The Officer and the Proper Lady

Hal’s reminiscent grin faded. Midge had been stopped on the steps of the church by a man claiming to be her half-brother, Stephen Hebden. Midge, affectionate and impulsive as ever, had wanted him to come into the church, only for him to be violently rejected by her uncle until Monty, marching out to find his bride, had stopped the argument. By which time the man had gone.

Rick, whose father had tried to find Midge’s half-brother for years and believed him dead, was adamant that the man was an impostor, but Hal had known better. Stephen Hebden, also known as Stephano Beshaley, was the illegitimate son of Midge’s father and his Gypsy lover and a sworn enemy of the Carlow family, and of the family of Marcus Carlow’s wife, Nell Wardale.

The reason for his hatred was a mystery that they were only slowly unravelling. All they really knew was that it reached back twenty years to the days when Hal’s father, the Earl of Narborough; Nell’s father, William Wardale, the Earl of Leybourne and Midge and Stephan’s father, Kit Hebden, Baron Framlingham, had worked together to unmask a French spy at the heart of government.

Hebden, the code breaker, had been murdered, apparently by Wardale, who went to the gallows for the crime while his best friend George Carlow, Lord Narborough, stood by, convinced of his culpability. His father, Hal knew, had never recovered from his sense of guilt over that. With their title and their lands attaindered, the Wardale family had slipped into poverty and lost contact with each other. Midge’s mother had remarried.

And then, for some reason no-one could fathom, the old scandal had resurfaced last year in a series of attacks on the three families that all seemed to centre on Stephen Hebden. Hal felt the cold anger sweep over him again as he recalled the nightmare.

But the more they had discovered, the more people who were drawn into the mess, the less they understood, even with the assistance of old family friend Robert Veryan, Lord Keddinton. Although Veryan was high in government circles, even he could not explain it.

When Hal was last home on leave, Marcus had said that he suspected someone else must be involved, that it could not just be Stephano Beshaley, ruthlessly fulfilling his mother’s dying curse on the three families.

Hal shook his head, winced and focused on the letter.

My dear Carlow,

I have been in some trouble to decide what best to do in this matter, but, given that I know you better than your brother, I have decided to write to you.

You will recall the events that disturbed my wedding in February. Despite my best efforts, my wife continues to associate with her half-brother, Beshaley. Midge, bless her, would believe the best of Beelzebub.

Damn it, this was what he feared. Had another of Beshaley’s calling cards—silken ropes that recalled the execution of a peer—been found? If it had, danger at worst, scandal and ruined reputations at best, were to be expected.

You will forgive me, I hope, for referring to the gossip that arose when your sister-in-law resumed her place in Society. That, and the other incidents affecting the three families, have been well-managed by those concerned. But now murmurings have come to my ears from busybodies who delight in telling me gossip affecting Midge. Speculation is resurfacing about the old scandal.

To be frank, there is doubt thrown on Wardale’s guilt as the murderer. Hebden died in your father’s arms, outside your father’s own study. I will tell you this bluntly, as in your shoes I would prefer to be told—there are whispers at the highest level that it is suspicious that Lord Narborough did nothing to help clear Wardale’s name, despite the fact that they were close friends.

I have tried, discreetly, to find the source of these rumours, for the respect I have for you from our days fighting together, and for the friendship Midge has for your sister Verity. But it is like chasing a wisp of smoke.

Nothing is spoken of that links your father’s name with the spy’s treachery—that aspect of the original murder is still not common knowledge. But whispers about Wardale’s liaison with Midge’s mother are circulating, along with comments that your father is known to hold the strongest of views on marital infidelity. Without an understanding of the work the three men were engaged on, a puritanical aversion to adultery is no motive to be taken seriously for murder. But once spying is added to the mix, at this time when the whole country is in uproar over the renewed French menace, God knows what stories will be spun.

I hope this warning will suffice to put you on your guard to protect your father and your family. I imagine you could well do without this news, just when the great confrontation with Napoleon is looming. I envy you the opportunity to take part in that fight.

For myself, with a happy event expected in the autumn, I only want to keep Midge safe from the poisonous webs her half-brother weaves.

Believe me, my dear Carlow,

Your obedient servant,

Mildenhall

‘Hell and damnation.’ Hal tossed the letter onto the table and tried to think. He had two conflicting duties, but the priority was clear. He must not follow his immediate instinct and go home: Napoleon could make his move at any moment, this was no time to take leave. All he could do was to write to warn Marcus.

‘Problems?’ Grey raised a languid eyebrow. ‘I’ll swap you for my mail; it is all bills—and Susannah wanting a new gown. Could I have spent so much at my snyder when I was last in town? Hard to believe.’

‘You don’t want this,’ Hal said casually. ‘Legal problems with some tiresome old family legacy. And yes, I can believe your tailor’s bill is astronomical.’ He stood up, letter in hand. ‘I’d better write to my brother, I suppose.’

‘I’ll leave you to it.’ Grey ambled out, coffee cup in hand. ‘See you at luncheon?’

Hal shuddered at the thought of food, although he knew he was going to have to eat. ‘Yes.’ As the door shut, he flipped open his writing desk and unscrewed the top of the ink pot. Best to send Monty’s letter as an enclosure, save rewriting the lot.

Marcus, he scrawled.

Read this. What the hell is going on? Can’t someone put a bullet in the bastard?

Say the pretty to the parents and my love to Nell and the girls,

Yr. affect. brother,

Hal

Not his greatest literary work, but the best he could do with this headache. Hal folded Mildenhall’s letter inside his own, sealed it in four places and wrote the country address on it, adding To be forwarded, just in case Marcus had taken it into his head to travel. He doubted it. His sister-in-law was increasing again and Marcus, deeply protective, was certain to have her tucked away in deepest Hertfordshire.

Monty about to be a father, Marcus with a little son already and another child on the way. People no sooner got married than they were fathering brats, he thought irritably, despite the fact he was fond of young William George Carlow. He was half way to the bell pull to have the letter taken down, when a mental picture of Julia with one hand resting protectively on the swell of her belly hit him like a blow.

He made a sharp gesture of shocked repudiation. First he had almost ravished her, now his imagination had made the wild leap to her carrying his child. Which she might well be, if some shreds of self-control hadn’t saved them both yesterday. He tried to recall what had stopped him, but he couldn’t, it was all too confused. But one thing was clear: this could go no further. There was no way he could allow himself to see her again.

Julia tried hard to look regretful while Mama and Lady Geraldine regarded her with expressions of deep disappointment over their tea cups. She was not used to disappointing anyone and it was an unpleasant novelty.

‘You quarrelled with Mr Fordyce?’ Mrs Tresilian said in tones of disbelief. ‘But you never quarrel with anyone, Julia. You would never do anything so unladylike, surely?’

‘He was priggish and jealous beyond bearing,’ she said, setting her cup down with a rattle. So much for making a clean breast of it—of some of it, she corrected herself—you got lectured. Being a fast and disobedient young lady was beginning to have its attractions. ‘I was sharp with him.’

‘Jealous of whom?’ Lady Geraldine enquired. ‘Mr Smyth or the colonel?’

‘Major Carlow,’ Julia said, hurling oil on flames.

‘Hal Carlow!’

‘But you said he was a rake, Julia,’ Mrs Tresilian said into the silence that followed Lady Geraldine’s exclamation. ‘What could you possibly have done with him to make Mr Fordyce jealous?’

‘Nothing,’ she denied vehemently, managing to blush rosily at the same time. She had done nothing that Charles Fordyce knew about, that was true. But she had done more than enough with Hal Carlow to send her mother into fits of the vapours.

‘Julia,’ her mother began as Lady Geraldine’s eyebrows arched in surprise.

‘I let slip that I know him. So Mr Fordyce treated me to a lecture on the danger to my reputation. Which he had no call to do,’ she added hotly, guilt making her protest too much. ‘Anyone would think he had made me an offer.’

‘Who?’ Mrs Tresilian gasped. ‘Which of them? What kind of offer?’

‘Mr Fordyce. Marriage,’ Julia said, hanging on to her temper with difficulty. ‘But he has not.’ What was the matter with her? She never lost her temper, never answered Mama back. And now listen to her!

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