Читать книгу Brazen in Blue - Rachael Miles - Страница 10
ОглавлениеChapter Three
He hadn’t thought this through.
All he wanted was to forget her. A dead man should be able to forget. But every night, if he slept at all, she appeared to him, her hand uplifted as if to touch his cheek, her dark eyes filled with tears and anger. In the dreams, he called out, wanting her to stay. But each time she turned away, as he’d expected, as he’d intended. Leaving her had made dying easier. He hadn’t known then that the living could haunt the dead.
At first, Adam could escape Emmeline’s ghost by burying himself in work—in plans and stratagems, intrigue, and machinations. He chose the most dangerous assignments, hoping that someone would do him the kindness of making him a dead man a second, more permanent time. So, it seemed only reasonable—if reason could be found at the bottom of a bottle—that seeing her marry would exorcise her ghost and give him peace at last.
Of course, he’d come to that reasonable conclusion, while alone in the dark belly of Whitehall, hours after his Home Office colleagues had left for the wedding in the spacious carriages Lord Colin had provided. Once Adam had decided he must go to the wedding, his only option was the last seat on the last post coach from London to Gloucestershire.
As further punishment, he’d spent the ride wedged between a Sadler’s Wells actor and an itinerant preacher, both declaiming loudly from their respective holy books, and neither liking the other’s performance. Adam, for his part, made a drinking game of it: one swallow of Irish whiskey for every “hale fellow” in Shakespeare or for every heathen smote with the judgment of the Lord in the Bible. The bottle was empty long before Oxford.
Adam turned his hired horse into yet another stable yard, hoping this one—the tenth in as many miles—would have an open stall. A brisk walk to the wedding would clear his head of its spongy whiskey edges. Besides, he needed to come and go from Emmeline’s estate unimpeded and unrecognized. He was supposed to be dead, and dead men didn’t attend weddings.
The stableboy at the inn studied him carefully, then shook his head a broad no. Even though Adam’s brain was still fuzzy from the whiskey, the stableboy’s look gave him pause.
No, he hadn’t thought this through.
Adam turned his horse back into the lane. He should have predicted that Emmeline’s wedding would become the event of the season—or at least of December. He’d had to give up reading the newspapers entirely. Every page seemed to offer some notice of the impending nuptials of reclusive country heiress Lady Emmeline Hartley to the dashing former Waterloo officer, Lord Colin Somerville, brother to the Duck of Forster.
Duke, not duck. Adam shook his head, straightening out his slurring words. But if Aidan were a duck—Adam let himself play with the idea—which one would he be? A mallard? Or perhaps a merganser, all trim and shiny? He considered every option, liking puffin a great deal. But all the time he knew that if Aidan were any bird, it would be a falcon or a hawk or some other bird of prey. And if that bird knew that Adam wasn’t just a friend of the groom’s family, but of the bride herself . . .
No, it wouldn’t come to that.
He only needed to hear her voice. He didn’t need to see her.
But the stableboy’s stare had reminded him of the stakes. Every time Adam stopped in a carriage yard or posting inn, he risked being recognized. Some in the counties nearest Emmeline’s lands would not be happy to see him alive, Em likely in their number.
All that risk, and still no open stall for his rented horse.
No, he hadn’t thought this through at all.
Worse yet, he was acting like a regular wedding guest, one who traveled the main roads and stayed at the typical inns. But he knew this land, and if he were going to risk its residents remembering him, he might at least find a damn stable.
He turned off the main road, taking to lanes and paths he had never intended to travel again. He would find a stall for his horse, damn it, and he would see that damn woman married, if it killed him. Or someone else did.
* * *
Adam pulled his horse into the yard of a dilapidated cottage with a more dilapidated barn. In regular circumstances, he wouldn’t stable any animal here, even a hire.
A wizened old man opened the cottage door.
“Any space in your barn?” Adam called out the question, even though, from the sounds from the stable, he could already tell the answer. If there were no stall, he would have to decide: return to London or continue on to Hartshorne Hall. He couldn’t simply tie his horse to a tree and hope for the best.
“Aye.” The ancient man pulled the cottage door shut behind him, but remained at the doorway. “One.”
Perhaps this would work out after all.
“How much?” Adam threw himself down from the horse’s seat. He studied the landscape: the walk to Hartshorne Hall would take under an hour.
“It’s not for rent.” The old man rubbed his nose with a stubbed finger.
Adam started to argue, but stopped himself. The man’s age, if nothing else, warranted a polite reply. “The wind’s turning.”
“Aye, the night will be cold.” The old man stared into the distant sky.
“Is it likely another barn nearby could shelter my horse?”
The old man shook his head slowly. “Some duke sent round a servant days ago. Hired every stall from here to the river, and every bed in every tavern or inn. As big as it is, the manor house can’t house all the guests or their stock.” The old man looked Adam over, assessing his clothing and his horse.
Adam nodded. “Must be quite a celebration.”
“Aye, the bride insists that the wedding service and dinner must be open to all. Friends, neighbors, aristocrats, and cottagers alike. My daughters have already made their way there.”
The detail didn’t surprise Adam. His little leveler (as he’d often teased her) always insisted one’s character mattered more than distinctions of rank, birth, and wealth. As the son of a clergyman, he should agree, but he’d seen too much, particularly as a secret agent of the Home Office, to believe it. No, he knew from bitter experience that life tended to value rank, wealth, and power over ability.
“Then I’m lucky to be a guest.” Adam patted the horse’s neck.
“I don’t think so.” The old man looked Adam up and down. “The duke’s servant warned us of men like you. No carriage, no invitation, willing to walk to gain the grounds. I’m to send word, if one of you shows up.”
“Men like me?” The skin rose on the back of Adam’s neck, but he resisted the impulse to look over his shoulder. What did the old man know? Who did he think Adam was?
“Newspapermen.” The old man crossed his arms over his chest.
Adam laughed out loud and pulled the tattered wedding invitation out of his boot. He’d tried to throw it away. Once or twice it had even landed in the waste bin, but he’d always dug it out. He couldn’t let a piece of Em’s handwriting go. He handed it to the old man. “As you can see, I am one of Lord Colin’s guests.”
“Or you stole an invitation from someone who was.” The old man studied the name on the front. Then he turned the invitation over and traced the engraved lettering with his forefinger. “Since the wars ended, there’s no telling about young men like you. My wife will decide.”
The old man left Adam in the cold yard.
Adam wondered if the man were illiterate and what his wife might say about the invitation. Would she notice the name lettered across the front in Lady Emmeline’s most public, most ornate hand? Would she wonder if the name on the front was his? He’d had so many names—Adam Montclair, the name his parents had given him; Adam Locksley, the revolutionary, hung for his sins; and today A. Fairwether. The last perhaps was most apt of all.
Lord Colin, to preserve the secrecy of their division, had assigned his colleagues names taken from a dusty novel in his brother’s library. And he’d used those names on the guest list and invitations. Colin had been especially pleased with A. Fairwether, finding it a clever play on Montclair: fair weather, clear mountain. But Adam’s conscience had silently added “friend” to “fair weather,” transforming his invitation into a silent indictment.
The old man returned after a few minutes, holding out the invitation. “Lady Emmeline sends us a nice basket of food for our holidays and birthdays, so we know her hand. You can put your horse in the second stall. But that’ll be four pence.”
“Didn’t you say the duke hired all the stalls for his guests?”
“Aye, your horse may shelter in the second stall. But it’s four pence for me to brush him down and watch the barn so no one steals him.”
Adam laughed, appreciating the old man’s ingenuity. He tossed the man a half crown instead. “I won’t be staying after the ceremony.”
The old man bit the coin and, finding it good, smiled wide. “You Adam?”
“What?” Adam looked around the yard, suddenly wary.
“Your name.” The old man, not illiterate after all, gestured at the invitation. “A. Fairwether. We had a son once named Adam.”
Adam stared at the old man’s face, trying to transform his features into those of a younger man. Had he known the son when he’d walked these hills before?
“He died in the wars.” The old man nodded to a rock structure at the edge of the yard. “We built that sheepfold together, but he never came back.”
“We lost many good men in the wars.” Adam felt his shoulders loosen. If he’d known the son, it wasn’t from his work in the region. “I’m proud to share his name.”
The old man nodded, the glint of tears in his eyes. “Follow the ridge until you see the chapel’s steeple, then take the market road down to the river. From there, you can curve around to the front chapel yard. Or you could take the straight path, but it leads through the family cemetery.”
How appropriate it would be for him to arrive through the cemetery. A dead man come to haunt the wedding. The thought almost amused him.
“But stay out of the forest. The only men you’ll find there are up to no good.”
“Highwaymen?” Adam prompted, unable to resist.
The man grimaced. “Stay to the path. If you get lost, tell people you left your horse with Michael.”
Adam shook Michael’s hand, then in long strides ascended the hill he’d walked a dozen times with Em.
Attending the wedding carried risks. Since he’d been so foolhardy as to embark without a plan, he needed to think for a moment about what might happen when he arrived.
Lord Colin wouldn’t be surprised to see him. He had in fact almost begged Adam to attend: “How can I marry without the man who helped me survive the wars by my side?” Colin knew Adam better than almost any man alive, so it would take only one misplaced glance for Colin to suspect some history between his fiancée and his best friend. And it wouldn’t do for Colin to wonder why or how well.
Colin didn’t know Adam knew Emmeline. Emmeline didn’t know Adam knew Colin.
While he could anticipate Colin’s response to his presence, Lady Emmeline was the wild card in his not-plan. She believed him—or, rather Adam Locksley—to be a criminal, a rabble-rousing dissenter intent on overthrowing the government. She likely thought him dead. The newspapers had been well paid to report Locksley’s trial, verdict, and execution. If that were the case, her engagement to Lord Colin felt like less of a betrayal.
The problem of attending, then, rested with Em. If she saw him, what would she do? Would she ignore him? Or would she swoon to see her lover come back from the dead? No, more likely she’d point one of her dratted pistols at his brain, declare him a fugitive, and march him to the nearest magistrate. Or, she might catch his gaze with those perceptive dark eyes, then give him the cut direct. He’d prefer the swoon or the pistols: either one meant she’d once felt something for him. He’d believed she had, but, as he’d expected, class and rank ended up mattering to her as much as to anyone else.
His old hurt, fed by the whiskey and lack of sleep, breathed back to life as a quick anger. Adam shook his head, wishing he’d never taken the assignment that had led him to the neighboring cottagers . . . and Emmeline.
Adam crested the hill on the edge of the Hartley property. He paused, giving his breath time to catch up with his anger. The winter landscape was barren, the tree branches stark lines against a clouded sky. Em would tell him it was beautiful, the sleep of spring. Suddenly he could see her again, her face turned upward to catch a snowflake on her tongue. He pushed the memory away. He needed his anger. Without it, he had only despair and recrimination.
But the landscape was filled with her. The rocks where they sat, quietly watching a rabbit eat its dinner—the animal had eyed them suspiciously, but not suspiciously enough to hop away. The tree where she’d insisted he return a fledgling robin to its nest, or she would do it herself. The fox hole where Em had stood defiantly, gun in hand, protecting the exhausted animal from neighbors’ dogs. “My land, my fox,” she’d insisted to the disappointed hunters, her knowledge of the game laws indisputable. Somehow she always surprised him.
Adam raised his collar against the brisk December wind and forged forward. He’d started off so well, holding himself together with anger and drink. But with each step, the drink faded, and his anger turned to something like sorrow. He hoped that with Em firmly married, he could convince his heart to let her go.
From the rise of the hill, he could see Hartshorne Hall’s stables and the dozens of carriages that lined the avenue to the house.
Adam wanted none of the hubbub. He’d wanted to arrive at the precise moment when all the other guests were seated, but the service had not yet begun. Though he was also friends with Lord Colin’s brother Lord Edmund Somerville, and more distantly with the duke, he had no wish to be part of the festivities. He hoped that seeing Em marry would make living without her easier. If it didn’t, he would take another assignment and another, until he didn’t have to worry about living at all.
He had only one regret: he had never told her the truth. One more conversation would not have mattered; a civil servant and a lady had no future together. But he had hoped for her understanding, even forgiveness. But he’d waited too long after she’d sent him away that night, pistol in hand. Unable to imagine a conversation that didn’t begin—or end—with gunfire, he’d delayed the visit to her estate over and again.
Then, when having overcome his objections, and he had finally stood outside her ballroom, he’d arrived in time to see her accept another man’s hand.
Adam had always known Em would marry, but he hadn’t expected it to happen so soon or to his best friend. Even if she could never have been his, that part was too much to bear. If he opened his shirt, would he find only a gaping hole where his heart once had been?
Yes, he needed the brisk walk on a cold day to see her wed. And he would likely need a bottle of whiskey afterward to live with her loss.