Amanda Scott (26 page)

Carolyn bit back a smile, for he looked more like a chubby boy, disappointed at some turn of fate, than like a grown man with the fate of a nation resting on his shoulders, and she found to her amazement that she felt sorry for him. She wondered what it must be like for him to have fought for power in the face of strong opposition and general lack of public confidence, and nearly to have won it all, only to discover that the burden was heavier than he liked to carry.

“It must be difficult,” she said, putting her thoughts into words, “to be always in the public eye, and to know the world is watching and criticizing everything one does.”

He straightened. “Can’t blame them for that,” he said in a tone more like his normal one. “I’ll be king one day, after all, damme if I won’t. Near enough now, for all that—nearer still in six weeks when all the restrictions are gone. Can’t wonder at them wanting to know every move I make. Daresay, being female, you might not realize how it is, but even the
Times
notes where I go every day and what I do. Today it will report that I am visiting Bathwick Hill House as the guest of Mr. Sydney Saint-Denis. Might even mention Miss Carolyn Hardy. How would you like that, m’dear? Daresay it would be a feather in your cap.”

Carolyn, thinking she was coming to know him better, said gently, “I do not believe I should like it at all, sir—everyone wondering over his tea if I should succeed or fail and grumbling at every turn as though he could do better. It seems that every man is entitled to his privacy, except a royal prince.”

“Regent, m’dear, not merely a royal prince anymore. Aye, and that’s the rub, damme if it isn’t.”

“It must be a very great responsibility, sir.”

“That it is,” he agreed. “Not a day passes by but someone or other is demanding something from me. It was less arduous being only a royal prince, I can tell you. Then, it was only my debts that annoyed them. As if a fellow in my position could live on the paltry allowance they provide! But here, we have talked too long about me, m’dear, and a kitchen garden is no place for beauty like yours. Let me take you away from here.”

She had no objection to letting him make her pretty speeches, but instead of allowing him take her from the garden, she indicated a bench under a bare apple tree and suggested that they sit down instead. “I came out here looking for one of the gardeners, sir, to tell him my godmother wants some late bulbs planted, but there is no great need for me to find him at once, and you will not wish to give up your peace so soon.”

He agreed at once and set himself to charm her with such good effect that in no time at all she was laughing with him and regaling him with certain details of her history that she usually kept to herself, knowing they would make him laugh. He was quick to admit equally mischievous episodes in his childhood, and since she knew as well as any other citizen of England that that childhood had been much more severely restricted than her own, she encouraged his laughter by describing pranks she had played on Sydney at Swainswick.

“You made Saint-Denis the butt of your jokes!” He laughed heartily. “Damme, even after watching him floor Ernest, I find it hard to imagine him with a hair out of trim, so I do.”

“Well, he was younger then, of course,” Carolyn said, not feeling at all inclined to admit more recent activities, “but even so, sir, he rarely lost so much as an ounce of his self-possession, and I must own that to stir him out of that calm became a near madness with me. His mother has told me that he was used to have the most devilish temper, but I cannot believe her. I ask you, sir …”

The Regent shook his head. “Don’t see that m’self. Daresay the old lady was making it up to be interesting.

“Yes, so I thought; however, after that, I wanted more than anything to see him put out of countenance, but the plain fact is that Sydney never is put out. The most I could hope for, when I was particularly annoyed with him, was that the prank itself would relieve my irritation.”

He nodded vigorously. “I believe you, damme, if I don’t. Just now, I should very much enjoy being able to get back at Ernest for all he has done. Things were simpler when we were boys. Not,” he added with a sad, reminiscent air, “that one ever really got back at Ernest, even then. He is the sort who always can think of something worse to do. It was much better to hoax him several days later and hope he never found out who had done it. In any event, one is an adult now, and Regent. It would not do.” He sighed. “It would be a fine thing nonetheless if something so simple as a hoax could free me from Ernest’s damned mischievous tongue, damme if it wouldn’t.”

Carolyn sighed too, for he sounded so wistful that she found herself wishing that such a thing were not impossible to contrive. If only she were a truly clever person, she mused, she would know how to make undesirable persons vanish with no more effort than it took to nod her head. But since she was not such a person, she was unable to think of a way to make even Salas the gypsy disappear, let alone the odious Duke of Cumberland.

Had the Regent spoken to her at just that moment, no doubt her thoughts would have taken an altogether different turning, but as it was, he was lost in his own meditations and remained silent for quite a little time, doing nothing to distract her, so that what had begun as the tiniest seed of an idea had time to take root in her mind and flower there until it actually began to seem possible. Doubts set in at once, for the plan was too simple and depended too much upon small but essential details. She looked speculatively at the Regent, who chose that very moment to recollect himself.

“I say,” he said ruefully, “I’ve fallen into a brown study which is not at all the thing to do, damme if it is. Shocking, in fact. Only goes to show what Ernest’s mischief has done. Not my style to sit in silence beside a beautiful young woman.”

“Never mind, sir,” she said. “You told me once that his highness has a certain fondness for Hanover, did you not?”

“Aye, he was at university there for four years and then entered the army there—well, you’ve seen for yourself that he always wears his damned uniform! One would think that losing his left eye at Tournay would have given him a distaste for military life, but it didn’t. Still thinks himself a fine soldier. Not but what I’d like nothing better than to see him off to battle again, damme if I wouldn’t, but he ain’t taken a military turn since they made him Duke of Cumberland nigh onto eleven years ago, so I’m afraid it won’t answer.”

“What if he were called to duty in Hanover?” Carolyn asked.

“Now, that would be a fine thing,” the Regent agreed, looking at her hopefully. Then his face fell. “But it won’t happen, you know. Bonaparte’s in control there, you know.”

“I think it could happen,” she said thoughtfully, “but he might not believe the messenger, you know, and if he were to question him too closely, the plan could fail.”

He stared at her intently. “What plan?”

She swallowed and took the plunge. “I know a man who might easily pose as a messenger from Hanover. He could arrive here, his horse all lathered, and announce an emergency of one sort or another in Hanover. He will insist that the duke’s presence is being demanded there. We shall have to put our heads together, of course, to determine the exact nature of the emergency, for I know absolutely nothing about Hanoverian politics. But you will no doubt be able to think of something. What do you think, sir?”

For a moment a light of pure mischief gleamed in his eyes, but then he shook his head. “I doubt that Ernest would believe it,” he said, “and even if he did, I have learned to my cost that it does no good to take unknown persons into one’s confidence in such schemes. They nearly always turn up later and want more for their trouble than they are worth. Your messenger could prove entirely too costly, my dear.”

She grinned. “If that is your only concern, sir, I can put your mind at rest, for the messenger I have in mind wants only to reach the Continent without anyone else’s knowing he is leaving the country. He would be willing to disappear once he reaches Belgium or Holland, or wherever they make landfall. By the time the duke realized he had been duped, I can promise you, our messenger will have disappeared. What do you think now?”

But it was not the Regent who said grimly, “I think the time has come to put an end to your foolish pranks, Carolyn.”

Startled nearly out of her wits by the sound of Sydney’s voice so close at hand, she whipped her head around to see him emerging from the nearby shrubbery. Though she had no notion how much he had heard, there could not be the least doubt this time that Mr. Saint-Denis was blazingly angry, and though she leapt to her feet, she could think of nothing whatever to say to him.

Making no effort, for once, to conceal his anger, he snapped, “I will speak privately with you at once, Carolyn, if his royal highness will excuse us.” He looked steadily at the Regent. “Your secretary has been looking for you, sir. A courier has arrived with letters from London.”

Getting up with less haste than Carolyn had displayed, the Regent said nervously, “Nothing in our little
tête-à-tête
, you know, Saint-Denis. Just came out to get away from everyone for a few minutes, and Miss Carolyn chanced to find me instead of the gardener she was looking for when she came into the garden. Nothing in it to make you take a pet, nothing at all. Damned clever notion she’s taken into her head, damned clever, but nothing’s amiss, man, nothing at all.”

“I am sure there is not, sir,” Sydney said through gritted teeth. “There can certainly be nothing amiss in Miss Hardy’s bearing you company in so open a place as my kitchen garden, but I hope you will bear me no ill will when I insist that she go with me into the library, now.”

“No, certainly not, no ill will at all,” the Regent said, favoring him with a narrow look from under his brows. “However, I should like to say that we would not take it kindly if you were to use her harshly, Saint-Denis.”

Sydney said evenly, “I have not that right, sir.”

“Well, damme, man, you sound as though you regret that!”

“No, sir. Shall I send MacMahon to you here?”

“No, don’t send him, dammit. He’ll find me soon enough. In any case, it’s becoming chilly out here. I shall go into the house with you.”

They entered the house in a strained silence that lasted until they encountered the royal secretary in the hall, at which time the Regent favored Sydney with one more long, pensive look before he nodded dismissal and turned away. Carolyn, feeling oddly bereft by his departure, decided after one look at Sydney’s face to hold her tongue a bit longer. Thus it was not until they reached the privacy of the library that anything at all was said between them, but then, as soon as Sydney had shut the door, he demanded furiously, “Have you lost your wits?”

She spun to face him, her heart pounding as it had never done before, even when she had been called to account for some misdeed at school, and a frisson of fear raced up her spine when he stepped away from the door, toward her, for he looked more menacing than she had ever imagined he could look.

Never before had he seemed so tall, so powerful, and she was suddenly, uncomfortably, reminded of the ease with which he had dealt with the gypsy and Cumberland. This was not Sydney as she had always perceived him, for there was no kindness in his expression, none of the languid indolence that was so much a part of him. His eyes were narrowed, his mouth taut, and when she could no longer meet his angry gaze and looked away, she saw that his hands were clenched into fists against his thighs. Indeed, every muscle—and she wondered irrelevantly why she had never before noted how hard they all looked—was rigid with fury.

The silence grew and deepened, for she could think of nothing whatever to say.

“I am waiting for a reply, Carolyn.” His tone was flat, uncompromising, and when his right fist twitched against his leg as though he had had to restrain it, she jumped, her gaze flying again to his face. Still, a stranger looked back at her.

“I … I don’t know what you want me to say.” Hearing herself and despising the weakness in her tone, she struggled to regain her rationality, to sound less like a frightened child and more like a woman with a mind of her own. Telling herself that it was absurd to let him unsettle her only because he was behaving strangely out of character, she said more forcefully, “I have not lost my wits, sir.”

“Then I must have misheard you in the garden.” His words were measured, spoken still in that inexorable tone, and he exerted such visible control over his body that she could not doubt for an instant that he longed to shake her. He added, “I am certain that my hearing is as acute as ever it was, but I’ll attempt to believe you if you say you were not plotting one of your mischiefs with the Regent against, of all people, the Duke of Cumberland.”

She swallowed hard, for the violence of his tone was such that she felt each word like a physical blow. “I cannot deny it,” she said, fighting to keep her voice steady. “That is, I cannot say we were not discussing the duke, for you must know we were. You see, the Regent had expressed a desire to—”

“You admit it then,” he cut in impatiently. “You have been foolhardy enough to plot against one of the most dangerous men in the kingdom! You—”

“Surely, he is not so dangerous as that,” Carolyn said, interrupting him in turn, and adding recklessly, “What do you think he will do to me, for goodness’ sake? Murder me?”

“The thought has certainly crossed my mind,” he retorted. “Are you so sure he will not? He is said to have murdered his own valet, after all, and while the truth of that tale has certainly been taken into question, his reputation is such that many persons of sense still believe it. Do you dare to believe he could not at least contrive to remove from his path one insignificant young woman who offends him?”

“I am
not
insignificant,” she said, “and I should not be in danger, since there is no reason that he should ever know of my association with this plan. Moreover, sir, I’ll have you know it is a very good plan, in that it not only rids his highness for a time of his loathsome brother but it also rids us of—”