The Shadow of Albion (26 page)

Misbourne would have mentioned such a disastrous development.

But no. Ripon’s pretty catspaw was spending her days in the company of

Wessex’s betrothed.

„I may be able to whistle the Marchioness to heel,“ Wessex said slowly, „or at

least gain her attention. I doubt she’d obey any order I gave, but if I were to object

to the connection between her and Ripon’s niece, the ensuing brawl might at least

lend the matter a publicity that Ripon seems unwilling for it to have.“

Misbourne regarded Wessex for a long moment, his grey eyes as bright and pale

as glass.

„No,“ Misbourne said at last. „The vixen is out of her earth. We must see how

she runs,“ Misbourne said.

Chapter 12

The Marriage of True Minds

On June 15, 1805, at the Chapel Royal in St. James Palace, Rupert St. Ives Dyer,

Captain His Grace the Duke of Wessex, took in holy matrimony Sarah Marie Eloise

Aradia Dowsabelle Conyngham, Marchioness of Roxbury. The groom was

formidably correct in a dove-grey waistcoat, biscuit-colored knee-breeches, and a

dark blue coat; the bride was resplendent in cloth-of-silver. The King himself

presented the bride to her groom, as the Marchioness was an orphan and – by the

sheerest of technicalities – His Majesty’s ward.

Though the wedding party itself was quite small, one hundred and fifty covers

had been laid for the wedding breakfast that was held at the Marchioness’s own

property of Herriard House. Every delicacy and novelty that a small army of cooks

could provide had been produced for the delight of the guests, including a small

rainbow of jellies, and ices in every flavor imaginable.

By popular consensus, it was a very merry occasion.

Rather sourly, the Duke of Wessex wished that Illya Koscuisko was here to enjoy

it. In fact, he wished that Koscuisko were here in his stead, and that he himself were

at the devil.

This was a mistake. Regardless of his grandmother’s wishes – or his monarch’s

– Wessex should not have married Roxbury. He’d known it the moment he entered

the chapel and saw the girl standing beside the altar, an opulent and gleaming ghost

in a dress that made her look as if she were formed of ice and steel. She had looked

as stricken as if she were to be shot, and his sympathy with her feelings had made

Wessex smile encouragingly at her. He could not tell if she had noticed.

Then had come the ceremony, and every word of it had hammered home the

awful finality of what he was doing. Once they two were wed, only an Act of

Parliament could undo the marriage again.

But once begun, there was no stopping the ceremony – and then the thing was

done, and when Wessex kissed his bride, her lips were as cold as the ice her gown

so resembled. Fortunately, she was not given the time to speak her mind about their

wedding as the party dispersed from the church steps into breakfast-bound

carriages, and afterward, Wessex had seen to it that she had no chance to approach

him again. Tonight the happy couple were to sleep at Dyer House, as generations of

Dukes and their Duchesses had before them, but – as Wessex’s partner often said –

they would bum that bridge when they came to it. Meanwhile, there was enough

champagne flowing to drown the entire Imperial Guard in, and Wessex vowed that

he would founder on it.

If he did not quite manage that, he succeeded in drinking enough to insulate him

nicely from the wedding toasts that he was forced to receive.- Possibly he even

smiled at his bride. But while Wessex had often been a ready executioner in the

service of King and Country, he’d never taken any joy in it. And by any honest

account, he was ruining his new Duchess’s life quite thoroughly. After all, she had

married a spy, the lowest of the low. If his clandestine activities for the White Tower

Group ever came to light, it would not be the hero’s laurel that awaited Wessex but

the martyr’s crown – and an eternity of shame for his family that its head should

have behaved in so thoroughly despicable a fashion.

And if that were not bad enough, his unfortunate Duchess was married to a man

who had not the slightest intention of continuing his tainted line. She could, Wessex

knew, gain an annulment if she could prove that (and if he had made enough enemies

of the right sort in the interim). Perhaps, in a few years, that would be a way out for

both of them, though that scandal, too, would be killing.

And then again, he could die.

Wessex felt his spirits lift. That possibility hadn’t actually occurred to him before,

but in his line of work it was a very real one. If he died, his shameful secrets could

die with him, his widow could respectably remarry, and his grandmother need never

know what a creature her grandson had become. Under the influence of far too

much of the finest vintage champagne, Wessex became convinced that his death in

action was the best of all possible outcomes, solving all his problems in the neatest

fashion conceivable.

He would have to arrange it.

Just as soon as Jamie was safely married, and that damned treaty signed.

But first, he had to manage to get through his wedding night….

* * *

Sarah, now Duchess of Wessex, sat bolt upright in the bridal bed, just as she had

been left, watching the heavy bedcurtains sway gently closed from where Knoyle had

let them fall a moment before. Light from the chamberstick that had been left burning

on a side table winkled through tiny pinholes in the ancient fabric, and could be seen

as a thin slice of light where the faded scarlet silk had not quite been pulled shut.

She heard her abigail’s steps fade as the woman left the room, and when that

sound had vanished completely, Sarah could still hear all the other sounds Dyer

House made as it settled upon its foundations. The sound of her new husband

ascending the stair to join his bride, however, was not among them.

Secure now in the knowledge that Knoyle would not return-and catch her

behaving in some mysteriously un-bridal fashion, Sarah pushed back the curtain and

slipped out of bed. Her cashmire shawl lay across the back of a nearby chair; she

picked it up and swirled it about herself.

The rooms of Dyer House were tiny, and though this back bedroom was one of

the grandest the house could boast, its ceiling gorgeously painted with a daylight

view of the dome of St. Paul’s wreathed in cherubs and heavenly light, that same

painted ceiling slanted dizzyingly down toward the windows in the back wall, making

Sarah feel almost as if she needed to duck her head to reach them. The window’s

antique catches were tricky things, but after a moment’s work Sarah flung the

windows open and leaned out.

The night air was heavy with the river damp, and fog had curled in off the

Thames, misting the air around her and making the ground impossible to see. It was

very late; a full moon rode the sky like an argent tea-tray, its light striking the fog and

turning familiar shapes into the terrain of a frosted unreal otherworld out of which

anything might come. Outside the narrow windows that opened onto the house’s

tiny back garden all of nighttime London could be heard going about its occupations

as it readied itself for the morning. Sarah could hear the clip-clop of horse’s hooves

on the cobbled streets, the faint distorted cry of the Thames boatmen plying their

river trade…

Where was Wessex?

Inexplicably, Sarah felt deserted. It was not that she had a. personal interest in

her new husband, of course. Her emotions were most certainly not engaged; that

would be foolish, when (by his every word and gesture he had indicated that theirs

was to be a marriage of convenience only; the convenience to be King Henry’s. But

even so, it was slightly embarrassing to misplace one’s bridegroom upon one’s

wedding night.

Suppose he did not mean to come at all?

That would suit her just as well, Sarah declared to herself, but she would like to

know at once, and not have to lie awake wondering if her sleep would be disturbed

by the sudden arrival of a stranger in her bedroom. Which was certainly what His

Grace of Wessex was to the former Miss Sarah Cunningham of Baltimore….

No. She was – she had been – Sarah Conyngham, the Marchioness of Roxbury.

Lady Roxbury. She was the mistress of Mooncoign, and Mooncoign was hers, hers

and her daughters’, so long as the Pledge were kept.

Roxbury had sworn. But she had not sworn. And she was not bound to the

land….

Sarah rubbed her aching head, feeling a sudden wave of utter weariness crest over

her. Her day had started before dawn, and it was now nearly midnight. She was as

tired as she could ever remember having been, and her nightly dose of strengthening

cordial had been forgotten in all the excitement, the bottle left behind in her bedroom

in Herriard House. No wonder she was so confused that not only who she was, but

where she ought to be was scattered and obscured in her mind.

A breeze purling in through the window made the flame of the chamberstick

dance and swirl. The painted London on the ceiling seemed to tower and shimmer

above her, as if at any moment the image might alter into another landscape entirely.

Sarah groaned and closed her eyes tightly, leaning her head on the cool painted sill. ‘

She’d eaten very little at the wedding breakfast – fine name for a party that had

stretched on until a scant few hours ago! – and drunk several glasses of smuggled

French champagne to make up for it. No wonder she felt unwell.

Sarah slunk across the room and sat down in the chair, drawing her feet up

beneath her to save them from the floor’s chill. Cocooned in her caslimire shawl, she

contemplated events. If he wasn’t here – never mind „why“ just now – where was

he? She’d lost track of her new husband during the festivities at Herriard House, but

he’d known she was going to Dyer House – he’d insisted upon it, in fact; some

fugitive flare of amour propre in His Grace rebelling against beginning his marriage

beneath his wife’s roof. Around the time the lanterns were lit, Sarah had been happy

to leave for Dyer House at the Dowager’s urging, and naturally had expected

Wessex to follow at once – the man was such a painful pattern-card of virtue that

Sarah had assumed he would do precisely as anticipated upon every occasion.

Except, apparently, upon this one.

But as the hours had passed, and Sarah’s elaborate wedding toilette had been

dismantled, Wessex still had not arrived, and somehow she could not bring herself

to ask the Dowager where her grandson – Sarah’s husband – was.

Which thought brought Sarah back to this room, to an aching head and a rapidly

increasing sense of unreality.

It didn’t look as if Wessex was going to put in an appearance any time soon, or

perhaps at all; Sarah was certain that Langley had long since barred the outside door,

so unless the man could scale the wall to Sarah’s third-floor window, he was

doomed to spend the night on the street. Which was where (if nowhere worse) his

bride wished him, if anyone were interested.

The candle had burned more than halfway to its socket when Sarah sighed and

shook herself, and climbed stiffly back into bed. Why had he not come? He’d

insisted upon this marriage – he’d offered her his ring and his name – why make a

fool of her?

Why?

The rosepink room was filled with candles and mirrors, and with tables draped in

white linen cloths upon which decks of gaudy pasteboard and rouleaus of golden

guineas vied for pride of place. Fortunes had changed hands here upon the turn of a

card, and men whose families had been destroyed by the tables had slunk from these

precincts to end their lives in the waters of the Thames or the privacy of their own

libraries. The room remained unchanged.

The establishment was called Garvin’s, and the man in the corner had been there

since midnight. An empty decanter of whiskey sat at his elbow, and he was one of

the few patrons in the salon who had not taken me opportunity to exchange his

fashionable coat for one of the linen dusters provided by the establishment for the

comfort of its patrons. It was now after four o’clock of a new spring morning, and

he was still mere, playing as mechanically and as desperately as if faro were his only

hope of salvation. Onlookers thought it odd, since His Grace of Wessex had been

winning consistently since he sat down.

In a lull in the play, a sharp-eyed servant whisked me empty decanter away and

replaced it with a fresh one. His Grace affected not to notice.

Garvin’s was only one of several clubs to which His Grace of Wessex belonged,