Amanda Scott (26 page)

She returned his smile, feeling more in charity with him now. He was Joss, and she loved him. Despite his odd notions about the sort of man who would suit Eliza, she knew she could handle him if she could but manage to keep young Halldorson from coming to the point for a day or two. And she was certain she could manage that easily enough.

When she left him, she returned to the drawing room, where she ordered Davy and Gwenyth off to bed and then sat chatting with her aunt and Eliza until Joss joined them when the tea tray was brought in. Later, in her own bedchamber, wearing a charming confection of sea-green satin and forest-green velvet, she paced the carpet for some time, trying to put her recent journey into perspective. But try as she would, here in London in this elegant house, surrounded by her lively family, she could not make her recent experiences seem real.

Their reality became clearer the following morning, however, when Marwyn stepped into the sunlit morning room to announce the arrival of Sir Antony Davies and Mr. Roger Carruthers.

“I have put them in the downstairs saloon, my lady,” the butler informed Lady Cadogan, who was engaged in writing graceful replies to a flattering number of invitations. “Shall I tell the gentlemen you are not at home?”

Meriel set aside the copy of the
Monthly Mirror
she had been idly perusing, prepared to speak up if her aunt should answer in the affirmative, but it was Eliza, casting aside her embroidery, who responded to the butler.

“We will come downstairs at once, Marwyn,” she said quickly, adding with a self-satisfied toss of her head, “I daresay there will be any number of callers before the morning is done, so don’t sit like a stick, Meri, bustle about. I daresay these two have come to see you, after all.”

Meriel exchanged a speaking look with her aunt, but in the butler’s presence she forbore to reprove Eliza.

Lady Cadogan said, “Show the gentlemen to the drawing room, Marwyn. We shall be down directly. No, Eliza,” she added quickly, when that young lady jumped up to follow in the butler’s wake, “you must tidy yourself first.”

“Yes,” Meriel agreed. “Your sash has come untied, and your hair wants brushing before you present yourself to gentlemen callers. And henceforth,” she went on sternly when the door had shut behind Marwyn, “you will not again put yourself forward as you did just now. Such behavior is most unbecoming, as I’m persuaded even your foolish books must tell you. Auntie Wynne is the one to reply when Marwyn wishes to know if we are home. When she desires you to express your wishes, you may do so. Otherwise, you will abide by her decision.”

Eliza pouted. “Am I never to do as I please? First, Joss orders me to practice my needlework and not read my books, and now I am not to have gentlemen callers only because you and Auntie Wynne do not wish to encourage Captain Halldorson to call.”

“Eliza, really,” said Lady Cadogan, “you ought not—”

“No, Aunt, let me,” interposed Meriel with a spark in her eyes. “Eliza Traherne, you should be ashamed. I told you only to tidy yourself and mind your manners. I did not say you could not go with us to the drawing room. As for your precious captain, certainly I am at one with Auntie Wynne, for you can do a great deal better for yourself than that. And although neither of us would forbid you to see him if he calls, your present behavior leaves me to wonder whether I ought to inflict your presence upon any visitor. Where, may I ask, have you come by such pretty manners in so short a space of time?”

Eliza’s eyes welled with tears. “On, Meri, I beg your pardon. And yours, Auntie Wynne. Everything just seems to get bigger and more overwhelming, the longer we stay in London. There are so many parties, and so many people, and I want to do everything and see everyone. Only people are forever saying I must do this or I mustn’t do that, and I begin to wonder whether I am on my head or on my heels. I cannot think why I spoke as I did. The words just tumbled out as though someone else were speaking them.”

“There now,” Meriel said, moving to put an arm around her sister’s waist. “During my first Season, I felt like a doll Mama had brought along with her to London. ’Twas the oddest thing, but I fell into distempered freaks occasionally too, Eliza.”

A watery chuckle greeted this admission, and Eliza accepted Lady Cadogan’s lacy handkerchief with a muttered expression of gratitude. “Distempered freaks, indeed,” she said. “Will you wait while I tidy myself?”

“Certainly we will,” her sister assured her.

“But do not take all day,” advised Lady Cadogan. “Gentlemen do not enjoy being left to kick their heels.”

The two gentlemen who rose to their feet when the ladies presented themselves at last in the drawing room did not show any sign of impatience, however. Both were smiling, and both greeted all three ladies with every indication of pleasure.

Meriel was astonished at the feelings that swept through her upon seeing Sir Antony. Her whole body seemed to sigh with relief, as though it relaxed for the first time since her parting with him the day before. Indeed, the only feeling to which she could compare it was the feeling which overcame her whenever she left her cares and worries behind to climb her special mountain. Though there was no crisp, clean breeze here to ruffle her hair, no sound in the distance of water tumbling over stones, and no soaring ravens overhead, still when her gaze met Sir Antony’s she experienced the same surging sense of tranquillity that she experienced on the rugged slopes of Cader Idris.

I
F MERIEL WAS SURPRISED
to see Sir Antony once again in company with Mr. Carruthers, the matter was quickly explained.

“Seems we both took the fine same notion into our heads this morning,” said Carruthers as they seated themselves near the fireplace. “Met Sir Antony on the flagway as I was giving my nag into the keeping of one of your lads. Come to think of it, all some enterprising young fellow’d have to do is appear dressed in plausible-looking livery, and most anyone would hand over the finest of horseflesh to him, never for a moment thinking he was giving the poor beast into the hands of a thief.”

Meriel had all she could do to keep her mouth from falling open at this insouciant observation, and she was careful to avoid Sir Antony’s gaze.

Eliza chuckled appreciatively. “I do believe you are what my little brother, Davy, calls a complete hand, sir,” she said, fluttering her eyelids and peeping at him through her thick dark lashes in a way that made her older sister yearn to shake her.

Carruthers grinned at Eliza. “People have said worse of me, my lady.”

“I don’t doubt that,” muttered Meriel, adding in a normal tone when the drawing-room doors opened, “Ah, here is Marwyn with refreshment. Will you take a glass of Madeira, Sir Antony?”

“Thank you, ma’am,” that gentleman replied evenly. “I should like that very much.”

His quiet tone made it possible at last for her to look directly into his eyes, but she wished at once that she had not done so, for what she saw there was a disconcerting glow of tender warmth. At first she told herself he merely laughed at her for being flustered by Mr. Carruthers’ bland reference to horse thieves, but she knew his expression meant more than that. A blush crept into her cheeks. When she began to lower her eyelids, merely as a shield against that confounding, steady gaze, she suddenly realized she must look very like her idiotish sister. Her eyes snapped open on the thought.

Sir Antony smiled at her, lifting one eyebrow in gentle query. But since he turned almost at once to accept his glass of wine from the butler, Meriel was free to return her attention to Carruthers. That gentleman had taken not the slightest exception to her comment and was talking animatedly with her aunt and sister about the mad dash he and Sir Antony had made from Paris.

“I assure you, ladies, neither of us had the least desire to spend the war—which may last for years, after all—interned in Verdun. Why, there’s no saying who might be stuck there. I don’t doubt we’d have found ourselves rubbing shoulders with the scaff and raff right along with the
beau monde
.” He chuckled at this sally and took his own glass from Marwyn before continuing his tale.

Meriel watched him carefully as he chatted, telling herself as she had many times before that however he had managed to learn the manners and dress of a gentleman, he had done the thing very well. Perhaps, she mused, Nest had been right and he was a cast-off younger son, or one who had simply chosen housebreaking over the church or the military as a career. His casual impudence certainly lent credence to the latter possibility. Still, she had come to like Carruthers very much and was in several ways beholden to the man, so she had no wish to snub him, despite his faults. Nevertheless, as she watched him flirt with her sister Eliza, she could not help but think that Sir Antony ought to have dissuaded Mr. Carruthers from visiting her brother’s house.

The gentlemen stayed only the requisite half-hour, but before they departed, Sir Antony begged the pleasure of Lady Meriel’s company that afternoon to drive in Hyde Park. Accepting his invitation, she gave him her hand in farewell, allowing him to retain it for some seconds longer than was customary, merely to indulge herself in the sense of warm security his touch provided. When the gentlemen had gone, she realized that her sister was watching her rather narrowly.

“What is it, Eliza?”

“Nothing at all,” replied that young lady with an arch smile. Then, as though she had no wish to be questioned further, she added with studied nonchalance, “Meri, do you still have that paper the French soldiers gave you—the safe-conduct thing?”

Nodding, Meriel realized that Mr. Carruthers must have given away more of the details of her escape than she had seen fit to tell her family, and she quickly expressed a strong hope that Eliza would not mention these to Jocelyn.

“Oh, of course not,” Eliza said quickly. “I am not such a ninnyhammer. Only I should like to see what a safe conduct looks like. I have read of them from time to time and always wondered.”

“Well, it is in my leather reticule,” Meriel said. “I can fetch it, if you like.”

“Oh, do, Meri, and before we have more callers, or we shall forget all about it.”

So Meriel went upstairs to her bedchamber and turned out upon the counterpane the leather reticule she had carried into France with her. The safe conduct lay beside her British passport, and as she picked it up, she saw beneath the pile of documents not only her little pistol but also the letter Père Leclerc had entrusted to her the night of her escape. Staring at the missive now, she wondered how on earth she had come to forget about it. That night seemed strangely long ago, to be sure, but the little priest had trusted her to deliver his message, and it might well be the last one Mr. George Murray would have from him until the war ended. And as Mr. Carruthers had pointed out, that date might be years and years away. Her duty was clear.

Even as these thoughts tumbled through her mind, she picked up the safe conduct, the letter, and her reticule, stuffing its other contents back inside. Collecting a dark green pelisse from her wardrobe and slipping it on over her primrose muslin frock, she hurried downstairs again to the drawing room.

“Here is that paper you wanted to see, Eliza,” she said giving it to her. “I have remembered an important errand that I must attend to, so you and Auntie Wynne must excuse me for the present. I shall take the landaulet.”

“Merciful heavens,” said her aunt, blinking at her. “Where are you off to in such a hurry, my dear? I am persuaded you said nothing of errands earlier.”

“No, ma’am, because I quite forgot. I shan’t be long.”

As she turned toward the door, Marwyn entered to announce the Ladies Jersey and Cowper for Lady Cadogan. Meriel, greeting these two haughty dames on the landing, made glib excuses, wished them both a good day, and hurried down the stairs, her gloved hand light upon the wrought-iron railing.

In the hall, she found a footman, but even as she opened her mouth to order the landaulet brought round immediately from the mews, she remembered that she would have the company of her brother’s coachman if she did so. If the coachman should mention anything about her destination to Jocelyn, that gentleman would certainly ask some pointed questions, and he would not be fobbed off with such vague excuses as she had offered upstairs. He would wish to know, for example, why she had not simply sent a footman to deliver the priest’s letter, and she did not know that she could explain the matter clearly to him. She wished to deliver the message herself, and that was all there was about it.

She had no idea where her brother was, but she rather hoped he had gone to his club and would not walk in upon her before she had made good her escape.

Quickly she explained to the footman that she required a hackney carriage because she had no wish to dawdle about waiting for one of her brother’s carriages to be got ready. It was not until she was being assisted into a shabby coach at the front door that she realized the footman expected to relay her orders to the coachman. Thinking swiftly, she commanded that she be taken to Bond Street.

“A little shopping,” she added casually for the footman’s benefit. He looked surprised, as well he might, she thought, cursing her lack of imagination. But he said nothing, and the carriage moved forward toward the south end of the square. She waited until they had passed along Hay Hill into Dover Street before she pulled the checkstring and let down the curbside window.

“Yes, m’lady?” the coachman called back over his shoulder as he drew his horses to a walk.

“I have changed my mind,” she said, giving him the address in the King’s Mews at Charing Cross where Père Leclerc had told her she might find Mr. Murray.

The coachman looked down at her. “I know the place, m’lady, and it ain’t b’ no means no back slum, but didn’t you ought to ’ave brung that there starched-up footman o’ yourn along o’ ye?”

“I shall do quite well enough on my own, but thank you for your concern. ’Tis merely a matter of a brief errand, and if you will be so good as to wait for me, I shall endeavor not to keep you waiting above a minute or two.”