The Duke's Messenger (12 page)

Neither eventuality happened. Instead, Lady Sanford laid her head back on the chair cushion and laughed. When she was genuinely amused, as appeared to be the case now, her laugh was like a cascade of silver bells, very pleasant to hear, especially just now.

“I suppose, Nell, you bewitched the messenger into forgetting even his head?”

“I did not precisely tell him an untruth,” Nell said primly.

“I wonder whether you stammered.”

Nell grinned reluctantly. “At least there were no toads on the pavement.”

“Well, my dear, I am glad you told me everything. I suppose you have no more surprises for me? Good. I assume Tom will appear in due course, and in the meantime we must get the parcel to its destination. I did not think to launch out on a new career at my time of life, but perhaps it will be interesting after all. We shall leave early in the morning.”

Nell sprang to her feet and hugged her aunt. “How wonderful you are! I wish I had told you from the beginning.”

“No, you don’t. For we would, in that case, still be in London.”

“I’ll send Mullins to you, shall I, to begin packing? I shall hope that ‘early’ does not mean afternoon?”

“
I
shall hope,” retorted Lady Sanford with immense dignity, “that by noon tomorrow I shall have eaten my last meal to the accompaniment of unasked-for, and indeed highly unattractive, education at the hands of the ambassador’s wife.”

Chapter Twelve

So far, thought Nell, so good.

She had been required to give up the secret of her deception, but she had won her aunt’s agreement to leave Paris. The next step was one she approached with misgivings but with determination.

She had planned to discharge Reeves in Paris and hire another coachman. She felt no compunction about leaving the man on his own, for he had only to return to Calais. She would of course pay his fare as well as his wages. She would not then be required to travel to Vienna in the company of an elderly man who knew all too well how to register his disapproval.

She did not reflect on the reasons why she felt so sharply the disapproval of a man she scarcely knew. After all, Stuston had not been blind to her faults, nor had Whitcomb. Nor had either been in the least backward about letting her know his opinion.

Halfway down the stairs to the foyer of the embassy, she paused. Suppose she could not find another coachman on such short notice? She could not properly ask the ambassador to provide them with one of his own staff. The sudden recollection of an adage of her governess, a long time ago, came to her. “A bird in the hand, my dear, is worth two in the bush. That means, of course —” Nell forgot now the tedious explanation of that moral.

But the fact was true. Better, perhaps, the evil she knew than one she did not know.

She realized all at once that she had not informed the coachman of their intention to leave in the morning. She set out to find him. She ran him to earth in the servants’ dining hall. She stood in the doorway watching him, unable to believe what she saw. This was a different Reeves. She had thought him on the far side of middle age, gruff and soured, without humor. This man looked to be in his early thirties, no more. He was laughing, and clearly something he had just said had put the entire staff into an uproar. “And then —” he was about to continue.

One by one the servants caught sight of the elegant Miss Aspinall in the doorway, and one by one they fell silent. At length, alerted by the alteration in his audience, Reeves turned and saw her. The change in his expression would have been ludicrous, she thought, had it not been somewhat unsettling. She had been mistaken in him. She felt he had played her for a fool.

“Reeves,” she said, frost edging her light voice, “I should like a word.”

He nodded briefly and rose from the hard wooden chair. By the time he followed her down the corridor to a small room which was probably reserved for the housekeeper, he had suffered a sea change. He stood before her now, slightly bent, head somewhat bowed in an attitude of humility. She must have been mistaken — this man appeared to be in his fifties. It must have been a trick of the light, back there in the dining hall.

“Reeves,” she said firmly, “I hope you can assure me that you will continue in your position with my aunt until we arrive in Vienna?”

He nodded. “I giv my word back yonder in Calais,” he said, “and the word of a Reeves is aye as good as the word of a —” He wavered. She was sure he was about to deliver himself of an indiscretion. The light in her eyes warned him, and he finished lamely, “The word of any gentleman.”

“Very well, Reeves. Then since you know my reason for going to Vienna — my only reason,” she repeated carefully, “to be reunited with my betrothed, then you will understand it is of importance to me to be on our way. Lady Sanford will be ready to leave in the morning. Early.”

“Not meaning no disrespect, miss, be ye sure?”

Fully aware that he was recalling departures from Calais and other inns, she said briskly, “Yes, Reeves. Leave it to me.” Then, completely on a tangent, she asked, “What part of England do you come from, Reeves?”

He was not prepared for that question, and for a fleeting moment there was an expression of something very like dismay in his eyes. His eyes, she thought inconsequentially, were a remarkable color, like water over brownish-red stones in the bottom of a running brook.

“My grandsire came from — Derby,” he told her, and somehow she was convinced he did not tell the truth.

“It’s no matter,” she said earnestly, “except that I find it hard to place your speech.”

“Sorry, miss,” he said with a return to the sullen remoteness he had exhibited for the most part since their first meeting. “I’ll be ready in the morning. Early.”

He saluted, rough forefinger to what he must think was his forelock, and left her. She was vaguely disappointed. She could not think why.

*

Lady Sanford’s party trundled away from the embassy in good time that morning. When Lady Sanford made up her mind that Paris was not the glittering, glamorous round of gaiety that she had expected, she was quite willing to see that her duty lay with the delivery of the mysterious parcel.

To give her credit, she would likely have understood the importance of the parcel, even if Paris streets had rung with music and song, but she would have left the city much more reluctantly.

“I cannot fathom the cause of such gross dullness!” she exclaimed before they were out of sight of the embassy.

“Perhaps the Princess still feels the loss of her parents,” suggested Nell. “It cannot be easily forgotten when one’s entire family has been executed in such a spectacular way.”

“I do not mean the Princess,” corrected Lady Sanford. “With that very dull husband of hers — Angouleme, a sniveling weakling, from what Lord Westford says — how could she help but be wretched? I doubt I could summon up sufficient presence even to be civil in such an instance.”

Nell smiled. “I cannot imagine you marrying him in the first place.”

“I mean the ambassador’s wife. One might certainly expect to find some grace in the wife of an ambassador to France, after all. I wonder that Lord Chawton isn’t given the post.”

“Is that possible?”

“Of course. I should think that Penelope would make her father an excellent hostess.”

Conversation languished. Nell was cast down by the reminder that Penelope Freeland was in a good position to influence Rowland. She wished he had not been quite so correct in his offer — or rather his failure to offer. While he had made sufficient promises to hold Nell in thrall, yet the fact was that the betrothal was not yet
official
.

But it would not do for Nell to be dreary all the days ahead over Rowland. She smiled now at her aunt. “By the way, that is a very fetching outfit you are wearing. Have I seen it before?”

“Of course. Henriette made it for me. I shall be glad when this mad infatuation for green fades away. One could have a wardrobe entirely of Pomona-green, almond-green, dark green, water-green, sage-green. One looks like a cucumber when one is à la mode.”

“You look well in green, Aunt.”

“At least better than the Duchess of Netwick! That woman!” Lady Sanford gave a refined snort of contempt. “I vow she sees the world through green — the green of that vulgar emerald.”

“Shall we see her in Vienna, do you think?”

“I had heard that she intends to spend the winter there. I wonder if Providence could find a way to immure her in a snowbound pass in the Alps?”

“No matter,” said Nell, “for you know no one will even look her way if you are there.”

“Nell, you are a dear child.”

“Besides, we’ve made good progress since we left Paris. We may easily arrive in Vienna before the duchess.”

“I have the oddest feeling, Nell, that I have lost my grasp-on this expedition. My coachman is back in that dreadful town on the coast with one of my footmen to keep him company. My new coachman is a man I do not entirely trust, and I do not have a clear view of the way we are to go on.”

Flushing slightly, Nell protested. “But you have given your consent to all that has been done!”

“Yes, but I should like to interview my coachman.” She gave a light laugh. “An entirely futile undertaking, for of course I could not dismiss him in the middle of a field in a foreign country. Best let it go. Then perhaps you can inform me? Are we going to travel through the mountains?”

“Reeves says not.”

“Then let us pray for a heavy snow just ahead of the duchess.” There had been an odd note in Nell’s voice when she spoke the coachman’s name that caused her aunt to glance sharply at her. “Reeves, then, is guiding us as well as driving?”

“He says,” Nell told her reluctantly, “that he knows the way to avoid the mountains. He says this is the road the Crusaders took, centuries ago. On their way to Jerusalem, you know.”

“I am not entirely ignorant,” Phrynie pointed out. “I have heard of the Crusaders. What I do not understand, quite, is how an untutored coachman is so well informed, both on the roads and in obscure historical events.”

Nell felt her cheeks warm. “He does seem to be somewhat unusual.”

Phrynie all but commented, “And you seem to have spent an unusual amount of time with him since we left Calais.” But she kept silent.

Phrynie was reasonably content with her lot at this time. She adored traveling and was always eager to gain what amusement she could from wherever she was placed. She was slightly disturbed over the nonappearance of her nephew, but she accepted the fact that the parcel, whatever it was, must get to Vienna, since Nell had undertaken the task. An obligation once incurred must be carried out. She hoped that her own credit — coupled with a few judicious alterations of plain truth, and a bold facing down of the malicious Duchess of Netwick — would serve to make their arrival in Vienna
tout
à
fait
convenable
.

Phrynie had been prepared to give up her intense longing to be at the scene of the congress in Vienna, for there was bound to be a plethora of parties, balls, and enormous fun in London. Now, thanks to a discreet lack of curiosity in London as to Nell’s motives, she was well on her way.

“I must confess,” said Phrynie after a long silence, “that I am delighted to leave Paris behind. Even the unknown trials ahead will be more amusing than the embassy.”

Idly Nell inquired, “Did you ask whether your friend Bolesley was in town?”

“Yes,” said Phrynie stiffly, “he was, and his wife as well. But that, no matter what you think, is not the reason I was happy to leave. It was that vinegar-faced Westford woman!”

Nell did not suspect the real moving force behind her aunt’s compliance with her urgent need to travel on. Phrynie was a woman who knew her duty, and at present the safe delivery of the parcel was uppermost in her thoughts. However, Phrynie, while comfort loving as a rule, welcomed the unexpected as much as her niece did. Phrynie was gratified now to feel that youth and adventure had not passed beyond her reach.

Now she glanced at Nell. When she caught her niece’s eye, she grinned mischievously. There was no need for words to pass between them. They understood each other.

*

By this time, the equipage had trundled out of Paris and was, so Nell told her, on the road toward Champagne.

“Champagne,” Phrynie mused. “What do you remember about this region? A town called Epernay, of course, but also — Haut something.”

Nell said, “We’ll ask Reeves when we halt to rest the horses.”

“I am sure,” said Phrynie drily, “he will know. He seems, does he not, to be omniscient?”

“Not at all,” said Nell stiffly. “I did not say he would know, Aunt. I simply said we will ask him.”

Phrynie looked at her thoughtfully, but said nothing. She did promise herself, however, to keep a watchful eye on her niece. She laid her head back against the small satin pillows that Mullins had placed for her comfort and closed her eyes. No need to worry, she told herself before she slipped into a doze. Nell is head over heels in love with Foxhall.

*

Nell had not shared with her aunt certain unsettling remarks that Reeves had made. She had spoken to him before their departure to make sure that he knew the route they were to take. She had found him in the paved courtyard of the embassy, making sure that the four horses were properly harnessed.

The conversation was now as clear in her mind as at the moment it took place.

“Reeves?”

“Yes, miss.”

“Is all in readiness for departure?”

“Yes, miss.”

She looked at the baggage-laden coach, frowning. It seemed a frail vehicle to carry them all such a long way. She had no clear understanding of the magnitude of the journey ahead, but she was beginning to suspect that it would prove longer and more trying than she knew. Her doubts must have been reflected in her expression.

Reeves, in a voice different from his usual mixture of gruffness and upper-servant remoteness, said, “Best take it a day at a time. We’ll get through, don’t fret.”

She managed a brave smile. “Thank you, Reeves.” With a rush, she said, “I truly do not know how we would have gone on without you.”

“Coachman’s accident,” he said, “was my good fortune.”

He held her eyes with his steady gaze. She felt his confidence flowing to her, and she was suddenly short of breath. She turned away first. “Do you know the road we should take?”

“Yes, miss.”

Curiosity inspired her to ask, “How do you know, Reeves? Surely you have not traveled in France at all? You
are
English, are you not?”