Deadly Peril (5 page)

He knew very well Wantage was pleased Hadrian Jeffries had replaced Tam as his lordship’s gentleman’s gentleman. His butler had never taken to Tam Fisher. But telling Wantage the good news that Tam was returning to St. James’s Place as a member of the household and not a servant could wait until he had spoken with Jeffries. But Lord Cobham and Sir Gilbert could not wait. Though it did not mean his two faithful greyhounds should forego their morning exercise, however much he wished he could take them off their leads for a run about in the sunshine. Giving the task to Jeffries would certainly test that man’s mettle—having his immaculate person pawed and nuzzled by a couple of friendly hounds. He might even get the chance to peer out the window to see how his new valet was faring, particularly when Cobham settled into one of his long-winded pompous speeches about upholding the good name of the department,
ad nauseam.
.

“Thank you, Wantage. Oh, and we will need more tea. Best fill the large teapot.”

When the butler announced Lord Cobham and Sir Gilbert Parsons, the head of the Foreign Department, to everyone’s surprise but Alec’s, wasted no time on small talk and got straight down to business.

“Well, Halsey, this is a fine bloody mess! What are we going to do about it, eh?”

F
OUR

T
WENTY
M
INUTES
E
ARLIER
, Lord Cobham had stepped from his carriage to the cobblestoned pavement of St. James’s Place to meet a sedan chair carrying the rotund Sir Gilbert Parsons. The two Herculean-sized chairmen had transported the corpulent occupant from his coffee house around the corner, and were relieved when ordered to set down their passenger at the top of the short street. It meant they need not take him all the way to Number One St. James’s Place, and up the steps and inside the luxurious townhouse. With a dismissive wave, Lord Cobham sent the chairmen back to the chair rank on busy St. James’s Street, and turned to his departmental subordinate.

“You do appreciate what’s at stake here, Parsons,” Cobham said without preamble, anchoring the end of his ivory-topped walking stick between two filthy cobbles and leaning forward. He took a look up and down the deserted street before continuing in an under-voice. “My reputation and your sinecure, should anything go wrong. Understand?”

“Perfectly, my lord,” Sir Gilbert replied in a monotone, adding without emotion, “You desire me to journey to Midanich to secure the release of the Duchess of Romney-St. Neot’s granddaughter, and her nephew. Both are presently captives, as far as we can ascertain, in the Margrave’s castle fortress in the town of—”

“I don’t need to be told what I already bloody-well know!” Lord Cobham blustered. “And I don’t want a geography lesson. I couldn’t care less if they were being held captive on the moon. Damn it! If the moon is where I need you to go, then the moon is where you’ll bloody-well go!”

His lordship pulled his receding chin into his stock and stuck out his bottom lip. To Sir Gilbert he immediately took on the appearance of a stunned cod, albeit one with bushy red eyebrows. In Sir Gilbert’s opinion, Lord Cobham had the face and complexion not even a mother could love.

“Fact is: The Duchess is my aunt. Can’t have relatives upset. Bad for the digestion,” his lordship continued in a more subdued voice, and sniffed. “I’m sending you abroad so you can redeem yourself after the diplomatic debacle of ’53. Need I remind you that because you were sent packing and Halsey got himself in a pickle, His Majesty lost the services of Midanich’s troops-for-hire? It was only the recent war that reinstated that service. I’m sending you for two reasons: To show that trumped-up little country it can’t trifle with England. And, more importantly, so you can keep an eye on Halsey. He’s the one they want to negotiate the release of Miss St. Neots and Mahon.” He sighed his frustration, gaze staring up at the milky gray clouds. “God knows why…” He brought his small eyes down from the clouds to stare hard at his subordinate. “Do you, Parsons?”

“No, my lord. It is as much a mystery to me as to you. Why the Margrave would request Alec Halsey, given it was his insufferable behavior that got me expelled and him incarcerated, is, frankly, baffling.”

“A mystery indeed…” Lord Cobham murmured, then stated, staring his subordinate in the eye, “Halsey may be the one who’s been requested, but I am putting you in charge of the legation, because I trust you to—”

“Thank you, my lord. I will endeavor—”

“—do as you’re told. I don’t trust Halsey! The man is a loose cannon and a law unto himself. He has—
scruples
.” Lord Cobham pulled a face of disgust. “Sanctimonious piffle!” He jabbed a gloved finger in the air, close to Sir Gilbert’s snub nose. “You will keep him in check, Parsons. And do a much better job of it than you did the last time, if you want to return to the comfort of your desk! Do you hear me?”

Sir Gilbert certainly did hear him. He wanted nothing more than to return to the security his deskbound employment afforded him. Since his expulsion from Midanich and being sent home in disgrace, he had not had another posting to the Continent. The past ten years had been spent slouching over other people’s correspondence in the cipher department. Everyone, from Lord Cobham, to his dear wife on, down to his wigmaker, viewed his relegation with a mixture of embarrassment and pity. Publically, Sir Gilbert was suitably humbled. In truth he was happy to be home and in a position within the Foreign Department that bored him almost to incompetence. He loved his comforts, particularly his daily visits to his preferred coffee house in the morning and his favorite chop house in the evening. But as he owed his position and thus his living to Lord Cobham’s good graces, he had no say in the matter of whether he stayed behind a desk or sailed off on a diplomatic rescue mission which had disaster inked all over it before the ship had the wind in its sails.

“Yes, my lord,” he replied tonelessly. “Loud and as clear as a church bell.”

Lord Cobham peered at his subordinate for signs the man was being sarcastic, but as Sir Gilbert held his gaze with a suitably neutral expression, he continued, and with a look over his shoulder, as if he half-expected to be overheard. But the cul-de-sac was empty of pedestrian and horse, so it was an unnecessary, and in Sir Gilbert’s opinion, an overly-dramatic gesture.

“To be frank, Parsons, the reason we are having this discussion out here, before we call on Halsey, is that the release of Miss St. Neots and Sir Cosmo is not to be the primary goal of
your
mission. Leave that to Halsey. What you are to do is to identify, and make contact with, a member of Margrave Ernst’s court—a traitor—”

“Traitor?”

“Not to us, Parsons. Not to England. A traitor to Margrave Ernst’s cause. Someone who is working to further his brother Prince Viktor’s claim to the throne.”

“Who is this traitor, my lord?”

“If I bloody-well knew that, Parsons, would I be asking
you
to uncover his identity? Keep up! Keep up!”

His lordship threw a hand in the air and let it drop heavily to his side, saying with a crooked, conciliatory smile as if addressing a simpleton, “Look here. In the scheme of things, it doesn’t matter which of the brothers—Margrave Ernst or Prince Viktor—triumphs. What is important is that their civil war ends, and soon. If they keep fighting each other there’ll be no troops left, and where would that leave England, eh?” He paused long enough for Sir Gilbert to open his mouth to respond, then added with a grunt, “If anyone is going to kill off Midanich’s troops, it’s us, fighting for England, not over a brotherly squabble. And when that civil war ends, His Majesty’s government must be seen to have supported the winning side from the very beginning of the conflict. Do you understand, Parsons?”

“And if it comes to light we were hedging our bets?” asked Sir Gilbert. “Both Margrave Ernst and Prince Viktor are unlikely to consider His Majesty’s government a trustworthy ally then, are they, my lord? It could ruin relations with the country for the fut—”

“Damme! You’re sounding like that sanctimonious Halsey, and I don’t care for it, Parsons! Listen, man. His Majesty and His Majesty’s government ministers will believe the head of the Foreign Department over the ravings of a bloody nobody ruler of an insignificant principality in the middle of God-knows-where in Europe. Understood?”

Sir Gilbert did not contradict his superior. He could see his point in wanting to ensure England backed the right horse, or in this case, the right brother. Who won the civil war was unimportant. But he wondered how he was to discover the identity of the traitor without he himself being discovered and getting himself expelled, and for a second time. Now, that would be a first!

“Not one bloody word of this to Halsey.”

“Yes, my lord. You have my confidence.”

“I’ll be the first to pat you on the back with hearty congratulations when you’ve managed to kill two birds with one stone.”

“Two birds, my lord? A stone?”

“Ernst and Viktor! Do use your brain, Parsons,” Lord Cobham complained. “By
kill
I mean give both the hope that His Majesty supports them for the post of Margrave. But if you can’t manage it, it will be cold suppers for you from here on in. Leave Halsey to sort out the mucky business of getting the hostages released. With any luck, he’ll get himself locked up again, and for the greater good—that greater good being
my
reputation and
your
position.”

And Selina’s good name
, he thought to himself, knowing his headstrong sister was on the cusp of accepting a marriage proposal from Alec Halsey. Despite being her elder brother and head of the family, he was excruciatingly aware that his position and his opinion held no sway over her. She would do as she pleased; which didn’t please him.

“If, by some fortuitous happenstance, Halsey manages to secure a release,” he continued, shaking his thoughts free of his recalcitrant sibling. “Then it will be a success for the department, and for me. And that’s how it will be written up in your report, Parsons—Parsons?”

“Yes, my lord. I will write up a report.”

“So you bloody-well will! And it’ll be over my bloodied carcass before I allow m’sister to marry the likes of Halsey. She’s a Vesey,” he added, momentarily forgetting he was talking to an inferior in an open street, and not confiding in a member of his club. “The man murdered his brother—regardless of what a coroner has to say to it! Egad. I’ll not have such blood polluting the Vesey line. Regardless of my aunt wanting him to rise to the dizzying heights of ambassador one day. Ha! That’s not bloody likely either! But one can’t say that to elderly aunts, Parsons. Mere females don’t understand these things.”

“Very true, my lord,” Sir Gilbert said in the silence that dragged after his superior’s diatribe. “I may not have seen Halsey in over a decade, but papers have crossed my desk in that time from his superiors in The Hague and at Paris about his unfortunate practice of being ruled by conscience. And then there is his predilection for engaging in bedroom politics. Pardon, my lord, but if Halsey had spent more time in his breeches than out of ’em we’d not have ended up in deep water—literally; the dungeon is below sea level. That’s what got me expelled from Midanich.”

“What got you expelled, Parsons, was your own stupidity. Demanding Halsey keep his breeches on when he was in the midst of a torrid affair with the Margrave’s daughter was signing your own warrant for banishment. Halsey’s salacious brand of diplomacy won out. See that house?” Lord Cobham asked, jabbing his walking stick in the direction of a free-standing double-fronted townhouse, the first in a well-appointed secluded row that all backed on to the Green Park. “That’s where he lives now. Shares it with that obstinate uncle. Silly old windbag who pontificates in Parliament about ending slavery and universal education for brats. Ravings of a lunatic! The man’s another loose cannon, and an explosive one. But no one can touch him because he’s an MP. Yes. You may very well stare, Parsons. It’s the sorry truth. And I’m afraid I have more startling news…” He shuddered and closed his eyes as if steeling himself for the announcement he knew would shock Sir Gilbert to the core. “His Majesty has seen fit to raise Halsey to a marquessate—”

“
What
?” Sir Gilbert staggered back as if struck by Lord Cobham’s walking stick. “Plantagenet Halsey is a-a marquess?
Bloody hell
.”

“No! No! Not the uncle!
Alec Halsey
, your departmental junior. He’s now
Marquess
Halsey, and so I am forced—yes,
forced
—to swallow up my pride and do the right thing by his nobility, if not his person, and treat him as one of us. Can you believe it, Parsons?”

“I don’t believe it!” Sir Gilbert stated. “My subordinate—
ennobled
?”

“Sticks in your gullet, too, eh,” Lord Cobham said with a chuckle at the face Sir Gilbert showed him; as if a foul odor had assailed his nostrils. “I’ll wager you never thought your secretary would now be a bloody lord, and living like one too!” He swished his walking stick around to point it at Sir Gilbert, adding with a frown and in a low voice, “But you’re not to let his elevation dazzle you. You’re head of the legation to Midanich. This is your second chance—your
only
chance. You’re the senior diplomat. Don’t let him forget who’s in charge—that just because he’s been ennobled doesn’t mean he gets to run things
his
way. Understand?”

“Yes, my lord. Don’t concern yourself. I’ve learned my lesson. I’ll wave my credentials under his ennobled nose, when and if I need to,” Sir Gilbert replied, sticking out his jaw.

“Good man!” Lord Cobham replied with a self-satisfied sniff. “I’ve told you what I consider is important on this mission. But what I say inside those four walls—” He swung his walking stick back around to point at Number One St. James’s Place, “—will be what Halsey wants to hear. All to keep him off the scent. Understand?”

Sir Gilbert had no idea what scent his lordship was sniffing at, though he suspected it smelled of traitor and double dealing, so he nodded obediently and verbalized his agreement when Lord Cobham glared at him.