“If Powell and MacKay are amenable,” Rye said, “my cousins can dine with us.”
“Cousins,” Dorning said as Lavellais led them down the corridor. “My wife has grown, male cousins in Town at this unfashionable season, and this is the first I’m hearing of it. Should Jeanette plan to receive these cousins?”
“Dylan and Alasdhair only bide in London for part of the year. They ask after Jeanette, but until recently, she was a titled widow with a limited social calendar.”
“Widows need family more than most, Goddard. I begin to think you were raised by wolves or, more likely, by some sort of reptile that lays its eggs in the sand and then crawls off to devour feckless rabbits.”
Papa had spent hours tramping about the hedges in search of feckless rabbits. “From what Jeanette tells me, your titled father disappeared for weeks at a time to commune with ferns and orchids. Do not attempt to annoy my cousins for your amusement, Dorning. They are former military, and their patience, compared to my own vast stores, is limited.”
Rye managed the introductions, knowing full well that both Dylan and Alasdhair were keeping questions about Dorning behind their teeth for now. While the meal was served, the talk remained general—who had taken a bad fall following the hounds, who was hiding from creditors.
Dorning listened more than he spoke, did justice to the steak, and kept his throwing knife out of sight. While Rye let Dylan and Alasdhair carry the conversation, he wondered if Ann would have enjoyed the haricots vert amandine and if she had a favorite recipe for steak gravy.
Would she ever again doze off in Rye’s lap, and did she feel the same yearning that he did to share impossible pleasures?
When drinks had been carried to the reading room and the door firmly closed, Dorning took up a pose leaning on the mantel.
“Do I assume your cousins are in your confidence, Goddard?”
“You had better,” Dylan replied amiably. “We are his cousins.”
“Forgive Dorning,” Rye said. “He is so mobbed with siblings he has little experience of relatives beyond immediate family. Dylan and Alasdhair served with me. They know my circumstances.”
“We also know,” Alasdhair said, sinking into a reading chair, “that Deschamps is underfoot in London, and if anybody is responsible for bringing misery upon your good name, it is he.”
“Philippe Deschamps?” Dorning asked.
“You know him?”
“He’s stopped by the club a time or two. Gambles prudently, flirts outrageously. Did not care for Fournier’s champagne. Good-looking devil.”
“Emphasis on the devil,” Dylan muttered.
“You’re jealous because you’re dog-ugly,” Alasdhair replied, though without heat or humor.
“Your cousins are like brothers,” Dorning said, as if considering a fact that contradicted a pet hypothesis. “Or maybe like sisters.”
“Returning to the matter at hand,” Rye said, “Philippe Deschamps was the aide-de-camp charged with carrying messages between the French camp and our own.”
“What sort of messages?” Dorning asked.
“Prisoner lists, prisoner casualty lists,” Dylan said. “We’d spend all day Monday trying to kill each other and the rest of the week being exquisitely civilized about the aftermath. The French military is fanatical about organization, and they wanted to know who of their number had fallen in battle, who had deserted, who was waiting for death in our infirmary, who was likely to recover and be sent to a parole village in Sussex.”
“We fudged a bit regarding the deserters,” Alasdhair said. “So did the French.”
“Deschamps was doubtless keeping his eyes and ears open when he enjoyed a polite dinner with the commanding officer,” Rye said, “but that sort of white-flag reconnaissance was expected. We’d send him off with a fine bottle of port, he’d gift the commanding officer with some decent brandy, and hostilities resumed the next morning.”
Dorning looked fascinated. “And this sort of thing went on throughout the war?”
Dylan added a square of peat to the fire. “I was once tasked with negotiating access to a village whorehouse with my French counterpart. The French took Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. We got Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. The ladies had Sunday off to go to Mass, the whorehouse being Spanish.”
“And you think Deschamps was your spy’s point of contact among the enemy?” Dorning asked.
“We’re almost sure of it,” Rye replied, “but we cannot be nearly as certain who Deschamps’s source of information was on our side.”
Dorning finished his drink and set the glass on the sideboard. “But somebody has found it excessively convenient to pin that dishonor on you, Goddard. We need only determine who and decide whether or not to kill him. Are we agreed?”
“No,” Rye said, wishing—of all things—that he could discuss this whole mess with Ann. “We are not agreed, Dorning. Not at all.”
“I do not want to go to the Coventry today,” Ann informed an enormous fluffy gray cat. “This is a first for me.” A somewhat disconcerting first for a woman who’d risen each morning, year after year, with cooking on her mind.
Boreas squinted at her from the side of the desk and went on rumbling like the autumn storms he was named for. Miss Diana and Miss Julia spoke to him freely and even invented replies from him. Ann was not quite that far gone.
Yet.
The day was brisk, the sky overcast, with no shift in light to delineate morning from afternoon. The colonel’s hip had portended cold weather, though the day wasn’t quite bitter. Worse, though, the weather was windy, giving the sullen air a bite that whistled beneath doors and rattled windowpanes.
“This should be a perfect day to spend in the kitchen,” she said as the cat began licking his luxurious fur. “I don’t want to go near the kitchen.”
Aunt Melisande’s note sat on the blotter, in this, the family parlor, not that Ann’s only family would ever think to call on her here. Aunt inquired rather directly as to when Ann would provide the next menu, and could Ann please offer a few suggestions for the brigadier’s quarterly officers’ dinner as well?
“Time is of the essence,” Ann quoted softly. Why did that one line from Melisande’s little epistle rankle exceedingly? Not as much as the closing, though: You have your orders, my dear. Please do march out smartly! M.
A single consonant, as if such correspondence would somehow damn any who knew the author’s identity.
“As if I am the poor relation,” Ann said, running a hand over Boreas’s soft fur.
The cat looked up sharply when a solid triple thump came from the direction of the front door.
“Not Mrs. Becker,” Ann muttered. “Please not Mrs. Becker and her ailments.” Mrs. B was a widow, and she came around regularly to lord her bereaved status over Miss Julia and Miss Diana, who, in their own words, had been too sensible to get caught in parson’s mousetrap.
Ann took up a thick wool shawl and made her way to the door, dredging up a smile of welcome.
“Colonel Goddard.” Her smile became genuine. “What a lovely surprise. Do come in.”
“Miss Pearson, I hope I am not presuming. The hour is early for a call, but I know your afternoons are spoken for.”