“The flowers were a peace offering?”
“If a peace offering is needed.”
“And if no such offering is required?”
“They are a token of my sincere esteem.”
Ann would have bet her best carving knives that Orion Goddard hadn’t brought flowers to any other woman, much less taken liberties with her person, for quite some time. That Ann had earned his esteem pleased her and sent all thoughts of menus, sauces, and spices right up the chimney.
“Tell me of your situation,” she said, “and I will offer you as much good counsel as I can.”
“I was hoping you’d say that.”
He launched into a tale of military intrigue, gossip, and commerce that absorbed Ann’s full attention as the cat purred, the temperature dropped, and the morning eased its way into early afternoon, and still, Ann spared not a single thought for her duties at the Coventry.
Chapter Nine
Rye had missed the company of women, and his decision to bide in England rather than France was partly to blame. At the height of post-revolutionary zeal, the French had flirted with the notion of extending the vote to women, though nothing had come of it.
Still, they had been able to entertain the idea, while even the most radical English reformer could not.
Then the Corsican’s nearly two decades of warfare had seen hundreds of thousands of France’s adult males sent to their eternal reward, leaving the women to raise the children, farm the land, and run the shops. Between Napoleon’s democratizing influence and the realities of life with a deficit of men, French women enjoyed far more freedom and practical authority than did their proper English counterparts.
Ann Pearson trod a curious path between the sheltered ornaments of Mayfair and the more enlightened French exponents of femininity. London was probably full of her ilk—the military had seen its share—but Rye did not meet them in the normal course.
Lately, his normal course had been even more solitary than he preferred, consisting of the company of his minions, his horses, his cousins, and his diminishing list of customers.
Aren’t you ever lonely, Ann?
All the time.
“Who benefits from keeping you in disgrace?” she asked when Rye had sketched out his situation for her. “Whose fortunes depend on your banishment from the best clubs, the ballrooms, the hunt meets?”
“I do not engage in blood sport,” Rye said, “but your question merits an answer. Anybody selling champagne in London benefits from blotting my escutcheon, anybody seeking to discredit Fat George’s knighthoods, anybody who…”
Ann glanced up from some piece of needlework she’d taken out half an hour ago. “Yes?”
She occupied the second wing chair, the firelight creating flickering shadows against the curve of her cheek. One shawl was wrapped about her shoulders, another spread over her knees.
The picture she made was cozy and domestic, and Rye wanted to haul her into his lap again, and this time not so she could doze off like a contented cat.
“I told myself,” he said, “that nobody was selling any secrets to the French, that good and bad luck befell both sides, and coincidences are just that. That is precisely what the board of inquiry concluded, and they interviewed half the camp.”
“But?”
“But if somebody was selling secrets to the French, then pinning the blame for that treason on me makes perfect sense.”
“Even now?” she asked. “The war has been over for some time.”
“A few years are but a moment when the charge is treason.” Rye did not like to think that one of his fellow officers or—more likely—some disgruntled private, an artillery sergeant going deaf, or a laundress with a grudge had turned traitor. But conditions in Spain had been miserable, rations often short, and tensions high.
“I was sent out on clandestine reconnaissance because my commanding officer sensed something was afoot. He had an instinct for such things, for when to observe protocol and when to look the other way. He never imparted the details of his suspicions, but he was worried.”
Ann tucked her needle into the corner of her fabric and returned the project to a wicker basket. “Why not confide in you? Why not give you the benefit of his hunches and discuss them with you?”
Rye had pondered that riddle too. “I asked him that, asked him what exactly I was to investigate, what rumors had reached his ears. His reply made sense: to share such information with me would have biased my observations. Out of loyalty to him, I’d see whatever supported his theories and be less likely to notice what refuted them. So I played the role assigned to me. I observed and reported, nothing more.”
“And thus you fell under worse suspicion, because you had no real justification for your outings other than a superior officer’s hunches and could report nothing but general impressions.”
Rye hadn’t realized the vulnerability of his position until he’d been under oath, a panel of senior officers regarding him with chilly skepticism.
“The colonel spoke up for me at the board of inquiry, told them he’d ordered me to keep my eyes and ears open.”
Ann waved a dismissive hand. “That’s like Jules declaring that my best sauce Hollandaise is not bad. He gives his judgment with a condescending little sneer, so anybody listening concludes the sauce is nearly pathetic.”
“I could have a word with Jules, a quiet word in a dark alley.” The cat, who had fallen asleep in Rye’s lap, resumed purring, as if he approved of that notion.
“Jules is unhappy,” Ann replied. “He’s homesick and cooking not at a fancy gentlemen’s club or great house, but at a gaming hell. Oh, the ignominy.”
“French pride is nearly as formidable as its English counterpart.”
Ann smiled at him, a conspiratorial, private smile that made Rye want to… well, cuddling up in her lap wasn’t the half of it. An hour chatting before the fire could apparently be a powerful aphrodisiac, and balm to the soul too. Ann had listened, encouraging Rye to sort through his situation more thoroughly than he had when reporting the general outlines to Sycamore Dorning the previous evening.
More thoroughly than he had in quite some time.
Who benefits? A question that bore further study.
“You have been very generous with your time,” Rye said, “and this cat will soon think he owns me. I really should be going.”
“I did not even feed you.” Ann folded up the shawl that had been draped across her knees. “Some cook I am.”
Rye rose, yielding his place to the cat, and offered the lady his hand. “You do not need to feed me, Ann. I am fortified by your companionship and keen good sense.” He kept her hand in his when she’d risen, and she regarded him with a frown.
“I believe you have just pronounced my Hollandaise not bad.”
Whatever did she…? “I value you for more than your good sense, but I am trying not to make a habit of presuming on your person.”
She ran the fingers of her free hand through his hair, and how he adored when she did that. Felt it right down to his vitals and understood why some bold felines demanded affection from any passing human. Her touch felt that good.
“You are trying to be gentlemanly by limiting your compliments to only my good sense?” she asked, peering up at him.