Patricia Veryan - [Sanguinet Saga 06] - The Noblest Frailty (18 page)

"Nectar of the Gods!" sighed Devenish. He stood and reached
down to help her up. "We've still far to go. Are you tired? We've come
a long way today."

"I be a better walker'n you," she said pertly. "Though you're
padding better'n what you did last night. Has you got blisters? Them
boots is pretty, but they don't look like walkers."

Devenish peered ruefully at his top boots. "They're not. But I
shall do, never fear.
En avant, mon enfant
!"

"
Tres bien, monsieur
," giggled Josie.

Devenish, who had been about to explain what he'd said, caught
her skinny shoulder and pulled her to a halt. "
What
,"
he breathed, "did you say?"

"Nothing bad! Not nothing bad, sir! Oh, don't be cross again!
You was talking French, wasn't you?"

"Why—yes. Do you know what I said? What it means?"

"It means 'let's go on' or something, don't it?"

Marvelling, he released his hold and nodded. "What did you
answer? In English, that is."

"Very well, sir." He didn't seem cross. Reassured, she tilted
her head to one side and watched him curiously. "Why? Does you hate all
Frogs, like Akim and Benjo does?"

Starting on again, but still regarding her askance, he said,
"Gad, no. I merely wonder, my small conundrum, how it is that your
English is appalling, yet you know French. Where did you learn it?"

"Don't remember." Her brow wrinkled, but at length she
concluded, "Prob'ly heered a body say it. And my English ain't—what you
said. I speak good. Even Akim and—"

"I know. Akim and Benjo. But I doubt they are authorities,
elf. We must improve your grammar are you to obtain suitable
employment."

She stared at him. "But—she's dead. And even if she wasn't, I
don't see why you'd want to mess about with
her
to get me a sittyation."

At first puzzled, Devenish eventually comprehended. "
Grammar
,
Josie," he explained laughingly. "It means your use—or misuse—of
English."

"Oh." She flushed scarlet. "All right. Go on, then."

"Me? Good God, no! I do not excel in that line myself. But
when we reach Tewkesbury—"

"Tomorrow," she inserted, pulling a face.

"Oh, no. I think we can do better than that. If a carter
chances by, I shall bribe him into taking on two paying customers."

Josie looked regretfully at his jacket, now bereft of two of
its three handsome silver buttons. "You shouldn't have let that tinker
gull you out of both them pretty buttons for his bread and cheese. He
likely thought you was a proper pigeon for milking. And 'sides, carters
isn't s'posed to give rides."

"Listen to Miss Prim." He grinned. "I doubt your sensibilities
will be offended, however, for this road seems to attract very little
traffic. Still, if one ventures this way I mean to try him, for I'm in
a hurry, Miss Josie. I must get myself hooves or wheels—preferably
both—as soon as may be."

The child smiled but said nothing, and Devenish's concern
returned to his adored Yolande. Whatever must she have thought of his
absence? In view of their earlier disagreement and his confounded
temper, it was all too likely she supposed him to have ridden off in a
huff. He scowled and thrust his hands deeper into his pockets, and the
threat of James Garvey heightened his worries so that he did not notice
that the afternoon was growing colder and the skies becoming heavy with
clouds. Not until a gust of wind cut chillingly through his fine linen
shirt was he recalled to the present. He glanced down and saw the
child's head bowed, and her feet scuffing wearily at the damp surface
of the lane. Contrite, he exclaimed, "What a clod I am!" and dropped to
one knee, reaching back invitingly. "Come aboard, madam."

She looked at his shoulders with longing. "No. Thankee, but
you'm tired. And your feet hurt, too. I can tell."

"Nonsense," he lied. "You, m'dear, are in the company of a
former military man. Why, when I was in the army we used to tramp about
all day long—sometimes half the night—just to keep our Colonel amused.
This is nothing. Come now—-don't dawdle about!"

He waved his arms imperatively, and with a giggle she ran to
clamber onto his back. He stood, his arms cradling her bony legs. She
was heavy as a bushel of feathers, poor mite. "Gad!" he groaned. "What
a lump!"

She laughed and said gratefully, "Oh, this is such fun, and I
be warmer already!"

Devenish warned, "You realize, m'dear, that I shall want my
own turn at piggyback?"

Another merry little laugh greeted this sally, but she pointed
out that he was not going so fast with her on his back.

"Remorseless taskmaster!" He broke into a ran, but soon had to
slow again.

After a little while, Josie asked, "Be she pretty, your lady?"

"Very pretty."

"Is that why you want to marriage her?"

He smiled, Yolande's vivid loveliness very clear before his
eyes. "Not entirely. I've wanted her for my wife for as long as I can
remember. She is kind as well as pretty. And she has a happy nature and
a quick, merry laugh. She is generous and charming, and—oh, all the
things a man wants in the lady he marries."

"Oh." A thoughtful pause, and then, "Mr. Dev, why does some
gents have wifes and some have—"

He said hastily, "It's—er, all according to—ah— Well, a
gentleman usually—"

He was reprieved from this quagmire as they came around a bend
in the lane and Josie interrupted in a scared voice, "Mr. Dev, what are
those people doing?"

A burst of shouting broke from a group of burly men engaged in
dragging a struggling individual across the field a short distance
ahead. Devenish halted and moved into the shade of the hedge. They
looked a rough lot and he'd no wish for the child to witness a brawl. A
roar of laughter arose and, with it, the body of their victim, soaring
into the air to fall heavily onto the muddy lane.

"The deuce!" exclaimed Devenish.

A bullet head appeared over the top of the hedge as the
unfortunate sprawling in the dirt commenced a feeble attempt to rise.
"That'll do fer'ee," quoth the farmer, grinning from ear to ear. "Next
time as ye fix fer to trespass in some 'un's shed, ye best ask
perlite-like, fust!" And to the accompaniment of another roar of
laughter, his head was withdrawn and the loud voices began to diminish.

"Oh, the poor cove!" cried Josie pityingly. She slid from
Devenish's hold and scampered along the lane, her ragged breeches
flapping.

Following, Devenish quickened his pace as the man in the road
turned on his side, got one elbow under him, and lifted a
blood-streaked fair head.

"Well I'll be—Tyndale!" said Devenish.

"Give us your hanky, Mr. Dev," Josie demanded, kneeling beside
the victim and extending an imperious hand. Receiving this grubby
article, she began to wipe carefully at Tyndale's battered features.

Her patient managed to sit up, and leaning back on both hands
peered blurrily at her. "Dev… ?" he said, bewildered.

"Over here, you clunch." Devenish bent over him. "Lord, what a
mess! Did they run the cows over you?" And, as Josie gently parted his
cousin's thick hair, he added, "The devil! Who did that?"

"An admirer… in the hotel stable. I thought perhaps you…"
Tyndale flinched back from Josie's busy hands.

"You would, blast you!" snapped Devenish, considerably irked,
and forgetting that he had cherished the same suspicion of his kinsman.

"Try not to wriggle, please, sir," said Josie. "There's a
perishing great splinter here."

An amused gleam lit Tyndale's strained eyes, but Devenish
groaned, "Josie! For heaven's sake, child, you must not use such terms."

She bit her lip and threw him an anguished look.

Tyndale asked, rather faintly, "Who is my small angel of
mercy?"

Josie gave a quick, firm tug, and a little whimper of
sympathy. Tyndale's eyes became slightly glassy, and a whiteness under
his eyes intensified, but he made no sound.

"You'm brave," she told him, touching his cheek gently. "And
I'm new today. I was Tabby, but now I be Josie Storm. When I grows up I
going to be Mr. Dev's—"

"Abigail!" yelped Devenish, and then fumed. "And remove that
damned smirk from your face, or I'll shove this hunk of wood back in
your thick skull! Josie is going to be
trained
for an abigail is what I mean!"

"You should not swear," scolded the "angel of mercy."

"And if I had a friend what was so big and strong and brave, I
wouldn't shout at him like what you does."

Devenish scowled. "He ain't a friend. He's my cousin."

"Cousin! I thought relayatives liked one another." She added,
"I never had no cousins or nothing."

Devenish stared at her small, wistful face, flashed an
uncomfortable look at the grinning Tyndale, and had the grace to
redden. "Enjoy your gloating," he granted. "That's not going to stop,
Josie. Give me the handkerchief."

She turned away, holding it apart. "
I
know how!" she declared loftily. "I done it for Akim's mort when he hit
her with a gin bottle."

"Did you, my God!" Impressed, Tyndale lowered his head so that
she might more easily perform her task.

She folded the handkerchief, by now considerably the worse for
wear, into a diagonal strip, tied it around his brow, then inspected
her handiwork critically. "It ain't high enough," she admitted, "but at
least it will keep the bleedings out of your eyes."

Tyndale assured her that it was splendid, and thanked her for
her efforts. Devenish slipped a hand under his arm. "Can you stand?
Good man. Up with you."

Tyndale swayed, but the rain was beginning to come down now,
the air was chill, and Devenish's supporting arm enabled him to remain
upright until the dizziness passed.

"He should rest," said Josie, indignantly.

"No—thank you, Miss Josie, but—I shall go on nicely," Tyndale
gasped.

And so on they went.

The rain proved of short duration. The wind blew the clouds
apart and, unexpectedly, the lowering sun shone benignly upon the odd
little trio, the two battered young men, and the child, tattered and
dirty but, after the fashion of youth, now skipping merrily beside her
new friends, her weariness forgotten.

As Devenish expected, his questioning elicited the information
that Tyndale's capture had been accomplished shortly after his own, the
main difference being that his cousin had been more crudely struck
down. "I rather fancy," he growled, "that they had only enough of that
revolting ether for me."

"Likely you're right." Tyndale said slowly, "They seem to have
gone to no little pains to separate us. I wonder why."

"Perhaps they wanted us to be further delayed in searching for
one another. They wasn't to know we—er, would not give a hoot."

Tyndale was briefly silent. "I didn't mean quite that. I
collect you fancy Garvey was behind it?"

"I don't
fancy
, cousin! I know da—er,
dashed well he was!"

"But—why? Do you think he was that desperately smitten with
Yolande?"

"Well, I'd like to know why the devil he would not be! Yolande
is—Yolande!"

"I'll not argue that point. But did you not mention that he
was, until recently, deep in love with another lady?"

"The Van Lindsay. An accredited Toast. What I may have failed
to mention is that rumour has it he's under the hatches."

Tyndale stiffened. "And the Van Lindsay was an heiress? I
understood you to say the family was in Dun territory."

"True. But there is a grandmama who's as full of lettuce as
she is full of years, and who dotes on the girl." His eyes grim,
Devenish growled, "That hound lost her, so now pursues a lady of
greater fortune! There's no knowing how desperate he may be, but he
travels with an expensive set; Carlton House, no less! And if he does
mean to snare Yolande, I pose a double threat. Not only am I known to
be betrothed to the lady, but I could tell her much that Garvey would
prefer she remain unaware of."

Tyndale nodded. "It is motive enough, and yet—I still cannot
fathom the attacks upon us. At most, Garvey will only buy himself a few
days in which to ingratiate himself. He surely realizes you will rumble
him, and will tell Yolande when—" He broke off. "By Jupiter! You never
think…"

"That we were supposed to have been dished?" Devenish gave a
cynical snort. "I'd not put it past the rogue!" He lengthened his pace.
"Now perhaps you can appreciate why I am so anxious to come up with
them! Can you walk a shade faster, cousin? I appreciate you ain't in
the habit of marching, but—"

It was as much as Tyndale could do to set one foot before the
other, to conceal which, he said laughingly, "Not like you dashing Hyde
Park soldiers, eh?"

The more infuriated because it was truth, Devenish whirled to
face him. "Now, damn your impudence, I'd like to know what
you
did that was so blasted much more useful."

Tyndale shrugged. "Not my war, cousin."

"No," gritted Devenish, contemptuously. "And I can well
believe that even if it had been, you'd not risk your precious hide to—"

Slipping between them, her pointed little face set into a
daunting frown, Josie demanded, "Why don't you both dub your mummers!
Blessed if ever I see such a pair of shagbags!" She glared up at
Devenish, whose face was a study in disbelief. "You ain't no better
than a windy wallets, and he—" She turned about to fix angry eyes on
the startled Tyndale. "He's too top lofty to admit he's in queer
stirrups!"

Tyndale laughed unsteadily, but staggered even as he laughed.
Jumping to steady him, Devenish fumed, "And you, my girl, should have
your mouth washed out! Dammit, Tyndale—if you cannot walk, why in the
deuce did you not say so?"

"Can…" Tyndale muttered. "I'm just as eager to reach… Yolande
as are you. It's—it's just… this blasted head, is all."