The Duke's Messenger (25 page)

Chapter Twenty-Four

When Nell descended to the first floor, to quiz her aunt on the subject of the flamboyant new arrival, she found Phrynie not alone in their sitting room.

With her was the Tulip of fashion whom Nell had last seen descending from that fairy-tale coach. Her aunt and the gentleman held glasses in their hands and seemed in great charity with each other. Trust Lady Sanford!

“Nell, my dear,” her aunt greeted her, “I should like to present to you Archduke Josef Salvator.”

Merely an archduke? Nell thought at least an archangel! Or the Emperor himself.

“He has, like us, been forced to find refuge here.”

The archduke rose, clicked his heels in an excessively military fashion, and bowed low over Nell’s hand. “Exquisite,” he murmured, “such a lovely child.” Diplomatically, however, lest the aunt be irritated, he chose to temper his praise. “She has promise indeed. Perhaps one day she may be as lovely as you, madame.”

Phrynie all but purred. “The archduke tells me that a storm is rising. Perhaps that may keep us here another day.”

Only hours ago, she had demanded in great irritation that they move on at once. Now, she gave Nell the impression that a week spent here would suit her well.

Tactfully, Nell agreed. “Certainly our coachman would benefit from another day of rest, for I am persuaded he is not yet well enough to go on. I have sent Potter to him, and I should truly welcome another visit from the surgeon, Aunt.”

“Of course. Reeves must recover.”

The archduke required to be put into possession of the pertinent facts. At the conclusion of Nell’s carefully edited account of the accident on the road, he nodded in comprehension. “I shall send my man to him. Fulke is quite knowledgeable in these matters. He is newly returned to me from the allied armies, where I suspect he was engaged in activities that I would not wish to know.”

“You mean a
spy
?” breathed Phrynie, her eyes wide.

“Perhaps,” the archduke agreed. “But I assure you he has done with such childish pursuits.”

Nell glanced at her aunt. Spies were all well and good if they no longer spied, so to speak, but Pernoud’s lackey of the squint eyes was all she wished to deal with on that head.

“Have your footman seek out my man — after he has attended to getting my bedroom in order, of course — and lead him to your invalid. I daresay he will set all to rights, and you will be on your way shortly.” He produced an engaging smile. “Not, however, dear lady, before I myself am ready to depart.”

Nell expected her aunt, noted for a certain independence of mind, to say with gentle firmness that she would leave when she was ready to leave.

To her great surprise, Phrynie murmured only, “So very kind, Excellency.” Virtuously she added, “I should not wish to send my devoted coachman into such a storm as you anticipate.” She bent to refill their glasses. It was significant that she did not call for a third glass. Instead, she said, “Nell, I am sure you wish to set the archduke’s beneficent offer in train. At once.”

The message was clear. Phrynie was enjoying herself once again. She had countered the archduke’s selfish demands, taming him like a kitten. And she seemed well on her way to a state of enthrallment with Josef Salvator’s person. Nell feared that her aunt might well forget the need to deliver the parcel, still in Nell’s bandbox. Tom had not even suggested that he carry it on to Castlereagh to spare them any further danger. Indeed, she did not even know that Tom had gone on to Vienna. He could well have returned to England, for all she knew.

Nell felt abandoned by everyone. Tom first, and now Phrynie, who clearly would be more pleased by her absence than her company. And Reeves — he had so far abandoned his guise as coachman to consider her an equal. The coachman had better be put in his place, at once. If only she knew what his place was…!

At the sitting room door she looked back and caught sight of her aunt. Phrynie was turned slightly away from her new friend. Out of his view, she winked broadly at Nell, while she spoke to him.

Vastly relieved, Nell closed the door behind her. Her aunt had not deserted her, after all.

Nell had never seen her aunt in the throes of a flirtation. It would have been an education had she been allowed to stay. But what would she ever need to know of the movements of man and woman, deftly advancing, strategically and invitingly retreating? She had dear Rowland, and flirtation was quite out of the question with him.

*

Fulke accompanied her to Reeves’ bedroom where she left him. She waited in the hall until he could report to her. While she waited, she could hear the men’s voices within, engaged in what must be an absorbing conversation. For a long time, during which Nell’s fancies held her fast — was Reeves much worse? — the door remained closed. When at last Fulke emerged, he was startled to see her still close by.

“Is he all right?”

“Oh, yes, miss. He — that is — he will be fine.”

He was not entirely truthful, she believed. But she knew well enough that servants often formed alliances against their employers, and at those times it was useless to attempt to extract information they did not wish to give. Not for the first time, she wished with all her heart that she had not embarked on this hazardous journey. She should have simply told Mr. Haveney the truth. And she would never have encountered the villainous Comte de Pernoud, or the rogues on the road — or Reeves.

But she had, and she could not return to her life only a month ago, when she was as innocent as a babe in leading strings.

*

The archduke had arrived almost in the guise of a fairy godfather. Nell could indeed have believed that the red and gold traveling coach had, not long since, been an orange pumpkin. Even with Lady Sanford’s prestige, the landlady’s meals had been, to give them their highest credit, palatable. But the feast that the archduke — “pray call me Josef, madame” — provided that evening, was of a class often called Lucullan.

Hampers were carried in from the third carriage — the second one having transported footmen and an odd groom or two, as well as an ostler and Fulke and a courier who was so far invisible. Fulke included a flair for French cooking among his many agreeable qualities. He concocted a meal for his master and the two English ladies that would even have outshone the best efforts of Lord Atterbury’s chef.

Over a very fine apricot liqueur at the conclusion of the meal, Josef leaned back and smiled. “I am delighted, madame, that I thought better of securing this parlor for my sole enjoyment.”

“My dear Josef,” said Phrynie gently, “there was never a question of your securing this parlor for yourself.” She smiled at him. “I must admit that this supper was of a kind to make me remember the civilized world, which I vow I had almost forgotten.”

The archduke shot a quick glance at her. If he recognized the indomitable quality of this English lady, he chose not to mention it. “So be it,” he said cryptically, and raised his glass. “To — what shall we drink to?”

Nell, captious over her failure an hour before in her room to resurrect Rowland to life in her mind, said, “To a speedy arrival in Vienna!”

“Nell,” said Phrynie, lifting an eyebrow.

“A good idea,” interposed Josef. “We must hasten by all means to the capital. I have sent word ahead, naturally, to have my palace opened for me. I wish to entertain of course. So many foreign visitors coming for this treaty making. I should not have expected ever to feel any gratitude for that little French Emperor, but I admit that without his villainies I would not have had the opportunity of making your acquaintance, Euphrynia.”

Nell blinked. She had not heard her aunt called by her full Christian name ever before. This twosome — Josef and Euphrynia — was traveling apace!

“I shall wish at once to give a ball,” he continued, “to honor my — new acquaintance.”

Nell was suddenly aware of currents flowing beneath the surface of this pleasant dinner
à trois
—
and
strong currents at that. She set her glass firmly on the table. “I must thank you for an unusually delicious supper, Excellency,” she told him, “but I must beg to be excused now. I must…” She cast wildly about for some believable reason. Neither was listening, so she simply left.

The remainder of the evening limped along. Nell finally went to bed, for lack of anything else to do.

Her aunt came up much later and stumbled to her bed. The archduke’s store of beverages, in addition to being potent, must have been in good supply. It was a very short time before Phrynie was breathing heavily in deep slumber.

Nell’s thoughts would not subside sufficiently to allow her to sleep. She had lain awake far too many nights recently, and tonight would be such another. She tried again to materialize Rowland’s features against the darkness. Stubbornly they refused to appear. It was in all probability not his fault, for a different, far less handsome set of features insisted upon intruding. How could she concentrate on a classically handsome face, the face of a veritable Apollo, when a somewhat crooked nose, heavy brows, and a penetrating and lively pair of hazel eyes clamored for attention?

She sat up in bed. It was pointless to try to sleep, but she was reluctant to waste the night in mere aimless tossing about. She set her mind to deal now, once and for all, with Reeves the coachman.

If, indeed, he were a coachman by trade.

She might as well use this opportunity to attempt to set her thoughts logically in order. On one side, she considered Reeves’s behavior as a coachman. He knew horses, indubitably. But so did nearly every Englishman of her acquaintance. He was competent and loyal. He instructed poor Potter, who rarely came up to the mark. He served as guide, finding the safest routes and the ways least apt to come upon customs barriers, for their safety and comfort. He saw to the carriage and the baggage.

All this was more than Stuston would have done. Her aunt’s old servant had earned, he believed, the right to sit back and direct others. Reeves, on the contrary, had taken over the entire management of the journey from Calais to Vienna.

Quite simply they could not have managed without him.

But on the other hand, she considered, as she had all too often previously, his uncoachmanlike behavior.

Who was he? His speech, as she had often thought, was a bewildering variety of countryman — “Thankee kindly, miss, Ah just cum all over faintlike” indeed! — and of mock butler. And when he was not careful, when his thoughts ran ahead of him, he spoke like an educated gentleman.

He
was
educated. She had not seen him at a loss as to language. French had not baffled him, nor had German except in the villages where odd dialects prevailed. He was learned in history and letters —
vide
his referring to the Crusaders’ routes as well as, once, to Dr. Charles Bumey’s miserable travels in Germany.

The conclusion was obvious — Reeves was no coachman!

But he was equally clearly no gentleman of reputation either. Else why would he have been standing near at hand on the waterfront of Calais, dressed in rumpled fisherman’s clothing?

If he were gentleman born, then somewhere along his way he must have badly blotted his copybook. It was the only explanation she considered possible. Misbehaved so badly, she told herself, that he could not show his face to his peers but must skulk forever on the outer fringes of society, earning his living where he could, no matter how rough.

Such a waste! She wondered sentimentally if a woman were at the core of it.

Deliberately now, she set him beyond the pale in her thoughts. Her own breeding could not allow her to contemplate any further acquaintance with society’s castoff. She refused to recall his tender kiss on the chateau stairs, the amusement that often lurked in his eyes. She would not remember his brief glances that hinted that he could, if he chose, sweep her willingly off her feet. She had helped him to that belief, she knew, for she had not drawn away on the stairs. She had even, her cheeks now burning with shame, responded to him.

She would now remove him from her mind, put him forever on a shelf and forget him. To assist her in this endeavor, she threw back the covers and tiptoed to the window. If she became chilled through, she might, upon returning to her warm bed, fall asleep at once.

The stable yard below the window had fallen into night silence. Somewhere there would be horses, asleep on all fours. Postilions must be housed in the wing that stretched back at the rear of the inn itself. Tucked away in the small corners of the building must be the grooms, footmen, the courier, and outriders, all belonging to Phrynie’s archduke. Potter was doubtless sleeping on a cot in Reeves’ sickroom.

Already the storm that the archduke had predicted was sending its vanguard of snow slanting across the yard, melting and turning the cobblestones dark in the torchlight from the entrance. A movement below caught her eye, and she leaned forward to get a better view. The bulk of the vehicles — Phrynie’s as well as the archduke’s — loomed all along the outer fence of the stable yard. The shadows surrounding them were profound.

The movement she had seen was not in that vicinity. It had come from directly below her. She could see, if she moved to one side, the step before the front entrance of the inn. The movement had come from there, and it now came again. Now she could discern the man.