Page 6 of Cora
He’d confirmed her suspicions about her relation, but withheld one small detail from her. If Victoria knew with certainty, she would demand he find a way to hinder operations. No one in the aristocracy was going to inform their sovereign. Anyone with direct knowledge was also a client, and Bella was a ruthless blackmailer. One had to admire Countess Oreste’s strategy of mutually assured social destruction.
The former courtesan had clawed her way into the aristocracy by pure force of will. Hawke had come to respect the woman with one foot planted in high Society and the other in London’s underbelly.
At first, he’d been curious. Then fascinated. The deeper he dug into her private affairs the more he was impressed with the way her mind worked.
But it was her heart that had won him in the end. Her soft, beating, human heart that her formidable mind and iron will protected behind thick walls. Had she been merely ambitious, only beautiful, or simply crass, he wouldn’t have thought twice about turning her over to the Queen for a harsh comeuppance. Bella was all of those things and so much more.
Now, after years of shielding her, he had failed her utterly.
If he was right about what had happened to Bella, then the Queen was also in grave danger. The only way anyone could have known about her departure was if a counter-spy had overheard Victoria’s private conversations with him.
“Do you wish Countess Oreste gone, despite not answering for her role in the late Opposition Leader’s demise?” he asked. Bella had not played any role in Erskine’s demise, but she had intended to. Furthermore, she had been the one to track down the murderer. Hawke had been trying to shield her from Victoria in that sense, too, ever since last fall.
Victoria waved on hand. “As long as she is gone, and stays gone, We do not care a farthing as to what happens to her.”
Hawke did, though. A great deal.
“The Erskine matter has died down, now that his daughter-in-law is distracted with Mr. de Lucey,” Victoria paced. “Through him, Mrs. Erskine is a touch closer to the aristocracy than We would like, but there is nothing to be gained by attempting to ruin the match. He does intend to make an honest woman out of her, does he not?”
“Once the formal mourning period for her father-in-law is concluded, I understand they have set a date for a wedding in April.”
This was the sort of picayune nonsense the Queen of England and Empress of India oughtn’t concern herself with, but did, when it came to matters of the aristocracy and their frequently immoral behavior. While Mr. de Lucey was not a lord, his eldest brother was the Earl de Lucey and therefore within the Queen’s self-appointed purview. She heaved a sigh.
“We suppose their temporary licentiousness can’t be helped. The lady is a widow, after all.”
She had no word of censure for the male half of the supposedly licentious couple.
“The couple is caught between dueling expectations for honoring family. They will undoubtedly make things right in due time. I presume Your Majesty has other business to discuss than the private amusements of adults?”
It was not a gentle nudge, and he earned himself a sharp glance in rebuke.
“You do presume too much, Hawke. A marriage is no amusement but a solemn act.” She paused. “And generally, a sad one.”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“I really think people marry far too much.”
She had slipped from the royalWetoI. He smiled inwardly. Almost fondly. For a woman who had been happily married herself, Victoria took a dim view of the institution.
“However, I understand that as a man approaches his middle years he often longs for domestic comforts. I therefore have decided to take the unusual step of elevating you to a knighthood.”
Hawke blinked. Rarely was he taken so off-guard.
“You are retiring me?” Putting him out to pasture like a broken nag? Shooting him like an old dog put out of its misery? He’d just turned thirty-seven. He had many years of service left in him.
Besides, what was he going to do with himself, if he couldn’t be a spy?
“I intend to relieve you of the more physically demanding aspects of your current role. You will be appointed to the Royal Victorian Order in recognition of your service. As few people know what you have done for me, we must spend the next several months setting the stage for your public honoring. These things tend to incite envy. I cannot abide the backstabbing.”
In other words, he was being put on notice. If he behaved himself, he would be rewarded with a title. Fat lot of good titles did anyone. He’d spent much of his adult life acting as Victoria’s eyes and ears in high Society. The aristocrats were no better, and were often worse, than the hoi polloi.
Especially the one Victoria had tasked him with keeping a close watch over. Prince Leopold.
“The knighthood comes with a baronetcy. You understand what that means, Hawke? Land. I have personally selected an estate for you in Essex.”
What in God’s name was he going to do with acreage? If he’d wanted to be a farmer, he would have stayed at home instead of joining the military as a youth.
That was how he had come to be appointed to Her Majesty’s personal guard, where he’d distinguished himself by thwarting a would-be assassin, a foreign diplomat. Had the man succeeded, the incident could easily have embroiled England in a ruinous war. For that reason, no one could ever know what happened. Hawke had kept this particular secret very well, but he was growing weary of carrying the accumulated weight of so many half-truths and burdensome knowledge.
