Lady Scandal (7 page)

The image followed at once—her and Paxten
lying in such a bed, the carriage rocking them in each other's
arms.
Heat rushed through her again in a frantic flush.
She did not
look at Paxten for fear he would see that image in her eyes, that
he would know where her thoughts of him had gone.

As they passed into the village, the
carriage began to slow.
Dogs chased out into the dirt road, barking
shrill, with more energy than real threat.

Suddenly, Alexandria wanted out of the
coach.
She wanted to stretch her legs and use whatever facilities
might be available.
It would be heaven to wash her face.
And she
wanted to be away from Paxten.
How could he start to dismantle all
her poise, all her defenses with a glance?
She could not allow
that.
She needed time to gather her wits.
A few moments to remind
herself that she was Lady Sandal—a respectable woman with a grown
son and far beyond the age of foolishness now.

Turning, she roused Diana with a shake.
"My
dear, do wake.
We shall stop for breakfast."

Eyes closed, Diana mumbled, "What?
What is
it?"

"It is dawn, and we are...I have no idea
where we are.
My dear, do wake."

Paxten's voice, low and
lazy, vibrated on Alexandria's skin.
"Leave
la fille
to slumber yet.
The sun will
still come up as it must."

Alexandria risked a glance at him and saw
that he no longer lay across the seat but sat straight, and he no
longer stared at her with that simmering intensity in his eyes.
His
expression seemed shuttered now, masked with a cynical weariness.
Or perhaps just fatigue.
She frowned.
He did look pale—too
pale.

As she watched him, his smile twisted and he
asked, "Shall I order food?
And rooms where you may wash and
change?
We must be miles from Paris, so a short rest can do no
harm.
But we shall have to make up some story to explain my
battered state."

"Perhaps a duel over another man's wife?"
Alexandria suggested, her tone dry.
His eyes narrowed a fraction,
and she caught her lower lip with her teeth.
So she had guessed
right—a woman had been involved.

Jealousy cut sharp through her, and she
fought it down, telling herself over and over that she had given
away any say in his life years ago.
But her sensible thoughts
seemed not to have any connection to her unreasonable feelings.

Paxten seemed not to notice her inner
turmoil.
He only crooked his mouth and said, "Ah, but how can I be
fighting duels when you are now Madam Marsett—oh, don't frown.
If
you do, you won't look like the dutiful and silent wife."

"Then I shall be the sister—the one who
disapproves of you." She turned from him.
"Diana, do wake please.
We must send one of the footmen back to see about Marie-Jeanne, to
ensure she is at least returned to Paris and her family."

Yawning, Diana sat up and pushed her bonnet
straight.
The carriage stopped, and Paxten muttered something.
He
hauled himself up and swung out the door.
He stood there, swaying
for a moment, before he let down the steps and offered one hand to
Diana, saying something in French.
Diana pinked as if flattered,
but she took his hand and stepped from the coach.

Alexandria frowned as Paxten held his hand
to her, his French so deliberate that even she could understand,
"Do you stay in the coach all day, my sweet sister."

He drawled the word
for
sister
so that
it came out a caress—
suhr
, it came out.
A soft endearment.
She struggled for some answer in French, gave it up and simply
glared.
But she gave him her hand.

His grip held more strength than she would
credit, and when she stood next to him, she glanced at him,
prepared to give him a curt thank you.
She forgot the words as she
glanced at him.

He looked more than exhausted.
Pale skin
pulled tight across high cheekbones.
A day's growth of beard
darkened his jaw, making him look disreputable and unfairly
handsome.
His gaze had become unfocused.
Worried, she touched a
gloved hand to his shoulder.

He glanced at her.
The breeze ruffled his
hair.
He muttered something in French and with black eyelashes
fluttering closed, fainted to the ground.

She grabbed for him, but only caught his
shirt, doing little to break his fall.
Going to her knees beside
him, she tore off her gloves to put a hand to his face.
"Paxten!
Paxten?"

His skin burned.
She wanted to kick him for
being so careless with himself.
She wanted to scold him for
terrifying her.
Instead, she put a shaking hand to her head and
struggled for something sensible to do.
A doctor.
She had told him
he needed a doctor.

Straightening, one hand
still on his chest, she called out, her words halting as she
struggled with the language, "
Ici, s'il
vous plaît!
J'ai besoin d'un médecin.
"

Would a village this small even have a
doctor?

Her words drew stares from the coach driver
and a dark-haired, portly man with an apron tied around his wide
middle and a tan vest open over a crisp, white shirt.
The portly
man—the innkeeper, she decided—said out something to a slack jaw
stable boy, cuffed the lad to get him moving and hurried
forward.

Between the coach driver and the
innkeeper, they managed to get Paxten into the inn, up the stairs
and onto a bed.
Alexandria followed them, biting on her lower lip
to keep back the flow of English words that she wanted to babble at
them.

I shall learn French after
this—or, better still, I shall remain in England where I
belong.

She understood enough of the innkeeper's
rough country dialect to grasp that he had sent the stable boy to
the next town over to fetch the nearest surgeon With Paxten
stretched out on a narrow bed in a small bedchamber tucked under
the roof eves, the landlord turned and urged her to leave.
She
grasped that he did not think it proper for her to be present as
they undressed Paxten.
She agreed.
Still, she hated to go, and from
the doorway, she paused to glance back.

Thankfully, Paxten wore his boots loose
enough that they slid off with no more than a gentle pull from the
coachman.
The bloodstained shirt came off even more easily, sliding
off his limp body as the landlord held him up in the bed and the
coachman dragged off the ruined garment.
Paxten's head angled to
the side as the landlord held him.

Alexandria's heart tightened.

Hard enough to live in a world in which she
could not see his face every day.
Impossible to imagine one in
which he did not exist.

She gripped the
doorjamb.
I must stop making this into so
much—it is only that he has lost so much blood.
But her fingers tingled with a reminder of how hot his skin
had been.
Bertram had died of such a fever after his shooting
accident.

She shut the memory away.

The landlord laid Paxten's unconscious form
down again and the coachman started to undo the buttons to Paxten's
breeches.
Alexandria fled.

At the bottom of the stairs she stopped
again, to think, to try to plan.
She could not imagine that Paxten
might continue on with them today.
Perhaps not even for a few more
days.
And that put them all in danger.
Still, what choice did she
have now?

But this was not her decision alone, she
knew.

Diana came in a moment later, smiling
brightly.
"I sent Armand back to Paris—oh, I ought to speak French
only, but...what is it?
What is wrong?"

Catching her niece's hand,
Alexandria led the girl into a small parlor.
Like the rest of the
inn she had seen so far, the woodwork gleamed with polish as did
the few pieces of simple furnishings.
White curtains framed a
window that overlooked the front of the inn, and wildflowers,
tucked into a blue pottery jug on a table, splashed color into the
room.
Absurd to notice such details now.
But it calmed her to list
them in her mind.

Sitting down on a wooden settee that stood next to
the unlit hearth, she tugged on Diana's hand so that her niece sat
beside her.

I must be rational about
this.
Only how did one turn jumbled fears
into any kind of sensible order?

Wetting her lips, she started to explain.
"Paxten—Mr.
Marsett, he fainted.
Bother!
That makes it sound as if
he is a London miss at a first ball—he is upstairs, unconscious.
And burning with fever.
I...my dear, I cannot leave him like this.
Not until I know if he will...."

She choked off the words.
She could not say
them.
Could not give any possible reality to something she did not
want to happen.

Diana frowned, her smooth forehead now
bunched tight, the dark arches of her eyebrows tugged flat.
"Of
course we cannot leave."

"No, you must go on.
Your safety—"

"Is your responsibility.
Yes, yes, I know.
I
certainly heard you promise Father too many times how you would
look after me on this trip.
But if you send me on alone that is
hardly looking after me, now is it?
And if you try to, I shall
simply not go.
I could not leave you—or Mr.
Marsett, for that
matter."

Folding her hands on her lap, Diana stared
at her aunt.

Absurd, really, how everyone thought that
blond curls, a pretty face, and only seventeen years in this world
meant a lack of sense.
She wrinkled her nose.
Her own fault,
probably, for being lazy enough to always take the easiest course.
Which meant being a dutiful daughter, and niece, and...and, oh, she
was not about to be sheltered from what might be the only real
adventure of her life.

Her aunt had on her steely gaze—gray eyes
flat, lips pressed tight, slight frown wrinkling her forehead.
Diana lifted her chin.
She could withstand her aunt's glare, for
she knew how deep an affection lay behind it.

Rising, her aunt paced across the room.
"No,
I suppose I cannot send you off on your own.
But I cannot risk you.
Only if we leave Mr.
Marsett—"

"Leave him?" Diana leapt up.
"As you just
said, we cannot leave the poor man here with...with strangers.
I
mean—" She bit her lower lip.
She must have a care.
She had felt
the tension between Mr.
Marsett and her aunt.
She had also heard a
good deal in what they had not said to each other.
And she was not
about to see her aunt abandon such an intriguing man.

Of course, it would be sensible to do so,
but being sensible never got one into any exploits.

"If you left him, you would never forgive
yourself.
Nor could I—forgive myself, that is, for I could not
blame you if you were thinking first of me.
But if you are thinking
of me, then think of how it would scar my young soul to abandon
someone who is obviously quite well known to you—"

"Years ago, I knew him.
No longer."

"Still, that must count, must it not?
Even
if he were a stranger, we still could not abandon him.
That would
be heartless.
There is the story of the Good Samaritan, after all,
to serve as our example."

"As I recall, Samaritan was not attempting
to flee a hostile country."

Diana caught her aunt's hand.
"But you know
I am right.
Besides, we are well out of Paris.
And we could use a
rest, could we not?
Why not stop just for a day?"

Shaking her head, Alexandria knew she was
being persuaded.
They ought to leave.
She could give the landlord
enough money to ensure Paxten's care.
But what if the landlord did
not use the funds for a doctor's attendance?
Or what if Paxten did
not recover rapidly enough to avoid capture by the soldiers who
sought him?

Bother the man!
The world always became more
tangled with him nearby.

She glanced at her niece again, but she had
to admit that she wanted to lose this argument.
She did not want to
leave him—not without knowing he would recover from his
injuries.

"We cannot stay too long.
I will not
jeopardize your safety for his."

Diana smiled.
"I doubt you will have to,
dear.
Now, shall I order us breakfast, and let us do get our things
in, for I vow I am sick enough of being in this dress that I could
burn it."

#

"You found a half-naked woman where?"
Captain Taliaris stared hard at his lieutenant.
Taliaris stood with
his hands folded behind his back and his cloak wrapped around him
against the dawn chill.
Behind him, the east sky brightened to
pink, but the sun had yet to inch up over the trees and the low
roofs of the village cottages.
Pale light washed across Lieutenant
Paulin's narrow face, giving the man a gaunt, gloomy look.

Taliaris frowned.

They ought to have Marsett by now.
Had the
man remained in Paris?
But where?
His rooms had been searched, as
had his other known haunts.
Which left another answer—Marsett had
somehow slipped through the noose set for him.

Taliaris's frown tightened his mouth.
He did
not like mistakes, least of all those he had made.
Mistakes cost
lives—and careers.
Wars could be lost.
But it seemed as if he had
miscalculated Marsett's cunning this time.
He would not do so
again.

Paulin kept himself at rigid attention, as
if uncertain of his commander's temper and unwilling to earn
himself any rebuke.
He took his time with his answer.
Taliaris
allowed his mouth to relax.
He had at least taught his lieutenant
to think before acting.
Or speaking.

"Where is not so important, captain.
But
this was." The lieutenant held out a gentleman's blue coat,
wrinkled and stained.
"She had it on over her chemise."

Taliaris lifted one eyebrow as he glimpsed
the dark brown stains on the right side of the coat.
Bloodstains.
Well, the general's guards had sworn they had hit their target last
night.

Taking the coat, Taliaris searched the
pockets sewn into the tails.
Paulin would have done so as well, but
Taliaris repeated the effort.
He tore the silk lining from the
coat, just in case something lay hidden.
He found nothing.
Nothing
to show this coat might have been Marsett's.

Paulin hurried on, his voice reedy.
"I would
have brought her to you to question, sir, but mostly she cries.
And
I think she gave us already all she knows.
She is a maid."

Tossing the coat into the dirt, Taliaris
glanced up the road to Paris.
In the distance, smoke from the
city's chimneys made a faint haze in the pale sky.
Mists lay low on
the green pastures around the village.
Church bells rang nearby, a
reminder that it was Sunday.

Taliaris glanced at Paulin.
"And the women
in the coach?"

"Lady Sandal and her niece.
We got that much
from her.
And her name—Marie-Jeanne Toulon.
A man took her dress
and left her his coat.
She thinks when her mistress discovers this,
she will come back for her."

"Did she describe the man?"

"It was dark.
She could not see, other than
that he frightened her.
But when he spoke, he seemed a
gentleman—until he made her give up her clothes."

Taliaris's mouth pulled down.
"Lucky enough
for her that he did not force her into more." Turning away from
Paris, Taliaris glanced in the opposite direction.

The narrow lane wound into woods, with deep
grooves worn into the mud by passing carriages.
How many miles had
Marsett managed before the Englishwomen learned that he was not
their maid?
Ten miles?
A hundred?
And in what direction?
North
still?
Or had they turned east?
Or west?

He wanted to curse his own gallantry.
He
ought to have sent those Englishwomen back to Paris, but he had
thought the ladies a distraction.
And—to be ruthlessly truthful—he
had allowed a pair of blue eyes to beguile him.