Amanda Scott - [Dangerous 02] (21 page)

“You would be right,” he said with an impudent smile. “In truth, I think you were right, too, about Cubert Breton helping the free traders. Wenna mentioned a name I’ve heard, and common though the name is, if your Angelique should also chance to have friends amongst that lot, I’d as lief not meet any of them at present.”

“Do you think they would recognize you? It never occurred to me that Cubert might, if we’d met him. I think anyone would have to be very discerning to do so.”

“Perhaps, but someone might recognize Annabelle or Sebastian more easily.”

“I hadn’t thought of that. Of course, they might.” She thought anyone would remember the well-mannered mare.

She and Letty were disappointed, however, to learn at Angelique’s that Jenifry had gone out of town with her mistress to help with a fitting. The girl who assisted them seemed nervous, and recalling that Angelique was a harsh mistress who did not allow her assistants to enter the front part of the shop, Charley decided the girl was afraid of offending a favored customer who might later complain. Hoping to put her at her ease, she said kindly, “Will you tell Jenifry that I brought greetings from her mother, if you please?”

“Yes, miss. I will if I’m allowed.”

“But why would Angelique not allow you to give her a simple message?”

“I-I didn’t mean nothing by it, miss,” the girl said, rubbing her hands on the plain apron she wore. “There just be so many rules, and a body do be forgetting. One way or another, I’ll tell Jenifry, I promise.”

“See that you do,” Charley said firmly. “I do not believe we have met before. What is your name, please?”

“I-I be Bess Griffin, miss. With Jenifry gone, I’m the only one here, since Annie was … since she run off to London. It’s the first time Miss Angelique done let me talk to customers. Oh, pray, don’t be vexed! Miss Angelique and the master, they …” Recollecting herself swiftly, she said in more controlled voice, “I won’t forget, miss.”

“That’s all right then, thank you, Bess. Come along, Letty.”

“She was frightened,” Letty said as they collected their horses and led them up the High Street toward Dewy the Baker’s.

Charley agreed. “We’ll come back soon,” she said. “I begin to think Jenifry might be better off with another mistress. Here is Dewy’s,” she added. Then, having asked two boys playing on the flagway to hold their horses, she said, “It hasn’t been nearly twenty minutes yet, but we’ll go inside anyway.”

Sir Antony was nowhere in sight, but she guessed that if he was really worried about meeting someone who knew Jean Matois, he might decide to wait until she and Letty were on their way out of town again before he rejoined them.

“We want a dozen pigs, Dewy,” she said when the baker greeted her and she had introduced him to Letty.

“Right you are, Miss Charley,” the baker said, grinning at Letty as he began to wrap their purchases in brown paper. “And here’s the thirteenth for her ladyship, so she won’t have to steal one.”

“I wouldn’t,” Letty exclaimed, looking shocked.

Charley smiled, saying to the baker, “She’s not from Cornwall, but her papa grew up at Deverill Court, so she ought to know the rhyme.” To Letty, she said, “The one about ‘Tom, Tom, the piper’s son’?”

“‘Stole a pig and away he run!’” Letty looked at the pig-shaped pastry. “Is this the sort of pig he stole then?”

“It is,” the baker and Charley said in chorus.

Charley added, “It’s got currants inside. Dewy’s papa was a pieman, who sold pig pies from a cart.”

“Well, good gracious,” Letty said, breaking it in half to examine the filling. “I always had a picture in my mind of a boy, staggering along with a full-sized pig over his shoulder. I wondered how he could have eaten the whole thing before they caught him. Oh, Sir Antony, look!” she added when the door to the tiny shop opened and that gentleman strolled in. Obligingly, he raised his quizzing glass and peered at the pastry pieces she held up for his inspection. Seeing his bewilderment, Letty grinned and said, “It’s a pig, sir, like the one that the piper’s son stole in the rhyme.
You
know.”

“Is it, indeed?” His manner was haughty in the extreme. Drawing back a little, he added in a finicking way, “I trust you have got something to wipe your fingers on, child. Until you do so, I pray you, do not let them venture too near this coat of mine!”

“I won’t,” she said, twinkling at him. They left the shop, and were soon back on the road. Sir Antony maintained his haughty demeanor until Letty said in a teasing voice, “Are you still afraid of soiling your coat, sir, or do you want to eat a pig?”

Charley smiled, but Sir Antony said with mock severity, “I hope you don’t mean to put that question to everyone we meet. It has a rather off-putting ring to it.”

Chuckling, Letty said, “Well, if Sir Antony doesn’t want one, Cousin Charley, I’d like another, please.”

“Greedy girl,” Charley said, but she untied the string and extricated three pigs from the paper, handing one to each of her companions and biting into the third herself. “We did not learn very much, I’m afraid,” she said when her mouth was no longer full of pastry and currants, and she could speak again.

“Unfortunately, gathering this sort of information takes a great deal of time,” Sir Antony said, taking out his handkerchief and wiping his fingertips. “Have you got more of those things, or are you saving them for other members of the household?”

“I bought a dozen,” she said, untying the string again. “Letty?”

“Yes, please. Sir Antony,” she added as she accepted the pastry, “how can you learn all you need to learn while you are at Tuscombe Park? Cousin Alfred and his family won’t be of much help to you, I’m thinking.”

“On the contrary, they will be a dam—dashed nuisance,” he said. “I had hoped to chat with the gentry as Sir Antony and still be able to go about as Jean Matois to chat up the lower elements, but Alfred is so blasted suspicious of anything I do, that I fear he’ll watch every move I make. Furthermore, as I realized today, I can hardly ride Annabelle everywhere as both characters. And my other companion,” he added bitterly, gesturing toward the black and white dog trailing behind them, “is even more likely to give me away if I can’t think of a way to outwit him.”

“Sebastian might indeed present a problem,” Charley said, “but as for Annabelle, you are welcome to ride any of my horses or Grandpapa’s whenever you like.” Catching a quizzical look from Letty, she added with a grin, “I’ll teach you a command that will allow you to mount them. Good mercy,” she added, “is that not Rockland riding toward us? You don’t suppose Alfred sent him in search of us, do you?”

“We have been away rather longer than we led that impudent groom to believe we would,” Sir Antony pointed out.

But Rockland had not come looking for them. “On my way to Truro,” he announced virtuously when they met. “Alfred received a letter with his morning post, apparently informing him that no more can be done about his claim to the estates until the lawyers receive certain documents from London. That put him out of temper at once, of course, so when he asked me if I really meant to arrange for our wedding—”

“I was beginning to wonder about that myself,” Charley said.

“She is so looking forward to wedded bliss, you know,” Sir Antony said gently.

Rockland, scenting an ally, grinned and said, “I wish I might think so. One minute she’s demanding to know when I’ll fetch the license, and the next she’s giving me pepper for something else. She don’t know the first thing about me, but when I ask if she’s sure she wants to marry me, she says she does. Women! I ask you.”

“‘Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines,’” Sir Antony said, interrupting Charley as she bristled and opened her mouth to tell Rockland he ought not to speak so of her. When she shut it again, Sir Antony went on blandly, “‘And often is his gold complexion dimmed; and every fair from fair sometimes declines, by chance, or Nature’s changing course untrimmed.’”

“Is that ‘Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day’?” Charley demanded.

“It is.”

She expected him to smile at her quick recognition of the sonnet, but he did not.

Rockland, who had been eyeing her warily, said, “Shakespeare, eh? Never could understand that fellow. Had to learn reams of his stuff off by heart at school, and the only part I remember now is ‘Out, out damned spot!’ I ask you! Talking to a spot of blood. Dashed nonsense. What’s this ‘eye of heaven’ bilge you’re spouting?”

“Never mind, Rockland,” Charley said. “Surely, you don’t mean to ride to Truro and back today? You ought to have started earlier. It’s well after noon now.”

“I know what time it is,” he said irritably. “I’ll stay the night and come back tomorrow with the dashed license, and we’ll have the ceremony as soon as ever the bishop can spare time for it. Have you any other commands for me, madam?”

About to reply in kind, she caught Sir Antony’s eye and said graciously instead, “Travel safely, my lord, and take care you don’t encounter footpads along the way. Would you like to take my pistol with you?”

He glanced from her to Sir Antony, then grinned suddenly. “Got one of my own, thanks all the same, my pet. Dashed if I don’t think someone’s been teaching you a few manners.”

“Have a pig, Rockland,” Charley said dryly, holding one out to him.

That night, when the family had retired, Antony enlisted Hodson’s assistance, and slipped quietly to the stable. Saddling Annabelle himself, he led the mare from the yard without disturbing a soul. He was prepared to deal with questions if he had to, and had purposely retained the clothing he had worn to dinner, just in case, but he was grateful to encounter no one. Once away from the stables and house, he met with Hodson again, long enough to become Jean Matois. Then he rode alone to Fowey.

That village, lying beyond the western point of St. Merryn’s Bay, where the river emptied into the Channel, was nearer than Lostwithiel. More to the purpose from Antony’s viewpoint, Fowey enjoyed the dubious distinction of housing a number of his compatriots from the past several weeks.

As anticipated, he found several of them at a dimly lit tavern on the waterfront. Ordering a half-pint of ale from the tapster, he joined them, noting that they seemed only slightly less taciturn than when he had first insinuated himself into their midst. By deftly manipulating the conversation, he managed within the next hour to add one small detail to what he had learned from Wenna Breton. He was not certain yet how the knowledge would carry him forward, but he found it most interesting.

More disturbing was a comment made by one of the men just before they bade one another good-night. “Been wondering,” he said, looking sharply at Antony, “if you knew a chap in France what called hisself a Fox Cub? Some heathenish thing it sounds in the way them Frenchies talk, but they say that’s what it means in good Christian English.”

“Le Renardeau?”
Antony hoped his reply sounded casual. His heart was suddenly thumping so hard that it seemed odd the others seated around the dirty little table couldn’t hear it.

“Aye, that’ll be it. Know the chappie?”

“I have heard the name spoken in whispers over the years,
mon ami,
but me, I do not know him. There are many Frenchmen in France,
n’est-ce pas?”

“Point is, Matois, this Frenchie ain’t in France. Word is, he’s right here in Cornwall. Happen he’s looking to cut hisself in on a few things, if you take my meaning. If you chance to hear aught of him, Michael will want to know, so see that you tell him.” The man grimaced menacingly. “If you don’t …”

Nodding agreement, Antony wondered how
Le Renardeau’s
name had slipped into Cornwall. Since it had served only as the rumored source of certain mysterious events during the war (rumors begun by himself), the Frenchman whose name he had given Michael as a reference could not know that Jean Matois and the Fox Cub were one and the same. It was possible, of course, that someone else had usurped the appellation to serve a purpose of his own, even the one suggested.

Antony hoped that was the answer. His dual identity was known only to Wellington, Harry Livingston, and certain other members of the Duke’s staff, none of whom, he devoutly hoped, would want to throw the Fox Cub to the wolves.

T
RUE TO HIS WORD,
Rockland returned the following afternoon. Special license in hand, he strolled with Sir Antony into the dining room, where the others, except for Lady St. Merryn and Miss Davies, were enjoying a nuncheon. Grinning, he declared that Bishop Halsey had agreed to perform the wedding the following Saturday.

“The devil of it is, I can’t be here then,” Rockland added with what looked to Charley like a guilty glint in his eyes. “Didn’t tell you before, but I put things off because I’d written straightaway to Lady Ophelia to tell her of our betrothal and beg her to come for the wedding. Sent it posthaste, and got her reply in yesterday’s post.”

Charley stared at him in shock.
“You
wrote to Aunt Ophelia?”

He looked sheepish. “Knew she would want to know. Wasn’t sure you’d tell her straightaway. Well,” he added hastily, cutting her off before she could reply, “stands to reason you might not. Didn’t tell your grandmama, did you? At all events, Lady Ophelia will reach Plymouth Friday evening.” Glibly, he added, “Promised to meet her myself, of course, and bring her the rest of the way.”

Exasperated, Charley said, “Good mercy, why Plymouth instead of Fowey?”

“The old lady picked Plymouth. Hates packet boats. Said she’d as lief get off as soon as she could without having to stop overnight with the carriage.”

“But why did you choose Saturday if you knew she would not be here yet?”

Elizabeth said in her gentle way, “Really, Charlotte, I am persuaded that Lord Rockland must have had a very good reason for that, too.”

“You
would think so,” Charley retorted. “For my part, I think he just forgot. We must certainly wait for Aunt Ophelia. The wedding will simply have to be put off.”

“Not if you want to have it before the end of June,” Rockland said. “The bishop has no time for us between now and the consecration except this coming Saturday.”