The Exploits & Adventures of Miss Alethea Darcy (7 page)

The mountains made Figgins stare. She twisted and turned to gaze up at the severe crags and peaks towering above them, peering out of the window of the lumbering coach as the steaming horses strained up the winding road towards the pass.

Next to her, Alethea looked out on the wintry scene with less astonishment. The majesty and stark white facets of the mountains filled her with awe, but she had known, in her imagination, how they would look. Living in Derbyshire, she was used enough to snow covering the high peaks for weeks on end, and she had read so many novels with accounts of Alpine journeys in them that she felt she had seen it all before.

“They aren't white,” Figgins said. “Not like you'd expect. They're blue and purple and pink and more besides.” She heaved a sigh of vast content. “To think that I should live to see this. Won't Ma's eyes be out on stalks when I tell her about it?”

“You'll have had enough of mountains by the time we get across to the other side and reach Italy.”

They were alone in the coach. That was unusual, but there had been reports of late, heavy snow, of blocked passes and long waits. The coach driver had scoffed at such talk, in guttural German that the innkeeper had had to translate for Alethea. The other travellers, who had come most of the way with them from Paris, chose to remain at the last inn until more reassuring news should be brought down from the high mountain passes.

Alethea hadn't hesitated. They would continue their journey. Familiarity bred carelessness; it would only be a matter of time before she or Figgins made a slip and gave their travelling companions cause to look more closely at these two young Englishmen. And apart from that, there was Napier, who might be close on their heels. She gave a little shudder, imagining him descending on Mordaunt's hôtel in Paris, the swift unfolding of details of her arrival, the false concern of her sister, the immense moral disapproval of her brother-in-law. No, Georgina's concern would not be entirely false; however, such concern would not be for her sister, but rather for the family's good name, for her own, now unassailable position as wife and mother, for the upholding of an orderly world where young women did not decamp from their husband's house.

And what if Georgina were somehow to discover just how she was travelling—dressed as a man? The rest would pale in comparison; for a female to step outside the circumscribed boundaries of her respectable life, not only in spirit but physically—that was more terrible than all the rest. To take on the liberty of a man's clothes and a man's identity was a threat to more than the seemly wearing of petticoats and the niminy-piminy steps of the elegant woman. It was a threat to the natural order of things; the merest idea of it would appall Sir Joshua and throw Georgina into the deepest alarm.

There was no way Georgina could know about her disguise, Alethea told herself. She had covered her tracks too carefully.

Did Georgina know about the previous escapades, when Alethea had crept out of the schoolroom to mingle with musicians in the breeches and coat of the professional player, blowing her flute at balls and assemblies, free as air to jaunt about the London streets?

Alethea thought not. She was confident that not a soul beyond Camilla and Wytton and Camilla's maid Sackree had ever heard about those times. She had no need to frighten herself. Napier in Paris, yes; Napier setting off for Vienna, yes; but Napier on her trail across Switzerland? No. She was safe from him; she must be safe from any pursuit.

The light was fading, sending final shafts of glowing red and orange light across the mountains as the weary horses drew up in front of the gasthof. Alethea looked with admiration at its huge sloping roof, snug under a deep covering of snow. From the numerous windows peeping out from beneath their own overhanging tiles, she surmised that this was the principal inn of the small town of Brig, and a hostelry where they might be sure of a comfortable room and good food.

Figgins wasn't fussy about a room, but she was anxious about supper. “I'm hungry to my backbone,” she said as they ascended the wide, shallow steps that led into the inn.

Mine host was a small, sharp-eyed Swiss of some forty years or so, who mercifully spoke good English.

“It is needful, with so many English visitors coming this way now that the war is over. And those who speak German can do nothing with our Swiss dialects, for in my country, you know, every valley has its own tongue. They say the English have a hundred religions; well, we Swiss have that many versions of our language.” He laughed at his wit and rang a bell to summon a servant to take their bags. “We have few visitors, the season has not yet begun, and late snow has caused many travellers to postpone all but the most essential journeys.”

His eyebrows rose in a question; Alethea was not disposed to answer him. She signed her name in the book, a flowing “Aloysius Hawkins, with servant, of London,” and passed it back to the landlord. She bespoke a room for only a single night, saying that they would continue their journey the next day.

Herr Geissler pursed his rather full lips and made a tutting noise. As to that, certainly the coach this morning had left at the usual time, but the one returning in the other direction was long past its regular hour and he doubted if it had set off at all, given that there had been such a heavy fall of snow. Still, if there were no more snow, and the wind continued in its present direction, then anything was possible.

“You will find a compatriot of yours in the coffee room,” he told her as he led the way himself up the ornately carved wooden stairs, “one Signora Lessini; she is English although her husband is an Italian.”

Alethea had no interest in the company, English or Italian. She was so shaken and tired by the hard day's journey that she had no wish to make civil conversation with anyone. A meal, and then she was for her bed.

The landlord showed her into a pleasant chamber, its smallish windows tightly shuttered, its carved wooden bed spread with linen as white as the snow that lay thick outside on the mountain slopes. Figgins had a small adjoining room, and when the landlord had lit a lamp and taken himself off, she exclaimed aloud at the huge, soft quilts spread over each of their beds.

“Lor, do you sleep on that or under it?” She gave hers a suspicious shake. “Foreign feathers. You don't know where those birds have been.”

“I believe you sleep under them,” said Alethea. “Very comfortable, no doubt.”

“The linen is clean enough,” Figgins said in grudging tones. “Now, you'd best bustle about if you're to dine below.”

Alethea pulled a face. “I'd rather not; it will be some woman agog with curiosity as to whom my father and all my ancestors are, and where I got my education and do I know Lady Such and Such and Lord This or That.”

“Why not an honest woman who has better things to talk about?”

“Because only women of a certain position in society have the leisure and the means to travel. One may meet many men upon the road, going about their business, but women are a different matter.”

Alethea pulled on her better coat, the one she hadn't travelled in. It was a dark blue cloth, and fitted her well; Figgins's brother Joe could be justly proud of his work. She peered at her face in the mirror. “It will look odd, to seem to have shaved after a journey, before sitting down to a meal.”

“Many a fair-skinned young man uses his razor barely once a week. There is nothing wrong in not being an horrid hairy man that I ever heard of. Indeed, the ladies often favour a young man with a smooth cheek and no hair on his chest.”

“It is to be hoped that none such favour me,” said Alethea. She recalled her adventure in Paris. “No, nor no men neither.” She laughed. “It is a sad reflection on the morals of both men and women that I may be more exposed to insult as I am than were I travelling as a solitary female.”

Signora Lessini was a slender woman with an air of quiet elegance. Her gown was plain, as befitted a traveller, although well-cut; Figgins whispered in Alethea's ear that Mrs. L was sure to have her clothes made in Paris. The cut and style vouched for that.

The signore was not at all elegant, being plump and short with a wicked dark eye and a great sense of fun. He had, he informed Alethea as the soup was bringing in, lived in England for so many years that he thought of himself as perfectly English.

“Imagine my distress when my dearest Emily informs me, in the cruellest manner, that this is not so, that I could never for a moment pass as an Englishman. Now, sir, what do you think of that?”

“I think it is enough to be an Italian.”

“Oh, you are polite, you are so well-bred, you have such wonderful manners, you young Englishmen. Yet you despise all foreigners in your hearts, now admit that it is so!”

“Indeed, I do not. I have not met so very many foreigners; however, I am acquainted with a compatriot of yours, one Signore Silvestrini, and I have the greatest admiration for him, I assure you.”

The words were no sooner out of her mouth than Alethea regretted them. What if he knew Signore Silvestrini, who had taught her singing since she first went to London? Might not her teacher, who knew something of her exploits when she dressed as a male musician, and most heartily disapproved of them, give her away at some later date?

She pushed the worry out of her mind. That was all in the future. Lessini was on his way to Italy; it might be many long months, years, even, before he and his wife returned to England. He would not then recall a chance meeting with an unimportant young Englishman in an inn in Italy.

Unfortunately, the name of Silvestrini seemed to work a charm on Lessini. “My dear friend, and his wife, ah, such a beauty!” He kissed his fingers in the air. “So fair. You are doubtless acquainted with her.”

Alethea was eager to get away from the subject of the Silvestrini family, so she returned a non-committal grunt and attended to her soup. Her own, carefully instilled manners were a ladylike trap. Every mouthful she took had to be considered. She modelled her table manners now on those of her husband. How often had she not sat at the other end of the table from him, watching him eat, no appetite of her own, hating him with an intensity that made her feel quite sick?

Not that his manners were unrefined, but as Alethea had discovered in her former incarnation as a young man, men do things differently. There was a robustness to their style of eating, a vigour and enthusiasm that would have raised eyebrows in any polite company if adopted by a member of the female sex.

Alethea was sufficiently young and healthy to have something of a schoolgirl's appetite, and this was sharpened by the rigours of travel. So she drank her soup swiftly and without undue carefulness. Very differently, indeed, from the polite sips taken by Signora Lessini, who was sitting across the table from her.

Before the next course was brought in, there was a hubbub in the entrance, voices, English voices exclaiming at the cold, the lateness of the hour, the tedious slowness of the journey, the need for immediate sustenance. “I am sure,” came a high, well-bred woman's voice, “that the other guests will forgive our sitting down to dine in our travellers' dust. For I confess I am famished, and want nothing more than a meal taken in front of a good fire.”

A man's voice, languid and affected, recommended that a meal be carried up to her chamber, where she might dine in peace and comfort, but his female companion would have none of it.

“What, after being shut up in a carriage for so many hours with only you for company, and so dull as you have been, complaining every league about how ill the carriage was sprung and how poor the roads. No, I thank you, Herr Geissler informs us that there are English people staying here. Let us join them and have the benefit of agreeable company while we dine.”

A glance at Signora Lessini's face told Alethea that her fellow guest had undoubtedly recognised the voice of at least one of the new arrivals, and that she did not care overly for the prospect of such company. However, as the new arrivals entered the dining room, she smiled and gave a courteous greeting. Her husband was more flamboyant, jumping from his place, ushering the newcomers to seats, calling to the waiter to bring more soup.

Alethea rose, and bowed. She was aware of a penetrating gaze sweeping over her from head to toe, and to her annoyance, she felt a flush rising to her cheeks as she made her bow.

“This is my travelling companion, my cousin, Lord Lucius Moreby,” the woman announced. “I am Mrs. Vineham,” with a nod in Alethea's direction. “I do not believe we are acquainted.”

“I have not had the honour of meeting you before,” Alethea said, resuming her seat as the others sat down. Which was a lie, for she had been introduced at Almacks. She heartily hoped that the encounter was not one that Mrs. Vineham would remember. She had barely accorded the young debutante the civility of offered fingertips and a murmured
Enchantée;
the dashing Mrs. Vineham had no inclination to waste any time on an unmarried girl of no particular importance.

A lively girl, in her second season but in high spirits after the recent announcement of her engagement to an amiable and rich young man, had pulled Alethea away. “She is a dashing widow,” she confided. “She is prodigious fashionable, and they call her the Viper, for she has the keenest eyes and the sharpest tongue in the kingdom.”