Kate Moore (5 page)

She dreamt a swirling scene of confusion in a great London ballroom where she must perform all the steps in the sets with no partner until at last a partner seemed to come for her. Her mother smiled at her from among the chaperones, but as the other gentlemen made way for her partner, she saw that it was Croisset, and she turned and ran out into the garden. Yet there was no garden, only a noisy street where the mob pushed and shoved so that her feet could not touch the pavement and she was carried forward against her will. The surging crowd stopped at last, and she looked up to see a gallows, and with the strange prescience of a dreamer she knew for whom it stood. Two officers of the law roughly pulled forward her thief. In waistcoat and breeches, he looked as he had in Humphrey’s stable, save that his arms were bound behind him. His eyes seemed to meet hers at once. When they lowered the rope around his throat, Margaret’s own cry woke her.

She sat up in the dark, gasping, her heart pounding, and willed away the horror of it.

“Meg,” came his voice, wondrously near, from the floor, she thought. “You were dreaming. You are quite safe for the moment.” She could not get her breath to answer at once. “If not
quite
safe, at least somewhat safe,” he continued. “The captain assures me his boat has made the crossing in far rougher weather.”

“You, here?” she managed to say.

“Have our adventures frightened you?” he asked.

“No, it was something else entirely,” she replied. She could not tell him she had cried out in fear for his life.

“Croisset did not frighten you?”

“Croisset? Yes, but truly, I . . . I was dreaming about the season,” she said. There was some truth in that.

“You cried out in fear of Lord Leadfeet and Lady Loosetongue? I cannot believe it.” From the gloom below she heard his low laugh.

“It was my first season,” she said, wondering at herself that she could once again enter into conversation with him so easily. Nevertheless, she rolled onto her side and propped herself on one elbow to talk to him. In the blackness she could see nothing, not even an outline.

“Of course,” he answered, “had you made your come-out a year ago, I would have . . .” There was a pause in which she found herself listening most intently.

“Would have?” she prompted.

“Would have found you less honest now,” he concluded.

“Me, less honest? When you . . .” She could not finish.

“Do you wish to call me names again, Meg? Did I tell more lies in Dorset than you did in London?” The bitter tone of this remark made her wish she could see his face, and yet she was grateful he could not see hers.

“I did
not
lie,” she protested.

“Ah, then you cannot have had a very successful season.”

“It’s true.”

“Forgive me,” he said, “I had no cause to abuse you with such a comment. You must have attracted your share of admirers?”

“Not one. I was quite unnoticed, I assure you. My mother . . .” She fell silent, remembering her parents’ disappointment in her. Her companion did not press her. After a time she asked, “Who are you?”

“You know my name, Meg.”

Again she wished she could see his face. “I know the name your friend called you.”

“And you will not use it. You prefer
thief
and
traitor
?” His voice was cold.

At the harsh words, she blushed in the darkness. She remembered the flash of something in his eyes each time she had reviled him. He was those things; he deserved her contempt and the contempt of all loyal Englishmen, and yet she wished to go on talking to him in the close darkness, did not dislike him as she should.

“I shall not revile you again,” she promised, but she did not say she would use his name. “Croisset believes you to be a London dandy, a peer; that is who you pretend to be among these men.”

“You think I am something else?” He sounded amused now.

“Yes, but did you not say that we see what we expect? Perhaps I am deceived as well,” she admitted.

“If you have learned that lesson, then I am afraid I shall not be able to deceive you long, Meg.” He laughed. “Best sleep now; we reach Portugal tomorrow.”

“You mean to sleep here, with me?”

“With you?” he asked. “Is that an invitation?”

“No,” she said at once. Although his voice had been teasing, she clutched the blanket around her.

“Then I must continue to make a bed of this floor, for I have no other place, and our companions believe me to have very good reason to sleep in this cabin.”

She knew he was grinning. All the puzzling circumstances of her nights and mornings were suddenly explained—his coat, her shoes.

“One last word,” she pleaded. “If you wish me to call you by name, you must tell me your family name.”

There was silence for such a long moment that she doubted he was there at all. “I have no name,” he said at last. “I am no man’s son.”

“Forgive me,” she whispered, understanding not at all, knowing only that she had touched upon some profound sorrow.

“Go to sleep, Meg,” was all he said.

On the floor of the cabin the young man who called himself Drew lay still until he heard the girl’s even breathing. Though he had slept little in three nights, he found it impossible to do so now. For some time he told himself that it was the discomforts of his cold, rocking bed that kept him awake; but when he had lodged one shoulder against the base of the berth and one booted foot against the chest, he acknowledged that he had suffered worse discomforts. The truth was that the novelty of sleeping so near a young woman whose beauty and courage he admired and yet not sleeping
with
her was a bit unsettling. He had cause now to regret all the touches of that first evening.

He had avoided her for most of three days. She had much to complain of in his treatment of her, and the worst of it was he meant to expose her to greater dangers yet. He had entered the library with a reckless disdain for what might become of him and a fierce desire to check his enemy, and she had stopped him cold with her honesty. Her gaze, clear and uncompromising, had been like no other woman’s gaze. There had been nothing of seduction and everything of herself. And he had seized her. He had not considered his motives in the event; he had been, as he always was, caught up in the exhilaration of the game. Well, he had played desperately and won. Until she had called him traitor he had not realized that he had also lost.

He had compromised a young woman of noble birth and remarkable character to whom he could offer nothing—not position, not fortune, not name. To protect her in the weeks ahead, he must claim her as his mistress, yet he meant in time to return her to her parents, heart-whole, as innocent as she now was. And somehow he would preserve her reputation as well as her life.

Once, on a dare, he had climbed into the ring at Grantham with one hand tied to his side, and faced the local champion. He had won the match to the cheers of all his friends, but his ribs had ached for weeks. On that thought his eyes at last closed.

Margaret’s first conscious act was to prop herself up so that she might see the floor. Had she dreamed her encounter with him? To her surprise he had not wakened before her but lay wedged between her berth and the opposite wall in what could hardly be a comfortable position. No light from the windows above had yet reached his face to rouse him. With his eyes closed, his hair tousled, and his limbs sprawled, he looked less the man and more the boy. But there were shadows under the eyes and a darkening of beard on his chin that dimmed the luster and vibrancy of him. His energies were not inexhaustible after all, she thought. His chest rose and fell with the steady rhythm of his breathing, and she recognized the opportunity she had wished for. She slipped from the bed, gathering the nightshirt about her, and stepped lightly over him so that she might reach the bottle-green coat upon its hook. The papers were not in any of its pockets. There was only a small pistol which she had not realized he carried. While it might be useful to him, she had never fired a gun and did not know the first thing about guns. She stepped back over him and knelt on his left in a tiny patch of floor. His head was awkwardly pillowed on his greatcoat, but she doubted the papers were there. No, the papers could only be on his person somewhere.

She examined the folds and creases of his waistcoat for any hint of the packet. She could detect nothing. The taut lines of the breeches about his hips and thighs could only be the contours of his body, from which she looked away. Still he had not stirred. Did she dare to unbutton the waistcoat itself, to feel along the ribs? It was unthinkable that she would touch him so. Though he had touched her often that first night, his touches, distracting as they had been, had always furthered his plan. Well, she must accomplish her own plans. She must stop him from betraying England and save him from the gallows of her nightmare or worse.

She sat back on her heels and clenched and unclenched her hands, nerving herself for action. As lightly as she could she slipped the first button free of the restraining silk. She glanced at him; his eyes remained closed. Again she reached for one of the tiny buttons. She had unfastened five when she paused in her labors. She had opened a distinct gap over his heart; but so many buttons remained, and her progress was so slow. She could not expect him to remain asleep much longer. In desperation she leaned over him, the fingers of her left hand spread and pointing toward his waist. Lightly she rested her palm against his chest, allowing her fingers to feel delicately for the upper edge of the packet.

“Good morning, Meg,” he said. He did not move. “Do you care to explain yourself? Or may I place whatever interpretation I like upon the present circumstances?”

She withdrew her hand at once, her face burning, feeling oddly conscious of her body under the loose-fitting nightshirt. “I hoped to find the earl’s papers,” she admitted.

“You searched the green coat?”

“I did,” she replied, unable to look at him.

“I trust you left me my pistol, in case we should need it.”

“Yes.”

“Well then, you must satisfy yourself that the stolen papers are not on my person.”

At that she looked up. “Oh, no, I could not,” she said, shaking her head emphatically.

“But I insist,” he replied. “It will be good practice for the role you must play in Portugal.”

“Role?” she questioned.

“You are safe in this company, Meg, only as long as our companions believe, as Croisset did, that you are my mistress.”

“But I could never be your . . . I could never touch . . .” Why did she hesitate? Why did the words seem like lies?

“Not
be
,” he said quietly, “
play
.”

“But I do not know the least thing about mistresses or what they must do or say, and surely I do not look . . . look . . .” She faltered.

“In that garment, I assure you do look . . . quite.”

She was watching his face now, and only his evident amusement at her expense enabled her to regain a bit of composure.

“Very well.” She leaned over him again and pulled at the remaining buttons determinedly, but her haste made her clumsy so that she lost her balance and would have fallen on him except that he caught her by the shoulders. To her great discomfort he held her there, her face just inches from his, his heart beating against her hand, his eyes, blue as deep water, urging her closer. Abruptly he pushed her back onto her knees and rolled away from her. He rose and turned from her to gaze out the window above the water stand, his fingers deftly fastening the buttons she had released. She retreated to the berth and pulled the blankets about her. She thought she heard him say something. “Fool” it sounded like, but the word was too faint for her to be certain.

Without turning he spoke again. “Do not be alarmed, Miss Somerley; I shall not require another such show of desire from you. You have only to dress the mistress’ part and allow me to do the lying.” More quietly he added, “I believe our lives depend on it. Can you do it?”

“Yes,” she said. In the same quiet voice he explained what he had gleaned from the captain and crew about the men the Viper would send to meet them and how Croisset managed with such escort to convey messages beyond the English lines. In parting he urged that she wear the sapphires.

“If anything should happen to me,” he said, “the jewels will buy you protection and a safe passage home.”

“I could never sell them,” she protested. “They must be returned to their rightful owner.”

“The woman who owned them is dead, Meg.” He paused. “Until this afternoon, then.” He bowed and turned.

“Wait,” she cried, as a new thought occurred. “What am I to call you before others?”

“My lord, of course.” She was relieved to see him grin again and offered him a smile of her own.

5

F
ROM THE SOUTH
railing Margaret watched the shore where cream-colored buildings with red-tiled roofs climbed steep hillsides. She had taken her position hours before when the land was no more than a blue outline above the eastern horizon, and had watched through all the transformations their approach had wrought, through an hour in which everything before her had been rosy in the setting sun’s light, the windows flashing gold, then through still another until she could see browns and greens and the cream of the buildings and at last people on the beach. All hands were now on deck, each with some task necessary to maneuver their craft through dozens of others of every description. Margaret knew Drew would join her at any moment. Imperceptibly she had accepted the name in her own mind though she refused to speak it.

Since morning she had berated herself repeatedly for misusing an opportunity to stop him and for being so foolish as to smile at him. Eager to escape the scene of her weakness, she had dressed with haste and left the cabin. Now she meant to be strong-minded, to remember at every moment that he was a thief and a traitor, to keep her reserve and to be awake to any chance to recover the earl’s papers. She must not allow him to leave the port with them.

“Meg,” he said at her side, catching her by surprise in spite of her determination to be on guard. “Do you like this view of Oporto?” She turned to him, but did not answer. He was once more the dandy he had been for their meeting with Croisset, his greatcoat giving him an impressive breadth of shoulder. He had shaved, so that his face was boyishly smooth and fine. She looked away at once, repeating to herself the words that ought to condemn him.
Thief, traitor
. As if he sensed her reserve, he began to speak inconsequentially about their surroundings, pointing out ships and rigging, birds wheeling overhead and black-shawled women hunched on the beach.

“You have been here before?” she couldn’t help asking.

“Some years ago,” he replied in the guarded way he had when she asked for something of the truth from him.

Their vessel now passed between other larger ships in a long row and, at an opening among these, turned into the wind. With a sudden flutter the great sail went slack and came down, and the sailors scrambled to tie it to the boom, to drop the anchor and tie a line to another vessel. The captain accepted more of Croisset’s gold, ordered the dinghy lowered, and led his men over the side.

When they were alone, Drew took Margaret’s chin in his hand, turning her face to his. “Our escort will come for us now. Remember, you are Meg Summers, my mistress.” His eyes, deep blue in the twilight, were cold with command, with the haughty air he adopted with the dandy clothes. “Your life depends on it.”

“Of course, my lord,” she answered, meeting his gaze squarely.

***

In minutes they heard the splash of oars. Though it was now dusk, Margaret could see a curious contrast between the two men in the approaching boat. The first was a large man with a robust massiveness, like a sturdy oak, and a shaggy head of reddish brown hair and a beard to match. He pulled the oars as if they were mere sticks instead of great beams. He pulled himself up the rope ladder in a single swift movement and stood frowning down at them. As he spoke in the odd French Margaret had first heard the sailors use, the other man came up over the side of the boat. He was not small except in comparison to his companion, but as sleek as the other was shaggy, dark-skinned and dark-haired, not quite handsome, his eyes too quick-moving and his lower lip pushed against the upper in a way that suggested displeasure.

After very little talk, both men turned to her, and Margaret guessed that Drew was explaining her presence. She kept her head proudly lifted, her gaze steady. The shaggy man gave her a leer, the sleek one, a coldly assessing look. Then the two men turned to each other, the sleek one speaking rapidly and gesturing for emphasis, the shaggy one responding in grunts and nods. As strange as their language was to her, Margaret recognized their exchange as a dispute. A terrible knot of fear pressed against her chest so that she could not draw a deep breath. She did not like to imagine the danger she and Drew would be in if these two men knew the turn they had served Croisset. Drew slipped an arm about her waist and pulled her against him. Speaking with the same arrogant impatience with which he had addressed Croisset, he drew forth the purse that had so far smoothed their way.

“My lord,” she murmured into his chest, “are we to go ashore?”

The gold seemed to resolve the larger man, who stepped back, indicating that Drew and Margaret should pass to the ladder over the side. The smaller man said nothing.

Propelled by the large man’s mighty strokes, their dinghy soon reached the shore and shot far up on a strip of sand. There Margaret was handed down to dry land and for a moment stood uncertainly, still rocked by the sea’s motion. An open cart stood waiting, its driver apparently uninterested in the odd manner of their arrival or their lack of baggage. Above them the city faded into gray-blue indistinctness as they clattered through the twilight. Their way led continuously uphill, until Margaret felt the strain on the horse and knew they must stop. The last bit, the large shaggy man explained, they must travel on foot. They dismounted, and the two men closed around them, like guards leading prisoners, Margaret thought. They passed worn buildings stained with soot and rust, but covered with blue tiles like nothing Margaret had ever seen, so that she could not help but gaze in wonder. Hundreds of tiles composed pictures of heroes and saints.

The inn which they soon entered had but a few sailorish patrons in the taproom. The atmosphere was one of indifference, of letting one’s fellow man go to the devil in his own way. A man lay sprawled across a table, apparently unconscious, while two others shouted violently at each other without arousing anyone’s notice. Where was Margaret to find someone to confide in, someone to help her? The proprietess, a thin, shrill woman, smiled warmly at her companion, but dropped Margaret the briefest of curtsies and led them without delay to an upper room. It was an unexpectedly large apartment with a massive bed at one end, a bright fire in the hearth at the other and windows looking down the street and across the city. Drew gave the woman a few peremptory commands and the inevitable gold coin, and she hurried off. They were alone.

It was a circumstance Margaret felt she ought to welcome both as a respite from the looks to which her companion’s lies had subjected her and as a chance to recover the earl’s papers, but she was wary now of being alone with her thief. The very nearness of him seemed to weaken her best weapons—reason and conscience.

“Come to the window, Meg,” he invited. Reluctantly she joined him, keeping her distance, and they stood looking out together.

“She’s hardly a lady, this city, but she’s not without her airs, her bits of lace or ribbon.”

Margaret followed his gaze and saw the violet sky-line like a lace border, the street a giddy distance below.

“You played your part well,” he complimented.

Before Margaret could answer, the proprietess returned with a gleaming copper tub and a pile of towels. The shaggy man followed, bearing two great steaming cauldrons. At Drew’s direction, they placed the tub before the fire and poured the bath.

“Your bath, Meg,” he said to her as soon as the others had left.

Margaret stared at him, horrified, but he only laughed.

“I am going out and mean to be gone some time. Make use of my absence as you like.” He gave her cheek a careless brush with the backs of his fingers. Then he was gone.

When his quick footfalls could no longer be heard upon the stairs, Margaret opened the door and stepped into the hall. The shaggy man was sitting in the dark at the head of the stairs, eating. He held a large bowl under his chin and shoveled heaping spoonfuls of its contents into his mouth. His beard glistened here and there where drops had spilled on it. At Margaret’s appearance he put aside the bowl and patted his great thighs, gesturing that she should come to him. His gaze, rude and particular, took in her whole person and came to rest on her breasts. She retreated immediately, grateful that the door to this room at least could be locked. The shaggy man’s laugh echoed after her. Of course she could not escape; her thief would never be so careless as to allow it. Resignedly she turned to the bath.

***

She had to acknowledge that the bath was most welcome and indeed it revived her spirits so that she waited with some impatience for Drew’s return. He must have the papers on his person, and she must study him closely for some sign of the pocket in which they were kept. She could not fail in another awkward search of him. At his knock she unlocked the door and let him in. At once, however, her resolve to study him faltered, for his presence seemed to fill the room, and though she had backed to the window, she felt him too near.

“Come, Meg,” he said, shutting the door behind him, “you must enjoy your adventure. See what I’ve brought you.” He threw off his greatcoat and began emptying his pockets on the bed. There were combs and brushes and tooth powder, a man’s shaving implements, and a serviceable black wool gown. “And most important,” he said, reaching into his pocket again, “your book.” He offered her a small leather-bound volume.

“A book?” she asked, drawing closer in spite of herself to see what it was. It was hard not to smile at him.

“It is not Horace, but surely your taste allows our English poets a place,” he teased.

She was still staring, puzzled at his gift, when a single perfunctory rap sounded upon the door. The shaggy man entered and carried off the copper tub, sloshing its now-cold contents on the floor, the land-lady scolding after him, her voice shrill in the hall. The sound had scarcely died away when the pair returned, the shaggy man again setting down the tub and filling it with a second bath. Already Drew had shrugged out of his jacket and was sitting in the room’s only chair, tugging at his boots. The shaggy man leered at Margaret.

“You don’t mean to bathe,” protested Margaret upon the exit of the two servants.

“Oh, but I do,” he replied. He took her by the shoulders and propelled her to the bed, compelling her to sit up against the pillows. “This was to be my adventure,” he continued, “and because I have been so good as to share it with you, does not mean I must forgo all my comforts. Read, Meg.”

“It would serve you right, if I did not,” she said, nevertheless holding the book before her face. For some minutes she turned the pages idly, pretending not to be at all disconcerted. The trouble was, her ears betrayed her. She heard his boots drop one by one and the clink of his watch and fobs on the table, the rustle of his garments, and at last the slosh of the water against the copper sides of the tub. Her face burned more than it had the first night in the cottage, and she didn’t see a word on the page before her. She rolled onto her stomach and propped the book against the pillows, recalling suddenly the Latin poems she had attempted to read while Drew had changed that night and the piles of books on the floor of Humphrey’s cottage.

“Humphrey was your tutor, wasn’t he?” she asked. His silence assured her that she had hit on a truth of his past. He had had a gentleman’s education whatever his career had been.

“Read to me, Meg,” he ordered, his voice startling her with its low intensity.

“What do you like?” she asked.

“The ‘Rape’ if it’s there,” he answered.

“‘Of the Lock,’ of course,” she said, refusing to be further embarrassed. She thumbed through the pages for Pope’s masterpiece. “‘What dire offence from amorous causes springs,’” she read. “‘What mighty contests rise from trivial things . . . Say what motive . . . could compel a well-bred Lord t’assault a gentle Belle? O say what stranger cause, yet unexplored, could make a gentle Belle reject a Lord?’” At first the phrases served only to remind her of her awkward situation, but soon she lost herself in the fair Belinda’s world where the myriad sylphs tried in vain to guard the precious lock. Her awareness of the naked man in her room faded, so that she was surprised when he next stood beside her, dressed.

They dined in a small, dark room on indistinguishable dishes with exotic names and strong sauces of onions, garlic, and tomatoes. It was an occasion for much laughter as he played the proud lord with their hostess and the tease with Margaret when they were alone. Her fork was at her lips when he inquired how she liked tripe. She could not be sure of anything after that, but the dish he identified as
bacalhau
, cod, was tasty and satisfying. She drank sparingly of the wine, knowing she must not dull her wits in his company. At the end of their meal was an orange, opened on its dish like an exotic flower, the sticky-sweet juice leaving its perfume on her fingers.

They laughed a great deal, mostly as he teased her about London or mimicked with dreadful accuracy the affectations of the
ton
. But from time to time she fell silent, wondering how she was to eat with him, talk to him, indeed sleep in the very same room with him and remember what a villain he was and what he meant to do and what she must prevent.

She had been laughing at his teasing as they ascended the stairs, but at their door her laughter died as she began to fear the awkwardness of their retiring together for the night. But he excused himself and returned only when she was in bed, the blankets tucked securely under her chin. Then he made such minor preparations for sleep himself as removing his boots and jacket and cravat and blowing out their last candle.

In the darkness she heard him lie down upon the floor. She lay perfectly still and advised herself to sleep, but sleep wouldn’t come. He had been the adversary of her waking hours for four days, but only the night before had she discovered that he slept on the floor beside her. Knowing that he lay so close in the darkness unsettled her. It was hard to think of the earl’s papers, and to think that she must slip from her bed and try again to search her thief as he slept made her feel hot and shaky. She turned restlessly in the wide bed. She ought to do something. She thought of Prudence in her blue dress on every white, waking page of her book, but what would Prudence say to Tom True alone in the dark?