Married to a Perfect Stranger (26 page)

She'd taken only a step, when something flickered in the corner of her eye—a flash of movement behind the backs of the guests. Mary peered around a tall man and saw someone running across the lawn. She caught the merest glimpse, but it was enough. “John, it's him! The man who was following you.”

The fellow pulled a pistol from under his cloak as he ran. He brandished it at a small group of men coming down the path from the house. One of them was Lord Castlereagh, Mary saw. She pushed through the circle of guests.

The intruder aimed the pistol at England's foreign secretary.

“Robert!” screamed Lady Castlereagh.

“Get down, sir,” shouted John, already running.

One of his companions pushed Lord Castlereagh down. The muzzle of the pistol followed his movement. John pounded across the grass still feet away.

He wouldn't make it in time, Mary thought. The man was going to shoot. Acting on instinct, she drew back her arm and threw her reticule as hard as she could at the assailant. The woven cotton pouch arced up turning in the air, drawstrings fluttering. It hit harmlessly on the man's shoulder, but the threat of a missile distracted him just long enough for John to crash into his midsection.

The fellow's arms flailed with the impact. The pistol swung wildly upward and discharged, shockingly loud, into the air. John's momentum carried them both to the ground. In another moment, a host of other men had piled on top of him.

The party dissolved into chattering chaos. Guests who had been frozen with horror recovered, gestured, and exclaimed. Women grew faint and called for vinaigrettes; men stamped about and blustered. Lady Castlereagh rushed to her husband and clung to his arm. The intruder was yanked to his feet, searched, and hauled off by John and others.

Now that it was over, Mary found she was trembling, her legs quite unsteady. She was wishing for a garden bench to sink onto when William Conolly appeared at her side. “Bravo, Mrs. Bexley. Very quick thinking.”

“I didn't even think,” she replied shakily.

“And that is even more laudable. You were able to act when the rest of us stood gaping.” He took her arm, and she leaned on him a little.

“I don't know why…”

“Because your drawings had prepared you for trouble. And John, of course. I see now why he was such a boon during that shipwreck.”

Arthur ran up with her reticule. “That was champion!” he declared, handing it to her.

“You were magnificent,” said Caroline, coming up behind the boy. “Oh, why didn't I think to do that? I just stood there like a ninny with my mouth hanging open.”

“And eyes bulging,” said Conolly.

Caroline struck his shoulder with a playful familiarity that made Mary examine them thoughtfully. But she had a more pressing concern. “What is Arthur doing here?”

Arthur backed up until he was half-hidden by Caroline.

“Allow me to escort you inside and get you some tea,” Conolly said to her then, smoothly distracting. “I'm sure you could use a warming beverage. And I daresay you won't see John for a while.”

But Conolly was wrong. Ten minutes later a footman came for Mary and escorted her to a book-lined study. She found her husband awaiting her there, along with Lord Castlereagh and a number of other important-looking gentlemen. The only one she recognized was Lord Amherst. John had pointed out the leader of his China expedition earlier. “I told you he had great promise,” the man was saying to Castlereagh. He clapped John on the shoulder. “A sharp mind and not afraid to act. It's a rare combination.”

John looked surprised, then moved. Mary nearly burst with pride. She was startled when Lord Amherst shifted his gaze to her and added, “And I believe my secretary's recent recommendation has been fully vindicated.”

Lord Castlereagh smiled. “I thank you for your quick thinking today.” He nodded to include Mary. “Both of you. I must ask, however, that you do not speak about it to anyone. Assassination attempts by foreign spies are not good for a country's morale.”

“But won't everyone be talking about it?” Mary ventured. Indeed, she knew they already were. The buzz of conversation could be heard even through the closed door.

“We have people circulating through the crowd, making sure that the story is as garbled as it can possibly be,” he answered. “And that the…unfortunate bits are decried as gross exaggeration. Others will spread the tale in town as we wish it to be remembered.”

Could one really manage gossip? Mary wondered. Well, if anyone could, it was the Castlereaghs.

“I wanted to be sure you knew that you have my gratitude,” the foreign secretary continued, “since your actions will not be a great feature in the tale we spread. Bexley, you've done more than your duty. I shall indeed expect great things from you. And, Mrs. Bexley, I understand you're a very talented young woman.”

A part of her still wanted to duck her head and demur. Mary resolutely pushed it aside and stood straighter. She nodded, accepting the compliment. Yes, she was.

“It's been suggested that we might wish to call on those talents, now and then, at the Foreign Office to help with our endeavors. If you are amenable.”

This was more than she'd ever imagined. In fact, she couldn't quite believe it. “Make drawings, you mean? Of people who…”

“Are of…interest to us. Yes.” The foreign secretary glanced at John and then back to her. “We would make certain that you could do it safely, of course, and completely confidentially.”

“I'd…I'd love to!” Mary burst out. This was vindication beyond anything she could have imagined.

Despite the presence of his ultimate superiors, John took her hand. The pride shining in his face made Mary's eyes burn. Ferociously, she blinked back the tears. She was
not
going to blubber in this august company.

“Splendid,” said Lord Castlereagh. “Thank you.” The men around him gave cordial nods.

And so they were dismissed. A footman took them back along a private corridor and eased them into a quiet corner of the reception. Mary doubted that anyone had noticed their absence. Or…almost anyone. Seconds after their return, Lady Caroline and William Conolly pounced, Arthur trailing behind them. “Where were you?” demanded Caroline. “What's going on?”

“I'm nearly starved,” John answered. It was the truth. But even more he needed to divert his wife's ever-curious friend. “Shall we go find the buffet?”

“But we want to hear all about…”

John interrupted her. “Speaking of hearing all about. Would you care to explain that debacle with the monkey?”

“Explain?” said Conolly blandly. “How would we be able to…?”

But John was gazing sternly at Arthur, clearly the weak link in their conspiracy. Under his eye, the boy squirmed and shuffled and then blurted, “It was an adventure, just like you told me.”

“
I
told you?”

“Come further away from the others,” Conolly said, leading the group to a spot devoid of other guests.

“You said I should have adventures,” Arthur said then. “Instead of going to see the steam engine. So when Lady Caroline asked if I could help at the place where they were keeping the monkey…”

“Which hit you in the eye,” Mary put in.

“It did, the little bugger. And I was only trying to give it a bit of fruit.”

“So you, ah, welcomed the opportunity to join their plot?” John asked, pointing to Conolly and Caroline.

Arthur stood straighter. “I offered my services, like. I was in charge of feeding the…creature.”

“With food from my kitchen,” said Mary.

“Lady Caroline said you wouldn't mind.”

“Really?”

Under her irritated eye, Caroline abandoned the pretense of denial. “I couldn't always be going out with a basket of vegetables. What was I to tell Grandmamma? Anyway, how could you object? Was that not the best prank
ever
?”

“Will you talk more quietly,” hissed Conolly. Caroline's voice had risen in delight.

“We should find the buffet and fill some plates and discover a secluded place to talk,” said Mary.

“I don't think seclusion is likely to be…” Conolly began.

“Perfect,” said Lady Caroline, linking an arm with Mary's and setting off.

They did manage to find a circle of chairs well away from the crowds. And in the face of Arthur's defection and Caroline's glee, Conolly had to concede that they had engineered Fordyce's humiliation.

“Even though I thought it unwise,” said John.

“I couldn't let him get away with treating you and Mary the way he did,” Caroline insisted. “Especially because I…gave him the opportunity. I had to make it right. And we came across this monkey.”

“Came across?”

Caroline shrugged. “Well, searched out then.”

“It isn't really a golden monkey, is it?” Mary said. “Are there golden monkeys?”

John turned to look at her. “Surely you were not in on this?”

“No, but I should have figured it out, what with one thing and another.”

“You heard me talking to your maid about the hair dye.” Caroline shrugged. “I knew you thought it odd. They do have golden monkeys in China. I found it in a book. But this was just a regular monkey.”

“A regular devil,” Conolly added. “The owner was so pleased to be rid of the beast that he practically paid me.” He shook his head.

“You actually dyed a monkey?” John couldn't quite believe it.

“A deuce of a job it was, too,” Conolly replied.

“Was that when it scratched you?”

“It did that every chance it got, the wretch. I had no idea monkeys had such a set of claws. Or teeth.”

“You told me you were attacked by your aunt's cat,” John accused.

“I told you she has a vicious cat, which she does,” his friend replied.

“Lying by misdirection.”

“I work at the Foreign Office,” said Conolly with a grin.

“The poor creature,” Mary said.

Lady Caroline had the grace to look contrite. “I spoke to Kate again. She assured me the dye did no harm. Its fur will grow in brown. Perhaps it wasn't a good idea to…”

“Perhaps?” John interjected.

“The dyeing it part,” Caroline said, unrepentant. “Otherwise it worked wonderfully.”

“Did you train it to do that?” Mary wondered. “With the skirts?”

Arthur giggled over his nearly empty plate of food. Conolly made a face. “We had no need to train the beast,” he said. “It had every bad habit possible to a monkey. And some I would have thought impossible. Although the fellow who sold it to us might have said that it…”

“Ran under ladies' skirts,” finished John dryly.

“I swear we never imagined anything like that.” Conolly looked sheepish. “We just thought she would…misbehave.”

“Well, I think you've gone mad. If anyone connects you to…”

“I was exceedingly careful, John.” Conolly's tone was serious now. “Everything was done through several intermediaries, or people we can trust absolutely.”

Arthur held up a hand as if taking an oath. “I'd die before I told anyone else. I told 'em if
you
asked me, I'd have to let on.”

“The connection will not come out,” Conolly finished. “I like my job.”

“And we've found the poor beast a good home,” said Caroline with an air of great virtue. “Which she did not have before.” When they all turned to look at her, with varying degrees of approbation, she giggled. “Edmund Fordyce's face…” Her eyes locked with Conolly's. He snorted. Mary chortled. Arthur started to cackle. John felt a bubble of mirth rise in his own chest.

In the next moment, they were all laughing like lunatics.

Sitting in front of the parlor fire on a cold December Sunday, John Bexley dangled a piece of string, twirling it rapidly to make the end wiggle. The gray kitten in his wife's lap rose on still wobbly hind legs to bat at it, then tumbled over on its back. Undaunted, he attacked the string with all four paws from that position.

“What shall we call him?” Mary wondered.

“Mouser?”

She laughed. “Mrs. Tanner might like that, though she wanted an older cat who could ‘get right to work.'”

The kitten captured the string in its mouth and worried it with needlelike teeth. John tugged a little and elicited a tiny growl. “Arthur got off with no problems?”

Mary nodded. “We all walked with him to the stagecoach. Even Kate, to my surprise. I spoke to the driver about looking after him. His father will meet the coach at Bath.”

“Has he reconciled to the idea that Arthur wants to study engines and mechanical processes?”

“So he says in his latest letter. I think he's grateful that Arthur wants to study anything at all. He thanked you for ‘setting the boy straight.'” Mary grinned impishly at him.

John grimaced in response. “An undeserved accolade! Although I still
cannot
see how Arthur interpreted what I told him as encouragement to join Conolly and Lady Caroline's…”

“Adventure?” Mary put in.

John shook his head at her, then laughed.

The kitten flopped over in Mary's lap, wrapping the string around its chubby body. She freed it gently. “It all ended well, after you took him to see that steam locomotive to…redirect his thoughts.”

“And the coin stamp at the mint. Don't forget that.”

“How could I?” Mary replied, widening her dark eyes. “It sounded so fascinating. Did you know that it has the capacity to…?”

“Stop!” John groaned. “If I had to hear Arthur enumerate the virtues of that machine one more time, I think I would have strangled the lad. I'm sure steam engines are a great invention, but their inner workings are astonishingly tedious.”

Mary nodded, conceding the point. “To us, and not at all to Arthur. It just shows how we all have our own unique talents.”

Their eyes met in a moment of perfect understanding. Smiles full of tenderness lit their faces.

Nancy, the new maid, came in with the tea tray and set it on a small table near Mary's elbow. “Thank you,” Mary said. She lifted the kitten. “Take…Mouser to the kitchen, please. He
will
try to climb into the milk jug.”

“Yes, ma'am,” Nancy replied, with a curtsy and a smile.

She seemed quite happy with her position, Mary thought gratefully. And she got on well with Mrs. Tanner, even at the times when Kate visited and stirred things up. Mary poured the tea. “So what are we going to do about Christmas?” she asked her husband. “My mother will make a great fuss if we don't go.”

“As will mine.” John took the cup she offered and sipped. He'd been able to make certain that George's nosy friend heard about his commendation from the Foreign Office for extraordinary service. George had been very frustrated when he asked what it was for and was told the matter was confidential. Mary's part in foiling the assassination attempt, and her new responsibilities, were more secret. Could he bear to see his family treat her carelessly without being able to say anything?

“I was thinking we might spend a few days with each one,” Mary said. “A few days only.”

“They expect much longer visits,” he pointed out.

She shrugged. “Perhaps they must learn to expect something different.”

“We can hope.” He gave her a wry smile as he accepted a macaroon from the plate she held out.

“I thought we might take some special…gifts.”

“Of course we must…” He noticed the spark dancing in her eyes. “What sort of gifts?”

“Wait a moment.” Mary rose and went out. In a few minutes she was back, holding two long rolls of paper tied with string. She carried them to the table under the front windows, where she removed the string and spread them out, one on top of the other. She had to weight down the corners to keep them flat.

John rose to look. Mary had glued together sheets from her sketchbook to form a bigger page. And there she had drawn a group of people, placed as in a formal portrait. A middle-aged couple sat in chairs in the center. Five younger women were grouped around them in a loose crescent. Mary was among them. “Your family,” John said.

She nodded. “I left out my sisters' husbands because the page was getting crowded. Besides, they are…”

“Negligible?”

She laughed. “Not at all! At least…not in their own homes, where I'm sure they are benevolent monarchs.”

“Only in your mother's?” John examined the faces. Of course he did not know the Bexleys as Mary did, but like all of her drawings this one revealed much. Her mother was so obviously the center of the family. Something in the way she sat and the lines of her face told a viewer that she organized and ruled this household, with Mr. Bexley's amiable agreement. And covert refusal to take responsibility, John thought. Here was a man who enjoyed the luxury of blaming the difficult things on his wife. He glanced at Mary. Did she see that in her father? He wouldn't have liked seeing such a thing himself.

He turned back to the drawing. Mary's sisters—John had to think a moment to name them all: Eliza, Lucy, Sophia, and Petra—showed varying temperaments. Something deep inside him thanked God he hadn't been married off to Sophia, sure of the feeling without really knowing why. There was much more to see, but he couldn't take it all in at once.

“It's the oddest thing,” Mary said as he gazed. “I realized I had never drawn my mother. Well, not since…”

“Since?”

“When I was eleven, I decided to create a special portrait for her,” she said, her eyes on the page. “As a Christmas gift, actually, I'd forgotten that. I spent hours on it. I took such great care. I thought it would please her…and show her…”

Her voice trailed off. John had an urge to take her hand. “But it didn't,” he said.

Mary shook her head. “She seemed quite…shocked.”

“I'd give a guinea to know what she saw in it. Some aspect of herself that she didn't wish to acknowledge?”

His wife turned to stare at him. Slowly, her melancholy expression shifted, and she began to smile. “Perhaps. I wonder if she remembers that?”

“She may have some memory. More than likely it doesn't match yours. People—families—seem to recall incidents from one's childhood…quite selectively. In order to fit them into a settled story.”

She looked much struck. “That's very wise.”

“Wise!” He shook his head.

“It is!”

She thought he was wise. And somehow, with her, through her, he had become so. John felt a bubble of joy in his chest that was becoming familiar but never old. “Dare I ask what is on the page underneath?”

“I think you know.”

He lifted the top page and set it aside. And there was his family, grouped in the same manner, except that it was only his mother in the center of the four brothers. It was sad that Mary had never been able to meet his father. “Do not attempt to argue with Frederick,” he said and was slightly startled at his own words. But it was plain to see that his eldest brother was not open to new ideas. He would never convince him to change his mind. It was amazing that Mary could catch this when she had met him just a few times.

“Roger may not be right. I only spoke with him for a few moments at the wedding.”

Yet she had captured his youngest brother's insouciance and humor, along with a fierce determination John hadn't recognized till now. Suddenly, he was convinced that Roger's ventures in India would be a great success. A little hesitant, he looked at the portrait of his mother. “Disappointed?” he said.

“What?”

“Nothing. I…” What about her life had put that discouragement in his mother's eyes? He'd thought she was pleased and proud of her household and her sons—most of them. Was it his father's early death, or…?

“Are you disappointed? Of course I don't know them as I do my own…”

“No! It was…something I noticed.”

Mary nodded as if she knew exactly what he meant. “Should I not have drawn…?”

“If they are to be gifts, we must have them properly framed,” he said.

“Are they?”

She watched him. He understood the question in her eyes and felt that her answer was the same as his. “Great gifts,” he replied. This time he did take her hand. “We should go to your family first, as it's farthest away, then stop at mine on the way home.”

“It's a great deal of traveling for such short stays,” Mary remarked.

He nodded, still a bit preoccupied.

“It's a pity that we can't just stay home and invite Caroline and Mr. Conolly for Christmas dinner,” she said.

“They will be with their own families,” replied John absently. He was imagining his mother unwrapping the portrait, George and Frederick looking at it. He would see if he could find something to say to his mother that lightened that disappointment behind her eyes. And if he did, would she begin to see him differently as well?

“They might rather be with each other,” Mary replied. When he turned to look at her, she added, “Caroline and Conolly. I think they are becoming attached.”

“Doesn't she come from one of those families Conolly spoke of? Who wouldn't consider him a good match?”

“Caroline's grandmother would take her part.”

John felt a twinge of concern for his friend. “Her father is the important one in the matter of marriage. And our neighbor may turn out to be more conventional than you imagine.”

“Eleanor wants Caroline to be happy,” Mary insisted. “As do I.” She cocked her head at him. “Mr. Conolly too.”

John's mind filled with a host of complications. “I don't think it's wise to interfere in something so…”

“But I am a ‘managing woman,'” she interrupted.

He nodded to acknowledge that he remembered—and regretted—the phrase. “You are an extraordinary woman, a talented woman, and the love of my life, but…”

“But…?” Her dark brows arched. Her smile was rueful.

He gazed at the lovely figure next to him, dearer than words could express, and thought how amazingly fortunate he had been in the end. His life could so easily have gone otherwise. If he hadn't been sent to China, if he hadn't returned changed, to find an entrancing stranger, where would he be now? How drab and pointless his existence might feel. Overcome with gratitude and love, he said, “
And
I trust your judgment implicitly.”

Fortunately, his cup was nearly empty when Mary threw her arms around him, so only a few drops of tea fell, unnoticed, onto the sofa.

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