Swept Away (15 page)

“Do you know them?” he asked, his mouth pressed against her ear.

Anna blinked at the cool draft that blew against her eye. She offered a small nod then realised he could probably not see the gesture. She turned her head in order to whisper the information in as low a voice as he had used but instead of finding his ear, she managed quite to their mutual surprise, to find his mouth. The contact was brief and quickly broken, but it was made nonetheless, and the shock of it caused her to jerk back and bump her head hard against the edge of a beam.

Emory muffled her cry with his hand, his reaction as swift as it was instinctive. But instead of releasing her right away, he merely eased his hand to one side and rested his fingers against her throat, angling her head so that her lips were where she had originally intended them to go: next to his ear.

“It is your brother, Stanley,” she said in a strained whisper. “And his wife, Lucille.”

He straightened and peered through the peephole again. After a moment, he dropped the little disc back into place and, cautioning her unnecessarily to silence, wormed his way behind her again and located the latch Florence had shown him. When the panel--which turned out to be a section of shelving--swung open, he took her hand and led her out of the passage into the library.

With the shelf pushed securely back into place behind them, he inspected her skirt, brushing dust and shreds of cobwebs off the folds of muslin. He had lost the ribbon from his hair back on the cliffs and the unkempt black waves hung loose and shaggy around his shoulders. Thanks to a protruding nail in the wall, there was now a considerable gash in the sleeve of his shirt; when combined with the salt water stains on his breeches and the sodden condition of his shoes, it was not the best impression he might have wanted to present to a brother he had not seen in several years.

Anna relinquished her own frown less willingly as she glanced at the door. “I suppose it would look odd if I did not join them. The vicar seemed quite adamant about not wanting his wife to know you were anywhere near Brixham, and if that is still the case, if she has only come with him by accident, you may have to remain out of sight until they are gone.”

Althorpe nodded, somewhat reluctantly she thought, although she could appreciate his disappointment, for Stanley was not only his brother, but possibly the strongest bridge to his vanished memories.

Though there were undoubtedly a multitude of sins for which he could have sought penance, he merely offered up a crooked smile. “For having washed up on your beach.”

Emory waited until the library door closed before he released his pent up breath.

His gaze flicked over to the locked gun cabinet. He had given Annaleah the key and had watched her slip it to an inside pocket of her skirt. It had been a simple matter to retrieve it while brushing past her in the passageway, but why had he felt the need?

Did he have reason to doubt his own brother’s loyalty? Did he have reason to fear his brother might have betrayed his presence to the authorities? A more nagging question concerned the marquis, Lord Barrimore. Who the devil was he and why had the hairs on the nape of Emory's neck stood on end when Annaleah identified him? He had not recognized him, had suffered no spontaneous flashes of memory, but that was not to say the marquis would suffer from the same handicap. Annaleah assumed she had driven him off by throwing herself in the arms of another man, but what if Barrimore had recognized him from the warrant posters Florence had said were being nailed up around town and had ridden off post haste to fetch the constables?

Granted, he had been a fair distance away and Barrimore would have no reason to suspect his fiancé of passionately kissing a fugitive from the law. He likely had no reason to suspect her of wanting to kiss anyone at all, passionately or otherwise, and might have been too unnerved to make the connection had they been standing a foot away.

Emory had been pretty unnerved himself. Then, and again just now when their lips had touched and he had felt the shock of it shoot clear through his body.

The frown stayed on his face as he loaded and primed four of the five flintlock pistols, discarding the last as being too archaic not to blow up in the face of whoever shot it. He set the guns back in their baize pockets and left the cabinet unlocked, checking to be sure there was extra shot and powder placed within easy grasp.

These were, he realized with a newfound grimness, the actions of a guilty man. But was he a traitor? Had he committed crimes against his country, his king? And if so, how long would he be safe here at Widdicombe House before someone came searching in earnest?

CHAPTER 9

“Well, of course you must believe that I am simply too, too appalled at the very notion of Stanley visiting a house where there might be an infestation of the plague. While I certainly support him in his efforts to save as many souls as possible before they venture on to a more temporal plain, I do regard festering pocks and delirium to be a rather steep price to pay for benevolence.”

“May or may not?” She sighed and appealed to Florence. “You see why I insisted upon accompanying him on his rounds today? He simply cannot be trusted to place his own health--and mine--before that of his flock.”

The reverend cast his own sheepish glance in Florence’s direction. “My sweet wife is determined to wear me down until I agree to allow her to visit London. Yesterday it was the rumor of a French army invading to rescue Napoleon that made this particular area of Britain unsafe. Today it is the flux.”

“Well, it
is
unsafe,” Lucille insisted. “The garrison is bristling with soldiers. The roads are positively clogged with thieves and cutthroats who are filling the villages in anticipation of the crowds the wretched man will draw. All this before there is even any confirmed announcement of his final destination. I am surprised, Miss Fairchilde,” she added, turning to Annaleah, “that you would choose voluntarily to remain here under the circumstances.”

“London is ten times as crowded,” Anna pointed out. “And there are always thieves and pickpockets in the streets.”

“Yes, but you travel under the protection of your brother, Viscount Ormont and Lord Barrimore, the latter, especially, reputed to be one of the most dangerous swordsmen in all of England. I dare say a thief would have to be entirely witless to approach you with mischief in mind.”

“Lucille made the acquaintance of both gentlemen yesterday,” the vicar explained.

“Yes, and I could have sworn that was the marquis’s berline we passed not five minutes ago on the road. I also had the pleasure of riding in it yesterday, you see.”

To answer Annaleah’s startled look, the vicar went on to further reveal, “The marquis, as it happens, stopped at the North Fort on a matter of government business where my wife and several ladies of the Foundlings Society happened to be taking lunch.”

“I recall you mentioning it,” Florence nodded.

“Indeed,” Lucille picked up the story. “We had been invited by the regimental commander, Colonel Huxley to watch the infantry and cavalry on parade. Your brother and the marquis arrived just as one of the ladies was inquiring if the soldiers might not fire one of the big cannons. The Colonel declined--rather churlishly, I thought. He claimed his balls were not to be squandered on casual amusements.”

“Having suffered Colonel Huxley’s advances for some thirty-odd years,” Florence said dryly, “I might question the truth in that.”

“As if
any
of us are amused by the notion of Napoleon Bonaparte invading our shores," Lucille continued blithely. "I have no doubt that was why the marquis took it upon himself to inspect the defences himself. He is attached to the foreign office in some capacity, is he not?”

Annaleah managed a smile. “I believe he works closely with Lord Wessex, of the foreign office.”

“Dispatching spies and such? How exciting. No wonder he seemed most anxious to speak with Colonel Ramsey, what with all the talk of--”

“He met with Colonel Ramsey again?” The reverend looked startled. "You did not mention that."

“Indeed. They had a fairly long discussion, though what they said could not be overheard. But he is quite the dashing gentleman, I must say. And completely charming. When I commented that I had not seen such a handsome coach-and-four in too many years to recount, he insisted on my accompanying him on the ride back to Brixham. That was why I was sure I could not be mistaken when I saw his berline pass the vicarage this morning, and again, just now, on the road. How very disappointing to have missed him by so few minutes.”

Truth be told, she sounded more than simply disappointed and Anna could not help but associate her pretty pout with the pouts of innumerable other women who had worn their lowest cut bodices and set their bonnets on a tilt for the marquis. More alarming, however, was the fact Barrimore had not gone directly to Torquay yesterday, but had followed Colonel Ramsey back to the garrison, and that they had engaged in a lengthy private discussion.

Florence, who must have been wondering the same thing, drilled Anna with a pointed glance. “I too, am sorry I missed him when he called.”

“He did not stay long,” Anna murmured. “He...had to return to town almost right away.”

“Oh, la. The next time, perhaps.” Lucille toyed with a bit of lace on her cuff, obviously piqued to have rushed all this way for nothing. “I would have insisted on accompanying Stanley regardless.”

Florence smiled. “Visits are always a pleasant surprise, I assure you.” Her gaze flicked past the vicar’s shoulder as she murmured. “Though I dare say it is not the only one in store for the day.”

Stanley Althorpe turned to follow her glance and saw his brother standing silently in the doorway. The blood had not completely drained from his face before he managed to slowly rise to his feet, but it was a near call.

“By God’s grace,” he whispered. “You are alive.”

Emory smiled briefly before he replied. “God’s grace had little to with it, I am afraid. It was Dame Widdicombe’s tender nursing that brought me back from the brink.”

The vicar started forward, a smile breaking out across his face. “By God. By God, I say! When first I saw you, your flesh was so gray and cold I did not hold out much hope for recovery. But here you stand, alive and well, looking exactly as I have pictured you in my mind’s eye all these long years!”

The vicar’s boyishly handsome face lost none of it’s happy excitement as he searched for broken bones, missing digits. “Told me what? You look in perfect health to me.”

“The damage,” Florence said gently, “is not immediately visible. It is here,” she added, tapping a finger on her temple, “for you see, he has no memory of what happened. No memories at all, for that matter.”

“No memories?” The vicar frowned. “You mean you cannot recall how you came to be washed up on the beach?”

“He means,” Florence sighed, “he has no memory whatsoever. He does not know who he is, or who I am, or my niece...not that he should know her, of course, for he never met her before this week. But he is quite without any recollections whatsoever. The blow on the head, we can only surmise, must have been severe enough to bruise his brain, for when he does remember something, it comes to him piecemeal and not without a measure of pain.”

Stanley expelled gust of air. “But that is...that is absurd! How can you not know who you are?”

“I promise I do not,” Emory said. “And as absurd as the idea may seem to you, it is doubly so for me. I have been walking about this past hour like a child in a strange and terrifying place. I am told I have been here many times, that this house, these rooms should all be familiar to me, but--” he spread his hands wide. “I doubt I could find my way to the front door without assistance.”

Stanley’s mouth worked a moment to form words that eventually had to be forced through a strained whisper. “You do not recognize me?”

Emory did not have to answer; the look in his eyes was eloquent enough to tighten the younger man’s jaw with disbelief.

Annaleah could see the obvious resemblance between the two men; there could be no mistaking they were brothers. It was not so much a physical similarity they shared, though there were definite likenesses in the line of the chin, the shape of the nose, the width of the brow. One was more weathered, his face more deeply etched by the broader scope of his experiences, and his body was harder, shaped by the more physical nature of the life he had chosen. The other was softer, more the scholar and less like a dark storm cloud on the horizon but there was still an underlying hint of steel in the way he thrust out his hand and clasped it firmly to Emory’s shoulder.