Now Face to Face (94 page)

They walked for a time in silence. Londoners around them were drinking gin from dark bottles, then throwing the bottles into the flames.

“It is wise to bring Tony and your grandmother. I couldn’t have chosen more astutely myself. I’ll be thinking of you, Bab. Know that.”

“Thank you, Aunt Shrew. Let’s go back to the carriage.”

M
ANY PEOPLE
were walking around the bonfire.

Mrs. Modest Welsh and her husband walked. Mrs. Welsh admired the height of the fire, the way the flames roared. They were at the cluster of carriages where the nobility had gathered to watch. Women leaned out of carriage windows, jewels at their necks and ears. Men, lace spilling out of the sleeves of their coats, buckles and sword hilts gleaming in the fire’s light, stood in groups. Their wigs were long and thick and fine, their hats wide-brimmed and dashing.

One man, quite handsome, with dark brows, stood a little apart. He was listening to an elderly woman, one of the few women not in a carriage. She wore a huge, sloping hat like a man’s, with dark, false curls spilling out of it, and many jewels, many bracelets.

“I will kill him,” said Slane.

Aunt Shrew put her hand on his arm. “You will leave London, and at once. Barbara would say the same.”

“She already has.” He couldn’t leave. He wouldn’t leave. The details of the rescues weren’t in place. He mustn’t leave without Gussy. Two days ago, a guard’s child had delivered a white rose from Gussy. Forever loyal, it meant. Even if he was convicted, his gesture said he would reveal nothing. Would Gussy like France? Too bad if he did not. And now Walpole threatened Barbara.

“Well, God curse you, why didn’t you listen? Your part in this is over. You must face it, and leave us to our own devices. It would break my heart to see you beheaded.”

“It’s him,” said Mrs. Welsh.

“Who?” said her husband.

“The man who asked about the lodging that day.”

She pointed Slane out to her husband.

“You’re certain?”

“His is not a face one forgets,” Mrs. Welsh replied, tartly.

Taking her by the hand, her husband dragged her among the carriages, asking coachmen if the Lord Treasurer was here. They moved from carriage to carriage, until finally a coachman said, “He is, and just who might be wanting him?”

“Modest Welsh, King’s messenger.”

“The Lord Treasurer is otherwise occupied. You’ll need to wait, King’s messenger.”

Instead, Welsh knocked loudly on the ornate, varnished carriage door. The curtains of the windows and door window were pulled shut.

Why does he come to the fire, if he doesn’t view it? thought Mrs. Welsh.

“Here now,” said the coachman, but Welsh rapped on the door again.

The coachman climbed down and stood before Welsh, ready to fight, but the carriage door opened slowly, and a plump man, richly dressed, with eyes that seemed lazy and sated, stepped down. Mrs. Welsh caught a glimpse of a woman inside the carriage, leaning back against the seat, her eyes closed, her gown pulled up untidily, a gown under which an abdomen swelled large with child.

“Modest Welsh,” said Walpole. “How may I serve you this fine evening?”

“Forgive me disturbing you, sir, but it’s important, sir.”

“It had better be. What is it?”

“Stay here,” Welsh ordered his wife, and he and Walpole walked away, lost to Mrs. Welsh’s sight after a time among the carriages. When they returned, Walpole was smiling. He winked at Mrs. Welsh before stepping back up into the carriage.

“You’re to have a new gown,” said Welsh to her, “compliments of the Lord Treasurer.”

“Two new gowns,” came a voice from inside the carriage.

“Two new gowns,” corrected Welsh.

S
LANE COOKED
himself a good breakfast and thought about the Tower guard he was going to bribe at this ungodly hour before dawn. His finch flew about the chamber and perched from time to time on the table so that he could feed her breakfast, too. Time to leave. Dawn was an hour or so away, and the man went on duty at dawn. Slane held out his hand to the finch, but she went flying up into a corner of the chamber, perching where he could not reach her.

“If you don’t go into your cage, I have to leave you,” he said. The finch cocked her head.

“Come, sweet, into your cage.”

She remained where she was. Stubborn little bird, he thought. Tonight she’d fuss at him for not putting her inside. He’d find her perched somewhere, exhausted from her day of freedom. You should take better care of me, she’d scold. He ran down his lodging stairs. The morning was still, dark, with that absolute quiet that comes at dead of morning, before dawn. Slane’s guard said he knew others who could be bribed. At this point, Gussy was not allowed out of his cell. If Slane could somehow arrange that Gussy be allowed exercise, perhaps he could snatch him up. Otherwise, he was going to have to take him as they moved him back and forth for the trial, two weeks away. That meant staying in England longer than he really wished to, but—

They came up from behind and took him. His mind was on an escape plan. He was not even wary until their arms were linking into his.

Walpole. He knew it at once.

“Thief! Help me! I’m being robbed—” He struggled with them, the way any man would, but he was deposited briskly in a carriage. At once, he put his hand on the door opposite. It was locked.

“What is this?” he demanded, his mind flickering and turning, looking for any escape. “Who are you? I’ll have you called before a bailiff. What do you want?”

“No need to get upset,” said one of the men. “Someone high up is wishing to speak with you, privately-like. Someone high up has asked us to be gentle, but we can only be gentle if you are, too.”

“Someone high up? Who? This is a trick. You try to rob me—”

He heaved himself toward the carriage door, but was stopped.

“Do we have to hurt you?” asked the first man.

“Anything but my face. I am an actor. Take what coins I have. They are in this pocket, here. Then let me free. I’ll say nothing. I swear it.”

“We’re going to blindfold you now. Easy, easy, no tricks from you, no tricks from us. Hold his arms. I don’t trust him.”

He made a last attempt, but they hit him hard enough to let him know they’d hurt him if they had to.

“Careful of his face, now,” one of them said.

When the carriage stopped, he was helped out, his arms held tight, one of the men on each side of him, and led into a building, up stairs, into a room. Once their hands left him, he pulled off the blindfold. They sat in chairs on either side of the door. Behind him was a cot.

“Lie down,” one of the men said. “Him who wants to see you will be a while. He has other business to take care of today.”

T
HE
K
ING
stood at his fireplace. Through a small door, set so beautifully into the wall that it did not show, came one of the King’s personal servants, Mehemet. He nodded to Tony and the Duchess, smiled at Barbara.

Then Walpole and Lord Townshend were ushered in, and for the briefest of moments Walpole’s face went blank at the sight of Barbara and her family. So. The King had given them no warning of this interview I’ve requested, thought Barbara. Good.

Walpole smiled, came forward to kiss her cheek as if nothing were wrong. Barbara turned away from him. He looked surprised.

Clever man, thought Barbara. And so dangerous.

Walpole glanced at the faces of the other members of her family, his expression questioning, perplexed, innocent.

“There has been an awkwardness, a misunderstanding. His Majesty feels his English is not enough for all that will be said, and the subject is too delicate to entrust with another minister,” said Mehemet. He was very grave, very dignified. I am praying to Allah of this, he’d told Barbara when they’d met in a palace corridor, that all may go as it should. There were few secrets from a personal servant. That’s why a good one who could keep secrets was so valuable.

“I have been asked to speak for him. There has been a certain handling of Lady Devane’s former French maidservant which seems to involve Lady Devane herself. She has come to us—I speak, of course, for the King—with her cousin and their grandmother, to ask that whatever suspicions are held of her, she be allowed to address.”

“Suspicions?” Walpole said.

“Her maidservant has been ruthlessly snatched up, ruthlessly questioned, and also threatened to keep silence,” said Tony.

Tony was angry. Barbara had never seen him so angry. Hero, she thought, defending family honor. Bravo, cousin.

“There were questions, as I understand,” Tony was saying, “to the maidservant about Viscount Alderley and Lady Devane, about their activities several years ago in both Paris and Rome. There was also, as I understand, a certain slanderous accusation—which I will not repeat because I find it too offensive—about her time in Virginia.”

Softly, Mehemet repeated this in French, but, impatient, the King cut him short with a gesture. He understood.

“My grandson’s Jacobitism, his father’s, is no secret,” said the Duchess. She was dressed in black, with diamonds everywhere, the medals of her husband’s honors pinned among the diamonds like beacons. “If you begin to suspect those of us with relatives who are Jacobite, you suspect over half the families in England. One of our own—Lord Russel—is in prison even now, but that does not mean that we share his sentiments.”

“Nor does it mean,” said Tony, “that he is guilty. He has been accused by Layer, who, as we all know, is half mad. An accusation is not proof of guilt. At least, not by my understanding of English common law. If there is an accusation against Lady Devane, we wish to know of it at once. I want no more of my family imprisoned in the middle of the night, with no writ of charge, with no opportunity to go before a magistrate and show just cause. My sister still has not recovered from the manner in which Lord Russel was arrested. I will make no excuses for Viscount Alderley, who lies in his grave and therefore can harm no one, but I will say there has never been so much as a breath of rumor or a single fact to indicate that Lady Devane ever joined him in his sentiments. That she loved her brother, no one will deny, but to love someone is not to support them in treason.”

“Lady Devane,” Mehemet said, “will you please repeat what your maidservant has told you.”

Barbara kept her eyes fixed on both ministers as she repeated Thérèse’s story. Neither spoke, though Townshend showed irritation and embarrassment.

“Have you any firm reason to suspect Lady Devane?” said the King in English to Walpole, his accent heavy, the words clear.

“No.”

“Is there any evidence, any letter to her, any description of her, any reference, anything apart from her relationship to her brother?” asked Mehemet for the King.

“No.”

“Then how dare either of you imply—” began Tony, but the King turned sharply, his expression stern, so that Tony was silent.

“Will you withdraw a moment while I speak with my ministers?” the King asked Barbara and her family. And to Mehemet: “You also.”

When he was left with Walpole and Townshend, the King said, in English, “You did not come to me?”

“We desired more evidence concerning Lady Devane, Majesty, before burdening you,” said Townshend.

“Have you more?”

“No.”

“The maidservant?”

“French, a Catholic, with them in Paris and Rome.”

“And before service to Lady Devane?”

“In Paris, among the servants to the daughters of the Prince de Condé.”

“The Prince de Condé is suspected?”

Walpole ignored the King’s irony. “The overseer in Virginia—” he began, but the King stopped him with an abrupt gesture.

“Nothing else other than a colonial overseer who is Jacobite—”

“And a father and a brother,” put in Walpole. “All the Jacobites courted her in Italy.”

“—to make you suspect her?” finished the King, as if Walpole had not spoken. “I wish to be certain upon this.”

“The matter of the gosling,” began Townshend. “He—we thought perhaps it might be someone known to us, a woman, perhaps…”