for me, Prissie. It won’t be much longer. I have to do it, you know.”

“Don’t worry, I’m not planning to bridle you.”

“Leash, love. I said leash. I trust you walk a dog with more skill than you ride a horse, or my life isn’t worth a Birmingham farthing.”

“I’m sure I don’t follow the tenor of these assorted animal references. I recall your antipathy to marriage, and I assure you I don’t want a pet duke in the kennels, or the stables, either.”

“I had some hopes I would be permitted right into the saloon if I behaved myself. I don’t have fleas, and neither scratch nor bite, and after all, it
is
my house.”

“Oh, it is Belview we are discussing. As you make yourself so free of Willow Hall, I thought it was here you were talking about. You must be lonely, of course, at home, with all those empty bedrooms—rooms— but...”

“You were right the first time. It is the bedrooms I find especially lonesome. As to my former views on marriage..."

“Not two weeks ago you were talking it down, saying you would rather jump from a housetop.”

“The battle was already lost. It was the death rattle of a trapped man. After seeing you exactly four times— being subjected to abuse at every encounter, too—and forcing myself to stay away for a week when I saw what peril I was running into, I gave it up. With your aunt pushing George at your head, I realized I’d have to marry you myself. You have no resistance to a bad bargain, and I was afraid you’d have him. I was quite disgusted with myself to see my carefully nurtured philosophy of misogamy being torn to shreds.”

“You forget both Miss Slack and I share that philosophy with you.”

“That was a low trick! Pretending to agree with me so that I was forced to play the devil’s advocate.”

“You’re well qualified for the job.”

“It is one that requires a certain objectivity and intelligence that I am rather well qualified to supply, I suppose."

"Those weren’t the qualifications I had in mind. And I know perfectly well you only want to get hold of Seaview, so don’t bother trying to gull me.”

“Oh, no, Priss. I think
you
know perfectly well it’s you I want to take hold of, and if you would drink up that coffee, I think I might do it before I have to leave.”

“You keep your great paws to yourself! Just because I let you...
because you took advantage..." I came to a stuttering stop, not quite liking to say he had forced me.

He looked at his well-shaped hands and glanced up questioningly.
“Paws,
eh? Was I that rough with you? My hands have always been considered my one attractive feature. You hit me in a tender spot.”

“We scarcely know each other at all, and it is absurd to speak of marriage, if that is what we
are
speaking of.”

“Is that why you quibble? Certainly I mean to do the thing up right and legally—for the sake of the children, you know. There are enough Louie’s floating around the parish without our adding another generation of them.”

“As neither law-breaking nor illegitimacy is looked down on by you, I was not sure you meant to avail yourself of a preacher."

He looked steadily at me and smiled in good humour, refusing to take umbrage at any of my jibes. “Come, put down that cup before Slack gets back. Let us have a look at the parson’s bench and see what should be done with it. We must nail the lid down, at least.”

Not so slow as he took me for, I had a pretty sharp idea why he wished to draw me into the private saloon, and doubted the bench had anything to do with it. He meant to make a proper offer, and I looked forward with the greatest pleasure to turning him off. How surprised he would be! He kept on talking while we walked into the hall, where Wilkins was rearranging the umbrellas in their container, as he did every time I passed by, to give the impression of being busy.

“It is true we have not known each other long, but I generally come to a swift assessment of my friends, and I think you are not different in that respect.”

“I have had
your
measure for some time, in any case.”

We went into the saloon, and he closed the door behind him. Without a single glance at the parson’s bench, we sat on the sofa, the same we had occupied the night before.

He continued, “I know you are stubborn, foolish, headstrong, and a termagant. You must know by now that this unhandsome gypsy exterior of mine hides the character of a criminal, complete with a strong tendency to lie, manipulate people, dominate, and take unfair advantage. My family associations are nearly as bad as your own. I give you the slight edge in that respect, since you have both Lady Inglewood and George, whereas I have only Louie living close enough to annoy us. Now where, outside of heaven, would you find a better-suited pair?”

"At least you’re not sensible!” I said, trying to register disapproval, but not quite succeeding.

“No, no, you will find very little in the way of common sense, elegance of mind, or such detriments to counterbalance my manifold advantages. Well, what do you say, Priss? Do you think you can handle me?” He worded his offer in terms impossible to reject, and his sly smile told me he knew it, manipulator.

“I could handle you or a dozen like you!”

“That’s what I thought, but I hope you will limit yourself to one,” he replied and snatched me into his arms in his characteristically common fashion, as if I were a servant wench. I had enough trouble controlling one aggressive animal bent on mischief that I fear I rather overstated my abilities in that respect. Licentiousness was clearly to be numbered amongst his major accomplishments. Not content to seal the engagement with the customary kiss, he went on to point out he would have to leave soon for London to report his findings, and therefore had three days’ lovemaking coming to him, all of which he wished to make up in five minutes' concentrated assault. I am afraid I was obliged to bolt to the fireplace and pick up a poker in my own defence, not that I would really have cleaved his head open, but it served to control him.

“Now that I am your lord and master—practically,” he told me, regarding the poker a little fearfully, “I have a few commands to present to you. One, you will not send a groom to my stables to retrieve Juliette and attempt to ride her during my absence. I want you in one unmutilated piece when I get back. I’ll find something you can handle at Tatt’s while I’m in the city. Two, you will stay out of the parson’s bench. Three, you will stay out of the meadow. Four, you will have your wedding gown made up while I’m gone. I smuggled you a lovely piece of white silk and will bring it before I leave. And, love, don’t feel obliged to have it made up into a grandmama’s gown, like your others. I think I felt a waist on you last night, and would like to see it. If you could bring yourself to reveal a shoulder blade or wrist, I wouldn’t mind, either.”

“Thank you very much!”

He tossed up his hands and continued with his “commands,” every one of which I would most certainly disobey. “Five, you will consult with Slack or your aunt or whomever you think can advise you on the proper method of throwing on a wedding with the utmost dispatch, without too much aroma of unseemly necessity to it.”

“Burne—it takes weeks! There are banns and invitations and..."

“Nonsense! What do a pair of misogamists like us want with a formal do? Such carryings-on are to be executed with as much privacy as the disgraceful thing deserves. We don’t want to be giving the villagers a bad example. I’ll spirit back a licence, and we’ll wed next week—early next week—right here in this room. I’ll warn Louie to keep the boys away from the grate for the occasion.” He stopped and looked at me closely.

“Or do you harbour under that stony exterior some romantic notions of orange blossoms and white lace?”

“Heavens, no! I’m in mourning, really, for my stepfather, who isn’t dead a year yet, but no one here knows it.”

“Good.” He stood up and straightened his tie, lifting his chin, and stretching his neck in that peculiar way men have and that seems to me to serve no purpose whatever. “Would you mind putting down the poker?” he asked, with a look in his eye I had already come to mistrust sadly.

As there was the sound of voices outside the door— Slack speaking to Wilkins—I put it down and we walked to the parson’s bench as though we had been there the whole time. Slack entered carrying a fresh cup of coffee for me and with an inquisitive look on her face.

“Slack,” Clavering said, “I am about to commit marriage with your girl, and I suppose I must explain a few things.” He went on to tell her as much as I knew myself.

“I suspected something of the sort,” she said calmly. “I knew, of course, it was nonsense that you were just smuggling. But is it necessary for you to work with the Frenchies, Burne? Do you trust them?”

“About as far as from here to that footstool. They’ve no idea what we’re up to outside of smuggling, but it makes that end of it go more smoothly, and the Gentlemen have to make a living. I keep my Frenchies locked up in the villa, so there’s no chance of their discovering anything while they’re here. They smuggle back sugar and spices and the odd thing that is in short supply in France.”

“I see. Well, it seems we have not given much talk to this wedding of yours. I want to express my congratulations to you both, and I hope you will be very happy. Have you thought where you will go for a wedding journey?”

“Burne is going to Paris with Louie for his wedding journey, and I am staying here with you,” I told her.

“A little later we’ll all go somewhere together,” Clavering promised.

“All?” Slack asked with a laugh. “I hope I am not such a gugdeon that I plan to trail after you on your wedding journey.”

“Ah, but it is Aquae Sulis we have in mind, Slack,” he tempted.

Her eyes sparkled with desire, but she laughed. “I will return to Wilton. There will be good digging there. Archaeological digging, I mean.”

“My dear, if
you
are not part of the dowry, I must beg off,” he told her. “Who will help me discover the glories of our buried villa after the war is over? There is our museum—so much to be done there. I really do plan to set one up, you know, and you can imagine what little help this addlepated bride of mine will be. She wouldn’t know a mosaic from a mural. Besides, I plan to keep her chained to her household duties—and the nursery. Tell her, Prissie.”