The Viscount's Revenge (The Royal Ambition Series Book 4) (16 page)

“Can you tell me about it?”

“Perhaps. A little. You must not tell anyone. Even Richard.”

“I will not tell.”

He studied her in silence and then settled back in his chair.

“I shall tell you,” he said at last. “I went to meet a piece of history, but I fear that piece of history is shortly going to create future trouble.”

“You speak in riddles.”

“I shall begin at the beginning. I went to see Napoleon.”

“That monster! But he is in prison, is he not?”

“He rides about the island of Elba like a lord on his country estate. I set about getting an audience with him. This I did by positioning myself beside the road from Porto Ferrajo and waiting until he came riding past. I pulled off my hat and made him a low bow. Napoleon stopped with Drouot, who was riding with him, and asked, ‘
Qui êtes-vous?
’ I am sorry, Amanda. Do you understand French?”

“Only a little.”

“Very well. He said, ‘Who are you?’ and I replied, ‘An Englishman.’ He asked, ‘Are you a soldier?’ I shook my head. ‘Shopkeeper?’ I shook my head again. ‘
Alors
, you are a gentleman,’ he said. ‘Come with me.’

“He said he was going to his country house in San Martino and we would talk there. Once we arrived at San Martino, Napoleon took me into a small room and shut the door.

“He seemed used to being treated like a sort of curiosity and said I could ask him any questions I liked.

“I asked him the first one that came to mind. I asked, ‘Why did you stay so long at Moscow? That was the beginning of your downfall.’

“He replied, ‘I looked over the meteorological tables for the last thirty years, and never but once had the winter set in so early, by five weeks, as it did in 1812. I could not foresee that. I made mistakes, as every man does, in the many years that I have been in public life and a soldier—perhaps ten a day.’

“Napoleon went on to say that he thought Wellington was a brave man. He said he would sooner trust him with one hundred thousand men than any of his generals, even Soult. He often laughed violently, great bursts of laughter, and he flew from one topic to the next. He asked me what I thought of the Princess Charlotte and whether she was not a person of spirit and character. The next minute he raged about reports that when he was at council he used to cut the chairs and even the throne with his penknife.

“I asked him if he were afraid of assassination. ‘Not by the English,’ he replied. ‘Perhaps by the Corsicans. They do not love me.’

“I perhaps should have assassinated him myself,” said Lord Hawksborough, pouring more wine for himself and Amanda.

“But why?”

“Listen! I asked the all-important question. I asked if he had any ambitions to return to French soil and be restored to his former glory. He shrugged and said, ‘
Mon rôle est fini.
’ He said he was writing his history. ‘Napoleon is always Napoleon,’ he said, ‘and always will know how to be content to bear any fortune.’

“But as I took my leave of him, he said again, ‘
Mon rôle est fini
,’ my role is finished, but he followed it up with a great burst of laughter which had a mocking edge. The island was alive with rumours of his planned escape.

“And so I returned to London and advised my masters that the Emperor should be moved forthwith to a more secure place of confinement. But they shrugged and thanked me for my services and said I would be suitably rewarded, but that there was no danger in the world of Napoleon ever escaping from Elba.”

Lord Hawksborough stretched and yawned. “I am devilish tired, Amanda.”

“Then come to bed!” laughed a voice from the doorway.

Lady Mary stood watching them with a warm smile on her lips which did not meet her eyes. She was wearing a white peignoir of pink cashmere with a Persian border.

“How long have you been there listening?” demanded Lord Hawksborough.

“I did not listen at all,” protested Lady Mary. “My dear Charles, such a welcome!”

He walked forward and raised her hand and kissed it. She wound her arms about him and leaned back and looked at him through half-closed lids. “Well, Charles, are you not glad to see me?”

Lord Hawksborough put his arms about her, but he turned his head slightly towards where Amanda was now standing.

“Miss Colby,” said Lady Mary in a caressing voice. “Do you not feel you are somewhat
de trop
?”

“I was just going,” said Amanda, blushing to the roots of her hair. She ran from the room and up the stairs to her bedroom, where she hurled herself facedown on the bed and bit the counterpane in an access of pain and mortification. How could he embrace Lady Mary so? The library was where she, Amanda, talked to him.

“But they were not talking when you left, nor interested in talking,” prompted her inner voice.

Amanda had just made up her mind to have a really good sort of wallowing bout of tears when she became aware that someone was throwing pebbles at her window.

She knew that sound of old, because Richard used to throw pebbles at her bedroom window at Fox End when he returned from one of his late-night fishing expeditions.

She lifted the sash of the window and looked down into the square.

It was indeed Richard standing under the parish lamp.

“You’ll need to let me in,” he said in a faint whisper. “I haven’t enough money to pay my shot at an inn.”

“Hammer on the knocker and tell them you are just arrived,” hissed Amanda.

“Daren’t! Too risky. Might think it a coincidence. Oxford stage got in hours ago. Frightened they connect me with the jewels.”

“Oh, very well,” said Amanda, although she thought he was being ridiculous. Any servant would assume he had been out drinking with friends. Then she thought crossly that they should both have thought of that in the first place instead of all this havey-cavey business. Richard should simply have arrived with the jewels hidden in his luggage.

She ran downstairs again, this time unafraid she would be heard. She unbarred and unlocked the door.

Richard followed her silently upstairs and Amanda held her tongue until they were both locked in her bedroom.

“This secrecy is silly, Richard,” she said. “You could simply have walked through the front door.”

“I suppose so,” said Richard. “But I am afraid that we will still be found out. Let us hope Townsend has been called off.”

“He hasn’t,” replied Amanda. “My lord told me this evening that he still wants the highwaymen brought to justice.”

“I can’t be found here,” said Richard, looking about wildly. “He’ll think it monstrous strange if I turn up the same night as the jewels.”

“Perhaps,” sighed Amanda, suddenly very tired. “Go and sleep on the chaise longue, Richard, at the foot of the bed, and I will awaken you early and give you money for the stage. I am sure it is all unnecessary—the secrecy, that is—but I am too fatigued to think.”

“Very well”—Richard yawned—“but I must say Hawksborough is an amazingly tenacious man. Anyone else would simply have been glad to get the jewels back.”

Lord Hawksborough led Lady Mary gently away from outside Amanda’s bedroom door.

He had been leading her along to her own room to say good night to her, and had been busy examining his strange new feelings of distaste towards his fiancée when she had stopped outside Amanda’s door and whispered to him to listen.

Faintly through the thick panels came the sound of a man’s voice.

“Aren’t you going in?” demanded Lady Mary. “She has a man in her room!”

Lord Hawksborough urged her down the corridor. “Well,” she demanded, “what do you think of your Miss Prunes and Prisms now?”

“I am very tired,” he said quietly. “I will talk to Amanda in the morning. Good night, Mary.”

She gave him a baffled look, but he was already turning away, and he had not kissed her good night.

Lord Hawksborough walked back to Amanda’s room and tried the door.

Locked.

He was assailed with such a wave of jealous fury that he thought he would die. Amanda Colby was no innocent. His strange passion for her was because she obviously knew to a nicety how to fuel it.

What a fool he had been.

He would deal with her in the morning. It
was
morning, dammit. He looked at the clock. Six! He set his mind to wake at nine and at last lay down on his bed and tried to compose his mind for sleep. But he was overtired—too overtired to sleep, and the rage would not leave him. A sane corner of his mind was telling him he was being ridiculous to become so exercised over a young girl when he was already engaged. But his emotions cried that somehow she had deceived him with her air of innocence. That she had made a fool of him, by God!

And so it was at
eight
in the morning that Amanda awoke to a summons from a footman outside her door. His lordship wished to see her
immediately.

Without waking Richard, Amanda splashed water on her face and scrambled into her clothes. She brushed her hair furiously and then tried to braid it, but her fingers could not seem to manage to get it under control, and so she compromised by twisting her hair into a hard knot on the top of her head. Wearing a dull blue kerseymere gown—a new addition to her wardrobe—she ran down the stairs. The servant had not said where Lord Hawksborough was to be found. He was not in the library.

By dint of asking various servants who were going about their duties, she was startled to learn that his lordship was in his bedchamber.

Feeling very nervous, she followed the magnificent livery of one of the footmen elected to guide her. She did not think for a moment that Lord Hawksborough wished to see her for any mild conversation at this unearthly hour of the morning.

At Fox End, Amanda would have already been up and about two hours ago, but she had become accustomed to London hours and knew hardly anyone ever arose before noon.

Lord Hawksborough was invisible behind a cloud of lather when she entered, and his valet was stooped over him with a razor. Amanda made to withdraw, but Lord Hawksborough waved her into a seat at the other side of the room.

Amanda sat down primly and waited with a beating heart. It could not be the jewels. He would not have troubled to let himself be barbered were that the case. Amanda felt sure he would have come to her bedroom and broken down the door had he found out.

At last his lordship was shaved and the valet dismissed.

He stood up, still in his dressing gown, and looked her up and down with hard, assessing eyes. “Amazing!” he remarked.

“My lord?”

“Come here!”

He had a devilish glint in his eyes, but Amanda reminded herself that he was her host and that she had nothing to be afraid of—provided he had not found out about the robbery.

She walked towards him and stood meekly, her hands behind her back, her eyes downcast.

“Now we shall see,” he said half to himself.

He picked her up and tossed her on the bed and threw himself on top of her.

“Charles!” screamed Amanda, her eyes wide with shock.

“It’s no use screaming,” he said grimly. “My servants are too well-trained to interfere in my pleasures.”

His mouth clamped down on hers, and Amanda was swept with a mixture of passion and sheer fright.

It was only when he raised his head and ripped open the front of her dress with one savage wrench of his hand, and she saw the blind mask of anger that was his face, that all passion fled and sheer instinct for survival took over.

“Charles!” she screamed in horror. “You are trying to rape me!”

“Not rape… take,” he said, one hand clipping her hands behind her back and his mouth sinking down to kiss her left breast.

Shocked, stunned, and bitterly disappointed in him, Amanda began to cry. Great tears rolled down her face and she sobbed and gulped.

He rolled off her immediately and sat up.

“I think Kean has a rival,” he said coldly.

“I don’t
understand
!” wailed Amanda.

“Don’t play the innocent virgin with me, Amanda,” he said harshly. “I find I have not the stomach to take you after all. But do not insult me or my mother by harbouring lovers in your bedchamber. Who is he?”

“Who…? Richard! It is Richard!”

“Stuff!”

“It
is
,” said Amanda, wriggling away to the other side of the bed. “I let him in last night. He had come to town to spend a few hours drinking with friends and had not the money for a hotel. He threw pebbles at my window after I had left you with Lady Mary. I let him in.”

“Take me to him!” he barked.

Amanda looked down at her ripped gown in despair.

He followed her glance, and, with an impatient exclamation, strode to the wardrobe and pulled out another dressing gown. “Here, put this on,” he said, throwing it at her.