Mask of Duplicity (The Jacobite Chronicles Book 1) (17 page)

For once she was actually relieved to see her brother enter the room closely followed by Lord Edward, cheeks flushed and wigs askew, having galloped home from Manchester to try to outrun the rain, which was now setting in in earnest. The scent of fresh country air breezed in on their clothes, dissipating the cloying smell of violets a little.

“Oh, Edward, look who has deigned to pay us a visit! Sir Anthony!” Isabella added, as though her brother was incapable of identifying the visitor for himself. “You must stay for dinner, Sir Anthony. Oh please say you will.”

“How can I resist the entreaties of such a lovely lady?” he replied. “Unless it is too much trouble?”

“Oh, it is no trouble at all!” put in Clarissa. “We have so few visitors at the moment, everyone being in London, that it will be wonderful to have some new conversation, will it not, Edward?”

“Capital,” said Lord Edward without enthusiasm, eyeing the satin-clad interloper with barely concealed disgust.

Beth had never heard the uncommunicative Clarissa utter more than a few words at a time, and realised with amusement that her cousins were vying with each other for the attention of the visitor, clearly finding him attractive.

Sir Anthony stood, and was introduced to Richard, who had taken his cue from Lord Edward, and displayed a similar hostile expression. With his sallow complexion, brown eyes and slightly less than average height, he, unlike his lovely sister, bore a marked resemblance to his homely Cunningham cousins, Sir Anthony thought, although Richard’s thin mouth looked cruel rather than petulant as Edward’s was, and the deep creases in his forehead coupled with the lack of lines at the corner of his eyes indicated that here was a man who did not smile often, and who took himself very seriously indeed. As the cousins shared a surname, Sir Anthony assumed they were related on their fathers’ side. He surmised that Beth must take after her mother.

“Delighted to make your acquaintance, sir,” he enthused, placing a limp hand in Richard’s grubby brown one as briefly as propriety allowed before removing it. “I believe that your sister intends to be presented at Court. She will be an unqualified success, I assure you of that.”

“Sir Anthony is on excellent terms with the king, Richard, and knows everyone of any importance at all. I am sure he will be of invaluable help in launching Elizabeth,” Isabella said.

The difference in reaction between the siblings at this comment was as marked as their looks. While Beth struggled not to laugh as her imagination conjured an image of her gliding majestically ship-like down a ramp into an astonished Court, Richard’s hostile demeanour evaporated immediately, and he eyed the overdressed fop with a new interest.

This interest continued for the duration of the meal. Richard questioned Sir Anthony closely regarding his friends at Court, asking whether the baronet had any acquaintance amongst the higher ranks of the military.

“Of course he has!” Edward butted in, disgruntled that his hopes of a cosy evening sharing a bottle of brandy with Richard whilst discussing the day’s cockfight, at which he had won a hundred guineas, had been ruined by the appearance of this fop. “The man knows everybody. You’ll be able to effect an introduction to anyone, from the lowest whore to God almighty, if you are well in with
him.
” The last word was uttered with such revulsion that the table was rendered momentarily silent.

Sir Anthony alone of the company was completely unperturbed, seemingly taking Edward’s remark at face value.

“Lord Edward is too generous.” He addressed Richard amiably. “I only frequent the higher class of er...ladies, and I certainly cannot be certain of making the acquaintance of the Lord, either in this world or the next. Delightful cuisine, my dear Miss Cunningham,” he continued, turning to Isabella with a smile.

Edward, embarrassed at having made his feelings toward Sir Anthony quite so obvious, now compounded his error. He moved the tiny spiced pancake around on his plate with the point of his fork, as though expecting a caterpillar to crawl out from underneath it.

“Delightful?” he said. “Ever since Isabella saw fit to engage that ridiculous French chef, we have been inundated with the most impalatable rubbish dressed up as works of art, in an attempt to disguise the fact that they are mostly composed of air. When will the man learn to cook a simple English dinner of roast beef and horseradish, with a fine suet pudding? Before I starve to death, hopefully, or before his salary bankrupts me.”

“Edward,” his sister remonstrated. “You know that Susan normally cooks a separate dish of roast meat for you, but I thought as we had company we could all eat the same fare tonight. Monsieur Blanchet is highly sought after. Why our table is the envy of society, I assure you.”

“All I am assured of, sister,” her brother retorted hotly, “is that I am put to the unnecessary expense of employing two cooks in order to have someone who understands that a man needs meat after a hard day. By God,” he finished, “why we have to follow the ridiculous foppish customs of a country we’re at war with when we have a perfectly good culture of our own, is beyond me!”

“Are we at war with France?” Isabella asked in a quavering voice.

Beth, who had remained silent until this point in the proceedings, now spoke.

“Well, it is true that the British forces are in Europe to assist Maria-Theresa of Austria against invasion. But as yet, as far as I know, there has been no formal declaration of war against France by Britain, although as Lord Edward thinks women incapable of understanding the newspapers, I am of course not au fait with the latest developments. Are we at war with France, Sir Anthony?” she asked, smiling innocently across at him.

“No, not as yet, my dear,” he replied, highly amused.

“There you are then, Isabella,” Beth said soothingly to the distraught woman. “I do not think that your excellent chef can be considered an enemy as yet.”

Lord Edward looked at Beth as though she had just grown another head.

“If a nation wishes to undermine its enemy,” he blustered, “what better way than to start by weakening its health?”

“So am I right then in thinking that you consider Monsieur Blanchet to be a hostile agent of France, trying to bring the country to its knees by means of sweet pancakes and spicy sauces? Should you not have him arrested, if that is the case?” Beth sounded sincere, and it was impossible to ascertain whether she was being sarcastic or was genuinely alarmed. Only the narrowing of Richard’s eyes as he looked at his sister told Sir Anthony that the former was probably true.

“Well, no, of course not,” Lord Edward said, aware that he was being made to sound a fool, but not quite sure how it had happened. “But I would like to see all of us eat the same meal – a good traditional roast dish. No wonder the two of you look half-starved,” he said, glaring at Clarissa and Charlotte, who immediately looked as distressed as their older sister. “You haven’t eaten a nourishing meal in months.”

Beth glared at Lord Edward with absolute hatred. How dare he humiliate his sisters in company? She felt a wave of empathy with her silly cousins. They were all being dominated by the Cunningham men, and even though Edward seemed not to be brutal, his pomposity and tactlessness were still cruel. The evening hovered precariously on the edge of disaster. Beth could sense Isabella desperately hunting for an innocent topic of conversation to relieve the tension, but she was too upset to think clearly.

“So, Sir Anthony,” Beth said smoothly, as though unaware of the strained atmosphere. “You said earlier that you have been travelling recently. I would so like to travel myself.” This last was said with genuine longing. “Where have you been?”

“Oh my dear lady, I have been absolutely everywhere in Europe in my time. Such sights!” He clapped his hands together. “I cannot begin to describe them! But I am sure that with your beauty you will soon find a wealthy husband who will delight in showing you the wonders of Italy and Fr...the other countries,” he hastily amended, with a quick glance at Edward’s reddened complexion.

Beth looked as though a wealthy husband was the very last thing she wished to find.

“Recently however, being somewhat constrained by business issues, I have only travelled within this fair island of ours and do not have many exotic tales to regale you with, I am afraid. I have been exploring a little of the north in the last months, travelling up through Northumberland to Scotland, having had business to conduct in Edinburgh,” Sir Anthony continued.

The three Cunningham sisters gave a uniform gasp of horror. Beth looked at them, perplexed.

“Oh but surely that was most perilous, Sir Anthony!” Clarissa gasped. “After all, Scotland is a hotbed of Jacobitism, surely?”

“There are Tories and Jacobites everywhere,” put in the committed Whig Edward sourly. “The country is rife with the devils from top to bottom. You must have seen that if you travelled through Northumberland, Sir Anthony.”

“Oh come come, sir, you frighten the ladies,” Sir Anthony remonstrated, glancing at Beth, who looked interested, a little annoyed perhaps, anything but frightened. “It is true that some people talk of rebellion, but they are far too comfortable under King George to actually do any more than talk. The Hanoverians are in no danger from Northumberland, I do assure you.”

“The same cannot be said for Scotland, though. After all, the Stuart kings were of Scottish descent. Many of the Scots are against the Act of Union and look to the damned Pretender to give Scotland its Parliament back.”

“I don’t think James will set foot on British soil again, after the debacle of the rebellion in 1715,” the baronet replied. “The House of Hanover is too well established now to be uprooted by an old man and a few discontented Highlanders. Edinburgh certainly seems to be doing well out of the union. I stayed in the most comfortable lodgings and visited some excellent clubs whilst I was there. And the ladies! Ah, a positive delight to the eye! And Presbyterians, every one, loyal to King George.”

“Oh, Sir Anthony,” chimed in Charlotte, grasping at the first thing she had understood in the last few minutes. “Are the ladies of Scotland more handsome than those of England? My dear Frederick always used to say that nothing could compare with English ladies, but he never travelled in the north of Britain.”

Edward looked askance at the enraptured Sir Anthony, and listened with impatience as he launched into a flood of overblown compliments about the ladies of the two countries. Really, the man was so easily diverted from interesting topics onto feminine trivialities. Yet in his political naivety he often let slip the most amazing and relevant information. The man had a knack with people that Lord Edward could not understand. All he could see was a classically educated dainty fop. Probably the man was a homosexual, in spite of all his talk about women. Most likely he was one of those perverts who enjoyed the favours of both sexes. It was disgusting. And yet he had a knack of gaining the trust of everyone he met. They would confide the most secret things to him. And he, all unwitting, would regale the company with tales of his conversations, letting slip tasty titbits all the time. As he was doing now. Lord Edward tried to turn the conversation back to the more interesting subject of the potential of the north to rebel.

“So, does your opinion that the Northumbrians are demoralised have any basis in fact, Sir Anthony, or is it just conjecture?” he asked.

“Oh no, my Lord, I spoke extensively with the most interesting people on my way to Scotland. Many of the people of Northumberland were most dissatisfied with the way the ’15 turned out, and the fact that the Earl of Derwentwater was executed...well, many of the men I spoke to said that they would not put their lives at risk as he had for a lost cause. Why, even the Earl’s brother Charles has told me personally that he would not risk his life again for a young fop like Charles Stuart.”

“What!” said Lord Edward. “Are you sure? After all, the man was sentenced to death after the ’15 along with his brother, and if he hadn’t had the luck of the devil as to escape to France, would have been beheaded. Is he back in Northumberland, then?”

“No, no, you mistake me,” Sir Anthony said. “The man is in exile, you know, in France. I spoke to him there on my last trip. He is not impressed with the young Charles Edward, I can tell you. He said the pup couldn’t lead an expedition to find a whore in a brothel, let alone a rebellion... begging your pardon, ladies, I merely quote the Earl, I do assure you.... But I am being diverted. The ladies of Edinburgh have a beauty of their own, but which cannot of course compare to that of the fair English rose, which is quite superlative.” He scampered on, and Lord Edward let him alone, taking a few moments to digest the information he had just been unwittingly given.

This was heartening news indeed, and one which the king would be interested to hear. If even the fanatically Jacobite Earl of Derwentwater found the Young Pretender ineffectual, the chances were that many of the other potential leaders of a rebellion felt the same way. Lord Edward eyed the dandy with condescension. Perhaps it was the fact that the man so clearly did not have two political ideas to rub together that made both sides entrust him with their views. He would listen to everything with a sympathetic and interested ear, and understand the importance of nothing.

Beth sat in appalled silence, her face resolutely passive. She knew who the Earl of Derwentwater was. He was one of the most important English Jacobite nobles, unfailingly loyal. Beth could not believe that the romantic figure of her childhood stories could turn his coat, or if he had, that this utter idiot could let such a piece of news slip in this Hanoverian household, completely unaware of the damage it might do. Of course, if he had the ear of the king he was no doubt a committed supporter of the House of Hanover himself. She would have had more respect for him had he been aware of the import of his comment. As it was she felt nothing but contempt. And despair. Was the whole of English society composed of trivial women and imbecilic or blustering men?

When the evening finally ended and Sir Anthony announced his departure, assuring her that he would do everything he could to smooth her way into the Court circles, Beth smiled icily, and this time when he raised her hand to his red lips, she did wipe her hand on her skirt in a deliberately insulting gesture, although Sir Anthony seemed not to notice it.