Rafe gritted his teeth. “Because…I thought we had a prior acquaintance. I thought we had met when I was in France.”
“I thought you were too busy thrashing the French to meet gentlewomen and form acquaintances,” John said, arching a brow. Rafe wanted to hit his eldest brother. As the heir, John had grown up with a smug sense of entitlement and a hearty dose of arrogance.
Rafe gave his brother a serene smile. “I don’t expect you to know this, as you have never defended the country, but we did occasionally encounter men and women sympathetic to our cause. Kind families who offered us shelter or a meal.” This was true enough.
“Thank God for their generous hearts,” his stepmother said.
The door to the drawing room opened, and Rafe had never been so relieved to see his father’s butler. “Dinner is served,” the man announced.
Everyone began to gather up children and spouses. Lady Haddington spoke quietly to Rafe. “Will you call on Miss Fournay again, dear boy?”
“I might,” he said cautiously.
“Good. If you do, make sure to bring flowers.” And she thumped him lightly on the head again. “You should know better,” she muttered as she walked away, taking her husband’s arm and leading the family into the dining room.
Four
“Are you certain this is a good idea?” Collette asked Lady Ravensgate for what must have been the third time that evening. They were in the lady’s carriage on their way to Lord Montjoy’s ball. An invitation had arrived just the day before, much to Lady Ravensgate’s surprise and pleasure.
She’d fluttered it in front of Collette. “This is Mr. Beaumont’s doing, I presume.”
Collette had agreed, but she had not agreed they should accept the invitation. There was a dinner party that same evening, and Collette had it on good authority Draven would be there. But Lady Ravensgate had wanted to attend this more prestigious affair. She’d ignored Collette’s objections, just as she did now in the carriage, and accepted the invitation to the ball.
“It is an excellent idea. I have been discussing Mr. Beaumont with some of my most particular friends.” By the phrase most particular friends she meant the others she knew who gathered information for France and the restored king. During their exile, the Bourbons had spent quite some time in England, and Lady Ravensgate had become well acquainted with the daughter of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. To Collette’s knowledge, her sponsor maintained a faithful correspondence with Marie-Thérèse, who was married to her cousin and the heir to the French throne, the duc d’Angoulême.
“And what do your particular friends have to say about Mr. Beaumont?” Collette attempted to keep the resentment from her voice when she mentioned the royalists. She had never had a reason to hate the Bourbons or the monarchy before they were overthrown. She had disliked Napoleon immensely because he had forced her father to do unspeakable acts. But now that the royalists held her father captive, she despised them as well. And though she made every effort to hide her feelings, she loathed Lady Ravensgate for her association with them.
“No one is entirely certain what his role under Lieutenant Colonel Draven might have been. But there is no doubt he was part of the troop and that the troop was assigned the most dangerous, most impossible missions of the war. Only twelve of the original thirty men came back, and that in itself is a miracle. The Survivors are considered heroes. Mr. Beaumont is not to be underestimated.”
What a font of information Lady Ravensgate had become. “You think his association with Lieutenant Colonel Draven might be useful?”
“It is possible. And that, my dear, is exactly the kind of connection you need in order to help your father. Poor man. Have you heard from him lately?”
Lady Ravensgate certainly knew the answer to that question. Collette received no letters. All were addressed to Lady Ravensgate, who passed the correspondence to Collette after she read it herself. “No,” Collette answered.
“I am certain you will hear from him soon.” She patted Collette’s hand. Collette stiffly drew her hand away. She detested her sponsor’s pretense that she cared a whit about Pierre Fortier’s life. For her, this was all a game to entertain a wealthy widow whose children had grown and no longer needed her. Collette did not know if Lady Ravensgate bore her father any ill will—after all, he had killed many nobles—but neither did she believe Lady Ravensgate wished her father well. To her, and to those who held him captive, Fortier was simply a means to an end.
“In the meantime, you should enjoy yourself tonight.” Lady Ravensgate sounded bright and cheery, as though Collette could possibly wish to attend a ball when her father was suffering across the Channel. “And do not forget to save the supper dance for Mr. Beaumont. If he follows protocol and sits with you at dinner, you may be able to discover what he knows about the Foreign Office. Men do so love to brag about their perceived importance.”
“And what if he is working for the Foreign Office, and he is gathering information on me?”
“Then you smile and dance and flirt and give the man nothing. On this point, you must be vigilant.”
Collette nodded. Lady Ravensgate suddenly seemed far more confident in Collette’s ability to rebuff Beaumont’s advances. She was naturally somewhat reserved, even shy. She had never enjoyed these sorts of social affairs, and she was not very good at talking with people she did not know well. She had not needed to be very skilled until now because she had mainly been listening to other people talk and drawing out information. But if this ball was anything like the last she’d attended, it would be full of important people. It would be more difficult to listen in on conversations with the orchestra playing and men asking her to dance.
Or not asking her to dance.
As a wallflower, she might overhear interesting information, but she would probably hear more if she were able to move about freely and question men with ties to the Foreign Office. Once the dancing began that would be difficult. As a young unmarried woman, she was expected to be dancing or waiting to be asked to dance.
Finally, the carriage arrived at Montjoy’s town house. It had taken far longer than Collette had expected, but then she had not anticipated so many carriages all traveling to the same place. When the stifling air in the carriage gave way to fresh air, Collette was loath to follow Lady Ravensgate into the town house and the crush of guests.
But she kept her thoughts on her father and did as she was expected.
The town house was as lovely on the inside as the outer facade promised. Marble floors, crystal chandeliers, and expensive furnishings were everywhere she looked. Collette had known wealthy families in France, mostly the inner circle of Napoleon. Those men and women had money and power but not nearly as much taste. And it was generally new wealth. What antiques they possessed had been stolen from the ousted ancien régime. But Collette had been a baby during the revolution and had never seen the homes of the French nobility. She wondered if those homes had been as rich and opulent as Lord Montjoy’s. If so, she could hardly blame the starving French people for revolting.
Once she and Lady Ravensgate were inside, Collette stayed close to her sponsor, speaking to the men and women she spoke to and listening—always listening—for any information that might be useful in securing the codes and thus her father’s release. And as much as she wanted to forget him, she could not keep from looking over her shoulder or around the room in search of Lord Beaumont. But as the hours dragged on and still she did not see him, she began to worry that he would not attend.