Julie Tetel Andresen Read online

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  CHAPTER ONE

  THE HUGE BLUE-AND-GREY Accommodation coach rolled into the yard of the Brigstone Arms on the outskirts of Thrapston and came to a heaving halt. The second coachman sang out the destination, jumped down from his perch and threw open the door to the coach. A young woman within clambered to the door, wobbled slightly and took a deep breath before accepting the outstretched hand of the second coachman.

  Descending, Miss Helen Denville took another deep breath and thought that surely the worst of her long journey must be over. She was relieved to find herself standing steady on her own two feet after the jolting discomforts of the crowded coach which had swept her out of London very early that morning. Her attention was claimed then by the second coachman who obliged her to identify her baggage. Tired and travel worn, she absently indicated a corded trunk and a portmanteau in the tangle of luggage lashed to the roof. When the coachman had extricated these, he climbed back up beside his colleague. The driver cracked his whip and snapped his reins. The coach lurched forward and away.

  Miss Denville regarded the activity in the yard wearily. Although not a posting house, the Brigstone Arms was a thriving inn, which happily situated at the crossroads of the stages to Bristol and Wolverhampton, enjoyed a lively custom. As a consequence, every ostler was so fully occupied that no one approached the young lady standing alone. Miss Denville was not a painfully shy miss, and so did not write this lack of attention down to an inability to put herself forward. Three years of relative poverty had taught her that a drab pelisse and nondescript baggage were unlikely to attract any porter in search of a suitable douceur.

  Miss Denville took it upon herself to maneuver her belongings out of the fray. She chose what she hoped would be an inconspicuous spot at the corner of the half-timbered building. There she would be warmed by the sun and sheltered from the crisp March wind. She dared not enter the inn, for she could not spare the money she would be expected to disburse on a pot of hot tea, were she to warm herself before the fire no doubt blazing in the common room. Her funds were to be used on a ticket to Calvert Green. The prospect of remaining outside and forgoing the tea did not seriously disturb her. She had learned long ago that a slight chill was easier to bear than the bold looks and comments of her fellow travellers, so she decided to wait awhile before obtaining the ticket for the next part of her journey.

  Engaging in pushing and pulling her trunk and portmanteau to the desired corner, Miss Denville did not notice when the coach she had lately vacated came to a blistering halt just beyond the inn’s gate. It deposited a man carrying a cloth bag, then immediately resumed its rush to the highway. The man hurried back into the yard and paused, scrutinizing the hubbub of activity, as if looking for something or someone. Had not Miss Denville by now been shielded from sight by an angle in the building, she would have recognized him as one of her recent travelling companions.

  He was slight and fair, with a youthful face that hid its true age. For indefinable reasons, Miss Denville had guessed him to be foreign. He was, she had concluded after intermittent inspection of him during the journey, most probably French. Unfortunately she had not had the opportunity to verify that hypothesis, for they had exchanged no conversation. She had noted, however, that the Frenchman’s mind was clearly preoccupied, for he had displayed an anxious tendency to look frequently out the window, as if to ascertain whether the stagecoach was being followed. Since Miss Denville possessed a lively imagination, she had no difficulty in beguiling a large portion of the empty hours of the journey in the weaving of several improbable stories surrounding her Fugitive Frenchman.

  Her suspicion that he was anxious, and profoundly so, would have been confirmed had she witnessed his growing nervousness as he scanned the yard of the inn. However, by the time she had sat down on her trunk in the sheltered corner of the building, the question of this mysterious man’s worries held no further interest for her. Thoughts of her own future occupied the whole of her attention. Since these had the immediate effect of damping her already travel-weary spirits, however, she cast them resolutely from her mind. No sooner had she resigned herself to the chill and boredom of the full hour that remained before her connection to Calvert Green, than her abstraction was abruptly interrupted.

  Without quite knowing how it came about, Miss Denville suddenly found herself on her feet, her elbow locked in a rough grip. Her eyes flew to the face of her captor in astonishment. He was short for a man, so that they were almost of a height. He was so dark-visaged that his black brows met in a scowling line across his forehead. He stood and looked her over in a leisurely way that might easily have disconcerted a young lady less accustomed to being on her own.

  Miss Denville was not disconcerted, but she was certainly amazed. Only one explanation presented itself to her. She said in her pleasant voice, “I believe, sir, there has been some mistake.”

  The line of black brow lightened almost imperceptibly. “Happen there has,” he replied in a gruff voice with the barest suggestion of humour.

  Still, he did not let go of her elbow, and her first surprise turned to indignation. “You are still in possession of my arm,” she pointed out, and favoured the dark, stocky man with a smile of cool civility.

  “After all the trouble we’ve been through to get you, you’ll be understanding that I’m not wanting to let you go,” he said, somewhat obscurely to Miss Denville’s way of thinking.

  The disturbing thought crossed her mind that she had fallen in with a deranged man, and one who was undoubtedly very strong, if the size of his arms and shoulders were any indication. “As I have said,” she responded with admirable calm, “there seems to be some mistake. I am sorry for all the trouble you have had in finding some person—especially when your search has ended with the wrong one! I can well imagine your disappointment, but I must beg you once again, sir, to release my arm!”

  Somewhat to her surprise, her arm was promptly dropped. “I’ll have to let you go sometime,” he said reasonably, “for we can’t stand here forever jawing over what’s plain as day! Not that I don’t admire your pluck! But there’s someone who’s mortal curious to meet you, and we’d best get on with it!”

  Before Miss Denville had a chance to recover from her release or to register the meaning of his words, the stocky man had whisked her trunk onto his shoulder and held it there with one hand, while with the other he picked up her portmanteau and proceeded to carry them off. Before disappearing through a low door leading into the inn, he gruffly commanded her to follow.

  Since he had seized her worldly possessions, she had no alternative but to do as he bade her. The prospect of capturing the attention of some person of authority to demand help dimmed as she made her way through the low-ceilinged back hallway of the rambling hostelry. She heard an explosion of male laughter from the taproom as she passed its door, and she rightly supposed that no soul therein was likely to take an interest in her plight.

  She was presently ushered into a charming, wainscotted parlour with a beamed ceiling. Her spirits lifted at the sight of the cheerful blaze in the wide stone fireplace. Before the fire st
ood the sole occupant of the room, a gentleman, staring down at the leaping flames. When Miss Denville entered, he looked up and across at her, in a much harder and more measuring way than had her recent escort.

  Miss Denville was not to be outdone and appraised him with her steady gaze. The gentleman was dressed with a simplicity bordering on severity, but she knew better than to stigmatize him as a mere country squire. The cut and fabric of the blue coat that fit his broad shoulders to perfection indicated that his tailor catered to no common taste and purse. This excellent garment had something of a foreign air, as did the stranger’s gleaming Hessians. He was, judging from the lines in his well-favoured countenance, a man beyond his first youth, most likely well into his thirties. Dispassionately considering him, Miss Denville owned him handsome save for his hardness. She did not think, from the chill in his grey eyes, that he returned the compliment.

  “Here she is, sir,” said the man she had come to think of as her abductor, “and right easy it was, too, sir! Took her by surprise, like!”

  “Thank you, Keithley,” the gentleman said curtly, upon which Keithley deposited the trunk and valise by the door and withdrew, closing the door behind him.

  Despite the oddities of her present circumstance, Miss Denville was convinced that the stranger facing her was a reasonable man of honour. She was furthermore convinced that her abduction was all a stupid misunderstanding. On these premises, she advanced a step into the room and said lightly,

  “Good day, sir. Your man indeed took me by surprise. It is the oddest thing, but I have the notion that he has mistaken me for someone else. I am sure you and I can sort it out speedily, so that I may be on my way.”

  It seemed to her that a slight look of surprise crossed his face, but he betrayed none in his cool reply. “Yes, I should hope to sort it out, as you say, with all expediency. But I must point out that, at last, the mistake is entirely your own.”

  Miss Denville was slightly taken aback. He could not have missed her reaction, for he added without altering his tone, “Pray be seated, and I shall explain.”

  She took a chair by a homely escritoire near the door. “I am waiting, sir,” she said, torn between indignation and a growing trepidation.

  “There are several points that we must clear up first,” he said levelly. “Do you deny that you have just descended from the stagecoach bound for Bristol?”

  As this question was addressed to her in the manner of an accusation, indignation gained the upper hand. She retorted with cold formality, “I am not aware that travelling by the Bristol stagecoach is a crime.”

  He smiled faintly. “It is not,” he agreed, “but do you deny it?”

  She began to entertain the suspicion that this gentleman was as deranged as his henchman. He certainly did not appear to be drunk. She felt it prudent to humour him. “Of course I do not deny it. I descended from the Bristol stage not above a quarter-hour ago.”

  This appeared to satisfy him. “And is this your baggage?” he enquired, gesturing to the trunk and portmanteau at the door.

  She assented to this without so much as glancing at them.

  “Excellent,” he said. “Now let us come straight to the point: Do you deny that you are travelling with your brother?”

  “I most certainly do!” she exclaimed, with growing certainty of his madness. “I have no brother!”

  His lip curled. “I did not think it, ma’am,” he replied, with irony.

  It took her some moments to find her tongue. When she did, all she could think to utter was, “Well, upon my word!” She was now convinced that the man was not merely deranged but fully demented. She began to worry that he might be dangerous as well.

  It became clear that she should remove herself from his presence with all due haste. Before she had decided on the course of her escape, the gentleman remarked conversationally, “You are not at all what I expected.”

  “No?” she replied. “How disappointing for you, to be sure! Perhaps you can find a woman who better meets your expectations the next time.” She rose from her chair. “Now, I fear I must be going. I dare not miss my connection.” Matching word to deed, she retreated strategically towards the door. “Pray have the goodness to call the landlord,” she continued, striving for an authoritative tone, “for I would not want to trouble your man to carry my things back out to the yard.”

  “Keithley is standing guard,” he informed her calmly, making no effort to detain her.

  She stared at him a long moment. “Is it possible … have I been … kidnapped?” she asked incredulously.

  “Nothing so dramatic, ma’am!” he assured her.

  “Do you intend to keep me against my will?”

  “Not at all,” he said. “You have only to give me what I want, and you will be free to go.”

  The implication behind this statement deprived Miss Denville of speech. She blanched.

  “You seem determined to turn this into a melodrama, my dear lady, but please rid yourself of the notion that I cherish any villainous designs on your person,” he said with complete indifference, causing Miss Denville’s pale face to colour charmingly. “I think you know what I want. To obtain it, I must search your portmanteau.”

  “It is most improper,” she said with dignity, having regained a measure of her composure.

  “It is,” he agreed handsomely, “but, I think, most necessary.”

  “You have the strangest notions, sir! I can think of few things less necessary, and I forbid you to go through my personal articles.”

  “I certainly understand that you might want to refuse me permission,” he remarked.

  “This is the outside of enough!” she said, thoroughly bewildered by this extraordinary interview. “First, you … you accuse me of being on the Bristol stage, then you endow me with a brother whose existence you doubted from the very start, and now, when you want to … to rifle my belongings, you speak like a reasonable man and tell me that you can understand my reluctance!”

  He smiled unexpectedly at this. His countenance became much less forbidding and very much more pleasing. “I assure you that I am entirely reasonable.”

  “I have had little evidence of it thus far!” she retorted roundly.

  “I need only to look through your portmanteau, and then you may go, with my blessing,” he replied with unruffled calm. “And you may lay all your fears to rest. I am not a vindictive man.”

  This last, extremely odd remark was lost on her. She knew a moment of indecision. She felt a natural repugnance towards opening her portmanteau to the inspection of a strange man. Although no one knew better than herself that she had nothing to hide, she felt that laying open her dresses to his eyes, not to mention her shifts and white clothes, could not but be embarrassing. Yet his assured composure and distinguished manner had made her aware that he was not, in fact, deranged. Surely he meant her no harm. It also occurred to her that he would not need her permission to open the valise if he were determined to do so. She went resolutely to the portmanteau, knelt, unhooked the latches and opened the case right there on the floor.

  Nothing could have exceeded her astonishment. She might have had no lingering doubts about the gentleman’s sanity, but she began to entertain some about her own. “There has been some dreadful mistake!” she exclaimed, distressed. “I have never seen these clothes before in my life!”

  “I could hardly have expected any other reaction from you, could I?” he said dryly, unmoved by her obvious agitation.

  She shot him an angry look from her kneeling position and returned swiftly, “And I could hardly have expected anything else from you!” Without waiting for a response, she turned back to the problem before her. Gingerly she picked up a few articles of clothing, not wanting to pry into another woman’s belongings, but still unable to concede that such a grave mistake had occurred before examining the evidence a little more closely. It seemed impossible that she could have erred so disastrously.

  Nevertheless, there it was. The impossi
ble had happened: These were not her clothes.

  “I simply cannot understand how this has come about,” she said, sitting back on her heels and folding her hands in her lap in a gesture of resignation.

  “You have already identified this valise as your own,” he said in a voice devoid of sympathy.

  “But there must be a hundred such cases in England,” she replied. “Perhaps thousands! I obviously confused mine with another. There was such a helter-skelter arrangement of baggage on the roof of the coach, and I was tired when I descended—but there is no purpose to making excuses!”

  She proceeded to examine the exterior of the portmanteau and found the answer to the mystery. “Well! What a ninny I am! It was entirely my own fault. My portmanteau never had such a seal on it, and I daresay this side of the valise must have been facing down when I pointed it out on the stagecoach. A curious thing, that,” she said, inspecting the seal more intently. “It looks to be some kind of cross. With some odd writing on it.” She looked up at the man. “You must think me a perfect pea goose, but I never noticed it until now!”

  The gentleman was looking thoughtfully down on her but said nothing.

  “The mischief is done,” she continued mournfully, “for the stagecoach with my portmanteau is at this moment heading full speed towards Bristol, and here I sit with some unfortunate lady’s clothing. Was there ever such a bumble broth?”

  Perhaps the sincerity of her musings finally persuaded the gentleman to demand, “You say that these are not your clothes and that this is not your portmanteau?”

  “I have been saying that for the last few minutes!” she said tartly. “It is easy enough to prove, I should think.” She picked out a pretty dress of the palest blue crape trimmed in deeper blue, stood and held the dress up to her. She was above average height for a woman and was, therefore, a little surprised that the dress reached to her ankles. “I will admit that the length is almost perfect, but I think—” she hesitated slightly and continued with a faint flush “—but I think you can see that the dress is made for a somewhat slimmer woman. And the colour is not for me! I have never been partial to pastels, for they wash me out, but there is no reason why you should consider that!”