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Gray did not miss the movement of his eyes towards the reception room, where Gabrielle was still talking to Lord Welford, fanning herself with abrupt, nervy flicks of her wrist.
‘I was there for a while and reminded myself of the topography recently,’ he allowed.
‘Charming lady, Miss Frost. Always thought so when we were stationed in the area.’
‘Yes. Most attractive and intelligent, too,’ Gray said, doing his best to sound objective. ‘I’m doing my godmother a favour by squiring her around a little. Still, she looks settled enough now, I think I can come off-duty.’
‘I thought you might have...an interest,’ Appleton said as they made their way towards their hostess to thank her and make their excuses.
‘Not me,’ Gray said, putting amusement into his voice. ‘I’m steering well clear of the parson’s mousetrap for the present, however tempting the cheese might be.’
I used to be good at acting, to hiding my thoughts and feelings. Now...
Once it was necessary to show the face that his men
needed to see—stern or dashing, confident or cautious. He’d needed to cultivate the art of hiding his feelings from senior officers, too.
I think you’re an idiot, General. No, I’m not sure I’ll come out of this alive, but I’ll give it a damn good go...
It seemed the feelings he had for Gabrielle were too close to the surface to allow for easy subterfuge about anything.
They were close enough to the back entrance to Albany to walk, making small talk as they went about old comrades, a good bootmaker Appleton had found, the latest opera singer taking the town by storm.
A batman appeared as Appleton unlocked the door, but he dismissed his military servant with a nod. ‘We’ll look after ourselves, Hodges. You take yourself off to bed.’
‘Sir. The decanters are in the sitting room.’
They settled in front of the banked-up fire, brandy glasses in hand. Gray sat back, summoned up the old, hard-learned focus of army days and ignored the unpleasant sensation under his breastbone. Apprehension. A good officer did not admit to fear, however much he might feel it. But this was not fear for himself.
‘I’m tidying up some loose threads around Major Norwood’s last few months,’ Appleton began abruptly. ‘His servant told us he was spending a lot of time focused on the area around Quinta do Falcão.’
‘Miss Frost’s estate.’
‘Yes. Then there were rumours about a lone French officer being seen in the area in uniform once or twice—and some sightings that may have been him dressed as a local man.’
‘Someone Norwood had turned as an informer, do you think?’
‘No. He kept notes of those in code and we’ve broken that. There were a couple of Frenchmen, but we know about them.’
‘And what conclusions do you draw? Good brandy, this.’
Appleton swirled the liquid in his glass. ‘It is. The last of my father’s smuggled cask before peace broke out.’ He shifted to put the glass down and Gray read unease in the movement. ‘Miss Frost had a younger brother.’
‘I believe so. With the guerrilheiros, I believe. Brave lad and tragically young when he died.’
‘Yes.’ Appleton cleared his throat. ‘The thing is, there was definitely a source leaking information about our troop movements in the area and that stopped after young Frost was killed. Then it began again, more or less at the time this mysterious Frenchman starts being seen around the quinta.’
‘Are you saying that Frost was a traitor?’ Gray swallowed the furious rebuttal. ‘And then what? Miss Frost takes over where he left off?’
‘Good God, no! He might have been, of course, but I doubt it. He was hardly more than a lad. No, I was thinking one of the people on her estate, the winery manager, for example. They travel all over the area, those people. No one takes any notice of them and they could be up to anything.’
‘Such a man would be loyal to the family,’ Gray said. ‘All those workers have been with the Frosts for generations, apparently. If Frost had been turned, the man might have carried on out of loyalty, or conviction—or just for the money—but I cannot for a moment believe that a patriotic youngster, as Thomas Frost seems to have been, would have turned traitor. He was killed by the French, for heaven’s sake. Besides, even if he was and one of his men kept up the business, why would you be pursuing the matter now? He is dead and surely there are better things for an experienced officer to be doing than chasing down Portuguese peasants?’
‘Because the man might have killed Norwood.’ He shifted uncomfortably again, picked up his glass and drained the remaining brandy. ‘And I have an unpleasant suspicion that Miss Frost knows something about this.’
‘You just said—’
‘I don’t mean that she was a spy. She’s a lady, after all.’
