Stephanie Laurens - A Lady of His Own

What he’d revealed in the past minutes, over the past day, had reassured her, made her believe she could trust him. More, his words, his attitudes, had convinced her the man he now was was stronger, more hardheaded and clear-sighted, more committed to the values she valued, more rigid in adherence to the codes she believed important than the hellion of his youth had been.

But she couldn’t yet speak; she still needed to think about what she knew to tell. That was still not clear in her mind. So she let the silence stretch. They were comfortable in the quiet dark; neither felt any need to speak.

A light winked, far out in the night.

“Did you see it?” she asked.

“Yes. The Gallants are out.”

She thought of Granville, thought of the nights he must have spent out on the waves. She could imagine him clinging to the side of a boat, a wild and reckless light in his eyes. If ever there had been a care-for-naught, it was he. “At Waterloo, did you hear anything of Granville?”

“No.” After a moment, he asked, “Why?”

“We never really heard, just that he’d died. Not how, or in what way.”

She could almost hear him wondering why she’d asked; on the face of things, she and Granville hadn’t been all that close. She kept her counsel. He eventually asked, “Were you told in which region he was lost?”

“Around Hougoumont.”

“Ah.”

“What do you know of it?” It was clear from his tone he knew something.

“I wasn’t close, but it was the most fiercely contested sector in the whole battle. The French under Reille thought the farmstead an easy gain. They were wrong. The defenders of Hougoumont might well have turned the tide that day. Their defiance pricked the French commanders’ collective pride; they threw wave after wave of troops against it, totally out of proportion to the position’s strategic importance.” He paused, then more quietly added, “If Granville was lost near there, you can be certain he died a hero.”

She wished—oh, how she wished—she could believe that.

She asked no more, and he volunteered no more. They remained on the walk, watching the rain, listening to the steady downpour, the constant drum on the lead above, the merry gurgling in the gutters, the splatter as spouts of water hit the flagstones far below. Three more times they spotted flashes out at sea, out beyond the mouth of the estuary.

At last, she stood; shaking out her skirts, she regarded him across the shadowed space. “Good night. I’ll see you in the morning.”

He considered her for an instant—an instant in which she had no idea what he was thinking. Then he swept her a bow, all fluid masculine grace.

“In the morning. Sleep tight.”

She turned and left him, going through the archway into the west wing.

At eight o’clock the next morning, she walked into the breakfast parlor, sat in the chair Filchett held for her, smiled her thanks, then looked up the table at Charles. He’d looked up when she’d entered, was watching her still.

“Granville was involved.”

Charles’s gaze flicked to Filchett.

He stepped forward and lifted the coffeepot. “I’ll fetch some fresh coffee, my lord.”

“Thank you.” The instant Filchett had left the room, closing the door behind him, Charles transferred his gaze to her. “What precisely do you mean?”

She reached for the toast rack. “It’s Granville I’m protecting.”

“He’s been dead for nearly a year.”

“Not him himself, but Elaine and Emma and Holly. And even Constance, for all that she’s married. Myself, too, although the connection is less direct.” Elaine was Granville’s mother, Emma and Holly his younger, still-unmarried sisters. “If it becomes known Granville was a traitor…” Charles had unmarried sisters, too; she was sure she didn’t need to spell it out.

“So Granville was the link to the smugglers.” He looked at her, not uncomprehending yet clearly not convinced. “Start at the beginning—why do you think Granville was a traitor?”

Between bites of toast and jam, and sips of tea, she told him. Filchett didn’t return with the coffeepot, probably just as well.

The frown remained in Charles’s eyes. “So you never had a chance to tax Granville with this?”

“I had taxed him over what he was doing with the smuggling gangs—I’d known of his association with them for years, at least since he was fifteen. But of course I never got any answer other than that he was just larking about.” She paused, then added, “I never suspected there might be more to it until last November.”

“Tell me again—your housekeeper knew of this priest hole?”

“Yes. I gather Figgs has always known it was there, but that Papa and later Granville had insisted it be left alone, that they kept important things in there they didn’t want the maids disturbing. So Figgs never told the maids, but when it came time to prepare the master bedchamber for Amberly’s first visit—he came in early December—Figgs thought it must be time to clean and dust in there, so she asked me if she should.”

“When you went to check, did anyone go with you?”

“No. Figgs told me how to open it—it’s easy enough if you know what to twist.”

“And you found a large number of pillboxes.”

She sighed. “ ‘A large number’ doesn’t adequately describe it, Charles. Trust me—Papa was a collector, but I never knew he had boxes like these. They’re…wonderful. Gorgeous. Some jewel-encrusted, others with beautiful miniatures, grisailles, and more. And I’ve never seen any of them before—not the ones on the shelves in the priest hole.”

Setting down her teacup, she looked at him. “So where did he get them?”

“Through the trade, collecting. Simply buying.”

“I kept the estate accounts for all the years Granville was earl, and I checked the ledgers for the years before that. Yes, Papa did occasionally buy pillboxes, but those purchases were relatively few and far between, and, tellingly, those are the boxes in the library display cases. The boxes he bought, he kept openly. Why did he hide these others—so much more beautiful—so completely away? I didn’t know of them, and I’d swear no one else in the household other than Granville has seen them.”

“A clandestine pillbox collection.”

“Yes!” She narrowed her eyes at him. “There’s no viable conclusion other than that those hidden pillboxes were payment for something. And it’s something Granville knew about. But initially I couldn’t think of anything either Papa or Granville might have to ‘sell,’ as it were.”

“Indeed. Neither Granville nor your father ever had access to sensitive information, the sort the French would pay for. So it can’t—”

“Wait!” She held up a hand. “I said initially—there’s more. After finding the boxes, I shut up the priest hole and put Figgs off. Amberly and Nicholas arrived; the visit went smoothly. Then, on the last day they were there, I heard from the grooms that Nicholas had been asking after Granville’s friends, those he spent time with in the neighborhood, where he went in the evenings when on his own, what taverns he frequented.”

“Maybe Nicholas wanted to find a place to drink?”

“Are you playing devil’s advocate, or are you just being difficult?”

He smiled. “The former, so go on.”

She cast him a repressive glance, then reassembled her train of thought. “When they left, I checked the priest hole. Someone had been examining the boxes. Many were out of line, turned around, that sort of thing.” She sighed. “I went down to dinner, trying to puzzle it out. Elaine was telling the girls how distinguished Amberly and his branch of the family were. She mentioned that Nicholas was following in his father’s footsteps—at the Foreign Office.”