‘Oh yes! You wouldn’t catch Nugent missing an opportunity to pontificate on such a momentous event!’

  Emily was out when they arrived home, so Charis took her cousin into the salon where they made themselves comfortable while continuing their cosy gossip, Lavinia with her feet tucked up in one corner of the sofa, all pretensions to sophistication abandoned.

  ‘I had half-expected to find you married by now,’ she confessed archly. ‘Such a sly-puss, stealing the delectable Major Hammond from under all our noses! I declare I was more than a little miffed when I first heard … but now I don’t mind a bit! I am having the most tremendous fun!’

  ‘Well, I’m very glad for you,’ Charis said, stifling the sudden rush of pain that Lavinia’s careless remarks unwittingly aroused. ‘But, in point of fact, Dan and I are no longer engaged.’

  ‘Lud! You have never let him slip through your fingers?’ cried Lavinia. ‘One of the handsomest creatures I ever set eyes on! However did you manage that?’

  Charis winced. ‘It’s a long story ‒ and rather painful to relate. Suffice it to say that by mutual agreement we decided that we shouldn’t suit.’

  From the look in her cousin’s eyes, Charis feared that so paltry an explanation would not satisfy, but to her relief Emily chose that precise moment to come in, and by the time she had exclaimed at seeing Lavinia, and all had been made clear to her, the moment had passed and Emily was saying grudgingly that she supposed they would be wanting to take tea. She was gone but a few moments when the door opened again.

  ‘That was quick, Em,’ Charis said without raising her head. When there was no immediate answer, she looked up. Tris was standing in the doorway. He was wearing a blue uniform with the distinctive red facings of the Queen’s Light Dragoons.

  ‘I finally made up my mind that I just had to get into the fight,’ he said, looking sheepish. ‘Lord Rowby was jolly decent about it ‒ arranged the whole thing for me.’ And then, seeing his cousin, ‘Lavinia! By all that’s holy! What are you doing here?’

  In the ensuing excitement, Charis couldn’t speak; her throat was choked with conflicting emotions ‒ pride, anguish, even anger that he had not consulted her. But, most of all, fear. Not you, Tris! she longed to cry out. Oh please, not you, too!

  But Lavinia, who eschewed any but the most trivial of emotions, and who saw war as the most splendid adventure, carried the moment through by flinging herself upon her cousin and declaring that it was the most romantical of things ever that both he and Ceddie should have the same rush of patriotic fervour! This involved a lot of complicated explanation, which gave Charis time to pull herself together.

  Finally he was walking across the room with one arm still casually draped across Lavinia’s shoulders, still listening to her chatter. But his eyes were on Charis, pleading for understanding.

  ‘Say you don’t mind, love,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Mind? Why ever should she mind?’ Lavinia looked from one to the other. ‘Charis, you don’t mind, do you?’

  ‘I think he’s quite mad,’ she said in a tight little voice, her teeth set on edge by Lavinia’s mindless chatter. But immediately she regretted her words, for in spite of his efforts to conceal it, there were little eddies of excitement behind Tris’s pleading expression that reminded her irresistibly of a much younger Tris trying to talk his way out of his scrapes.

  ‘Well, I think it’s a splendid thing to do!’ Lavinia’s voice ran on. ‘Quite apart from any other consideration, there is nothing like a uniform for giving a man an air of consequence! Oh, come on, Charis,’ she coaxed. ‘You must agree that Tris cuts as fine a figure as one might see anywhere?’

  Charis, seeing him through misty eyes, resigned herself to the inevitable and forced a smile to stiff lips. ‘The very pink of perfection, in fact,’ she agreed, pleased to find that her voice was quite steady. Her eyes still held his, and as the mist cleared she was rewarded by the warmth of his smile. ‘Does Emily know?’

  The sheepish look returned. ‘Not yet. I crept past her door.’

  ‘Well, I advise you not to let her see you while she has the tea-tray in her hands,’ she said jokily, ‘or she’s likely to drop the lot!’

  But it was Meg who brought in the tray, staggering under its weight, with Emily at her heels admonishing and issuing instructions at the same time. ‘Carefully now … No, not like that! Don’t be rushin’ it, for pity’s sake, or you’ll have the whole lot sliding off! That’s the way of it …’ They were well into the room now. ‘Just lay it down, nice and gently does it … Mercy me!’ She had seen Tristram at last.

  Charis leaped forward as Meg squeaked with fright, and as her hand steadied it, the tray landed on the table with a jangle of crockery.

  ‘… giving a body frights like that! At my time of life, anything could happen!’

  It was some time later. Emily had been pushed into a chair, soothed with tea containing a drop of something guaranteed to steady the nerves, and this was her parting thrust as she bustled out at last, shoulders hunched, and exhibiting an air of injured pride that disguised her distress.

  Lavinia couldn’t see what all the fuss was about. She sipped her tea and listened to Tristram.

  ‘Lord Rowby said he’d admired my sentiments, and that if he were my age he’d want to help to account for Boney, too … made it all easy for me.’

  ‘But won’t he be dreadfully short-handed?’ Charis wanted to know. ‘If you go, there will be only Mr Neill and Ned.’

  ‘Yes. It is true that he’s frightfully busy at present with so many people pouring into Brussels to see the fun.’ He cocked an eyebrow at Lavinia, who wrinkled her straight little nose back at him. ‘However, fortunately for his lordship, I was able to supply him with the ideal replacement ‒’ he grinned ‒ ‘My good right hand, in fact.’

  Charis stared.

  ‘Tris! You can’t mean … Oh no, I couldn’t possibly! Lord Rowby won’t want me, and Mr Neill would go off in an apoplexy!’

  ‘You?’ squeaked Lavinia.

  ‘Oh, Charis has hidden talents, my dear,’ Tristram mocked gently. ‘But seriously, love, his lordship is delighted with the idea, and he’ll talk Neill round. And it won’t be for long ‒ he heard today that Sir Charles Stuart intends to move here from The Hague very shortly with all his people, and that should ease the burden of work considerably.’

  With Brussels fast becoming the hub of everything, his Britannic Majesty’s ambassador was not alone in deciding to remove his business thither. Monsieur Latour also came home.

  He chose an unfortunate moment for his return. Celestine, distracted by the thought of Tristram going into danger, had blurted out the whole of her anguish to her mother, who became more confused and bewildered than ever ‒ a condition that the arrival of her husband did little to alleviate.

  Charis was witness to the scene that ensued, having been summoned by Mrs Grant to try if she could reconcile Celestine while she did her best to pacify Madame. Charis was thus in the act of leading Celestine from the room when Monsieur Latour arrived. Her first impression was of an austere man, trimly bearded, who carried his slight frame with pomposity, and whose curtness as she hastily introduced herself boded ill. He wished, he said, to be alone with his family, who seemed to be sadly in need of a steadying influence. Charis glanced at Mrs Grant for guidance, and the governess gave an unhappy little shrug of resignation and signed to her to withdraw.

  What happened thereafter was never wholly clear, though Mrs Grant was able to throw a certain amount of light on events. Monsieur had, it seemed, arraigned all three women before him in the salon, and had demanded explanations, in the course of which poor Madame had inadvertently mentioned the Comte de Mallon’s name ‒ and in the ensuing angry scene, Celestine’s love for Tristram had also come to light. Monsieur, burning with self-righteous wrath, forbade any further contact between the young lovers, announced his intention of turning the Winslades out of his house at the earliest opportunity, and blamed Mallon for everything.

  Then he locked his sobbing daughter in her room before retiring to his own chamber, presumably to brood upon the cruel fate that had saddled him with a half-crazed wife and an undutiful hysterical daughter just when it seemed that his business affairs had begun to mend. Not to mention the uncertainty of Bonaparte’s plans, which might yet bring all to ruin.

  Charis had felt a certain guilt at being obliged to abandon the unhappy household at such a traumatic moment, though common sense told her that there was little she could have achieved by remaining, and she was badly needed elsewhere.

  There was to be a fête in honour of the King and Queen of the Netherlands that evening at the Hôtel de Ville, and she was promised to Lord Rowby for the whole day. His lordship had been kind enough to inform her that he was already finding her invaluable, and was clearly delighted by her ability to grasp what needed to be done and to accomplish it with the minimum of fuss.

  ‘Never been better organised in m’life, m’dear,’ he said, eyes twinkling. ‘Not even by Neill, but don’t tell him I said so! Poor fellow’s run off his feet with all the comings and goings.’

  She ought to have been prepared for Dan’s arrival, for Wellington was hourly expected. But in fact she was so immersed in her work that all other thoughts were far from her mind that afternoon, as she stepped out of the room set aside for her, with her arms full of papers, straight into his path. Some of the papers scattered, and as he bent to gather them up, she stood in a state of déjà vu, except that the outcome of this encounter was rather different.

  ‘Good God!’ he exclaimed blankly, upon straightening up. ‘Charis ‒ whatever are you about?’

  The racing of her heart threatened her with dizziness, but she drew a deep steadying breath and explained about Tris, forcing herself to look at him. He appears to be well, she thought, not without a twinge of resentment ‒ still full of that restless energy, which was also mirrored in his eyes as they raked her face with pitiless thoroughness.

  She looks pale, he thought, unprepared for the impact of seeing her so suddenly like this, with no time to school his emotions into any kind of order. He had expected that they would meet in the evening, formally, at this fête for King William, when he would have the right words rehearsed. But Charis was speaking again.

  ‘Your aunt tells me you are grown into quite a tiger! Shall you stay with Wellington now you are here, or rejoin the Prince of Orange?’

  ‘I believe his lordship wishes to retain my services, for what they are worth,’ he said with a shrug. ‘I don’t really mind, so long as I get into the scrap.’

  ‘That’s all you think about, isn’t it?’ Charis cried with sudden vehemence. ‘Fighting! Tris is just as bad!’ She stopped, horrified by her outburst. ‘I’m sorry, that was very silly of me.’

  ‘No, not at all!’ he exclaimed, stepping forward. ‘Charis …’

  But she was already turning away hurriedly, her voice muffled. ‘I must go … Your uncle is waiting for these papers.’

  It took all her strength of mind to prepare for the evening ahead of her. There was no way in which she could cry off without the reason appearing obvious, and in any case, it was only putting off the inevitable. She and Dan would have to get used to meeting, so it might as well be faced now as later. Would the marquesa be with him, she wondered? She thought that she could probably bear the rest, if only she were not.

  In the end, it was Lady Rowby who relieved her mind. Not knowing that Charis and Dan had already met, she broached the subject very diffidently.

  ‘I am afraid that it may prove something of an ordeal for you, my dear child ‒ meeting Dan with all eyes upon you. He is very conscious of the fact, and asked me most particularly to assure you that, although he must be here, because of the duke, you know, he will do all that is in his power to make things easy.’

  ‘That is kind of him,’ Charis said. ‘We shall be a five-minute wonder, I dare say, and then something else will come along to take people’s attention.’

  She sounded remarkably calm, but Lady Rowby thought she detected the faintest of tremors in her voice. ‘There is one good thing, anyway ‒ that Spanish woman is no longer making a nuisance of herself!’ As Charis’s head lifted, she added, ‘Apparently she found herself a grand duke or some such, with a vast fortune, almost as soon as she reached Vienna.’

  Charis’s moment of relief was fleeting, but it enabled her to meet Dan with every appearance of calm when he arrived with the duke’s suite. She even endured Wellington’s rather heavy-handed joviality with equanimity, and assured Dan, under cover of the more general conversation that followed, that they were both sensible people … sensible enough, she was sure, to achieve a degree of cordiality sufficient to convince others.

  He felt an overwhelming urge to shake her … and then kiss her back into humour, but the moment was not propitious and she took very good care never to be alone with him. To his dismay, her most assiduous escort seemed to be the Comte de Mallon, with whom she appeared to be on excellent terms.

  The evening in general was proving to be a great success, with a great many people of importance present. In one of the anterooms, Charis encountered Aunt Lizzie with almost her whole family in train.

  ‘My dear, is it always like this … the rooms so hot and crowded? And almost everyone a foreigner?’

  Charis suppressed a chuckle at the plaintive tones. ‘Did you expect otherwise, Aunt Lizzie? This is Brussels, after all, not London.’

  ‘Well, of course I know that. But I know, too, that a great many of our friends were to be here, and I can’t seem to find any of them!’

  Charis stifled a sigh. ‘Perhaps they are in the ballroom,’ she said. ‘Come ‒ I’ll take you there. It will not be any less crowded, I fear, but that cannot be avoided. I have never seen so many people here at one time!’

  ‘You seem remarkably at home, cousin,’ Nugent observed as he ushered his fiancée through the crush with a solicitude that amused Charis all the more as the young lady in question, a Miss Camberley, was exactly as Lavinia had rather unkindly described her ‒ built to withstand a cavalry charge! She met Lavinia’s eyes, and looked away again quickly.

  ‘I suppose I am,’ she said. ‘The Hôtel de Ville is much used for balls.’

  Later in the evening, she was delighted to see Tristram in conversation with Ned. ‘I wasn’t sure if you would be able to come,’ she said.

  ‘I can’t stay long. I was just telling Ned he ought to follow my example,’ Tris told her. ‘It’s the best life ever!’

  ‘Not f-for me,’ Ned said with a rueful grin. ‘I ain’t cut out for heroics! But I miss your funning. I don’t mind admitting that. It’s a bit grim with only old Neill for company most of the time. If Charis didn’t put her head in our room from time to time, the days would stretch interminably.’

  ‘Poor old fellow!’ Tris mocked him affectionately. ‘How has Neill taken to having my sister around?’

  ‘With an air of sufferance,’ Charis laughed. ‘Anyhow, Ned, you must come to us whenever you feel like it, even though Tris isn’t there.’ She grinned. ‘Emily does miss having him to fuss over, and you know you have always been one of her favourites!’

  ‘May I?’ Ned’s face, so prone to blush, grew pink with pleasure. ‘Thanks awfully.’

  It was some time after supper, when Charis had been temporarily separated from the others, that she saw the Comte de Mallon approaching with an air of purpose. She had already favoured him with a quadrille, and handsome though he might be in his colonel’s uniform, she had no wish to encourage him further. If he was going to be tiresome …

  But something in the gravity of his expression, as he drew close, drove all such thoughts from her mind. And his clipped tones did little to alleviate the sudden unease that filled her.

  ‘Miss Winslade ‒ Charis! Thank God I have found you so quickly. I must ask, nay, beg, you to come with me at once! An urgent message has come from my cousin’s home.’ He made an indecisive gesture. ‘The servant was incoherent, but it seems he asked that you or I, preferably both, should go there with all speed. Your brother is no longer here, I think?’

  Charis remembered the trouble earlier, and a small frisson of fear ran along her nerves. ‘Something has happened? Celestine?’

  ‘She is safe, I think, but it is not good.’ His handsome features were set in lines of grim intolerance. ‘Come ‒ are you with me? If we might just slip away quietly …’

  At any other time Charis would have demurred, but the urgency in his manner communicated itself to her. She looked desperately about her, but neither Lord or Lady Rowby was to be seen. And then she caught sight of her cousin.

  ‘Oh, Nugent! Please, would you be so good as to find Lady Rowby and tell her that I have been summoned home most urgently! The Comte de Mallon is to accompany me. Tell her that I shall return later if at all possible.’

  Nugent looked at the flamboyant figure at her side with some disapproval. ‘Really, cousin, I don’t think …’

  ‘I’m sorry. I don’t have time to listen to your thoughts!’ she said. ‘Just do as I ask, if you please.’

  In the darkness of the carriage, with only the creaking of the springs to disturb the silence, Charis waited for the count to tell her more. When he failed to do so, she found her imagination painting pictures that were insupportable, until she could bear it no longer.

  ‘Monsieur, if you know something further, enlighten me, I beg of you! I have the feeling that you do know more than you have said.’

  She heard him draw in his breath in the darkness. Then his voice came, heavy with an awful irony. ‘There was some trouble earlier today, I believe? Following upon the return of Monsieur Latour?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The messenger brought a note … from Mrs Grant. It would appear that, as a result of what happened then, my cousin this evening visited the kitchens where she procured a knife ‒ with which she has stabbed her husband!’

  Chapter Sixteen

 

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