Bronwyn Scott - Unbuttoning The Innocent Miss

May snapped her fingers in impatience and Claire snapped to attention. Apparently she’d let her thoughts wander too far afield. ‘Do I need to spell it out? Step into the breach, Claire! Be his hero in his hour of need. Teach him French. Secure his post.’ Her eyes danced with a naughty light. ‘Who knows, he might just be eternally grateful.’

She could do that. At least the girl in the ethereal blue dress could do that. Claire sat up straighter, her mind alert as possibilities began to spark. She started to see the brilliance of May’s suggestion: long hours of working together, alone, the subject itself rather invigorating to the mind. French wasn’t called the language of love without reason.

She worried her lip in thought. ‘There’s only one flaw. How do I get him to come to me?’ He didn’t need her specifically. He needed anyone who spoke French. ‘There is no guarantee he will seek me out.’ Or that she’d succeed, but she kept that to herself. Doubt started to seep in. Why would she succeed where a Paris-born tutor had clearly failed? But she kept that doubt to herself.

May was undeterred. ‘After tonight? We planted the seeds at dinner. We may not need to do any more. Did you see the way he looked at you when I mentioned you spoke four languages? It was as though he saw you with new eyes. His clock is ticking. He needs someone close at hand. He’s desperate, Claire.’ Like her.

Desperate? Claire winced. It wasn’t exactly the best recommendation. She’d prefer he come to her out of respect for her intellect rather than desperation. But she was desperate, too, and she understood the emotion. She knew better than anyone that beggars couldn’t be choosers. ‘We’re wagering rather a lot on him connecting the pieces that lead to me,’ Claire warned.

May shrugged, starting to lose patience with her. ‘Then send him a letter. Connect the pieces for him. What do you have to lose? Tell him you heard about his situation and would be glad to help. He won’t expose you. It would be too embarrassing for him. A scandal is the last thing he would want at this point before the position is officially his. At best, he takes the offer and at worst he politely declines. You’re no worse off either way.’

Which really translated as: she was already so bad off, she had nothing to lose. That wasn’t true for Lashley, though. It occurred to Claire as the carriage rocked to a halt outside the Stamford rout that Jonathon was only better off if he took the offer. If not, he stood to lose a great deal that mattered to him.

Of all the things she’d dreamed of having in common with Jonathon Lashley, desperation wasn’t one of them.

* * *

‘Jonathon, I am desperate, positively desperate. The last time you spoke French at a state reception, you nearly started a war!’ Sir Owen Danvers, head of the diplomatic corps assigned to central Europe, gave Jonathon an exasperated look from behind his desk in the Whitehall offices.

‘I mispronounced an adjective,’ Jonathon clarified. That had been two weeks ago. He was tired of talking about it, tired of thinking about it. It was one more reminder of all the things that were different now.

‘And nearly started a war!’ Danvers repeated forcefully. ‘You seem to be missing that piece.’ He lowered his voice. ‘I need you in Vienna, you are my man and yet you insulted the visiting French Ambassador.’

It wasn’t so much misusing as it had been mispronouncing. The word in question was beaucoup, meaning ‘a lot’. It had come out beau cul. He had inadvertently referred to a particular visiting ambassador as having a nice ass. Really, too much was being made out of a single instance. No war had actually occurred. It seemed petty to dwell on what had not happened.

Jonathon pushed a hand through his hair and blew out a breath. He preferred to think of it as a potential war averted instead of potentially started. Then again, he’d always been a glass-half-full man himself. Apparently, Danvers wasn’t. But no matter how Jonathon dressed it up, or tried to laugh it away, he couldn’t dismiss the fact that it was not a mistake he would have made seven years ago.

‘You must appreciate my position,’ Danvers went on. ‘You’re smart as a whip when it comes to understanding the nuances of the Ottomans and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. You grasp those delicate balances like no other. You read French with ease, which makes you ideal for translating documents and reading correspondence. You write it well, too, in a pinch which is the least of my worries. But you can’t speak it worth a damn, not any more. The time was, you were fluent as hell.’

There was the rub. He had been fluent before the accident, before his brother Thomas had disappeared. Between those two incidents, his brain had been wrecked somehow. Jonathon rose from his chair and strode to the long windows overlooking the Thames. This was no dark office buried in the bowels of Whitehall. This was the office of a man who controlled great power in England and beyond. He could imagine the secrets Owen Danvers knew, the secrets the man kept.

Today, Jonathon only cared about one thing: Owen Danvers had the ability to break him, old chum from school or not. His appointment to Vienna hung on Danvers’s recommendation. Jonathon helped himself to the brandy in a crystal decanter on a sideboard placed along the window. ‘You know what that post means to me, Owen,’ Jonathon said quietly, calling on their old friendship as he looked out the windows. He idly sipped his drink. The post meant everything: He could avenge the loss of his brother with peace, he could make his brother’s sacrifice at Waterloo worth something. He could prove to the world that he was more than a viscount’s heir, that he was more than a man who was worth something only because he’d had the good fortune to be born first to another man of wealth and title.

‘Dammit, I know, Jonathon. I would have sent you on your way long before now if I didn’t know how hard you’ve worked for this and how much you want it.’ Owen Danvers relented with a sigh. Owen had been two years ahead of him, but back then, Jonathon was on top as a peer’s son and Owen merely the scrapping son of a baronet eager to make his way. Owen had done just that and now he was the one on top, the one who had what Jonathon wanted.

Wanting seemed such an inadequate word. He wanted this so much he was willing to bend his whole life to it, even marry for it. Cecilia Northam’s father, Lord Belvoir, was a powerful man in Parliament. Belvoir had made it clear he’d champion him for the post in exchange for marriage to his daughter. He’d also made it clear the opposite was true. If Jonathon failed to marry Cecilia, that support would be withdrawn. What Cecilia wanted, Cecilia got. She’d set her sights on becoming the future Lady Oakdale last Season. She’d sunk her teeth in since then and hadn’t let go. He had to marry someone some time. It might as well be her, yet he wondered if there should be something more between them than a trading of skills that, while not symmetrical skills, were certainly complements.

Owen put a hand on his shoulder, his voice quiet. ‘We all miss him. Thomas was a brave man. He died in the service of his country, nobly and honestly. It’s been a long time, but sometimes I still think I can hear him laughing. I’ll turn around at the club and expect to see him, but he isn’t there.’

‘I know. Me, too.’ Jonathon paused to gather himself. ‘Do you really think he’s dead?’ he said quietly. It was a thought he only voiced aloud to a few select people. After all this time, too many people felt he was ridiculous to hold on to what was becoming a ludicrous hope. There’d been no body. Thomas was just simply gone.

Owen didn’t laugh, didn’t try to argue with him. ‘It’s been a long time, Jonathon.’