Wrapped (7 page)

“I—”

His words came in a tumble. “You probably think me brash for inviting you under such a cloud as the one that has settled on our street, but I confess that I’m afraid that if I do not move swiftly, I may not have another opportunity.”

Now my head positively swam. Showalter, it appeared, was in even more of a hurry than Mother.

“She’ll have to speak with Mother,” Rupert broke in. I was grateful for his intrusion, grateful that it gave me a moment to think.

Showalter turned toward him. “Of course. I would expect nothing less. And we would bring her along, or some other suitable chaperone. You, perhaps?” he asked Rupert.

Rupert snorted. “No, thank you. I’m afraid the museum bores me. Dreadful stuff.”

“Your aunt, then?” Showalter returned to me. His smile was eager, his words kind. It was all as simple and as easy as I could have hoped for. Put on a lovely dress, go to a party, and catch a man. I should have been delighted, but I couldn’t help feeling as if it had all been too easy, too pat. As if I’d been robbed of the opportunity to struggle for a match, for love, as a character in a novel might.

“I will speak with Mother,” I managed to say.

He nodded, satisfied, and stood. “Well, I’m sure your day is bound to be as busy as my own.”

Showalter had a day of meetings with inspectors from Scotland Yard or with museum officials to look forward to. I anticipated little more than calling on Julia to see if she might have heard something more, or perhaps even enduring a visit with the Hallishaws, as they always could be relied on for the choicest gossip.

Showalter paused at the door. “By the way, are you both certain that all the items removed from the wrappings last night were returned to the table?”

I felt the heat rise through my chest and neck; the tips of my ears seemed to glow like a coal drawn from the grate. My brother—always eager to take charge in situations he knew nothing about—provided a welcome distraction. “Positive. I was at the table the entire time, even when you were called away by your manservant. All four of the items found were back on the table at the end of the evening when we left the body.”

“You’re certain?” Showalter asked.

“Yes,” my brother said.

“Agnes?” he asked me.

I thought of the little dog’s head hidden in the black velvet hatbox that I kept in the bottom of my wardrobe. I’d put it there the moment I’d returned from the party. I knew I should retrieve it. But again, Showalter’s attentions muddled things. How embarrassing now to own to my deviance, in front of Rupert no less, and on the heels of Showalter inviting me on an outing. How disastrous might it be for a potential match if he discovered too early in our courtship my imperfections, my attachments to silly objects.

My independence.

And what of the curse? What if it were true? If an evil had visited people who’d merely attended the party, what might it mean for a girl who was so foolish as to keep something from the body?

I thought quickly. It would be much better if I returned it later, when things had calmed down. Or if I managed to leave it secretly behind in the museum when Showalter escorted me there.

I sighed and spoke. “You said yourself, we women have no head for these things. I confess I was lost in the excitement of the unwrapping and paid no attention. Why?”

He eyed me with—what? Suspicion, perhaps? He stopped, shook his head.

“Don’t trouble yourself any more with this, Miss Wilkins,” he said, smiling. “Promise me you’ll go read one of those books you like so much, take your mind off the unpleasantness.”

I curtsied and thanked him for the suggestion. He nodded at Rupert and ducked out the door.

But reading was the last thing I wanted to do. I had so many questions, so many possibilities, that I felt a story was unfolding around me at this moment.

Chapter Six

I returned home that afternoon with Aunt Rachel in tow. I’d been wholly unsuccessful in persuading her that she’d be wiser to nap while I called on Julia. As a result, I’d learned nothing new by day’s end except that local gossip had the mummy rising off the table last night to strike white the hair of one of the party guests. And Julia was no help in piecing together last night’s mysteries, especially as we had both our chaperones with us, which meant our conversation was confined to dresses and the weather.

Aunt Rachel retired to her rooms. I was meant to be reading in the library.

But I still needed to speak with Father.

His study door was shut, a whisper of voices carrying through the panels.

Telling Father about my experiences last night would have to wait. Instead I raced to my bedroom, tossed my bonnet onto the bed, and hurried to my chair by the fireplace—the very one that shared a chimney with the hearth in Father’s study.

“—should he succeed in the Channel, we’re done for!” my father was saying as I heard the creaking lid of the rosewood box in which he stored his tobacco insert itself into the conversation. The lid fell shut again. I knew from watching him a hundred times that he was now adding a pinch of cardamom (a habit he’d acquired while in India).

“He does seem to have more lives than a cat,” admitted a voice I recognized as belonging to the Earl of Bathurst, the secretary of war. I felt truly sorry for Mr. Bathurst. He probably hadn’t anticipated actually administering the cabinet in a time of conflict. His predecessor had retired barely six months ago when we thought that the greatest of the danger had passed. But that was before Napoleon came back.

The greatest enemy of all Britain and her holdings had been defeated—
soundly
—last winter.

But he returned. Like always.

For over a decade, he’d terrorized all of Europe and even gone so far as Africa and the Americas in his quest to extend his influence and power. Bonaparte had come terribly close to overtaking the Continent completely.

Only the ships that patrolled the narrow channel between Normandy and Dover protected us, and they were spread dangerously thin dealing with the emperor’s forces all over the Atlantic. All England lived in fear of what might happen if he ever succeeded in breaking through our naval blockades and bringing his Grande Armée to our shores.

Since I’d discovered that when the fires were unlit I could listen in on Father below, Napoleon had been the favored topic. At first it had merely been a game, but as I grew and understood more—and after David took to sea—my eavesdropping took on greater purpose.

And it wasn’t simply Father or Parliament members who could seem to talk of little else. Bonaparte’s infamy and the latest drama on the Continent found its way to the ladies at cards after dinners when the men had all retired to billiards and cigars, where they also offered undoubtedly sage advice on what to do about the tiny Frenchman. The newspapers carried daily war news, but it was nothing like as accurate as what I could glean here by the fireplace. And by the time what my father knew made it out to the general papers, I’d often known about it for several days.

I knew the situation at present was perhaps as dire as it could be. Napoleon had only a month ago been rescued from his exile on Elba and reinstalled as emperor. France was mad for him, his power and popularity even greater now, after he’d been absent from leadership for so long. In his last letter, David said he’d seen men taken prisoner after battles at sea who prayed to Napoleon before they prayed to God. The villain had, after all, resurrected himself from the dead (politically and militarally speaking, of course) not once but
twice
since he first ascended.

And now he’d done it again. His armies were gaining strength and zeal each day, and our navy and shipbuilders were preparing for the inevitable moment when Napoleon did overtake the rest of Europe and made to cross the Channel and come for us.

It seemed inescapable that he—the man who’d survived for eleven years as the most feared in all the world—would one day march on British soil. It seemed almost as inescapable as my future.

Almost.

“What of our recent attempts to . . . eliminate him?” my father asked Bathurst.

The earl sighed. “Our spies cannot get close. His return was unexpected enough that the assets we had in place have not had sufficient time to reintegrate themselves into his household.”

“When I think of last spring . . . the coach driver . . .” My father paused to draw on his pipe.

“We lost a good man and made the monster more cautious in the bargain,” Bathurst lamented.

These were the pieces of conversation that set my heart racing. I had overheard planned assassination attempts, reports on secret military missions, summaries regarding suspected persons in the service of a foreign, malevolent power.

But it was the careful mentions of the shadowy souls carrying out these orders that stirred me most. There were hundreds of patriots—French and British—working secretly within France to advance Britain’s cause. The man who’d posed as the coach driver was one of these. But Napoleon had his spies as well—most of them working between London and the coast, gleaning information about naval deployments, defensive strategies, or what we knew of Napoleon’s plans.

But I wasn’t even supposed to know any of this, so I could never ask questions. I’d understood the assassin had been unsuccessful, but it was the first I’d heard that he had been so unfortunate as to be killed.

I was still pondering his sad fate when inside the study, my father rang the bell to summon the parlor maid. The sound made me jump, my movement dislodging the rack of pokers and shovels and the small broom used to clean the ashes from the grate in winter. The clatter echoed down into the chimney, and I knew into Father’s ears.

Silence fell within the room. I dashed for the door and down the steps, willing my feet to fall silently on the treads. Before Father could puzzle together that I’d been listening from my room, I’d appear at his door.

I knocked and swept in without waiting for an answer.

“Hello, Father!” I sang. “I’m just back from my errands and hadn’t seen you since last night. Though I didn’t know you were engaged! I’m terribly sorry to have interrupted what must be very important to bring Mr. Bathurst”—here I paused, turned to my father’s guest, curtsied slightly, and slipped a “
how do you
do
” into the middle of my lie—“all the way to the Park in the middle of the afternoon.”

I uttered all this in one breathless burst, hoping the flush in my cheeks would register as excitement rather than guilt. Father eyed me skeptically. Bathurst merely smiled and sat straighter in his chair, something most of my father’s friends and associates had begun to do since my season began. Granted, my gowns had been let out a bit in spots, but certainly not enough to warrant such gestures of respect from men who’d known me from my infancy. It unnerved me.

I felt Father’s eyes on me as I tugged off my gloves. Father knew. He
always
knew.

“Hello, Agnes,” he said dryly, motioning me to his side. I took his hand.

“I’ve not yet had opportunity to congratulate you on your debut, Miss Wilkins,” Mr. Bathurst said, after a moment during which I was sure my father would scold me for my skulking and spying.

I turned to him, smiling as best I could after what I’d heard. “Yes. Thank you, sir.”

“You must be pleased, Sir Hugh,” Mr. Bathurst said to my father, “such a fine girl. And already snagging the interest of a very prominent neighbor, I understand.”

My father patted my hand and smiled, staring at the pile of papers and the inkwell littering his desktop. “I suppose.” He turned his gaze to me, his gray-green eyes mirrors of my own. “Yet I cannot help but feel much the same way as I do when I argue on the floor that we must send more ships or troops off to war.”

My breath caught in my throat. I fought tears. Lucky for us, Mr. Bathurst did not catch the significance of the moment.

“My dear Hugh! She is merely free now to secure her place in society. She is not off to fight!”

My father released my hand and busied himself with breaking the wax seal on a letter that lay on his desk. The downstairs maid appeared at the door and inquired as to the reason for her summons.

“We’ll take some refreshment, please, before we go,” my father ordered.

“Go?” I asked, alarmed.

He nodded. “Bathurst has come to fetch me down to Tilbury. There’s a man there we need to speak with.”

“How long will you stay?” I asked.

“I hope we will return evening after next,” Father said, adding, “and I’ll be bringing with me a surprise.”

I looked at the smile on his face and wondered what he could be bringing home from a port town half a day’s ride east to compete with the exotic gifts he’d brought me in the past.

I wondered how he could see me as a girl about to make her debut, as the same girl he was loath to let Mother send out into the world of matchmaking, and still see me as the girl who grew giddy at the prospect of some trinket brought home hidden in his traveling case.

He leaned forward and caught my eye. “Is something the matter?” he asked, stymied by my reaction to his promised surprise. I forced a smile. My father had enough to worry about, with a war brewing and a son at sea. He didn’t need to know I’d outgrown his little gifts. And he certainly didn’t need my silly fancies and petty larcenies to distract him from whatever part he was meant to play in thwarting Napoleon’s plans. At least not until his return.