Almost a Lady (11 page)

Cosimo took a step back. He nodded as if to himself, then said, patting his pocket, “First things first. Shall we go and find a pigeon?”

“Certainly,” Meg responded, adding under her breath, “first things first.”

Chapter   7

A
rabella gazed out of the long windows of the drawing room that looked directly onto the street. It was a drizzly, overcast day in Folkestone and there were few people passing by, a fact for which she was grateful. Since Meg’s disappearance, the gossipmongers seemed to find the slightest pretext for knocking on the door, leaving their cards, or in some cases openly ogling the house through their quizzing glasses.

She turned as the drawing room door opened, asked with a rising note of hope, “Jack, any news?”

The duke of St. Jules cast his beaver hat on the nearest chair. “Nothing,” he said. “Mrs. Carson at the lending library insists Meg left minutes before the storm broke. She had two books, Mrs. Radcliff’s and some volume of Wordsworth’s.” He shook his head with an air of frustration as he went to the decanters on the sideboard. “Madeira?”

Arabella shook her head. “No, thank you.”

He poured a glass for himself and came to stand beside her at the window, one arm resting gently across her shoulders. “Sweetheart, this is hard to hear when we don’t know the truth, but you must understand that we have to stop the gossip.” He spoke with uncharacteristic hesitation. “It will add insult to injury for Sir Mark and Lady Barratt to discover their daughter’s name and mysterious disappearance on every tongue. Gossip leads to speculation, and while Meg has done nothing overtly to start tongues wagging, in the past she has always sailed close to the edge of propriety.”

“I know that,” Arabella declared. “And the gossip is entirely of my doing.”

The fact that Meg’s vanishing act was common knowledge was entirely her own fault. If she’d consulted Jack before setting off the alarm, they could have covered up Miss Barratt’s absence without remark. But she’d known that Meg was only going to the lending library. She had said she was coming straight home. When the storm had broken Arabella had assumed that Meg had taken shelter somewhere, but when the skies cleared and then dark fell and she had not returned and there was no message from her saying cheerfully that she’d escaped the storm and was dining with some of the many friends they had in this summer retreat, in thoughtless panic Arabella had sent servants out into the town to knock on doors, ask questions. Which they had done with a thoroughness that spread the story like butter melting in the sun.

“What’s done is done,” Jack said rather briskly. “What we have to do now is concoct a story.”

“But what if she’s dead, Jack?” Arabella articulated the question almost without expression. It was such an awful concept she couldn’t invest it with emotion.

He exhaled softly. “That’s a possibility. It’s always a possibility. But I don’t believe it, sweetheart. No one makes a victim of Meg.”

“Footpads,” she said dully.

“It was the middle of the afternoon. She was on the open street in a tiny seaside town.”

“So what do we do? I have to notify Sir Mark and Lady Barratt.”

Jack ran a hand over the streak of white hair running back from his forehead. He knew Arabella’s strengths, her calm competence. She’d pulled him from the mire of guilt and the depths of misery. She’d gone into the dank world of a Parisian prison and brought out his sister. She’d ministered to Charlotte at her death. And he didn’t know how to help her when that strength collapsed.

Except by taking charge. “I will do that at once, but we’ll imply that Meg is ill . . . a fever . . . nothing too serious but perhaps they should come.

“Then we’ll put it about that Meg fell ill while she was walking back from the lending library and was taken in by a shopkeeper. It took her a while to regain consciousness and when she did a message was sent to us and she’s safely tucked into bed abovestairs.”

“But will anyone believe that?” Arabella asked.

“No, probably not. But they can’t disprove it either,” Jack stated, draining his glass. “Enough of the megrims, Arabella. I’m convinced Meg is somewhere safe and well and you’ll hear from her soon. In the meantime I’m going to London.”

“London?” Arabella’s eyes widened in dismay. “Why must you leave me now?”

“To enlist the Bow Street Runners,” he said tersely. “I’ll be there by nightfall and back by noon tomorrow.”

“You can’t ride there and back in twenty-four hours, Jack,” she protested. “You won’t have time to sleep.”

“Let me worry about that.” He turned to the door. “I’ll go and write the letter to the Barratts before I leave.”

Arabella followed him out of the drawing room. Tidmouth, the steward, was hovering in the hall, looking vaguely disapproving. In his opinion guests did not mysteriously vanish in a gentleman’s household, but he’d never really taken to the duchess’s best friend. There was something not quite right about Miss Barratt . . . something a little unstable, he thought.

“Tidmouth, have my horse brought round. I’m leaving for London immediately,” the duke instructed over his shoulder as he made for the library.

Arabella followed him into the book-lined room at the rear of the house. It was gloomy, the gray day beyond the windows offering little natural light. She lit the candelabra on the desk so that Jack could see to write. “Do you think perhaps I should write it?” she asked. “They might worry less.”

“If you like,” he said. “But I think they will be more reassured to think that you’re at their daughter’s bedside. It’s quite natural that I should write in your stead.”

She nodded and perched on the edge of the desk while he sharpened his quill and drew a sheet of parchment in front of him. Meg had been gone now for almost forty-eight hours.

“You can’t manage the ladder with that arm,” Cosimo said when they emerged on deck.

Meg was doubtful but nevertheless determined. “I’m sure I can.”

“Mmm.” He didn’t sound convinced. He glanced around and beckoned to one of the cousins. “Frank, rig a lady’s seat.”

“Aye, sir.” Mr. Fisher jumped to attention with alacrity and called to a group of sailors who were splicing rope against the mainmast.

“A lady’s seat? What’s that?” Meg looked down at the dinghy bobbing in the water rather a long way below the deck rail.

“You sit on a plank that we lower on a rope into the dinghy.”

“That sounds very undignified,” Meg declared. “I can manage.”

“No,” he declared.

And that, said he, was that,
Meg reflected aridly. But on this occasion he was wrong. She watched for a minute as the sailors attached rope to each end of a narrow piece of planking so that it looked rather like a swing. They slung it over the side and made the rope fast with a series of expert and swiftly tied knots, then drew the plank up level with the deck rail.

“Right, I’m going to lift you over the rail and onto the seat,” Cosimo informed her in his cool fashion. “Once you’re in place, hold the rope with your good hand and the men will lower you very slowly into the dinghy.” He paused, seeing her expression. “Unless, of course, you’d prefer to stay on board and let me take care of getting your message away.”

“No, I wouldn’t prefer it,” she declared. “And neither am I going to go down on that thing.” She gestured scornfully to the plank contraption, then, before Cosimo had recovered from his surprise at this uncompromising opposition, she hitched herself onto the rail, swung her legs over one at a time, and, ignoring her throbbing arm, grabbed the top of the rope ladder. Her jaw set, she maneuvered herself onto the precariously swaying ladder.

Cosimo, his arms folded, his mouth rather grim, watched her descent in silence. The ladder hung a few feet above the rocking dinghy and Meg reflected that a helping hand here would be useful, but there wasn’t one, so she closed her eyes and dropped. The little boat listed violently and she nearly lost her footing. Cosimo found his voice.

“For God’s sake, sit down in the stern,” he shouted.
“Now.”

Meg did so promptly and then looked up the sides of the sloop. It seemed a very long way to the railing and she was glad she hadn’t seen the climb from this perspective before embarking on it.

Cosimo came down the ladder with enviable speed and dropped lightly into the boat, which barely rocked beneath him. He sat athwart and took up the oars. For a minute he let the blades rest in the water as he regarded Meg with a frown. “You have a singularly annoying streak of independence, Miss Barratt.”

“Only because you’re so accustomed to getting your own way,” she retorted, happily seizing the opportunity to put that oblique declaration of intent in the cabin to one side for the moment. “I’m quite capable of deciding what I can do and what I can’t. And I have no intention
ever
of allowing myself to be lowered on that thing like a sack of potatoes.”

His expression was unreadable as he dipped the oars and began to pull strongly for the quay. Meg smiled to herself. Such victories had been few and far between in her recent dealings with the privateer, and small though it was, she relished the moment of triumph, the illusion of regaining control.

They reached the quay and Cosimo threw a rope to a waiting lad, who made the dinghy fast. Cosimo stepped up onto the quay and gave the boy a coin before turning to look down at Meg. “Can you get up here alone, or would you like some help?”

It was a giant step up and Meg knew her legs weren’t long enough to do it unaided. Just as Cosimo knew it. He had an infuriating grin on his face as he looked down at her in the boat. “I’d like a hand, please,” she said with as much grace as she could muster in the face of that grin.

“Certainly.” He stepped down into the dinghy again and, catching her by the waist, lifted her bodily up onto the quay.

Meg inhaled sharply. “A hand was all that was necessary,” she said, shaking down her skirts.

“Ah, but think of the pleasure I would have missed,” he murmured, his grin broadening into a smile that in its complacency rather resembled her own of a few minutes before. He stepped up beside her and touched a fingertip to the cleft in her chin. His eyes gleamed and his mouth curved in a knowing smile. “And you too, perhaps?”

Meg’s eyes narrowed and she jerked her chin away from his finger. “What insufferable conceit,” she stated.

“Is it? I wonder.” He raised a quizzical eyebrow. “Put up your sword, Miss Meg. I thought we’d agreed to acknowledge this . . .” He opened his hands in a wordless gesture. “This attraction . . . for want of a better term.”

Meg regarded him still with narrowed eyes. She couldn’t deny his statement but he was rushing things, taking too much for granted. “Maybe so,” she said. “But acknowledging something and deciding to do something about it are very different matters.”

He nodded amiably. “Well, just let me know when you’ve decided. We go thisaway.” He set off towards the village.

Meg followed him rather more slowly. She wasn’t sure why they, or rather
she,
was sparring over this. Maybe it
was
because he seemed to be taking her responses for granted and she certainly hadn’t given him permission to do that. Or maybe it was because she found the power of this attraction more than a little alarming. She was certain that the privateer was not a safe person to lust after. But then, safety had never appealed to her, so why was it different this time? Coyness didn’t suit her, she thought disgustedly. She was known for her frequently disconcerting, straightforward manner.

She caught up with him as they left the narrow cobbled lanes and emerged onto the hillside. He stopped and waited for her, the relaxation in his loose-limbed frame doing nothing to disguise the muscular strength. His copper hair shone in the sunlight, his sea-washed blue eyes, deep-set in the suntanned complexion, were alive with humor and intelligence. Without a doubt he was the most attractive man she’d ever come across, Meg admitted.

“We have to climb the hill,” he said, gesturing behind him. “Are you up to it?”

“Of course,” she said with a touch of indignation at the implication. “Is that where the pigeons are?”

“Yes, right at the top.” He pointed to the gray structure above them and then set off up the hill, Meg climbing steadily behind him.

Her arm was aching again and she cradled it against her chest. It made the going harder since she couldn’t swing her arms to help her rhythm and balance, but she pressed on doggedly, pausing once or twice to look back down the hill and out over the blue waters of the Channel. Towards the top of the hill she could make out Guernsey, the Channel Island closest to Sark. It was much bigger and there seemed to be more shipping activity in its vicinity.

“Cosimo . . .”

“Yes.” He stopped at her hail and she hurried up towards him.

“Wouldn’t I do better to look for passage home on Guernsey? It’s much bigger and seems to have bigger ships around it.”

“It has a deeper, more sheltered harbor, that’s why,” he informed her.

“Well, perhaps I can find a boat here that will ferry me across to Guernsey and then I can get a passage from there.” She looked at him closely, brushing a tangle of wind-whipped red curls away from her eyes.

“You could try,” he responded with a noncommittal shrug. “Come on, we’re nearly at the top.”

“Helpful,”
she murmured sardonically to herself as she followed him up the last steep rise to the gray cottage.