The Shadow of Albion (31 page)

renewed energy and spur the Royalist factions to consolidate and fight effectively for

the one King of France everyone must acknowledge without question: the son of

Louis XVI.

Thus, everyone grew to assume Louis-Charles was dead, but no one was entirely

certain of it. And now this.

Saint-Lazarre thought the Young King was alive. More, he thought he knew where

Louis-Charles was. Saint-Lazarre was suspicious and cynical, but whatever

information he had gained had been enough to convince him. That was why

Saint-Lazarre had disappeared so suddenly from English society, and why he had

vanished into France without a word to anyone.

Truth or Compelling fraud, this news could overset the I chessboard of Europe,

and the players of the Shadow Game must be warned at once. So Wessex had made

his way back to England, reclaimed his horse and his own identity, and ridden for St.

James Palace.

He’d made his report twice: once to King Henry and once to Baron Misbourne,

each of whom had plied him with endless questions. Such information could not be

taken at face value: it must be sifted, weighed, checked as! much as possible. But if

it were true – if there were even a possibility that it was true – someone must go to

France! to pick up Saint-Lazarre’s trace, to reach the Young King J before

Saint-Lazarre moved him to yet another hiding i place… and to make certain that

King Louis would i await the restoration of his throne in England, and nowhere else.

But Wessex would not be the man charged with carrying out this delicate task.

King Henry had been most explicit in that regard. Wessex’s place was in London,

dancing attendance upon his wife and preparing the way for the arrival of the Danish

Princess, not adventuring S upon the Continent.

And so Wessex had returned at last to Dyer House, only to discover that his wife

was not there. That his wife, free as you please, had removed to Herriard House

once more, just as if their wedding ceremony had never taken place.

For himself, Wessex would have been just as happy to .leave her at Herriard

House – but fresh from the King’s presence, the King’s strictures firmly in ‘mind,

Wessex was not at all doubtful as to where his duty lay. It had been pure bad luck

that he had fallen in with Prince Jamie on the way.

He’d seen the Prince coming out of one of his clubs in the company of Mr.

Geoffrey Highclere, and a desire to preserve the young Prince from that gentleman’s

poisonous counsel had led Wessex to detach Prince Jamie and bear him off toward

Herriard House. Jamie had conceived a certain affection for Wessex’s new Duchess,

and was easily persuaded that he ought to tender his felicitations. Wessex had

thought it would be all for the best, and would give him a breathing space while he

thought of what to say to his new wife.

As it happened, he was now in no doubt at all of what he wanted to say to his

wife. Unfortunately, it was not such information as any gentleman of breeding could

convey to any female whatsoever.

„And how do you find the weather here in London?“ the Duke of Wessex said to

his Duchess.

The next quarter of an hour passed with painfully exact courtesy between Wessex

and his wife, while Jamie and Meriel were very merry indeed. In the midst of all her

other emotions, Sarah was conscious of a sense of seething betrayal. She had

thought Meriel a girl of sense and sensibility, too wise to fall in with her ambitious

Uncle Ripon’s silly plan to attach Jamie to his faction by entangling him with a

Catholic heiress.

Apparently she’d been wrong. For Meriel was playing the part of a vivacious,

empty-headed charmer, and doing it with enough conviction to cause Sarah to

wonder if she had ever known Lady Meriel at all.

At last Jamie rose to go, and inevitably, Meriel rose to her feet as well, exclaiming

that she was late for an appointment. There was a brief flurry of bonnets and hats,

and then the Duchess of Wessex was alone with her husband.

Hesitantly, she risked a glance at his face. His black eyes glittered with anger, and

his mouth was set.

„I shall ask you only one question, Your Grace: do you know what you have

done here today?“ Wessex said.

Anger gave her answer a fearful precision. „I did not bring the Prince of Wales

here. Was that the reason for your return, Your Grace? To thrust him into the midst

of this Catholic plot of your own devising?“

Wessex recoiled as if he had been struck, and his face filled with a white fury.

„How could you?“ he said in a strangled voice. „How dare you? Is this how you

serve the King and the League – by playing at petty plots, of your own, like a spoiled

child with his nursery toys?“

„How dart you?“ Sarah responded just as hotly. „You call me a child – you have

no idea of my character, of anything about me!“

„There you are wrong,“ Wessex said in a deadly calm voice, the worse for his

obvious anger. „I have every notion of your character, and would to God I did not!

You are spoiled, luxurious, and wilful – you betray a sacred trust for your own idle

amusement – “

By now Sarah was not entirely sure of what Wessex was talking about, and it

frightened her. „Idle amusement!“ she countered, grasping at the parts of his speech

she thought she did understand. „Meriel is my friend! She does not love her uncle in

the least, and certainly she would not do such a thing as you suggest to please him –

I know you wish to think her at the heart of Ripon’s plotting, but she is not such a

fool as that!“

„Is she not?“ Wessex snarled. „She gave a perilous good imitation of it here

today, Madame! Tell me, what freak of distempered nature inspired you to invite her

beneath this roof?“

„It is my roof, Your Grace, as you are at such pains to remind me.“

„Should there be the sort of scandal that Ripon will not scruple to brew, the

Danish Prince Regent will not hesitate to withdraw both the Princess and the treaty –

“

„And does the Prince of Wales not know this?“ Sarah demanded with icy

archness.

„Jamie is a young and volatile boy – not yet a man – and his father, our King, set

both of us to guard him from just the sort of foolish error that he is about to commit,

thanks to you.“

„Then he is too much of a fool ever to be crowned!“ Sarah cried, and froze in

horror at the audacity of her own words.

„Do you play at kingmaking, then, Madame?“ Wessex asked, very softly. „Oh,

beware, Your Grace, if that is the direction in which your appetites have led you.“

Their quarrel had veered into deeper and more dangerous waters than Sarah was

prepared to navigate, and Wessex now seemed less an infuriated husband than a

dangerous enemy whose presence placed her in mortal peril.

„I don’t know what you’re talking about!“ Sarah cried. „I never wanted to marry

you in the first place, and I wish I’d never been born!“

She grabbed the nearest tiling to hand – the porcelain sugar bowl – and flung it at

Wessex’s head. As he almost automatically caught the china missile neatly in his

hand, Sarah ran from the room.

After setting down the sugar bowl upon the nearest flat surface, Wessex walked

over and closed the door, very quietly. He had never been less sure of his ground,

and in his position, such uncertainty was dangerous.

What was Sarah’s game? Was she loyal to the Boscobel League, or did she seek

to bring down the League and destroy the King? In befriending Lady Meriel, was her

intent to fall in with Ripon’s plans, or to turn his pawn to her own use? Wessex

paced, trying to think beyond the disaster of the moment. That Sarah was hunting

her own line of country was clear – but it was also clear that for the moment Lady

Meriel was coursing the game the Earl of Ripon had set her at> whatever Sarah’s

plans fpr her might be.

Should he keep his Duchess in Town or bundle her off to Wessex Court to bury

her there, far from Town and its temptations? A man might do as he liked with a wife

– this was one of the joys of marriage, so the wits, said – but on the other hand, it

must be admitted that the fatal introduction of Lady Meriel to Prince Jamie already

had been made. If Lady Meriel had cultivated acquaintance with Wessex’s wife in

hope of just such an apparently accidental introduction, then Lady Mend’s, use for a

maddeningly stupid but not actively treacherous Duchess of Wessex had just ended.

But if Lady Meriel were a there catspaw, and her grace a scheming puppeteer…

His metaphors hopelessly mangled, Wessex’s attention was drawn to a scrap of

white pasteboard sticking out between the arm and the cushion of the sopha. He

drew the card out as carefully as though it were the fuse of an unexploded bombard

and inspected it carefully.

An invitation to a ball that the Earl of Ripon was giving on behalf of his niece.

Fascinating. Enough so, at any rate, for Wessex to once more alter his opinion of

his wife’s actions. Now, he had to admit, he had absolutely no idea what game she

played. Why did she want to go to Ripon’s ball enough to attempt to conceal the

invitation from her husband?

And – far more to the point – why would Ripon invite her?

Sarah fled to her room as ardently as she had ever run from the Terror-beast that

stalked her half-remembered dreams. She’d assumed that Wessex would make it

easy for her to enact the shadow-marriage, but after today she realized there could

be no easy peace between them. With a feeling very similar to panic, she reached the

safety of her room and slammed the door.

Since Wessex showed no inclination to follow, Sarah quickly calmed in the

privacy of familiar surroundings. A warrior of the People never surrendered to panic;

fear was the Way of me Bear, and caused one to lose one’s path…

For a moment two Sarahs – Sarah Cunningham of Baltimore, and the false Lady

Roxbury she had since become – quarreled for possession of the young woman’s

body. Then once more Sarah’s self slid from her grasp, to hover tantalizingly out of

reach. But this time it left one certainty in its wake.

They all want me to play Wessex’s Duchess, and lead Society upon a merry

dance. But I don’t know how. I’m not the woman they think they’ve bought and

paid for….

Sarah sank into a chair, wringing her hands. The mirror on the dressing table

mocked her with her own reflection: a serene, self-assured noblewoman in a gown of

old gold and blue; a woman not pretty, perhaps, but strong-featured and

strong-willed.

And not Ike Duchess of Roxbury. Though I suppose I am the Duchess of

Wessex, since I married the Duke, but I am not the Duchess he thinks I am….

Her muddled memories betrayed her; Sarah could hardly imagine by what feats of

falsehood and impersonation she had been set in the Marchioness’s place, but here

she was. As for where the Marchioness was – or who Sarah had been before this

insane masquerade began- – she had the teasing feeling that she knew these answers,

and that they were only awaiting the proper moment to reveal themselves.

She took a deep breath, and her old plucky common sense asserted itself. Other

things did not matter so much, now that Sarah knew who she was not.

But what was she to do now?

She could not stay in London. She could not endure this masquerade one

moment longer. She had been willing to be Wessex’s ally from the first moment he

had asked for her help, but it seemed that all he did was demand her cooperation

even as he pushed her away. And now he was furious – it was true that Meriel's

introduction to Prince Jamie was a disaster,’ but as Sarah hac} pointed out, it was a

disaster of Wessex’s creation, not of hers, and it was a thing they could have

repaired together, had he only been willing to cooperate.

She was tired of being the only one who tried to compromise! An end had to

come sometime – let it be now. She would go back to Mooncoign and leave Wessex

to manage his affairs without her.

She doubted he’d mind.

Wessex was still brooding over the billet from the Earl of Ripon when Buckland

opened the door once more. The old retainer’s face was worried.

„Your Grace? A Mr. Farrar to see you. He says his business is urgent.“

If Wessex had been any other man, he would have commended Mr. Farrar to the

devil with a hearty good will, but in the profession he followed, one did not lightly

dismiss unfamiliar visitors.

„Send him up, Buckland. And get someone to take away all of this,“ he added,

waving a hand at the tea tray and sugar bowl.