Chapter 3 #2
She leaned forward, elbows on the table.
“If you desire that I should confide in you, might I suggest you be more forthcoming yourself? So far, I have few enough reasons to trust you, not least of which is that you have a marked interest in the same man I’ve followed here.
I believe—no, I know—him to be an evil man. ”
He considered her.
“Trust runs both ways,” she added. She resolved herself to silence; he would answer or not. She did not permit a flicker of expression to change on her face as she waited.
He dropped his fingers from his jaw and sat back. “Aye. Ask your questions. Although the depth of my answers may not fully satisfy you.”
“I know that you either left England or entered France under an assumed name. Perhaps both. Nearly anything will expand upon that.”
His mouth lifted just slightly at the left corner as he inclined his head in acknowledgment.
“Why were you kind to me on the packet when I felt ill?” She’d been seasick on the crossing; he’d spoken to her briefly.
Whatever he had expected her to lead with, it was decidedly not that particular question. Both his eyebrows raised before his face settled back into more impassive lines. “I wanted to speak to you, having seen you in the Gull’s Wing. Determine what I could learn of you.”
“You needn’t have been kind.”
He shrugged. “It was a small enough thing. Mal de mer is unpleasant.”
“Where did you learn the trick about watching the horizon?”
“An oysterman.”
Well, he certainly was not going to be loquacious, not that she’d expected it.
“Is your name truly Blackmore?” Whether he was truthful or whichever response he gave, the manner in which he answered might reveal something.
When he did not immediately respond, she allowed herself a small smile. More a baring of teeth, really. “You told me to drop the use of Lieutenant, that Blackmore would do. How then should I call you? Mr. Blackmore? Mr. Beaumont?”
He hesitated before answering. “Outside this room, neither.”
His reply, strange as it was, implied she would be outside these rooms again; that was something, at least. “And inside? I must call you by some name, if only in my own mind so that I do not mistakenly use some other you do not wish me to use. Since it seems I shall be allowed to see daylight in your company at some future point in time.” She looked at him steadily.
He reached some sort of decision. “Very well, Isobel. You may call me Nathaniel. As you have given me only a first name as well.”
She ignored the slight jibe. “Nathaniel, then.” She considered what to ask him next. What might he answer? Blackmore or Beaumont—Nathaniel—obviously guarded many secrets. Would he be truthful about any of his background? If, that was, he had even told her the truth of his name.
Well, she would tell him her own, at least. Her own offering of a candle. Perhaps it might encourage him to become more forthcoming.
“I told you my name true, last night. I was born Isobel Muir. Married, I became Isobel Graham, although I give you leave to continue calling me Isobel rather than Mrs. Graham.” This was decidedly not a situation calling for normal rules of etiquette. “You are or were a British soldier?”
He nodded.
“An officer?”
Another nod.
“Which regiment?” she asked, when he volunteered nothing further.
“The 95th Rifles.”
She sucked in a breath. She’d heard of the Rifles, naturally, part of Wellington’s vaunted Light Division: crack shots and fierce skirmishers. “I nursed several Riflemen in Flanders who were brigaded with the Highlanders during the Waterloo campaign,” she offered.
A muscle in Nathaniel’s cheek moved, but he said nothing. Nor did he change the subject, which she took as tacit permission to continue with her questions. “You were with the Rifles during the Peninsular campaign?”
“Aye, until Badajoz.”
Three words only, but a wealth of suppressed emotion beneath them.
A key British victory and simultaneously one of its darkest hours on the Peninsula. Atrocities were committed after the fortified city was breached—British soldiers upon Spanish civilians.
His eyes warned her not to ask more, although he added, “I was injured.”
Her eyes travelled over him, seeking evidence of old wounds. He lifted an eyebrow. She looked quickly away, face flaming. His face gave away little save that sardonic eyebrow, but he was amused at her expense.
“Did you remain with the army, after?” she asked.
“Given my apparent lack of lasting infirmity?”
Her face flushed anew.
“I was not returned to regiment duties.”
It was an evasive answer: not invalided out or that he’d sold out. But she hadn’t the impression that any of what he’d said was untrue.
He’d been part of a regiment that faced regular extreme danger; unless she missed her guess, he maintained rigorous discipline and steely nerve even in extremis given his demeanor now. All the men in the elite 95th were highly trained and uncommonly skilled with weaponry.
He was perceptive and keenly intelligent; that much was evident.
Your French is fluent as my own. And she suspected from what little he’d said in Flemish that he spoke that language far better than she did. Might he know other Continental languages from his time on the Peninsula?
To what uses might such a man be put in peacetime, with international peace uneasily maintained? She eyed Nathaniel speculatively. “I begin to think your interest in Jeremiah Compton is of larger scope than my own.”
If the abrupt change in topic surprised him, he did not show it. He angled his head in such a way as might have been acknowledgment.
By now dawn, weak and grey with clouds, was entering through the two large windows set between the central rafters; despite the thin light, the occasional dust mote shimmered, glitter floating lazily. The windows were perhaps the small garret’s finest feature.
She had not noticed many details of the garret the night before; she made a proper inventory now.
She’d had cause last night to observe the interior alcove framed by an open, cased doorway, the bed and crate serving as night table barely fitting the space they occupied.
The whole of the garret was perhaps only half the building’s length, with the entry door from the stairway at the far end.
There was no fireplace; it must be bitterly cold in winter judging by the chill now in mid-October.
The rough wooden table was against one wall; opposite that was the unpadded settle.
A simply carved chest of drawers, walnut or another dark wood, had a pitcher and porcelain basin atop it as well as a small dark bottle—a spirit, perhaps—and a jug of table wine.
The dresser was crowned by a mirror edged in dark wood mounted to the wall behind.
A folding screen shielded the chamber pot in the corner; she was thankful to be afforded that small bit of privacy as needed.
Two open shelves set low beneath the windows contained a miscellany of dishware and glasses, a few books, and some other oddments.
On the table was her glass from earlier, containing a little wine still, and the leather-bound volume she had seen in Nathaniel’s hands. She took a sip of wine and rotated the volume so that she could read the title stamped in gilt lettering on the cover: Rousseau’s Julie; ou, la nouvelle Hélo?se.
“You are a reader of novels?” she asked.
Nathaniel shrugged one shoulder. “A friend recently lent it to me to read in Rousseau’s own words. The original is far superior to translations, according to her.”
Who is this friend of his? Not that it was in any way her business. Waking in a man’s bed, however benignly, did strange things to one’s perspective.
But Compton was very much her business. And to find him—and thus Lucy—she could use a man like Nathaniel as her ally. She thought of the small candle, of demonstrating and nurturing trust, and took a steadying breath.