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The letter Will had given him bore his father’s name on the outside. He tucked it into his journal, which he kept wrapped in oilskin for protection from damp. The packet was too large to fit in the journal. Alec regarded it for a moment, suspecting he held his friend’s last will and testament. He slid it into his writing case, hoping he never had to deliver it, hoping Will found him in a few days and asked for it back.
Kirke came in with a bowl of whatever dinner he’d been able to find, and Alec wolfed it down before pulling off the rest of his clothes and falling into bed. He’d learned to sleep whenever he had the chance of it, and with a battle looming, this might be the last peaceful night he had for quite some time.
He turned out to be right about that—but not for the reasons he thought.
Chapter Thirty-Three
1820
* * *
“But I can’t help,” Cressida said for the fourth time. “I would only be in the way.”
“Nonsense.” True to Cressida’s suspicion, Madame Wallace was proving to be far more than she appeared. She wore a pair of loose dark trousers and a close-fitting jacket. Her black hair was pulled back into a tight braid that snaked down her back. She had swept Cressida into a waiting carriage, and now Mr. Wallace was driving them along at a perilous speed toward the Lucey home. Cressida caught the gleam of a knife strapped to Madame’s forearm, when lightning flashed. She stared at it in uneasy fascination, and wondered what she had got herself into. “Tell me more. What did you read?”
Cressida shivered. “My father was a traitor,” she said in a small voice. It was horrible to think, let alone say out loud. “He helped another officer commit treason and then he blackmailed old Mr. Lucey, taking money in exchange for keeping silent about the truth.”
“What has happened to your father?”
“I don’t know.” But she suspected. Blackmailers rarely met good ends. If Mr. Lucey hadn’t done Papa harm, someone else probably had.
Madame Wallace didn’t appear concerned. She kept glancing out the window. The lightning was growing more frequent and brighter, and now thunder rumbled across the land. From the strength of the breeze that ruffled the carriage curtains, it was quite a storm coming. “What do you know of Lucey and his home?”
“Almost nothing.” She raised her hands when Madame sent her an irritated look. “I told you I couldn’t help! You ought to have brought Julia instead.”
“No,” Madame said. “You are the steadier one. Do not say you know little, tell me what you do know. You have met Mr. Lucey?”
Cressida took a deep breath and nodded. “He’s an older gentleman, about my height and stooped. He walks with a cane. I don’t think he has any family still living, at least not at The Grange. There’s a servant, a large man called Morris, who attends him to church. That’s the only place I’ve ever met Mr. Lucey. He scowls at everything and everyone, and he practically gave my grandmother the cut direct. He called Alec a traitor to his face in front of all Marston at church one week.”
“And the house?”
“I’ve never seen it except from a distance. Julia said Alec and Will Lucey were bosom friends as lads, so he must know it well.”
“That will have to suffice.” Madame lifted the curtain to peer out the window, and again Cressida caught the gleam of the knife handle.
“May I ask. . . ” she began timidly. “May I ask how you know Alec?”
Madame’s smile flashed in the dark carriage. “If he has not told you, perhaps I should not.”
“Then what. . . Who are you?”
Madame Wallace leaned forward. Cressida leaned forward, too. “I am not someone you should know too much about.”
Somehow Cressida agreed with this statement. It didn’t stop her from asking more questions, though. “Why do you have a knife strapped to your arm?”
Madame gave an elegant shrug. “I hope it might remain there all night.”
Meaning that Madame hoped not to draw it? “What are you going to do?”
“I shall have a look around,” said Madame vaguely. “Alec may have no need of my help. He is quite capable, when pressed.”
Cressida kept looking at the knife. Madame seemed far too dainty and delicate to hurt anyone with it, small as it was. “Do you have a pistol, too?”
She laughed in genuine surprise. “Of course not. Far too much noise. I prefer a more subtle approach.” She leaned forward abruptly. “This is the house?”
The Grange lay in the hollow below them, a rambling edifice from the days of the Tudors. Cressida nodded. Madame rapped on the side of the carriage and they halted at once. Madame pushed open the door and leaped to the ground, moving up to talk to Mr. Wallace. Cressida leaned out the window, searching for any sign of Alec during the frequent lightning flashes. The grounds appeared to be deserted, and light glowed in only a pair of windows at the house. Thunder crackled more ominously now, and the wind was sending leaves swirling from the trees. The horses were just as spooked as she was, to judge from their stamping and snorting.
Mr. Wallace jumped down from his perch and waved Cressida forward. “You’ll have to hold the horses,” he said, raising his voice over a boom of thunder. “The storm’s put the fear of the devil into them.” He held out the reins, and she took them uncertainly. Her family had never kept horses until they came to Marston, and even then Tom had done most of the work. “Lead them down the road a bit, there’s a stand of trees where you can tie them. Just don’t stand too close, else the lightning might get you.” He laughed as he said it, looking remarkably jolly given the situation. Cressida scowled at him and he turned away, pulling up the collar of his coat to hide his grin.
