Wrapped (30 page)

“Yes. And Showalter is a villain and lying incapacitated in his garden.”

Father looked at the heft of bronze in his hand, then back to me. “But how?”

“My associate, Mr. Stowe,” I said, gesturing toward Caedmon, “will be happy to explain if you should like to invite him in. But I really must change. Mother’s about to have a very strange day, and I shan’t compound it by turning up in David’s old things.”

I didn’t wait for a response. Instead I sprinted across the room, cracked the door a bit, and turned back to find both my father and Caedmon staring at me in confusion. Finding the hall deserted—the house emptied of servants searching for the two young interlopers who’d so disturbed Aunt Rachel—I bolted up the stairs to my room. As I closed the door to my chamber and slid into an exhausted heap on the floor, I wondered if there were any better circumstances for the man I loved and the father I adored to meet.

I had a suspicion there were not.

Chapter Twenty-five

A month passed.

An entire month wherein I did not see Caedmon.

But what a month it was. On June 18—just three days after we recovered Wepwawet’s standard—Napoleon suffered his first debilitating defeat at Waterloo.

All of London was wild with the news that the war had ended, that we would know peace at last. Fireworks that were usually reserved for other seasons erupted at all times of day and night in celebration.

Two skirmishes later, Wellington and the combined powers of the English and Prussian forces sent the tyrant packing. Napoleon signed abdication orders in Paris and was exiled once again. His defeat was so complete, and his armies so devastated, that the heavy guard posted around his prison was—according to every paper, politician, and letter from David—a redundancy. Bonaparte had been defeated before, but this time, he’d been
humiliated
.

But there were no fireworks for me. Nor for Caedmon. No one would ever know the service we’d performed for our country. Perhaps that’s what it meant to be a servant. Only if you failed or performed sloppily did people pay attention. When you were successful, you were invisible.

The celebrations continued. And the season and the pending debuts took on even greater significance. But I found very little to celebrate. Chiefly because aside from a single cryptic note from Caedmon reading
I’ll see you soon
, we’d had no contact at all since I left him in the study that morning.

“He’s bound to be busy with filing reports and things,” my father said evasively when I asked if he’d heard from Caedmon. “I’m sure he’ll turn up.”

I wasn’t convinced. In fact, I was beginning to worry that some danger had befallen Caedmon.

But slipping off to see him was out of the question.

After Father learned of how I’d taken advantage of Aunt Rachel and my lack of a proper chaperone, he remedied the situation accordingly. The morning after our adventure concluded, a Miss Dimslow appeared at the breakfast table. She explained that she’d been engaged by my father to serve as chaperone. I would have protested had he not also hired a new coachman to serve as my exclusive driver. And ultimately it was their startling similarities that made me doubt their real purpose in our household. There was none of the humility or subservience about them common to the other servants. Instead there was a vigilant awareness that bordered at times on protectiveness.

So eager were they to screen anyone approaching me that after a few failed attempts to visit Caedmon at the museum—the last trip resulting in the news that he had left the institution for a different position—I gave up trying to go out at all. I half worried that since we’d secured the standard, perhaps the affection and emotion we’d felt might evaporate. This thought and his absence so depressed me that I found myself moping about the house, unable to read or work or study. I wondered if love was always so troubling, if the kind of love you grew into was as fraught with potential for disappointment as the kind you fell into.

Mother, of course, misinterpreted the cause of my heartache.

Showalter had disappeared.

On one of the rare occasions that I had spoken to my father, he’d disclosed to me that men had been dispatched to collect Showalter within an hour of my arrival home, but found him gone. His servants and household staff were as bewildered as could be expected of people who’d lost both their
raison d’etre
and positions in one fell swoop.

His disappearance was a blow of sorts, but Tanner was collected from his sarcophagus at the museum, swearing and cursing upon his release before buttoning up and refusing to speak to interrogators. From what I’d gleaned as the weeks passed, he at last had begun to reveal his mission and connections, and confirmed Showalter’s true identity as a spy.

Father had also revealed to me that Lady Blalock had been implicated as an accomplice of Showalter and an agent of the French. Apparently the invention of his history and introduction into our society was entirely her work, and had been her primary achievement in the twenty years of service she’d given to France. She’d even colluded with Tanner and Showalter in organizing the attack on her own lady’s maid to make it seem as if her home too had been beset by the mummy’s curse.

Of course, the public would never know any of it. The explanations for Showalter’s disappearance ran the gamut from some torrid affair to the more fantastical version that held him as the last victim of the mummy’s curse. Lady Blalock was reported to have retired to a country estate in Wales to calm her nerves. Such a bizarre turn of events provided sufficient grist to keep London’s rumor mill spinning.

Whether I was jilted or tragic in London’s eyes, I did not care. I was pleased it meant I could be left alone and expected to be sour without consequence. Even Mother trod a wide and cautious path around me unless a dress fitting or other matter for the debut was absolutely necessary. And Rupert, in his way, offered his condolences. Chiefly this meant that he made some comment about the loss of all that lovely money, but beneath it, I chose to believe he felt some semblance of pity for his sister.

No one pitied me enough to spare me the presentation, however. Though after a month of being sequestered in my room, enduring Mother’s concern and Miss Dimslow’s ever-vigilant presence, I actually found myself looking forward to the event we’d been preparing for. I’d never been to the palace, and I’d never seen the prince regent, so though it wasn’t half as exciting as what I’d been doing a few weeks ago, it was at least something.

So at the appointed time, I found myself in my presentation gown, lined up with so much other silk and lace just outside a ballroom at the palace.

“You look remarkably well, Agnes,” Julia said to me as we gathered in the hallway outside the grand room.

I wasn’t sure if she meant in spite of my ordeal or if she was simply paying me a compliment. “Thank you, Julia. And so do you.” We did look beautiful, and under different circumstances, I’d have been thrilled to be here, to be sharing this moment with her, to be as perfect as Mother had been preparing me to be in a dress that was made in every detail for me. . . .

But it all felt a bit hollow. A bit like it was missing something. As if the story I was about to settle into would always pale next to the memory of the brief, wonderful chapter I’d just concluded. Would there ever be that kind of adventure? That feeling of partnership? That . . . love?

“I’m so sorry about Showalter,” Julia said quietly, nervously fingering the gold pendant at her neck.

I leaned in close and whispered into her ear. “I’m not.”

She drew back wide-eyed in shock at my words. But when I smiled and winked, she relaxed and began to giggle. “Is it speaking ill of the missing or whatever he is to say that I never thought him your equal?”

Father had sworn me to secrecy on Showalter’s true nature, but this once, I couldn’t resist. “Nothing you say about him could be too unkind.”

At that, Julia shook her head. “I should be upset with you for making it harder for the rest of us again.”

“You’ll find someone perfect,” I said to her. “And Rupert will let himself be caught soon enough if you’ll consent to have him. Besides, I’m beginning to wonder if I’ll marry at all.”

“Agnes Wilkins! Don’t say such things!”

I laughed. But the doors opened and I saw the porter whisper to someone standing inside the room, who then turned and announced the first girl in our procession.

“Miss Emily Woodhouse!” he shouted, as a terrified and glamorous young woman stepped forward into the ballroom and passed from our sight.

“I’m so glad I didn’t have to go first,” Julia said after a long silence in which we imagined the girl making her way through the room.

I nodded. “Suddenly I just want to remain out here—”

“Miss Agnes Wilkins!” the voice boomed.

Oh dear.

I stepped out of my place in line and shot a nervous backward glance at Julia. She smiled encouragingly and clapped her gloved hands silently.

And it began. Faces of every age stared as I did my best to sail down the open pathway in the center of the ballroom. I caught Mother beaming in the crowd about halfway down. Rupert stood behind her, and I daresay even
he
looked a bit proud.

Father was nowhere to be seen.

Most of the other faces I saw as I moved toward the prince seated at the far end of the room belonged to strangers. My train glided on the polished marble floor behind me, and I was glad that Mother had relented on the longer one, glad that I didn’t add to the spectacle of the moment by requiring someone else to come along behind me to carry the end of my dress.

And then there were the faces of the young men and other chaperones. They bore the same appraising looks I’d seen when Father had let me accompany him to a horse auction when I was small. The feel of their eyes and the thought of the judgments they formed in their minds made me want to turn and bolt from the hall, leaving every one of them behind.

But this was the life I was born to. The one I’d prepared for. And aside from my recent adventure, it would be the only one I’d ever know.

I told myself I should feel blessed to have an audience with the prince regent. Not every debutante enjoyed such a privilege. But as I drew nearer and my nerves grew more frayed, my anger grew warmer at the injustice of it all. I was having very little fun by the time I curtsied deeply just a few feet from where the prince stood.

I studied the gleaming floor below. Saw my face and the width of my dress reflected back at me and waited. Waited for the prince regent, the sovereign of England, to dismiss me and commend me into adulthood, marriage, children . . . duty.

But instead of merely nodding and smiling as I was told he would do, the prince moved toward me.

A current rippled through the crowd behind me.

But still His Excellency moved forward. I kept my eyes down, staring at the gleaming leather of his fine boots as whispers grew to murmurs.

And suddenly the prince spoke low in my ear.

“Well done, Miss Wilkins,” he said simply. “Extremely well done.”

I was so confused that I forced myself to look up at his face. His expression remained that royal mix of stoicism and superiority, but his eyes sparkled. He gave a slight nod, and then leaned in again.

“There’s someone eager to meet you in the salon. An escort is awaiting you through the door to your left. There will be a distraction. Take your opportunity to exit then.”

I nodded, unsure of what else to do but rise from my curtsy. He took two steps backward as I retreated slowly away and moved to join the first girl, who was now positioned against a bank of open doors lining the west wall. I could feel her staring at me, wondering what I’d done to merit the breach in the evening’s prescribed events.

I avoided her gaze and the stares of the rest of the room. The porter announced another girl, but half the eyes in the room stayed fixed on me. How was I ever to slip out?

Four more girls were announced and entered until we were standing in a cluster at the side of the room. I made sure to position myself in the rear of this small pack, my back to the door. But still I felt the stares of the crowd, even the sideways glances of the other girls, all wondering what the prince had said to me, why he’d singled me out.

And still I waited for the promised distraction. Just when I was sure I had missed it, the porter announced the next girl. I looked up to see her standing in the doorway, saw her take her first steps into the room.

But I saw something else. I saw the poor girl’s train find its way beneath the foot of the porter, saw the girl lurch when the fabric held fast, pinned against the floor, her arms flying out as she fell into the crowd of onlookers.

And I couldn’t be sure, but I thought I saw the porter wink.

Certainly I couldn’t hope for a greater opportunity. All eyes were now on the unfortunate girl, which meant that no one observed my exit.

I slipped as quietly as I could through the doorway. It was more difficult than usual owing to that infernal train, but I managed without being seen. And if I had been, I hoped anyone paying attention would chalk it up to nerves at my strange preferential treatment by the prince regent.