Heather and Velvet (6 page)

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Prudence rolled through the window at the end of the upstairs corridor, blessing the iron trellis and weighted window sashes her aunt had chosen during her perpetual remodeling. Prudence’s own window had been latched. She pulled off her shoes and tiptoed across the parquet floor. Clipped footsteps echoed on the polished wood. She looked around frantically. Not a doorway or alcove in sight. She pressed herself to the wall as if she might somehow disappear into the elaborate scrollwork. Old Fish, the aged butler, rounded the corner, sucking loudly on his sunken cheeks.

He passed her by without a second glance. “Good morning, Miss Prudence. Your aunt sent word that she was off to London for a fortnight. She trusts you to amuse yourself.”

Prudence stared after his rigid back, her eyes huge, then looked down. Her skirt hung in tatters around muddy, scratched ankles, and the buttons of her dress popped like springs from loose threads. A tangled wad of hair hung over one eye.

Her shoulders slumped. She had just had the most extraordinary adventure of her life and not one soul had even missed her.

She slipped into her small room, no longer bothering to muffle her footsteps. The terrible silence of the house closed in around her. She had freed her kitten to cavort in the walled herb garden, but now wished she had brought him up for company. Hoping a soothing bath would lift her spirits, she rang for a maid. The cozy confines of her tent-bed looked tempting, too. It would be simple enough to plead a headache and spend the rest of the afternoon there. Heaven knew her aunt did it often enough. But her aunt was not always alone when she did it.

At that thought, pain burst through Prudence, so intense it was almost physical. She turned too quickly, sweeping a porcelain figure of the goddess Diana from her dressing table. The figure shattered on the floor, leaving only the
jagged circle of a mouth to chide her for her uncharacteristic flare of temper.

Two maids dragged in the tin tub. They swept up Diana and took the clothes Prudence commanded they burn without betraying so much as a flicker of curiosity.

After her bath, Prudence donned a linen wrapper and sat at her dressing table. She dragged her hair away from her face in a severe chignon. Not a single damp tendril was allowed to escape. She anchored it at the nape of her neck, methodically shoving in the hairpins. Heavy hair, she thought. Impossible hair. It took powder poorly. It would not curl without scorching. How many times had her aunt suggested she chop it off and purchase a fashionable wig? If she refused, it was best that she wear it flat and close to her scalp so no one else would notice how impossible it was.

You don’t need poetry, Prudence. You are poetry
.

The husky burr haunted her. She dug her fingers into her forehead as if she could somehow stop its echo. The highwayman had buried his face in her impossible hair. His warm, sweet breath had stirred the heavy coils. He had looked deep into her eyes and asked if he could touch her. She jabbed another pin into her hair, relishing the distraction of the pain.

She opened a cherrywood box and drew out a pair of heavy spectacles, then perched them on her slender nose. Her father had taken time out from his inventing to fashion the pair for her.

Lifting her head, Prudence faced her reflection. The impetuous girl who had spent the night in a highwayman’s arms was gone. In her place was a plain woman whose features were too even to be given even the distinction of ugliness. Prudence Walker. Plain Prudence, dutiful daughter, sensible niece. Thick shells of glass hid her eyes. Even at eleven, she hadn’t the heart to explain to her papa that the blurred edges of life were sometimes kinder than clarity.

The mirror swam before her and her reflection turned as misty as gray eyes the color of sunlight on steel.

T
he leaded glass window distorted the world into sparkling diamonds of green. Sebastian heard the door behind him open and close. Before turning, he shifted his weight to disguise how heavily he leaned upon his cane.

The Persian carpet muffled D’Artan’s steps. He seated himself behind the walnut desk as Sebastian faced him. The older man leaned back in his chair and steepled his bony fingers beneath his chin. A cryptic smile touched his thin lips. He did not offer Sebastian a seat. The study was devoid of all but the desk and D’Artan’s thronelike chair. Sebastian knew what D’Artan was doing. He would maintain his enigmatic silence until Sebastian started to babble. Sebastian was determined not to give him that satisfaction. He clenched the gold-claw handle of his cane.

D’Artan, however, knew Sebastian as well, if not better, than Sebastian knew him. The faint twitch of Sebastian’s fingers only deepened his smile.

His mellifluous French poured over Sebastian as smoothly as his silvery cap of hair poured over his scalp. “Your wound? Does it trouble you?”

“No. It’s nearly healed.”

Sebastian was lying. Before a hard rain, the throbbing of his ankle could bring tears to his eyes. He still awoke trembling and sweat-drenched from nightmares of the sunny morning when Tiny had rebroken the bone. The opium Tiny had forced him to smoke had dulled the pain, but not the memory. Nor had it dimmed the memory of a girl’s voice, as soft and alluring as velvet crushed against the nap. Sebastian did not care to speak of that night. He did not want D’Artan’s sneer to sully it.

He tapped his cane on the carpet. “Quite an elegant retreat you have here.”

D’Artan crooked an eyebrow. “Lord Campbell was kind enough to grant me use of his country estate while he is residing in the city.”

“Still the darling of Edinburgh, are you? Playing upon Lord Campbell’s sympathies for the tragic French émigré fleeing the terrors of the revolution?”

“The British are notorious for their lack of imagination except when it comes to their own thick skins. They see in me their fate should the revolution cross the Channel.” D’Artan uncorked a decanter and poured two brimming hookers of Scotch. He handed one to Sebastian. “That’s one of the reasons I summoned you here. Lord Campbell’s admiration has finally culminated in something more substantial. I leave for London tomorrow for an appointment with the King. I’m to be elected to the British House of Commons and gifted with a tidy annual pension of five thousand pounds.”

Sebastian choked. The whisky seared his throat as he threw back his head and laughed. “Old George must be going daft again. How would the King and Lord Campbell react if they knew they were harboring not an émigré but a revolutionist, and that your tidy pension will be sent to Paris to buy gunpowder and guns?”

D’Artan shrugged. “No gunpowder. No revolution.”

“No revolution. No war with England. I doubt the King will be so hospitable when he finds his own country looking down the barrels of those guns.”

“The spread of the new order is inevitable.” D’Artan lifted his glass. “All for the glory of France.”

Sebastian hiked his own glass. “All for the glory of D’Artan. Just how high are your aspirations? Chief Citizen of Great Britain perhaps?” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand in an uncouth gesture he knew D’Artan would despise.

D’Artan drummed his long, tapered nails on the desk, eyeing Sebastian’s cane with distaste. “It was very unfortunate, this accident of yours. But not as unfortunate as the indiscretion that followed, eh? Your man spoke to me of a certain young mademoiselle.”

Damn Tiny anyway, Sebastian thought. He was as protective as a wolf bitch guarding her pups. He braced himself for the blow he sensed coming.

“Far be it for me to begrudge you your liaisons,” D’Artan continued, “but don’t you think it unwise to reveal your face to some gibbering little light-o’-love?” Reproach dusted his voice, but did not alter his expression. Sebastian had always thought D’Artan’s face was eerily unlined for a man his age. “Was it not you who told me the mask added the attraction of danger and immediacy to your … romantic interludes?”

Sebastian wondered if he had ever really said anything so callous. He must have been feeling smug after the Devony Blake encounter. “I did not choose to reveal myself. My mask fell away. As for the girl, she neither gibbered, nor was she my light-o’-love.”

D’Artan cleared his throat. “That’s even more unfortunate. You should have pressed your suit to make her so. A threat of scandal might have silenced her effectively.”

“I don’t recall rape being one of my duties.”

D’Artan shrugged as only the French could. “Why consider it a duty? Consider it a privilege of the position.”

Sebastian turned back to the window, needing a moment away from those steely eyes to steady his breathing. The dark oak paneling of the chamber absorbed both sunlight and air. He unlatched the window and shoved it open. A gentle breeze wafted in, bringing with it the scent of honeysuckle and the teasing warmth of a perfect summer
day. An unexpected edge of longing closed Sebastian’s throat.

He laid his fist on the windowsill. “If you are so well informed, then you must also know that the girl you speak of was blind.”

D’Artan gave a genteel snort. “A bit off the path from the usual pencil peddler, wasn’t she?”

Sebastian swung around. “The incident is over. I shall never see her again. What does she matter?”

“She doesn’t matter.” D’Artan pounded the desk, allowing Sebastian’s anger to fuel his own. “But you do. You matter to France and you matter to me. As Sebastian Kerr, you can gauge support for the new French government in the best circles of London and Edinburgh society.”

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that. I don’t suppose the tidbit I brought you about the Marquess of Dover’s speech
against
the National Assembly had anything to do with his unfortunate phaeton accident in the park.”

D’Artan shook his head sadly. “Such a pity about his legs. They say he may walk again someday. But I didn’t summon you here to discuss the Marquess’s heavy hand with his horses.” He rose and paced behind the desk, his hands locked at the small of his back. “I’ve indulged your little penchant for highway robbery thus far, but I won’t put my new position and the influence it will bring at risk. You’ve become far too cocky. You’re turning into a legend along the border! They’re composing ballads about the adventures of the dashing Highlander. Those mealymouthed English magistrates are beginning to envy you. Who do you think their wives dream of when—”

“Enough!” Sebastian roared.

D’Artan acknowledged Sebastian’s shift from French to English with a pained spasm of a smile.

“You’d take care to remember that my ‘little penchant for robbery’ filled your coffers with gold long before Lord Campbell would even grant you an audience. Who do you think has been paying for all those precious cannons and pistols you’ve been smuggling to France?” Sebastian’s burr deepened. “Forget the girl. She was dressed in fashions at least two years old. She’s probably some impoverished
squire’s sister. I doubt she travels in the same circles of society as I do.”

“You could be right,” D’Artan said with maddening calm. “However, there’s too much at risk now. If you are caught, it would take very little effort to trace your name to mine. Then all of my work would be for naught.” He sank back into his chair and shuffled the papers on his desk as if they had become of primary importance. “Before I return from London in August, I would like her dispatched. Something simple. A fall from a horse. A hunting accident. You know how to arrange such things.”

Sebastian turned and groped for the edge of the windowsill like a blind man. The trim green of the manicured lawn mocked him. Why were the gentry so determined to create a miniature England wherever they went, he wondered, to prune and smooth away all traces of the wilderness and majesty that was Scotland? He hungered for the snowy peaks of Ben Nevis, the wild heathered moors of Strathnaver.

A new resolve tautened his jaw. D’Artan didn’t know it, but by the time he returned from London, Sebastian would be trapped forever in a prison of such neatly bordered hedges and marble fountains. It would be a trap of his own choosing, though, and he would be free of men like D’Artan for the rest of his life.

Prudence’s words rang through his head in the dulcet tones of a chiding angel.
Robbery is a dangerous vocation. Hazardous for your soul as well as your neck
. Perhaps it was not too late to escape with a scrap of his soul, before he became the kind of man who would kill the light in amethyst eyes for the sake of greed and politics.

D’Artan rose and crossed to him. “If you decline to protect yourself, I shall be forced to send one of my other men to track her down. I don’t believe they have your high, but painless, rate of accuracy. I should hate for there to be a mess.”

Sebastian did not bother to hide the contempt in his voice. “That won’t be necessary. If my path should again cross the girl’s, which I don’t believe it will, I shall take care of the situation myself.”

D’Artan fondly slapped his shoulder. “Well done, lad. You are a credit to your French blood. Your mother would be proud of you.”

“I think not, Grandfather. I believe it is my father who would be proud of me.”