“I was, my lord,” the man agreed.
“What do you know about this smuggling business?” Percy asked.
“Oh, I don’t know nothing,” Mawgan assured him. “And it would not surprise me, my lord, if there isn’t nothing to know. I think someone must of been spinning yarns at you to make you think there is smuggling going on here. Once upon a time maybe, but not now. I know most of the servants don’t tell me nothing because I am head gardener, but I would have caught some whisperings. I haven’t heard nothing.”
Percy knew a great deal about double negatives. Some of his knowledge had entered his person via the cane of one of his tutors across his backside, though most of it had entered through the front door of his brain. I don’t know nothing was probably the exact truth. But short of applying hot needles to Mawgan’s fingernails, there was no more information to be gathered, he understood. He had just wanted to be quite clear on the matter. He sighed aloud.
“Perhaps you are right,” he said. “However, it is as well that everyone here understand just where I stand. You will keep your ear to the ground, Mawgan? And let me know if you hear anything? You have been a loyal servant, I can see.”
“I certainly will, my lord,” Mawgan said, “though I don’t expect there will be nothing to tell. These are good people here. My great-uncle has always said so and I have seen so for myself.”
“Thank you,” Percy said. “I will not keep you from your busy duties any longer.”
Mawgan backed out without once looking up.
Percy was feeling cold even though he stood with his back to the fire. Barclay had received two threatening letters before he went to the Peninsula. His valet, who would surely have accompanied him as his batman, had died accidentally in a boating accident. Bains, who had pleaded to go in his place, had been deemed by his father to be too young, though fourteen was really not very young for a boy. Mawgan had been appointed through a combination of heroism in a losing cause and the influence of Ratchett, who was his mother’s uncle. Mawgan had been conveniently out of the way—without his musket—when the French scouting party took Barclay and Imogen. Then he got lost on the way back for help. When he came home here, he was given the post of head gardener.
There was nothing sinister in any of those details, except the threatening letters. Even when one put them all together, there was nothing convincing, nothing that would not be laughed out of any court in the land.
... when I knew her ladyship was still alive and had been released and brought home all out of her mind like.
The bottom felt as if it had fallen out of Percy’s stomach at the remembered words.
Imogen all out of her mind. Living for a while at her brother’s house unable to sleep, eat, or leave her room. Living for three years at Penderris Hall until she had transformed herself into a marble lady and could cope once again with the outside world from within her rigid shield.
And then, Imogen laughing and curled up in his arms. Sleeping with her head on his shoulder and grumbling incoherently when he awoke her.
... all out of her mind like.
Love, he thought almost viciously, was the damnedest thing, and he had been wise to avoid it all these years. Not the sort of love he felt for his family, but the sort of which the great poets wrote. Euphoria for one minute, if that, and blackest despair for an eternity after.
But how did one unlove?
He loved Imogen Hayes, Viscountess Barclay, so deeply that he almost hated her.
And let his mind work that one out if it dared.
He had to see her.
But first . . .
*
Imogen ought to have been reading or crocheting or writing a letter. She ought at the very least to have been sitting upright in her chair like a lady, her back straight as she had been taught to sit when she was a girl. Instead she was slouched down in one of the chairs by the fire, her back in an inelegant arch, her legs stretched out in front of her and crossed at the ankles. Her head was nestled in a cushion. Blossom was curled up on her lap and Imogen had one hand buried in the cat’s fur. She was drifting pleasantly in and out of consciousness. She had not had much sleep last night or the two nights before—her lips curved into a smile at the remembered reason for that—and it had been a long and busy morning. Now it was late afternoon and she intended to relax. She expected, and hoped for, another night of little sleep tonight.
She was just drifting off to sleep when something solid came between her and the heat of the fire and a shadow obstructed its light. At the same time her incoherent dream became fragrant with a familiar smell and she smiled one of her smug smiles. Blossom purred. Imogen made a sound that was very similar.
“Sleeping Beauty,” the fragrant shadow murmured, and then his lips were light and warm and parted on hers and she moved deeper into her dream.