She wrapped herself in a favourite velvet pelisse and drew on her gloves; they would serve as a sort of armour, she hoped. Richard had wanted to talk – very well, they would. He could hardly complain if he did not like what he heard.
It was a sunny, blustery autumn day, but not cold, and Viola walked through the bright, whirling leaves towards the man she’d once adored beyond all reason. When she reached him, she continued fiercely, just as though there had been no break in the conversation, ‘Your letter made me furious, and you cannot pretend not to know why. You insulted me when you spoke so lightly of my fertility, but perhaps you did not mean that, given what passed between us then and how much it hurt us both to be used as Edward used us. I can set that aside – I have done so.’
His expression seemed to lighten a little, since he could have no idea what she was about to say next, and she went on before she lost courage, ‘I am angry, as I have every right to be and always will be, not because you left me, and not because you did not come back when Edward was dead. I never expected you to, because by then, I knew that you were not what you claimed to be. You were not a humble employee of some trading company, a gentleman with no means or expectations trying to make his way in the world in an honourable fashion. You were never that, and I was a naïve idiot to believe you were. You were, and I must suppose you still are, a suspected criminal. Lord Marchett made sure to tell me by letter that the Ton was whispering of nothing else. Shocking stories of theft and blackmail, and even rumours of murder. All the world seems to know as much, and yet you are still received – it’s astonishing, really. But he told me more than that, things I have never spoken of to a soul before now, but cannot endure not to say to you, to seek your reaction.’
His face was unreadable to her now, and certainly, he uttered no word of protest or denial. The sun was still shining, the golden leaves still falling in the quiet garden, but now she felt cold.
‘His Lordship thought I should be aware of secret matters that had come to his attention through his work at the Foreign Office, and gave him very grave concern. Perhaps he feared then that I might think to marry you, since Edward was dead, and wanted to do all he could to stop me. He told me that you were believed in government circles to be a very dangerous and skilful French spy, one they had long suspected but never been able to catch. One who had been put under surveillance, but had managed to evade it time and again, to go they did not know where, and meet people they could only guess at. It was feared, he said, that your position in the Ton and your wide trading contacts made you a central figure of some sort – one who had connections few could match, and channels of communication they had never been able to discover. Not just a criminal, though certainly that, but a traitor. So much more made sense when he told me that. No wonder you did not want me living with you and stumbling across your dirty secrets!’
His expression was grimmer than she had ever seen it now. ‘Iwasan employee of a trading company, in fact – not a word of what I told you was untrue. I lived as I told you, and travelled to the places I described to you, and did the things there that I told you I did, and yes, I still despite that moved in polite society sometimes because of my family background. I never lied to you, Viola. Not once.’
‘That’s sophistry. If you worked as you described, even if I believe you when you say so, and there is no reason why I should, it was all just a cover for something else, something far more sinister. Wasn’t it?Wasn’t it?’
He took his time in answering her, but in the end, he said blankly, ‘Yes. Yes, it was. I wonder greatly that you married me, knowing so much about my disreputable history.’
‘Maybe I was mad, but I took a calculated risk. I’m aware it was a very rash one. I thought if all the power of the British government had not been able to catch you yet, perhaps they never would. And I assumed besides that a criminal whom everyone in England knows for one – including, as I have recently discovered, my mother and my entire family – cannot be very effective any longer. I wonder they do not point at you as you walk down the street and say, “Have a care, there is the man who cannot be trusted! Keep tight hold of your purses, and be sure you do not take your eyes off him for a second!”’
‘Sometimes, they do,’ he murmured, his mouth quirking wryly. He could never be entirely serious for very long; it was beyond infuriating.
‘But you have not been arrested by the authorities, either as criminal or spy.’
‘You are mistaken. I’ve been arrested more times than I can count, and released each time. It hasn’t happened in a while, in fact, you will be happy to know. As you say, such notoriety as I now have would make my ability to carry out any dubious activities somewhat limited. It’s my opinion thatthe authoritieshave given up on me, especially now I’m a peer and a man of property.’
‘I’m glad to hear it, and I hope I may believe it. I will not ask you to stop your activities – at this point, I don’t know if I’d trust you if you said you meant to, or even that you already had. But Richard, if you place my sons in any danger, I will kill you myself.’
‘I would expect nothing less from you. But you do not think to give me a curtain lecture on honourable behaviour, or even on patriotism?’
‘Would it do any good?’
He sighed. ‘Probably not.’
‘Then I won’t. In the end, I’m not sure how much I care about men and their stupid wars. Unless you’ve done what you’ve done for money, and yet still claim you have none, I presume you did it out of conviction. So-called republican principles. Well, your precious Bonaparte has the blood of many thousands on his hands, but I’m not confident we are any better. Look at Badajoz, the British atrocities there. No woman or child who dies screaming in terror can be expected to care if a Frenchman or Englishman is responsible. I won’t ask you for any sordid details. What I did think and still think was that you must have all sorts of low connections, and that you will be able to use them to make sure your brother comes nowhere near the boys. I’m not sure I care much about anything else.’ This wasn’t entirely true, but she had her pride.
‘I’ve always done that,’ he murmured very low. ‘I’ve always looked out for them.’ He must have seen the incredulity on her face, because he said then, with the first hint of heat that he had shown in all this extraordinary discussion, ‘If you believe nothing else I tell you, Viola, believe that. You have guarded them sufficiently well at Winterflood, I know, surrounded by people who care for them, and whenever you have left there together, wherever you have gone with them, people of mine have been observing. Not to spy on you or on them, but to ensure their safety. And since they went to school, they have always had someone I can trust watching over them. They still do.’
‘I should have known.’ Despite her enduring anger that he’d never been the man she’d once thought he was, this revelation made her feel a little more kindly towards him. She had been right after all to trust him with her sons; theywerehis sons too.
‘Yes, Viola, I really think you should.’
‘Have you ever…?’ She broke off, feeling almost as though it was not her business to ask the obvious question.
‘Of course I have seen them. Following them out of Winterflood has always been easy enough for a person of average intelligence; that damn ostentatious coach of Edward’s with the bloody great red crest on its door is impossible to miss.Quod habeo teneo, it says – how well we know the truth of that. And in London: two young boys of rank travelling to and from Armstrong House together, always in your company, who else could they be? But at school, with so many others… I had to be sure my men were watching the right ones. I had to go and see.’
‘Was that the only reason?’
‘You know damn well it was not! Good God, woman. Whatever you think of me, you shall never say that I do not care.’ When she did not respond, he sighed and said in a gentler tone, ‘I don’t have words to say what they are and how much it meant to me to see them, strong and healthy and happy, and always together, friends as well as brothers. You’ve done a wonderful job as a parent, my dear. I knew you would, when I first saw you with them. I’m sure it hasn’t always been easy.’
She had no answer to make to that; how could she even begin to describe what the last eleven years had been for her, the joy and the pain and always the loneliness? She wanted to scream at him, to send him away and never see him again; she wanted to hold him and never let him go. ‘They look like you. You must have seen that. Ned, especially, has your quickness of movement. His smile, sometimes, is so like yours. And I see you in Robin too at odd moments.’ It was true; she had cried over it a dozen times.
‘Did you and Edward ever speak openly about them?’
‘Just once. I told you, I think, that I meant to have a conversation with him, make it clear to him that we could not continue living as we had, in such solitude.’
‘I was cruel to you when you said that, and knew it even as I uttered the unforgivable words. I was eaten up with jealousy of the life that you would have together.’
‘It was only a life together because of the boys, and centred around them. If that topic ever was exhausted, we had nothing to say to each other and nothing in common. I went to see him as soon as I felt strong enough after they were born, and told him that I knew exactly what he had done – how he had manipulated us, and how I despised him for it. Told him in plain words that you were their true father, not him, in case he was deceiving himself with uncertainty. You’d spoken to him already, I know, so he cannot have been all that taken aback, but he was deeply ashamed when I confronted him, and had no answer to make me. He said he was sorry, but that was a lie and I challenged it. He was a weak and selfish man, I realised, and all he was sorry for was being found out. It is easy to be ruthless with other people’s lives when you don’t care about anyone much apart from yourself and your great inheritance. And his precious dead Elizabeth, of course. He loved the boys, was an excellent father to them both, and I was glad of that, but I could not respect him after what he did to us, and I told him so and never wavered.’
‘Did he ever move that portrait of her from the dining room? It used to make me so angry on your behalf when I saw it there, and him glancing at it so often when he should have been looking at you.’
