Amanda Scott (28 page)

“I daresay he lacks your sense of adventure,” Sir Antony said dryly.

“Well, what a thing to say, when you must know he went off to America and had all sort of adventures himself.”

“I stand corrected. I should rather have said he disapproves of adventuring for the fair sex. But what of your sister Eliza? As I recall, you were concerned that she might have made an unsuitable alliance in your absence. Was Ribblesdale’s young brother—?”

“Oh, yes,” Meriel said, not waiting for him to finish. “Captain Halldorson, as you must have seen for yourself, sir, is entirely unsuitable, and what must my idiotish brother do but decide he is the very thing for Eliza. Joss thinks himself a very democratic fellow, you know. Such thinking does not interfere with his notion of what is due his title, mind you, but it gives him some odd notions of what will do for his sisters. I daresay,” she added, much struck by the thought that crossed her mind just then, “that he and Napoleon Bonaparte have more in common than one might think to look at them.”

Sir Antony chuckled. “But you do not think Halldorson will prove himself worthy of your brother’s faith in him?”

“I do not wish to see Eliza making and scraping whilst he seeks his fortune in the army,” Meriel said tartly. Then she added with a grin, “Not that I believe it will be necessary if we can but keep him from coming to the point yet a while.”

“You believe your sister’s affections will alter?”

“They always do,” Meriel said. “Indeed, she was flirting with Mr. Carruthers only this morning, sir, as you must have seen for yourself. And that, I can tell you, will not do at all. I wish you will speak to him for me. He must not encourage her folly.”

But this Sir Antony would not engage to do. Reverting to his customary languid manner of speech, he recommended that Meriel let matters take their natural course. “No doubt you may trust to your sister’s fickle nature,” he said, smiling gently at her, “but there is no cause for distress, my dear, nor any reason that I can imagine to trouble yourself over your sister’s many flirtations.”

She looked up at him in protest. “But—”

“No reason at all,” he repeated firmly, his steady gaze catching hers and holding it. His horses, ambling along at a lazy pace quite at odds with their powerful appearance, took no notice whatsoever of their master’s sudden inattention, even though it was to continue for some time.

Meriel’s breath stuck in her throat, and all thought of Eliza’s affairs vanished as smoke from her mind. She could think of nothing but the hazel eyes looking so deeply into hers. So lost was she in that gaze that she did not even sense movement before his hand touched her chin and his fingertips moved in a gentle caress along her jawline. No more than the slight pressure of his little finger in the softness beneath her chin was necessary to make her tilt her face to a more convenient angle for his kiss. When his lips touched hers, she leaned toward him, a tiny moan sounding deep in her throat. The tip of his little finger moved, tracing a line down the center of her throat to the neat collar of her moss-colored carriage dress, then dipping beneath the collar, lightly tickling her skin as his hand moved around to a point beneath her left ear. This sensuous movement brought a gasp to her lips that separated them, allowing his tongue to gain entrance to the soft interior of her mouth.

Involuntarily she pulled back, only to respond immediately and with a passion that surprised her when his hand moved quickly to the nape of her neck to hold her where she was. But his sudden motion had had another effect. The hand holding the reins jerked suddenly, and Sir Antony’s horses surged forward as a result, forcing him to return his attention to them at once.

Brought thus suddenly to her senses, Meriel glanced around quickly, her cheeks flushing in fear of discovering that her wicked behavior had drawn every curious eye in the park. To her immense relief, there appeared to be no one in their immediate vicinity, but for some moments she avoided looking at her companion. When she turned her glance upon him at last, she found that he was smiling lazily at her as though what they had done had been a perfectly natural thing and not at all the outrageous, if perfectly delightful, contravention of public morals that she knew it to be. She was uncertain whether to be relieved or indignant when he chose a perfectly harmless topic of conversation to while away their return to Berkeley Square.

N
OT UNTIL THE FOLLOWING
day did Meriel find time to put her newly acquired knowledge to good use, although she did wave the priest’s letter several times over her candle that night, to no good effect. Since she had come to the conclusion after speaking with both Lady Cadogan and Sir Antony that the key to the letter would not be so easily come by, she was not so disappointed as she might otherwise have been.

The great difficulty, she discovered, was in obtaining a glass of milk and the privacy in which to work at one and the same time. Her first thought had been to request the chambermaid to bring milk with her morning chocolate, but it occurred to her that although the maid would certainly oblige her, she could not prevent Gladys Peat from entering her room while she was in the midst of attempting to decode the priest’s letter. And to leave the milk standing until she could be certain of her privacy would not do. The chambermaid would certainly carry it away with her when she took the other dishes. The best she could do was to plead an incipient headache when Lady Cadogan requested her company on a round of morning calls.

Since Eliza did accompany her aunt, and the children were safely in the schoolroom with Mr. Scott, Meriel took the opportunity to order a cup of tea served to her in her bedchamber.

“Right away, m’lady,” said the obliging footman. “I’ll send one of the maids up directly.”

“I’ll take a small pitcher of milk with it,” Meriel said casually, “and perhaps some sweet biscuits.”

“Yes, m’lady,” he replied with only the slightest hitch in his brows to indicate his surprise at such a request.

Realizing that he knew she never took milk in her tea, Meriel said with a smile, “I didn’t eat very much breakfast, you know, but I begin to think perhaps some food will help my headache. But I don’t want anything heavy.”

“No, indeed, m’lady. I’ll see to it right away, and perhaps you would like me to send Mrs. Peat to you, as well.”

“That is not necessary. I shall simply read for a bit, drink my tea, and then rest for an hour or so,” she told him firmly.

Twenty minutes later, the letter spread out carefully upon a folded towel, Meriel carefully spread milk upon it with the corner of a clean chamois. At first she treated only a tiny portion of the letter, but it was not long before pale brown letters began to appear between the neat rows of black ink. Excitedly she treated the entire letter, then sat impatiently waiting for the whole to dry.

At one point she had to whisk the letter, towel and all, under her pillow when she heard footsteps approaching her door along the corridor. When Gladys Peat cautiously opened the door, she found her mistress curled up against a pile of pillows on the bed, a quilt over her knees, reading one of Eliza’s books.

“What’s this I hear of a headache, Miss Meri?” the woman demanded.

“Oh, ’tis but the merest trifle,” Meriel told her. “It has been coming on since I awoke this morning, and I decided to coddle myself instead of accompanying Auntie Wynne and Eliza on their morning calls. I daresay you will tell me I am being wickedly lazy.”

“I’ll tell you no such thing,” stated Mrs. Peat, peering at her suspiciously. “What I will say is that it ain’t like you to give in easily to illness. Indeed, m’lady, I cannot recall the last time you was indisposed like this. ’Tis my opinion you be more ill than you be lettin’ on, and no mistake.”

Meriel’s smile hid her dismay. What Gladys said was true. She was never ill. But she said in a rallying tone, “You needn’t fret, Gladys. There is nothing amiss with me that a morning of quiet reflection will not cure. I daresay I have not entirely recovered from our mad dash out of Paris. You will recall that I was exhausted when we reached the coast. No doubt I have simply not given myself enough rest.”

“Then you ought to be laid down upon your bed and not reading that muck,” said Gladys frankly.

“Oh, but ’tis most diverting muck,” Meriel told her. “’Tis about a gentleman’s travels in France and all the adventures he had there. There’s a mysterious monk and a beautiful lady, and would you believe, Gladys, he got all the way to Paris without a passport, merely by claiming to be part of a French count’s party upon landing.”

“Yes, and all lies, no doubt,” said Gladys with asperity. “Not to mention the circumstances of his traveling no doubt being a sight different from our own.”

“Well, he did travel some thirty years ago, but France and England were at war then too. At least,” she added, trying to remember her history, “he says they were. But he says also that he quite forgot that little fact when he decided to visit Paris.”

“Humph,” retorted Gladys, moving to plump her pillows and smooth the coverlet. “Never mind that, miss. Just you lie back there and have a rest. I don’t mind tellin’ you I don’t like the sound of this headache o’ yours.”

Obediently Meriel lay back against her pillows, hoping that Gladys had not ruined the letter in all her ministrations. The tirewoman moved from the bed to the window, drawing the curtains. Then, seeing the tray on the table, she picked it up, saying, “I’ll just take this along o’ me, so that chambermaid won’t be disturbing you, m’lady.”

“Thank you, Gladys,” Meriel said meekly.

The moment the woman was gone, however, she sprang up from her bed, flung the curtains wide again, and rescued the priest’s letter from under her pillow. It was a little wrinkled, but a satisfactory webbing of pale brown ink now appeared all over its surface. She hurried to the little table in the window embrasure and carefully smoothed the sheet of paper out upon it. Wishing she had a magnifying glass, even Sir Antony’s quizzing glass, she peered carefully at the writing.

At first it was difficult to tell if it was French or English, for the scrawl was Continental and not very neatly contrived. However, once she had found the beginning, she was able to make out enough of what was written to make her sit back in her chair with a gasp. Père Leclerc wrote that Napoleon had immediate plans to invade England from Boulogne.

She remembered hearing more than one person speak of the number of ships gathering at that port, and she thought now that perhaps such talk was one reason Napoleon had been so insistent upon interning English tourists, that they might not repeat what they had heard or seen. But surely any number of persons knew of the armada at Boulogne. There had been rumors of invasion since before the peace treaty. What was more disturbing was what Père Leclerc had to say about a network of French spies operating in England under the guidance of Napoleon’s ex-minister of police, Joseph Fouché. Meriel knew that England’s leaders had congratulated themselves more than once upon being rid of Fouché, but here he was again, and if the priest could be believed, Fouché had detailed knowledge of a royalist plot against Napoleon and meant to use that plot to his own end. Leclerc wrote as though Mr. Murray were already familiar with such a plot, giving Meriel to believe that one was known by the British authorities to exist. But what authorities? And how was she to get this information to them?

Her first thought was to ask Sir Antony for his advice again, but she did not wish to vex him, and she was certain he would be as appalled as she was herself at the activities she had been unwittingly involved in. The fact that she had been manipulated by others unbeknownst to herself would not weigh any more heavily with him than it would with anyone else who might discover what she had done.

She had spied for England. Well, she told herself fairly, perhaps that was to refine too much upon the matter. But she had certainly been allied with spies, for she had no doubt now that the other letters she had carried had been no less innocent than the one she held before her. But all she had to help her find George Murray, to give him a piece of her mind as well as his devilish letter, was a regimental address. If the man at the office in the King’s Mews could be believed, Mr. Murray was on his way to the Continent.

Perhaps she could return to that office. Certainly the man she had spoken with there had evinced interest in the letter. Still, she had no way of knowing that he wasn’t one of the very spies Leclerc mentioned. She could not chance giving the letter into unknown hands.

That left Sir Antony. But even as the thought came to mind, she set it aside. Despite their agreeable flirtation, he would be disgusted, repulsed. Had she not been told more than once that any red-blooded Englishman would be revolted by the unfairness of spying? To deal with spies was to cheat at the game of war. She had heard the argument more than once. Surely Sir Antony would not easily accept the notion of a lady of quality soiling her hands or reputation in such a way. Much though he appeared to care for her, he must be repelled. And she had an increasingly strong desire to retain his good opinion of her. Moreover, if her activities should become known to others, she and her family might well be ostracized by the
beau monde
. Eliza, for one, would never forgive her.

Thinking of Eliza made her smile, for here was just the sort of romantic adventure that young lady would revel in if she were to find it between the covers of a book. But Meriel did not delude herself into thinking that her sister would wish to be snubbed by all the persons whose good favor she had so carefully cultivated these past weeks. Books were one thing. Life was quite another. With a small sigh, she folded the letter again and tucked it into a smaller reticule, that she might keep it by her. She would have to consider the matter carefully before taking action.

In the week that followed, she scarcely had a moment to give thought to her problem, for her aunt had accepted a number of social invitations on her behalf, and she found the days filled with activity. Besides the necessity of planning for their own ball, there were afternoon charade parties, evening ridottos, balls, and an expedition to Vauxhall Gardens to hear a concert. On several occasions Sir Antony and Mr. Carruthers were invited to join. Meriel had been unable to think of any reason short of the truth that might prevent her brother or her aunt from enthusiastically accepting the latter’s company on these occasions, and if she was grateful to him for the fact that neither Jocelyn nor Eliza continued to sing the praises of Captain Halldorson quite so loudly, she found herself wishing on more than one occasion that Mr. Carruthers would not respond so easily to her susceptible sister’s flirtatious overtures. After a particularly trying evening of watching Eliza stand up for no less than three dances with him, she attempted to take the younger girl to task and failed miserably.