Royal Renegade (18 page)

"We can only hope," he said dampingly, "that they don't catch Dryden and his crew and your Miss Buntin instead."

Tatiana, as usual, had given little thought to the consequences of her actions. But now she had the grace to look frightened. "Do you think they are in danger?"

"Oh, Dryden will contrive. They're not really after him, anyway. I doubt they've connected him with us. They probably think we're a pair of defectors—or a pair of lunatics." He watched as she hunched her small shoulders. "Are you cold?"

"You will be glad to hear I am," she replied resentfully, "and small punishment it will be for all my sins.

He took pity on her—he supposed that was all—and pulled the corner of his cloak around her. Her body was still a bit stiff with anger, but eventually she edged toward the warmth of his body. He pulled her near and they sank to the floor amidst the ropes and water jugs, seeking surcease from the chill of November over the sea.

For a long time he rested his forehead on her tangled hair, his heart hurting as it hadn't done since he was a child. "Tatiana," he said softly, and she looked up startled, because he seldom addressed her so familiarly. Her great green eyes were puzzled under sooty lashes. "If we survive, we will be in London very soon, and we won't be seeing each other very often."

Her delicate brows drew together in a frown. "Why ever not?"

Ironically he replied, "I have never been part of Prinny's set. And I will be returning to Portugal in a few weeks." He saw the flash of sadness in her eyes and forestalled her protest. "So—no, listen to me—so as you go on, just—just be cautious. Oh, I know you won't, you are incapable of caution. And you will be meeting so many people who will encourage your impulse to mischief because you are so entertaining." He ignored her inarticulate murmur of outrage, watching her eyes instead. "So you are bound to get yourself into a coil or two. You won't be able to trust anyone in that set, no matter how sincere they may seem. But you know that you can trust me. Don't you?"

She was angry with him, her full mouth set mutinously, but eventually she said, "Yes, I have always trusted you."

He closed his eyes, uncommonly exasperated, and tightened his arms about her aggravating little body. "Not always. You should know better than to trust immediately. I have earned your trust in these past weeks. And that is why you should turn to me instead of any of the new friends you will be meeting soon. They haven't earned your trust as I have."

"Don't talk to me as if I were a child." She tore free of him to kneel a few inches away, shivering in the thin air.

"You are a child, as far as London is concerned." He stopped, damping down his anger. She was too proud to accept his counsel, which she interpreted as criticism, and perhaps that was what she had come to expect of him. Consciously he softened his tone, and pulled her back into the circle of his arms, and murmured into her hair, "Just remember, I am your friend, and you must apply to me if you are ever afraid or alone or in trouble. Promise me you will." When she hesitated, still tense in his arms, he whispered, "I've never asked anything of you before, Tatiana. So you must promise me this one thing. You must turn to me first when you are in need of aid."

Solemn now, she nodded, and they sat there together in silence, the only sound the calls of the seabirds. Eventually Devlyn recalled his role of social mentor, absurd as that was as he held her acquiescent in his arms eight hundred feet above the channel. "Now you've been alone with me for a night, and no matter how innocent it might have been, it will be misinterpreted. Dryden and Buntin will be silent about it, you may be sure, so you must also be very discreet about that. Do you understand?

"I'm not entirely stupid, Michael," she retorted, tossing her head so the bright curls tickled his neck. "I had already figured that out, with no help from you."

He smiled at her spirited rejoinder. "So you see, you have learned something from me. Today discretion, tomorrow—who knows? You might even learn to stay belowdecks during a storm."

"And miss all the excitement?" Her mischievous glance caught him, and he had to push her away and stand up to escape it.

When he could speak, he said, "We're approaching land, and wonder of wonders, it still looks like England. Look at the mist."

Tatiana jumped up for the first sight of her new homeland. "Where do you think we'll land? How do you think we land?"

"Softly, I hope." His voice died away as a pale sun shaft broke through the afternoon clouds and irradiated the distant cliffs. They flamed red, like Tatiana's curls, and beyond were the brilliant green hills that meant his own south coast. Mist obscured the far horizon, but he was suddenly at peace. Home.

No one had ever seen this before, not even the balloonists who had flown south from here to France. For none of them had been away so very long. Except for short visits, Devlyn had been gone from England for nearly three years. Sometimes he thought he was fighting for a country he hardly remembered, for a people who hardly remembered him. But now he knew all the pain and privation and loneliness were worthwhile, for there below him was the graceful green land he had loved as a boy.

Unconsciously, he slipped his arm around Tatiana's shoulders. In a husky voice, she said, "It's lovely. Oh, I'm afraid I must quote Shakespeare. May I?"

"If you must."

Her soft, sibilant accent gave the old words a new lilt. "This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle, this earth of majesty, this seat of Mars. This other Eden, demiparadise, this fortress built by nature for herself against infection and the hand of war. This happy breed of men, this little world, this precious stone set in the silver sea, which serves it in the office of a wall, or as a moat defensive to a house, against the envy of less happier lands. This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England."

They stood motionless, watching the glorious coast come closer. Then he tilted up her chin, and there in the radiance of her eyes he found something true and good and unattainable. Despairingly he kissed her, tasting her full, sulky lips with a need he could barely control. Her arms stole around his neck, her fingers tangling in his hair. With unconscious allure she arched her back to come closer to him, and he knew every inch of her slim body and lovely face, and every fiber of her sweet self. When her lips parted under his, he thought, stop now, but his traitorous body refused, and she melted into his kiss.

Then the wind shifted, rocking the gondola, and he held her with one hand and with the other grabbed the rail. When they were set right again, closer than ever to land, he glanced back at her. "What an apt pupil you've turned out to be. There's no need for more lessons, and it's just as well, for I was sorely tempted to advance the curriculum just a bit."

She only stood there, clinging to the side as if they were still in peril of pitching over. When he saw her teeth tugging at her lower lip, he knew he had hurt her and was unaccountably glad. So she thought he was dallying with her. Good. What else had she been doing these past weeks but dallying with him, using him for companionship and protection and amusement, and—and practice.

To be fair, he reminded himself angrily, she was only being sensible in her irrational way. She could hardly tell the Prince Regent to forget his grand political gesture because she preferred the escort he had sent for her. There was so much more involved here than their own little lives, and he knew right enough that she would be foolish to blast all that for what might turn out to be a fleeting passion. It wasn't fleeting for him, but she was just a girl who'd never known a man, never known love, and couldn't know if this was true. Not yet.

She straightened her slight shoulders, looking miserable and defiant and lost. He tried to smile an apology, but when she wouldn't look at him he followed her gaze below. "What a miracle. There's my house." He pointed down to the red brick mansion that rose up from the starkness of the cliffs. "We're going to come down on my land, near enough."

The princess immediately forgave him, slipping one cold hand into the crook of his arm. "Is that your castle?"

"It's not a castle. It's a keep. That's part of a castle, only my ancestors never had enough of the ready to build the rest of it. And there's the village. You could see Mr. Manning's shop if we were closer." But the fickle wind had started bearing them west, away from the village. "Let's set it down if we can, for we'll be back out over the bay in a moment."

He tugged at the valve rope, letting the hydrogen seep out of the bag. They didn't plummet, but dropped steadily toward the placid green acres of farmland. Fortunately the home woods were behind them, so there were few trees to catch them up and overset the gondola, and the bay was still a half-mile ahead.

"It's so wonderful, Michael, don't you think? The earth is rising up to meet us. I feel so privileged, so welcomed, as if England itself is calling me to come."

But Devlyn was busy recollecting more of the feasibility report on aerostats. A half-inflated bag was dangerous: It could drag the gondola along the ground or even cause another lift-off. So a panel of the silk was designed to rip away for a precipitate release of hydrogen. With a prayer and a curse, Devlyn grabbed the rope that he assumed connected to the panel and yanked. With a soft whoosh, the bag lost the rest of its airy contents.

Devlyn gathered the princess in his arms and they dropped to the floor. With a hand behind her head, he protected her face against his shoulder and hunched down, waiting for the blow.

I feel so welcomed
. She would be welcomed, but for all the wrong reasons. Only he truly welcomed her . . . But she had to learn that for herself.

Then, perhaps, when she knew what she wanted truly, she might come back to him, freely, knowledgeably. If she did, then he would find some way of extricating her.

They struck ground with a force that tore at the gondola and tumbled them out into a hayfield. As the balloon bag settled gently on the hay, Devlyn lay there, sprawled on his back, the sun in his eyes, the sharp-shorn stalks of hay poking through his shirt, his arms full of wriggling princess. It was his own field, a north pasture, with his own cows grazing peacefully a hundred feet away. Well, he had been meaning to survey his estate, though he hadn't thought to do it by air.

Tatiana tore herself from his grasp and scrambled to her feet. Her hair was tumbling about her shoulders, and her cheek had been scratched by the wicker of the gondola, but she was whole and so was he. She reached out a dirty hand to help him up, and when they were both standing a little unsteadily on solid ground, she threw out her arms in an embracing gesture. "We're home."

Chapter Eleven

Dorset

Even in November, the landscape was green, Tatiana marveled, a pale misty green that evoked the fruitfulness of the sea and land. The English countryside was just as lovely as she had dreamed, and she was lost for a moment. This is Michael's home, she thought, and he brought me here.

"You damned Frenchies, don't think I didn't see you sailing over here! But you won't get away with it. I'll send a message to that Boney of yours that Dorset men are ready to defend their land!"

Tatiana turned in the direction of the angry voice, but Devlyn had already recognized the heavyset man leaning out of the farm wagon. He stepped in front of the princess and raised his hands cautiously as the hunting rifle pointed toward him. "Squire, you remember me. It's Devlyn." His cool, soothing tones, more even than his words, reduced the squire's tension, and grudgingly the older man lowered the gun and peered more closely at him.

"It is you, ain't it, Devlyn? Well, you could knock me right over with a feather. I was sure Boney was invading when I saw that hot air flying balloon come rising over the cliff, and I nearly whipped poor May here into a frenzy trying to catch you. Then when I saw you closer I thought it was that damned Manning boy, what does he call himself, Dryden, trying out some new mischief." he squire shook his gray head bewilderedly. "But I thought you was on the Peninsula. We all read the dispatches here, one of our own an aide to Wellington—"

"Precisely," Devlyn murmured. "Wellington."

That single name worked wonders. The squire clamped his lips shut and laid a finger across them, wagging his shoulders in a pantomime of understanding. Tatiana was deeply impressed with Michael's conspiratorial tone, which invited the squire into a web of secrecy and intrigue while revealing exactly nothing. With a bit of practice, Tatiana mused, Michael could become a nimble deceiver.

"Could the young lady and I have a ride back to the keep? And then can you get word to the admiral at Weymouth?" Devlyn frowned for a moment, then said, as if to himself, "No navy. Not the admiral. The garrison commander, then. Is General Akers still there? Tell him to bring his wife along, and quickly. Speed is of the essence, you understand." He inclined his head at Tatiana, who smiled radiantly at the squire's wary but inquisitive glance. "She's just come from Cotentin, you see, and I'll need to deliver her to the Foreign Office representative who's waiting in Southampton."

"Deliver me?" Tatiana repeated, deeply offended, for surely Michael wasn't just going to hand her like a package to some military officer. But Michael gave her a quelling look, and, subsiding, she let him help her into the straw in the back of the wagon as the squire climbed onto his seat. "Wellington, is it?" she added in a low voice.

Devlyn shrugged. "Wellington, Wellesley, what's the difference? They're brothers, and they both expect too damn much from me."

Tatiana frowned at this, trying to puzzle out what he meant, but finally gave up: Michael was just being inscrutable, as usual. At least it was pleasant there, amidst the sweet-smelling straw, with the rough wooden slat supporting her back and Michael settling in next t her. "I've never been in a conveyance like this before. It reminds me of the open wagon that carried poor Marie Antoinette to the guillotine. But here we have no jeering crowds, only those cows—those are cows, aren't they? They are so much bigger than I thought cows would be. And so cleverly colored, with those brown and white spots."