Unmasking the Thief, page 24
“The first time I came here, did you follow me down to the hackney stand?” Matty asked.
“I did. It was the next best thing to escorting you home.”
“A white knight in piratical garb.”
He cast her a sardonic look. “Don’t count on it.”
When they arrived at the pavilion, which Francisco told her would be empty at this hour, the first person Matty saw was the Duchess of Dearham, her mask hanging from her fingers, while she danced boisterously without music, arm-in-arm with two young men who looked more like waiters than aristocrats.
They were all laughing, although the young men quickly disengaged themselves when they caught sight of Matty and Francisco. They looked guilty. The Duke of Dearham sat at a nearby table, apparently quite unconcerned by his wife’s overly familiar behavior. Deep in conversation with a middle-aged, coatless man, he broke off to smile and rise to greet Matty and Francisco.
“I hear congratulations are in order.”
“Who told you that?” Matty asked, mystified.
“Dunne. He’s around somewhere. We’d bear a grudge about not being invited, except I understand the Wennings weren’t either. Do I get to kiss the bride?”
Matty offered her cheek just as the duchess came over to join them.
“Don’t be shocked,” she said bluntly. “I was brought up by Mr. Renwick here, along with his sons.”
“Kitty is a distant relative of His Grace,” Mr. Renwick said severely, “lost to the family for some years and now restored. It’s not a connection that’s good for either of Their Graces, so we keep it quiet.”
There may have been a threat in the blunt voice, though Francisco didn’t rise to it.
“Mr. Francis is the most discreet of men,” Ludovic Dunne commented, arriving through another door next to the table. “And therefore, so is his lady. As you know, Renwick has been approached by people we think are working for Thorne, to keep free an area of the gardens for his private use. They even asked for Renwick’s staff to keep away the curious once his party begins.”
“That’s us,” said one of the young men the duchess had been dancing with. He and his brother grinned. “But never doubt we’re on your side.”
“The ground is perfect,” Mr. Dunne said. “It’s the land behind the rose garden, where the children play in the daytime. It slopes up at the back, so everyone will be able to see and hear our speaker. We intend to flood it with light to give Dornan the best chance to draw a recognizable picture. My clerk will take notes verbatim—he’s very good.”
“Excellent,” Dearham said. “But how do we get the mask off him? He’ll have his bully-boys near him to fend off the rabble.”
Francisco smiled. “As it happens, I have a plan for that. Now, I suggest we don masks and dominoes, for I think the orchestra is about to set up. Keep in touch with each other throughout the evening, but discreetly.” As everyone began tying on their own or each other’s masks, he lowered his voice. “I don’t expect any fights or violence—”
“Good,” Mr. Renwick growled.
“Neither,” Francisco continued, “do I expect to be obeyed if I forbid the ladies from attending. All I ask is that you keep your distance and avoid Thorne and his bullies. Cornered, our rat may turn.”
*
It was, Matty supposed, an odd wedding party, but at least she got to waltz with her husband while she watched the various parties of allies arrive. They were not always easy to spot, and sometimes it took a wink or impudent grin to identify them.
The Wennings arrived with Rollo Darblay and a few couples she didn’t know.
“A junior foreign office minister and two generals,” Francisco murmured. “One of my lot, too.”
“And their wives?”
“I think they would have to be. Given Lady Wenning’s presence, they would hardly bring their ladybirds.”
Lord Calton strolled in with a bachelor party that included Mr. Dornan the artist, and several lords of all ages. Christopher Halland had brought his wife and several members of parliament with theirs, though Matty needed Francisco to point them out.
Archie Holles sauntered in, looking as discontented as ever. Matty thanked God that Catherine was not with him, which had been a serious worry. Instead, he was with three other expensively but unconventionally dressed young men—the representatives of his little band of radical students and intellectuals.
“There are too many of the ton here,” Matty worried. “Surely Thorne will smell a rat and flee.”
“There are plenty of the other sort, too. Those working men over there are with us. And those entering now. And you only notice the aristocratic ones because you’re looking for them. When everyone dances, it’s harder to tell who is who.”
Thorne’s meeting was scheduled for ten of the clock, but as the hands drew nearer, Matty’s stomach clenched harder.
“He isn’t here.”
Francisco shrugged. “He doesn’t need to be. Why would he show his face in the pavilion? Shall we walk around to the garden?”
“What if we’re wrong?” she countered, squeezing Francisco’s arm as they walked. “What if it isn’t Thorne?” Or he sends someone else. Would he trust anyone else with this speech?
“Then we’ll catch whoever it is, and then I’ll deal with Thorne in my own way.”
Matty shivered, though she knew she would do nothing to prevent whatever he had in mind. Whether or not Thorne was responsible for this treason, he was a greedy, amoral, pest of a man, whose wings had to be clipped.
“I suppose it’s no use,” Francisco said as they strolled through the rose garden where a few buds had formed in the lantern light, “asking you to return to the pavilion with Lady Wenning?”
“No,” Matty agreed. “There is Lady Wenning.” She and her husband’s party were strolling toward the back gate that led to the meeting place. “As we agreed, the presence of women will reassure him that all is well. Otherwise, he will ignore them.”
“I love your curiosity.” He bent and pressed a brief hard kiss to her mouth. “And I hate it.”
Some of the working men were already there, scattered across the slope. Behind those at the front and to one side, Dornan sat on the ground, chewing the end of his pencil. Masked and cloaked, he could have been of any class.
Matty’s heart gave a little bump, half of triumph, half of revulsion as she saw another cloaked and masked figure strolling between two large, similarly dressed men. She had known Anthony Thorne most of her life, and she knew his proud, not quite strutting walk. He had grace, she allowed, though it was a contrived grace, learned in his late teens to impress.
“It’s him,” she murmured.
“I know.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Thorne had arrived at Maida still furious with Marion Mather and her dreadful, interfering sister. How dare the woman look him in the eye and lie? Surely, she had been brought up better than that, and what was more, the mother did not dispute it, although she must have known!
He silenced the voice that told him such barefaced lying was no more or less than he had done himself, and the one that told him he had been thoroughly trounced by three women. Nor could he devote the time right now to detailed plans of revenge. But after Thursday, heiresses would be lining up to marry him, and he could take his time over punishing the Mather women. Tonight was necessary to get to Thursday’s marches, and so he forced back his anger and turned his mind to his prepared speeches, his disguised voice, and conjuring up the right attitude to rouse people to a proper sense of the injustices perpetrated against them.
Which was nothing to the injustices that would be perpetrated on Thursday, but there, those were the prices paid for remaining poor and unimportant.
The proprietor of the Gardens, a stout and not very obsequious person called Renwick, showed Thorne’s men to the garden set aside for them and introduced them to his sons, who, he said, would be glad to take care of any trouble. If they had to summon the Watch, Renwick said direly, someone would pay.
“Insolent buffoon,” Thorne muttered as Renwick stalked away. As people began to arrive in their private bit of garden, hemmed in by the hill and by trees and bushes, and the wall to the rose garden, Thorne let himself draw more attention, puffing out his chest as he walked from side to side. With each turn, the hill sprouted more men and even a scattering of women who had, presumably, come to support their menfolk.
Since he hadn’t actually met any of them that he could recall, he did not recognize anyone. Except Archie Holles with a bunch of discontented-looking young men. Although Holles was masked, the sneer on his lips remained.
Thorne was glad to see a couple of men with notebooks and pencils out, ready to take note of his words to pass on to their fellows in persuasion of his ends.
Thorne fully recognized the importance of tonight, for without it, Thursday’s marches were not guaranteed to go ahead in numbers enough to work. But looking at the motley crowd, ready to hang on his words, he did not doubt his ability to convince them. It was just a matter of adjusting his oratory to radical phrases rather than reactionary ones.
He flapped his arms, dismissing his burly bodyguards to a greater distance. They moved a few feet behind him and a yard or so to either side, giving him space to speak. The faint hum of his audience’s talk died away, and they faced him in silence. They were, he thought, scanning their masked faces and tense posture, more anxious than adoring.
“My friends,” he began in a voice pitched to reach all of them and yet to give an illusion of intimacy, to show they shared the same aims and the same dangers. “Thank you for coming to talk to me here tonight. Why don’t I begin by telling you how our marches will work and what I hope we will gain with so bold a move.
“Thousands of you, from all over the city, will begin your marches in different places and close in on the seat of our deaf and blind government—and you will not be alone, for all over the country, similar marches will take place, to take over places of local government. But here in the capital, we have the most important role because we have the Houses of Parliament.
“And we will make our grievances known…”
He spent some time on those grievances, which he had learned by heart, although he didn’t believe in most of them and didn’t care about any. The men began to nod and murmur agreement—really, this was ridiculously easy—and he moved on to the trickier bits, the vital role they would play in history, in the changing of actual government.
“So what do we get in its place?” a man called from the hill.
For the first time since he had begun to speak, Thorne noticed that some latecomers lined the sides of the garden, too, not just the hill. For some reason, it made him feel slightly hemmed in, but he still had his bodyguards and Renwick’s two ruffians by the gate. Not that anyone would attack him, for they were eating out of his hand.
“In the place of our old, tired, oppressive government? I will look after your interests. I and my allies. Until you, the people of this great country, the country that defeated Bonaparte and paid the price, can choose your own representatives. Things will change because they must, and you, by marching, will make it so.”
“What if they send the soldiers against us?” someone asked.
“My plan is that it will be too late by the time anyone thinks to summon them. I will hold them back as long as possible.”
“But if they come?” another voice demanded. “If they shoot?”
Thorne swept his gaze around them and made his voice triumphant. “Then we fight, my friends! We have the numbers to overwhelm them, and we are prepared to die for our cause, are we not? Nothing will change if we are not brave and bold and unafraid.”
“And where will you be?” someone asked. “While we are being so brave and bold?”
Thorne did not quite like the tone of this, though he answered at once with earnest certainty. “With you, of course, leading the march and the fight.”
“And if you are shot?”
“Then our allies take my place,” Thorne said impatiently. “My friends, this event is bigger than one man, this endeavor to bring down a government elected by a few rich men, who care nothing for you and your children, and replace it with one that truly represents you, that will end your poverty and powerlessness, find work for all and pensions for those like our forgotten, crippled soldiers.”
“Seems to me,” someone said into the hum of excitement, “we’re depending entirely on the word of one man we don’t know. Who are you? What’s your name?”
Thorne was ready for this one. “If the authorities hear my name, I shall be arrested and unable to lead you.”
A man near the foot of the hill stood up. “Enough of secrecy!” he declared. “If we are all friends here, why are we all masked like the fools at the ball or highway robbers?” In one quick movement, he tore off his mask. “Shall we?”
Several others sprang up, removing their masks, too. Thorne knew a moment of fear, as if the crowd was getting away from him. But even as the others unmasked, those who had stood sat back down again.
“Brave, honest men,” Thorne applauded, desperately trying to come up with a reason for retaining his own mask. Damn it, the masks were the reason he’d chosen this ridiculous spot.
“Aye, we are,” someone shouted, “and now it’s your turn.”
“When we march, you will see me. My friends!” He raised his voice above the murmur of protest sweeping about the garden. “If just one whisper of my identity comes out before then, we are all lost!”
“Don’t seem fair,” someone to the right of the hill complained.
And from the left came determined footsteps. Thorne’s bodyguards stepped closer to him, and he glanced warily to his left. The approaching man began to run, straight at him. The bodyguards lunged in front of Thorne, blocking him from attack.
“My friends!” Thorne shouted, trying to keep the desperation from his voice. He had completely forgotten about disguising it. “This moment—” He broke off, gasping, as he was seized from behind and his mask ripped off.
At the same, awful moment, he saw his bodyguards both sprinting toward the gate after the first attacker, who was damned light on his feet. And the arm across Thorne’s throat prevented him from even choking out the order to come back.
It was too late. His mask lay on the ground. People bearing lanterns were closing in on all sides, and yet the silence in the garden was profound. From beyond the gate, he heard a few muffled thuds, which he prayed meant his bodyguard had dealt with the first man and would be returning for the second.
But the damage was already done. Unless he could be more convincing than he had ever been in his life before. Bizarrely, he could hear the distant strains of a waltz.
Everything else was still and silent, including him.
“Do you recognize this man?” asked a voice Thorne knew but could not place.
“I do.” Two men were strolling toward him, elegant domino cloaks swung back to reveal correct evening dress. Christopher Halland, the radical member of parliament. And…dear God, the Duke of Dearham. And it was the latter who spoke. “Sir Anthony Thorne. Not usually the friend of reform, eh, Mr. Halland?”
“Never.”
“But a man can see the error of his ways, perhaps,” said the voice behind him. The arm loosened.
“Oh, trust me, he will!” snarled a military voice. “Send a mob to fight with my men, would you? Threaten a sitting parliament?”
“No, no,” Thorne said feebly. Blood was ringing in his ears, an impossible weight bearing down on his shoulders—that of failure. And disgrace. “You misunderstand!”
“Oh, I think we understand perfectly,” said the hatefully mocking voice behind him. “Rile up a mob of men with genuine grievances, a mob larger than any we have ever seen—and all over the country, too. Send them to fight for their cause so suddenly that those in charge freeze and dither as to what to do. Then you would step forward, order out the troops, squash the mob, and as hero of the hour, with the generals behind you, declare some kind of interim martial law to deal with the emergency. Only the emergency never ends. Sir Anthony Thorne remains in power, a dictator more autocratic than Bonaparte, only without the good intentions.”
Dear God, how had he found this all out? Who the devil…? He jerked around, staring at his former captor while the mob on the hill, muttering angrily, began to advance.
“Francis?” he said incredulously.
Francis’s lips curved, though it was not a smile. “I have friends in higher places than you. I believe you are under arrest.”
Oh, no I’m bloody not. Sheer terror lent him power as he bolted between Halland and Dearham and ran for the gate at breakneck speed, well ahead of the mob bearing down on him. He had a carriage waiting—if he could just make the hidden path without being seen. And then to the continent to lick his wounds. Damn it all to hell!
There was only a woman seated on the grass, just to one side of the gate. No threat. Until, just as he thought he was home and free, he tripped over her foot, which had not been there an instant before.
He fell on his face with a cry of rage. But two men were hauling him to his feet. Renwick’s men. He breathed a sigh of relief. “Get me out of here,” he commanded grimly.
“Certainly, sir,” came the cheerful reply. “Captain, your prisoner, I believe?”
A man appeared in front of him, shedding his domino cloak to reveal a red military uniform. Thorne stared at him, breathing through his mouth. And then, movement on the ground distracted his attention as Francis raised to her feet the woman who had tripped him.
Matilda Mather.
*
“So much for staying away from any fighting,” Francis said.
“I knew he would run,” she replied. He always had, even in his teens, leaving others to take the blame. Why on earth had she ever found his apparent admiration flattering? She kept hold of her husband’s hand, squeezing it tightly. “Your plan worked, and your timing was perfect.”
