The Mask Revealed (The Jacobite Chronicles Book 2) (2 page)

Jane Fletcher, wife to Thomas

Mary Swale, a scullerymaid

Ben, a boy servant

James Stuart, (the Pretender), exiled King of Britain

Charles Edward Stuart, his eldest son

John Murray of Broughton, a Jacobite gentleman

Katerina, maid to an Italian Countess

Sir Horace Mann, British envoy in Florence

Nathaniel and Philip, his clerks

Sir Thomas Sheridan, tutor to Charles Stuart

Father Antonio Montefiori, a priest

Louis XV, King of France

Marguerite, his mistress

Henri Monselle, servant to the King

 PROLOGUE

August 1743

Once he’d divested himself of his shoes and his coat, he sank back into the chair, which was positioned in front of the hearth in his bedroom. As always, when he found himself alone at last, he sighed with relief. He enjoyed this nightly routine, needed it even. His days were so busy, so full of activity, that during them he couldn’t take even a moment for himself. He had to be constantly on the alert, and although physically he exerted himself less now than he had ever done, by the end of each day he was usually mentally exhausted. 

No matter how tired he was, before undressing and getting into bed, he would always sit for a few minutes and try to relax, to forget the worries of the day and let tomorrow take care of itself.

He attempted to do the same tonight. He stretched his arms above his head and his feet out towards the hearth, in which a small fire burned merrily. He felt his muscles and tendons lengthen, and the tension in them melt away. Then he stared into the fire and waited for his mind to become hypnotised by the flames, to calm.

After a few minutes, he sat back and sighed. There would be no peace for him tonight. He had been a fool to think there could be. He looked across at the bed, knowing he really should climb into it, and try to get some sleep. Tomorrow would be a long and arduous day, but that would be nothing compared to the days to come after that.

He sighed again, and looked longingly at the crystal decanter of amber liquid that sat invitingly within arm’s reach on a small table at the side of his chair. No. He had had enough to drink this evening, and anyway, the only way he could calm his mind tonight would be to drink himself into a stupor, and he could not do that. He had to be sharp tomorrow; he wanted to be sharp tomorrow. 

He could only hope he was doing the right thing. He was not accustomed to taking stupid chances. Chances, yes; they were an almost daily occurrence, but they were all taken with the bigger picture in view. This, though, was a chance he could not justify in terms of the cause that had dominated his whole life for the past years. This was personal.

He did not mind the risk to himself; but in what he was about to do, he risked his men, his family. He knew they thought his decision to be a wrong one, yet they would follow him nonetheless, and die for him and with him, without a word of censure, if it came to it. It was up to him to make sure it did not come to that.

In that moment, as the fire burned lower and the candle in its holder on the table guttered, he was suddenly seized with the certainty that he was wrong. His instincts, which usually served him so well, had failed him, and he and those whose lives he held so dear, would pay for his recklessness with their blood.

Somewhere in the distance a dog howled mournfully, twice. He shivered suddenly, although the room was not cold, crossing himself instinctively  as protection against the
Cù Sith,
in case there should come a third howl, and then just as instinctively glanced around to make sure he had not been seen. Which was ridiculous, because he was alone in his room.

He laughed out loud at this, and the black mood which had possessed him for a moment dissipated. He stood, moving away from the fire, and began to prepare himself for bed. His decision had been made. It was too late to go back now, and if he were being honest, he would not go back if he could. It would work out, as everything he’d done until now had worked out, in the end.

He would make it so.

CHAPTER ONE

Beth had felt somewhat reassured by the actions of her fiancé on the eve of their wedding, sufficiently so that, against all her expectations, she had actually managed to sleep for a few hours. Impressive though it had been, it was not his rescuing her from the imminent prospect of a forced marriage to the impecunious and desperate Lord Daniel that had reassured her; it was his offer to release her from her promise in the carriage on the way home that had made her feel more comfortable about marrying him.

She had no idea why he had made such an offer. After all, he had coerced her into agreeing to marry him by his unspoken threat to expose her as a Catholic and, by implication, a Jacobite. It was clear to her that whatever his real reasons for wishing to marry her, he had been willing to resort to blackmail to secure her reluctant agreement to his proposal. So why he had, at the last moment, given her the chance to back out, she had no idea. Maybe he had just acted on impulse, although it was becoming increasingly obvious to her that Sir Anthony Peters was not an impulsive man.

But whatever his reasons, the fact that at the last moment he had truly allowed her the choice, had given her a sense of freedom, a feeling that to some extent she had control of her own destiny, something she had not felt since her father had died and Richard had returned home. And for that, at least, she was grateful to him.

By the evening of the following day, however, all the camaraderie Beth had felt with Sir Anthony the night before had evaporated, replaced by renewed doubts as to whether she was doing the right thing.

Whether she was or not, it was too late to worry about it now, she reflected, as she sank down wearily into her chair at the dinner table. In actual fact there were several tables; the head one at which Beth, Sir Anthony and all the Cunningham family were seated, and the rest adjacent to it, at which all the other guests were accommodated, nearly two hundred in total.

It was a great relief to be able to sit down at last, and once settled, she slipped her feet unobtrusively out of her shoes and wriggled her crushed toes ecstatically, reflecting on the day’s events so far. To her satisfaction, she had managed to drag the cumbersome weight of her shimmering gown down the stairs and up the improvised aisle in the drawing room with surprising dignity, although the effort had left her momentarily breathless and flushed, which had merely enhanced her ethereal beauty, causing not only the bridegroom but also most of the guests to catch their breath. It was generally assumed that the blushing bride was overcome with the emotion of the occasion, and everybody expected her to swoon delicately away at any moment.

They were disappointed. Beth gave her vows in a clear, confident voice. Sir Anthony, dressed tastefully for once in silver-embroidered cream silk, also made his responses unwaveringly, but as she raised her hand to his for him to place the ring on her finger, she noticed with surprise that his hands, gloved as always, were trembling as he placed the plain gold band on her ring finger. The trembling was slight, but not an affectation, Beth was sure of it. Until now she had avoided meeting his eyes, but once the ring was safely in place, she glanced up at him, surprising a look of such tenderness that she had looked away, momentarily confused by the rush of sympathy she felt for him.

By the end of the ceremony though, Sir Anthony had himself firmly under control, and any sympathy or warm feelings Beth may have felt for him had been well and truly annihilated by having to stand at his side and endure an hour and a half of his simpering, unctuous and fluttery responses to the endless parade of guests giving their congratulations. Although, she had to grudgingly admit, he was very good at it. He had managed to give a different response to everyone, and enquire after their health and families. Sir Anthony was so enraptured by all the attention he was receiving that Beth thought the wedding banquet would never be served. Her stomach was grumbling rudely by the time the summons came to go in to dinner.

Sir Anthony had disappeared to ‘refresh myself a little, quite overcome, you understand, dear wife’, leaving Beth to make her way into the dining room on the arm of her brother, with whom she had agreed an armed truce, reassured by the fact that he would be returning to his barracks next week, and hopefully leaving her life forever.

Her husband now returned and plopped himself into the vacant seat next to hers. He waited for a time, until the meal was under way and any comment would be covered by the chatting of guests and the clattering of cutlery and crystal, then he leaned over to her.

“You look tired, my dear. Are you well?”

“Yes,” she answered curtly. “I did not sleep well last night.” Which was hardly surprising, under the circumstances.

“Don’t worry, you look perfectly ravishing. No one else would notice, I assure you. I have absolute sympathy, nay, may I say empathy with you. I also hardly closed my eyes yester eve. I am afraid, however, that the minimum we can do for politeness sake is to stay for the meal and at least an hour of the dancing, before we may retire to bed without appearing rude. Do you think you can endure that long?”

Beth had been attacking her salmon with gusto, but at these reassuring words her appetite suddenly vanished, replaced by a dull, leaden dread in the pit of her stomach. She was married now, for good or ill. What the distant future held for her she would face when it came. But the immediate future held the consummation of her marriage to this man who she found physically utterly repulsive. The fact that he had ridden gallantly to her rescue last night did not change the fact that she was dreading the moment of their physical union more than anything. She put down her knife and fork and turned to him.

“Not only can I endure that long, Sir Anthony,” she replied with false brightness, “but I am looking forward to it immensely. One is only married once, you know, and must cherish every moment of the bridal feast.” She gave a brittle smile that did not disperse the terror in her eyes.

He raised one eyebrow and smiled warmly back.

“I am delighted to hear it, my dear Beth, for as you know, I do love excellent and exalted company. And there is so much of it here! I would like nothing better than to converse and dance until the small hours, as it seems you are also inclined to do so. But please, I would ask you, as we are now husband and wife I do not think it necessary that you remind me of my title every time you address me. Anthony will do perfectly well.”

He patted her hand affectionately then turned away from her to his left, engaging himself instead in conversation with Lord Edward, and managing not to bait him or say anything deliberately contentious for the whole of the meal.

Beth was left to ponder whether her rash decision to put off the dread moment for as long as possible had in fact been wise. She realised that she had now condemned herself to several hours of purgatory, with the dreaded bedding ceremony still to be faced at the end of it all, when she would no doubt be almost comatose with fatigue and far less able to cope. Perhaps it would have been better after all to get it over with early, when there would still be plenty of the night hours left to sleep in.

She picked moodily at the rest of the meal, managing to rouse herself with some effort to respond to Isabella’s enraptured comments on the success of the day, and tried to shake off her dread and make the most of the evening ahead.
I’m free,
she told herself, looking across at her brother who was seated next to Isabella on her right. He was smiling as he ate, and to her surprise she realised that he was quite handsome now that his habitual scowl had been smoothed away by his imminent officer’s commission and return to barracks. Society life suited him no better than it did her, Beth realised. He was a soldier by nature, and she reflected that given a different upbringing they could possibly have been friends, instead of the deadly enemies they were.

She had just started to reflect on the sort of childhood that would result in a Sir Anthony, realising that she knew frighteningly little about the man she had just irrevocably linked her life to, when the signal came for the diners to leave the table and repair to the drawing room for liqueurs, while the ballroom was cleared of tables and prepared for dancing. She felt around under the table with her toes for her shoes, locating one, and managing to push her foot into it. The other appeared to have disappeared, however, and she hunted for it in vain.

“What is wrong, my dear?” her spouse whispered. “Everyone is expecting us to lead the withdrawal to the drawing room. Are you in pain?”

“No,” she hissed. “I slipped my shoes off earlier and cannot find one of them. It must have rolled away somewhere.” She stretched her foot out, sliding down in her seat, to no avail. “Damn it!” she muttered under her breath.

Sir Anthony stood up, and for a moment she thought he was going to insist she accompany him with only one shoe on. Then his napkin fluttered from his knee to the ground and with the assistance of his foot, disappeared under the table. Before the hovering footman could bend down to retrieve it, the baronet had vanished under the table. Beth felt the wayward shoe push against her toes, and slid her foot gratefully into it. A second later a hand circled her foot and her husband’s lips delicately caressed her ankle. She jerked instinctively, and if he had not been holding her she would have kicked him in the face. Before she could draw breath, he had regained his feet and was standing smiling down at her, offering his hand. She accepted it, blushing furiously with a mixture of anger at his presumption and shock that she had been surprised rather than repelled by his action.

He is not being presumptuous,
she reminded herself, as she accompanied him from the room to the applause of the guests.
I belong to him now. He can do whatever he wants.
Which unpleasant thought did not reassure her through the hours of dancing and conversation that followed, during which she learned many things about Europe and the places that one simply must see or avoid at all costs, how to avoid being seduced by the superficial glitter of the Catholic faith when in France or Italy, and which members of the aristocracy at this moment abroad, would be amenable to a visit from the happy couple. But the most important things she learned were that it is not wise to slip uncomfortable shoes off swollen feet, when you will have to put them on again and wear them for several hours afterwards; and that you should never tell a social butterfly that you do not wish to miss a moment of an evening unless you mean it.