The Wolfe's Mate Part 9

'Yes, I suppose so.' She sighed. 'Ah, well, I suppose every silver lining has its cloud.'

Before he could answer her, a mature beauty on the arm of a large man in the uniform of a Hussar approached them and began to gush at Ben as though he were alone.

'So happy to see you. You remember me from India, I trust. Charlotte Campion I was then, but my husband died of a fever out there and here I am, home again and married now to Colonel Bob Beauchamp-you know him too, I believe.'

'We have met.' Ben's voice was dry. 'You will allow me to present Miss Susanna Beverly to you. Miss Beverly, Colonel and Mrs Beauchamp.'

'Ah,' said Mrs Beauchamp, at last acknowledging Susanna's existence. 'So you are the little heiress who has recovered her lost fortune!'

She said this as though Susanna's carelessness had caused this sad mishap through conduct on a par with her mislaying her reticule or her kerchief.

'An heiress, true, but not little,' said Ben before Susanna could answer-something, she thought crossly, which was happening to her too often these days. She was perfectly capable of defending herself, both Ben and Madame were doing it a little too brown by deciding otherwise.

She was reduced to smiling vaguely at Mrs Beauchamp whilst wondering if she had ever been Ben's mistress-or even a pa.s.sing lover. Her manner seemed to suggest so.

Colonel Beauchamp had produced a monocle which he jammed in his right eye to enable him to survey Susanna more closely after a fas.h.i.+on for which she did not care.

'Must come to supper with us soon,' he offered. 'Eh, Charlie?'

'Oh, indeed. I can gossip about old times with Ben and you can tell Miss-Beverly, is it?-all about Waterloo, leaving out all the gory bits, of course.'

'Supposing I wanted to hear about the gory bits,' Susanna raged at Ben when the Beauchamps had departed after Mrs Beauchamp had hurled a few more poisoned darts at Susanna. 'What then? How well did you know her in India?'

To his inward horror, Ben realised that he was delighted to detect a note of jealousy in Susanna's response to Charlotte Beauchamp's overblown charms. He must be going mad. Worse, it was even madder of him to stoke the fire by saying confidentially, 'Very well. Every man in Indian society knew her very well.'

'How fortunate for them all,' said Susanna tartly, 'to find someone so obliging.'

'True,' said Ben naughtily. 'Particularly when there was such a dearth of females who were.'

He was highly entertained when Susanna closed her parasol, produced a fan and began to wave it vigorously in front of her, saying crossly, 'You really should not talk like this to me, you know. I am an unmarried female whose innocence ought to be protected.'

'I am taking my tone from you,' retorted Ben primly. 'If you wish to discuss something less...inflammatory...we can embark on some more respectable topic.'

'Oh, so you admit that the lady is not respectable.' The accusation shot out of Susanna without her willing it.

What on earth is the matter with me, she thought dismally, that every time I am with Mr Big Bad Wolfe I find myself saying the most dreadful things and behaving like Lady Caroline Lamb at her worst? I never do it with anyone else. Quite the contrary, I am usually as solemn as a parson or a judge-more, in fact. I really must compose myself.

Ben watched the play of emotion on her face, guessing a little of what she was thinking.

'Cannot you think of anything suitable to discuss?' he offered helpfully. 'If you cannot, might I suggest we converse on the state of the King's health. I hear that it is declining rapidly.'

'I shall decline rapidly if you don't behave yourself,' retorted Susanna, watching another group of curious sightseers approaching their carriage. Among them were the Westerns and Amelia. Amelia was wearing a brilliant purple walking dress which did nothing for her complexion. Her mouth was turned down at the corners, too.

'Whatever can be the matter with her?' whispered Susanna to Ben. 'She is generally so high-spirited as to be unendurable.'

'Her marriage to Lord Darlington will not take place,' Ben whispered back. 'Yours is not the only sensation here today. The on dit is that Babbacombe's financial situation is so dire that the Westerns cried off shortly after learning of it. Apparently they concluded that even to gain a t.i.tle was a game not worth the candle if by doing so they risked bankruptcy themselves in order to save Babbacombe. Smile at them; for the moment you are up and they are down.'

Susanna duly obeyed him when they finally reached the carriage. It appeared that the Westerns had decided that they might recognise Mr Wolfe and his companion after all.

Preliminaries over, Amelia said to Susanna, 'I suppose that I ought to congratulate you, so I will.'

'Thank you,' said Susanna, ignoring the graceless nature of this remark and wondering what to say in reply, but Amelia, joining the growing throng of those who never allowed her to finish a sentence, added immediately, 'I suppose that you have heard of my bad news?'

'Mr Wolfe has just informed me of it.'

'No doubt-he seems to know everything. Who would have thought that Lord Babbacombe would be so deceitful? M'lord told Papa a series of lies when the marriage settlement was being arranged. His estates were heavily mortgaged, he was deep in debt, the moneylenders were after him, and only an anonymous letter informing our lawyers of the true state of things prevented us from becoming part of his general ruin. I was sorry to lose George, of course, but I'm sure that you will agree that I could not marry him and end up a pauper.'

'But I thought that you shared a deathless love with him?'

Oh, dear, now she was beginning to sound exactly like Ben Wolfe himself, coolly sardonic!

Amelia stared at her. 'Deathless love would be hard to manage in a garret,' she said at last.

'Oh, indeed. On the other hand, I believe that deathless love is hard to manage anywhere.'

And now I've done it again. I must stop before I say something which I shall regret.

Ben, who had been conversing with the Westerns-on a respectable topic, Susanna hoped-overheard this and made his contribution to the wake for George and Amelia's marriage.

'If you believe in love, that is. In any case, outside of novels, it seems to me that love and marriage have little to do with one another.'

Well, one might have expected Ben Wolfe to say something like that. It killed the conversation dead. Amelia dabbed at her eyes with her handkerchief, but whether she was crying for George, or the loss of his t.i.tle, was difficult to guess.

After that the conversation went even further downhill until at last the Westerns drifted away, leaving Ben and Susanna alone for a moment.

But not for long.

The next to approach them was, improbably, Jess Fitzroy, riding a superb grey. He swept off his hat to Susanna and said cheerfully to Ben, 'Good afternoon, sir.'

'Very good for you,' returned Ben, 'if you have nothing better to do than ride in the Park.'

'Oh, all in the way of business,' replied Jess, not a whit disturbed. 'I not only have information for you which cannot wait, but I have also been gathering even more as I made my way around the Park.'

'Urgent or not, the business must wait until we return home,' replied Ben. He was quartering the Park with his eyes and, when he finished, said affably to Jess, who was smiling at Susanna, 'You could do me a service if you would, Jess. You could take Miss Beverly for a short walk, for I believe that I see another person who has urgent business with me approaching. She will not wish to listen to a dull recital of Stock Exchange prices, I am sure.'

Now how did she know that he was not telling the truth? Susanna had a mind to refuse him and see what he said to that. Forestalling her-as usual-Jess said cheerfully, 'Are you sure that Miss Beverly wishes to take a stroll around the Park?'

'Nothing would please me more,' said Susanna before Ben could answer. She was tired of having others antic.i.p.ate her wishes for her.

'Very well,' said Jess, dismounting and throwing the reins of his horse to one of Ben's attendant grooms, before handing Susanna down from the carriage.

'Do you wish me to walk Bucephalus with us, Miss Beverly? Or would you rather take a turn without him?'

'Oh, let him walk with us,' said Susanna, gratified that someone had taken the trouble to ascertain her wishes. 'He is very beautiful, is he not? Have you had him long?'

Jess took the reins from the groom. 'Alas, he is not mine, Miss Beverly. He is Ben's...I mean, Mr Wolfe's. He allows me the use of him.'

Susanna noticed, as she had done before, that Jess Fitzroy had the speech and manners of a gentleman, something which intrigued her. How had he come to be Ben Wolfe's faithful dogsbody?

'Where did you meet him?' she asked, apparently idly.

'In India,' Jess responded frankly. 'I was an officer in the regiment in which he was a sergeant. I was lucky to have him. I was a raw fool and he saved my bacon once or twice in several frontier skirmishes. He left the army shortly after that and set himself up in business.'

He paused, before adding, 'I respect you enough to be honest with you. I was a fool, do not ask me how. I was duped by others and ended by having to resign my commission. There I was, penniless, with no family, other than the knowledge that my grandfather had been the natural son of Frederick, Prince of Wales, and that I was his only descendant. I had no prospects, no near relatives, and nowhere to go. Ben found me, offered me work and I have been with him ever since. I owe him everything for he saved me from being a pauper.

'Do not be deceived by his manner. Oh, he is hard, I grant you, but he is true, as true as a new-minted golden guinea. On the other hand, if you are not true-then look out is all I can say!'

'You can say that, Mr Fitzroy, even after he tried to kidnap Miss Western?'

Jess smiled wryly. 'I did not say that he was virtuous, Miss Beverly. Virtue is quite another matter and is rarely found-even amongst those who claim most loudly that they possess it.'

Susanna said nothing for a moment. She honoured Mr Fitzroy for being frank with her so she asked him another question.

'You spoke almost dismissively of virtue, sir. Does that mean that neither you nor Mr Wolfe practise it?'

'On the contrary: but acts of kindness individually performed do not in themselves const.i.tute virtue, as I am sure you understand. Mr Wolfe looks after people-but in doing so not all his acts are virtuous. The world in which we live is a cruel one, and the good do not survive in it if their only defence is their virtue-more than that is frequently necessary.'

Susanna did not ask him what 'more than that' might entail. Her own experience had taught her that much of what he had just said to her was true. She had been good and her goodness had not prevented Mr Mitch.e.l.l from ruining her-quite the contrary, it had made it easy for him to do so.

A sudden thought struck her. A thought which she did not wish to share with anyone until she had examined it carefully. Her life had been growing increasingly difficult until she had met Mr Ben Wolfe. From that moment on everything had changed.

She had been introduced to Madame and all her fears for her immediate future had disappeared. And then, suddenly, mysteriously, her fortune had been restored to her, and she was again Miss Susanna Beverly, the heiress, no longer a poor dependant on the charity of others.

Jess Fitzroy had said that Mr Wolfe looked after people, and he had undoubtedly looked after Jess. Had he looked after her? Who else knew her who was powerful enough not only to discover Mr Mitch.e.l.l's theft of her inheritance, but was also able to restore it to her?

And if her reasoning was correct, how did that affect her feelings for him? She must be grateful-but might he expect more from her than that? And if so, what? By helping Jess, Ben had gained a faithful servant and an honest henchman-what might he expect to gain from helping her?

A man who was not virtuous-even if true-might have a hidden reason for his charitable acts. She looked sideways at Mr Jess Fitzroy and half-thought of saying something on these lines to him.

Reason told her that might be foolish-he was Mr Wolfe's faithful servant, not hers. On the surface he was everything a gentleman ought to be, but she must not forget that he had kidnapped her on Mr Wolfe's orders and it was to him he owed allegiance.

'You are quiet,' Jess said at last. 'But then, I like a quiet woman.'

Susanna laughed, and her laughter drove away her darker thoughts. 'You did not think that I was quiet when you s.n.a.t.c.hed me from the street-on the contrary.'

'Ah, but you were defending yourself, were you not? And that is what I meant by goodness not being enough. To have acted like a perfect lady would not have helped you in your dealings either with me or with Mr Wolfe. He admired the manner in which you stood up to him and refused to be put down. And then, when all was settled, you reverted to being a perfect lady and allowed yourself to be good again.'

'You tempt me, Mr Fitzroy, to ask you whether you learned your deviousness from Mr Wolfe-or did you always possess it?'

The look he gave her was an admiring one. 'And you tempt me, Miss Beverly, to remark that you needed no lessons in that line from Mr Wolfe since from the first moment you met him you also were deviousness itself. That is why he admires you.'

So Mr Wolfe admired her-and what was she to make of that? She was about to answer Jess-or, rather, ask him another question-when she saw that they had walked in a half-circle and were almost back to their starting point.

She could see Ben talking earnestly to a man in dark unfas.h.i.+onable clothing who was sitting beside him in his carriage. She thought suddenly that Jess's arrival in the Park might not have been accidental, even though Ben had twitted him on it.

'You have honoured me by giving me your confidence, Mr Fitzroy,' she said at last, discarding her question, 'and I will not betray it. I had, I must admit, wondered about your name. You do not have a great look of the Royal Family.'

'No, indeed, and that is a relief. I take after my grandfather's wife or so my father told me. And, yes, I would prefer it if you did not inform Mr Wolfe of what I have said of myself-or of him. And now that is enough of me.'

'Oh, I have learned to be close-mouthed in a bitter school,' Susanna told him, 'for if I did not look after myself, no one else would.'

Jess did not inform her that she, like himself, now had a benefactor in the unlikely person of Ben Wolfe, for he had been forbidden to do so. He would not be surprised, though, if Miss Susanna Beverly did not work that out for herself quite soon. He was not to know that she had already done so.

After that they talked idly until Jess, seeing that Ben's visitor had disappeared, walked Susanna back to his employer's carriage again, mounted his grey and bade them adieu.

His business apparently over-and Jess disappearing into the middle distance, doubtless to carry out more of his errands-Ben gave Susanna his full attention. His first sentence proved that, even when apparently conducting business, he still had time to watch what was going on about him.

'Jess had plenty to say to you,' he remarked drily as he drove slowly along, 'and you seemed to be equally loquacious. Was it the weather or the current on dits which occupied you?'

'Neither,' said Susanna briskly. 'The weather has been unchangingly temperate recently, and I know little of any on dits. Instead we enjoyed a short philosophical conversation on the nature of virtue.'

'Of which Jess knows a great deal, I am sure,' remarked Ben, a trifle ironically.

'Oh, one need not practise something in order to discuss it,' retorted Susanna. 'Otherwise it would be difficult to discuss anything-paintings or poems, for example, seeing that most of us are neither painters nor poets.'

Few men, and no women, ever spoke to Ben Wolfe in such a downright fas.h.i.+on. He gave a short laugh and said, 'I shall make it my business, Miss Beverly, to choose my words very carefully when I discuss anything with you. You would have made a good career in the world of business had you been a man.'

He had almost said 'been lucky enough to be a man,' but had revised that statement before he made it for he was sure that Miss Beverly would have had said something sharp in reply. He thought that she was happy to be a woman even if, in many ways, she possessed the kind of acuteness which was commonly thought to be confined to men. Besides, he had absolutely no wish for her to be a man!

'Is that intended to be a compliment, Mr Wolfe?' she asked him gravely.

'Many would think it so.'

'But am I to think it so?'

The look she gave him as she said this set Ben groaning inwardly. He wished that they were alone, not in a crowded Park with idle, curious and malicious eyes upon them. He would have kissed her for her impudence, there, at the corner of her smiling mouth. And then he would...he would...

Stop that, he commanded himself sternly. This is neither the time nor the place...

And stop that, too. I have no wish to be any woman's slave-even one as clever and desirable as Miss Susanna Beverly.

'I meant it as such,' he came out with at last, Susanna meanwhile wondering why it took him so long to answer her.

'Then I will accept it as such.'

'And in the meantime,' he ground out, 'you will oblige me by cutting that obnoxious puppy, George Darlington,' for he had just seen George tipping his hat and smiling at Susanna for all the world as though he had not recently attempted to a.s.sault her in Lord Exford's study.

'You know, Mr Wolfe,' Susanna told him after doing as he wished, 'I don't really need a duenna when I am with you. You perform that service so admirably I wonder that you do not take it up as a profession!'

He replied to her in kind, 'I would if it paid as well as being a financier in the City.'

'I must remember that,' she said, 'if I lose my fortune again and need to find a well-rewarded occupation.'

'You did not lose your fortune, Miss Beverly, you had it stolen from you. Remember that if you begin to feel mercy towards those who robbed you.' His voice was both stern and forbidding.

'You surely do not mean that my mother-?'

'Your mother, from what you have said of her, turns a blind eye to her second husband's actions. I cannot believe that she was completely unaware of his misappropriation of your inheritance.'