The Shadow of Albion (18 page)

scarlet against their demure backdrop. The cravat was a matter of some concern, but

his grace favored a simple style and achieved it upon the first attempt.

Atheling cast an inquiring glance toward the repository of his grace’s coats, only

to be warned off with a small shake of the head. His grace would select his other

accessories first, and with quick decision chose a watch, a fob, a dangling seal, and

a small gold cravat pin, all of which were no more than the mere ornaments they

seemed to be. He then slipped the ducal signet upon his finger and closed the

shallow drawer with finality.

The choosing of a deep-pocketed coat of claret-colored superfine was almost an

anticlimax, and indeed, Wessex regarded it only slightly. His sojourn with the Army

had made him perhaps more cavalier about such matters of tonnish importance than

his fellows.

Wessex turned a bleak eye upon the cabinet with its myriad niches, and for a brief

fervent moment wished he were back with his men – fleas, bad water, chilblains, and

all.

A discreet clearing of Atheling’s throat called his grace back to himself.

„Breakfast, one supposes,“ said Wessex. „And the morning post at last.“

His grace was not, customarily, a strong believer in breakfast, and if he had been

he would certainly have, on this occasion at least, allowed the meal to wait upon the

post.

With a strong cup of bitter chocolate at his elbow, and the prospect of buttered

muffins in the not-too-distant future, his grace turned to the contents of the heaped

silver salver with the keen interest of a hound on the scent.

The topmost letter, on lilac vellum insistently redolent of a lily-scent bordering

upon the funereal, Wessex tossed unopened into the fire of sea-coals burning on the

grate. He felt no compunction about doing this; Ivah only wrote to ask for money,

and Wessex felt he had already subsidized her pleasures liberally enough. God knew

a liaison with a woman of his own class was unthinkable, but there were limits to

how far he would lower himself. Mrs. Archer was a good deal coarser than she had

originally appeared in the social circles where she and Wessex had first met.

Wessex frowned over the matter momentarily, and then dismissed it. A parting

gift, an intimation that the acquaintance would not bear furthering, would end the

connection simply enough. His mind was already elsewhere as he turned to the next

items.

Bills: from Tattersall’s and Weston’s, Asprey’s and Talmadge’s; from his

cellarer, his tobacconist, his glovemaker. Wessex put them all aside, to be settled

punctually at the quarter-day. The Duke of Wessex had an unaristocratic promptness

about settling his accounts. Wessex’s status as a player in the Game of Shadows

meant his existence was at constant risk; he had no wish to burden his current heir –

a scholarly and rather absent-minded cousin – with his debts.

If Wessex died without issue, that heir would inherit neither ducal debts nor ducal

coronet; the ducal creation was entirely explicit that the title of Duke of Wessex

might descend only through the direct line. But the family’s earldom would continue,

and the new Earl of Scathach would hardly mourn the omission of ducal honors; the

earldom was both old and rich. The Scathach family seat, Lymondhythe, was

nestled in the wild and beautiful Cheviot Hills, and his cousin and heir presumptive

was already installed there by Wessex’s own wish, not to be dislodged even if

Wessex did manage in some unthinkable manner to produce an heir for the

dukedom.

Wessex shook his head at the unwonted direction of his thoughts. There was

something about wakening at odd hours that drove a man’s mind to freakish fancies

– that, and the recent unexpected meeting with his quondam betrothed. It was

fortunate that Roxbury apparently had no more desire to lose her freedom than

Wessex did to end it Now what was in this pile of paper that had so maddened

Atheling?

Ruthlessly Wessex drove through the rest of the morning’s post: cards of

invitation to parties certain to be deadly dull; two thick bundles of letter that had

come by hand after faring far in diplomatic pouches –

Ah. This was it. A faint sunny odor of orange blossom clung to the paper, just as

it did to her clothes.

She did not write often, this remarkable woman who had been the center of

Wessex’s whole existence after his mother had died. When his unique gifts had

called him to a wider stage, they had agreed that letters were very nearly pointless; he

could not, for safety’s sake, even hint to her of how he spent his days, and the

circumscribed sphere in which she still moved would seem merely petty to him after

his worldly journeyings. Instead, they chose to hold their feeling for one another a

thing apart: not to buried in exchanges freighted with the minutiae of daily life, but to

be savored on the rare occasions when they could be companionably together, as

they had been before his father had followed his mother into Hades’, chill kingdom.

Wessex paused on the verge of tearing open The letter from his grandmother.

Why should she write him here?

He had not been to Bath to spend Christmas with her; he had, in fact, been

peculiarly elsewhere for Christmas. It was not their custom to announce their

comings and goings to one another; in fact, though the billet had not been franked,

placing her in Town, until this moment he had possessed every reason to suppose

the Dowager Duchess to be residing in Bath, as was her unvarying custom during the

winter months. In turn, it ought to have been impossible for her to direct a letter to.

his Albany rooms with any degree of certainty that he would receive the missive;

Wessex had returned from France less than a week ago, and to his Town residence

only last night.

Interesting. Interesting enough for Atheling to awaken him. Wessex tore open the

packet and read his grandmother’s letter carefully. His faint inquiring frown became

a black glare of puzzlement and then a stare of stupefied horror as he read the brief

missive first once, then twice.

The Dowager required his presence Thursday, at half-past two of the clock, for

tea. There was no explanation for the request, extraordinary in its uniqueness, simply

the unadorned summons.

And the Thursday she required him for was today.

„Atheling!“ A spasm of sheer panic took momentary possession of his grace. He

rose to his feet, all thought of breakfast banished.

The manservant, still swaddled in the apron he donned to perform the more

domestic of his duties, appeared in an instant.

„I have been mistaken,“ his grace said austerely. „This coat will not suit. And I

shall not be riding today.“

Sarah Conyngham, Lady Roxbury – which was to say, she reminded herself,

Marchioness of Roxbury in her own right – gazed in exasperated amusement about

the dressing-room of her London townhouse. Every available inch of me room was

jammed with trunks, some of which hadn’t been out of the Long Attic at Mooncoign

since – so the servants had been happy to inform her – Sarah’s grandmother’s day.

Perhaps, Sarah thought, she had not adequately informed Knoyle of her

destination. Perhaps the abigail had thought she was preparing her mistress for a

journey to Timbucktoo, It had been only three days since the masquerade ball at

Mooncoign, but fortunately Sarah had not been forced to attempt to pack up an

entire great household and shift it fifty miles norm in that time. No, Lady Roxbury’s

annual move to Town had been on the servants’ mind for many weeks, with many

trunks, boxes, bundles, and packages sent forward at the first moment that the roads

would permit.

Thus it had been easy enough on the morning following me ball, as soon as Sarah

discovered that neither Wessex nor his companion Illya Koscuisko had delivered

their prisoner to the County Magistrate nor returned to any house in the vicinity, to

order her coach and depart for London a l’instant.

But the bumpy three-day trip to London in her own heavy coach had given Sarah

time to consider the matter in more depth. Even if she did manage to find Wessex,

what could she say to him? The man Gambit had undoubtedly already vanished into

London’s teeming thousands, no matter what fate Wessex had decreed for him. And

whatever fate that might be, what did it matter to her?

That was the puzzle. Sarah had not been in the least enamored of Wessex upon

their first or subsequent meetings, yet she felt a pressing need to see him again,

though she could not precisely say why. She purely and simply felt an odd

compulsion to be in his presence.

Odd, indeed. She had no fondness for the man, after all – and the Marchioness of

Roxbury had no need to wait upon even the Duke of Wessex’s pleasure!

Her feelings of uncertainty had been nearly banished in the excitement and frights

of the evening of the ball and the bustle of removing to Town. Each day she grew

more comfortable, more confident in her role as Lady Roxbury, and ceased to

wonder at the strange blanks in her memory. Anything that she forgot, one of the

servants happily supplied – as did her guests, each more eager than the last to finish

her sentences for her.

So all was well.

Sarah regarded the toe of one sensible jean boot peeping from beneath the hem of

her sober-colored morning dress. The stout grey-blue gown with its demure broidery

of pimpernels worked upon the bodice was all very well for travel, but would not do

as something in which to present herself before the dazzling flame of London

Society and the glittering rowdiness of King Henry IX’s Stuart Court.

Or even before her godmama.

The missive had been waiting when Sarah had arrived at Herriard House. As new

as Mooncoign was old, Herriard House stood far to the West in Picadilly, facing

Hyde Park across Park Lane with a formidable Palladian frontis faced all in white

marble. Behind it stood Grosvenor Square, and only a few minutes north was High

Holborn, the road that ran between London and Oxford. From here Sarah could

survey all of Society and could reign over that small insular kingdom with imperial

dominion-providing always, of course, that Sarah took care not to alienate those

even more powerful than she.

The Dowager Duchess of Wessex must certainly be counted among those

potentates. Though Sarah’s godmother had retired from Society upon the death of

her son, she was still influential, and if she chose to oppose Sarah –

Oh, don’t be a chudhead, Sarah! The Dowager is your godmama; she has

always been partial to you. Didn’t she send Dame Alecto to you when you tangled

your phaeton with the Bristol coach?

Didn’t she?

But the rallying words failed to achieve their desired effect. Her memory remained

frustratingly blank, and still weary from the rigors of the road – for her coach had

arrived in London only a scant few hours before-– Sarah picked up the billet of

stiff, cream-colored vellum from her writing table and read it over once more.

„The Dowager Duchess of Wessex requests the favor of your presence at tea on

Thursday, the 25 th of April – “

Today.

At the appointed hour Wessex presented himself at Dyer House, alighting with

formidable correctitude from a hired chaise, since his grace kept no carriage and

would not stoop to the unpardonable solecism of presenting himself before his

grandmother in his riding dress. The butler who opened the door to him was old and

frail, a man who had grown old in the family’s service – not as robust a party as the

Duke could have liked to have seen guarding the portals of Dyer House.

Nevertheless, His Grace gifted Langley with his greatcoat and curly-brimmed

high-crowned beaver, flourished his amber-headed walking stick, and ascended to

the first-floor parlor without comment.

Dyer House was dim even at midday. It took his grace a moment to see that there

was someone besides Dame Alecto with the Dowager; another woman.

Then he recognized his grandmother’s guest, and only long years of iron

self-discipline allowed him to maintain a mask of well-bred composure. „Grandanne,

Madame,“ Wessex said, bowing to botfi ladies.

Apparently not caring to conceal her feelings from him, Sarah, Marchioness of

Roxbury, stared back at Wessex in horror.

„Ah,“ said the Dowager, „so here you are at last, Wessex. You are acquainted

with Lady Roxbury, are you not? Yes, of course you are; you’ve been betrothed to

her for – how many years is it now?“ The Dowager paused, but neither Wessex nor