The Mercenary Major (15 page)

“And Cousin Jack,” said Katie.

It was Katie who guessed Victoria’s choice, Sir James Criswell. When quizzed about her insight, she told them she had picked Sir James because . . . Tory didn’t really like him all that well. It was Reg’s turn next, and Jack guessed the Condesa de Villasantos, which made Reg redden and Lady Faverton gasp. No one was able to guess Katie’s choice. “Cousin Jack’s friend,” she revealed, “George Bertram.”

Then it was the major’s turn, and when their guesses were made, he declared them all right. He handed Victoria his scrap of paper, and she read aloud, “Any heiress will do.”

Reg and Katie complained that Jack had played unfairly, but Letty insisted they get to work on the invitations. She assured them that she had included all the young ladies with ten thousand a year or more and all of Katie and Victoria’s suitors. Reg volunteered to mend pens as needed and excused himself to get a cup of chocolate.

Victoria bent over her task. The wind howled outside, and the fire crackled at her back. At the table she shared with the major, candle flames wavered in unseen drafts, and pens scratched over the stiff surface of the cards. Yet Victoria was most conscious of the slight, steady movements of Jack Amberly’s arm just inches from hers. She had kept her distance from him since the mayor’s parade.

After a careful examination of her strong impulse to follow him that day, she had acknowledged to herself that her investigation had failed. Jack Amberly guarded his secrets well. The resistance to the impostor, which she had been obliged to lead, had crumbled. The Favertons had accepted him and so had the
ton
. Lord Dorward would soon appear to berate his family for their folly and to bring embarrassment to them all. But not today. For that Victoria could thank the elements.

At the other table Charlotte and Letty and Katie began a conversation about the merits of a particular family on the guest list. Reg moved restlessly from the tea table to the windows to the hearth.

“Dashed small rooms in this house,” he said, coming up to stand at Victoria’s elbow and look over her work. “You don’t suppose we could try some boxing in the ballroom, Jack?” he asked.

The major did not look up. “Ask Letty, Reg. I’d be glad to spar with you a bit later.” He reached to put a card on the growing pile of completed invitations, and his hand brushed Victoria’s. He drew back at the contact and uttered a brief Spanish phrase.

“I beg your pardon,” she said.

Reg dropped into a chair and began to read the names on the finished cards. “Tory must be the only heiress you haven’t conquered, Jack.”

Victoria glanced at Jack Amberly, but he kept writing.

“How will you decide which one to offer for?” Reg wanted to know.

“The major will offer for the lady with the largest portion, I should think,” Victoria said.

Jack Amberly’s pen stopped moving. “Miss Carr, that’s a deliberate provocation.”

“Major,” she could not help asking, “do you believe a sincere attachment is possible between partners who are greatly unequal in wealth?”

He raised his head and looked across at her, his eyes mocking. “No.”

She frowned. It was not the bland assurance she had expected a fortune hunter to give. His actions were most inconsistent with his beliefs. “Why not?” she asked. “Lack of wealth can be an impediment to marriage, but where there is at least one fortune to share, can money be an obstacle to love?”

“Every time,” he said.

“You’re very sure of your opinion,” she said.

“I am. There can be no trust in an unequal marriage. The richer partner must inevitably think her . . . or his money outweighed attractions of mind and person in the other’s eyes.”

“But the daily demonstration of affection between them should remove such doubts,” Victoria argued, wanting him to acknowledge the power of love.

“On a desert island,” said the major. “But not in society. In town the poorer one will be thought clever or mercenary to have snared a catch and the richer will be considered a fool.” He pulled another card from the box in the center of the table. “And their friends will be eager to tell them what the world thinks.”

“Surely there are loves strong enough to endure a little gossip.”

“You think so?” He was writing again, not looking at her.

“Of course there are,” she replied, offended by his tone.

“All right then,” he said, looking up again. “I grant you a pair impervious to gossip and doubt, but won’t pride be their undoing?”

“Whose pride?”

“The pride of both, Miss Carr. The rich believe they deserve their good fortune and that those who have less are less worthy. The poor are too proud to endure dependence on a spouse.”

“Yet you would make an unequal match,” she pointed out.

“You wouldn’t?” he countered, one brow slightly raised.

“Of course not.”

His eyes held hers for a moment. “I didn’t think so.” Then he put aside the card he had been addressing and turned to Reg.

Victoria took another card from the pile and bore down with a vengeance, breaking her pen. She looked at the blotched card. It would serve Jack Amberly right if none of his heiresses received an invitation. He had tricked her into seeming mercenary when she was no such thing. He was the Mercenary Major. She had been the one to defend the power of love.

She was framing a reply to the major’s unjust summation of her views on marriage when her father walked in. Ned Carr was coatless, and his hair, wet as from a bath, showed the effect of a recent combing. He greeted his daughter and friends, explaining that Briggs was tending to his wet coat in the kitchen. Letty exclaimed over his coming to them through the storm, and Charlotte repeated that she could not imagine why Ned had made such a trip, until Letty blushed and Ned said, “Why, Charlotte, I came to see whether you all were as dull as I was, but I see you’re not. What are you up to?”

Letty explained their project, and Reg immediately suggested that Mr. Carr might prefer to join him and Jack in the ballroom. Ned Carr declined.

“I’ll help Tory.” He looked at her, and she gestured to the seat Jack Amberly had left. The younger men turned to the door.

As he passed her, Jack Amberly leaned over and whispered, “Don’t forget—all the girls whose papas will give them ten thousand or more.”

Letty had the drawing room all to herself. She had called for the tea tray early, and now she indulged in a solitary whirling waltz and collapsed on the sofa. Sleep? Not tonight, not until she recalled each time she had looked up to find Ned Carr’s gaze on her. And if she finished cataloguing those glances, then she would think about how he had laughed and entered willingly into their games. He had not faltered even when obliged to enact the title of Miss Breton’s latest romance,
The Caledonian Siren
. Then she would recall the little signs of understanding between father and daughter that the day had revealed. And then she would think about Victoria and Jack.

Victoria could not sleep. The reliable clock on her mantel chimed the quarter hour again. She rolled to her side, lifted her head, and punched her pillow into shape.
She was not mercenary
. She sat up. There was absolutely no satisfaction in telling herself that, and it would certainly be hours if not days before she could relieve her mind by telling the major what she thought. She threw back the covers and lit a candle, secured her wrapper about her, and opened the door to her room. A book from Letty’s library would distract her.

She had taken just a few steps when the major’s door opened further along the hall. She froze. Jack Amberly strolled out of his room, turned, and saw her. He, too, stopped abruptly. Then he came toward her. He was barefoot and coatless and wore no cravat.

“Can’t sleep either, Miss Carr?”

She wanted to deny this evidence of a connection between them, but it would be hypocritical to do so. “We did not finish our conversation this morning,” she told him.

“Let’s finish it,” he said.

Reg’s door opened, spilling a bar of light into the hall. With swift efficiency Jack Amberly closed his hand around her candle, snuffing it and plunging them in darkness as Reg’s man emerged from the open door, candle in hand, and turned and made his way to the servants’ stair at the other end of the hall.

“We can’t talk here, Miss Carr,” Jack Amberly whispered in the dark. Silently, she agreed. “Come to my room,” he said. “If you want to have the last word, I promise to let you.”

Victoria shivered at the sound of that whispered invitation. She could feel the heat of the man who stood near her in the dark.

“You warned me about coming to your room,” she reminded him.

“Shall I come to yours?”

She knew he was grinning. “No.”

He did not go away, and if she did not say what was on her mind, she would never sleep, “I’m not mercenary, you know.”

“Convince me,” he said. “In my room.”

She would be fine if he did not touch her, and she would insist on a respectable distance between them and keep her wits about her. “For a few minutes,” she said. A warm hand closed around her wrist, and she yielded to its gentle pull.

A candle burning by the bed was the only light in his room. He released her arm, strode to the hearth, lit another branch of candles, and drew up a chair for her. She took the offered seat and curled her feet up under her. He sat on the floor tailor fashion, his back to the fire, and regarded her with frank interest.

Victoria considered which of the grievances she held against him was uppermost in her mind. She sat up very straight in her chair.

“You have deceived everyone I care about,” she said quietly.

He blew out a long breath. “That is a serious charge.”

“This afternoon, even Lady Dorward forgot to distrust you.”

“But you remembered.”

Wearily she summed up the thoughts that had gone round and round in her head. “You have offered no proof that you are Jack Amberly. You admit you were a thief. You are or were hiding something in this room. Even your admirers say you are hanging out for a rich wife. And you were part of the mob on Saturday.”

“That’s damning.”

She frowned at him. “To be part of a seditious mob does no man credit.”

“Yet you didn’t tell anyone I was part of it.”

“You rescued us again.”

“What a tedious fellow I am to repeat myself.”

“Stop it. I know there is good in you, but you will cause my friends pain.”

“Not intentionally,” he said gently.

“Sir.” It was Jack Amberly’s man, speaking from the door of his dressing room. The valet’s face was somber, and the major came to his feet abruptly. “It’s Bertram. He’s at the King’s Arms. I couldn’t do anything with him; neither could his man.”

Jack Amberly turned to her. “Excuse me. I know I promised you the last word tonight, but I must go to this friend.”

He crossed the room and accepted the boots and coat his man held out to him.

“Of course,” she said. “Go.”

“Miss Carr,” he said, pulling on the second of his boots, “you have no idea what strength of character my leaving you here shows. I did not even touch you.”

Taking up his coat and giving her a wry smile, he was gone.

Victoria stared about the room. It seemed colder without him. She stood and pulled her chair closer to the hearth. She thought of what she had just seen. Without hesitation or resentment, the Mercenary Major had left a place by a warm fire on a bitter night to help a friend.
Unshrinking in the face of duty
was the phrase that came to mind. Whatever else he was, he must have been a good soldier. If the fate of a friend moved him to such generosity, it made no sense that he would marry for wealth. She certainly did not want him to believe she would. She resolved to finish their conversation if she had to sit up all night.

Leaning his head back against the cushions of the carriage seat, Jack breathed deeply. They’d been thoroughly drenched coming and going on their rescue mission. Their friend, apparently foxed, had climbed a table and offered to take on all challengers one-handed. He was in the midst of one of these bouts and getting the worst of it when Jack and Gilling arrived. Jack was obliged to satisfy some bettors who had wagered on the outcome and did not appreciate Bertram’s withdrawal from the fray. Jack’s unconventional form of foot-boxing nearly sparked a brawl, but someone in the crowd who had seen him at Jackson’s encouraged the audience to let him go at it. He and Gilling were soon allowed to carry Bertram off. The younger man babbled incoherently in the hack, and Jack and Gilling exchanged a glance at a reference to the Sprats and Spa Fields. They left their friend in the care of his man. There was no point in pressing Bertram for answers until they could get him sober.

On the trip back to Letty’s they reviewed the few facts they had about the Sprats. Dozens of men entered the back room at the Swan, and still more, like Hengrave, had appeared to disturb the Lord Mayor’s Show.

“Will they take over the Spa Fields meeting?” Gilling asked. There was to be a gathering within the week at the fields north of the city. All the poor of London had been urged to come and voice their grievances.

Jack considered it. He recalled the brief surge of violence of the Sprats at the Lord Mayor’s Show. His sense was that they had fallen back because some signal had not been given. “I don’t think they’re ready to move yet, but whatever they do the government is sure to know of it.”

“You think the fellow we followed is a government spy?” Gilling’s voice expressed his incredulity.

“You forget, Gilling. I grew up in Spain. Government spies are not new to me,” Jack said quietly.

“But Bandit, this is
England
.”

“I know, Gilling, but the house I followed the fellow to belongs to Lonville, who, according to Letty, is a friend of Sidmouth’s, and you followed the man to Bow Street. That means he reports to both the Home Office and the city officers.”

Gilling digested that conclusion in silence, but Jack knew what his friend was thinking.

“We’ll find Hengrave,” he told the corporal. “And we’ll get Bertram out of it, too.”