Amanda Scott (27 page)

“Enough!” Glaring, he covered the short space between them in one step to grab her by the shoulders and give her a rough shake as he snapped, “You don’t know what you are saying! Your idiotic plan can never succeed. Don’t you realize Cumberland will immediately discover that there is no emergency in Hanover? Pray, just what sort of emergency were you planning to offer him, anyway? No, don’t reply to that. I won’t answer for my actions if I hear you spout any more nonsense. Even if he should not realize at once that you had had a finger in this pie, if he should ever discover it, your reputation, if not your very life, wouldn’t be worth the snap of my fingers.”

Carolyn stood perfectly still, so aware of his hands on her shoulders that she could not have stirred had she wished to do so. In all the years she had known him, Sydney had never touched her in anger, but at that moment, she had a strong notion that if she were to say the wrong thing, or even speak in the wrong tone, he might box her ears, or worse. Oddly, the thought of such brutality did not distress her, any more than did the fact that she was certain she would later be able to see the imprint of his fingers in the soft flesh of her shoulders. On the contrary, she felt very much protected; and, even more to the purpose, that feeling steadied her mind and made her processes of thought more acute than she could remember their ever having been before.

There was a long moment of silence before Sydney relaxed his grip. He did not take his hands from her shoulders, however, nor did Carolyn attempt to step away from him. Instead, she looked steadily up into his eyes and said quietly, “I believe you, sir.”

“Well, that’s something, at least,” he muttered. He still did not release her.

“Yes, but it does not change the fact that my plan can work,” she said. “No, please don’t fly into the boughs again,” she added quickly when his fingers tightened. “Truly, sir, I shall have bruises there for a sennight. And you don’t know the whole of it, anyway. Salas is back.”

“The devil he is! What the devil does he want?”

She bit her lip ruefully, then looked at him with mischief dancing in her eyes. “I’m afraid he thinks you will willingly repay him for keeping silent about his imposture as a foreign count. Oh, Sydney, I’m sorry about that, truly I am, but it was you who decided not to haul him before a magistrate, after all, and he has somehow got it into his head that you will therefore do anything to keep him from putting it about that we meant for him to deceive everyone, even the Regent.”

“I’ll teach him! Only give me ten minutes to see if I cannot convince him it will benefit him more to hold his tongue!”

“That will do no good,” she said with a sigh, adding quickly when his mouth tightened, “I don’t doubt that you could frighten him. He thinks it was magic that allowed you to best him, and indeed, I must say that I cannot think how you turn people upside down as you do. But it will not answer, you know, for even if you can make him hold his tongue for a time, he is bound to wreak vengeance on you later, and you will not ever want him telling his tale to all the Bath quizzes. I cannot help but think it would be wiser to aid him in leaving the country.”

“Perhaps he will not wish to leave,” Sydney said, “and in any event, I cannot think what any of this has to do with the matter at hand, which is your—”

“But don’t you see,” she said impatiently, “he does wish to leave. That is why he came here. The authorities in Dorset are after him because of his thieving habits, and he fears to be apprehended if he cannot get out of the country. I thought it would be an excellent notion if somehow we could get the Duke of Cumberland to take him away with him. And since—”

“No,” Sydney said sharply, reverting to the stern demeanor that had seemed so out of character. “I utterly forbid you to have anything to do with Cumberland, Carolyn, or with any plot against him. You are not to think about that again.”

“But I must, Sydney. I told the Regent—”

“I don’t give a damn what you told Prinny, you—”

“Damme, but that’s treasonous talk, Saint-Denis!” The Regent, pushing open the library door and entering without more ceremony than that, kicked it shut again behind him and stood scowling at the pair of them. “Daresay you’ll forgive me for intruding. One of the few real advantages of my position is that most everyone does forgive that sort of thing, damme if they don’t. Except m’ mother, of course,” he added conscientiously.

S
YDNEY SNATCHED HIS HANDS
from Carolyn’s shoulders and said, “’Tis I who beg forgiveness, sir. I spoke in heat.”

“Never known you to do that before,” the Regent said, shaking his head as he took out his snuff box and opened it. “Daresay you had reason. Pretty little thing.”

Carolyn, blushing, said quickly, “Sydney says we mustn’t hoax the Duke of Cumberland, sir. He fears for my safety.”

Looking reproachfully at Sydney, who met his gaze calmly, the Regent took a pinch of snuff between his forefinger and thumb, released it while gracefully pretending to inhale it, then dusted his fingers on his waistcoat and said, “Daresay you think Ernest is a bad man.” When Sydney continued to look steadily at him, he shrugged. “You’re right, he is a bad man. Wouldn’t do at all for him to get wind of Miss Carolyn’s part in any of this, but dash it all, man, she’s got a good plan. No reason it oughtn’t to take the trick. God bless my soul, you can’t think I would give her away.” He glared at Sydney. “Or do you?”

“No, sir,” Sydney said. “I don’t think it. But you and she are not the only parties concerned, you know. There is a third.”

“So there must be,” Prinny agreed. “The messenger. You had someone in mind for that role, I believe, m’dear.”

“Yes, sir,” she said, looking at Sydney, who had withdrawn his own snuff box from his waistcoat pocket and was staring at it thoughtfully. “I do not think Salas would betray me, Sydney, for he has his own skin to consider, and I’m convinced he will play least-in-sight the moment he reaches the Continent.”

Returning his snuff box to his pocket without opening it, Sydney said, “It would be better if Salas had no knowledge whatever of your part in this scheme.”

“But who will explain it to him if I do not?”

“Damme man, you cannot think I will speak to the fellow!” the Regent exclaimed. “It would not be at all the thing. Who is this Salas person, anyway? Damned odd name, if you ask me.”

Relaxing, Sydney showed amusement for the first time since he had interrupted them. “He’s a gypsy, sir, a damned insolent gypsy. Having had the gall to try to steal from me and the wisdom thereafter to leave the county, he has now had the audacity to return, hoping that because I once let him go, I will help him escape the authorities again. But if he is willing to hoax Cumberland, I daresay he is one who could turn the trick.”

“To convince Ernest that he’s from Hanover, he’ll have to be a clever fellow,” the Regent said, “for my brother spent many years there. Does this gypsy of yours even speak German?”

“I don’t know,” Sydney admitted, “but I doubt it will signify. His Romany heritage, not to mention his unholy cheek, will stand him in greater stead than speaking German would do.”

“I suppose you’re right,” the Regent agreed. “Damned Romanys are everywhere. Now we’ve only to consider what message he must carry, and the deed is as good as done. I tell you, I’d look forward to being free of Ernest’s vicious tongue even for a day; if we pull this off, he’ll be away a fortnight or longer. Damme, Saint-Denis, it will be worth anything you care to name!”

“Not Carolyn’s safety,” Sydney replied. “I appreciate your desire to rid yourself of such a nuisance, sir, but I cannot allow her to run the slightest risk.”

“Well, damme, didn’t I say there would be no risk?”

“Since Hanover has been fairly peaceful since Napoleon made it part of Westphalia, you can scarcely expect a genuine uprising to aid your scheme,” Sydney pointed out. “Cumberland will soon learn that he’s been made the dupe.”

The Regent shook his head. “Damme, that don’t signify a whit. Suppose he does discover it’s a hum? If you think he’ll lay the blame anywhere other than at my door, you don’t know him. But I’ll keep a sharp lookout then, just as I do now—sharper, I expect, for having had the respite—and if Boney should chance to nab him in the meantime, I shan’t weep any tears.”

Sydney smiled. “It would be as well for you, nonetheless, if we can contrive it so that he doesn’t suspect you either.”

“Yes, well, if you can contrive that,” he retorted with asperity, “then you are a clever man. Don’t think you can, m’self, and in any event, it won’t matter. Wants to murder me already, don’t he? Haven’t I been saying so these past six months and more? What difference if I give him more reason to work his mischief? I tell you, Saint-Denis, all I want is some relief from the fellow. Get him out of the country for a sennight, and I won’t count the cost.”

“Very well, sir, I’ll agree to help, but only if Miss Hardy does not come into the matter.”

Carolyn said indignantly, “I won’t be kept out of it, Sydney. Moreover, I don’t believe you really mean to help at all. You can scarcely say our prank is a necessary thing, no more, no less; yet, you told me—”

“Surely, my dear, I have frequently said that if a thing is to be done at all, it should be done properly,” he said, looking down his nose at her in a fair imitation of the dowager.

Carolyn, recognizing the imitation, could not repress a chuckle; but the Regent, interested only in the fact that Sydney had agreed to help, took his seat with an air of getting down to business and demanded briskly, “What tale will we give this gypsy fellow to tell Ernest?”

Sydney motioned Carolyn toward another chair, and when she had seated herself, he said, “Must it be Hanover, sir?”

“Well, damme, where else would we send him?”

“I don’t know. I thought perhaps you knew something about conditions there that had put the notion into your head.”

“Well, I don’t. For a dashed long time one never knew what would become of the place. After that upstart Bonaparte invaded, he kept dangling it before Prussia like a carrot before a donkey. A bargain was made after Austerlitz to join it with Westphalia, as you must know, but Boney’s no gentleman, and he took it back again after Jena. Damned French have been there ever since, one way or another, although he still calls it Westphalian.”

“Cumberland
is
known to be partial to the place,” Sydney said thoughtfully.

“Damme, we all are, aren’t we? Ernest and the others even went to school there and served in the military there. Daresay they’re even popular there, for all we know,” he said gloomily, adding on a crisper note, “and where the devil else would a message to Ernest come from that would do us a lick of good?”

“There is that,” Sydney agreed. “Very well, sir, Hanover it must be. Now, what shall he be told?”

“He is said to be a very fine soldier,” Carolyn said with a weather eye on the Regent, for she knew it was a sore point with him that as heir to the throne he had never been allowed to enter the military.

“Trained for it, wasn’t he?” he observed morosely. “Not all of us had his opportunities, damme if we did.”

“But you did tell me once he was an even better soldier than the Duke of York or the Duke of Clarence,” Carolyn reminded him.

“So I did, so I did.” He sighed.

Sydney had been thinking, and now he said, “I have a notion. Suppose he received a message from someone or other bent on rebellion against the occupation? I daresay there must be any number of Hanoverian factions that object strongly to being called Westphalian, or whose members simply hate the French. Perhaps if it is suggested to Cumberland that he is the only leader who can unite them all, then …”

“Damme, but you’re as clever as Miss Carolyn,” exclaimed the Regent. “Rebels with different objectives, eh? The very thing. Ernest will think them very knowing sorts to have demanded his leadership, and your gypsy fellow will be an excellent messenger in such a cause. Who else, I ask you, but a damned Romany could move easily from group to group through an occupied land?”

After that it was only a matter of talking out the details, and ten minutes later, Sydney turned abruptly to Carolyn and asked where he could find Salas. Learning that the gypsy was so close at hand did not please him at all.

“In my own stables! Good God, Caro, what if Cumberland has already seen him there, or one of Cumberland’s henchmen?”

“Well, they haven’t done so,” she said reasonably, “because all the duke’s people except Neall and two other body servants are housed elsewhere, and those three are too toplofty ever to view a visit to the stables as part of their duties. You needn’t think they might visit in a spirit of friendship, either, for the Regent’s servants aren’t even on nodding terms with them.”

“Very true,” the Regent put in. “Some of his fellows, like that Neall, are damned sneaksbys and might have pretended to have chores there only to spy, but since Ernest’s got no cattle in your stables, they wouldn’t get away with it for a minute.”

“Very well,” Sydney said. “Then I’ll find Salas and see what he thinks of all this. We’ve concocted a tale that ought to draw Cumberland off, but it will be as well for us to be sure that Salas can be trusted. That is by no means a certainty.”

“He won’t give us away,” Carolyn said confidently. “He enjoys mischief as much as anyone and badly wants to get to the Continent. I daresay his latest exploits have been very serious ones since they have brought him here, for no matter what he says to the contrary, Sydney, he cannot have been certain that you would agree to help and not simply have him clapped up.”

Sydney nodded, and just then the library door opened and Colonel MacMahon entered, followed by a minion carrying a stack of papers. The Regent greeted them, saying with cheerful aplomb, “Well, damme, there you are, MacMahon. Come in, come in. We wondered where you’d been hiding yourself!”

Sydney and Carolyn, accepting a jaunty wave from him by way of dismissal, left at once, and in the hall, when Sydney had shut the door on the secretary’s indignant excuses, Carolyn said, “You might think you are going to keep me out of all this, Sydney, but I’ve no intention of missing all the fun. I’m going with you right now to talk to …” Seeing his gaze shift significantly to the porter, sitting in his chair near the door, she ended lamely, “… to go to the stables with you.”