Point of Honour (Sarah Tolerance) Page 16

  Versellion looked up, blinking in the sunlight.

  “The question I asked you last night grows hourly more pressing.”

  Versellion seemed lost. “Take me with you, Miss Tolerance. Which question?”

  “Why people have died for this fan. Do you know?”

  He shook his head. “The longer I examine it, the less I understand.” He handed the fan to her. Miss Tolerance turned it over in her hands as he had done; the rounded end-sticks were warm from the sun and the touch of Versellion’s fingers.

  “Perhaps if you tell me why you sought the fan so anxiously?” she suggested.

  Versellion did not answer at once; Miss Tolerance suspected he was trying to judge how little information he could give without appearing to evade the question.

  “I will find it out,” she told him. “But by that time you may be dead, or your careful secret may have become common gossip.”

  “Are you so certain the cause of all this uproar is the fan?” he countered. He looked away from her, across the clearing. He had taken up his hat in both hands and ran the brim between thumb and forefinger, smoothing the surface of the felt. “I have political enemies—”

  Miss Tolerance cut him off. “Do you see any benefit to your political enemies in the death of an elderly woman in Leyton, or of my friend who was carrying a note to you? Those events seem uniquely tied to the fan. In the usual way of business, I would ask no questions; your secrets are your own. But now I cannot afford such nicety. Nor can you. Why did you want to retrieve the fan?”

  Versellion continued to toy with his hat brim. “I presume when I say that my mother bade me do it, that will not satisfy you? She did. On her deathbed. I had never heard of the fan until two years ago when my mother became ill. For a time the doctors were hopeful of the outcome, but she began at last to fail. When she was certain that her illness was fatal, she told me—urgently—that I must find the Italian fan, that all would be ruined if …”

  “If?”

  “If my cousin found it first. What do you know of my family, Miss Tolerance?”

  “Political. Wealthy. Whigs—your father was part of the Devonshire set, wasn’t he?”

  “He was. Politics is a kind of mania in my family, Miss Tolerance. My grandfather Folle raised his sons to political power as a farmer might raise his sons to the plow. Unfortunately, in my father’s generation the politics of the family interfered with politics of the nation. My father and my uncle quarreled—my uncle envied my father the title and property, and my father, I believe, could not bear that his brother did not follow meekly where he led. I often thought my father valued me chiefly because as his heir, I kept Uncle William from—” He broke off. “This must sound remarkably trivial to you.”

  “The rivalries of families are rarely trivial,” Miss Tolerance said blandly. “I presume the fan comes into this at some point?”

  “I believe so. There was a schism in the family—my uncle William was of great assistance to the Crown when the King went mad in ’88, and when Queen Charlotte was made Regent, she created him baronet in his own right, and he tucked himself into the Crown party with a vengeance. My grandfather never spoke to him again; my father barely did.”

  “May I infer that the baronetcy did not slake your uncle’s thirst for position?”

  “It seemed rather to inflame it. The bitterness between my father and my uncle grew so profound my mother feared it might lead to a duel. It did not, but my cousin and I were raised to hate each other like—”

  “Capulets and Montagues?” Miss Tolerance asked dryly.

  “Precisely. Of the two of us, Cousin Henry was the apter pupil. It is not enough that our politics still divide us; he hates me as deeply as his father could have wished, and I believe he would stop at nothing to see me ruined.”

  “And your mother did not wish him to have …” She held up the fan. “This?”

  “What she said was not very lucid. My mother was in great pain, and the doctor had been giving her steady doses of laudanum. All I could make out was that the fan held some sort of secret that could bring ruin upon my family. She raved on about the fan. And Deb Cunning. She was quite … bitter about Mrs. Cunning.”

  “I see. And no one had ever mentioned the fan before?”

  “My father died in ’05 without mentioning the fan or potential ruin, or anything but his hope that Fox would return to the ministry again.” The earl’s tone was dry. Miss Tolerance suspected there had been little love lost between him and his late father. “What I know is what my mother told me. And frankly, for a time I did not think about it. But when the Queen was stricken—this is a time when the opposition could become a force. I had to be sure there was no way my cousin could harm my party—”

  “Or your own chances?”

  He looked at her, a little nettled by her cynicism, Miss Tolerance thought.

  “Or my own chances,” he agreed. “And why not? I have worked for this, I have great hopes for reform, for—No, I will not make a speech to you, Miss Tolerance. In your work you must encounter in good measure the hunger and hardship this war has caused, and …”

  Miss Tolerance did not listen too closely. The earl had been raised to politics, and it would not do to believe a client too wholeheartedly, particularly a client as elusive, and attractive, as the Earl of Versellion.

  This cynical thought was broken by the sensation of a pinprick. Her finger had caught on a tiny bit of raised gold chasing on one of the fan’s end-sticks. She tried to push the wire down; it would not go. She looked more closely and an exclamation of surprise escaped her lips.

  The protruding wire was part of a minute catch, so tiny she would have taken it for an imperfection of the design. When she inserted her thumbnail in the catch, the top of the rounded end-stick opened, revealing a space no more than half an inch across and less than a quarter inch wide. A slip of paper was folded inside it. Using her thumbnail again, Miss Tolerance pried at the paper until she could prise it out of its concealment. Without looking at the contents, she handed it to Versellion. “Perhaps this will make all clear, sir.”

  Ten

  The earl unfolded the paper gingerly. It was a flimsy sheet, written and cross-written in a tight, florid script. There was no crest or other identifier, but the paper was still white, the ink unfaded. Versellion smoothed the paper between his fingers, flattened it on his knee, and tried to read it. After a moment he shook his head, clearly frustrated.

  “The damned thing’s written in Italian!”

  “Italian?”

  He nodded. “I believe so. I read French and Latin, but all I know is singers’ Italian.” He stared at the paper for several minutes, then shook his head. “I cannot make head or tails of its meaning—especially with the lines so tightly compacted. It seems to be about cookery.”

  “Cookery?” Miss Tolerance held out her hand. “May I, sir?” She studied the edges of the paper on both sides, seeking the beginning of the document. “Ah, see. ‘Caro frate mio … ’ it appears to be a letter from someone to his brother. Have you an Italian connection in your family, Versellion?”

  Versellion shook his head.

  “What made you think of cookery, sir? Oh, I see. ‘Pisi verde’: green peas. And vines? Perhaps it is not cookery but gardening.” Miss Tolerance folded the paper and returned it to Versellion. Surely there was no recipe so powerful it would threaten one of the greatest families in England. She wondered if the late Lady Versellion might, under the influence of drugs, have confabulated the entire story. But if the whole matter was a wild-goose chase—why would anyone know? Why kill Matt or Mrs. Smith, or make an attempt upon Versellion’s life? “We cannot decipher this without help, which we will not find sitting here, sir. And we have rested long enough, I think.” She got to her feet and reached around the earl to untangle her horse’s rein from the branch to which she had tied it. At once Versellion was at her side and offered his hand to help her into the saddle.

  “Where shall we go?” Ver
sellion threw her up into the saddle and moved to mount his own horse.

  Miss Tolerance thought. “I am convinced that the smaller roads are where your safety best lies. But we need to find a town large enough to support a bookshop.”

  “A bookshop?”

  “We need an Italian lexicon, my lord. That is, I presume you would prefer we try to decipher the note ourselves, rather than taking it to a third party who could read it for us. Good. Then let us start westerly and see what we can find.”

  The last firm notion of their bearings Miss Tolerance had was in Briarton the night before. Since that time they had ridden—she imagined a map in her head—east and south, to find the inn they had slept at, then farther west to elude their pursuers. To say they were somewhere west of London was to include a singularly vast territory.

  “Maidenhead and Reading should both be to the south of us,” Versellion volunteered at last. “Either is large enough to contain a bookshop. I recall one in Reading—”

  “As well attach a fox’s brush to your hat, my lord, and loose the hounds, as to send you to a place where you are known.”

  “Then why can we not simply return to London?”

  “I don’t advise it until we have hired a bodyguard to bring you back to the city—and stay with you until you have hired another to keep with you there. Someone has killed to gain the fan, and twice attempted your life, and until we know for certain that no one in your establishment in London or your house in Richmond is part of that plot, I cannot advise you to go either where.”

  “Then I’ll go stay with friends,” Versellion suggested.

  “Which friends? Are you sure of them all? Even more, are you sure we could get to them unharmed? We do not know how many people are pursuing you, but if they found us on the Birmingham road, with no particular reason to believe that we had gone west rather than south or east, it suggests that whoever is behind this had men out on all the post roads.”

  “Then let us hire a bodyguard at once. You cannot possibly understand how important it is that I return to London; the future of my party, of the nation, my own future—”

  “Your own future is very much the point, sir,” Miss Tolerance said.

  Versellion glared at Miss Tolerance. She kept her gaze steady and abruptly he shook his head as if to clear it. “I was trying to bully you. I’m sorry.” He held out his hand to her. “Forgive my temper.”

  Miss Tolerance clasped Versellion’s hand and shook it, businesslike. “There is nothing to forgive, sir.” They sat handfast for a moment. Then, with a feeling of some reluctance, Miss Tolerance released her hand and set her heels to her horse’s sides. They rode west.

  In the end, Miss Tolerance left the Earl of Versellion in a field a few miles outside of Reading, well back from the roadside by a stand of trees. He gave her money to purchase an Italian lexicon and to retain the services of an outrider, if she could. It was close to noon, and both of them were hungry; Miss Tolerance promised to find provisions as well. Before she left him, she gave the earl her pocketknife. Versellion turned it over in his hand thoughtfully.

  “Is this for self-defense, or that I might take my own life if the enemy surrounds me?” he asked dryly.

  Miss Tolerance blinked. “I had thought, sir, that you might do some whittling. There’s not much else I can suggest by way of amusement.”

  As she rode away, a backward look showed her the Earl of Versellion sitting with a small apple branch in one hand and the knife in the other, considering.

  June was not the high season in Reading, nor was it market day. The streets were not crowded, which made it easier for Miss Tolerance to watch for persons she could identify as dangerous, but also meant she stood out as a stranger. She left her horse stabled at a public house on the western end of the town and walked on, looking for a cook shop, a bookshop, and a inn large enough so that she might hire a chaise, horses, and a bodyguard. She spied such an establishment upon the main street and turned toward it, then stopped. Coming out of the inn was the man she had left tied up in the stable some hours before. He was in close discussion with a large, villainous-looking fellow, both looking away from Miss Tolerance.

  She sank back into a side street with her heart beating so loudly she was surprised that in itself did not give the alarum. Thinking rapidly, she slouched into the back streets of the town. The sight of a used-clothes shop inspired her: she sold her coat and bought another of longer cut, in a drab brown wool, and a pair of gray breeches and a sagging felt hat. Upon a moment’s thought, she bought a coat for Versellion as well, of dark red wool, and an old-fashioned tricorne hat with one side fallen. Wearing her new coat, she immediately felt better, less obvious. It had occurred to her to buy a dress, for her pursuers would be expecting two men, not a man and a woman; but there was the problem of riding pillion. Miss Tolerance balked. Now her objective was to get food and leave Reading undetected. She had forgotten the lexicon until she passed a tiny, shabby bookstore which, from the character of the books it sold, was clearly kept for the governesses and tutors in the households that surrounded the town. There she found an Italian lexicon and a good deal of dust; bought the one, sneezed at the other, and skulked back to the public house where she had stabled her horse.

  It was still there. From the house, she bespoke a basket with a half ham, a cheese, some chicken and fruit, a loaf of bread, and a jug of ale. It was hurriedly assembled; at the last minute, making free with Versellion’s funds, she bought a small bottle of brandy and the London papers.

  There was no sign that she had been seen or followed, but Miss Tolerance took a long route to return to Versellion. By the time she reached the orchard, the afternoon was well advanced, and Miss Tolerance was aware of an unladylike appetite. Between hunger and the intelligence that men were still actively in pursuit, she was uncommonly eager to find the earl and assure herself of his safety. She marked all the landmarks leading to the tree under which she had left him. She saw his horse tethered by a distant hedge and dozing over the lush grass there. What she saw no sign of was the Earl of Versellion himself.

  Miss Tolerance swore and urged her horse forward. There were no signs of a struggle. If Versellion had gone, he had left willingly. But why not take his horse? A sensation of panic-flush swept over her. Under the tree she stopped. There was a pile of wood shavings at the base of the tree, and she realized with a pang that Versellion had been whittling. It was a substantial collection of shavings, made over some time: the earl could not have been gone from the clearing for long. Perplexed, Miss Tolerance removed her hat, wiped the perspiration from her forehead with the rough sleeve of her new coat, and regretted her own lighter coat of blue superfine wool, now hanging from a peg in Reading.

  “The devil! You changed your coat!”

  Miss Tolerance spun around, seeking the source of Versellion’s voice, but saw nothing behind her, nothing to the left or right or anywhere in the broad expanse of meadow that stretched before her. She looked up and thought she could see, through the thickly leafed branches of the tree, a dark shape.

  “Climbing trees, my lord?” She swung down from the saddle, tethered her horse to a tree nearby, and returned to watch as Versellion came down through the branches. “You gave me a moment’s pause, sir.”

  The earl dusted bits of twig and leaf from his coat. “No more than you gave me, Miss Tolerance. I looked up from that profitable occupation to which you urged me”—he took a newly made wooden peg from his pocket—“to see an unfamiliar rider approaching. I judged it would be prudent to make myself disappear as completely as possible.”

  Miss Tolerance took from her saddlebag the parcel which contained the book and newspapers she had procured. “Very neat, sir. Had I not had cause to look for you here, I would never have stopped—although you did leave some evidence of your presence.” She toed the pile of wood shavings.

  Versellion grinned. “I’m new to your game, Miss Tolerance. Next time I shall make sure to take my evidence with me.”

/>   “God willing there shall be no next time,” she said, and took the basket down from her saddle. “I waited nuncheon for you, sir. I presume you have an appetite?”

  “My God, yes!”

  They sat in the lee of the tree, and no one who had not known they were there could have expected to find them. Versellion laid out the food and Miss Tolerance explained the reason for her change of coat.

  “They were in Reading? But how in God’s name could they know we would go west?” Versellion asked at last.

  Miss Tolerance had already given the matter some thought. “I wonder if your enemy has not sent out people in all directions, and having found us this morning near the Birmingham road, blanketed the countryside north and west of London? If that is so, your enemy has a good supply of money and men at his disposal. I doubt he will give up easily. Who wants you dead so powerfully, Versellion?”

  In silence he considered the question, but found no answer. “Although I tell you, if I do not return to London soon, I had as well be dead as far as my prospects and my party’s are concerned.”

  “I understand that—but you must agree that hiring a chaise and outriders will certainly not be possible in Reading. We shall have to go farther afield.”

  They made inroads on the meal spread on oiled cloth, drinking in turn from the jug of ale that sat between them. At last Miss Tolerance wrapped the remains of the meal for later consumption. By the sun’s height she reckoned it was about four o’clock. They could count on a little more than four hours more of useful light.

  “I think we had best find a place to stay the night, sir. We can continue riding on, north or west, and hope to find an inn so small our pursuers will miss it, or we can look for rougher shelter. I would prefer to ride a little farther from Reading, having seen your attackers there.”

  “I am sure you will not want to put up at a posting inn, and any inn small enough for you to endorse as safe will likely be as rough as sleeping in a stable,” Versellion said dryly. “I think, in fact, I should rather prefer a well-kept barn.”