Gareth pulled his chair to her desk. “Xanthia, I was not remotely sharp,” he said, straddling the chair backward. He crossed his arms over the back, and looked at her assessingly. “I mean this in the kindest way, Zee, but what the devil is going on?” he said more gently. “You’ve not been yourself of late, and it is getting worse, not better. Yesterday you snapped at poor old Bakely.”
“Yes, and I apologized,” she said defensively.
“So you did.” His tone was soothing. “Zee, we are friends, if nothing else, are we not? I am not worried about Neville’s. I am worried about
you
. Look—why do you not take a holiday? They say Brighton is lovely. Make Kieran take you. I can see to all this for a fortnight, truly.”
Damn it
. Why did Gareth have to be so kind? Xanthia set her forehead on the heels of her hands, but she could not stop from heaving a deep, shuddering sigh.
“Oh, Zee!” Gareth whispered, leaning nearer.
Xanthia closed her eyes and willed it not to happen. But it was too late. “Damn you, Gareth,” she choked. “Just…
don’t
.”
“Oh, Zee,” he said again, more gently still. “Oh, I am so sorry. Please, my dear,
please
don’t cry.”
“I’m n-not crying,” she whimpered. But the tears were running down her face, hot and acrid now. “J-Just d-don’t be so nice, Gareth. Just
st-stop.
”
Gareth stood, drew a handkerchief from his coat pocket, and spun his chair around. “Look, sit up straight, then,” he ordered with mock severity. After a moment, she did so. He blotted the tears from her eyes and let his gaze drift over her. He tried to look stern, which made it all the worse. “It’s that Nash chap, isn’t it, Zee. The fellow who came here a few weeks past.”
“N-no,” she said, snatching the handkerchief, and blowing her nose furiously. “It is
not
him. I—I won’t let it be! I just won’t!”
A little dejectedly, Gareth sat back down. “Ah, Xanthia!” he murmured, propping one elbow on the corner of her desk. “Oh, my dear girl. Did no one ever tell you?”
She blotted her eyes again. “No,” she sniffed. “Tell me what?”
Gareth looked at her sadly. “We do not get to choose,” he said quietly. “No, we none of us do, my dear. Not even you.” He took her hand, and squeezed it hard. “I am sorry, Zee. I truly, truly am.”
Lord Nash’s welcome in Park Lane was warm—almost as warm as the bathwater which Vernon so cheerfully hauled up the stairs. Swann stuck his head inside the door to say that he had cleaned the piles of paperwork from Nash’s desk and that he appreciated Nash’s patience and understanding.
Monsieur René
sent up a tray with a slab of bloody beefsteak and a pile of escaloped potatoes a chap could have wallowed in. Agnes set a vase of fresh flowers on his escritoire, and remade his bed with fresh linen. And Gibbons was in alt—having all of twelve coats to choose from instead of just the two they had been stuck with—and he began laying out an ensemble suitable for an afternoon call at Whitehall.
Everything, in short, was back to normal in Park Lane. It should have been enough. For a man who loved nothing so well as the comfort of his own home and a life of uncomplicated leisure, this was bliss. So why did he feel…nothing. Or something painfully close to it?
But there was no point in pondering it, was there? What was done was done, and now, there were greater things than himself—and his own misery—which required attention.
In short order, Nash was dressed and ready for the meeting he had been dreading since setting sail from France. “There, sir,” said Gibbons as he patted the folds of Nash’s neckcloth. “From the look of you now, no one would guess you’d spent weeks with those uncivilized Frogs.”
Nash glanced down at the valet. “You have been quite civil yourself these last few weeks, Gibbons,” he said. “Feeling sorry for me, were you?”
“Yes, but it won’t last,” said Gibbons. “Do not accustom yourself to it.”
Nash grinned and set off on foot for Whitehall. Yes, everything was settling down. In that regard, at least, he was glad to feel life returning to normal. In other ways, however…Ah, well. He could drink himself into a stupor when this vile business with de Vendenheim was done.
He was fortunate enough to find the gentleman in his office—and in a state which could only be described as extreme civility, or restrained fury. Nash couldn’t tell, and he didn’t much give a damn. He had tried to let go of his anger these last few weeks, and for the most part, he had done so. Jenny’s nefarious scheme had cast blame upon him unfairly—but had he been in de Vendenheim’s shoes, Nash supposed he might have drawn a similar conclusion.
He relayed the story of the Comtesse de Montignac’s smuggling operation, and Jenny’s complicity in it, with words which were succinct and unembellished. “I have brought with me the statements from
le commissaire de police
, should you doubt my veracity,” he finished, placing the man’s card on de Vendenheim’s desk. “But I imagine your contacts at our embassy in Paris have kept you fully abreast.”
De Vendenheim, who had been pacing back and forth before the windows, made a dismissive gesture with his hand. “Yes, yes, the embassy took care of everything,” he murmured, almost to himself. “But two women, gunrunning and smuggling! What is the world coming to?”
Nash smiled faintly. “You must have known very few women in your day, de Vendenheim,” he answered. “They can be as cool, competent, and patently cruel as any man when they wish to be.”
“And the Comtesse de Montignac—she will not live?” De Vendenheim asked the question almost hopefully.
Nash shook his head. “There is no chance,” he said. “Her disease is advanced, and
l’hospice de la Salpêtrière
is notoriously infectious. If syphilis doesn’t get her, cholera likely will.”
Some of the tension seemed to drain out of de Vendenheim. “I don’t wish her dead, but thank God the French are our allies,” he said. “And that they were willing to arrest her.”
Nash gave a muted smile. “The French are the allies of the French,” he said. “The ship was sitting loaded in their harbor—hard evidence to ignore. Besides, it always comes down to money, does it not?”
The vicomte gave a bark of bitter laughter. “Oh, to be sure,” he said. “But to what, specifically, do you refer?”
Nash relaxed in de Vendenheim’s very comfortable armchair. “The French have lucrative trade deals with the Turks,” he said. “And French investors are knee deep in Turkish state bonds. None of it will be worth a sou if Russia overruns the Turks.”
De Vendenheim looked at him appraisingly. “You are remarkably well informed.”
“From time to time, it pays to be a citizen of the world,” said Nash. “And to understand that there is a little more to it than just England. But I somehow suspect I am telling you little you did not know.”
“No, you are not,” he admitted. “And alas, I must now bring up a far more delicate matter—that of your stepbrother’s involvement.”
“There was none,” said Nash swiftly. “Anthony knew nothing. Didn’t your contacts at the embassy make that plain?”
“They did…but I was not sure I believed it.”
“You may believe it,” said Nash. “Whatever my stepbrother’s shortcomings, Tony is a fervent patriot. As to his wife—well,
that
I should rather forget.”
De Vendenheim looked at him skeptically. “How could he not know what she was doing?” the vicomte gently challenged. “She was a wealthy heiress, and he was her husband. What was hers was his.”
“The estate supports Tony with a generous allowance,” Nash replied. “And Jenny supplemented her expenses with whatever she could wheedle from her father—or so we believed. Have you any idea, de Vendenheim, what it costs to be a member of the Commons? I speak not of just the palms which must be greased, but the life one must maintain. The campaigns. The carriages. The clothing. Tony had little left—apparently not enough to appease his wife.”
De Vendenheim coughed discreetly. “Yes, I have learnt a little more of her American connections,” he said. “Carlow Arms is quite an operation. I am sorry to say that we will, of course, have to prosecute her.”
Nash made a dismissive gesture with his hand. “That I cannot allow,” he said coolly. “Much as I might like to see the old girl hang, de Vendenheim, my stepbrother’s career would be ruined if this business is not hushed up.”
“I fear, Lord Nash, that you shall have little say in the matter,” said the vicomte. “Mrs. Hayden-Worth will be detained and interrogated by agents of the British government upon her reentry. I am sorry.”
Nash smiled faintly. “You may save your sympathy, de Vendenheim,” he replied. “I sent Jenny back to Boston with her father’s carbines. She will not be returning.
Ever
. And do not even think of extradition.”
De Vendenheim looked grave. “It was not your place to interfere, Lord Nash,” he said. “Moreover, our government can apply a great deal of pressure when it chooses to do so.”
Nash laughed. “Have you any notion, de Vendenheim, just how dependent the American government is on their arms manufacturers?” he asked. “Carlow’s rifleworks is a part of America’s military might. Had the woman assassinated old Prinny himself, you would not get her back on British soil in this lifetime—nor the next, I daresay.”
A sour smile twisted de Vendenheim’s face. “Checkmate, Lord Nash,” he murmured. “That was brilliantly done. I will, of course, discreetly pursue extradition and arrest, but you are likely right. Your stepbrother will attempt to divorce her, I collect?”
“He cannot,” said Nash. “Again, his career would suffer. My stepmother is putting it about that Jenny has returned to her father’s sickbed. It seems Mr. Carlow has recently discovered that his heart is slowly—
very
slowly—failing. I expect it will be quite a prolonged illness. I gather Jenny will be happy to be back in her homeland, and I don’t think Tony will really notice she is gone.”
Nash finished the meeting by presenting the few papers which
le commissaire de police
had bade him provide the English authorities. And at last the tawdry business was settled, with de Vendenheim giving Nash a stern lecture about his interference in government affairs. Nash, however, got the last word—he thought.
“But I am a peer of the realm, de Vendenheim,” he said. “If I wish to interfere in the affairs of government, I have only to turn up in the House and exercise my right to do so. In effect, as frightening as it sounds, I
am
the Government.”
Indignation flared in de Vendenheim’s eyes again. “And why do you not do precisely that, my lord?” he returned. “If you don’t care for how we do things, you have a right to participate in your government—notice I said
your
government, for it is yours, much as you might disdain it. You are an English peer, like it or not. You are stuck with the job. Just do it.”
“Dear me, you sound bitter,” murmured the marquess.
“I bloody well am bitter,” de Vendenheim agreed. “I can do none of those things, Nash. My government—indeed, my very land—was burnt to ashes before my eyes. My elaborate title isn’t worth a shovelful of horse shite, and by God, yes, I resent it when I see you English lords pissing your lives away. But the French nobility was busy eating cake and letting their country crumble, a fate which the English have avoided—
thus far
.”
“Well,” said Nash coolly. “I shall keep that in mind if gambling, carousing, and womanizing ever begin to bore me—which I doubt.”
De Vendenheim’s temper had not much cooled. “Yes, and that’s another thing,” he began. Then he checked himself and practically bit his tongue.
“Yes?” said Nash. “Don’t stop now, old fellow. You are on such a tear.”
De Vendenheim was pacing again. “It is about Miss Neville,” he began. “It is none of my business, of course—”
“No,” Nash interjected. “It is not.”
“—but I involved the poor woman, as I’m sure you gathered.”
“Yes, I gathered,” said Nash grimly. “Had I not, the guilty look on her face—and her brother’s—would have been quite a clue.”
“Yes, and I feel a grave obligation about that now.”
“Do you?” asked Nash bitterly. “To do what?”
“To…to set to rights anything that is wrong,” said the vicomte vaguely. “To correct any misimpressions you may have regarding her involvement in this sordid mess.”
Nash rose from his chair. “Oh, I think I have quite a clear grasp of her involvement,” he said. “But I am a gentleman—or at the very least, I mean to behave like one.” He paused to snatch his hat from the vicomte’s desk. “I give you good afternoon, de Vendenheim. Convey my warmest regards to the Home Secretary.”
His hand was on the doorknob when de Vendenheim spoke again. “She believed in you, Nash,” he said quietly. “When no one else did, Miss Neville believed in you. And she fought for you. Even after your asinine behavior toward her brother at Brierwood, she fought, and she believed, until she thoroughly convinced the rest of us.”
“I do not care to hear this, de Vendenheim,” said Nash calmly. “Nor do I even credit it. But you are kind, I daresay, in trying to paint the woman in a favorable light.”
“Oh, I would not trouble myself,” said the vicomte. “My nature is not all that generous. So just tell me this, Nash, and I will drop the matter—why did I not follow you to France? Surely you do not believe I was afraid to do so?”
“No, you seem remarkably stubborn and heedless,” said the marquess.
He smiled faintly. “Worse has been said of me, I daresay,” de Vendenheim answered. “But I did not go to France because Miss Neville convinced me of your innocence.”
“I am amazed anyone could succeed in that.”
“She is quite the negotiator when she wants something,” said the vicomte. “It was Miss Neville who found the evidence implicating Mrs. Hayden-Worth, though she had been telling us for weeks that you would never involve yourself in such a scheme. So I decided to cool my heels and let our embassy in Paris monitor events as they unfolded. The rest, of course, you know. But it is unfair to blame Miss Neville or her brother. We approached them because of the nature of their business, and they were simply trying to behave as any patriot might—whilst protecting their company’s financial interests, too, of course.”