Chapter 13
Something is peculiar about that trunk.
His own trunks had been unloaded and set in order with the usual efficiency. He arrived in his quarters to find his coat hung, his cases arranged, the basin ready. He stood in the doorway.
The days leading up to the journey had passed without incident, as had the carriage ride and the unloading, for the most part.
Frederick had noticed a small movement from one of the trunks when they arrived in London, out of the corner of his eye, and assumed it was Rachel’s.
This would not have surprised him. Rachel packed for a sea voyage of indefinite length no matter where she was going, a habit that often led to bulky contents.
It can’t be…
Something moved on the bed from behind the pillow. A grey tail, lightly tipped with orange, rose in acknowledgment. Frederick looked at his valet, who stood at the opposite wall.
“When?” Frederick asked.
“I believe, Your Grace,” his valet said with great care, “that the cat found the interior of the traveling case satisfactory. He was discovered approximately four miles from the Hall I learned. I am given to understand he had arranged himself among your… better waistcoats.”
“I see.”
Frederick looked at Percy. The cat was sitting up now and surveyed Frederick, then looked at the window, and then back at Frederick.
“You hid in my luggage.”
Percy’s tail moved once.
“You are a menace,” Frederick said, and sat down on the edge of the bed.
Percy turned to face him. Frederick looked at the ceiling. Outside the window, London went on as it always did, the sound of carriage wheels and a distant voice calling somewhere below. He looked down at his cat.
“You might as well stay,” he said.
Percy arranged himself onto his side and set his face on his thigh. Frederick looked at him for a moment.
“Don’t tell Rachel,” he said.
A soft sound came from the doorway. He looked up to see Anna was in the corridor, just past the frame. She did not quite stop, but was not quite moving on either. She had a shawl draped across her shoulders and her hair was pinned back simply, the way it often was in the evening. She looked lovely.
“I apologize, Your Grace,” she said, a surprised look in her eyes. “I was just passing by.”
He looked at her for a moment. “How long were you there?”
“Long enough,” she admitted as she batted her eyelashes, sending a fire to his chest.
Frederick exhaled the breath he didn’t know he was holding while looking at her. He looked at Percy then, who had the innocence of an animal who had done something and was now entirely unaware of it.
“He has a talent,” Anna said, “for inserting himself into situations.”
“He has been practicing it for four years.” Frederick set down the book.
“He arrived in a similar fashion, as it happens. There was a dinner at Rathbourne Hall in November, when I was last in residence. A visiting family, some friends of a friend, an overnight stay, the usual. They had four children. Somewhere between supper and the carriage being brought round, a small cat appeared from the direction of the stable yard. No one could explain it.”
Anna had not left. She was standing in the doorway now, her shoulder resting against the frame. Listening.
“He was perhaps six weeks old,” Frederick said as he ran a hand over his beard.
“Thin, and certain of himself. He walked through the front door, crossed the entrance hall, and sat down in front of the fireplace in the drawing room as if the house had been built for the purpose of accommodating him alone.”
“What did you do?” She asked, a smile across her delicate face.
“I told the butler to remove him.” A pause. “Simmons made the attempt.”
Anna’s mouth curved into a bigger smile. “It did not go well.”
“The cat evaded capture for forty minutes.” Frederick looked at Percy.
“The family left. The cat remained. I was told he had settled into the linen cupboard, and would require firm handling.” He reached out and ran one knuckle along the curve of Percy’s head, which Percy permitted. “He has been here since.”
“He chose you,” Anna said. “You know this, right?”
Frederick did not quite know what to say to that.
“He chose the warmth and the roast chicken,” he settled on.
“Perhaps, perhaps not,” she said. She was still looking at the cat, and her voice was quieter now. “Some creatures know the right place when they find it… even if they have to sneak in uninvited to discover it.”
A brief silence. He was aware she might not be speaking entirely about Percy, which made his heartbeat race.
As if to settle the matter, Percy stood, stretched dramatically as cats do, and stepped off the bed. He crossed the room with unhurried purpose, stopping at the doorway where Anna stood.
He did not rub against her leg. He did not give any greeting at all. He simply stopped and lowered his nose to the hem of her dress, and stood there, ears forward.
Anna went very still. She did not reach for him. He lifted his head and looked at her and then turned and walked back into the room. He jumped back onto the bed and settled on top of the eiderdown.
“That,” Frederick said, “is significant.”
“Is it?”
“He does not approach people.” He looked at his cat, who had begun to wash his face again with the air of a creature who had done something meaningful and wished no fuss made about it. “You must have made an impression.”
Anna looked at the cat for a moment. A flush of pride warmed her chest at having drawn in such a particular creature, but she suppressed it just as quickly, her emotions guarded carefully like cards held close.
“Goodnight, Your Grace,” she said.
“Goodnight, Miss Cartwell.”
She went down the corridor. He listened to her footsteps as they receded. He looked at Percy, and he looked back.
“Say nothing,” Frederick said, and Percy closed his eyes. “Good boy.”
Thomas arrived the following afternoon at two o’clock without advance notice, but in good humor and with enough energy to make the drawing room feel fuller than it was. He shook Frederick’s hand and kissed Rachel’s cheek.
“You look most well, Lady Rachel,” he said, which she returned with the sisterly courtesy she extended to Frederick’s oldest friends, and then he turned to Anna.
He had told Thomas something of the situation from Derbyshire.
He had not told him everything. He was not concerned.
He was observing, because Thomas was Thomas, and it was sensible to observe.
Still, Frederick watched him carefully, not realizing how tightly his fists were coiled by his sides as his eyes drifted to Anna.
“Miss Cartwell,” Thomas said, with the ease of a man who was at home in every room he entered. He gave a short bow. “Allow me to introduce myself properly. I am Thomas Ellery, Marquess of Larthby. Frederick’s better judgment, when he will let me be.”
Anna curtsied. Her face was polite and pleasant and, Frederick noted, entirely composed. She had the look she sometimes produced when reading situations carefully before committing to them. “My lord,” she said.
“A pleasure, truly.” He settled into the chair across from the sofa.
“I hope you will forgive the irregular introduction. I know the circumstances are not quite what anyone would have chosen, but I want you to know that whatever Frederick has asked me to do in this matter, I have done and will continue to do with your interests as the first concern.”
Anna looked at Frederick briefly.
“Thomas has known about the situation from nearly the beginning,” Frederick said. “He has assisted in making certain enquiries, some of which required connections I did not have. He has my complete confidence and, I believe, has earned a degree of yours.”
“Frederick does not use the word complete carelessly,” Rachel offered, from her end of the sofa, which was true enough.
Anna looked at Thomas for a moment with the quiet, unrushed assessment he had come to recognize as her way of reading people. Then she said, “Thank you, my lord. For what you have done.”
“It wanted doing,” Thomas said simply. “Now. I have some thoughts about how the next few weeks should look, and I think we ought to discuss them before we go any further.”
He reached for the cup Rachel had poured for him. He was not, Frederick noticed, making light of it. He had the instinct to know when to keep humor holstered, which Frederick always admired in his closest friend.
“You’ve been in London for a day,” Thomas said to Frederick. “Which means that the ton knows you’re here. And they’ll wonder when you’ll next show up.” He turned his cup in the saucer.
“What are you suggesting?” Rachel interjected.
“I am suggesting,” Thomas said, “that the wisest thing you can do, the two of you, is to appear in company. Selectively, and soon. An evening here, an afternoon there. You were in Derbyshire, now you are in London, as people sometimes are. Nothing more remarkable than that.” He looked at Anna.
“Except for you of course, it is best you stay put.”
“That will not be a problem,” Anna replied.
Rachel straightened slightly. “How can I enjoy myself in polite society while my best friend’s situation is unresolved?”
“I am suggesting it will look considerably more suspicious you do not,” Thomas said, not unkindly. “And that it removes ammunition from anyone who might otherwise wonder what is being hidden. You are doing her a favor by going out, Rachel.”
Rachel looked at Frederick. He looked back.
“He is not wrong,” Frederick said.
“He may not be wrong and still be suggesting something inadvisable. I cannot leave my friend—”
“Rachel.” Anna set down her cup. Her voice was quiet and clear. “He’s right.”
Rachel turned to her.
“Think of it plainly,” Anna said. “You are in London. You are still out. If you are seen nowhere and do nothing while we are here, people will wonder, and wondering leads to questions, and questions lead to exactly the attention we cannot afford right now…” She paused.
“Your future is not decided. And I will not have it said that I was the reason you disappeared from the world.”
“Anna…”
“I am not afraid of a little solitude,” Anna said, with the directness she sometimes produced when she had moved past consideration and arrived at a conclusion.
“I am considerably less afraid of that than I was of a wedding I did not know I was having.” She looked at Thomas. “Which events were you considering?”
Thomas, to his credit, did not look triumphant. “The Clarkes have a musicale at the end of the week. Quiet, respectable, very little of Lord Birchall’s usual set. A short appearance. Nothing that requires more than an hour.”
“That would do for Rachel,” Anna said.
Rachel was quiet for a moment. She looked at her hands and then at the fire and then, finally, at Anna with an expression that was concession and concern in equal measure. “Fine.”
“Good.” Thomas set down his cup. He did not drag it out. He stood to go with the ease of a man who had achieved the thing he came to achieve and saw no reason to linger unnecessarily. “I’ll send word tomorrow about the particulars.”
He shook Frederick’s hand, and kissed Rachel’s cheek again, and then he turned to Anna. He took her hand. He bowed over it. His lips just brushed her knuckle, in the manner that was correct and conventional and not, Frederick told himself, anything that needed an opinion from him.
“It was my very great pleasure, Miss Cartwell,” Thomas said.
“You have faced an extraordinary set of circumstances with more composure than most people manage in ordinary ones. I hope the outcome is swift, and I have every confidence that it will be.” He looked up at her.
“A lady of your quality deserves considerably better than what Birchall has put you through. I intend to see that you get it, in what small part I may play.”
Anna blushed, and she looked briefly down at her hand.
“You are very kind, my lord,” she said, her cheeks a dewy pink. “Thank you.”
“My friend.” Frederick appeared at Thomas’s elbow. “I’ll see you out.”
“Of course.”
Frederick walked him out through the hall. At the door, Thomas put on his hat with a raised eyebrow. He shook Frederick’s hand a second time.
“She is,” Thomas said, entirely pleasantly, “as pretty as I remembered.”
“Get out,” Frederick growled.
Thomas got into his carriage, laughing, and Frederick shut the door. He stood in the entrance hall for a moment. Simmons appeared from the direction of the study with the careful invisibility of a man who had heard nothing and seen even less.
“Shall I have fresh tea brought to the drawing room, Your Grace?”
“Yes,” Frederick said. “Do that.”
“Thomas means well,” he said as he returned to the drawing room, which was both true and all he had to say on the subject.
“I could see that he did,” Anna said. “He is very charming.”
“Yes,” Frederick said, his chest inexplicably tight. “He is very aware of that.”
The ghost of a smile moved across her face, and he sat down in the chair that was not Thomas’s chair and looked at the fire. He said no more.
Percy materialized from somewhere in the direction of the study door and stepped over Frederick’s feet without looking at him. He crossed the room and settled on the hearthrug nearest to Anna’s chair. Frederick looked at his cat, who just looked at the fire.
Traitor.