Royal Renegade (16 page)

"What?" Michael's tone combined dread and amusement.

"Oh, I just remarked that we were of a height together—he's very sensitive about his lack of inches, the emperor. Otherwise, he might have solicited for my hand, and Alexander would have said, but there is no Princess Olga of Bashkir, and Napoleon might have taken offense, and who knows what might have happened." Tatiana drew a deep sigh of relief, for even now her escape seemed much too narrow.

"So you came uncomfortably close to being made empress, did you?" Michael's voice was even, but she could tell he was grudgingly impressed by her consequence, impressed and perhaps annoyed.

"Oh, no, I couldn't have married Napoleon, even if I were Princess Olga. I would never do anything that might further that tyrant's ambitions."

"And would you marry to inhibit his ambitions?"

The major's sharp question echoed that issue they had tacitly agreed to ignore here in the cottage. With sudden anguish, Tatiana shook her head, willing the words away, for she knew now their quiet intimacy had been lost. What did he want her to say? What did he want her to do?

Her silence was perhaps more eloquent than anything she could have said. He rose easily and nodded toward the antechamber. "There's a bed in there. I put some blankets down, and it looks clean enough. I'll stay out here by the fire."

Without a word she picked up a candle and retreated into the next room. She stripped off her still-damp gown, distractedly dismayed to find that it had shrunk even as she wore it and by morning would not be decent. Sighing, she slipped on the nightshirt Michael had laid neatly on the bed. It was clean, but her skin had felt only silk nightgowns before and would be rubbed raw by the rough linen. She rolled up the sleeves and buttoned the neck and climbed into the primitive plank bed. She huddled in the blankets, wishing she were still in the warmth of the fire, the warmth of Michael's friendship. She wasn't the sort who cried, but if she had been, she would be crying now, for loneliness and hopelessness and the end of the happiest night of her life.

Chapter Ten

Devlyn was up at dawn, scouting their location and plotting their escape from French territory. If they made it to Cotentin without incident and reconnoitered with Dryden, they could be in England late that night. If something went wrong, well, they could try to make it to one of the Channel Islands, those insecure bits of English soil only a few miles across the water.

Devlyn pulled on the shoemaker's heavy cloak and walked out into the silence of dawn, when most of God's creatures slept dreamlessly. The early air was chill, with mist rising eerily from the forest. The gulf was hidden from view, for the cottage was set back from the road and out of sight of any neighbors. But Devlyn still took care as he surveyed the small holding. From a scrubby orchard spread out from the stable area, he gathered up a couple of pockets full of late apples for breakfast. They would have to do, for even were he willing to chance an encounter with a local grocer, he had only English currency. Guineas were acceptable to coastal merchants, who despite the war carried on a clandestine trade across the channel, but Devlyn had no desire to call attention to their foreign status.

As if abashed by its defection the previous afternoon, the sun was just rising a blushing pink when Devlyn saw the horse in the pasture beyond the orchard. He did not stop to wonder whose pasture it was or whose horse, or to examine his conscience to see if it would allow horse theft. He only glanced about to make sure he was alone with this gift from heaven and vaulted the pasture fence.

The horse probably belonged to the missing shoemaker after all, which made Devlyn's crime almost an act of mercy. She obviously had not been cared for in weeks, and had gone a bit wild. But the cavalry officer Devlyn knew horses better than people, and recognized that the mare longed for a little human attention. A few soft words, the offer of an apple, and she was his. Would that the human female were so obliging.

Like a pet dog, the mare followed him back to the stables, where he found her some dry hay and groomed her with an old brush. She preened under his attention, nickering gently and thrusting her head against his arm. She was young but sturdy, broad-shouldered and deep-chested, used no doubt for plowing as well as saddling. She took the bridle placidly, and the old saddle off the stall rail made her shy only for a moment. With a final pat, he left her munching on the hay, complacent now that the natural order was righted again.

Tatiana was up and washed and dressed in the long-sleeved blue woolen gown some unknown peasant girl had left here. The style was simple, as simple as the feminine form, tied at the neck with a bit of string, gathered in a bit at the waist, skimming her curved hips with discretion. She'd found a comb and tidied her hair, but a few curls escaped the confines of the length of lace she had torn from her own abandoned dress. Devlyn stood there in the doorway for a moment, watching her wrap a towel around the handleless pot and painstakingly transfer its boiling water to the mugs they had used last night for wine. Intent upon her task, she worried at her full lower lip and frowned prettily. She was dazzling, the golden highlights in her hair and skin glowing in the early sunlight, her delicate features only enhanced by the roughness of her dress. He waited for her completion of the unfamiliar task and the cessation of the sharp stabbing in his chest before making himself known.

She looked up at him with a cheerful smile, as if she had passed the night luxuriously after a delicious dinner in regal surroundings. But then, she was seldom less than cheerful—it was one of her more charming and more infuriating qualities. He wondered at the sort of disposition that could greet a morning of direst danger with such equanimity. But he felt oddly optimistic too, as if they were certain to get through the day without mishap, just because they were favored by some benevolent god—albeit one who was prodigiously tardy in making an appearance in their lives.

"Michael, I found some tea in the canister there. I know how you English like your tea in the morning. Buntin could never face the day without her cup."

He deposited the apples onto the table, anticipating and dreading her happy cries at his contribution. "Oh, how lovely! Now don't you think this breakfast will rival any we could have ordered? All of God's bounty is here before us."

"I would have ordered some scones and a little of God's creamery butter, but this will do, I suppose. Were you worried that I'd scarpered and left you here on your own?"

"Oh, I knew you wouldn't do that," she said with heartrending confidence. "You are my verray parfit gentil knight, aren't you? That's Chaucer, you know," she added kindly.

"Yes, I think I've heard of him." At Eton he had been forced to memorize the entire prologue of
The Canterbury Tales
, and doubtlessly could recite it now with the slightest prompting. "I captured us a verray parfit gentil horse, so we won't have to ruin our elegant footwear walking to town."

Tatiana fanned her tea, then picked up an apple and took a dainty bite. "How enterprising of you. But I have grown quite fond of our cottage, and am loath to leave it. Do you think we could just take up residence here? We could pretend to be the shoemaker's relations. You could take over his craft."

"Yes, I'd be good at cobbling with my delicate hands, wouldn't I?" he said, turning his hands over to exhibit the blisters the night's rowing had raised over his calluses.

"And I could take over the orchard, and we would go along quite happily, don't you think?"

Her teasing suggestion sounded rather more pleasant than was safe for his sanity, which, of course, he'd long since given up for lost anyway. And he knew he could not give her the answer she didn't even know she sought with that longing glance, not yet. So more coldly than he had intended, he replied, "A princess become a peasant. I remember your cousin Marie Antoinette used to play at that, pretending to be a shepherdess when being a queen grew tedious. But then, this shoemaker and his countrymen beheaded her for such frivolity, didn't they?"

For a moment she was still, hurt, then she tossed her bright curls and favored him with a scornful glance. She was learning to dissemble, to hide her emotions, he thought sadly, and he had taught her that, by his example and by his expectations.

"Marie was beheaded because she had the misfortune to marry a doomed king. Her own actions might have been foolish, but had she been a model of sobriety, she would have faced the same end. For a bride of a king shares his fate as she shares his crown. That's the price she pays for her royal blood and her royal marriage."

Her hard tone was enough to remind him that Marie Antoinette was more than just a myth to her, as might be called up by an English matron to warn her daughter against the perils of impropriety. The doomed queen, though Tatiana had never met her, was her kin, a model of sorts, a precedent, God forbid. And if Tatiana saw the lot of a peasant as more appealing than that of a royal princess, she might have reason for that after all. It was her royal blood that complicated everything, for without it she would be of no use and could make her own fate. But then, were she not royal, he would never have met her, and her fate would be of no moment to him.

But they could speak of none of this as they tidied up the little cottage in case the owner was in fact off at his winter home and would return in April or May. And just in case, Devlyn left a few coins on the table next to the cobbler's awl, to pay for the accomodations and the clothing and the amiable mare.

The sun was bright and warmed the November air, and after a mile or so Devlyn took off the shoemaker's cloak. Tatiana was warm too before him on the saddle, and where her back touched him he felt a slow heat start and radiate throughout his body.

She nestled so naturally against him, her body curving into his in such a seductive way, that he had to remind himself she was, in fact, an innocent. She might be teasing him, but she didn't really understand what effect her sweet warmth might have on a man, especially one who had just spent the last night in all-too-intimate quarters with her. But she was an innocent, and he was far from a scoundrel, and so she would remain uncorrupted in his company. In a year or so, after her introduction to the court and London society, her games would not be so innocent. Then perhaps he might respond to her teasing—but then, with luck, he would not want to.

No one paid them much mind as they trotted along the coastal road. The Normans were a private people, with much to hide, like their counterparts across the channel where Devlyn had been reared. England and France were ever at war, had been for hundreds of years on and off. But the channel people, English or French, had more in common with each other than with the powerful men who waged war from London and Paris. Fishing, trading, smuggling—these ties transcended national boundaries and international conflicts. So the two strangers on one horse were met only by nods and reserved ones at that, and then resolutely ignored. My enemies, Devlyn told himself, but didn't believe it, any more than he believed this cousin of Alexander leaning against him was his foe because of some pact between emperors.

As the sun rose, the traffic on the road became heavier and they were better able to blend into the landscape. Tatiana pointed to the town rising up ahead and bounced a little in the saddle, jarring his bad knee. For once she remembered to speak French. "Is that Cotentin? There are so many people and wagons."

"Market day," he replied shortly. "Fortunate. If Dryden's in port, we'll be able to slip right on board without anyone taking notice."

She twisted around in the saddle, regarding him seriously. "And if he's not there?"

He shrugged. "We'll have to find other transport across the channel. There's bound to be other smugglers about later in the week, for there will be no moon. I imagine we can survive until then."

"I am trying to apologize yet again," she retorted regally, "and you are making it very difficult. Now you must listen to me and say nothing until I'm finished." She took a deep breath and recited, "I know I am to blame, and I am sorry, and I will never do anything so foolish again."

His silence was eloquent, he thought, but she took it as acceptance, and turned her face up to him with a beguiling smile, that dimple still balancing precariously by her mouth. "Tell me what market day is like. I've never been to one before."

"A benighted life you've led indeed," he said, and indulgently he called up memories of boyhood adventures at market days in Weymouth and even here in Cotentin. He and Dryden had been too young to care that these hardy Normans were their nominal enemies, as their pastries were superior to those in Dorset and the wine more accessible to beardless youths.

"This will probably be one of the last market days before spring. The harvest is done now and everyone is flush with the profits. They'll want to stock up on staples for the winter, so you'll see vendors for cloth and foodstuffs and tools. And as this is what passes for entertainment in country areas, and there's a long winter coming, you'll see gypsy fortune-tellers and jugglers and minstrels. Boys and girls will be courting and walking out together, for spring is marrying season and they'd best come to their understandings before the cold separates them."

His memories were accurate, although it had been fifteen years since he'd been to a country market in England or in France. He'd seen a few in poor war-torn Portugal and felt immediately at home, for market day was the same the world over, little changed through the centuries. Here in Cotentin was the merry din of the crowd, which sounded the same in any language. The same colorful pennants attracted the broad-faced farmers and cheeky lasses to the same sort of booths. And the Norman jugglers wore the same variegated outfits and silly caps that Dorset jugglers did. The roving bands of soldiers and sailors were a jarring note, but then, it had been much the same in Portugal; only the designs of the uniforms were different.