The Moonless Night (16 page)

Marie ran to her chamber and flung herself into a chair, mortified to the bone. Where would she find the courage to tell Benson and David what a botch she had made of it? She did not have the courage to return belowstairs that evening, but stayed in her room and prepared for bed, inventing a headache in case Biddy came to get her. As she sat before her mirror, dressed in an elegant rose night robe, brushing her hair, she was struck with the idea that she was looking a little better than usual. The eyes shone and the cheeks were flushed after her ordeal. She felt horrid, but she looked well. More than one gentleman had seen fit in the past to compliment her on her appearance. Indeed she enjoyed a good deal of popularity with the naval officers. Why did Sanford imply she was unattractive? What did he prefer in females, if not young, pretty ladies of good fortune?

She recalled his gallant smiles and compliments to Madame Monet, that fat old French blonde. It was not her notion of his preference, but the preference itself that was odd if that was what he preferred. Yet she realized that somewhere in David, too, there lurked a streak of admiration for Madame. Even Papa was polite to her, and men in general showed her a great deal of attention. What was it that attracted them? The woman was vulgar, pushing, not so pretty really except for the eyes, and getting along in years.

The more she compared Madame with herself, the more vexed she became with Lord Sanford, till she remembered how differently Mr. Benson had reacted to the French woman. He, a gentleman of sensitivity and taste, had been disgusted with her. This thought cheered her, till it was followed by the realization of how dreadfully ineligible Mr. Benson was. She began to wonder if spies were paid well for their work—if they would be allowed to keep ten thousand pounds they came across during a case, as sailors kept prizes of war. She would make a very determined effort to find that money tomorrow.

Chapter 11

Morning found Benson, David and Marie at table together, coming after the other Boltwoods and before Lord Sanford, that late riser. “Did anything exciting happen last night?” Marie asked them.

“I should say so!” David told her, his eyes dancing. “There was a dandy hassle at the inn. A couple of bucks down from London set up a row with the local fellows that ended up with half the town in on it.”

“Your sister refers to Napoleon.” Benson said, with an understanding glance to Marie. They exchanged a look that was almost better than words. They understood each other. “No, last night was quiet. And the night before, the loading of supplies was carried out without incident as well. The time is not quite ripe yet.”

“The seamen say they didn’t get a glimpse of Boney at all that night. He is kept belowdecks when there is anything of that sort going on, just in case. He’s guarded as close as may be. If he don’t tumble to my idea of a masquerade, he’s there for good. Till they take him to Saint Helena, I mean.”

“Did you have any luck discovering whether Sanford knows about Cicero?” Benson asked her.

“No, I didn’t,” she confessed, and hesitated to admit the rest of her disgrace. She settled for saying only that she had searched his room, and found nothing.

“Doubt he’d keep it in his room,” David said, picturing in his mind’s eye a pile as high as a mountain of gold sovereigns.

“More likely stowed in the bottom of his trunks,” Benson allowed. “Where would they be, David?”

“Depends on how long he’s going to billet himself on us. Either toted to the attics, or in his valet’s room. They ain’t in the attic, come to think of it. I looked there, so they must be in the valet’s room. Take a look there when you get a minute, Marie. Ev and I are going into town.”

“Perhaps Miss Boltwood would care to come with us?” Benson asked.

She smiled her eagerness, but David wouldn’t hear of it. “Too dangerous. We’ll be listening in on suspect conversations and that sort of thing. Take up a stand beside dangerous looking batches of men, Frenchies or what not, and hear what they’re plotting. We might bump into Monet. Don’t frown, Ev. I know you don’t like her, but she’s French, you know.”

“And Sanford gets Miss Boltwood to himself again,” Benson said, with just a little edge of jealousy in the voice to cheer her.

“I sha’n’t enjoy it!” she assured them both.

“Enjoyment has nothing to do with it,” David rounded on her. “Told you half our work is of this unpleasant sort. Haven’t I sat at the telescope till I have callouses on my behind? It won’t hurt you to talk to Sanford. Someone must keep an eye on him, and we have to go into town.”

“We are going to stop at the naval station, as well, and give Rawlins the hint regarding David’s dangerous idea of Napoleon masquerading as a British seaman,” Benson informed her. “Rawlins must be informed of that possibility.”

She was sorry to hear that this possibility of escape was to be snatched away from the General, but her spy had to do his job, and she lauded his foresight. David dashed into the hall to check the mail before leaving, and Benson turned to Marie. “I wish you might come with us,” was all he said, but the eyes, the tone, offered musings for a whole morning. He wore a serious expression as he left—perhaps with a little something of sadness in it. She could not say he was making up to her, but she liked that he regretted his ineligibility.

She sat on alone, disturbed as to what line Sanford would take after the evening’s work, but prepared to meet him. “Good morning,” he said, rather coolly. He was hardly limping at all, using only the malacca stick to assist his halting steps.

“You plan to go into Plymouth?” she asked brightly, relieved that he chose to ignore the whole incident between them.

“Yes, but if you plan to give me fresh towels, I wish you will present them to my valet,” he said.

This silenced her. He sipped his coffee in silence for a moment, then turned to her with his lazy smile. “Don’t pout, Miss Boltwood. It don’t become you. You will have the whole morning to chase Benson.”

“He’s already left.”

“Left for where?’ he asked with quick interest.

“Plymouth, to see Rawlins.”

“I am on my way there myself.”

He spoke of no dangerous activities that need exclude a lady. A trip to the naval station was always welcome, and as he had smiled at her, she hoped he might request her company. Her other activity of watching him could hardly be carried on with him away, and she had really no idea of sneaking into his valet’s room. “I don’t know what I’ll do with myself,” she said, with an entreating eye.

“All at loose ends, are you? A good opportunity to look into Plutarch.”

“I don’t read Latin.”

“How lucky for you it has been translated into English, quite excellently, by Sir Thomas North. You can tell me all about it this evening.”

He ate a very light breakfast then went away without saying an interesting word to her. When David and Benson returned, she discovered Sanford’s real reason for not inviting her along with him.

“You’ll never guess what he’s up to!” David said. “He was strolling along the Hoo with Madame Monet. Had her right on his arm, and what did the pair of them do but go to a real estate agent’s office.”

“Oh—he’s buying a house for her!” Marie exclaimed. She felt such a jolt of anger she hardly understood its cause. The fat blonde was preferred so much to herself that he was buying her a house, and he scarcely knew her.

“Hardly
buying
,” Benson objected. “Hiring one is more like it, as your father has had the good sense not to ask her here.”

“And he letting on he was going to see Rawlins!” Marie said, still irate.

“He did see Rawlins,” David told her. “What a cake he made of himself. He came in just as we were leaving, before he picked up Madame, and said in that toplofty way he has that he trusted Rawlins would warn Maitland of the idea of the masquerade, when he had already assured us he would. He was jolly glad we slipped him the clue. He hadn’t thought of it at all. Rawlins is an excellent chap. Sanford insisted he do it right while he was there, just to make sure it got done right. Gad, but he’s hard to take. Rawlins was ready to wring his neck. I wish he’d go on to Wight, or move in with Madame.”

It was really Madame that Marie wished to discuss, and this gave her the opportunity. “What excuse can he give for hiring a house for her? Surely it is very strange he would do so, on such short acquaintance. It looks so very odd. What will everyone think?”

“They’ll know very well what to think,” David answered. “Setting her up as his mistress. Plain as a pikestaff.”

Benson coughed uncomfortably at discussing such a matter before an innocent girl, and said, “I hardly think that is his reason, David. He is sorry for her in her position.”

“Pooh! She brought the position down on her own head. Said right out she goes running around after trouble. Where did she think she’d stay when she came here without knowing anyone?”

Marie knew it was mere politeness made Mr. Benson express his lenient view, and while she appreciated his sensitivity, she was not fooled into believing him.

David contradicted him baldly. “He’s having an affair with her, the trollop, and paying through the nose for the privilege.”

Subsequent events left no doubt whatsoever in the matter. He was seen with her several days in a row. When at last a neighbor threw a rout and invited the Boltwood household and guests, he declined the invitation on the grounds that he was unable to dance, but he was dancing at Madame’s skirts nimbly enough. He fell out of consideration as a menace to the safeguarding of Napoleon altogether. He was doing absolutely nothing to either rescue Napoleon himself, which had once been thought possible, or prevent anyone else’s doing it. He was just plain running after a vulgar French widow. He spent the better part of his days in Plymouth with her, and as he was away from Bolt Hall half the nights, it was naturally assumed they were spent in the vine-covered cottage he had rented for her. If he returned to see Mr. Hazy he went alone and told no one, and if he wrote any letters to the
Morning Chronicle
in support of Capell Lofft’s appeal, he did not leave them at Bolt Hall with the rest of his mail. David contrived to lure his valet into the kitchen to allow Benson to search the trunks which Marie had failed to do, but they contained no gold.

“That seven-day beau wouldn’t have the wits to get a dog out of a cellar, let alone free Napoleon Bonaparte,” David declared. He was disappointed that Sanford was so innocent. He had found no other party to take his place as Cicero. They were making very poor headway in unearthing the plotters. And the moon was waning, too. In another week they would be at the darkest phase. “Some moonless night,” the plotter had said, and David took it quite literally.

Lord Sanford was not Cicero and he was not very often at Bolt Hall, but he was not entirely absent from it. His preference in males proved every bit as peculiar as in females. With two young, lively gentlemen in the house, he struck up a relationship—one could not actually call it a friendship—with Sir Henry. They would sit together in the study of an afternoon or evening for an hour, sometimes chatting amiably, at other times with their voices risen to a pitch that indicated a total lack of amiability. They also took an occasional ride about the environs. This last sociability was easily understood by the youngsters. Sir Henry would like it to be known to his neighbors that he had a lord, a godson of Bathurst, putting up with him. Just why Bathurst’s godson should put himself out to the extent of chatting with farmers and squires was less easily understood, but then he always enjoyed to tell people what they had been doing wrong, and perhaps that accounted for it.

His yacht, the
Seadog
, arrived five days after sending for it, and he went to Plymouth to sail it to the Hall himself. Sir Henry went down to the dock to admire it grudgingly, and was close to being pleased with his noble guest.

“She will be an excellent addition to our fleet,” he said, looking with just a little regret at a yacht that was larger, finer and faster than his own. There was a distinct possibility it would be Lord Sanford, and not Sir Henry, who led the flotilla in the capture of Bonaparte. Still, it was a flattering addition to his preparations, to be able to say that Lord Sanford had had his
Seadog
shipped in from Portsmouth.

“I don’t plan to dock her here,” Sanford told him.

There was a stunned silence while this information was digested. “Where will you keep her then?” Sir Henry asked, wondering if the navy had requisitioned it.

“I’ll leave her here for the time being, till I speak to Sinclair. I want to dock her at Sinclair’s—it’s the closest place, and I don’t want her hemmed in with that damned winch and chain if she’s needed in a hurry.”

The battle of the winch and chain continued unabated. Sanford urged its removal oftener than was conducive to peace in the household, but Sir Henry held fast. He had another blow to send him reeling, as well as
Seadog
going to Sinclair’s. Lord Bathurst had replied to his letter regarding the petition in the strongest terms, saying he must by no means consider circulating such a pernicious document—fuel to the Whig fires hinting at a vengeful attitude that would further arouse the pro-Napoleon faction, and disgust the neutral element that would agree to safe incarceration, but not accept violent death. The petition, now three hundred signatures strong, was regretfully consigned to the filing cabinet. Bathurst himself was in poor aroma, and his godson clearly wished at Jericho. Only the inkwell retained its luster.

An unlikely ally for this troublesome lord was found in Biddy Boltwood. She cared nothing for either the petition or the schooner, but she did approve of a gentleman who required her professional services, and Sanford proved a virtual hypochondriac. He was plagued with a multitude of ailments from oncoming colds to headaches. It was the sprained ankle and scratched wrist that first endeared him to her. His quick recovery spoke well for her talents and his constitution, then with his little aches and pains they reached an easy footing. She was in the process of persuading him an occasional leeching would free him of that bit of bad blood that manifested itself in these free-floating maladies. He was not yet agreeable, but had relented to the extent of watching Sir Henry being leeched, and accepting that it didn’t hurt in the least.