My Sweet Folly (33 page)

Robert walked down the long row of boxes under the colonnade, reading numbers. He was not certain how he could signal Folie privately in this crowd, so he held back, trying to locate her before any of the rest of the party saw him. But when he finally came upon Box 23, only Lady Dingley and a maid sat inside it.

Robert paused, moving back until he became part of the throng gathered before the orchestra. He was partly concealed by the trees and the curved and ornamented flank of the orchestra’s rotunda, but from there the sparkle of lights and harsh shadows beneath the colonnade made detail difficult to see.

He drifted toward the darker part of the garden, reckoning that he might observe better from outside the central colonnades. Once, he thought he caught a glimpse of Melinda, but if he had, she was swallowed up in the slow stirring crowd before he could be sure.

The place was certainly not a good choice for a private meeting—at least for anyone but clandestine lovers, who could take full advantage of the maze of dark garden walks beyond the blaze of illumination. Robert took up a post beneath an unlit tree, where he could just see the box through the entrance to the colonnade. But the people passing in and out blocked his line of sight except for momentary views. He crossed his arms and sighed.

Folie looked at Lady Dingley when they returned to the box, but there was no sign of particular pleasure on her face, or any evidence of Sir Howard. Their supper was laid out. The crowd began to settle into their places for the fireworks.

She had hoped that he would make an appearance early, so that she might get the thing over with and enjoy herself. But perhaps he would not come at all. Perhaps he was too cowardly after all even to speak to Folie.

The walk had warmed her a little, but her fingers were stiff and chilly as she ate. Almost before they had finished the delicate pies and puddings, the music was reaching a crescendo.

A crack of sound made them all jump in their chairs. With a great sigh of awe from the audience, a rocket flew upward from the trees, trailing gold and bursting in the air, scattering a shower of blue sparks. It was followed by a cloud of squibs and corkscrew serpents, crackling glitter across the sky over their heads. Folie forgot all about her cold hands and Sir Howard, sitting back with her mouth open while the garden and the heavens turned to colored lightning and fire.

Robert watched them in the box, debating whether he should wait until the fireworks were over or try to approach her under cover of all the sound and brilliance. He could see her entranced face, lit by the blaze of a spinning and fizzing Catherine wheel. The crowd moaned its approval as another pyrotechnic lit the sky with red and blue and green. Robert pushed away from the tree.

Something icy cold touched the back of his neck. He froze, feeling hands grab his arms from behind.

“Come or die here,” someone hissed close to his ear. “A gunshot will never be heard.”

The truth of it was already burning in his brain. Robert stared for an instant at the box, at Folie and Melinda and Lander, illuminated and shadowed by the bursts of fireworks. The gun pressed hard into his neck.

Robert nodded silently. He let his unseen captor pull him backward into the black garden.

“Well, that was quite stirring!” Folie exclaimed in satisfaction. The gardens smelled of acrid powder, multicolored smoke drifting through the trees. “I’ve never seen anything like!”

The music had resumed, sounding peculiarly muted after the noise and fury of the fireworks. People in the boxes began to gather their belongings.

“Oh, I wish it had never ended!” Melinda said. “That was better than a ball!”

The girls gushed and giggled while they collected shawls and reticules. When everything had been accounted for, they stepped out of the box, joining the flow of people headed for the river landing.

“I hope we can obtain a boat!” Lady Dingley said fretfully.

“Oh, Lander will see to it,” Melinda said. “Mama, do you want my shawl, too? The water breeze is quite cool!”

Folie denied that she needed anything more than her blue kashmir. As they stood waiting with the growing knot of people on the landing, Lander made his way to the front to negotiate a passage. Folie turned back for one last look up at the gleaming garden lights.

Silhouetted figures moved against them, most walking toward the quay, others seeming to dart this way and that in the tricky light. She squinted, then looked closer at a man striding across the path.

Sir Howard! She had completely forgotten him. And obviously he was searching for them; he had that determined hunting pace, looking about him as he went.

“I’ll be back in just a moment,” she said, touching Melinda’s arm. “Hold the boat for me!”

Tucking her shawl about her, Folie hurried up the slope, leaving Melinda’s puzzled protest behind. She caught a glimpse of Sir Howard’s hat, and then lost him. Annoying man! Folie was of half a mind to leave him to his own devices. Why hadn’t he come sooner, to their box? At least shown himself to Folie, if he would not approach Lady Dingley.

Folie paused at the entrance to the colonnade. She thought that she had lost him, but then saw him walk briskly through the opposite entrance. She lifted her skirt and ran after, calling.

He disappeared beyond the light. Folie dodged people walking toward her, determined by now to drag him back to Lady Dingley by main force if necessary. It was completely nonsensical, she thought, that two people who appeared to love one another deeply should entangle themselves in such a debacle that they required an interpreter between them.

Just past the colonnade, she saw him walking up one of the shrub-lined garden alleys. Folie increased her pace. She started to call out again, but people were looking at her oddly as she hastened past, so she remained silent, her slippers patting the ground softly.

Folie had almost caught up when he turned onto a side path. She stopped abruptly, thinking that that was rather odd. Surely he could not expect to find them there, so far into the unlit garden. A cold doubt came over her—perhaps he was here for some furtive assignation with his housemaid.

She stepped into the shadowy path, leaning forward a little. If she saw him with a female, that would be sufficient—she washed her hands of the whole sordid intrigue.
 

As her eyes adjusted, she heard his voice, pitched low and urgent, from just beyond the shrubbery. “What the devil do you mean by this?’’

Another voice answered, a man’s. “Damn your eyes, Dingley! Why’d you come back here?”

“Never mind that!” Sir Howard said strongly. “What have you done to him?”

Folie shivered, pulling the shawl close.
This
was surely nothing she wanted to be involved in. She started to back away.

“That’s Cambourne!” Sir Howard exclaimed, his voice low but clearly audible. “Oh my God, my God—if you’ve murdered him—’’

Folie stopped. Her heart seemed to congeal in her chest.

Suddenly Sir Howard came plunging onto the path from the shadows. He saw Folie, pulled up short, and then without a word grabbed her elbow and turned her. She felt him jerk her with him just as another firework exploded right inside her head—bright, violent pain and sparkling blackness.

FOURTEEN

Robert held her head in his lap. Somewhere deep inside him was terror—that she was dying in his arms—but it seemed far away, overlaid by a strange calm. All over her hair and ear was blood; he left it, not attempting to use any of the filthy water and rags the guard had left.

His mind seemed uncannily clear, now that the thing he had feared was happening. He was on a ship, chained by one ankle and wrist to a bulkhead. One of the prison hulks moored in the Thames, he guessed. They appeared to be in a former dining cuddy of the dismantled ship.
 
There was a table bolted to the deck. Beneath its scratched and warped surface he could see Sir Howard chained to the opposite wall. The man’s eyes were red-rimmed; his hair straggling down over his forehead. He stared straight ahead, never looking toward Robert and Folie.

Robert had never seen who had brought them here. Only voices, the gun in his back, and a blindfold and gag so tight that he had kept losing consciousness. By the time he had regained his wits sometime in the night, the gag had been replaced by chains, and his coat and boots were gone. He had thought he was imprisoned alone. Only at dawn, when a dim green light leaked through the porthole, did he realize with horror that Folie was lying in an inert heap at his feet.