He took refuge, as he usually did, in silence.
"Don't blame yourself, young man," said Olympia. "Had I put out the least hint, you would have smoked her out at once. In any case, we are now offered an auspicious opportunity."
As always, Olympia's benign face revealed nothing of his inner thoughts. But Ashland had learned his trade at the duke's broad feet; Ashland heard the words auspicious opportunity and knew what they meant.
"No," he said. "You will not risk Emilie."
Olympia's well-tailored shoulders straightened an infinitesimal degree. He returned Ashland's gaze without blinking. "Emilie, my dear, would you be so good as to allow me a few minutes' private conversation with our friend the Duke of Ashland?"
"I would not."
"I thought not." His gaze continued to lock with Ashland's, dark and cool. "You will therefore forgive my candor when I inquire of the duke what, exactly, gives him the honor of acting so decisively on your behalf?"
"I will answer with equal candor, sir. Your niece is my affianced wife."
Emilie shot from her chair. "That's not true!"
"Isn't it?" Olympia looked at her at last, and this time his eyes crinkled slightly at the corners. "It hardly seems a matter to admit doubt. Either you're engaged, or you're not."
"I am bound in honor to her. I will marry her."
"Nonsense," Emilie said. "No such obligation exists between us. Especially not now, with everything changed."
"I disagree. Nothing essential has changed." He spoke to Olympia. "In the first place, I have compromised her innocence."
"Tut-tut," Olympia said.
"In the second place, there is a possibility she carries my child."
"Quite shocking. Is this true, my dear? Is it possible?"
"I . . ." Emilie's mouth opened and closed. Her white face was becoming rapidly overrun with a fetching pink blush. She cast a helpless look at Ashland, and back at her uncle. "It makes no difference. I will not marry him. I will not marry a man . . ."
"You will not walk this earth, carrying my child . . ."
". . . out of some archaic sense of duty, not to say outdated notion of . . ."
". . . without bearing the protection of my name as well . . ."
". . . will undoubtedly regret such an irrevocable step . . ."
". . . to say nothing of the protection of my body . . ."
". . . when I have resources of my own should . . ."
"QUIET!" Olympia rose from his chair and placed his hands on his desk. "Whether or not the two of you reach the altar before tearing each other apart is beside the point."
"It is?" said Emilie, finger still raised.
"It is?" said Ashland. He rose to meet Olympia's towering regard.
"Quite immaterial, really. You need only be engaged," said Olympia. "Publicly engaged. The Duke of Ashland and the lost Princess Emilie of Holstein-Schweinwald-Huhnhof, a terribly romantic affair. A ball would be just the thing to celebrate the announcement, don't you think?"
As the last words left his mouth, an odd buzzing sound issued from the corner of Olympia's desk. The duke's eyebrows lifted. "You'll excuse me." He leaned over to lift an object shaped rather like an elongated bell to his ear.
The buzz still seemed to echo in Ashland's ear. He folded his arms back over his chest, girding himself, while Olympia exchanged a few low words into the odd contraption in his hand. Emilie said nothing, but he could feel her vibrating nearby, her ardent young body straining with emotion. Let me handle this, he wanted to say. This is my world. Be easy. Let me take care of you.
The receiver clicked back into its box. "I beg your pardon. Miss Dingleby has been informed of developments and will be with us directly. Now. The engagement ball. Three weeks, I believe, will be sufficient preparation. The season hasn't begun, but I daresay we can coax a few celebratory souls into the capital for the occasion. Emilie will stay here with me, of course. We will divest her of her disguise at once. Have you a house in town, Ashland?"
"Not at present."
"I believe there are a few suitable properties available for lease at the moment. You will of course call as many staff as possible down from Yorkshire; we don't want any new hires running about the house."
Ashland stepped forward and placed his left index finger in the center of Olympia's immaculate leather blotter. "As I have said before, you will not risk Emilie."
"My dear fellow, she will be in no danger at all in my house. I shall personally ensure her safety."
"In the first place, I stay where Emilie stays."
"Quite improper."
"I don't bloody care. In the second place . . ."
A knock cracked through the air.
"Come in," said Olympia.
Ashland heard the door open behind him, heard a sharp clack of heels on wood, followed by the silence of the rug. Olympia's gaze flickered to the newcomer. "Ah! Miss Dingleby."
"Am I interrupting?"
"Indeed you are," said Olympia. "Anything to report?"
Her voice was warm and businesslike, as Ashland might have expected. Olympia's female operatives always ran to type. "My errand this morning was fruitless, I fear. But Emilie's room upstairs has been secured. I shall put my own cot in there tonight. I've posted Hans on the lookout outside, meanwhile, should anyone have followed them down from Yorkshire."
"No one did," said Ashland, without turning.
"Are you quite sure?" asked the woman behind him.
He turned. "I hope you aren't questioning my competence, Miss . . ." He raked her angular form up and down. "Dinglebat, was it?"
Miss Dingleby smiled benignly. "You did require several weeks to discover our Emilie's disguise."
"If you had done your job properly, madam, she should not have been forced into hiding in the first place."
"I beg your pardon. Have you any idea what sort of enemy we're up against, Your Grace?"
"I've infiltrated the most murderous cults in . . ."
"Stop it, the lot of you!" cried Emilie.
Ashland turned. Emilie stood akimbo, her face flushed pink, her blue eyes searing them both behind the sheen of her spectacles. Her false whiskers seemed to stand out from her jaw. "Stop talking and making plans for me, as if I'm nothing but a pawn on a chessboard, to be moved about at will! You!" She pointed at Olympia. "You've planned every step of this, haven't you, knowing full well I'd fall under Ashland's spell, drawing him into a . . . a possibly mortal danger that has nothing at all to do with him! Risking his life, just as you did in India, when you nearly killed him! I won't let you do it again!"
Ashland opened his mouth to say something, but there were no words. No words at all to riposte this extraordinary woman, this fire-fueled princess who stood there and fought for him, for him, with all the fury in her regal golden-haired body.
"And you!" Emilie turned and stabbed her avenging finger in Ashland's direction. "You will not risk yourself in a public engagement to me! You will not sleep in this house with me!"
Speech returned in an instant. He took her shoulder. "By God, I will!"
"You won't!" She stared up at his ruined face without flinching. "For one thing, you have a wife already! Or had you forgotten?"
Ashland's hand fell away.
"Because I haven't forgotten," she said. "And I doubt that London society has. You've no business engaging yourself to anyone, publicly or not. Lavish Park Lane ball to lure mad anarchists, or not."
He couldn't breathe. The pain in his chest was too great. He took a step back, and his foot seemed to sink forever into the weave of the carpet beneath, holding him fast. "You're correct, of course. I have no right, at present."
Her face began to soften. "Ashland . . ."
Behind him, Olympia coughed a delicate cough. "Ah yes. Your unfortunate previous marriage. As to that, I believe I have a solution."
"There is no solution," said Ashland, without turning. The blue of Emilie's desperate eyes held him fast. "Not even you could effect a divorce so quickly. Even if you could, the haste of the engagement would be the scandal of the century."
"Ah." There was a rustle of papers, and a creak of floorboards beneath the rug. "After your recent visit, I took the liberty of making inquiries through my own channels. I received this reply within hours, just this morning."