Chapter 3 #2
Renforth lifted a hand, quieting the retort Arch was about to offer. “We are not here to dissect Miss Vale’s heart,” he said. “We are here to ensure she remains unruined, unharmed, and in possession of her own fortune.”
Baines’ grin widened. “Which one will be the most difficult?”
“She has opinions, but is not entirely without sense,” Arch said, and then wished he had not said it with such emphasis, because Stuart’s eyes flickered with interest.
Renforth’s tone remained firm. “Manners,” he said, “you will escort her as requested. You will observe Kendall when you can, but you will not alarm her unnecessarily.”
“She intends to attend political salons.”
Fielding looked delighted. “Do we have names?”
Arch shook his head. “Not yet. I did not wish to appear encouraging.”
Baines made a pious gesture. “I never encourage anything. I merely enjoy consequences.”
“If she attends a salon, it may be useful,” Stuart offered. “These circles overlap.”
Renforth nodded slightly. “It may reveal who is pulling Kendall’s strings,” he said, “or whether Kendall himself is the master.”
Arch frowned. “If Kendall is involved with radical thinkers, will he try to openly attach himself to a young heiress under the patronage of Lady Upton?”
Renforth’s expression did not change, but his eyes narrowed. “Her fortune is not merely money,” he said. “It is influence. It is votes purchased in rural districts. It is employment, and therefore loyalty. It is the power to fund a movement without appearing to fund it.”
Arch felt the pieces settle into a shape he did not like. “And Miss Vale believes in reform,” he said.
“Or at least she believes she is funding improvement,” Stuart murmured.
Fielding tilted his head. “She may be,” he said, “which is what makes the matter delicate. Not every reformer is a villain.”
Arch’s gaze drifted to the fire. He thought of Francesca’s expression when she spoke of betterment, and he remembered the quick stutter of silence that had followed, the way the table’s rhythm had faltered, as if truth were an impertinence.
“She believes in reform,” he said. “She believes men dismiss women who think beyond the drawing room.”
Renforth regarded Arch. “How did she seem?” he asked, and there was no mockery in the question now. It was the tone he used when assessing a wounded soldier: clinical and careful.
Arch hesitated, then answered with reluctance. “She is intelligent,” he said. “She is proud. She is wary of anyone who presumes to protect her, and she will interpret protection as control.”
Baines nodded approvingly. “She sounds exhausting.”
“She sounds as if she has been hunted,” Stuart said quietly.
Arch snapped his head around to look at him.
Stuart held his stare. “Not by men with knives,” Stuart added, “but by men with smiles.”
Arch felt an uncomfortable agreement take root. “She detests soldiers,” he said, reminding himself that sympathy was dangerous. “A regiment stationed near her home attempted to coerce her father into unhappy dealings. She saw corruption first hand.”
Fielding leaned forward slightly. “Then Kendall will position himself as the opposite,” he said. “As the civilian friend, the safe man; the man who does not carry a sword and therefore must be honest.”
Baines laughed. “As if swords were the only weapons.”
Renforth’s gaze remained fixed on Arch. “And you,” he said, “are the soldier placed in her path.”
Arch did not like the way that sounded. “I am not placed,” he said. “I am coerced.”
Renforth almost smiled. “Call it what you like. You are there,” he said. “You will be her escort, and therefore her inconvenience.”
Arch took up his glass again. “It will be insufferable,” he said.
Fielding lifted his own glass. “It will be instructive,” he corrected.
Baines added, “It will be entertaining.”
Stuart’s voice was quieter. “It may be dangerous,” he said.
Arch looked at Stuart, and the weight of it settled.
He had lived with danger of the obvious kind: gunfire, blades, ambushes, the crack of a shot in the dark.
This was a different sort of danger, dressed in silk and spoken in compliments; the sort that ruined a woman without drawing a single weapon. “What is our plan?” Arch asked.
Renforth spoke as if he had been waiting for the question.
“We look into Kendall’s associations,” he said.
“We trace the Friends of Liberty, and any other groups he frequents. We find whether he has debts, and to whom. We discover whether he has correspondence that would compromise him, or whether he is the one compromising others.”
Baines’s grin returned. “We also discover his vices, because that is often the easiest means.”
Fielding sighed. “You always begin with vice.”
Baines spread his hands. “Vice is the most reliable currency.”
Stuart continued, “We do so quietly,” he said. “No public accusation. No alarm. Miss Vale is already suspicious of being managed. If she suspects an investigation, she may bolt straight towards the very men we would keep her from.”
Renforth regarded Arch for a long moment.
“You will maintain the appearance of social duty,” he said.
“You will escort her to these salons when required. You will observe her solicitor when possible. You will not threaten, and you will not lecture. If you lecture, she will oppose you out of principle.”
Arch exhaled. “She will be suspicious of capitulation.”
Renforth’s tone was dry. “Are you capable of such?”
“She is not foolish,” Arch said.
“No,” Stuart agreed, “which means she will see through flattery.”
Baines laughed. “Then you are safe, Manners. You cannot flatter convincingly.”
Arch shot him a look of disdain. “I can flatter,” he said. “I simply prefer not to.”
“Try to befriend her. It sounds as though she will see through aught else,” Stuart suggested. His wife was strong-willed, so he might be better cognizant than most, Arch reflected—not that he was looking for a wife, he added grimly.
Renforth leaned back slightly. “There is another concern,” he said. “Miss Vale is tied, in part, to Sir Percival’s position.”
Arch frowned. “In what manner?”
“In the manner that they may well try to use her against him to affect Parliament. Enemies do not always strike at the man himself,” Renforth said. “Sometimes they strike at what he cannot afford to lose.”
“They would use her to threaten him,” Arch said.
“Or to influence him,” Stuart murmured.
“Or to ruin him,” Fielding added.
Arch felt the evening’s fatigue harden into resolve, which was inconvenient, because resolve made him feel less like a victim of his father’s summons and more like an active participant, and he disliked being manoeuvred into active participation.
He lifted his glass in reluctant salute. “Now, how to do this without making myself ridiculous, if such a thing is possible?” There was no response required to that question.
The talk drifted to other things. Their missing associate, Captain Cholmely—Chum—for one, who was currently off in Devonshire investigating a matter related to his own brother’s treason.
Arch left the drawing room a few minutes later and climbed the stairs to his own chamber, the house settling into a quieter rhythm behind him.
As he closed his door, he stood for a moment in the dimness and tried to summon the detachment he usually wore like armour.
He told himself he was only escorting an heiress for a Season.
He told himself he was only observing a solicitor.
He told himself this was a duty like any other, merely one dressed in silk.
Then he remembered Francesca Vale’s calm defiance at the dinner-table, and he felt, inconveniently, the first stirring of something that was not duty at all, but interest, sharp and unwilling.
In the corridor, somewhere below, O’Malley’s steps moved with quiet certainty, and Arch had the distinct impression that even the house itself was in conspiracy against his peace.
He lay down at last and stared into the dark, already imagining the next encounter; already planning how to appear casually present in Miss Vale’s orbit without seeming to be a jailer, and already suspecting that the most difficult part would not be Kendall.
The ticklish part of this commission would be convincing Francesca Vale herself.