Regency Scoundrels And Scandals

Chapter Fourteen

They rode on again all that day, up through the rich and gentle landscape of the Côte d’Or, halting at noon for their rendezvous with Henry in an inn in the little wine-growing village of Auxey Duresse, just south of Beaune.

Jack watched Eva as they rode. She was easy in the saddle now, apparently unaffected either by her ordeal in the river or their lovemaking. The memory of her supple body answering his, following where he led—sometimes, as her confidence grew, leading him—had him hard, the thought that tonight she would be even less inhibited, even more unreserved, had him aching with longing to hold her again.

From time to time, apparently prompted by some thought, she would turn in the saddle, her eyes warm and happy as she smiled at him. No one had ever looked at him like that, he realised, impossibly flattered when she reached out her hand and touched him fleetingly on the knee, as though it gave her pleasure just to know he was there.

Henry was at the inn already when they arrived. He had made himself thoroughly at home as usual, Jack noticed, sitting on a bench under a spreading tree, a tankard on the table in front of him and a serving girl with a twinkle in her eye flirting as she talked to him.

‘Here they are now. You be off inside, mam’selle, and bring out the luncheon, just like I ordered it.’

‘Found an admirer?’ Jack asked in French, swinging down from his gelding and keeping half an eye on Eva. It wouldn’t do to draw attention to her sex by making too much of a fuss, but she dismounted easily, handed him the reins and went to sit beside Henry at the shadowy end of the bench.

‘Huh.’ Henry sniffed at the teasing, but smiled at Eva. ‘Bonjour, madame.’

‘Are you all right? No adventures along the road?’ she asked anxiously as Jack walked the horses round to the stable yard.

She looked serious when he returned, but the girl setting a laden tray on the table and laying out tankards and plates kept him silent until they were alone. ‘Quietly, and in French,’ he warned. ‘Trouble Henry?’

‘I think I’ve set eyes upon madame’s brother-in-law.’

‘Antoine?’ Eva went pale and Jack put his hand over hers. She sent him a flickering smile of reassurance and freed herself. Embarrassed at the show of affection in front of the groom, Jack guessed.

‘If he’s a sharp-nosed streak of misery?’ Henry asked. ‘Brown hair, Maubourg uniform with enough silver braid for a general?’

‘That’s Antoine,’ Eva nodded. ‘But in uniform?’

‘With a mounted troop behind his carriage, all pale blue and silver.’

‘That is our uniform, but this is France. We’re a neutral country, he cannot bring troops across the frontier like that, for goodness’ sake!’

‘You can if Maubourg is now allied to the Emperor,’ Jack pointed out, then snatched his hand off the table as Eva slammed her knife, point down, into the wood. Henry jumped. Both men regarded her furious face with guarded interest; Jack had not seen her lose her temper since that first glimpse through the castle window.

‘The bastard!’ She glared as Jack tried to shush her. ‘Oh, very well, I know, becoming angry does no good. But he has no right to take us to war with half Europe, the maniac—only Philippe can do that. How many men had he?’

‘About fifty,’ Henry estimated. ‘Hard to see, they made so much dust.’

‘Excuse me.’ Eva slid off the bench. ‘I cannot eat while I am this furious. I will be back in a minute.’

They watched her while she strode off towards the little river that vanished beneath the mill.

‘They had outriders checking every vehicle going north,’ Henry added, tearing a lump of bread off and spreading it liberally with pâté. ‘Cantered up alongside, peered in, then off. Here, guv’nor, try this.’ He pushed the pâté towards Jack, who took it and began spreading his own piece of bread, his attention half on Eva, who was standing, hands thrust into her breeches pockets, staring at the water.

‘You didn’t take any notice of what I said back at the inn, did you? Knew you wouldn’t,’ Henry said gloomily. ‘You shouldn’t have done it, you know, guv’nor, for all that she’s a nice lady, and lonely with it.’ He ignored Jack’s glare. ‘Look at her, she’s all of a glow. Lovely to see, that is, but what about when you get to England?’

‘Damn your impudence.’ Jack grabbed the tankard and half-drained it. ‘Of course she’s glowing—she’s furious.’

‘No, before then. I could see when you arrived. She was all sort of soft and…glowing. And have you had a look in a mirror yourself lately?’

‘If you tell me I’m all soft and glowing, I’ll darken your daylights for you,’ Jack warned ominously.

‘You look happier than I’ve seen you look since I’ve known you, and that’s since you were a lad,’ Henry said frankly. ‘I just hope you can stay that way. You don’t want it all ending in tears.’

‘Damn it, man, we’re in the middle of a mission, this is no time for your romantic tarradiddles.’

But the impudent old devil’s words struck home. So that was what it was he was feeling: happiness. An odd sensation he seemed to recall from a long time ago. Different from satisfaction, gratification, relaxation, contentment. Something deeper. Something that threatened to make him weak. Damn it, he was sitting here, eating pâté and listening to his groom, however trusted, however much of a friend, lecture him on how to behave with the woman he—

Jack’s thoughts juddered to a halt. No. He was not going there, he was not going to think about Eva beyond the pleasure of making love to her between now and their return to England. He was not going to analyse this strange, warm, profound sensation and he was certainly not going to speculate on how he would feel when he handed her over in London.

‘Jack?’ She was there by his side, a rueful smile on her lips. ‘I’ve sworn at a poor innocent moorhen, kicked pebbles at an inoffensive water lily and I feel better now.’

‘Good.’ He moved so she could sit down on the bench again. ‘Eat up, this is good food.’

‘No doubt tested on your way south.’ She was tucking in with a healthy appetite, he was glad to see. The elegant toying with her food had vanished; this was a healthy young woman getting a lot of exercise in the fresh air. He caught himself grinning, recalling exactly what sort of exercise might have contributed to the appetite, and got his face straight before Henry noticed.

‘Yes,’ he acknowledged. ‘And the wine is good, too. Henry will be collecting a number of cases before he leaves.’

‘Wine?’ Eva stared at him, then burst out laughing. ‘You English! Such sangfroid. Here we are in the middle of Continental upheaval, the return of Napoleon, you are on a dangerous mission and you stop to taste wine? I had forgotten the English aristocrats’ way of behaving as though nothing is a crisis, everything is a bit of a bore.’

‘It makes us look like ordinary travellers, madame,’ Henry supplied, then, with his regrettable tendency to over-explain, added earnestly, ‘No aristocrats here.’

Her gaze slid sideways to Jack’s face. There was speculation behind the amused brown eyes. ‘Indeed?’

‘Saving your presence, madame.’

‘Hmm. So Jack, do we travel with the wine or are we taking to the back roads again?’

‘We ride.’ He had been intending to resume travelling by coach, but Henry’s encounter made him wary. Prince Antoine could be taking those troops to Paris as a very visible pledge of his allegiance to the Emperor, or he could be intending to throw a cordon across the roads further north. Or both. ‘Henry, we’ll meet at the rendezvous near the frontier. If we aren’t there by the seventeenth, or if you run into trouble, push on to Brussels. Have you supplies for us?’

‘Aye, enough for a week if you get your fresh stuff in the villages. That’ll get you there so long as you don’t have to go making any big detours. There’s bacon, some hard cheese, sausage, coffee and sugar. I reckoned you’d want to stay on the back roads when I told you about Monsieur Antoine and his little army. What’ll you do if it rains?’

‘Find some small inn off the beaten track.’ The idea of making love to Eva on a goose-feather bed was powerfully attractive. Not that the prospect of another night under the stars was any less so. He caught her eye and saw she was having the same thoughts. She blushed and hastily reached for the cheese. Henry rolled his eyes.

Eva sat watching the carriage roll away down the dusty road towards Beaune. ‘He knows about us, doesn’t he? Did you tell him?’ Jack was checking the pack horse’s girth and she was amused to see the flush on his cheekbones at her question.

‘Of course not. It is not something I would ever speak of—to anyone. But he has known me a long time, the insolent old devil. He says I look happy and that you are glowing.’

‘Oh.’ Eva was so taken by this unexpectedly romantic side to Henry that she had to urge her mount to a trot to catch up with Jack. ‘I think that’s lovely. But I expect you bit his head off.’

‘I did. You don’t need to worry that he would ever gossip.’ Eva shook her head—no, she wouldn’t imagine Henry ever doing anything that was against his master’s interests. ‘I’m not at all sure I like being so transparent, even if it is him.’

‘You have a good gambler’s face, I would guess.’ Any excuse to gaze at Jack as they rode along was welcome—she had the urge just to sit and stare at him all day.

‘I have. At least, I had thought I could bluff anyone. It seems I am wrong. You are a bad influence on me, Eva.’

‘I am?’ Eva’s amusement fizzled out, leaving a hollow feeling inside. Jack had enviable focus and concentration—was she undermining that, distracting him? Even weakening him? Was that what Henry was anxious about? She had put his disapproval down to moral objections to a liaison, now she wondered.

Mortified, she rode in silence, picking up pace when Jack spurred on, wrapped in examining her conscience. Jack was a professional. He might have been attracted to her, but he had been keeping that attraction well in check. She had stormed straight through that armour.

He could always have said ‘no’, she told herself defensively. Or perhaps she was not doing any damage and was being over-sensitive. Just because I have fallen in love, it doesn’t mean that he…

Eva swallowed hard. Just because I have fallen in love. Oh, my God, I have done just that. She thought she simply wanted comfort—physical comfort and the emotional relief of being close to someone who seemed to care about her. But she loved him. And it was impossible. She was a Grand Duchess, he was a King’s Messenger at his most respectable, an adventurer at worst, even if he was the younger son of a good family, which she guessed he must be.

I can’t ever tell him. She stared at Jack’s broad shoulders, relaxed almost into a slouch as he rode at an easy hand canter. He even managed to be elegant when he was slouching. But it was not his physical beauty that made her feel like this, even if that had been a powerful attraction to begin with. She loved the man under that hard, cool, competent exterior. And she must not let him guess.

She had said that this could only be while they were out of England and he had agreed. Now she knew she must persuade him otherwise, without betraying her innermost feelings for him. She could not lose him so soon, it was too cruel.

‘Eva?’ He reined in and circled back to come alongside her. Eva realised with a start that she had come to a halt and was sitting gazing blankly into space. Hurting. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes. Yes, of course, I am sorry I was just thinking…about England.’

Jack reached over and touched her cheek fleetingly. ‘You miss Freddie, I know. I’ll try and get you back as soon as is safe. Come on, let’s get past Beaune before we stop again.’

Guilt washed through Eva as she followed the black gelding along the vineyard terrace path. Freddie. His reaction to this had never crossed her mind. He must never know his mother had taken a lover, and she could not hope to keep it a secret in England under the close scrutiny of court and society. If Henry could see it, then others could, too. She had told Jack she would have no regrets if they were to become lovers, and she must never let him guess how she felt, how she had broken her implied word not to become involved.

Some people are never able to consummate their love, she told herself fiercely. I have been fortunate, I have him for this little span of time. It must be enough. It must.

Four days later they were across the border, the River Sambre just behind them after the bridge at Thuin. The days had been hot, the nights dry and they had not had to take refuge in an inn yet. Somehow Eva managed to push her knowledge of her love for Jack away to the back of her mind, not to think about it, only to feel—and in that way hide her feeling from him.

Or she tried. ‘What is it, sweet?’ he would ask, capturing her face between his big hands and staring deep into her eyes. ‘Tell me what is hurting you.’

‘Nothing,’ she said every time. ‘Just worries.’ And she would stand on tiptoe and kiss him until he forgot whatever betraying expression had crossed her face. Until the next time.

By the fourteenth they had begun to hear cannon fire. At first it was so distant and irregular that she thought it was thunder out of a clear blue sky, but Jack shook his head. ‘There’s fighting up ahead, border skirmishes as they all sort themselves out, I expect. Now we begin to take great care.’

Dodging small groups of French troops became routine. Jack seemed to know the uniforms, jotting notes whenever they sighted them. Sometimes they were seen themselves, but Jack would let the horses walk, wandering along, doing nothing to raise suspicions that they were anything but innocent local riders. No one challenged them.

Making love by starlight in owl-haunted woods, or in meadows so soft and sweet you could almost taste the goodness of them, became completely natural. They had never made love inside, on a bed, and somehow that did not seem a loss to her, so it was a surprise when Jack sat studying the sky in the late afternoon.

‘It is going to rain,’ he said, taking the notebook out of his pocket and studying one of his meticulous maps.

‘Is it?’ Eva looked round, puzzled. ‘I am no weather expert, but it looks just the same as yesterday afternoon to me.’

‘No. It will rain.’ Jack gathered up the reins and turned his horse’s head down the fork in the track through the woods. Ahead, across fields, a church spire punctuated the low hills. ‘Or there will be a heavy dew in the morning. Or a thunderstorm.’

‘Or a plague of locusts?’ Eva enquired, beginning to see where this was going. ‘You are looking for an excuse to find an inn. Why not say so? Do you think I am going to accuse you of becoming soft because you want to bathe in a tub instead of a cold stream?’

‘I think you might be alarmed if you guess the things I would like to do when I get you alone in the Poisson d’Or’s best bedchamber with its big goose-feather bed.’ Jack grinned, managing to look nearer twenty than thirty.

‘Indeed?’ Eva attempted a severe expression. She appeared to have forgotten how. ‘What a very depraved imagination you have, Mr Ryder.’

‘I am shocked you can know of such things,’ he teased back. ‘Tell me, what would you like to do in that big feather bed?’

‘Ooh…’ Eva pouted provocatively. ‘I would like to take all my clothes off—very, very slowly. Then I’d brush out my hair, bathe in a deep hot tub with scented soap, climb out, dripping wet…’ Jack’s eyes were glazing in a very satisfactory manner. ‘Dry myself, then climb into bed. And—go to sleep.’

Laughing at his expression, she urged her horse on, cantering down the track. It curved, perhaps fifty feet above the main road that cut across the country between them and the village. Some instinct made her glance to her left. Dust was rising above the scrub and spindly trees that covered the slope. Eva reined in, holding up her hand to halt Jack, who was rapidly catching her up. They moved into the shelter of a coppice and waited.

‘Soldiers,’ Jack breathed as the sound of tramping feet reached them, drowning out the song of skylarks over the wheat field. ‘French soldiers heading towards Charleroi. A lot of them—this is different from what we have seen so far. I thought our luck would not last much longer.’

‘Are we in danger from them?’ Eva shaded her eyes and tried to make out uniforms, but her knowledge was not good enough.

‘No, probably not. There is nothing about a pair of apparently unarmed riders to cause them any concern, provided we merely cross their path and do not appear to be shadowing them.’

He sat watching the slowly vanishing column of infantry through narrowed eyes. ‘Wellington is assembling an Anglo-German army around Brussels, but our agents along the way so far have not known what the weight of troops were on either side, and they were very vague about where Bonaparte is heading. That is Fontaine l’Eveque ahead. I’m going to strike north-east tomorrow and aim for Nivelles.’

‘You haven’t been talking to me about all this,’ Eva accused. ‘I should have worked it out for myself—my brain must be turning to porridge. I suppose I have just been so focused on our own adventure I haven’t been thinking about the wide world. Of course Bonaparte isn’t just going to sit there in Paris, sending out a few scouting parties, and the Allies certainly aren’t going to let him.’

‘No.’ Jack was scrutinising the plain. ‘You know, that cannon fire is a fair way off to the north and east, but it is almost continuous now. I think there is a battle going on.’

‘And by making for Brussels we are riding right into the middle of it.’

‘Maybe. If we do not take care.’

‘Jack,’ Eva asked with a calm she was far from feeling, ‘have you been keeping quiet about this so as not to worry me?’

‘Yes,’ he admitted ruefully, surprising her by his frankness. ‘My orders were to bring you back overland to Brussels; it seemed faster and safer than risking the sea route. It probably still is the right thing to be doing; we just need to avoid wandering into Napoleon’s HQ or the no man’s land between the two front lines by mistake.’

He dug his heels in and sent the black gelding and the packhorse trotting down to cross the main road. ‘After today we ride hard and fast for Brussels and skirt round any trouble we see. I’ll dump the pack and we can rotate between the three horses—it will keep them fresher. We’ll do it in the day that way.’

‘Have we been going too slowly up to now?’ Eva asked, suddenly feeling guilty again. ‘Have I been holding you up?’

‘No, and, no you haven’t.’ Jack reined back to a walk. ‘We were right to take to the horses—Henry’s encounter with Antoine proved that. And I could see no merit in flogging the horses at such a speed that we would have had to be changing them as we went. It draws attention to us, and it was no part of my instructions to deliver you bruised and exhausted. We can make it to Brussels tomorrow, even if we arrive after dark.’

‘So tonight is our last night on the road.’ The last one alone with Jack. Things would be different in Brussels, she would become the Grand Duchess again then. Even if Jack was still her escort, that was all he could be. Did he realise? Had he thought about that? Probably not—he had a job to do and personal considerations would always come second. ‘What is the date?’ she asked, wanting to fix this night in her memory for ever.

‘June 16th,’ Jack said. ‘Look, there is the Poisson d’Or.’

‘What about my clothes?’ she asked, suddenly recalling the way she looked. ‘It hasn’t been a problem because I have not been close to anyone yet, but I cannot hope to fool people close up.’

Jack seemed unconcerned. ‘I will speak quite frankly to the landlord, and anyone else who stares, and say that I do not like my wife riding about the countryside with all these troops about. Of course, if we did not have to hurry to the bedside of your ailing grandmother in Celles it wouldn’t arise, but you insisted, so here we are.’

Eva nodded—that was a good tactic, to confront the issue, not to try to keep her sex a secret and arouse suspicion. Jack rubbed his chin, rasping the stubble as though in anticipation of a shave in ample hot water. ‘We will have a good dinner to celebrate our last night on French soil. Shall I order champagne so we can drink to the confusion of our enemies?’

‘Of course,’ Eva flattered herself that the smile she managed was perfectly natural. To the confusion of our enemies and to the last night in Jack’s arms.

Chapter Fifteen

‘To victory,’ Jack said quietly in French, touching the rim of his glass to Eva’s.

‘To victory,’ she echoed. There was no private parlour at the Poisson d’Or, but there was a low-beamed room with tables set around. The noise level from the other diners was high enough for them to talk quietly without fear of being overheard, but they kept to French so there would be no unfamiliar rhythms of speech to draw attention to them.

Outside, the rumble of the distant guns continued. Inside everyone pretended not to notice it. Yet there was a febrile excitement in the air, an unease, a whisper of rumour. Did these people really want their emperor back? Eva wondered.

Where were the Maubourg troops? Following where Antoine led them into the midst of a battle or reluctantly marching north and not yet in danger? Were they convinced of the rightness of joining the Imperial cause, or was it simple obedience that kept them with him? If she had been in the carriage when they had stopped it, could she have won them round, convinced them to go back to the Duchy, their families and safety? Eva gave herself a mental shake; thinking what if and maybe was futile, but when they reached Brussels she would do what she could to ensure the men were found and treated well.

Up ahead was bloody battle, men dying and being wounded and there was nothing they could do. Wellington would win, of course he would, she assured herself. Anything else was unthinkable.

‘To victory, and to us,’ she added to the toast, touching the painful subject like someone with toothache who cannot resist worrying at the sore tooth. ‘It has been good, Jack, these last few days, has it not?’

‘It has.’ He watched her over the rim of his glass as he took a mouthful of wine before setting it down. ‘And it is not over yet.’ There was a familiar heat in his gaze, a heat that made her feel hot inside, roused the fluttering pulse of arousal so that she shifted on her chair. The anticipation of a night spent in that big soft bed made her mouth dry and she was uncomfortably aware of her nipples peaking against the restriction of her waistcoat.

‘One more night,’ she agreed, lightly. One more night and day while he was still hers and hers alone. One more set of memories to live on.

‘And then Brussels, and the journey back to England.’ Jack stopped speaking as the maid brought bread and a pitcher of water. He dropped his broad hand over hers and squeezed reassuringly. ‘Fréderic will be beside himself to see you again.’

‘If he remembers me,’ Eva said. It seemed to be her evening for probing all her worries.

‘He does!’ Jack lifted her hand in his and kissed her fingers, earning himself a sentimental smile from a plump bourgeoise sitting opposite with her family. ‘He told me so—not in so many words, but with what he said, what he mentioned of Maubourg and you. He has no doubts—lads of that age don’t. He knows he will see you again, he knows you are there waiting for him, and he feels quite safe. It is you who has suffered, knowing that you have missed those years of him growing, knowing you have had to trust him to the safekeeping of others.’

‘Thank you.’ Eva blinked back tears, dropping her cheek momentarily to rest against his raised hand. He smiled at her, then she saw his eyes focus beyond her, the laughter lines creasing attractively. ‘And who are you flirting with, might I ask?’