Miss Antiqua's Adventure (5 page)

This note was designed to reassure Madame Tallien, and she addressed the folded parchment with every confidence it would do so. She rose but then paused as the door opened. Looking over her shoulder, Antiqua froze as she stared in horror at Thomas Allen.

Chapter 5

“Pardon me—I did not realize this room was engaged,” said the gentleman in English. As the color had completely run from Antiqua’s face, his apologetic smile disappeared and he inquired in quick concern, “Are you ill? Should I call a servant?”

“No, no—it’s nothing, I assure you,” Antiqua faltered. She attempted a smile as she came to her feet. “Please come in.”

He hesitated, then stepped forward, closing the door. “You are certain you are feeling well?”

“Yes. You merely gave me a shock, for you look quite like a—a friend of mine. But I can see now that the resemblance is not so strong as I first thought. Forgive me for startling you,” she finished with her pretty smile.

Indeed, although her guest had the same sandy coloring and oval face as Mr. Allen, after the first stunned moment she had seen there was little actual similarity of feature. She had to look up to examine his face, for he was every inch as tall as Thomas Allen had been. But beyond height and coloring she found no marked likeness.

Lines about his eyes and lips suggested this urbane stranger was a man experienced with life, but he had none of the strength, the intensity which had set Allen apart. And this gentleman’s eyes weren’t blue like Allen’s but a distinctive amber color. Exactly like the old tabby cat’s back home, she thought. It had been her own fancies deceived as to think he resembled Allen in even the merest way.

“I believe it is I who should apologize for startling you,” he said with a friendly smile. “Forgive me, Miss . . .”

“Greybill,” Antiqua supplied, gesturing for him to be seated. “Let us each pardon the other, sir. Tell me, have you just arrived in Calais?”

“I landed only this morning. Just in time, by the look of the sky. I make no doubt it shall soon be raining and there is nothing more miserable than a wet crossing.”

He placed himself on the patterned silk cushion of the settee, where Antiqua immediately joined him. She openly admired his tastefully subdued appearance. His fine coat was cut more for comfort than for fashion, as if he preferred to dress without the assistance of a valet, but the bottle-green jacket and beige knit pantaloons still displayed his broad build to advantage. Her eyes, studying him, asked a question. The gentleman inclined his head to an infinitesimal degree.

“I am Balstone,” he said. He was unused to having to announce himself; never had he done so to such bland effect. “Viscount Balstone,” he amended after a perceptible pause.

“Oh, I am sorry!”

She looked charmingly confused and, after enjoying the effect of the rose in her cheeks for a moment, his lordship turned the subject. “Have you been in Calais long, Miss Greybill?”

“I only just arrived myself, my Lord. I am returning to England as soon as”—it occurred to her that she did not know what Vincent’s plans held, so she ended lamely, “as may be.”

“You have come from Paris?”

“Yes,” she replied, thinking it the simplest answer.

Instantly, however, she regretted the lie for the Viscount went on, “Did you by any chance encounter a friend of mine, M. Jean-Claude Azaire?”

“Uh, no. I-I did not go about in society. My aunt, with whom I was staying, has not been well,” she elaborated while mentally chiding herself for straying from the truth.

“Oh? I trust that she has by now recovered?”

“Yes, thank you. Well, that is, her constitution has never been robust,” Antiqua said of the aunt who, as she had been given to understand, had never known a day’s illness from birth. “But she is much better now and as I was no longer needed to care for her, I’m returning home.” She smiled brightly, if not somewhat frantically. “But what of you, my Lord? Are you on your way to see your friend?”

He responded easily, allowing her to steer the discourse away from herself and within the hour, Antiqua felt he was quite the most well-mannered man she had ever met. Their pleasant conversation was interrupted by a footman in blue and silver who inquired tonelessly whether Miss would be desiring her luncheon in the parlor or in her chamber.

“In here, if you please. And,” she added before he could step away, “Lord Balstone will be joining me.”

Not by a flicker of an eye did the servant express his disapproval. As he left, the Viscount rose and begged to be allowed to freshen his appearance. He withdrew with a short bow and Antiqua soon followed him out.

Leaving the billet to her aunt with the proprietor’s wife, she proceeded up to her room, thinking how much she had liked the warm friendliness of his lordship. Her thoughts thus occupied, Antiqua did not note that the door to her room stood open as she passed through it. Mid-way to the vanity, however, she checked, jolted from her reverie by the incredible sight of the obese owner of
le Pélican
on his knees, pounding with a small hammer on the entry communicating to Vincent’s chamber.

“But whatever are you doing?” she demanded in her stilted French.

“Ah,
mademoiselle
, I am but following the orders of
le monsieur
,” was the unhappy reply. His face, as he looked toward her, was ruddy and damped from his exertion. “Monsieur, he informed me, quite emphatically you comprehend, that he would very much prefer having a lock upon the door. So,
voilà
!”

The fat man gestured as he lumbered to his feet and Antiqua, following his pointing finger, was astounded to see a shining bolt lock tightly securing the door behind him. The innkeeper bowed himself out with an obsequience previously lacking in his meetings with her and left her to stand staring at the lock in mute puzzlement.

So, it appeared that Mr. Vincent was a spy with some shred of honor remaining. Obviously, having discovered her to be a lady, he no longer meant to force his attentions on her. That was a relief, or so she firmly told herself as she wandered to the chair before the low dressing table.

Leaning her elbows on the vanity, Antiqua cupped her chin in her hands and wondered why it was she could not, no matter how much she knew she should, despise Vincent. Though she was not fully certain just how a murderous traitor should look, she was quite certain Vincent did not look like one and she felt a spurt of vexation that he should be so disobliging. Even when he had hinted of payments to come, she had felt something far too delicious to be called fear. And that, she thought with a heavy sigh, was most disheartening.

She was sitting thus, staring dreamily at the marbled top of the vanity when Lucy appeared. Antiqua forced herself to stir and asked Lucy to redo her hair, for it had, as usual, come loose from its knot. The maid dutifully applied a brush to the disarray of hair, but her lackluster ministrations and unusually subdued manner caught Antiqua’s attention.

“Are you feeling unwell, Lucy?” she inquired at last.

The maid tugged Antiqua’s hair back into its knot and seemed, for once, to have difficulty in finding words. “No, Miss.”

“But whatever is the matter?” she persisted, staring at Lucy through the mirror.

“Nothing, Miss,” Lucy averred.

But as such reticence was not to be found among Lucy’s normal characteristics, Antiqua was not to be so easily persuaded. “Come, Lucy, you cannot think I do not know something has occurred to overset you. What is it?”

“Well, Miss,” the maid capitulated, “’twas Mr. Vincent.”

“Mr. Vincent?” Antiqua whirled around to face Lucy in astonishment.

“Yes, Miss. He spoke to me afore he went out. He was very kind, Miss, but he gave me to understand that I’d been grievously at fault.”

“You? But whatever for?”

Lucy gave her a stern look. “On account of your being alone with that dead man last night—”

“You never told him about Mr. Allen!” Horror widened Antiqua’s brown eyes.

“Oh, no, Miss! I never told him any such thing,” Lucy assured her. “But Mr. Vincent thought as how you were alone with a tutoring gentleman and then himself and he pointed out that ’tis my duty to keep you from such scrapes, to protect you. But he didn’t want to turn me off, Miss, as he was certain I’d never again let you go awanderin’ off alone. And no more shall I,” she finished with firmness.

“
He
turn you off!” The very idea infuriated Antiqua. “He has no such authority, Lucy, and well you know it!”

“I fancy Mr. Vincent has just as much authority as he wants to have, Miss Antiqua.” Lucy’s head bobbed in a knowing nod. “Now you go eat your luncheon and I’ll freshen up your best dress for dinner with the master.”

“Mr. Vincent is
not
,” stated her mistress with deadly emphasis, “the master.”

All she received at this was a look of pitying understanding which served to deepen the lines of anger already wrinkling her brow. She descended to the parlor mentally directing her wrath toward the absent Mr. Vincent. It was bad enough that he should go around plotting with Bonapartists and murdering honorable gentlemen, but that he should lecture
her
maid! She fairly shook with fury over this tyrannical interference. 

She tried, but could not quite manage, to erase the smoldering scowl from her features as she entered the parlor. Viscount Balstone rose as she came toward him. His eyes narrowed to a slit for the barest instant as they rested upon her face, but he presented her with a charming smile as he spoke.

“Do you know, Miss Greybill, I had thought the warmth of this delightful room emanated from this fire, but I have since realized it comes solely from you”

Her resentment vanished; she lit up with pleasure. “I hope I’ve not kept you waiting overlong, my lord.”

“Not at all. Any wait is worthwhile for such a reward.”

A warm flush crept over her rounded cheeks. She moved to the table, casting only a shy smile at his lordship in reply.

Cold meat, fresh bread, and a variety of cheeses and fruit greeted them at the lace-covered table. While the servant was in attendance, they chatted easily on indifferent topics, remarking upon the rain which had begun to fall, proving the Viscount’s prediction. When at length the servant silently exited, Lord Balstone refilled his wineglass and then hesitantly poised the bottle over Miss Greybill’s empty crystal. She inclined her head and his lordship poured the wine into her glass with just a hint of a smile.

“Would it be presumptuous of me, Miss Greybill,” he asked as he set the bottle down, “to inquire as to what had you looking like a superbly stormy sea? You have only to tell me if I’m being too meddlesome.”

She laughed with just a shade of embarrassment. “Of course you are not! It was just my maid—a more caper-witted female you could not meet!—who vexed me so, my lord.”

Her explanation was accepted with the merest look of disbelief, so fleeting in fact that Antiqua scarcely wondered why he should not be satisfied. The Viscount smoothly agreed that servants were generally more of a problem than a help before she could give the matter more thought. With his kind smile, he changed the subject. “So you are returning to England. Where precisely do you go, Miss Greybill?”

“From Dover I intend to go to London, sir.”

“For the season, no doubt. Have you often been to London?”

“No, my lord. As a matter of fact, I’ve never been there.”

“Then you must allow me to show you the sights when I return,” he said with a gleam in his cat’s eyes that sent Miss Greybill’s gaze down to her plate.

“I am not—I do not expect to stay in London long, my lord. I may be required to return to my aunt in Paris.” She searched for a less dangerous topic. “This was my first journey from home, you know, and I find travel quite wearying.”

“Home is—”

“Arrberry in the Cotswolds, sir. It’s an old market town not far from Cheltenham.”

“Where you acquired, no doubt,” cut in a cool voice from across the room, “your penchant for enacting tragedies.”

Both heads whipped around. Deep crimson stained Antiqua’s face while all expression was momentarily erased from the Viscount’s. Then, as if it were dragged unwillingly from him, his lordship hissed the single word, “Vincent.”

“Ah . . . Balstone,” responded the gentleman, strolling forth. “It seems to be our unpleasant destiny to meet whenever least desired.” He dropped his dark drab coat carelessly onto a chair, disregarding the beads of rainwater punctuating the cushion. “Perhaps you did not know—this is a private chamber.”

The softly-spoken reproof could not hide the derisive intent of Vincent’s words.

As quickly as the color had rushed into Antiqua’s face, it now fled from her cheeks. “Lord Balstone is my guest,” she said in a crushing tone. “I invited him to lunch with me.”

“I should hesitate to point out, my dear, that it is I who engaged this parlor,” Vincent remarked, on the dry side.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, anger springing into her eyes. “Of all the shabby, mean-spirited—”

Ignoring her, he kept his iron-melting stare fixed on Balstone. “I trust you do not often give wine to waifs.”

“Waifs!” Antiqua echoed in hollow rage.

Vincent cast her a sideways glance but continued speaking to the other man. “Unless, of course, you expect to receive something you should not have.”

The Viscount had risen to his feet and stood facing Vincent. “I assure you I didn’t mean to intrude. Had I known Miss Greybill traveled in your company, I should not have accepted her kind invitation.”

“You did not know? How odd. I had quite the strongest feeling that you were not in the least surprised to see me.” His lips pulled back from his teeth as Vincent swept a contemptuous gaze over his lordship.

Antiqua looked from one to the other. Though Balstone stood half a head taller, it was Vincent who seemed the more menacing. Here, she realized, was the man capable of murdering Thomas Allen. The ruthless implacability she had not been able to see in him before now lay exposed to full view. Though he appeared very much a man at ease, every line of his lithe form was coiled with deadly intensity. The habitually sleepy look of his slanted eyes had been replaced by a feral gaze which was as frightening as it was unexpected. The animosity between the two men was palpably real. Antiqua shrank back from the consuming emotion pervading the parlor.