The Duke's Messenger (28 page)

“Happy?”

“You came to Vienna, as I believe, to be with your fiance, Lord Foxhall.”

“Not quite affianced, Reeves,” said Nell. “Not quite yet. He wishes to speak to my brother.”

“And your brother is here. So we may expect to hear the good news at any moment, I suspect.”

Her mind was far from Rowland and her delirious happiness at seeing him again. In truth, she had not yet come upon the state of ecstasy. Instead, she inquired, “Reeves, you remember that parcel.”

He raised his eyebrows. “How could I forget it?”

“It was not the true parcel.” She eyed him closely. She could not discern any element of surprise in him.

“Then all our efforts were for naught?”

She suspected that he was more curious about the extent of her knowledge of the parcel than he was about the item itself. There was no need for secrecy any more. “I delivered the parcel myself to Lord Castlereagh not an hour since,” she told him, “as I had undertaken to do. I am told — not by the minister, but by Lord Foxhall — that another parcel, that one containing the important papers, had already come to them.”

“How strange.”

“I am persuaded you do not find it strange at all, Reeves. I wish to know what part you had in deceiving me.”

He thought for a moment. “Indeed, I should think that you should be expressing gratitude to your brother for his consideration of you rather than flying up in the boughs.”

“Gratitude! For making me out the veriest kind of pea-witted fool?”

His mocking amusement vanished. “It was your brother’s thought, Miss Aspinall, that your fiancé — or almost fiancé, whatever his status is might take it amiss were you to arrive in Vienna, your heart on your sleeve. Indeed, while I could not quite believe that any man worthy of the name would resent such evidence of devotion, Tom claimed more intimate knowledge of Lord Foxhall. I, of course, bowed to his decision.”

At the most inopportune moment imaginable, she recalled that sentence that Rowland had cropped short. He would explain to Lord Castlereagh that the parcel was considered by Nell sufficient to…

Sufficient to serve as an excuse to join Rowland!

Her anger was directed less at the vain Lord Foxhall, who considered her efforts as no more than his due, than at herself.

Rowland had read her own motives far too well!

Chapter Twenty-Seven

She came back to herself to see a pair of hazel eyes full of anxiety for her.

“Was Tom wrong?” asked Reeves softly. “Should we have told you that he was taking the genuine package?”

“I should not have worried so, if he had. It’s no matter, truly, about the parcel. It was urgent to get it here, and that was of the first importance. It is simply that …” A sob rose in her throat.

“That no one trusted you. I see that.”

She looked intently at him. Surprisingly he did see that she was hurt because no one thought her intelligent enough to know the truth.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “It was all wrong.”

She was recovering her usual good nature. “If I had not been so foolish at the start …” She remembered that Reeves had no notion of how the ill-starred journey had started, how she had cozened Mr. Haveney, how she had even persuaded her aunt against her wishes to set out. “No matter,” she went on. “It’s done now.”

She could hear someone coming from the mews behind the palace. She turned to go. Reeves stopped her. “I am giving up my employment. It’s back to the country for me.”

She did not know what she answered. On the one hand, she could not wish him luck in a new employment as coachman, for there lay too much intimacy between them. Nor could she tell him that she would miss him, for there was the abyss between their respective conditions of life.

She did the only thing possible — she turned and, picking up her skirts, fled. If she had looked back, she might have seen Reeves watching her gravely, but she did not.

At the front of the palace, feeling tears stinging the back of her eyelids and longing only to fling herself on her bed and cry — cry for Tom’s high-handed ways, for Rowland’s satisfied vanity, for Reeves, for Reeves — she met Penelope Freeland.

“Miss Aspinall,” said the light cool voice. “I heard that you had arrived in Vienna.”

Nell looked up into the light blue eyes of the woman standing above her on the steps. “Yes, we did.” The faintest stress on the pronoun was not lost on Miss Freeland.

“Wasn’t that your coachman to whom you were speaking just now?”

Nell realized then that Penelope, like herself, was returning to the palace. “My aunt’s coachman.”

“There is something familiar about him. But then of course I must have seen him many times in London. One hardly looks at a servant of course.”

Nell did not feel obliged to explain that this particular coachman had never driven them in London. Nor, she knew, would he drive them again. She said, in a lofty tone, “I was giving him my aunt’s instructions.”

“To carry you to the archduke’s ball tonight, doubtless. It did not take long for him to open up the Salvator Palace, did it? I understand that he too arrived only yesterday, in your company. Your aunt seems to charm gentlemen to her own advantage, does she not?”

“Doubtless,” said Nell sweetly, “because gentlemen find a woman with such feminine ways a rarity.”

Penelope turned caustic. “I consider it beneath my dignity to flatter any man. I am no hypocrite. If a man cannot see what is for his own good, then he should be instructed.”

Nell’s eyes glittered. “One must certainly admire anyone who knows what is best, not only for herself but for everyone around her. What should we ever do without our self-appointed mentors?”

She swept up the stairs, leaving Penelope looking as surprised as if a kitten had clawed her. Nell’s strong irritation was not soothed by finding Rowland in her own sitting room, waiting for her.

“Where have you been?” he asked, nettled at his long wait.

“Out.”

“I can see that.” He was on the verge of asking where but thought better of it.

“What did you come to tell me, Rowland?” she demanded. She was not in a mood to sustain frivolous conversation. “Have you looked into that parcel I left with the minister?”

He reddened. “The parcel is not relevant. I came in hopes of having a private interview with you. Not for the first time, as you know, but I venture to hope that this occasion will find all in order.”

She looked at him blankly. “What on earth are you talking about?”

He smiled. “I must express my admiration for your quite proper reticence. But I assure you that it is quite unnecessary for you to pretend not to understand the purpose of my visit, especially when your brother has quite kindly put himself in the way of my approaching him to ask his approval of my offer.”

She sat down abruptly. This particular moment had been the goal of her privations and her acceptance of unexpected perils. She had longed for Rowland to make his offer, for Tom to accept the desirability of Lord Foxhall, heir to an earldom, as a brother-in-law, and for the inevitable result of such a felicitous circumstance — a lifetime of bliss.

She contemplated, as though she had not previously seen them, her hands folded in her lap. Now that the exalted moment had arrived, she could not properly concentrate on it. She was well aware that a young lady’s first offer was one which should be enshrined in memory. Just now she could not recall what he had said.

She hesitated too long. Rowland, disturbed at her lack of beatific response, was moved to speech. “Surely you were aware of my intentions. I told you as much in London, that as soon as I could gain your brother’s approval, I should offer you marriage.” He eyed her warily. “As well as my prospects, you know, being in the direct line for the title and a sufficiency of income of which I have already satisfied your brother, I dare to hope that you will find the life I have chosen — as a diplomatist, you know — one of constant satisfaction to you.”

His life as a diplomatist aside, she thought, she could not but look at dead dry years ahead, without humor or wit — of which Rowland was deprived at birth — but with an oversufficiency of self-satisfaction, long-winded prosing, and overweening dignity.

“Rowland, we shall not suit.”

“Not suit!” He was aghast. “Not suit? What then do you want?”

She could not tell him what she wanted. She wanted someone who would sympathize and share her troubles — like climbing in illicit windows. She longed for someone to be tender of her welfare, keeping watch, if it were required, on the landing all night.

And above all, she ached for someone who could be swept away by sheer desire for her love to forget his status in life and deal with her like a woman and not a diplomatic treaty! “I am sorry, Rowland. My affections have altered.”

“Altered!”

“Pray, Rowland, do not repeat my every word. Just understand —
try
to understand — that I can never marry you.”

“Then — then you didn’t come with that ridiculous parcel just to — to marry me?”

“Indeed, I did not.” What was truth, after all?

He gathered his dignity around him almost visibly, like a Roman toga. At the door, he paused to deliver one more pronouncement. “I am grateful that at least I had sense enough not to put a premature announcement in the
Gazette
. I should not like to look the fool.”

“But,” said Nell, aroused, “you were willing enough to brand me an idiot for so far forgetting decorum as to chase you across Europe with a parcel of nothing as an excuse? What kind of fool do you take me for?”

“But,” said Rowland with every appearance of reason, “you are female. And no one expects logic from a woman.”

*

She seethed until late afternoon and time to dress for the archduke’s ball. She was sitting in her dressing gown staring into the mirror when her aunt entered.

“Whatever is the matter, Nell?” she cried. “You haven’t begun to dress. What are you to wear? I’ll send Mullins to you!”

“No need, Aunt. I am ready but for my gown.”

“Do not delay, child. We are to be there early. Josef is sending his coach for us, and I do not wish to keep the horses standing.”

Nell looked sharply at her aunt. An odd note in Phrynie’s voice was reflected as well in an unaccustomed expression of doubt. “You, worried about keeping cattle standing, Aunt? This is not like you.”

Phrynie laughed, not merrily. “I know it isn’t. In truth I do not quite know what is like me anymore. You know that Josef is related to the Emperor? His wife — I mean Josef’s — died several years ago, about the same time as Sanford, isn’t that an odd coincidence?”

“Quite likely several hundreds more died at the same time, Aunt.”

Phrynie took a turn around the small bedroom. “I declare I never —” She whirled back to face Nell. “Nell, do you think I would like living in Austria?”

Phrynie’s vulnerable expression moved Nell to the verge of tears. “Aunt, really? Is it something you would like?”

“Oh, Nell, I’m so fuddled I can’t tell what I would like. But he is so kind, and so considerate…”

Nell sprang up to hug her aunt. “Oh, I am delighted for you, so happy, you deserve everything…”

Wiping a tear from her cheek, Phrynie said, “What about you? For I shall not dare to be happy until I have you settled!”

Nell kept silent. How could she dash her aunt’s visible happiness by telling her that her own marriage would not now take place? The answer was evident. “I’ll tell you later,” she said. “I shall not wish to be the cause of the archduke’s cattle standing in the cold!”

Phrynie returned to her room, and Nell proceeded to put on her ball gown. She wore her new white lace and fastened her mother’s pearls around her. How virginal she looked! she told herself. An omen of some significance, more than likely.

A tap on the door heralded another caller, this one more than unwelcome. “Tom, I am surprised to see you,” Nell told him, frost edging her words. “When I saw you last, you could not escape quickly enough.”

“I am sorry, Nell. But I must tell you —”

“Nothing I wish to hear, I am sure.”

“Quite likely.” She saw that his lips were set in an unaccustomed grimace. Clearly his message was not expected to be a popular one. “Nell, I’m not giving my approval for you to wed Foxhall.”

She gaped at him. “But you already did!”

“I will rescind it. Nell, you cannot be happy with that windbag.”

Irritation turned to full-fledged anger. “I suppose you are doing what you think is best for me? My dear brother, I beg leave to take exception to your misguided authority. It is entirely your fault that we came here to Vienna. If you had been where you were supposed to be, you could have made your decision at once, instead of weeks later, after that odious journey! You could have brought the parcel yourself to Vienna, and I would now be preparing for the Christmas holidays in Essex. And I would not have made myself a complete idiot, for you must know that Rowland has explained to me the contents of that parcel I guarded with my very life!”

Tom’s mouth dropped open. He was stunned by the fury of her onslaught. He caught hold of only one of the accusations hurled at him. “But you thought Foxhall wouldn’t believe you, without that parcel for an excuse!”

“That doesn’t matter. He offered for me.”

“He did?” Tom’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Then I shall have to seek him out, to tell him —”

“Oh, tell him nothing!” she raged. “I have turned him down. You may call me ape-leader, for you will never call me Lady Foxhall!”

For once, and wisely, Tom held his tongue. He was rewarded by his sister throwing herself in his arms and sobbing violently on his shoulder. For perhaps the first time, he felt some sympathy with Foxhall. He had a shrewd idea that the man was just as bewildered by Nell’s about-face as he was himself.
Women
!

*

The Archduke Josef Salvator’s ball was a huge success. Everyone said so. The Duchess of Netwick screwed up her malicious little face, cast a significant glance at Phrynie, and remarked that the archduke was coming out of mourning, wasn’t he?

Penelope Freeland entered, triumphantly smiling, on the arm of Lord Foxhall. Nell, her dress as innocent as the one she wore when her aunt presented her to society last April, was escorted by her brother, to whom she seemed to have little to say.

The evening seemed to her to have no relation to time. She could not tell how many sets she danced, how many partners she had, for they all flew by in a blur. At length, when Tom came to her, perhaps an hour after they arrived, she was dizzy with the noise and the insufferable heat, more suitable to a conservatory than a ballroom. The Austrians knew how to keep warm, without doubt.

“Tom, please, let us not dance. I have the headache, and I am so thirsty.”

Relieved, he said, “Let me get you something to drink. Not alcoholic, of course, but I expect they have lemon squash.”

The small room to which he led her was a quiet haven. The door stood open, of course, but the insistent hum of many voices receded, like the distant hum of bees in the meadows in high summer at Aspinall Hall. Would she had never left it!

Her brother had been gone a very long time, so it seemed. She could hear voices outside now, someone sounding very much like Rowland, saying deferentially, “Your Grace —”

The door opened, not to admit Rowland. Instead a man dressed in a colonel’s uniform, resplendent with medals, came in and closed the door behind him. He advanced to her and bowed low over her hand. “Miss Aspinall,” he said, “I hope I see you in good health?”