Melisande had a hand on the door latch when Horace spoke again.
“I know you think I’m heading rapidly into the terrain of the tiresome old warhorse, Meli, but I do take your happiness seriously. Your loyalty means much to me, and I try in my way to be worthy of it.”
Drat and devil take it, there was the gallantry, the gentlemanly decency that Melisande had always found so attractive about her husband.
“Thank you, Horace. Tomorrow, if the weather permits, will you drive out with me?”
He blew her a kiss. “That shall be my pleasure. Enjoy your outing, my dear.”
He’d likely forget all about driving Melisande in the park, but the thought was still sweet to contemplate.
What was not so sweet to consider was how Ann could be a guest at the officers’ dinner without everybody at the table knowing the recipes, flowers, centerpieces, and even the choice of what roast to bring in on which platter had been Ann’s rather than Melisande’s.
But no matter. Nobody ever asked about those details anyway, and Ann would know better than to bring them up in company.
“Somebody stole four hundred cases of very good champagne from my warehouse,” Rye said, watching Ann pour the tea. She was of a piece with the genteel domesticity of this cozy parlor, also of a piece with the Coventry’s enormous, bustling kitchen. He liked seeing her both places, and liked seeing her replete with pleasure beside him in bed most of all.
“The thieves plotted this crime carefully,” he went on, “drugging an old man, picking the lock, and having enough labor on hand to make off with the goods before anybody was the wiser.”
The details made the transgression worse, made it a matter not of spontaneous greed, but of malice aforethought. Malice and determination.
“That’s a lot of champagne,” Ann said, passing him a steaming cup. “Will insurance cover the loss?”
“No, because I cannot prove the champagne was destroyed, and thus it is regarded as mislaid. I am encouraged by my solicitors to hire runners to track down the stolen cases. I reported the problem to the relevant magistrate’s office, and they condoled me on my bad luck.”
Ann poured out for herself, but didn’t take a sip. She had permitted Orion to arrange her hair in a chignon gathered softly at her nape—not the ruthlessly tidy braids mandated by kitchen work—and the look of her enchanted him.
Enchanted him more than usual.
Whoever had said parting was such sweet sorrow had never contemplated parting from Annie Pearson. Orion’s heart was breaking, and after years at war, that should not be possible.
“You don’t see such bold larceny as bad luck,” Ann said.
“The docks are notoriously riddled with crime, and that’s part of the reason my warehouse is well back from the river. Then too, the wine prefers the dryer air, and I want my inventory as close at hand as possible. The neighborhood isn’t fashionable, but I thought it safe.”
Ann held her tea cup before her, and Rye knew she was having a discreet sniff. To take the olfactory measure of food and drink was second nature with her, and she probably did not realize she did it.
He would miss that, miss how her awareness of any sort of sustenance made him more aware as well.
“No place in London is safe,” Ann said, “but something in particular about this theft worries you.”
Everything about the theft worried Rye. “I keep my cavalry sword hanging over the fireplace in my office at the house,” he said. “That weapon is a reminder of where fighting leads—to death, dismemberment, and worse, lingering disabilities for men toward whom I bore no personal ill will. When I was assigned the management of mules and prisoners, Ann, I was relieved. The longer I fought, the more the whole undertaking struck me as stupid.”
Ann sipped her tea, while the cat was eyeing her lap. Orion scooped the beast up rather than risk hot tea all over Ann’s dress.
“Should we have allowed Napoleon to invade England?” she asked.
“Once Nelson scuttled the French fleet at Trafalgar, that was unlikely. Britain started the campaign on the Iberian Peninsula knowing there was little risk of France invading our shores.”
“But Bonaparte stopped our trade with the Continent. He forbade even delivery of British mail.”
“And this interfered with your correspondence exactly how? We blockaded his ports far more effectively than he stopped us from smuggling our goods into Continental markets. In any case, I kept my sword in plain view to remind me that war for those fighting it isn’t about markets, political theories, or the benefits of monarchy over representative governments. It’s about killing, violence, and destruction, and I want no more of any of it.”
“Thus you take in ragged children and sell your champagne, when nobody is stealing it from you.”
“The children just… They come along, and I have more room than I need, and that has nothing to do with anything.”
Ann smiled at him, and the idea that he must bid farewell to her, and to those sweet, knowing smiles… He pet the cat, who commenced rumbling.
“What has your sword to do with the stolen goods?”
“My sword was left at the warehouse in place of the purloined champagne. The stolen sword tells me that somebody violated my household, where I billet those self-same children. The watchman who was drugged was old and frail, Ann. He’s not fit for anything more vigorous than sounding the alarm, and whoever took the champagne could just as easily have tossed Nicolas into the river. I am being warned, repeatedly, that I and those I care about are in danger.”
“And thus you are leaving for France?”
She posed the question calmly, while presiding over her pretty tea service in this genteel parlor full of the contented purring of an overfed feline.
This is what I thought I was fighting for. England’s domestic tranquility; the good, dear people at home; the quiet, honorable values that made John Bull the equal of any man the world over.
“In Spain, I gave up my field command without complaint and contented myself with battling reams of paperwork, Ann. When the Hundred Days came, I accepted that I was not welcome to rejoin the fight. As I tried to establish my business here in London, I grasped that doors to certain regimental homes were closed to me. I have accepted my lot and tried to be grateful for it.”
“You deserve none of those slights.”
“So fierce, and you don’t deserve Jules Delacourt’s meanness, but you aren’t wasting your powers taking him on, are you?”
“I cannot, or somebody wholly innocent of wrongdoing could end up gashed by an accidental knife, burned with a spilled pot of glaze, or out of a job because Jules considers that sort of cruelty an expedient means of punishing me.”
“Punishing you for being good at what you do. And I sense that somehow I have stumbled into the same sort of trap, Ann. Horace Upchurch was my commanding officer when that board of inquiry was convened. He did what he could for me, and even he is telling me to leave London.”
Ann petted the cat, who’d draped himself across Rye’s thighs. “Uncle isn’t one to advocate retreat, but he’s put distance between you?”
“Yes.” Orion watched her hand stroking gently over soft, soft fur.
“You did not want me to know that my own uncle has suggested you leave Town.”