the depths of being put out as a chimney sweep in Piccadilly forty years previously to the heights of caring for arguably the most exquisite gentleman in this or any realm, looked up at the baron with tears in his eyes. “I am devastated, my lord. Ashamed. Aghast. Humiliated.”
“Yes, I should think you would be. Shall I give you the sack?” Justin asked him as Wigglesworth applied boot black and began rubbing an invisible mar with everything that was in his pitifully thin body.
“If it would be your wish, my lord.”
Damn. It was difficult to joke with Wigglesworth. The man was much too committed, too serious. “No, I shan’t dismiss you. After all, if you left you’d probably take Brutus with you. I would miss his conversation.”
“Brutus doesn’t speak, my lord,” the literal-minded Wigglesworth pointed out as he gave one last swipe at the boot and stood up once more.
“Precisely. Which puts him head and shoulders above most people. He can be counted on to never say anything boring. Ah, much better, thank you. I shall now not be ashamed to show myself in public.” He looked toward the window once more, and frowned to see a new flag blowing in the breeze. “Wigglesworth, it would seem the lady’s ship has just dropped anchor. Promise me you will not flee screaming from the docks if she should not be all you believe necessary in my wife.”
“I will do my utmost to contain myself,” the valet promised. “It remains to be known what you will do, my lord.”
Justin accepted his hat from the valet and headed for the door. “Prinny took refuge in cherry brandy, as I’ve heard it told, when he first espied his affianced bride. I think I’d rather face my potential demon fully sober. Although, if our worst fears are confirmed, I suppose a blindfold as I enter the bedchamber for the first time wouldn’t come amiss.”
“We shall hope for the best, then, my lord. It’s important that she’s presentable, if she is to bear our name, if you are to have her hand on your arm as you go about Society. Pleasing to the eye.”
Justin hesitated at the door, and Wigglesworth ran forward to throw it open. “Physical beauty is over-rated, you know. As long as she is passably intelligent and well-spoken, and does not eat little children or frighten the horses, I believe we’ll term the thing a success. Not that we have a choice. We must also remember that this marriage is not the lady’s fault. Why, she may take me in complete dislike.”
“Never, my lord,” Wigglesworth said, bristling. “She is the most fortunate of women.”
“Oh, hardly that. I fear I am not an easy man.”
“You are a very good man, my lord,” the valet said, following the baron into the hallway.
“Why, Wigglesworth, I don’t believe, in our nearly half-dozen years of acquaintance, you have ever before so insulted me.”
Brutus, stepping out from the shadows to make one of his own with his considerable height and breadth, made that snuffling noise that passed for laughter, anger, bemusement and most any other emotion, and fell into step behind them before taking the lead once they were on the street in front of the inn.
Brutus never touched another human as they made their way to the docks. There was nary a shove, a push. But, as was always the case, the bustling tradesmen and loitering sailors and importuning streetwalkers all melted away in front of him, clearing a wide path for his employer and his employer’s valet to follow. Brutus, Justin often thought, was more effective in parting the crowds than a fanfare of trumpets.
The whispers followed, too: Who is that fine set-up Lunnon gentleman? He must be very important. Did you see the cut of his jacket? Coo, ain’t he grand? I’d let him tup me for free, no lie! And look at the little fellow, all dressed up like a Christmas pudding. Let’s follow, see what he’s up to….
Justin liked to think of this recurring phenomenon as hiding in plain sight, a ploy that had worked well in his years of service to the Crown. Or, as someone once said (on quite a different subject, but no matter), there are none so blind as those who will not see. Why sneak in and out of cities under the cover of darkness? Why skulk about in alleyways if there are well-lighted streets to be had? And who suspects someone so determinedly visible of any skullduggery, when it is so much easier to write him off as a fool, a fop, a man concerned only with his own consequence and the tailoring of his waistcoat?
Who? Not the trail of dead men he had left behind him over the course of those years and in a half-dozen countries, that much was certain.
Justin had wearied of the game long before the war, and the necessity for it, was over. But he had held on to the facade, one he felt he needed now more than ever. If people, and most especially his few real friends, could be allowed to see past the silliness, the banter, the supposed fascination for show and fashion, they might be able to glimpse the darkness inside of him, the assassin he had been, the deeds he had done…the mistakes he had made. The one most terrible, unforgivable mistake he had made.
He was alone now, for the most part. Letting anyone in, truly in, was no longer in the realm of his possibilities. That’s probably why he had so easily brought himself around to the idea of marrying at the Prince Regent’s request. Better a stranger than someone he might care for. Better someone who had no interest in really knowing him, someone he had no interest in cultivating. An ancient title, a fine estate, a generous allowance, a blind eye turned to any discreet romantic peccadilloes once the heir was assured and an entrée into Society at the highest level. These were more than sufficient for any wife.
Bringing his mind back to attention, he realized that Brutus had halted at last, halfway along the dock, and stepped aside to give a clear view of the ship and those now in the process of disembarking down a— Was that a red carpet rolled out over the gangplank and onto the dock? By God, it was. And there were ribbons tied to the rope railings. With streamers.
Justin, Wigglesworth, Brutus and the crowd that had followed after them all watched as a full squad of hulking guardsmen in dress uniforms, peaked metal helmets and carrying long, lethal-looking halberds made their way down the gangplank to stand at attention on either side of it for the length of the crimson carpet.
The crowd craned its collective neck when the parade of soldiers came to an end, waiting to see who next might descend.
First came two no-longer-young women, similarly dressed in not quite the first stare, but more in the sedate look of paid companions. They took their place at either side of the carpet directly in front of the gangplank.
Next to disembark was a tall man, probably halfway into his thirties, although with those huge mustachios and sideburns favored in Francis’s court it was difficult to know for certain. The man was also in uniform, the amount of braid and the size of his helmet denoting his elevated rank. His alert blue eyes seemed to be everywhere at once as he surveyed the crowd, before his intense gaze met, and held, Justin’s.
“My, my, my, Wigglesworth, there’s a specimen for you. Should I be cowering, do you think?”
Deftly flipping one side of his short, gold-braid-befrogged cape over his shoulder, and with a hand holding the sword hilt steady at his waist, the man headed sure-footedly toward Justin, removing the ceremonial helmet as he did. “Baron Wilde?”
Justin acknowledged the correctness of the question with a very slight inclination of his head.
“Very good, my lord. We were told you had been warned to be prompt. I am Major Luka Prochazka, emissary of His Highness Francis of Austria, I. Fernec,
