‘No doubt,’ Wolfingham drawled drily. ‘When Benson returns from where?’ he added softly.
Clara gave an impatient shake of her head. ‘He has gone to be at the bedside of his sick father. Against my instructions, I might add,’ she added agitatedly. ‘When he asked earlier I refused him leave to go until tomorrow, but I learnt just minutes ago that he has gone this evening anyway!’
Mariah’s breath caught in her throat as she turned to give Darian a wincing glance.
Stupid!
How could they both have been so utterly, utterly stupid?
Or, perhaps more accurately, how could she and Darian have allowed themselves to become so distracted, by their ever-deepening attraction to each other, as to totally miss what had been right in front of their noses this whole time?
Of course neither Richard nor Clara Nichols had reacted as had been expected to the news that the Prince would not be attending their masked ball this evening, after all. Why should they, when neither of them was the assassin or one of the conspirators, whom Mariah and Darian had been sent here to find, in the discovered attempt to assassinate the Prince Regent.
To date, all of the known network of arrested spies, set up by André Rousseau during the year he had spent working as a tutor in England, had been employees in the households of rich or politically powerful people. Servants of one kind or another who could move about at will without attracting attention. A private secretary. A tutor. A footman.
A butler…
Benson!
Benson had been Rousseau’s spy in the Nicholses’ household.
Benson, who had only been employed in the Nicholses’ household for a matter of months.
Benson, who had proved to be such ‘a treasure’ since coming to work in the Nicholses’ household.
Benson, who had been the only person to leave the Nicholses’ sitting room after the Prince’s note had been delivered and read.
Benson, who had carried that note up the stairs to Clara Nichols’s private sitting room, before no doubt proceeding to read its contents!
Benson, his suspicions perhaps aroused, who had then followed Mariah and Darian back up the stairs, before entering that passageway behind the wall in Mariah’s bedchamber, for the sole purpose of listening to their conversation?
Mariah knew by Darian’s slight nod of acknowledgement, and the grimness of his expression, that he had already drawn those same conclusions.
As they both must now also be aware that Benson had already departed Eton Park, before either of them had been able to make that connection.
To go where, though, and for what purpose? Did Benson intend to go to London and somehow attempt to assassinate the Prince Regent still?
‘You said that Benson came to you through personal recommendation?’ Wolfingham, obviously one step ahead in his thinking than Mariah, now prompted their hostess shrewdly.
‘Why, yes.’ Clara Nichols looked slightly surprised by his interest, before then giving an affectionate smile. ‘But, of course, I could not possibly be cross with dear Wedgy. I can only assume that Benson must have fooled him as to his reliability, in the same way that he has fooled all of us.’
‘“Wedgy”?’ Darian had little or no patience left for the woman’s prattling, especially so when she obviously had absolutely no knowledge of just how much, and in what way, Benson had fooled them all.
His hostess continued to smile. ‘Darling Wedgy. Lord William Edgewood,’ she supplied irritably as Darian continued to glower down his aristocratic nose at her. ‘But I have always called him Wedgy. William and Edgewood—Wedgy, do you see?’
Darian did indeed see. He saw exactly how the slightly rotund and jolly, and
apparently innocuous, Lord Edgewood, a man he now recalled was also attached to the Foreign Office and so privy to certain information—such as the Prince Regent’s social engagements!—might have conspired with others in an attempt to assassinate the Prince Regent.
‘We have been friends since childhood, you see,’ Clara continued to confide. ‘More than friends in recent years, of course,’ she added coyly, obviously in reference to the debauched display of that affection they had been forced to witness the evening before. ‘But I have always considered that friends make the best lovers.’
‘What colour mask is Wedgewood wearing this evening?’ Darian could not even pretend to listen politely to this dreadful woman another moment longer.
Clara blinked at his obvious aggression. ‘He is wearing the red mask of the devil.’
How appropriate! ‘And have you seen him yet this evening?’
His hostess frowned as she nodded. ‘Just before this latest crisis, as it happens.’