Amanda Scott (10 page)

His expression grew serious, and he regarded her almost sternly. “You deserved a scold last night, did you not? What you did was very dangerous.”

She tossed her head and forced a saucy smile to her lips, though she was conscious of a wish that he would not look at her so. “Fine words, sir, when I very likely saved your life.”

“The luck was with us both, my dear,” he replied gently, “and so we will say no more. Here is the steward with our supper.”

In Meriel’s experience men did not drop such matters so lightly, so she regarded Sir Antony skeptically, thinking it was only the steward’s arrival that stopped him from reading her a lecture. But when he smiled at her, she decided he truly had put the matter behind them, and she was able to turn her attention to her meal with good appetite. They chatted easily together, and she found herself telling him more about life at Plas Tallyn. “I confess,” she said after a time, “that when I am there, I yearn to experience the gaiety of London at least occasionally, but once I leave, a dreadful homesickness overtakes me almost at once. I have not the same freedom of movement and decision elsewhere, you see.”

“You are scarcely hemmed about my guardians, my lady, even here.”

“You don’t approve of the fact that I travel with only my maid.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Oh, but you did, sir,” she reminded him. “You said that if I were your sister you would not allow it.”

“But you are not, and your own brothers do not seem to be in a position to stop you from doing whatever pleases you.”

“Well, Davy is too young, of course, but I daresay that even if Joss were here, he would not interfere with me.”

“Does he exert no authority over you, then?”

Remembering the incident with Black Thunder, she was betrayed into an impish grin. “He has indeed exerted a certain amount of authority upon occasion, sir, but with little effect, I fear. That is not to say that he could not force me to obey him an he took the effort to do so, but I have never been particularly submissive to his will.”

Sir Antony’s eyes twinkled. “I have no difficulty believing that.”

After a time the conversation turned to France. Since Sir Antony had traveled in that country several times in the past, Meriel took the opportunity to ask his advice about certain matters, including the best way of dealing with French innkeepers.

“For you must know, sir, that I speak practically no French—only such phrases as one learns in one London Season—and I should like to know what service one might expect and what vails one must be prepared to dispense.”

“Indeed, ma’am, but I believe you would do better to hire a courier to attend to such matters. A woman traveling alone will not command the same courtesy, I fear.”

“Oh, I am accustomed to dealing with fractious servants,” she assured him. “I have been in charge of our estates for several years now, and I doubt there breathes a Frenchman who could be any more recalcitrant than an irate Welsh servant.”

He chuckled again, but then his expression turned serious. “Have you kept up at all with the news from France, ma’am?”

She frowned. “Not consistently. I learned much in Barmouth that I did not know before, for example, and you yourself suggested when we were discussing my sister Nest that the peace is not so solid as we had believed.”

“That is to put the matter delicately.” He glanced up at the steward, who stood ready to serve their second course, nodded for him to get on with it, and held his tongue until they were alone again. Then he said quietly, “Addington is a fool, you know. He has recently sent Bonaparte a virtual ultimatum demanding that he adhere to the treaty.”

“I did not know that,” she admitted, “but I did hear Uxbridge say that the French have been fitting out new military expeditions. He would have it that Napoleon Bonaparte has used the peace merely to tighten his grip on Germany, Italy, Holland, and Switzerland. I daresay that is why Mr. Addington is angry. But we have not held to our part of the bargain either.”

“You refer to Malta?”

“Indeed, sir. Mr. Murray and Lord Uxbridge commented upon the fact that Britain has declined to evacuate the island. Was that not also part of the treaty?”

He shrugged. “It would be foolish to give up Malta before there is a true peace on the Continent.”

“Well, to hold it and demand that Bonaparte keep to the letter of the treaty does not seem fair to me.”

“War is often not fair.”

“But this is peace, and we ought to be doing our possible to see that it remains so.”

He brushed a hand across his forehead, and she was instantly solicitous. “I ought not to be pressing you so, Sir Antony. Does your head ache again?”

“Like the devil,” he said, “but it passes. Let us talk of something else. Tell me more about your brother Jocelyn. Is he a hothead?”

She chuckled. “Sometimes, I suppose. The whole of Merioneth was a hotbed of controversy some years back, what with the Calvinists opposing the established church, and the Republicans embracing the principles of the French and American revolutions. Joss was in the thick of the latter group. He said”—here she glanced up at Sir Antony from beneath her lashes—“that if France could but win time to reunite once the civil war had run its course, all would be well.”

Sir Antony’s lips twitched as she had been sure they would. “Perhaps your brother and his friends were unaware of the particular course that ‘civil war’ was taking.”

“Oh, no, although Joss did say once that to call it the Terror was to refine too much upon the matter, that the turmoil was merely part of God’s purpose—a sort of cleansing. He had that from some Calvinist friend of his, I expect. He said also that it was not the duty of the English to curse the French but to look to themselves, lest the judgment fall next upon them. He said the English must learn to read the Signs of the Times.”

“Good heavens, what a young cawker he must have been. Did he say all this to your esteemed parent?”

Meriel bit her lower lip. “He did. And then when a number of his particular friends decided to go to America to join family or friends who were already there, Joss announced that he would like to go too. I daresay nothing further would have come of it if Papa hadn’t been such a sapskull as to forbid him to do anything of the sort. The next thing we knew, he was gone.”

“And you haven’t heard from him since.”

She shook her head. “He was never much of a correspondent. To tell the truth, I should not be in the least surprised to look up from my tatting one day to see him striding into the drawing room without having had so much as a scribble to warn us of his coming.”

“Dear me, is there no end to your talents?”

She tilted her head. “My talents, sir?”

“Tatting?”

She laughed. “Well, I do know how, but I confess he would be more like to find me mending a sofa leg or shouting at my bailiff—his bailiff, that is,” she corrected herself conscientiously.

He nodded, his eyes alight with amusement. A moment of silence fell, and Meriel could think of nothing intelligent to say to break it. Indeed, she could not seem to take her eyes from Sir Antony’s mouth. His lips were slightly parted, and she could see the glint of his even white teeth behind them. Nibbling her own lower lip nervously, she tried to look away, but her gaze encountered his and she went perfectly still, stunned by the deep tenderness she read behind the laughter in his eyes.

She smiled back uncertainly, then looked quickly away to see if anyone had noted the impropriety of that silent interchange. To her astonishment, she discovered that all the other passengers had departed. They were alone in the dining cabin. Her cheeks flushed with color.

“Is something amiss?”

“No,” she said, not looking at him. “Only we ought perhaps to leave, sir. The hour grows late.”

He said nothing for a long moment, and she could feel her cheeks growing warmer than ever. She knew he was watching her, and the knowledge stirred emotions she could not name. Even to swallow was difficult. If she were to look up, to meet his gaze again, she knew she would begin to giggle in the manner of a nervous schoolgirl, or worse. Foolishness, she told herself. But the telling changed nothing. The warmth in her cheeks increased, and a fluttering sensation stirred deep within her breast. No doubt, she mused, her heart had grown weary of its present location and was attempting to shift itself to a new one.

With a tremendous effort she cleared her throat and raised her eyes to stare at a point just beyond his right shoulder. “M-my maid will begin to wonder what has become of me, sir.”

He laid his napkin upon the white tablecloth. “Then we must return. It would be thoughtless of us to distress Mrs. Peat.”

His tone was even, and there was nothing in the words themselves to startle her, so why, she wondered, did it seem as though his breath had caressed her bare skin? She forced her gaze to meet his at last and found that he was still regarding her with that unexpected tenderness in his eyes and a smile hovering upon his lips. She swallowed, still watching him, then jumped when he scraped his chair back and got to his feet. Her gaze remained fixed, so she suddenly had a fine view of the bottom pearl button of his scarlet waistcoat. Then he moved to assist her from her chair, and she took a firm grip on her nerves. When he draped her shawl across her shoulders, she was able to thank him in a nearly steady voice.

Though they hurried along the open deck to the companionway, the chilly air was enough to make her shiver violently and be grateful for his protective arm round her shoulders. But once in the companionway, Sir Antony did not release her. Instead, finding the corridor empty, he pulled her around to face him.

“You ought to have brought a cloak, my lady.”

“Indeed, sir, you are right,” she said, staring at his broad chest.

“I am always right, my dear.” His voice came from low in his throat, almost as though he purred, she thought, and the sound set her nerves atingle again. It was too dark in the corridor to read the expression in his eyes now, but she didn’t need to do so. She could feel it, and she was not surprised at all when he tilted her chin up with one firm hand and bent to kiss her full upon her rosy lips. A moment later, her eyes wide with wonder, she found herself in her own cabin face-to-face with a disapproving Gladys Peat.

Meriel was on deck with a number of other passengers before dawn the following morning, as the
Albion
approached the French cliffs. The moon was still up, and its silvery rays lit the high, chalky coast in a ghostly manner. Towers of two lighthouses glittered on the headlands nearby, and presently a long seawall became visible. Rounding its end, the
Albion
shot into smooth water, entering the little port at Le Havre between artificial stoneworks, on one of which sat a low, massive, circular tower.

“They say that Julius Caesar built that tower,” murmured a familiar voice at her side. She looked up and smiled at Sir Antony.

No sooner had they drawn up at the wharf than a small army of male and female customs officers swarmed aboard the little ship. In the cacophony that followed, Meriel discovered that not only was every piece of luggage to be opened in search of contraband but that the agents expected to search her person and Gladys Peat’s as well. Drawing herself to her full height, she informed the female who had painstakingly conveyed this information to her that she would do no such thing.

“
Qu’est-ce qui se passe
?” Sir Antony’s attention had been momentarily diverted, but he turned away from the agent to whom he had been speaking and addressed the female agent now expostulating with Meriel. The woman fell upon him in relief, babbling explanations in her own tongue, to which he responded with astonishing rapid-fire fluency. Some moments later, he smiled at the woman, pressed something into her hand, then nodded and turned to Meriel. “There is no longer any difficulty. You may go ashore with Mademoiselle Douane, and she will take you to the passport registry, where you must obtain a French passport. Do not allow them to take your British passport, however.”

Meriel regarded the female agent dubiously, then glanced at Sir Antony. “You are not coming?”

“I must see to matters here. I’ll be sure that your luggage gets ashore as soon as possible, and Mademoiselle Douane has promised to expedite matters in town. You may rely upon her, I assure you.” He turned away then in response to a low-voiced murmur from Peter Trent, who had appeared as though by magic at his elbow. “I must go now.”

Feeling somewhat bereft, Meriel watched him walk away, but Mademoiselle Douane proved to be helpful, and the formalities at the passport registry were speedily accomplished. The customs officer was even kind enough to help her hire a chaise for the journey to Rouen, and so efficient was she that they passed the turnpike gate on the outskirts of Le Havre before ten o’clock. Thus the afternoon was not too far advanced before they were settled into a tiny, dusty chamber under the eaves and above the taproom of the Sabot d’Or, a large, respectable hostelry in Rouen on the main road near the great stone bridge spanning the River Seine.

“Gracious, m’lady,” Gladys said in disapproving tones when she saw the room, “’tis none too clean, and dreadful noisy. That filthy window there looks right out upon the street, and what with all the hawkers, and carts and carriages rattling by, the din will never let us sleep.”

“You heard the landlord, Gladys. ’Tis all he has available, so we must make the best of it. Now, bustle about, because I mean to visit Père Leclerc as quickly as possible.”

“A papist,” said Gladys, shaking her head. “What be you thinking of, Miss Meriel, to beg assistance from such a one?”

But Meriel merely laughed at her, and within the hour a hired gig set them down before a tiny stone cottage adjoining an exquisite Gothic church that backed upon the river. The path leading to the cottage entrance through a squeaking wicket gate was flagged, and Meriel and Gladys made their way carefully, for the stones tilted at crazy angles that threatened to trip the unwary.

The door was opened to them by a small, wiry, neatly attired man with thinning cinnamon-sugar hair and a stoic expression. Speaking slowly, Meriel announced their errand, whereupon the man bowed and silently led the way to a tiny parlor overstuffed with furniture of every imaginable sort. Then, informing them in passable English that they would enjoy a cordial, he departed.