Almost a Lady (30 page)

He didn’t move, sensing that any physical approach would cross a most delicate line. “Love is not something that should influence such a decision, Meg,” he said. “If you would partner me in this, you must lose the ability to feel any emotion.”

“As you have done,” she stated with an ironic twist of her lips. “Yes, Cosimo, I understand that. If I am to seduce a man to his death, then I cannot feel anything. You had better tell me how this is to be managed.” Briskly she cast aside the covers and stood up. “You didn’t give me any details of your plans yesterday, but I’m assuming they’re honed to the finest detail.”

“They are,” he agreed. Hating her tone and yet knowing that it was the only one that would carry them through this alive and successful. He’d imposed it, he could only encourage it.

He regarded her in silence for a moment, and she stood still, waiting, her arms crossed almost defensively over her breasts. “You must understand,” he said slowly, thrusting his hands into the pockets of his britches, “that you will not be personally involved at the end. You will see nothing, it will be as if you had no part at all in the business.”

Her lip curled again. “Do you think I have to see the consequences in order to accept my part in them?”

He took his hands from his pockets, holding them palms out in surrender. “Some people might find it so. But I should have realized not you. All right, then let’s get down to the details.”

He tapped the forefinger of one hand into the palm of his other, his countenance almost expressionless, his eyes on Meg but not really seeing her. She guessed he was looking inward, seeing his plan laid out in his mind’s eye.

“You will set up your household as a rich widow, with a reputation that is a little on the shady side. We’ll maintain the fiction of the widowed Madame Giverny with her French-Scottish heritage, although to make it a little more interesting I think your late husband was a Swiss count with strong French connections. No one will be quite certain where your wealth came from, but there’ll be a little gossip, a hint of scandal, around you. Not enough to make you persona non grata, just enough to attract the attention of the men around Napoleon, which will in the end lead you directly to the man himself.”

“Where will you be?”

“Directing from the sidelines,” he said dryly. “As your majordomo, I shall go into Toulon ahead of you and hire the house, the staff, and of course set the rumors running ahead of your arrival.”

“Where am I to wait while you’re doing that?”

“There’s a small fishing community just outside Toulon. For a couple of days you’ll become Anatole again and stay there, out of the way until it’s time for you to make your grand entrance.” He saw her face and said swiftly, “It will only be two or three days before I come to fetch you.”

“And am I to allow this seduction to come to its logical conclusion?” she asked without expression.

“Absolutely not,”
he said with a vehemence that shocked him and sent Meg’s eyebrows into her scalp. He moderated his tone, explaining, “The game is what will draw him in. The longer you hold out, the deeper he’ll sink. In the end he’ll agree to any conditions you lay down, at which point you’ll propose an assignation, a discreet meeting in an out-of-the-way spot to which he must agree to come alone.”

Meg inclined her head in faint acknowledgment. “The honey trap,” she remarked. “The oldest trick in the book.”

“And also, with the right quarry, almost always successful,” Cosimo responded. “Napoleon is very susceptible to women, and he’s inordinately vain and arrogant. It would not occur to him that you might not be attracted to him, to his power; it would not occur to him to suspect a trap, just as he will not think twice about going unescorted to an assignation. He considers himself invincible.”

Meg nodded. “With good reason.”

“Yes,” Cosimo agreed aridly.

“But why are you certain he will find
me
attractive enough to seduce?”

Cosimo pulled at his chin. He would much rather not answer her, but the time for deception was past. He said, “Because on one occasion he was greatly attracted to Ana, and you resemble her, as I think I’ve mentioned before.”

“And Ana, of course, was to play the part for which all along I’ve been the understudy,” she stated, nodding again. “What a fool I’ve been.”

“Meg, I don’t know how to make this better,” he said helplessly.

“You can’t,” she retorted with more than a touch of scorn. “Of course you can’t. No one could. But I’ve said I’ll do it. I don’t want to discuss it anymore.” She stood up abruptly. “Are we leaving now?”

“It would make sense to ride before the sun’s heat sets in,” he said, his voice once more cool and even. “I’ll settle up with Madame and see to the horses.” He strode back into the inn.

Grimly Meg collected her belongings. Why had she made that declaration? She had flung her heart at him, and he had not responded with so much as the flicker of an eyelid. But then, had she expected him to? Realistically . . . when she’d only realized it herself such a short time ago? No, acknowledged it, she amended. She had known in her heart how she felt for much longer. But it didn’t matter anymore, nothing mattered anymore.

She went outside to where Cosimo stood with the horses. “They look refreshed,” she observed, sliding her valise into one of the packhorse’s panniers.

“They’ll manage a couple of hours,” Cosimo said. “We’ll get down to the coast in easy stages and then rest for the remainder of the day.” He cast her a sharply assessing look. “You don’t look as if you can manage much more than that yourself today.”

“I didn’t sleep well,” she said pointedly, taking the mare’s reins.

“No,” he agreed. “But from now on we need to take better care of you.”

Meg raised her head smartly. “There’s no
we
.”

His mouth thinned and when he spoke his voice was hard. “Meg, from this moment until this is over, there is only
we
. We are partners. We work in concert. Your concerns are mine and vice versa. Do you understand that? Because if you don’t, then it stops here.”

She met his gaze with a hardness of her own. She understood what he was saying. Their lives depended on this partnership. Wasn’t that why she’d agreed to join him? She would not abandon him if it meant his death. “Of course I understand.”

“Then let me help you mount.” He gave her a leg up into the saddle and she could feel now that he had withdrawn from her. His manner was cool, his voice level, and Meg welcomed the distance between them. Once she had agreed to this business arrangement there had never been any doubt but that Cosimo was the controller. He would make the plans, she would execute them. As he had said so insistently, there was no room for emotion in the business at hand.

Cosimo mounted his horse and took the reins of the packhorse. He glanced once at Meg, a look so brief she could not have read it if she’d tried. And at this point she wouldn’t have believed what lay behind it anyway. She could not have guessed at the need he felt to hold her, to kiss the worry from her brow, the coldness from her eyes, the strain from her mouth. She could not know how he ached to comfort her and give her strength, how hard it was for him to accept that she would take nothing from him.

However, he had no choice but to respect the barrier she had thrown up between them and keep his distance. All he could do was to make as certain as he possibly could that Meg came through the next two weeks unscathed. That was all the time they had for her to deliver Napoleon to the fatal rendezvous, and he could not afford to miscalculate a single step in the dance. Meg, unlike Ana, was inexperienced and would need close direction. Some of it she would have to improvise on her own but he wanted to be certain to keep her need for independent action to a minimum.

The following day they reached a tiny fishing village. Cosimo led the way to a cottage set a little back from the beach. He dismounted and rapped on the door. The young woman who opened it was strong-faced, her gaze straightforward, her brown hair braided into a long thick plait down her back. She wore a skirt, kilted up peasant-fashion to her calves, and a shirt with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows, revealing shapely, tanned arms whose muscular ripple indicated a familiarity with hard work.

Her face lit up when she saw Cosimo and she flung her arms around him, an excited stream of greeting issuing from her lips. She was a most attractive woman, Meg noted, remaining astride her mare during this meeting. It seemed that Cosimo certainly found her so, judging by the way he was returning the embrace. At last they broke apart and he turned to Meg.

“Meg, this is Lucille. She will look after you until I return.”

“How kind,” Meg murmured, dismounting. She bore the young woman no ill will; whatever relationship she might have had, or indeed still did have, with Cosimo was no concern of hers. She followed them both into the cottage.

Cosimo left soon after. He took Meg’s hands in a firm, warm clasp. “I’ll be back in three days at the most. Don’t leave the cottage, just concentrate on resting, and try to clear your mind of everything but what we have to do. Can you do that?”

“I can only try,” she said, letting her hands lie limply in his, so that he quickly released them.

“Meg, I—”

She interrupted him. “There’s nothing to be said, Cosimo. Just go. I want to get this over and done.”

He turned from her then and swung back onto his horse, taking the leading reins of the mare and the packhorse. He rode off without a backward glance and Meg turned back to the cottage.

He returned three days later, driving an elegant barouche drawn by a pair of matched bays.

Meg stared at him in disbelief. He was dressed in a coachman’s livery, sporting a bicorne hat on a steel-gray close-cropped head that made him look every inch the dignified upper servant. He jumped down and caught her look of stifled laughter. A slow grin spread across his face.

“What d’you think, madame? Do I look the part of majordomo?”

Meg tried to maintain her frigid formality but it was no good. She had told herself in the last couple of days that the hollow feeling she had, the sense of emptiness, was nothing to do with missing the man who’d been her constant companion for more than a month, but seeing him now made nonsense of such self-deception. She had missed him more than she would ever have believed possible in the circumstances, and now that familiar grin and the light in the sea-washed blue eyes were too much to resist. “Yes,” she said. “You do.”

“Good. Now we have to transform you, Anatole dear, into a rich, widowed countess.” He leaned into the barouche and lifted out a portmanteau. “A coiffeur will take care of your hair this evening, but you must make a most elegant entrance into Toulon.”

He carried the portmanteau into the cottage. “Where’s Lucille?”

“She went fishing with the men,” Meg said, following him. She liked her hostess, who had asked no questions, cheerfully attended to the chores around the cottage, and provided a completely undemanding companionship when they were together. Meg had found her restful and Cosimo’s name had never come up between them, not because of any awkwardness but rather as if in this short interlude he was irrelevant to them both.

“Then you’ll have to make do with me,” Cosimo stated, making his way to the back room where Meg had been sleeping. “Get out of those clothes.” It was a businesslike instruction and Meg took it as such.

He put the portmanteau on the bed and opened it up. He took out chemise, a silk petticoat, silk stockings with lace garters, a gown of green-and-rose-striped damask, dainty kid slippers, and a charming cream straw hat with ivory velvet ribbons.

Meg stripped off her Anatole guise. Her nakedness in front of Cosimo felt as natural as always, which still surprised her a little, until she realized that he didn’t even seem to notice, so intent was he on the matter at hand. He passed her the garments one at a time, a slight frown of concentration puckering his brow. He buttoned the gown at her back with brisk efficiency and then stood back to look at her.

“I did well,” he stated with satisfaction. “They could have been made for you.”

Meg thought of Ana’s wardrobe that had awaited Cosimo’s intended partner on the
Mary Rose
. Presumably the privateer had supplied that with the same accuracy as to fit that he’d managed with these garments for his new partner. The man obviously had a dressmaker’s eye, she thought sardonically.

“Do what you can with your hair.” He passed her a comb. “The hat will disguise its untidiness until Paul can get his hands on it.”

“Who’s Paul?” Meg pulled the comb through the unruly, uneven lengths of her hair.

“An excellent coiffeur. You have an appointment at six o’clock this evening. And tomorrow you’ll be ready to receive your first, one hopes, inquisitive visitors.” He passed her the straw hat.

There was a polished-tin mirror in the little room, offering a rather wavery reflection but Meg was used to it. She adjusted the angle of the brim, arranged a cluster of curls around her ears, and pronounced herself satisfied. It was astonishing how the simple headgear transformed a countenance that had seen a little too much sun for strict fashion in the last weeks. Her freckles, more prolific than usual, were thrown into the shade by the brim.

“Then, milady, we should be on our way,” Cosimo said, offering the deep bow of a servant. “If you please . . .” He opened the door for her and led the way to the barouche.

He put a restraining hand on her arm as she made to step into the carriage. “Just one thing,” he said quietly. “From now on, Meg, you take on your role. Once we’re on the road into the city, the only communication we can have must be that between mistress and servant.”

“I expect to enjoy that immensely,” Meg said, stepping into the barouche and seating herself. “By the way, what are you called, majordomo?”

“Charles,” he returned, closing the door. “But if you find it easier to remember the title of the job rather than a different name, address me simply as ‘majordomo,’ and if you can manage to be haughty enough—”