Kissed by Shadows (34 page)

“What's Don Ashton doing with Pippa?” Luisa asked, staring after them.

“I have no idea. I only hope he does,” Robin said. “Help me unsaddle the horses.”

Pippa, deciding she would save her strength for more important bones of contention, offered no further protest. They went through a kissing gate and into a narrow lane that led to a ford, no more than a path of stones wide enough for a cart to cross the stream. A small lime-washed cottage stood beside the ford.

Lionel rapped with his knuckles on the door in a quick rhythm and it was opened instantly.

Pippa stared at the bent old man in his ragged garments.

“Malcolm?” she said after an instant.

He grinned through his grime. “Aye, Lady Nielson, the very same. Come you in.”

Lionel set Pippa down on the rough wooden settle beside the fire. “Put your feet up.”

She did so without demur, resting her back against the high side of the settle, her face towards the fire. He rolled his cloak into a thick bundle and pushed it behind her shoulders.

“Where's Goodwife Abbot?”

“In the back,” Malcolm said. He regarded Pippa with ill-concealed concern. “I'll fetch her.”

Lionel stood warming his backside at the fire. Pippa looked at him. He seemed very much at his ease, as if all the urgency of their mad dash across the countryside was now dissipated. And yet surely, she thought, they had arrived at the most dangerous moments of their flight.

“You have a question?” he asked, feeling the searching intensity of her regard.

She shook her head. “Not really.” She could detect now the taut resolve behind the composed facade. It was in his eyes that had a touch of iron to the gray, and in the line of his mouth and jaw. He was rock solid, as steady and unflinching as any deep-rooted oak tree in a gale, and she too now felt confident that his will
would
prevail. He would save her and her child. He would defeat Philip; in this he would defeat Spain.

Her limbs became heavy and relaxed, her head resting against the bundled velvet at her back, and for a moment her eyelids drooped.

“What can I do fer ye, sir?” A woman stepped into the firelight, but her gaze turned instantly from Lionel to Pippa. “Eh, what 'ave we 'ere,” she said, bending over Pippa. “Be you ill, madam?”

“No,” Pippa said, managing a smile. “Just very tired and with child.”

“Can you make her ladyship an infusion, goodwife?” Lionel asked. “Something to strengthen her.”

“Oh, aye, that I can.” The woman chafed Pippa's hands for a minute then straightened. “Peppermint, valerian, a touch o' milk thistle, in an elder-flower cordial. That'll put 'eart in ye, m'dear.”

She moved around the small room, selecting herbs from the ceiling racks where they were dried. She took an earthenware jar from a shelf, poured some of its contents into a pewter cup, added the herbs, then added hot water from the steaming kettle on the trivet in the fireplace. She stirred the mixture, added a large dollop of honey, and brought it to Pippa.

“There y'are, m'dear. Drink it down.”

Pippa clasped the cup in both hands. The steam was fragrant and reminded her suddenly of her old nurse, Tilly. It was just the kind of soothing medicine that Tilly would have mixed. She glanced up at Lionel, but saw that he was now deep in a low-voiced conversation with Malcolm.

She took a sip of the infusion and watched them through half-closed eyes, trying to gauge the tenor of their conversation although she could hear no more than a word or two.

Robin and Luisa arrived soon after and Pippa hitched herself up on the settle, drawing up her feet so that there was room for Luisa to squeeze herself near the fire.

Robin joined Malcolm and Lionel, and the goodwife after an appraising glance at Luisa brought her a large cup of buttermilk and a piece of gingerbread.

“You are something of a physician, goodwife,” Pippa said with an appreciative smile. “Your diagnostic skills are remarkably accurate.”

The woman smiled back and took Pippa's empty cup. “Anythin' else I can get you, madam?”

Pippa shook her head. “No, I thank you.” She looked over at the men. “I think Luisa and I should be a part of this conversation, sirs. We have been pampered sufficiently, our poor weak spirits given enough of a rest.”

Lionel turned to her. “It would do you more good to close your eyes for an hour. We have no need to move until five.”

“And maybe I will do that,” she said steadily. “But I will sleep better, sir, if I know what lies ahead.”

“She will,” Robin murmured. “I applaud your efforts, Ashton, but she'll only go along with you so far.”

“If you say so.” Lionel came over to the settle. “Very well. At five, you, Malcolm, and I will ride into Southampton. You and I will be rather differently attired . . . more in Malcolm's fashion.”

He glanced at the other man, who gestured significantly to a bag on the floor beneath the window.

“We shall go aboard
Sea Dream
at Southampton Dock. Robin and Luisa will make their way to Bucklers Hard, a hamlet on the Beaulieu River. Goodwife Abbot's son has a dinghy there. He will sail them to the mouth of the river, where they will wait.
Sea Dream
will sail on the tide and sometime after midnight she will drop anchor in the Solent in deep water on a line with the mouth of the river. Robin and Luisa will then join us on board and we will sail for France.”

“Why does that sound so simple, yet fill me with such dread?” Pippa inquired with a mildness quite at odds with her racing blood. She sat up, swinging her legs to the floor. “Why can we not all go aboard the ship in Southampton?”

Lionel leaned over her, brushing her lank hair from her forehead. “'Tis safer thus. Malcolm has been doing some spying of his own. Renard's men are posted at every entrance to the town and they're patrolling the docks. Four people are more conspicuous than two.”

“There is more,” she said steadily, fixing him with a direct gaze.

It was Robin who answered her. “Your safety is paramount, Pippa. You and your child must get away tonight. It will be much easier to spirit just you and Lionel aboard. If there is a difficulty in picking up Luisa and me . . . the current may be too strong, or the wind . . . or there may be excise men on the watch in the Solent . . . then I will find another way for us to cross the Channel. They won't be looking too hard for the two of us.”

Lionel took her hands. “I will make this all right, Pippa. You will trust me to do that.” The clear gray eyes held hers. There was such an intensity of determination, of passion, of promise there that she felt as if she would be consumed by the sheer power of his will. She could only try to match her courage with his.

“Yes,” she agreed. Her voice was suddenly stronger. “And can I trust also that there will be hot water on board this
Sea Dream
? I for one have slept in my clothes and not changed my linen in three days.”

Lionel smiled, knowing the courage it had cost her to make the jesting demand.

“That much I can promise you, my love,” he said softly, and touched his fingers to her lips in a brief caress.

Twenty-seven

Pippa was glad she had no mirror to see her reflection once she was dressed in the ghastly garments Malcolm had brought for her. A tattered skirt that had once been yellow but was now so dirty it was a dull beige and an equally grimy bodice with an edge of torn lace. She pushed her feet into the wooden sabots that were so large they were like boats.

She tried unsuccessfully to push her toes to the very end of the clogs. “I hope I don't have to walk too far in these.”

“I hope you won't have to walk at all,” Lionel remarked. He looked her over critically. “Pull the shawl up over your head and cover your face as much as possible.”

Grimacing, Pippa swathed her head in the musty-smelling folds of red wool.

“You don't look in the least like yourself,” Luisa pronounced.

“Good,” Pippa said. “Neither does Lionel.”

Lionel did look particularly disreputable with his face darkened with burnt cork and an artistically drawn scar lifting the corner of his upper lip. He wore stained leather britches and jerkin, and his hands were the calloused hands of a laborer, the nails broken and filthy.

Lionel smiled, showing crumbling teeth. It was a disguise he had assumed on many occasions and he was well aware of its effectiveness.

Pippa turned to Robin, asking anxiously, “You are content with this plan, Robin? What happens if they're watching that river?”

“They won't be,” he said confidently. “But anyway I understand that the dinghy is beached out of sight of the main quay. We should be able to launch it without detection.”

He put his arms around her and hugged her. “Once we're in the dinghy they won't be able to touch us. Don't worry. We'll see you on board
Sea Dream
.”

She nodded, refusing to admit the slightest doubt in her mind, the slightest tremor of fear. “I know you will. God go with you.” She kissed him, kissed Luisa, who hugged her convulsively, and then she said to Lionel, “I am ready. Should we go?”

“We should.” He put a hand on her shoulder and steered her out of the cottage. He could feel the tension of her body beneath his hand but he could also sense her steadiness of purpose. Of course she was afraid, who wouldn't be? But she was not going to let it show. He knew her sister Pen's history and he had heard some story about her mother, Lady Guinevere Mallory, and her battle with the old King Henry VIII. Mallory women, he thought, were not cut from ordinary cloth.

Malcolm was already seated on the driving board of the farm cart. He jumped down to help Pippa into the back. It was full of recently cured sheepskins and bales of raw uncarded wool.

“What a dreadful stench!” she exclaimed.

“Aye, people don't realize that the finished product has unsavory beginnings,” Lionel said.

Pippa sat on a pile of sheepskins. “I stink myself,” she observed. “So I'll blend in nicely.”

Lionel laughed. “It's going to be worse, I'm afraid. You can stay there until we get close to the city walls, but then we're going to cover you with the skins and a bale of wool.”

“How disgusting,” she muttered. “I shall probably be sick, I warn you.”

He accepted the remark in the spirit it was intended and said cheerfully, “I hope not. It will only be for a short while, just until we get beyond the walls and into the warehouse. Then you can breathe fresh air for a few minutes, before we wrap you up again.”

He jumped onto the bench, beside Malcolm. “Let's go.”

Malcolm cracked his whip and the cart horse lumbered forward.

“Wrap me up why?”

“You know the story of Cleopatra and the rug?”

“Yes.”

“Same principle. You'll go aboard wrapped in a bale of cloth.”

“Oh.” Pippa grabbed the side of the cart as it jolted in a particularly deep rut. “This disguise seems a little pointless if I'm not ever to be seen.”

“'Tis merely added insurance.”

Which made perfect sense, of course. “How will you go aboard?”

“As a dockhand loading bales of cloth. One of which will be you.”

Pippa nodded and fell silent. She could find no fault with the plan but that did nothing to assuage her fears. The autumn dusk was gathering and flocks of rooks circled noisily above the treetops before settling for the night. Cows lowed from the fields, waiting for milking time. The countryside was so calm, so ordinary, and she wondered, if she should escape tonight, whether she would ever be able to return to the land of her birth. And what of her mother? Would she ever see her mother again?

Her breath caught in her throat and to her horror it came out like a sob. She swiftly turned it into a yawn as Lionel twisted around on the bench in immediate response to the tiny sound.

“Just sleepy,” she mumbled.

He was unconvinced but judged it better not to push her for the truth. It would do no good for her to put doubts and fears into words, not at this juncture.

Instead he asked Malcolm, “What time do they close the gates?”

“At six. We should get through just a minute or two before.”

“Good timing. With luck they'll be in too much of a hurry to get home to their own firesides to give us more than a cursory glance.”

The walls of the city were visible in the dusk when Malcolm drew the cart aside under a hedge and Lionel climbed into the back. He spread a sheepskin on the floor. “Quickly, Pippa.”

She lay down, holding her breath at the reek of urine that had been used for the tanning process. Lionel threw another skin over her and then swiftly piled bundles of wool on top.

“Can you breathe?”

“I'm trying not to.”

“Keep as still as you can.”

He went back to Malcolm and the cart started up again.

Pippa lay rigid; wool tickled her nose and she tried desperately not to sneeze even as she breathed lightly through her mouth. The floor of the cart was hard and uneven and something pressed fiercely between her shoulder blades. But worse than anything was her inability to see what was happening.

The cart came to a halt and she heard Malcolm call to someone. “Headin' for the docks, sir. Got a cargo of skins and wool.”

They must be at the gate. She felt something hit the side of the cart and she stopped breathing altogether. Something hard poked at her. She imagined it to be a pitchfork and now she was convinced the wool and skins would be tossed aside and she would lie there exposed. She needed to breathe but she didn't dare. She waited in a terror surpassing anything she would have believed possible. And then the cart lurched forward again and she took a deep gulp of the foul air and sneezed violently.

“Jest a minute there!” There was an imperative shout and the cart came to a stop. She heard the sound of running feet.

Dear God! She had sneezed while they were going through the gate.

Lionel gazed blandly at the watchman who came running up. He sneezed and blew his nose between his fingers, wiping them on his britches. “What's up, mate?” He sneezed again. “Damn wool,” he said. “Gets up me nose.”

The man stared at him suspiciously. He leaned over the side of the cart and looked inside, bending his head close to the pile of wool. Then he sneezed suddenly himself.

“Yer right at that,” he said, wiping his nose on his sleeve. “Foul stuff.” He slapped the side of the cart and returned to help his colleague heave the great iron gates closed for the night.

Lionel whistled casually between his teeth as he exchanged a significant glance with Malcolm. Neither of them spoke or looked once behind them to the interior of the cart.

Pippa fought waves of nausea, brought on, she knew, by panic. It had nothing to do with pregnancy. It was sheer terror. The cart lumbered over stones now, the wooden wheels clattering. She concentrated on the sounds around her, to take her mind off her nausea. There were voices close by, rough, grumbling tones, grunts, and heavy breathing. A creaking sound like straining ropes, and the flapping of heavy cloth.

They must be at the docks.

The cart came to a halt once more and after what seemed hours the vile coverings were flung aside and she was staring up at a clear night sky, breathing salt air, feeling a cold wind on her heated cheeks. Her unruly stomach settled down once more.

Lionel leaned in, taking her hands to pull her to her feet.

“Forgive me, I don't know why that happened . . . I couldn't help it,” she gasped as she staggered upright.

“All's well that ends well. Come here.” He reached up to take her waist and swung her down to the cobbles. They were in a small enclosed yard, empty except for a few bales of cloth.

Pippa looked around. “Where's Malcolm?”

“He's gone. He has to get Dona Bernardina on a ship back to Spain. Then he will journey into Derbyshire to tell your family what has happened and reassure them that you're safe. You and Robin.”

Pippa looked at him incredulously. “You thought of that!”

“I imagine it's been preying on your mind somewhat.”

Somewhat!
Pippa thought. The prospect of her mother's frantic anxiety when she heard of her disappearance had been almost more than she could bear. So much so that she had pushed it to the back of her mind, trying to quell her misery by telling herself that it would be many weeks before the news traveled to Derbyshire, and maybe by then she would be able to send a message from France.

But Lionel had found time to think of this and plan for it.

“Thank you,” she said. She reached up a hand to touch his face in a fleeting grateful caress and he grasped her wrist tightly for a moment, looking down into her eyes, holding her gaze, intense and yet with the same compassionate sweetness that had so drawn her to him from their first real meeting.

Once again all the warmth and intimacy that they had ever shared ran deep and swift between them. It was almost as if what had been destroyed was now growing back. As if the roots themselves had never been torn from the ground and were now putting forth tender little shoots of possibility.

“You have no need to thank me, Pippa.”

He let go her wrist. “At least wait until we're safely on the high seas,” he said with a wry smile. “Then maybe we'll have this conversation again, when I can indulge my gratification.”

At that moment a stocky man with a rolling gait and a distinct air of authority came over to them. He gave Pippa only a cursory glance. “They'll be givin' us the evil eye soon, sir, if we don't finish loadin'. We have to catch the tide.”

“Right,” Lionel said, all briskness again. “We're ready. Help me unroll the cloth.”

The two men attacked a large bale of unbleached cloth, spreading it across the cobbles. Pippa obeyed Lionel's beckoning finger and lay down in the middle of the material. She found she was no longer capable of fear. Everything had taken on such an air of unreality that she felt she was existing in a dream, a sensation that was only accentuated when the cloth covered her head and bound her arms tightly to her sides.

Carefully they rolled her over until the cloth was wound mummylike around her and she resembled nothing more than a column of material.

Lionel hoisted her up over his shoulder, placing a steadying hand on her backside as she dangled down his back. “Just hang limp, Pippa,” he murmured.

As if she had any choice, Pippa reflected, swathed as she was. It was damnably uncomfortable, the blood had rushed to her head and she felt quite dizzy. But again, to her astonishment, her earlier terror had quite dissipated.

Lionel moved out of the courtyard, through the empty warehouse, and onto the dock. He kept his head lowered but his eyes darted left and right as he walked steadily to
Sea Dream
's gangplank.

“Eh, you not done yet?” A rough voice hailed him just as he approached the gangplank.

He turned slowly, his mouth drooping, his lower lip hanging open. He looked at his interlocutor with the vacant stare of a half-wit. The man was dressed in the buff jerkin of a soldier, armed with sword and dagger, and he had the air of one spoiling for a fight.

“You, I'm talkin' to you!” The soldier jabbed Lionel in the chest with his forefinger. “They've been loadin' this ship all day. There's others waitin' for the berth.”

Lionel continued to offer his loose-lipped stare. “T' maister,” he mumbled. “I dunno nuthin', sir. T' maister knows.”

Captain Longton, who had gone ahead, yelled from the top of the gangplank. “Get up here with that load, you half-witted bugger! We're ready to cast off.”

“T' maister,” Lionel mumbled again. He hitched his burden higher on his shoulder as if it was particularly heavy.

Pippa felt the wooden shoe slip. Desperately she tried to catch it on her toe, but the cloth made it impossible to bend her feet. She felt the sabot slide off her toe, and through the racing blood in her ears she heard the clatter as it hit the cobbles of the quay.

The soldier stared at the shoe, then up at the bundle, and comprehension dawned. Someone was being smuggled aboard. It was what he'd been told to look for. He gave a triumphant shout and lunged forward, his sword in his hand.

Lionel dropped Pippa unceremoniously to the cobbles just a second before the sword reached its target. His own knife now glittered in his hand as he dodged the thrusts of his opponent, looking for an opening.