Authors: Alicia Rasley
Wellesley was pouring himself another drink. With a long finger, he caught up a drop that threatened to stain the still pristine tablecloth. "Perhaps your enforced leave will inspire you after all. Have you any plans?"
Wellesley's elaborate casualness alerted Devlyn, who answered suspiciously, "To survey my estate. Nothing more. Why?"
"What do you think about women?"
The nonsequitur confused Devlyn, for he could only imagine that the marquess was set to ask him for advice about some amatory problem. But he recovered quickly; surely the foreign secretary's experience in that arena was far greater than his own. "They're entertaining enough, until they become troublesome." Then again, that great insight might never have occurred to the marquess, who seemed to prefer troublesome women from the start. "Why?"
The older man hesitated, ducking his head and looking absurdly abashed for an aging rakehell. "I have the oddest assignment for you, and I know you'll be insulted at first, but give me your word you'll hear me out."
His curiosity piqued, his suspicion aroused, the viscount nodded. Wellesley leaned forward confidentially, his elbow dislodging the empty wine glass, which Devlyn caught deftly and set back on the table. Finally the marquess began, "You know, I'm sure, that the fickle Tsar Alexander has been meddling with the Polish nobles and is fast losing favor with Napoleon. He has continued to trade with us in the face of the French embargo. The French ambassador in Moscow was called home recently, and his Russian counterpart in Paris has been making rather indiscreet overtures to us. In fact, our intelligence is that Boney is going to turn on his fair-haired boy, and plans an invasion of Russia next year."
The marquess seemed to expect a response. So Devlyn complied, although his interest in politics was lamentably narrowed to what affected his troops on the Peninsula. "I reckoned he couldn't keep his hands off such a large piece of property. It would serve Alexander right for his vacillating between us these many years."
"Your view is a common one at Whitehall. After all, we've been technically at war with Russia since Alexander signed his soul away to Bonaparte. But, much as I hate to admit it, we need Russia on our side. If nothing else, Bonaparte will be sending hundreds of thousands of troops to an eastern front, and at least some of those will have to come from Spain. And that, I'm sure you realize, will make things much easier for you. So the alliance may soon be on again. Alexander has let us know that the time-honored custom of royal marriage might hurry things along. This is all very confidential, by the way. Alexander is wary of making a public break with Bonaparte."
"A royal marriage is rather public."
"Oh, it won't be announced until the moment is right and there's no turning back. Even Cumberland doesn't know yet."
Idly, Devlyn arranged the silverware and saltcellars into a battalion formation on the tablecloth, wondering what this all had to do with a major fresh from the front. Looking up to Wellesley's impatient gaze, he tried to work up some interest in these global affairs. "Cumberland is the fatted calf?"
Wellesley rubbed his close-shaven, powdered cheek, gratified by the opportunity to allude to that prime bit of gossip concerning the royal duke. "Yes. Even Prinny's nervous about his brother's latest escapades and supposes marriage will settle him down. Prinny's theory is that if he is presented with a fait accompli, Cumberland won't have time to object."
Devlyn might be renowned for his patience, but it was wearing thin. He moved the knife to counter a charge from the pepper, and the fork retreated in some disarray. "Fascinating, all this royal matchmaking. But what has it to do with me?"
"Someone must escort the intended to England."
Devlyn looked up from his battlefield. There, in the crystalline blue eyes of the marquess, he glimpsed his fate, cool and cruel. He rejected it instinctively and ungrammatically. "Not me!"
Chapter Three
"I know, I know." Wellesley raised his hand to staunch Devlyn's protests. "Not your ordinary line of work. But think of it. What if this Russian princess were intercepted by the French? What if she were killed because her future country refused to give her safe passage? What of the alliance then?"
"You needn't be so dramatic. Alexander can't be so cakey—" Devlyn stopped, remembering how many times in the last ten years the tsar had changed sides. "Well, perhaps he would take some slight offense. But I should think that if he breaks with Napoleon, he'll need us worse than we need him. We've gotten by for years alone, after all. Anyway, that's of no matter. I'm not a diplomat, I'm a soldier. I haven't the slightest notion how one would go about transporting a princess the breadth of Europe." Even as he demurred, his strategist's mind began calculating the possibilities, and with the knife he traced a rough map of the continent on the tablecloth. "Travel is so restricted. The Baltic Sea will be frozen over by October, and the overland passage would be monstrously hazardous. The Ottoman coast is the only independent coastline left in Eastern Europe. But isn't Russia at war with the Turks? Not to mention that the Eastern Mediterranean is crawling with Italian and French ships. A convoy of British frigates would be spotted immediately, and there goes your princess."
"Precisely. Only a small vessel will get through that damn obstacle course south of Italy." Wellesley beamed at the major as if he had passed yet another test. These Wellesley brothers were great ones for tests. Devlyn might as well have been back at Eton taking his Latin exam. “But she can get through to Turkey—unofficially, the Turks are willing to do anything to bedevil Bonaparte. You sail, don't you?"
"I grew up on the Dorset coast, so of course I can sail a small boat. But a two-man craft is hardly a fitting conveyance for a princess—and getting out of Lyme Bay dry about exhausts my sailing skills."
Wellesley waved a negligent hand. "Take a sloop. Hire a crew, but don't be too forthcoming with the reason for their voyage. No navy, by the way. We don't want the navy involved at all in this."
The marquess's vehemence on that last point indicated some intra-Cabinet warfare that Devlyn preferred not to investigate. It was only two years ago, after all, that Wellesley's predecessor Canning had fought a duel with War Minister Castlereagh over some piece of executive turf. Wellington did not exaggerate when he averred that the bloodiest battles were fought around Whitehall conference tables.
Wellesley was pushing merrily on, making his little plans. "She'll be waiting in Smyrna—that's a good deal south of Constantinople and less conspicuous. You have but to bring her back, incognita, of course."
"Why me?" Devlyn's protest was simple but heartfelt. "I'm just a major. Without any zeal, recall."
Wellesley sighed. "I know. It's absurd that you and I should be sitting here discussing the conveyance of some spoiled princess to her wedding, of which the proposed bridegroom knows nothing. But the prince desires it. It's his first personal foray into foreign affairs, and Prime Minister Perceval supports his scheme, for it's all of a piece with our plans for beating Bonaparte. And this is still, after all, a monarchy, which you have sworn to uphold." The marquess's voice had hardened by the end of the speech, and he sounded rather too much like his brother the general for Devlyn's comfort.
"But you haven't explained why I have been nominated for this invaluable role."
"We would prefer someone unknown to the French navy, as I'm sure you understand, someone we can trust to remain clearheaded and cool under fire. And the Prince Regent admires you, oddly enough. I don't mean precisely that it's odd, for you're a sterling character, I'm certain." Wellesley peered at Devlyn to make sure he had taken no offense. "But it is odd how you have caught his attention over the last year. It's more than your handsome figure in uniform. A great one for uniforms, is the regent, so I've no doubt that's part of it. But he has been receiving the dispatches, of course, since the king has been ill, and prefers yours above all. He thinks you write succinct reports. You do, by the way. He thinks my brother's memos too cryptic.” He sighed. “Wellington does not suffer fools gladly. Not that I think the regent is a—" Wellesley cleared his throat and began again. "You write clearly enough for him. And he was quite impressed with your presentation this week. Not enough to support my brother fully, but enough to demand your personal help in this matter."
"My clarity earned me this great honor? I shall have to take a few lessons in obfuscation." Devlyn frowned, knowing that the foreign secretary must be quite pressed from above to put himself in such a humiliating position. And Devlyn was a soldier, owing his every allegiance to that gracious monarch the Prince Regent. But he found the whole affair too rackety for a sensible man like himself. "No."
Wellesley drew in his breath at this bald refusal. Then he stood, in his ramrod stature so like his brother that Devlyn was momentarily disoriented. "I shall have to tell my brother that he must have been foxed when he sent his laudatory assessment of you. For sober he would never countenance this sort of insubordination. I hope he won't be unduly influenced by my biased estimation. What a shame if after waiting so long for the Spanish offensive, you spent the next few years in some remote outpost, Burma, for example. Or if you were courtmartialed—an unlikely event, to be sure, but during wartime insubordination is a serious offense."
Devlyn's hand closed convulsively into a fist under the table. Then he forced it open, waiting a moment for the anger to abate. Almost to himself, he said, "I guess I'm not so war-weary after all. I've been in on all the defeats and the long retreat and a winter spent in a trench. I'm damned if I'm going to leave just when we've started to win." He rose and offered his hand to the marquess, the only sign of his displeasure the tautness of his jaw. "I surrender. I won't be the cause of more dissension between the army and the Cabinet—or between the general and his brother."
Wellesley smiled softly. "Ah, Arthur was right about you. You are a fine judge of the merits of alternative courses. Now don't be sullen, lad. It's only a few months out of your life. And you might even enjoy it—the sea, the solitude. You do like solitude, don't you, Devlyn? And you've had little of that, I expect, these past years in that army camp."
Devlyn dropped back into his chair, burying his resentment under an air of utter calm. "I think I'll have some of your port while you brief me on this fascinating assignment."
Immediately, Wellesley pulled a handful of documents from his leather attache, along with a miniature portrait, which he tossed on the table. "There she is. The Princess Tatiana Nicolevna Denisova of Saraya Kalin."
Devlyn let the picture rest there as he sipped his wine. "I thought the tsar's sister was already married."
"This is his cousin. First, second, I don't know. If these Russian girls have a drop of royal blood, they call them princesses. But she's royal enough for our purposes, as her grandfather was the king of Saraya Kalin, some little kingdom the Russians conquered. Both of her parents are from Peter the Great's line and related to the Hanovers and Marie Antoinette somehow. She looks well. Her coloring's rather odd, but I gather there's a bit of Tatar blood in there, and they're savages, don't you know."
Casually Devlyn picked up the miniature done in oils of this princess. She didn't look like a princess. She looked like trouble. There she was, almost breathing, her cheek presented to him as if she expected a kiss, her wickedly slanted green eyes full of mischief. A mop of dark coppery curls, a merry smile, and, unless he missed his guess, a tantalizing dimple—He dropped the picture as if it burnt his hand. "She's trouble."
Wellesley looked surprised. "She's just a girl. Well brought up, I imagine. Speaks English, quite a change from the usual royal mate. She'll have a companion with her, a governess, a British subject. So how do you plan to get her here?"
Crossly Devlyn replied, "You'll forgive me if I decline the honor of captaining the escort vessel. I've never sailed a craft further than Normandy, and that was a dozen years ago." On that last voyage he had nearly drowned, a common enough occurrence on his friend's makeshift boat, but this one had relieved Devlyn of any desire to be Admiral Nelson's successor. His friend Manning—or Dryden, whatever he called himself these days—now he had been a fine sailor, even with a crew consisting of one very wet young viscount. "I've a friend who runs a free-trading vessel out of Weymouth. He'll do, I suppose, if he's available."
"You associate with smugglers?" Wellesley's eyebrows rose alarmingly, though surely he knew the cellars of this estimable club were full of contraband brandy.
"An acquaintance—a sailing companion—from my errant youth." Studying again the princess's portrait, Devlyn continued, "If you're to become involved in such havey-cavey affairs, Lord Wellesley, you must lower your notoriously high standards for those you employ." Before Wellesley could respond to this insult, Devlyn added calmly, "My friend knows the Eastern Mediterranean well, as he rather specializes in saving classical art treasures from the French barbarians."
“An erudite smuggler. How entertaining. I suppose many of our fellow noblemen avail themselves of his booty?"
Devlyn touched the princess's elusive dimple and held his tongue about the small bust of Caesar, circa fourth century, currently gracing his library.
"Naturally this accumulation of sailing skill, thievery, and erudition will not come cheap," Wellesley said gloomily. "And it's coming straight from my budget. The tsar at least has agreed to foot the bill for her stay here before she and Cumberland become officially affianced."
"Exactly when does the prince plan to tell Cumberland of his fate?" Devlyn asked, curiosity finally winning out over his resentment.
“When it's too late to turn back. Until then, the Princess Tatiana will merely be a royal visitor from our on-again off-again friends in the East. She's more biddable than Cumberland, I take it, and has already been informed, but remind her to be discreet."