Love & Folly (27 page)

"No," Richard said predictably.

Emily sniffed. "Can you tell me whether his concern has to do with the Nation or the ladies at
Brecon?"

"Both."

"We could play twenty questions."

Richard chuckled.

"You won't tell me?"

"My lips are sealed."

"Oh, very well." She turned away from him and punched the feather pillow with her fist.

"We may have an entertaining time at Brecon," he murmured. "What an earnest chap Johnny
is."

"Is that bad?"

"No, but there are more and more like him. That doesn't bode well for satirists."

Emily propped herself on one elbow and squinted at him. "Do you mean to write another
satire?"

"Yes," he said drowsily. "If need be, I'll publish it myself."

* * * *

Maggie was dawdling up the hill from a visit to her young sisters at the Dower House. She heard
the horseman before she saw him, and stepped onto the grass verge.

It was Johnny. She recognised him at once. Her heart leapt and she found she was grinning
foolishly.

When he came abreast of her, Johnny reined in and slid from the saddle. "Thank God I found you
alone. We must talk."

"Of course." He had ridden
ventre á terre
to be at her side? Really, Johnny had a
great deal of romance in his make-up. "You're covered in mud." Alarm sharpened her voice. "Is anything
the matter?"

He drew her off behind a screen of trees and tied his nag to a low branch. "I've found out what
you and Jean were doing that day in Soho."

Maggie went cold.

"Quite by accident." Johnny drew a breath. "I wasn't trying to spy on you, truly." He described
how he had found Owen's poem in the bookstall, his cruel dilemma, and his hasty journey into Hampshire
to seek Colonel Falk's advice. Johnny looked tired. If he had ridden to Hampshire, turned round, and come
directly to Brecon without pausing to rest, it was no wonder.

Maggie could think of nothing to say. He must despise her.

"I would not have forced your confidence for the world." His eyes were so dark with distress, she
had to look away. "For God's sake, Maggie, speak to me."

"I couldn't betray Jean," she mumbled, "and she made me swear."

"Of course you couldn't." The warmth in his voice gave her the courage to look at him again.
"She's your twin, your oldest friend."

Maggie blinked back relieved tears. He understood!

"I'll never come between you and your sister, Maggie. I promise."

She smiled tremulously.

"But I have my loyalties, too. Clanross pays me a wage. Even if I did not like and admire him, I
should still be obliged to inform him. It's too dangerous a matter to leave undisclosed." He twisted his hat
in his hands.

"Must you? He'll send Owen away, punish him."

"Look at me, Maggie."

She obeyed.

His brown hair ruffled as the breeze touched it. "Do you think Clanross would act unjustly?" His
eyes were grave.

She raised her hands to her face. "I wish I knew what to do. We must warn Jean. At once."

"Where is she?"

"In our room, I think. She meant to read Colonel Falk's novel."

He gave a hollow laugh. "Let's find her, then, and talk it over with her."

"She'll want to inform Owen, too."

"Owen should be hanged by the thumbs," Johnny said bitterly.

"He was worried when he found out we left the poem with his friend's landlady." Maggie untied
the horse and handed him the reins.

"You did what?"

Frightened, she repeated what she had said.

Johnny groaned.

Maggie was having trouble breathing. "I'll find Jean. Do you find Owen, and we'll meet in the
book room in half an hour. It's empty. Lizzie is with the babies."

"Oh lord, Lady Clanross!"

"She won't find out," Maggie said without conviction.

But Elizabeth did find out.

Scarcely had the four of them got past the first explanations and recriminations when Elizabeth
entered the book room, looking puzzled.

Maggie and Jean froze. Johnny made an odd noise in his throat, and Owen edged toward the open
window as if he might cast himself from it.

"Johnny? Fisher told me you'd come on horseback. Is anything wrong? Tom--."

Johnny cleared his throat. "His lordship is very well and still in London."

"Then that's all right." Her eyes narrowed. "You look guilty, all four of you. What's amiss?"
When no one answered, she said impatiently, "You might as well open your budgets. I'll find out sooner or
later."

Maggie and Jean launched into simultaneous protest. Johnny overrode them.

"I came to warn Lady Margaret that I had discovered the reason for the twins' visit to Greek
Street."

"Tell me that. That do I long to hear,'" Elizabeth quoted dryly.

Maggie writhed. She had hated deceiving Elizabeth only a little less than deceiving Johnny.

"Well?" Elizabeth tapped her foot.

Johnny launched into a partial explanation. When he had got as far as his hasty flight to
Hampshire, she interrupted him.

"Why did you not tell Tom?"

"I thought I ought to warn Lady Margaret first." He looked at the toes of his boots. "And Lady
Jean."

Elizabeth's mouth set. "You must inform Clanross at once."

Johnny met her gaze. "I mean to return to London at first light."

Elizabeth turned to her sisters, unsmiling. "How you must have enjoyed your
come-out--frolicking at Almack's, kissing the king's hand. Tschaa!"

Maggie squirmed.

"Clearly you have depths of character I've never plumbed. As for Owen--" She took a step
forward.

Owen stood by the window with his chin up. Maggie, from the pit of her humiliation, had to
admit he looked heroick.

"It's a fine poem," he said, defiant.

"It's a skilful pastiche of half a dozen works I could recite for you if I had the stomach. I acquit you
of malice and ingratitude, Mr. Davies. You are merely a reckless fool."

"I shall remove from Brecon at once."

"Oh, no, you shall not!" Elizabeth in a fury was not to be trifled with.

Maggie took a step backward and bumped the bookcase, but Owen held his ground.

"You will remain here under my guard until my husband decides what's to be done with you. I
know you for a coward, sir."

"By God, ma'am, if you were a man--"

"If I were I man I'd call you out! Puppy! Poltroon! Allowing girls of seventeen to run your risks
for you! You sicken me."

"Owen is not a coward," Jean said passionately. "It was all my idea. I insisted."

"That I can believe." Elizabeth gave her a look designed to freeze her marrow.

Maggie was glad Elizabeth's glare had not fallen upon her. She had not felt obliged to defend
Owen but she felt she ought to defend Jean. She cleared her throat. "I thought of the disguises and worked
out the details of our venture, Lizzie. It was
not
all Jean's idea."

Elizabeth closed her eyes briefly. "Very well. You're to blame, all three of you. Johnny I acquit of
everything but confused loyalties."

Johnny winced.

Elizabeth glowered from one to the other. "Does none of you have common sense? Sedition is not
a game. Men have been transported for less than that poem. Yes, and women, too."

"The cause of liberty--"

"Fustian, sir. If you cared tuppence for Liberty, you would not have placed Clanross's credit in
the Lords at risk."

"The Lords--" Owen's lip curled.

Elizabeth said in a shaking voice, "Be still, jackanapes, before I do you a mischief."

Owen's eyes dropped.

Elizabeth raised a hand to her brow and brushed back a strand of hair. Maggie saw that her sister's
hand trembled. "I must write to Tom at once--and think what to do with you all meanwhile. You had better
go to your rooms until dinner."

No one moved.

"'In God's name, go!'" Elizabeth roared, echoing an ancestor of the maternal side.

They went.

* * * *

By the time Elizabeth had writ Clanross and dressed for dinner, the first surge of her wrath had
spent itself. She knew she had spoken with more heat than was becoming or, indeed, just. She felt rather
sick.

As she paced the floor of her dressing room she turned the facts over in her mind another time.
What kept her anger at a simmer was the recollection of how long the government had toyed with the Cato
Street conspirators. Lord Sidmouth had known of the plot for months before his agents acted. Maggie and
Jean were still in jeopardy. So was Tom.

She did not suppose Tom would be charged, or the girls, though Owen might. What troubled her
was the possible effects on reputation--the girls', for they risked ostracism, and Tom's.

Her husband was a reluctant politician, but he was a sincere one. He not only favoured extending
representation to the manufacturing towns, he also wanted annual Parliaments and a wider suffrage. His
opinions were heard because he spoke carefully, without threatening blood and revolution. His critics might
think of him as a blue-blooded sansculotte, but his integrity compelled their respect.

If he were accused of harbouring an out-and-out revolutionist--

A knock at her door startled her from her nightmare phantasy. "Come!"

Johnny Dyott entered looking like one who has steeled his nerves to storm a bastion.

Elizabeth sighed. "Come in, Johnny. I was wanting to talk with you in private."

He entered. Though the whites of his eyes did not show, his apprehension was clear
enough.

"I ought to apologise for my intemperate language this afternoon," she said glumly. "I was startled
as well as angry. I had nearly tucked the twins' misconduct in the back of my mind as just another escapade
I'd laugh at in ten or twenty years."

He ventured a faint smile. "What you said to Davies was mild to what I've been thinking. I'm
sorry to cause you distress."

"You didn't."

"Not directly, perhaps."

He was bound to blame himself, but Elizabeth was in no mood to be Johnny's hair shirt. "It's I
who should apologise for placing you in an impossible dilemma. You're in love with my sister Margaret, are
you not?"

He nodded, wide-eyed.

"I ought to have seen how torn you would be. She didn't tell you why they had gone to
Soho?"

"She couldn't betray Lady Jean. I saw that clearly enough."

"So you were caught between your loyalty to Tom and your affection for Maggie. I am sorry,
Johnny."

He cleared his throat. "How did you know? I've tried to be circumspect. I don't want to frighten
her. She's so young."

"Too young," Elizabeth rejoined, "as this harebrained episode proves." His face fell and she
added, hastily, "You must know I have no reservations about you Johnny. I cannot agree to Maggie's
marriage at eighteen, but if you're of the same mind in a few years, and if she consents--"

He spoke several disjointed but grateful phrases. His surprise and relief were evidence of the
sincerity of his feelings. If Elizabeth's exasperation with Maggie had been a shade stronger she would have
thrust her sister at him.
Take her, she's yours.

When joy left him speechless, Elizabeth said wryly, "I wish Jean showed a little of Maggie's
discernment. Will you carry my letter to Tom, Johnny?"

"Of course."

"Meanwhile, what am I do to with the poet? Keeping in mind that I'd like to shove him down an
oubliette."

Johnny hesitated. "He's not such a bad chap, you know. Merely impractical."

"And egotistical."

"You could lock him in his chamber with bread and water."

"He'd probably write dithyrambs on the moulding."

Johnny grinned. "Only think what he'd write in an oubliette."

"Richard!"

Richard Falk stepped down from the hackney into the rain. It had been pouring for two
days.

Tom, muffled in round hat and greatcoat, was about to leave the house. His butler held an
umbrella over him.

"Never mind, Waite. Hold it for the colonel." He ducked back in the foyer and removed his hat.
Richard entered, damp but not soaked.

When the two men had retired to the bookroom for a glass of brandy out of earshot of servants,
Richard said, "I've come about this business of Johnny's. Has he told you?"

"Of the twins' Soho adventure? I believe I have you to thank for advising him."

Richard flushed. "I gave him a week's grace."

"Because of Maggie?"

Richard heaved a sigh of relief. "Then he's made a clean breast of it. Good, because unless you
understand his attachment to Lady Margaret his conduct is inexcusable. And mine. I ought to have writ you
at once."

Tom rubbed his forehead. "He spoke to you in confidence. I'm sorry Johnny and the girls fancied
me such an ogre they couldn't confide in me."

"It wasn't quite that, Tom. When you were a subaltern, did you tell your captain
everything?"

"No, though I was trying for a less military bond with the girls. I daresay with Johnny it was
inevitable. I
was
his captain."

Richard swirled the brandy absently in the glass. "How grave a matter is it?"

"If I knew I'd be at Brecon right now. At least Davies wasn't fool enough to sign his name.
Discretion is called for, but the danger may blow over."

"Can I be of use to you?"

"Do you have connexions in Bow Street?"

Richard took a warming sip. "In the dock, more likely. I was thinking of my connexions with
publishers, writers, and other seditious types."

That had not occurred to Tom, though it should have. "Will you find out whether the printer
knew Owen's identity?" He had ascertained the printer's name through Sir Francis Burdett. He gave it to
Richard, adding, "The man was a jobber."

"I'll try."

"And you might question Davies's friend, Carrington, for me. I sent Johnny back to Brecon to
reinforce Elizabeth, and my presence at the Radical Poets' Club might cause remark--"