The Wily Wastrel Read online

  “I think it was meant to come apart,” she said, a catch in her voice.

  This time he heard her. Wanted to hear her. “Meant to come apart?” he echoed.

  “There seems to be something inside.”

  James walked past her, carrying the two pieces of the intricately embossed mirror, and sat on the edge of the bed. He tried to take in what she had just said. Carefully, very carefully, he set one piece of the mirror on the bed and looked at the other.

  It was true that it didn’t seem to be broken. The edges were smooth and there was something resembling a catch. And a piece of paper folded several times and tucked into those same edges.

  Even more carefully James removed and unfolded the paper, the second part to the mirror set beside the first on the bed where it could not slip to the floor by accident.

  The first glance told him the letter was in French. A second that it was beyond his level of understanding of the language. His mind had run more to math and science and his tutor had early on despaired of teaching James more than the rudiments of any language other than English.

  But Juliet could read it. Without his noticing, she had come to sit beside him and look at the paper too. Now James realized she was silently mouthing the words as she translated them to herself.

  “What does it say?” he asked curtly.

  She looked at him, dismay in her clear, green eyes. Her hands, he noticed, were clasped tightly together. James could not begin to guess at the cause of her distress. So he did everything he could think of to set her at ease. He fitted the pieces of the mirror back together and curtly told Woods and Juliet’s maid to finish packing. Then he took the letter in one hand and grasped her arm with the other.

  “Come, let us wait in the private parlor,” he told Juliet. “They will tell us when it is time to go.”

  She was pale, very pale, but she came. Once they were in the private parlor she began to pace, her distraction clear even to his eyes.

  “What does the paper say?” James asked again.

  “You do not know?” she asked.

  When he shook his head, there seemed to be some relief in her expression, a slight easing to the tension with which she held herself.

  Quietly he said, “I do not know French very well. I was the despair of my tutor, in that respect. Come, what does it say?” When she still did not answer, he added, “That was my father’s mirror. His dressing case, I inherited after he died. We divided up his possessions so that each of us had something. It was commissioned for him, or so I have always been told. Which means the paper must have been his. I beg of you to tell me what it says.”

  She turned then and met his eyes, searching for something. At last she seemed to make up her mind. She took a deep breath, nodded to herself, and then she spoke.

  “You have said your father was a notable reformer. Did he, perhaps, admire the principles of the French revolution?” she asked.

  “Yes, but not the excesses!” James replied with a frown, remembering. “He said it was an experiment sadly gone awry.”

  “Would he have been sympathetic to Monsieur Bonaparte?”

  “No! Absolutely not!”

  “Are you quite certain?” Juliet asked, coming to stand beside James and put a hand on his shoulder. “Or is that what you wish to believe.”

  James shook off her hand and rose to his feet. This time it was he who paced the room. “My father would never have betrayed England. That is what you are suggesting, are you not? He wanted change, but not change that overturned everything as they did in France!”

  “Then why,” she asked, her voice heartbreakingly gentle, “did he have a letter from Monsieur Bonaparte saying that he counts on his support?”

  James went very pale and sank into the nearest chair. He looked again at the letter he still clutched in his hand. “There is no name at the top,” he said. “We cannot be certain it was directed to my father.”

  She turned and looked out the window, as though afraid to let him see her face. Over her shoulder she said, “There would not be, if Monsieur Bonaparte was discreet.”

  James took several deep breaths. Finally he stood and said, in a deadly calm voice, “It is understandable that you would think what you do. But I know my father. As young as I was when he died, I am still certain he would never, never have aided the French. Or supported Napoleon Bonaparte. It would have gone against everything he believed in to do so, reformer or not.”

  And then, because he could not trust himself a moment longer with someone who believed his father could have been a traitor, James started to leave the room.

  “Where are you going?” she asked.

  He paused, his hand on the door, to say, “To put this back where it was. Until we know the truth of the matter, the fewer people who see it the better.”

  “Why not just burn the letter?” Juliet asked. “Then no one need see it ever again.”

  “We Langfords do not run from the truth. No matter how unpleasant it may be. My father kept this letter for a reason. Until I know what that reason may have been, I cannot destroy it.”

  Then, before she could ask any more questions, he was gone.

  Chapter 17

  Dover was bustling but Woods managed to engage a suite of rooms for James and Juliet.

  “It is not perhaps entirely what you are accustomed to, sir,” Woods explained, “but I thought you would be more comfortable a little out of the way of the busiest part of town. I have engaged a private parlor, of course, as well as bedchambers and stabling for the horses and carriage.”

  “Excellent!” James said approvingly.

  Woods turned to Juliet. “I believe you will be pleased to find that you need not walk past the public taproom every time you enter or leave the building.”

  The establishment was, she was relieved to see, quite respectable and Woods was correct in saying that it would suit them very well. She went upstairs alone. Her understanding, with the innkeeper’s daughter in Folkestone, might have come to nothing, but she would, she thought grimly, try again here.

  “Er, I think I shall go for a walk,” James came to tell her, a short time later.

  “I shall go with you,” Juliet immediately countered. “It is a beautiful day and I should enjoy that very much.”

  He did not look entirely pleased, but Juliet refused to be discouraged. If this marriage was to work, she must enter into his interests. Besides, she wanted to discover what he intended.

  So they walked. James tried to be a pleasant companion, but it was evident he was distracted.

  “The cliffs are too blasted open,” he muttered. “Everything can be seen from the town and from the castle!”

  “Yes, but what should that matter?” Juliet asked.

  “Er, never mind,” he hastily replied.

  “One can see a great distance,” she said helpfully.

  “Too far.”

  “Is there somewhere in particular you wish to walk?” she asked at last, when they had been, going in what seemed like circles for more than an hour.

  “What? Er, no. That is, perhaps we ought to return to the inn,” he said gruffly.

  And then, as though he realized she might be feeling a trifle neglected, James slipped his arm around Juliet’s waist and he was once again her own dear husband.

  ———

  Hours later, well after midnight, men moved through the dark streets of Dover. They carried barrels and boxes and something more.

  A few caskets of French brandy were deposited in the usual place, by the back door of each inn where arrangements had been made in advance. And then the men moved on and no one, save for the proprietors who had been listening for them, even knew they had come and gone.

  “ ‘Ere now,” one said. “Not so much noise.”

  “The moon’s too bright,” another grumbled. “We’ll be seen for sure.”

  “Not if we does our job and gets out of ‘ere right quick,” still a third replied. “Just keeps a sharp eye out for the
king’s guard.”

  And then they moved on. Above their heads, James and Juliet slept soundly. Only Frederick Baines, in another part of town, noted and worried over their presence when they passed by his lodgings.

  The next morning Juliet smiled brightly at James over breakfast. “What shall we do today?” she asked.

  He noted her smile with a sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach. “We? Er, that is, I must visit the castle this morning,” he told her with unaccustomed diffidence. “But I think perhaps it would be best if you stayed here in town. After I return, perhaps we could walk down to the harbor and look at the ships at dock there.”

  She regarded him over the rim of her cup and frowned. “You do not wish me to go with you to the castle? You are ashamed to take me with you?”

  There was hurt in Juliet’s voice and James made haste to reassure her. “No, no, of course that is not what I meant. It is just that the castle is now a military facility.”

  “Then why are you going to visit there?” she asked with a shrewdness that was most alarming.

  James developed an intense interest in the food on his plate before he answered her.

  “I, er, that is the governor is an old friend of my father. I ought to pay my respects,” he improvised.

  Even without looking at Juliet, he knew that her eyes were narrowed in the way he had come to associate with an argument about to take place. She was, he just knew she was, going to insist on coming along with him. He was right.

  “Perhaps I ought to pay my respects as well,” she said.

  “No, no, it is not necessary, I assure you.”

  There was a hint of steel in her voice as she said, “I think it is.”

  “Perhaps,” he said, with a patently false smile and a hint of desperation in his voice, “you could visit the church there while I am speaking to the governor. That might be unexceptionable.”

  To his surprise she brightened at the suggestion. So much so that James felt a distinct sense of alarm. But it was too late to withdraw the invitation. He could only hope that the guards would deny her entrance to the castle grounds.

  He was not so fortunate.

  ———

  Meanwhile, Frederick Baines was well ahead of James and Juliet. Even as they argued in the private parlor of their inn, he surveyed the old Roman tower thoughtfully. It was indeed as he remembered it to be. It would do. To be sure, he could not like the notion of these experiments being carried out so close to where French prisoners of war were housed, but there was no choice.

  Did men still think it haunted, he wondered? If not, lights, a sheet blowing in the moonlight, which they would need anyway to hide from the castle side what they were doing, these should reinforce whatever notions remained about ghosts and such in the tower and keep the curious away.

  Baines nodded to himself, then turned into the church. This was the only possible tower they could use. The governor would have to give permission to James to do his experiments here. He must. Baines knew only too well how persuasive the document was that his young friend carried. After all, he had helped Sir Thomas Levenger to craft it in London. Now it was time, indeed past time, for him to play his own role.

  Strictly speaking, he ought to have been presenting himself for duty to someone else first, but under the circumstances, Frederick preferred to go unnoticed by anyone other than the chaplain for as long as possible. His papers, created by himself, would not pass inspection if anyone thought to check with the person who was supposed to have signed them.

  The chaplain was inside the church arranging the cloth at the altar. Baines cleared his throat to let the fellow know he was there.

  “Yes? Yes?” the chaplain asked querulously.

  The fellow was elderly. Good. That meant he was all the more likely to welcome Baines’s arrival and his offer of assistance.

  Frederick drew out the letter, written only last night, which carried a seal he ought not to have been able to counterfeit. With a diffidence no one who knew him socially would have recognized, he said, “I’m to be your new assistant, sir.”

  The chaplain all but snatched the letter out of Frederick’s hand, so eager was he to read it.

  “An assistant? They’ve sent me an assistant? But why, after all this time?” the chaplain demanded suspiciously. “They’ve never sent me one before.”

  Baines let himself sigh and look down at the ground. “It is,” he said with what seemed to be a great reluctance, “my penance to be here. The bishop himself arranged everything. He said it was worth any amount of trouble to him to have me so far out of the way.”

  “Why?” the chaplain asked with pardonable suspicion.

  Frederick Baines sighed again. “I like towers,” he said. “I am forever climbing up in them and ringing the bells. The bishop thought I ought to be busy within the church and the pulpit instead. But you see,” he said, spreading his hands in a patent plea for understanding, “I do not like to preach. Nor to be surrounded by people. I prefer towers. So he banished me here. I think he knows the governor,” he added with just the right note of gloominess in his voice.

  The chaplain allowed himself, for the briefest of moments, to dwell on the kindness of providence that had sent him such a man. He wanted to grin from relief or to leap into the air with joy that he need never go into the tower again. The chaplain even felt the temptation to clap his hands with delight. But he did not.

  Such a display would have been unseemly and so, instead, the chaplain put on his most fatherly expression and patted his new assistant on the shoulder.

  In a soothing voice he said, “Do not worry. I shall not make you take the pulpit. And I shall even allow you, since it is what you wish, to take over all duties with regard to the bell tower.”

  Frederick, in his guise as assistant, gave thanks in suitable terms, and in amicable accord the chaplain began to show him about the church.

  He ought not, the chaplain told himself, to be so very happy. He ought long ago to have conquered his fear of the ghosts who were said to haunt the tower. But for this moment, the chaplain decided, he would allow himself to be human enough to feel profound gratitude and relief for the new man’s arrival.

  ———

  An hour or two later, the governor of Dover Castle regarded his own assistant with a distinct lack of pleasure. “We’ve got what?”

  “A London gentleman, sir, insisting on seeing you,” the soldier replied, carefully keeping his eyes on a point well beyond the governor’s right shoulder. “Brought his wife, apparently. She’s out looking at the church, I’m told. But he insists on speaking with you, personally, sir.”

  “Blast and confound it! Very well, I suppose I must see him, but mind, I’ll give him short shrift and you may tell him so as you bring him in.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  But the London gentleman did not seem in the least discomposed by the warning. Indeed, he seemed entirely at ease. Not even the presence of a French prisoner of war in the antechamber appeared to give him pause. But then perhaps he didn’t realize that was who the scruffy creature was.

  Nor did he speak until the door had closed behind him and he was alone with the governor of Dover Castle. And even then it was the governor who spoke first.

  “What the devil brings you here, sir? I’ll have you know this is a military installation and we’ve prisoners of war on the grounds. It is not a place for idle sightseers. I cannot understand why you were admitted at all but you were and so it’s my duty to tell you that I’ll thank you to take yourself—and your wife—off elsewhere!”

  In reply the London gentleman merely drew a set of papers from a pocket of his coat and handed them to the governor. In a voice that was mild to the point of diffidence he said, “These are the reason I was admitted. I think you will find these in order.”

  The governor gave him a sharp glance and an even sharper one after he had a chance to look through the papers. “What the devil?” he asked again, but this time softly.


  The gentleman took back the papers and bowed. “A simple request, sir. Have you any towers hereabouts?”

  “Towers, Mr. Langford?” the governor gaped. “What sort of towers?”

  James Langford frowned. Once again he regretted not asking for more details from Frederick Baines.

  “I’m not quite certain,” he allowed. “Any sorts of towers. Perhaps even an unfinished tower.”

  Indignation flashed in the governor’s eyes. “Sir, had I received orders to build a tower, I had it built. Completely. And if you mean the Martello towers, as I presume you do, then you must know that I cannot allow a civilian near any one of them.”

  Langford hastily raised his hands. “I meant no slander, sir. It’s just, well, I need access to a tower and I was told there was one I might be able to use here. I need one that is particularly tall, you see.”

  The governor hesitated. It went against the grain to help this dandy. But in the end he said begrudgingly, “There is a tower. A bell tower. Next to the church, within the castle walls. It was originally Roman I’m told and built onto, some time ago. It is perhaps twelve meters high.”

  “Perfect! I wonder if you could arrange that no patrols pass near it? Indeed, it would be best if your patrols took no notice of me whatsoever, wherever they might see me. Particularly at night? That even the chaplain of the church stays away?”

  Now the governor gaped at his visitor. He would have protested but the papers were clear. This man was to be given any assistance he asked for. Finally he closed his mouth, drew a deep breath through his nose, and then said, “Very well, Mr. Langford. I shall direct that there be no patrols near the tower. And they are to ignore you whenever they see you. But I make no promises for the chaplain. It is up to you to persuade him.”

  James Langford nodded.

  “For how long do you mean to be here, using this tower?” the governor could not keep from asking.

  “Until you hear otherwise.”

  It went against the grain but the governor made himself nod his head. He took a malicious satisfaction in knowing the chaplain would be no more pleased at the request than he was himself and might even refuse to agree. It was, after all, the church bell tower.