Stephanie Laurens - A Lady of His Own

“ That was the basis of the agreement. What the French didn’t know was that my father was truly brilliant—still is—at anything to do with Eurpoean diplomacy and foreign affairs. He sees into things, picks up nuances”—Nicholas shook his head—“I still go in awe of him, as does everyone in his section at the F.O.”

After a moment, Nicholas met Charles’s gaze. “The critical thing the French didn’t know was that my father fashioned his ‘advice’ from whole cloth.”

Charles blinked. “He made it up?”

Nicholas smiled wryly. “Therein lay the challenge of the game.”

Charles stared at him, then slumped back in the chair and looked at the ceiling. A full minute passed, then he looked at Nicholas. “I’ve seen the pillbox collection. We’re talking of one or two pieces of concocted advice passed every year for fortysomething years.”

Nicholas nodded.

“And the French never found out?”

“Not until after Waterloo. I told you my father’s brilliant, but not about military affairs. Initially, he avoided anything military in his ‘advice.’ The French didn’t care—back in the seventies they were more interested in politics, treaties, and bureaucratic secrets. They were so impressed by my father’s ‘advice,’ which always seemed so accurate, over the years they came to regard him as an unimpeachable source.”

“How,” Penny asked, “could his advice have appeared accurate if it was made up?”

“The French were asking about real situations—there was always a framework of real events.” Nicholas shifted, easing his bandaged shoulders. “In politics and diplomacy, when you’re studying events in another country, what you see is essentially puppets on a stage. You see what’s played out on the stage—but you can’t see what’s going on behind the curtain, what’s being done, what strings pulled and by whom, to cause the actions on the stage. With his insight, my father created alternate behind-the-curtain scenarios to the real ones, scenarios that nevertheless accounted for the actions the French could see.”

Charles nodded. “I’ve come across that sort of thing—misinformation of the highest caliber, almost certain to be believed.”

“Exactly.”

Charles shook his head, not in disbelief but in amazement. “I still can’t believe he managed it for so long.”

“Part of that was due to his success within the F.O. The higher he went, the more he knew, the more he understood, the more his ‘advice’ fitted the observed outcomes—and the more the French believed him.”

“What brought the game undone?”

“In a way, it was Napoleon. When the Peninsula Wars started, the French unsurprisingly wanted information on military matters. Initially, that wasn’t hard to refuse on the grounds it wasn’t something my father would be privy to, but then came Corunna, and the early losses, and, of course, Selbornes have always been patriotic to our toes.

“M’father knew whatever he told the French stood a good chance of being believed. He considered telling the appropriate authorities of his ‘game,’ but decided they would probably not approve, and quite possibly not understand. So, essentially on his own, he decided to embark on military misinformation by including in his otherwise diplomatic advice snippets about military affairs. To do so, he cultivated a friend in the War Office. Given his high status, that was easy enough. He didn’t need to know much, just enough to, with a minor comment, steer the French in the wrong direction, or misadvise them of the timing of events—that sort of thing. Nothing the French actually wanted to know about, just low-level events, very hard to check, very much open to change at the last minute.”

“And they continued to be taken in?”

“Yes. At that time, he’d been their ‘advisor’ for decades and had, as far as they knew, never let them down. He’d also encouraged them to think he was addicted to his collecting.” Nicholas shrugged. “I’m not sure that he’s attached to the snuffboxes themselves so much as that they represent each ‘triumph’ he’s had in misleading the French.”

“I take it,” Charles said, jumping ahead, “that the murderer has been sent here to, in effect, render punishment?”

Nicholas’s expression turned grim. “That seems to be the case.”

“You said they found out after Waterloo.” Penny’s head was reeling. “How? What happened?”

“Remember what it was like then,” Nicholas said, “just a year ago? The near frenzy, tales of the ‘Corsican Monster,’ and so on. My father was tired of it—he wanted an end. Especially when Granville insisted on enlisting.”

Penny straightened in her chair. “Your father came here, just before Granville left. He tried to talk Granville out of going—I heard him.”

Nicholas nodded. “He didn’t want Granville to go. He tried to convince him by sending a last message to the French, tried to get Granville to believe that that was enough for him to do. Granville ran the message, of course, but he wasn’t about to stop there. He still rode off the next day.”

“What was that last message?” Charles asked.

Nicholas met Charles’s eyes. He was patently exhausted, but gamely went on, “My father knew very little of Wellington’s plans. No one did. But through the years of the Peninsula campaigns, my father had, through misdirecting the French, learned a great deal of Wellington’s strategies. When it comes to predicting how people will react when faced with given situations, my sire possesses an innate flair. So he tried to predict Wellington.

“He had access to excellent maps. He studied the terrain, and accurately picked the battlefield. He wanted a snippet, something to divert French attention, just a tiny push in the wrong direction. And this time he didn’t care if they found him out, because he knew this time the dice were being rolled for the last time.”

“What did he tell them?” Charles was leaning forward, elbows on his knees.

Nicholas smiled. “He told them precious little, but he dropped one place name.”

Charles stared at him, simply stared. “Don’t tell me. It begins with an ‘H.’ ”

Penny glanced at Charles, surprised by the sheer awe in his voice. She looked back at Nicholas.

Who nodded. “He told them Hougoumont.”

Charles swore softly, at length, in French.

“Indeed.” Nicholas shook his head. “For all that I think he’s a madman—” He broke off, gestured. “What can you say?”

Charles swore again and surged to his feet. He paced back and forth, then halted and looked at Nicholas. “I was on the field, not near Hougoumont, but none of us could understand why Reille was so obsessed with taking what was simply a protective outpost.”

“Precisely. He thought it was more than an outpost, because he’d been led to think so. My father is a past master at planting ideas without ever actually stating them.”

“ Hell! ” Charles raked a hand through his hair. “The French will never forgive him for that.”

“No. And I don’t think it’s only that, either.”

Charles looked at Nicholas; after a moment, he nodded. “Once they had reason to suspect, they looked back, and realized…”

“With the passage of years there would now be enough information available—diplomats have a terrible tendency to write memoirs—to expose at least some of his early ‘advice’ as completely bogus.”

“And once they started looking…good God! Talk about rubbing salt into an open wound.” Charles slumped back in his chair; his expression grew distant and progressively stony. “That’s why,” he said softly, “they’ve sent an executioner.”

Nicholas studied his face, then asked, “Are you using that term figuratively, or literally?”