The Duke's Men [1] What the Duke Desires (19 page)

“You were in too much of a hurry to save your damned brother from me, for that,” he
bit out, provoking a frown from her. But he didn’t care. He’d found the name he was
searching for. “John Hucker? That’s him?”

“Yes.” She clutched at his arm again. “We have to keep him from following us once
we leave Dieppe!”

“Right,” he said acidly, “so he won’t find Bonnaud. I grasped that. What did your
brother do, steal the family treasure?”

“No! Well, not exactly.” The engine noise died, and worry lit her face. “We’ll be
disembarking any moment. I promise that later I will tell you everything.”

“You damned well will.” He walked over to return the manifest to the captain, then
grabbed her by the arm to urge her none too gently back onto the deck. “But for now,
if you want to dodge your pursuer, you are going to do exactly as I say, without protest
or complaint. Is that clear?”

She stiffened but had the good sense to nod.

“All right. Then let’s go escape Mr. Hucker.”

♦  ♦  ♦

L
ISETTE WAS IN
awe of Max’s efficiency. He’d thought of everything—passports, their entry into France,
the possible problems with customs. She should have thought of it, but she’d only
traveled to France once in her life, and she’d been with Maman, who’d taken care of
everything. She was lucky she’d thought to throw her passport into her bag before
she left the house.

Some world traveler
she
was.

Still, despite Max’s forethought in those areas, as the day went on, she began to
be skeptical of his plan, whatever it was, to dodge Hucker. The man of affairs dogged
them throughout the hours they spent going through customs, though at a surreptitious
distance.
Max didn’t seem to notice or care. He spent his time chatting amiably with the immigration
officers in very fluent French, which rather surprised her.

It shouldn’t, since he was naturally well educated. And he had said that he’d traveled
on the Continent a great deal. Still, she’d expected the usual English butchery of
her mother’s tongue, and it pleased her more than it ought to find that he was quite
adept.

By the time they finally entered the Hôtel de la Ruse in Dieppe, it was late in the
evening. Max seemed to know the hotel well, which made her wonder just how often he
visited France. Hucker had come into the hotel with several of the other passengers,
barely even trying to hide himself, probably assuming that if she hadn’t recognized
him up close on the packet boat, then she wasn’t going to.

Meanwhile, she was starting to be annoyed that Max had made no effort whatsoever to
avoid Hucker. What was the point of asking for his help?

“My wife and I would like a room for the night,” Max said in English to the hotel’s
owner, having somehow managed to be first inside. He took a bag of coins from his
bag and handed it to the fellow. “And I understand that we can also purchase the fare
for the diligence to Tours here.”

Tours? That was an entirely different direction from Paris. Surely he didn’t mean
to go gallivanting about the French countryside just to get rid of Hucker. And the
diligence, the French version of a stagecoach, was a
very public, lumbering vehicle. It would be easy to follow on horseback.

The hotel owner opened the bag of coins, his eyes going wide at the amount. “Oh yes,
sir,” the man answered in halting English. “It leaves first thing in the morning.
I will make sure that you and madame have seats in the coupé.”

“Thank you, that would be preferable,” Max said.

The coupé in a diligence, an enclosed compartment above the driver’s seat, was always
the best place to sit, but right now she couldn’t even find it in her heart to be
pleased that he would arrange it. Did he think that taking seats on a diligence would
keep Hucker from following them, for pity’s sake?

“Come this way, monsieur,” the owner said, walking toward the stairs. “I will see
you to your room myself.” He barked some orders at a footman, who picked up their
bags and followed.

As the four of them headed up, Lisette murmured, “I’m not sure how this will help
us.”

“You promised to follow my orders without protest or complaint,” he retorted. “Have
you forgotten that already?”

“No, but—”

He raised an eyebrow.

“You can be insufferable at times,” she said. He was beginning to give her a headache.

“It comes with being a duke,” he clipped out. “I would apologize, but I’m not in the
mood for apologies right now. Especially when you keep breaking your promises.”

That brought her up short. What other promise had she broken?

Oh, right. The promise not to lie to him. She hadn’t broken that, though he probably
didn’t see it that way. And he was going to be angrier still once she told him that
Tristan was wanted in England for horse thieving.

The owner stopped to open a door that led into a lavishly appointed bedchamber. “This
is my best room, Monsieur Kale. I hope it will suit you and your wife.”

“It will, indeed,” Max said, casting the room only a cursory glance before taking
the bags from the footman and walking in, leaving Lisette to follow him inside.

“Shall I have dinner sent up for you, monsieur?” the owner asked.

“My wife and I ate on the steam packet,” Max said. “We won’t require anything else
this evening, thank you.”

“But monsieur, surely—”

“Did I neglect to mention that my lovely wife and I have only been married a few days?”
Max slid an arm about Lisette’s waist, pulling her close. “We will need nothing further
this night, I assure you. In fact, I’d be most appreciative if you’d tell your staff
not to disturb us until morning.”

Trying not to react to that alarming pronouncement, Lisette forced a smile.

The hotel owner wore a knowing expression. “Oh, yes, of course. I understand, monsieur.
There will be no disturbances.”

He then handed Max the room key, sparing a wink for Lisette, who managed not to throw
something
at him. As soon as he’d left, she jerked free of Max and whirled to scowl at him.
“If you think that I am going to—”

“Hold your tongue, for God’s sake,” he hissed, then hurried to crack open the door
and peer out into the hall. “We don’t have much time. I would wait here until everyone
goes to bed, but the later we wait, the more conspicuous we’ll be when we leave Dieppe.”

“What are you talking about?” she whispered. “I thought we were going on the—”

“Do you want to leave Hucker behind or not?” Without waiting for an answer, he opened
the door, fit the key into the lock outside, and picked up both their bags. “Quickly
now, while the owner is dealing with the other passengers from the packet.” Carrying
their bags into the hall, he added, “Lock the door, then slide the key under it. And
hurry.”

She did as he said. He was already headed in the opposite direction from the stairs
they’d just ascended. When he reached the end of the hall, he stopped opposite a door
and indicated with a nod that she should turn the handle.

Surprised when it turned for her, she held the door open for him, then followed him
into what was apparently a servants’ stairwell. He nodded down the stairs, and she
hurried to descend ahead of him.

“How did you know this was here?” she whispered as they crept furtively down to the
ground floor.

“My family stayed in this hotel when I was sixteen. We were on our way to Paris to
consult with my
great-uncle’s lawyer . . .” His voice turned remote. “Anyway, I sneaked down the back
stairs one night.”

“Oh, so you started your habit of going down to the taproom in inns at a very young
age.”

His only response was a foul glance, for they’d reached the ground floor. There were
two doors opposite each other, and they could hear voices on the other side of one
of them. “Quick, this way,” he murmured and headed out the other door.

She followed, surprised to find herself in a garden. But Max didn’t allow her time
to pause, urging her to move behind a shed . . . and just in time, too, for someone
came out the door to empty a cauldron of water onto the bushes.

As the servant lingered to smoke a cheroot, they stood there frozen, pressed against
each other in the small space. Max turned his gaze to her, and her breath caught in
her throat.

In the dark he looked nothing like the amiable gentleman whom she’d found so entertaining
on the packet boat. Out here behind the shed, he was the forbidding duke, his eyes
glittering down at her in the pale moonlight. It provoked an odd sensation in the
pit of her stomach that felt remarkably like desire.

Desire? Nonsense. She did
not
desire the duke when he was ordering her about and demanding everything his way.
Not in the least.

Nonetheless, as the scent of burning tobacco wafted to them on the breeze and Max
continued to stare down at her, she shivered uncontrollably.

He set down the bags and drew her cloak more tightly about her. Her breath quickened.
His hands lingered on her cloak, his gaze dropped to her mouth, and she half thought
he might even kiss her.

Then he released her cloak as if it had burned his fingers. Edging to the corner of
the shed, he glanced around it, then motioned her forward. As he went back to pick
up their bags, he murmured, “There’s a gate that leads to the alley. I’m right behind
you.”

They left the garden in stealthy silence, but the moment they reached the alley, Max
quickened his pace, forcing her practically into a run to keep up with him.

“Stay close to me,” he murmured as they rushed down the alley. “There’s no reason
to think that Hucker will be outside the hotel, but I don’t know what byways we’ll
have to take, and at this hour men will be drinking in the taverns and weaving through
the streets. I don’t want them giving you any trouble.”

“All right,” she said through a lump in her throat. Despite his anger, he was worried
for her safety. That warmed her even as he was being so overbearing.

They walked through Dieppe in silence, keeping to the shadows, taking back alleys
where they could. Fortunately, the town wasn’t very large. They’d walked less than
a mile when they reached another hotel, the Hôtel de Londres. As they entered, he
said, “If you want to visit the necessary, now is the time.”

And with that enigmatic remark, he went off in search of the owner. She was dying
to know what he
was up to, but she figured she’d better do as he said. When she returned, Max was
waiting to lead her back outside to where a coach was being hurriedly rigged up for
a journey.

He handed their bags to a groom, who tied them to the back of the coach, then opened
the door for her. “In you go, my dear.”

As awareness dawned, she got in and took a seat in the aging but comfortable vehicle.
He climbed in behind her and settled back onto the seat.

“I take it that we’re headed for Paris?” she asked as the coach left.

He nodded. “The owner of the Hôtel de Londres assures me that we can be there by midafternoon
tomorrow, barring any problems, especially if we go the shorter way and avoid Rouen.”

“Avoiding Rouen is a good idea, anyway. It’s on the road to Tours as well as to Paris.”

Removing his hat, he tossed it onto the seat beside him. “We’ll be long past Rouen
before Hucker even sets off for Tours in the morning, but just in case . . .”

“You’ve made sure that if he
does
find out tonight that we’ve already left, he won’t catch up to us in Rouen.”

“That’s the plan.”

She gazed out at the streets dimly illuminated by gaslights. “But when he goes to
board the diligence to Tours in the morning, he’ll surely figure out that we slipped
off in the night. Then he’ll check all the hotels and find out that we left from that
other hotel for Paris.”

“No, he won’t. I paid the owner well to keep quiet.
The trail will go cold here.” His voice sharpened. “And I seriously doubt that a man
as thoroughly English as Hucker would venture much beyond the coast of France if he
doesn’t know where to go.”

He’d thought of everything, hadn’t he? And thank God for it, because her head was
really pounding now. She was tired of travel and she wanted nothing more than to curl
up in a soft bed.

Obviously that wouldn’t happen anytime soon. She took off her bonnet and placed it
on the seat next to her. Then, removing her gloves, she opened her reticule and searched
for her scent bottle. A sniff of the herbal perfume helped to ease her head a bit.

“You’re probably right about that,” she said as she restored the flacon to her bag.
“George won’t have paid him enough for a search of France. If I know Hucker, he’ll
be only too eager to return to England in the morning.”

“And you do know Hucker well, I take it.”

At his hard tone, she swung her gaze up to him. She could see little of his expression
in the dim light, but what she saw sent a chill down her spine. He was ready for his
reckoning, and he wouldn’t relent until she had bared every secret her family had
ever kept from the world.

She set her reticule aside. Very well, if that was the price for his help, then she
would pay it. She would simply have to make him understand that despite all evidence
to the contrary, Tristan wasn’t the defrauder that Max was determined to make him
out to be.

“Yes,” she said quietly. “I know Hucker well enough. He threw me and my family from
our home the day after Papa died, because George ordered it.”

“Playing on my sympathies won’t work, Lisette,” Max said in a distant tone. “I want
the truth. Now.”

“I know. And you shall have it.”

Even if his cold manner was cutting her to the heart. Even if his return to being
Lofty Lyons was killing her.

Still, it wouldn’t get any better. She might as well get this over with. Squaring
her shoulders, she began to tell him the long and sordid tale of the day after Papa
died.