Merely the Groom by Rebecca Hagan Lee
“If she’s anything like Lyss,” Griff said, “she’ll want to get started on that right away.” He looked at Colin. “Do you think she would mind a little help on the project? Shopping for fabrics or something...” There was a hint of desperation in Griff’s voice. “I’ve been so busy, and Alyssa had been bored almost to tears. She hates the endless rounds of morning calls and at homes. And Miranda’s been no help,” Griff complained. “She’s as bored with the ton as Alyssa is.”
Colin took pity on his friend. “Send ’em around to visit,” he told him. “But, please, wait until I’ve left for France.”
Jarrod cleared his throat. “Excuse me while you compare notes on your states of domestic bliss, but we’ve work to do before you leave.” He looked at Colin. “Welcome back. Did you get a chance to decipher any of the messages? And what do you think of Baron Davies’s involvement with the French?”
Colin reached for the dispatch pouch, then slid it across the table to Jarrod. “Finished.”
“All of them?”
Colin nodded. “Every last one of them.”
Jarrod reached inside and pulled out the documents, taking note of the information they contained, but also noticing the changes in the cipher code. “This is remarkable work.”
All of the messages had been deciphered. All except one. Jarrod glanced at it, recognized the code for Galahad, and read it. He arched an eyebrow in query at the content of the simple code. Unless the French agent who had written these had changed radically since the last time Jarrod read his messages, something was amiss. But Jarrod didn’t comment on it; he simply passed the documents on to Griff, who read them and passed them on to Sussex.
“Yes, it is,” Colin agreed. “And you can thank the object of my domestic bliss for doing it when next you see her.”
Griff bit the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling at Colin’s reply.
“You allowed your wife access to deciphered messages?” Jarrod’s voice rose in direct proportion to his growing sense of alarm.
“I allowed my wife to decipher them.” Colin looked around at the other Free Fellows, daring them to object. “She’s a hell of a lot faster at it than I am.”
“She knew the French codes?” Sussex was equally concerned.
Colin shook his head. “She knew the French codes were wrong. Or rather, she knew that the copies of the French deciphering table we have in our possession were out of date.”
Jarrod narrowed his gaze at his best friend. “And how did she come by this information, unless she’s in league with French?”
“In league with the French?” Colin shot up from the table, nearly upending it in the process.
Jarrod glared at him. “Yes, in league with the French. Didn’t you read any of these messages, Colin? Or were you too busy tumbling—”
“That’s enough!” Griff joined the fray, moving to stand between Colin and Jarrod to keep the two hotheaded friends from coming to blows.
“What Jarrod is trying to say—” Sussex began.
“I know what Jarrod is trying to say!” Colin snapped. “He’s trying to tell me that my wife and her family are French spies.”
“Exactly,” Jarrod said. “Only you’re too bloody besotted with her to see it.”
“What I see,” Colin enunciated clearly, “is that someone else is using Lord Davies and his daughter and me for their own purposes.” He shot Jarrod a nasty look. “If Gillian’s a French spy, I’m bloody King George!”
“Then how did she know about the codes?” Sussex asked in a level, reasonable tone of voice.
“She didn’t know they were codes,” Colin replied. “Until I told her.” He held up his hand when Jarrod would have interrupted. “Yes, Jarrod, I told her they were codes. But only after she told me there were errors in my answers to my numerical puzzles.”
“Good lord!” Sussex breathed.
“Gillian is something of a prodigy with numbers,” Colin told them with no small amount of pride. “She’s a genius at mathematics, and she knows almost as much about Lord Davies’s imports and shipping as he does.” He reached for the stack of messages until he found the one Gillian had pleated. “She’s the one who explained that this information is wrong. And that the French have made changes to their deciphering tables. She has the ability to look at groups of numbers and see the patterns.” Colin looked at his fellow Free Fellows and began relaying what he’d learned from Gillian.
“Good lord!” Sussex exclaimed once again when Colin had finished. “If we relay this information to Davies—and we must—we’re liable to push this traitor—whomever he is—into a very desperate corner.”
Jarrod nodded. “If what you suspect is due—” He turned to Colin and held out his hand in apology and friendship. “Your bride and her father are—”
“Targets,” Griff concluded.
Colin nodded. “I know.” He leaned close. “I think she was a target all along.”
“I don’t follow,” Griff said.
“What if her elopement was a kidnapping in disguise?”
Colin looked at his friends and colleagues. “What better way to gain control of twenty-four merchant ships than to gain control of the owner of them?”
“And what better way to do that than to gain control of a member of the owner’s family?” Griff added, as complete understanding dawned.
“Unless—” This time, Sussex played devil’s advocate. “I’m not saying I believe it,” he explained. “Only that it’s still possible that the baron arranged everything to trap you.” Colin agreed. “Except that the baron knew nothing about the Blue Bottle Inn, and neither did his investigator. Gillian never said a thing. She kept her meeting with Galahad a secret. The Bow Street runner and Gillian’s parents believe she spent two days in an inn at Gretna Green.”
“The Bow Street runner could easily check that,” Jarrod said.
“He did,” Colin told him. “That’s where he learned about the other two wives.”
“So, the runner and Lord Davies could have arranged everything and pinned it on you.”
Colin shook his head.
“Why not?” Jarrod demanded.
“Colin Fox had been to Gretna Green, but I never have.”
“What?” Sussex was surprised. “You’ve never been to Gretna Green?”
“I’m a Free Fellow,” Colin said. “I had no reason to go there and have always avoided the place like the plague.” He looked at the others. “If I had chosen to fight Baron Davies’s blackmail, I could have proven I wasn’t the man Gillian married.” He shrugged. “Hell, Gillian could have proven it.”
“And if you weren’t in Gretna Green with Gillian, someone else was. Someone who then took her to Edinburgh and abandoned her, probably for a king’s ransom—”
“A king’s ransom of ships,” Colin said.
“But if there was a request for ransom, I haven’t heard anything about it,” Jarrod said.
“They tried,” Colin said. “But there was nothing to ransom because I, or rather Galahad, gave Gillian the money to go home. Galahad paid the bill at the inn, hired a coach and driver, and paid the innkeepers handsomely to forget she had been there. Gillian was home by the time the ransom note arrived.”
“Bloody hell!” Jarrod exploded. “I think you’re right.”
“Who is the impostor?” Griff asked.
“I don’t know,” Colin said. “I suspect he may be a clerk in Lord Davies’s firm. And I intend to find out.”
“If you go to France now,” Sussex pointed out, “and leave your wife alone at Herrin House, she could be in danger.”
“I’m not going to France.” He looked at Jarrod.
But Jarrod had something else on his mind. “A clerk,” he said. “A clerk…” He snapped his fingers. “Bloody hell. A clerk.” Jarrod turned to Griff and Sussex. “Remember the meeting after Colin’s wedding?”
They nodded.
“Remember when I told you about my trot around the Row when so many curious chap
“Yes,” Griff said.
“One of the men who approached me was a clerk,” Jarrod said. “I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but now it seems strange that a clerk, who had never approached me before, would approach me and request personal information about a friend. Especially, a friend’s wedding.”
“Did you recognize him?” Colin asked.
“He clerked for Mayhew for a while,” Jarrod answered. “I used to see him there, but he left months ago, and when I asked Mayhew what had happened to him, he said the ambitious young man had resigned to accept a more lucrative offer from—”
“Davies Silk and Linen Importers,” the others answered in unison.
“What color were his eyes?” Colin demanded.
“Damnation, Colin! How the hell should I know what color his eyes were?” Jarrod snapped.
“How about a name?” Sussex said.
Jarrod snapped his fingers again. “Something with an aitch. Harper, Hooper...” He looked up. “Holder. I remember the name plaque on his desk. J. Holder.”
“I remember Holder,” Griff said.
“So do I,” Colin added. “And the son of a bitch has a rather extraordinary pair of blue eyes.” He headed for the door, but the others stopped him.
“This requires brains, Colin,” Griff said. “Not brawn. If we’re going to catch a fox, we need a good plan and a sturdy trap. Exercise a bit of patience now, and we’ll get him. Tear off like a hothead, and he’ll get wind of it and go to ground.”
The four Free Fellows looked at one another and agreed.
“We know where to start,” Colin said. “But we’re going to need help.”
“Not to worry,” Jarrod told him. “We’ve already selected two candidates we mean to approach.”
“Who?” Colin demanded.
“Daniel’s cousin, Barclay,” Griff told him.
“I don’t know Barclay,” Colin said.
“Sure you do,” Jarrod interrupted. “He’s that damned whiner, Jonathan Manners. Most recently, the Earl of Barclay.”
Colin nodded. “Manners is a good man. He used to whine, but he’s grown up. And he is completely trustworthy.” He looked at Jarrod. “Who’s the other?”
“Courtland.”
“I’ve only met him once or twice,” Colin said. “But I liked what I saw.”
“Our opinions exactly.” Jarrod nodded in satisfaction.
“Will they help?” Colin asked.
“Manners will, without a doubt,” Daniel told him. “As for Courtland...” He shrugged his shoulders.
“See what you can do,” he said to Sussex. “You’re in charge of recruiting. But do it fast, because I don’t intend to go all the way to France to set this trap.”
“You won’t have to,” Jarrod promised, grinning at Colin. “Oh, and for your information, you missed one.”
“One what?”
“Message to be deciphered. It’s in the dispatch pouch, and it’s addressed to you. In code.” He reached over, lifted the pouch from the table, and tossed it to Colin.
Colin opened it, retrieved the message, and read:
Galahad,
Go wherever your quest takes you. Do what needs be done. But come home only to me.
Hurry. I’ll be waiting with open arms. Je t’aime.
Your lady fair,
Gillian
Jarrod winked at him. “You were right, my friend. The lady certainly knows how to cipher.”
Chapter Twenty-nine
“One for all, or all for one, we gage.”
—William Shakespeare, 1564-1616
The Rape of Lucrece
The Free Fellows League prepared to spring the trap on the elusive impostor Colin Fox two days hence. Colin, Viscount Grantham, wanted to spring it immediately, but the planning took a bit of care and Baron Davies’s cooperation, as well as the assistance of the two new candidates for admission into the Free Fellows League.
Part of the plan called for Colin to leave on his trip as planned and to leave his bride at home at Herrin House. Another part of the plan called for cooperation of a different sort.
It called for Alyssa, Duchess of Avon, and Miranda, Marchioness of St. Germaine, to pay a call on the new Viscountess Grantham.
Their mission was to convince Lady Grantham that her husband had asked them to help her get Herrin House in order. They were to focus her attention on decorating her house, to keep her out of trouble and out of danger. For Colin was very much afraid that his wife might decide to take matters into her own hands and approach her father, thereby alerting the fox they meant to trap.
Alyssa did as her husband asked and invited her close friend, Miranda, to accompany her as she paid a call on Lady Grantham on the second morning after Colin’s departure.
“What’s this all about?” Miranda asked as she and Alyssa drove from Alyssa’s town house to Number Twenty-one Park Lane.
“We’re paying a welcome call on Lady Grantham,” Alyssa answered.
Miranda chuckled. “I think that’s obvious. The question is why, Alyssa? In case you’ve forgotten, Grantham and his bride are still on their honeymoon. They won’t be receiving guests.” She blushed. “And we shouldn’t be calling.”
“Nonsense.” Alyssa brushed away Miranda’s concern. “She’ll see us.” She turned to her best friend. “She can’t refuse a duchess.”
Miranda rolled her eyes. “Being Duchess of Avon has finally gone to your head, Alyssa. I think I liked it better when you were Viscountess Abernathy.”
Alyssa laughed. “That’s because you outranked me then, and we had to do all the things you wanted to do.”
“True,” Miranda admitted. “But this…”
Alyssa leaned closer to her friend. “Colin’s away, and Griffin asked me to drop in on Gillian to make certain she’s all right.”
Miranda had learned not to ask too many questions when Alyssa mentioned Griffin or his friends’ names in the same sentence. There was something amiss with the four of them—Griffin, Jarrod, Colin, and Daniel—and Miranda knew that although Alyssa was privy to most of what went on, her lips were sealed. The Duchess of Avon would never betray her husband’s confidences. “Why didn’t you say so in the first place?”
“Say what?”
“That you’re on a mission for Griffin,” Miranda told her. “I didn’t know if you’d understand,” Alyssa admitted. “But Colin has to be away, and he’s worried about leaving his bride at home by herself, and well, you know how good he and Jarrod were to me when Griffin was on the Peninsula. You remember how they dropped by Abernathy Manor to see me every chance they got.”
“I remember.” She and Sussex had stopped by to see Alyssa every chance they had gotten, too. But both for very different reasons.
“I’m just returning the favor,” Alyssa said, gathering her basket of housewarming gifts as the coach turned into the drive at Number Twenty-one.
Alyssa rang the bell. “The Duchess of Avon and the Marchioness of St. Germaine to see Lady Grantham,” she announced when the door opened.
“Come in, Your Grace.” The butler took the cards Alyssa proffered, then stepped back and led them upstairs to the drawing room. “Lady St. Germaine. If you will wait here, I’ll inform Lady Grantham that you’ve arrived.”
The butler backed out of the drawing room and disappeared up the stairs. Alyssa and Miranda took the opportunity to look around.
“I wonder what’s taking so long,” Miranda said, when long minutes had passed and the butler failed to reappear.
“I hope she’s all right,” Alyssa said. “Colin would never forgive us if anything happened to her while he’s away.”
“Madame is indisposed, Your Grace.”
The French lady’s maid bobbed a curtsy as Alyssa and Miranda turned at the sound of her voice and found her standing in the drawing room.
“Indisposed?” Miranda repeated.
??
“I’m not Her Grace,” Miranda corrected, nodding toward Alyssa. “She is.”
“But of course,” the maid replied smoothly. “Please forgive me for not recognizing you, Lady...”
“St. Germaine,” Miranda replied, paying close attention to the maid. “You’re Lavery, aren’t you?”
“Yes, madame.”
“Then you should know me. You were with my cousin, Baron Chemsford’s, household, were you not?”
“Yes, madame.” The maid widened her extraordinary blue eyes and bobbed another, deeper, more respectful curtsy.
“And before that,” Miranda continued, narrowing her gaze, “you were with the Viscount Wensley’s household.”
“You have a good eye, if I may say so, Lady St. Germaine. And a good memory. As you say, I have been fortunate to be employed by the baron and the viscount as well as Lady Grantham.”
“Whom we have come to see,” Alyssa reminded her. “Now, if you would be so kind as to show us the way.”
“Madame cannot see you,” the maid insisted. “She is indisposed.”
Alyssa lifted her chin a notch higher and used the voice her mother always used on difficult servants. “She will see us. We have a message from her husband for her ears only. And I’m quite certain she would be very distraught if we were to leave without delivering it. Now, either take us to Gillian, or get out of the way so that we might find her on our own.”
The maid stepped back, then turned and led the way to the master suite.
“You do that very well,” Miranda leaned forward to whisper when the obstinate Lavery opened the door to the suite, then turned on her heel and left.
“I should,” Alyssa answered. “I had my mother do it to me often enough.”
Alyssa and Miranda crossed the yellow sitting room and knocked on the door of the closest bedroom. There was no answer. “Gillian?”
“In here,” she called from the doorway of the other bedroom. She was dressed in a loose-fitting morning gown, and her hair was fashioned into a neat chignon, but it was obvious that the maid hadn’t lied. Lady Grantham was deathly pale and in distress and not up to having visitors.