Читать книгу My Favorite Marquess - Alexandra Bassett - Страница 7

February 1815

John Cuthbert’s lips turned down grimly as he stared at Violet Treacher’s latest letter, a communication which put certain plans in a bit of a coil. He picked up the missive, sending a shower of confetti spilling down on his desk blotter. “What is the mess in this last envelope? There are tiny bits of paper spilling everywhere.”

Sebastian’s lips flattened into a rueful expression. “I believe that is the ‘enclosed contract’—she failed to mention that she had shredded it into a thousand bits before including it.”

“You certainly have a shrewd way with the ladies, St. Just.”

Sebastian, warming himself before the fire of Cuthbert’s office, smiled in spite of this unfortunate turn of events. “That is quite a compliment, coming from you!”

Cuthbert shook his head. His stooped shoulders and perpetually funereal expression gave the impression of a man who had received a mortal blow from which he had never recovered. Happily, no such event had ever occurred. Cuthbert was merely a sober man dedicated to his work…and nothing else. “It is true I give the ladies a wide berth, but that is because I have no business with them. I am fortunate in that regard.”

“Life cannot be all toil.”

“It can if one has the temperament for it, which I fortunately have. And because of this, and because I am a bachelor and likely to remain in the single condition for all my days, I am a happy man.”

Sebastian laughed as he considered his companion’s morose countenance. “A happy man? I would never have thought of you as that!”

Cuthbert lifted a long finger crooked from years of service maneuvering a pen for the Crown. “Ah, but that is where you are wrong. We eternal bachelors exist in perfect contentment because we know our lives shall never become disordered by the presence of a woman. We shall never be reduced to that state of fevered agitation known as love. Not for us the restless nights, the consuming distractions, or the clownish antics of the male in pursuit of a female. Our vocabularies will remain free of insipid words of endearment. We rest easily in the assurance that the words ‘My little partridge’ shall never issue from our lips.”

“I, too, am a bachelor,” Sebastian said, “yet I can enjoy the company of women. Some of them can be quite amusing.” He cleared his throat. “In all sorts of ways.”

Cuthbert regarded him sadly. “Then you are putting yourself at great risk, my friend. A man may dedicate his life to whatever he chooses—service, his family, work, God—but all women are designed to seek out husbands. It is their natural avocation, and some of them pursue it with the cunning and gusto of a Wellington.”

“Ah, but they are not all successful,” Sebastian rejoined. “That is the sport of it.”

“But look at the ones who are.” Cuthbert tapped the letter on the desk blotter before him. “Even this Treacher termagant charmed a poor fellow to taking up the harness.”

Sebastian scoffed. “Percy Treacher was a fool whose only requirement for finding a wife was that she be rich, and Mrs. Treacher’s father is Sir Harlan Wingate, who made a fortune in trade.”

Cuthbert drummed his fingers in thought; his musings on marriage were at an end and he was back to business again. “It would seem that Montraffer and Trembledown are doomed to remain un-reunited, then. And now not only do we not have unfettered access to the Trembledown property, we shall soon have to maneuver around Mrs. Treacher’s troublesome presence there.”

Sebastian shook his head. “I told you that it was better to let sleeping dogs lie, John. No doubt if I had not instigated negotiations—upon your urgent request, I remind you—Mrs. Treacher would be snugly ensconced in London for the Season instead of now winging her way to Cornwall.”

Cuthbert sighed. “Well, it can’t be helped now.”

“Do not feel too bad, John. If Mrs. Treacher does take possession of Trembledown, she will not be in residence long. I did not exaggerate when I described the dilapidated condition of the place. And from what I have heard of Mrs. Treacher, she is not the type to endure hardship for any length of time—these merchant cits are deplorably dependent upon modern comforts in their abodes. She will doubtless flee the place at the first sign of hardship.”

“And if she doesn’t?”

Sebastian gave his companion a rather devilish smile. “Then I will have to ensure that during her brief visit to Cornwall she encounters plenty of trouble.”

“More trouble is all we need.”

Both men sobered as their thoughts turned to the current political scene. For a while it had seemed that with Napoleon exiled on Elba, Europe’s problems would soon be over. But here it was, almost a year later, and negotiations at the Congress were still ongoing. Not to mention, rumors abounded that in France the tide was turning against the King and antiforeigner sentiment was running high.

Now Sebastian would have to waste valuable time ensuring that Violet Treacher did not interfere with the smuggler’s network operating near, and sometimes actually on, her property so that they could continue to receive such reports from France. His contact in Cornwall, Jem, would have to be alerted that Trembledown was about to be inhabited.

Cuthbert looked soberly at the stack of papers on his desk, including an intercepted letter that hinted of an existence of a spy loose in the country, code-named Nero.

Nero had made himself odious to Cuthbert during many years of the war with France. More than one of Cuthbert’s men’s lives had been lost as a result of this traitor. But Nero’s activities had stopped with the sudden suicide of a certain nobleman whose uncle was in a position of some authority in the government. It had been assumed that said nobleman was Nero himself. Now, Cuthbert and Sebastian were wondering if they had been mistaken and Nero had only coincidentally stopped operations at the time of Lord Waring’s death. After all, it had only been a short while after the disappearance of Nero that Napoleon had surrendered.

“The situation on the continent is very precarious, Sebastian. It’s more important now than ever that we have an ear to the ground and that we find out who this Nero is and what he could be up to now—you’ll remember he had an uncanny knack of nosing out vital information during the war. According to my sources, Nero has been instructed to head to your area and keep an eye out for a certain famed Cornish smuggler—one Robert the Brute!”

“That is quite interesting. I believe I can safely say that if Nero comes anywhere near Montraffer, I shall be there, waiting for him.” Sebastian grinned. “Or rather, that blaggard Robert the Brute will be waiting.”

Cuthbert shook his head. He and Sebastian did not always see eye to eye on the necessity of Sebastian’s traveling about in the disguise of a smuggler—not to mention cultivating such a reputation as a cutthroat—but he had to admit that Sebastian and his connections had garnered results for the country back in the days of the war. They had also garnered a cabinet well stocked with smuggled French brandy for both of them.

“I wish you would inform the local authorities of what you are doing.”

Sebastian shook his head. “What if Nero is one of the local authorities? There’s no knowing for sure that Nero isn’t already ensconced in the area. A man in uniform can turn traitor as easily as anyone else. More easily, sometimes.”

“And what if one of these local constables finally takes it in his head to catch Robert the Brute?”

“That is a risk I take,” Sebastian declared. “But I only take it knowing the inefficacy of the local constabulary as well as I do.”

“Be careful there, Sebastian, and mind you don’t get sidetracked by the Treacher woman.”

Sebastian laughed. “That is unlikely.”

“Temptations abound in this work,” Cuthbert said, sounding decidedly curatelike. “Remember Lord Hawthorne? He was supposed to be gathering information in Paris and instead ended up besotted with an opera singer!”

“You needn’t worry about anything of the kind happening to me.” Sebastian chuckled. “There are no opera singers in Widgelyn Cross.”

Not to mention, Sebastian was nearly as averse to romantic entanglement as Cuthbert was. Especially to the type of woman—Mrs. Percy Treacher and the like—who would marry a man for his title, as his own mother had done. His parents had endured twenty gloomy years of unaffectionate matrimony before both had succumbed to rheumatic fever one winter while Sebastian was at university. Watching his father’s conjugal misery had made him determined never to marry himself. There were several St. Just cousins to assume the title when Sebastian’s time was up.

He kept his relations with women strictly on a business level and managed to enjoy himself in his own reserved way. Sebastian was known to be dedicated to a life among the highest ton. He enjoyed a well-cut coat, a spectacular piece of horseflesh, and other amusements of society. He took inordinate pride in his homes, his privileges, and his duties as a peer. No one understood custom and noblesse oblige better than Sebastian Cavenaugh. He was well aware of his reputation as rather cold and standoffish. In fact, he cultivated it. It made it that much easier to enjoy the double life he had made for himself, which was not only stimulating work but of great use to his country.

“A woman doesn’t have to be an opera singer to be a nuisance,” Cuthbert said.

“Never fear, John. By the time I am through with her, Mrs. Treacher will be happy if she never sees Cornwall, smugglers, or a marquess ever again!”