Chapter Seven
Arthur strolled toward his hotel, familiarizing himself with the area. Pastel colored homes perched on the hill surrounding him.
The setting sun and all its marvels of tangerine and lilac beams could not compete with the foamy azure ocean crashing along the sandy beach. The color was as consistently vibrant and blue as the locals claimed, and Arthur strode through cobbled lanes surrounded by pastel colored homes, decorated by window boxes bursting with geraniums. The cacophony of color, the aroma of warm bread drifting through bakery windows and mingling with the flowers and faint scent of the sea, did not dissuade him from his mission.
He ambled toward the shore, keeping an eye for any Italians who might have a penchant for climbing over roofs in search of priceless jewels. Fort Carré, the prison that had held even Bonaparte at one time, overlooked the ocean. Its imposing size and long bastions served as a reminder of France’s determination to trample any revolt.
Somebody moved on the sand.
Was that…Admiral Fitzroy?
Arthur blinked.
The thought was impossible.
He’d seen Admiral Fitzroy last week, and the man had certainly not mentioned any trips to the French Riviera.
Yet a man who looked very much like Admiral Fitzroy stood on the sand. No Hessians adorned his feet, and no golden epaulets gleamed from his shoulders. The man still wore a cravat, but the tie was much looser, perhaps a result of the consistent wind.
He looked like any Englishman on holiday.
He looked, in fact, like Admiral Fitzroy on holiday.
Especially since the admiral was waving.
Arthur headed toward him. He couldn’t pretend to not see a waving man.
What on earth was the admiral doing here? Did he not think he could accomplish his task alone? The man might have mentioned if he’d planned to holiday in Antibes. He could have taken on the investigation himself and not dragged Arthur into the depths of former enemy territory.
“Hullo, Bancroft,” Admiral Fitzroy called out. “What a surprise.”
“Yes,” Arthur said, even though he rather thought it was no surprise at all—at least for Admiral Fitzroy. He’d ordered him here after all.
Perhaps the man was involved in the mission.
“Are you working on the case?” Arthur asked.
The admiral laughed. “With this nice weather? It’s a holiday.”
“Splendid,” Arthur said.
They weren’t the only English people here.
Yet he could hardly say that Antibes was in easy distance of London, and Arthur was more surprised than if he’d happened upon the admiral at Hyde Park.
“My wife insisted. Apparently even Cornwall is prone to rain.”
“She might be right.”
The admiral winked at him. “And the wine is a definite improvement.”
Arthur smiled, though he wondered why everyone lauded marriage as a means to respectability. In his experience, married people were the most prone to throw respectability away, requiring only their spouse’s approval.
His sister Louisa had changed from a shy debutante with bluestocking instincts that kept her close to books about oceans to a woman happily married to a captain, sailing the oceans with his crew of ex-pirates. Even Percival, his honor driven older brother, had abandoned his intended after meeting the woman he would later marry, and they spent inordinate amounts of time digging for ruins in foreign locations. His stepsister, Veronique, ran a publishing company with her new husband.
He shivered to think at what might happen to his younger sister Irene. He was happy she hadn’t debuted yet.
No, marriage might make some people happy, but it hardly made them respectable.
“How is the wife hunt going? Found any good prospects?”
“I was thinking about going to Venice,” Arthur said.
“Ah, pretty women there?”
“Of course.” Arthur winked.
When Arthur winked, he generally received two reactions. Women’s skin pinkened. Men tended to respond in a different, if equally predictable, manner. They usually grinned.
Admiral Fitzroy did no such thing. Perhaps his skin remained the same color, and his lips seemed to even swerve somewhat downward. “Be serious, Bancroft.”
“I was looking at the proportion of married to unmarried ministers, and I assure you that—”
Admiral Fitzroy’s normally jovial expression disappeared entirely, and he strode toward Arthur. Sand splattered around his feet as he moved forcefully. “I expect you to take my words seriously.”
“But I have ideas to help—”
The admiral shrugged. “You’ll need support to get you elected. If you want the party to get behind you.” He smiled more expansively. “But do not fear. Do you remember Lady Theodosia?”
“Naturally,” Arthur said.
Arthur wasn’t certain how a giggling eighteen-year-old would make him a beacon of decorum, unless contrast was important to the eyes of the electorate.
The admiral’s eyes gleamed. “You’re in luck. She’s here with us.”
“On the Côte d’Azur?” Arthur’s voice croaked, and he had the horrible feeling that the smile he’d attempted to give Admiral Fitzroy was crooked.
“Indeed.” The admiral beamed. “Think of your good fortune!”
He swallowed hard.
Oh.
Of course.
That’s why Arthur was here. Likely the admiral had always been planning to holiday here, and he’d sent Arthur on the only case available in the area.
“Since you haven’t found somebody—”
No wonder the admiral wanted him to visit the French Riviera. Likely he was as disinterested in what happened to jewels as Arthur was. He’d probably just jumped at the possibility of getting Arthur away from the crush of London’s best balls.
Arthur gaze about him, as if an alternative prospect might conjure herself. There were some Englishwomen here, but most of them were of the older variety, optimistically bathing themselves in French saltwater in the hopes of prolonging their lives.
“Lady Theodosia!” The admiral called in the direction of his family.
Some women giggled, and soon Lady Theodosia strode toward them. Her sister, Lady Amaryllis, and the admiral’s wife looked on.
Lady Theodosia was wearing rather less ribbons on her dress than when he’d met her in London, but he recognized her instantly. Her hair was still arranged in long curls, though the sea breeze had tousled them.
He bowed. “We meet again.”
Lady Theodosia clasped her hands together. “It must be fate.”
“E-excuse me?” He emitted an uncharacteristic stammer, and the admiral smiled, as if Arthur had been rendered inarticulate by Lady Theodosia’s beauty.
“I will let you young people be alone,” the admiral said.
“You needn’t leave,” Arthur said hoarsely.
“My dear marquess,” the admiral said. “I will be a few dozen feet away. I assure you I will be here to stop you should you attempt to ravish my niece.”
“I—I wouldn’t—” Arthur stammered.
The admiral raised his hand to stop him. “I would hope not. I might not have been at the front, but I haven’t forgotten how to shoot a musket.”
The admiral ambled away, and Lady Theodosia clapped her hands together. “Do you not feel my uncle is the sweetest man alive?”
Memories of the admiral ordering assassinations and ordering battle plans that would sacrifice English soldiers drifted through Arthur’s mind.
“He seems to display distinct heroic tendencies,” Arthur said. “Perhaps even inordinate ones.”
She stepped toward him. “Do you believe in fate, Lord Bancroft?”
“I have not given fate much thought,” he confessed.
Arthur was certain her lashes did not need to blink as much as they did. They were hardly in the midst of a sandstorm, even though he wished he were on distinctly more solid ground than the beach provided.
A cloying floral scent that seemed equally distributed over her hair, neck, shoulders and face, easily succeeded in overwhelming the scent of the ocean.
“Who is your favorite poet?” Lady Theodosia asked.
“Shakespeare.”
“Oh, dear.” Lady Theodosia rested her hand over her bosom, and her eyes widened with obvious horror.
“Is there a problem?” He surveyed the area automatically, just in case some madman brandishing a sabre had appeared.
There was no one.
Just himself, evidently claiming an inappropriate degree of enthusiasm for the creator of some glorious sonnets and equally glorious plays.
Lady Theodosia sighed. “Well, he is frightfully old-fashioned.” She leaned toward him. “In my youth I quite enjoyed Sir Walter Scott.”
Arthur blinked. “You still seem to be in the midst of your youth.”
“How chivalrous of you,” she murmured.
“Do you no longer enjoy Sir Walter Scott?” he asked carefully.
“So much adventure,” Lady Theodosia said. “I now prefer a purer poet.”
Arthur braced himself for the sound of her hands clapping together.
He’d heard the sound before.
He knew the poet she would mention.
“Byron,” Lady Theodosia murmured. “Is the most wonderful man alive.”
“Oh?”
She opened her eyes. “I would not want to compare you with him.”
“There are some scandals associated with him,” Arthur said.
“Generated by those jealous of the man’s well deserved fame.” Lady Theodosia practically roared, and Arthur was certain the admiral should feel assured that her ladyship was related to him, had he any doubt.
At any moment her ladyship was bound to start quoting poetry. Her eyes had taken on the distant, faraway look of a person seeking to describe vistas that did not exist.
“But there is another person whom I find even more intriguing than Byron,” Lady Theodosia confessed.
“Oh?” He smiled.
This could be good news. Perhaps she’d been smitten after viewing some nobleman with well-formed thighs and romantic gazes. Perhaps the man was even French, and she would remove herself forever from London parties for some moss-ridden chateau.
“You’re smiling,” Lady Theodosia said. “I was unsure of your feelings.”
“Me? Nonsense. I know the strength of desire.”
“Oh, you are romantic too.” She clasped her hands together, and once more her eyelashes seemed to be battling an invisible sandstorm. “I was worried about the Shakespeare reference—so dreadfully dated, but I suppose you are an older man.”
The confidence that had been growing in him diminished.
Perhaps there was no swarthy Frenchman.
Perhaps there was not even a swarthy footman.
Perhaps there was only himself.
“My darling,” she said huskily. “I will read Byron to you. You will see the beauty in his poems. And then we can—”
“Smash automation machines in factories together?” he suggested.
“Excuse me?”
“Sorry,” he said. “It was a reference to a speech Byron made in the House of Lords once.” Her face still managed to convey confusion, and he added, “In favor of the Luddites.”
“Darling, does this mean you are acquainted with Byron? That you have placed your foot, where he has placed his?”
“I—”
“I am even more convinced of our love.”
Love?
This was too far.
She was a pleasant girl, but she was so much younger than he was. He’d experienced things she’d never even heard of. And though that fact would be fine if he truly cared for her, if he admired her values—he was more bewildered by her.
“I am afraid I do not share your emotions,” he said.
Normally he tended to not be so blunt.
But she seemed to struggle to grasp the gist of what he was saying, for she only nodded solemnly to him. “It is important for you to have confidence in yourself. As I do.”
“I meant…” He sighed. He might be practiced at lying for the Crown, but he sought to avoid it in his private life. But she was the niece of his greatest mentor. This was a time for letting her down gently. “I am attached to someone else.”
“Oh.” Her face paled.
“I am sorry,” he said, striving to sound suitably forlorn at an improper timing between them. “But I am most assuredly attached.”
“But if you’re not betrothed…” She tossed her hair and smiled slyly at him.
“I’m betrothed,” he said hastily.
“What’s this?” the admiral asked.
Arthur practically jumped. “I didn’t see you approach.”
“Splendid,” the admiral said. “I’m practicing for a safari in Africa. Must be stealthy there. Have you ever been to Africa, Bancroft?”
Arthur shook his head.
“Lord Bancroft is engaged.” Lady Theodosia’s voice wobbled, and a pang of discomfort shot through Arhur. “Not unattached.”
Admiral Fitzroy frowned. “Is this true, Bancroft?”
Arthur was faced with two possibilities:
One: confess to his mentor that he’d been so uncharmed by his mentor’s niece that he’d concocted a fake betrothal.
Two: claim he was in fact betrothed.
Arthur chose the latter. He could always concoct a story of ending the betrothal later. Perhaps if he claimed a broken heart, his mentor might not be so hasty in thrusting an equally, unideal match at him. “Er—yes.”
“You found someone you want to marry?” The admiral’s eyes widened.
“Mm…hmm,” Arthur said, soon regretting his lie.
“And where is she?” The admiral looked around, as if he expected some female to pop out from behind one of the palm trees.
“She’s, er, here. We’re keeping things rather hush hush.”
“I see,” the admiral wrinkled in his nose. In Arthur’s experience, wrinkled noses tended to mean that that the person doing the wrinkling did not in fact see at all.
“What does she look like?”
Arthur closed his eyes. “Silky locks that resemble buttermilk, blue eyes that easily rival the azure ocean, and a figure so perfect that Venus herself would be jealous.”
“And you just met her?”
“We met before.” Arthur blinked. He’d just described Madeline. He hadn’t meant to, but when he’d shut his eyes and imagined a future bride—well, her figure had danced before his mind.
He swallowed hard. Likely he’d thought of her because he’d seen her recently on the crossing. He mustn’t dwell too much on the fact.
“I—I should go,” he said.
“To see her?”
“Yes.” Arthur left quickly before the admiral wondered how she’d managed to make her way to the French Riviera to see a man to which she was not yet married.
Guilt at having lied to his mentor soared through him.