The Duke's Messenger (9 page)

Obediently Nell turned and, gathering up the tearful Mullins, led the way across the waterfront while the two men carried Stuston the short distance to the Blue Dolphin.

Chapter Nine

After they had put Stuston to bed and the surgeon had come to examine him, Nell waited for the doctor in the parlor. The coachman’s rescuer had disappeared for the moment, but when the surgeon came to report to Nell, she was glad to see the stocky figure just behind him.

“The leg, mademoiselle, is
mal
,
très
mal
,” the doctor pronounced, proud of his uncertain grasp of English. “And even if I encased it,
vous
savez
, the man cannot go on. Two ribs are also damaged. Much pain. I have given the laudanum. As well, the jolting that even Madame’s well-sprung carriage will of necessity provide this poor man” — clearly the doctor was on the side of the downtrodden populace liberated by the Revolution — “will of a certainty put a hole in — how is it, puncture? — what you Anglais
call
les
lumières
. Is it not?”

Nell’s features reflected bewilderment. Lamps? Her schoolroom French failed her, not for the first time since she had arrived in Calais. Mystified, she turned automatically to the man who had followed the doctor into her parlor. She raised an eyebrow, and murmured, “Torches, perhaps? I do not quite understand.”

The stranger translated, “Lights, miss. Damage to his breathing lights.”

“Oh. Lungs. I see. Of course he must not travel.” With words of thanks and reassurance as to the proper care of the patient, she paid the doctor’s fee and bade him farewell.

Thinking that Stuston’s rescuer had left with the doctor, she thought herself alone. Eyes filling with unwelcome tears, she turned blindly to the window, trying to control her sudden longing to throw herself on the settee and howl in disappointment.

All her scheming had come to naught. To give her credit, she was much more distressed at the moment for the harm that had befallen Stuston, through her, than she was over the sudden disruption of their journey to Vienna.

“All my fault,” she scolded herself. “I should never have conceived this dreadful scheme.”

A slight sound behind her caused her to turn swiftly. The man from the waterfront was standing just inside the door, watching her.

“I thought you had left with the doctor!”

“No, miss. I was wishing to speak with you, by your favor. Miss.”

“Not now,” she told him. “I must go to see Stuston.”

She was halfway up the stairs before she realized he was just behind her. She half turned to bid him go down, but she was certain that he would not obey. Setting her chin and firmly resolving to put the man in his place, she climbed to the attic room where the coachman lay in a clean bed, propped against pillows no whiter than his face.

“Dear Stuston,” said Nell affectionately, “I am sure you understand the doctor’s instructions. We cannot allow you to travel until you are quite well. You will stay here in the Blue Dolphin.”

“But, Miss Nell, I ain’t leaving you in the lurch, pardon my expression, miss, but you can’t go across Europe with only the footmen and a groom to do for you. I’ll be up and about in the morning,” he insisted, his words becoming slurred as the laudanum took-effect, “sure as — my name — . Stuston.”

Nell turned to Stuston’s rescuer who had followed her up to the attic room, but not in time to notice a sudden alertness in his hazel eyes.

*

Had she seen that expression and coupled it with the odd unevenness in the man’s speech, which veered from broad countryman to educated English, she might not have been so relieved when, later in the day, the man returned to the inn, his fisherman’s beret in hand, and sought an audience in the small sitting room that had been placed at her disposal.

“I am glad you came,” she told him, “for I should like again to thank you for your timely assistance. I cannot reward you as is your due, but certainly —” She rummaged in her reticule for coins.

He protested. “Nay,” he said in a gruff voice. “I did not come for blunt. I’m sorry about your man. Lucky I was on the spot.”

“I truly do not know what I would have done,” she said, still hunting for coins.

“Mebbe my luck’s still in.”

Something in the tone of his voice caught her attention. She looked up quickly. “And what do you mean by that, pray?”

“Begging pardon. I meant only that you don’t have a coachman and I don’t have a job.” As an afterthought, he added, “Miss.”

“But you’re a fisherman!”

“Am I? A’course. I have druv horses afore, though, miss. Noth — naught to it.”

He puzzled her. His accent was rude, as was his voice. He was not a gentleman, judging by his clothing. Even his features spoke of a rough and ready, not to say violent, past. But his hazel eyes looked steadily at her, without humility, and she was visited suddenly by a feeling of confidence. This man was competent, as revealed by his immediate authority with Stuston. If he said he druv — I mean drove, she corrected herself — horses, then she was sure he could.

Not like herself, she thought, who says I can do many things that I cannot do and trusts to learn them before disaster comes.

Yet she hesitated. He spoke English without a French accent, but his speech was oddly variable. She finally decided that he must often have been in contact with those of the upper classes, and being ambitious, had tried to ape his betters.

“But you have no references?”

“Nay, miss, but then you see, we’re not in England.”

“How very convenient for you.”

The man waited in the public room until Nell gave him the news that he had been hired. He said only, “Call me Reeves, miss.”

She had not, remembering the level look in his eyes, expected any obsequious phrase of gratitude. But she had not quite reckoned with his easy acceptance of his new employment. Indeed, when he added, “What time do we start in the morning?” she was quite put out.
We
indeed! She and Reeves were in no sense of the word partners in this expedition. He was merely a coachman, hired because accident had befallen old Stuston.

It occurred to her dimly that perhaps she would be glad of Reeves’s ability to manage affairs before they reached Vienna. Their company was becoming sadly depleted, since Samuel was to stay here in Calais with Stuston. When they had left London, Nell was content to travel lightly. One cumbersome chariot, providing space in the interior for Lady Sanford, Nell, and Mullins, seemed sufficient for their needs as well as enabling them to travel more swiftly.

Accompanying them at the start were a minimum of servants — Stuston and Samuel, Potter, and young Hayne as groom. Now the company had dwindled by half. Only the footman Potter and the groom Hayne, both young and without experience, remained. Reeves was clearly a worthy addition. Nell had no reason for the uneasy feeling that remained with her, but she was acutely aware that its source was the new coachman.

Reeves remained a vivid figure in her thoughts the rest of that day.

It had been a much easier task to convince Lady Sanford to employ the stranger than she had expected. She was prepared to use her not inconsiderable powers of persuasion and would have pointed out that in two days they would reach Paris, where they could, with the advice of the ambassador, seek out a coachman of more reliable background.

Her arguments were not needed. Lady Sanford was still too weak to care inordinately. She was only mildly distressed to hear about Stuston, saying only, “They’ll take care of him here. And he was far too slow a driver. I feared we would never, at his rate, get to Paris. I do hope your protegé will really put them to it.”

“I thought you did not wish to make this trip, Aunt?”

Lady Sanford dismissed her about-face with an airy gesture. “Now that we are started, it seems foolish to give it all up. After all, Tom will be along shortly.”

Nell hoped he would indeed.

“And besides,” continued Phrynie, “everyone I know has traveled to Paris since May, and I felt quite out of it. There may be some excitement at court, although I have little hope of it. In truth, Pamela Wright said that ditch water wasn’t in it for dullness. But the Bourbons did once know how to live, and one can only hope that the present king has not forgotten everything he knew.”

Enlivened by her speculations, Phrynie threw the covers aside. “Call Mullins, my dear. I do not choose to lie abed any longer. Go hire your man, Nell, and let’s be on with it.”

She had done her aunt’s bidding and then, stricken by the realization that she had neglected Stuston too long, made a visit to the attic room.

He made an ineffectual effort to rise when she entered. “Pray do not disturb yourself, Stuston,” she told him, “for I am persuaded movement gives you great pain.”

“That it does, miss, for a fact. And a’ course, the leg don’t move less I take it in hand, so to say.”

After a word of commiseration, she said, “I have not heard just what happened to you, Stuston. Pray tell me.”

She nursed a secret suspicion that perhaps Reeves, who spoke confidently of his luck, might have given that luck an assisting hand. After all, Reeves alone was to profit from Stuston’s mischance.

But a few words from Stuston put that suspicion to rest.

“It’s only, miss, that I’ve always had this longing, you might say, to go to sea. It was like the ferry put me in mind of old times. I know it’s a hard life, for my father and his father afore him sailed afore the mast. Not an easy life, like the one I got now.”

He hesitated, clearly fearing to jeopardize the easy living that was his. But after a glance at his mistress’s niece from under tufted gray brows, he bumbled on. “So it seemed like, having the chance, I had to go down and look at all them little boats. Not so grand as His Majesty’s fleet, a’ course, I know that. But there’s something about them tidy little vessels that says summat to me, you might say. And I was watching them, thinking, don’t you see, how it would be to straddle the deck and feel the sea pushing up from under.”

He fell into silent recollection. At last, Nell ventured, “Stuston, you did say that you were pushed. Do you know who did it?”

“Now
that
I don’t remember, miss. Did I say pushed?”

“Yes, Stuston, you did.”

“I must ‘a thought a man could stand on his own feet less he
got
shoved. But I reckon I was a bit off me head for a bit.”

“There was no one near you? A stocky man, for instance, with a navy-blue fisherman’s jersey? A man with a crooked nose?”

“Ah, now, miss, I see which way you’re thinking, if I may say so. It’s the gent that got me back here and into bed, right? I don’t recollect seeing him afore, and that’s a fact, miss.” He shook his head. “Maybe I got shoved and maybe I didn’t. Maybe I slipped and maybe I didn’t. But first thing I knew, that is first thing I’m
sure
of, I was flat on my back and that fool Potter yelling his head off his shoulders, and that was it, miss, until you come.” Shyly, he added, “And I thankee.”

She cut short his apologies about putting them to inconvenience by his accident. Hesitating, she told him about his replacement. “But he is only temporary, you know, until we get to Paris and can find another coachman.”

The old man shot her a look of surprising sharpness. “It’s not for me to say, miss,” he began, going on after all to say, “but I’d rest easier in my bed if the man — Reeves, you call him? — kept on all the way. He’s not apt to want my job in the end, so I read him.”

She considered his remark thoughtfully. “I’m not sure but what you have the right of it.” Suddenly she felt a deep need for reassurance. “Stuston, pray tell me the truth. Do you think we can get along? Can we succeed in getting all the way to Vienna?”

She was hanging on his answer. The accident to the coachman had shaken her badly. Another accident might well reduce their numbers to a perilous few. And yet she was reluctant to ask her aunt to hire additional outriders, for one unknown servant at a time was quite sufficient.

“Nay, miss, I don’t wonder you’re fair diddled. But best call to mind that Mr. Tom is coming along ahind us, and he’ll not be traveling alone, I’ll be bound. Now then, just you count on Mr. Tom. He’ll not let you down.”

How misguided Stuston was! Tom was certainly far from the rock of reliability that the coachman thought him. She started to give him the benefit of her considered analysis of her wayward brother. “He —” She stopped short, realizing that the man’s pain had come back with vigor, and his every breath was troubled.

“Didn’t the doctor leave you dosage?”

“Aye, he left me summat,” he gasped, “but I thought not to take it for a bit.”

“Nonsense,” said Nell stoutly. “Take the medicine at once. You’ll be better more swiftly if you can rest. I’ll send Potter to you. My aunt has it in mind to leave Samuel here to keep you company. And don’t worry about your job. My aunt cannot do without you.” She smiled sweetly at him, watched him take his dose, and left him.

With Stuston provided for, the new coachman hired, and her aunt quite clearly looking forward to their arrival in Paris, there should have been nothing to keep Nell awake-that night. But unaccountably she could not sleep.

Summoning up her recollection of Rowland Fiennes, she tried to concentrate on his admirable features. Guiltily, she realized that the entire day, to say nothing of the day before, she had not given him the slightest thought. Now she would make amends. It took an effort of will to put aside the clamant calls of the day’s business on her attention. The object of making the journey had vanished in the details of simply getting on.