Marriage Made In Shame(18)

His stomach turned and he thought for one wild moment that he would be sick all over the table, but as Adelaide smiled at him he regained equilibrium, the warmth of her concern and the goodness in it bringing back a balance. His heart might be thundering in his chest, but he remembered again how to breathe. Around them the chatter of others flowed on unhindered as the food was delivered to the table in a succession of dishes.

Chicken, beef and duck trussed in fruit and heavy sauces and elegantly presented on their silver platters.

He knew she could see him shaking and knew also that he should turn away to try at least to stop her seeing his fear. But he couldn’t. Miss Adelaide Ashfield was his lifeline even in the cosy private salon of old friends.

‘The food is lovely.’ Her words and closeness gave him time to return to the mundane. ‘I should not have imagined putting chicken with flowers of nasturtium. My uncle employs a French chef at Sherborne and we are more than used to eating well, but this, well, it is just lovely and I was pleased to get an invitation.’

He made himself smile at her through the haze.

‘I am certain you are about as interested in the presentation of food as I am, Miss Ashfield, but I thank you for your effort in distracting me.’

Deep dimples graced both her cheeks and the blue of her eyes was lightened. ‘Gratitude suits you, my lord. It makes you look younger.’

At that he laughed and for the first time in a long while felt the tight band of loneliness shift. When the footman came forward with the express purpose of refilling his empty glass he shook him away and took up the jug of lemonade instead.

* * *

‘I thought Gabriel and Adelaide Ashfield looked good together, Daniel.’

Much later Amethyst Wylde lay curled up against the warmth of her husband and watched the way the moonlight filtered across the strong lines of his shoulders.

‘Miss Ashfield was a surprise, I will say that.’

‘In what way?’ Raising herself on her elbow, Amethyst caught his glance.

‘She is clever enough to understand Wesley has secrets and brave enough to try to learn them.’

‘She was holding her breath when he looked as though he might very well faint away. I am certain of it.’

Daniel sat up, rearranging the pillows behind him. ‘Gabriel thinks the death of Mrs Henrietta Clements was entirely his fault.’

Amethyst heard the worry in his tone. ‘He told you this?’

‘He has always been complex and I think he has been mixed up somehow in working for the British Service. A few years ago he was easier to read, but now...’ His words tailed off.

‘Now he hides everything. Like you used to?’

His lips turned upwards.

‘He needs a good woman, Daniel, and I think he has just found one. But he does not quite know it yet.’

‘Because we men are too...slow to understand exactly what is good for us?’ His hand crossed to her cheek and he tipped her head towards him.

‘Slow in some ways, but much faster in others.’ Amethyst felt his interest quicken as she pressed against him and when he brought her in closer she forgot the conversation completely.





Chapter Nine

Gabriel kept to the shadows as he walked, tucked in against the tall walls of the garden mews. The moon was barely there and for that he was pleased.

A long time ago he had been afraid of the dark, when his father had come home to the family at night screaming and yelling, his fists raised against anyone who might annoy him.

But that was before he had learnt how to use it and make it his own. Now the dark held only freedom and ease. Slipping between the gates, he moved over to one of the downstairs windows.

Friar was inside and talking, for Gabriel could hear the quiet burr of his words. There was a woman present, too, and she did not sound happy.

‘No. It cannot be done. He is not a patron of my establishment any more and I have no way to see to it that he might turn up again.’

‘You are a force to be reckoned with, Mrs Bryant. Surely there could be some pleasurable persuasions you could use...’

The sound of notes and coins had its own music. A substantial inducement to comply. Her voice was quieter now, but underlined with the sound of cajoling.

‘No.’ Friar’s shout almost made Gabriel jump and he waited—a single curse and then retreating footsteps. Others had come from further within the house, bringing a light with them, the shadows of movement sweeping across the curtains. Then silence.

Gabriel breathed in deeply and held his body against stone. Immobile. Sensing danger before he saw it as three men with a lantern scoured the yard thirty feet away. The woman had left in the midst of an argument. Mrs Bryant. The voice sounded familiar to him, though he could not immediately have placed the name.

Shuffling along to a small door, he brought out his knife and slid the blade between the fastening and timber. He needed to be out of sight before the men were upon him. When the portal opened he simply slipped inside and sank down beneath the level of the glass at the windows. The flare of light hit an opposite wall and then was gone, returning before fading again into the distance.

Safe for this moment at least. The chamber he sat in was a lobby of sorts, small and rectangular, with a number of doors leading from it. Three pairs of boots sat beside him under a heavy oilskin coat. He wondered whose house this was and why they should be meeting here. Friar’s rooms were further west in a far less salubrious area of London.

A long sword in its sheath caught his attention for propped up against the lintel of a door the weapon was patently in the wrong place. He was careful to keep his back against the timber panel as he looked out into the night, glad for black and quiet. He knew he had to get out of here before they came back, but from habit his hands delved into the pockets of the oilskin and came up with a twist of paper. When he heard the returning feet on the wooden floor he left, using the darkness to slip away into shadow and safety.

* * *

The note was in French and written on part of a torn map. Alan Wolfe, the head of the British Service, stood beside him as he flattened out the sheet to try to determine exactly what geography it showed.

‘Maisy is in the Baie de la Seine. Halfway between Cherbourg and La Havre, the town boasts direct access to the English Channel. We have people in Caen so I will get them up there to look. The writing gives two names: Christian and Le Rougeaud.’

‘Napoleon’s Marshall, Michel Ney, was named Le Rougeaud for the colour of his hair.’ Gabriel frowned. ‘Though last I heard he was with Soult in the south of France.’

‘Could it be a street, then? Or a description of a place?’

‘The name of a boat would make sense, too, bringing things or people to England. Perhaps Christian is the captain?’

And so it went on for an hour or more as they gathered the possibilities of the intelligence and turned it this way and that.

‘No one is there at the address you went to last night. The place is spotless and empty.’

‘Then they cleaned up.’

‘Which indicates they did not want us to know anything. Did they see you?

‘No. But I jimmied the door. Perhaps they found it had been tampered with.’

‘You are certain it was George Friar?’

‘I am. His accent is hard to miss.’

‘And the others?’

‘English and French. I would recognise the voices if I heard them again. There was also a Mrs Bryant and hers was a familiar voice.’ The Temple of Aphrodite came to mind and he made a mental note to go back and check. Trying to remember the words between them, he tipped his head and then went on. ‘A brothel owner, perhaps? She said she had an establishment and Friar said something of pleasurable entertainments.’

‘I will get someone to look into that.’ Wolfe took a pen and wrote the names on some paper before laying them on the table.

‘Clements has French ancestry and so does Friar by way of marriage. He is also an American and likely to hate the English. Goode is the son of a squire in Leicester, but he is married to a French woman, Lilliana de la Tour. Frank Richardson has written a treatise on the place of free speech and the rights of men.’

‘Henrietta Clements swore there were six of them. Clements. Friar. Goode and his wife and Richardson and Mrs Bryant perhaps?’

‘Then we need to find proof of what it is this group is trying to accomplish and we need it soon. I will get more men on to the task and hopefully we will be able to round them all up before too long. You look done in, Gabe, perhaps by the numerous social occasions you are at almost every evening. I have heard it said that Mr George Friar is rather enamoured by Miss Ashfield.’

Wolfe looked at him directly as he said it, but Gabriel, with his years of practice, easily hid emotion. He knew the director had heard of his own involvement with the niece of Penbury, for very little of the everyday happenings of London’s society seemed to escape him. Wariness made Gabriel swallow. He didn’t want Adelaide mixed up in any of this. He needed all the compartments of his life kept separate.

For years he had built up a reputation that was shallow and dissolute. A dandy and a lover was not on anyone’s list of needing to be watched and the rumours of a prowess in sexual conquests had kept him apart from those who would discuss politics, government or anarchy.

Hiding in plain sight was rewarding. A certain smile, some well-chosen words, the cut of his cloth and the tie of his cravat. These were his tools now. Innocuous. Harmless. And ready to listen.