Folly's Reward (17 page)

Helena smiled back at him. In that brief moment his eyes reflected a depth of tenderness and understanding. Was this what it meant to share love without doubt or question?

The black eyes moved to take in the newcomers, and filled with delight and laughter.

“For God’s sake!” he exclaimed, striding up to them. “Harry! You’re a damned reprobate, sir! Where the devil did you spring from? Do you once again promise to stay as grave and sober as a monk, and then create bedlam in my house?”

The brothers embraced with open affection, and Richard led Harry up to the other gentleman who had been sitting with him at the fireside.

The man rose to his feet, looking thoughtfully at the group that had entered.

Prudence judged him to be close to fifty, perhaps, though his hair was still dark. Lean and tall, he was stunningly handsome, but there was something almost sinister in the piercing eyes and strongly aquiline nose.

He smiled at Harry, and the menace in his look disappeared.

She shook herself. Of course Lord Lenwood’s guest was not dangerous. He was just older and more powerful, perhaps, than the others, with something a little feral in his manner.

“You must know,” Richard said to the older man, “that the last time Harry was at Acton Mead he came in the wake of a murderer.”

“Not this time, I trust.” Harry laughed and held out his hand to the stranger. “This time I came here to avoid one.”

“And the events at Christmas weren’t his fault, of course. They were mine,” Richard continued gaily. “Allow me to introduce Henry Acton, my disreputable younger brother, whom you have been seeking in vain for so long.”

The older man shook Harry’s hand. Richard grinned at them.

“Harry, if you weren’t such a damned shady character you could have saved Helena and myself a great deal of worry, and made things simpler for the marquess, though as it turns out he has done a remarkable job of tracking you down. Allow me to present Alexander Duchain, the Marquess of Belham, who has been longing to make your acquaintance.”

Prudence felt the floor move beneath her. Flames seemed to roar from the fireplace to wash over them all with unbearable heat. Yet everyone continued to exchange greetings like neighbors at the county ball.

“I am very pleased to locate you at last, Mr. Acton,” Lord Belham said, laughing openly. “None of the reports I received did you justice.”

“Yet I would seem to have made it elementary for you to find me, sir,” Harry replied without any visible surprise or hesitation. “For here I am.”

He grinned with irrepressible gaiety, and with a gesture invited Prudence and Bobby to step forward to join them.

“And here is your little ward, Lord Dunraven,” Harry said, “with his governess, Miss Drake. You must have felt the most dreadful anxiety about them, too.”

The roar became deafening.

* * *

Prudence awoke to find herself in a shadowed chamber. She was lying on a feather bed with a quilt over her. A fire flickered in the grate, and a single candle burned at the bedside.

“You are awake?” It was Helena’s voice.

“What happened?” Her own voice sounded horribly feeble in her ears.

“You fainted. I feel entirely responsible. You must have been exhausted from the journey. It was thoughtless of me to take you straight into an overheated room like that. Are you more the thing now?”

Prudence struggled up, pushing aside the cover.

“I have never fainted before in my life. Lady Lenwood, I’m so sorry.”

“Please, call me Helena. And may I call you Prudence?”

“You’re very kind.” Prudence looked about the room and felt another flood of panic. “Where’s Bobby?”

“The small Lord Dunraven? He’s in the kitchen with Mrs. Hood, my housekeeper, and she is smothering him with affection, primarily in the form of baked goods. Harry is with him. My brother must be very taken with your small charge, Prudence, for he refused to leave him alone for a moment. He also said that you would want Bobby to sleep in your room tonight. So we have made up an extra bed for him, over there. Is that to your liking? If not, we have a splendid nursery.”

“Oh, no! Pray, let him sleep in here with me. I should much prefer it.”

“Excellent! Then we have made everyone happy. Lord Belham is very pleased to find his little ward arrived safely, as you may guess. He wants everything arranged for Bobby just as you would wish. I don’t believe the marquess is terribly comfortable with small children.”

“Lord Belham told you he was Bobby’s guardian and that he was looking for him?”

“Yes, indeed. And he knew you were traveling with Harry, so he decided to wait here for you all to arrive. But I will not tire you now with strings of silly questions. I’ll leave you alone to rest, shall I?”

Helena rose to leave, but Prudence held out a restraining hand.

“Lady Lenwood! Helena. Could you tell me something?”

“Of course, if I can. What did you wish to know?”

Prudence swung her legs from the bed and gathered her thoughts. If she closed her eyes she could still see the string of odd symbols on that little scrap of paper. Then she looked up into Helena’s face.

“About Harry. Why did he go to France?”

* * *

Bobby sat at the kitchen table with his mouth full of scones and honey, the perfect image of a contented child. Harry managed to get Mrs. Hood, the housekeeper, away from Bobby’s plate and to one side for a moment.

“Mrs. Hood, I know this will seem odd, but can you promise me on your most solemn oath that you won’t let that little boy out of your sight for a moment? In particular, keep Lord Belham or any of his servants from being alone with the child. I want your word on it.”

The rotund housekeeper glanced at the child and back up at Harry with obvious distress.

“Of course, Master Harry, if you say so.”

“I do say so. You remember what happened at Christmas?”

“When that wicked fellow tried to poison John and Williams? I’ll never forget it, sir. Surely you don’t think—”

“I don’t know what to think, Mrs. Hood. But my brother John wasn’t even the intended victim, and Bobby may be. He is only five years old. There’s no room to take any chances. He mustn’t be left alone with anyone except Miss Drake or myself. Promise me!”

Mrs. Hood smiled across the room at Bobby. He grinned at her, but her expression when she turned back to Harry was as fierce as a broody hen’s.

“Either myself or Mr. Hood will stay with him every minute, Master Harry. Don’t you worry! No harm will come to that little golden head in this house, not as long as I’ve breath in my body!”

* * *

Harry rejoined his brother and Lord Belham in Richard’s study. He announced himself with an excellent joke and a charming apology for taking so long to see to poor Miss Drake and the young Lord Dunraven. He looked relaxed, carefree, and nonchalant.

“Helena has Miss Drake safely tucked up in the second-best guest chamber. No doubt I set far too madcap a pace from Oxford, but Lord Jervin has such a deuced bang-up carriage, and whenever the ostlers saw his crest they gave us the fastest prads.”

Harry poured himself a brandy and crossed the room to take a chair by the fire.

“But how on earth did you know, sir,” he said to Belham, “that I was escorting your runaway ward and his governess? You must have an excellent spy network.”

The marquess leaned back and stretched his long legs to the fire. He examined Harry between narrowed lashes.

“I do, as a matter of fact. But it was not good enough.”

Harry grinned with deliberate camaraderie, as if to be stalked across Britain by spies were an everyday occurrence.

“You mean we gave your man the slip?”

“Several times, I regret to say. The last report I had of you was that you were taking part in a prize fight in Gretna Green.”

Richard laughed aloud. “A prize fight? For pity’s sake! You are truly incorrigible, Harry.”

Harry kept his attention on Belham. He didn’t attempt to hide his surprise.

“Good God! Your man was there?”

Lord Belham smiled. “He didn’t witness the battle royal itself, I’m sad to say, but it was the subject of a penny sheet the next morning. You’re a famous man on the borders, Mr. Acton. The only Englishman ever to have defeated Braw Jamie, I understand—a rare ox of a man and irresistible in battle.”

Richard was now almost choking with laughter, but Harry let himself look a little petulant.

“It was drink defeated Braw Jamie. Pistols are my strength. I’m no more than average with my fives, so it was not a fame fairly won.”

Lord Belham idly turned the signet ring on his finger. “Yet it was a fame that gave me a very complete portrait of you, especially when added to prior descriptions gathered from your days at the Manse with Mr. and Mrs. MacEwen. It was not hard then to discover your identity from your acquaintance in London. You look very like your mother, Lady Acton.”

“My mother is well renowned in society, of course,” Harry said.

“As for the pistols, I would like to match you some day, sir. I’m not a bad shot myself.” The marquess glanced back up at Harry, his black eyes glittering with well-hidden emotion. “When I lost track of you in Liverpool, I feared you had taken Lord Dunraven to the Americas. How the devil did you disappear so completely after that?”

Harry grinned. “I believe I have heard some splendid doggerel to the point, my lord: ‘
By you rich presents every hour are sent / To Father Thames, to Severn or to Trent.
’ We came down the Grand Trunk to the Oxford Canal, Lord Belham, with a load of teapots. And had the best damned weather anyone could wish for. Far better than we’re having now, in fact. It looks remarkably as if it’s going to snow.”

Lord Belham betrayed one flash of anger, but he covered it instantly with an urbane lift of his brows.

“You came down the canals with a load of freight and took a small child with you?”

Harry kept his expression benign. “Didn’t you guess as much? When your man picked us up so quickly in Oxford, I was sure you’d been sniffing at our heels every step of the way. You seem to know everything else about me.”

“Lord Belham sought me out in London,” Richard said. “I told him you’d gone missing in France, though you were bound to report to me as soon as you came back.”

“Which is why I came here to Acton Mead,” the marquess said. “I did not know you had gone to Oxford.”

“Oh, really?” Harry offered the same bland smile. “When your man accosted us there? He had an eye missing, poor fellow, and wore a patch.”

Lord Belham set down his empty glass. The simple movement vibrated with power. He turned his piercing gaze again to Harry, and this time his annoyance was visible.

“I have no such man in my employ, sir, I assure you. I trust that my agents are discreet enough that you would not have seen any of them.”

Harry yawned, a little too obviously, perhaps.

“Then I must have been mistaken. It’s of no matter now, is it? Since little Lord Dunraven has safely arrived, you may get him into your clutches as soon as you like. But I wish you would tell me, sir, why his governess saw fit to flee with him to England to start with. She seems to think that you intend Bobby some harm.”

Lord Belham rose to his feet, his movements marked with an anger he could no longer hide.

“A notion she was given by the Dowager Countess of Dunraven, the child’s grandmother. I regret to say that the lady is of unstable mind. My only concern is to see the child safe.”

“As is mine, Lord Belham. How fortunate that we are in such close accord! Good night.”

Harry walked to the door.

“It’s early for you to retire, Harry,” Richard said.

“Indeed, sir!” Lord Belham said. “I had hoped to have a private word with you, Mr. Acton, about something quite different.”

Harry turned to face him. “Forgive me, Marquess! It’s been a long day. In fact, it’s been a long month. In the morning, perhaps?”

Not caring that he showed no sign of fatigue, Harry bowed and left the room.

Helena dropped onto the chair next to the bed.

“To France? Oh, heavens, it’s a long story,” she said.

“It’s something distressing, isn’t it?” Prudence asked.

“Indeed, but I suppose there’s no harm in telling you. Last year my husband, Richard, uncovered an unpleasant racket in Paris.” An expression of real distress passed over Helena’s usually calm features. “It involved young English girls being sold to France for immoral purposes. Do you wish me to go on?”

“My father was a doctor,” Prudence said. “I know that such things happen.”

“Very well. A certain Madame Relet ran the house where the girls were taken. Richard found out about it when the British occupied Paris at the end of the Peninsular Campaign. We managed to uncover the perpetrator on this end and finally put a stop to his trade. In fact, the man was killed.”

“How was Harry involved?”

“He saved Richard’s life. Richard would have died, too, if Harry hadn’t been there—Harry’s a dead shot, you know—but there was nothing much more that my husband could do about Madame Relet. He had just come back to England after many years away, and he had a lot of responsibilities here. Not the least of which was me, I suppose. After our enemy was killed, Harry offered to go to Paris to do what he could to rescue the girls who were still there.”

“When was that?” Prudence asked.

This new information seemed absurdly out of place. What on earth could a Paris brothel have to do with coded messages being taken to Scotland?

“Harry left us at King’s Acton, my father-in-law’s place, in January. So he has been gone without word to his family for far too long, don’t you think?”

“Then all this was long before Bonaparte escaped from Elba?”

“Yes. Napoleon has now been welcomed into Paris, of course, where he’s taken control without opposition. Richard is most dreadfully afraid it’s going to mean war again very soon—and after all those years of death and anguish to bring about Bonaparte’s defeat the first time!”

Helena closed her eyes for a moment. Her face revealed both dread and a deep, compassionate understanding of the suffering of war. Harry had said that Richard had been a soldier, hadn’t he? Was that what brought such pain to his wife’s lovely features?