lord.”
“Thank you, Willicombe,” Douglas said. “I am certain that Hollis would be very impressed with your resourcefulness.”
“Robert, the second footman, my lord, comes from a noxious area near the docks. He still knows some of the miscreants there. I will have him sniff around to see what he can learn.”
“That is an excellent idea, Willicombe,” Alexandra said and gave him a big smile.
They watched Willicombe stride from the room, taller, straighter, a man on a mission.
Jason stood. “Did Georges Cadoudal have family? Children?”
“I believe he married a woman whose name was Janine. I don’t know about children.”
Jason said, “We must find out. Now, I’m off to visit my club. I want to know if anyone has heard anything.” He rose, straightened his waistcoat.
James said, “Father, we both have friends who will want to help. I don’t think we should keep this a secret. I think we should announce to the world that someone-some
Douglas and Alexandra watched their sons walk from the drawing room. She said quietly even as she burrowed against her husband’s shoulder, “They are not boys any longer, Douglas.”
“Yes, you’re right about that. Where have the years gone, Alex?”
“I don’t know, I just want them to continue going into the distant future. Our sons want to protect you now as you always wanted to protect them.”
“I still want to protect them.” He held her a moment, saying against her hair, “I fear they are too brave.”
Alexandra raised her head, and Douglas saw that she was smiling. “I too have many friends. Ladies, you know, hear many things. We must find out about children Georges could have left when he died.”
“Alex, you will not involve yourself in this!”
“Do not be a blockhead, my lord. I am your wife and thus I am more involved than anyone, with the possible exception of your stubborn self. Yes, I shall begin with Lady Avery. I wonder if her spouse ever tells her anything.”
Douglas’s face was red. “Alex, I forbid-”
She gave him a lovely smile and said, “Would you like a cup of tea, my lord?”
He growled and took his tea. “You will take no risks, madam, do you understand me?”
“Oh yes, Douglas. I understand you perfectly.”
Sometime later, Douglas said to his wife as they walked up the central staircase, “Well, damnation. I forgot all about Corrie.”
“It’s all right, Douglas. I didn’t. I selected several lovely patterns for her and some very nice white muslin and pale blue satin.”
Douglas knew it wasn’t going to be good. He cleared his throat. “Did Miss Plack sew up the gowns?”
“No, there wasn’t time, but Maybella assured me that all would be well. She said that Corrie’s maid could sew in a closed carriage. Indeed, I am expecting them to arrive in London today-even though Simon was complaining that he had contracted the plague-and Corrie will be wearing one of her new gowns.”
It was difficult, but Douglas did manage not to put his head in his hands. “Simon’s town house is on Great Little Street, is that right?”
Alexandra nodded. She was thinking hard, not about Corrie but about Georges Cadoudal. She said, “It’s been so long since Georges kidnapped me and took me to France. It was a matter of revenge then, Douglas, against you. But it isn’t the same now. This is someone hiding, lurking in the shadows, trying to kill you without you seeing his face.”
Douglas grunted.
“I wonder if Georges did marry Janine, that wretched hussy who betrayed you.”
“We’ll find out.”
“Could he have spoken with such hatred of you that any children he might have had are now out to avenge him? It makes no sense for the simple reason that there wasn’t any hatred. You and Georges parted amicably, like you told the boys, and I should know. I was there. I wonder, do you think perhaps that Georges is still alive?”
“I’ll make certain, one way or the other. I agree with you. Given what happened then, Georges’s involvement doesn’t make any sense to me either.”
She stopped in her tracks, halfway down the vast corridor, and grabbed his arm. “You were on a mission in France before Waterloo. I remember that since you tried to keep it from me.”
“It was not a particularly dangerous mission, just the extraction of one of our highly placed spies.”
“You told me that much, but nothing more. Now, was Georges involved in that?”
“I never saw him. Perhaps he was close by.” He didn’t say another word. He wasn’t about to tell her the rest of it for the simple reason that it had nothing to do with this.
“Spill it now, Douglas, or I will do something you won’t like.”
He hesitated, and she said, “I even learned to speak French to help protect you. Not that it did me much good.”
“The informant said something about revenge against me would be lovely.”
Alexandra shuddered. “I knew it. It is what I expected.”
He’d managed to sidetrack her, but not for long. She would remember that he hadn’t told her about that mission to France before Waterloo, and what had happened. Well, it didn’t matter. He’d survived.
JAMES WALKED TO Great Little Street, at the request of his father, to see exactly how bad Corrie looked in her maid-sewn gowns whose fabric and pattern his mother had, unfortunately, selected.
He arrived at Number 27 Great Little Street and rapped the bronze lion’s-head knocker.
A red-faced butler took one look at him and quickly stepped back. “Please hurry, my lord, before it is too late! I don’t know what to do.”
James ran past the butler’s flapping hand up the stairs and through the wide double doors into the Ambrose drawing room. He came to a halt in the doorway, scared to his toes, to find Corrie standing in the middle of the room, garbed in the most hideous gown he’d ever seen. It was pale blue, lace sewn nearly to her ears, row upon row of flounces sewn on the bottom portion, and sleeves the size of cannons. The only thing that looked good was her nearly invisible waist-she had to be wearing an iron corset beneath that belt because she looked ready to faint. She was crying.
James shut the door in the butler’s face. He was at her side in a moment, grabbing up her hand that fell out of that huge sleeve. “Corrie, what the devil is the matter?”
She swiped the back of her right hand over her eyes and gave him the most pathetic look he’d ever seen from her. Another tear trickled over her cheek to drip off her chin.
“Corrie, for God’s sake, what’s happened?”
She drew a deep breath, focused on his face, and sneered. “Why nothing, you fool.”
He shook her. “What is wrong, damn you? The butler was really scared.”
“All right, all right, stop shaking me. If you would know the truth, I’m practicing.”
He dropped his hands. “Practicing what?”
“You’ll just keep digging and prodding, won’t you? Very well. Aunt Maybella said I must know how to turn down the scores of young gentlemen who will be proposing to me right and left. She said to think of something sad and it would make me cry. She said that gentlemen are most profoundly affected by a lady’s tears. They would believe that I am desolate to refuse to marry them. There, are you satisfied?”
He was staring down at her, dumbfounded. The tears had certainly worked on him, and the butler. He said, “You will not gain a single proposal wearing a gown like that.”
Her tears dried up in a flash. Her mouth seamed shut. “Aunt Maybella said it is very fine. Your mother selected the pattern and the fabric and my maid sewed it.”
“In that case, you have to know that it is very bad indeed.”
She stood there, trying to close the huge mouths of the sleeves, but they’d been stiffened and didn’t move.
James wanted to laugh, but he wasn’t a total clod. “Listen, Corrie, my father is going to take you tomorrow to
