‘What does that matter? And anyway, your reputation has proceeded you. My advice would be to marry the girl before someone else does, for the Smithson girl is beautiful and kind and the toast of theton.’
‘All the more reason to shy away.’ He tried to take the harsh edge off his words, but failed. Since being back he’d felt dislocated and splintered. This morning it had taken two hours to be measured for yet another new jacket. He could barely believe the sheer waste of time.
Lian de la Tomber had got him out of Nantes on a fishing boat that had ferried him to one of the British frigates standing just off the coast.
It had been an easy exchange, the reward offered by Wellesley an inducement that the French fisherman and his son had been keen to take advantage of. The captain of the man-of-war lying offshore was known to him and within half an hour of boarding, Shay was heading for England, the French coast receding as he watched from the deck, a cold sea wind against his face.
She would be there somewhere, Celeste Fournier, turning south to look for her own nirvana. Spain, perhaps, or Italy. He could imagine her among the ancient beauty and warmth of such lands, reinventing herself.
Away from espionage, he hoped. Free from the history that had haunted her in Paris. She had tried to give him her father’s rosary in those last moments, but he had refused the stewardship.
The acceptance he’d seen in her blue eyes as she’d spoken her goodbye had almost broken him, but he’d been careful not to show her. He was only a small dalliance in the scheme of things, a convenient tryst. All of these truths had lain in the expression on her face even before he’d made for the port and the waiting de la Tomber.
But he had dreamed of her every night since.
The anger in him bloomed. There was no sense in his yearnings and he had always been a logical man. He needed to get on with rebuilding his own life, changed again on the death of his brother, pinning him to the peerage, to Luxford Manor and to an English court that expected him to be solid.
Jeremy had been more than poorly when he had arrived back in England, his fear of coming home only to see his brother die coming true.
‘Look after everything for me, Shay. Vivienne will need comfort and I entrust you with that. Make sure she wants for nothing.’
‘Your wife will be welcome to stay on at Luxford for as long as she wishes. She will be happy here.’
‘And what of you, Shay?’ His voice quivered. ‘I wish you could be happier.’
‘I was in France, Jem.’ He took his brother’s thin hand and held it tight in his own. ‘I met Celeste Fournier there and she was every bit as beautiful as she always was.’
‘Then why is she not here? Back with you? Back in England?’
‘She could not come. Her father took her into France and chaos and she has been damaged somehow.’
A fit of coughing had ended the conversation and that was the last time his brother had seemed truly coherent. The next day he was dead.
Shay knew that the years of war followed him around like a mantle, too, the myths and legends of battle weaving a story about his endeavours that he barely recognised.
But there was no way to stop them, no way to negate such accolades without exposing the secrets he had always tried to keep safe. The names of other people who had ferried him across a continent sickened by war, the religious affiliates and the less salubrious tittle-tattlers. The blood money of espionage cast a wide net, kept afloat by the endeavours of those who saw in it opportunities for a better way of life.
Morality in a war was nothing like the tepid version of it in peacetime, for more was at stake. He’d felt the breath of death upon his neck many a time as well as the giddy rush of violence. He’d seen men die in all sorts of manners, both slow and quick, and these things could not help but be imprinted on the brain.
He did not fit in here any more for he no longer understood the easy lives of thetonor their predilection for gossip. It was over a year since he had last seen Celeste. The scar on his thigh still ached at times and made him think of her touch.
‘I think I will retire to Sussex, Lytton. The estate needs tending after the last hard years of my brother’s sickness.’ Shay tried to keep grief from his tone.
‘Come to the Hall-Brown ball tonight with me, Shay. I will pick you up at around ten. It would do you good to enjoy the Baron’s stellar wine and some relaxation of spirit.’
Shay had it in mind to refuse, but the look on Lytton’s face was so genuine he found himself accepting such an invite. He just hoped his friend would not use the occasion to try to advance Miss Smithson’s desire to get to know him better.
* * *
Shay spotted Aurelian de la Tomber the second he stepped into the room. He had not expected him to be in London at all and a deep scar across his chin had him frowning.
‘When the hell did you get to London?’
‘Yesterday evening. I thought to call in to see you on the morrow.’
‘I hope it was not your role in my freedom at Nantes that caused you such a wound, Lian.’
‘God, you don’t know, do you? You do not know of the roiling cesspit your beautiful travelling companion created back in Paris after you left?’
