looked up at him, her head tilted prettily to one side. “Oh, I doubt that, my lord, else I would be in a constant swoon at being so openly pursued by the famous Lord Rule. As it is, I cannot be more unmoved by the prospect. Do you think I am unnatural, my lord?”
Tristan sat himself down beside her, looking off into the distance as he did, and sending shivers down the spine of no less than seven gentlemen who had rashly decided to ask Miss Lawrence for the next dance. “We have already established the fact that you don’t like me above half, Miss Lawrence. Do you really find it necessary to belabor the point?”
“I do, since you refuse to take the hint and go away!” Mary was pushed to exclaim before carefully busying herself playing with the silken tassel at the end of her fan. “Aunt Rachel said you always were a bit thick, but even an absolute dolt would have cut rope by now. What do you want from me, what assurance of innocence will it take, before you realize that you are wasting your time dreaming up intrigues in which I play a part?”
Turning his dark head slowly in her direction, Tristan said in a low, steely voice: “Tell me your name.”
The previously folded fan unfurled and began beating the air in front of Mary’s flushed face. “You are being absurd, sir, yet again,” she pointed out with what she hoped was amusement. “You know my name.”
“I know the name you go by, the one Sir Henry chose for you when first he established you in Sussex ten years ago, but I seriously doubt that Mary Lawrence—that simple, unassuming appellation—comes within a dozen miles of being the one that appears on some parish records somewhere.”
The fan was beginning to stir up a mighty breeze. “My, haven’t you been the busy one,” Mary remarked, all humor gone from her voice. “Hot-footed it down to Sussex, did you, to see what dirt you could dig up at my expense? And what else, pray tell, did you find?”
Tristan leaned back on the uncomfortable chair and recited informatively: “You were an apt pupil in penmanship and the use of maps, although you persisted in drawing Italy to look more like a riding boot than your governess thought permissible. You despised needlework although your sampler was more than passable in my opinion. As a horsewoman you have few equals, even if you earned the undying animosity of several of the local gentry by running your horse across the trail of the fox in a deliberate attempt to save the poor hunted creature.”
Mary smiled a bit at the remembrance of that little bit of foolishness, but then her indignation returned. “And that is all, my lord? Surely you have left out the time I poured honey down Miss Penelope Blakestone’s bodice at a picnic because she was making sheep’s eyes at young Jeremy Stone when she knew full well that I was deep in love with him myself.”
“You were thirteen at the time, so I disregarded it,” Tristan put in smoothly, making Mary wish she had a handy pitcher of honey hidden in her reticule at that very moment.
Closing the fan with a definite snap, Mary rose to her feet, causing Tristan to scramble a bit as he strove to unwind his long legs and follow suit. “You are a rude, snooping, mischief-making monster!” Mary cried, clearly unable to carry on any pretense that she cared not a snap for his ridiculous investigation of her past. “How dare you pry into my life that way! What earthly reason could you have given all those people when you went about snooping into something that was never your concern? How can I ever show my face in Sussex again after what you have done?”
“Do you want to?” Rule asked tauntingly.
Mary’s eyes narrowed dangerously as she looked up into his unrevealing face. “No, damn you, I don’t want to! But that’s beside the point. I should tell Sir Henry what you are about, that’s what I should do, and then we would see just who would be laughing, you cad.”
Tristan took her elbow in a firm grip and began guiding her over to his Aunt Rachel, who was sitting with the dowagers and looking utterly bored with the whole spectacle of Almack’s. “You’ll tell Sir Henry nothing, Miss Lawrence—you haven’t done so yet, or else I should have been called into his office for a thorough dressing down long since. It would seem he sees you as purity itself, and protects you like you were his own.”
“Well, then? If Sir Henry, who, you’ll have to agree, knows everything about me, is not concerned or fearful of allowing me in polite society, why can’t you just accept me as I am?”
“Sir Henry’s judgment may be clouded by something or someone out of the past. I am objective. Even if you are innocent of any wrongdoing, your mere existence may give someone power over Sir Henry, power that could even force that patriotic man into actions detrimental to England. The mere fact that your ‘uncle’ refuses to confide in me makes me suspect something very deep and dangerous.” Tristan drew Mary to a halt and turned her to him one more time. “Now are you willing to tell me your name. For Sir Henry’s sake?”
“Mary, Queen of Scots!” Mary Lawrence snapped before jerking her elbow loose and completing her journey over to Rachel on her own.
IT WAS VERY LATE, and the dance floor was crowded with couples eager to wedge one more dance into the evening, when Mary, still observed by Lord Rule, walked unescorted onto one of the wide balconies outside the main room.
The small raggedly dressed man who crept stealthily out of the shadows approached the girl on quiet feet and the two exchanged a few furiously whispered words before a much-folded paper changed hands, and the man, the paper now stuffed inside his shabby coat, slid back into the shadows.
Mary was just placing one slippered foot back into the main room when Tristan Rule vaulted nimbly over the balcony railing to land on the balls of his feet in the soft underbrush that edged the small garden. Hanging back discreetly out of sight, Rule watched as the small man reappeared under a dim gas lamp, then made off down the street in the direction of Piccadilly. Waiting until he could mentally reach the count of ten, Rule then started after the man, intent on following wherever he led.
While Lord Rule, using talents he developed during long years in His Majesty’s service, ducked into doorways and hid behind drainpipes as he followed the small man deep into the bowels of Jack Ketch’s warren, Mary Lawrence was taking her leave of Almack’s Assembly Rooms, first taking care to thank Jennie Wilde for the loan of her man Ben for the evening.
CHAPTER SIX
MARY WAS SITTING ALONE in the breakfast room the next morning, still savoring her first victory over Ruthless Rule. Jennie had sent around a note earlier, describing Ben’s elation at having eluded his pursuer after leading him a merry dance until the wee hours of the morning.
This single success had naturally led the volatile Mary into considering other relatively harmless pranks aimed at keeping Lord Rule out of sight while she tried to make the best of what was left of the Season. Already she realized one flaw in last night’s plan: she should have had Ben appear much earlier in the evening, then she could have avoided their confrontation on the dance floor altogether. Ah well, as a fledgling conspirator, she couldn’t believe she had done that poorly overall.
Now that she knew exactly why Tristan was dogging her—believing her very existence to be a danger to Sir Henry and the national security—she knew she could proceed without fear of her adopted uncle’s censure if he should ever discover what she was about. After all, if Sir Henry had wanted Tristan to know her history, he would have told him long since. Besides, she assured herself as she buttered a second muffin, it wasn’t as if she were really a danger to Sir Henry—being French was no longer considered a sin in London. Actually, she couldn’t understand Sir Henry’s insistence that she hide her heritage from the world.
The matter of the plot to rescue Napoleon from Elba, the plot Tristan had told her was his reason for suspecting her in the first place, was really none of her concern. Wiser heads than hers, notably Sir Henry’s, would certainly scotch any such attempts before they could be born. Napoleon was defeated, soundly and forever. After all, wasn’t all London gearing up for a gigantic round of celebrations even now? Surely all London couldn’t be wrong—no matter what that ridiculous Lord Rule said to the contrary.
Having