Page 48 of A Tale of Two Dukes

Viola spent the days of Richard’s absence in a fever of anxiety, all the more painful because she was obliged to conceal her agitation from her sons – from the Codlings, from her maid, everyone.

He was gone away on unimportant but necessary business, and would be back soon, she said easily.

She could only hope that the latter statement was true.

It was late when Ventris reappeared in the Castle.

He was plainly exhausted after many hours of hard riding, and she directed that a bath be readied for him before the fire in his bedchamber.

But when it was ready at last and she made to withdraw, he said, ‘Stay with me, Viola. I am not too tired to talk, we urgently need to, and I can see from your face that you too will not rest until we have spoken.’

She watched as he disrobed and let his travel-stained clothing fall to the floor.

The firelight flickered over the hard planes of his body, shoulders, chest, taut buttocks and thighs, and even now, when she had so many questions, when his own words had so recently branded him a killer, she could not suppress the desire that instantly flared to life within her at the sight.

She wanted to touch him – she always did.

He was her addiction. But she had enough pride that she did not go to him, but stayed seated a little distance away, maintaining her outward composure with an effort.

He lowered himself into the steaming water with a sigh of relief and lay back, his eyes on her.

‘Tarquin will no longer trouble you,’ he said abruptly.

‘He is a foolish, weak man, but not so foolish that he will dare to cross me. We understand each other better now, and I promise that you have nothing to fear from him. Indeed, I’m not sure you ever did.

He swears that he would never have done anything to harm the boys, not physically, and if I am any judge of character, I believe him to be truthful in this.

Spreading malicious gossip and menacing the vulnerable is more his mark – and he says he won’t even do that now.

Madame Lesmire will be left alone – you might write to tell her so, if you wish.

So in that respect, my dear, your worries are over. ’

‘You threatened him,’ she answered slowly. ‘Did you hurt him?’

‘I would not have hesitated to do so if it had been necessary, but there was no need,’ Richard replied coolly, soaping his chest, wet skin glistening.

She looked away; in other circumstances, she might have offered to help, and she was very aware that she was naked under her wrap, her body yearning for his as it always did.

But there was more to be said, much more for him to reveal to her, and she must not soften.

He stilled his hands and said, ‘I told you I was waiting for a letter, did I not? Well, it came at last, which was what prompted me to set off to see Tarquin without delay, and resolve matters with him once and for all. It’s in the pocket of my coat – I hope you will pick it up and read it, Viola.

It explains matters much better than I ever could.

God knows it concerns you more nearly than anyone else in the world. ’

She rose and crossed the room to where his clothes lay carelessly discarded, and picked up his heavy wool riding coat, still warm from his body.

The package was stiff and heavy, and crackled – it was not hard to find, and she retired to her chair and pulled the candle closer so she could open it.

Like Tarquin, though she did not know it, she stared at the broken seals and the superscription: Windsor Castle.

A hundred questions quivered on her lips.

But she read in silence, and he watched her as she did.

She could feel his gaze intent upon her all the while.

At length, she raised her head and stared at him. ‘I have read it three times and I can scarcely credit it. It says you have always been…’ Words failed her for a moment.

‘A thousand times, I have wanted to tell you,’ he said, his voice more uncertain than she had heard it in twelve years.

‘It was… a grief to me that you of all people should think badly of me, though I had learned not to give a fig what the rest of the world thought. But it was necessary, you see, that everyone should believe me a desperate criminal, and that some high-placed people like Marchett should also think me a traitor, though the people with real power always knew better. That my reputation should be destroyed beyond all hope of redemption, as it seemed. Only then, when they were utterly convinced, when they’d investigated me thoroughly, did the French agents in this country and elsewhere relax their guard with me and admit me into their secrets.

Such people are always on the lookout for spies in their ranks, and none of them are stupid. It has taken years.’

And been very dangerous, she thought dazedly. Hideously dangerous . ‘That was why you killed Lesmire.’

‘I wish it had not been necessary. The goal was to turn him; to bring his entire network under our control and use it against Bonaparte’s regime – feed them misinformation to help bring them down.

I had been doing so secretly for years, piecemeal, to some effect.

But in the end, it was thought necessary to put a stop to his perilous activities and shut down his operations forever.

And it became clear to me and to those who directed my actions that he was a fanatic, entirely personally devoted to his emperor.

He had to die, or I did. He could not be allowed to escape with all he knew – not least the fact that I had been playing a double game for so long and none of my information could be relied upon. ’

Richard was gazing into the fire now. ‘His ruin was my final mission. It has been sufficiently obvious for years that he was at the centre of everything, but it was impossible to know how far his clandestine contacts stretched until recently. Only when we could be sure we had laid hands on all of them could we act to put an end to their schemes.’

His lips quirked in self-mockery. ‘If you can credit it, Viola, although we were aware that he claimed to be a minor member of the aristocracy before the Terror, we did not know until you told me so exactly who he had been once, and who his wife was. His name was not always Lesmire, and he had covered his tracks with a great deal of skill. Tarquin will be receiving some insistent official visitors who will be asking how he found that out. It’s not exactly to our credit that we were in ignorance of such a matter, while a drunken fool and a rank amateur stumbled across the truth.

It shows, I think, that insufficient attention is still paid to women by the authorities.

Once we were entirely satisfied that Madame Lesmire knew nothing, and that her children were equally ignorant, we paid her little mind, and certainly did not spend any time investigating her past or worrying about who she might be, even though it was obvious that she was English, and a lady of quality.

And yet she had been my own cousin’s wife…

It’s more than a little embarrassing. Thank God I never saw a portrait of her – you know that Winterflood kept none – or met her, being too young, though some of my superiors must have done, years ago.

Danced with her at balls and saw her presented at Court at Edward’s side, no doubt.

Flirted with her. But all that is out of my hands now.

It’s a dirty business and I am very happy to put it behind me. ’

‘Are you really entirely free of it, as the letter says?’

‘I promise you I am, my dear.’

‘I see that your grateful country means to reward you very richly.’ She had risen and come to stand at his side.

‘None of that means anything to me. I don’t need rewards.

I just want my life back. I entangled myself in such matters through misplaced patriotic enthusiasm when I was too young to understand what I was doing, and by the time I met you, it was far too late to extricate myself.

I couldn’t tell you what I was about when we met – in 1801, I’d been working in America to set seeds that, it was hoped, might bring them in against the French on our side, though the whole project was misconceived, as hindsight shows, and ended in abject failure. ’

‘I never suspected a thing at the time.’

Richard shrugged, water streaming from his shoulders, candlelight gleaming on his sculpted muscles.

‘You were not meant to. It was about that date that it was decided to use me in a more complex and risky way – to begin to establish me as a dubious sort of fellow with revolutionary sympathies. As an admirer of Bonaparte, in fact – a rake, a libertine and an all-round dangerous man. And when I had lost you and the boys to Edward – not that I ever had you – I saw no reason to object to any of it.’

He caught sight of her face and said urgently, ‘I’m not blaming you, or our relationship, for anything.

Please believe that. I was already set firmly on a spy’s path before I met you.

But you see, I hope, why encouraging you to leave Edward was never an option for me, much as I might have wanted to.

The last thing I desired was to put you in danger, and associating with me would have done that in an instant – made you a hostage to fortune, really risked your life.

It was impossible. I told you nothing less than the truth when I told you that. ’

She shook her head and undid the fastenings on her loose robe, then let it fall. ‘It’s ancient history. Let’s not speak of it any more. Is there any warmth left in that bath?’

‘Surprisingly, yes, and there is certainly heat in me, enough for both of us. Do you care to join me, madam?’

She stepped in, and lowered herself into the water, sinking down to straddle his body and taking the soap from him. ‘You’ve been talking instead of washing yourself. Clearly, you need me to do it for you.’

‘Now, that’s the sort of reward that interests me, not empty titles. I hope you’ll be very thorough.’

‘I always am,’ she said, her hands on his chest, his heart thudding beneath her caress. ‘Am I to understand that a great deal of your reputation as a rake was a fiction too?’ She began diligently to soap him, biting her lip in concentration.

‘Most of it, in truth, if not quite all. I’ve been careful, Viola, but not celibate. I won’t deny there’ve been times when I’ve been lonely, and taken comfort where I might. There seemed no hope… but let us not speak of that now.’

He went on, as if to skate over the raw emotion he had shown for a moment, ‘It’s useful, to have an excuse to be in one house or another, supposedly with dishonourable intentions, at odd hours of the day and night.

Ladies too have been known to have revolutionary sympathies; some of them do in truth, some of them don’t, but quite the opposite.

It was all in the cause of becoming a notorious reprobate and public scandal, you understand, and passing information in secret without being suspected.

Making connections that nobody suspected.

If I’d really been what everyone thought me, a government man like Lord Granville would never have allowed me across his threshold, you can be sure.

He knows the truth, even if his wife doesn’t. ’

He went on wryly, ‘Viola, some people will always be ready to say that there is no smoke without fire, both in terms of my personal life and politically. Oh, that’s so good, don’t stop…

just there. Despite the letter, and despite the public recognition that you’ve seen is coming, I don’t suppose my reputation will ever be spotless. You should know that.’

‘But you will be,’ she said, her busy hands moving lower on his slippery skin. ‘Spotless.’

He gasped at what she was doing, and she smiled wickedly at him.

At last, she judged that he must be clean enough by anyone’s standards, and for her own part, she could wait no longer.

With a great surge of water, she moved over him, and they slid together in delicious union.

His hands grasped and held her, and the time for talking was over; they couldn’t speak now, in any case, because his mouth was hungry on her breasts, and hers was on his neck, kissing him there, biting him, as they whipped up a storm to rival anything that might rage outside in the autumn night.