My Sweet Folly (57 page)

“Oh!” she said. “Oh, yes, I am—the year I married! I am so sorry! Does it interfere?”

Robert grinned and handed her a card. “Write it down.” He waited until she did, then took the pencil back. He wrote on two cards, looking first at Mrs. Witham-Stanley, then in turn at Brougham as he did it. He waited for Brougham to write his answer, and collected all the cards to pass to Lady Melbourne.

“There, ma’am. You may turn them over and show them to us.”

Lady Melbourne turned up the cards. On the first pair, “1788,” in Robert’s handwriting matched “1788,” in Mrs. Witham-Stanley’s. The lady gasped, and several of the guests standing about murmured appreciatively. “Amazing! How close!”

But Folie saw that Robert frowned slightly at the cards. He glanced up, patently uneasy to Folie’s eyes, as if he expected that the audience must see through this.
 

“The next pair, please ma’am,” he said in a stiff voice.

On this pair, Lady Melbourne displayed, “1784” in Lord Brougham’s strong hand, and “1788” in Robert’s. Folie saw him look warily toward Brougham.

“Humpf,” Lord Brougham said. “I cannot call that a match.”

The spectators began to dispute among themselves whether 1784 and 1788 could be called a very close approximation.

“Why, Mrs. Witham-Stanley, you are as strong as government interference!” Folie said gaily.

This brought a shout of laughter, but she could see that Robert was disturbed. He did not take his eyes off of the last two cards in Lady Melbourne’s hand as she turned them over.

No
was writ large on Lord Brougham’s card. And on Robert’s, the word
Perhaps.
The guests groaned.

“A clear miss,” Lord Brougham said. “Two out of three missed—I do not think I can call this very impressive.”

“It is true, then, Lord Brougham?” Folie asked, turning down her lips in a saucy pout. She put her fingertips on his arm. “You really dislike impudent women?”

“Oh, perhaps,” he said, smirking back.

A look of self-surprise crossed his face. His brows snapped together.

The spectators were silent for an instant, as if absorbing his reply. Then they burst into hoots. “A match! A match! A clear match!”

But Robert looked far from happy. He ignored the congratulations, shaking his head, disengaging himself from the guests who squeezed around him entreating to have their thoughts divined.

TWENTY-FOUR

“You wrote ‘perhaps’?” The conjurer shook his head with a baffled look. “Whatever did you write ‘perhaps’ for? With yes or no, you’d have at least an even chance of a hit.”

“I don’t know why,” Robert said. He sat in a half-lit corner of the drawing room, working a deck of cards on the table, cutting and shuffling aimlessly. “I lost my concentration. Besides, it made no difference at that point.”

“You’ll always hit two out of three with that trick, if it’s done properly. And you have even odds for that third hit if you confine the answers to yes or no.”

“I didn’t even make the first two marks,” Robert said sullenly. “Ask Folie.”

“I thought it was quite successful,” she said.

He cast her a skeptical glance, riffling cards past his thumb.

“You hit Mrs. Witham-Stanley’s anniversary perfectly, and even if the school year was a bit off—you certainly caught him out with ‘perhaps’!” She made a disdainful snort. “He was obviously lying when he wrote his answer down—but you snared him anyway.”

“Snared him!” Robert bowed the cards between his fingers until they burst into a chaotic pile. “My dear girl, I started into that trick and realized halfway through that I had it entirely backwards.” He ran his hand through his hair. “My God, what a bungle. In front of Brougham, too.”

“It was not a bungle,” Folie said. “I don’t know why you insist that it was.”

He gathered up the cards and went back to shuffling.

“It was not a bungle,” she said to Lander and the conjurer.

Robert blew air through his teeth. “Don’t patronize me,” he said in an ugly tone.

“I am not—” Her voice choked. “Well, never mind. I don’t know what is wrong with you.” She went to mending her pen with clumsy strokes, her head bent over the desk.

Well, so he had upset her, Robert thought brutally. Best that she discover the truth now. He was not the clever, brave and heroic fellow that she—and Robert himself—had begun to suppose he might be.

Never was worth a dog’s damn.
If Robert had not supposed he was beneath the brigadier’s scorn, he would think St. Clair had intentionally made that mumbled insult loud enough for Folie to hear.

But it was for the best, no doubt, that his old commander had casually set the record straight. Everything had gone so perfectly—so terrifyingly well. It was a fantasy that he could not sustain. And yet Folie’s disillusionment was more than he thought he could bear.

I don’t know what is wrong with you.
How many times had Phillippa said that to him?

“We shall have another go at Brougham,” Lander said. “From what you describe, Mrs. Cambourne, he was more than ordinarily belligerent. We’ll goad him into a misstep if we can.”

“A challenging adversary,” Robert’s tutor said soberly. “You’ll have to keep your wits more about you the next time.”

“I do not propose that there will be a next time,” Robert said.

He began to play solitaire. Silence reigned.

“Sir?” Lander asked uncertainly. “You are not serious.”

“Deadly serious. I am putting a halt to this. Tonight.”

“I do not understand you. A halt?”

“No more of these tricks and exhibitions of sham powers. I’m done with it.”

“Why, because you botched one trick?” the conjurer exclaimed. “Grow up, my boy—you’ll botch ten thousand more before you’re through.”

“No doubt I would,” Robert said coolly. “But I am through now.”

“But we’re making amazing headway—” Lander protested. “And from the way Mrs. Cambourne says you saved that trick with Brougham—they must be frothing at the mouth to discover the truth of things.”

“If it’s your courage that fails you, my friend,” the conjurer said, “you needn’t worry that they’ll try to rid themselves of you again. Just consider—if their drug has given
you
the second sight, they’ll be terrified that it could do the same to the Prince Regent. They’ll have to know for certain—and your life is secure until they do.”

“I’m not in fear of my life,” Robert snapped. “The whole thing is a stack of cards, that’s all. It will never work.”

“It has been working. Everyone but the poor mad king himself knows of you now,” Lander said. “We’re closing in on our quarry.”

“No we aren’t,” Robert said. “We’ve nothing but mist and smoke to show for our efforts. Tell me one concrete fact that we have discovered.”

“Brougham wants you discredited. Badly.”

“So?” Robert snorted. “He appears to be the sort of man who lives to discredit everyone but himself.”

“Sir Howard Dingley—why was he there?”

“Yes, I thought something great of that myself,” Robert said dryly, “until Folie informed me that his wife is Lady Melbourne’s goddaughter, not to mention the person who introduced her at Melbourne House. What more natural than that the Dingleys are invited guests to a party in Folie’s honor? It would be strange if they weren’t.”

“Did Dingley say anything to you, ma’am?” Lander asked Folie.

She shook her head. “Nothing out of the way. He acted as if nothing had ever happened.” She wrinkled her nose. “Though I would vow I could still smell the river on him.”

“In truth, sir,” Lander said. “I don’t think we ought to change our strategy now. We would lose all that we’ve gained.”

‘‘What
have we gained, Lander?’’ Robert demanded.
 
“I am now a trained bear for the hostesses to exhibit. If there is a plot against the regent, we know nothing specific of it, not who or what or where or why.” He slapped a card down. “Like as not the whole idea was no more than a demented illusion. You saw me—you and Folie did. Can you say I was in possession of my reason? It was dementia. A natural dementia, no doubt, and I’ll be fortunate if I don’t end up bound in a strait waistcoat like the old king.”

“The prison ship was no dementia,” Folie said.

“A coincidence,” Robert said. “We were robbed in the park. They could not let us go, so they dumped their victims aboard that ship, rather than murder us outright.”

“How kind of them!” Folie said. “What of the note that I wrote to Sir Howard?”

He gave an ironic laugh. “I cannot say I trust your memory of that incident any more than I trust my own reason. We have no clear idea of how that note came about.”

“The apron,” Lander said. “The maidservant’s apron.”

“A hallucination.”

“Sir—” Lander said.

“Better to stop now, before we create a real debacle.” Robert stood up. He tossed the cards left in his hand onto the table.

“Just stop?” Lander demanded. “Just throw away what we’ve accomplished?”

“We’ve accomplished nothing!” Robert’s voice rose.

“We’re on the very brink,” Lander exclaimed, jumping up from his chair. “I know we are. I’m no greenhorn in these matters. I can feel it.”

“Nonsense,” Robert said.

“Nay—it is not. There are clues enough, outside of what we’ve been doing. Something’s afoot among the worst of the radicals.”

“I can’t go on—I’ll make these mistakes.” Robert shook his head. “You have to understand that. I’ll blunder it.”

Lander gave him an incredulous look. “Are you afraid?’’

“I’m not afraid,” Robert said savagely.

“It seems to me that is what you’re saying.”

“Then let us meet at dawn, and I’ll show you that you’re wrong!”

“Robert,” Folie exclaimed. “Listen to yourself!”

Her appalled voice made him pause. He realized that he was standing with his hands clenched, his whole body ready for combat. Lander had squared his shoulders, as if in unconscious response.

Robert made a dismissive gesture. “I beg your pardon,” he said coldly. “I misspoke myself.”

Lander relaxed his hands. He pulled at his waistcoat, as if he did not quite know what to do with them. “Myself also,” he said. “It is just that I am—surprised. Sir.”

Disappointed, sir,
Robert heard unspoken.

“Very well,” he said stiffly. “You are surprised. I bid you all good night.”

He left them in the drawing room and mounted the stairs. Inside his bedroom door, he tried to light a candle and burned himself on the brimstone match. Caught between shame and anger, mortified by his own excuses, he fiercely wished himself in some remote wasteland, where any mismanagement of his own could touch nothing and no one. Some cold mountain pass where there was only wind and ice. Someplace where the best companions he had known in his life could not be disappointed when he failed them— and Folie would not be there to see it.

Rain pattered on the window. Robert stood in the dark. He felt Phillippa in this room. Phillippa and Balfour. It was imagination and madness, he knew that. But he did not try to light the candle again—it was as if he might illuminate the bed and find them entwined there.

The walls of the house seemed to press in upon him. He had to get away. He had to be gone.