and could care less what Sir Henry supposed as long as he could proceed unimpeded in his quest to have Mary to himself in order to ascertain once and for all whether or not she was a traitor.
That left Mary, and Rachel turned to look at her appealingly, hoping that the child had reconsidered her plans now that Sir Henry could end up the innocent victim in the affair. But if sane, rational thinking in the face of impending disaster was what Rachel had hoped for, she was due for a disappointment that would keep her up nights for a long time to come.
Mary, hiding her furiously clenched fists behind her back, was just then smiling sweetly and denying nothing. Indeed, she was looking up into Tristan’s handsome features with a look so cloyingly sweet that Rachel knew she, for one, would be put off sugaring her tea for a sennight.
Tilting her head slightly to one side in a move meant to be coquettish, Mary blushed becomingly (a trick she had mastered in her cot) and simpered, “Oh, Sir Henry! Do you think I should? After the marked attentions Lord Rule has been so kind as to show me, I scarce wish the vulgar tattles to have more to prattle about.” She then hesitated, overdoing things a little bit, Rachel thought, by putting her fingers to her mouth and giggling, before admitting, “But I would like to ride up beside Lord Rule above all things!”
“I’ll have your maid bring your cloak and bonnet, Mary,” Rachel volunteered from between clenched teeth, frantic to quit the room before she did either her overacting charge or her sleuthing nephew an injury.
Within ten minutes, a beaming, benevolent Sir Henry and a resigned, realistic Rachel were standing at the front door, waving the young couple on their way.
BY THE TIME THEY ARRIVED in the park, Mary’s good humor had been much restored, thanks to the brilliant idea she’d had as she spied a rather down at the heels frizeur, hatbox in hand, crossing the street in front of them. Catching the Frenchman’s attention by the simple expediency of a maidenly screech supposedly caused by the distressing sight of a rather large, slavering dog, Mary took great pains in gifting the hairdresser with a broad wink and a furtive-looking wave of the hand before hastily pretending an unnatural interest in one fingertip of her right glove.
It is superfluous to report that this supposedly covert signal was witnessed by the ever-alert Tristan, just as any of that man’s enemies would be quick to point out to the assumed-to-be-careless Miss Lawrence.
Filing away a mental picture of the Frenchman before urging his team forward once more, Tristan determined to seek out Mary’s “contact” and question him as soon as possible, a notion that Mary—just then snickering into her gloved hand—found distinctly amusing. Soon, with any luck at all, she’d have Tristan so busy chasing ridiculous false leads all over London that he wouldn’t have a single moment left free to tease her with his unwanted attentions.
If she had any slight qualms about the course of action she had embarked upon since hearing of Tristan’s assumptions about her, his earnest reaction to her pretended message-passing effectively banished the last of her more tender feelings.
But it would not do to have this thing all onesided. As Jennie had said, it was time Tristan learned just how it felt to be pursued like some helpless deer hunted in a fenced wood. Yes, it was time she started giving him a hint or two about her own, deliberately amateurish investigation of his loyalties.
She began the moment Rule’s curricle was eased into line behind a dowager countess’s rusty black barouche, ready to take their part in the late-afternoon promenade. “You understood my French quite well, my lord,” she began innocently enough. “Perhaps you too have a French émigré as a tutor?”
This seemingly artlessly posed query brought surprising results. Not accustomed to being questioned on his personal life, Rule answered her question with one of his own. “Why do you ask?” he shot back quickly.
Mary took refuge in another girlish giggle. Goodness, the man was touchy! “Lud, my lord,” she needled him, “anyone would think you had learned your French at Boney’s knee, for all you’re so ticklish about the subject. I told you about my tutor; surely your knowledge of the language was not gained through some nefarious means, was it?”
What the deuce was the girl up to? Tristan pretended to concentrate on his horses while he cudgeled his brain for an answer. She was only playacting at being a brainless ninny; he was not so obtuse as to not see through her pretense, but he was at a loss as to why.
Besides, it was he who had questions that needed answering not she. She was the one with no traceable background, just as if she had been hatched full-grown from an egg three months earlier. It was she who had installed herself snugly in Sir Henry’s house, hoodwinking that poor, naïve man with her deadly charms; she who could be anyone from Sir Henry’s by-blow to Bonaparte’s first cousin. She was the one who had some serious explaining to do, and he was not about to allow her to turn the tables on him and try to make him England’s fiercest patriot, into a person of questionable allegiance.
Turning in his seat, the better to see her reaction to his words, Tristan smiled broadly, saying, “Why, Miss Lawrence, what an odd imagination you have. Nefarious French lessons? You didn’t strike me as one of those females who’s addicted to those novels full of dark danger and imperiled innocents adrift in a cruel world.”
Mary dug her fingernails into her palms until she could control her urge to do Lord Rule an injury. Then, returning his smile just as brilliantly, she trilled, “But Lord Rule, your own aunt is penning just such a novel. Surely you must hold her in disgust if your opinion of her chosen medium is so very low?”
“My aunt is merely filling her time until Sir Henry wakes up and realizes he cannot risk losing Rachel a second time and makes her his wife. I’ll not begrudge her this little hobby if it makes her happy,” he ended, just as if he had anything at all to say about the running of Rachel’s life.
Looking around at the greening landscape and seeing everything through a red haze of anger, Mary found herself amazed yet again at the maddening way Lord Rule had of putting everything and everybody into neat little boxes, then labeling them as he saw fit. It was as if he had inherited some of Jennie’s matchmaking tendencies—his cousin’s burning desire to settle everyone happily into perfectly fitting niches—and some of his cousin Lucy’s single-minded determination in following through on any project once undertaken, no matter what the odds, as well as more than his fair share of Lucy’s tendency to meddle in whatever she considered to be her business.
What Mary had yet to fully understand was that Tristan—being the male of the species and therefore more prone to looking upon his less desirable traits as sterling qualities—had grown into manhood with his determination hardening into firm, unwavering resolve, while his wish to settle people changed into managing interference and his natural curiosity about his fellowman twisted into suspicion and mistrust of those he could not neatly categorize. And all of this had happened because no one had ever yet had sufficient courage to tell him he was fast becoming an opinionated, arrogant, fire-breathing Don Quixote—out to right the world’s wrongs as he was so clearly, in his own mind, called upon to do.
Having been deeply involved with the defense of his country for the past seven years, his talents (or failings, depending on whom you applied to for a judgment) had been honed and refined until he felt himself able to judge and mentally file away a man within mere minutes of making his acquaintance. He did not give any credence to hearsay or rumor—and paid only a little more attention to the official documents he was frequently provided with to use as a guide—choosing instead to make up his own mind in his own way. In this manner he had decided that, seeing that Lucy trusted Julian, the man was obviously innocent of any involvement with the death
