The Duke's Messenger (8 page)

Chapter Eight

When Nell saw Lady Sanford’s blue traveling coach unloaded from the ferry on the far side of the Channel, she began to relax. Even though Mr. Haveney by now had learned the truth from his pliable messenger, there was little that he could do. The storm that threatened as they left the Ship Inn for the ferry had worsened, and theirs was the last vessel to cross for a while.

There was no way, other than by a private yacht with a foolhardy captain, to set anyone from England down on the French shore.

The Channel crossing had been very trying. The November seas, driven by near-gale winds from the North Sea, had risen in tumult, tossing the ferry unmercifully. Lady Sanford, never a strong traveler, had taken at once to her bunk, moaning incessantly.

Since Mullins was, if possible, even more prone to respond disastrously to the motion of the waves than her mistress, it was left to Nell to tend them both, until their heartfelt pleas simply to leave them to die had driven her up to the deck.

This journey was Nell’s very first crossing, and she was gratified to find that her sea legs — such a vulgar expression! — were strong, and she truly enjoyed the rowdy winds and the tossing waters.

Lady Sanford found that one night’s rest in the Blue Dolphin, the small but comfortable French inn where they lodged, was not sufficient to restore her to health. No matter how anxious Nell was to place more distance between them and Mr. Haveney, she could not but feel sympathy for the patient in the back bedroom of the inn. When Lady Sanford was ill, so it seemed, she expected the world to stop and commiserate with her.

The proprietors of the Blue Dolphin found that the new influx of English tourists, after the famine resulting from the Revolution and the belligerent tendencies of the Emperor, brought prosperity beyond their wildest dreams. Certainly the advent of this English milady and her
ah
si
belle
niece
, accompanied by an equipage and staff of some opulence, was welcome custom, and the landlady had promptly installed the ashen-faced milady in the best bedroom, looking out upon a garden now winter-dead.
Tisanes
which were guaranteed to restore her from the rigors of the crossing were furnished hourly to her.

While Mullins had been equally indisposed on the ferry, she felt the pull of duty in addition to a well-developed sense of martyrdom. By the second afternoon on land, she was able to totter downstairs and take a little gruel.

Nell entered her aunt’s bedroom. “How good it is to see color in your cheeks again, dear Aunt.”

“I shall never again set foot on a vessel of any kind,” declared Phrynie. “Never.”

“I shall hope our French improves, then, for we shall of necessity not return home again.”

Phrynie, quite properly, ignored her niece’s remark. “I should have simply insisted, Nell, on refusing to embark on this — this mad journey.” She lay back on the down pillows and closed her eyes. “I must say that even the word ‘embark’ makes me queasy.”

Nell silently blessed the
mal
de
mer
that afflicted her aunt — heartless, of course, but at least there would be no question now of returning to London!

Nor would there be for the moment any probing questions on the subject of the nonappearance of Tom Aspinall. Lady Sanford would soon enough notice that Nell’s assurances of Tom’s imminent arrival were not fulfilled. But, thought Nell, buoyed by her success thus far, she would deal with her aunt’s renewed suspicions when required to do so.

“Now, child,” said Lady Sanford faintly, “go away and let me sleep. I have not the slightest doubt that my looks have faded entirely away, and I shall not wish to see a mirror for days.”

Nell had no hesitation in leaving her aunt asleep in the care of the fawning but competent landlady while she set out for fresh air and to explore her first French town. She of course had a thorough grounding
in
French, and had at the outset had little doubt that she could make herself understood. But speaking the language in the schoolroom was a different affair from being fluent in the streets of Calais.

Nonetheless, the lure of the exotic and unknown drew her, and without fear but with commendable caution and mindful of the conventions, she took Mullins with her. “Besides, Mullins, you’ve been indoors too long. I cannot understand why you loathe fresh air so much. It is beyond all things health giving. Get your shawl, Mullins.”

The maid, fearing for her life if she set foot on a French street, made clandestine arrangements with the footman Potter to follow them at a distance.

“These frogs would soon as not cut a throat,” Mullins informed him, “and my throat suits me the way it is.”

“Aye,” responded Potter, “and a purty throat it be, too!”

“Mind yourself,” retorted Mullins loftily, “my throat’s me own, and not for the likes of you to gaze on!”

Properly, but not seriously, chastised, the footman followed his mistress and the abigail as they set out for the waterfront. The Blue Dolphin was only a short way up a side street, and there was little there to attract a pedestrian.

The waterfront was a broad street lying parallel to the quay. No trees lined its edge, but because of the recent storm an abundance of fishing vessels tossed at their sheltered anchorages. Innumerable masts moved back and forth in stately fashion. If she watched them long enough, Nell suspected they might exercise a strong hypnotic effect on her.

Here in the harbor the ferocity of the seas was tamed, even though the lingering swell was sufficient to lift the decks of the smaller vessels at times above the level of her eyes. Imagine going out on such small boats to find fish, of all things! Yet she was intelligent enough to realize that if this were all one could do for a living, it did not behoove one to complain.

The storm, while subsiding, was not over. The wind blew hard, driving the rain nearly horizontally before it. The water deepened on the cobbled pavement, sudden gusts piled it into miniature seas, and she and Mullins were soon drenched to the knees.

Nell herself did not complain. Brought up in Essex, in
what was after all a domesticated neighborhood, she considered herself an outdoors person, a veritable countrywoman. She had loved London’s giddy whirl and manifold entertainments, but now with the fresh wind buffeting her, she knew that living in the city was not the goal of her existence.

She wondered how Rowland would consider the question. His duties of course would keep him in London, if they did not lead him to stations abroad. She felt a pang of dismay. She believed she could live a contented life in the city, if he were with her. But her distress stemmed from the fact that she did not in truth know what Rowland thought about a great many things.

She was willing — even eager — to put her future into the hands of a man she knew nothing about. But, she told herself stoutly, he loved her, and between them they would sweep away all misunderstandings, all conflicts…

She clenched her fists in her pockets. The thought of conflicts between them was a completely unwelcome, unwarranted intrusion on her state of bliss. She was too tired, that was all.

She became aware of a voice whining in her ear, above the wind.

“Miss Nell, can’t we go back?” panted Mullins, her breath taken by the gale. “Bain’t nothin’ to see here anyway more’n what we seen already on the boat. I had enough of that.”

“All right, Mullins,” said Nell, philosophically adding, “it won’t do us any good to come down with a congestion on the chest.”

They turned their backs on the wind and the waterfront and started back toward the inn. They had taken only a few steps when feet pounded behind them, and Potter burst out, “Oh, Miss Nell! Come quick!”

Nell stopped short. “What — oh, it’s you, Potter. What are you doing here?”

“It’s Stuston! Come, quick!”

“Where is Stuston? I thought he was — Never mind, Potter. What about Stuston?” The thought came to her that Potter had garbled the message. “Is my aunt all right?”

“No, miss. I mean, yes, miss. It is
Stuston
! He’s
dead
!”

Nell breathed, “Oh, no!” Potter was a fool, he must be, to alarm her so. But a second look at the footman’s ashen face told her he was in deadly earnest. She spared a thought for the appropriateness of the word that came to her before she demanded to be taken to her aunt’s coachman.

Potter hurried before her along the waterfront to an area nearer the main body of the fishing fleet than she and Mullins had reached. The elderly coachman was stretched out on the wet cobbles, one leg twisted beneath him, his face as gray as the pavement and streaming with the falling rain.

The little knot of jersey-clad fishermen that had gathered apparently out of nowhere moved aside to make way for her. Absently she noted the strong residual aroma of their latest catches as she knelt beside Stuston.

He was not dead. His eyes were open, even though they seemed at first not to recognize her. “Stuston! What is amiss? Are you ill?”

Recognition came to his eyes. He made a convulsive movement to rise. “Please, Miss Nell, I’m sorry. I just don’t know rightly what came over me. I’ll be all right and tight. Just give me a jiff, by your leave, and I’ll get my breath back.”

His eyes closed. Nell caught her forefinger between her teeth in a gesture of extreme dismay. How would she get him back to the inn? She looked wildly around at the faces of the fishermen, set in lines of compassion or skepticism according to their various temperaments. Suddenly Stuston opened his eyes wide and cried out, “I must ‘a been pushed, that’s what!”

She heard the voices of the men surrounding her, speaking
in
a patois she did not fully understand. “Fell, didn’t he? Came all over sudden. Nobody near him. That
garcon
there, he was. Didn’t see him pushed,
vous
savez
. Only tried to help, that’s all I did.”

Nell knew there was no help to be had from them. Mullins was worse than useless, and Nell thought she would do well to deal with only the coachman and not have to drag Mullins back as well.

Stuston struggled to rise. The movement of his leg forced a groan of pain from him and he fell back, this time mercifully unconscious.

“Pushed, did he say?” said one of the men. “Going to make trouble for us, is he? Nobody saw him pushed, did they?” The speaker glanced around the group, sending them a clear message. In a body, they removed themselves from the scene as quickly as they had come.

“Wait!” cried Nell, “
s’il
vous
plaît
!”

Only one of the roughly clad men lingered. Her eyes went to him in mute appeal. She saw that he was a man of somewhat stocky build with irregular features — his nose seemed awry as though it had at one time been broken — and a general appearance of having slept in his salt-encrusted clothes for
a
sennight. His grizzled hair and his manner put his age at around fifty, she guessed.

“
S’il
vous
plaît
?” she ventured.

His voice was husky, but to her vast relief he spoke in native English. “This gent’s yours, miss?”

“He is my aunt’s coachman. Do you think — it’s serious?”

“Bad enough,” he grunted. His hands, surprisingly clean, moved competently over Stuston’s supine body. “Nothing vital broken, as it seems, miss. But that leg’s not right.” He looked at her from under thick eyebrows. “What shall I do with him, miss?”

Nell bit her lip in frustration. “We’re staying at the Blue Dolphin, just up that street. Can we get him there? I could take one foot, and Mullins — Mullins, where are you?”

She looked around for her aunt’s maid. Mullins was standing well away from them, clearly torn between her duty to stay with Nell and her strong desire to run on tottering legs back to safety at the inn.

“Don’t count on her,” said Nell’s companion, “we shall be fortunate if she does not give way to hysterics.”

His comment was so at variance with his appearance that Nell could only gape at him. His eyes glinted oddly for an instant before he seemed to gather himself together and attend to the task before him. When he spoke again, it was with a strong flavor of English countryman. “Tha’d best see him to his bed.” Then, with a sidelong glance from under his heavy brows, he added stiffly, “Miss.”

Suddenly the balance of authority seemed to shift. Nell was, in spite of her misgivings, quite willing to leave the next step in the rescue of Stuston to this man. To quell her doubts, she simply told herself that she had not heard correctly.

“Can you — would you help?”

“Yes.” He glanced around, and caught sight of Potter, lingering beside Mullins and wearing a helpless air. “You there, come here. Off with your jacket, lad.”

With Potter’s help, he slid the jacket underneath Stuston’s legs, carefully moving the injured one to lie parallel with the good one. Handing the jacket sleeves to their owner in the form of a makeshift sling, he ordered, “Hoist ‘im up. I’ll take the shoulders. Now, then, miss, lead the way.”