The Shadow of Albion (11 page)

innocence. He was brooding over that matter as he rode up Mooncoign’s long drive

an hour later.

In the light of early afternoon, Mooncoign’s northern facade, faced all in white

stone, shone with a brilliant light Mooncoign’s roof was edged in crouching stone

figures that – to Wessex’s jaundiced eye – looked ready to take wing and fly. Three

generations of Roxburys had so enlarged the house that its consequence rivaled that

of Blenheim Palace.

He was not, upon his admission to the house, much in a mood to be told that

Lady Roxbury was not receiving visitors.

* * *

Sarah tossed fretfully in her half-sleep, a bitter taste lingering on her tongue.

Bizarre images capered through her dreaming mind: fantastic horses dressed in

plumes; a black-lacquered coach with its dead-lights burning. She was… She was…

She was Sarah.

But disparate images accompanied the naming: a quiet young woman, dressed in

beaded buckskins – a painted lady, dressed in satins and jewels.

Which was she? Which was Sarah?

Sarah groaned and opened her eyes. Above her head stretched an unfamiliar

canopy of embroidered silk with bullion fringe. Memories of the recent past crashed

and collided in her brain, making her whimper aloud with vertigo.

She remembered the crash – yes, the aftermath of it was clear enough now – the

screams of mangled horses and the wails of injured passengers – the sickening pain

in her head. Everything before that was grotesquely clouded, but the aftermath was

relatively clear: Mrs. Bulford, in whose house she’d awakened; a man named

Falconer – whose words had been utterly baffling but whose tone had conveyed

both anger and disappointment; the ride in the coach back to her – her? – home.

This isn’t my home, Sarah thought with chill fear. I don’t belong here. But of

course she did. Of course it was. Everyone had told her so… at least she thought

they had.

Sarah sat up, stretching muscles that protested days of disuse. She rubbed at her

eyes; the voluminous sleeves of sheer muslin that trailed from her arms made her

look down at her gown; the nightdress, of a muslin so fine it was called nun’s

veiling, was elaborately tucked and embroidered, dozens of yards of material going

to make up the costly and etherial gown she wore. Numbly, Sarah stared at the

sleeve as one transfixed. It seemed wrong, somehow: not evil, but out of place, like a

frog in a butterchurn –

Galvanized by her own disquiet, Sarah swung her legs over the side of the bed

and stood, a renewed bout of dizziness making her clutch at the heavy bed curtains

to steady herself. Breathing deeply and carefully, Sarah looked around the deserted

room.

Her gaze was drawn inexorably to the portrait above the mantlepiece, where a

woman in a most indecent gown and a face painted until it was only a white mask

looked down at Sarah with a challenging gaze that Sarah could see in the looking

glass any time she chose. Were they related? The painted woman’s jewel-covered

fingers held a key, a dagger, and a rose, items that held no familiarity for Sarah.

As if of their own volition, her hands flew to her bosom, but the comforting lump

of her father’s ring was not there.

The ring!

Casting aside all other worries, Sarah tore the room apart until she found the ring,

set aside in a drawer by her bedside. Quickly she worked the catch, rotating the

black stone until the enamelled unicorn and the King’s Oak were revealed on its

silvery obverse, and gazed on the image with relief. No matter what else was hidden

from her, this memory was real and true.

The blue ribbon she had worn the ring on was gone; hesitantly Sarah tried the ring

on all her fingers, until she settled it upon the forefinger of her left hand. At least this

treasure was still with her.

But why should she think that? All she owned was with her: this was Mooncoign,

her home.

Sarah raised her hands to rub her throbbing temples. Alien luxury beguiled her

upon every side, but her gaze was drawn longingly to the window, beyond which

Mooncoign’s lavish mock-wilderness was visible, bright emerald in the midday

English sun.

It is not the real woodland, it is false, just as everything else about this…

mummery, Sarah thought sulkily.

Yes, that was it! All this was false, unreal, a playlet all enacted for her benefit in

which none of its actors believed. All these people treating her with outlandish

deference, granting her impossible titles… it was a game.

But who played this game, and why? Sarah stared through the enormous windows

and saw no answer waiting beyond the lavish expanse of glass. Her certainty began

to fade back into troubled confusion, and she became slowly aware that for the last

several minutes she had been hearing a gradually increasing commotion through the

great oak door that led to the world outside.

„To the devil with her headache – I will see the woman!“ a strange male voice

shouted, just as the door flew open.

Sarah stared.

The stranger had the night-black eyes of a fallen angel, and his moon-cream hair

was brushed straight back and held at the nape of his neck with a black ribbon. He

was dressed in a neat coat of blue superfine, white buckskin inexpressibles, and

gleaming tasselled Hessians – riding clothes. He still wore a pair of Cork tan gloves

and carried a silver-headed crop, and as he moved, light flashed from the gemmed

pin in his cravat. Sarah stared at him, enchanted in the oldest sense of the word.

Incredibly, the stranger blushed, staring at her billowing and all-concealing muslin

nightgown and averting his eyes hastily.

„I – Your pardon, Lady Roxbury. I did not – I shall await you – Pray excuse

me.“

While Sarah was still belatedly registering the fact of his arrival, the Duke of

Wessex removed himself to her sitting-room, closing the door swiftly behind him.

Wessex stood in Lady Roxbury’s withdrawing chamber, striving to master the

flush of sheer mortification that stained his cheeks. The manner of the aristocracy

was quite free-and-easy, but there were still well-defined limits. Wessex was aware

he had passed one of those limits by bursting in upon an unmarried female who was

en deshabille, and he did not care for the sense of humiliation it gave him.

And Lady Roxbury’s astonishment had only added to his sense of culpability.

When he had stormed into her chamber, the Marchioness of Roxbury had been

standing clinging to one of the velvet bed curtains, her muslin nightgown sliding

down her narrow shoulders. Her light brown hair spilled about her arms, and her pale

skin was bare of paint. She looked much smaller than he had remembered her as

being, and far more vulnerable.

As he waited impatiently for the Marchioness to emerge - for what else could he

do, after all, having burst in to her private chambers like a man demented? – Wessex

heard the outer door to the withdrawing room open. A fragile old woman – who

nevertheless conveyed the indefinable imperious air of a very superior servant indeed

– appeared.

„What is your business here, sir?“ the woman asked with the fierceness of a

mother hen protecting her only chick. Through the open door behind her, Wessex

could see a brace of stout footmen hovering, obviously hoping their assistance

would be required.

„I have come to pay my respects to your mistress,“ Wessex said. „Pray enquire if

she will receive me,“ he added, as blandly as if he had not just rudely accosted Lady

Roxbury minutes before. „Tell her that her bridegroom has come to pay her a call.“

Wessex disliked trading upon that future affiliation, particularly as he was not

entirely certain he intended to honor the betrothal, but it was imperative that he speak

to the Marchioness. He only hoped that after a singularly inauspicious beginning, the

notoriously touchy Lady Roxbury would condescend to grant him an interview at all.

„I… shall enquire, Your Grace,“ the old woman said reluctantly, and disappeared

into the Marchioness’s bedroom. The door closed behind her with an audible

thump; her appearance of fragile old age was obviously illusion only.

Wessex turned and closed the outer door in the footmen’s faces, then

shamelessly approached the inner door, seeking to eavesdrop on the conversation

within the Marchioness’s bedroom. But it was a fruitless attempt; the door was too

thick for even murmurs to reach him.

Gardner seemed nearly as surprised as Sarah to see her on her feet, though Sarah

clung to one of me bedposts to steady herself.

„My lady,“ Gardner said, and sank automatically into a stiff curtsey. „I shall bring

Dame Alecto.“

The automatic flash of alarm sparked Sarah to feign a vitality she did not feel.

„Why?“ she asked coolly. „I am perfectly recovered. Pray tell me, Nurse, who

was that man?“

„I shall send him away at once,“ Gardner promised. „My lady, you are far from

well. The stress of the accident – “

„That was several days ago,“ Sarah said. The confusion in her mind was as

strong as ever, but so was the need to – not escape, precisely, but to be mistress of

her fate. „And my…“ She hesitated, but the ideas were there when she groped for

them. „My guests will wish to see me, after all. Bring me my clothes.“

„But my lady,“ Gardner protested again. Sarah said nothing, and after a few

moments she saw the old nurse’s indignation soften into defeat.

„Very well, Lady Roxbury. I shall send Knoyle to you so that you may dress.“

A victory, but Sarah did not have the leisure to luxuriate in it. „And tell that man I

will see him, once I have dressed,“ she instructed the nurse. Whoever he was, he

might hold the key to the mystery that surrounded her.

Chapter 6

A Masquerade in Shadows

The Marchioness would receive him the moment she was dressed, Wessex

allowed himself to be conveyed by the house’s butler to a bedchamber in the

bachelor’s wing of the house, where a servant took away his coat and boots to be

brushed and polished, and Wessex made what repairs to his toilette he could with

the time and materials available to him. Fortunately, when he was finished, the figure

gazing back at him from the mirror far more resembled the Duke of Wessex than the

madcap Chevalier de Reynard or any of his spiritual cousins. Thank God he had

worn his signet ring, as befit a man of his station – his betrothed was rumored to be

notoriously high in the instep, insisting on all observances due her exalted rank.

Wessex gazed upon his reflection, drawing upon himself as surely as any role the

trappings of his own life. As some might say, his real life.

Reflexively, his fingers caressed the stone of the massive ring he wore on his left

hand, and he smiled, for Lady Roxbury would never appreciate the true meaning of

this signet.

At his practiced touch, the carnelian cut with the crowned salamander of the

Wessex dukedom lifted up and out on an armature that had seemed, moments

before, to be the rim of the bezel. Under Wessex’s control, the engraved gemstone

spun to reveal a device that only twelve men and one woman in the realm were

privileged to carry.

In precise, exquisite enamelwork, an oak tree in summer foliage glowed against a

silvery field. At its foot, a unicorn slept, its head upon the ground. In the branches, a

crown in glory burned.

Boscobel – the King’s Oak. And a symbol of loyalties that might at any moment

be divided.

The League’s founder had seen his father, Charles the First of England, executed

by those for whom he ruled; had himself spent long years of penurious exile in all the

courts of Europe while his birthright suffered beneath Cromwell’s iron heel. When

Charles Stuart had come into his own again he had been balked at every turn by

Lords and Commons determined that the Crown of England would dance to their

piping, and not they to that of any King.

And so Charles Stuart – King Charles II of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales

– had danced, smiling and bowing and keeping his tongue behind his teeth as he

painstakingly forged the sword to defend England against herself at need. The

Boscobel League: twelve men and one woman, never more and never less – each

new member chosen by his predecessor and approved by the King. Drawn from the

highest and lowest in the land, loyal to King – or Queen – before Country.

It was by the decree of their Royal founder that the League’s numbers should not