A Necessary Deception (20 page)

“No we,” Christien emphasized.

“But, Monsieur de Meuse . . .”

They stepped into a patch of sunlight, and she paused to study his face. She rested her other hand on his left arm. An ache raged inside him so strongly he couldn’t look directly at her for fear he would wrap his arms around her and draw her close against him.

Her face alight, she squeezed his arms. “Wouldn’t you look less obtrusive following Gerald Frobisher or George Barnaby, or anyone else suspicious, if you were courting a lady?”

“You want me to pretend to court you?”

See her every day? His head felt light.

“Yes, it seems like—” Her hand flew to her mouth, that soft bow that curved upward even in repose. “That’s it. That’s why Lang compelled me to help you.”

“He didn’t compel you. But why is it you think he did?”

“To have a lady on your arm makes you less obviously in pursuit of anything but companionship.”

“And since I knew your husband, the connection is natural.” Christien laughed. “
Tres parfait, n’est-ce pas?
”

“I don’t know if it’s perfect, but it’s logical and practical.”

“Just like you—a logical, practical artist.” He smiled at her and indulged in a brush of his fingertips across her cheek before he took her hand and headed back to the carriage.

He retrieved her portfolio and sent her off to sketch while he set up the picnic things and made certain the horses were all right. He returned to enjoy the peace of the tableau—Lydia beneath a tree, sunlight streaming between the new leaves, dappling her hat, drawing blue lights from her dark hair, caressing her cheek. The peace. The quiet. The vision of a future he could have if he left his work.

And failed to see his father avenged.

He shook off thoughts of France and its cruelty and unpacked the food.

“My lady.” He held his hand out to Lydia. She slipped her fingers into his and rose with fluid grace. “I trust you’re hungry. Your cook packed enough food for ten people.”

“I believe I can eat enough for ten people. That walk and the fresh air have given me an appetite.” She released his hand.

They retreated to their picnic. Silence lay between them as they ate. With trees and hedgerow separating them from the occasional passerby or vehicle on the lane, they’d never been so alone, more free to talk of whatever they liked. Yet words failed Christien. All his planned gambits about his family or places he’d seen on the continent, his experience at Dartmoor Prison or the discomfort of his brief voyage aboard the transport, fled from his brainbox. Unable to look at Lydia, as much as he might have liked to, he gazed at the pale blue sky, the pale green grass, the pale linen cloth, until his body felt so tense he jumped at the raucous cry of a rook. His glass of lemonade flew from his hand and smashed against a nearby tree trunk.

“I am so sorry.” Christien leaped up before the sticky liquid reached his breeches. His plate tumbled onto the linen, sending greens, poultry, rolls, and hothouse strawberries skittering toward Lydia.

She let out a squawk not unlike the cry of the rook and jumped up. Her plate remained in her hand, its contents intact, but her lemonade glass toppled, splashing citrus yellow over the mess of food.

“
Quel désastre.
” Christien groaned and covered his face with his hands. “I am so sorry, my lady. I—”

A choking, gasping sound interrupted him. He lowered his hands and stared at Lydia. She stood two yards away, her hands pressed to her mouth, her eyes brimming with laughter.

“I’m sorry to laugh.” Her words came out in gasps. “But your face . . . your voice . . . You look so elegant all the time, and you—oh, I must stop, but I haven’t laughed in weeks.” She wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her pelisse.

Christien closed the distance between them and produced a clean linen handkerchief. “I am glad I am so amusing.”

He tried to sound severe. The corners of his mouth twitched. A chuckle rose from his chest with the slowness of a well bucket on a rusty chain, but rise it did until they both laughed over the absurdity of his clumsiness, the silliness of laughing at clumsiness, the pleasure of laughing.

And somewhere in the hilarity, they wound up holding hands. And gazing into one another’s eyes.

“Why are you so nervous, monsieur?” Lydia asked in a whisper. “I’ve never meant you harm.”

“No, but—” His face felt hot. “Lady Gale, I haven’t been alone with a lady in too many years. Not a lady who isn’t a sister.”

She laughed, but ruefully this time. “Nor I with a man, except for my husband those brief days after our marriage and a few moments beforehand.”

“And he took too little care of his precious gift.” Christien gazed into her face, seeking the right words to say. “I know it is unforgivable for me to say this so bluntly, but he shared your letters with me and his—and with others.”

Her eyes widened. Her face paled. “Even—even the shrewish ones, the ones that kept him away?” Her voice was barely audible above the sigh of the wind in the overhanging tree branches. “Tell me not those.”

“I can’t and not lie to you, my lady. But I can add that those letters didn’t keep him away.”

“Duty to country, I suppose?” Her upper lip curled.

“Mostly,
oui
.” He released one of her hands to stroke his thumb along that sneering lip, softening it back to its gentle curve of a natural smile.

Not the mouth of a shrew. The mouth of a kindhearted lady. A mouth to be kissed into openness, into softness, into—

He cleared his throat. “Mostly it was fear. He thought you too perfect to his dying breath.”

“Me?” She shook her head. “You must be mistaken.”

“I don’t like to argue with a lady, but no, I’m not mistaken.”

“But I’m so . . . I didn’t . . . I accomplished nothing as a wife that I should have. And I’m accomplishing nothing I intended to this Season. Cassandra’s wedding plans are a disaster. Honore is sneaking out with a young man we have reason to suspect of sedition. And I haven’t sold any of the paintings in the shop yet. Nor have I done anything but cause you trouble.”

“You haven’t caused me a bit of trouble and have given me great pleasure in your companionship, even when we disagree.” He released her other hand and stepped back before he moved closer. “Now that you mention Miss Honore, shall we be on our way so she doesn’t think we’ve abandoned her?”

“Oh, goodness, yes.”

“Let me help with this . . . um . . .”

“Désastre?”

“
Oui
, I mean, yes.”

Again they shared a companionable chuckle. Christien cleaned up the broken glass. Lydia scattered the bits of food over the ground for the birds and other wildlife to scavenge. Everything else went into the basket with the leftover food, and they headed back to the horses and curricle.

In moments, the horses were hitched, the basket and her portfolio stowed, and they headed out along the lane to the main road, where traffic greeted them like a deluge after drought. Three laden drays and a heavy traveling coach without a crest on the door crowded in around them, overpowering them with the odors of fish, ale, and stale wine from a leaking cask on the wagon directly ahead of them.

“I don’t like the look of that.” Christien frowned at the preceding dray. Barrels stood high over the sides of the carrier. Ropes secured them, but they still wobbled back and forth with the jouncing rhythm of the heavy iron wheels on the stone-littered road.

Beside Christien, Lydia tensed.

“I’m going to try to get out of this mess.” He glanced from left to right and twisted around to look behind.

The coach lumbered on their tail, the horses practically breathing down their necks. Dray wagons pressed close on either side. Too close. Too many to be heading into town in the afternoon.

A chill raised hairs along Christien’s neck and up his arms. Gripping the reins so hard his hands hurt, he took a long, steadying breath. “Lydia, get down on the floor.” He braced, prepared to push Lydia behind the splash guard.

No need to fret. Lydia slipped off the seat and crammed herself into the well with one exception—she curled one hand around his knee.

Her warmth dissipating the chill, Christien hauled on the reins. His team stopped. The drays to the sides kept going. The coach behind and the dray ahead halted. But an opening grew. Christien snapped the reins. If he could slip into the space to the left side—

The blast of a horn rang from the pursuing coach. Christien’s team lunged, surged forward. The curricle’s right wheel collided with the dray’s left rear wheel, locked, held. A rope snapped, its ends striking the backs of the curricle’s team like a whip. They reared, locking the curricle to the wagon.

And a dozen barrels of wine rolled toward Christien and Lydia.

“
Allons.
” Christien’s command to go rang above a rumble like thunder reverberating through the curricle. He grasped Lydia’s hand and tugged. “
Maintenent.
Now, now, now!”

She scrambled after him. Her foot caught in her gown and tore the hem, tripping her. She fell against Christien’s shoulder. They struck the road on hands and knees, scrambled to their feet, ran.

Behind them, the world exploded with crashes and creaks and the shriek of terrified horses.

Christien released Lydia’s hand and spun. Lydia did likewise. Behind them, the casks of wine lay splintered or cracked. Their contents splashed curricle, horses, and road in streaks and pools like blood. The stench of fermented fruit rose on the air, overpowering the aroma of grass and wildflowers. Beyond the mess, the dray stood nearly empty. Even its seat held no driver, its shafts no horses. Behind, all that remained of the coach and its disastrous horn blast was a plume of dust drifting to the road. The otherwise empty road.

Beneath the tumbled casks, the curricle lay smashed like kindling.

“
Mon dieu precieux.
” Christien breathed out the words in a prayerful tone. “We could have been in that, smashed like—”

Lydia nodded, then feared she’d keep nodding from the tremors in her body. “This was no accident. The drays and coach crowding us were no accident.”

“They couldn’t have known I’d try to pass.”

“They didn’t need to. If you hadn’t, they’d have let the barrels fall anyway. They were ready for any move you made. Their horses and the drivers are gone.”

“The horses.” Christien surged forward. “I must attend the horses. If they’re permanently harmed . . .”

They had to be injured. In no way could they have missed the onslaught of wine casks.

Lydia’s hands balled into fists. A muscle bunched in her jaw, and she ground her teeth. What kind of monster, what kind of scoundrel perpetrated a crime like this?

And how were they going to get back home? The road lay empty. Too empty.

The nip in the early May air suddenly felt like a winter blast off the moor. Lydia shivered and wrapped her arms across her middle, where the cold settled in her gut.

If someone could perpetrate an accident with several drays and a coach, that same engineer could cause traffic to stop along the road to keep them isolated. But isolated for what reason? For how long?

They could walk to civilization, find a house or inn within an hour, probably less. An assassin with a rifle would take moments to shoot, kill, and disappear into the trees, join traffic that would suddenly flow again, and vanish into the London stews like coal smoke dissipating into the spring sunshine.

Shaking, Lydia ripped the rest of the flounce off the bottom of her skirt, then, with her ankles exposed in their sturdy walking boots, she headed for Christien.

He murmured to the horses. They no longer whinnied like screaming women. Surely that, at least, was good. They seemed not to be in pain or as frightened, and were still alive if Christien was talking to them.

If he spoke to her in that tone of voice, would her trembling cease?

Lydia smiled in spite of herself and approached Christien at the head of the team. He smoothed back the horses’ forelocks and spoke to them with gentle reassurance. Though their rear legs kicked out at random intervals and their eyes tended to roll more than normal, they submitted to their master’s touch and voice.

“They’re all right?” Lydia asked.

“Not quite.” Christien smoothed one hand down the roan’s glossy neck. “This one limped badly when I led him from the vehicle. I’ve checked his legs and think it’s his left hip. Probably a cask struck it.”

“How could they?” Lydia punched her palm. “They are so unkind to do this to poor horses.”

“And us.”

“Yes.” She swallowed against her dry throat. “Us. The road is too empty.”

“Is it?” He glanced up and down. “I didn’t know. I don’t know London.”

“I don’t know it well, but well enough to know this is unnatural and we’re here like fish in a barrel. If we could ride the horses, doing something—”

“We cannot. They’re too lame. We’ll have to walk someplace for help.”

Trees lined the road. Plumes of smoke over the crowns suggested habitation nearby, but they had to go through the woods first or continue on the road. Either way, someone could harm them.

“We’ll go through the trees.” Though he spoke as calmly as Lydia had, Christien radiated tension, and his jaw looked like granite. “Let me disentangle this horse from the harness strap and we’ll be off.” He crouched to free the horse from the dangling harness.

And a musket cracked from the trees.

“Down, Lydia.” Christien grasped her hand and dragged her to the road.

She landed on her knees beside him the instant another explosion of gunfire shattered the air.

“Can you run fast?” Christien asked.

Lydia nodded.

“Then we’re going to run.”

Another shot rang through the afternoon. The buzz of a bee sailed past Lydia’s left ear. But not a bee—the musket ball.

She surged to her feet and began to run.

A barrage of shots followed. Not one gunman. At least two. No one could reload quickly enough to fire with so little space between. Shooting at Christien or Lydia or both.

Who? Who? Who?
Lydia’s breath sounded like the question, wheezing through her throat. She normally walked a great deal. She never ran. Ladies didn’t run.

She ran now, feet skimming the road, the grassy verge, the carpet of pine needles and rotting oak leaves. Branches caught her hat, yanked it off. Her hair spilled down her back, flowed out behind. Roots and fallen logs threatened to catch hold of her feet. She jumped. She ducked. She never stopped moving.

She held Christien’s hand, an anchor, a lifeline, a guide.

The woods closed around them, dark green and cool, smelling of leaf mold and rich earth, their own perspiration and the smoke from a nearby cooking fire. Peaceful. They stopped. Held their breath, listened.

“Nothing.” Christien breathed no more loudly than the light breeze sighing through the upper branches.

“I don’t hear the birds.” Lydia stepped closer to him so her lips hovered near his ear. “Because of us or pursuit?”

They would have been easy to follow. They’d cared about speed, not stealth.

They remained silent now. Christien slipped his arm around Lydia’s shoulders and held her tightly against his side. With one ear, she listened for the crack of a limb, the crunch of a footfall, the hiss of cloth against foliage. Her other ear took in the strong, steady rhythm of Christien’s heart. The silk of his waistcoat caressed her cheek. His fingers tangled in her hair, stroked the back of her neck, curved around the back of her head.

“Lydia,
ma chère
.” His other hand tucked beneath her chin, nudged it up.

The shade beneath the trees turned the blue of his eyes to midnight. She didn’t have time to look or wonder further as he bent his head and kissed her.

His lips were soft and tasted of sweet lemon and sweeter strawberries. His mouth held hers captive, moving as though he spoke gentle words she could only understand through the contact of lips—love, longing, lust, perhaps mere relief that they were safe for the time being, a celebration of life sustained.

She sensed all of them, drank them in with an aching heart that she had tried too long to pretend wasn’t longing for more in her life. Her legs lost their bones. She wrapped one arm around his waist to support herself and laid her other hand against his cheek—warm, smooth skin with a hint of whisker rasp.

Around them, the birds resumed their singing.

“We’re safe,” she whispered against his mouth.

“At least from pursuit.” He released her insomuch as he shifted his hands so they curved around her face. He gazed into her eyes, and those deep blue orbs spoke the same language as his lips.

Her mouth went dry. She licked her lips, swallowed, found words stuck somewhere in the middle of her chest.

He smiled. “I think it’s good I’ve been alone with a lady so little, if I behave in so ungentlemanly a fashion.”

“Not ungentlemanly. That is, you didn’t force your attentions on me, and I participated. I mean—” What did she mean? Her cheeks grew warm. “I’m not the first female you’ve kissed.”

“No, but I want you to be the last.”

“Monsieur.”

“Christien,
peut-être
, after . . .” He rubbed the ball of his thumb along her lower lip.

A thrill ran through her, settling in her core. “Perhaps, yes. But the other, me being the last . . .” She drew away, growing colder with each inch of space she set between them. “We should get help.”

“
Oui
, that we should. I believe there is a house nearby.” His face suddenly bleak, he turned away from her, elbow extended in silent invitation for escort.

She didn’t take it. If she touched him, she just might throw herself into his arms and beg him to hold her, kiss her again. It would be a mistake. She must succeed in her own right, let herself feel like she didn’t always fail, before she allowed herself the luxury of love.

Love? No, surely not. Desire, hunger, yes. No one had held her in nearly seven years. Her body ached for the joy of strong arms around her. But not Christien, who had given up family for ten years to pursue a life of danger and intrigue. However great the cause, he had given up his family.

She could never give up her family for anything.

She followed Christien along a path that grew more well trodden the closer they drew to the cooking aromas. Burning mutton fat seared the air, sharp and gamey, softened with baking bread and roasting potatoes. Her stomach constricted. A bitter taste rose in her throat, where moments earlier the sweetness of Christien’s kiss had lingered. Her head spun for a far different reason than the confusion over why he’d kissed her.

They had just run through the woods because someone had arranged an accident, then shot at them. Now they were about to approach a house of strangers with Christien in a torn coat, her in a torn, shortened gown, and her lips quite possibly puffy. And she mustn’t forget her hair hanging down her back as though she’d just awakened in the morning, or . . .

The only kissing she was about to see was kissing farewell to her good reputation.

“And I was worried about my sisters,” she muttered.

Christien paused. “I beg your pardon?”

“My reputation.” She gestured to the farmhouse now in sight across a field of newly turned earth. “Will anyone believe us?”

“They will when they see the wreck.”

“I hope so.” She pulled as much of her hair as she could in front of her face, then tucked it back again. “I’d better do the talking. This close to the city, these people shouldn’t be hostile to you, but they might despise all Frenchmen regardless of why you’re here.”

“But of course.” He touched her arm. “After ten years facing the guillotine in France, I would dislike becoming a corpse at the hands of an angry English farmer.”

“Shall we go this way?” She headed around the field.

As they approached the rear of the house, a woman straightened from hoeing a kitchen garden and shielded her eyes with a strong, well-shaped hand. “Where’d you come from?”

“The woods. There was an accident.” Lydia didn’t need to feign the tears that gushed into her eyes and spilled over. “We need help.”

“Then you have it, madame. My husband and sons are in the barn. Your man can fetch them. You need to come in and sit down a bit.”

“He’s French.” She may as well get it out. “But he’s on our side.”

“Indeed?” The woman fixed Christien with wide gray eyes. “Did you fight the Corsican monster, or just say you don’t like him?”

“Both, madame.” Christien bowed.

The woman blinked, and a hint of a blush darkened her rosy cheeks. “Then go on with you. I’ll care for your lady before she falls down.”

“I’m all right,” Lydia insisted. She wanted to go with Christien.

“Go with this kind madame. You’re looking pale,” Christien said.

She didn’t feel pale until the farm wife led her into the kitchen with its blazing fire and pot steaming on the hearth and nudged her onto a high-backed settee. Suddenly, she wanted to draw her legs up onto the seat, put her head down, and sleep for a decade or so.

She accepted a cup of hot, sweet tea instead, a slice of warm bread spread with bramble jelly, and a thick woolen shawl smelling strongly of lanolin. She rested her head against the back of the settee, closed her eyes.

And saw the wine casks tilting toward them, heard the rumble . . .

She jerked upright.

Christien stood near and held out his hands to her. “These gentlemen will take us back to fetch the horses and then drive us on to town.”

“We only have the wagon,” said the farmer, a burly man with a face like a well-worn leather boot. “It’s not comfortable, but it smells like apples, not the muck.”

“Thank you.” Lydia smiled.

The wagon did indeed smell like apples, and hay too. It wasn’t comfortable. Perched on the seat beside the farmer, Lydia thought every tooth in her head would rattle loose before they reached the road and what was left of the curricle.

And a substantial crowd.

Traffic moved along the road now, but slowly, drivers cursing and complaining as the flow crept along around the curricle and dray. No fewer than two score people surrounded the wreckage.

“What is this?” Christien leaped from the back of the wagon and began to elbow his way through the throng. “Where are my horses?”

“This your carriage, frog?” A man in a blue coat with tin buttons down the front stepped forward.

The rest of the crowd fell silent, watching.

Lydia’s heart skipped a beat, then took off running like a steed at Newmarket Races.
Don’t tell him, Christien. Don’t admit to ownership.

But of course he must. He had already asked for his horses.

“It is mine. We went for help with these—”

“Then mebbe you can explain this.” The man with the tin buttons stepped aside.