Vintage Love (14 page)

“My pardon!” Eric said humbly, though she could tell by the gleam in his eyes that he had deliberately taunted her stepfather, and he was having a hard time not bursting out laughing.

Sir John Cort moved on in an annoyed mood with Sir Humphrey trailing along. Both men took a stand by the roulette table as Kingston left it. The actor came quickly over to join them and handed Eric the IOU.

Betsy tugged Eric’s arm, saying, “I dare not stay here a moment longer. He may have second thoughts and come checking on me.”

“Don’t panic!” Eric told her. “Let us make a slow and dignified exit, all the while talking to Kingston.”

They made their way downstairs where the music and the dancing still went on. Next they sought out Lady Wood who was standing talking to friends near the hallway. She was distressed that they were leaving so early.

“I’m afraid we must go,” Eric told their hostess with a smile. “Mademoiselle has a slight headache. I shall take her home to my rooms.”

“Where I’m certain you will cure the headache, you naughty boy!” the elderly woman said with an insinuating smile and a tap of her fan.

“Young people in love,” Kingston boomed out while Betsy smiled blankly and played to the hilt the French coquette. “We have enjoyed the party and are most grateful!”

“Do come again,” their hostess said. “One of the pages will summon your carriage.”

As they stood on the steps waiting for the carriage to come around, Betsy gave Eric a glance. His handsome face was shown to advantage in the glow from the torches set out on either side of the door. Kingston, in the role of Eric’s father, paced restlessly on the sidewalk, watching for the vehicle.

Betsy told Eric in a low voice, “I think Felix Black did this deliberately!”

“What?”

“Arranged for me to be at this party in disguise since he knew my stepfather would be here,” she said in a tense tone.

“No harm done?” Eric said. “You see how excellent your makeup is and what a good actress you are. He didn’t recognize you.”

“He very nearly did!” Betsy reminded him.

“I was uneasy for a brief instant,” her escort agreed. “But Sir Humphrey spoke up at just the critical moment. I was never so grateful for anyone bumbling.”

Betsy said, “I’m still sure it was a test.”

“Why worry? You passed it with flying colors.”

“But I might not have!”

“In that case the game would have been up,” Eric pointed out. “I don’t think he’ll give my mademoiselle another thought!”

She gave him an indignant look. “He wanted to bargain with you for me. As if I were some sort of object! What villainous creatures you men are!”

“He made the overtures,” Eric insisted. “And I did nothing to encourage him.”

From the street Kingston called, “Our carriage has arrived.” He held the door open for her to enter it, along with the handsome Eric. Then the old actor himself stepped inside, and one of the pages closed the door.

The carriage started off as Eric asked the actor, “Did you tell the coachman where to take us?”

“It is the same carriage Black had bring us here,” the older man said. “He was waiting in the rear court with some of the other vehicles. I didn’t think he needed to be told our destination!”

“You’re right,” Eric said, settling back. “I’d forgotten.”

“No wonder,” she observed.

Kingston was in a good humor. “I think we all did well. Especially Betsy! Pulling the wool over the eyes of her stepfather!”

“I nearly died of fright,” she said with a sigh of relief. “I was sure he was going to try and take off my wig!”

“He wasn’t that suspicious,” Kingston said.

“No.” The young man seated beside her agreed. “I felt we all played our roles properly. Mine was the easiest since I was playing myself.”

She huddled back miserably in the dark carriage as it rolled over the cobblestoned streets in the murky night. The carriage all at once began to gather speed and was being driven at such a rapid rate that she was almost thrown to the floor of it!

“Something strange!” Kingston grumbled as he caught her under the armpits and brought her back to her seat. Now the carriage careened again, and it was generally realized that while they’d been talking, it had increased its speed.

“Slow down,” Eric said, lifting the small window flap to notify the driver.

The driver paid no attention, and the carriage rolled on drunkenly as if a madman were at the reins. Eric’s face was a study in rage and fear as he threw open one of the carriage doors and attempted to cling to the side and boost himself up to get at the driver.

“Careful!” Betsy screamed, sure he’d be shaken off his perch any moment. Kingston was half on the floor and clinging to the seat.

Eric managed to boost himself to the top of the carriage. There were immediate shouts, and the carriage went on wildly for a moment. Then it was brought to a halt.

A shaken Eric appeared in the open carriage doorway. He said, “That fellow wasn’t our regular driver! As soon as I tackled him, he thought of nothing but escaping. He ran off down an alley.”

“Where are we?” Kingston asked, looking out with worried eyes.

“In the darkest of slums,” Eric said grimly. “He was taking us to some rendezvous to be robbed and likely have our throats cut.”

“What now?” she asked breathlessly.

“I shall be coachman and get us away from here before that villain can return with his fellows,” Eric said and slammed the door closed.

They heard him clamber up to the driver’s seat and cry out to the horses. He was still turning the carriage around when there came hoarse shouting from the street. She looked out and saw four thugs emerging from the shadows and making for them.

But Eric had now managed to swing the vehicle around, and he urged the frightened horses forward at a reckless speed. Once again she and Kingston had to cling to each other and to any part of the inside which offered some secure hold. At last they came back to the gaslit wider streets, and the carriage slowed until they finally arrived at the house in the cul-de-sac which was their headquarters.

Eric tied the reins and opened the door for them. He apologized, “Sorry. But I had no choice but to drive swiftly!”

“What did it all mean?” Betsy asked as he helped her down from the carriage.

“Why were we tossed about in that fashion?” the old actor asked as he straightened out his cloak and hat and joined her on the street.

“At the very least a plan to rob us,” Eric said grimly. “Perhaps something more.”

“But why pick on our carriage?” she asked.

“And what happened to our own driver?” George Frederick Kingston worried.

“We shall find that out as soon as possible,” Eric told them as he escorted them to the door.

It was Felix Black himself who let them in. The old master spy stared at them a moment and asked, “Are all of you safe?”

“Yes,” Eric said. “Were you expecting something to happen to us?”

“Come inside,” the old man urged them.

“What about the horse and carriage?” Eric asked, glancing back where the horse and carriage waited.

“The driver is already here,” Felix Black said grimly. “I’ll send him out to look after things.”

They followed the bent man in black into his study where the driver was uneasily waiting. He looked at them all in awe, dreadfully ill at ease.

Felix Black told him, “Major Walters brought the carriage back safely. You can go take it to the stables. I’ll want to talk to you again in the morning.”

“Yes, sir,” the man said with a nod. And he hurried out, seemingly happy to escape questioning by them.

Eric watched him leave and then turned to Black with some annoyance. He said, “I had some questions for that fellow to answer.”

The master spy waved this aside. “I’ve taken care of all that.” He moved over to her and offered her a chair. “You have had a trying evening, Miss Chapman. Please sit down.”

She did so and said, “What did you find out?”

Felix Black eyed them all grimly. “According to the driver he’d settled down inside the carriage for a sleep while he was waiting. He often does this when there is a long wait at night.”

Eric asked, “And then?”

“He doesn’t know exactly who came after him. He woke with a start as the carriage door was thrown open and someone hit him on the head with something heavy. It knocked him out. When he came around, the carriage had gone. Not knowing what to do, he came straight here.”

Eric frowned. “Then it would seem he was not in collusion with the attackers.”

“I would strongly doubt it,” Felix Black said. “May I ask what happened afterward?”

Eric told him, ending with, “It is only good luck we managed to escape from those villains. It had all been neatly planned.”

“So it would seem,” the master spy agreed.

George Frederick Kingston had slumped into an easy chair, looking much ruffled, and he demanded, “Why should they have chosen us from all the many carriages at the party?”

Betsy nodded. “Yes. That also makes me wonder. I surely had no jewelry of consequence. Some of the women there were loaded down with diamonds and other precious items.”

Eric Walters had been standing leaning against a sideboard, and now he spoke up in a stern fashion, saying, “I think I can supply that information. If I’m not very far wrong, I would say that the opposition to our project has begun, that news of our search for Napoleon has leaked out.”

Felix Black’s thin, sallow face was clouded with concern. “You have had experience as a secret agent, Walters, so you would be expected to guess. I fear our secret project is no longer a secret. Valmy has been alerted, and what took place tonight was his first countermove.”

Eric took a step nearer the old master spy. “Who could betray our plan?”

“Someone in the War Office, I fear,” the old man said. “Perhaps the very one who had me discredited and forced my retirement from my official position.”

The young secret agent nodded. “I hadn’t thought of that. You are probably right. A leak could probably come from someone there.”

“The unfortunate thing is we are going to be faced with threats from the start,” Felix Black said. He turned to Betsy and the veteran actor and added, “You are now beginning to learn that I’m not paying you highly for ordinary work. There is a great risk involved here.”

Kingston frowned, “You’re saying there will be other attempts to kill us.”

“I would expect so,” Black said quietly.

Betsy shrugged. “I assumed there would be danger. It is only that it is beginning earlier than we expected.”

“Sooner or later Valmy would have learned we were on his trail,” Felix Black agreed. “At least now we know the worst.”

Betsy said, “Did you expect my stepfather to be at the party we attended?”

The master spy nodded. “Yes.”

“You might have warned me!”

“Then there would have been no test. How did you make out?”

Betsy looked at the others and then told him, “He didn’t recognize me, but he did mention that I reminded him of his errant stepdaughter.”

“You carried it off!” Black said approvingly. “Excellent.”

She eyed him wearily. “After tonight I’m not all that certain I’m equal to being a secret agent.”

“You underestimate your possibilities,” Felix Black assured her.

Eric spoke up again. “Now that we are under surveillance by Valmy’s people, what will our next move be?”

“I think it important that you get away from London as soon as possible,” the master spy said.

George Frederick Kingston stared ahead of him bleakly and commented, “Once we’re aboard ship, there will be no turning back.”

Felix Black eyed him sharply. “It is not my plan to shanghai you into my service. Even after all this, I will free you from any loyalty to me if you wish.”

The actor shook his head. “No. I’m in this. I won’t back out. Miss Chapman may need a friend.”

Betsy smiled at him. “Thank you. But you must not go on for my sake.”

“I’m going on because it is not likely I can get an engagement anywhere else,” the veteran actor said sadly. “The jobs have been getting scarcer as I’ve grown older. I need the work and the money.”

Eric showed a rueful smile. “I think we three have now found a kind of comradeship. I would say we should be equal to our enemies.”

“There are my other agents who will contact you from time to time,” the master spy said. “You will not be entirely alone.”

“But this will be rather different from my days as a regular government agent,” Eric Walters pointed out. “I cannot go running to the nearest consulate for help.”

“No. This is my private enterprise. Done against the wishes of His Majesty’s government. I can only hope we are able to show that we were right and they were wrong before this is over,” Felix Black said.

Eric asked, “Has the timetable been changed?”

“Yes,” Black said. “Because of tonight.”

“When do we leave for Marseilles?” the young major asked.

“Day after tomorrow. The ship sails in the early morning when the tide is right,” the master spy said.

“This is a new arrangement?” Eric suggested.

“Yes,” the master spy said. “I have kept this alternate plan open in case something happened — as it did tonight. You will now sail on the
Maria.
It is an Italian four master and not as fast as the other ship I’d planned to use. The chief difference will be you’ll arrive in France a few days later than we planned.”

“And a few days could make a big difference,” Eric said.

“Unfortunate,” the master spy agreed. “But it cannot be helped. Now I suggest you all retire. You must be worn out from your experiences tonight.”

Eric and Kingston left together to walk to their nearby lodgings. She went up to her room and removed the black wig and the makeup. Not until she had washed and changed into her nightgown did she feel like herself. Playing the French girl had been a challenging experience.

It would be her role from now on. But when they arrived in France, she would no longer have to be silent. She would need to converse with people in their attempt to find out if the dying LaFlenche had really been spirited away to take the place of Napoleon.