GREEN
"Mrs. Darcy, you are looking exceedingly handsome tonight."
"As are you, Mr. Darcy."
Mr. and Mrs. Darcy always faced each other when in company. Those assigned to – not 'spy' exactly, but something very much like it – assumed that it was because they were so recently wed, and thus more inclined to look at each other than say, a couple married for a decade. They rarely stood side-by-side when conversing in company. Their observers usually made the obvious conclusion that Mrs. Darcy was uncommonly handsome, and Mr. Darcy, no slouch either, so it all made perfect sense that they would like to enjoy the sight of each other within the first year of marriage.
In truth, Mr. Darcy found the idea of looking at Mrs. Caroline Darcy to be an activity with much to recommend it, and Mrs. Darcy had no real cause to repine about the looks of Mr. Noah Darcy either. However, their mutual interests were mostly practical. When facing each other, each participant had a half-circle field of view, so nobody could sneak up on them to overhear their conversation.
Early in the month that they had thus far spent in the high society of Paris, Mr. Darcy had learned that Mrs. Darcy's boast about being far more effective in a drawing room or ballroom than he was, to be entirely vindicated. On their very first foray into a salon, Caroline had shown him two signals she would use to tell him to keep his eyes and ears open, while keeping his mouth shut. She employed it ten minutes into their first visit, and it was not until a half-hour later she explained that she had been in such rooms many-many times, and could tell the spots where the acoustics would allow listening from farther away than you might expect, and even from places out of sight. She neglected to mention that she may have been the eavesdropper more often than the eavesdroppee, assuming he could work that out for himself. After that, Mr. Darcy accepted the conventional wisdom that it was always sensible to listen to his wife, whether she was his actual wife or not.
True to their backgrounds, and the commonplace expectations, Mrs. Darcy was about twice as effective at getting gossip out of the nobility as Mr. Darcy. He occasionally complained that it was only because men did not gossip enough, to which she invariably replied that he sounded exactly the same as every fisherman she had ever seen with an empty creel (an observation that never failed to raise a chuckle).
They seemed about evenly matched in gathering intelligence from servants, and obviously Mr. Darcy was far more effective with grooms, tradesmen, and the sorts of men that Mrs. Darcy was not supposed to even know existed. They had very magnanimously hired a French maid and valet, both highly recommended by Baker's contacts for the purposes of espionage. Both assumed the Darcys were simply very interested in society, and happily relayed every interesting morsel they encountered.
Over the course of a month, they had learned any number of weaknesses in French society that could be very useful if they were generals in the British Army, but little of very much use in their actual quest. They both idly wondered from time to time why the British did not employ such spies as themselves, since it was so blisteringly easy to do; but other than that, both were quite willing to leave it a mystery. Baker opined that his experience with the army indicated that they only won as often as they did because, on average, the opposing armies were even worse.
The first fortnight, the couple had spent learning who was who and what was what in French society, setting up their temporary 'household' and the like.
They learned that Napoleon had set up a new peerage system that was supposed to merge what was left of the old aristocracy that was still useful to the emperor, with newly ennobled gentry who were more directly his vassals. He had, as many kings and emperors before him, come to the conclusion that he could buy a great deal of loyalty for a relatively minor dent on his state treasure, for the obvious reason that most of the wealth of the newly minted nobles mostly came from other people, namely their vassals and tenants.
They learned that well over half of the new noblemen consisted of soldiers, so it seemed like their task was workable enough. A soldier who had not been raised in the nobility would have no real idea how to deal with society. Caroline imagined that if they had the English sense of propriety, most of the newly minted single soldiers would not have lasted a fortnight before being entrapped in marriage. Their only saving grace was that they were in France, where something like the compromise that entrapped Elizabeth Darcy into marriage would not even have raised an eyebrow.
The second fortnight was spent alternately attending balls, musicals, operas, plays and all the other ways the gentry employed to fill up their lives. The present ball, at the home of newly minted general turned count was in full swing when the Darcys came together in the middle of the ballroom, to begin the conversation.
Caroline looked around carefully, trusting her 'husband' to watch her back. "I believe I may be onto something. I just danced with the Duke of Valmy. He is a fascinating man, a very successful soldier in their revolution, although he seems to be mostly retired from soldiering these days."
Darcy thought a moment. "Yes, I believe I heard about him. Napoleon calls him one of the boldest generals that ever lived. Very important in the first revolution. I would very much like to spend a week talking to him. I suspect it would be fascinating"
"Perhaps, some day after the war is over it will be possible. He introduced me to one of his lieutenants who is here mostly to brief him about how preparations are going for their absolutely secret invasion of the East that everyone knows about anyway."
"Interesting - pray continue."
"I mentioned our Major Boucher to him and got a rather violent reaction. He is too much of a gentleman to tell me his cause for alarm, but he did tell me some French euphemism that I believe means 'watch my back' around the man. It seems, the major is not married, but not a monk either."
"Hardly surprising, but not shocking."
"I did not want to press the lieutenant too hard, as he was slightly nervous gossiping with a woman, I believe. The lieutenant has taken advantage of the benefits of marriage, but his wife is not here, so I believe he means to step lightly."
Noah nodded, saying, "That seems sensible. Perhaps he might be more voluble with me?"
"That seems likely. Come along, and I will introduce you."
Noah extended his arm, and Caroline took it, quite comfortably as it turned out. She felt as if she had spent most of her life as something like the figurehead on a ship. There she was, stuck out in front of the ship itself, separate from the passenger and crew, with more of herself exposed than was good for her, but more importantly, only able to see forward. She had spent her whole life striving and yearning for the next thing. She was always working for the next accomplishment, the next ball, the next party, the next acquaintance who could help advance her cause of getting to the next level of society. She never had taken the time to look around and really live in the present, and the past had always been something best forgotten as quickly as possible.
Her foray into French society forced her to concentrate on the here and now like nothing ever had. While it was truer than ever that she was striving for the next accomplishment, which in this case was securing the repatriation of Colonel Fitzwilliam, she could not afford to ignore the present. Any lapse, any slip, any deviation might spell doom for herself as well as her faux husband, and certainly would not be good for the Colonel.
With a start, about a fortnight into her journey, she had snapped awake in the middle of the night with an epiphany. She had never been responsible for a single thing of importance in her life – never. She had been instructed to learn all the usual accomplishments, to strive for social advancement, to bring honor to the family, to raise their consequence and so forth, but she had never been responsible for anything. She was simply following along where others told her to go, and the worst outcome imaginable from a slip might be some embarrassment. Now, she was at least partially responsible for at least two lives, and possibly three. She finally understood why Mrs. Darcy had gone through with her wedding. Being involved in the downfall of her sisters was one thing – being complicit or responsible was something else entirely. It was a heady feeling, and she was bound to enjoy it all while she could.
Mr. Darcy had become accustomed to Mrs. Darcy's occasional lapses into introspection. He enjoyed the fact that he was not only allowed to call her 'Caroline', but expected to. Like any red-blooded man, he enjoyed the fact that he was allowed to traipse all over Paris with a beautiful woman – who wouldn't. That said, he was beginning to look beyond her beauty and social status; and he quite liked what he found beneath it all. He felt like there was some real substance there, that was typically hidden by her manners, her dress, and her demeanor. He felt privileged to be able to experience it; and he thought that she would certainly be the first woman he had ever regretted seeing the last of when their mission was over.
With a smile, he noticed when her momentary reverie ended, and was gratified when she simply returned his smile without artifice. She knew she had been momentarily woolgathering, and she knew he knew. She had trusted him to give her a moment of safe respite in the middle of this ball, and she appreciated the fact that she could depend on him to look out for their mutual safety and interest.
With a smile, they faced the same direction, she took his arm, and they went over to make the formidable introduction.
"I think I may have learned something useful from your lieutenant," said Mr. Darcy in the privacy of their bedchamber.
Over the previous week, the Darcys had found that the easiest way to speak privately in any depth without suspicion in a house full of servants was to follow the simple expedient of conversing in one of their chambers. Caroline had been the first to suggest it, when they were almost caught in a highly confidential discussion by an overly industrious (or overly curious, or overly employed) maid.
The suggestion had been met with extreme skepticism, but when Caroline explained that they were each trusting the other with their lives and their reputations, it was hardly a stretch to expand it to include trusting each other with their virtue. As befitted their station in life, their bedchambers were each bigger than many drawing rooms, and their bedclothes were more modest than their ball clothes. Aside from all that, there was also the old saw about 'when in Rome, do as the Romans do', and the French were far less finicky about such matters than the British were. Putting all that together, the lady found herself perfectly comfortable with the idea of meeting him in their chambers – at least in the abstract.
Caroline Bingley had never really trusted a single person in her life, and that included her parents and both of her siblings. Finding that she trusted Mr. Baker's discipline to protect her virtue was surprising, but not in the way she expected to be surprised. The surprising part was that it not difficult to extend the man her full trust. It felt right. It felt natural. It was much the same as she had found with the real Mrs. Darcy. Some people were just trustworthy.
What was difficult on the other hand, was finding that she had to exercise her own discipline, because her 'husband' was in fact, quite a handsome man. She had never felt the slightest pangs for any man. She had thought of marriage as closer to a business arrangement than a personal one, but after talking to Mrs. Darcy, and especially after spending a few weeks in close contact with Mr. Baker, she was not entirely certain.
Fortunately, nothing the slightest bit improper had been done, or even said, or even hinted at; but she wondered if the man was as tempted as she was. She wondered it quite aggressively, but she was afraid to ask.
Instead, she said, "What do you have?"
"I got a hint of a lead, something we might wish to follow to see if it amounts to anything. The lieutenant is looking to his own position as well. There seems to be some ambiguity about whether knowing a high-ranking Englishman is to his benefit or not. The French are striving for connections just like the English are, so I believe he is feeling us out to see if we are useful or harmful."
Caroline scoffed. "That is despicable – using recent foreign acquaintances for his own narrow-minded purposes."
Baker laughed along with her. "Yes, despicable indeed. I can barely manage to tolerate a man of such low moral character. Next thing we know, we might find out he is a liar and a cheat."
"Or worse yet, not even who he says he is!"
They both laughed heartily. To keep the illusion complete and make sure prying ears were far away during their tête-à-têtes, they had their maid and valet prepare them for sleep in the usual way, and then went through the connecting door of their suite whenever a conference was called for. In the fortnight they had been employing the stratagem, the frequency of their meetings had been gradually increasing, even though there were a lot of hours in the day when they could have met safely in the library or drawing room. Caroline was reluctant to dig into the whys and wherefores of that habit, because, in the end, she was unwilling to try to work out why she did not question it very much. She found herself entirely too comfortable with Mr. Baker's company.
Once they had stopped laughing at their own folly, Baker said, "He invited us to visit him and his wife. They live on his father's estate, just outside Versailles. I think it might be worth going along for a few days to see if we can sniff out anything useful. There is certainly no love lost between him and Colonel Bouchard – that is certain."
"It sounds interesting. I feel like we are making little headway here."
"He leaves the day after tomorrow and is hosting a house party for a few days. I suggest we go along."
Caroline thought about what they had learned so far, and the lines of inquiry she had been working. None seemed as promising as the young lieutenant. After thinking about it for some time, she agreed.
Baker liked the fact that Caroline did not agree with everything he said (he had to ruefully admit that three-quarters made for a good day), and she thought about what she said before she said it. He had originally wondered if she would grow into the job, and it was certain that she had.
With a smile, they both got up from the couch they had been sharing in her bedroom. "Well then, good night, madam."
"Good night."
Feeling quite bold, he took her hand and bestowed it with a gentlemanly kiss, and then retired to his own chamber.
