A Lady’s Secret (31 page)

“He’s in Shakespeare, isn’t he?” Rosa asked, amiably playing the game. “Another name for Puck?”

“Robin Goodfellow!” Portia declared. “Yes, of course. That fits with the reference to Cock Robin. That poem’s all about birds. But I wonder what it
means
.”

Robin,
Petra thought.
Proof positive.

“It’s not all birds,” Rosa pointed out. “The bull tolls the bell, and the fly sees him die. I think I read once that it’s some sort of allegory about Walpole.”

“Politics?” said Portia. “Ugh.”

As the other two teased apart the advertisement and the Cock Robin poem, Petra tried to think of a way to respond to Robin’s plea. She must, or she’d never be at peace. Suddenly, she thought of a possibility. That evening, when no one could make any connection, she asked her father how she might send a note of thanks to Mistress Waddle.

“She can’t read, but her nephew at the Three Cocks can. She’d be delighted to receive a letter, I think.”

“Doubtless,” he said with a smile. “Simply write it and put it in the post bag in the hall. It will be paid at this end, so she won’t be asked for money.”

He seemed unsuspicious, but Petra was more and more aware that Lord Rothgar’s reputation for sagacity and omniscience was warranted. He was closely involved in matters of state, and maintained a large administration simply to keep him informed on national and international affairs. Such people could be turned to acquiring other information.

Even Lord Rothgar’s brothers found him difficult to comprehend at times. Petra didn’t deceive herself that she could do so.

She didn’t think he would break a seal, however, so she took the risk. She had a writing desk now, stocked with everything she might need, including a new seal with a
PM
on it. She wrote her letter, but added a postscript, asking Mistress Waddle to get Mr. Hythe to send on the enclosed letter.

Then she cut a sheet of paper in half and used that for a simple letter to Robin.

I am well,
she wrote,
but I could still be a danger to you, even with Varzi dead. I thank you for that, for I’m sure now you played a part. Please fly free, Cock Robin, and avoid all sparrows, arrows, and stones. Petra.

She folded it and sealed it in the way she’d sealed the last letter she’d sent him, by pressing down with the handle of her seal and finishing it with her finger. This time she could kiss it, and for some reason that impelled her to address it to Stowting, not London.

She folded it in the other and impressed that seal properly. There. It was a risk, but she hoped her father would only think she’d written her benefactor a long letter.

She held the letter, however, sighing.

Would she ever see Robin again? She’d hoped that her feelings would fade, but if anything they sank deeper roots with every day, fed by hope. She was to enter society, after all, and whatever his true name or title, he was part of that world. Had he not been on his way back from Versailles?

Perhaps, just perhaps, her dream in the Goulart farmyard could come true. Perhaps she might one day meet him at a ball and be properly introduced. Then they could dance and converse, lock eyes and flirt.

If he felt about her as she felt about him, if she meant more to him than a responsibility to be cared for, then perhaps, just perhaps, they might do more, all without shame or scandal.

Perhaps sometimes dreams did come true.

“On the third day,” said Robin to Fontaine, “I rise from my bed.” He had kept his promise to his mother, and today would be the first day since Varzi’s death that he’d attempted normal activities. He walked around his room a little. It didn’t hurt much at all.

“I do believe that allowing the new stitches to knit has allowed the rest to heal, too. Damn stiff, though.”

“Please take care, sir,” Fontaine said, hovering. He had returned yesterday and was still fussing. Coquette hovered and fussed, too, on Robin’s other side, as if she could be some help.

“Do you have no idea you’re tiny?” Robin asked the dog.

Coquette’s look could well say no.

Robin limped to the window, feeling more or less normal. As he stretched, he looked out at a moderately pleasant day for London.

“I shall go down for breakfast,” he declared.

That not having distressed him, he ventured farther and took Coquette for a short walk, amused by people’s reactions. Nearly everyone he passed stared with a silent
What is that?

“What will happen when I introduce you to my real dogs at Easton Court?” he asked her when they returned. “I suppose you’ll expect to rule the roost.” He sat down with a sigh. “This is all very well, little one, but I still have no word of Petra, and until I do I can’t seem to grasp the rest of my life.”

He snapped out of that and considered the men he’d interviewed for secretary. He decided to trust his instincts and settled on a young, enthusiastic, and extremely bright Oxford man called Nantwich who was in Town and ready to take up a position. Nantwich was also a curate’s son who really needed a good position, and Robin knew that swayed him. He sent for the man and informed him of his good fortune.

In the afternoon he ventured to his club in his sedan, where he heard a number of people mention the Cock Robin advertisement, wondering what it might mean, or grumbling about people who wasted ink and paper on nonsense. The company was decidedly dull, so he went on to Angelo’s to watch some fencing.

The instructor wanted to know the details of his fight outside Folkestone. Robin told the story and ended up demonstrating some of the moves. He stopped when his leg complained, but began to feel he might be human again soon.

The next day he opened a letter from Thorn, hoping for news of the search. When he saw the enclosure, his heartbeat faltered. It was addressed exactly as the last one, and sent from Micklebury again, but the writing was different. This was fine-quality paper and ink, so he was seeing Petra’s true hand, a light, steeply sloping style with its flourishing tails. He turned it to see that again the wax bore no seal. Like last time, it had merely been pressed down when cooling with a finger or thumb. He could clearly see the lines and whorls.

She was still keeping secrets, for with such fine-quality paper and pen, she must have a seal of some sort.

He touched there. Felt an alarming impulse to kiss there.

The pressing finger might not even have been hers, he told himself, but he knew it was and surrendered. Then he snapped the seal, unfolded the heavy paper, and read the words.

I am well, but I could still be a danger to you, even with Varzi dead. I thank you for that, for I’m sure now you played a part. Please fly free, Cock Robin, and avoid all sparrows, arrows, and stones. Petra.

He couldn’t imagine why she’d think she was still a danger to him, but clearly she was well and with people who could afford fine paper and ink. Clearly she truly did want him to stop seeking her. He could go to this Micklebury and try to pick up her trail, but she had made her wishes clear.

It hurt like blazes, but he had to respect them, even though he felt that he’d never fly again.

L
ord Rothgar spent some time every day showing Petra different parts of Rothgar Abbey. One day he said, “May I show you my true obsession?”

Of course Petra said yes, but she wondered if she was finally to see the darker side of this world. She followed him into a confusion of ticking sounds to find three men in shirtsleeves completely concentrated on clockwork mechanisms.

One young man at the long center table looked up and nodded with a slight smile; the other didn’t twitch away from something he was doing to tiny pieces of shiny brass. A small, older man working on something larger said, “My lord,” but then returned to his work.

“Clockwork,” Lord Rothgar said, “in all its forms.”

Petra could tell from the way he touched a piece of machinery that all this truly was an obsession, but also a love.

“I’ve never even considered a clock,” she confessed, “other than to be annoyed if someone forgot to wind it.”

“The mechanism is fascinating and constantly improved. I wish I would be alive in two hundred years to see what is achieved by then.” He took her on a tour of the room, but skillfully just long enough. He clearly knew most people didn’t share his devotion to wheels, cogs, springs, and pendulums.

Petra’s interest grew when he came to the mechanical toys. He demonstrated a monkey that beat a drum, and a lady who danced to the music from a box beneath her feet.

“I have people who find broken and neglected pieces, which I then put to rights.”

“You do this yourself?” she asked, sure she must be mistaken.

“When I have the time. Sometimes I need help,” he added, with a smile at the older man, who smiled back. “I am only an amateur, but my work then needs a home.”

They moved on and came to a bird on the branch of a tree—a bird covered with feathers so that it seemed real. He pressed a switch and it came to life, turning its head and singing, and showing a red breast. It was a robin. A worm popped out of the tree trunk nearby and the bird stopped singing to apparently swallow it.

“It’s charming,” she said, trying to show no special reaction, though she knew with despair that the omniscient Dark Marquess had somehow learned too much.

She saw his glance at her bodice and realized that she was wearing the cameo, that she’d done that too often. She’d said it was a memento of her mother, but it was not at all an Italian design. Careless, careless, careless, but how could anyone live constantly on guard?

He said nothing else, but picked up the now silent bird. “You may have this if you like.”

A shiver went down her spine, but she knew he hadn’t meant what she’d heard. When he made no other reference, Petra thanked him and carried the toy up to her room. Once there, she took off the brooch and put it away in a box that already contained a small treasure trove of trinkets, all gifts from her father. She had some more valuable jewelry now, too, kept for safety in Lord Rothgar’s safe.

Her father, who was being wonderfully kind, and who planned to acknowledge her before society and provide her with a generous dowry. She gathered that with this support she could be fully accepted in society and could expect to make a good marriage, especially when so many wished to seek a close association with such a powerful man. From the very beginning, she hadn’t been able to suppress the thought that perhaps Robin might be a suitable match and might want to marry her.

She wound up the toy again and set it singing, but it couldn’t lighten her heart.

“Robin Bonchurch” might be the
only
suitable husband for her. She’d tried to ignore the problem, but her courses were a week overdue.

She sat, a hand over her eyes. How could this happen to her? She’d come so far, struggled so hard, and finally found the haven she sought, but now this, a shame that threatened everything. Soon she was going to have to confess. The marquess would want to know the father, and she didn’t see how she could lie. He would find Robin, if he hadn’t already, and force him to the altar or to death.

She’d begged him to fly free, but this would cage him.

She inhaled and gathered herself. Robin had never stopped caring for her, and passion had flared between them at a touch. Perhaps he wouldn’t mind too much.

The pressing question was, should she confess before the Cheynings masquerade? That would allow her father to change his mind, and not present his ill-born daughter to his world. No need to decide just yet, she weakly decided. It was always possible she was simply late for once in her life.

Robin dedicated himself grimly to gathering in the strings of his earldom and regaining his physical strength and flexibility. Both were challenging. Again and again he had to deal with people who had his interests at heart, but who couldn’t quite accept that he was ready for his responsibilities. He realized that everyone, from servants to estate stewards, but also his family and perhaps himself, had not quite accepted that his father was dead.

Here, Nantwich was a blessing—the proverbial new broom. Robin gave him a free hand, even though the man’s enthusiasm could be exhausting. The secretary assumed Robin was interested in national and international affairs and constantly presented him with articles, or even short essays on issues of the moment. Robin dutifully read them.

He was unable to resist asking Nantwich to find out about Milan, and in particular, the d’Averio family. He received, within the day, an authoritative paper. Robin thanked him, skimmed through it, and discovered absolutely nothing of use, so he requested information about the Morcini family, and especially the current conte di Purieri.

That provided more interesting reading, if only because Robin hated Ludovico Morcini’s guts. Unfortunately, it came accompanied by a very recent book on the major families of Milan, marked at the page with a picture.

Petra’s lover was a darkly handsome fellow, with an elegant stance and smile. The smile didn’t hide cold eyes, however. Robin hoped he choked on bile when he heard of Varzi’s death and realized Petra had escaped.

Thought of Purieri and visions of vengeance sent him back to Angelo’s for some serious work on his swordplay.

“Not bad,” he said after a while, but he was running with sweat and his scar was burning.

“Not bad at all, sir,” Angelo said, “but to achieve your best you must apply yourself with more seriousness.”

Robin laughed wryly. “That seems to be a general opinion. But by all means. By hard work, in due course, I shall become the very epitome of everything.”

He also spent time at a Turkish bath, simply for heat and massage of his leg, however, and not for the other exercises available there.

He was being oddly chaste and wouldn’t be able to use his leg as an excuse much longer. For some reason, Ashart’s masquerade had become a marked day in his mind. The Italian masquerade that was being organized by Teresa Cornelys, and thus felt like a connection to Petra when it was no such thing at all.

After that he would move fully into his new life. He’d go north to tackle Easton Court and then on to his other properties. He’d resume his normal amusements. Perhaps he’d set up a long-term mistress, or even look for a bride.

That business of waiting until he was thirty had been immature nonsense, though he begrudged any penny to Lady Fowler’s Fund for the Moral Reform of Society. He didn’t approve of a lot that went on in society, but the woman was a sour-faced killjoy who would have everyone on their knees and singing hymns from morn to night. That, after all, was why he, Christian, and Thorn had chosen her as benefactor—as a powerful deterrent.

He’d sort it all out after the masquerade.