"Say nothing of this to anyone," Lucian said.
"Of course not."
"Nothing. Not to the servants, not to my wife." He drew a long breath. "I will deal with it in my own way."
"Naturally. And, Lucian?" Gerard paused at the door, with a look of sorrowful loyalty. "I am so very sorry."
When the door had closed behind him, the Earl of Wyncombe opened his hand and looked at the crumpled note in his palm. Then he put it carefully into the inside pocket of his coat, over his heart, as a man might put away a letter from a lover.
He did not sleep that night. At two in the morning he went to the window and watched the dark gardens, and saw nobody.
That was somehow worse. It meant they were clever.
Chapter Six: The Duke Is Coming
The invitation had gone out in April, long before any of this began, and it was the sort of thing that could not be recalled.
His Grace the Duke of Marlowe was the greatest plant collector in England, a gruff, white-whiskered old man who had spent his fortune on rare bulbs and whose own glasshouses at Marlowe Court were visited by botanists from three continents. He had heard from a correspondent that Wyncombe Park held a Brazilian orchid unlike any then in cultivation, and he had written, with great courtesy, to ask if he might be allowed to see it flower.
The Earl had agreed without a thought. His mother's glasshouse had always been a point of family pride. Now, with the Duke's carriage due on the twentieth of June and forty guests from three counties invited to a garden party at the glasshouse to mark the occasion, Lucian found himself in the strange position of having to host, with every appearance of cordiality, the greatest public celebration in the history of the one place on his estate he could no longer bear to look at.
He did it. He had been trained since childhood to do it. He signed the guest lists and approved the menus and told Mrs. Pemberton, the housekeeper, that the best silver would be wanted. He spoke to his wife at dinner of the weather and the price of wheat, and watched her smile politely and say, "Yes, my lord," and wondered if she was thinking of someone else.
And every morning at half past five, from the window of his dressing room, he watched the light come on in the glasshouse.
On the nineteenth, Samuel Hale came to the library.
"You sent for me, my lord?"
"I did." The Earl did not turn from the window. "The orchid. How is it?"
"Very well, my lord. I believe it will open tomorrow night. The spike has swollen to the point of splitting. By noon on the twenty-first, if the weather holds, it will be in full flower, in time for his Grace."
"You are confident."
"I am as confident as one can be of anything alive, my lord."