The Heart That Lies (25 page)

“We could quarrel now,” said Meldon, apparently reconciled to the idea of her going to
Southampton alone. “I wouldn’t be nervous if you were just ill and I wouldn’t be inclined to quarrel with you when you were feeling better. And,” he added, scowling at Finch, “I would never shout at you.”

“No, you must quarrel in the morning so that Lady Anna won’t be expected until midday, or later.
You can be out searching for her and meet her somewhere... your hunting lodge?”

“I could be writing and that could be why we quarrel.”

“But you write in the library.”

“I am inspired and I don’t want to be distracted, even by you.
It’s been a long time since I wrote anything and I don’t want to lose it.”

They both looked at Finch.

“Very well, but we will need a reason why Jane is not needed to undress you tonight.”

“I’ll tell her not to bother,” said Meldon. “If Anna really were so inspired that she
couldn’t be interrupted by me, she wouldn’t want Jane.”

“I wouldn’t
need her to undress me, for I wouldn’t go to bed.”

Finch nodded.

“Then you will meet tomorrow at the hunting lodge, make up your quarrel and return together.”

“Anna, this is too much to ask of you.”
Meldon turned her so that she was looking at him.

“I won’t deny
that I’m scared, but I was Jonas Smith long enough to be able to do this.”

“Then take a pistol with you.”

“I’ll take two. I’ll leave you now and Jonas Smith will return.”

“Lock your door,” said Finch “and bring the key here
so that I can put a candle in there tonight. And make sure no one sees you.”

Anna had grown unused to being
Jonas Smith and it took longer than she had expected to bind herself and dress. If she was to pass as a man again, it required more effort than when she dressed to go riding with Meldon. Her hair was longer now and could not just be stuffed under her hat. She stopped, as a thought struck her, then finished dressing as quickly as she could. Her pistols were easy enough to load. James had taught her to keep them clean and she had only recently joined Finch and Meldon in a practice session. Meldon had proved that Finch’s assessment of his ability was correct, while Anna had demonstrated that, had she not slipped as she had aimed at Meldon she would have killed him. She was still not sure that she had not tripped on purpose.

Making sure no one was in the hallway, she hurried along to Meldon’s room. Once inside, she gave him two things. One was a small bundle, “My riding habit,” she explained. “They will thin
k it strange if I come back in my breeches.”

“And this?” Meldon held up a small key.

“It locks the box in the library.”

“Your poems?”

“Yes. It’s time you read them. They’re all about you.”

Meldon caught
her up into his arms and made to kiss her, but she pushed him away.

“If you kiss me, I will not be able to go.”

“Very well, but I shall want payment in double when we meet tomorrow.”

“You shall have it.”

Finch cleared his throat noisily. “It would be best if you throw Mr Rivers out,” he said. “That way Lady Anna need not say anything.”

“Very well,” said Meldon as he
finished doing up Rivers’ coat around Anna. It was too big and there was a blood stain on it that he had not been able to remove.

“You must get rid of the coat,” added Finch.

“Burn it,” said Meldon, taking a tinderbox down from the mantelpiece and giving it to her.

Anna nodded.

Meldon placed a hand on her head. “Rivers’ hat!”

“Damn!
It will be downstairs.” Finch thought for a moment. “I’ll get his hat while Simpson is seeing you out.”

Anna didn’t like the look on Meldon’s face, but he agreed with Finch’s suggestion. Anna had her own hat and doubted Rivers’ would fit her properly, but Meldon seemed worried by something else.

“Put the hat on, then, and pull the collar up round your face. Go downstairs as fast as you can and I’ll call you all kinds of names for coming here and upsetting my fiancée.”

Anna took one last look at him and turned and went through the open door. Meldon’s voice followed her down the stairs. Before they
reached the bottom, Meldon shouted, “Simpson, open the door. This gentleman is leaving.”

A groom stood
at the bottom of the steps holding a horse. Anna didn’t even glance at him, but caught up the reins and lifted herself up onto the horse’s back.

As she set the horse to walk away she heard Meldon
shout after her, “And don’t come back.”

Meldon had to act very little to give the impression of a restless and worried lover. He ate little at supper and went to sit in his room alone as soon as it was polite to do so, giving his mother the idea that he was very angry with Anna and not likely to forgive her rudeness quickly. The countess was clearly of the opinion that he himself was the reason why Anna had shut herself away. Fortunately, she and Finch were behaving as if it was a small argument that would soon be resolved. Lady Meldon had suggested that her son should remove himself to his house in London until shortly before the wedding and, although he thought it a good idea, Meldon could not even consider leaving Anna and his mother alone at Meldon Hall.

He
had agreed with Finch that they would hide the body at two o’clock in the morning and it now lay, wrapped in a blanket, behind a screen in his bedroom. Perkins would go into the room to help him to undress for bed, but would not go behind the screen. It had been difficult for the two of them to clean the room so that no one would know that anything had happened here and without anyone noticing what they were doing. For this task Finch had no good suggestion other than a scrubbing brush and a bucket of water.

Distractedly
, Meldon opened the box he had brought from the library and took out the poems that Anna had written. His interest in them had not been feigned; he had enjoyed many of Anna’s poems and he had wanted her to share what she wrote with him so that they might have something to discuss. He had also thought that he might see her heart there as he had done when she had given him the poem on his return from Kent. He had been intrigued, however, by her statement that they were all about him.

Inside the box t
here were more poems than he had expected. Some were finished, some were not. Many were hard to read, because so much of the text had been crossed through and his eyes widened when he realised what Anna had tried to do. He could see himself in the woman she described, but it made him uncomfortable. He was glad that it had seemed to have had the same effect on her and she had given up the attempt.

Each poem was dated, but
not sorted by date, some of the poems apparently having been reworked later. He sorted through until he found some early ones. Nothing in the box seemed to go back to the time before her arrival in London. The earliest were descriptions of the life she had started in London and the things she had seen there. Although they showed skill, they lacked the spark he had found in the poem she had written for him whilst he was in Kent. Then he came upon one dated the day after they had met. This poem described a lover who was strong and confident. Meldon barely recognised himself, but knew it was about him, for the title read ‘For Lord M’.

As Meldon read on through the sheets he saw how Anna’s attitude towards him
had swung between love and hatred. He was disturbed by one written the day before the duel which lamented her love for a murderer. Many things became clear to him, as he read, that he had not understood before.

When she had started writing again,
while they were at Meldon House, she had just poured out her love for a man who seemed to want to have nothing to do with her. It was only too easy for Meldon to acknowledge the accuracy of the portrait of a man who kept his distance, even while he tried to spend every minute of the day with her that he could. He understood Anna’s confusion and regretted the tears that he was sure he had cost her.

Someone tapped gently at the door and opened it quietly.
Meldon began to gather up the bits of paper and put them back into the box.

“Ah, Perkins. Is it midnight already?”

“Yes, my lord.”

“I’m ready enough for bed.”
He yawned, glancing at the wall that separated his room from Anna’s.

Perkins shook his head sadly. “Jane says that Lady Anna has not rung for her. She’s worried because her ladyship hasn’t eaten. She left a tray on a chair beside the door.”

“That was very thoughtful of her. Lady Anna wishes to keep her as her own maid after we’re married.”

“Jane is a good choice,” agreed Perkins.

“And you, Perkins, will you stay with me after I’m married?”

Perkins looked affronted, as if he had never threatened to
leave the earl should he marry.

“Of course, I shall, my lord. Her ladyship is a fine young woman.”

Meldon did not know how Anna had managed to win Perkins over; the man was born a misogynist. All he said was, “I’m glad to hear you say so.”

He picked up the box and went into his bedchamber, where Perkins helped him undress. Once they had agreed at what time Perkins would wake him in the morning, Meldon got into bed and Perkins left.

Meldon sat in the dark for a while, then got up and lit a candle.
He dressed, then continued reading Anna’s poems. He was still reading when Finch let himself in without knocking. They had agreed that Finch would dispose of the body alone. He was capable of walking some distance with the dead weight of the body on his shoulders. Although Meldon was greatly recovered, he could not walk the same distance, so could be of no help to him. They did not dare take a horse, for that would disturb the stable boy who slept above the stables. Meldon would let Finch out of the house, then wait in the library for two hours, before letting him back in. Finch had spent what little remained of the daylight after Anna’s departure in making sure that the place he had already chosen really would hide the body until it would no longer be recognised if found. Meldon had complete faith in his choice. He did not like to think what Finch saw when he looked at a landscape, but he doubted it was beauty.

They didn’t speak, even though Anna’s was the only other occupied room nearby. Finch lifted the body onto his shoulders and followed Meldon down the stairs
. He unlocked the door furthest away from where the servants slept and Finch left.

It was cold in the
library, but Meldon didn’t light the fire. He snuffed the candle, preferring the dark for thinking. He had decided to use this time to think over who in his household could be a spy. He was confident that he had identified the spy at Meldon House, but Rivers’ arrival at Meldon Hall confirmed that someone here was also passing on information to his enemies. Meldon didn’t make the mistake of believing that servants who had been with his family for many years were less likely to be spies than those who had been taken on more recently; he believed that everyone had a price. Today he had found out his. He would have done anything to keep Anna alive, even betray his country. It made him all the more certain that he had been right to give up his work for General Warren. He could not hide his activities from Anna, he was certain of this. By the time she got home tomorrow (and he tried not to think about the possibility of something preventing that) she would have worked out that there was more to Rivers’ visit than she had already guessed. That Rivers was an agent of the French was clear enough, even to her, but he could only know that Anna might have something that would be useful if there were someone in the house who had passed on that suspicion. And there would only be someone in the house if Meldon himself were worth watching.

Anna
was already more than suspicious of Finch and both he and Finch had been Vincent’s friends. Knowing that her brother was a spy, she would easily work out that he or Finch or both of them were also spies and she would then come to the conclusion that someone else in the house had passed information to Rivers.

He was already tired of lying to Anna, but he knew he had to lie to her once more, if only he could think up the right lie.

Finch returned before he could think of it or identify the agent in the house. They returned to their rooms as silently as they had left them. Meldon didn’t even ask his friend if he had managed to hide the body, for he knew what the other man was capable of. He undressed again and got into bed. Now he could set his mind to worrying about Anna and all the things that could prevent her return in the morning.

Anna had been walking for some time before she came upon a familiar looking field, then a hill that she recognised. Changing direction slightly, she found the path that led from the road to Meldon Hall past the hunting lodge.

Although she felt happier than she had for many hours, she was still tired and cold.
She had not dared sleep at the inn; for the first time in many weeks she was aware that she was a long way from Meldon and no longer had the security of knowing that if she called out for him in the night that he would hear her.