Peregrine's Prize (5 page)

"I'm sorry, sir. I never divulge my guest's
names." The word
sir
was
invested with such scorn it brought a smile to Perry's lips. Evidently the
questioner was not to the landlord's liking.

"Look, all I want to know is whether Lord Corby
is in residence," The voice was of a man, and Perry wished Harold was
around to say where the accent originated. All Perry knew was that it wasn't a
Londoner.

"I have no idea." The landlord said in a
tone now so frosty, it was a wonder the stairs weren't icy. "Now unless
you wish to book a room, I suggest you move on."

Perry took one step more to see if he could get a
glimpse of the customer. All he could see was a dark greatcoat with only one meager
cape. Not a member of the haut ton then.

"Then I'll have a room." The voice sounded
desperate.

"Sorry, I'm full." The landlord sounded
gleeful. "Now if there's nothing else?"

The noise of a chair being pushed back, and the
startled shout of the landlord, made Perry take the last few stairs in a jump.
He turned the corner into the lobby, to see a dark greatcoat disappearing out
of the main door, and the landlord picking himself up off the floor. He looked
up at Perry.

"Thank goodness we never got round to
officially welcoming you, my lord."

Chapter
Four

It was one thing saying very definitely that you
were happy with what you needed to do, another knowing if you were capable of
pulling it off. Maggie swallowed several times, and acknowledged her clammy
skin and shaking hands were due to fear. Not fear for herself, but for the
others who were involved. She knew so much rested on her ability to keep a cool
head, and that failure could not be thought about. That knowledge made her pace
the tiny study several times, skirting the desk and the other two occupants
more than once. The desk of course being an inanimate object ignored her, but the
humans looked on with so much compassion, Maggie scarcely dare look back at them
in case their sympathy made her break down. What Nash asked of her almost
beggared belief.

"Are you sure?" she said at last, as Nash
continued to look at her with troubled eyes. "Do we really know that for
certain?"

He sighed, and Felicity took hold of his hand and
squeezed it. Maggie wished she had someone to do that for her.

Well maybe if we sort
this mess out soon, I might have.

"Maggie, it's like trying to find alcohol at
Almacks, nigh on impossible," Nash said. "However the informant is to
be trusted, and he is as sure as could be that an attack on Peregrine is
imminent, and it will be arranged to throw distrust and confusion both in the
government, and among his family and friends. Gussie Gravesend is implicated,
but it is thought she reports to more than one other person, now that Mortimer
is dead." Nash tapped his lips with his index finger. "Sadly no one
has any idea who the other people are, and the authorities are doing their very
best. It's a pity Harry had to be removed to Scotland. I'm sure he'd have come
up with some formulae or another to sniff them out. Ah well, it can't be
helped. Perry knows best, and if he says Harry has to be in Scotland, who am I
to argue. I value both my brothers' lives." He rolled his shoulders, and
Felicity kneaded them.

"Tense," she said softly as she looked at
Maggie. "He's worrying over things we can do nothing about." The love
she possessed for her husband appeared so evident in every movement Maggie felt
an intruder. Nash leaned forward and touched one of Maggie's arms.

 
"We
really are in the dark. However the plan that has been concocted could work,
with your cooperation."

"And Abraham's." Felicity added. "I
don't presume to know what else he is, but I do know it's lucky he is a
longtime friend of Nash's and around Perry's build." She held her hand up
to signify a tall man and sketched the shape of a body in the air. Maggie hoped
Felicity wasn't actually imagining Perry possessed a build like she described. It
seemed more fitting to a woman. It was a measure of Maggie's agitation that the
thought didn't make her smile.

 
"And
raring to fight," Nash said. "His 'affaires de coeur', shall I call
them are, as you well know, not going well. Until Lord Welland is found and
either exonerated or convicted of treason, his love life is as lacking
as…" He paused.

"Mine," Maggie said. She'd spoken to
Judith Welland who loved, and was loved in return by Abraham who worked for the
hunt—and others—just a few days earlier. Judith wasn't positive about her
future.

"She's afraid she's going to be in limbo for
ever, and never be able to move on. I feel for her," Maggie said, and did
her best to keep that nasty desolate note out of her voice—the one that could
creep in and upset everyone. "I often think the same. It's harsh, so very
harsh to be destined for sadness, even worse when you've glimpsed happiness,
and lost it."

Felicity moved away from Nash to hug her. "That
is so true, and I can only say keep your faith. For as you well know Maggie, I entertained
those ideas myself, but look at me now. Nash Gretton, not like that." She
blushed. Nash laughed and raised one eyebrow as he leered at his wife. Maggie
giggled, her melancholy mood dissipated by his antics. Even though she knew
that had been Nash's intention, she ached to enjoy even one tenth of what Nash
and Felicity shared. Every look spelled out their love, and the intimate
fondling and supposedly hidden nips and gropes she often saw were enough to
make her retire to her room and dream of Perry as she touched herself. Maggie
knew she was loved, and returned that emotion ten-fold, but not to be able to show
it physically was hard. Sometimes she could almost believe her trysts were all
in her mind. Except, under her breast, was a tiny tattoo of a dragon. Perry
appropriated Nash's inking kit—the one he used for marking his dogs—and given
them both a dragon tattoo. "Because once the dragons are slain we can be
together." Neither thought it would take so long. She wondered if Nash
realized how fast his ink had been used up.

"Maggie? Are you all right? Are you in
pain?"

She brought her mind back to the present, and
realized she'd been rubbing her chest, over her tattoo, as if for strength.

"No, sorry I'm fine. I was wool gathering, and well,
one can but hope," she said hastily. "But keep those looks and
thoughts for later, both of you, or I will not be able to concentrate. Let's go
over it all once more please. I need to get everything fixed in my mind."

****

"Are you sure you're happy with this,
Maggie?" Abraham Starkey tooled the phaeton along the narrow lanes with a
casual expertize Maggie envied. Although she could handle a phaeton and pair,
she knew that even with continual practice she would never succeed as well as
he did. The reins seemed to be part of him, and the way the horses responded to
the slightest touch was instant. Maggie knew of several supposed excellent
horsemen who would do well to watch and learn.

A carriage came toward them at high speed, with
scant regard for the rules of the road. Abraham swore and pulled across to scrape
the hedge, and slow his own pair. Once the road ahead showed no traffic, he
increased their pace once more.

"Stupid young bucks with no idea how to tool a pair
or trim their reins. We won't be seeing them in the Four Horse Club anytime
soon. Are you all right? Did the hedges scratch you?"

Maggie set her bonnet on straight, and tied the
ribbons around it a little tighter. It had been pushed to one side by a whippy
branch, and the flowers above the ear were probably the worse for wear.
However, luckily she'd missed being marked. "No, I'm unscathed, and I
agree, except they did look a bit rough to be young bloods. I wouldn't be
surprised if we find that equipage was stolen at the last posting inn." She'd
seen how the mufflers they wore were pulled high, and their cloaks dark and
somewhat shabby. It had been nigh on impossible to recognize their features. "And
as to our plan? I'll be more than happy if it works," she said frankly.
Argh, I wish people would stop asking that.
I'm worried, scared and aware of the danger, but it has to be done.
"You
all seem to think it will, so all I need to do is convince Perry he wants to be
Mr. Cotton. Both Nash and Felicity agree that from a distance you'd pass as
Perry, especially in that cloak, so all we can do is hope. But Abe, it's an
awful risk for you."

He took a corner at speed before he answered her.
 
Maggie grasped the sides to stop herself
slipping from the seat. He was more like Perry than she'd imagined. They may
both look steady and staid, but good horsemanship was evident. Caution was perhaps
best described as something they were aware of, subscribed to for others, but
only used themselves when applicable. For the first time she understood what
attracted Judith to him. He shared the same outward steadiness as Perry and as
his eyes glittered, she thought corresponding hidden depths.

"It's a comparable danger for all of us.
Nevertheless if we don't take those risks we could find ourselves without a
country to take them for. I want to be proud of my part in making this
somewhere safe for my children, if god is willing for me to father them, and for
their children afterward. With Napoleon's supporters still active, that is less
likely than it will be if we vanquish them. I suppose you could say I need to
play my own part in protecting my country and this is but a small thing I can
do. Now, we will be at Monksseat in less than the half hour." He glanced
at Maggie and grinned. "I wish I could be a fly on the wall when I deliver
Perry to you. Do not expect him to be compliant. That man is too stubborn for
his own good."

 
Maggie could
do no more than agree. "True, but Abe, I still think I need to be with
you, to er, ‘encourage’ him to come to the house." Abe snorted in
amusement. "Peregrine takes no one's word without proof, and at least
there you can show him the letters and … watch out." She ended on a shout
as a riderless horse careened around a bend in the road straight toward the
phaeton, reins flapping perilously near to its hooves.

The phaeton rocked and swayed at a dangerous angle
as Abe fought to control their horses and maneuver the carriage out of the way
of danger. The riderless horse balked when it saw the vehicle, and Abraham
acted.

"Take a hold of these." He threw the reins
at Maggie, who scrabbled for them and once they were in her grasp, held on as
best she could. Her pulse jumped and the hairs on her arms stood on end. She
would swear it was Perry's horse.

 
As the animal
swerved enough to miss them Abe stood and lunged for it. He flung himself
sideways across the saddle and grabbed hold of the mane. The whites of the
horse's eyes were large and the whinny it made sent shivers down Maggie's
spine. It looked almost crazy. It reared and she bit back a shriek of alarm.
The tug on her arms as the horses attached to the phaeton struggled to get away
from the intruder, and moved faster and faster along the road, gathered her
scattered senses. With more haste than elegance she managed to slide across the
seat to be in a better position to control the pair. Then she began the gradual
process of slowing them down and bringing them under control. She just had to
trust to luck and his skill that Abraham was all right.

Her steady hand and, she hoped, soothing words and
tone of voice worked, and the horses slowed from a mad, panicked gallop, to a
canter, and then a steady trot. When she eventually got them into a walk, they
were blowing heavily, and she didn't think she was in much better a state. Her
hair had escaped its neat style, and her hat was lost somewhere back along the road,
no doubt adorning the hedge. She could sense her heart beating ten to the
dozen, and her hands were slippery on the reins. The rush of sheer terror was a
horrible feeling, and one she'd never experienced before, or ever wanted to
again.

Maggie hoped the horses hadn't done themselves a
serious injury. Handing windblown horses back to Nash would be not only
heartbreaking, but also humiliating as well, whatever the reason. She let them
pick their own walking pace as she began to look for a gate to turn the phaeton
and pair around. Ahead, the road began to bend again, and Maggie suffered the
unpleasant thought that it could be miles before she could back up.

As she crested a slight hill, the road stretched out
and into the beginnings of a large thicket.
Just
the place for an ambush.
Her pulse, which had just steadied, began to jump
once more. In the distance a lone figure stumbled along toward her. She flicked
the reins to quicken the horse and encourage them into a canter. If it was a
trick, then she needed her speed to be such that she could get away without any
problems.

As she kept a wary eye out for anyone else in the
vicinity, and the distance between them closed, Maggie was sure she recognized
the man who staggered and grabbed hold of a tree before sliding to the ground. With
a click of her tongue she encouraged the horses to pick up their speed, until
she was close enough to see his features. Her skin crawled, and spiders danced
in her stomach. The sick hollow feeling of earlier came back tenfold, and
Maggie wondered if she was hallucinating.