Dangerous to Love (26 page)

Torn by indecision, she debated with herself what to do. If only Flynn were here! That thought decided her. With one last look at Julian’s house, she dug in her heels and followed the departing groom.

She arrived at Ward House dusty and disheveled but none the worse for her solitary ride. Flynn, mistaking her agitation for fury at his part in her Fleet marriage, hastily tried to placate her.

“I don’t care about any of that,” she said, leading him into a small anteroom. She abruptly told him about Julian’s arrest the night before, and the subsequent events.

Like Serena, Flynn was sure that it was only a matter of time before Julian would be released.

The first thing to do, said Flynn, was find out where the major was incarcerated, and that could best be done by enlisting the support of Julian’s friends at his gaming house. He went off full of optimism. When he returned some hours later, his face was very grave.

“You can’t
get
near ’is place for bleeding soldiers. It’s been shut down.”

“What are the charges against him?”

“That’s just it. No one seems to know anything, though the rumors are flying thick and fast. They say ’e
escaped custody, and the soldiers are searching for ’im, but no one seems to know where he is or what ’e is supposed to have done. Now it looks as though ’e is as guilty as sin.”

“Escaped custody?” Serena sat down as her legs buckled under her. “But .  .  . why would he do such a thing?”

“You tell me.”

“Oh, Flynn! This is worse than a nightmare!”

Flynn took the chair opposite Serena’s. “They’re questioning all the major’s friends, see? I was almost sure that I would arrive ’ome ’ere to find they ’ad taken
you
away.”

Serena thought about this for a moment and shook her head. “They won’t know where to look for me. If they are looking for anyone, it will be Victoria Noble, unless they go through my clothes and things and find something there to connect me to Julian.” She shook her head. “No, there’s nothing there. I’m sure of it.”

“Victoria Noble?” said Flynn, looking at her as though she had lost her reason. “Who might Victoria Noble be?”

In as few words as possible, Serena explained about the circumstances surrounding her loss of memory and her subsequent confusion.

“God, what a muddle!” was Flynn’s comment.

“Yes, but what’s to be done?”

“What can we do but wait and see?”

This was not what Serena wanted to hear. “Perhaps if I go to the authorities and demand—”

“That won’t ’elp the major! Don’t you see, if they was to discover that you are Mrs. Raynor, they might use you to set a trap for ’im? God Almighty! They might start asking questions, then where would we be? Julian Raynor ain’t no Jacobite, but
we
are. The last thing we wants is the authorities breathing down our necks.”

The days that followed were like one long unrelenting
nightmare for Serena. It was easier for Flynn. He was actually doing something, nosing around coffeehouses and mixing with militia men and others in the know, ferreting things out before they became general knowledge.

In due course, he reported that the Forrests and the men who had been taken into custody had been set free with no charges pending against them. The militia, however, were still on the lookout for Julian and were to be seen patrolling the area of his gaming club as well as his house in Twickenham.

“They’re saying the major is a Jacobite conspirator and that if ’e’s caught, he’ll—” Flynn quickly changed direction to avoid reminding Serena in her overwrought state of the horrible fate that awaited traitors. “At least they knows nothing of you,” he said comfortingly. “That’s something.”

“They are bound to find out about me sooner or later. Don’t forget, there were witnesses to our marriage.”

Flynn made a derisory sound. “They won’t say nothing. Those witnesses are the major’s friends. The authorities will get nothing out of them.”

That the authorities might use her to set a trap for Julian was the most compelling reason in Serena’s mind for doing nothing. If Julian were to come looking for her, she did not want soldiers to be lying in wait for him.

I promise you, you haven’t seen the last of me yet.
He’d meant those words as a threat. One way or another, she would make him believe that she’d had nothing to do with his arrest.

When Catherine and Letty arrived posthaste from Riverview with a letter Catherine had received from France, Serena’s apprehensions took a new direction. Jeremy had written to warn them that Sir Robert’s health was very frail. It might be another week or two before he was fit to travel. Her sister-in-law’s obvious concern touched a
chord deep inside Serena. There was a moment of indecision when she might have confided in Catherine, but the older girl’s response to her careful overture crushed the impulse.

“I presume,” said Serena, “that you have heard about Julian Raynor and all the rumors that are circulating about him?”

“Raynor!” exclaimed Catherine, not troubling to hide her distaste. “And to think I once encouraged you to set your cap for him! That will teach me to meddle in things that don’t concern me.”

“Did you meddle? I don’t remember.”

“I hoped .  .  . well, it doesn’t signify what I hoped. I’m only too happy that he has no connection to our family, not as things stand.”

As the conversation went on, it became clear to Serena that no one, least of all a family with a history such as theirs, could afford to acknowledge friendship with a suspected Jacobite.

“Jeremy says,” went on Catherine, “that we Wards must be like Caesar’s wife. We must be above suspicion.”

And with that, Serena withdrew into a cocoon of silence.

Within the fortnight, the furor over Julian’s disappearance was superseded by other more titillating gossip. Lady Margaret Fairley eloped with her footman, and Lord Baringstoke decamped to the Continent after killing a man in a duel. It seemed that even the authorities had lost interest in Julian. And still, he made no attempt to approach her. She could accept that Julian was keeping his distance because he didn’t trust her. What she could not accept was that an accident or some calamity had overtaken him. Her prayers had never been more fervent. She would accept anything, she promised, as if making a bargain with the Deity, if only Julian were alive and well.

She was brooding on that thought when she heard a carriage pull up outside the front doors. She raced to the window and looked out to see Jeremy stepping down from the coach. “Papa!” she said, then on a note of joy, “Papa!” and turning on her heel, she raced headlong to the front doors.

Catherine had got there before her. Serena had a glimpse of Clive with one arm around her sister-in-law’s shoulders, then her eyes lifted as Jeremy stepped forward to meet her.

“Oh, my dear,” he said, and reached out to steady her as she swayed toward him. “You must prepare yourself for the worst.”

“Oh no,” she said. “No!”

“Our father died a week since. He had a weak heart and nothing could be done to save him. He didn’t suffer at the end. He simply slipped away from us.”

   She was shivering, and there was no reason for it. Warm air wafted in from the open windows, and her shoulders were covered by a silk stole. Lacing her fingers together to stop their shaking, she lifted her eyes and looked around the dinner table, touching briefly on each person present. Catherine, Jeremy, Clive, Letty—they were in no better shape than she. No one had done justice to the excellent dinner Cook had prepared.

This was a far cry from the homecoming they had anticipated. She saw now what she had not seen before. Jeremy’s letter was meant to prepare her for the worst, and her mind had been so full of Julian that she had not realized it. She swallowed, thinking of all she had lost with her father’s death. Whatever his faults, and she had never been blind to them, he was her father and she had loved him. In some respects, he’d been a hard man, quick to anger and slow to forgive. But he was also loyal, as his
friendship for the Stuarts gave ample evidence. When everyone else had deserted the prince, Sir Robert Ward had stood by him, not counting the cost to himself or his family. It seemed fitting that he had died in exile in the service of that prince.

Sir Robert would not be interred beside her mother in St. Clement’s churchyard, and that seemed fitting too. Charlotte Ward had lived in the shadow of her husband. A quiet, rather timid woman, the little animation she possessed seemed to drain out of her whenever her husband had walked into a room. Her gentle disposition was no match for his volatile and sometimes cruel outbursts. By the time of her death, Charlotte Ward had been a silent withdrawn woman. Sir Robert never respected those who did not stand up to him and her mother could not be other than she was.

No, thought Serena, she had never been blind to her father’s faults, but in spite of them, she had loved him.

There was to be no funeral service, for her father had been buried in the cemetery of the small village where he had lived for the last year. There would be a notice of the death in the paper and that would be that.

“Father wanted it that way,” said Jeremy, breaking the long silence. “He knew he was dying, and he gave me instructions about his burial and the kind of service he wanted.”

“The prince was there, at Father’s funeral service.” There was a break in Clive’s voice. “Disguised, of course. The French don’t support him any more than his own subjects.”

Jeremy’s voice took on a hard edge. “Charles Edward Stuart has worn out his welcome in France is more like it, as he has everywhere else.”

Clive stiffened. “I thought you liked the prince? You
dined with him, did you not? It seemed to me that you liked him well enough.”

“I do like him. He is a charming companion, when he wants to be. But I know the risks of being friendly with such a man. His ambition to place his father on the throne of England is as fierce as ever it was. He hoped to enlist me to the Cause.”

Lifting the sherry decanter, he rose from the table and went immediately to Serena to replenish her wine glass. “Your face is parchment-white,” he said gently. “This has all been too much for you. Drink up. It will do you a world of good.”

The solicitous words were almost more than she could bear. It was so like Jeremy to notice when something was amiss with any of them. She took a long swallow from her glass, if only to please him.

On returning to his place at the head of the table, he looked at each one in turn. Shaking his head, he passed a hand over his eyes. “Do I seem hard to you? I suppose I must. I wish it were not so. But the cost involved in obtaining a pardon for Father was so prohibitive .  .  .” He checked himself, paused, then went on in a more moderate tone, “I beg your pardon. I don’t know what has brought this on. Grief, I presume. Father’s death has been a great shock to us all.”

Catherine said, “But Jeremy dear, you are not saying surely that we still have to pay for the pardon when it is no longer .  .  . I mean .  .  . there is no point in it now, is there?”

“No point whatsoever,” he answered. “But the Crown has already accepted our money. We have seen the last of it, of that you may be sure.”

“But that is so unfair!” cried Letty.

“Is it? I think you will find that His Majesty’s ministers consider it a case of poetic justice. They are having
the last laugh on a formidable enemy who caused them a deal of trouble in his lifetime.”

Serena retired to her bedchamber in a state of utter exhaustion. Grief for her father was the easier part to bear for she was not alone in it.

It was Julian who weighed heavily on her mind. She longed to confide in Jeremy but feared to add to all his burdens. Moreover, she couldn’t explain about Julian without revealing the escape route and her part in it. Besides, Jeremy wouldn’t lift a finger to help Julian, not if he were suspected of Jacobite conspiracies. She did not blame Jeremy for this. She understood his position. He would do whatever was necessary to protect his family.

More than two weeks had passed since that awful night when Julian was arrested, and in that time he had made no attempt to get a message to her. Sometimes, it seemed that her time with Julian had been either a dream or a figment of her imagination. If
it
were not for the curtain ring she had hidden in a handkerchief in her dresser drawer, she would think she was losing her mind.

Moving to her dresser, she opened the top drawer and retrieved a lace handkerchief. Inside, she found not only her wedding ring but also the fifty-pound note, carefully folded, which Julian had once thrust at her. These were not the tokens a man gave a woman whom he admired and respected.

Thoughts circled inside her head, but the one that finally took hold was that she wished they had spent their last day together sorting out their differences.

“Oh Julian,” she whispered into the silence, “I can bear anything if only you are alive and well,” and covering her face with both hands, she wept in great shuddering sobs till there were no more tears to shed.

*  *  *

Pain shot through Julian’s cramped muscles as he eased himself to a sitting position. The leg irons bit into the flesh of his ankles. His wrists were raw and bleeding and manacled to an iron ring low on the wall. The only light came from a crack under the door. There was the sound of scuttling and he kicked out with both legs, grimacing as the sudden movement sent pain to every muscle in his body. Squeals, then more scurrying as the rats got out of range. He didn’t even know the name of the damned ship on which he was being transported, or for which colony the ship had set sail.

Transportation. He let the thought sink into his mind. There had been no trial, and no sentence. The so-called “militia” had beaten him senseless, then hustled him to the docks where he’d been thrown into this dark rat-infested pit in the bowels of a ship. What he could not understand was why they had not simply put a bullet in his brain and had done with it.

When he gritted his teeth, the pain came at him in waves. His jaw felt as if it were broken. He could put up with the pain. The beating had been worth it because it had been administered
after
he had left his mark, deliberately, on the leader of those cutthroats who had done this to him. It would take several stitches to close the gash he had inflicted on “Pretty’s” face. The man would be scarred for life.