The Counterfeit Gentleman (19 page)

Digory began to wonder how many other servants in
London might be former government men—men who
would recognize him—but he kept his worries to himself.
Now was not the proper time to trouble Lord Edington with
additional worries—not when the viscount was rubbing his
bad leg.

* * * *

Despite her red hair, Adeline Lady Edington was by na
ture a patient, easy-going woman. Nonetheless, when she
had sufficient cause, her temper could be awesome. In this
case a full half hour of waiting in bed for her husband was
ample time for her to lose all interest in massaging
Matthew’s leg and to begin instead to consider which vase
she should break over his head.

What could he possibly be doing at this hour of the night that was more important than being with her? Leaning back
against her pillows and watching even more minutes tick
away on the mantel clock, she pondered that question.

Rather belatedly the obvious explanation occurred to her: While she had been sitting up waiting for him, he had un
doubtedly fallen asleep in his own room.

Muttering several very unladylike oaths under her breath,
she threw back the covers, climbed out of bed, found her
robe and pulled it on, then jerked open the connecting door.

Her husband, however, was not in his bed. To her aston
ishment, the only occupant of the room was her husband’s
valet, who was dozing on a straight-backed chair.

“Abbott, what have you done with my husband?”

Startled, the valet leaped to his feet and stared goggle-
eyed at her.

“Where is my husband?” she repeated, her voice rising
with her temper.

“Well, I was merely undoing his cravat, just as I do
every night”—he held up a man’s neckcloth—”and then
Mr. Briston came in and said that a man had come round to
speak with his lordship.”

“At this hour of the night?” Adeline’s mood did not im
prove. So her husband had left her waiting while he at
tended to some kind of business? The nerve of him! Well, when Matthew deigned to notice her again, he would find
himself on the wrong side of a locked door.

Wilting under her gaze, the valet stammered out further
explanations, even while he edged his way toward the door
leading out to the corridor. “The visitor—I believe Mr.
Briston said his name was Digory Rendel—insisted that his
business could not be conducted during daylight hours, but
what the man’s business is and why it can only be con
ducted in the wee hours of the morning, I am sure I cannot
tell you.” With that he opened the door and eased himself
out into the corridor.

Abandoned a second time, Adeline paced the room, planning several different kinds of mayhem to enact on her hus
band’s person, but then she stopped stock still in the middle
of the room. Something was bothering her....

Rendel... Digory Rendel... the name sounded famil
iar. Yes, now that she thought about it, she had definitely
heard that name before. But where?

It took her only a moment of concentration to remember
where she had heard it. Rendel—that was the name of the
man who had rescued her husband in France and brought
him back to her more dead than alive. And she had never
even had a chance to thank him.

But why had he come back without warning after all
these years? Surely he did not want to—

Oh, dear God, no!

She would not—could not!—let Mr. Rendel once again embroil her husband in some kind of clandestine operation.
Whatever he wanted her husband for—or whatever the War
Office wanted him for—Mr. Rendel would have to find someone else. Never would she allow her husband to risk
his life like that again
—
never!

More angry than she had ever been before, she hurried
from the room. One way or another she would stop Mr.
Rendel from dragging her husband back into a world where lies and deceptions and intrigue—and near fatal wounds!—
were the order of the day.

* * * *

Matthew had just finished outlining the strategy he
thought would best serve their purpose when the door was
thrust open so forcefully that it crashed against the wall.

Adeline entered the room, her glorious hair streaming
loose about her shoulders and a look of fury on her face,
and Matthew realized he had committed a major error in
judgment by not speaking with her before he came down
stairs. “I can explain, my dear,” he said, but she ignored
him completely.

“Get out of my house!” His normally soft-spoken spouse
screeched at his visitor like a fishwife and then attacked
him with her fists. “How dare you come here—how dare
you! You are not welcome in this house! Get out, get out,
and never come back!”

Mr. Rendel made no effort to defend himself for the few
minutes it took Matthew to catch his wife from behind and
pull her away from his visitor. Then he said, “I apologize for coming here. Upon thinking it over, I believe that it
would be better if I made plans for an immediate trip to the
Continent.” He had to raise his voice slightly to be heard above Adeline’s shrieks.

His arms tightly wrapped around his wife, who was now
attempting to strike him, Matthew felt greater shame than
he had ever thought it possible to feel. That his wife could treat a guest in their house so shabbily was beyond belief.
And not just a guest, but the very man without whose
courage and ingenuity Matthew would have died in France
years ago. He had never thought she was particularly high
in the instep, and to the best of his knowledge, she had
never been rude to anyone, so her behavior was totally inexplicable.

“You promised, you promised,” she wailed.

Promised? What had he promised? “Don’t leave!” he
said. “Please,” he added when he realized he had barked
out an order quite as if Rendel were one of his servants. “I am sure this is all a misunderstanding.”

Digory was not so sure. Not only did Lady Edington
seem to know who he was—apparently Lord Edington did not keep secrets from his wife—but her outrage at finding
someone so far outside her own class being entertained in
her house was but a foretaste of how others of the ton
would react if he tried to insinuate himself into their soci
ety.

He would have preferred to have simply left the house
quickly and quietly, but Lord Edington had a look of such
desperate entreaty on his face that Digory decided to stay a bit longer. Although since he was the cause of the present contretemps, it was hard to see what he could do to help.

On the other hand, his lordship seemed to be fighting a
losing battle, so it would hardly be fair to desert him.

“What did I promise?” Lord Edington finally managed to
ask.

“You promised never to go off spying again!” his wife replied, continuing to beat on him with her fists.

At her words Lord Edington began to laugh, and even
Digory was forced to smile.

The laughter worked where attempts at physical restraint
had not. Lady Edington ceased struggling and stood quietly
in her husband’s arms, her eyes still flashing with temper,
but otherwise remarkably calm.

“You have it backward, my love,” Lord Edington said. “Mr. Rendel has not come here to entice me into performing foolhardy acts of misplaced bravery.”

“He has not?” she asked in a very tiny voice.

“He is here only because he wishes an entree into soci
ety.”

“Oh.”

Digory watched the color rise in Lady Edington’s face.

“Oh, dear.” She grabbed onto her husband’s shirt front
and tried to hide her face from view. Then she mumbled
something Digory could not hear.

“My wife wishes to apologize for her outburst,” Lord
Edington said with a chuckle. He bent his head and listened
for a minute, then added, “She says to tell you that it is
mostly your fault anyway, because if only you had come at
a more normal time of day, she would not have jumped to such unwarranted conclusions about you.”

“I accept full blame,” Digory said.

Lady Edington turned toward him and said in a much calmer voice, “You are too much the gentleman, and you must be thinking I am not at all a lady. Please believe me when I say that my husband and I will do whatever we can to help you in any way. Although it must seem that I am a
veritable ingrate, I am fully conscious of what I owe to
you.”

Better the whole truth now, rather than later, when his
deception could only bring disgust. “But you see, I am not,
in fact, a gentleman,” Digory said quietly.

Lady Edington looked puzzled.

“He is a smuggler, my dear,” her husband explained. “Or
I should say, he was a smuggler. During the war with
France, he carried not only kegs of brandy, but also spies
and couriers back and forth across the Channel.”

Lady Edington’s eyes lit up again, this time with interest
rather than anger. “How delightful. I have always wished to
meet a smuggler. You must have many stories to tell about
the stratagems you employed to outwit the excise men. I
would dearly love to hear them all.”

Digory bowed. “Perhaps another time. Right now I am
sure you would much rather I took my leave so that—”

“Nonsense,” Lady Edington interrupted him. “I have no
intention of going meekly off to bed until I have heard the full story of why you wish to become a gentleman.”

“But my dear,” her husband said, “the story is quite long,
and the hour is rather advanced, and—”

“I know exactly how long the story is,” she said, seating
herself on the chair recently vacated by her husband. “In
case it has slipped your mind, I was waiting for you the en
tire time Mr. Rendel was telling you the story. It is hardly
fair that I should now be deprived of hearing it just because
you were so inconsiderate, so thoughtless, so—”

“I quite understand,” Lord Edington said, sending a mute appeal to Digory. “Perhaps now would be the best time to
discuss things after all?”

This visit was not going at all the way Digory had
planned, and the knowledge that he was no longer in complete control of events was making him more than a trifle
nervous.

But pressed as he was by his host and hostess to stay,
there was little he could do except sit down beside Lady
Edington. She smiled at him while pointedly ignoring her
husband, who pulled up another chair.

“Although I have had no formal training as a spy, nor
any practical experience with espionage, you will soon
learn that I have a natural talent for intrigue,” she said.

“Not even Matthew knows the half of what I have been up
to since we were married.”

Lord Edington did not rise to the bait, which only con
firmed for Digory his opinion that the viscount was a man
of superior intelligence.

* * * *

By the time the dairymaids were calling out their wares and the housemaids were beginning to scurry about their
business of cleaning out grates and laying fresh fires,
Bethia was totally exhausted.

The noises of the city had never bothered her before, but
this past night, the slightest sound had jerked her awake,
her heart pounding in her chest, her ears straining to hear footsteps, her eyes searching the darkness for the shadowy
form of another kidnapper.

If she had slept an hour all told, it would be a wonder. Each time she had started to doze off, a board had creaked
or the wind had rattled a pane of glass, or someone had
driven by in a carriage or cart.

It was not the peacefulness of the countryside that she
missed. What she missed—and needed—was Digory’s re
assuring presence beside her while she slept. Without him, the night was unbearably long and every familiar object in
her room became strange and menacing.

Even knowing Little Davey was close at hand was not
sufficient.

In truth, if the wedding ceremony was long delayed, her
wicked cousin—whichever one he was—would not have to
lift a finger to dispose of her. She would doubtless expire
from exhaustion and lack of sleep.

After spending only one morning in her room, Bethia
decided she was being excessively cautious. Remaining inside her house was merely common sense; restricting
herself to her own bedroom was bordering on the irrational.
In truth, she was beginning to suspect that if she were to stare for an entire week at the same four walls, no matter
how pretty the green silk they were covered with, she
would go stark raving mad.