The Duke's Messenger (19 page)

“I fear you were. But I shall tell you all.”

“Pray do.”

“When I was trying to open the window, you know, I did not hear him coming and —” The person of Reeves now entered the narrative. Nell left out nothing — except for keeping private the memory of the scalding incident on the stairs. She included the alarum when the servant Emile entered the library and closed the window, and the inestimable help that the coachman had provided.

At the end of the narrative, Nell waited for the explosion she considered inevitable. When it did not come, she ventured to glance at her aunt. To her great surprise, Phrynie was overcome with silent laughter.

“Aunt! Then — you’re not angry?”

“Yes, indeed I am,” insisted Phrynie between fits of laughter. “I vastly wish to have been with you. It sounds like quite the most entertaining event since — well, since Darnford and I had to —” She stopped short. “Never mind what Darnford and I had to do, Nell. But I should be much more in charity with you had you invited me along. Of course, I do not blame you. Indeed, I vow I did not think you had it in you!”

In great good humor with each other, they traveled on. Phrynie speculated about Reeves’s antecedents, and Nell pointed out that no matter who his parents could have been, he was certainly on their side as far as this expedition went.

“But now he knows about the parcel, Aunt, and that is why he kept watch last night.”

“His father was undoubtedly a familiar at Newgate,” suggested Phrynie, “but I think it exceedingly tactless to mention it.

Nell remembered later that she had not mentioned the fact that she had recognized the intruder in the night. If Emile had come this far after them, it was most likely that they would hear again from the count’s emissary. Next time he might not be so easily routed.

Chapter Eighteen

They traveled for days. It seemed to Nell that the road was endless, but paradoxically she was loath to arrive at their destination.

She had discovered it was less trying to consider that the journey was a venture unto itself, without beginning and without end. Indeed, she had no need to deceive herself, for the start back in London, the parcel in her jewel case, and the expectation of Tom’s following upon their heels seemed so long ago as to have taken place in another century.

Equally remote in time was their journey’s end. She thought about Vienna, when she considered it at all, as though in a dream. Nothing existed but the jolting of the carriage, the rhythmic sound of the horses steadily covering leagues, and a succession of inns hardly worthy of the name. Her world narrowed to her aunt and Mullins, Potter the footman — and Reeves.

She dared not think of how Reeves marked her days. She exchanged a few innocent words with him in the mornings, just before they took to the road, and a few more of similar inconsequence in the evenings.

She did not even know whether he continued to keep watch nearby at night. He had become remote and non-communicative again, and she felt keenly the loss of his amused glances and dry comments. But they had covered a surprising distance. Leaving France behind, they had moved into an area of Germany where the people and even the landscape seemed hostile and unforgiving.

“This is interesting country, is it not, Nell?” said Phrynie after one of her infrequent glances through the chariot window. “I do not say attractive in the least, but one does not expect the entire world to be as comfortable as one’s own country. However, one advantage to traveling particularly in such uncivilized regions exists. I believe I have lost at least a stone in weight. I vow even my slippers no longer fit well.”

“You may indulge without guilt, then, in the whipped cream and chocolate you expect in Vienna.

“I had thought of that,” responded Phrynie drily. “I shall never in my entire life eat
pompernickel
again.”

The road narrowed, and now they were traversing a forest road so straitened that from time to time they could hear the tree branches brushing the sides of the vehicle.

Nell peered out. “Do you think there are wolves in these woods?”

“Without doubt. We shall trust that we can outrun them. I confess I shall resist strongly any attempt to persuade me to take this road again.”

“How will you return to England then?”

“As yet I am not thoroughly conversant with alternate routes, you know, but that is a lack easily mended.”

“Perhaps,” ventured Nell, moved by some obscure reason, “we might even stay in Vienna.”

Her aunt was startled. Then, easily, she suggested, “I suppose that if Foxhall were assigned to the embassy there, you might as well marry at once.”

“Oh,” said Nell, as though the thought had not occurred to her, “of course. Dear Rowland.” She fell silent again.

Phrynie realized that she was much troubled about her niece. In London, Nell’s bubbling conversation had centered obsessively on the great love of her life. There was hardly a sentence that she uttered that did not include an allusion to dear Rowland, his sayings, his manly beauty, his impeccable manners.

To give Nell credit, she had not mentioned his title, his expectation of inheriting an earldom, nor his substantial income. But for the last few days, “dear Rowland” had unaccountably vanished from her conversation, and Phrynie longed to know what subject had routed from Nell’s thoughts the constant paean directed toward Foxhall. She would never learn from Nell, she was sure, for the girl had withdrawn into long periods of silence.

But Phrynie recognized a duty when she saw it, and she turned her full attention to her niece. “Nell, have you noticed how free we have been of intruders in the night?”

“I do not regret such a lack, believe me.”

“Why do you think that creature tried to enter our room, Nell?”

“Your jewels would be sufficient attraction, I should think.”

Phrynie was silent for a few moments. Mullins had been most obliging to those who wished to carry on private conversation, falling heavily asleep as soon as the carriage left the inn yard and only rousing sufficiently to eat, perform a few simple duties, and fall asleep at night, no matter how uncomfortable her cot.

Phrynie looked at her maid without favor. “I shall have to consider what to do with — that.” She nodded toward the sleeping woman. “She has been of absolutely no help to me at all.”

“In addition,” Nell pointed out, “she obliges us with unearthly screams at the most inopportune moments.”

Phrynie made up her mind to speak directly about a vague uneasiness she had entertained for some time. “Nell, did you recognize that man the other night?”

Nell smiled. “You mean the hairy monster with long claws?” “That woman!” When Nell did not answer the question at once, her aunt insisted. “Did you?”

Nell had learned at least one lesson along the way. It was not the thing to try to deceive her aunt, at least in some things. Full confession was much easier on the mind, for one did not have to guard one’s tongue against an inadvertent slip. However, she did not intend to tell her aunt quite everything.

“I — I’m not sure, Aunt.”

“Aha! I thought you did.” Phrynie swooped directly to the point. “Was it someone from the count?”

“I thought it was Emile.”

“Emile? Oh, yes, Squint-Eye. But —” Phrynie’s speculations held her silent for a moment. She lowered her voice, even though Mullins had begun to snore. “Nell, what is in that package?”

Nell felt near tears. “I don’t know, Aunt. Truly, I don’t. You mentioned love letters, but I cannot think that is right. Whose letters would be worth stealing?”

“Only an idiot writes that kind of letter,” pronounced Phrynie. “Without a doubt, there is something more. It’s not heavy. Ah well, I suppose we shall never know its contents.”

“Nor do I want to,” insisted Nell.

“I do suppose, my dear, that we still have it safe?”

“Yes, for now at least. But one cannot but expect some further incident.”

“I expect no such thing, Nell. It’s been days, and we are half a continent away from the count. If he needed the parcel, for whatever purpose one cannot conceive, he would have appeared long since.”

Nell did not speak for some time. When she did, she had not moved far away from the subject. “One might think,” she said without logic, “that if the parcel were indeed as valuable as Mr. Haveney seemed to think, he would have arranged for better safeguards for it.”

“Such as your brother? Who has not yet, I hesitate to point out, appeared.” Phrynie’s voice reflected skepticism.

“At least, Tom wouldn’t have traveled weaponless.”

Phrynie conceded the point. “Nor would he have spent the night at the Chateau Pernoud.”

Or hinted so broadly at secrets, Nell thought, but being essentially kind, she refrained from saying so.

“Well,” she said finally, “with Reeves to protect us, we will be safe enough from thieves in the night, or even footpads on the road.”

She spoke too soon.

The coach began to slow, and came to a halt. They had now left the forest behind and emerged upon what seemed to be a vast field without more than a cart track to serve as road.

“I can’t see why we have stopped, Aunt. I did think that the forest furnished a prime opportunity for ambush, but that’s all behind us.”

That something was amiss was certain. Shouts came from the front, and Nell could discern Potter’s shrill protests. “No! I won’t do it. I’m always doing your dirty work! You do it!”

“All right,” came the coachman’s deep rumble. “It’s naught but a bush the wind’s brought. Here, hold the reins. Think you can do that much?”

Potter’s remark was lost to the passengers in the coach.

“Only a bush in the road,” Nell relayed the information to her aunt.

Phrynie frowned. “Bush, in this wide expanse, caught in the ruts? And the wind blowing up to a gale?”

They looked at each other in surmise. “I don’t believe it either,” said Nell at last.

They could hear Reeve’s voice speaking reassuringly to the team. As long as the horses knew he was at hand, they would not bolt in spite of the quivering hands holding their reins. Suddenly, something went wrong. Reeves’s voice rose in sharp protest. There were other voices, unrecognizable.

“I’m going to see what’s going on.”

“Nell!”

“Do you stay here, Aunt. It’s safer!”

“With Potter on the box? Don’t be a fool!”

Nell dropped to the ground beside the coach. She knew that Phrynie was right behind her, but she could not waste time in protest. The scene before her was, to say the least, heart-stopping. It took a moment to assimilate the details.

A knot of men gathered in the middle of the road, the man in the middle of the knot struggling in a melee of arms and legs and shouts and curses. Reeves, suddenly, fell to his knees under the battering blows.

Reeves! Nell thought she screamed, but if she did, it had no effect on the struggle ahead. She did not stop to think. As from a distance, she heard Phrynie exclaim in an agonized whisper, “An ambush! Nell, they’re going to kill us!”

Nell’s whirling thoughts settled on the instant. With
grim
determination, she said, “I have no intention of dying in a Bavarian ditch! There’s a gun in the pouch on the box.”

“Nell, you can’t! Leave it to Potter!”

“I am more apt to shoot him,” said Nell fiercely. “He’s no use at all!”

Nell seemed to be thinking with uncanny speed. It was as though she were guided by a force outside herself. She took note of the struggle on the road, the horses beginning to plunge, frightened by the uproar, and Potter, useless on the box, the reins slack in his fingers.

She climbed to the box. “Give over, Potter. If you can’t help, at least get out of the way.” Her push was not gentle. She rummaged in the box and found the gun. So automatically that later she did not remember doing it, she checked the load and aimed at the villains.

There were three of them. Two were holding the fallen coachman by the arms, and the third was methodically slamming his fists into the victim’s face. Even from here she could hear the sickening thumping sounds.

“Stop that!” she screeched. At the same moment, Mullins unfortunately awakened and thrust her head out of the open carriage door. Her screams could have been heard in the next province. As one, the three attackers turned in their direction. They saw a determined young lady climbing down from the box, holding an enormous weapon in her hands.

They dropped Reeves. His head struck on the frozen ground, and he lost interest in the proceedings for a moment. He did not see the young lady taking careful aim and, as coolly as though she were aiming at targets on the range at Aspinall Hall, pulling the trigger.

The resulting thunderclap provided sufficient incentive to the attackers to increase their speed by half. She had no wish to kill anything, even such brutes as these. But she was satisfied that they would not return in the immediate future and ran to Reeves, kneeling beside him in the road. She beseeched him to open his eyes, and he obeyed. What he saw stirred him to groan desperately, “Good God, woman, don’t shoot me!”

She realized then that she still held the gun, a tendril of smoke rising from the muzzle. Hastily she thrust it behind her.

“You don’t sound hurt at all. I’ll get Potter.”

“Let him — see to the horses.” He closed his eyes.

She realized that he had taken real punishment in the few moments before she had come to his rescue. Those fists smashing into his face had meted out damage that would in the morning make his face one mass of swollen purple. She remembered an occasion when Tom had run afoul of the Bully at the fairgrounds — a round cheese the prize for whoever could down the Bully! Tom won no cheese that day.

And where was Tom when she needed him so desperately?

Reeves had gone ashen beneath his bronzed complexion. She could almost feel the lump on his left temple swell under her fingertips.

“Reeves, don’t faint on me! We’ll get you into the coach!”

A moan was his only response. She looked back at the carriage, desperate for help. Phrynie, to her great relief, had taken Potter in hand, judging from his thoroughly cowed expression. Phrynie herself stood at the heads of the lead pair of horses, and while they were still far from tranquil, they seemed well on their way to being so. There was no end to Phrynie’s talents.

Nell turned back to the fallen coachman. His eyes were open now and he struggled to speak. She bent down to hear. “Listen to me,” he said fiercely. “I’ve not much time. Take the carriage and your aunt to the next town, where you’ll be safe.”

“Not without you!”

“Don’t argue. Just do it.” She tugged at his arm, trying impossibly to lift him. “Parcel — safe,” he breathed. “They won’t come back if — you’ve — gone.”

“Oh, Reeves, you’re hurt! I can’t leave you here!”

His eyes opened again, and anger flared in them. “God! Do what I tell you! Why are women so damnably stupid!”