Julie Tetel Andresen Read online

  “No reason at all.”

  She cocked an eyebrow at him but refused to rise to the fly. Then something much more convincing caught her eye. She bent down, extracted a Zephyr shawl from under several dresses and cast this article around her shoulders.

  “Am I likely to have purchased this?” she demanded triumphantly.

  The shawl, of a stylish pattern that had been all the crack that Season, was immediately striking for the boldness of its hue. Bright pink had also been popular with ladies of fashion of late. However, Helen Denville’s hair was a deep auburn with strong red highlights—much too strong for beauty, she had often stated. The pink, so close to her hair, even what little peeped out from under the brim of her bonnet, could not be deemed becoming.

  “I think the lady to whom this belongs,” Miss Denville pronounced sagely, “is a blonde.”

  Reading the look on the gentleman’s face, she hastily untied the ribbons of her unadorned round bonnet and removed it, saying indignantly, “And I can assure you that my hair is entirely my own—to my sorrow!”

  Had she but known it, Miss Denville’s hair had been the envy of many a debutante. It was thick and rich in colour and had the trick of adapting to any style. When it took the light, it could be deep brown, chestnut, or even the hated red. It was a lovely banner and suited her clear hazel eyes and translucent skin very well. She had never been an Accredited Beauty, but one could assume that a woman of her looks would have been loath to tamper with such an asset. It was easy to discern that the secret of its colour was contained in no bottle.

  “Yes,” the gentleman said, convinced at last, “I see.”

  She wrinkled her brow. “What teases me in all of this,” she said slowly, “is whose portmanteau this could be. There was only one other lady besides myself on the stagecoach from London, and I strongly doubt that these clothes would have suited her, much less have fit her!” She looked down meditatively, eyeing the disorder of the clothing for clues. When no plausible explanation presented itself, she said quietly and in a puzzled voice, “This is certainly a mystery!”

  “But not, I trust, insoluble,” the gentleman said. “May I assume that you have no further objections to my examination of the portmanteau?”

  With a gesture, she indicated that he was at liberty to do whatever he wished with that ill-fated object. She retreated and engaged her attention by looking out a window. The gentleman then lifted the valise onto a small table. Miss Denville determined that the gentleman did not find what he was looking for, since after some minutes of searching, he breathed what she supposed to be a very dark oath, uttered, fortunately, in a foreign tongue.

  “Who else was on the stagecoach with you?” he asked.

  She turned from the window to face him. She had no difficulty recalling her six travelling companions. She enumerated: a farmer; a parson; a bespectacled gentleman who Miss Denville believed could only have been an accountant; an ancient who had dozed the entire time; a foreign man; and a matron with her son, considered as a unit.

  “There was no one else? Are you certain?”

  “After nearly eight hours of close confinement with them, I am hardly likely to have forgotten anyone! I can even tell you what each of them had for lunch!” She shuddered delicately. “The farmer had an enormous sausage, the parson had—”

  “Yes, that will do,” the gentleman said, stemming the tide of these recollections. He then asked her to describe to him once again the occupants of the coach. After she obligingly did so, she saw his eyes narrow in reflection. “I wonder …” was all he said. Then a few moments later, “But that is very clever!”

  Miss Denville forbore to press him for an explanation. After a moment, however, she said, “I should not wish to appear vulgarly inquisitive, you understand, sir, but my curiosity has been piqued! I believe you are searching for a lady?”

  “You might say that,” he said with an enigmatic smile.

  “Do you intend to pursue her?”

  “Most definitely.”

  “Is it so very important that you find her?”

  “I consider it so,” he replied. “Important enough for me to have followed the coach until someone disembarked.”

  Miss Denville bit her lip. “I am not sure that I understand. Did you—do you have some kind of plan?”

  “An exquisitely simple plan, really,” he said. “The, er, lady has, I think I have told you, something I want. Something which I believed—and still do!—to be hidden in this particular portmanteau. I intended to apprehend her, as you are aware, and, er, take it from her.”

  “Does it belong to you?”

  “That is precisely the point of contention. She apparently does not think so. I, however, believe differently.”

  “This … this thing. Is it valuable?”

  “It is beyond value,” he answered calmly.

  Miss Denville took a moment to digest these disclosures. “Am I to collect that you are a highwayman?”

  The gentleman had good cause to look affronted. “Dear ma’am,” he said at his coolest, “I am most certainly not a highwayman.” Miss Denville was about to beg pardon when he continued smoothly, “I am what I think you may term a gamester.”

  “I might have known!” she exclaimed involuntarily.

  “Now it is you who have inspired my curiosity,” he returned. “What could possibly have made you detect my profession?”

  “Nothing,” she admitted candidly, “for you look the perfect gentleman. Perhaps you are in the style of the notable gamester Mr. Darcy. I have never seen him, of course, for he has been living for years on the Continent, but I have heard much about him, and they say that he is quite the gentleman.”

  This gentleman checked himself slightly and then bowed formally. “At your service, ma’am.”

  “You are Mr. Darcy?”

  He bowed again.

  “Either I have run mad,” she said, maintaining a strong guard on her composure, “or I am dreaming. In either case, I should like to know what is happening to me!”

  CHAPTER TWO

  “DEAR MA’AM,” Mr. Darcy kindly informed her with a gleam in his eyes, “I feel compelled to tell you that you have tumbled into an Adventure!”

  “Then I must tumble out of it again, sir, for I have another stagecoach to catch at four o’clock,” she said with a smile. “I dare not miss it, for it is the last one today that connects to Calvert Green. You must realize, however, that it goes very much against the grain to have to leave such an intriguing adventure—I being so melodramatic, as you have perceived!”

  “Just so,” he said gravely, but she caught the twinkle of amusement in his eye.

  She picked up her discarded bonnet and moved towards the door. “I do wish you the best of luck in finding what you seek, although I am not convinced that I should! I shall leave you with the portmanteau. It has only brought me bad luck. I am in a bit of a fix with my baggage, but the mistake was mine, and I have no one to blame but myself. Perhaps you could call a porter to help me with my trunk?”

  Mr. Darcy consulted his watch. “It still wants twenty-five minutes to four,” he said, replacing the timepiece in his waistcoat pocket, “so you need not hurry. I shall have Keithley attend to you in due time. There is a sharp wind blowing outside, and I think you would do well to sit down in front of the fire.”

  She hesitated.

  “The least I can do for you is to offer you a few minutes’ use of the private parlour,” he said in a persuasive manner, “after the trial I have put you through.”

  “It has been an excessively odd encounter,” she agreed.

  “I must have appeared to you in a very strange light.”

  “You did. But I thought when I first laid eyes on you that you were a reasonable gentleman. Although you gave me cause to doubt it, it happens that my first impression was correct. Or almost! You are certainly reasonable,” she said provocatively.

  He smiled. “Then you must let me convince you that I am also a gentleman by o
ffering to procure you some refreshment.”

  This seemed to her an excellent suggestion, and so, while he crossed to the door and issued an order to Keithley, she peeled off her rather worn kid gloves and folded them next to her bonnet on the table. She then disposed herself in an old, but very comfortable armchair by the fire.

  When Mr. Darcy returned, he helped her off with her pelisse, which he carefully arranged over the back of her chair. He had very distinguished manners, surely those of a gentleman born and bred. Miss Denville had no intention of using these moments of intimacy for prying, though her fertile brain was seething with conjecture.

  He pulled up a chair opposite hers by the fireplace. He did not sit down but placed one boot on the seat and propped his elbow on his knee, chin in hand. He remained silent thus for a minute.

  “I have a proposal for you,” he said at last, turning to his companion.

  She eyed him suspiciously. “And if I refuse, shall I be reminded that Keithley is standing guard?”

  “Of course not,” he replied with a matter-of-factness that could not but reassure her. “I think, however, you may be of use to me.”

  “How may that be?” she asked, surprised.

  “I am not sure yet,” he admitted, “but several ideas recommend themselves to me.”

  “I do not know if I choose to be of use to anyone,” she replied firmly.

  His brows lifted. “No?” he said with patent disbelief. “Pray excuse my frankness, ma’am. I do not mean to imply that you were born into the serving class. In fact, it is quite evident that you are a lady of Quality.”

  She regarded him with her clear gaze. “That is correct.”

  “And one who has fallen, as the saying goes, on hard times.”

  She did not need to confirm the truth of his statement. He knew very well that she had been travelling by the common stagecoach, and her clothes, though neat, were hardly in the first style of elegance. A man with his eye for fashion could not have missed the undistinguished manner of her dress.

  “This leads me to conclude that you are in employment,” he continued tranquilly and in such an impersonal way that she could take no offence. “Or, what is more likely, that you are now travelling to some place of employment. Calvert Green, perhaps?”

  A constrained smile betrayed her. “Remarkably accurate, Mr. Darcy,” she said. She did not bother to inform him of the trifling detail that Calvert Green was not the place of her employment but the home of her former governess, to whom she had planned a surprise visit before joining her employer. “And having guessed that much, I should not think it wonderful if you could also guess the nature of the employment I am about to take up.”

  “You will astound me,” he said, “if you are going to be anything other than a governess.”

  “That was a safe bet,” she said irrepressibly.

  “I know how to play the odds,” he replied.

  “I should think you would!”

  “Correct me if I am wrong, then,” he said, ignoring her impertinence, “but is not a governess of use to her employer, and in more ways than one? I had always thought that a governess was saddled with a high-spirited child— usually more than one!—so that she had no time for anything else. Or, if she were so fortunate in her charges that they did not take up all of her time, her employer found ways to fill it by desiring her to perform menial tasks that might otherwise be reserved for the second maid. All in the interests of economy, of course!”

  He understood the situation very well. “That is too true,” she said ruefully, “but at least for my usefulness I am given a wage.”

  “You drive a hard bargain, ma’am,” he said. “I had every intention of offering you payment.” He saw her stiffen and added, “Must I repeat that I have no improper schemes in mind?”

  The various, often garbled, accounts of many of Mr. Darcy’s exploits abroad had included references to the kind of women young ladies of Quality were not supposed to know about. Needless to say, many of these stories had nevertheless reached Miss Denville’s maidenly ears. Meeting him now, she could readily believe a good part of those tales. She also believed him when he said that he harboured no evil designs on her.

  “Un-n-necessary!” she faltered.

  “Well, then. I ask you to consider my offer.”

  “But I have yet to discover what it is,” she objected.

  “Simply that you travel with me,” he said. “There is Keithley to play propriety, if that weighs with you. I feel instinctively that the portmanteau should remain with you, and I have a desire to remain with the portmanteau.”

  She blinked. “That is a little vague, I think.”

  A knock on the door heralded the arrival of a strapping serving girl. She bore a tray on which were placed a pot of steaming tea, two cups, a loaf of country bread, a collation of cold meats, and a pot of creamery butter. Miss Denville accepted a cup of tea from Mr. Darcy’s hands and availed herself of his offer of the bread and meat.

  “I cannot be more specific, but perhaps I can be more persuasive,” he said, after the girl left the room. “Is this your first position as governess? Yes, I thought so. What is to be your first year’s wage?”

  She named a figure.

  He doubled it.

  “You jest, Mr. Darcy!” she said, putting her cup down in the saucer. She saw, however, that he was serious. She added, “This is quite a lot of money for nothing more than my company.”

  “I feel that it might be worth it,” he said. “Then again, I have no guarantee that your presence will help me obtain my end. It is, after all, a gamble.”

  She looked up at him briefly. “I am not much of a gambler, I fear.”

  “Now is a good time to start,” Mr. Darcy began as he laid out his terms. “You need only remain with me and the portmanteau for a few days, perhaps. I cannot say, but I do not think that I shall need you above two weeks. I shall pay all travelling expenses, and you are assured of your wage, whether or not I am successful. You have nothing to lose, then, except the position that you are travelling to, for I would be less than honest if I were to assure you that it would be held for you more than a day or two. But since I propose to pay you two years’ wages for a fortnight of assistance, the loss of that employ should not disturb you. You will have a modicum of security, and time in which to decide what you want to do next. You might even invest some of the money on ’Change and build yourself a small income.”

  The idea of such an adventure with the notable Mr. Darcy, plus the promise of financial security, appealed strongly to Miss Denville’s imagination. Mr. Darcy had furthermore presented his proposition in such an ordinary way that she had to remind herself that it was not as commonplace an undertaking as he portrayed it. She knew there must be many pitfalls to this seemingly simple proposal, and just because she could not foresee what they might be did not mean they did not exist. It seemed, in short, too wild a risk.

  “I am tempted, Mr. Darcy,” she said, shaking her head, “but I must decline your generous offer.”

  “As you wish,” he said promptly and dropped the subject. He then remarked blandly on the weather.

  This gambit had the effect he no doubt hoped for. Miss Denville could not resist pursuing the original topic. “There are so many other odd circumstances attending our meeting,” she said meditatively after a sip of tea, “that I hope you would not think it too strange of me to speak frankly.”

  “Not at all,” was his cordial response.

  “Well,” she said, composing her thoughts, “from your appearance and from your offering me what seems like a fortune, I must assume that you are not experiencing pecuniary difficulties. I also gather that gambling is your sole means of support. It follows that you must be a very successful gamester.”

  “Yes, I often win,” he said matter-of-factly.

  This avowal, for some reason, surprised her. “I wonder that you should not be ashamed to admit it!”

  “Why should I? There is nothing the least shamefu
l about winning. That is, after all, the object, is it not?”

  “But to win so consistently!”

  “Are you suggesting that I do not play fairly?” he quizzed her.

  She flushed visibly.

  “I can safely say that had I a reputation for fuzzing the cards I should not be nearly as successful as I am.”

  “That is not what I mean,” she said with some difficulty. “It is just that…you have said that you recognize my Quality, and well, you cannot expect me not to recognize yours, or hoax me into believing that you are not of good birth.”

  “It is well enough.”

  “Then I wonder that you turned to gaming, when a certain class of people do not consider it … gentlemanly to win so much more than they lose—if you see what I mean? Oh, dear! I can see that I have made a bumble broth of it!”

  The notable gamester presented her with the pleasant but otherwise expressionless face that had won him many a fat purse at the gaming table. “You have stated it very well,” he said. “Would you be more inclined to participate in this adventure with me if I were to tell you that I am a nobleman who has been cheated out of his birthright by a singularly dastardly fellow? I perceived that this is not the moment to be modest, and I have always desired a title. Let me see. A duke, I should think, would turn the trick. Yes, I must be a duke.”

  “Are you, indeed?” she twinkled back at him, entering into the spirit of this. “Well, now, you know that nothing could satisfy my sense of the dramatic more, but I am not such a wet goose as to believe that you really are a duke. Oh, no! Not even a marquis, and I would be highly skeptical to hear you were an earl. Now that I come to talk to you, I notice that you lack that certain something which could even be construed as baronial,” she told him with a sly glance, “and although all reports on the mysterious Mr. Darcy carry with them hints of his high rank, I must say that upon making your acquaintance, I could hardly place you above—a squire!”