Kissed by Shadows (26 page)

A gentleman in a green cloak and riding a black horse had visited the Ashton mansion that morning. Dona Luisa had seemed more than ordinarily pleased to see the visitor. Malcolm had heard her hastily swallowed exclamation of pleasure at the sight of Robin of Beaucaire.

He could go after them himself, but he didn't know what road they had taken, and if he missed them, or if the lady was not Dona Luisa, then he would have wasted critical time. It was possible that she had been snatched out of the lanes when she'd left the silversmith's, although he didn't think that likely. The cottage of the woman who had seen her was situated at the very point where the lane opened onto Aldgate.

No. Malcolm made up his mind. Dona Luisa had gone of her own accord, so she was in no immediate danger. It was for Mr. Ashton to decide what to do. He had to avert a scandal and if Malcolm was involved in a scene on the highway a scandal would definitely result. There were maybe things Mr. Ashton knew about Lord Robin of which Malcolm was unaware. He could not afford to waste another minute.

He put his horse to the gallop, and, leading Crema, forced his way through the crowds.

Twenty

“I thnk they have been gone for far too long, Don Ashton,” Bernardina announced. “It has been well over an hour.”

“That is hardly a long ride,” Lionel said, one hand on the newel post. The duenna had arrested him on his way upstairs to gather necessary articles for his journey and he could not conceal his impatience. “You worry overmuch, madam. As long as she's with Malcolm, there's nothing to fear.”

Bernardina opened her mouth to protest just as the front door was flung open behind them. She turned with a gasp as Malcolm hurried in.

“Madre de dios!”
she cried. “I knew it! Where is she? Where is my baby?”

Malcolm didn't understand the Spanish but the gist was perfectly clear. He brushed her aside, however, and addressed Lionel. “She gave me the slip,” he said without preamble. “Said she wanted to go into a silversmith's shop to buy a thimble for the duenna and went out the back way.”

“What?”
Lionel stared at him in disbelief. “Luisa?”

“Yes, sir. I'm trying to tell you. She wanted to go to Aldgate for some reason, but now I think she was meeting someone there. The watchman saw a lady in a coach pass through the gate.”

“There must be dozens of ladies in coaches going through the gate!”

“Aye, sir, but the gentleman riding alongside sounded from his description like Lord Robin of Beaucaire,” Malcolm said stolidly.

Dona Bernardina had understood nothing but she knew that name. She gave a little shriek and sank down on a bench against the wall. “I knew it,” she moaned. “I knew when they came to supper that no good would come of it.”

Lionel turned to her. “What do you mean? Luisa had never met the man before. She has never met anyone outside this house.”

“I told you . . . I warned you. . . .” Bernardina was weeping now. “What will her dear mother say? I told you there was something suspicious about the way she keeps slipping out of the house when I'm asleep. I told you, Don Ashton, that there was a
man.
”

Lionel stood in frowning thought. Malcolm said, “I'm right sorry, sir. She didn't have anything with her . . . for a journey, like. She just seemed like her usual self. A bit lively, but then she always is when we go out.”

“I should have found some outlet for that liveliness,” Lionel said acidly. “She fooled me, Malcolm, there's no reason for you to feel guilty.”

Malcolm did not look absolved. “I didn't know whether to go after them, sir, but I didn't want to waste any time just in case.”

“No, you did the right thing to come straight to me. What a wretched little minx she is.” He sounded annoyed, but there was none of the shock and anger that Malcolm had expected.

“What is it?” Bernardina demanded. “Do you know where she is?”

“I believe I do, madam.” He tapped his palm against the shiny round knob of the newel post. He had a much more urgent matter to attend to than worrying about Luisa.

What on earth had possessed the girl? If he was right, she was with Robin and Pippa. He had to get Pippa on a boat to France, and he had to be on the boat with her. He could not leave her until she was ensconced in the safe house he had prepared. Now he would have Luisa to worry about. He could hardly send her home alone, and certainly not with Beaucaire's escort. And he couldn't be hampered by Bernardina.

“Damn the girl!” he muttered. “There's no need to fall into a swoon, madam, she has a chaperone. No harm will come of this adventure. No one need know of it and if there are questions she has simply gone on an excursion in the company of Lady Nielson and her brother.”

“She has eloped,” Bernardina said tragically. “It will be the death of her mother.”

“She has not eloped. Beaucaire is not such a fool, in fact I strongly suspect he had no idea what she was planning. Her mother will not know of it unless you tell her.” His voice was a snap. “Go to her chamber and pack up a few necessities for her. Malcolm says she has nothing with her. There must be things she will need.”

“You're going after her?”

“Of course I am, woman! I'll catch up with them before nightfall. Malcolm, you'll accompany me. Have the chestnut saddled, he'll be fresh.”

He took the stairs two at a time. Of all the ridiculous complications. Getting Pippa to safety was a matter of life and death. For her sake he had sacrificed his cover and would never be able to retrieve it. Antoine de Noailles would inform his masters of Lionel Ashton's true affiliation and Spain's network would hear of it in no time. They would hunt him down; he knew far too many of their dirty secrets.

And until he could safely send Luisa back with Malcolm, he would be encumbered with an eighteen-year-old maiden with stars in her eyes.

He opened a locked drawer in the armoire and lifted the bottom. He took the papers from the secret space and inserted them under the false bottom of a small leather traveling bag. He put two neat sacks of doubloons and the box containing the scarab seal on top of them.

He took clean linen, hose, and shirts, and laid them carefully in the bag. A money pouch went into the inside pocket of his doublet where reposed the French ambassador's letter to Beaucaire. He moved with smooth efficiency. He was in a hurry, but not a desperate one. He knew where Beaucaire's little party was going, and he could catch them up on the road to Thame easily enough. The carriage would slow them up considerably. But it would keep Pippa from prying eyes.

Malcolm was waiting for him in the hall, still with an air of discomfort. “Horses are ready, sir.”

“Good. Have this strapped to my saddle.” He handed over his bag. “Ah, Dona Bernardina, is that Luisa's bag?”

“Yes, Don Ashton.” Bernardina was looking both dignified and disapproving as she handed him the embroidered tapestry bag. “But I think I should accompany you.”

“If I could take you, I would, believe me,” he said with heartfelt sincerity. “But you will not be able to keep up.”

Bernardina knew this to be true. She gave a heavy sigh. “I feel that it is my fault.”

“'Tis no one's fault but mine,” Lionel said briskly. “You'll have her back in no time.”

Bernardina crossed herself and her fingers moved restlessly over her rosary. Lionel hesitated for a second and then shook his head and strode from the house, Malcolm on his heels.

“Oh, but carriages are vile things,” Pippa said with a sigh, trying to ease her backside on the hard thinly cushioned wooden bench as the iron wheels jolted in the uneven ruts of the road. “I would much prefer to ride.”

“So would I,” Luisa agreed. She regarded her companion curiously. “Is there a reason why you do not, Lady Nielson?”

“I think we can dispense with the formalities, Luisa. I am usually called Pippa.”

“Then I will call you that too if you wish it.” Luisa smiled a little shyly. “We are very formal in Spain. 'Tis difficult to feel comfortable with your English informality.”

Pippa raised her eyebrows. “Do not tell me you are formal with Robin, Luisa.”

Luisa blushed. “No . . . not exactly. But then we have had adventures together.”

Pippa found the idea of Robin's taking an innocent maid adventuring too delicious to resist.

“I scent truth!” she said with something approaching a grin. She leaned over to roll up the strip of leather that covered the window. “'Tis too stuffy in here, we'll put up with the dust.”

She sat back again and stretched the tight muscles in her neck. “Come, tell me all. It will divert us a little.”

She listened with incredulous amusement as Luisa told her of all her excursions with Robin.

Luisa embellished her stories a little as she saw how life seemed to return to Pippa's eyes and a little color crept into her cheeks. Luisa didn't know what had happened, why they were bouncing around in this uncomfortable carriage, or even where they were going, but it was clear as day to anyone with a smidgeon of sensitivity that some disaster lay behind this precipitous journey and Luisa was certain that Pippa needed her.

She had never been needed before. She had been cossetted and confined, surrounded by people for whom her comfort and wishes were their main concern, and it was a novel sensation to know that it was her turn to provide the comfort and the cossetting.

Pippa laughed aloud at Luisa's description of the gaming tables from where, in her guise as servant girl no better than she should be, she had risen the night's winner to the chagrin of her male competitors.

Robin leaned sideways on his horse and stuck his head in the window. “What has amused you?”

“I've been hearing how you've been leading this poor girl astray,” Pippa said. “Fancy encouraging her to behave like a whore!”

Robin grinned. “She came to no harm.”

“No, indeed I did not,” Luisa agreed with a touch of indignation.

“I doubt you'd be here now if you hadn't felt your wings,” Pippa commented.

“I am here because something bad has happened and I think I can help,” Luisa stated, fire in her eyes. “I was only intending to have a little adventure, to test my wits against Malcolm's vigilance, and give Robin a surprise. But then it seemed that you needed me.” She looked between them, her eyes bright now with challenge.

The moment of diversion had passed. For a short while Pippa's spirits had lifted but now the knowledge of her misery came back with renewed force. The black cloud enveloped her once more and she felt her unhappiness like a physical weight that had settled on her heart.

She said bleakly, “I am glad of your company, Luisa. Robin, let us break our journey for half an hour soon. I am awearied of this carriage and ache from top to toe.”

“High Wycombe,” he said. “'Tis the next village. Do not show yourself unveiled though.”

“How should I?” Pippa demanded. She wanted to snap at Robin for making such a stupidly obvious comment, but she controlled the urge. He was struggling so hard to do and say the right things. It was not his fault that nothing would ever be right again.

“Why must you not be seen?” Luisa inquired.

Pippa shook her head. “I cannot tell you. 'Tis dangerous knowledge.”

“I see.” Luisa nodded. “Then I will ask no more questions.”

Pippa closed her eyes again. While she found Luisa's presence a comforting distraction she couldn't begin to think what they were to do with the girl. Lionel would be searching frantically for her.

And once he realized she herself had escaped he would also be searching for the king of Spain's whore.

The wretchedly familiar metallic taste was in her mouth and the nausea that had not troubled her so far today rose thick and acid in her throat. She leaned towards the window. “Stop the carriage!”

She stumbled out the minute it had halted. Luisa was behind her. She held her veiled hood back as Pippa vomited into the hedge. “My mother was always sick,” she said. “With all her pregnancies.”

Pippa straightened slowly, telling herself that one day this would stop. “There is lavender water in my bag, and spearmint. Bring them, will you? I will stay here in the air for a minute.”

Robin was standing a few feet away, trying to appear as if he hadn't noticed his sister's distress, but concern was writ large on his face.

How soon would her disappearance be discovered? He prayed that their plan would work and they had at least two days' start on the pursuit. And there would be pursuit. They wanted the child she carried, but Pippa now knew too much to be left at large. He guessed that if they got her in their hands they would keep her alive only until after the child's birth, or until Mary gave birth to a healthy heir.

Perhaps she would be safe in France with her brother-in-law. Owen d'Arcy knew how to hide people as well as to discover them. Once she was beyond Spain's reach they might let sleeping dogs lie, although she would always be at risk. Philip's reputation for vice was so well known that Pippa's tale of her violation, if she chose to tell it, would barely stir the waters.

Robin wondered if she would keep quiet for the child's sake. The lands under Spanish hegemony were littered with Philip's bastards but this one would bear Stuart Nielson's name. The truth of its parentage could easily be kept secret and the child would suffer no stigma. But Pippa would not be able to risk a return to England, not in Mary's lifetime. Only if Elizabeth inherited the crown would Pippa be truly safe.

How Pippa herself would react to the child once it was born was a question of such magnitude that Robin didn't want to explore it. Time enough when they had her safe.

Pippa came back to the carriage, pale but composed. She saw Robin's dark expression, the shadows clouding his eyes, and she touched his hand as if to offer comfort, absurd really when she had none to give herself. “I'm ready to continue, Robin,” she said simply.

He nodded. “We'll stop in High Wycombe and get some refreshment . . . perhaps we should stay there for the rest of the day?”

Pippa shook her head in vigorous denial. “No, we must press on . . . put as many miles between us and London as we can. As soon as you've done your work in Thame and Woodstock, we'll make our way to the coast.”

“Are we to go on a voyage?” Luisa inquired.