Memoirs of a Hoyden (20 page)

“That didn’t go too badly!” I congratulated myself. “I was afraid there at the beginning that it would be pandemonium.”

“I think it might have been if Kestrel hadn’t kicked that roisterer in the back row out of the hall.”

“Kestrel!”

I stared as if he had said the Prince Regent. “Ronald, you’re not saying he was in the audience! He saw me in trousers! Thank God I didn’t smoke the nargileh!”

“How could you miss him? I’m certain it was Nick who settled that man’s hash. He spoke to the ushers as well to quell any other outbreak. You were preoccupied with your speech, I daresay.”

“I didn’t know it was him,” I said weakly. I was glad I hadn’t, or I wouldn’t have been able to get a word out of my mouth. My throat felt dry just knowing he had been there, seeing people laugh at me.

The next thought to enter my head was that he might come around to speak to me. To stand on a stage in trousers and a turban was one thing. I had no wish to confront Lord Kestrel at closer range in the outfit. I was acutely aware now of its oddness. I felt not only bizarre but squalid.

“We’ll return to the hotel at once,” I said.

“I expect Nick might want to speak to us.”

“That’s exactly why we’re leaving.”

Even as I said the words, there was a tap at the door. If only some kind deity would turn me into a bird so I could sprout wings and fly out the window!

“That’s probably him now,” Ronald smiled, and opened the door. “Be nice to him, Marion. If you don’t rip up at him, he might put in a word with Castlereagh. I should like to have a go at Boney.’’

It was indeed Kestrel, decked out in an elegant black evening suit, with an immaculate white shirt gleaming at his throat. Being a well-bred gentleman, he tried valiantly to keep his lips steady and his eyes in their sockets as he stared at my outfit. Once already that evening I had held my head high and spoken boldly when I was trembling in my little moroccan leather slippers with the turned-up toes. I took a deep breath and did an encore.

“Lord Kestrel! What a pleasant surprise!” I said. “What brings you here? I was sure you were still at Hythe taking care of business.”

“The business at Hythe was taken care of this morning. I am now on my way to London to report to Castlereagh.”

Canterbury, I need hardly remind you, is not en route to London from Hythe, but fifteen miles out of the way. This seemed an occasion when a lady need not be too clever about geography, however.

“As you invited me to hear your lecture, I stopped off.”

“Invited you?” I asked.

“You did say that if I was interested in your travels, I should attend your lecture this evening. I find I am— interested,” he said.

A small glow lit his eyes, a smile curved his lips as, with an impatient glance at Ronald, he moved closer. The glow, the smile, the impatient glance hinted at an interest in more than my travels. My face, which has remained unstained under the lecherous stare of desert chieftains, chose that moment to blush.

Ronald stood ready to defend me by diverting the discussion to himself. “How did you enjoy the talk, Nick?”

“Very much.”

“It was kind of you to handle those louts in the back row,” he said.

“Very kind,” I added.

Ronald was ready to monopolize the conversation. “A pack of hyenas like that can ruin a lecture. I expect it was Marion’s strutting out in trousers that did the mischief. I tried to talk her out of it. They’re well enough in the East, but she shouldn’t wear them in a Christian country like England.”

“If God had meant ladies to wear trousers, he would have given us two legs, like you gentlemen,” I replied. “Why don’t you take the case to the stage and collect up our artifacts, Ron? We must be getting back to the hotel.”

“I’ll see Miss Mathieson home,” Kestrel added.

Nick looked a bright question at me. “I’ll join you shortly at the Rose,” I told him.

Ronald left, and Kestrel spoke up quickly to get away from the subject of trousers and travels. “I thought you might be interested to hear how things turned out back at the Manor.”

“Ronald explained matters to me this morning.”

We discussed the disposition of Kemp and Nel for a moment, but as he had nothing new to add, that topic soon died, and I said, “It’s been a fatiguing day. I should like to go back to my room now, if you please.”

“Yes, of course.” He held my abba, making no move to turn it into an intimate gesture, but just dropping it on my shoulders. The abba was the least fantastic part of my ensemble. It wasn’t so very different from our English pelisse. Other than the silk tent erected on my head and the Moroccan slippers, I now looked fairly normal. I would gladly have replaced the turban with a bonnet had I had one with me. But I had not, so we left.

Kestrel’s sleek black coach with a lozenge on the door awaited us. The crowd in front of the assembly hall behaved better than I expected when they saw the style of my escort. Kestrel’s majestic gaze kept them from any overt rudeness. His liveried footman suited in dark green hopped to open the door. The fellow stood with his mouth hanging open till Kestrel asked him if he had swallowed a bee. I felt very like Aurelia in one of her more pampered moments as I slid onto the soft squabs of the banquette.

Kestrel didn’t sit across from me as I anticipated, but on the seat beside me. My heart was not wildly beating, but it fluttered erratically. Aurelia would have thrown herself on her hero’s chest and thanked him tearfully for saving her honor at the lecture.

The anonymous English lady sat stiff as a ramrod, desperately seeking something unemotional to say. “You should stop at Redden and recover your emerald ring. I asked Monahan to hold it for you when I picked up my trunk.”

“I’ve already sent a footman after it.”

“You mentioned making your report to Castlereagh, Kestrel.”

He reached out in the darkness and grasped my hand. “Don’t you think you might call me Nicholas, Marion?”

The fluttering heart began throbbing, but the voice was as flat as water on a platter. “Certainly, if you like. What I had in mind was that you might put in a good word for Ronald and myself. We are still interested in assisting with the sort of work you do.”

“Would your lecture circuit permit it? How heavily are you booked up?”

“I only give one lecture a week, and could always postpone it a day or two if a more interesting job offered. The lectures are mere publicity. I actually spend most of my time writing.”

“Writing what? I thought you had already written up your trip.”

“I—I’m writing a—a novel now.”

“I see. Something on the order of the book I picked up at Chatham, is it? Like the author of that novel, you spent time in the Peninsula and could—” He came to a conscious stop. In the darkness of the carriage there was a gasp of surprise as he turned to study me.

“Something of that sort, I daresay, though I haven’t read any of those books. An adventurous romance to amuse ladies in their spare hours is what I am writing.”

A knowing chuckle rumbled in this throat. “Here I have been picturing you as an invincible Amazon, unaware of such maidenly pursuits as blushing and having vapors. I was half-afraid to confront you tonight. I thought you’d throw a dagger in my back. Had I realized you are steeped in romance, I wouldn’t have let you leave the manor. Tell me, Marion, which do you
really
prefer? Battling emirs yourself or having hysterics on velvet sofas, while a host of gentlemen draw swords to defend you?”

“I can’t imagine what you’re talking about.”

“I should have seen it long ago. The style of writing is not that different. Both books are lurid—vividly colored and highly romanticized.”

“The difference being that
my
book is fact, not fiction!”

“The major difference, Marion, is that you are ashamed of making public your daydreams. Aren’t we all protective of our private thoughts, to some degree? I confess I pitched myself into the role of Aurelia’s rescuer with the greatest pleasure—but that was between the page and myself.’’

“You’re no Lord Belvoir, I assure you.”

“Quite sure you haven’t read it?”

“I scanned a few pages. Ronald has a copy.”

“Ronald
wrote
the fair copy. That’s why you require a secretary!”

My rising anger broke. “What of it?” I demanded sharply. “We are discussing my working for Lord Castlereagh. What I dream or write or don’t write is irrelevant. Will you put in a good word for us?”

“He’d never allow a lady to do such dangerous work.”

“If that isn’t just like a man! I’ve seen more action than any of his couriers. He had to bribe you to get you to do the work.”

“That is not quite accurate. I just made Castlereagh think so for political reasons. Actually, I like the work.”

“Well, I would like it, too. I don’t want to wait out this war in some corner of a genteel drawing room. I’ve been dodging bullets since I was a child. Papa took me on all his campaigns, but just because I wear a skirt, no man would consider me fit for any excitement or adventure.”

“We cherish the illusion that ladies are to be protected, not put at unnecessary risk. I won’t have you mixing with spies and assassins. I wouldn’t have a moment’s peace.”

“You
won’t have me do it? What have
you
to say to anything?” I would like to relate that this was asked in a tone of pique, but I fear the tone was more Aurelia-like than that. A definite tremor warbled in my throat.

Nick’s fingers tightened on mine. “I know your aversion to marriage, Marion, but there comes a time in a lady’s life when she should think of the future.”

“I’m not that old!” I assured him.

Ever the gentleman, Nick promptly changed the subject. “I know I have no right to ask it of you, but I wish you would not involve yourself in any more dangerous business. I’m not the sheep or the slave of public opinion you take me for. I have no objection to the trousers and the lectures—I have decided I can put up with that—but when Kemp held that pistol at your back last night, I nearly had an attack of the vapors.”

“I was a little frightened myself,” I admitted, and waited with bated breath to hear why his objection, or lack of it, to my mode of dress should be spoken of.

Kestrel said nothing, but his head in the darkness began to descend slowly toward mine. The turban was definitely in the way. I reached up and removed it. With a preening gesture I fluffed my hair out, for the turban crushes it mercilessly.

“Shall I try to improve on last night’s performance?” he asked softly. “Like everything else about me, my kiss failed to satisfy. I believe I could do better now that I realize you are indeed fearless.”

“You could hardly do worse,” I encouraged.

He crushed me to him and, to my astonishment, improved on last night’s performance. It was a violently ruthless embrace. Aurelia would have been shocked. I felt stirring sensations in parts of my body whose existence I had been unaware of. Wildly beating doesn’t begin to do justice to what happened to the heart. Throbbing and pounding were closer to it, like the waves beating the rocks the night I was shipwrecked. I clung to Nicholas as though he were a refuge in this tumultuous storm, but the harder I clung, the higher the waves rose. Waves of surcharged feelings inundated me, drowned me in dangerous passion that promised a good substitute for other dangers.

Not that I mean to say I abandoned my original notion of turning spy. After the more violent waves had ebbed to manageable proportions and we got around to verbal lovemaking and the proposal, I remembered it. There’s more than one way to skin a cat. If Castlereagh wouldn’t hire a lady, her husband might be more biddable, especially when he has made the gross tactical error of telling her he cannot live without her.

When we went to the Rose an hour or so later, Ronald was pacing the floor, worrying what had happened to me.

“Ronald, you’ll never guess what!” I exclaimed.

He took one look at our smiling faces and said, “Oh yes I will. You’re engaged.”

“That, too, but we’re going to help Nick with his spying work!”

Nick held his head in his hands and made a grimace. “I must have been mad!” he howled.

“When?” Ronald asked.

“Very soon. We thought perhaps after Marion’s next lecture,” Nick told him.

“He means when can we start work,” I explained to my fiancé, who looked taken aback to learn what took precedence with Ronald. I shan’t add “and me.” It would be impossible to judge which victory was more thrilling.

“One never knows when the next job will come up,” Nick said.

“We’ll leave for London early tomorrow morning,” I decided. “We’ll want to be on hand if a job comes up suddenly. We don’t want it going to someone else.”

“I thought you might like to go to my estate at Margate and await me there,” Nick suggested.

“What, and sit looking at a herd of sheep all day long?”

“I could join you in a day or two. You could make the wedding arrangements and rest up—recover from your recent ordeal.”

“What ordeal?” Ronald asked, blinking in confusion.

“The ordeal of committing myself to marriage,” I told him. “Now that I am starting into my thirties, I think it is time to settle down.” Ronald and Nick exchanged a laughing look. “Till after the war at least. Then we’ll go on an extended honeymoon, Nick. I have been thinking a deal of Greece recently.”

“Yes, by Jove, I’m looking forward to that,” Ronald agreed.

Nick opened his mouth and said, “But—”

“But of course we must defeat Boney first,” I agreed.

“Perhaps Nick can get you that award of merit you’ve been hankering for, Marion” was Ronald’s next inspiration.

I didn’t want to give my new fiancé too much to contend with at one time. Sharing his title would do for the present. I never thought to be the Marchioness of anything.

“What order of merit?” Nick asked.

“It was just an idea of Tom Moore’s,” I assured him. “And now, if you gentlemen will excuse me, I shall retire. Aurelia will be accepting a proposal of marriage in the near future. I have a few notes I wish to jot down while they’re fresh in my memory.”