Her father leaned forward in his chair, and, placing both hands on the desk, looked at her directly for the first time. The watery eyes, magnified by spectacles, weakened by reading by candlelight, regarded her kindly, and Letty found herself remembering a million other interludes before her father's desk, a million times she had come to him with a household problem or an amusing anecdote or just for the comfort of his gentle, detached voice after her mother's shrieks and Mary's mercurial moods. For all his vagaries and absentness, she knew he loved her, and she believed, with the last desperate hope of the child she had been, that Papa couldn't possibly let anything bad happen.
"Be kind to your brother and sisters when you are a vis-countess."
There were times when speaking with her father was quite as maddening as dealing with her mother.
"I am not going to be a viscountess."
"I don't see that you have much choice in the matter, my dear. When one marries a viscount, the title tends to follow."
"What about Mary?"
"In as much as bigamy continues to be frowned upon, one assumes that she will not be marrying the viscount."
"Papa!"
"Well, my dear, if you persist in wearying me with inconsequentialities in the wee hours of the night, you must resign yourself to being wearied in turn. Although I must say…"
"Yes?" Letty urged hopefully.
"I have frequently wondered why they are commonly called 'wee,' when these nocturnal hours always seem to stretch on longer than all the rest put together. Have you ever considered that, my dear?" Her father beamed innocently at her over his spectacles.
"No, I haven't," Letty said bluntly, shoving back her chair. "If you'll excuse me, I believe it's well past bedtime."
Why had she, after all, thought this occasion would be any different from any other? Her father lived in a dreamworld of books and philosophers, far more real to him than the demands of household and family. Hertfordshire or London, it was all the same to him. And whether it was repairing the roof or a daughter about to be rushed into an imprudent marriage, his reaction never varied: if it required any effort, he wanted nothing to do with it. Not even for his favorite child.
Letty wasn't numb enough that she didn't feel the sting of it.
"If you won't think of me," she said bitterly, "think of yourself. Who will keep you in candles?"
"Ah," said her father. "Think how selfless I am being. I don't know how we'll get on without you. Your mother will spend us into the poorhouse within the year, and your sister will undoubtedly find some new scandal to visit upon herself. As for your younger siblings, I have no doubt that they will contrive to find some way to bring the house down about our ears. Such a pity, but it can't be helped."
For a moment, Letty harbored a host of mad fantasies. She could flee far from London and find employment in a rural inn as a maid of all work. Of course, that fantasy discounted the fact that she hated scrubbing things and her accent would give her away in two seconds as a—what was the slang word for it? A "toff"? A "nob"? Something like that. How could she hope to pass as a serving wench when she couldn't even speak their language? As for running away and joining the gypsies, she wasn't at all sure they would have her. She couldn't play the guitar; her idea of fortune-telling was to say, "If you don't pick that up, you'll trip on it"; and she would look ridiculous in a kerchief and gold bangles.
Recognizing the stubborn set of her chin, her father warned, "Don't think to take matters into your own hands."
"What else am I to do?"
"Marry him," said her father bluntly. "He'll serve very well for you, my Letty, very well, indeed."
"You can't really mean for me to go through with this?"
Her father's only response was to blow out the candle.
Letty exited the study, head held high, determined to prove her father—and Lord Pinchingdale—wrong. All they had to do was make sure that the story didn't get out. How hard could it be?
Chapter Five
By noon the following day, no fewer than twenty-eight versions of what was popularly being called the Pinchingdale Peccadillo were making the rounds of the ton.
By the time Geoffrey trudged down the hall of the War Office, the number had escalated to fifty-two, complete with several minor variants. There was even a rollicking ballad that was being sung in the coffeehouses to the tune of "Greensleeves." Not to be outdone, the printers of broadsheets, loath to miss out on a lucrative bit of libel, had rushed into action, publishing some of the more lurid versions of the tale, complete with crudely tinted illustrations. As he made his way from Doctors Commons to Crown Street, Geoff had spied no fewer than five cartoons. One, subtitled "How to Chuse," featured a leering Geoff with an Alsworthy in either arm, each in a considerable state of dishabille. Geoff knew it was meant to be him because the author had considerately labeled it, just in case there might be any mistakes as to the intended identity. Another would-be wit had put out a tinted woodcut, with the heading "All's Worthy in the Dark," that left little of what might be considered "worthy" to the imagination.
Geoff's only consolation, if consolation it could be called, was that the pictures in the cartoons looked nothing like any of them. He had been able to slip entirely unnoticed through the gossiping throngs in which his name was being bandied about with unabated gusto.
"You," pronounced Wickham, without looking up from the letter he was signing, "are late."
Geoff refrained from reminding Wickham that his relationship with the War Office was conducted on an entirely voluntary basis. Back in the old days, before Richard had decamped for the pastoral pleasures of life in Sussex with his bride, the League of the Purple Gentian had operated autonomously from their base in Paris. Geoff plotted and planned; Richard undertook the more dashing sorts of escapades, the ones that called for black cloaks and mocking laughter; and Miles served as their contact with the powers that be back home, to ensure that they trod on no official toes. The War Office occasionally nudged them in one direction or another, but, on the whole, the League merrily went its own way, freeing prisoners from the Temple Prison, filching secret documents, and generally doing everything in their power to harry the assistant to the minister of police into a precipitate decline. They had their own web of contacts, their own personnel, and, most important, they were all the way across the Channel, too far for Wickham to snap his fingers and expect them to come running.
It wasn't that Geoff didn't respect William Wickham. He did. The man was doing the best he could in a damnable situation, trying to rope flighty йmigrйs into line, encourage sedition in France, and discourage the same within England. Geoff didn't envy him the job. He just wished Wickham would leave him to his.
But the situation on the Continent was too dire to quibble about such minor matters as lines of command. Geoff slid into the chair across from Wickham's desk, placing his hat and gloves neatly on one knee. "Circumstances detained me."
"Let us hope they do not continue to do so." Without further preamble, Wickham struck straight at the heart of the matter. "You're aware that Robert Emmet is back in Ireland?"
Geoff dragged his mind away from his own difficulties and onto England's. As far as the safety of the realm was concerned, Robert Emmet spelled trouble.
"So I heard. Along with Russell, Quigley, and Byrne."
"Exactly," said Wickham. "All veterans of the rising in 'ninety-eight. I hardly need tell you what this signifies."
Like many Irish nationalists, Emmet had fled to France in the wake of the abortive rebellion of 1798, leaving behind his country, but not his cause. It was too much to hope that Emmet might have been distracted by the legendary wine and women of France. As far as Emmet was concerned, a tavern was just a convenient place to hold clandestine meetings. Had they been on the same side, Geoff would have found that tendency admirable. As it was, it was merely alarming. Since their arrival in France, Emmet and his fellow United Irishmen had been laboring tirelessly to drum up funds and troops to have another go at what they had been unable to accomplish in '98.