Chapter Twenty-One
Halsey House
Mayfair, London
Davis took Evan’s hat and coat at the door, his butler’s face drawn tight. “The dowager countess and your sisters are in the small salon awaiting your return.”
“I must go up to see my wife.” It was hours since he’d talked with her.
“Please see your family first, sir.” Davis never asked anything of him, so Evan was irritated to do as he wished.
“Why is that?”
“Sir, they were very emphatic about seeing you when first you arrived home.”
He took the stairs at once, eager to get to Inès. More anxiety he could not abide. Pitt in a desperate way. His own wife leaving him without explanation. Now his family…
“What is the urgency here?” he asked as he stood just inside the parlor door and faced his mother and sisters.
Before him, his mother, Fee, and Jessica shot to their feet.
“She is gone,” said his mother with tears in her eyes.
“We went to beg her to stay.” Fee wrung her hands, beside herself with anguish.
“I told her she made a mistake to leave you,” Jessica insisted as she came toward him and took his hands in hers.
Evan rallied his bravado in the face of his family’s kindness.
Jessica looked as if she would melt to the floor in a sad puddle. “I told her the one thing I know is true.”
The lump in his throat prevented him from remarking on that.
She ran her fingers through the shock of hair fallen on his brow. “I told her nothing in this world is more important than preserving the love of the most important person in your life.”
He lifted his chin. “And?”
“She agreed.”
“But she left,” said Fee, “minutes later.”
“How?” he asked.
“By the kitchen door down the alley.”
“Walking?” He was beside himself with fear for her.
Fee gripped her hands together, fighting for her own calm in this storm of emotion. “We begged her to allow Davis to hail a hack. She refused. How can she go off alone into the world, walking?”
Evan knew his darling wife had done many things much more dangerous than that for years. Alone. “What does she have with her?”
“She wears her new pelisse,” his mother said.
Heavy wool, then. She will be warm. “What else?” He surveyed the three of them.
“She carried a valise. Not her new one that you gave her for your honeymoon.”
“The smaller one,” he murmured. He recalled the one she had used when she’d had her belongings moved here. “Good. Easily carried. She wore a hat?”
“Yes,” said Fee.
“Gloves, too,” added Jessica.
His mother came forward to cup his cheek. “We had Davis send a footman down the alley. He hurried but he did not find her. She had disappeared.”
“You must do something,” Jessica demanded of him.
“I have. Long ago.”
The three women blinked at him, confused. “What?” they asked in unison.
“From the day we were married, I had two men shadowing her every move.”
“What do you mean?” His mother was appalled.
“How could you do that?” Fee stood back, tightly gripping the plush upholstery of a Chippendale chair.
“Does she know that?” Jessica asked.
“I doubt it. She has not said.”
“Oh, Evan.” Jessica now had tears in her eyes. “Why would she go? She loves you.”
“Someday I will tell you why. Today, I tell you only that I will find her.”
His mother bristled. “She is in danger?”
“She is, Mama.”
Each woman had a special little curse she loved to utter in ripe moments. This was one.
Evan filled with pride in the three of them. “Excuse me now. I have much to do.”
Jessica caught his sleeve. “Let no one hurt her.”
“Never.” He kissed his sister on her nose. “She is ours and we need her.”
#
Bowling Green House
Putney Heath, Wandsworth, London
January 23, 1806
The next morning, minutes before six, Evan’s hired guard, Neville, stood beside Evan on a corner near Putney Green and nodded toward his wife, who hovered on the far corner.
Neville, a fit and feisty boxer and runner for the gang leader Dáire O’Neill of Seven Dials, had fetched him just after five, knocking on the front door of Audley Street and summoning a very alarmed Davis.
“Not to worry.” Evan had waylaid Davis’s fears about the stranger who demanded the butler rouse his master at that dastardly hour of the morning.
But Evan knew they had much to worry about this morning.
Evan had gone to the prime minister’s house after midnight and seen the sorry state of his leader.
He had returned home, but not slept. He only paced.
Durham had sent another note to him at five, this one with news that would shake the nation.
Evan said nothing of it to anyone in the house. People would know soon enough.
#
A quick coffee for Evan and Neville, and the two men had gone from the house, this time via the kitchen door and a hack summoned by Davis from far down the street.
Neville scowled at Evan. The man was never happy, it seemed, on the best of days. Today was especially hideous. Neville nodded toward Inès, who stood unmoving on that far corner. “She stood here like that last night. Just staring at the house.”
Never taking his eyes from the lovely figure of his wife, Evan asked when she had taken up this spot.
“After eight last night. She walked around the block, then returned to stand there. Many carriages coming and going, lots of folks in and out o’ that house all night long.”
Evan was not surprised at that. He had been just one of the callers. Soon, thousands would know the reason for so many visitors.
Neville went on. “Stubborn, your lass, sir. Once around again, she watched from that far corner who came and went. That was till ten o’clock, when she went in search of a room for the night.”
“How do you know that?”
“I followed ’er, o’course. She went into a few pubs, but did not stay long. Out she’d come, aye, then go onward.”
“Where did she sleep last night?” God help him, Evan feared she had been followed by Vaillancourt’s agents. La Mère or Faucon? If they knew where she was, did they also know what she contemplated?
He ran a hand across his mouth. Standing here, staring at this particular house, Evan felt the wrath of God fall down upon him. He shut his eyes. It had come to him what she planned. He’d felt the horror of it all night long. Let it not be true.
But when he opened his eyes, he allowed himself to acknowledge the words of his beloved wife’s plan. They were too vile to speak aloud.
He would not allow her to do it. Of course not.
So as she waited for her courage to lead her forward—and she clearly worried it would not—Evan vowed not to wait any longer for her to make her next move.
’Twas then Inès turned on her heel and strode away.
He and Neville followed.
#
Inès pushed open the door to her room. The carriage inn was the closest to the prim little house that the prime minister of Great Britain leased for himself and his niece.
The room was small, the bed smaller, and the mattress thin eiderdown. Her night had been frightening and fitful. Her dreams nightmares. Her hours of sleep few.
She leaned against the door and pushed the small bolt. She had asked the innkeeper not to enter her room, and nothing seemed out of place. He had complied.
She sat on the bed and fingered the vial in her coat pocket.
She put a hand over her stomach, swallowing hard against her queasiness.
But she would not stop. She would not fail now.
She had her plan. Simple, it was. She’d ask to be received by Pitt.
She’d say she had to discuss something with him and that she was acquainted, a friend, actually.
The butler would ask if she would like tea—and most definitely, she needed him to deliver tea and biscuits, anything at all to cover the taste of the…
She caught a breath.
If the butler refused her, she would demand it.
She did not expect the servant to recognize her.
“Bechard” would mean nothing to him. But she did not intend to give him her married name.
“Mannerly” or “Halsey” would definitely gain her an audience, but to use either of those was folly.
She could not chance that the man would remember her, blame her and send the authorities scouring the city for her—or for her husband.
She would rely on her persistence and the butler’s kindness to let her in.
She squeezed the vial tightly. So tightly that if it were glass, she could break it.
But it was porcelain. She’d given it to Mary to give to the apothecary to fill and had never opened it. No, never. Just sewn it into the hem of her coat. A good ploy many agents relied upon.
She sat, her heart pounding, her eyes hot with tears.
Would Luc love how she had saved him?
Oh, she knew. She knew.
One day, her brother would learn and walk away. Never to return.
Never to thank her.
Never.
And Evan?
She shuddered and stood. He would learn. Somehow. He was too careful, too devoted, too determined about everything he cared for. He would learn.
He would hate her. Loathe her. Regret every moment he ever spent with her.
She cried out. One hand to her stomach, one hand to her forehead, she bent and sobbed out her hatred of all she would do here.
One knock came at her door.
She sucked in air.
With a crack that burst her hearing, the door splintered the frame and banged against the wall.
Her heart slammed shut.
Her tears froze on her face.
A hand out, she backed away from her husband. “No! Leave me!”
He did not give her an answer. Instead, he looked around the wretched little room and strode forward. He took her arm and began to pull her to the door.
“Let me go!” She yanked at him, frantic to be free.
He paused as he gazed down at her.
She glared at him. “I won’t go with you.”
He shook his head and, in one smooth move, caught her up in his arms and rushed toward the landing and the stairs.
Behind him, Inès sensed another.
She squirmed and kicked.
Evan stumbled. But held her fast.
“Sir!” Whoever the other man was, he pulled at Evan and drew them into the next room. There, he stepped inside with Evan and her and stood against the door.
Evan plunked down on the thin little mattress and captured both her hands in his. “Stop this! You cannot do this!”
“Let me go. Let me go. Let me go.” She fought him like a wild woman, batting at his chest, a wall she could not tear down.
“No. Stop! Stop! This plan of yours is useless.”
“Nooo. No. It isn’t. I must do this. You cannot know. Cannot.” Fresh cold tears poured down her cheeks, and the sight of her husband’s face so well lined with compassion only made her sorrow bottomless. “Oh, Evan.” She moaned and shook her head. “Let me go. You do not understand.”
“I do. I certainly do, my love.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“But you are mine and my love.”
“Not after I do this! No, no. I must not be! You must never claim me!”
She was weary, worn to a frazzle by her interminable hours of plotting and planning, denying and failing, then starting all over again.
Evan sent a hand up into the coif of her hair and led her to put her face against his chest. He stroked her hair. Kissed her crown. Hugged her securely to him.
“You may leave us, Neville.”
“I’m on the door, sir.” The man left them.
How long she stayed like that, held close to her husband, defeated and drowning in her failure, she did not know.
Evan bent to her ear and kissed her there. “Tell me now what you planned to do.”
She shook her head.
“Say it once. Give it up to the universe. Then you need never say it again.”
She frowned, but instinct had her putting her arms around his shoulders.
Eventually she said, “I cannot. You will hate me.”
“If you think me capable of that, why did you marry me?”
“Oh, Evan! You try me.”
“Good!”
“You make me betray myself.”
“Better! In this, you must.” His fingers bit into her shoulders.
She was in misery. “I told myself I was clever enough to do what I must and never harm you.”
“And do you think that possible even now?”
She took a huge breath. “No. Damn me. No.”
“So say it. Tell me all. Then see if I hate you.”
Through her wretchedness, she saw him as her charming husband one last time. “René Vaillancourt discovered what I did in Boulogne, how I sent Giselle’s drawings through the admiralty. He knew I had asked my runner to get Corsini to take me out of France to England.”
Evan waited, patient man. He met her tear-filled eyes with admiration in his own. “The rest. Say it.”
She licked her lips, dread stopping her heart. Her husband knew all or most of her plan to hurt William Pitt. It was nothing and everything for her to utter the words that explained the cause. “He told me I could save my brother. That he would free Luc from La Force.”
Evan looked at her with grief and regret. “How?”
“I would kill the prime minister of Great Britain.”
They sat, gazing into each other’s eyes for a long minute.
“And can you do that?” he asked without surprise.
She shook her weary head and fell back to his arms. “No.”
They sat for such a long time that through the little window of the small room, the sun shone down directly.
“You will not obey Vaillancourt’s command, my darling, because you are incapable.”
She pressed him close and placed a kiss to his chest.
“But there are two reasons that you cannot do this at his command.”
She raised her head to stare at him.
“The first is that I will go to Paris and take your brother from his cell.”
“Oh, Evan, no! You cannot. You will die. I cannot let you do that.”
“I will go.”
She clutched his cravat. “You know nothing of Paris.”
“Not nothing. And I do know Corsini. Very well. He and I are the best of friends.”
“No, no. If you go…” She could not believe his audacity. “It is La Force. Impossible to breach.”
“Nothing is impossible.”
“You cannot go. Your French is terrible. You will be taken in a matter of hours.”
“I am better than that, wife of mine.” Insult mixed with determination on his face.
“You infuriate me.”
“I could say the same, but I love you and I would rather see you smile.”
“Oh, you are too stubborn. If you go to France, I go with you.”
“I will not chance your going.”
She sniffed. “Nor will I chance your going without me.”
A long minute passed in which they stared each other down.
“We go together,” he conceded.
“Quickly. La Mère follows me.”
Evan gripped her closer. “Dear God. Since when?”
“A week or more.”
“You did not tell me! Do it now and we will find her!”
“I know so little. I must get to Luc.”
Evan nodded. “We will go to France tomorrow.”
She pushed aside her fears, and knew if he was to take such risks, she would be by his side. “And what is the second reason I cannot do as Vaillancourt commands?”
Evan ran his fingertips over the line of her brows, her nose, her lips and chin. “In the early hours of last night, Prime Minister William Pitt of Great Britain died in his bed. He is gone, my darling. No one can now hurt him.”