Those Scandalous Ravenhursts: The Dangerous Mr Ryder
Those Scandalous Ravenhursts: The Dangerous Mr Ryder
Louise Allen
Notorious Regency Lords and Ladies!The Dangerous Mr RyderJack Ryder knows that escorting the haughty Grand Duchess of Maubourg to England will not be an easy task. But the spy and adventurer is sure he’s capable of managing Her Serene Highness. However, he's not prepared for her beauty, her youth, or her sensual warmth. And what started as just another mission is rapidly becoming something far more personal…The Outrageous Lady FelshamFreed from her unhappy marriage, Belinda, Lady Felsham, plans to enjoy herself. She suspects that the breathtakingly handsome Major Ashe Reynard is exactly what she needs. But high society will not forgive a scandal! Still, the outrageous couple embark on an affair—and Belinda becomes increasingly confused. She has no desire to marry, but Ashe is a man she cannot live without…
Those Scandalous Ravenhursts
The Dangerous Mr Ryder
The Outrageous Lady Felsham
Louise Allen
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
LOUISE ALLEN loves immersing herself in history. She finds landscapes and places evoke the past powerfully. Venice, Burgundy and the Greek islands are favourite destinations. Louise lives on the Norfolk coast and spends her spare time gardening, researching family history or travelling in search of inspiration. Visit her at louiseallenregency.co.uk (http://louiseallenregency.co.uk), @LouiseRegency (https://twitter.com/LouiseRegency) and janeaustenslondon.com (http://janeaustenslondon.com)
Contents
Cover (#ued3a56b6-b037-53b8-bfc3-36fa20a5cb10)
Title Page (#ucfd7622f-53cd-509d-9745-c744bb48af62)
About the Author (#uf27d1657-90d2-5302-98ca-e09562c9d732)
The Dangerous Mr Ryder (#u49f4580c-5d40-5dc9-a949-9b9e2a4c013d)
Author Note (#u2914d654-3af3-5b70-8372-06c51f1f08e3)
Chapter One (#u86f63e3c-7a1a-55ee-a769-63d7d3ccce31)
Chapter Two (#u72663195-68b2-5f55-9979-deb3e00b17a2)
Chapter Three (#u26c769f2-dfcc-5941-b49d-0acc165d54e8)
Chapter Four (#u5f03fd82-6f13-56cf-bd55-0fb430de6794)
Chapter Five (#uc42d6ba8-947d-587f-aee9-90c68520577d)
Chapter Six (#uf6ce0f71-1307-57cb-a280-3400592c0d45)
Chapter Seven (#u9af2f92c-dafb-56ee-a59d-ab4351969579)
Chapter Eight (#ud44a179a-b52d-5cee-a755-c9ffe3b56f0d)
Chapter Nine (#u33fae01f-534e-536b-8a93-b62e87eff5b3)
Chapter Ten (#u29a3e4b9-4165-506a-b012-d843df9353d6)
Chapter Eleven (#u93788248-53d1-5852-8e99-830cd9149527)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)
The Outrageous Lady Felsham (#litres_trial_promo)
Author Note (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
The Dangerous Mr Ryder (#ulink_eeca9cff-a598-55f0-adb6-63217b61552f)
Author Note (#ulink_41113e97-4ce2-5a4d-85ea-85e0a66da784)
Jack Ryder first appeared—of his own volition—in No Place for a Lady, and took on a life of his own. I found myself wondering about him, what his background was, where he had come from, and I realised I needed to tell his story.
Then I discovered that Jack is not alone—he has siblings, he has cousins, and some of them have a story to tell as well. So this is Jack Ryder's tale, but it is also the first of the stories of THOSE SCANDALOUS RAVENHURSTS, and of how they, like Jack, find the loves of their lives.
It is the start of a journey for me, and I hope you will come along and discover with me what befalls the Ravenhurst cousins.
Chapter One (#ulink_a6bf3b4a-5dc6-5618-a87f-11406698471e)
The evening of 7 June 1815
No one had told him that she was beautiful. Jack Ryder crouched precariously in a stone window embrasure two hundred feet above the ravine river bed and stared into the candlelit room. Inside, the woman he had been sent to find paced to and fro like an angry cat.
He kept his eyes fixed on the image beyond the glass as he wedged himself more securely into his slippery niche. Below, the void beneath the castle was shrouded in merciful darkness, the faint sound of the river floating upwards. Although his whole body was aware of it, he ignored the cold fingers of fear playing up and down his spine, knowing full well that if he let his imagination have full rein he would never be able to move at all. His studded boots ground on the stone, and he froze for a moment, but the sound did not seem to reach her.
Jack gave himself a mental shake and began to work on the knot that secured the end of the long coil of rope around his waist. As it came free he gave it a jerk, flicking it outwards, and the whole length detached itself from the battlement high above and fell out of sight into the void.
Now his only way down was through that window. Despite his perilous position, Jack had no intention of going through it until he had a chance to size up the woman inside. The woman he had been sent to bring back to England by whatever means he found necessary, including force.
It was for her own good, as well as in the interests of both countries, they had explained at Whitehall. The officials had spoken with the air of men who were glad it was not they who had to attempt to convince the lady of this. They had told him a number of things about her Serene Highness the Dowager Grand Duchess Eva de Maubourg. Intelligent, stubborn, anti-Napoleonic, haughty, independent, difficult and demanding was how she had been summed up by the various men who had gathered to deliver the hasty briefing, fifteen days before. Half-French, they had added gloomily, as though that summed up the problem.
She had not left the Duchy since her marriage and was likely to be near impossible to move now, the officials added. That was all right; he was used to being asked to do the near impossible.
But there had been no mention of darkly vivid looks, of a curvaceous figure or the lithe grace of a caged panther. And Jack was having trouble believing she could possibly be the mother of a nine-year-old son. It had to be the thick glass in the window panes.
She was alone in the room; he had waited long enough to be convinced of that. Jack shifted his position, focusing his mind on opening the window and not on what would happen if he lost his balance. The flat of a slim blade slid easily enough between the casement and the frame. Thankfully the window opened inwards, for its height above the floor would make it impossible to use otherwise. He eased it ajar by inches, waiting long minutes between each adjustment so there would be no sudden drop of temperature or gust of wind to alarm her. If she screamed this would likely end in bloodshed—he did not intend that it would be his.
Grand Duchess Eva ceased to pace and sank down in front of a writing desk, her back to the window, her head in her hands. Jack wondered if she was crying, then started, with potentially lethal result, when she banged her fist down on the leather desk top and swore colourfully in English. He could only admire her vocabulary—he was tempted to echo it.
It was definitely time to get off this window ledge. He grasped the frame, put his feet through and swung himself down into the room. There was no way he could land silently, not dropping eight foot on to a stone-flagged floor in nailed boots. She spun round on her chair, gripping the back of it, her face reflecting the gamut of emotions from shock, puzzlement, fear and finally, he was impressed to see, imperious anger masking all else. They had not told him about her courage.
‘Who the devil are you?’ she demanded in unaccented English, getting to her feet with perfect deportment, as though rising from a throne. Her right hand, Jack noted, was behind her; he searched his memory for his survey of the room. Ah, yes, the paperknife. A resourceful lady.
‘You speak English excellently,’ he commented. He knew from his briefing that she was half-English, so it was only to be expected, but it was a more tactful beginning to their conversation than Put down that knife before I make you! might be. ‘But how did you know I would understand you?’
She looked down her nose at him. Jack registered dark eyes, thinly elegant eyebrows arched in disdain, a red mouth with a fullness that betrayed more passion than she was perhaps comfortable with and one deep brown curl, disturbed from her coiffure and lying tantalisingly against her white shoulder. He focused on those eyes and banished the fleeting speculation about just how the skin under that curl would feel.
‘You will address me as your Serene Highness,’ she said coolly. ‘I was thinking in English,’ she added, almost as an afterthought.
‘Your Serene Highness.’ He swept her a bow, conscious of his clothing as he did so. He was dressed for the purpose of shinning down castle walls, not making court bows, but he managed it with a grace that had one of those dark brows lifting in surprise. ‘My name is Jack Ryder.’ He had wrestled with whether or not to tell her his real name and decided against it. His nom de guerre would be safer in the event they were captured.
‘Then you are English, Mr Ryder?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘So you have not come to kill me?’
That has taken the wind out of his sails, Eva thought, watching the narrowing of the deep grey eyes that had been studying her with what she could only describe as respectful insolence. There was absolutely nothing in this Jack Ryder’s expression to which she could take exception, yet somehow he managed to leave her with a distinct awareness of her own femininity and his appreciation of it. It seemed a very long time since anyone had looked at her quite like that and longer still since she had felt her pulse quickening in response.
She managed to keep her breathing under control with an effort, and flexed the fingers cramped around the paperknife. If he was English it was highly unlikely that he was a danger, but she could not afford to take the risk, not after what had happened yesterday. And his unconventional entry through the window had to mean trouble.
‘No, ma’am, I have not come to kill you.’ A smooth recovery. Why had he not asked her what she meant? Eva studied him while she pondered the disturbing implications of that thought. Some years older than her own twenty-six, but far from middle aged. Slim, dark haired and grey eyed and in obvious control both of his body—given the way he had gained entry to her room—and his face. She had a vivid mental image of him with a sword in his hand; he had a duellist’s balance. He was showing no emotion now, after that first fleeting reaction to her statement.
‘Convince me,’ she said, hoping he had not noticed the tremor that vibrated the hem of her evening gown. ‘If you do not, I will scream and there will be two guards in here within seconds.’
He produced a pistol from one pocket. ‘And one of them will be dead in as short a time. There is no need for this, ma’am.’ The sinister black shape slid back into his coat. ‘I am here at the behest of the British government. Your son’s godfather is of the opinion that it would be better for the young Grand Duke if you were with him.’
‘The Prince Regent? He has hardly shown any interest in Fréderic since he wrote to send the christening gift.’ She wished she could move, but the necessity to keep the knife out of his sight kept her pinned against the desk.
‘Nevertheless, ma’am, the British government keeps an eye on the Duchy of Maubourg and its affairs, and has done ever since the outbreak of war. To have a neutral country embedded within France can only be a diplomatic asset, however small it is.’
‘Of course.’ Eva shrugged negligently. He was telling her nothing she did not know all too well. ‘Presumably you are aware that my late husband did what he could to mitigate the situation by acting as a go-between. He opposed the French, naturally, but he was too much of a realist to think we could resist in any way.’
‘I believe you first met the late Grand Duke in England.’ Ryder shifted position, his eyes skimming over the furnishings, searching the corners of the room. She felt it was more an habitual wariness than a search for anything in particular. His knowledge of her history did not prove he had received a government briefing; anyone with an interest in her affairs could have discovered that easily enough, it had made a big enough stir in the news sheets.
She inclined her head. ‘We were in exile at the time. My father had died in the Terror, Mama returned home to her father, the Earl of Allgrave. I had my come-out in London and I met the Grand Duke at my very first ball.’
It had seemed like a fairy tale, looking back now. Louis Fréderic, tall, darkly handsome, sophisticated far beyond her experience, an exotic presence on the English social scene, was a catch outside her wildest dreams. The fact that he had been thirty years her senior and that she was barely seventeen had weighed neither with her mother, nor with her.
The Grand Duke carried out his mission by negotiating for an exchange of prisoners, enjoyed a whirlwind courtship and returned to Maubourg with his future Grand Duchess at his side. Eva stared back down the years of memory at herself. Had she ever been that young and innocent?
‘And since your husband’s death almost two years ago, his brother Prince Philippe has acted as Regent and you and he are joint guardians of your son.’ Ryder was not so much asking, as establishing to her that he knew the facts. It seemed he was not completely up to date, but she did not hasten to inform him that Philippe had been confined to his room with some mysterious illness ever since the news about Napoleon’s escape from Elba had reached them. That was almost three months ago and she was beginning to despair of his recovery.
‘Yes.’ Her legs had stopped trembling. Eva shifted her position slightly, resting her left hand casually on the chair back. She could swing it across his path if he lunged for her. ‘I have not seen my son for four years. My husband judged it best that he should be educated in England.’
The pain of that, the sense of betrayal, still stabbed like a knife. Louis had not even given her the opportunity to say goodbye, justifying it by saying her tears would weaken the boy. First a private tutor, shared with the sons of a ducal family, then Eton. Little Freddie, will he even recognise me now?
‘There is no easy way to say this…’ Ryder began, and Eva felt the blood begin to drain from her face. No…no…they have sent him to tell me he is dead… ‘Your son has been the victim of a series of accidents in the last month—No! Ma’am, he is quite well, I assure you!’ She felt herself sway and he was at her side supporting her even faster than her own disciplined recovery.
‘I am quite all right,’ she began, then, as his solicitous fingers closed around the paperknife and whipped it from her hand, ‘Give me that back!’
He lobbed it through the open window with scarcely a sideways glance to take aim, but stayed at her side. ‘I prefer to remain unpunctured, should I happen to displease you, ma’am. Your son is alive, despite his run of bad luck, and even now, I am certain, is ploughing through his Classical studies.’
‘What accidents?’ Eva demanded, moving away. Mr Ryder’s proximity was strangely disturbing. If she had not been a sensible widow she would have put it down to the close presence of a handsome, dangerous man. But it could not be that. It must be the relief at hearing that Freddie was all right.
He made no move to follow her, simply shifting his position to keep her in view. ‘First, in the middle of May, there was a fall down a stone staircase, which was fortunately interrupted by a number of youngsters on their way up. They shared a number of interesting bruises I gather, but that is all. Then on the eighteenth, there was a runaway carriage in the High Street, which only missed the Grand Duke because he was pushed to safety by a passer-by. The carriage and its driver could not be traced afterwards. Then—’
‘Hoffmeister should have been taking better care of him,’ Eva interrupted angrily.
‘His personal secretary and tutor can hardly be expected to keep a lively nine-year-old in leading strings, ma’am. And to his credit Hoffmeister became suspicious enough after the third incident to make contact with Whitehall.’
‘Third incident?’
‘The inexplicable appearance of one poisonous toadstool in a fricassee of mushrooms that was set before Fréderic for dinner on the twentieth.’
‘How…’ Eva swallowed, fighting to keep her composure ‘…how did he escape that?’
‘By being immediately and very thoroughly sick. His personal physician tells me that his Serene Highness has a very sensitive stomach.’ She nodded, dumbly. ‘On this occasion it probably saved his life. He has additional security now, believe me.’
This time she made no pretext of hiding her shaking limbs. Eva sank down on to the chair and tried to tell herself that Fréderic was safe, that all his servants, and especially Hoffmeister, would be guarding him closely now.
‘I realise this may be hard to accept, ma’am—’ Jack Ryder began, then broke off as she lifted her head to look at him.
‘No, Mr Ryder, it is not at all strange. I am fortunate, it seems, that Fréderic gets his sensitive digestion from me, for I spent a miserable few hours with a badly upset stomach two nights ago. At the time I put it down to shock after the accident when the wheel came off my carriage as we were crossing a narrow bridge. Only the parapet stopped it tipping into the gorge. And then yesterday I slipped on the top step of the stairs outside my room; it seems someone had carelessly stood there with a dripping candle for some time. The stone was quite encrusted with wax.’
‘Were you hurt?’ His instant concern sent a flash of warmth through her and she found her cold lips were curving into a small smile for the first time in days.
‘No, I thank you. But the tapestry hanging beside the staircase is the worse for being torn from its hooks as I clung to it.’
‘And how did Prince Philippe react to this chapter of accidents?’ Jack Ryder took a chair, swung it round and straddled it, his arms along the back. He had stopped calling her ma’am, his behaviour was shockingly casual, but somehow none of that mattered just at the moment.
‘My brother-in-law has been indisposed—in fact, in a state of mental and physical collapse—since the news of Napoleon’s escape from Elba reached us. We assumed at first it was a stroke. He has been in that condition now for three months. My personal physician and a bodyguard are with him around the clock.’ She stared at him, seeing her own scepticism reflected in the steady grey eyes. He looked like an austere priest hearing a confession, with his straight nose and his tightly closed lips.
‘You suspect poison. And who rules Maubourg now?’
‘My younger brother-in-law, Prince Antoine.’
It was obvious that had been a rhetorical question—this Englishman knew exactly who would be holding the keys of the Duchy. ‘Ah, yes, the gentleman who was so anxious to persuade Price Philippe to end your neutrality and join forces with Napoleon after the death of your husband?’ Eva nodded. ‘And the man who would become Grand Duke should your son and Prince Philippe die?’
‘Yes. That is why Philippe is protected as he is. I had not thought Antoine’s arm would reach as far as England,’ she added bleakly. It had never occurred to her that Freddie would be in danger; she had believed up until now that it was a struggle for power between two brothers.
‘It is very likely that an enemy from here could strike at the young Grand Duke, and they could certainly reach far enough to remove the one person who has the authority to protect the Regent,’ Ryder pointed out, resting his chin on his clasped hands. It was a well-sculptured feature, she noted absently.
‘Myself. Yes, I had thought of that. And I have had time to realise that Philippe’s illness happening as Napoleon lands in France is too much of a coincidence. Antoine worships the Emperor—he will throw Maubourg on to the French side in the hope of patronage from Napoleon.’
‘Forgive me, I do not wish to insult your country, but while a neutral Maubourg has proved very useful to the Allies in the past, why should Napoleon be bothered with it now, one way or the other?’
‘In the past, he was not, or we would never have stayed untouched as we have. But now, I think we may have something he would want.’ Jack raised a sceptical eyebrow, but she shook her head. ‘I am not certain, it is only a suspicion. What do you know about explosives?’
Instead of answering, Ryder got to his feet and walked quietly to the massive panelled door. He eased the key round, cracked the door open and looked out, then, apparently satisfied, locked it again and came back to her side. ‘There are guards at the end of the passage—are they loyal to you?’
‘I…I think so.’
‘Hmm. I know less about explosives than I suspect I am about to need to. What is going on?’
Eva so far forgot herself as to begin to run her hands through her hair, then caught herself. A Grand Duchess did not give way to displays of weakness, nor was she ever anything but coolly immaculate under all circumstances. She folded them elegantly in her lap.
‘The main industry of the Duchy is perfume.’ Ryder nodded. It seemed he knew that, too. ‘The State perfumery employs a number of chemists, for it is very much a process of distillation and blending. I take an interest in the enterprise and I was looking through its books last week. Antoine has taken on a number of new men without asking myself or Philippe—professional men by the size of their salaries, not workers or craftsmen.
‘And then there have been explosions up in the mountains. That is where I was driving on the day of the accident. We found deep craters, signs of burning, but that is all, although I had the feeling we were being watched. The wheel came off on the way back.’
‘So, Prince Antoine is possibly experimenting with some new form of armament, just when the greatest general of his generation lands on the doorstep. And everyone who stands between him and the title suddenly becomes ill or has accidents.’
‘Yes.’ They stared at each other, Eva wondering suddenly why she had found it so easy to blurt all that out to a complete stranger. He might be a spy of Antoine’s, he might be a freelance, after some end of his own. She had been completely naïve to have trusted him. ‘Have you any credentials, Mr Ryder?’
‘A little late to think of that, ma’am,’ he said, echoing her thoughts. The way his lips twitched with amusement had her eyes flashing.
‘Better late than never, sir.’
He raised a hand, its long fingers unadorned by rings, and flipped back his lapel to reveal a small silver greyhound pinned there. ‘I am a King’s Messenger, ma’am.’
‘A glorified postman?’ She was feeling chills running up and down her spine as the extent of her indiscretion grew on her. If she could only be certain he was just what he said.
‘We do rather more than deliver the diplomatic post,’ he said mildly.
‘How do I know you haven’t murdered the real King’s Messenger?’
‘You do not. What did you intend to do about all this before I came through your window?’
Eva found her thoughts were suddenly running very fast, very cold. He wanted to know too much. She got up and began to walk up and down the chamber, her crimson skirts brushing against the bed hangings. It did not take much skill to pretend agitation. ‘I was thinking how I could get out of the castle and raise the population against Antoine.’
‘Madness,’ Ryder said flatly, just as she reached her bedside nightstand.
‘Oh!’ Eva raised one hand to her face and feigned a sob, then opened the drawer and began to fumble in it as though looking for a handkerchief. It was in her hand as she straightened up. ‘I think it would be madness to trust you any further with the scant identification you have, sir. I am going to ring this bell and when my maid comes I shall send her to fetch my private secretary and my personal bodyguard. Then we shall see.’
‘No.’ Ryder took two long strides across the room and had his hand outstretched to intercept hers on the bell pull as she flicked aside the handkerchief and revealed the little pistol beneath it.
‘Thank you for coming so close, sir. This is not much use over a long distance, but, near to, I believe it would seriously inconvenience you.’
How he did it she had no idea. One moment the muzzle of the pistol was virtually pressed to his waistcoat and he was staring at her in apparent shock, the next the pistol was flying across the room and she was picked up and thrown on to the bed, Jack Ryder’s long body pinning her into the yielding mattress.
He stared down into her furious face, his own showing nothing more extreme than irritation. He was, damn him, hardly breathing any harder than he had before. ‘Madame, you may walk out of here and come with me to England willingly, or you may leave this room unconscious and make the journey under restraint. It is your choice.’
Chapter Two (#ulink_9c9984b6-408a-5350-a882-e06043acaa73)
As a way of restraining her it was remarkably effective, Eva admitted to herself as she lay glaring up at the man pinning her to the bed. She could struggle—fruitlessly no doubt, given the size of him and the strength he had already demonstrated—but that would simply press her body into even closer contact with his. She had far too much dignity to do so and he obviously knew it. He would probably enjoy it, too.
She regarded the wicked glint in the grey eyes stolidly for a moment, then said, ‘Would you kindly remove your person from my bed?’ She could only admire the steadiness of her voice, especially as some part of her, a tiny, suppressed sensual part, was aching to arch against the hard masculinity that was dominating her. She fought down the urge; she had, after all, been fighting that particular instinct for two years.
Jack Ryder responded by raising himself on his elbows, the better to look down into her face. The movement caused even more disturbing pressure on her pelvis; Mr Ryder did not appear to be fighting his own inner sensuality very energetically. His eyes were hooded, watching her with speculation. ‘In a moment, ma’am, when we have sorted this out. I am not sure what written proof of my identity and mission you would accept, given that, as you say, I could have stolen it. Will you accept your son’s word?’
‘Freddie? What do you mean?’
‘When I was talking to him, telling him I was coming to fetch you, I asked him if there was a password I could give you in case you did not believe me. He thought for a moment, then said, “Ask Mama how Bruin and the Rat are. It’s all right for me to say it, because we aren’t at home.”’
‘Bruin? Oh, the little wretch! Mr Ryder—’ She gave him a shove. It was like trying to shift one of the castle’s wolfhounds when they got on to the bed. ‘Please get off—I believe you.’ Too relieved to be indignant with him any longer, Eva sat up as Jack rolled off the bed to stand leaning against the bedpost, his eyebrows raised interrogatively. ‘They are his nicknames for his uncles and I made him promise never to use them to anyone but me because they might be offended. At least, Antoine would be.’
‘The Rat I presume?’
‘Exactly. He has a long nose that twitches when he is agitated. I believe you, Mr Ryder—now, will you get me out of the castle?’
‘That is my intention.’
‘And help me raise resistance to Antoine?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’ Eva swung her feet off the bed and confronted him, all her indignation surging back. This official, this postman for the English government, had no right to dictate to her. He was obviously a man of action, just what she needed in these circumstances—he should do as he was told. ‘It is your patriotic duty, sir.’
‘Humbug.’ Eva gasped. No one spoke to her like that. It was so unexpected that she gaped at him. ‘Leaving aside the fact that I have no allegiance to this Duchy, it is not my duty to get most of its male population massacred by French troops, which is what will happen if Bonaparte wants this place and you resist. If he doesn’t, then you are risking a civil war for nothing. My duty, as I have already explained to you, is to remove you safely to England where you have the legal authority to look after your son until all this is over. It will also remove one hostage from Antoine’s grasp.’
‘What, slink off and abandon the Duchy to Antoine and the French just because I am a woman?’ He obviously thought she was some milk-and-water English miss. Despite him remembering—occasionally—to address her with due respect, he had no idea of the role she had had to play these past two years since Louis’s death, nor the iron that had entered her soul as she had done so.
‘No, execute a strategic retreat because that is the sensible thing to do,’ he retorted. ‘You do understand the concept of sensible action as opposed to romantic gesture, I presume?’
‘How dare you speak to me like that? You insolent oaf—I can perfectly well look after myself.’
‘Indeed, ma’am? You have escaped two accidents and one poisoning by the merest chance. If I was an assassin, you would be dead by now. Your son needs you, and you need me. Now, are you going to sit there on your—’ his eyes flickered to her body ‘—dignity, clutching an invisible coronet to your bosom, or are you going to come with me?’
I should slap him, but he is too quick for me. How can I leave? This is my duty, my country now…but Freddie. This Jack Ryder thinks I am an hysterical woman…
‘What about Philippe? He cannot be moved.’
‘Then we leave him. He is the Regent, he accepted the risks along with the office.’ He spoke as though it was a matter of leaving someone behind while they went on a picnic, not that they might be abandoning a man to his death. Dear Philippe, Freddie’s favourite Old Bear…‘Can you help him if you stay?’ She shook her head dumbly. ‘Then we go.’
‘Now?’ Her head was spinning. For so long it seemed she had had to think for herself—now this man was calmly taking over her decisions and her actions and the frightening thing was, it felt like a relief to let him do so. Eva straightened her spine and tried to think this through, ignoring the hard grey eyes fixed on her.
‘Yes, now. Unless you can think of any reason why leaving in broad daylight might be safer. Can you change into something completely neutral—a walking or carriage dress with a cloak or a pelisse? Something an ordinary lady would wear, if you own such a thing.’ His gaze swept down over the rich figured silk of her crimson evening gown to the tips of her exquisite slippers, assessing it, and probably, she thought irritably, pricing it, too.
‘I will need to pack,’ she began. How was he going to get them out of there?
‘A valise only. Essentials—one change of outer garments at the most. A discreet gown, nothing showy.’
‘But it will take us days to get back to England, I need more clothes than that.’ Court routine, even on a quiet day, demanded a minimum of four changes from rising to retiring.
‘We can buy more as we go. Have you any luggage here?’
‘Of course not. I will have to ring for my maid to help me change, and how am I going to explain why I need a valise at this time of night?’
‘Tell her you want to pack up some clothes for the poor—No, better, you know of a deserving young woman in the town who has the opportunity for a post as a governess and you want make her a gift of a valise and have decided to give her one of your old ones. Then tell her you want to change into your nightgown because you have a headache and do not want to be disturbed again tonight.’
‘And how, pray, am I going to get into a walking dress by myself?’ She knew the answer as soon as the words left her lips and spoke before he could. ‘I presume you are going to tell me that King’s Messengers have training as ladies’ maids?’
‘No, but I am capable of tying laces with my eyes closed,’ he confided.
‘I am quite sure you are, Mr Ryder,’ Eva said grimly. And untying them, too, no doubt. He would have a certain appeal for some women who liked the quietly dominant type, she could see that. It was fortunate that she was inured to male appeal. She tugged the bell pull and watched with a certain malicious interest to see where Mr Ryder was going to hide himself. It was a positive disappointment to see him drop to the floor and slide under the bed without any apparent discomfort.
She was beginning to wish she could catch him out in some way—he appeared to have an answer to everything. In fact, the only sign of humanity she had witnessed so far was the occasional glint in his eyes which, in anyone else, she would put down to mischief.
‘Your Serene Highness?’ It was Hortense, her dresser, slipping into the room with her usual soft-footed discretion.
‘Fetch me my valises, Hortense, if you please.’
‘Now, ma’am? All of them? You want to pack?’
‘Yes, all. And now, and of course I do not want to pack, Hortense. I am thinking of ordering a new suite of hand baggage from Paris and I want to see what I have.’ There was no reason why she should not have used Mr Ryder’s ingenious excuse—it was sheer stubbornness on her part and she knew it.
She was not given to issuing capricious orders and made a point of being considerate to the castle staff, so such a quixotic demand at that hour of the evening was unusual. But Hortense was too well trained to register surprise. ‘Yes, ma’am, right away.’
It took almost twenty minutes, but eventually the dresser was back with four menservants carrying fifteen bags between them. ‘Thank you, Hortense. I had no idea I had so many. Put them over there, please.’ She waited until the men had gone, then added, ‘Help me undress, please. I am a little fatigued and I will not need you after that.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
It felt decidedly risqué to be undressing with a man under the bed, even if he could see nothing. Eva slipped her arms into a wrapper and tied the sash firmly. ‘Good night, Hortense.’
As soon as the door shut behind the woman, she ordered, ‘Stay there,’ and began rummaging through her clothes presses for a suitable walking dress. She was answered by a faint sneeze as she threw her wrapper and nightgown aside and began to pull on her underthings again. A simple pair of stays which she could lace from the front solved one problem, but what to wear on top?
Finally she struggled into the plainest gown she had, which by almost dislocating her shoulder she could button up behind by herself, and found a stout pair of walking shoes to match. There was a large, but rather worn, valise in the pile and she added a good selection of undergarments before announcing, ‘You may come out now.’
Jack Ryder slid out from beneath the bed and got to his feet as she was gathering up toothbrush and toiletries. ‘That bag? No, far too large.’ As Eva gasped, he delved into the valise, extracted the pile of frills, fine lawn and filmy silk and deposited it on the bed.
‘Mr Ryder! That is my underwear!’
‘How very dashing of you to mention it, I was endeavouring not to. French, I observe,’ he added outrageously. ‘That bag there will do, but you will need to halve that pile of frippery. Here.’ He flipped through the pile, sorting it into two, and handed half to her.
Eva contented herself with one glare, dumped it into the small bag, then began to find the other items, trying to think which were the essentials to take. ‘What about money?’
‘I have enough. The journey to the frontier should only take us just over a week.’
‘But Napoleon controls France!’
‘He is in Paris, massing his troops. It would not do to show we are foreigners, but we should have no trouble passing as French travellers—it worked well enough on my journey down. Your French is perfect, mine good enough to pass as regional.’
Eva shrugged; he had got to Maubourg, true enough, now she just had to trust he could get them both back to England. ‘How do we get out of the castle?’ Travelling virtually the length of France seemed simple in comparison to walking out of her own castle with a strange man and a valise.
‘Have you a cloak with a hood?’ Eva nodded and went to take it from the press. Ryder folded it, placed it in another of the valises, then stripped off his own coat and added that to it. ‘I need a sash.’ He stood there, waiting for her to catch up with him; of course, in shirtsleeves with his dark waistcoat and breeches, he could be taken at a distance for one of the menservants, except that they all wore a red sash around their waists. But what did that achieve? She could hardly disguise herself the same way.
And if he could see from his hiding place under the bed the way that the footmen were dressed, what else had he been able to see?
Eva forced that worry away and rummaged in the press until she found a long scarf of almost the right colour. ‘Let me.’ She was so focused on being brisk and matter of fact that her arms were round his waist before she thought what she was doing. Jack stood very still for her, his arms lifted. Eva felt the colour rising in her cheeks; it was impossible to do this without touching him.
‘The way it is knotted is distinctive,’ she said briskly. ‘There, that should do.’ She stepped back, hoping her blushes would be taken for general agitation. The heat of his body had been disturbing for some reason. She forced herself to think clearly—it had to be the shock of the whole situation, otherwise what could account for the way she was reacting to this man? ‘Now what?’
‘Do you know which way to go to reach the lower courtyard without passing many guards?’ Ryder was securing the pistol out of sight in the swathing sash, his movements crisp.
‘Yes, of course, but we cannot avoid them all, there are two at the end of the corridor, for a start—my bodyguard.’ She watched him, puzzled. ‘I doubt I can disguise myself to deceive them, nor any of the others, for that matter.’
‘You don’t even try. Just walk with me, scolding me for something or another, then take the route for the lower courtyard using the least frequented areas.’ He swung the small valise up on to his shoulder, casting his face into shadow, and lifted the other one in his other hand. With only the cloak and coat in it, it hung in his grasp, obviously light and apparently empty.
‘I understand.’ Eva found her face relaxing into a smile. It felt strangely stiff and she realised how long it was since she had found anything genuinely to smile about. ‘Come on.’ She pressed open the door and led the way out into the corridor. A short distance ahead, where the passage to her private suite joined the main gallery, guards stood on either side, pikes at the slant. At the sound of her voice, they snapped to attention, their weapons crashing upright.
‘I cannot imagine how it can take one man so long to mend a simple strap,’ she complained, remembering at the last minute to speak the Maubourg patois. ‘And how you can say you do not understand which valise I want to replace it with, defeats me! I suppose it will be faster to come and look at them myself. How long have you been employed here? I must speak to the major-domo about his selection of staff.’
They passed between the guards, Eva, nagging away, keeping herself between Jack’s unprotected side and the right-hand man. There was no response from the guards as she marched along, her heels clacking on the stone floor, her voice raised peevishly. ‘This way, man, I do not have all evening!’
Jack strode along in Eva’s wake, suppressing a grin at her tone. Although, if she was this bossy in real life, it was going to be a tense trip back. It was hard to understand how such a feminine-seeming creature could be so hard. He had seen genuine tears when she had feared for her son’s life, but beside that she seemed cold, arrogant and wilful. As he had been led to believe.
He kept his head down as they passed a knot of female servants, all too busy bobbing curtsies to look at him, and followed the willowy figure of the Grand Duchess.
She wound her way down spiral stairs, along narrow passages and through what were obviously the working areas of the castle with surprising confidence. Perhaps, despite her autocratic manner, she took a practical hand in the supervision of the household. Jack found himself admiring the way she moved, the swing of her hips in the plain gown, then made himself concentrate on trying to maintain his sense of direction and to keep count of floors.
Eva opened a heavily studded door, then stopped. Puzzled, Jack glanced at her and saw she had gone pale. There seemed nothing to account for it, no voices, nothing but the start of a dark spiral staircase. It seemed she braced herself, her fingers white on the ring handle, then she stepped forwards.
After that hesitation she led the way unerringly down the precipitous flight to the solid oak door at the bottom. She pushed it and they stepped out into a brightly lit hubbub of steam, cooking smells and bustling women. In the centre of the room a massive, florid-complexioned individual brandished a ladle and harangued his subordinates. ‘Which criminal idiot put cream in this?’ he was demanding. ‘Do you not know what her Serene Highness likes? Do you wish to poison her?’ He glanced across the room, caught a glimpse of the newcomers through the steam and gasped. ‘Madame!’
‘Just carry on.’ The Grand Duchess waved a hand imperiously and the workers turned back to their tasks, leaving the maestro goggling amidst his cooking pots. ‘Through here,’ she murmured and Jack found himself outside in the wood yard. A lad staggered past carrying a basket of logs, then the door into the kitchens swung shut and they were alone in the dark.
He put down the lighter valise and took out her cloak and his coat. ‘Here, pull up the hood and hide your face as much as possible.’ He kicked the empty bag into the shadows, took her arm and began to walk steadily towards where he guessed, if his internal compass had not failed him, the lower courtyard would be. The townsfolk had unrestricted access there; in a few moments they would be simply two passers-by.
It proved easier than he had hoped, although the Grand Duchess was stiff at his side. She was obviously unused to being manhandled by subordinates. There were guards, but only on the main entrance to the inner courtyard, and no one took any notice of one couple amongst so many townsfolk.
‘I’ve a carriage waiting down by the East Bridge,’ he said as he steered her out of the gates and past a group laughing as they headed for a tavern, then dodged a stallholder who had finally given up for the night and was packing his wares into a handcart. ‘This is busier than I expected.’ At least the woman was less trouble than he had feared she might be from the way she had been described. She had a cool head, even if she had a sharp tongue.
It was hard not to give in to the temptation to run—the slope of the street towards the river encouraged haste—but that would only draw attention to them. Below, Jack could just make out the glint of water and ahead was the creaking inn sign he had used earlier as a landmark. ‘Down here.’
It was a steep lane, almost an alley, with steps down the centre and cobbles at the sides, and it led directly to the riverside. Beside him Eva was walking briskly along, clutching her cloak at the throat and showing no sign of fear. Now they were well embarked on their escape she was still calm. Jack offered up thanks for being spared an hysterical female and allowed himself to think they were going to make it.
Then, only yards down the alleyway, Eva slid away from him with a little gasp of alarm, her feet skidding on the greasy stones. He dropped the valise and used both hands to reach for her, but she tripped on the steps and was down with a loud noise of rending cloth.
‘Ouch! Oh, that is hard.’ She sat up, batting irritably at the tangling folds of the cloak. In the gloom he could make out the white oval of her face, and the moth-shapes of her moving hands, but that was all.
‘Are you hurt?’ Jack dropped to one knee and reached out to support her.
‘Bruised, I expect, nothing serious.’ Eva began to get up, then clutched for her cloak. ‘Oh, the wretched thing! The fastening at the throat has broken.’ Jack helped her to her feet and steadied her. She moved well, he noted automatically. She was fit, slender, active. That was a relief—he had feared finding a pampered, plump princess on his hands. The cloak slipped away, invisible in the shadows at their feet.
‘Just stand there a moment, I’ll find the cloak and bag,’ Jack began, then froze at the sound of loud voices. The flare of torchlight lit up the mouth of the alley with dramatic suddenness as booted feet hit the cobbles. He spun back against the nearest shuttered shop front, pulling Eva to him. The narrow lane filled with torchlight. ‘Make this look good,’ was all he had time to say before he bent his head and fastened his lips over hers.
‘Mmmf!’ she protested against his mouth, trying to jerk her head back. Jack applied one palm firmly to the back of her head, held her ruthlessly around the waist with the other hand and focused on giving a demonstration of blind rutting lust in action. It was not easy when the lady in question was trying to bite your tongue with vicious intent.
‘Hey! What have we here?’ The voice was loud, cultivated and arrogant. ‘Can we all join in, friend?’
Jack raised his head, catching a glimpse of furious, rebellious brown eyes in the second before he pressed Eva’s face into his shoulder, muffling her snarl of fury in the cloth. ‘Sorry, but this lady’s all mine.’ There were half a dozen of them, officers in the pale blue-and-silver Maubourg uniform that he had learned to recognise as he had scouted the castle and its defences. They had been drinking, but only enough, it seemed, to make them boisterous and over-friendly.
He kept his accent pure Northern French, gambling on them finding that more intimidating than provocative—which was more than could be said for the Grand Duchess’s efforts to free herself from his grip. He had his hands full of scented hair and sweet curves and she was pressed intimately against him. He tightened his hold, which had the unfortunate result of pressing her harder against the part of his anatomy that was entering into the deception with enthusiasm, and growled, ‘Patience, sweetheart, wait until these gentlemen have gone at least.’ Her reaction was to attempt to plant a knee in his groin. ‘Friends, give us some privacy, the lady’s husband will be looking for her—have some fellow feeling.’
That provoked the predictable lewd reaction, guffaws of laughter and cries of encouragement. They turned away, beginning to descend again to the river, when one, the most senior by the glimpses Jack had of his epaulettes, stopped.
‘Why, the lady has dropped her cloak. Allow me.’ He stooped, gathered it up and stepped close to lay it over Eva’s shoulders, holding up the torch, all the better to see exactly what he was doing, and, Jack guessed grimly, to catch a glimpse of the lady in the case.
Chapter Three (#ulink_a7937a39-4562-5164-9df3-937f3000b9f8)
Colonel de Presteigne! At the sound of his voice Eva stopped her efforts to free herself from Jack’s outrageous embrace and clung to him instead, pressing her face into the angle of his neck. This was not a group of young subalterns who could be relied upon not to recognise their Grand Duchess in a plainly clad figure glimpsed in a dark alleyway. This was a senior officer who knew her all too well.
Against her lips she could feel the pulse in Jack’s neck, strong and steady, and tried to stay as calm. ‘Here, allow me, ma chère.’ The weight of her cloak settled heavy on her shoulders and the colonel’s fingers trailed, lingering, across the nape of her neck. He had done exactly the same thing two nights before as he had restored her gauze shawl at a reception, counting on her not knowing whether it was deliberate or accidental. Now she could recognise that it was quite deliberate, no doubt a favourite ploy of his he could not resist trying on any female, whether noble or bourgeoise.
‘Merci.’ Jack’s hand came up, ostensibly to smooth the cloak around her shoulders, in effect bringing the edge of his palm sharply against the colonel’s groping fingers. ‘Bon nuit,’ he added pleasantly. Under the words the threat of violence hung like a lifted rapier.
Eva could feel the atmosphere crackle between the two men and knew instinctively that Jack had let his gallantry override his common sense. It was foolhardy, yet she felt a frisson of pleasure run through her that he had reacted that way. To be protected as a woman and not as a grand duchess was so novel she felt quite flustered. Or was that simply the effect of his outrageous kisses?
She felt Jack’s arm tighten and could tell from the way the muscles flexed that he was preparing to push her out of harm’s way if the other man reacted. There was a second where everyone seemed to have stopped breathing, then de Presteigne laughed. ‘Bon nuit. Bon chance, mon ami.’ The officers clattered off down the hill, leaving them in darkness and silence. Eva felt herself slump against Jack in relief as she felt both her poise and her balance desert her. She dragged down a deep breath and tried to stiffen her shaking knees, even as her arms clung to him.
Before she could free herself, Jack lifted both hands, cupped her face and kissed her again with a fierceness that spoke of relief, tension released and, quite simply, sexual demand. His mouth was hot, hard and experienced and Eva surrendered to it, swaying into his embrace again with a sensation of letting go. Physical pleasure, direct and straightforward, was such a liberation that she felt her mind go blank and let herself slide into the moment, ignoring the squalid little alley, the greasy cobbles underfoot, the danger of pursuit.
Her mouth opened to the thrust of his tongue, its message echoed by the hardness of the male body she was clinging to. Behind her closed lids stars spun against blackness. Need flooded her body like the kick of a glass of spirits at the male taste of him, the scent of his skin.
‘Hell.’ He lifted his head, still holding her tight against him, and reality and reaction hit her simultaneously.
Hell? They were very nearly making love on the cobbles and all he could say was Hell? She must have been mad—what would have followed if that moment of insanity had happened in her bedchamber? How dare he presume to touch her? How could she have allowed it?
‘You…’ she began furiously.
‘I forgot myself, indeed.’ The rueful admission was tinged with a satirical note, reminding her of her own part in what had just occurred. In the darkness she could not read his face; it was perhaps as well he could not see hers. ‘Relief and tension do strange things to us. Shall we go on?’
It was, certainly, the most dignified course to say nothing at all about the incident. Discussing it would lead nowhere but into more embarrassment—as it was, thinking about it made her skin hot all over. ‘Certainly, Mr Ryder,’ she said haughtily. ‘Have you the valise?’ Eva clutched the broken cloak clasp at her throat, feeling her pulse race against her knuckles.
‘Here.’ He stooped, a dark shape in the shadows, then took her arm. Knowing another fall risked injury, she made herself accept his touch, and tried to focus on something other than the newly re-awakened demands of her body.
‘Who is looking after the coach?’ She had not thought to ask, but this was the real world outside the castle, the world where coaches did not appear with drivers, grooms and outriders ten minutes after one had the whim to drive out. In this world people stole horses if you left them unattended. It was a world she had been insulated from for almost ten years, one she was going to have to learn to understand and survive in very rapidly.
‘My groom, Henry.’ Jack’s pace increased as the hill levelled out and they reached the quayside. Light spilled out from taverns and bawdy houses all along its length; the destination, no doubt, of the colonel and his companions.
‘What if someone speaks to him?’ Eva pulled up her hood and watched her feet as they stepped over mooring ropes stretched taut across the quay.
‘He spent two years in a French prison, so his grasp of the language is adequate, if colourful.’ Jack sounded amused and alert, not at all like a man who had been indulging in a torrid kiss with a virtual stranger not minutes before. She only wished she had his sangfroid. Perhaps he had not found her very exciting. Now, that was a dampening thought. ‘Here we are.’
The carriage was drawn up opposite the entrance to what Eva was quite certain was a brothel, as though waiting for its owner to return from his pleasures. A group of men were standing outside, talking over-loudly, and a bruiser with fists like hams stood watching them in the doorway. From the brightly lit windows came the sound of music and laughter.
The driver must have been on the lookout, for Eva saw a figure in a greatcoat sit up straight from its huddled position on the high box seat. ‘There you are. Quel surprise.’ He bent down as they came alongside and addressed Jack in accented French and with a familiarity that amazed her. ‘Thought I’d be picking your broken bones off the rocks come morning. Quite resigned to it I was. This the lady, then?’
‘No, just one I picked at random,’ Jack said sarcastically, opening the carriage door and helping Eva inside. ‘Of course it’s the lady. Did you have a scout round this afternoon like I told you to?’
‘Yes, guv’nor.’ The man had dropped into English. ‘And a very nice little burgh it is, too, not up to Paris, of course, or even Marseilles, but a man could have a bit of fun here, given the time.’
‘Well, we haven’t got any time, and speak French, damn you,’ Jack retorted. ‘Did you see the perfume factory?’
‘I did. Ruddy great place and smelling like a Covent Garden flower stall. Why? Were you wanting to buy any presents?’
‘No, I want to break in to it. Take us there now, and go steady, I don’t want to attract attention.’ Jack swung into the carriage, closed the door and lay back against the squabs opposite her. He breathed out a heartfelt sigh and Eva glimpsed the flash of white teeth. ‘Phew. That all went better than I had expected.’
There did not seem to be much to say to that, at least, not anything that didn’t risk an allusion to that episode in the alleyway. ‘Do you really intend that we break in to the factory?’
‘I am going to, you are not.’
‘Mr Ryder, do I need to remind you who I am? I say where I go and do not go. Besides, I have the key.’ The lights from the various establishments flickered into the carriage, illuminating Jack’s face in flickering bursts. She caught a look of surprise before he had his expression under control again.
‘Here? You have the key here? Why on earth would you bring it?’
It was tempting to pretend that she knew he would need it, but honesty got the better of her. ‘It is in the pocket of this cloak; I forgot I had put it there last time I visited. It was when I discovered about the chemists Antoine is employing—I had gone down one evening to look in the old recipe books, because I had found a perfume receipt up at the castle that sounded promising and I wanted to see whether we had it at the factory already.
‘I used to visit all the time, but since Philippe became ill I had stopped going. I don’t think Antoine knows I have a key to the offices. What are we looking for?’
‘I am looking for formulae, drawings, equipment—anything that might give me an inkling of what they are up to.’
‘We will need to start in the offices, then,’ Eva said, loftily ignoring his carefully selected pronouns. ‘Then we can move to the laboratories if we find nothing there. The actual workshops are unlikely, I think—after all, the production of perfume is continuing as normal, or I would have heard about it.’
‘It will be easier if you draw me a sketch.’ Jack rummaged in one of the door pockets and came out with some paper and a pencil.
‘I told you, Mr Ryder, I am coming with you.’ Eva pressed them back into his hands. Even in the gloom of the carriage with the occasional flashes of light, she could see from his expression that he had no intention of agreeing. ‘I have a perfect right to be there,’ she said, with sudden inspiration. ‘I can walk in with whomever I like—who is to refuse me? And the caretaker will not think to wonder what I am doing, he is so used to seeing me. It will reduce the risk, and hasten things, if you do not have to break in.’
‘That is true,’ Jack conceded. He must have sensed her surprise at his capitulation. ‘I am not in the habit of turning down perfectly good arguments just because someone else makes them.’
‘I thought you objected because I am a woman. Or because of my position.’
‘Neither. What you do in your position is your choice. I have a history of disagreements with dukes, but not grand duchesses, and in my experience women have an equal tendency to good and bad sense as men.’
‘Oh.’ He had taken her aback and it took a moment to recover. Whatever their station, the men in her life made it quite clear—deferentially of course—that she must be treated with respect for her position and with patronising indulgence for her opinions. Even dear Philippe was prone to treat her as though she had hardly a thought in her head beyond gowns, good works and her son. A grand duchess was expected to be a dutiful doll.
She was beginning to relax a little too much with this man, beginning to like him. In her position it was dangerous to do any such thing just because someone did not treat you like a brainless puppet—and kissed like a fallen angel. ‘Do you treat the dukes with as great a familiarity as you treat me? I have a title which you should use—’
‘Your Serene Highness, if I address you as such, then not only will every sentence become intolerably prolonged, but we risk exciting interest at every point along our journey.’
‘Ma’am would do excellently,’ she retorted, finding all her irritation with him flooding back.
‘What is your full name? Ma’am,’ he added belatedly just as she drew in a hissing breath of displeasure.
‘Evaline Claire Elizabetta Mélanie Nicole la Jabotte de Maubourg.’
Jack whistled. ‘I can see why you are referred to as the Grand Duchess Eva. I think we are here.’
Eva looked out at the high wall and the double gates with a little wicket set in them. ‘Yes, this is it.’ She found the key and handed it to him. ‘I shall tell the watchman that you are a French visitor from Grasse, interested in seeing how we make perfume here. And do try to remember to address me properly,’ she added as Jack handed her down from the carriage.
‘Yes, your Serene Highness.’ The click of his heels was a provocation she decided to ignore.
Old Georges, the watchman, came out with his lantern before they were halfway across the courtyard. He was pulling on his coat one handed, his wrinkled face a mask of concern at being caught out. ‘Your Serene Highness, ma’am! I wasn’t expecting you, ma’am—is anything wrong?’
‘No, nothing at all, Georges. This gentleman is from Grasse where they also make fine perfumes, as you know. He has no time to visit tomorrow, so I am showing him the factory tonight.’
‘Shall I light you round, ma’am?’
‘No, that is quite all right, just give monsieur your lantern. We will let you know when we leave.’
She opened the door into the offices, nodding a dismissal to the old man. Jack followed her in and closed the door. ‘That was almost too easy,’ he observed.
‘What do you mean?’ Eva opened the heavy day book and began to scan it. ‘There is always just Georges on duty at night. Now, this is the outer office; I doubt if we’ll find anything in here and the day book seems innocuous.’
‘If you were operating a secret laboratory, would you leave just one old man on duty? He did not seem at all alarmed by our presence, so he cannot be in on the plot.’ Jack scanned the room, opened one or two drawers, then moved into the next room. ‘Therefore it must be well hidden.’
‘I see what you mean.’ Eva picked up her skirts and followed. ‘The laboratories are through here; I have the master key.’
One after another the doors swung open until she reached the last one. ‘We do not use this one any more. Oh, look—the lock has been changed.’ Suddenly the familiar surroundings of the factory, which she had often walked through at night without a qualm, seemed alien and full of menace. She found she had moved closer to Jack and bit her lip in vexation at the betraying sign of fear. ‘This key will not work on it.’ She held it out as though to explain her instinctive movement towards him.
‘I’ll have to pick it, then.’ Jack fished in his boot top and produced a bent piece of thin metal, then hunkered down and began to work on the lock. Eva picked up the lantern and came to hold it close. ‘No, I do not need the light, thank you. I do this by feel and by sound.’
She watched, fascinated by his utter concentration. Again, the image of a swordsman, balanced and focused, came to her as she studied, not his hands, but his profile. His eyes were closed, his face relaxed as though listening to music, hearing and analysing what he heard at the same time.
Dark lashes fanned over tanned cheekbones. She saw a small crescent scar at the corner of his eye and observed the darkening growth of evening stubble begin to shadow his jawline. He was a very masculine figure, she thought, aware of the ease with which he balanced, the way his breeches moulded tightly over well-muscled thighs, the warmth of his body as she stood close.
I am too used to courtiers, too used to velvets and satins and posturing politicians and officials. Even the officers wear uniforms that speak more of the ballroom than the battlefield. This man looks dangerous, feels dangerous. And the biggest danger was, Eva realised, dragging her gaze away from his body to concentrate on the movement of the picklock, that she found him exciting to be with. Infuriating, insolent, casual and peremptory—and exciting.
It was something she had been wary of, these two years of widowhood, letting herself get close to another man, allowing the chill of her lonely bed to drive her into some rash liaison. You overheard too many people sniggering behind their hands as they recounted the tale of yet another widow of high rank taking a lover. It was risky, demeaning and ruinous to the reputation, for the secret always seemed to get out and, of course, it was inevitably the woman who was the butt of the jokes and the object of censure.
This feeling of arousal, this sense of hazard, was simply due to the shock of Jack Ryder’s eruption into her life and the stress of her worries for the past weeks. Everything was heightened, from her fear, her anxiety, to her sensual instincts. That was all it was, all it could ever be.
‘Got it.’ The lock clicked and the door swung open. Inside was a room laid out as a drawing office, with two desks on one side, a wide, high table in the middle and two drawing slopes with stools on the other side. Along the back of the room was a range of chests fitted with wide drawers.
‘Not a scrap of paper.’ Jack pulled open the desk drawers. ‘Empty except for pens and ink and rulers.’
Together they went to stand in front of the chests. Eva reached out a hand and touched the dark wood, noticing how heavily the piece was made. ‘Look at the locks. I have never seen anything like that before.’
‘Neither have I, and I will tell you now, I cannot pick these.’ Jack straightened up from a minute inspection of the locks, each made of steel, with double keyholes and strange rods and bars on its surface.
‘We will just have to smash the chests, then,’ Eva said robustly. ‘There are fire axes in all the rooms. Look, here.’ She lifted the axe from the corner where it stood next to a pail of water and swung it experimentally. It was heavy.
‘If I do that, then there is no hiding the fact that we have been here.’ Jack leaned back against the chest, folded his arms and regarded her steadily.
‘Of course.’ That much was obvious.
‘When Prince Antoine discovers your disappearance from the castle he may give chase, he may not. It is unlikely to be a matter of such desperate urgency to him that he will throw great resources into the pursuit. But if he links your disappearance with a raid on his secret laboratory, he is going to tear the countryside apart to find you.’
‘But we must find the proof of what is going on.’ Eva knew she was frowning in puzzlement. Was he really asking her if she would put her personal safety before her duty?
‘We have enough to confirm that Prince Antoine is experimenting with explosives. My orders are to get you back safely, not to engage in espionage.’
‘Are you telling me that you will walk away from this?’ Eva demanded.
‘No, I am asking you whether you want to. It is your life. It is your son waiting in England.’
Eva found the axe was still dangling from her hand. She propped it against the nearest chest while she tried to sort through her thoughts. Jack was offering her the choice, as he would to another man. He was not trying to hide the dangers from her. He wasn’t happy about it, but she was here inside the factory with him because he was prepared to listen to her ideas.
‘If there is a risk that some weapon that might aid him falls into Napoleon’s hands, then I would never forgive myself,’ she said, meeting the cool grey eyes. ‘I married a ruler of a country, albeit a small one. This goes with the territory.’ And she knew that if her life was at risk, then so was Jack’s—at greater risk, in truth, because she was coming to realise that if Antoine wanted her, he would have to go through Jack to get to her.
His lips curved in a smile that held admiration and a certain wry acceptance that she had just raised the odds stacked against them and that the counters she was pushing on to the gaming table represented both their lives. He held out his hand for the axe. ‘Right, let’s get started.’
Eva picked up the rough wooden handle, set her teeth and tightened her fingers. ‘No, let me.’ She raised it, her arms aching at the weight, and smashed it into the first lock. Wood splintered and the jolt as the blade hit metal ran up her arm. ‘That is for Fréderic. How dare Antoine try to take what is my son’s? I wish he was here at this moment!’
Chapter Four (#ulink_4f1f936d-c74a-546f-87d3-0878a842d776)
Jack reached across and prised Eva’s fingers from around the axe handle. ‘Allow me. I fully appreciate your wish to decapitate your brother-in-law, but I think I may be faster at turning these into firewood.’
She nodded abruptly, letting him take the axe and stepping back, her eyes fixed on the chests with angry intensity. God, that’s a woman with backbone! he told himself as he set to work to hack the locks out of their setting. She should be the Regent, she deserved to be. The way he was addressing her, the approach he had taken to their relationship, was simply because he could not afford for her rank to stand in the way of the mission. It was not through any lack of respect, whatever she might believe.
What the Whitehall officials who had sent him on this mission would say to him embroiling her in breaking and entering and spying, he shuddered to think.
The final lock in the first chest yielded in a mass of splinters and Jack began on the next. Beside him he was aware of Eva pulling open drawers, taking out piles of papers and laying them in order on the big table.
The physical effort of swinging the axe, hacking into the solid wood, made the sore muscles around his ribs where the rope had cut earlier ache savagely. He had not realised the strain his body had been under while he was doing it—the mentally numbing effect of the drop beneath him as he had lowered himself over the battlements was probably enough to account for that.
Jack made himself concentrate on breaking into the chests as fast as possible. There was too much distraction already in this mission to be thinking about bruised ribs. The revelation about the Regent’s health, the positive identification of Prince Antoine as the source of the treachery, the discovery of this factory and its secrets, were all outside his briefing and must be factored into his plans. And the impact that Eva was having on him was entirely unexpected and was going to need more than a change in tactics to neutralise.
He was not surprised to find himself admiring her for her coolness and courage, but he had not expected to find himself lusting after her. And that was what it was, there was no excuse for blinking at it. And it wasn’t just beauty that was having this effect. Jack delivered a final blow to the last chest and began to wrench out the drawers. There was something else—a passion behind those steady brown eyes, an energy and anger concealed under cool grace and dignity. And her body in his arms, the sweet fury of her mouth under his when he had kissed her…
He stepped back as Eva came to lift out the sheets of drawings from the drawers he had just opened. She moved as though in a state reception, but her hair was coming down and her face was flushed from hurrying backwards and forwards in the stuffy room. Her cloak was in a crumpled heap on the floor and she had pushed back the sleeves of her gown to expose strong, slender forearms and fine-boned wrists.
The drawings were already arranged on the table, he saw, as she darted about, brow furrowed in concentration, sorting the latest collection. Jack put down the axe and leaned back against the splintered chest to watch her. He should never have kissed her, of course, although as a ruse in the crisis they had found themselves it, it had worked very well.
The frankness of her kiss when she had stopped fighting him, when the officers had gone, should not have surprised him, either. She had been a married woman, she knew what she was about. From the briefing he had received, if she had taken a lover she had been very discreet about it—he may have been receiving the benefit of several years of chaste frustration.
They had both been under pressure, in danger, and that embrace had been a response as natural as two soldiers going out and getting drunk after a battle—a life-affirming release. It seemed she had dismissed it now, and so should he. Which was easier said than done.
‘Mr Ryder. Have you gone to sleep?’ The tart enquiry was sufficient to dampen any wandering fantasies of unpinning the rest of her coiled conker-brown hair and letting it flow over her shoulders.
‘No, ma’am, merely keeping out of your way until you had finished.’ The meek response had her narrowing her eyes at him, but he kept his face straight and she turned back to the table with nothing more than thinned lips to show her displeasure. Grand Duchess Eva had a knack of ignoring unpleasantness and skimming straight over it—presumably a useful skill in court life. ‘How have you sorted the papers?’
‘These are drawings of different mechanisms, but I think they all go together.’ She frowned and Jack found his hand lifting to smooth away the little crease between her brows. He jammed his fists in his pockets and came to stand next to her. ‘I have stacked each one with the most recent drawing uppermost; they are all dated.’ Eva pointed to a pile of black-bound notebooks. ‘Those are all figures and calculations. Formulae. They make no sense to me.’
‘To me, neither.’ Jack flicked through the topmost one and turned his attention to the drawings. ‘These are rockets.’
‘Fireworks?’ Eva leaned over close to his side to see and Jack drew in a sharp breath between his teeth. Her body was warm and fragrant and conjured immediate memories of how she had felt in his arms.
‘No, artillery weapons.’ Jack shifted round away from her as though to show what he was talking about. ‘They were invented by Congreve and the British have been using them at sea and on land since about 1805. Napoleon offered a reward for anyone who could invent one for the French army—but they haven’t got them yet. They aren’t very accurate, though.’ He leant over to study the other drawings. ‘See, these are frames and carriages for firing the things—I wonder if they have worked out a way to aim them better?’
‘And the notebooks might be formulae for the explosive powder?’
‘Yes, that could be it. We need to get these back.’ A look which could only be described as smug passed fleetingly over Eva’s face. ‘Ma’am, if you are about to say “I told you so”—’
Her eyes opened wide in hauteur. ‘I would say nothing so vulgar, Mr Ryder. Just how do you suggest we get them all out past Georges?’
‘We don’t. Not all of them.’ Jack picked up a pair of shears and began to cut down the top drawing from each pile, removing every scrap of waste margin. ‘We take the most recent of each of these, the most recent notebook, and we destroy the rest.’
‘The fireplace.’ Eva nodded and began to scoop up the remaining drawings, jamming them into the cold fireplace in the corner of the room. She picked up the notebooks and started to tear the pages out. ‘They’ll burn better loose.’
The half-dozen reduced drawings folded into a neat packet with the notebook. Jack jammed them into the breast of his coat and lit a spill from their lantern. The paper flashed into flame, blackening and falling apart in moments. Jack beat out the ashes with the poker and straightened up, observing, ‘How to make a prince angry in one easy lesson.’
‘Antoine will be beside himself,’ Eva agreed, picking up her cloak and shaking the dust out of it with a moue of distaste. Jack took it and put it around her shoulders. ‘Thank you, Mr Ryder. We had better be off, had we not?’
‘Indeed.’ Jack scanned the floor until he found what he was looking for: a shard of broken metal smaller than his little fingernail. ‘I’ll lock the door behind us.’ It was a matter of moments to flick the lock shut with the pick, then he eased the fragment of metal into the keyhole and tried it again. The fine pick jammed and grated against the foreign body. ‘There, they won’t be able to get the door open, but at first they will simply think the lock is faulty. It might buy us a little time.’
Eva led the way back out into the yard, keeping up a steady flow of polite chitchat that could only have come from years of practice at mind-numbingly tedious parties and diplomatic events. The caretaker came out and stood waiting for them. ‘Ah, there you are, Georges. We are off now; I am sorry to have disturbed you. Is your daughter well? Excellent.’
Jack paused to hand the lantern to the old caretaker and followed his gaze as the Grand Duchess made her way across the cobbled yard with all the dignity and grace of a woman stepping on to the ballroom floor. Her hair was coming down at the back, her face was flushed and there was dust around the hem of her skirt. Her dirty, crumpled cloak looked as though it had been used as a bed by a pair of hounds. It gave him an idea.
‘Thank you.’ Jack pressed a coin into the gnarled hand and lowered his voice. ‘Her Serene Highness can count upon you to be discreet, I am certain.’ The man stared at him, comprehension dawning on his face, then he nodded vigorously.
‘God bless her, monsieur, she deserves someone to care about her.’
Jack let one eyelid droop into a slow wink and sauntered out of the yard in Eva’s wake, the bulge of the documents flattened under his arm.
Eva allowed herself to be assisted back into the carriage and sank back against the squabs. ‘That wretched little rat! If Philippe recovers, he is going to make himself ill all over again when he finds out about Antoine. To ally us with Bonaparte is treachery enough, but to create weapons to put into his hands, that is beyond forgiveness or understanding.’
Now they were out of the factory, the full magnitude of what they had found was beginning to dawn on her. Inside it had all seemed an adventure. She had found it exciting, even though she had been frightened. She had enjoyed the give and take with Jack, both of words and, as she had swung that axe, of physical effort. He brought something alive in her, something that had been repressed for a very long time. It was enjoyable, and it must be resisted.
‘How long will that lock hold them, Mr Ryder?’
‘Quite a while. They will have to get a locksmith and although they will be impatient, I do not think they will realise it has been sabotaged. A locksmith will realise at once that it has been jammed, of course, then they will break the door down, I should imagine.’ He sounded as though he was frowning in thought. ‘From the weight, it may have been reinforced—they’ll be cursing their own precautions by the time they get inside.’
‘And then they will ask Georges who was there and he will tell them, he has no reason not to. I should have spoken to him.’ Eva shook her head, angered at her own lack of foresight. ‘Although what I could have said to explain such a request without exciting curiosity, I do not know.’
‘I think he will be circumspect.’ There was something in Jack Ryder’s voice that made her suspicious. Perhaps if it had not been almost dark, she would have missed it, but relying only on her hearing seemed to make her more sensitive to his mood.
‘Why?’ she demanded, suddenly suspicious. ‘What did you say to him?’
‘Nothing at all of any significance. I tipped him, said I was certain he would be discreet…’
‘And why should he think that was needed?’ A stray lock of hair tickled the dip of her collarbone. Eva put up a hand and discovered that half of it was down. As she touched her face, she felt how warm and damp her skin was. Her cloak, she recalled now, was crumpled and dusty from being on the floor.
‘I walk in to a deserted building after dark with a man and I emerge an hour later, dishevelled and flushed and crumpled and he asks the caretaker for discretion,’ she said flatly, working it out as she went. ‘Georges thinks…you encouraged him to think…that we were making love in there!’ The magnitude of it swept over her, leaving her hot faced and sick inside with humiliation. ‘How could you?’
‘It will be effective. And he appeared most sympathetic. I imagine your people would not grudge you a little harmless diversion.’
‘Harmless? Diversion? Is that how you categorise adultery and dissipation? Is it?’ She kept her voice down with an effort. A grand duchess does not shout. Ever. ‘Think of my position!’
‘It could not be adultery,’ the infuriating man pointed out. ‘Neither of us is married.’
‘Oh! You render me speechless.’
‘Patently not, ma’am.’
Now he was being literal with her! He deserved to be thrown into the castle dungeons. If only she had access to them now—they would be full of rats and spiders and he could hang there in chains next to Antoine, she thought vengefully. They deserved each other. Then the memory of what else lay under the castle sent a shudder running through her. No, best not to think of that, not here, not now, in the darkness.
‘Mr Ryder. Let me be plain. If I were to so far forget myself—and what is due to my position—as to take a lover, I would not chose an insolent, ill-bred adventurer and spy.’
‘You made me a spy,’ he countered.
That was true. Eva caught herself on the verge of an apology. This was outrageous—how was Ryder managing to put her in the wrong when he was quite obviously the one at fault? ‘Just because I did not remonstrate as I should when you took those outrageous liberties with me in the alleyway, there is no reason to assume you can blacken my name—’
‘Liberties, ma’am?’ His voice, with its faintly mocking edge, cut into her diatribe like a knife into butter. ‘Forgive me, but when those officers had gone I do believe that you returned my kisses with as much enthusiasm as I gave them. Either that, or you are an exceptionally talented actress.’
‘I was in shock,’ Eva protested, guiltily aware he was perfectly correct.
‘Of course you were,’ he agreed smoothly. ‘I perfectly understand. And, please forgive me, but that incident had nothing whatsoever to do with my exchange with Georges just now. I am afraid he leapt to a conclusion and it seemed to fit our purposes all too well.’ There was a pause, which Eva filled by gritting her teeth together and concentrating on breathing slowly and calmly through her nose. ‘Would you like me to go back and explain he has jumped to an incorrect conclusion, your Serene Highness?’
‘No!’ Deep breathing was not as calming as it was supposed to be. ‘It is too late now. The damage is done. Where are we?’ She looked out of the window and saw the glint of the river below. ‘Driving back into Maubourg? But why?’
‘Because it is the last place they would expect you to be by now if you have been missed. This coach is going to drive slowly, and very visibly, through the middle of the town. Henry is going to ask the way for the Toulon road at least three times, at each point making certain that the rather gaudy red door panels are well illuminated. We will then drive into a dark alleyway, remove the door panels to reveal a tasteful—and fictitious—crest, and equally sedately, make our way out of the Northern gate with me driving. By the time daylight comes Henry will be driving again, the door panels will be plain and to all intents this will be a third carriage, one which has not been seen in Maubourg.’
‘And if they have not missed me yet?’ The precautions and layers of planning took her aback. If she had thought at all about what would happen after they had left the factory Eva had simply envisioned driving as fast as possible towards the coast. ‘No,’ she answered her own question. ‘I see. They will question the guards and time my escape by us leaving my bedchamber, so they will be checking up on the coaches leaving tonight. Mr Ryder—do you do this sort of thing a great deal?’
‘Abduct royalty? No, this is the first time.’ He must have felt the intensity of her glare in the gloom, for he continued before she could explode. ‘Missions into Europe during the war, yes, some. Mainly I carry out intelligence work for the government, and occasionally for private individuals.’
‘What sort of thing? Following errant wives?’
‘Checking that suitors are what they seem, occasional bodyguard work. Recently I assisted a gentleman who had misplaced his wife ten years ago.’
‘Goodness. How very careless of him. And you earn your living from this?’ He spoke like a gentleman, with the hard edge and decisiveness of a military man. Her jibe about lack of breeding had been far from the mark. He wore no jewellery and she could make no judgement from his clothes, other than they seemed suitable for climbing down walls.
‘I have an adequate private income. I do this because I enjoy it.’
‘You do?’ How very odd, to enjoy fear and danger. Then Eva realised that she was enjoying it, too, in a perverse sort of way. She was scared, worried sick about Fréderic, embarrassed by much of what had happened today, but she was also alive. The blood was pumping in her veins, her mind was racing, she had been pitchforked from a life of predictability and privileged powerlessness into one of complete uncertainty—and she felt wonderful.
Only the day before she had gazed at her own reflection in the mirror and struggled to accept the fact that all that lay ahead of her was a decline into graceful middle age.
In a few months she would be twenty-seven. For nine years she had been a dutiful wife, then a dutiful Dowager Duchess. She had done nothing rash, nothing impulsive, nothing exciting. As Freddie grew up, then married, she would step further and further back into respectable semi-retirement. It was her duty. She might as well be dead.
‘Ma’am?’
‘Yes, Mr Ryder?’
‘You sighed. Are you all right?’
‘I am contemplating the thought that it is dangerous to wish for things. I had been finding my life a trifle dull and wanting in diversion recently. Then Napoleon returns, Philippe is struck down, someone tries to murder Freddie and me and you leap through my bedchamber window and take me burgling. I appear to be about to enter an adventurous phase in my life.’
‘I can promise you that.’ The coach stopped again, for what must be the third time. Eva listened to Henry’s rough French accent and the response from the watchman standing under the streetlight. She drew back further into the shadows.
‘Why are we not taking the Toulon road?’ she asked as they started forward once more.
‘Because, although it is faster, it is also riskier. Support for Bonaparte is strong to the south, and it is the obvious route for us to take. Then how do we find a boat to take us to England from a French port? I am going north, up into Burgundy, and then north-east towards Brussels, which is where the king has fled. Wellington has had his headquarters there since early April. We will go from there to Ostend.’
The coach turned sharply, lurching over a rougher surface, and pulled up. ‘Excuse me, we will be on our way in a moment. Henry will sit with you for a few miles.’
After some scraping and banging at the sides of the vehicle, the coachman climbed in, doffing his hat. ‘Begging your pardon, ma’am.’
‘That is quite all right.’ This at least was easy. One’s entire life appeared to be made up on some days of holding conversations with tongue-tied citizens. ‘Have you been a coachman long, Henry?’
‘I’m a groom, ma’am. Least, that’s what I am official-like. Most of the time I’m whatever the guv’nor wants me to be, depending on what we’re about.’
Hmm, not so tongue-tied, which could be useful. ‘So sometimes you have to be a gentleman’s groom, when Mr Ryder is at home in London?’
‘Aye, ma’am. When the guv’nor’s being himself like, which isn’t often.’
‘That must be difficult for his family,’ Eva persisted, fishing as carefully as she could. ‘For his wife, for example.’ Though he had said he was not married…‘Or his parents.’
‘Would be, indeed, ma’am, if he’d a wife. As for his respected father, top-lofty old devil he was, if you’ll pardon me saying so; nothing the guv’nor did was ever right for him, so I don’t reckon he’d give a toss, even if he was alive. Which he ain’t.’
That had not got her very far. He was not married and a top-lofty father confirmed his origins were respectable. It was an odd choice of words, being himself—it implied two very different lives. And London was home. Just who was Jack Ryder?
‘We’re out the Eastern gate,’ Henry observed. ‘Another hour and we’ll be snug at the inn, ma’am. I’ll wager you’ll be glad to be settled for the night.’
‘You know where we are staying tonight, then?’
‘Why, yes, ma’am. The guv’nor doesn’t leave things to chance. All booked, right and tight on the way down, and the landlord expecting us late, so no suspicions there. It’s a nice little place used by gentlemen on hunting expeditions in the foothills, but it’s quiet now.’
Eva sank back against the squabs and fell silent. Henry was certainly not in need of setting at his ease in her presence, so, strange as it felt, she did not have to make conversation. It was curiously peaceful to realise that she had no duties, none at all, other than to survive this adventure and reach England.
‘Ma’am!’ She jerked upright, startled to find they had stopped moving and there were lights outside. ‘You’d dropped off, ma’am,’ Henry added helpfully.
‘Yes, thank you,’ Eva said repressively. Goodness knows what sort of appearance she must present with her gown crumpled, her cloak filthy and her hair all over the place. She pushed it back and pulled her hood up to shadow her face as best she could. People saw what they expected to see, and this innkeeper would not be expecting a weary traveller to be his grand duchess. She must just be careful to do nothing to attract his attention.
The door opened, Jack helped her down and the landlord came bustling out to greet them, cheerfully prepared for their arrival at this late hour.
‘Welcome, sir, welcome, madam! Come along inside, if you please.’ Eva let the familiar local patois wash over her as the horses were sent off to the stables, their luggage carried in and Henry vanished in the direction of the taproom. ‘The room is just as you ordered, sir. The bed has been aired and I am sure your wife will be comfortable.’
The man led the way up the stairs. Eva stopped dead at the bottom, the last traces of sleep banished. ‘Room? Wife? Which room are you in?’
‘Ours.’ Jack took her arm and began to climb. Without actual violence she had no option but to follow him. ‘Thank you.’ He took the branch of candles from the landlord’s hand and pushed her gently through the open door at the head of the stairs. ‘This looks excellent. Some hot water, if you will.’
Eva stood in the middle of the room and looked around. One dresser, two chairs, a rug before a cold grate, a clothes press, a screen and a bed. One bed. ‘And just where are you sleeping?’ she enquired icily. Beneath her bodice her heart was thudding like a military tattoo.
‘With you. In that bed. Why? Where else do you expect me to sleep?’
Chapter Five (#ulink_0ce197a1-45ad-508c-b66f-c683959aa796)
‘I expect you to sleep in your own bed, in your own room.’ Her mouth had gone dry, her stomach was full of butterflies.
‘I am your bodyguard. I need to be close to you.’ He was touching the flame to the other candles in the room, his hand steady as he did so. Eva felt her irrational panic building. What was she afraid of? That he would ravish her? Ridiculous. Somehow common sense did not stop the unsettling physical reactions.
‘Then sleep on the floor.’ She pointed to the far corner, hidden behind a screen.
‘Why should I be so uncomfortable?’ Jack enquired. ‘The role of the modern bodyguard does not include sleeping at your threshold like a faithful troubadour. I have had a long hard day. That looks like a very large, very comfortable bed. I’ll put the bolster down the middle of it if that would make you feel any better.’
The click as he turned the key in the lock brought the panic bubbling closer to the surface. ‘It is scandalous,’ she stated. ‘I am—’
‘My wife,’ Jack said, turning from the door to face her across the expanse of snowy-white quilt. There was not a trace of amusement on his face. ‘For the rest of this journey you act, think, live as my wife.’
‘No!’
‘Eva, what are you afraid of? Do you think I am going to insist on my conjugal rights? That would be carrying the deception a little too far. This is for your safety.’ It was not a small room, but his masculine presence seemed to fill it. Part of her mind registered that he had called her by her first name; part of it dismissed that as an irrelevance. The forefront of her consciousness was full of the reality that she was going to have to spend this night, and goodness knows how many nights after it, in bed with this man.
‘Of course I do not think that.’ She was fighting not to think of it! ‘And I am not afraid of you.’ She tilted her chin haughtily and tried to stare him down.
No, she was not afraid of him, she was afraid of what he was reminding her she missed, afraid that every hour spent with him would tear away a little more of the screen she had erected round her needs and desires. Afraid that she might turn to him in the night for strength and comfort and…It was easy to resist temptation when it was not a fingertip away, easy to ignore yearnings when there was no way of satisfying them.
‘You are tired. We both are. They will bring hot water up soon and you can wash and go to bed.’ As he spoke there was a tap at the door. Eva watched, startled, as Jack slid a knife from his boot and went to open the door. By the time the little maid had come in with the pitcher of water, the knife was out of sight. He turned the key in the lock again once she was gone and gestured towards the washstand and screen. ‘Go on.’ He lifted her valise and placed it behind the painted wooden panels.
‘Thank you.’ Eva forced the words out of stiff lips and stepped past him into the fragile privacy. She was going to have to use her cloak as a dressing gown. Her hands shook as she delved into the valise, but she lifted out the scanty contents, shook out the one spare gown he had allowed her and sorted through the rest. Oh, no!
‘Mr Ryder.’ It was the tone she used to point out some grave dereliction of court protocol and it normally produced a reaction of instant, anxious, attention on the part of the person so addressed.
‘Yes?’ His voice sounded muffled, but unconcerned. Eva had a momentary vision of his shirt being pulled off over his head and turned her back on the join in the screen panels resolutely. For a moment she had wanted to peep, like some giggling maidservant spying on the grooms.
‘When you took those things out of my valise at the castle, you apparently removed my nightgown. What, exactly, do you expect me to sleep in?’ If she hadn’t been so angry, she would have considered her words more carefully. As it was, there was a long silence from the other side of the screen. He is laughing at me, the beast, she decided grimly, just as a white linen garment was tossed on top of the screen.
‘Have one of my shirts.’
‘You have plenty, I assume?’
‘Of course, I knew how long I was packing for.’ He is laughing. Eva fumed as she stripped off and washed hastily, then dragged the shirt over her head. It came midway down her thighs, the cuffs dangling well below her fingertips. She pulled it down as much as possible, rolled up the cuffs and unpinned her hair. At least he had left her hairbrush in the case.
The long, regular strokes had the soothing power of routine. She did the requisite one hundred and hesitated, half-tempted to do another set. Then another. She braided it hastily. ‘Where are you, Mr Ryder?’
‘In bed.’
‘Then close your eyes.’
‘Very well. They are closed. Will you snuff out the candles?’
A cautious look around the edge of the screen revealed that Jack was indeed in bed, his eyes closed as promised. There was no doubting that he was awake somehow; he seemed to radiate alertness. The covers were pulled up to his chin, not giving her any hint as to what he might—or might not—be wearing and the odd lump down the centre of the bed showed that he had inserted the bolster as a gesture to modesty.
Eva emerged, resisted the undignified urge to scuttle from candle to candle and then dive into bed, and instead went round carefully snuffing each until the bed itself was just a white glimmer in the room. She slid under the sheet, pulling it up tight to her throat.
‘Good night, Eva.’
No more ma’am, not until they reached safety. It was a curiously liberating thought. ‘Good night,’ she responded coldly. Jack. Liberating, or dangerous? Protocol was a straitjacket, but it was also an armour. Behind it one could maintain a perfect reserve, perfect privacy for the emotions. This adventure was going to throw her into an intimacy of thoughts and fears with this man that was at least as perilous as any physical closeness.
She should have been exhausted, ready to drop into sleep the moment her lids closed. The bed was comfortable, clean, and there was the reassuring touch of the bolster down her spine to remind her that she did not need to fear turning and touching Jack in the night. Of course she trusted him, and really, it was no different to him sleeping on the floor on the far side of the room, she told herself stoutly.
So why could she not sleep? Eva closed her eyes and tried to relax, starting with her toes and working up. She tried counting sheep, reciting recipes, recalling Italian irregular verbs. Hopeless.
Was he asleep? She held her breath to listen to his, steady and even. There was an interruption as he shifted slightly, a soft sigh, then the even rhythm resumed. Jack Ryder was obviously one of those infuriating people who could sleep anywhere, under any circumstances. She just hoped he would wake up as quickly if danger threatened.
Eva turned her thoughts resolutely to her son, her lips curving into a smile as she did so. How soon before she could see him? He would have grown so much. What new clothes would he need? Would he look more like his father now as he grew up, or less? Would he still throw himself into her arms to be kissed, or was he too grown up for that now? Without realising it, she relaxed and drifted off to sleep.
Jack opened his eyes on to darkness and lay still, trying to work out what had woken him. Eva’s breathing was soft and regular, she was lying curled up with her back turned and had managed to push the bolster a good three-quarters of the way across the bed towards him. A woman used to sleeping alone.
Distantly a dog was barking, the bored yap of a lonely animal, not the aggression of a threatened one. The yard below was silent. He dredged into his mind and came up with the sound of a closing door outside. It must be about three o’clock—who was abroad at this time? He had chosen this inn, a hunters’ favourite off the main road, for its isolation.
He eased out of the bed, pulling on his breeches before taking four silent strides to the window. He unlatched the shutter, pushed it back and stood looking down until his eyes adjusted to what dim light there was. Minutes passed, then he saw a familiar figure come out of the shadow of the stable opposite and walk across the yard. In the centre the man stopped and looked up, directly into his eyes, although he could not have seen Jack.
He eased the window wide and leaned out. ‘What’s the matter?’ He pitched the whisper to reach Henry and no further.
‘Nothing,’ the groom hissed. ‘I was restless.’
Jack raised a hand in acknowledgement and silently closed the window again. Henry was lying, of course, he had probably been prowling about every half-hour or so throughout the night. He never seemed to need much sleep—the result, he claimed, of becoming accustomed to very little when he was a prisoner of war.
The man drifted out of sight as soundlessly as he had appeared. Jack turned to go back to bed and found himself face to face with a white spectre. ‘What the hell!’
It was Eva, of course. How she had got out of bed and across the room without him hearing her was a worry—was he losing his sharpness of hearing, the instinct that warned him of danger? But, of course, Eva was not a danger. Not, at least, in the sense that she was likely to knife him in the back.
‘It is me,’ she whispered. ‘What’s wrong? Is it Antoine’s men?’
‘No, nothing’s wrong. I was simply checking. Henry is on guard below,’ he said reassuringly. ‘Go back to bed.’
‘Very well.’ Eva started to turn, stumbled, put out her hand for balance and hit it sharply against his naked ribs. The gasp of pain as her nails grazed across his bruises was out before he could choke it back. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing. You scratched me slightly and made me jump, that’s all.’ She stood, looking up at him as though she could read his face in the near darkness. Her own was a pure oval of white, only the shadow of her eyes discernible.
‘I do not believe you,’ she said after a moment, and spun round towards the bedside table, the movement sending a faint rumour of warm skin and gardenia wafting, achingly, to his nostrils. ‘Stay there.’ There was a scrape and a flame flared up. She touched it to the candle and carried it over to where he stood. ‘Mon Dieu! Your ribs, your chest! Turn around.’
‘It is nothing, just bruises from the rope.’ Jack tried to urge her back to the bed, but she stood her ground. Eva should have looked ludicrous in his oversized shirt, her slim legs and slender feet emerging from beneath the hem, but she looked tousled and delectable and the fact she was wearing something of his was oddly arousing. No, extremely arousing.
‘What rope? And turn around, I am not going to hurt you, you foolish man.’ She seemed to have no conception that he might not obey her.
The implication that he was frightened had him turning before he could catch himself. Then he froze as a cool palm touched lightly on the diagonal welt across his back. ‘You didn’t think I climbed down the castle wall to your window like a lizard, did you?’ It was suddenly difficult to control his breathing.
‘Rational speculation about how you appeared in my room was the last thing on my mind,’ Eva said drily. ‘You could have flown there on a broomstick for all I knew.’ She made a soft sound of distress as she moved the candle to see the full extent of the damage. Jack stood watching their shadows slide across the bedchamber wall and fought the urge to turn and take her in his arms. Her feminine concern, the gentleness of her touch, almost banished the constant awareness of who she was. But the Grand Duchess was all too aware of it; Jack reminded himself grimly of the fact, and turned round.
It did not help that the suddenness of his movement gave her no time to move her hand and they ended up almost chest to chest, her right arm wrapped around his naked ribcage, her left hand holding the candlestick out to the side in an effort not to scorch either of them. Oddly, the intimacy did not appear to be concerning her.
Eva tutted again, moving away to put the candle down safely. ‘I don’t suppose you have anything useful like medical supplies along with all those clean shirts, have you?’ He was breathing like a virgin on her wedding night now and Eva was perfectly composed. For God’s sake, man, get a grip.
‘Of course.’ Offering up a quick prayer of thanks that he had stopped to put on his breeches, Jack lifted one of his valises on to the bed and opened it. ‘There. Not that I need anything.’
‘I will be the judge of that.’ Eva began to lift things out of the case. ‘What on earth are these?’
‘Probes for removing bullets.’
‘Urgh.’ She opened her fingers fastidiously and dropped the instrument on to the bed. ‘I hope Henry knows what to do with them, or that you stay well out of the line of fire, because I am certainly not using them. Here, witch hazel, that is just the thing. And some lint.’ She shook the bottle and pulled out the stopper, releasing the strange astringently aromatic smell into the room. ‘Sit on the corner of the bed, please.’
The liquid was cold on his sleep-warm skin and Jack could feel the goose bumps forming as she dabbed her way up his back and across his shoulder along the lines left by the rope. He found himself wondering with a sense of detachment if she was going to deal with his chest with such aplomb. It seemed she would. For some reason a woman who baulked at sharing his bedchamber could cope quite easily with his half-naked body provided there was an injury to deal with.
Eva moved round, tipping the bottle on to the lint again to re-dampen it. She paused to survey the darkening bruise, then caught his eye. ‘What is it?’ Damn the woman, can she read minds? His ability to keep a straight, unreadable, face was one of his most valuable professional assets. So he had believed.
‘I was wondering why you do not appear to find this embarrassing,’ he answered frankly. ‘We are both half-dressed and in a bedchamber, and earlier that appeared to be a major obstacle to a good night’s sleep.’
She looked down her nose, suddenly every inch the Grand Duchess, despite her makeshift nightshirt and bare feet. ‘You are injured; that is something that must be dealt with, whatever the situation. On the other hand, finding myself constrained to share a bed with a strange man was something I would hope to avoid if at all possible.’
‘So modest behaviour depends on circumstance? Ouch!’
‘Sorry.’ She peered close to see why he had jumped, then carried on dabbing. Her breath fanned warmly over his collarbone, playing havoc with his pulse rate. ‘Of course it depends. If I was in my bath and the place was burning down, I would not expect you to wait politely outside the door until I got dressed before breaking in to rescue me.’
Jack fought with himself, biting the inside of his cheek in an effort not to laugh, then he caught Eva’s eye and watched while she imagined the scene she had just described. Her lips twitched, the corners of her eyes crinkled and she burst out laughing. He had never seen her laugh before; he hadn’t known whether she had a sense of humour. The only smiles he had seen were polite social expressions, but this was another woman. One hand pressed to her lips, she hurried to put the bottle down safely, then collapsed on the bed in a paroxysm of giggles.
‘Oh, Lord! I can just imagine our chamberlain doing just that! “I regret to inform your Serene Highness that the castle is on fire. Might I suggest you complete your coiffure at your earliest convenience, ma’am, as the flames are licking around my feet, ma’am…”’
She looks eighteen, a girl, so fresh, so natural, so sweet. The laughter drained out of Jack as he stared at her. Eva sat up at last, hiccupping faintly and mopping her eyes with the cuff of the shirt.
‘I am sorry, it must be the strain.’ She smiled at him hazily. ‘I can’t remember the last time I laughed out loud, or even found something silly enough to laugh about.’
Jack put out a hand towards her, not knowing what he wanted, only knowing he needed to touch her. Eva put her hand in his, her eyes questioning. He did not speak—there was nothing to say, nothing that he could articulate. For a moment she held his gaze, then awareness of who she was and where they were became clear from her expression and she looked away, chin up. Jack freed her hand and stood up.
‘Back to bed, we will need to be up in a couple of hours. You require your sleep.’
She nodded haughtily, very much on her dignity and got up, skirting carefully around him to slide under the covers on her side. ‘Good night.’
‘Good night.’ He stoppered the bottle of witch hazel, grateful for the way its heavy odour blanked out the feminine scent of her, and pulled the covers up firmly over his shoulders.
It was no part of his plans to be attracted to a woman, least of all a grand duchess. He had not thought himself so susceptible, nor so unprofessional. It was not as though he was short of feminine comfort for his physical needs—a succession of highly skilled barques of frailty made quite certain of that—for he had long since recognised that his chosen path was not one a wife could be expected to tolerate.
Not that the examples of marital life about him had made him eager to commit himself to such a relationship, so it was not such a deprivation. His recently widowed sister, Bel, had once confided that her husband was so dull she could hardly stay awake in his presence, his father had been a serial adulterer, and his friends, one after another, appeared to be sacrificing themselves on the altar of respectability by marrying simpering misses straight from the portals of Almack’s.
Flirting with young ladies of good breeding was boring and risked raised expectations and broken hearts. Flighty matrons and dashing widows required more emotional commitment than he was prepared to invest—which left the professionals, with whom one could at least be assured there was no hypocrisy involved.
So why was this woman making him hard with desire? Why did he want to shelter her to an extent that went way beyond his brief to bring her back safely to England? She was hurt, anxious and vulnerable despite her efforts not to betray that and she had got under his skin in a totally unexpected way.
It was the novelty, obviously, Jack decided, stopping himself turning over restlessly for the third time. He was unlikely to find himself on such intimate terms with a member of a royal family again, that was all it was. Satisfied he had put that anxiety to rights, he closed his eyes, willed himself to sleep, and forbade himself to dream.
On the other side of the bolster Eva was wrestling with her emotions, her body’s reactions and her sense of decorum and duty. She had woken, roused by instinct—for she was certain Jack had made no sound—and had lain for a moment looking at the silhouette of his head and torso against the pale frame of the window. His body was a beautiful shape, the classic male outline of inverted triangle over a narrow waist, enhanced by a musculature in the peak of fitness—hard, sculpted and wickedly exciting to a woman who had lived a life of celibate respectability for over twenty months.
Then the sleep had cleared from her mind and she forgot erotic considerations in anxiety about what he was looking at. That anxiety had carried her across the room to his side without self-consciousness, or any modest concern for how she was dressed, and no sooner had she recollected these things than she had been distracted again by the realisation that he was hurt.
Small boys with scraped knees were a matter of routine for a mother; grown men needing bandaging and nursing were part of a wife’s duties, and somehow that had carried over into caring for her brother-in-law, and now Jack. She simply had not thought of him as anything but a body to be mended until he had looked into her eyes and held out his hand to her.
What was he asking? What did he want? After the skill of that kiss in the alleyway she had no doubt he could make a fine attempt at seducing her, if that was what he desired. She would find him hard to resist, she acknowledged that. Eva had long since abandoned self-deception as a method of dealing with her situation in life, and she was not going to risk everything by pretending she did not know temptation when she saw it. For years she had been able to turn away flirtation, thinly veiled offers and outright attempts at seduction without the slightest quickening of her pulse rate, not a moment’s sleep lost. Now she felt as unsteady as a young girl in the throes of her first infatuation.
Was it simply friendship she had seen in Jack’s gaze, in his outstretched hand? Or was it the first move of a skilled seducer? She could afford neither, for if friendship brought her closer to him she feared her own need would betray her, and if he was intent on seduction, then only a rigorously maintained distance and discipline would save her from herself.
Eva closed her eyes and made herself lie patiently waiting for sleep.
There was no virtue in remaining chaste while there was no temptation, she told herself severely. The morning would bring new resolution and greater strength, she had to believe that.
Chapter Six (#ulink_a55901b6-b8f4-5ce6-84b8-d7b0d913a675)
The sound of booted feet on the floorboards brought Eva awake with a start of alarm. Sunlight was flooding through the window, morning had broken and she was still abed while pursuit could be at the door. She sat bolt upright. ‘What time is it?’ How could she have slept so soundly? ‘How are your bruises?’
‘Six, that is all. But time you got up, all the same. And my bruises are much better, thank you.’ Jack straightened from fastening a valise and smiled at her, a casual smile that held none of last night’s unspoken complications. He was fully dressed, clean shaven and alert. It felt very odd to have a man in her bedchamber while she was still in bed. ‘There is warm water on the washstand. I’ll wait downstairs unless you need any help with…er…’ he waved one hand in an effort to find an acceptable word ‘…buttons or anything.’
‘Thank you, no,’ Eva replied, suppressing the information that she had carefully selected garments that did not require assistance with laces, buttons or any other fastening. Yesterday she would have probably blurted that out; today she was resolved to retain the utmost dignity compatible with sharing a room with a man to whom she was not married.
‘Very well, I will order breakfast for twenty minutes’ time.’ He paused, one hand on the key. ‘Lock the door behind me.’
She made it downstairs with five minutes to spare and was rewarded by a raised eyebrow as Jack stood and held a chair for her in the deserted parlour. ‘I have a busy schedule that requires frequent changes of clothing,’ she explained, answering the unspoken comment on her punctuality and accepting a proffered napkin with a nod of thanks. ‘Where is Henry eating?’
‘In the kitchen, I imagine.’ Jack helped himself to a hearty slice of ham, two eggs and a length of sausage.
‘I would prefer that he join us.’ She poured coffee into the large cups and added a generous amount of milk, still frothy from the milking pail.
Jack accepted a cup, frowning. ‘Why? He can hardly chaperon us in the bedchamber, so his presence at breakfast seems a touch superfluous.’
‘Even so. I wish to retain the appearance of respectability so far as I am able.’ How direct he was! She had hoped to raise the matter without mentioning chaperons or bedchambers, but, no, Jack made no concession to conventions, or to the mild hypocrisies that oiled the wheels of real life. Eva tried not to either blush, or look like a prude, and suspected she had ended up merely looking starched-up. Not such a bad thing.
‘As you wish.’ Jack got up, put his head round the door to catch a passing potboy with the message and resumed his seat. ‘I am not sure Henry would add to any lady’s credit, but I cannot provide you with a lady’s maid.’
‘No, I agree. It would not be fair to her, and she could slow us down in an emergency.’ Eva buttered bread sedately, resisting the fragrant dish of ham and eggs until she had taken the sharpest edge off her appetite. Dinner last night had been unusually early and she had had nothing since, but she was not going to bolt her food. Years of eating in her room so she could be seen dining in public with the appetite of an elegant bird had left her awkward about tucking into a meal in company.
‘Quite. A very practical assessment.’ Jack was regarding her with a quizzical air. Eva stared haughtily back and carried on nibbling her bread and butter. ‘Is anything wrong?’
He was always catching her off-balance, she thought resentfully. Half the time he was coolly expressionless, practical and seemed to expect her to just get on with things as he did himself. Then there would be a flash of sympathy, of understanding or concern, and his grey eyes came alive with a warmth that made her want to reach out and take his hand again.
‘Whatever could there be wrong?’ she said lightly, feeling her smile tighten. She added, with an edge of sarcasm, ‘This is all quite in the normal run of my experience, after all.’
‘Treating me like a awkward ambassador is not going to—Henry, good morning. Madame would like you to join us.’
‘Strewth.’ The groom stood turning his hat round in his hands. ‘You sure about that, ma’am? I mean, I’ve been seeing to the horses this morning and all.’
‘Entirely sure. Please sit in that chair there, Henry. Now, would you care for some coffee?’
Eva poured, served herself ham and eggs, made careful conversation with both men in a manner that effectively forbade the introduction of any personal matter whatsoever and finally rose from the table, satisfied that she had set the tone for the rest of the journey. ‘Where are we travelling to today?’ she asked over her shoulder as Jack pulled out her chair for her at the end of the meal.
He shook his head slightly and she caught her breath. She had been beginning to feel safe, lulled by the routine domesticity of breakfast. Of course, walls had ears, people could be bribed to pass on tittle-tattle about earlier guests. The cold knot in her stomach twisted itself together again, not helped by the squeeze he gave her elbow as she preceded him out of the room. She was not used to being touched. It was meant to be reassuring, she was sure, but it succeeded all too well in reminding her just how much she needed him.
Jack waited until the carriage had rattled out of the inn yard and Henry had turned west before speaking. ‘Grenoble, Lyon, Dijon, then north to the border with the Kingdom of the Netherlands by whatever seems the safest route at the time,’ he said without preamble as she folded her cloak on the seat.
‘Through so many big towns? Is that wise?’ The watchful grey eyes opposite narrowed and Eva caught a glimpse of displeasure. He does not like my questioning his judgement, she thought. Too bad, I want to understand. I need to.
‘In my judgement it is,’ Jack responded evenly. ‘We need the speed of the good roads and travellers are less obvious in cities. However, if we run into trouble, then I have an alternative plan.’ She nodded, both in comprehension and agreement. ‘I am glad you approve.’
‘It is not a question of approval,’ Eva snapped, then caught at the fraying edge of her temper. Grace under pressure, that was what Louis had always insisted was the mark of rulers. Grace under pressure at all times. ‘I wish to understand,’ she added more temperately. ‘I am not a parcel you have been charged with delivering to the post office. Nor does my position make me some sort of mindless figurehead as you seem to think. If I understand what we are doing, why we are going where we do, then I am less likely to make any mistakes to earn your further displeasure.’
‘It is not my place to express displeasure at any action of yours.’ Jack’s retort was even enough to tip her emotions over into anger again. He was humouring her, that was what he was doing. He wanted it both ways—he wanted to call her by her first name, carry on this pretence of marriage and sharing a room, yet the moment she tried to take an active part in their flight he fell back on becoming the respectful courtier.
‘No, it is not your place, Mr Ryder, but I thought we had agreed that for the duration of this adventure I was not a grand duchess, that you would call me by my given name. I had assumed that meant you would also stop treating me as if I was not a real person. I hate it when I visit a village and they have painted the shutters especially. How do I know what lies behind them? Are they prosperous or are they poor? How much money was wasted on that paint? I want the truth, Mr Ryder, not platitudes, not your equivalent of painted shutters.’
Her angry words hung in the air between them. She saw the bunching of the muscles under the tight cloth of his breeches and wondered if he was about to jump up, pull the check cord and transfer to the box, leaving her in solitude to fume.
Then Jack leaned back into the corner of the seat and smiled. It was not a sign of humour, it was the kind of smile she produced when she was deeply displeased, but it would not be politic to say so, a curving of thinned lips. Had that hard mouth really been the one that had slid over her warm lips with such sensual expertise?
‘Very well.’ Eva jumped, dragging her eyes away from his lips. ‘If you must have it without the bark on it. The amount of danger we are in all depends on whether Antoine wants you back, and, if he does, whether he has a preference for alive or dead.’ Eva tried not to flinch at the brutal analysis. ‘He might simply be satisfied with you disgraced, in which case we are doing his work for him—last night was enough to ruin you. Or, of course, an accident on the road has the advantage of simplicity.
‘If he wants you ruined, he just has to leave us alone, spread the rumour that you have fled with your lover and make sure every newspaper in Europe picks up the tittle-tattle.’
‘When I get back to England and I am seen to be received by the Prince Regent and the Queen—’
‘The damage will be done by then, the dirt will be on your name. No smoke without fire, they will say.’
‘I wonder, then, that you chose to share my room last night.’ Cold shame was washing over her body—what would Freddie think? Small boys were cruel; someone would make certain he heard of his mother and the smutty tales about her. ‘It was poor judgement on your part.’ All this time worrying about her reputation and knowing that taking a lover was out of the question, and now this.
‘I put safety above respectability. Better slandered than dead.’ There was a flash of white teeth in a sudden grin, then the grim humour was gone. ‘And besides, Prince Antoine has all the ammunition he needs without confirmation from an innkeeper about which beds were slept in. You were seen leaving with a man and some baggage.’ He paused, watching her face. ‘If I had pointed this out, back in the castle, would you still have come?’
‘Yes, of course I would have come!’ Of course she would have. ‘What does my reputation matter against Freddie’s safety or my duty? And what difference does it make to our choices whether Antoine wants me alive or dead?’
‘If he wants you back in Maubourg so that people can see you, while he controls you as a puppet by threats to your son, then he will have to capture you and transport you home. That requires some logistical planning, more people. It may be easier to spot. If he wants an accident…well, then that is harder to see coming.’
‘Yes, that is putting it without the bark on,’ she agreed, trying not to let her voice shake. This was the man she had begun to think she understood and now realised she had been underestimating. Jack seemed so cold, so unmoved by the fear and danger behind his analysis. ‘Are you ever afraid?’ she demanded, the words leaving her lips as she thought them.
‘Of many things,’ he said evenly, surprising her. ‘The knack is not to admit to it, not even to yourself.’
‘I am scared of spiders,’ she confessed. ‘But I am not prepared to say what else.’ Even referring to her recurring nightmare obliquely made it hideously real. Those dark passageways under the castle, the shifting lift of the torches making half-seen shapes move in corners. The rectangular shapes and the knowledge of what was in them…She pushed it away with an inner shudder. ‘I understand what you mean; it does not do to conjure such things up. Instead, tell me what I should to do to help protect us all.’
‘Do what I tell you, always, at once and without question.’
Eva blinked. She had been hoping he would give her a pistol, and show her how to use it, or demonstrate how to hit an assailant over the head, or some other active form of defence. ‘That was very peremptory, Mr Ryder.’
‘Are you going to argue about it? And call me Jack.’
‘Yes, I am going to argue, Jack,’ she said. ‘What if I do not agree with what you are telling me to do?’
‘We stand there and debate it while the opposition takes the advantage, or I hit you on the point of your very pretty chin and do whatever it is anyway.’
‘My…What has my chin got to do with it?’
‘It is the easiest part of your anatomy to hit in a crisis.’ He appeared to have regained his good humour. ‘Then Henry and I bundle up your unconscious body and make our escape with you slung unflatteringly over Henry’s shoulder.’ The smile reached his eyes, crinkling the corners in a way that was infuriatingly attractive.
‘There is the death penalty in Maubourg for striking a member of the Grand Ducal family,’ Eva stated. And see how you like the thought of a coarse hemp noose around your neck, Mr Ryder!
‘What a good thing we will not be in Maubourg if such an eventuality transpires.’ They sat in silence. Eva glared out of one window, Jack looked out of the other, his lips pursed in a soundless whistle.
Eventually the coach turned, lurched and began to ride more smoothly. Eva dragged her attention back to the landscape and away from a satisfying daydream of seeing Mr Ryder dragged off in chains to the scaffold. They had reached the post road to Grenoble.
‘Are you going to sulk all the way to Brussels?’ Jack enquired.
‘I am not sulking. I have simply not got anything to say to you, you insolent man.’
‘I see. I apologise for the remark about your chin.’
‘What part of that remark, exactly? Threatening to hit it?’
‘No, making an uncalled-for personal remark.’
‘Has anyone told you how inf—’ She broke off at the sound of a fist being banged on the carriage roof.
‘Hell.’ Jack sat upright. ‘That means trouble. We are almost at the border—do you normally have it guarded? There was no check when we entered the Duchy.’
‘No, never. Our army is minute and there are far too many passes and back roads to make it worthwhile putting on border guards. What do we do?’ Jack would have a plan for this, he couldn’t intend that they stop, surely? Eva braced herself, expecting the horses to be whipped up to ride through whatever obstruction lay in their path.
But Jack was on his feet, balancing against the swaying of the coach as Henry began to rein in. Eva stared as he groped under the edge of the seat he had been sitting on. There was a click and the whole top folded up leaving a rectangular space. Jack threw her valise into one end and gestured. ‘In you get. There are air holes.’
‘No!’ It gaped, dark and stark as a sepulchre. Eva could feel the panic constricting her throat. Don’t talk about nightmares…it makes them come real… The edges of her vision clouded as though grey cobwebs were growing there. The shadows in the corners shifted…the sound of stone grinding on stone…the scratch of bone…
‘In!’ Jack gestured impatiently, his attention on the scene outside as the carriage came to a halt. There were voices raised to give curt orders. ‘Now!’
Duty. It is my duty to survive. It is my duty to be strong. Eva scrambled in, and sat down. The air seemed to have darkened, she was light-headed. Don’t shut it, no! Don’t! The scream was soundless as Jack pushed her down until she was lying prone. He said something, but the roaring in her ears made it hard to hear. Then the lid closed on to darkness. Forcing herself to breathe, she raised both hands until the palms pressed against the wooden underside and pushed up. It was locked tight. Trust him, he will let you out. Trust him. Trust…he will come.
Jack sat down in the corner of the carriage, ran his hands through his hair, crossed one leg negligently over the other and drew a book out of his pocket. He raised his eyes to look over the top of it as the door was flung open. ‘Yes?’ It was a soldier in the silver-and-blue Maubourg uniform. Sent by Prince Antoine, no doubt.
‘Your papers, monsieur.’
‘But of course.’ Jack put down the book, taking his time, and removed the documents from his breast pocket. His false identity as a Paris lawyer was substantiated by paperwork from a ‘client’ near Toulon who wished for advice on a family trust. He fanned out the documents without concealment, extracted the passport and handed it across.
The man took it and marched away towards the front of the vehicle without even glancing at it. Damnation. That probably meant an officer. Jack climbed down and walked forward to where a young lieutenant was scanning the papers, three soldiers at his back.
‘You are on your way back to Paris, monsieur?’
‘Yes. I have been on business near Toulon.’ The young man’s thumb was rubbing nervously over the wax seal. The lieutenant was inexperienced, unsure of himself and probably wondering what on earth he’d been sent out here to deal with.
‘What other vehicles have you passed since yesterday?’
‘I have no idea.’ Jack stared at him blankly. It was a useful trick. People questioning you expected you to lie, to make up an answer, to be able to catch you out. An honest admission of ignorance took the wind out of their sails and made you seem more credible. ‘I have been reading, sleeping. I take no notice of such things. Henri, what have you seen?’
Henry shrugged. ‘All sorts, monsieur, all sorts. What is the lieutenant looking for?’
‘A woman,’ the young man began, then reddened at the grin on Henry’s face and the sound of his own men choking back their laughter. He glared at his men. ‘A fugitive. A woman in her mid-twenties, brown hair, tall. With a man. Probably in a travelling carriage.’
‘No idea.’ The groom was dismissive. ‘Can’t see inside anything closed from up here. Could have passed the Emperor himself and a carriage full of Eagles for all I know.’
‘Very well. You may proceed.’ The officer handed Jack the passport and stepped back.
Jack climbed into the carriage and sat down without a glance up at Henry. Inept and badly organised was the only way to describe that road block. It must have been the first response last night, to send troops out on the main roads. He did not fool himself that this would be the extent of Antoine’s reaction to the disappearance of his sister-in-law.
The rapid tattoo on the roof told him that no one was following them. All clear, he could let Eva out. What a fuss she had made about getting in—no doubt she thought the box contained the dreaded spiders she had confessed to fearing.
Jack unlatched the seat, lifted the lid and caught his breath. For one appalled moment he thought she was dead. Her face was grey, her eyes closed, her hands, clasped at her breast, had blood on them. Then her eyes opened, unfocused on some unseen terror. ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘No! Louis—don’t let them in!’
Chapter Seven (#ulink_696247d8-05d7-56ab-8417-dffbcf43c18d)
‘Eva.’ A dark shape loomed over her. He had come, just as she knew, just as she feared. The figure reached down, took her shoulder and she gasped, a little sound of horror, and swooned.
‘Eva, wake up.’ Her nostrils were full of the smell of dust, of the tomb he had just lifted her from. She was held on a lap, yet the male body she rested on was warm, alive, pulsing with strength, not cold, dead…
He shifted her on his knees so he could hold her more easily. ‘It’s all right, we are quite safe, there is no one else here.’ Jack? She could not trust herself to respond. A hand stroked her cheek, found the sticky traces of half-dried tear tracks. Flesh-and-blood fingertips against her skin, not the touch of dry bone. She came to herself with a sharply drawn breath. ‘Eva, you are safe,’ he said urgently.
‘Oh. Oh, Jack.’ She burrowed her face into his shirtfront.
‘Are you all right now?’ He managed to get a finger under her chin and nudged it up so he could look into her face. ‘You frightened me. What was all that about?’
‘I am sorry.’ She tried to sit up, but he pulled her back. ‘It is just that that was…is…my worst nightmare. A real nightmare. I keep having it.’ I am awake, I am safe. Jack kept me safe. He did not come.
‘Tell me,’ he prompted.
She had never spoken of it to anyone. Could she do so now? Admit such fear and weakness? ‘When I first came to the castle Louis, my husband, took me down to the family vault under the chapel. At first it was exciting, fascinating, like a Gothic romance—the twisting stairs, the flickering torches. I didn’t realise where we were going.’
The smell of the air—that was what had hit her first. Cold, dry, infinitely stale. Old. Louis had held, not a lantern, but a torch, the flames painting shapes over the pillars and arches, making shadows solid. ‘Then he opened the door into the vault—it seems to go on for ever, right under the castle, with arches and a succession of rooms.’
She had been a little excited, she remembered now. These must be the dungeons. It was all rather unreal, like a Gothic novel. Until she had realised where they were.
‘We were in the burial vaults. All there is down there are these niches in the walls, like great shelves, each one with a coffin on it.’ Jack must have felt her shudder at the memory and tightened his hold.
‘The newer ones were covered in dusty velvet, there were even withered wreaths.’ How did the flowers and leaves hold their shape? she had wondered, still not quite taking in what she was seeing. They had moved on, further and deeper into the maze of passageways. ‘The older ones were shrouded in cobwebs. Some of them were cracked.’ There had been a hideous compulsion to move closer, to put her eye to those cracks and look into the sarcophagus as though into a room.
‘Then Louis started to show them to me, as though he were introducing living relatives; it was horrible, but he seemed to think it quite normal, and I tried not to show what I was thinking.’ Already, by then, she was learning that she must not show emotion, that she must show respect for Maubourg history and tradition, that weakness was unforgivable. Somehow she applied those lessons and did not run, screaming, for the stairs. Or perhaps she had known she would never find them again.
Then they had moved on. She had felt something brush against her arm and had looked down. ‘There was one—an old wooden casket where the planks had cracked and a hand had come out.’ She had tried never to think about it while she was awake, but whenever the nightmare came, this was the image that began it. ‘A skeleton hand, reaching out for me as we walked past. It touched me.’
Her voice broke. Jack made a sound as if to tell her to stop, that it was too distressing, but she was hurrying now. It must all be said. ‘And then he came to two empty shelves and said “And these are ours”. I didn’t understand at first, and then I realised he meant they were for our coffins.’
One day she would lie there, enclosed in a great stone box, sealed up away from the light and air for ever. There would not even be the natural, life-renewing embrace of the soil to take her back.
‘I don’t know how I got out without making a scene. That night I dreamt I had died and woken up in my coffin. I knew I was down there, and they were all out there, waiting, and that any moment Louis would lift the lid and he would be dead, too, and—I am sorry, such foolishness.’
Eva sat up, smoothing her hair back from her face with a determined calm. Discipline, remember who you are. There was pity and respect in Jack’s grey eyes as he looked at her. She could not let it affect her. ‘Ever since then, I have been afraid of very tight, dark, spaces.’
‘I’m not surprised, that is the most ghoulish thing I have ever heard. Did your husband not realise what an effect it was having on you?’
‘Louis was a firm believer in self-control and putting on a good face,’ Eva said with a rueful smile. ‘I soon learned what was expected of me.’
‘Did you love your husband?’
‘No, of course not, love was not part of the expectation,’ she said readily. She had just confessed her deepest fear—to tell the tale of her marriage was easy in comparison. ‘I was dazzled, seduced and over-awed. I was seventeen years old, remember! Just imagine—a grand duke.’
‘A catch, indeed,’ Jack agreed. There was something in his voice that made her suddenly very aware of where she was and that Jack’s body was responding to holding her so closely
‘I…Mr Ryder, Jack, please let me go.’ She struggled off his lap, suddenly gauche and awkward, knowing the colour flaming in her cheeks. ‘Thank you. I appreciate your…concern.’
She settled in the far corner, fussing with her skirts and pushing at her hair in a feminine flurry of activity. ‘You say you have the dream quite often?’ Jack said slowly.
‘Yes.’ She nodded, keeping her head bent, apparently intent on a mark on her sleeve.
‘Very well. You must remember, the next time, that when the lid begins to move, it is me opening it. I will have come to rescue you. There will be nothing unpleasant for you to see, and I will take you safely up those winding stairs, up into the daylight. Do you understand, Eva? Remind yourself of that before you go to sleep.’
‘You? But why should you rescue me in my dream?’ No one has ever rescued me before.’ He had her full attention now. She fixed her eyes on his face as she worried over his meaning.
‘You did not have me as a bodyguard before,’ Jack said simply. ‘All you need to do is believe in me, and I will be there. Even in your dreams. Do you?’
‘Believe in you? Yes, Jack. I believe you. Even in my dreams.’
It was a fairy tale. Eva looked down at her clasped hands so that Jack would not see that her eyes were suddenly swimming with tears. Such foolish weakness! She was a rational, educated woman; of course he could not stride into her nightmare like a knight, errant to slay the ghosts and monsters. And yet, she believed him. Believed in him.
Only the year before she had found an enchanting book of fairy stories by some German brothers and had been engrossed. What was the name of the one about the sleeping princes? Ah, yes, ‘Briar Rose.’
And it was a dangerous fairy tale, for she wanted more than protection from her knight errant—she wanted his lovemaking, she wanted him to wake her from her long sleep.
Jack wanted her, too, she knew, if only at the most basic level of male response to the female. He could not hide his body’s response from a woman nestling in his lap. And that frightened her, for she realised that she had responded to it, been aroused by it, before her mind had recognised what was happening to them. She should have been alert to that danger, she had thought she was. Had she not resolved to maintain everything on a strictly impersonal level, as recently as this morning? That attack of panic had upset all her carefully constructed aloofness like a pile of child’s building blocks.
‘What are you thinking about?’ He was matter of fact again. It almost felt as though he was checking on her mental state in the same way as he would check on the condition of a horse, or test the temper of a blade he might rely upon.
‘Fairy stories,’ she said promptly, looking up, her eyes clear. Telling the truth was always easiest, and this seemed a safe and innocuous subject. Her early training came back—find a neutral topic of conversation that will set the other person at their ease. ‘I found a wonderful book of them last year.’
‘The Brothers Grimm? Yes, I enjoyed those.’ He grinned at her expression. ‘You are surprised I read such things?’
‘Perhaps you have nephews and nieces?’ she suggested.
‘No, none. And I do not think it is a book for children, do you? Far too much sex, far too much fear and violence.’
Flustered by how closely this was impinging on her fantasies, Eva said hastily, ‘Yes, of course, you are quite correct. It is not a book I would give to Freddie.’
‘I doubt he sits still long enough to read anything except his schoolbooks,’ Jack said.
‘Oh, of course. I forgot, you actually spoke to him.’ How could she have forgotten that? She had been fighting her fears about Freddie, fretting over how he was, and here was someone with news of him that was only weeks old. ‘Tell me how he looked.’
‘As well as any lively nine-year-old who has just had a severe stomach upset,’ Jack said. ‘A touch green round the gills, but so far recovered that he was able to enjoy describing exactly, and in minute and revolting detail, how his mushrooms had reappeared and what they had looked like.’
‘I am sorry.’ Eva chuckled. ‘Little wretch.’
‘He’s a boy. I was one once—I am not so old that I cannot remember the fascination of gory details.’
‘How tall is he?’ Eva asked wistfully. ‘Hoffmeister writes me pedantic reports on a regular basis. “HSH has attained some competence with his Latin translation, HSH has been outfitted with new footwear, HSH smuggled a kitten into his room. It has been removed.” But it doesn’t help me see Freddie.’
Jack stood up, braced himself against the lurching of the carriage with one hand on the luggage rack and held the other hand palm down against his body. ‘This high. Sturdy as a little pony now—but any moment he is going to start to grow and I think he will be tall. His hair is thick, like yours, and needs cutting. His eyes are hazel, his face he is still growing into. But I saw he was your son when I first set eyes on you.’
He sat down again and Eva felt the tension and fear of the past hour ebb away into relief and thoughts of Freddie. ‘Oh, thank you so much, I can just picture him now! He was such a baby when Louis insisted he went to England. The first thing I am going to do when I am settled there is to have his portrait painted.’
‘With his mother, of course?’
‘No,’ she said slowly, thinking it out. ‘Alone. His first official portrait. I will have engravings done from it and flood Maubourg with them. It is time people remembered who their Grand Duke is.’
‘Ah.’ Jack was watching her, sizing her up again in a way that made her raise her chin. ‘The Grand Duchess is back.’
‘She never goes away,’ Eva said coolly. ‘It would be as well to remember that, Mr Ryder.’
His half-bow from the waist was, if one wanted to take offence, mocking. Eva chose to keep the peace and acknowledged it with a gracious inclination of her head. Then she let her shoulder rest against the corner squabs and closed her eyes. One could never take refuge in sleep in public as a grand duchess, but she was coming to see it was a useful haven in everyday life.
‘Grenoble.’ Jack spoke close to her ear and Eva came fully awake as the sound of the carriage wheels changed and they hit the cobbles.
‘What time is it?’ She sat up and tried to stretch her neck from its cramped position.
‘Nearly eight. We made faster time than I feared we would.’
‘And where are we staying?’ Water glinted below as they passed over a bridge. The Drac or the Isère, she could not orientate herself.
‘Another eminently respectable bourgeois inn. And this time we have a private parlour adjoining our bedchamber, Madame Ridère.’
‘So that’s who I am, is it? I suppose it is easy to remember—Ryder or Ridère. And this was all booked in advance for tonight?’ He nodded. Eva could make out his expression with some clarity, for the streets were well lit. ‘You were very confident that we would get here, were you not?’ Jack smiled, looked as though he would reply, then closed his lips. She added sharply, ‘I suppose you were about to say that you are very confident because you are very good.’
‘It is my job.’ Infuriatingly he did not rise to her jibe. Eva was stiff, hungry and tense, for all kinds of reasons. A brisk exchange of views with Jack Ryder was just the tonic she needed. It seemed she was not going to get one. ‘We are here.’
‘Bonsoir, bonsoir, Monsieur Ridère. Madame! Entrez, s’il vous plaît.’ The innkeeper emerged, Eva forced herself to think in French again, and the ritual of disembarking, being shown their room, ordering supper, unwound.
‘That bed is smaller,’ she observed as they sat down in the parlour to await their food. ‘In fact, it is very small.’
‘Indeed.’ Jack was folding a rather crumpled news sheet into order in front of the fireplace. ‘No room for the bolster, then, which is a good thing—you nearly pushed both it and me out last night.’
‘I am not sleeping with you in a bed that size. There is a settle in here.’ She pointed to the elaborately carved example of Alpine woodwork on the far side of the room.
‘That is a good foot shorter than I am, as narrow as a window ledge and as hard as a board. And it appears to be covered in very knobbly artistic representations of chamois. I am not forgoing a comfortable bed.’ She bristled. Jack snapped the newspaper open and regarded her over the top of it. ‘Do I appear to you to be crazed with lust?’
‘I…You…What did you say?’
At this critical juncture the waiter appeared with a casserole dish, followed by various other persons bearing plates, bread, jugs and cutlery. Eva folded her lips tightly and went to take her seat at the table.
Jack put down his newspaper and joined her. ‘Du pain, ma chère?’
‘Don’t you my dear me,’ she hissed, only to subside as the waiter returned with a capon and a dish of greens. ‘Merci, c’est tout,’ she said firmly.
‘Non, non, un moment, la fromage.’ Jack wielded the bread knife and passed her a slice.
‘Coward! You cannot hide behind the servants for ever.’ She forced a smile as the waiter brought the cheese. The door closed. ‘How dare you?’
‘I thought the my dear added verisimilitude. Some wine?’
‘Yes, please.’ A stiff drink was what she really needed. Brandy at the very least. ‘That was not what I was referring to and you know it. How dare you refer to lust in my hearing?’
‘I apologise for my choice of words.’ Jack passed her a glass of white wine and took a thoughtful sip from his. ‘Amorous propensities? Uncontrollable desire? Satyr-like tendencies? Ardent longings? Any of those any better?’
All or any of them involving Jack would be sinfully wonderful, as would throwing the cheese board at him. Eva gritted her teeth and persisted. ‘It would be highly improper for us to share that bed. It is far too small.’
‘And you expect what, exactly, to occur as a result?’ Jack began to carve the legs off the capon. Something about his very precise knife work suggested repressed emotion at odds with his dispassionate tone.
‘We might touch. Inadvertently.’ Eva took a deep swallow of wine, nearly choked and took another. A capon leg was laid on her plate. ‘Thank you.’ Even when discussing lust one could maintain the courtesies, she thought hazily, reaching for the decanter and refilling her glass. ‘Some greens?’ She lifted the serving spoons competently.
‘Please.’ Jack passed her the butter and took the lid off the casserole with a flourish. ‘Pommes Dauphinoise?’
‘Allow me…’ To upend it over your head. Eva wielded a serving spoon with practised elegance.
‘Thank you. Has it occurred to you that we have been touching—inadvertently or otherwise—all day?’
‘Of course. It was unavoidable. Butter?’
‘Thank you, no. And?’
‘And nothing. Touching in bed is quite another matter.’
‘That, my dear, is indubitably true.’
Eva almost choked on a further incautious mouthful of wine and stared at Jack across the steaming dishes. ‘I do not need you to tell me that. I am a mur…married ludy. Lady.’
‘Widowed lady,’ he corrected gently. ‘More wine.’
‘Yes.’ She was obviously tired, despite that nap in the carriage. Otherwise why was her tongue tangling itself? ‘Please.’
‘So.’ Jack chewed thoughtfully. ‘How to avoid this undesirable inadvertent touching? Whilst allowing me a decent night’s sleep.’ He reached across the table and lifted the second bottle of wine and the corkscrew. ‘What forethought on my part to order two bottles.’
‘It is a tolerable vintage,’ Eva allowed, fanning herself with her napkin. It really was warm in here. ‘As to the bed, thatsh—I mean, that’s your problem, Mr Ryder. You arranged it.’
‘What if I sleep on top of the bedclothes and you under them? More capon?’
‘Thank you.’ She was obviously hungry or why was her head spinning so? ‘Wearing what?’
‘Me or you?’
‘You, of course.’ Her glass was empty again. It really was a most excellent vintage.
‘A nightshirt.’ He lifted his wineglass, then glared at her over it as she snorted. It wasn’t a very elegant reaction, Eva acknowledged vaguely. Grand duchesses never snort, but really!
‘What, exactly, is there in that to provoke a snort?’ Jack demanded.
‘Men look ridiculous in nightshirts. Hairy legs sticking out of the bottom.’ Did I just say that? She blinked at the wineglass. It appeared to be half-full now. How many had she drunk?
‘Well, in my case you won’t be looking, so if you can just steer your imagination away from the aesthetic horror of it, we will be all right.’
He isn’t pleased I commented on his hairy legs. I suppose he has got hairy legs, all men do, don’t they? He has a hairy chest. Not very hairy, though, just nicely hairy. Some remnant of restraint, surfacing through the effects of four glasses of wine on a nearly empty stomach stopped her complimenting Jack on the niceness of his chest. A creeping feeling of unease that perhaps this conversation was not all it should be began to steal over her.
‘I think I am going to go to bed. Into bed. Under the covers.’
Jack stood up. ‘Can I be of any assistance? The door is over there.’
‘I know that,’ she said with dignity, gathering her skirts around her and paying particular regard to her deportment. ‘Good night, Mr Ryder.’
The effect of this exit was somewhat marred by a very audible hiccup.
Chapter Eight (#ulink_f60891df-2b78-57e8-8c27-4a56fdedfe90)
Eva woke, far too hot and with a thunderous headache. She hadn’t recalled the bedclothes being quite this thick—but then her memories of the previous evening were somewhat uncertain. She had drunk far too much, that was indisputable. She had discussed lust and beds and nightshirts with Jack in a most outrageous manner. Eva screwed her eyes tighter shut and prayed that she hadn’t actually said anything about hairy legs. Had she? Or worse, chests. Please, God.
She shifted restlessly under the weight of the blankets and found that it was not layers of woollens weighing her down, but one long masculine arm thrown over her ribcage that was pinning her to the bed. At the risk of a cricked neck, she turned her head and found herself almost nose to nose with Jack.
‘Good morning. Do you have a headache?’
‘What are you doing!’ It was a shriek that almost split her head as she uttered it. Eva closed her eyes again with a groan. Warm breath feathered her face.
‘I must have turned over in the night. No inadvertent touching, though,’ he pointed out with intolerable self-righteousness.
‘Will you please remove your arm?’
The weight shifted. Eva opened her eyes cautiously and found that his arm might have moved, but Jack had not. They were still close enough for her to have counted his eyelashes, should she have had the inclination to do so. They were unfairly long, very dark and framed his eyes dramatically. She was also in an excellent position to note that his eyes might be grey, but there were black flecks in them. The pupils were somewhat dilated and his regard intense. She found herself unable to stop staring back, directly into them.
‘One of us has got to blink,’ Jack observed, ‘or we may mesmerise each other and never get up.’
It seemed to Eva that someone had certainly been exerting powers of animal magnetism upon her, although she thought she had read somewhere that the effect required immersion of the subject in magnetised water. Or was it just her headache making her feel like this?
‘Yes, and it will have to be you because I am completely pinned down with you lying on these covers,’ she pointed out crisply. Thank goodness she still seemed able to speak with clarity and authority; she had been half-afraid she would open her mouth and mumble inanities.
‘Very well.’ Jack rolled away and stood up, stretching as he walked to throw open the shutters. He was dressed in a crumpled shirt and breeches, his feet bare on the boards.
‘You said you were going to wear a nightshirt.’ Eva sat up in bed, pushing her hair back off her face with both hands. She hadn’t even plaited it last night.
‘And you expressed horror at the suggestion. I believe an aversion to hairy legs came into it.’ Jack turned back from the window and stood regarding her, hands on hips, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
‘I didn’t say that, did I? Oh, Lord.’ Eva buried her face in her hands. If she didn’t look, then he wasn’t really there, she didn’t have to face the hideous embarrassment of knowing she’d been completely tipsy—no, drunk—and totally indiscreet. What must he think of her? She knew what she thought of herself.
‘Eva.’ The bed dipped beside her and a hand settled on her shoulder, large, warm, comforting.
‘Stop it. Don’t touch me,’ she snapped. It lifted again. ‘I’m sorry, I am finding this very difficult.’ Silence. ‘I’m not used to this intimacy with someone. I’m not used to someone being so close, so involved with what I’m doing, what I am thinking.’
She dropped her hands and looked at him, desperate to communicate how she felt. ‘I do not know how to be with you, because this relationship we have is outside anything I’ve known before.’ Jack’s face, intent, listening, gave her no clue as to his feelings—except that he did not appear to be inclined to laugh at her.
‘We are forced into this closeness and it is as if I am adrift without any chart to guide me. You are not a servant, you are not one of the family, you are not a professional man I have hired, like a doctor or a lawyer. What are you?’
She did not expect an answer, far less the one he gave her. ‘A friend.’
‘A friend?’ Why did that word hurt so much? It was as though he had shone a light on the great empty loneliness at the heart of her life and forced her to confront it. ‘I do not have any friends.’
‘You have now.’ Jack picked up her right hand as it lay lax on the counterpane. ‘Eva, you have shared a dark secret fear with me, you have told me how you feel about your son, how you felt about your husband. You have got tipsy with me and you have confided your prejudices about nightshirts. We are jointly engaged on a dangerous adventure. Today we will go shopping together. These are all things you do with friends.’
Her hand seemed small, lost within his big brown one, the long fingers cupping it protectively, not gripping, just cradling it. Eva found herself studying his nails. Clean, neatly clipped with a black line of bruising along the base of three of them, a rough patch on the index fingernail as though it had been abraded against a rough stone. That damage had been done as he had climbed down the castle wall to her room. Absently she rubbed the ball of her thumb over it, welcoming the distraction of the rasping sensation.
‘Do you make friends of all your clients?’ She did her best to sound like the Grand Duchess and not Eva de Maubourg, not disorientated, half-afraid, confused.
‘You are not a client, his Majesty’s Government is my client. But, yes, I do make friends with some. Not all. Some I do not like, many are in too much trouble to want to do anything but see the back of me when it is all sorted out. When we are in England I will introduce you to Max Dysart, the Earl of Penrith, and his wife; you will like them, I think.
‘But why have you no friends? Girls from your come-out in England? The Regent, the ladies of the court…’
‘Philippe is twenty-five years my senior, he is like an uncle. Antoine, I have never trusted. The ladies of the court, as you put it—no. Louis did not encourage me to make friends here, or to retain them from before, and that became established. I do not think there are any kindred spirits amongst them in any case.’ She assayed a confident smile, knowing it was a poor effort. ‘Certainly there is no one I could get drunk with, or have an adventure with, or risk telling a weakness to.’
‘Then I am the first.’
I am the first. The words Louis had used as he had undressed her on their wedding night, his green eyes heavy with desire. It had been very important to him that she was a virgin. Now, no longer an innocent, she knew it had titillated the jaded palate of a man she was to learn was one of the most energetic, and promiscuous, lovers in Europe. Theirs had not been a love match, but she could not complain that Louis had ever left her physically unsatisfied. Just emotionally empty, and yearning for affection. She had learned to be a good grand duchess, and to do without love.
‘What is it?’ Jack’s hand closed shut around hers. ‘Another nightmare?’
‘No. Just a memory. Thank you, I would like to be your friend.’ She looked up, relaxing, expecting to see something uncomplicated in his expression. He was smiling, but in his eyes there was something else, something she knew he was trying to mask. Heat, intensity, need. She recognised them because she felt them, too. The ordinary words she had intended to say caught in her throat. Somehow she not could pretend to herself that she did not see, or that she did not feel.
But I want…No, I cannot say it. I cannot say I want you, because if I do the world changes for ever.
Jack lifted her hand and pressed a kiss on her fingertips that were all that could be seen within his grasp. ‘You were right, ma’am, from now on we need a considerably bigger bed and then I can sleep under the covers and safely wear a nightshirt.’
‘Oh!’ Eva was startled into a gasp of amusement. ‘How can you make a joke about it?’
‘Because laughter chases away fear and it also puts many things in perspective. Are you hungry? Because I am starving and I don’t know where they are with the hot water.’ Jack tugged at the bell pull and retreated behind the screen.
‘I am ravenous.’ And suddenly she was. And strangely happy as though a weight had been lifted. Perhaps it was simply the cathartic effect of telling Jack how she felt. Except, of course, the fact that that she desired him. He feels the same way. The memory of the heat in his gaze as it had rested on her made her feel warm and fluttery inside and ridiculously girlish. Even though they had not acknowledged what that exchange of glances meant, the fact that an attractive, intelligent man found her desirable was the most wonderful boost to her confidence. Perhaps I’m not so old and past it after all.
There was a knock on the door and she hopped out of bed to open it, remembering at the last minute to ask who it was before she unlocked the door. Feeling wonderful was no excuse for laying them open to attack.
The chambermaid staggered in with two steaming ewers, set them both down beside the screen and went out, sped on her way by Eva’s insistence on a large breakfast as soon as possible.
‘Are we really going shopping?’ She climbed back into bed and sat up, her arms round her knees, listening to the sounds of splashing. She had never listened to a man’s morning rituals. Louis had always retreated to his own suite after visiting hers. He had never, after their wedding night, slept with her until morning.
‘Of course. You need a travelling wardrobe.’ There was a pause and a sound she guessed was a razor being stropped. ‘They won’t be the sort of shops you are used to,’ he warned.
‘I do not care.’ Eva flopped back against the pillows. ‘I don’t get to see many shops, everything comes to me. It is so boring—I love window shopping and looking for bargains.’ The noises from behind the screen were muffled. ‘Do you hate shopping, or are you shaving?’
‘Shaving.’ He sounded as though he had a mouthful of foam. She waited a few minutes, then, more clearly, ‘I have very little experience of shopping with women.’
‘Oh. No—what is the phrase—no barques of frailty you wish to indulge?’
‘What do you know of your weaker sisters, your Serene Highness?’
‘Nothing at all, except that my husband kept a great many of them, if you add them all up over the years.’
Silence. Had she shocked him? ‘I am about to emerge, ma’am, if you would be so good as to close your eyes or otherwise avert your gaze.’ Eva obediently closed her eyes and pressed her hands across them, as well, for good measure. Something was bubbling inside her, some ridiculously youthful feeling. There was the pad of bare feet on the boards. ‘Did you mind the other women?’ Jack asked from somewhere on the other side of the room. ‘My back is turned, if you want to get dressed.’
‘Mind? Not really. I was ridiculously shocked at first, but then, I was ridiculously young to have married a man like that.’ She slid out of bed and risked a glance in Jack’s direction. He was standing in front of the open window, his back to her, pulling on his shirt. The sunlight shone through, throwing the silhouette of his body against the fine fabric as he stretched his arms above his head. Eva bit back a sigh, dropped her eyes, found she was staring at the admirable tautness of his buttocks and the elegant line of his legs in the tight breeches and hastened to get behind the screen before her imagination got the better of her. Friends, she reminded herself fiercely. My friend—don’t spoil it.
‘You surprise me.’ She followed Jack’s movements about the room by ear as she washed. ‘I would have expected that to have upset you greatly.’
‘He never pretended to love me,’ Eva explained, shaking out the remnants of her clean linen and making mental shopping lists while she talked. ‘And I was too young to have formed a real attachment. It was my pride that was hurt more than anything, once I had got over my shock. Then, by the time I realised that he was not the sort of man to devote himself to one woman, I had Freddie and I was beginning to carry out my duties. It wasn’t so bad, and there were some benefits to being married to one of the most accomplished lovers in Europe.’
In the crashing silence that followed this remark, Eva thought she could have heard a pin drop. The handful of underwear fell back into the trunk from her lax grip. How tactless was it possible to be? She had just intimated to a man who had kissed her—with such skill and feeling that her knees still felt weak when she thought of it—that she would have been mentally comparing his technique with the legendary erotic skills of her late husband.
Worse. This was a man who she was quite certain wanted her. Eva grimaced, wondering what she could possibly say to make things better. Nothing, probably, unless she wanted to dig the hole even deeper. To say anything acknowledged the attraction between them.
‘Do you have grounds for comparison?’ Jack asked coolly into the aching silence.
‘Only Louis’s own assessment,’ she replied, then came to a decision. She could not leave this. ‘Personally I have had no basis for comparison—only one kiss. On the basis of that Louis need not have been so confident.’
‘Nothing? In all that time?’ Jack sounded as though he was just the other side of the screen. She should step out, have this exchange face to face, but somehow Eva guessed it would be more truthful like this. ‘No one?’
‘No one,’ she affirmed. ‘No one while he was alive, no one since.’
From that, she supposed, he could conclude she was a love-starved widow, ready to turn to any personable man once she was away from the close scrutiny of the Grand Ducal court, or that she was cold and had not felt the lack of love and of loving.
‘The man was a fool,’ Jack said abruptly. It wasn’t until she heard the snick of the latch that she realised he had walked out and left her. Eva stood for a moment, filtering the few words through her mind, listening to the emotion behind the curt statement. Her friend was angry on her behalf. Her eyes filled; no one had ever understood what it must have been like being married to Louis, and yet a man she had just tactlessly insulted grasped it immediately with warmth and empathy.
‘Thank you, Jack,’ she whispered to the empty room.
Shopping with a woman was a new experience. At the age of twenty-nine one did not have many of those, and certainly few that were so entertaining. If his sister, Bel, had asked him to accompany her through the fashionable lounges and shops of London, he would have pretended an attack of mumps sooner than oblige her, but Eva’s delight at being let loose in the bourgeois shops of Grenoble was infectious.
In her travel-worn gown and cloak she darted from shop window to shop window, ruthlessly dragging Jack with her. ‘I must have a hat,’ she declared. ‘I feel positively indecent without one. Which do you think? The amber straw with the ruffle or the chip straw with the satin ribbons?’
‘Have both,’ he suggested, ignoring the inner warning that a carriage stuffed with hatboxes was not the efficient vehicle for clandestine travel he had designed it to be.
‘Really? May I?’ He was still looking into the window as she glanced up at him. Something about the reflected image of himself standing there with this lovely woman on his arm, her head tilted to look up at him with delight in her eyes, hit him over the solar plexus like a blow from a fist. They looked right together, and the sight gave him an entirely unfamiliar sensation of possessiveness. Jack tried to analyse it, but Eva was still talking.
‘Only I haven’t bought a gown yet, and I ought to buy that first and match the hat.’
‘Really? Is that how it is done?’
‘I think so—when I have new ensembles made they all come together with a selection of hats and shoes and so forth. I’m not used to shopping like this.’ Her nose wrinkled in doubt and Jack grinned. That was an expression far from the grand duchess he was used to.
‘Come on, let’s break the rules.’ He pushed open the door and held it for her as the little bell tinkled, summoning the milliner. ‘And you will need something in case we have to ride.’
‘If we do, that will be an emergency? Yes?’ Eva stopped inside the door and lowered her voice.
‘Yes. We’ll be picking up saddle horses a bit further north as a precaution.’
‘Then I need breeches.’ Jack felt his brows shoot up. ‘I will explain later, but I can ride astride.’ Eva turned to the shopkeeper, who was bobbing a curtsy. ‘There are two hats in your window I would like to try, if you please.’
Ride astride? How in Hades had she learned that? It was certainly useful—if they had to take to horseback then it would be because they had to abandon the carriage and move both fast and unobserved. His mind strayed to wondering how one bought riding breeches for a woman off the peg in Grenoble. Eva was tall and slender, but definitely rounded in a way that no man or youth was.
‘Jacques.’ He pulled himself away from a frankly improper contemplation of the curves hinted at by the fall of her gown and found himself confronted by a nightmare he had heard other men gibbering about. He was expected to make a judgement between two articles of clothing worn by a woman. ‘Which do you think?’
Eva was wearing the chip straw, the bow tied at an angle under her jaw. The deep green of the satin ribbon did things to the colour of her eyes he could not explain, but which made him want to cover a bed with velvet in exactly that shade and lay her upon it. Naked.
‘Delightful. It definitely suits you.’ He remembered to talk in French just in time.
‘Or this?’ She replaced it with the amber straw. The brim framed her face, the colour brought out golden tones in her hair. The daydream changed to a bed strewn with amber silks. ‘Delightful. Have them both.’
‘Yes, but then I saw this.’ She was biting her lower lip in thought. Jack closed his eyes for a moment’s relief and opened them to see a pert confection he had no name for. The only word for it was sassy and it made his dignified grand duchess look like a seventeen-year-old, ripe for a spree.
‘Wonderful. Buy them all.’
‘Jacques, you aren’t taking this seriously. You must prefer one of them, or don’t you really like any?’ It was exactly what friends had moaned about. Women asked you for an opinion and then were upset whatever you said.
‘I think they all look marvellous on you,’ he said, trying to inject sincerity into his voice. ‘But I think that whatever the hat, you would look good, so it is very difficult to express a preference.’
‘Ah, monsieur.’ The milliner obviously thought this was a suitable answer. Eva cast him a roguish glance that made something deep inside respond. He knew his pulse rate was up and drew in a deep breath to steady it.
‘Thank you. I think I will have the chip straw and…that one.’ She pointed to the sassy little hat.
‘Not all three?’ Jack queried as the gratified shopkeeper hastened to pack the hats in their boxes.
‘We have only just started shopping.’ Jack found himself grinning back in answer to Eva’s smile.
It was madness. Here he was, Jack Ryder, King’s Messenger, a man who chose danger as a way of life, looking forward to hours spent exploring dress shops, haberdashers and shoemakers. If Henry found out, he would never live it down.
Chapter Nine (#ulink_d87317d3-e4a5-5e87-ad4e-d668604af126)
Two hours later, laden with parcels, Jack called a halt and dragged Eva into a confectioner’s. ‘Enough! Can there be a single shop of interest to ladies in this town we have not explored?’
‘Not one.’ Eva smiled happily at him over the rim of a cup of chocolate. ‘Tell me what you bought for my riding clothes.’
‘Breeches, shirt, waistcoat, coat and boots. You can use one of my neckcloths.’
‘But how did you know my size?’ She blushed adorably, he mused, wondering how else he could provoke that reaction without overstepping the bounds of friendship he had set himself.
‘I can measure your height against myself, likewise your feet.’ He let his booted foot nudge against hers under the shelter of the tablecloth and lowered his voice. ‘As for the rest, well, I have held you in my arms.’
‘Oh.’ The rose-pink colour reached her temples this time. Jack tried not to imagine how soft the skin would be there, how it would feel to nuzzle along to the delicate curve of her ear and explore the crisp moulding before nibbling his way down…‘You have a good memory.’
Confessing that he had been recalling those few minutes in vivid detail ever since they had occurred was out of the question. ‘I doubt the breeches will be a good fit.’ Eva looked a question. ‘Any youth quite your, er…shape would be an unusual young man. They are certain to be too large in the waist.’
‘Never mind. Better than too tight.’ Eva put one elbow on the table and rested her chin on her palm while she nibbled at a macaroon biscuit. ‘Thank you for today.’
‘What, the clothes and fripperies? His Majesty’s Government coffers are paying for those.’ The range of items she had enjoyed browsing through had been a revelation to a man used to buying jewellery as a present for his mistress of the moment, or handing over cash for them to make their own purchases.
‘No. For the holiday. For letting me take my time and relax and for pretending you enjoyed it, too.’
‘I did enjoy it.’ She finished her biscuit and cupped her chin in both hands, regarding him sceptically. ‘It was a new experience for me. Shopping.’
‘Don’t men shop? Surely you do?’
‘Yes, but we don’t flit so much.’ He ignored her moue of indignation at his choice of verb. ‘I go to my tailor, my shirtmaker, my bootmaker, a perfumier for toiletries and so forth. But I know what I want before I set out, they are all within a very small compass of London streets, and I do it only when I need to.’
‘Then what did you enjoy about today?’
Jack poured them both more hot chocolate and tried to explain. ‘I enjoyed your company, I enjoyed your good taste. It was an interesting glimpse into a feminine world—and I enjoyed seeing you enjoy yourself.’ And he had enjoyed just watching her, fantasising about making love to her, setting himself up for a night of disturbed sleep and physical discomfort thinking about her.
‘Thank you.’ The sceptical look was gone. ‘I am so glad we are friends.’ She put out her hand impulsively and lay it on his for a fleeting moment, then jerked it back, obviously embarrassed at doing such a thing in public. ‘Jack, are we in danger here?’
‘Here and now? I doubt it, unless whoever is chasing us has decided they need light refreshment. I somehow do not think this is what your brother-in-law would be expecting us to do just now. But if you mean in Grenoble, yes, certainly.’ There was no point in lying to her; besides anything else, neither of them could afford to be complacent.
‘It will be most dangerous from here to Dijon because there are so few alternative routes if we wish to avoid high mountains or areas that have come out strongly for Napoleon. After that, there are several possible routes.’
‘And Antoine may have found out about the factory by now, and know we know about the rockets.’ Jack nodded, watching her thinking. Now her guard was down with him, he found Eva’s brown eyes extraordinarily expressive. ‘Should we have stopped for so long? Shouldn’t we travel all night? But you will tell me you know best and not to worry, I expect.’ She bit her lip. ‘I am not holding you up, am I? I could have managed without more clothes. Or was that an excuse to give me a rest?’
‘You call that a rest? No, it was part of my plan. We could not have got more than one bag out safely, but it would draw attention to us if you are shabbily dressed.’ He gestured to the waiter for their bill. ‘I plan to leave early tomorrow, before sunrise. Always providing we can pack all this stuff away.’
‘We can put it under the seats if there is too much for the luggage racks,’ Eva suggested, gathering up the myriad of smaller packages. He was well aware that her demure expression was to hide her amusement at seeing him burdened by two hatboxes—well stuffed with lighter objects around the hats—three parcels and the unwieldy package containing the riding boots.
‘No, we can’t. One is full of equipment, and we may need the other one again.’
‘For me.’ She said it flatly and he could have kicked himself for reminding her. ‘It is all right Jack. I know you will let me out.’ Then she threaded her free hand through his elbow and nudged him lightly in the ribs. ‘And if you are found, apparently all alone with a carriage full of female apparel, what exactly is going to be your explanation?’
‘A demanding wife who expects a lot of presents,’ Jack retorted promptly and was rewarded by her rich chuckle. ‘Oh, and by the way, I have explained to our host that my fussy spouse finds the bed too narrow and has thrown me out, so I expect to find a truckle bed in our room when we return.’
‘Did you receive much masculine sympathy?’ Eva asked.
‘Of course. He now regards me as intolerably henpecked, but apparently he surmised that from first seeing us.’
‘Whatever made him think such a thing?’ Eva demanded indignantly.
‘I have no idea.’ Jack sighed. ‘I had thought I was bearing up so well.’ This time it was not so much a nudge as a jab.
‘Beast.’
‘Have you any family?’ Eva curled up in the corner of the carriage, her shoes reprehensibly kicked off and her feet tucked up under the skirts of her new forest-green walking dress. Jack lounged in the corner diagonally opposite, his hands thrust deep into his coat pockets, his eyes moving between her face and the road as it unwound behind them. She thought she had never seen a man who seemed more at home in his own body. He was totally relaxed now, and yet she would wager a large sum that, if there was a crisis, he would be alert, balanced, ready for instant action. It was, she acknowledged ruefully to herself, very appealing.
‘A half-brother, older than I am, and a full sister who is younger. My mother is widowed and lives out of town.’
‘Not very many relatives, then?’ she commiserated. It would be wonderful to have brothers and sisters and it was a deep regret that she had not been able to give Freddie any siblings.
‘You asked about family.’ Jack rolled his eyes. ‘Relatives I have by the dozen.’
‘Truly? Do you get on well with all of them? You are lucky, I wish I had lots. Any, in fact.’ She sighed, smiling in case he thought she was being self-pitying.
‘One aunt, three uncles and nine cousins. Plus the Scandalous Aunt we do not talk about—she may have any number of offspring, for all we know.’
‘What did she do that was so shocking?’ Eva asked, agog. It was so refreshing to be able to indulge in some vulgar gossip—Jack would tell her if she overstepped the mark, but his expression when he mentioned his aunt did not seem at all forbidding.
‘No one will tell us children. Even my mama, who is considered scandalously freethinking by the others, plies her fan vigorously and blushes when questioned. All she will say is that Poor Dear Margery was wild to a fault and fell into sin. The only clue is that whatever sin she succumbed to was highly lucrative, for Mama also confided that no amount of money can wash a soul clean from moral turpitude.’
‘Have you never been tempted to find out? If anyone can, I should think it is you.’
‘I might at that.’ Jack smiled lazily. ‘I have to admit, the last time Aunt Margery was mentioned by my Wicked Cousin Theophilus, I felt a certain stirring of irritation at being designated a child at the age of twenty-eight.’
‘Theophilus? I don’t believe anyone called Theophilus could possibly be wicked.’
‘He was more or less destined for either extreme virtue or vice, poor Theo. His father is a bishop and his mother the most sanctimonious creature imaginable.’
Theo sounded rather amusing. Eva wondered if there was any chance of meeting Jack’s numerous relatives. ‘So, you are twenty-eight?’ Younger than he looked, Eva decided. She had guessed at thirty and tried to work out why. The steady, serious, watchful eyes possibly. Or the air of total competence and responsibility.
‘Twenty-nine, I have just had a birthday.’
‘Congratulations! And did your brother and sister and all your cousins come to your party?’
‘I spent it on the road on my way south to Maubourg.’ He must have seen her frown of regret, for he added, ‘Birthday parties are not my sort of thing. I suppose I am not used to them. My father considered such things too frivolous for children.’
‘Then you do not know what you are missing,’ Eva said robustly, thinking, Poor little boy. Not so little now, but everyone should have the memory of a happy childhood to grow up with. Hers was always there at the back of her mind, a candle flame to warm her soul by in hard times. A man who forbade a child a birthday party was unlikely to have been a loving father in other ways.
‘I give wonderful parties for all ages and you must come to Freddie’s in December.’ She tried to imagine Jack playing the silly party games she invented and failed. There was nothing wrong with his sense of humour, and he certainly did not stand on his dignity, but there was something lonely and distant about him in repose. She wondered if there was something else, other than a father who, she recalled, Henry had referred to as top-lofty, and felt an ache inside for him. Not that he would thank her for pitying him, for there was an armour of pride and quiet self-confidence behind his easy competence.
‘I am not used to children’s parties, but I would be honoured by an invitation.’ Jack managed a bow that was positively courtly, despite his casual posture.
‘No nieces or nephews, then?’ Children would like him, she decided. He wouldn’t condescend to them. Freddie must have liked him, otherwise he would never have trusted him with the secret nicknames for his uncles.
‘My sister, Bel, was widowed before they had any children.’
‘Your brother?’ Eva prompted, curious that his eyes, which had been open and amused as they spoke, flicked back to the view from the window. His profile was unreadable. There was some secret here.
‘I think it highly unlikely that Charles will ever have children,’ he said, his voice so neutral that her suspicions were confirmed. In the face of that blankness, she could hardly continue to probe.
A silence fell, not cool exactly, but not comfortable, either. Perhaps the poor man was an invalid and it pained Jack to speak of it. Eva shifted to stare out of the window on her side and brooded on what else Jack had told her.
A large extended family then. A bishop for an uncle and general outrage at a sinful aunt spoke of respectability, even minor aristocracy, maybe. But then, aristocrats did not spend their time as private investigators, or King’s Messengers, come to that. A puzzle, her new friend. Friend. That was the word she had to keep repeating in her mind. Friend. Not lover, however much she wished he was. If she thought about it, it would show in her face, Jack Ryder was no fool and he knew women, she had no doubt of that.
‘Where are we staying in Lyons?’ she asked, more to test his mood than for any particular anxiety to know.
‘On the Presqu’île, in the business district. A modest, respectable inn patronised by silk merchants and other business men. They do an excellent dinner.’
‘We can’t go out, then?’ The previous day’s expedition had been such fun and Lyon was famous for its silks. Eva knew that more shopping was out of the question—not on borrowed money, at any rate—and the carriage was already stuffed with parcels, but she would dearly have loved to do some browsing. Despite everything the sense of being on holiday, of being let off the lead of respectability and duty, was heady.
‘No. This is where it gets dangerous. Lyon came out strongly for Napoleon. Besides that, Antoine will know what we have seen, guessed at what we will have stolen. And now he has had enough time to organise the pursuit. If you are up to it, I intend that we ride to Dijon from Lyon and leave Henry to drive.’
‘But that will put him in danger,’ Eva protested. It no longer felt right to be curled up so casually. She sat up straight and slipped her shoes back on, as though to be ready for action.
‘There will be nothing to betray him. A humble coachman carrying presents from his mistress’s sister back to her in Paris. We will be taking the back roads and the plans will be with us.’ He flicked her a sideways glance. ‘Are you up to it?’
‘Yes.’ Eva nodded firmly. She had ridden all day on occasion when Louis had held one of his week-long hunting parties, although not recently. She would manage; the thought of being a burden to Jack, of slowing him down, was not to be contemplated. Everything was going so well, all according to his smooth planning, she had to do her part.
But even the most careful plans come adrift. Eva stood beside Jack in the entrance of the Belle Alliance inn and watched his face as the patron explained all about the fire in the kitchen. The stench of wet ash and charred timber filled the air; it had hit them as they entered, but the man assured them the bedchambers were unaffected and it was only the kitchens that were not functioning.
‘There are many good places to eat along the quais, monsieur,’ the patron hastened to explain. ‘On either the Rhône bank or the Saône bank. You take any of the traboules—those are the passageways—’
‘I know what they are,’ Jack interrupted him. ‘Very well, we will go out now, while there is still some light. I do not wish my wife to be abroad in a strange town after dark. Henri.’ He jerked his head towards the small pile of luggage. ‘You’ll see these taken up to our room?’
The groom nodded. ‘I’ll eat over there.’ That was a small, and rather greasy-looking, eating shop immediately opposite the entrance to the Belle Alliance. ‘I like to keep an eye on who comes and goes.’ It was only because she was looking for it that Eva caught the unspoken message between the two men. Warning, reassurance. Did Jack suspect the fire was deliberate?
She asked him directly as they made their way through one of the famous Lyonnais traboules that cut down to the rivers, wending their way through private courts and gardens as they went. Eva wanted to look around her at the vibrant glimpses of everyday life that they passed, the women gossiping, the looms visible through windows, merchants slapping hands on a deal, but Jack kept his hand under her elbow and walked briskly.
‘No, I don’t suspect that; Antoine could not possibly have found where we were going to stay and organised such a thing. But his men may start checking the lodgings and I would prefer to be inside looking out if that happens.’
‘I see. Jack?’
‘Yes?’ He looked down at her and his eyes crinkled into a smile that seemed not so much one of reassurance but simply of pleasure to find her there on his arm.
‘Are you armed?’
‘To the teeth,’ he assured her, the smile belying his solemn tone.
‘Don’t be flippant.’ The tone of crisp reproof was still there when she needed it, she found. ‘I cannot see any weapons.’
‘I should hope not.’ She narrowed her eyes at him in exasperation and he relented. ‘Knives in my boots and in a chest harness. Pistols in my pockets. Hence,’ he added as she glanced sideways at him, ‘the dreadful cut of my coats.’
There was nothing wrong with his coats at all. This one fitted admirably over broad shoulders and snug at his waist. It was, if what he was telling her was true, exceptionally well tailored, and probably very expensive, for all its lack of fashionable flourish.
‘Stop fishing for compliments,’ she chided. ‘You know perfectly well that coat is very smart. Why wouldn’t you let me wear my cloak and hood?’
‘Because that was what you were last seen in. If those officers who interrupted us in the lane have worked out who you were by now, they ought to be able to describe your clothing. ‘That hat…’ he flipped the brim irreverently ‘…is not the sort of thing a grand duchess wears. When you skim a crowd, searching, your eye stops when it sees something familiar. It is like hunting—you look for the shadowy outline of deer and ignore foxes. They search for a great lady and might miss a lovely young girl in her pert new hat.’
‘Young!’ Eva tried not to think about the rest of that description, but she couldn’t repress a blush.
‘Now who is fishing?’
‘I am not, but really, Jack, I am twenty-six years old—’
‘So ancient! Quite on your last prayers, obviously. I almost fell off your damnable window ledge with the shock I had when I first saw you. They did not tell me, you see, that you were both young and beautiful.’
‘Are you flirting with me, Monsieur Ridère?’ she enquired suspiciously as he steered her through the door of a respectable seeming eating house.
‘Of course, Madame Ridère. A friend may, may he not? This place looks acceptable.’ Eva forgot the compliments and the teasing as she watched him assessing the bistrôt, trying to work out what he was looking for.
‘A back door, plenty of people, a table over there with a good view of who is coming in?’ she suggested.
‘Yes. Precisely, you are learning to get the eye. Let’s hope the food is good, too.’
It was. And so was the atmosphere. Eva had never been anywhere like this. She found her elbows were on the table, that she was singing along with the group near the door who had struck up an impromptu sing-song while they waited for their order, and the simple casserole of chicken and herbs, washed down with a robust red wine, seemed perfect.
‘I am enjoying this,’ she confessed, as the waitress set down a platter of cheese.
‘So am I.’ Jack caught the hand she was gesturing with and held it. ‘I enjoy seeing you relax.’
‘This is so different for me,’ Eva admitted. ‘No one is staring. I don’t have to pretend.’
‘Don’t you?’ Jack murmured, almost as though he were asking a rhetorical question. Eva tugged her hand free, finding his warm grasp rather more disturbing than was safe and Jack let go at once, taking her by surprise. Her arm flicked back, caught the little vase of flowers set on the table and knocked it off.
‘Oh, bother!’ Eva jumped to her feet to retrieve it just as the door opened and a group of men walked in. She straightened up, the flowers in her hand and found herself staring, across the width of the bistrôt, straight into the eyes of a tall blond man with sharp blue eyes and a sensual mouth set over a strong chin.
Good-looking, arrogant, unmistakable. It was Colonel de Presteigne.
Chapter Ten (#ulink_0267f600-773e-5e30-af26-14a33c49adcb)
The colonel had seen her, recognised her. There was no way to avoid him. The way the hunter’s smile of sheer triumph slid across his face sickened her. Eva clenched her hand around the slender vase, as she counted the men standing at his back. Three of them, all ordinary soldiers out of uniform by the look of them—there were no impressionable young officers to appeal to here.
Behind her she felt Jack slide out from behind the table, then stand, almost as if to hide behind her. But Jack was not a man to hide behind a woman—he had a plan, she knew it. He moved smoothly, so she was not surprised that the men kept their attention on her. His hand closed round her left wrist. ‘When I tug, throw that vase and run with me.’ The words were a breath in her ear and she nodded fractionally in response as he released her.
‘Bonsoir, madame.’ De Presteigne, feigning deference. ‘Dining in style with your gallant lover, I see.’ His lip curled in a sneer at the sight of Jack apparently hiding behind the shelter of her skirts. How had she ever thought the colonel charming?
Eva sensed Jack shifting his balance, her whole body attuned to him as though they touched. Out of the corner of her eye she watched the waitress come out of the kitchen door with a steaming tureen and walk across to a table. Their escape route was clear. She shifted her balance slightly.
‘Better a humble bistrôt than a formal dining room in the company of traitors,’ she retorted, seeing the smile congeal into dark anger on his face.
‘You call supporters of the Emperor traitors?’ he demanded, raising his voice. People shifted in their chairs to stare, the amiable faces of the diners changing to suspicion. Lyon, she remembered, supported Bonaparte.
‘You betray your Grand Duke,’ she flashed back as the colonel took a stride towards her. She felt Jack’s hard tug on her wrist and she threw the vase full in de Presteigne’s face. Water and flowers went everywhere as the man roared in shock and clawed at his eyes.
Eva saw no more, she was running with Jack, through the door, into the kitchens towards the back door. Kitchen staff scattered. They passed a rack of knives, she snatched one, a small vegetable peeler, then they were outside in a cobbled alley, rank with the smells of food waste. A cat bolted away, hissing with fright as Jack made for the mouth of the alley. Behind them the door crashed back. Eva risked a glance over her shoulder.
‘Two of them, not de Presteigne,’ she gasped.
‘Here’s the rest.’ Jack skidded out on to the street just ahead of the colonel and the other soldier, turned, reached inside his coat and threw something. With a grunt the man toppled and fell and de Presteigne went down with him, tripped beyond hope of balance.
‘Run!’ Jack pushed her. ‘The waterfront’s that way.’ They took to their heels, splashing through foul puddles, leaping piles of garbage, dodging the few passers-by. The pounding feet behind them were relentless. Eva heard de Presteigne’s voice cursing the men for not catching them as they erupted into a little square.
Jack made for the far exit, then recoiled. ‘Dead end.’ It was enough to bring their pursuers up with them. Jack pulled a pistol from his pocket and held it steady, his back almost to the wall, his left arm outstretched, urging Eva behind him.
It was as she had known instinctively: he would stand and protect her at the risk of his own life—and the odds were too great. She edged behind him, then further, out into the open, towards the alley to her right. Keeping the little knife concealed in her skirts, she waved the reticule that was somehow, against all probability, still swinging from her wrist. ‘Is this what you want, Colonel? The plans? The notebooks? Don’t you wonder what we took, what we know? Who we told?’
‘Eva!’ Jack lunged for her, but she had done what she had meant to do, split their attackers. De Presteigne shouted, ‘Ducrois, with me! Foix, break his neck’, and dived towards her. She spun round and ran, light-footed, impelled by the desperate urge to leave Jack with manageable odds. There was the bark of a pistol—his or Foix’s? Then she was out on to the quayside. Which river? It hardly mattered, either would have boats, surely?
The edge of the quay was slippery beneath her feet. Wary of mooring ropes, she began to edge along it, half her attention on the swirling water, half on the colonel and the soldier who had come to a halt when they saw her and were now, with the caution of hunting cats with a bird in their sights, padding forward.
‘Stand still, you silly bitch,’ de Presteigne said irritably. ‘Where the hell do you think you are going to?’
‘You are the one going to hell,’ Eva retorted. ‘That is the place for traitors and turncoats.’ She risked another glance down. It seemed a long way to the river’s dark surface and there were no rowing boats in sight yet. Where is Jack? There was a shout echoing from the little square, the soldier half-turned and stopped at his officer’s curse.
‘Never mind them. Get her.’
Eva held her knife that had been concealed by the reticule in front of her. ‘Try,’ she invited.
The man rushed at her, grinning at her defiance. She slashed at him, he ducked away, slid on the slippery surface and pitched into the river with a yell of fear and a loud splash. ‘Colonel?’ she invited politely. The light from the lanterns hung along the fronts of the warehouses glittered off the little knife.
The tall man reached into his coat and produced a pistol. ‘No. You come here, or I’ll shoot you. And then, if your lover isn’t dead yet, I’ll shoot him.’
Slowly, trying to control the trembling in her arm, Eva held the reticule out over the river by her fingertips. It hung with convincing heaviness, thanks to the novel that she had tucked inside it that morning. ‘Then you’ll never get these.’
He shrugged. ‘So? They’ll be at the bottom of the river.’ He stepped forward. ‘Come on, don’t be such a little fool. Back to Prince Antoine.’ Eva’s head spun as she tried to decide what to do. Drop the reticule, then he won’t look anywhere else…Jack…
As she thought it he came out of the alleyway. Even at that distance she could see his bared teeth, the killing fury in every line of his body as he came, his pistol hand rising to level on the colonel. De Presteigne snatched at her as her attention wavered, caught her by the arm and held her, his own pistol swinging round towards her breast. ‘Stop right there or I’ll kill—Aagh!’
Eva fastened her teeth on his hand and he released her, scrabbling for balance. For a moment she was free, poised on the edge of the quay, then the momentum of her movement took her and she felt herself falling towards the river. There was the crack of a pistol, a shout immediately above her, then she hit the water and stopped thinking of anything but survival.
Despite the warmth of the summer night the cold almost knocked the breath out of her. Some corner of her brain registered that the river was fed by snowmelt as she kicked off her shoes and clawed at her bonnet strings and the fastenings of her pelisse.
I can swim, I can swim well, she told herself, fighting to calm the panicking part of her that was wanting to thrash and scream. It was a long time, but as a child she had swum naked in the river that ran through the grounds of their château. As a young woman she had swum in the private lake in the castle grounds. I haven’t forgotten, thank God…
With her heavier outer clothing gone she was managing to stay afloat, but the current was sweeping her downstream at terrifying speed. In the darkness things loomed out of the water, swept by her before she could register them as either dangerous or a potential lifeline. A wave slapped her in the face and she gagged on foul water.
It was useless to try to swim against this current, she had to stay afloat, go with it and trust to a rope or a bridge pillar to cling to. Eva struggled to orientate herself. This must be the Rhône, rushing down to its confluence with the Saône. A vision of swirling cross-currents and whirlpools where the two rivers met almost frightened her into stopping breathing, then something struck her shoulder.
Instinctively, she reached for it, and found herself grasping a large branch, the leaves still on some of the twigs. It supported her weight just enough for her to draw in a sobbing breath and raise her head to look around. She was in midstream, the banks seeming to flicker past at nightmare speed as she pitched and rolled with the current. Ahead the right bank seemed to vanish; the confluence was almost on her.
It did not seem possible she could survive this. Even with the support of the branch her limbs were losing sensation with the cold and the effort, her head was spinning and her throat raw. Eva tried to pray—for Freddie, for Jack, for herself—and clung on.
De Presteigne went down with a shout of pain as the ball lodged in his shoulder, his own shot whistling somewhere over Jack’s head. Jack did not stop to check whether the man was alive or dead as he began to run downstream, his eyes straining to search the surface of the water. Lights sparkled and flashed off the choppy surface, dazzling and confusing in some patches, leaving the river in darkness in others.
He sought mental balance, knowing that to give in to fear and panic would kill Eva as surely as walking away. If she could not swim, or catch some sort of float, she was dead already. He pushed that knowledge back and scanned the surface again. There! A tangle of foliage and, in the centre, a dark head, the flash of pale cloth, a raised arm. She was well ahead of him, there was no way he could reach the point where the two rivers joined before her.
People scattered in front of him as he ran, then a rider emerged from a side street, slack reined, relaxed, perhaps on his way home to his supper. Jack drew his remaining knife, reached up and dragged him from the saddle, his bared teeth and the menacing blade between them enough to have the man backing away, hands thrown up in surrender.
The animal reared, alarmed at the violent movements, the strange weight on its back, then it responded to heel and voice and they were away at a canter. With the added height he could see better, realised he had to get off the Presqu’île and on to the far bank, and dragged the horse’s head round to make for the foot of the last bridge just ahead. It all wasted time, lost him distance and Eva was fast vanishing into the maelstrom of waters.
Jack blanked the thought that he was losing her from his mind, tightened his grip and kicked.
Ignoring traffic and obstacles and shouted abuse, he galloped downstream towards the place where he could recall the newly joined rivers’ turbulence wearing itself out in a tangle of sandbanks and islands before resuming its long smooth passage towards the sea. If he was going to snatch her out, that was the place. If she made it so far, if he could get there first, if he was strong enough to reach her.
The stolen horse baulked and shied as he forced it through the shallows to the first sandbank. He flung the reins over the branch of a spindly willow and tore off his boots. His coat followed as he ran over the sand and shingle, vaulted a pile of driftwood and plunged into the first channel.
Even here the current was strong. He clawed his way out the far side and ran to the edge of the main stream, his eyes straining upstream for a sight of Eva. The light was surprisingly good; a glow still hung in the sky from the sunset, lights from boats and cottages laid ribbons of visibility across the water.
He did not have long to wait. The leafy branch was still afloat, the glimmer of white cloth still tangled within it as it swirled down towards him. But the figure that lay in its cradle was unmoving. Jack entered the water in a long, shallow dive and struck out to intercept it, refusing to feel the cold water biting into muscles, the enervating pull of the current, the clutch of fear at his heart.
The river was so strong it was trying to drag her out of her branch, so savage she could swear it had hands. Eva clung on, her fingers numb. She should just give in and die, this hurt so much and was so hopeless. Yet she could not—would not—surrender.
‘Eva,’ the river gasped in her ear. ‘Eva, let go.’
‘No!’
‘Yes! Look at me!’
Jack’s voice? Jack? With an effort that seemed to take her last ounce of strength, Eva turned her face from the rough bark it had been pressed to and saw him.
‘You came for me?’
‘Always.’ It sounded like a vow. ‘Always.’ The world went black.
‘Eva!’ Someone was shouting at her, slapping her face, her hands.
‘Stop it,’ she protested feebly, then rolled on her side, retching violently as what seemed like most of the river came up.
‘Good girl, that’s right.’ Someone was praising her for being sick? Eva let herself be lifted and found she was bundled into some strange, bulky garment far too big for her. ‘Come on, up you come.’ Jack. Jack was lifting her. She forced herself to full consciousness, her body unwilling to make the effort, her will screaming that she could not just leave him to cope. He must be cold, exhausted, perhaps wounded.
For a moment she indulged herself in weakness and lay against his chest. Cold, wet cloth clung to his chilled skin, his body heat fighting to warm them both. He was plodding through shingle and underbrush, she could hear. Hard going, he was stumbling slightly, but his grip did not waver.
‘Put me down.’ She cleared her throat and said it again, more clearly. She couldn’t bear to burden him, like a sack of stones on an exhausted pack animal that somehow kept going despite everything.
‘When we get to the horse.’ With her ear against Jack’s chest she could hear the effort to control his voice, the way he steadied it like a singer so she wouldn’t hear the fatigue.
‘No. Now.’ She put every ounce of authority she possessed into the command.
To her amazement he gave a snort of amusement and trudged on. ‘Remember what I said?’ he asked. ‘Do what I tell you, always, at once and without question.’
‘This doesn’t count.’
‘Why not?’ Jack stopped, she felt him brace himself, then plough on up the steep edge of the bank on to shingle.
‘Because you are being a stubborn idiot! Put me down this minute before you fall down!’
‘Yes, your Serene Highness.’ Eva found herself set on her feet.
‘There. You see? That’s better.’ Her legs buckled and she swayed against him, surrendering to the support of his arm around her waist. ‘Oh, bl…bother.’ They stood there, locked together and dripping. Jack must have wrapped her in his coat, she realised, trying to get her arms, and the flaps of the coat, around him. Her face was pressed into his chest and his heartbeat was slowing even as she stood there. Very fit, the logical part of her mind, the part she always thought of as the Grand Duchess observed, while the other, entirely feminine, entirely private, part just revelled in his strength and courage and wanted him. You do chose your moments, Eva, she thought ruefully.
‘Were you wounded?’
‘No. I don’t think so.’
‘Don’t think so?’ Eva arched back against Jack’s arm to see his face, which was almost impossible now.
‘I’m sure so,’ he amended. There was a flash of white; she thought he was smiling. ‘I had other things to think about. Come on, the horse I stole is just over here; if we stand still much longer we’ll freeze.’
‘Which would save us from being hanged for horse stealing,’ Eva observed, as they picked their way back to the horse standing patiently by the willow tree. Jack boosted her up into the saddle and swung up behind her, settling her so she sat across his thighs.
‘Hold tight.’ The horse scrambled down into the shallow channel, then up the other side and on to the road. ‘Henry can “find” it wandering tomorrow and hand it over to the authorities,’ Jack added. ‘I want to get you back and into a hot bath.’
‘You, too.’ She felt his chin pressing down on the crown of her head and let herself drift. She thought she felt him chuckle and blushed at the improper thought of them both in the same steaming bath.
‘Are you asleep?’ He didn’t wait for her answer. ‘Don’t. Wake up and talk to me, it is dangerous to drift off when you are this cold.’
‘Talk? What about?’ Eva felt like grumbling. It was very difficult to think of conversation when you were numb from head to toe, dripping wet and perched on a horse. She wanted to sleep, to dream about making love with her fantasy of Jack, not be bossed about by the real, wet, battered hero who wanted to be her bodyguard and her friend and would let himself be nothing more. But there was something she had to say to the real man.
‘Thank you. Have I said that? Thank you, Jack. You saved my life. I cannot believe that anyone else could have done what you did.’ And if you say it is just your job, you will break my heart.
His arms tightened, then she felt his chin move and realised he had lay his cheek against her hair for a fleeting moment. ‘I thought I was going to lose you,’ he said at last. ‘And that didn’t seem like an option I could accept.’ There was a pause. Eva filled it trying to work out whether he meant that personally or professionally, and failed. Jack was just too good at keeping his emotions out of his voice. And yet, she could not forget the echo of his voice as she had slipped into unconsciousness in the river. Always.
Chapter Eleven (#ulink_ff50891f-c7f5-5d4b-9afc-f9962ef1471b)
‘Bloody hell, guv’nor!’ The outburst of swearing was Henry’s voice, Eva realised vaguely. They had stopped. She looked round, her head feeling like lead on her aching neck, and saw they were in front of the inn.
‘Stubble it,’ Jack growled, then, ‘Help madame down, will you?’
‘Gawd help us, you’re soaked, both of you.’ The groom caught Eva with as much respectfulness as was possible and set her gingerly on her feet. ‘And frozen.’
‘Get this animal out of sight. I’ve stolen it—you’ll need to find it in the morning and return it to the authorities.’
Henry took this news with a calm that said volumes about his expectations of life with Jack, Eva thought, amused despite her weariness. It seemed impossible that she should ever stop shivering, and as Jack took her arm to steer her into the inn she felt the betraying vibration under his skin, as well.
‘Upstairs, try not to be seen. If de Presteigne is in any fit state, he will start enquiries round the inns for soaking wet guests. At least we’ve stopped dripping.’
They went upstairs with all the caution of a pair of illicit lovers and regained their chamber with such relief that Eva found herself clutching the bed post with tears in her eyes. Jack leant back against the closed door as though he could no longer rely on his legs to hold him up. South facing and high up, the room still held the warmth of the day, but that mild air could not touch the bone-deep chill that racked her.
‘Get undressed.’ Jack straightened and pushed her towards the dressing screen, tugging the bell pull as he passed it. Eva began to fumble with buttons and hooks, set in swollen, sodden fabric. There was a tap at the door. ‘Hot water, lots of it. And a hip bath. There’s more of that if you make haste.’ She heard the clink of coin and the retreating scuffle of feet.
‘Here.’ A large towel landed on top of the screen.
‘I can’t undo the fastenings,’ Eva said, cursing under her breath as a softened fingernail tore. ‘Oh, damn.’ It was all too much, she just wanted to be back in Maubourg. She wanted a flock of ladies’ maids and footmen, she wanted her dresser and to be warm and dry, to curl up, sleep, forget.
‘Here, let me.’ She gasped in shock as Jack came round the screen. He was stripped, clad only in a large linen towel slung round his narrow hips. ‘You can open your eyes,’ he said after a moment in a tone that hung somewhere between amusement and irritation. ‘I would suggest that dying of cold and exhaustion but unsullied by a glimpse of my naked flesh is observing the proprieties too far.’
‘Yes. Yes, of course.’ Eva tried to sound brisk and matter of fact as she opened her eyes, trying to unfocus them at the same time. It was ridiculous to be prudish under the circumstances. Jack was her bodyguard and her friend. She had been a married woman—it was not as though she had never seen a naked man before. And, in any case, neither of them was in a fit state to do anything imprudent.
Jack began to work on the row of buttons that fastened the bodice of the dress, swore under his breath, and undid it by the simple expedient of tearing it open with both hands. Buttons pinged off in all directions. ‘Jack!’
‘It is ruined anyway,’ he pointed out reasonably, pulling the bodice apart and dragging it down her arms.
‘I..er…I can manage now.’
He ignored her, lifting the water-sodden skirts over her head and dumping the garment in a heap on the floor, then standing, hands on hips, regarding her as she shivered in stays, petticoat and chemise.
‘Did you tie these with a bow or am I going to have to cut the strings?’ He advanced on the neat row of lacing that secured the corset. Eva squeaked. ‘A bow. Excellent woman.’ The stays landed on top of the gown just as the maid knocked on the door. Eva retreated, leaving Jack to deal with the procession of inn servants with tub and steaming ewers.
She peeked through the gap in the screen, her lips curving in amusement at the sight of the maids reduced to blushing giggles by Jack’s well-displayed physique. They could not be blamed, she told herself, conscious that she was admiring the view just as much as they were. The bruises had begun to turn yellow across his back and chest. She ignored them as she studied the cleanly defined musculature, the narrow hips and the well-shaped calves. Hairy, but just right, she decided, as a violent shiver shook her, reminding her just how serious their situation was. Stop it! she chided herself. Ogling like one of the maids, indeed!
The door shut and Eva hastily bent to untie her garters and roll down her stockings. Jack reappeared around the edge of the screen. ‘Come on, hurry up, your teeth are chattering.’
‘Go away, then! Because if you think I am taking another thing off while you are—Jack! Put me down.’ He bent, swept her up and deposited her, petticoats and all, into the deep tub the girls had brought up. ‘Oooh. That’s wonderful.’ Warmth seeped through her, making her skin tingle and her frozen toes ache. But the momentary discomfort was worth it. She even began to believe that the bone-deep chill would disappear in time. ‘What a huge tub.’ It was big enough for her to tuck in her feet, provided she kept her knees bent up, sticking above the surface.
Jack began to scoop water up in his cupped hands and pour it over her knees and her shoulders. He paused, his hands and arms deep in the hot water for a moment, letting the warmth seep into him.
‘I’ll be quick, you need to get in,’ Eva said hastily.
‘No, you aren’t warm through yet, and your hair needs washing.’ Jack picked up one of the ewers. ‘Close your eyes.’ He poured the water through her tangled hair, then found the scented soap and began to work up a lather and rub it in. ‘Sit still, don’t wriggle or you will get soap in your eyes.’ He seemed quite at home doing it. Eva wondered vaguely if he bathed his mistress. Mistresses, more like, she reflected, moving her head languidly to the pressure of his hands. She could not believe that this man would find much attraction in celibacy.
‘You’re purring.’ His chuckle was close to her ear. ‘Keep your eyes closed, I’m going to rinse it.’ The warm torrent drowned her protest that of course she was doing no such thing, then she found her head swathed in a towel and realised he was rubbing it dry. It was so easy to let go and allow him to do it. Eva’s eyes stayed closed, even when the towel was lifted away and she heard Jack moving across the room. He came back almost at once, lifted some of the damp weight of her hair and began to comb it.
‘Jack, don’t bother with that, you’ll get chilled, I must get out.’ Eva opened her eyes and found he was very close, his fingers working carefully through the tangles.
‘No, I’m warm, here in the steam, I promise. Relax while I comb this.’ The grey eyes that could be so hard and cold were gentle as he watched her, the lines of his face relaxed out of their habitual vigilance as she had never seen them before, even in laughter.
Her eyes drifted shut again. The memory of being cold, of being afraid, seeped away under the strokes of his hands. ‘Lean forward.’ She found herself resting against his chest, her forehead on his shoulder as he reached round her, plaiting her hair into a thick tail. Then he coiled it on her head, fastening it with a pin he must have found with her comb.
The heavy weight of it made it difficult to lift her head up off his shoulder, or so she told herself. Against the skin of her forehead she could feel the hard line of his collarbone, smell the scent of him through the soap-scented steam. River water, chilled flesh, man. Jack. Her lips moved, touching lightly on the flat plane of his chest and he shifted, his hands slipping down from her hair to hold her against his body as he knelt there beside the tub.
‘You are cold,’ she murmured against his skin.
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Louise Allen
Notorious Regency Lords and Ladies!The Dangerous Mr RyderJack Ryder knows that escorting the haughty Grand Duchess of Maubourg to England will not be an easy task. But the spy and adventurer is sure he’s capable of managing Her Serene Highness. However, he's not prepared for her beauty, her youth, or her sensual warmth. And what started as just another mission is rapidly becoming something far more personal…The Outrageous Lady FelshamFreed from her unhappy marriage, Belinda, Lady Felsham, plans to enjoy herself. She suspects that the breathtakingly handsome Major Ashe Reynard is exactly what she needs. But high society will not forgive a scandal! Still, the outrageous couple embark on an affair—and Belinda becomes increasingly confused. She has no desire to marry, but Ashe is a man she cannot live without…
Those Scandalous Ravenhursts
The Dangerous Mr Ryder
The Outrageous Lady Felsham
Louise Allen
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
LOUISE ALLEN loves immersing herself in history. She finds landscapes and places evoke the past powerfully. Venice, Burgundy and the Greek islands are favourite destinations. Louise lives on the Norfolk coast and spends her spare time gardening, researching family history or travelling in search of inspiration. Visit her at louiseallenregency.co.uk (http://louiseallenregency.co.uk), @LouiseRegency (https://twitter.com/LouiseRegency) and janeaustenslondon.com (http://janeaustenslondon.com)
Contents
Cover (#ued3a56b6-b037-53b8-bfc3-36fa20a5cb10)
Title Page (#ucfd7622f-53cd-509d-9745-c744bb48af62)
About the Author (#uf27d1657-90d2-5302-98ca-e09562c9d732)
The Dangerous Mr Ryder (#u49f4580c-5d40-5dc9-a949-9b9e2a4c013d)
Author Note (#u2914d654-3af3-5b70-8372-06c51f1f08e3)
Chapter One (#u86f63e3c-7a1a-55ee-a769-63d7d3ccce31)
Chapter Two (#u72663195-68b2-5f55-9979-deb3e00b17a2)
Chapter Three (#u26c769f2-dfcc-5941-b49d-0acc165d54e8)
Chapter Four (#u5f03fd82-6f13-56cf-bd55-0fb430de6794)
Chapter Five (#uc42d6ba8-947d-587f-aee9-90c68520577d)
Chapter Six (#uf6ce0f71-1307-57cb-a280-3400592c0d45)
Chapter Seven (#u9af2f92c-dafb-56ee-a59d-ab4351969579)
Chapter Eight (#ud44a179a-b52d-5cee-a755-c9ffe3b56f0d)
Chapter Nine (#u33fae01f-534e-536b-8a93-b62e87eff5b3)
Chapter Ten (#u29a3e4b9-4165-506a-b012-d843df9353d6)
Chapter Eleven (#u93788248-53d1-5852-8e99-830cd9149527)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)
The Outrageous Lady Felsham (#litres_trial_promo)
Author Note (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
The Dangerous Mr Ryder (#ulink_eeca9cff-a598-55f0-adb6-63217b61552f)
Author Note (#ulink_41113e97-4ce2-5a4d-85ea-85e0a66da784)
Jack Ryder first appeared—of his own volition—in No Place for a Lady, and took on a life of his own. I found myself wondering about him, what his background was, where he had come from, and I realised I needed to tell his story.
Then I discovered that Jack is not alone—he has siblings, he has cousins, and some of them have a story to tell as well. So this is Jack Ryder's tale, but it is also the first of the stories of THOSE SCANDALOUS RAVENHURSTS, and of how they, like Jack, find the loves of their lives.
It is the start of a journey for me, and I hope you will come along and discover with me what befalls the Ravenhurst cousins.
Chapter One (#ulink_a6bf3b4a-5dc6-5618-a87f-11406698471e)
The evening of 7 June 1815
No one had told him that she was beautiful. Jack Ryder crouched precariously in a stone window embrasure two hundred feet above the ravine river bed and stared into the candlelit room. Inside, the woman he had been sent to find paced to and fro like an angry cat.
He kept his eyes fixed on the image beyond the glass as he wedged himself more securely into his slippery niche. Below, the void beneath the castle was shrouded in merciful darkness, the faint sound of the river floating upwards. Although his whole body was aware of it, he ignored the cold fingers of fear playing up and down his spine, knowing full well that if he let his imagination have full rein he would never be able to move at all. His studded boots ground on the stone, and he froze for a moment, but the sound did not seem to reach her.
Jack gave himself a mental shake and began to work on the knot that secured the end of the long coil of rope around his waist. As it came free he gave it a jerk, flicking it outwards, and the whole length detached itself from the battlement high above and fell out of sight into the void.
Now his only way down was through that window. Despite his perilous position, Jack had no intention of going through it until he had a chance to size up the woman inside. The woman he had been sent to bring back to England by whatever means he found necessary, including force.
It was for her own good, as well as in the interests of both countries, they had explained at Whitehall. The officials had spoken with the air of men who were glad it was not they who had to attempt to convince the lady of this. They had told him a number of things about her Serene Highness the Dowager Grand Duchess Eva de Maubourg. Intelligent, stubborn, anti-Napoleonic, haughty, independent, difficult and demanding was how she had been summed up by the various men who had gathered to deliver the hasty briefing, fifteen days before. Half-French, they had added gloomily, as though that summed up the problem.
She had not left the Duchy since her marriage and was likely to be near impossible to move now, the officials added. That was all right; he was used to being asked to do the near impossible.
But there had been no mention of darkly vivid looks, of a curvaceous figure or the lithe grace of a caged panther. And Jack was having trouble believing she could possibly be the mother of a nine-year-old son. It had to be the thick glass in the window panes.
She was alone in the room; he had waited long enough to be convinced of that. Jack shifted his position, focusing his mind on opening the window and not on what would happen if he lost his balance. The flat of a slim blade slid easily enough between the casement and the frame. Thankfully the window opened inwards, for its height above the floor would make it impossible to use otherwise. He eased it ajar by inches, waiting long minutes between each adjustment so there would be no sudden drop of temperature or gust of wind to alarm her. If she screamed this would likely end in bloodshed—he did not intend that it would be his.
Grand Duchess Eva ceased to pace and sank down in front of a writing desk, her back to the window, her head in her hands. Jack wondered if she was crying, then started, with potentially lethal result, when she banged her fist down on the leather desk top and swore colourfully in English. He could only admire her vocabulary—he was tempted to echo it.
It was definitely time to get off this window ledge. He grasped the frame, put his feet through and swung himself down into the room. There was no way he could land silently, not dropping eight foot on to a stone-flagged floor in nailed boots. She spun round on her chair, gripping the back of it, her face reflecting the gamut of emotions from shock, puzzlement, fear and finally, he was impressed to see, imperious anger masking all else. They had not told him about her courage.
‘Who the devil are you?’ she demanded in unaccented English, getting to her feet with perfect deportment, as though rising from a throne. Her right hand, Jack noted, was behind her; he searched his memory for his survey of the room. Ah, yes, the paperknife. A resourceful lady.
‘You speak English excellently,’ he commented. He knew from his briefing that she was half-English, so it was only to be expected, but it was a more tactful beginning to their conversation than Put down that knife before I make you! might be. ‘But how did you know I would understand you?’
She looked down her nose at him. Jack registered dark eyes, thinly elegant eyebrows arched in disdain, a red mouth with a fullness that betrayed more passion than she was perhaps comfortable with and one deep brown curl, disturbed from her coiffure and lying tantalisingly against her white shoulder. He focused on those eyes and banished the fleeting speculation about just how the skin under that curl would feel.
‘You will address me as your Serene Highness,’ she said coolly. ‘I was thinking in English,’ she added, almost as an afterthought.
‘Your Serene Highness.’ He swept her a bow, conscious of his clothing as he did so. He was dressed for the purpose of shinning down castle walls, not making court bows, but he managed it with a grace that had one of those dark brows lifting in surprise. ‘My name is Jack Ryder.’ He had wrestled with whether or not to tell her his real name and decided against it. His nom de guerre would be safer in the event they were captured.
‘Then you are English, Mr Ryder?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘So you have not come to kill me?’
That has taken the wind out of his sails, Eva thought, watching the narrowing of the deep grey eyes that had been studying her with what she could only describe as respectful insolence. There was absolutely nothing in this Jack Ryder’s expression to which she could take exception, yet somehow he managed to leave her with a distinct awareness of her own femininity and his appreciation of it. It seemed a very long time since anyone had looked at her quite like that and longer still since she had felt her pulse quickening in response.
She managed to keep her breathing under control with an effort, and flexed the fingers cramped around the paperknife. If he was English it was highly unlikely that he was a danger, but she could not afford to take the risk, not after what had happened yesterday. And his unconventional entry through the window had to mean trouble.
‘No, ma’am, I have not come to kill you.’ A smooth recovery. Why had he not asked her what she meant? Eva studied him while she pondered the disturbing implications of that thought. Some years older than her own twenty-six, but far from middle aged. Slim, dark haired and grey eyed and in obvious control both of his body—given the way he had gained entry to her room—and his face. She had a vivid mental image of him with a sword in his hand; he had a duellist’s balance. He was showing no emotion now, after that first fleeting reaction to her statement.
‘Convince me,’ she said, hoping he had not noticed the tremor that vibrated the hem of her evening gown. ‘If you do not, I will scream and there will be two guards in here within seconds.’
He produced a pistol from one pocket. ‘And one of them will be dead in as short a time. There is no need for this, ma’am.’ The sinister black shape slid back into his coat. ‘I am here at the behest of the British government. Your son’s godfather is of the opinion that it would be better for the young Grand Duke if you were with him.’
‘The Prince Regent? He has hardly shown any interest in Fréderic since he wrote to send the christening gift.’ She wished she could move, but the necessity to keep the knife out of his sight kept her pinned against the desk.
‘Nevertheless, ma’am, the British government keeps an eye on the Duchy of Maubourg and its affairs, and has done ever since the outbreak of war. To have a neutral country embedded within France can only be a diplomatic asset, however small it is.’
‘Of course.’ Eva shrugged negligently. He was telling her nothing she did not know all too well. ‘Presumably you are aware that my late husband did what he could to mitigate the situation by acting as a go-between. He opposed the French, naturally, but he was too much of a realist to think we could resist in any way.’
‘I believe you first met the late Grand Duke in England.’ Ryder shifted position, his eyes skimming over the furnishings, searching the corners of the room. She felt it was more an habitual wariness than a search for anything in particular. His knowledge of her history did not prove he had received a government briefing; anyone with an interest in her affairs could have discovered that easily enough, it had made a big enough stir in the news sheets.
She inclined her head. ‘We were in exile at the time. My father had died in the Terror, Mama returned home to her father, the Earl of Allgrave. I had my come-out in London and I met the Grand Duke at my very first ball.’
It had seemed like a fairy tale, looking back now. Louis Fréderic, tall, darkly handsome, sophisticated far beyond her experience, an exotic presence on the English social scene, was a catch outside her wildest dreams. The fact that he had been thirty years her senior and that she was barely seventeen had weighed neither with her mother, nor with her.
The Grand Duke carried out his mission by negotiating for an exchange of prisoners, enjoyed a whirlwind courtship and returned to Maubourg with his future Grand Duchess at his side. Eva stared back down the years of memory at herself. Had she ever been that young and innocent?
‘And since your husband’s death almost two years ago, his brother Prince Philippe has acted as Regent and you and he are joint guardians of your son.’ Ryder was not so much asking, as establishing to her that he knew the facts. It seemed he was not completely up to date, but she did not hasten to inform him that Philippe had been confined to his room with some mysterious illness ever since the news about Napoleon’s escape from Elba had reached them. That was almost three months ago and she was beginning to despair of his recovery.
‘Yes.’ Her legs had stopped trembling. Eva shifted her position slightly, resting her left hand casually on the chair back. She could swing it across his path if he lunged for her. ‘I have not seen my son for four years. My husband judged it best that he should be educated in England.’
The pain of that, the sense of betrayal, still stabbed like a knife. Louis had not even given her the opportunity to say goodbye, justifying it by saying her tears would weaken the boy. First a private tutor, shared with the sons of a ducal family, then Eton. Little Freddie, will he even recognise me now?
‘There is no easy way to say this…’ Ryder began, and Eva felt the blood begin to drain from her face. No…no…they have sent him to tell me he is dead… ‘Your son has been the victim of a series of accidents in the last month—No! Ma’am, he is quite well, I assure you!’ She felt herself sway and he was at her side supporting her even faster than her own disciplined recovery.
‘I am quite all right,’ she began, then, as his solicitous fingers closed around the paperknife and whipped it from her hand, ‘Give me that back!’
He lobbed it through the open window with scarcely a sideways glance to take aim, but stayed at her side. ‘I prefer to remain unpunctured, should I happen to displease you, ma’am. Your son is alive, despite his run of bad luck, and even now, I am certain, is ploughing through his Classical studies.’
‘What accidents?’ Eva demanded, moving away. Mr Ryder’s proximity was strangely disturbing. If she had not been a sensible widow she would have put it down to the close presence of a handsome, dangerous man. But it could not be that. It must be the relief at hearing that Freddie was all right.
He made no move to follow her, simply shifting his position to keep her in view. ‘First, in the middle of May, there was a fall down a stone staircase, which was fortunately interrupted by a number of youngsters on their way up. They shared a number of interesting bruises I gather, but that is all. Then on the eighteenth, there was a runaway carriage in the High Street, which only missed the Grand Duke because he was pushed to safety by a passer-by. The carriage and its driver could not be traced afterwards. Then—’
‘Hoffmeister should have been taking better care of him,’ Eva interrupted angrily.
‘His personal secretary and tutor can hardly be expected to keep a lively nine-year-old in leading strings, ma’am. And to his credit Hoffmeister became suspicious enough after the third incident to make contact with Whitehall.’
‘Third incident?’
‘The inexplicable appearance of one poisonous toadstool in a fricassee of mushrooms that was set before Fréderic for dinner on the twentieth.’
‘How…’ Eva swallowed, fighting to keep her composure ‘…how did he escape that?’
‘By being immediately and very thoroughly sick. His personal physician tells me that his Serene Highness has a very sensitive stomach.’ She nodded, dumbly. ‘On this occasion it probably saved his life. He has additional security now, believe me.’
This time she made no pretext of hiding her shaking limbs. Eva sank down on to the chair and tried to tell herself that Fréderic was safe, that all his servants, and especially Hoffmeister, would be guarding him closely now.
‘I realise this may be hard to accept, ma’am—’ Jack Ryder began, then broke off as she lifted her head to look at him.
‘No, Mr Ryder, it is not at all strange. I am fortunate, it seems, that Fréderic gets his sensitive digestion from me, for I spent a miserable few hours with a badly upset stomach two nights ago. At the time I put it down to shock after the accident when the wheel came off my carriage as we were crossing a narrow bridge. Only the parapet stopped it tipping into the gorge. And then yesterday I slipped on the top step of the stairs outside my room; it seems someone had carelessly stood there with a dripping candle for some time. The stone was quite encrusted with wax.’
‘Were you hurt?’ His instant concern sent a flash of warmth through her and she found her cold lips were curving into a small smile for the first time in days.
‘No, I thank you. But the tapestry hanging beside the staircase is the worse for being torn from its hooks as I clung to it.’
‘And how did Prince Philippe react to this chapter of accidents?’ Jack Ryder took a chair, swung it round and straddled it, his arms along the back. He had stopped calling her ma’am, his behaviour was shockingly casual, but somehow none of that mattered just at the moment.
‘My brother-in-law has been indisposed—in fact, in a state of mental and physical collapse—since the news of Napoleon’s escape from Elba reached us. We assumed at first it was a stroke. He has been in that condition now for three months. My personal physician and a bodyguard are with him around the clock.’ She stared at him, seeing her own scepticism reflected in the steady grey eyes. He looked like an austere priest hearing a confession, with his straight nose and his tightly closed lips.
‘You suspect poison. And who rules Maubourg now?’
‘My younger brother-in-law, Prince Antoine.’
It was obvious that had been a rhetorical question—this Englishman knew exactly who would be holding the keys of the Duchy. ‘Ah, yes, the gentleman who was so anxious to persuade Price Philippe to end your neutrality and join forces with Napoleon after the death of your husband?’ Eva nodded. ‘And the man who would become Grand Duke should your son and Prince Philippe die?’
‘Yes. That is why Philippe is protected as he is. I had not thought Antoine’s arm would reach as far as England,’ she added bleakly. It had never occurred to her that Freddie would be in danger; she had believed up until now that it was a struggle for power between two brothers.
‘It is very likely that an enemy from here could strike at the young Grand Duke, and they could certainly reach far enough to remove the one person who has the authority to protect the Regent,’ Ryder pointed out, resting his chin on his clasped hands. It was a well-sculptured feature, she noted absently.
‘Myself. Yes, I had thought of that. And I have had time to realise that Philippe’s illness happening as Napoleon lands in France is too much of a coincidence. Antoine worships the Emperor—he will throw Maubourg on to the French side in the hope of patronage from Napoleon.’
‘Forgive me, I do not wish to insult your country, but while a neutral Maubourg has proved very useful to the Allies in the past, why should Napoleon be bothered with it now, one way or the other?’
‘In the past, he was not, or we would never have stayed untouched as we have. But now, I think we may have something he would want.’ Jack raised a sceptical eyebrow, but she shook her head. ‘I am not certain, it is only a suspicion. What do you know about explosives?’
Instead of answering, Ryder got to his feet and walked quietly to the massive panelled door. He eased the key round, cracked the door open and looked out, then, apparently satisfied, locked it again and came back to her side. ‘There are guards at the end of the passage—are they loyal to you?’
‘I…I think so.’
‘Hmm. I know less about explosives than I suspect I am about to need to. What is going on?’
Eva so far forgot herself as to begin to run her hands through her hair, then caught herself. A Grand Duchess did not give way to displays of weakness, nor was she ever anything but coolly immaculate under all circumstances. She folded them elegantly in her lap.
‘The main industry of the Duchy is perfume.’ Ryder nodded. It seemed he knew that, too. ‘The State perfumery employs a number of chemists, for it is very much a process of distillation and blending. I take an interest in the enterprise and I was looking through its books last week. Antoine has taken on a number of new men without asking myself or Philippe—professional men by the size of their salaries, not workers or craftsmen.
‘And then there have been explosions up in the mountains. That is where I was driving on the day of the accident. We found deep craters, signs of burning, but that is all, although I had the feeling we were being watched. The wheel came off on the way back.’
‘So, Prince Antoine is possibly experimenting with some new form of armament, just when the greatest general of his generation lands on the doorstep. And everyone who stands between him and the title suddenly becomes ill or has accidents.’
‘Yes.’ They stared at each other, Eva wondering suddenly why she had found it so easy to blurt all that out to a complete stranger. He might be a spy of Antoine’s, he might be a freelance, after some end of his own. She had been completely naïve to have trusted him. ‘Have you any credentials, Mr Ryder?’
‘A little late to think of that, ma’am,’ he said, echoing her thoughts. The way his lips twitched with amusement had her eyes flashing.
‘Better late than never, sir.’
He raised a hand, its long fingers unadorned by rings, and flipped back his lapel to reveal a small silver greyhound pinned there. ‘I am a King’s Messenger, ma’am.’
‘A glorified postman?’ She was feeling chills running up and down her spine as the extent of her indiscretion grew on her. If she could only be certain he was just what he said.
‘We do rather more than deliver the diplomatic post,’ he said mildly.
‘How do I know you haven’t murdered the real King’s Messenger?’
‘You do not. What did you intend to do about all this before I came through your window?’
Eva found her thoughts were suddenly running very fast, very cold. He wanted to know too much. She got up and began to walk up and down the chamber, her crimson skirts brushing against the bed hangings. It did not take much skill to pretend agitation. ‘I was thinking how I could get out of the castle and raise the population against Antoine.’
‘Madness,’ Ryder said flatly, just as she reached her bedside nightstand.
‘Oh!’ Eva raised one hand to her face and feigned a sob, then opened the drawer and began to fumble in it as though looking for a handkerchief. It was in her hand as she straightened up. ‘I think it would be madness to trust you any further with the scant identification you have, sir. I am going to ring this bell and when my maid comes I shall send her to fetch my private secretary and my personal bodyguard. Then we shall see.’
‘No.’ Ryder took two long strides across the room and had his hand outstretched to intercept hers on the bell pull as she flicked aside the handkerchief and revealed the little pistol beneath it.
‘Thank you for coming so close, sir. This is not much use over a long distance, but, near to, I believe it would seriously inconvenience you.’
How he did it she had no idea. One moment the muzzle of the pistol was virtually pressed to his waistcoat and he was staring at her in apparent shock, the next the pistol was flying across the room and she was picked up and thrown on to the bed, Jack Ryder’s long body pinning her into the yielding mattress.
He stared down into her furious face, his own showing nothing more extreme than irritation. He was, damn him, hardly breathing any harder than he had before. ‘Madame, you may walk out of here and come with me to England willingly, or you may leave this room unconscious and make the journey under restraint. It is your choice.’
Chapter Two (#ulink_9c9984b6-408a-5350-a882-e06043acaa73)
As a way of restraining her it was remarkably effective, Eva admitted to herself as she lay glaring up at the man pinning her to the bed. She could struggle—fruitlessly no doubt, given the size of him and the strength he had already demonstrated—but that would simply press her body into even closer contact with his. She had far too much dignity to do so and he obviously knew it. He would probably enjoy it, too.
She regarded the wicked glint in the grey eyes stolidly for a moment, then said, ‘Would you kindly remove your person from my bed?’ She could only admire the steadiness of her voice, especially as some part of her, a tiny, suppressed sensual part, was aching to arch against the hard masculinity that was dominating her. She fought down the urge; she had, after all, been fighting that particular instinct for two years.
Jack Ryder responded by raising himself on his elbows, the better to look down into her face. The movement caused even more disturbing pressure on her pelvis; Mr Ryder did not appear to be fighting his own inner sensuality very energetically. His eyes were hooded, watching her with speculation. ‘In a moment, ma’am, when we have sorted this out. I am not sure what written proof of my identity and mission you would accept, given that, as you say, I could have stolen it. Will you accept your son’s word?’
‘Freddie? What do you mean?’
‘When I was talking to him, telling him I was coming to fetch you, I asked him if there was a password I could give you in case you did not believe me. He thought for a moment, then said, “Ask Mama how Bruin and the Rat are. It’s all right for me to say it, because we aren’t at home.”’
‘Bruin? Oh, the little wretch! Mr Ryder—’ She gave him a shove. It was like trying to shift one of the castle’s wolfhounds when they got on to the bed. ‘Please get off—I believe you.’ Too relieved to be indignant with him any longer, Eva sat up as Jack rolled off the bed to stand leaning against the bedpost, his eyebrows raised interrogatively. ‘They are his nicknames for his uncles and I made him promise never to use them to anyone but me because they might be offended. At least, Antoine would be.’
‘The Rat I presume?’
‘Exactly. He has a long nose that twitches when he is agitated. I believe you, Mr Ryder—now, will you get me out of the castle?’
‘That is my intention.’
‘And help me raise resistance to Antoine?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’ Eva swung her feet off the bed and confronted him, all her indignation surging back. This official, this postman for the English government, had no right to dictate to her. He was obviously a man of action, just what she needed in these circumstances—he should do as he was told. ‘It is your patriotic duty, sir.’
‘Humbug.’ Eva gasped. No one spoke to her like that. It was so unexpected that she gaped at him. ‘Leaving aside the fact that I have no allegiance to this Duchy, it is not my duty to get most of its male population massacred by French troops, which is what will happen if Bonaparte wants this place and you resist. If he doesn’t, then you are risking a civil war for nothing. My duty, as I have already explained to you, is to remove you safely to England where you have the legal authority to look after your son until all this is over. It will also remove one hostage from Antoine’s grasp.’
‘What, slink off and abandon the Duchy to Antoine and the French just because I am a woman?’ He obviously thought she was some milk-and-water English miss. Despite him remembering—occasionally—to address her with due respect, he had no idea of the role she had had to play these past two years since Louis’s death, nor the iron that had entered her soul as she had done so.
‘No, execute a strategic retreat because that is the sensible thing to do,’ he retorted. ‘You do understand the concept of sensible action as opposed to romantic gesture, I presume?’
‘How dare you speak to me like that? You insolent oaf—I can perfectly well look after myself.’
‘Indeed, ma’am? You have escaped two accidents and one poisoning by the merest chance. If I was an assassin, you would be dead by now. Your son needs you, and you need me. Now, are you going to sit there on your—’ his eyes flickered to her body ‘—dignity, clutching an invisible coronet to your bosom, or are you going to come with me?’
I should slap him, but he is too quick for me. How can I leave? This is my duty, my country now…but Freddie. This Jack Ryder thinks I am an hysterical woman…
‘What about Philippe? He cannot be moved.’
‘Then we leave him. He is the Regent, he accepted the risks along with the office.’ He spoke as though it was a matter of leaving someone behind while they went on a picnic, not that they might be abandoning a man to his death. Dear Philippe, Freddie’s favourite Old Bear…‘Can you help him if you stay?’ She shook her head dumbly. ‘Then we go.’
‘Now?’ Her head was spinning. For so long it seemed she had had to think for herself—now this man was calmly taking over her decisions and her actions and the frightening thing was, it felt like a relief to let him do so. Eva straightened her spine and tried to think this through, ignoring the hard grey eyes fixed on her.
‘Yes, now. Unless you can think of any reason why leaving in broad daylight might be safer. Can you change into something completely neutral—a walking or carriage dress with a cloak or a pelisse? Something an ordinary lady would wear, if you own such a thing.’ His gaze swept down over the rich figured silk of her crimson evening gown to the tips of her exquisite slippers, assessing it, and probably, she thought irritably, pricing it, too.
‘I will need to pack,’ she began. How was he going to get them out of there?
‘A valise only. Essentials—one change of outer garments at the most. A discreet gown, nothing showy.’
‘But it will take us days to get back to England, I need more clothes than that.’ Court routine, even on a quiet day, demanded a minimum of four changes from rising to retiring.
‘We can buy more as we go. Have you any luggage here?’
‘Of course not. I will have to ring for my maid to help me change, and how am I going to explain why I need a valise at this time of night?’
‘Tell her you want to pack up some clothes for the poor—No, better, you know of a deserving young woman in the town who has the opportunity for a post as a governess and you want make her a gift of a valise and have decided to give her one of your old ones. Then tell her you want to change into your nightgown because you have a headache and do not want to be disturbed again tonight.’
‘And how, pray, am I going to get into a walking dress by myself?’ She knew the answer as soon as the words left her lips and spoke before he could. ‘I presume you are going to tell me that King’s Messengers have training as ladies’ maids?’
‘No, but I am capable of tying laces with my eyes closed,’ he confided.
‘I am quite sure you are, Mr Ryder,’ Eva said grimly. And untying them, too, no doubt. He would have a certain appeal for some women who liked the quietly dominant type, she could see that. It was fortunate that she was inured to male appeal. She tugged the bell pull and watched with a certain malicious interest to see where Mr Ryder was going to hide himself. It was a positive disappointment to see him drop to the floor and slide under the bed without any apparent discomfort.
She was beginning to wish she could catch him out in some way—he appeared to have an answer to everything. In fact, the only sign of humanity she had witnessed so far was the occasional glint in his eyes which, in anyone else, she would put down to mischief.
‘Your Serene Highness?’ It was Hortense, her dresser, slipping into the room with her usual soft-footed discretion.
‘Fetch me my valises, Hortense, if you please.’
‘Now, ma’am? All of them? You want to pack?’
‘Yes, all. And now, and of course I do not want to pack, Hortense. I am thinking of ordering a new suite of hand baggage from Paris and I want to see what I have.’ There was no reason why she should not have used Mr Ryder’s ingenious excuse—it was sheer stubbornness on her part and she knew it.
She was not given to issuing capricious orders and made a point of being considerate to the castle staff, so such a quixotic demand at that hour of the evening was unusual. But Hortense was too well trained to register surprise. ‘Yes, ma’am, right away.’
It took almost twenty minutes, but eventually the dresser was back with four menservants carrying fifteen bags between them. ‘Thank you, Hortense. I had no idea I had so many. Put them over there, please.’ She waited until the men had gone, then added, ‘Help me undress, please. I am a little fatigued and I will not need you after that.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
It felt decidedly risqué to be undressing with a man under the bed, even if he could see nothing. Eva slipped her arms into a wrapper and tied the sash firmly. ‘Good night, Hortense.’
As soon as the door shut behind the woman, she ordered, ‘Stay there,’ and began rummaging through her clothes presses for a suitable walking dress. She was answered by a faint sneeze as she threw her wrapper and nightgown aside and began to pull on her underthings again. A simple pair of stays which she could lace from the front solved one problem, but what to wear on top?
Finally she struggled into the plainest gown she had, which by almost dislocating her shoulder she could button up behind by herself, and found a stout pair of walking shoes to match. There was a large, but rather worn, valise in the pile and she added a good selection of undergarments before announcing, ‘You may come out now.’
Jack Ryder slid out from beneath the bed and got to his feet as she was gathering up toothbrush and toiletries. ‘That bag? No, far too large.’ As Eva gasped, he delved into the valise, extracted the pile of frills, fine lawn and filmy silk and deposited it on the bed.
‘Mr Ryder! That is my underwear!’
‘How very dashing of you to mention it, I was endeavouring not to. French, I observe,’ he added outrageously. ‘That bag there will do, but you will need to halve that pile of frippery. Here.’ He flipped through the pile, sorting it into two, and handed half to her.
Eva contented herself with one glare, dumped it into the small bag, then began to find the other items, trying to think which were the essentials to take. ‘What about money?’
‘I have enough. The journey to the frontier should only take us just over a week.’
‘But Napoleon controls France!’
‘He is in Paris, massing his troops. It would not do to show we are foreigners, but we should have no trouble passing as French travellers—it worked well enough on my journey down. Your French is perfect, mine good enough to pass as regional.’
Eva shrugged; he had got to Maubourg, true enough, now she just had to trust he could get them both back to England. ‘How do we get out of the castle?’ Travelling virtually the length of France seemed simple in comparison to walking out of her own castle with a strange man and a valise.
‘Have you a cloak with a hood?’ Eva nodded and went to take it from the press. Ryder folded it, placed it in another of the valises, then stripped off his own coat and added that to it. ‘I need a sash.’ He stood there, waiting for her to catch up with him; of course, in shirtsleeves with his dark waistcoat and breeches, he could be taken at a distance for one of the menservants, except that they all wore a red sash around their waists. But what did that achieve? She could hardly disguise herself the same way.
And if he could see from his hiding place under the bed the way that the footmen were dressed, what else had he been able to see?
Eva forced that worry away and rummaged in the press until she found a long scarf of almost the right colour. ‘Let me.’ She was so focused on being brisk and matter of fact that her arms were round his waist before she thought what she was doing. Jack stood very still for her, his arms lifted. Eva felt the colour rising in her cheeks; it was impossible to do this without touching him.
‘The way it is knotted is distinctive,’ she said briskly. ‘There, that should do.’ She stepped back, hoping her blushes would be taken for general agitation. The heat of his body had been disturbing for some reason. She forced herself to think clearly—it had to be the shock of the whole situation, otherwise what could account for the way she was reacting to this man? ‘Now what?’
‘Do you know which way to go to reach the lower courtyard without passing many guards?’ Ryder was securing the pistol out of sight in the swathing sash, his movements crisp.
‘Yes, of course, but we cannot avoid them all, there are two at the end of the corridor, for a start—my bodyguard.’ She watched him, puzzled. ‘I doubt I can disguise myself to deceive them, nor any of the others, for that matter.’
‘You don’t even try. Just walk with me, scolding me for something or another, then take the route for the lower courtyard using the least frequented areas.’ He swung the small valise up on to his shoulder, casting his face into shadow, and lifted the other one in his other hand. With only the cloak and coat in it, it hung in his grasp, obviously light and apparently empty.
‘I understand.’ Eva found her face relaxing into a smile. It felt strangely stiff and she realised how long it was since she had found anything genuinely to smile about. ‘Come on.’ She pressed open the door and led the way out into the corridor. A short distance ahead, where the passage to her private suite joined the main gallery, guards stood on either side, pikes at the slant. At the sound of her voice, they snapped to attention, their weapons crashing upright.
‘I cannot imagine how it can take one man so long to mend a simple strap,’ she complained, remembering at the last minute to speak the Maubourg patois. ‘And how you can say you do not understand which valise I want to replace it with, defeats me! I suppose it will be faster to come and look at them myself. How long have you been employed here? I must speak to the major-domo about his selection of staff.’
They passed between the guards, Eva, nagging away, keeping herself between Jack’s unprotected side and the right-hand man. There was no response from the guards as she marched along, her heels clacking on the stone floor, her voice raised peevishly. ‘This way, man, I do not have all evening!’
Jack strode along in Eva’s wake, suppressing a grin at her tone. Although, if she was this bossy in real life, it was going to be a tense trip back. It was hard to understand how such a feminine-seeming creature could be so hard. He had seen genuine tears when she had feared for her son’s life, but beside that she seemed cold, arrogant and wilful. As he had been led to believe.
He kept his head down as they passed a knot of female servants, all too busy bobbing curtsies to look at him, and followed the willowy figure of the Grand Duchess.
She wound her way down spiral stairs, along narrow passages and through what were obviously the working areas of the castle with surprising confidence. Perhaps, despite her autocratic manner, she took a practical hand in the supervision of the household. Jack found himself admiring the way she moved, the swing of her hips in the plain gown, then made himself concentrate on trying to maintain his sense of direction and to keep count of floors.
Eva opened a heavily studded door, then stopped. Puzzled, Jack glanced at her and saw she had gone pale. There seemed nothing to account for it, no voices, nothing but the start of a dark spiral staircase. It seemed she braced herself, her fingers white on the ring handle, then she stepped forwards.
After that hesitation she led the way unerringly down the precipitous flight to the solid oak door at the bottom. She pushed it and they stepped out into a brightly lit hubbub of steam, cooking smells and bustling women. In the centre of the room a massive, florid-complexioned individual brandished a ladle and harangued his subordinates. ‘Which criminal idiot put cream in this?’ he was demanding. ‘Do you not know what her Serene Highness likes? Do you wish to poison her?’ He glanced across the room, caught a glimpse of the newcomers through the steam and gasped. ‘Madame!’
‘Just carry on.’ The Grand Duchess waved a hand imperiously and the workers turned back to their tasks, leaving the maestro goggling amidst his cooking pots. ‘Through here,’ she murmured and Jack found himself outside in the wood yard. A lad staggered past carrying a basket of logs, then the door into the kitchens swung shut and they were alone in the dark.
He put down the lighter valise and took out her cloak and his coat. ‘Here, pull up the hood and hide your face as much as possible.’ He kicked the empty bag into the shadows, took her arm and began to walk steadily towards where he guessed, if his internal compass had not failed him, the lower courtyard would be. The townsfolk had unrestricted access there; in a few moments they would be simply two passers-by.
It proved easier than he had hoped, although the Grand Duchess was stiff at his side. She was obviously unused to being manhandled by subordinates. There were guards, but only on the main entrance to the inner courtyard, and no one took any notice of one couple amongst so many townsfolk.
‘I’ve a carriage waiting down by the East Bridge,’ he said as he steered her out of the gates and past a group laughing as they headed for a tavern, then dodged a stallholder who had finally given up for the night and was packing his wares into a handcart. ‘This is busier than I expected.’ At least the woman was less trouble than he had feared she might be from the way she had been described. She had a cool head, even if she had a sharp tongue.
It was hard not to give in to the temptation to run—the slope of the street towards the river encouraged haste—but that would only draw attention to them. Below, Jack could just make out the glint of water and ahead was the creaking inn sign he had used earlier as a landmark. ‘Down here.’
It was a steep lane, almost an alley, with steps down the centre and cobbles at the sides, and it led directly to the riverside. Beside him Eva was walking briskly along, clutching her cloak at the throat and showing no sign of fear. Now they were well embarked on their escape she was still calm. Jack offered up thanks for being spared an hysterical female and allowed himself to think they were going to make it.
Then, only yards down the alleyway, Eva slid away from him with a little gasp of alarm, her feet skidding on the greasy stones. He dropped the valise and used both hands to reach for her, but she tripped on the steps and was down with a loud noise of rending cloth.
‘Ouch! Oh, that is hard.’ She sat up, batting irritably at the tangling folds of the cloak. In the gloom he could make out the white oval of her face, and the moth-shapes of her moving hands, but that was all.
‘Are you hurt?’ Jack dropped to one knee and reached out to support her.
‘Bruised, I expect, nothing serious.’ Eva began to get up, then clutched for her cloak. ‘Oh, the wretched thing! The fastening at the throat has broken.’ Jack helped her to her feet and steadied her. She moved well, he noted automatically. She was fit, slender, active. That was a relief—he had feared finding a pampered, plump princess on his hands. The cloak slipped away, invisible in the shadows at their feet.
‘Just stand there a moment, I’ll find the cloak and bag,’ Jack began, then froze at the sound of loud voices. The flare of torchlight lit up the mouth of the alley with dramatic suddenness as booted feet hit the cobbles. He spun back against the nearest shuttered shop front, pulling Eva to him. The narrow lane filled with torchlight. ‘Make this look good,’ was all he had time to say before he bent his head and fastened his lips over hers.
‘Mmmf!’ she protested against his mouth, trying to jerk her head back. Jack applied one palm firmly to the back of her head, held her ruthlessly around the waist with the other hand and focused on giving a demonstration of blind rutting lust in action. It was not easy when the lady in question was trying to bite your tongue with vicious intent.
‘Hey! What have we here?’ The voice was loud, cultivated and arrogant. ‘Can we all join in, friend?’
Jack raised his head, catching a glimpse of furious, rebellious brown eyes in the second before he pressed Eva’s face into his shoulder, muffling her snarl of fury in the cloth. ‘Sorry, but this lady’s all mine.’ There were half a dozen of them, officers in the pale blue-and-silver Maubourg uniform that he had learned to recognise as he had scouted the castle and its defences. They had been drinking, but only enough, it seemed, to make them boisterous and over-friendly.
He kept his accent pure Northern French, gambling on them finding that more intimidating than provocative—which was more than could be said for the Grand Duchess’s efforts to free herself from his grip. He had his hands full of scented hair and sweet curves and she was pressed intimately against him. He tightened his hold, which had the unfortunate result of pressing her harder against the part of his anatomy that was entering into the deception with enthusiasm, and growled, ‘Patience, sweetheart, wait until these gentlemen have gone at least.’ Her reaction was to attempt to plant a knee in his groin. ‘Friends, give us some privacy, the lady’s husband will be looking for her—have some fellow feeling.’
That provoked the predictable lewd reaction, guffaws of laughter and cries of encouragement. They turned away, beginning to descend again to the river, when one, the most senior by the glimpses Jack had of his epaulettes, stopped.
‘Why, the lady has dropped her cloak. Allow me.’ He stooped, gathered it up and stepped close to lay it over Eva’s shoulders, holding up the torch, all the better to see exactly what he was doing, and, Jack guessed grimly, to catch a glimpse of the lady in the case.
Chapter Three (#ulink_a7937a39-4562-5164-9df3-937f3000b9f8)
Colonel de Presteigne! At the sound of his voice Eva stopped her efforts to free herself from Jack’s outrageous embrace and clung to him instead, pressing her face into the angle of his neck. This was not a group of young subalterns who could be relied upon not to recognise their Grand Duchess in a plainly clad figure glimpsed in a dark alleyway. This was a senior officer who knew her all too well.
Against her lips she could feel the pulse in Jack’s neck, strong and steady, and tried to stay as calm. ‘Here, allow me, ma chère.’ The weight of her cloak settled heavy on her shoulders and the colonel’s fingers trailed, lingering, across the nape of her neck. He had done exactly the same thing two nights before as he had restored her gauze shawl at a reception, counting on her not knowing whether it was deliberate or accidental. Now she could recognise that it was quite deliberate, no doubt a favourite ploy of his he could not resist trying on any female, whether noble or bourgeoise.
‘Merci.’ Jack’s hand came up, ostensibly to smooth the cloak around her shoulders, in effect bringing the edge of his palm sharply against the colonel’s groping fingers. ‘Bon nuit,’ he added pleasantly. Under the words the threat of violence hung like a lifted rapier.
Eva could feel the atmosphere crackle between the two men and knew instinctively that Jack had let his gallantry override his common sense. It was foolhardy, yet she felt a frisson of pleasure run through her that he had reacted that way. To be protected as a woman and not as a grand duchess was so novel she felt quite flustered. Or was that simply the effect of his outrageous kisses?
She felt Jack’s arm tighten and could tell from the way the muscles flexed that he was preparing to push her out of harm’s way if the other man reacted. There was a second where everyone seemed to have stopped breathing, then de Presteigne laughed. ‘Bon nuit. Bon chance, mon ami.’ The officers clattered off down the hill, leaving them in darkness and silence. Eva felt herself slump against Jack in relief as she felt both her poise and her balance desert her. She dragged down a deep breath and tried to stiffen her shaking knees, even as her arms clung to him.
Before she could free herself, Jack lifted both hands, cupped her face and kissed her again with a fierceness that spoke of relief, tension released and, quite simply, sexual demand. His mouth was hot, hard and experienced and Eva surrendered to it, swaying into his embrace again with a sensation of letting go. Physical pleasure, direct and straightforward, was such a liberation that she felt her mind go blank and let herself slide into the moment, ignoring the squalid little alley, the greasy cobbles underfoot, the danger of pursuit.
Her mouth opened to the thrust of his tongue, its message echoed by the hardness of the male body she was clinging to. Behind her closed lids stars spun against blackness. Need flooded her body like the kick of a glass of spirits at the male taste of him, the scent of his skin.
‘Hell.’ He lifted his head, still holding her tight against him, and reality and reaction hit her simultaneously.
Hell? They were very nearly making love on the cobbles and all he could say was Hell? She must have been mad—what would have followed if that moment of insanity had happened in her bedchamber? How dare he presume to touch her? How could she have allowed it?
‘You…’ she began furiously.
‘I forgot myself, indeed.’ The rueful admission was tinged with a satirical note, reminding her of her own part in what had just occurred. In the darkness she could not read his face; it was perhaps as well he could not see hers. ‘Relief and tension do strange things to us. Shall we go on?’
It was, certainly, the most dignified course to say nothing at all about the incident. Discussing it would lead nowhere but into more embarrassment—as it was, thinking about it made her skin hot all over. ‘Certainly, Mr Ryder,’ she said haughtily. ‘Have you the valise?’ Eva clutched the broken cloak clasp at her throat, feeling her pulse race against her knuckles.
‘Here.’ He stooped, a dark shape in the shadows, then took her arm. Knowing another fall risked injury, she made herself accept his touch, and tried to focus on something other than the newly re-awakened demands of her body.
‘Who is looking after the coach?’ She had not thought to ask, but this was the real world outside the castle, the world where coaches did not appear with drivers, grooms and outriders ten minutes after one had the whim to drive out. In this world people stole horses if you left them unattended. It was a world she had been insulated from for almost ten years, one she was going to have to learn to understand and survive in very rapidly.
‘My groom, Henry.’ Jack’s pace increased as the hill levelled out and they reached the quayside. Light spilled out from taverns and bawdy houses all along its length; the destination, no doubt, of the colonel and his companions.
‘What if someone speaks to him?’ Eva pulled up her hood and watched her feet as they stepped over mooring ropes stretched taut across the quay.
‘He spent two years in a French prison, so his grasp of the language is adequate, if colourful.’ Jack sounded amused and alert, not at all like a man who had been indulging in a torrid kiss with a virtual stranger not minutes before. She only wished she had his sangfroid. Perhaps he had not found her very exciting. Now, that was a dampening thought. ‘Here we are.’
The carriage was drawn up opposite the entrance to what Eva was quite certain was a brothel, as though waiting for its owner to return from his pleasures. A group of men were standing outside, talking over-loudly, and a bruiser with fists like hams stood watching them in the doorway. From the brightly lit windows came the sound of music and laughter.
The driver must have been on the lookout, for Eva saw a figure in a greatcoat sit up straight from its huddled position on the high box seat. ‘There you are. Quel surprise.’ He bent down as they came alongside and addressed Jack in accented French and with a familiarity that amazed her. ‘Thought I’d be picking your broken bones off the rocks come morning. Quite resigned to it I was. This the lady, then?’
‘No, just one I picked at random,’ Jack said sarcastically, opening the carriage door and helping Eva inside. ‘Of course it’s the lady. Did you have a scout round this afternoon like I told you to?’
‘Yes, guv’nor.’ The man had dropped into English. ‘And a very nice little burgh it is, too, not up to Paris, of course, or even Marseilles, but a man could have a bit of fun here, given the time.’
‘Well, we haven’t got any time, and speak French, damn you,’ Jack retorted. ‘Did you see the perfume factory?’
‘I did. Ruddy great place and smelling like a Covent Garden flower stall. Why? Were you wanting to buy any presents?’
‘No, I want to break in to it. Take us there now, and go steady, I don’t want to attract attention.’ Jack swung into the carriage, closed the door and lay back against the squabs opposite her. He breathed out a heartfelt sigh and Eva glimpsed the flash of white teeth. ‘Phew. That all went better than I had expected.’
There did not seem to be much to say to that, at least, not anything that didn’t risk an allusion to that episode in the alleyway. ‘Do you really intend that we break in to the factory?’
‘I am going to, you are not.’
‘Mr Ryder, do I need to remind you who I am? I say where I go and do not go. Besides, I have the key.’ The lights from the various establishments flickered into the carriage, illuminating Jack’s face in flickering bursts. She caught a look of surprise before he had his expression under control again.
‘Here? You have the key here? Why on earth would you bring it?’
It was tempting to pretend that she knew he would need it, but honesty got the better of her. ‘It is in the pocket of this cloak; I forgot I had put it there last time I visited. It was when I discovered about the chemists Antoine is employing—I had gone down one evening to look in the old recipe books, because I had found a perfume receipt up at the castle that sounded promising and I wanted to see whether we had it at the factory already.
‘I used to visit all the time, but since Philippe became ill I had stopped going. I don’t think Antoine knows I have a key to the offices. What are we looking for?’
‘I am looking for formulae, drawings, equipment—anything that might give me an inkling of what they are up to.’
‘We will need to start in the offices, then,’ Eva said, loftily ignoring his carefully selected pronouns. ‘Then we can move to the laboratories if we find nothing there. The actual workshops are unlikely, I think—after all, the production of perfume is continuing as normal, or I would have heard about it.’
‘It will be easier if you draw me a sketch.’ Jack rummaged in one of the door pockets and came out with some paper and a pencil.
‘I told you, Mr Ryder, I am coming with you.’ Eva pressed them back into his hands. Even in the gloom of the carriage with the occasional flashes of light, she could see from his expression that he had no intention of agreeing. ‘I have a perfect right to be there,’ she said, with sudden inspiration. ‘I can walk in with whomever I like—who is to refuse me? And the caretaker will not think to wonder what I am doing, he is so used to seeing me. It will reduce the risk, and hasten things, if you do not have to break in.’
‘That is true,’ Jack conceded. He must have sensed her surprise at his capitulation. ‘I am not in the habit of turning down perfectly good arguments just because someone else makes them.’
‘I thought you objected because I am a woman. Or because of my position.’
‘Neither. What you do in your position is your choice. I have a history of disagreements with dukes, but not grand duchesses, and in my experience women have an equal tendency to good and bad sense as men.’
‘Oh.’ He had taken her aback and it took a moment to recover. Whatever their station, the men in her life made it quite clear—deferentially of course—that she must be treated with respect for her position and with patronising indulgence for her opinions. Even dear Philippe was prone to treat her as though she had hardly a thought in her head beyond gowns, good works and her son. A grand duchess was expected to be a dutiful doll.
She was beginning to relax a little too much with this man, beginning to like him. In her position it was dangerous to do any such thing just because someone did not treat you like a brainless puppet—and kissed like a fallen angel. ‘Do you treat the dukes with as great a familiarity as you treat me? I have a title which you should use—’
‘Your Serene Highness, if I address you as such, then not only will every sentence become intolerably prolonged, but we risk exciting interest at every point along our journey.’
‘Ma’am would do excellently,’ she retorted, finding all her irritation with him flooding back.
‘What is your full name? Ma’am,’ he added belatedly just as she drew in a hissing breath of displeasure.
‘Evaline Claire Elizabetta Mélanie Nicole la Jabotte de Maubourg.’
Jack whistled. ‘I can see why you are referred to as the Grand Duchess Eva. I think we are here.’
Eva looked out at the high wall and the double gates with a little wicket set in them. ‘Yes, this is it.’ She found the key and handed it to him. ‘I shall tell the watchman that you are a French visitor from Grasse, interested in seeing how we make perfume here. And do try to remember to address me properly,’ she added as Jack handed her down from the carriage.
‘Yes, your Serene Highness.’ The click of his heels was a provocation she decided to ignore.
Old Georges, the watchman, came out with his lantern before they were halfway across the courtyard. He was pulling on his coat one handed, his wrinkled face a mask of concern at being caught out. ‘Your Serene Highness, ma’am! I wasn’t expecting you, ma’am—is anything wrong?’
‘No, nothing at all, Georges. This gentleman is from Grasse where they also make fine perfumes, as you know. He has no time to visit tomorrow, so I am showing him the factory tonight.’
‘Shall I light you round, ma’am?’
‘No, that is quite all right, just give monsieur your lantern. We will let you know when we leave.’
She opened the door into the offices, nodding a dismissal to the old man. Jack followed her in and closed the door. ‘That was almost too easy,’ he observed.
‘What do you mean?’ Eva opened the heavy day book and began to scan it. ‘There is always just Georges on duty at night. Now, this is the outer office; I doubt if we’ll find anything in here and the day book seems innocuous.’
‘If you were operating a secret laboratory, would you leave just one old man on duty? He did not seem at all alarmed by our presence, so he cannot be in on the plot.’ Jack scanned the room, opened one or two drawers, then moved into the next room. ‘Therefore it must be well hidden.’
‘I see what you mean.’ Eva picked up her skirts and followed. ‘The laboratories are through here; I have the master key.’
One after another the doors swung open until she reached the last one. ‘We do not use this one any more. Oh, look—the lock has been changed.’ Suddenly the familiar surroundings of the factory, which she had often walked through at night without a qualm, seemed alien and full of menace. She found she had moved closer to Jack and bit her lip in vexation at the betraying sign of fear. ‘This key will not work on it.’ She held it out as though to explain her instinctive movement towards him.
‘I’ll have to pick it, then.’ Jack fished in his boot top and produced a bent piece of thin metal, then hunkered down and began to work on the lock. Eva picked up the lantern and came to hold it close. ‘No, I do not need the light, thank you. I do this by feel and by sound.’
She watched, fascinated by his utter concentration. Again, the image of a swordsman, balanced and focused, came to her as she studied, not his hands, but his profile. His eyes were closed, his face relaxed as though listening to music, hearing and analysing what he heard at the same time.
Dark lashes fanned over tanned cheekbones. She saw a small crescent scar at the corner of his eye and observed the darkening growth of evening stubble begin to shadow his jawline. He was a very masculine figure, she thought, aware of the ease with which he balanced, the way his breeches moulded tightly over well-muscled thighs, the warmth of his body as she stood close.
I am too used to courtiers, too used to velvets and satins and posturing politicians and officials. Even the officers wear uniforms that speak more of the ballroom than the battlefield. This man looks dangerous, feels dangerous. And the biggest danger was, Eva realised, dragging her gaze away from his body to concentrate on the movement of the picklock, that she found him exciting to be with. Infuriating, insolent, casual and peremptory—and exciting.
It was something she had been wary of, these two years of widowhood, letting herself get close to another man, allowing the chill of her lonely bed to drive her into some rash liaison. You overheard too many people sniggering behind their hands as they recounted the tale of yet another widow of high rank taking a lover. It was risky, demeaning and ruinous to the reputation, for the secret always seemed to get out and, of course, it was inevitably the woman who was the butt of the jokes and the object of censure.
This feeling of arousal, this sense of hazard, was simply due to the shock of Jack Ryder’s eruption into her life and the stress of her worries for the past weeks. Everything was heightened, from her fear, her anxiety, to her sensual instincts. That was all it was, all it could ever be.
‘Got it.’ The lock clicked and the door swung open. Inside was a room laid out as a drawing office, with two desks on one side, a wide, high table in the middle and two drawing slopes with stools on the other side. Along the back of the room was a range of chests fitted with wide drawers.
‘Not a scrap of paper.’ Jack pulled open the desk drawers. ‘Empty except for pens and ink and rulers.’
Together they went to stand in front of the chests. Eva reached out a hand and touched the dark wood, noticing how heavily the piece was made. ‘Look at the locks. I have never seen anything like that before.’
‘Neither have I, and I will tell you now, I cannot pick these.’ Jack straightened up from a minute inspection of the locks, each made of steel, with double keyholes and strange rods and bars on its surface.
‘We will just have to smash the chests, then,’ Eva said robustly. ‘There are fire axes in all the rooms. Look, here.’ She lifted the axe from the corner where it stood next to a pail of water and swung it experimentally. It was heavy.
‘If I do that, then there is no hiding the fact that we have been here.’ Jack leaned back against the chest, folded his arms and regarded her steadily.
‘Of course.’ That much was obvious.
‘When Prince Antoine discovers your disappearance from the castle he may give chase, he may not. It is unlikely to be a matter of such desperate urgency to him that he will throw great resources into the pursuit. But if he links your disappearance with a raid on his secret laboratory, he is going to tear the countryside apart to find you.’
‘But we must find the proof of what is going on.’ Eva knew she was frowning in puzzlement. Was he really asking her if she would put her personal safety before her duty?
‘We have enough to confirm that Prince Antoine is experimenting with explosives. My orders are to get you back safely, not to engage in espionage.’
‘Are you telling me that you will walk away from this?’ Eva demanded.
‘No, I am asking you whether you want to. It is your life. It is your son waiting in England.’
Eva found the axe was still dangling from her hand. She propped it against the nearest chest while she tried to sort through her thoughts. Jack was offering her the choice, as he would to another man. He was not trying to hide the dangers from her. He wasn’t happy about it, but she was here inside the factory with him because he was prepared to listen to her ideas.
‘If there is a risk that some weapon that might aid him falls into Napoleon’s hands, then I would never forgive myself,’ she said, meeting the cool grey eyes. ‘I married a ruler of a country, albeit a small one. This goes with the territory.’ And she knew that if her life was at risk, then so was Jack’s—at greater risk, in truth, because she was coming to realise that if Antoine wanted her, he would have to go through Jack to get to her.
His lips curved in a smile that held admiration and a certain wry acceptance that she had just raised the odds stacked against them and that the counters she was pushing on to the gaming table represented both their lives. He held out his hand for the axe. ‘Right, let’s get started.’
Eva picked up the rough wooden handle, set her teeth and tightened her fingers. ‘No, let me.’ She raised it, her arms aching at the weight, and smashed it into the first lock. Wood splintered and the jolt as the blade hit metal ran up her arm. ‘That is for Fréderic. How dare Antoine try to take what is my son’s? I wish he was here at this moment!’
Chapter Four (#ulink_4f1f936d-c74a-546f-87d3-0878a842d776)
Jack reached across and prised Eva’s fingers from around the axe handle. ‘Allow me. I fully appreciate your wish to decapitate your brother-in-law, but I think I may be faster at turning these into firewood.’
She nodded abruptly, letting him take the axe and stepping back, her eyes fixed on the chests with angry intensity. God, that’s a woman with backbone! he told himself as he set to work to hack the locks out of their setting. She should be the Regent, she deserved to be. The way he was addressing her, the approach he had taken to their relationship, was simply because he could not afford for her rank to stand in the way of the mission. It was not through any lack of respect, whatever she might believe.
What the Whitehall officials who had sent him on this mission would say to him embroiling her in breaking and entering and spying, he shuddered to think.
The final lock in the first chest yielded in a mass of splinters and Jack began on the next. Beside him he was aware of Eva pulling open drawers, taking out piles of papers and laying them in order on the big table.
The physical effort of swinging the axe, hacking into the solid wood, made the sore muscles around his ribs where the rope had cut earlier ache savagely. He had not realised the strain his body had been under while he was doing it—the mentally numbing effect of the drop beneath him as he had lowered himself over the battlements was probably enough to account for that.
Jack made himself concentrate on breaking into the chests as fast as possible. There was too much distraction already in this mission to be thinking about bruised ribs. The revelation about the Regent’s health, the positive identification of Prince Antoine as the source of the treachery, the discovery of this factory and its secrets, were all outside his briefing and must be factored into his plans. And the impact that Eva was having on him was entirely unexpected and was going to need more than a change in tactics to neutralise.
He was not surprised to find himself admiring her for her coolness and courage, but he had not expected to find himself lusting after her. And that was what it was, there was no excuse for blinking at it. And it wasn’t just beauty that was having this effect. Jack delivered a final blow to the last chest and began to wrench out the drawers. There was something else—a passion behind those steady brown eyes, an energy and anger concealed under cool grace and dignity. And her body in his arms, the sweet fury of her mouth under his when he had kissed her…
He stepped back as Eva came to lift out the sheets of drawings from the drawers he had just opened. She moved as though in a state reception, but her hair was coming down and her face was flushed from hurrying backwards and forwards in the stuffy room. Her cloak was in a crumpled heap on the floor and she had pushed back the sleeves of her gown to expose strong, slender forearms and fine-boned wrists.
The drawings were already arranged on the table, he saw, as she darted about, brow furrowed in concentration, sorting the latest collection. Jack put down the axe and leaned back against the splintered chest to watch her. He should never have kissed her, of course, although as a ruse in the crisis they had found themselves it, it had worked very well.
The frankness of her kiss when she had stopped fighting him, when the officers had gone, should not have surprised him, either. She had been a married woman, she knew what she was about. From the briefing he had received, if she had taken a lover she had been very discreet about it—he may have been receiving the benefit of several years of chaste frustration.
They had both been under pressure, in danger, and that embrace had been a response as natural as two soldiers going out and getting drunk after a battle—a life-affirming release. It seemed she had dismissed it now, and so should he. Which was easier said than done.
‘Mr Ryder. Have you gone to sleep?’ The tart enquiry was sufficient to dampen any wandering fantasies of unpinning the rest of her coiled conker-brown hair and letting it flow over her shoulders.
‘No, ma’am, merely keeping out of your way until you had finished.’ The meek response had her narrowing her eyes at him, but he kept his face straight and she turned back to the table with nothing more than thinned lips to show her displeasure. Grand Duchess Eva had a knack of ignoring unpleasantness and skimming straight over it—presumably a useful skill in court life. ‘How have you sorted the papers?’
‘These are drawings of different mechanisms, but I think they all go together.’ She frowned and Jack found his hand lifting to smooth away the little crease between her brows. He jammed his fists in his pockets and came to stand next to her. ‘I have stacked each one with the most recent drawing uppermost; they are all dated.’ Eva pointed to a pile of black-bound notebooks. ‘Those are all figures and calculations. Formulae. They make no sense to me.’
‘To me, neither.’ Jack flicked through the topmost one and turned his attention to the drawings. ‘These are rockets.’
‘Fireworks?’ Eva leaned over close to his side to see and Jack drew in a sharp breath between his teeth. Her body was warm and fragrant and conjured immediate memories of how she had felt in his arms.
‘No, artillery weapons.’ Jack shifted round away from her as though to show what he was talking about. ‘They were invented by Congreve and the British have been using them at sea and on land since about 1805. Napoleon offered a reward for anyone who could invent one for the French army—but they haven’t got them yet. They aren’t very accurate, though.’ He leant over to study the other drawings. ‘See, these are frames and carriages for firing the things—I wonder if they have worked out a way to aim them better?’
‘And the notebooks might be formulae for the explosive powder?’
‘Yes, that could be it. We need to get these back.’ A look which could only be described as smug passed fleetingly over Eva’s face. ‘Ma’am, if you are about to say “I told you so”—’
Her eyes opened wide in hauteur. ‘I would say nothing so vulgar, Mr Ryder. Just how do you suggest we get them all out past Georges?’
‘We don’t. Not all of them.’ Jack picked up a pair of shears and began to cut down the top drawing from each pile, removing every scrap of waste margin. ‘We take the most recent of each of these, the most recent notebook, and we destroy the rest.’
‘The fireplace.’ Eva nodded and began to scoop up the remaining drawings, jamming them into the cold fireplace in the corner of the room. She picked up the notebooks and started to tear the pages out. ‘They’ll burn better loose.’
The half-dozen reduced drawings folded into a neat packet with the notebook. Jack jammed them into the breast of his coat and lit a spill from their lantern. The paper flashed into flame, blackening and falling apart in moments. Jack beat out the ashes with the poker and straightened up, observing, ‘How to make a prince angry in one easy lesson.’
‘Antoine will be beside himself,’ Eva agreed, picking up her cloak and shaking the dust out of it with a moue of distaste. Jack took it and put it around her shoulders. ‘Thank you, Mr Ryder. We had better be off, had we not?’
‘Indeed.’ Jack scanned the floor until he found what he was looking for: a shard of broken metal smaller than his little fingernail. ‘I’ll lock the door behind us.’ It was a matter of moments to flick the lock shut with the pick, then he eased the fragment of metal into the keyhole and tried it again. The fine pick jammed and grated against the foreign body. ‘There, they won’t be able to get the door open, but at first they will simply think the lock is faulty. It might buy us a little time.’
Eva led the way back out into the yard, keeping up a steady flow of polite chitchat that could only have come from years of practice at mind-numbingly tedious parties and diplomatic events. The caretaker came out and stood waiting for them. ‘Ah, there you are, Georges. We are off now; I am sorry to have disturbed you. Is your daughter well? Excellent.’
Jack paused to hand the lantern to the old caretaker and followed his gaze as the Grand Duchess made her way across the cobbled yard with all the dignity and grace of a woman stepping on to the ballroom floor. Her hair was coming down at the back, her face was flushed and there was dust around the hem of her skirt. Her dirty, crumpled cloak looked as though it had been used as a bed by a pair of hounds. It gave him an idea.
‘Thank you.’ Jack pressed a coin into the gnarled hand and lowered his voice. ‘Her Serene Highness can count upon you to be discreet, I am certain.’ The man stared at him, comprehension dawning on his face, then he nodded vigorously.
‘God bless her, monsieur, she deserves someone to care about her.’
Jack let one eyelid droop into a slow wink and sauntered out of the yard in Eva’s wake, the bulge of the documents flattened under his arm.
Eva allowed herself to be assisted back into the carriage and sank back against the squabs. ‘That wretched little rat! If Philippe recovers, he is going to make himself ill all over again when he finds out about Antoine. To ally us with Bonaparte is treachery enough, but to create weapons to put into his hands, that is beyond forgiveness or understanding.’
Now they were out of the factory, the full magnitude of what they had found was beginning to dawn on her. Inside it had all seemed an adventure. She had found it exciting, even though she had been frightened. She had enjoyed the give and take with Jack, both of words and, as she had swung that axe, of physical effort. He brought something alive in her, something that had been repressed for a very long time. It was enjoyable, and it must be resisted.
‘How long will that lock hold them, Mr Ryder?’
‘Quite a while. They will have to get a locksmith and although they will be impatient, I do not think they will realise it has been sabotaged. A locksmith will realise at once that it has been jammed, of course, then they will break the door down, I should imagine.’ He sounded as though he was frowning in thought. ‘From the weight, it may have been reinforced—they’ll be cursing their own precautions by the time they get inside.’
‘And then they will ask Georges who was there and he will tell them, he has no reason not to. I should have spoken to him.’ Eva shook her head, angered at her own lack of foresight. ‘Although what I could have said to explain such a request without exciting curiosity, I do not know.’
‘I think he will be circumspect.’ There was something in Jack Ryder’s voice that made her suspicious. Perhaps if it had not been almost dark, she would have missed it, but relying only on her hearing seemed to make her more sensitive to his mood.
‘Why?’ she demanded, suddenly suspicious. ‘What did you say to him?’
‘Nothing at all of any significance. I tipped him, said I was certain he would be discreet…’
‘And why should he think that was needed?’ A stray lock of hair tickled the dip of her collarbone. Eva put up a hand and discovered that half of it was down. As she touched her face, she felt how warm and damp her skin was. Her cloak, she recalled now, was crumpled and dusty from being on the floor.
‘I walk in to a deserted building after dark with a man and I emerge an hour later, dishevelled and flushed and crumpled and he asks the caretaker for discretion,’ she said flatly, working it out as she went. ‘Georges thinks…you encouraged him to think…that we were making love in there!’ The magnitude of it swept over her, leaving her hot faced and sick inside with humiliation. ‘How could you?’
‘It will be effective. And he appeared most sympathetic. I imagine your people would not grudge you a little harmless diversion.’
‘Harmless? Diversion? Is that how you categorise adultery and dissipation? Is it?’ She kept her voice down with an effort. A grand duchess does not shout. Ever. ‘Think of my position!’
‘It could not be adultery,’ the infuriating man pointed out. ‘Neither of us is married.’
‘Oh! You render me speechless.’
‘Patently not, ma’am.’
Now he was being literal with her! He deserved to be thrown into the castle dungeons. If only she had access to them now—they would be full of rats and spiders and he could hang there in chains next to Antoine, she thought vengefully. They deserved each other. Then the memory of what else lay under the castle sent a shudder running through her. No, best not to think of that, not here, not now, in the darkness.
‘Mr Ryder. Let me be plain. If I were to so far forget myself—and what is due to my position—as to take a lover, I would not chose an insolent, ill-bred adventurer and spy.’
‘You made me a spy,’ he countered.
That was true. Eva caught herself on the verge of an apology. This was outrageous—how was Ryder managing to put her in the wrong when he was quite obviously the one at fault? ‘Just because I did not remonstrate as I should when you took those outrageous liberties with me in the alleyway, there is no reason to assume you can blacken my name—’
‘Liberties, ma’am?’ His voice, with its faintly mocking edge, cut into her diatribe like a knife into butter. ‘Forgive me, but when those officers had gone I do believe that you returned my kisses with as much enthusiasm as I gave them. Either that, or you are an exceptionally talented actress.’
‘I was in shock,’ Eva protested, guiltily aware he was perfectly correct.
‘Of course you were,’ he agreed smoothly. ‘I perfectly understand. And, please forgive me, but that incident had nothing whatsoever to do with my exchange with Georges just now. I am afraid he leapt to a conclusion and it seemed to fit our purposes all too well.’ There was a pause, which Eva filled by gritting her teeth together and concentrating on breathing slowly and calmly through her nose. ‘Would you like me to go back and explain he has jumped to an incorrect conclusion, your Serene Highness?’
‘No!’ Deep breathing was not as calming as it was supposed to be. ‘It is too late now. The damage is done. Where are we?’ She looked out of the window and saw the glint of the river below. ‘Driving back into Maubourg? But why?’
‘Because it is the last place they would expect you to be by now if you have been missed. This coach is going to drive slowly, and very visibly, through the middle of the town. Henry is going to ask the way for the Toulon road at least three times, at each point making certain that the rather gaudy red door panels are well illuminated. We will then drive into a dark alleyway, remove the door panels to reveal a tasteful—and fictitious—crest, and equally sedately, make our way out of the Northern gate with me driving. By the time daylight comes Henry will be driving again, the door panels will be plain and to all intents this will be a third carriage, one which has not been seen in Maubourg.’
‘And if they have not missed me yet?’ The precautions and layers of planning took her aback. If she had thought at all about what would happen after they had left the factory Eva had simply envisioned driving as fast as possible towards the coast. ‘No,’ she answered her own question. ‘I see. They will question the guards and time my escape by us leaving my bedchamber, so they will be checking up on the coaches leaving tonight. Mr Ryder—do you do this sort of thing a great deal?’
‘Abduct royalty? No, this is the first time.’ He must have felt the intensity of her glare in the gloom, for he continued before she could explode. ‘Missions into Europe during the war, yes, some. Mainly I carry out intelligence work for the government, and occasionally for private individuals.’
‘What sort of thing? Following errant wives?’
‘Checking that suitors are what they seem, occasional bodyguard work. Recently I assisted a gentleman who had misplaced his wife ten years ago.’
‘Goodness. How very careless of him. And you earn your living from this?’ He spoke like a gentleman, with the hard edge and decisiveness of a military man. Her jibe about lack of breeding had been far from the mark. He wore no jewellery and she could make no judgement from his clothes, other than they seemed suitable for climbing down walls.
‘I have an adequate private income. I do this because I enjoy it.’
‘You do?’ How very odd, to enjoy fear and danger. Then Eva realised that she was enjoying it, too, in a perverse sort of way. She was scared, worried sick about Fréderic, embarrassed by much of what had happened today, but she was also alive. The blood was pumping in her veins, her mind was racing, she had been pitchforked from a life of predictability and privileged powerlessness into one of complete uncertainty—and she felt wonderful.
Only the day before she had gazed at her own reflection in the mirror and struggled to accept the fact that all that lay ahead of her was a decline into graceful middle age.
In a few months she would be twenty-seven. For nine years she had been a dutiful wife, then a dutiful Dowager Duchess. She had done nothing rash, nothing impulsive, nothing exciting. As Freddie grew up, then married, she would step further and further back into respectable semi-retirement. It was her duty. She might as well be dead.
‘Ma’am?’
‘Yes, Mr Ryder?’
‘You sighed. Are you all right?’
‘I am contemplating the thought that it is dangerous to wish for things. I had been finding my life a trifle dull and wanting in diversion recently. Then Napoleon returns, Philippe is struck down, someone tries to murder Freddie and me and you leap through my bedchamber window and take me burgling. I appear to be about to enter an adventurous phase in my life.’
‘I can promise you that.’ The coach stopped again, for what must be the third time. Eva listened to Henry’s rough French accent and the response from the watchman standing under the streetlight. She drew back further into the shadows.
‘Why are we not taking the Toulon road?’ she asked as they started forward once more.
‘Because, although it is faster, it is also riskier. Support for Bonaparte is strong to the south, and it is the obvious route for us to take. Then how do we find a boat to take us to England from a French port? I am going north, up into Burgundy, and then north-east towards Brussels, which is where the king has fled. Wellington has had his headquarters there since early April. We will go from there to Ostend.’
The coach turned sharply, lurching over a rougher surface, and pulled up. ‘Excuse me, we will be on our way in a moment. Henry will sit with you for a few miles.’
After some scraping and banging at the sides of the vehicle, the coachman climbed in, doffing his hat. ‘Begging your pardon, ma’am.’
‘That is quite all right.’ This at least was easy. One’s entire life appeared to be made up on some days of holding conversations with tongue-tied citizens. ‘Have you been a coachman long, Henry?’
‘I’m a groom, ma’am. Least, that’s what I am official-like. Most of the time I’m whatever the guv’nor wants me to be, depending on what we’re about.’
Hmm, not so tongue-tied, which could be useful. ‘So sometimes you have to be a gentleman’s groom, when Mr Ryder is at home in London?’
‘Aye, ma’am. When the guv’nor’s being himself like, which isn’t often.’
‘That must be difficult for his family,’ Eva persisted, fishing as carefully as she could. ‘For his wife, for example.’ Though he had said he was not married…‘Or his parents.’
‘Would be, indeed, ma’am, if he’d a wife. As for his respected father, top-lofty old devil he was, if you’ll pardon me saying so; nothing the guv’nor did was ever right for him, so I don’t reckon he’d give a toss, even if he was alive. Which he ain’t.’
That had not got her very far. He was not married and a top-lofty father confirmed his origins were respectable. It was an odd choice of words, being himself—it implied two very different lives. And London was home. Just who was Jack Ryder?
‘We’re out the Eastern gate,’ Henry observed. ‘Another hour and we’ll be snug at the inn, ma’am. I’ll wager you’ll be glad to be settled for the night.’
‘You know where we are staying tonight, then?’
‘Why, yes, ma’am. The guv’nor doesn’t leave things to chance. All booked, right and tight on the way down, and the landlord expecting us late, so no suspicions there. It’s a nice little place used by gentlemen on hunting expeditions in the foothills, but it’s quiet now.’
Eva sank back against the squabs and fell silent. Henry was certainly not in need of setting at his ease in her presence, so, strange as it felt, she did not have to make conversation. It was curiously peaceful to realise that she had no duties, none at all, other than to survive this adventure and reach England.
‘Ma’am!’ She jerked upright, startled to find they had stopped moving and there were lights outside. ‘You’d dropped off, ma’am,’ Henry added helpfully.
‘Yes, thank you,’ Eva said repressively. Goodness knows what sort of appearance she must present with her gown crumpled, her cloak filthy and her hair all over the place. She pushed it back and pulled her hood up to shadow her face as best she could. People saw what they expected to see, and this innkeeper would not be expecting a weary traveller to be his grand duchess. She must just be careful to do nothing to attract his attention.
The door opened, Jack helped her down and the landlord came bustling out to greet them, cheerfully prepared for their arrival at this late hour.
‘Welcome, sir, welcome, madam! Come along inside, if you please.’ Eva let the familiar local patois wash over her as the horses were sent off to the stables, their luggage carried in and Henry vanished in the direction of the taproom. ‘The room is just as you ordered, sir. The bed has been aired and I am sure your wife will be comfortable.’
The man led the way up the stairs. Eva stopped dead at the bottom, the last traces of sleep banished. ‘Room? Wife? Which room are you in?’
‘Ours.’ Jack took her arm and began to climb. Without actual violence she had no option but to follow him. ‘Thank you.’ He took the branch of candles from the landlord’s hand and pushed her gently through the open door at the head of the stairs. ‘This looks excellent. Some hot water, if you will.’
Eva stood in the middle of the room and looked around. One dresser, two chairs, a rug before a cold grate, a clothes press, a screen and a bed. One bed. ‘And just where are you sleeping?’ she enquired icily. Beneath her bodice her heart was thudding like a military tattoo.
‘With you. In that bed. Why? Where else do you expect me to sleep?’
Chapter Five (#ulink_0ce197a1-45ad-508c-b66f-c683959aa796)
‘I expect you to sleep in your own bed, in your own room.’ Her mouth had gone dry, her stomach was full of butterflies.
‘I am your bodyguard. I need to be close to you.’ He was touching the flame to the other candles in the room, his hand steady as he did so. Eva felt her irrational panic building. What was she afraid of? That he would ravish her? Ridiculous. Somehow common sense did not stop the unsettling physical reactions.
‘Then sleep on the floor.’ She pointed to the far corner, hidden behind a screen.
‘Why should I be so uncomfortable?’ Jack enquired. ‘The role of the modern bodyguard does not include sleeping at your threshold like a faithful troubadour. I have had a long hard day. That looks like a very large, very comfortable bed. I’ll put the bolster down the middle of it if that would make you feel any better.’
The click as he turned the key in the lock brought the panic bubbling closer to the surface. ‘It is scandalous,’ she stated. ‘I am—’
‘My wife,’ Jack said, turning from the door to face her across the expanse of snowy-white quilt. There was not a trace of amusement on his face. ‘For the rest of this journey you act, think, live as my wife.’
‘No!’
‘Eva, what are you afraid of? Do you think I am going to insist on my conjugal rights? That would be carrying the deception a little too far. This is for your safety.’ It was not a small room, but his masculine presence seemed to fill it. Part of her mind registered that he had called her by her first name; part of it dismissed that as an irrelevance. The forefront of her consciousness was full of the reality that she was going to have to spend this night, and goodness knows how many nights after it, in bed with this man.
‘Of course I do not think that.’ She was fighting not to think of it! ‘And I am not afraid of you.’ She tilted her chin haughtily and tried to stare him down.
No, she was not afraid of him, she was afraid of what he was reminding her she missed, afraid that every hour spent with him would tear away a little more of the screen she had erected round her needs and desires. Afraid that she might turn to him in the night for strength and comfort and…It was easy to resist temptation when it was not a fingertip away, easy to ignore yearnings when there was no way of satisfying them.
‘You are tired. We both are. They will bring hot water up soon and you can wash and go to bed.’ As he spoke there was a tap at the door. Eva watched, startled, as Jack slid a knife from his boot and went to open the door. By the time the little maid had come in with the pitcher of water, the knife was out of sight. He turned the key in the lock again once she was gone and gestured towards the washstand and screen. ‘Go on.’ He lifted her valise and placed it behind the painted wooden panels.
‘Thank you.’ Eva forced the words out of stiff lips and stepped past him into the fragile privacy. She was going to have to use her cloak as a dressing gown. Her hands shook as she delved into the valise, but she lifted out the scanty contents, shook out the one spare gown he had allowed her and sorted through the rest. Oh, no!
‘Mr Ryder.’ It was the tone she used to point out some grave dereliction of court protocol and it normally produced a reaction of instant, anxious, attention on the part of the person so addressed.
‘Yes?’ His voice sounded muffled, but unconcerned. Eva had a momentary vision of his shirt being pulled off over his head and turned her back on the join in the screen panels resolutely. For a moment she had wanted to peep, like some giggling maidservant spying on the grooms.
‘When you took those things out of my valise at the castle, you apparently removed my nightgown. What, exactly, do you expect me to sleep in?’ If she hadn’t been so angry, she would have considered her words more carefully. As it was, there was a long silence from the other side of the screen. He is laughing at me, the beast, she decided grimly, just as a white linen garment was tossed on top of the screen.
‘Have one of my shirts.’
‘You have plenty, I assume?’
‘Of course, I knew how long I was packing for.’ He is laughing. Eva fumed as she stripped off and washed hastily, then dragged the shirt over her head. It came midway down her thighs, the cuffs dangling well below her fingertips. She pulled it down as much as possible, rolled up the cuffs and unpinned her hair. At least he had left her hairbrush in the case.
The long, regular strokes had the soothing power of routine. She did the requisite one hundred and hesitated, half-tempted to do another set. Then another. She braided it hastily. ‘Where are you, Mr Ryder?’
‘In bed.’
‘Then close your eyes.’
‘Very well. They are closed. Will you snuff out the candles?’
A cautious look around the edge of the screen revealed that Jack was indeed in bed, his eyes closed as promised. There was no doubting that he was awake somehow; he seemed to radiate alertness. The covers were pulled up to his chin, not giving her any hint as to what he might—or might not—be wearing and the odd lump down the centre of the bed showed that he had inserted the bolster as a gesture to modesty.
Eva emerged, resisted the undignified urge to scuttle from candle to candle and then dive into bed, and instead went round carefully snuffing each until the bed itself was just a white glimmer in the room. She slid under the sheet, pulling it up tight to her throat.
‘Good night, Eva.’
No more ma’am, not until they reached safety. It was a curiously liberating thought. ‘Good night,’ she responded coldly. Jack. Liberating, or dangerous? Protocol was a straitjacket, but it was also an armour. Behind it one could maintain a perfect reserve, perfect privacy for the emotions. This adventure was going to throw her into an intimacy of thoughts and fears with this man that was at least as perilous as any physical closeness.
She should have been exhausted, ready to drop into sleep the moment her lids closed. The bed was comfortable, clean, and there was the reassuring touch of the bolster down her spine to remind her that she did not need to fear turning and touching Jack in the night. Of course she trusted him, and really, it was no different to him sleeping on the floor on the far side of the room, she told herself stoutly.
So why could she not sleep? Eva closed her eyes and tried to relax, starting with her toes and working up. She tried counting sheep, reciting recipes, recalling Italian irregular verbs. Hopeless.
Was he asleep? She held her breath to listen to his, steady and even. There was an interruption as he shifted slightly, a soft sigh, then the even rhythm resumed. Jack Ryder was obviously one of those infuriating people who could sleep anywhere, under any circumstances. She just hoped he would wake up as quickly if danger threatened.
Eva turned her thoughts resolutely to her son, her lips curving into a smile as she did so. How soon before she could see him? He would have grown so much. What new clothes would he need? Would he look more like his father now as he grew up, or less? Would he still throw himself into her arms to be kissed, or was he too grown up for that now? Without realising it, she relaxed and drifted off to sleep.
Jack opened his eyes on to darkness and lay still, trying to work out what had woken him. Eva’s breathing was soft and regular, she was lying curled up with her back turned and had managed to push the bolster a good three-quarters of the way across the bed towards him. A woman used to sleeping alone.
Distantly a dog was barking, the bored yap of a lonely animal, not the aggression of a threatened one. The yard below was silent. He dredged into his mind and came up with the sound of a closing door outside. It must be about three o’clock—who was abroad at this time? He had chosen this inn, a hunters’ favourite off the main road, for its isolation.
He eased out of the bed, pulling on his breeches before taking four silent strides to the window. He unlatched the shutter, pushed it back and stood looking down until his eyes adjusted to what dim light there was. Minutes passed, then he saw a familiar figure come out of the shadow of the stable opposite and walk across the yard. In the centre the man stopped and looked up, directly into his eyes, although he could not have seen Jack.
He eased the window wide and leaned out. ‘What’s the matter?’ He pitched the whisper to reach Henry and no further.
‘Nothing,’ the groom hissed. ‘I was restless.’
Jack raised a hand in acknowledgement and silently closed the window again. Henry was lying, of course, he had probably been prowling about every half-hour or so throughout the night. He never seemed to need much sleep—the result, he claimed, of becoming accustomed to very little when he was a prisoner of war.
The man drifted out of sight as soundlessly as he had appeared. Jack turned to go back to bed and found himself face to face with a white spectre. ‘What the hell!’
It was Eva, of course. How she had got out of bed and across the room without him hearing her was a worry—was he losing his sharpness of hearing, the instinct that warned him of danger? But, of course, Eva was not a danger. Not, at least, in the sense that she was likely to knife him in the back.
‘It is me,’ she whispered. ‘What’s wrong? Is it Antoine’s men?’
‘No, nothing’s wrong. I was simply checking. Henry is on guard below,’ he said reassuringly. ‘Go back to bed.’
‘Very well.’ Eva started to turn, stumbled, put out her hand for balance and hit it sharply against his naked ribs. The gasp of pain as her nails grazed across his bruises was out before he could choke it back. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing. You scratched me slightly and made me jump, that’s all.’ She stood, looking up at him as though she could read his face in the near darkness. Her own was a pure oval of white, only the shadow of her eyes discernible.
‘I do not believe you,’ she said after a moment, and spun round towards the bedside table, the movement sending a faint rumour of warm skin and gardenia wafting, achingly, to his nostrils. ‘Stay there.’ There was a scrape and a flame flared up. She touched it to the candle and carried it over to where he stood. ‘Mon Dieu! Your ribs, your chest! Turn around.’
‘It is nothing, just bruises from the rope.’ Jack tried to urge her back to the bed, but she stood her ground. Eva should have looked ludicrous in his oversized shirt, her slim legs and slender feet emerging from beneath the hem, but she looked tousled and delectable and the fact she was wearing something of his was oddly arousing. No, extremely arousing.
‘What rope? And turn around, I am not going to hurt you, you foolish man.’ She seemed to have no conception that he might not obey her.
The implication that he was frightened had him turning before he could catch himself. Then he froze as a cool palm touched lightly on the diagonal welt across his back. ‘You didn’t think I climbed down the castle wall to your window like a lizard, did you?’ It was suddenly difficult to control his breathing.
‘Rational speculation about how you appeared in my room was the last thing on my mind,’ Eva said drily. ‘You could have flown there on a broomstick for all I knew.’ She made a soft sound of distress as she moved the candle to see the full extent of the damage. Jack stood watching their shadows slide across the bedchamber wall and fought the urge to turn and take her in his arms. Her feminine concern, the gentleness of her touch, almost banished the constant awareness of who she was. But the Grand Duchess was all too aware of it; Jack reminded himself grimly of the fact, and turned round.
It did not help that the suddenness of his movement gave her no time to move her hand and they ended up almost chest to chest, her right arm wrapped around his naked ribcage, her left hand holding the candlestick out to the side in an effort not to scorch either of them. Oddly, the intimacy did not appear to be concerning her.
Eva tutted again, moving away to put the candle down safely. ‘I don’t suppose you have anything useful like medical supplies along with all those clean shirts, have you?’ He was breathing like a virgin on her wedding night now and Eva was perfectly composed. For God’s sake, man, get a grip.
‘Of course.’ Offering up a quick prayer of thanks that he had stopped to put on his breeches, Jack lifted one of his valises on to the bed and opened it. ‘There. Not that I need anything.’
‘I will be the judge of that.’ Eva began to lift things out of the case. ‘What on earth are these?’
‘Probes for removing bullets.’
‘Urgh.’ She opened her fingers fastidiously and dropped the instrument on to the bed. ‘I hope Henry knows what to do with them, or that you stay well out of the line of fire, because I am certainly not using them. Here, witch hazel, that is just the thing. And some lint.’ She shook the bottle and pulled out the stopper, releasing the strange astringently aromatic smell into the room. ‘Sit on the corner of the bed, please.’
The liquid was cold on his sleep-warm skin and Jack could feel the goose bumps forming as she dabbed her way up his back and across his shoulder along the lines left by the rope. He found himself wondering with a sense of detachment if she was going to deal with his chest with such aplomb. It seemed she would. For some reason a woman who baulked at sharing his bedchamber could cope quite easily with his half-naked body provided there was an injury to deal with.
Eva moved round, tipping the bottle on to the lint again to re-dampen it. She paused to survey the darkening bruise, then caught his eye. ‘What is it?’ Damn the woman, can she read minds? His ability to keep a straight, unreadable, face was one of his most valuable professional assets. So he had believed.
‘I was wondering why you do not appear to find this embarrassing,’ he answered frankly. ‘We are both half-dressed and in a bedchamber, and earlier that appeared to be a major obstacle to a good night’s sleep.’
She looked down her nose, suddenly every inch the Grand Duchess, despite her makeshift nightshirt and bare feet. ‘You are injured; that is something that must be dealt with, whatever the situation. On the other hand, finding myself constrained to share a bed with a strange man was something I would hope to avoid if at all possible.’
‘So modest behaviour depends on circumstance? Ouch!’
‘Sorry.’ She peered close to see why he had jumped, then carried on dabbing. Her breath fanned warmly over his collarbone, playing havoc with his pulse rate. ‘Of course it depends. If I was in my bath and the place was burning down, I would not expect you to wait politely outside the door until I got dressed before breaking in to rescue me.’
Jack fought with himself, biting the inside of his cheek in an effort not to laugh, then he caught Eva’s eye and watched while she imagined the scene she had just described. Her lips twitched, the corners of her eyes crinkled and she burst out laughing. He had never seen her laugh before; he hadn’t known whether she had a sense of humour. The only smiles he had seen were polite social expressions, but this was another woman. One hand pressed to her lips, she hurried to put the bottle down safely, then collapsed on the bed in a paroxysm of giggles.
‘Oh, Lord! I can just imagine our chamberlain doing just that! “I regret to inform your Serene Highness that the castle is on fire. Might I suggest you complete your coiffure at your earliest convenience, ma’am, as the flames are licking around my feet, ma’am…”’
She looks eighteen, a girl, so fresh, so natural, so sweet. The laughter drained out of Jack as he stared at her. Eva sat up at last, hiccupping faintly and mopping her eyes with the cuff of the shirt.
‘I am sorry, it must be the strain.’ She smiled at him hazily. ‘I can’t remember the last time I laughed out loud, or even found something silly enough to laugh about.’
Jack put out a hand towards her, not knowing what he wanted, only knowing he needed to touch her. Eva put her hand in his, her eyes questioning. He did not speak—there was nothing to say, nothing that he could articulate. For a moment she held his gaze, then awareness of who she was and where they were became clear from her expression and she looked away, chin up. Jack freed her hand and stood up.
‘Back to bed, we will need to be up in a couple of hours. You require your sleep.’
She nodded haughtily, very much on her dignity and got up, skirting carefully around him to slide under the covers on her side. ‘Good night.’
‘Good night.’ He stoppered the bottle of witch hazel, grateful for the way its heavy odour blanked out the feminine scent of her, and pulled the covers up firmly over his shoulders.
It was no part of his plans to be attracted to a woman, least of all a grand duchess. He had not thought himself so susceptible, nor so unprofessional. It was not as though he was short of feminine comfort for his physical needs—a succession of highly skilled barques of frailty made quite certain of that—for he had long since recognised that his chosen path was not one a wife could be expected to tolerate.
Not that the examples of marital life about him had made him eager to commit himself to such a relationship, so it was not such a deprivation. His recently widowed sister, Bel, had once confided that her husband was so dull she could hardly stay awake in his presence, his father had been a serial adulterer, and his friends, one after another, appeared to be sacrificing themselves on the altar of respectability by marrying simpering misses straight from the portals of Almack’s.
Flirting with young ladies of good breeding was boring and risked raised expectations and broken hearts. Flighty matrons and dashing widows required more emotional commitment than he was prepared to invest—which left the professionals, with whom one could at least be assured there was no hypocrisy involved.
So why was this woman making him hard with desire? Why did he want to shelter her to an extent that went way beyond his brief to bring her back safely to England? She was hurt, anxious and vulnerable despite her efforts not to betray that and she had got under his skin in a totally unexpected way.
It was the novelty, obviously, Jack decided, stopping himself turning over restlessly for the third time. He was unlikely to find himself on such intimate terms with a member of a royal family again, that was all it was. Satisfied he had put that anxiety to rights, he closed his eyes, willed himself to sleep, and forbade himself to dream.
On the other side of the bolster Eva was wrestling with her emotions, her body’s reactions and her sense of decorum and duty. She had woken, roused by instinct—for she was certain Jack had made no sound—and had lain for a moment looking at the silhouette of his head and torso against the pale frame of the window. His body was a beautiful shape, the classic male outline of inverted triangle over a narrow waist, enhanced by a musculature in the peak of fitness—hard, sculpted and wickedly exciting to a woman who had lived a life of celibate respectability for over twenty months.
Then the sleep had cleared from her mind and she forgot erotic considerations in anxiety about what he was looking at. That anxiety had carried her across the room to his side without self-consciousness, or any modest concern for how she was dressed, and no sooner had she recollected these things than she had been distracted again by the realisation that he was hurt.
Small boys with scraped knees were a matter of routine for a mother; grown men needing bandaging and nursing were part of a wife’s duties, and somehow that had carried over into caring for her brother-in-law, and now Jack. She simply had not thought of him as anything but a body to be mended until he had looked into her eyes and held out his hand to her.
What was he asking? What did he want? After the skill of that kiss in the alleyway she had no doubt he could make a fine attempt at seducing her, if that was what he desired. She would find him hard to resist, she acknowledged that. Eva had long since abandoned self-deception as a method of dealing with her situation in life, and she was not going to risk everything by pretending she did not know temptation when she saw it. For years she had been able to turn away flirtation, thinly veiled offers and outright attempts at seduction without the slightest quickening of her pulse rate, not a moment’s sleep lost. Now she felt as unsteady as a young girl in the throes of her first infatuation.
Was it simply friendship she had seen in Jack’s gaze, in his outstretched hand? Or was it the first move of a skilled seducer? She could afford neither, for if friendship brought her closer to him she feared her own need would betray her, and if he was intent on seduction, then only a rigorously maintained distance and discipline would save her from herself.
Eva closed her eyes and made herself lie patiently waiting for sleep.
There was no virtue in remaining chaste while there was no temptation, she told herself severely. The morning would bring new resolution and greater strength, she had to believe that.
Chapter Six (#ulink_a55901b6-b8f4-5ce6-84b8-d7b0d913a675)
The sound of booted feet on the floorboards brought Eva awake with a start of alarm. Sunlight was flooding through the window, morning had broken and she was still abed while pursuit could be at the door. She sat bolt upright. ‘What time is it?’ How could she have slept so soundly? ‘How are your bruises?’
‘Six, that is all. But time you got up, all the same. And my bruises are much better, thank you.’ Jack straightened from fastening a valise and smiled at her, a casual smile that held none of last night’s unspoken complications. He was fully dressed, clean shaven and alert. It felt very odd to have a man in her bedchamber while she was still in bed. ‘There is warm water on the washstand. I’ll wait downstairs unless you need any help with…er…’ he waved one hand in an effort to find an acceptable word ‘…buttons or anything.’
‘Thank you, no,’ Eva replied, suppressing the information that she had carefully selected garments that did not require assistance with laces, buttons or any other fastening. Yesterday she would have probably blurted that out; today she was resolved to retain the utmost dignity compatible with sharing a room with a man to whom she was not married.
‘Very well, I will order breakfast for twenty minutes’ time.’ He paused, one hand on the key. ‘Lock the door behind me.’
She made it downstairs with five minutes to spare and was rewarded by a raised eyebrow as Jack stood and held a chair for her in the deserted parlour. ‘I have a busy schedule that requires frequent changes of clothing,’ she explained, answering the unspoken comment on her punctuality and accepting a proffered napkin with a nod of thanks. ‘Where is Henry eating?’
‘In the kitchen, I imagine.’ Jack helped himself to a hearty slice of ham, two eggs and a length of sausage.
‘I would prefer that he join us.’ She poured coffee into the large cups and added a generous amount of milk, still frothy from the milking pail.
Jack accepted a cup, frowning. ‘Why? He can hardly chaperon us in the bedchamber, so his presence at breakfast seems a touch superfluous.’
‘Even so. I wish to retain the appearance of respectability so far as I am able.’ How direct he was! She had hoped to raise the matter without mentioning chaperons or bedchambers, but, no, Jack made no concession to conventions, or to the mild hypocrisies that oiled the wheels of real life. Eva tried not to either blush, or look like a prude, and suspected she had ended up merely looking starched-up. Not such a bad thing.
‘As you wish.’ Jack got up, put his head round the door to catch a passing potboy with the message and resumed his seat. ‘I am not sure Henry would add to any lady’s credit, but I cannot provide you with a lady’s maid.’
‘No, I agree. It would not be fair to her, and she could slow us down in an emergency.’ Eva buttered bread sedately, resisting the fragrant dish of ham and eggs until she had taken the sharpest edge off her appetite. Dinner last night had been unusually early and she had had nothing since, but she was not going to bolt her food. Years of eating in her room so she could be seen dining in public with the appetite of an elegant bird had left her awkward about tucking into a meal in company.
‘Quite. A very practical assessment.’ Jack was regarding her with a quizzical air. Eva stared haughtily back and carried on nibbling her bread and butter. ‘Is anything wrong?’
He was always catching her off-balance, she thought resentfully. Half the time he was coolly expressionless, practical and seemed to expect her to just get on with things as he did himself. Then there would be a flash of sympathy, of understanding or concern, and his grey eyes came alive with a warmth that made her want to reach out and take his hand again.
‘Whatever could there be wrong?’ she said lightly, feeling her smile tighten. She added, with an edge of sarcasm, ‘This is all quite in the normal run of my experience, after all.’
‘Treating me like a awkward ambassador is not going to—Henry, good morning. Madame would like you to join us.’
‘Strewth.’ The groom stood turning his hat round in his hands. ‘You sure about that, ma’am? I mean, I’ve been seeing to the horses this morning and all.’
‘Entirely sure. Please sit in that chair there, Henry. Now, would you care for some coffee?’
Eva poured, served herself ham and eggs, made careful conversation with both men in a manner that effectively forbade the introduction of any personal matter whatsoever and finally rose from the table, satisfied that she had set the tone for the rest of the journey. ‘Where are we travelling to today?’ she asked over her shoulder as Jack pulled out her chair for her at the end of the meal.
He shook his head slightly and she caught her breath. She had been beginning to feel safe, lulled by the routine domesticity of breakfast. Of course, walls had ears, people could be bribed to pass on tittle-tattle about earlier guests. The cold knot in her stomach twisted itself together again, not helped by the squeeze he gave her elbow as she preceded him out of the room. She was not used to being touched. It was meant to be reassuring, she was sure, but it succeeded all too well in reminding her just how much she needed him.
Jack waited until the carriage had rattled out of the inn yard and Henry had turned west before speaking. ‘Grenoble, Lyon, Dijon, then north to the border with the Kingdom of the Netherlands by whatever seems the safest route at the time,’ he said without preamble as she folded her cloak on the seat.
‘Through so many big towns? Is that wise?’ The watchful grey eyes opposite narrowed and Eva caught a glimpse of displeasure. He does not like my questioning his judgement, she thought. Too bad, I want to understand. I need to.
‘In my judgement it is,’ Jack responded evenly. ‘We need the speed of the good roads and travellers are less obvious in cities. However, if we run into trouble, then I have an alternative plan.’ She nodded, both in comprehension and agreement. ‘I am glad you approve.’
‘It is not a question of approval,’ Eva snapped, then caught at the fraying edge of her temper. Grace under pressure, that was what Louis had always insisted was the mark of rulers. Grace under pressure at all times. ‘I wish to understand,’ she added more temperately. ‘I am not a parcel you have been charged with delivering to the post office. Nor does my position make me some sort of mindless figurehead as you seem to think. If I understand what we are doing, why we are going where we do, then I am less likely to make any mistakes to earn your further displeasure.’
‘It is not my place to express displeasure at any action of yours.’ Jack’s retort was even enough to tip her emotions over into anger again. He was humouring her, that was what he was doing. He wanted it both ways—he wanted to call her by her first name, carry on this pretence of marriage and sharing a room, yet the moment she tried to take an active part in their flight he fell back on becoming the respectful courtier.
‘No, it is not your place, Mr Ryder, but I thought we had agreed that for the duration of this adventure I was not a grand duchess, that you would call me by my given name. I had assumed that meant you would also stop treating me as if I was not a real person. I hate it when I visit a village and they have painted the shutters especially. How do I know what lies behind them? Are they prosperous or are they poor? How much money was wasted on that paint? I want the truth, Mr Ryder, not platitudes, not your equivalent of painted shutters.’
Her angry words hung in the air between them. She saw the bunching of the muscles under the tight cloth of his breeches and wondered if he was about to jump up, pull the check cord and transfer to the box, leaving her in solitude to fume.
Then Jack leaned back into the corner of the seat and smiled. It was not a sign of humour, it was the kind of smile she produced when she was deeply displeased, but it would not be politic to say so, a curving of thinned lips. Had that hard mouth really been the one that had slid over her warm lips with such sensual expertise?
‘Very well.’ Eva jumped, dragging her eyes away from his lips. ‘If you must have it without the bark on it. The amount of danger we are in all depends on whether Antoine wants you back, and, if he does, whether he has a preference for alive or dead.’ Eva tried not to flinch at the brutal analysis. ‘He might simply be satisfied with you disgraced, in which case we are doing his work for him—last night was enough to ruin you. Or, of course, an accident on the road has the advantage of simplicity.
‘If he wants you ruined, he just has to leave us alone, spread the rumour that you have fled with your lover and make sure every newspaper in Europe picks up the tittle-tattle.’
‘When I get back to England and I am seen to be received by the Prince Regent and the Queen—’
‘The damage will be done by then, the dirt will be on your name. No smoke without fire, they will say.’
‘I wonder, then, that you chose to share my room last night.’ Cold shame was washing over her body—what would Freddie think? Small boys were cruel; someone would make certain he heard of his mother and the smutty tales about her. ‘It was poor judgement on your part.’ All this time worrying about her reputation and knowing that taking a lover was out of the question, and now this.
‘I put safety above respectability. Better slandered than dead.’ There was a flash of white teeth in a sudden grin, then the grim humour was gone. ‘And besides, Prince Antoine has all the ammunition he needs without confirmation from an innkeeper about which beds were slept in. You were seen leaving with a man and some baggage.’ He paused, watching her face. ‘If I had pointed this out, back in the castle, would you still have come?’
‘Yes, of course I would have come!’ Of course she would have. ‘What does my reputation matter against Freddie’s safety or my duty? And what difference does it make to our choices whether Antoine wants me alive or dead?’
‘If he wants you back in Maubourg so that people can see you, while he controls you as a puppet by threats to your son, then he will have to capture you and transport you home. That requires some logistical planning, more people. It may be easier to spot. If he wants an accident…well, then that is harder to see coming.’
‘Yes, that is putting it without the bark on,’ she agreed, trying not to let her voice shake. This was the man she had begun to think she understood and now realised she had been underestimating. Jack seemed so cold, so unmoved by the fear and danger behind his analysis. ‘Are you ever afraid?’ she demanded, the words leaving her lips as she thought them.
‘Of many things,’ he said evenly, surprising her. ‘The knack is not to admit to it, not even to yourself.’
‘I am scared of spiders,’ she confessed. ‘But I am not prepared to say what else.’ Even referring to her recurring nightmare obliquely made it hideously real. Those dark passageways under the castle, the shifting lift of the torches making half-seen shapes move in corners. The rectangular shapes and the knowledge of what was in them…She pushed it away with an inner shudder. ‘I understand what you mean; it does not do to conjure such things up. Instead, tell me what I should to do to help protect us all.’
‘Do what I tell you, always, at once and without question.’
Eva blinked. She had been hoping he would give her a pistol, and show her how to use it, or demonstrate how to hit an assailant over the head, or some other active form of defence. ‘That was very peremptory, Mr Ryder.’
‘Are you going to argue about it? And call me Jack.’
‘Yes, I am going to argue, Jack,’ she said. ‘What if I do not agree with what you are telling me to do?’
‘We stand there and debate it while the opposition takes the advantage, or I hit you on the point of your very pretty chin and do whatever it is anyway.’
‘My…What has my chin got to do with it?’
‘It is the easiest part of your anatomy to hit in a crisis.’ He appeared to have regained his good humour. ‘Then Henry and I bundle up your unconscious body and make our escape with you slung unflatteringly over Henry’s shoulder.’ The smile reached his eyes, crinkling the corners in a way that was infuriatingly attractive.
‘There is the death penalty in Maubourg for striking a member of the Grand Ducal family,’ Eva stated. And see how you like the thought of a coarse hemp noose around your neck, Mr Ryder!
‘What a good thing we will not be in Maubourg if such an eventuality transpires.’ They sat in silence. Eva glared out of one window, Jack looked out of the other, his lips pursed in a soundless whistle.
Eventually the coach turned, lurched and began to ride more smoothly. Eva dragged her attention back to the landscape and away from a satisfying daydream of seeing Mr Ryder dragged off in chains to the scaffold. They had reached the post road to Grenoble.
‘Are you going to sulk all the way to Brussels?’ Jack enquired.
‘I am not sulking. I have simply not got anything to say to you, you insolent man.’
‘I see. I apologise for the remark about your chin.’
‘What part of that remark, exactly? Threatening to hit it?’
‘No, making an uncalled-for personal remark.’
‘Has anyone told you how inf—’ She broke off at the sound of a fist being banged on the carriage roof.
‘Hell.’ Jack sat upright. ‘That means trouble. We are almost at the border—do you normally have it guarded? There was no check when we entered the Duchy.’
‘No, never. Our army is minute and there are far too many passes and back roads to make it worthwhile putting on border guards. What do we do?’ Jack would have a plan for this, he couldn’t intend that they stop, surely? Eva braced herself, expecting the horses to be whipped up to ride through whatever obstruction lay in their path.
But Jack was on his feet, balancing against the swaying of the coach as Henry began to rein in. Eva stared as he groped under the edge of the seat he had been sitting on. There was a click and the whole top folded up leaving a rectangular space. Jack threw her valise into one end and gestured. ‘In you get. There are air holes.’
‘No!’ It gaped, dark and stark as a sepulchre. Eva could feel the panic constricting her throat. Don’t talk about nightmares…it makes them come real… The edges of her vision clouded as though grey cobwebs were growing there. The shadows in the corners shifted…the sound of stone grinding on stone…the scratch of bone…
‘In!’ Jack gestured impatiently, his attention on the scene outside as the carriage came to a halt. There were voices raised to give curt orders. ‘Now!’
Duty. It is my duty to survive. It is my duty to be strong. Eva scrambled in, and sat down. The air seemed to have darkened, she was light-headed. Don’t shut it, no! Don’t! The scream was soundless as Jack pushed her down until she was lying prone. He said something, but the roaring in her ears made it hard to hear. Then the lid closed on to darkness. Forcing herself to breathe, she raised both hands until the palms pressed against the wooden underside and pushed up. It was locked tight. Trust him, he will let you out. Trust him. Trust…he will come.
Jack sat down in the corner of the carriage, ran his hands through his hair, crossed one leg negligently over the other and drew a book out of his pocket. He raised his eyes to look over the top of it as the door was flung open. ‘Yes?’ It was a soldier in the silver-and-blue Maubourg uniform. Sent by Prince Antoine, no doubt.
‘Your papers, monsieur.’
‘But of course.’ Jack put down the book, taking his time, and removed the documents from his breast pocket. His false identity as a Paris lawyer was substantiated by paperwork from a ‘client’ near Toulon who wished for advice on a family trust. He fanned out the documents without concealment, extracted the passport and handed it across.
The man took it and marched away towards the front of the vehicle without even glancing at it. Damnation. That probably meant an officer. Jack climbed down and walked forward to where a young lieutenant was scanning the papers, three soldiers at his back.
‘You are on your way back to Paris, monsieur?’
‘Yes. I have been on business near Toulon.’ The young man’s thumb was rubbing nervously over the wax seal. The lieutenant was inexperienced, unsure of himself and probably wondering what on earth he’d been sent out here to deal with.
‘What other vehicles have you passed since yesterday?’
‘I have no idea.’ Jack stared at him blankly. It was a useful trick. People questioning you expected you to lie, to make up an answer, to be able to catch you out. An honest admission of ignorance took the wind out of their sails and made you seem more credible. ‘I have been reading, sleeping. I take no notice of such things. Henri, what have you seen?’
Henry shrugged. ‘All sorts, monsieur, all sorts. What is the lieutenant looking for?’
‘A woman,’ the young man began, then reddened at the grin on Henry’s face and the sound of his own men choking back their laughter. He glared at his men. ‘A fugitive. A woman in her mid-twenties, brown hair, tall. With a man. Probably in a travelling carriage.’
‘No idea.’ The groom was dismissive. ‘Can’t see inside anything closed from up here. Could have passed the Emperor himself and a carriage full of Eagles for all I know.’
‘Very well. You may proceed.’ The officer handed Jack the passport and stepped back.
Jack climbed into the carriage and sat down without a glance up at Henry. Inept and badly organised was the only way to describe that road block. It must have been the first response last night, to send troops out on the main roads. He did not fool himself that this would be the extent of Antoine’s reaction to the disappearance of his sister-in-law.
The rapid tattoo on the roof told him that no one was following them. All clear, he could let Eva out. What a fuss she had made about getting in—no doubt she thought the box contained the dreaded spiders she had confessed to fearing.
Jack unlatched the seat, lifted the lid and caught his breath. For one appalled moment he thought she was dead. Her face was grey, her eyes closed, her hands, clasped at her breast, had blood on them. Then her eyes opened, unfocused on some unseen terror. ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘No! Louis—don’t let them in!’
Chapter Seven (#ulink_696247d8-05d7-56ab-8417-dffbcf43c18d)
‘Eva.’ A dark shape loomed over her. He had come, just as she knew, just as she feared. The figure reached down, took her shoulder and she gasped, a little sound of horror, and swooned.
‘Eva, wake up.’ Her nostrils were full of the smell of dust, of the tomb he had just lifted her from. She was held on a lap, yet the male body she rested on was warm, alive, pulsing with strength, not cold, dead…
He shifted her on his knees so he could hold her more easily. ‘It’s all right, we are quite safe, there is no one else here.’ Jack? She could not trust herself to respond. A hand stroked her cheek, found the sticky traces of half-dried tear tracks. Flesh-and-blood fingertips against her skin, not the touch of dry bone. She came to herself with a sharply drawn breath. ‘Eva, you are safe,’ he said urgently.
‘Oh. Oh, Jack.’ She burrowed her face into his shirtfront.
‘Are you all right now?’ He managed to get a finger under her chin and nudged it up so he could look into her face. ‘You frightened me. What was all that about?’
‘I am sorry.’ She tried to sit up, but he pulled her back. ‘It is just that that was…is…my worst nightmare. A real nightmare. I keep having it.’ I am awake, I am safe. Jack kept me safe. He did not come.
‘Tell me,’ he prompted.
She had never spoken of it to anyone. Could she do so now? Admit such fear and weakness? ‘When I first came to the castle Louis, my husband, took me down to the family vault under the chapel. At first it was exciting, fascinating, like a Gothic romance—the twisting stairs, the flickering torches. I didn’t realise where we were going.’
The smell of the air—that was what had hit her first. Cold, dry, infinitely stale. Old. Louis had held, not a lantern, but a torch, the flames painting shapes over the pillars and arches, making shadows solid. ‘Then he opened the door into the vault—it seems to go on for ever, right under the castle, with arches and a succession of rooms.’
She had been a little excited, she remembered now. These must be the dungeons. It was all rather unreal, like a Gothic novel. Until she had realised where they were.
‘We were in the burial vaults. All there is down there are these niches in the walls, like great shelves, each one with a coffin on it.’ Jack must have felt her shudder at the memory and tightened his hold.
‘The newer ones were covered in dusty velvet, there were even withered wreaths.’ How did the flowers and leaves hold their shape? she had wondered, still not quite taking in what she was seeing. They had moved on, further and deeper into the maze of passageways. ‘The older ones were shrouded in cobwebs. Some of them were cracked.’ There had been a hideous compulsion to move closer, to put her eye to those cracks and look into the sarcophagus as though into a room.
‘Then Louis started to show them to me, as though he were introducing living relatives; it was horrible, but he seemed to think it quite normal, and I tried not to show what I was thinking.’ Already, by then, she was learning that she must not show emotion, that she must show respect for Maubourg history and tradition, that weakness was unforgivable. Somehow she applied those lessons and did not run, screaming, for the stairs. Or perhaps she had known she would never find them again.
Then they had moved on. She had felt something brush against her arm and had looked down. ‘There was one—an old wooden casket where the planks had cracked and a hand had come out.’ She had tried never to think about it while she was awake, but whenever the nightmare came, this was the image that began it. ‘A skeleton hand, reaching out for me as we walked past. It touched me.’
Her voice broke. Jack made a sound as if to tell her to stop, that it was too distressing, but she was hurrying now. It must all be said. ‘And then he came to two empty shelves and said “And these are ours”. I didn’t understand at first, and then I realised he meant they were for our coffins.’
One day she would lie there, enclosed in a great stone box, sealed up away from the light and air for ever. There would not even be the natural, life-renewing embrace of the soil to take her back.
‘I don’t know how I got out without making a scene. That night I dreamt I had died and woken up in my coffin. I knew I was down there, and they were all out there, waiting, and that any moment Louis would lift the lid and he would be dead, too, and—I am sorry, such foolishness.’
Eva sat up, smoothing her hair back from her face with a determined calm. Discipline, remember who you are. There was pity and respect in Jack’s grey eyes as he looked at her. She could not let it affect her. ‘Ever since then, I have been afraid of very tight, dark, spaces.’
‘I’m not surprised, that is the most ghoulish thing I have ever heard. Did your husband not realise what an effect it was having on you?’
‘Louis was a firm believer in self-control and putting on a good face,’ Eva said with a rueful smile. ‘I soon learned what was expected of me.’
‘Did you love your husband?’
‘No, of course not, love was not part of the expectation,’ she said readily. She had just confessed her deepest fear—to tell the tale of her marriage was easy in comparison. ‘I was dazzled, seduced and over-awed. I was seventeen years old, remember! Just imagine—a grand duke.’
‘A catch, indeed,’ Jack agreed. There was something in his voice that made her suddenly very aware of where she was and that Jack’s body was responding to holding her so closely
‘I…Mr Ryder, Jack, please let me go.’ She struggled off his lap, suddenly gauche and awkward, knowing the colour flaming in her cheeks. ‘Thank you. I appreciate your…concern.’
She settled in the far corner, fussing with her skirts and pushing at her hair in a feminine flurry of activity. ‘You say you have the dream quite often?’ Jack said slowly.
‘Yes.’ She nodded, keeping her head bent, apparently intent on a mark on her sleeve.
‘Very well. You must remember, the next time, that when the lid begins to move, it is me opening it. I will have come to rescue you. There will be nothing unpleasant for you to see, and I will take you safely up those winding stairs, up into the daylight. Do you understand, Eva? Remind yourself of that before you go to sleep.’
‘You? But why should you rescue me in my dream?’ No one has ever rescued me before.’ He had her full attention now. She fixed her eyes on his face as she worried over his meaning.
‘You did not have me as a bodyguard before,’ Jack said simply. ‘All you need to do is believe in me, and I will be there. Even in your dreams. Do you?’
‘Believe in you? Yes, Jack. I believe you. Even in my dreams.’
It was a fairy tale. Eva looked down at her clasped hands so that Jack would not see that her eyes were suddenly swimming with tears. Such foolish weakness! She was a rational, educated woman; of course he could not stride into her nightmare like a knight, errant to slay the ghosts and monsters. And yet, she believed him. Believed in him.
Only the year before she had found an enchanting book of fairy stories by some German brothers and had been engrossed. What was the name of the one about the sleeping princes? Ah, yes, ‘Briar Rose.’
And it was a dangerous fairy tale, for she wanted more than protection from her knight errant—she wanted his lovemaking, she wanted him to wake her from her long sleep.
Jack wanted her, too, she knew, if only at the most basic level of male response to the female. He could not hide his body’s response from a woman nestling in his lap. And that frightened her, for she realised that she had responded to it, been aroused by it, before her mind had recognised what was happening to them. She should have been alert to that danger, she had thought she was. Had she not resolved to maintain everything on a strictly impersonal level, as recently as this morning? That attack of panic had upset all her carefully constructed aloofness like a pile of child’s building blocks.
‘What are you thinking about?’ He was matter of fact again. It almost felt as though he was checking on her mental state in the same way as he would check on the condition of a horse, or test the temper of a blade he might rely upon.
‘Fairy stories,’ she said promptly, looking up, her eyes clear. Telling the truth was always easiest, and this seemed a safe and innocuous subject. Her early training came back—find a neutral topic of conversation that will set the other person at their ease. ‘I found a wonderful book of them last year.’
‘The Brothers Grimm? Yes, I enjoyed those.’ He grinned at her expression. ‘You are surprised I read such things?’
‘Perhaps you have nephews and nieces?’ she suggested.
‘No, none. And I do not think it is a book for children, do you? Far too much sex, far too much fear and violence.’
Flustered by how closely this was impinging on her fantasies, Eva said hastily, ‘Yes, of course, you are quite correct. It is not a book I would give to Freddie.’
‘I doubt he sits still long enough to read anything except his schoolbooks,’ Jack said.
‘Oh, of course. I forgot, you actually spoke to him.’ How could she have forgotten that? She had been fighting her fears about Freddie, fretting over how he was, and here was someone with news of him that was only weeks old. ‘Tell me how he looked.’
‘As well as any lively nine-year-old who has just had a severe stomach upset,’ Jack said. ‘A touch green round the gills, but so far recovered that he was able to enjoy describing exactly, and in minute and revolting detail, how his mushrooms had reappeared and what they had looked like.’
‘I am sorry.’ Eva chuckled. ‘Little wretch.’
‘He’s a boy. I was one once—I am not so old that I cannot remember the fascination of gory details.’
‘How tall is he?’ Eva asked wistfully. ‘Hoffmeister writes me pedantic reports on a regular basis. “HSH has attained some competence with his Latin translation, HSH has been outfitted with new footwear, HSH smuggled a kitten into his room. It has been removed.” But it doesn’t help me see Freddie.’
Jack stood up, braced himself against the lurching of the carriage with one hand on the luggage rack and held the other hand palm down against his body. ‘This high. Sturdy as a little pony now—but any moment he is going to start to grow and I think he will be tall. His hair is thick, like yours, and needs cutting. His eyes are hazel, his face he is still growing into. But I saw he was your son when I first set eyes on you.’
He sat down again and Eva felt the tension and fear of the past hour ebb away into relief and thoughts of Freddie. ‘Oh, thank you so much, I can just picture him now! He was such a baby when Louis insisted he went to England. The first thing I am going to do when I am settled there is to have his portrait painted.’
‘With his mother, of course?’
‘No,’ she said slowly, thinking it out. ‘Alone. His first official portrait. I will have engravings done from it and flood Maubourg with them. It is time people remembered who their Grand Duke is.’
‘Ah.’ Jack was watching her, sizing her up again in a way that made her raise her chin. ‘The Grand Duchess is back.’
‘She never goes away,’ Eva said coolly. ‘It would be as well to remember that, Mr Ryder.’
His half-bow from the waist was, if one wanted to take offence, mocking. Eva chose to keep the peace and acknowledged it with a gracious inclination of her head. Then she let her shoulder rest against the corner squabs and closed her eyes. One could never take refuge in sleep in public as a grand duchess, but she was coming to see it was a useful haven in everyday life.
‘Grenoble.’ Jack spoke close to her ear and Eva came fully awake as the sound of the carriage wheels changed and they hit the cobbles.
‘What time is it?’ She sat up and tried to stretch her neck from its cramped position.
‘Nearly eight. We made faster time than I feared we would.’
‘And where are we staying?’ Water glinted below as they passed over a bridge. The Drac or the Isère, she could not orientate herself.
‘Another eminently respectable bourgeois inn. And this time we have a private parlour adjoining our bedchamber, Madame Ridère.’
‘So that’s who I am, is it? I suppose it is easy to remember—Ryder or Ridère. And this was all booked in advance for tonight?’ He nodded. Eva could make out his expression with some clarity, for the streets were well lit. ‘You were very confident that we would get here, were you not?’ Jack smiled, looked as though he would reply, then closed his lips. She added sharply, ‘I suppose you were about to say that you are very confident because you are very good.’
‘It is my job.’ Infuriatingly he did not rise to her jibe. Eva was stiff, hungry and tense, for all kinds of reasons. A brisk exchange of views with Jack Ryder was just the tonic she needed. It seemed she was not going to get one. ‘We are here.’
‘Bonsoir, bonsoir, Monsieur Ridère. Madame! Entrez, s’il vous plaît.’ The innkeeper emerged, Eva forced herself to think in French again, and the ritual of disembarking, being shown their room, ordering supper, unwound.
‘That bed is smaller,’ she observed as they sat down in the parlour to await their food. ‘In fact, it is very small.’
‘Indeed.’ Jack was folding a rather crumpled news sheet into order in front of the fireplace. ‘No room for the bolster, then, which is a good thing—you nearly pushed both it and me out last night.’
‘I am not sleeping with you in a bed that size. There is a settle in here.’ She pointed to the elaborately carved example of Alpine woodwork on the far side of the room.
‘That is a good foot shorter than I am, as narrow as a window ledge and as hard as a board. And it appears to be covered in very knobbly artistic representations of chamois. I am not forgoing a comfortable bed.’ She bristled. Jack snapped the newspaper open and regarded her over the top of it. ‘Do I appear to you to be crazed with lust?’
‘I…You…What did you say?’
At this critical juncture the waiter appeared with a casserole dish, followed by various other persons bearing plates, bread, jugs and cutlery. Eva folded her lips tightly and went to take her seat at the table.
Jack put down his newspaper and joined her. ‘Du pain, ma chère?’
‘Don’t you my dear me,’ she hissed, only to subside as the waiter returned with a capon and a dish of greens. ‘Merci, c’est tout,’ she said firmly.
‘Non, non, un moment, la fromage.’ Jack wielded the bread knife and passed her a slice.
‘Coward! You cannot hide behind the servants for ever.’ She forced a smile as the waiter brought the cheese. The door closed. ‘How dare you?’
‘I thought the my dear added verisimilitude. Some wine?’
‘Yes, please.’ A stiff drink was what she really needed. Brandy at the very least. ‘That was not what I was referring to and you know it. How dare you refer to lust in my hearing?’
‘I apologise for my choice of words.’ Jack passed her a glass of white wine and took a thoughtful sip from his. ‘Amorous propensities? Uncontrollable desire? Satyr-like tendencies? Ardent longings? Any of those any better?’
All or any of them involving Jack would be sinfully wonderful, as would throwing the cheese board at him. Eva gritted her teeth and persisted. ‘It would be highly improper for us to share that bed. It is far too small.’
‘And you expect what, exactly, to occur as a result?’ Jack began to carve the legs off the capon. Something about his very precise knife work suggested repressed emotion at odds with his dispassionate tone.
‘We might touch. Inadvertently.’ Eva took a deep swallow of wine, nearly choked and took another. A capon leg was laid on her plate. ‘Thank you.’ Even when discussing lust one could maintain the courtesies, she thought hazily, reaching for the decanter and refilling her glass. ‘Some greens?’ She lifted the serving spoons competently.
‘Please.’ Jack passed her the butter and took the lid off the casserole with a flourish. ‘Pommes Dauphinoise?’
‘Allow me…’ To upend it over your head. Eva wielded a serving spoon with practised elegance.
‘Thank you. Has it occurred to you that we have been touching—inadvertently or otherwise—all day?’
‘Of course. It was unavoidable. Butter?’
‘Thank you, no. And?’
‘And nothing. Touching in bed is quite another matter.’
‘That, my dear, is indubitably true.’
Eva almost choked on a further incautious mouthful of wine and stared at Jack across the steaming dishes. ‘I do not need you to tell me that. I am a mur…married ludy. Lady.’
‘Widowed lady,’ he corrected gently. ‘More wine.’
‘Yes.’ She was obviously tired, despite that nap in the carriage. Otherwise why was her tongue tangling itself? ‘Please.’
‘So.’ Jack chewed thoughtfully. ‘How to avoid this undesirable inadvertent touching? Whilst allowing me a decent night’s sleep.’ He reached across the table and lifted the second bottle of wine and the corkscrew. ‘What forethought on my part to order two bottles.’
‘It is a tolerable vintage,’ Eva allowed, fanning herself with her napkin. It really was warm in here. ‘As to the bed, thatsh—I mean, that’s your problem, Mr Ryder. You arranged it.’
‘What if I sleep on top of the bedclothes and you under them? More capon?’
‘Thank you.’ She was obviously hungry or why was her head spinning so? ‘Wearing what?’
‘Me or you?’
‘You, of course.’ Her glass was empty again. It really was a most excellent vintage.
‘A nightshirt.’ He lifted his wineglass, then glared at her over it as she snorted. It wasn’t a very elegant reaction, Eva acknowledged vaguely. Grand duchesses never snort, but really!
‘What, exactly, is there in that to provoke a snort?’ Jack demanded.
‘Men look ridiculous in nightshirts. Hairy legs sticking out of the bottom.’ Did I just say that? She blinked at the wineglass. It appeared to be half-full now. How many had she drunk?
‘Well, in my case you won’t be looking, so if you can just steer your imagination away from the aesthetic horror of it, we will be all right.’
He isn’t pleased I commented on his hairy legs. I suppose he has got hairy legs, all men do, don’t they? He has a hairy chest. Not very hairy, though, just nicely hairy. Some remnant of restraint, surfacing through the effects of four glasses of wine on a nearly empty stomach stopped her complimenting Jack on the niceness of his chest. A creeping feeling of unease that perhaps this conversation was not all it should be began to steal over her.
‘I think I am going to go to bed. Into bed. Under the covers.’
Jack stood up. ‘Can I be of any assistance? The door is over there.’
‘I know that,’ she said with dignity, gathering her skirts around her and paying particular regard to her deportment. ‘Good night, Mr Ryder.’
The effect of this exit was somewhat marred by a very audible hiccup.
Chapter Eight (#ulink_f60891df-2b78-57e8-8c27-4a56fdedfe90)
Eva woke, far too hot and with a thunderous headache. She hadn’t recalled the bedclothes being quite this thick—but then her memories of the previous evening were somewhat uncertain. She had drunk far too much, that was indisputable. She had discussed lust and beds and nightshirts with Jack in a most outrageous manner. Eva screwed her eyes tighter shut and prayed that she hadn’t actually said anything about hairy legs. Had she? Or worse, chests. Please, God.
She shifted restlessly under the weight of the blankets and found that it was not layers of woollens weighing her down, but one long masculine arm thrown over her ribcage that was pinning her to the bed. At the risk of a cricked neck, she turned her head and found herself almost nose to nose with Jack.
‘Good morning. Do you have a headache?’
‘What are you doing!’ It was a shriek that almost split her head as she uttered it. Eva closed her eyes again with a groan. Warm breath feathered her face.
‘I must have turned over in the night. No inadvertent touching, though,’ he pointed out with intolerable self-righteousness.
‘Will you please remove your arm?’
The weight shifted. Eva opened her eyes cautiously and found that his arm might have moved, but Jack had not. They were still close enough for her to have counted his eyelashes, should she have had the inclination to do so. They were unfairly long, very dark and framed his eyes dramatically. She was also in an excellent position to note that his eyes might be grey, but there were black flecks in them. The pupils were somewhat dilated and his regard intense. She found herself unable to stop staring back, directly into them.
‘One of us has got to blink,’ Jack observed, ‘or we may mesmerise each other and never get up.’
It seemed to Eva that someone had certainly been exerting powers of animal magnetism upon her, although she thought she had read somewhere that the effect required immersion of the subject in magnetised water. Or was it just her headache making her feel like this?
‘Yes, and it will have to be you because I am completely pinned down with you lying on these covers,’ she pointed out crisply. Thank goodness she still seemed able to speak with clarity and authority; she had been half-afraid she would open her mouth and mumble inanities.
‘Very well.’ Jack rolled away and stood up, stretching as he walked to throw open the shutters. He was dressed in a crumpled shirt and breeches, his feet bare on the boards.
‘You said you were going to wear a nightshirt.’ Eva sat up in bed, pushing her hair back off her face with both hands. She hadn’t even plaited it last night.
‘And you expressed horror at the suggestion. I believe an aversion to hairy legs came into it.’ Jack turned back from the window and stood regarding her, hands on hips, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
‘I didn’t say that, did I? Oh, Lord.’ Eva buried her face in her hands. If she didn’t look, then he wasn’t really there, she didn’t have to face the hideous embarrassment of knowing she’d been completely tipsy—no, drunk—and totally indiscreet. What must he think of her? She knew what she thought of herself.
‘Eva.’ The bed dipped beside her and a hand settled on her shoulder, large, warm, comforting.
‘Stop it. Don’t touch me,’ she snapped. It lifted again. ‘I’m sorry, I am finding this very difficult.’ Silence. ‘I’m not used to this intimacy with someone. I’m not used to someone being so close, so involved with what I’m doing, what I am thinking.’
She dropped her hands and looked at him, desperate to communicate how she felt. ‘I do not know how to be with you, because this relationship we have is outside anything I’ve known before.’ Jack’s face, intent, listening, gave her no clue as to his feelings—except that he did not appear to be inclined to laugh at her.
‘We are forced into this closeness and it is as if I am adrift without any chart to guide me. You are not a servant, you are not one of the family, you are not a professional man I have hired, like a doctor or a lawyer. What are you?’
She did not expect an answer, far less the one he gave her. ‘A friend.’
‘A friend?’ Why did that word hurt so much? It was as though he had shone a light on the great empty loneliness at the heart of her life and forced her to confront it. ‘I do not have any friends.’
‘You have now.’ Jack picked up her right hand as it lay lax on the counterpane. ‘Eva, you have shared a dark secret fear with me, you have told me how you feel about your son, how you felt about your husband. You have got tipsy with me and you have confided your prejudices about nightshirts. We are jointly engaged on a dangerous adventure. Today we will go shopping together. These are all things you do with friends.’
Her hand seemed small, lost within his big brown one, the long fingers cupping it protectively, not gripping, just cradling it. Eva found herself studying his nails. Clean, neatly clipped with a black line of bruising along the base of three of them, a rough patch on the index fingernail as though it had been abraded against a rough stone. That damage had been done as he had climbed down the castle wall to her room. Absently she rubbed the ball of her thumb over it, welcoming the distraction of the rasping sensation.
‘Do you make friends of all your clients?’ She did her best to sound like the Grand Duchess and not Eva de Maubourg, not disorientated, half-afraid, confused.
‘You are not a client, his Majesty’s Government is my client. But, yes, I do make friends with some. Not all. Some I do not like, many are in too much trouble to want to do anything but see the back of me when it is all sorted out. When we are in England I will introduce you to Max Dysart, the Earl of Penrith, and his wife; you will like them, I think.
‘But why have you no friends? Girls from your come-out in England? The Regent, the ladies of the court…’
‘Philippe is twenty-five years my senior, he is like an uncle. Antoine, I have never trusted. The ladies of the court, as you put it—no. Louis did not encourage me to make friends here, or to retain them from before, and that became established. I do not think there are any kindred spirits amongst them in any case.’ She assayed a confident smile, knowing it was a poor effort. ‘Certainly there is no one I could get drunk with, or have an adventure with, or risk telling a weakness to.’
‘Then I am the first.’
I am the first. The words Louis had used as he had undressed her on their wedding night, his green eyes heavy with desire. It had been very important to him that she was a virgin. Now, no longer an innocent, she knew it had titillated the jaded palate of a man she was to learn was one of the most energetic, and promiscuous, lovers in Europe. Theirs had not been a love match, but she could not complain that Louis had ever left her physically unsatisfied. Just emotionally empty, and yearning for affection. She had learned to be a good grand duchess, and to do without love.
‘What is it?’ Jack’s hand closed shut around hers. ‘Another nightmare?’
‘No. Just a memory. Thank you, I would like to be your friend.’ She looked up, relaxing, expecting to see something uncomplicated in his expression. He was smiling, but in his eyes there was something else, something she knew he was trying to mask. Heat, intensity, need. She recognised them because she felt them, too. The ordinary words she had intended to say caught in her throat. Somehow she not could pretend to herself that she did not see, or that she did not feel.
But I want…No, I cannot say it. I cannot say I want you, because if I do the world changes for ever.
Jack lifted her hand and pressed a kiss on her fingertips that were all that could be seen within his grasp. ‘You were right, ma’am, from now on we need a considerably bigger bed and then I can sleep under the covers and safely wear a nightshirt.’
‘Oh!’ Eva was startled into a gasp of amusement. ‘How can you make a joke about it?’
‘Because laughter chases away fear and it also puts many things in perspective. Are you hungry? Because I am starving and I don’t know where they are with the hot water.’ Jack tugged at the bell pull and retreated behind the screen.
‘I am ravenous.’ And suddenly she was. And strangely happy as though a weight had been lifted. Perhaps it was simply the cathartic effect of telling Jack how she felt. Except, of course, the fact that that she desired him. He feels the same way. The memory of the heat in his gaze as it had rested on her made her feel warm and fluttery inside and ridiculously girlish. Even though they had not acknowledged what that exchange of glances meant, the fact that an attractive, intelligent man found her desirable was the most wonderful boost to her confidence. Perhaps I’m not so old and past it after all.
There was a knock on the door and she hopped out of bed to open it, remembering at the last minute to ask who it was before she unlocked the door. Feeling wonderful was no excuse for laying them open to attack.
The chambermaid staggered in with two steaming ewers, set them both down beside the screen and went out, sped on her way by Eva’s insistence on a large breakfast as soon as possible.
‘Are we really going shopping?’ She climbed back into bed and sat up, her arms round her knees, listening to the sounds of splashing. She had never listened to a man’s morning rituals. Louis had always retreated to his own suite after visiting hers. He had never, after their wedding night, slept with her until morning.
‘Of course. You need a travelling wardrobe.’ There was a pause and a sound she guessed was a razor being stropped. ‘They won’t be the sort of shops you are used to,’ he warned.
‘I do not care.’ Eva flopped back against the pillows. ‘I don’t get to see many shops, everything comes to me. It is so boring—I love window shopping and looking for bargains.’ The noises from behind the screen were muffled. ‘Do you hate shopping, or are you shaving?’
‘Shaving.’ He sounded as though he had a mouthful of foam. She waited a few minutes, then, more clearly, ‘I have very little experience of shopping with women.’
‘Oh. No—what is the phrase—no barques of frailty you wish to indulge?’
‘What do you know of your weaker sisters, your Serene Highness?’
‘Nothing at all, except that my husband kept a great many of them, if you add them all up over the years.’
Silence. Had she shocked him? ‘I am about to emerge, ma’am, if you would be so good as to close your eyes or otherwise avert your gaze.’ Eva obediently closed her eyes and pressed her hands across them, as well, for good measure. Something was bubbling inside her, some ridiculously youthful feeling. There was the pad of bare feet on the boards. ‘Did you mind the other women?’ Jack asked from somewhere on the other side of the room. ‘My back is turned, if you want to get dressed.’
‘Mind? Not really. I was ridiculously shocked at first, but then, I was ridiculously young to have married a man like that.’ She slid out of bed and risked a glance in Jack’s direction. He was standing in front of the open window, his back to her, pulling on his shirt. The sunlight shone through, throwing the silhouette of his body against the fine fabric as he stretched his arms above his head. Eva bit back a sigh, dropped her eyes, found she was staring at the admirable tautness of his buttocks and the elegant line of his legs in the tight breeches and hastened to get behind the screen before her imagination got the better of her. Friends, she reminded herself fiercely. My friend—don’t spoil it.
‘You surprise me.’ She followed Jack’s movements about the room by ear as she washed. ‘I would have expected that to have upset you greatly.’
‘He never pretended to love me,’ Eva explained, shaking out the remnants of her clean linen and making mental shopping lists while she talked. ‘And I was too young to have formed a real attachment. It was my pride that was hurt more than anything, once I had got over my shock. Then, by the time I realised that he was not the sort of man to devote himself to one woman, I had Freddie and I was beginning to carry out my duties. It wasn’t so bad, and there were some benefits to being married to one of the most accomplished lovers in Europe.’
In the crashing silence that followed this remark, Eva thought she could have heard a pin drop. The handful of underwear fell back into the trunk from her lax grip. How tactless was it possible to be? She had just intimated to a man who had kissed her—with such skill and feeling that her knees still felt weak when she thought of it—that she would have been mentally comparing his technique with the legendary erotic skills of her late husband.
Worse. This was a man who she was quite certain wanted her. Eva grimaced, wondering what she could possibly say to make things better. Nothing, probably, unless she wanted to dig the hole even deeper. To say anything acknowledged the attraction between them.
‘Do you have grounds for comparison?’ Jack asked coolly into the aching silence.
‘Only Louis’s own assessment,’ she replied, then came to a decision. She could not leave this. ‘Personally I have had no basis for comparison—only one kiss. On the basis of that Louis need not have been so confident.’
‘Nothing? In all that time?’ Jack sounded as though he was just the other side of the screen. She should step out, have this exchange face to face, but somehow Eva guessed it would be more truthful like this. ‘No one?’
‘No one,’ she affirmed. ‘No one while he was alive, no one since.’
From that, she supposed, he could conclude she was a love-starved widow, ready to turn to any personable man once she was away from the close scrutiny of the Grand Ducal court, or that she was cold and had not felt the lack of love and of loving.
‘The man was a fool,’ Jack said abruptly. It wasn’t until she heard the snick of the latch that she realised he had walked out and left her. Eva stood for a moment, filtering the few words through her mind, listening to the emotion behind the curt statement. Her friend was angry on her behalf. Her eyes filled; no one had ever understood what it must have been like being married to Louis, and yet a man she had just tactlessly insulted grasped it immediately with warmth and empathy.
‘Thank you, Jack,’ she whispered to the empty room.
Shopping with a woman was a new experience. At the age of twenty-nine one did not have many of those, and certainly few that were so entertaining. If his sister, Bel, had asked him to accompany her through the fashionable lounges and shops of London, he would have pretended an attack of mumps sooner than oblige her, but Eva’s delight at being let loose in the bourgeois shops of Grenoble was infectious.
In her travel-worn gown and cloak she darted from shop window to shop window, ruthlessly dragging Jack with her. ‘I must have a hat,’ she declared. ‘I feel positively indecent without one. Which do you think? The amber straw with the ruffle or the chip straw with the satin ribbons?’
‘Have both,’ he suggested, ignoring the inner warning that a carriage stuffed with hatboxes was not the efficient vehicle for clandestine travel he had designed it to be.
‘Really? May I?’ He was still looking into the window as she glanced up at him. Something about the reflected image of himself standing there with this lovely woman on his arm, her head tilted to look up at him with delight in her eyes, hit him over the solar plexus like a blow from a fist. They looked right together, and the sight gave him an entirely unfamiliar sensation of possessiveness. Jack tried to analyse it, but Eva was still talking.
‘Only I haven’t bought a gown yet, and I ought to buy that first and match the hat.’
‘Really? Is that how it is done?’
‘I think so—when I have new ensembles made they all come together with a selection of hats and shoes and so forth. I’m not used to shopping like this.’ Her nose wrinkled in doubt and Jack grinned. That was an expression far from the grand duchess he was used to.
‘Come on, let’s break the rules.’ He pushed open the door and held it for her as the little bell tinkled, summoning the milliner. ‘And you will need something in case we have to ride.’
‘If we do, that will be an emergency? Yes?’ Eva stopped inside the door and lowered her voice.
‘Yes. We’ll be picking up saddle horses a bit further north as a precaution.’
‘Then I need breeches.’ Jack felt his brows shoot up. ‘I will explain later, but I can ride astride.’ Eva turned to the shopkeeper, who was bobbing a curtsy. ‘There are two hats in your window I would like to try, if you please.’
Ride astride? How in Hades had she learned that? It was certainly useful—if they had to take to horseback then it would be because they had to abandon the carriage and move both fast and unobserved. His mind strayed to wondering how one bought riding breeches for a woman off the peg in Grenoble. Eva was tall and slender, but definitely rounded in a way that no man or youth was.
‘Jacques.’ He pulled himself away from a frankly improper contemplation of the curves hinted at by the fall of her gown and found himself confronted by a nightmare he had heard other men gibbering about. He was expected to make a judgement between two articles of clothing worn by a woman. ‘Which do you think?’
Eva was wearing the chip straw, the bow tied at an angle under her jaw. The deep green of the satin ribbon did things to the colour of her eyes he could not explain, but which made him want to cover a bed with velvet in exactly that shade and lay her upon it. Naked.
‘Delightful. It definitely suits you.’ He remembered to talk in French just in time.
‘Or this?’ She replaced it with the amber straw. The brim framed her face, the colour brought out golden tones in her hair. The daydream changed to a bed strewn with amber silks. ‘Delightful. Have them both.’
‘Yes, but then I saw this.’ She was biting her lower lip in thought. Jack closed his eyes for a moment’s relief and opened them to see a pert confection he had no name for. The only word for it was sassy and it made his dignified grand duchess look like a seventeen-year-old, ripe for a spree.
‘Wonderful. Buy them all.’
‘Jacques, you aren’t taking this seriously. You must prefer one of them, or don’t you really like any?’ It was exactly what friends had moaned about. Women asked you for an opinion and then were upset whatever you said.
‘I think they all look marvellous on you,’ he said, trying to inject sincerity into his voice. ‘But I think that whatever the hat, you would look good, so it is very difficult to express a preference.’
‘Ah, monsieur.’ The milliner obviously thought this was a suitable answer. Eva cast him a roguish glance that made something deep inside respond. He knew his pulse rate was up and drew in a deep breath to steady it.
‘Thank you. I think I will have the chip straw and…that one.’ She pointed to the sassy little hat.
‘Not all three?’ Jack queried as the gratified shopkeeper hastened to pack the hats in their boxes.
‘We have only just started shopping.’ Jack found himself grinning back in answer to Eva’s smile.
It was madness. Here he was, Jack Ryder, King’s Messenger, a man who chose danger as a way of life, looking forward to hours spent exploring dress shops, haberdashers and shoemakers. If Henry found out, he would never live it down.
Chapter Nine (#ulink_d87317d3-e4a5-5e87-ad4e-d668604af126)
Two hours later, laden with parcels, Jack called a halt and dragged Eva into a confectioner’s. ‘Enough! Can there be a single shop of interest to ladies in this town we have not explored?’
‘Not one.’ Eva smiled happily at him over the rim of a cup of chocolate. ‘Tell me what you bought for my riding clothes.’
‘Breeches, shirt, waistcoat, coat and boots. You can use one of my neckcloths.’
‘But how did you know my size?’ She blushed adorably, he mused, wondering how else he could provoke that reaction without overstepping the bounds of friendship he had set himself.
‘I can measure your height against myself, likewise your feet.’ He let his booted foot nudge against hers under the shelter of the tablecloth and lowered his voice. ‘As for the rest, well, I have held you in my arms.’
‘Oh.’ The rose-pink colour reached her temples this time. Jack tried not to imagine how soft the skin would be there, how it would feel to nuzzle along to the delicate curve of her ear and explore the crisp moulding before nibbling his way down…‘You have a good memory.’
Confessing that he had been recalling those few minutes in vivid detail ever since they had occurred was out of the question. ‘I doubt the breeches will be a good fit.’ Eva looked a question. ‘Any youth quite your, er…shape would be an unusual young man. They are certain to be too large in the waist.’
‘Never mind. Better than too tight.’ Eva put one elbow on the table and rested her chin on her palm while she nibbled at a macaroon biscuit. ‘Thank you for today.’
‘What, the clothes and fripperies? His Majesty’s Government coffers are paying for those.’ The range of items she had enjoyed browsing through had been a revelation to a man used to buying jewellery as a present for his mistress of the moment, or handing over cash for them to make their own purchases.
‘No. For the holiday. For letting me take my time and relax and for pretending you enjoyed it, too.’
‘I did enjoy it.’ She finished her biscuit and cupped her chin in both hands, regarding him sceptically. ‘It was a new experience for me. Shopping.’
‘Don’t men shop? Surely you do?’
‘Yes, but we don’t flit so much.’ He ignored her moue of indignation at his choice of verb. ‘I go to my tailor, my shirtmaker, my bootmaker, a perfumier for toiletries and so forth. But I know what I want before I set out, they are all within a very small compass of London streets, and I do it only when I need to.’
‘Then what did you enjoy about today?’
Jack poured them both more hot chocolate and tried to explain. ‘I enjoyed your company, I enjoyed your good taste. It was an interesting glimpse into a feminine world—and I enjoyed seeing you enjoy yourself.’ And he had enjoyed just watching her, fantasising about making love to her, setting himself up for a night of disturbed sleep and physical discomfort thinking about her.
‘Thank you.’ The sceptical look was gone. ‘I am so glad we are friends.’ She put out her hand impulsively and lay it on his for a fleeting moment, then jerked it back, obviously embarrassed at doing such a thing in public. ‘Jack, are we in danger here?’
‘Here and now? I doubt it, unless whoever is chasing us has decided they need light refreshment. I somehow do not think this is what your brother-in-law would be expecting us to do just now. But if you mean in Grenoble, yes, certainly.’ There was no point in lying to her; besides anything else, neither of them could afford to be complacent.
‘It will be most dangerous from here to Dijon because there are so few alternative routes if we wish to avoid high mountains or areas that have come out strongly for Napoleon. After that, there are several possible routes.’
‘And Antoine may have found out about the factory by now, and know we know about the rockets.’ Jack nodded, watching her thinking. Now her guard was down with him, he found Eva’s brown eyes extraordinarily expressive. ‘Should we have stopped for so long? Shouldn’t we travel all night? But you will tell me you know best and not to worry, I expect.’ She bit her lip. ‘I am not holding you up, am I? I could have managed without more clothes. Or was that an excuse to give me a rest?’
‘You call that a rest? No, it was part of my plan. We could not have got more than one bag out safely, but it would draw attention to us if you are shabbily dressed.’ He gestured to the waiter for their bill. ‘I plan to leave early tomorrow, before sunrise. Always providing we can pack all this stuff away.’
‘We can put it under the seats if there is too much for the luggage racks,’ Eva suggested, gathering up the myriad of smaller packages. He was well aware that her demure expression was to hide her amusement at seeing him burdened by two hatboxes—well stuffed with lighter objects around the hats—three parcels and the unwieldy package containing the riding boots.
‘No, we can’t. One is full of equipment, and we may need the other one again.’
‘For me.’ She said it flatly and he could have kicked himself for reminding her. ‘It is all right Jack. I know you will let me out.’ Then she threaded her free hand through his elbow and nudged him lightly in the ribs. ‘And if you are found, apparently all alone with a carriage full of female apparel, what exactly is going to be your explanation?’
‘A demanding wife who expects a lot of presents,’ Jack retorted promptly and was rewarded by her rich chuckle. ‘Oh, and by the way, I have explained to our host that my fussy spouse finds the bed too narrow and has thrown me out, so I expect to find a truckle bed in our room when we return.’
‘Did you receive much masculine sympathy?’ Eva asked.
‘Of course. He now regards me as intolerably henpecked, but apparently he surmised that from first seeing us.’
‘Whatever made him think such a thing?’ Eva demanded indignantly.
‘I have no idea.’ Jack sighed. ‘I had thought I was bearing up so well.’ This time it was not so much a nudge as a jab.
‘Beast.’
‘Have you any family?’ Eva curled up in the corner of the carriage, her shoes reprehensibly kicked off and her feet tucked up under the skirts of her new forest-green walking dress. Jack lounged in the corner diagonally opposite, his hands thrust deep into his coat pockets, his eyes moving between her face and the road as it unwound behind them. She thought she had never seen a man who seemed more at home in his own body. He was totally relaxed now, and yet she would wager a large sum that, if there was a crisis, he would be alert, balanced, ready for instant action. It was, she acknowledged ruefully to herself, very appealing.
‘A half-brother, older than I am, and a full sister who is younger. My mother is widowed and lives out of town.’
‘Not very many relatives, then?’ she commiserated. It would be wonderful to have brothers and sisters and it was a deep regret that she had not been able to give Freddie any siblings.
‘You asked about family.’ Jack rolled his eyes. ‘Relatives I have by the dozen.’
‘Truly? Do you get on well with all of them? You are lucky, I wish I had lots. Any, in fact.’ She sighed, smiling in case he thought she was being self-pitying.
‘One aunt, three uncles and nine cousins. Plus the Scandalous Aunt we do not talk about—she may have any number of offspring, for all we know.’
‘What did she do that was so shocking?’ Eva asked, agog. It was so refreshing to be able to indulge in some vulgar gossip—Jack would tell her if she overstepped the mark, but his expression when he mentioned his aunt did not seem at all forbidding.
‘No one will tell us children. Even my mama, who is considered scandalously freethinking by the others, plies her fan vigorously and blushes when questioned. All she will say is that Poor Dear Margery was wild to a fault and fell into sin. The only clue is that whatever sin she succumbed to was highly lucrative, for Mama also confided that no amount of money can wash a soul clean from moral turpitude.’
‘Have you never been tempted to find out? If anyone can, I should think it is you.’
‘I might at that.’ Jack smiled lazily. ‘I have to admit, the last time Aunt Margery was mentioned by my Wicked Cousin Theophilus, I felt a certain stirring of irritation at being designated a child at the age of twenty-eight.’
‘Theophilus? I don’t believe anyone called Theophilus could possibly be wicked.’
‘He was more or less destined for either extreme virtue or vice, poor Theo. His father is a bishop and his mother the most sanctimonious creature imaginable.’
Theo sounded rather amusing. Eva wondered if there was any chance of meeting Jack’s numerous relatives. ‘So, you are twenty-eight?’ Younger than he looked, Eva decided. She had guessed at thirty and tried to work out why. The steady, serious, watchful eyes possibly. Or the air of total competence and responsibility.
‘Twenty-nine, I have just had a birthday.’
‘Congratulations! And did your brother and sister and all your cousins come to your party?’
‘I spent it on the road on my way south to Maubourg.’ He must have seen her frown of regret, for he added, ‘Birthday parties are not my sort of thing. I suppose I am not used to them. My father considered such things too frivolous for children.’
‘Then you do not know what you are missing,’ Eva said robustly, thinking, Poor little boy. Not so little now, but everyone should have the memory of a happy childhood to grow up with. Hers was always there at the back of her mind, a candle flame to warm her soul by in hard times. A man who forbade a child a birthday party was unlikely to have been a loving father in other ways.
‘I give wonderful parties for all ages and you must come to Freddie’s in December.’ She tried to imagine Jack playing the silly party games she invented and failed. There was nothing wrong with his sense of humour, and he certainly did not stand on his dignity, but there was something lonely and distant about him in repose. She wondered if there was something else, other than a father who, she recalled, Henry had referred to as top-lofty, and felt an ache inside for him. Not that he would thank her for pitying him, for there was an armour of pride and quiet self-confidence behind his easy competence.
‘I am not used to children’s parties, but I would be honoured by an invitation.’ Jack managed a bow that was positively courtly, despite his casual posture.
‘No nieces or nephews, then?’ Children would like him, she decided. He wouldn’t condescend to them. Freddie must have liked him, otherwise he would never have trusted him with the secret nicknames for his uncles.
‘My sister, Bel, was widowed before they had any children.’
‘Your brother?’ Eva prompted, curious that his eyes, which had been open and amused as they spoke, flicked back to the view from the window. His profile was unreadable. There was some secret here.
‘I think it highly unlikely that Charles will ever have children,’ he said, his voice so neutral that her suspicions were confirmed. In the face of that blankness, she could hardly continue to probe.
A silence fell, not cool exactly, but not comfortable, either. Perhaps the poor man was an invalid and it pained Jack to speak of it. Eva shifted to stare out of the window on her side and brooded on what else Jack had told her.
A large extended family then. A bishop for an uncle and general outrage at a sinful aunt spoke of respectability, even minor aristocracy, maybe. But then, aristocrats did not spend their time as private investigators, or King’s Messengers, come to that. A puzzle, her new friend. Friend. That was the word she had to keep repeating in her mind. Friend. Not lover, however much she wished he was. If she thought about it, it would show in her face, Jack Ryder was no fool and he knew women, she had no doubt of that.
‘Where are we staying in Lyons?’ she asked, more to test his mood than for any particular anxiety to know.
‘On the Presqu’île, in the business district. A modest, respectable inn patronised by silk merchants and other business men. They do an excellent dinner.’
‘We can’t go out, then?’ The previous day’s expedition had been such fun and Lyon was famous for its silks. Eva knew that more shopping was out of the question—not on borrowed money, at any rate—and the carriage was already stuffed with parcels, but she would dearly have loved to do some browsing. Despite everything the sense of being on holiday, of being let off the lead of respectability and duty, was heady.
‘No. This is where it gets dangerous. Lyon came out strongly for Napoleon. Besides that, Antoine will know what we have seen, guessed at what we will have stolen. And now he has had enough time to organise the pursuit. If you are up to it, I intend that we ride to Dijon from Lyon and leave Henry to drive.’
‘But that will put him in danger,’ Eva protested. It no longer felt right to be curled up so casually. She sat up straight and slipped her shoes back on, as though to be ready for action.
‘There will be nothing to betray him. A humble coachman carrying presents from his mistress’s sister back to her in Paris. We will be taking the back roads and the plans will be with us.’ He flicked her a sideways glance. ‘Are you up to it?’
‘Yes.’ Eva nodded firmly. She had ridden all day on occasion when Louis had held one of his week-long hunting parties, although not recently. She would manage; the thought of being a burden to Jack, of slowing him down, was not to be contemplated. Everything was going so well, all according to his smooth planning, she had to do her part.
But even the most careful plans come adrift. Eva stood beside Jack in the entrance of the Belle Alliance inn and watched his face as the patron explained all about the fire in the kitchen. The stench of wet ash and charred timber filled the air; it had hit them as they entered, but the man assured them the bedchambers were unaffected and it was only the kitchens that were not functioning.
‘There are many good places to eat along the quais, monsieur,’ the patron hastened to explain. ‘On either the Rhône bank or the Saône bank. You take any of the traboules—those are the passageways—’
‘I know what they are,’ Jack interrupted him. ‘Very well, we will go out now, while there is still some light. I do not wish my wife to be abroad in a strange town after dark. Henri.’ He jerked his head towards the small pile of luggage. ‘You’ll see these taken up to our room?’
The groom nodded. ‘I’ll eat over there.’ That was a small, and rather greasy-looking, eating shop immediately opposite the entrance to the Belle Alliance. ‘I like to keep an eye on who comes and goes.’ It was only because she was looking for it that Eva caught the unspoken message between the two men. Warning, reassurance. Did Jack suspect the fire was deliberate?
She asked him directly as they made their way through one of the famous Lyonnais traboules that cut down to the rivers, wending their way through private courts and gardens as they went. Eva wanted to look around her at the vibrant glimpses of everyday life that they passed, the women gossiping, the looms visible through windows, merchants slapping hands on a deal, but Jack kept his hand under her elbow and walked briskly.
‘No, I don’t suspect that; Antoine could not possibly have found where we were going to stay and organised such a thing. But his men may start checking the lodgings and I would prefer to be inside looking out if that happens.’
‘I see. Jack?’
‘Yes?’ He looked down at her and his eyes crinkled into a smile that seemed not so much one of reassurance but simply of pleasure to find her there on his arm.
‘Are you armed?’
‘To the teeth,’ he assured her, the smile belying his solemn tone.
‘Don’t be flippant.’ The tone of crisp reproof was still there when she needed it, she found. ‘I cannot see any weapons.’
‘I should hope not.’ She narrowed her eyes at him in exasperation and he relented. ‘Knives in my boots and in a chest harness. Pistols in my pockets. Hence,’ he added as she glanced sideways at him, ‘the dreadful cut of my coats.’
There was nothing wrong with his coats at all. This one fitted admirably over broad shoulders and snug at his waist. It was, if what he was telling her was true, exceptionally well tailored, and probably very expensive, for all its lack of fashionable flourish.
‘Stop fishing for compliments,’ she chided. ‘You know perfectly well that coat is very smart. Why wouldn’t you let me wear my cloak and hood?’
‘Because that was what you were last seen in. If those officers who interrupted us in the lane have worked out who you were by now, they ought to be able to describe your clothing. ‘That hat…’ he flipped the brim irreverently ‘…is not the sort of thing a grand duchess wears. When you skim a crowd, searching, your eye stops when it sees something familiar. It is like hunting—you look for the shadowy outline of deer and ignore foxes. They search for a great lady and might miss a lovely young girl in her pert new hat.’
‘Young!’ Eva tried not to think about the rest of that description, but she couldn’t repress a blush.
‘Now who is fishing?’
‘I am not, but really, Jack, I am twenty-six years old—’
‘So ancient! Quite on your last prayers, obviously. I almost fell off your damnable window ledge with the shock I had when I first saw you. They did not tell me, you see, that you were both young and beautiful.’
‘Are you flirting with me, Monsieur Ridère?’ she enquired suspiciously as he steered her through the door of a respectable seeming eating house.
‘Of course, Madame Ridère. A friend may, may he not? This place looks acceptable.’ Eva forgot the compliments and the teasing as she watched him assessing the bistrôt, trying to work out what he was looking for.
‘A back door, plenty of people, a table over there with a good view of who is coming in?’ she suggested.
‘Yes. Precisely, you are learning to get the eye. Let’s hope the food is good, too.’
It was. And so was the atmosphere. Eva had never been anywhere like this. She found her elbows were on the table, that she was singing along with the group near the door who had struck up an impromptu sing-song while they waited for their order, and the simple casserole of chicken and herbs, washed down with a robust red wine, seemed perfect.
‘I am enjoying this,’ she confessed, as the waitress set down a platter of cheese.
‘So am I.’ Jack caught the hand she was gesturing with and held it. ‘I enjoy seeing you relax.’
‘This is so different for me,’ Eva admitted. ‘No one is staring. I don’t have to pretend.’
‘Don’t you?’ Jack murmured, almost as though he were asking a rhetorical question. Eva tugged her hand free, finding his warm grasp rather more disturbing than was safe and Jack let go at once, taking her by surprise. Her arm flicked back, caught the little vase of flowers set on the table and knocked it off.
‘Oh, bother!’ Eva jumped to her feet to retrieve it just as the door opened and a group of men walked in. She straightened up, the flowers in her hand and found herself staring, across the width of the bistrôt, straight into the eyes of a tall blond man with sharp blue eyes and a sensual mouth set over a strong chin.
Good-looking, arrogant, unmistakable. It was Colonel de Presteigne.
Chapter Ten (#ulink_0267f600-773e-5e30-af26-14a33c49adcb)
The colonel had seen her, recognised her. There was no way to avoid him. The way the hunter’s smile of sheer triumph slid across his face sickened her. Eva clenched her hand around the slender vase, as she counted the men standing at his back. Three of them, all ordinary soldiers out of uniform by the look of them—there were no impressionable young officers to appeal to here.
Behind her she felt Jack slide out from behind the table, then stand, almost as if to hide behind her. But Jack was not a man to hide behind a woman—he had a plan, she knew it. He moved smoothly, so she was not surprised that the men kept their attention on her. His hand closed round her left wrist. ‘When I tug, throw that vase and run with me.’ The words were a breath in her ear and she nodded fractionally in response as he released her.
‘Bonsoir, madame.’ De Presteigne, feigning deference. ‘Dining in style with your gallant lover, I see.’ His lip curled in a sneer at the sight of Jack apparently hiding behind the shelter of her skirts. How had she ever thought the colonel charming?
Eva sensed Jack shifting his balance, her whole body attuned to him as though they touched. Out of the corner of her eye she watched the waitress come out of the kitchen door with a steaming tureen and walk across to a table. Their escape route was clear. She shifted her balance slightly.
‘Better a humble bistrôt than a formal dining room in the company of traitors,’ she retorted, seeing the smile congeal into dark anger on his face.
‘You call supporters of the Emperor traitors?’ he demanded, raising his voice. People shifted in their chairs to stare, the amiable faces of the diners changing to suspicion. Lyon, she remembered, supported Bonaparte.
‘You betray your Grand Duke,’ she flashed back as the colonel took a stride towards her. She felt Jack’s hard tug on her wrist and she threw the vase full in de Presteigne’s face. Water and flowers went everywhere as the man roared in shock and clawed at his eyes.
Eva saw no more, she was running with Jack, through the door, into the kitchens towards the back door. Kitchen staff scattered. They passed a rack of knives, she snatched one, a small vegetable peeler, then they were outside in a cobbled alley, rank with the smells of food waste. A cat bolted away, hissing with fright as Jack made for the mouth of the alley. Behind them the door crashed back. Eva risked a glance over her shoulder.
‘Two of them, not de Presteigne,’ she gasped.
‘Here’s the rest.’ Jack skidded out on to the street just ahead of the colonel and the other soldier, turned, reached inside his coat and threw something. With a grunt the man toppled and fell and de Presteigne went down with him, tripped beyond hope of balance.
‘Run!’ Jack pushed her. ‘The waterfront’s that way.’ They took to their heels, splashing through foul puddles, leaping piles of garbage, dodging the few passers-by. The pounding feet behind them were relentless. Eva heard de Presteigne’s voice cursing the men for not catching them as they erupted into a little square.
Jack made for the far exit, then recoiled. ‘Dead end.’ It was enough to bring their pursuers up with them. Jack pulled a pistol from his pocket and held it steady, his back almost to the wall, his left arm outstretched, urging Eva behind him.
It was as she had known instinctively: he would stand and protect her at the risk of his own life—and the odds were too great. She edged behind him, then further, out into the open, towards the alley to her right. Keeping the little knife concealed in her skirts, she waved the reticule that was somehow, against all probability, still swinging from her wrist. ‘Is this what you want, Colonel? The plans? The notebooks? Don’t you wonder what we took, what we know? Who we told?’
‘Eva!’ Jack lunged for her, but she had done what she had meant to do, split their attackers. De Presteigne shouted, ‘Ducrois, with me! Foix, break his neck’, and dived towards her. She spun round and ran, light-footed, impelled by the desperate urge to leave Jack with manageable odds. There was the bark of a pistol—his or Foix’s? Then she was out on to the quayside. Which river? It hardly mattered, either would have boats, surely?
The edge of the quay was slippery beneath her feet. Wary of mooring ropes, she began to edge along it, half her attention on the swirling water, half on the colonel and the soldier who had come to a halt when they saw her and were now, with the caution of hunting cats with a bird in their sights, padding forward.
‘Stand still, you silly bitch,’ de Presteigne said irritably. ‘Where the hell do you think you are going to?’
‘You are the one going to hell,’ Eva retorted. ‘That is the place for traitors and turncoats.’ She risked another glance down. It seemed a long way to the river’s dark surface and there were no rowing boats in sight yet. Where is Jack? There was a shout echoing from the little square, the soldier half-turned and stopped at his officer’s curse.
‘Never mind them. Get her.’
Eva held her knife that had been concealed by the reticule in front of her. ‘Try,’ she invited.
The man rushed at her, grinning at her defiance. She slashed at him, he ducked away, slid on the slippery surface and pitched into the river with a yell of fear and a loud splash. ‘Colonel?’ she invited politely. The light from the lanterns hung along the fronts of the warehouses glittered off the little knife.
The tall man reached into his coat and produced a pistol. ‘No. You come here, or I’ll shoot you. And then, if your lover isn’t dead yet, I’ll shoot him.’
Slowly, trying to control the trembling in her arm, Eva held the reticule out over the river by her fingertips. It hung with convincing heaviness, thanks to the novel that she had tucked inside it that morning. ‘Then you’ll never get these.’
He shrugged. ‘So? They’ll be at the bottom of the river.’ He stepped forward. ‘Come on, don’t be such a little fool. Back to Prince Antoine.’ Eva’s head spun as she tried to decide what to do. Drop the reticule, then he won’t look anywhere else…Jack…
As she thought it he came out of the alleyway. Even at that distance she could see his bared teeth, the killing fury in every line of his body as he came, his pistol hand rising to level on the colonel. De Presteigne snatched at her as her attention wavered, caught her by the arm and held her, his own pistol swinging round towards her breast. ‘Stop right there or I’ll kill—Aagh!’
Eva fastened her teeth on his hand and he released her, scrabbling for balance. For a moment she was free, poised on the edge of the quay, then the momentum of her movement took her and she felt herself falling towards the river. There was the crack of a pistol, a shout immediately above her, then she hit the water and stopped thinking of anything but survival.
Despite the warmth of the summer night the cold almost knocked the breath out of her. Some corner of her brain registered that the river was fed by snowmelt as she kicked off her shoes and clawed at her bonnet strings and the fastenings of her pelisse.
I can swim, I can swim well, she told herself, fighting to calm the panicking part of her that was wanting to thrash and scream. It was a long time, but as a child she had swum naked in the river that ran through the grounds of their château. As a young woman she had swum in the private lake in the castle grounds. I haven’t forgotten, thank God…
With her heavier outer clothing gone she was managing to stay afloat, but the current was sweeping her downstream at terrifying speed. In the darkness things loomed out of the water, swept by her before she could register them as either dangerous or a potential lifeline. A wave slapped her in the face and she gagged on foul water.
It was useless to try to swim against this current, she had to stay afloat, go with it and trust to a rope or a bridge pillar to cling to. Eva struggled to orientate herself. This must be the Rhône, rushing down to its confluence with the Saône. A vision of swirling cross-currents and whirlpools where the two rivers met almost frightened her into stopping breathing, then something struck her shoulder.
Instinctively, she reached for it, and found herself grasping a large branch, the leaves still on some of the twigs. It supported her weight just enough for her to draw in a sobbing breath and raise her head to look around. She was in midstream, the banks seeming to flicker past at nightmare speed as she pitched and rolled with the current. Ahead the right bank seemed to vanish; the confluence was almost on her.
It did not seem possible she could survive this. Even with the support of the branch her limbs were losing sensation with the cold and the effort, her head was spinning and her throat raw. Eva tried to pray—for Freddie, for Jack, for herself—and clung on.
De Presteigne went down with a shout of pain as the ball lodged in his shoulder, his own shot whistling somewhere over Jack’s head. Jack did not stop to check whether the man was alive or dead as he began to run downstream, his eyes straining to search the surface of the water. Lights sparkled and flashed off the choppy surface, dazzling and confusing in some patches, leaving the river in darkness in others.
He sought mental balance, knowing that to give in to fear and panic would kill Eva as surely as walking away. If she could not swim, or catch some sort of float, she was dead already. He pushed that knowledge back and scanned the surface again. There! A tangle of foliage and, in the centre, a dark head, the flash of pale cloth, a raised arm. She was well ahead of him, there was no way he could reach the point where the two rivers joined before her.
People scattered in front of him as he ran, then a rider emerged from a side street, slack reined, relaxed, perhaps on his way home to his supper. Jack drew his remaining knife, reached up and dragged him from the saddle, his bared teeth and the menacing blade between them enough to have the man backing away, hands thrown up in surrender.
The animal reared, alarmed at the violent movements, the strange weight on its back, then it responded to heel and voice and they were away at a canter. With the added height he could see better, realised he had to get off the Presqu’île and on to the far bank, and dragged the horse’s head round to make for the foot of the last bridge just ahead. It all wasted time, lost him distance and Eva was fast vanishing into the maelstrom of waters.
Jack blanked the thought that he was losing her from his mind, tightened his grip and kicked.
Ignoring traffic and obstacles and shouted abuse, he galloped downstream towards the place where he could recall the newly joined rivers’ turbulence wearing itself out in a tangle of sandbanks and islands before resuming its long smooth passage towards the sea. If he was going to snatch her out, that was the place. If she made it so far, if he could get there first, if he was strong enough to reach her.
The stolen horse baulked and shied as he forced it through the shallows to the first sandbank. He flung the reins over the branch of a spindly willow and tore off his boots. His coat followed as he ran over the sand and shingle, vaulted a pile of driftwood and plunged into the first channel.
Even here the current was strong. He clawed his way out the far side and ran to the edge of the main stream, his eyes straining upstream for a sight of Eva. The light was surprisingly good; a glow still hung in the sky from the sunset, lights from boats and cottages laid ribbons of visibility across the water.
He did not have long to wait. The leafy branch was still afloat, the glimmer of white cloth still tangled within it as it swirled down towards him. But the figure that lay in its cradle was unmoving. Jack entered the water in a long, shallow dive and struck out to intercept it, refusing to feel the cold water biting into muscles, the enervating pull of the current, the clutch of fear at his heart.
The river was so strong it was trying to drag her out of her branch, so savage she could swear it had hands. Eva clung on, her fingers numb. She should just give in and die, this hurt so much and was so hopeless. Yet she could not—would not—surrender.
‘Eva,’ the river gasped in her ear. ‘Eva, let go.’
‘No!’
‘Yes! Look at me!’
Jack’s voice? Jack? With an effort that seemed to take her last ounce of strength, Eva turned her face from the rough bark it had been pressed to and saw him.
‘You came for me?’
‘Always.’ It sounded like a vow. ‘Always.’ The world went black.
‘Eva!’ Someone was shouting at her, slapping her face, her hands.
‘Stop it,’ she protested feebly, then rolled on her side, retching violently as what seemed like most of the river came up.
‘Good girl, that’s right.’ Someone was praising her for being sick? Eva let herself be lifted and found she was bundled into some strange, bulky garment far too big for her. ‘Come on, up you come.’ Jack. Jack was lifting her. She forced herself to full consciousness, her body unwilling to make the effort, her will screaming that she could not just leave him to cope. He must be cold, exhausted, perhaps wounded.
For a moment she indulged herself in weakness and lay against his chest. Cold, wet cloth clung to his chilled skin, his body heat fighting to warm them both. He was plodding through shingle and underbrush, she could hear. Hard going, he was stumbling slightly, but his grip did not waver.
‘Put me down.’ She cleared her throat and said it again, more clearly. She couldn’t bear to burden him, like a sack of stones on an exhausted pack animal that somehow kept going despite everything.
‘When we get to the horse.’ With her ear against Jack’s chest she could hear the effort to control his voice, the way he steadied it like a singer so she wouldn’t hear the fatigue.
‘No. Now.’ She put every ounce of authority she possessed into the command.
To her amazement he gave a snort of amusement and trudged on. ‘Remember what I said?’ he asked. ‘Do what I tell you, always, at once and without question.’
‘This doesn’t count.’
‘Why not?’ Jack stopped, she felt him brace himself, then plough on up the steep edge of the bank on to shingle.
‘Because you are being a stubborn idiot! Put me down this minute before you fall down!’
‘Yes, your Serene Highness.’ Eva found herself set on her feet.
‘There. You see? That’s better.’ Her legs buckled and she swayed against him, surrendering to the support of his arm around her waist. ‘Oh, bl…bother.’ They stood there, locked together and dripping. Jack must have wrapped her in his coat, she realised, trying to get her arms, and the flaps of the coat, around him. Her face was pressed into his chest and his heartbeat was slowing even as she stood there. Very fit, the logical part of her mind, the part she always thought of as the Grand Duchess observed, while the other, entirely feminine, entirely private, part just revelled in his strength and courage and wanted him. You do chose your moments, Eva, she thought ruefully.
‘Were you wounded?’
‘No. I don’t think so.’
‘Don’t think so?’ Eva arched back against Jack’s arm to see his face, which was almost impossible now.
‘I’m sure so,’ he amended. There was a flash of white; she thought he was smiling. ‘I had other things to think about. Come on, the horse I stole is just over here; if we stand still much longer we’ll freeze.’
‘Which would save us from being hanged for horse stealing,’ Eva observed, as they picked their way back to the horse standing patiently by the willow tree. Jack boosted her up into the saddle and swung up behind her, settling her so she sat across his thighs.
‘Hold tight.’ The horse scrambled down into the shallow channel, then up the other side and on to the road. ‘Henry can “find” it wandering tomorrow and hand it over to the authorities,’ Jack added. ‘I want to get you back and into a hot bath.’
‘You, too.’ She felt his chin pressing down on the crown of her head and let herself drift. She thought she felt him chuckle and blushed at the improper thought of them both in the same steaming bath.
‘Are you asleep?’ He didn’t wait for her answer. ‘Don’t. Wake up and talk to me, it is dangerous to drift off when you are this cold.’
‘Talk? What about?’ Eva felt like grumbling. It was very difficult to think of conversation when you were numb from head to toe, dripping wet and perched on a horse. She wanted to sleep, to dream about making love with her fantasy of Jack, not be bossed about by the real, wet, battered hero who wanted to be her bodyguard and her friend and would let himself be nothing more. But there was something she had to say to the real man.
‘Thank you. Have I said that? Thank you, Jack. You saved my life. I cannot believe that anyone else could have done what you did.’ And if you say it is just your job, you will break my heart.
His arms tightened, then she felt his chin move and realised he had lay his cheek against her hair for a fleeting moment. ‘I thought I was going to lose you,’ he said at last. ‘And that didn’t seem like an option I could accept.’ There was a pause. Eva filled it trying to work out whether he meant that personally or professionally, and failed. Jack was just too good at keeping his emotions out of his voice. And yet, she could not forget the echo of his voice as she had slipped into unconsciousness in the river. Always.
Chapter Eleven (#ulink_ff50891f-c7f5-5d4b-9afc-f9962ef1471b)
‘Bloody hell, guv’nor!’ The outburst of swearing was Henry’s voice, Eva realised vaguely. They had stopped. She looked round, her head feeling like lead on her aching neck, and saw they were in front of the inn.
‘Stubble it,’ Jack growled, then, ‘Help madame down, will you?’
‘Gawd help us, you’re soaked, both of you.’ The groom caught Eva with as much respectfulness as was possible and set her gingerly on her feet. ‘And frozen.’
‘Get this animal out of sight. I’ve stolen it—you’ll need to find it in the morning and return it to the authorities.’
Henry took this news with a calm that said volumes about his expectations of life with Jack, Eva thought, amused despite her weariness. It seemed impossible that she should ever stop shivering, and as Jack took her arm to steer her into the inn she felt the betraying vibration under his skin, as well.
‘Upstairs, try not to be seen. If de Presteigne is in any fit state, he will start enquiries round the inns for soaking wet guests. At least we’ve stopped dripping.’
They went upstairs with all the caution of a pair of illicit lovers and regained their chamber with such relief that Eva found herself clutching the bed post with tears in her eyes. Jack leant back against the closed door as though he could no longer rely on his legs to hold him up. South facing and high up, the room still held the warmth of the day, but that mild air could not touch the bone-deep chill that racked her.
‘Get undressed.’ Jack straightened and pushed her towards the dressing screen, tugging the bell pull as he passed it. Eva began to fumble with buttons and hooks, set in swollen, sodden fabric. There was a tap at the door. ‘Hot water, lots of it. And a hip bath. There’s more of that if you make haste.’ She heard the clink of coin and the retreating scuffle of feet.
‘Here.’ A large towel landed on top of the screen.
‘I can’t undo the fastenings,’ Eva said, cursing under her breath as a softened fingernail tore. ‘Oh, damn.’ It was all too much, she just wanted to be back in Maubourg. She wanted a flock of ladies’ maids and footmen, she wanted her dresser and to be warm and dry, to curl up, sleep, forget.
‘Here, let me.’ She gasped in shock as Jack came round the screen. He was stripped, clad only in a large linen towel slung round his narrow hips. ‘You can open your eyes,’ he said after a moment in a tone that hung somewhere between amusement and irritation. ‘I would suggest that dying of cold and exhaustion but unsullied by a glimpse of my naked flesh is observing the proprieties too far.’
‘Yes. Yes, of course.’ Eva tried to sound brisk and matter of fact as she opened her eyes, trying to unfocus them at the same time. It was ridiculous to be prudish under the circumstances. Jack was her bodyguard and her friend. She had been a married woman—it was not as though she had never seen a naked man before. And, in any case, neither of them was in a fit state to do anything imprudent.
Jack began to work on the row of buttons that fastened the bodice of the dress, swore under his breath, and undid it by the simple expedient of tearing it open with both hands. Buttons pinged off in all directions. ‘Jack!’
‘It is ruined anyway,’ he pointed out reasonably, pulling the bodice apart and dragging it down her arms.
‘I..er…I can manage now.’
He ignored her, lifting the water-sodden skirts over her head and dumping the garment in a heap on the floor, then standing, hands on hips, regarding her as she shivered in stays, petticoat and chemise.
‘Did you tie these with a bow or am I going to have to cut the strings?’ He advanced on the neat row of lacing that secured the corset. Eva squeaked. ‘A bow. Excellent woman.’ The stays landed on top of the gown just as the maid knocked on the door. Eva retreated, leaving Jack to deal with the procession of inn servants with tub and steaming ewers.
She peeked through the gap in the screen, her lips curving in amusement at the sight of the maids reduced to blushing giggles by Jack’s well-displayed physique. They could not be blamed, she told herself, conscious that she was admiring the view just as much as they were. The bruises had begun to turn yellow across his back and chest. She ignored them as she studied the cleanly defined musculature, the narrow hips and the well-shaped calves. Hairy, but just right, she decided, as a violent shiver shook her, reminding her just how serious their situation was. Stop it! she chided herself. Ogling like one of the maids, indeed!
The door shut and Eva hastily bent to untie her garters and roll down her stockings. Jack reappeared around the edge of the screen. ‘Come on, hurry up, your teeth are chattering.’
‘Go away, then! Because if you think I am taking another thing off while you are—Jack! Put me down.’ He bent, swept her up and deposited her, petticoats and all, into the deep tub the girls had brought up. ‘Oooh. That’s wonderful.’ Warmth seeped through her, making her skin tingle and her frozen toes ache. But the momentary discomfort was worth it. She even began to believe that the bone-deep chill would disappear in time. ‘What a huge tub.’ It was big enough for her to tuck in her feet, provided she kept her knees bent up, sticking above the surface.
Jack began to scoop water up in his cupped hands and pour it over her knees and her shoulders. He paused, his hands and arms deep in the hot water for a moment, letting the warmth seep into him.
‘I’ll be quick, you need to get in,’ Eva said hastily.
‘No, you aren’t warm through yet, and your hair needs washing.’ Jack picked up one of the ewers. ‘Close your eyes.’ He poured the water through her tangled hair, then found the scented soap and began to work up a lather and rub it in. ‘Sit still, don’t wriggle or you will get soap in your eyes.’ He seemed quite at home doing it. Eva wondered vaguely if he bathed his mistress. Mistresses, more like, she reflected, moving her head languidly to the pressure of his hands. She could not believe that this man would find much attraction in celibacy.
‘You’re purring.’ His chuckle was close to her ear. ‘Keep your eyes closed, I’m going to rinse it.’ The warm torrent drowned her protest that of course she was doing no such thing, then she found her head swathed in a towel and realised he was rubbing it dry. It was so easy to let go and allow him to do it. Eva’s eyes stayed closed, even when the towel was lifted away and she heard Jack moving across the room. He came back almost at once, lifted some of the damp weight of her hair and began to comb it.
‘Jack, don’t bother with that, you’ll get chilled, I must get out.’ Eva opened her eyes and found he was very close, his fingers working carefully through the tangles.
‘No, I’m warm, here in the steam, I promise. Relax while I comb this.’ The grey eyes that could be so hard and cold were gentle as he watched her, the lines of his face relaxed out of their habitual vigilance as she had never seen them before, even in laughter.
Her eyes drifted shut again. The memory of being cold, of being afraid, seeped away under the strokes of his hands. ‘Lean forward.’ She found herself resting against his chest, her forehead on his shoulder as he reached round her, plaiting her hair into a thick tail. Then he coiled it on her head, fastening it with a pin he must have found with her comb.
The heavy weight of it made it difficult to lift her head up off his shoulder, or so she told herself. Against the skin of her forehead she could feel the hard line of his collarbone, smell the scent of him through the soap-scented steam. River water, chilled flesh, man. Jack. Her lips moved, touching lightly on the flat plane of his chest and he shifted, his hands slipping down from her hair to hold her against his body as he knelt there beside the tub.
‘You are cold,’ she murmured against his skin.
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Louise Allen
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: Notorious Regency Lords and Ladies!The Dangerous Mr RyderJack Ryder knows that escorting the haughty Grand Duchess of Maubourg to England will not be an easy task. But the spy and adventurer is sure he’s capable of managing Her Serene Highness. However, he′s not prepared for her beauty, her youth, or her sensual warmth. And what started as just another mission is rapidly becoming something far more personal…The Outrageous Lady FelshamFreed from her unhappy marriage, Belinda, Lady Felsham, plans to enjoy herself. She suspects that the breathtakingly handsome Major Ashe Reynard is exactly what she needs. But high society will not forgive a scandal! Still, the outrageous couple embark on an affair—and Belinda becomes increasingly confused. She has no desire to marry, but Ashe is a man she cannot live without…