Celeste Bradley - [The Liar's Club 02] (35 page)

Lord Liverpool turned to her. To her surprise, he was not much taller than herself, yet he emanated such a presence that she’d expected someone more on Dalton’s scale.

He stood before her, looking her over with his flat gray gaze. “Sir Thorogood, I presume?”

Clara didn’t answer, her throat too tight to speak.

He gazed at her for a long moment. “Humph.”

Clara swallowed. “Lord Reardon is not on our side. I’ve learned that as a boy, he joined a revolutionary group that intended to kill his father, who is apparently someone high in the government. He claims it was only a boyhood prank, that he was never serious about it. Yet I saw him meeting secretly with Wadsworth not two weeks past.”

Liverpool only gazed at her impassively. Clara swallowed the dryness in her throat and continued. “If you read certain documents in his safe, you will see that they most definitely confirm him as a traitor.”

Reardon looked from one person to the next. “That story does not refer to me.”

“‘A boyhood prank,’“ quoted Dalton softly. Clara watched him turn to gaze at Liverpool. “No. It doesn’t refer to Reardon. It refers to Prince George, doesn’t it, my lord?”

Liverpool shot Dalton a look full of warning, but Dalton continued.

“That is what all this is about, isn’t it? Hiding what George did at the age of sixteen. You set me up, hunted Clara, twisted my Liars into knots, all to conceal George’s association with the Knights of the Lily.” He shook his head. “Poor George. He never took anything seriously. What a moment that must have been, when he realized that he was about to murder his own father, his own king.”

“That’s when he came to my father,” said Reardon, nodding. “Prince George confessed his foolishness to my father. Father sent for Liverpool immediately and chaos reigned for one entire day. My father and Lord Liverpool dispersed the group, sending some of the young men as far away as America, forcibly if necessary. George was upbraided for several hours straight and put in the keeping of a rather fierce and watchful tutor. The King never learned of any of it.”

Clara looked from a silent Liverpool to Nathaniel. “And now?”

Nathaniel gestured for her to sit on the settee facing the fire. Gratefully, Clara sank onto the cushions.

Continuing, Nathaniel looked up to include Dalton and James. “I’d only recently returned from persuading the Austrian Emperor to declare war on France. A month ago I was approached by the few surviving members of Fleur about their plans to blackmail the Prince Regent.
They knew I’d severed my ties with my father and assumed I was of like mind. Of course, I remembered the entire fiasco from my childhood, although I was not supposed to know anything about it at the time.”

He snorted. “As if I could avoid it. The door nearly fell in with the force of Liverpool’s pounding. I’ve never seen him so livid, before or since. You could hear him bellowing at poor young George all through our house.” His lips twisted as he regarded Lord Liverpool, who stood silently watching them all. “I’m sure it will be my turn now that I’ve told you all of this.”

James looked at Nathaniel, curiosity etched in his face. “So you don’t hate the Liars?”

Nathaniel grimaced. “They aren’t my favorite branch of the government, but no, I don’t
hate
them.”

James didn’t back down. “Or Simon? Because you were awfully convincing just now.”

Nathaniel looked away, then back. “Simon Raines was just a boy who had finally found a home. I couldn’t hate anyone for that.”

Clara chewed her hp. “But I saw you there, talking to Wadsworth and his guests. You seemed one of them to me.”

“I was posing as a sympathizer in order to learn more of their plans. They have the potential to do the Prince Regent a great deal of damage, should word of his participation get out.”

“But he was only a boy! Surely no one will hold it against him!”

Dalton shook his head. “No, Clara. The public would not be nearly so forgiving. What if it caused his regency to be stripped from him? It could happen, if public opinion turned too far against him. As regent, he is the guardian of his very ill father, our king. What would people
think if they learned that he had once actively plotted his own father’s murder?”

“No wonder you were all in such a frenzy to find me!” Clara chewed her hp. “But who signed the kill order?”

Behind her, Dalton shifted. “I did.”

Clara turned, lips parted in shock. Dalton didn’t look at her. “Didn’t I, my lord?” His tone was light, almost bored. Clara knew by this that he was utterly enraged.

Liverpool gazed back at him. “Did you?”

“It had to have been me, sir.” Dalton’s tone was most polite. “For the only other explanation is that it was you.”

If possible, Liverpool’s gaze was icier than ever. “I don’t think you have sufficient evidence to make such a dangerous accusation, boy.”

Clara looked back and forth between the two men. “Then there is no rogue member of the Royal Four?”

Nathaniel turned to shoot her a horrified look, then ran both hands over his face.

Now she had their attention. Liverpool stared at her, his jaw working in his otherwise expressionless face. He finally spoke. “You know who the Royal Four are, child?”

Clara went cold. There was something resigned and deadly in his voice, as if her knowledge had just passed the point of no return. “N-not
who
they are, no. I simply know of their existence.” She was fairly sure of the identity of one of them now—although Nathaniel had been very convincing as a villain—but she thought that Lord Liverpool really didn’t need to know that.

“Mrs. Simpson, you are a very dangerous woman.”

Inside Clara’s stomach, ice churned. This was not good, not good at all.

Then Liverpool turned to the others as if she’d ceased
to exist. “Well, now that you lot have disturbed a very old dog, we must see what can be done to send it back to sleep again.”

Dalton worked his jaw, but nodded. “Certainly, my lord. As soon as I’ve escorted Mrs. Simpson ho—”

“Mrs. Simpson is no longer your concern. I will conduct her to Westminster Hall, where she will receive medical attention… and where she will remain as the guest of the government until further notice.”

Clara turned to appeal to Dalton but halted at the remote expression on his face. He didn’t so much as glance her way. “Very well, my lord.”

The two guards stepped up to escort her from the room. Looking over her shoulder from the other side of the red-coated young giants, Clara felt a sharp cold pain, as if she were being cut from him by a surgeon. She hardly dared think past that at this moment, or she felt she might collapse in a quivering pile of abject fear.

Dalton remained impassive. Nathaniel stepped forward to take her arm. “Come along, Clara.” His tone was regretful but his grip was firm.

As Nathaniel led her away, she closed her eyes against the cold still expression on Dalton’s face as he let her go without another word.

Her last near-hysterical thought was that at least she was leaving by the door. …

Dalton strode from Reardon’s house, his gaze unseeing, his face grim. James caught up with him on the walk outside. The new day threatened to dawn as gray as Dalton’s face.

James eyed him warily. He had never seen Dalton
like this. “He can’t keep her locked up, can he? She’s not guilty of any crime, not really.”

Dalton shook his head. “In Liverpool’s eyes she is.” The life was gone from his manner, his voice as colorless as his eyes. “First, she’s an overt reformist. That’s dangerous to an old conservative like our Prime Minister. Secondly, I’ve just sealed her fate by displaying my attachment.”

“Dalton, I know Liverpool has been something of a mentor to you over the years, much as you are to me—”

“Nothing like. You are one of my men, James. A brother. Liverpool considers me a tool in his hand. Rather he did until all this. Now I imagine he considers me a powder keg. He’d like to keep me far from the fire.”

“Far from Clara,” James said.

“Precisely.”

“So what will you do?”

“What can I do?” He turned on James and cocked a brow coolly. “I’m a peer and a gentleman. I have rank and responsibilities. Do you expect me to break her out of there in the dark of night?”

James stepped back. “No, no, of course not.”

“Good.”

James could have sworn those silver eyes began to glow.

“Then Liverpool won’t expect it, either.” Dalton gave James a fierce grin. “Suit up. Griffin. We’ve a wall to climb tonight.”

Clara’s room in the old palace was not much more than a comfortably furnished cell. She was up in the rooms reserved for visiting diplomats, far from the busy corridors
and overcrowded meeting rooms of Parliament.

Her window held a soaring view of the Thames and the rooftops beyond. She was more than five dizzying stories high and she could barely stand to look through the glass, much less escape through it.

The single door was guarded by her own stoic pair of redcoats, who met any request from her with politely bland refusal. The physician had come and gone, leaving her with a bandage and the assurance that she would only carry a minor scar.

She tried to tell herself that she had nothing to worry about. Dalton was where they were likely discussing what to do with her, and he wouldn’t let anything happen to her.

Would he? He was a man torn between heart and duty and she truly had no idea which way he would turn.

Her baggage had been delivered to the room along with herself. Apparently, these four papered walls were going to be her only home for a long while. Resentfully, she wondered what Liverpool would say if she drew all over them.

Thorogood’s version of the Sistine Chapel. Which she would likely not live to see. Clara lay back on the silken coverlet and contemplated the gilded ceiling.

In that plain plastered portion over there, she would depict the young Prince, held mesmerized by a young Wadsworth, their revolutionary plans spread before them. Then another drawing, of a shame-faced George confessing his fears to Nathaniel’s father, while a child with Nathaniel’s green eyes peeked from behind a door to observe.

Perhaps a border around each vignette, filled with tiny figures portraying the Liar’s Club and their activities. It
would take a very long time, but she likely had it to spare.

In the far corner, she would draw Nathaniel infiltrating the Knights of Fleur while a craven figure crouched in the sideboard, furiously scribbling away.

And she would draw Dalton as a man of light and shadow, tom between loyalties, tom between love and honor, perhaps even with herself as wretched harpy, shredding his shadow half with teeth and claws.

She’d mucked it all up severely these past weeks, and good men were suffering because of her.

At this rate, she ought to be able to bring the entire country of England to its knees within the year. Napoleon really ought to thank her for doing his work for him.

She rolled over, unable to bear the reproach of her imaginary drawings above her. How had she come to this point?

Breaking into the vicious Wadsworth’s in order to right a few wrongs, how could that be so bad? Helping Rose had been undeniably good. Sir Thorogood’s cartoons had done good as well, even if only bringing the plight of the disadvantaged to light.

Yet there had been one night of intrigue, one misunderstood conversation, one drawing too many.

One drawing too many …

She sat up, lethargy gone. One drawing had begun the entire chain of events. One drawing could stop it.

There was no paper in the room. Liverpool had taken even the ink from her when he’d left. Ruthlessly, she peeled a section of patterned wallpaper from an inconspicuous spot behind the bed. The back was blank enough if she was willing to disregard the dried glue. Then she gathered scraped soot from the fireplace with
the heel of her shoe, catching it in one of the tumblers that had accompanied her request for a pitcher of water.

She added water a drop at a time until she had a thick paste of decidedly unattractive ink. It didn’t matter, for the engraver could correct vagaries of the lumpy lines. What mattered was getting Sir Thorogood’s final drawing on paper as soon as possible.

She used a pin from her hair as a nib. Bending close over her paper in the small light from her one candle, she carefully delineated four figures on the paper, inch by scratching inch.

One on a center pedestal, one partially cloaked behind, and two crouching on either side, reaching desperately for the standing figure.

Everyone would remember “Fleur and Her Followers” at the sight of this drawing, but this gave an entirely new slant on the topic, one that just might undo all the trouble she had caused.

She worked late into the night, until her eyes ached and her candle was a mere lighted wick in a puddle of wax. Finally came the last stroke of her clotted “ink” on her stolen wallpaper, the last flicker of light from her dying candle, and she was done.

As the room flickered to darkness, she laid her aching head down on her arms, her heart peaceful at last.

It was a very good cartoon, if she did say so herself.

Dalton strode into the Liar’s Club with James fast behind him.

“Are you quite sure about this?” James tossed his coat over one of the chairs in the club room used by “customers” and loosened his cravat. “Last night you thought they were going to kill you, remember?”

“How can I expect them to trust me if I don’t trust them?” Dalton smiled grimly. “It’s good advice. You should keep it in mind when you’re spymaster.”

“Me?” James’s jaw dropped. “I’m still under consideration?”

“We’ll discuss that later.” Dalton pushed open the door into the private segment of the club, the part that the louts and lordlings knew nothing about. The room was full of men. Liars all, obviously holding some sort of conference. They froze at Dalton’s entrance.

He strode to the front of the room where Stubbs stood conducting the meeting. “Wondering what to do about me?”

Stubbs blinked, then conceded the invisible podium with a glance at Kurt and moved to sit at a nearby table.
James seated himself in another chair, idly rubbing his shoulder and pretending interest in some dark and uninspiring portraits lining the walls. Dalton knew that his calm pose hid a burning curiosity held barely in check.