Regency Scoundrels And Scandals

He was not surprised to find himself admiring her for her coolness and courage, but he had not expected to find himself lusting after her. And that was what it was, there was no excuse for blinking at it. And it wasn’t just beauty that was having this effect. Jack delivered a final blow to the last chest and began to wrench out the drawers. There was something else—a passion behind those steady brown eyes, an energy and anger concealed under cool grace and dignity. And her body in his arms, the sweet fury of her mouth under his when he had kissed her…

He stepped back as Eva came to lift out the sheets of drawings from the drawers he had just opened. She moved as though in a state reception, but her hair was coming down and her face was flushed from hurrying backwards and forwards in the stuffy room. Her cloak was in a crumpled heap on the floor and she had pushed back the sleeves of her gown to expose strong, slender forearms and fine-boned wrists.

The drawings were already arranged on the table, he saw, as she darted about, brow furrowed in concentration, sorting the latest collection. Jack put down the axe and leaned back against the splintered chest to watch her. He should never have kissed her, of course, although as a ruse in the crisis they had found themselves it, it had worked very well.

The frankness of her kiss when she had stopped fighting him, when the officers had gone, should not have surprised him, either. She had been a married woman, she knew what she was about. From the briefing he had received, if she had taken a lover she had been very discreet about it—he may have been receiving the benefit of several years of chaste frustration.

They had both been under pressure, in danger, and that embrace had been a response as natural as two soldiers going out and getting drunk after a battle—a life-affirming release. It seemed she had dismissed it now, and so should he. Which was easier said than done.

‘Mr Ryder. Have you gone to sleep?’ The tart enquiry was sufficient to dampen any wandering fantasies of unpinning the rest of her coiled conker-brown hair and letting it flow over her shoulders.

‘No, ma’am, merely keeping out of your way until you had finished.’ The meek response had her narrowing her eyes at him, but he kept his face straight and she turned back to the table with nothing more than thinned lips to show her displeasure. Grand Duchess Eva had a knack of ignoring unpleasantness and skimming straight over it—presumably a useful skill in court life. ‘How have you sorted the papers?’

‘These are drawings of different mechanisms, but I think they all go together.’ She frowned and Jack found his hand lifting to smooth away the little crease between her brows. He jammed his fists in his pockets and came to stand next to her. ‘I have stacked each one with the most recent drawing uppermost; they are all dated.’ Eva pointed to a pile of black-bound notebooks. ‘Those are all figures and calculations. Formulae. They make no sense to me.’

‘To me, neither.’ Jack flicked through the topmost one and turned his attention to the drawings. ‘These are rockets.’

‘Fireworks?’ Eva leaned over close to his side to see and Jack drew in a sharp breath between his teeth. Her body was warm and fragrant and conjured immediate memories of how she had felt in his arms.

‘No, artillery weapons.’ Jack shifted round away from her as though to show what he was talking about. ‘They were invented by Congreve and the British have been using them at sea and on land since about 1805. Napoleon offered a reward for anyone who could invent one for the French army—but they haven’t got them yet. They aren’t very accurate, though.’ He leant over to study the other drawings. ‘See, these are frames and carriages for firing the things—I wonder if they have worked out a way to aim them better?’

‘And the notebooks might be formulae for the explosive powder?’

‘Yes, that could be it. We need to get these back.’ A look which could only be described as smug passed fleetingly over Eva’s face. ‘Ma’am, if you are about to say “I told you so”—’

Her eyes opened wide in hauteur. ‘I would say nothing so vulgar, Mr Ryder. Just how do you suggest we get them all out past Georges?’

‘We don’t. Not all of them.’ Jack picked up a pair of shears and began to cut down the top drawing from each pile, removing every scrap of waste margin. ‘We take the most recent of each of these, the most recent notebook, and we destroy the rest.’

‘The fireplace.’ Eva nodded and began to scoop up the remaining drawings, jamming them into the cold fireplace in the corner of the room. She picked up the notebooks and started to tear the pages out. ‘They’ll burn better loose.’

The half-dozen reduced drawings folded into a neat packet with the notebook. Jack jammed them into the breast of his coat and lit a spill from their lantern. The paper flashed into flame, blackening and falling apart in moments. Jack beat out the ashes with the poker and straightened up, observing, ‘How to make a prince angry in one easy lesson.’

‘Antoine will be beside himself,’ Eva agreed, picking up her cloak and shaking the dust out of it with a moue of distaste. Jack took it and put it around her shoulders. ‘Thank you, Mr Ryder. We had better be off, had we not?’

‘Indeed.’ Jack scanned the floor until he found what he was looking for: a shard of broken metal smaller than his little fingernail. ‘I’ll lock the door behind us.’ It was a matter of moments to flick the lock shut with the pick, then he eased the fragment of metal into the keyhole and tried it again. The fine pick jammed and grated against the foreign body. ‘There, they won’t be able to get the door open, but at first they will simply think the lock is faulty. It might buy us a little time.’

Eva led the way back out into the yard, keeping up a steady flow of polite chitchat that could only have come from years of practice at mind-numbingly tedious parties and diplomatic events. The caretaker came out and stood waiting for them. ‘Ah, there you are, Georges. We are off now; I am sorry to have disturbed you. Is your daughter well? Excellent.’

Jack paused to hand the lantern to the old caretaker and followed his gaze as the Grand Duchess made her way across the cobbled yard with all the dignity and grace of a woman stepping on to the ballroom floor. Her hair was coming down at the back, her face was flushed and there was dust around the hem of her skirt. Her dirty, crumpled cloak looked as though it had been used as a bed by a pair of hounds. It gave him an idea.

‘Thank you.’ Jack pressed a coin into the gnarled hand and lowered his voice. ‘Her Serene Highness can count upon you to be discreet, I am certain.’ The man stared at him, comprehension dawning on his face, then he nodded vigorously.

‘God bless her, monsieur, she deserves someone to care about her.’

Jack let one eyelid droop into a slow wink and sauntered out of the yard in Eva’s wake, the bulge of the documents flattened under his arm.

Eva allowed herself to be assisted back into the carriage and sank back against the squabs. ‘That wretched little rat! If Philippe recovers, he is going to make himself ill all over again when he finds out about Antoine. To ally us with Bonaparte is treachery enough, but to create weapons to put into his hands, that is beyond forgiveness or understanding.’

Now they were out of the factory, the full magnitude of what they had found was beginning to dawn on her. Inside it had all seemed an adventure. She had found it exciting, even though she had been frightened. She had enjoyed the give and take with Jack, both of words and, as she had swung that axe, of physical effort. He brought something alive in her, something that had been repressed for a very long time. It was enjoyable, and it must be resisted.

‘How long will that lock hold them, Mr Ryder?’

‘Quite a while. They will have to get a locksmith and although they will be impatient, I do not think they will realise it has been sabotaged. A locksmith will realise at once that it has been jammed, of course, then they will break the door down, I should imagine.’ He sounded as though he was frowning in thought. ‘From the weight, it may have been reinforced—they’ll be cursing their own precautions by the time they get inside.’

‘And then they will ask Georges who was there and he will tell them, he has no reason not to. I should have spoken to him.’ Eva shook her head, angered at her own lack of foresight. ‘Although what I could have said to explain such a request without exciting curiosity, I do not know.’

‘I think he will be circumspect.’ There was something in Jack Ryder’s voice that made her suspicious. Perhaps if it had not been almost dark, she would have missed it, but relying only on her hearing seemed to make her more sensitive to his mood.

‘Why?’ she demanded, suddenly suspicious. ‘What did you say to him?’

‘Nothing at all of any significance. I tipped him, said I was certain he would be discreet…’

‘And why should he think that was needed?’ A stray lock of hair tickled the dip of her collarbone. Eva put up a hand and discovered that half of it was down. As she touched her face, she felt how warm and damp her skin was. Her cloak, she recalled now, was crumpled and dusty from being on the floor.

‘I walk in to a deserted building after dark with a man and I emerge an hour later, dishevelled and flushed and crumpled and he asks the caretaker for discretion,’ she said flatly, working it out as she went. ‘Georges thinks…you encouraged him to think…that we were making love in there!’ The magnitude of it swept over her, leaving her hot faced and sick inside with humiliation. ‘How could you?’

‘It will be effective. And he appeared most sympathetic. I imagine your people would not grudge you a little harmless diversion.’

‘Harmless? Diversion? Is that how you categorise adultery and dissipation? Is it?’ She kept her voice down with an effort. A grand duchess does not shout. Ever. ‘Think of my position!’

‘It could not be adultery,’ the infuriating man pointed out. ‘Neither of us is married.’

‘Oh! You render me speechless.’

‘Patently not, ma’am.’

Now he was being literal with her! He deserved to be thrown into the castle dungeons. If only she had access to them now—they would be full of rats and spiders and he could hang there in chains next to Antoine, she thought vengefully. They deserved each other. Then the memory of what else lay under the castle sent a shudder running through her. No, best not to think of that, not here, not now, in the darkness.

‘Mr Ryder. Let me be plain. If I were to so far forget myself—and what is due to my position—as to take a lover, I would not chose an insolent, ill-bred adventurer and spy.’

‘You made me a spy,’ he countered.

That was true. Eva caught herself on the verge of an apology. This was outrageous—how was Ryder managing to put her in the wrong when he was quite obviously the one at fault? ‘Just because I did not remonstrate as I should when you took those outrageous liberties with me in the alleyway, there is no reason to assume you can blacken my name—’

‘Liberties, ma’am?’ His voice, with its faintly mocking edge, cut into her diatribe like a knife into butter. ‘Forgive me, but when those officers had gone I do believe that you returned my kisses with as much enthusiasm as I gave them. Either that, or you are an exceptionally talented actress.’

‘I was in shock,’ Eva protested, guiltily aware he was perfectly correct.

‘Of course you were,’ he agreed smoothly. ‘I perfectly understand. And, please forgive me, but that incident had nothing whatsoever to do with my exchange with Georges just now. I am afraid he leapt to a conclusion and it seemed to fit our purposes all too well.’ There was a pause, which Eva filled by gritting her teeth together and concentrating on breathing slowly and calmly through her nose. ‘Would you like me to go back and explain he has jumped to an incorrect conclusion, your Serene Highness?’

‘No!’ Deep breathing was not as calming as it was supposed to be. ‘It is too late now. The damage is done. Where are we?’ She looked out of the window and saw the glint of the river below. ‘Driving back into Maubourg? But why?’

‘Because it is the last place they would expect you to be by now if you have been missed. This coach is going to drive slowly, and very visibly, through the middle of the town. Henry is going to ask the way for the Toulon road at least three times, at each point making certain that the rather gaudy red door panels are well illuminated. We will then drive into a dark alleyway, remove the door panels to reveal a tasteful—and fictitious—crest, and equally sedately, make our way out of the Northern gate with me driving. By the time daylight comes Henry will be driving again, the door panels will be plain and to all intents this will be a third carriage, one which has not been seen in Maubourg.’

‘And if they have not missed me yet?’ The precautions and layers of planning took her aback. If she had thought at all about what would happen after they had left the factory Eva had simply envisioned driving as fast as possible towards the coast. ‘No,’ she answered her own question. ‘I see. They will question the guards and time my escape by us leaving my bedchamber, so they will be checking up on the coaches leaving tonight. Mr Ryder—do you do this sort of thing a great deal?’

‘Abduct royalty? No, this is the first time.’ He must have felt the intensity of her glare in the gloom, for he continued before she could explode. ‘Missions into Europe during the war, yes, some. Mainly I carry out intelligence work for the government, and occasionally for private individuals.’

‘What sort of thing? Following errant wives?’

‘Checking that suitors are what they seem, occasional bodyguard work. Recently I assisted a gentleman who had misplaced his wife ten years ago.’

‘Goodness. How very careless of him. And you earn your living from this?’ He spoke like a gentleman, with the hard edge and decisiveness of a military man. Her jibe about lack of breeding had been far from the mark. He wore no jewellery and she could make no judgement from his clothes, other than they seemed suitable for climbing down walls.

‘I have an adequate private income. I do this because I enjoy it.’

‘You do?’ How very odd, to enjoy fear and danger. Then Eva realised that she was enjoying it, too, in a perverse sort of way. She was scared, worried sick about Fréderic, embarrassed by much of what had happened today, but she was also alive. The blood was pumping in her veins, her mind was racing, she had been pitchforked from a life of predictability and privileged powerlessness into one of complete uncertainty—and she felt wonderful.

Only the day before she had gazed at her own reflection in the mirror and struggled to accept the fact that all that lay ahead of her was a decline into graceful middle age.

In a few months she would be twenty-seven. For nine years she had been a dutiful wife, then a dutiful Dowager Duchess. She had done nothing rash, nothing impulsive, nothing exciting. As Freddie grew up, then married, she would step further and further back into respectable semi-retirement. It was her duty. She might as well be dead.

‘Ma’am?’

‘Yes, Mr Ryder?’

‘You sighed. Are you all right?’

‘I am contemplating the thought that it is dangerous to wish for things. I had been finding my life a trifle dull and wanting in diversion recently. Then Napoleon returns, Philippe is struck down, someone tries to murder Freddie and me and you leap through my bedchamber window and take me burgling. I appear to be about to enter an adventurous phase in my life.’

‘I can promise you that.’ The coach stopped again, for what must be the third time. Eva listened to Henry’s rough French accent and the response from the watchman standing under the streetlight. She drew back further into the shadows.

‘Why are we not taking the Toulon road?’ she asked as they started forward once more.

‘Because, although it is faster, it is also riskier. Support for Bonaparte is strong to the south, and it is the obvious route for us to take. Then how do we find a boat to take us to England from a French port? I am going north, up into Burgundy, and then north-east towards Brussels, which is where the king has fled. Wellington has had his headquarters there since early April. We will go from there to Ostend.’

The coach turned sharply, lurching over a rougher surface, and pulled up. ‘Excuse me, we will be on our way in a moment. Henry will sit with you for a few miles.’

After some scraping and banging at the sides of the vehicle, the coachman climbed in, doffing his hat. ‘Begging your pardon, ma’am.’

‘That is quite all right.’ This at least was easy. One’s entire life appeared to be made up on some days of holding conversations with tongue-tied citizens. ‘Have you been a coachman long, Henry?’

‘I’m a groom, ma’am. Least, that’s what I am official-like. Most of the time I’m whatever the guv’nor wants me to be, depending on what we’re about.’

Hmm, not so tongue-tied, which could be useful. ‘So sometimes you have to be a gentleman’s groom, when Mr Ryder is at home in London?’

‘Aye, ma’am. When the guv’nor’s being himself like, which isn’t often.’

‘That must be difficult for his family,’ Eva persisted, fishing as carefully as she could. ‘For his wife, for example.’ Though he had said he was not married…‘Or his parents.’

‘Would be, indeed, ma’am, if he’d a wife. As for his respected father, top-lofty old devil he was, if you’ll pardon me saying so; nothing the guv’nor did was ever right for him, so I don’t reckon he’d give a toss, even if he was alive. Which he ain’t.’

That had not got her very far. He was not married and a top-lofty father confirmed his origins were respectable. It was an odd choice of words, being himself—it implied two very different lives. And London was home. Just who was Jack Ryder?

‘We’re out the Eastern gate,’ Henry observed. ‘Another hour and we’ll be snug at the inn, ma’am. I’ll wager you’ll be glad to be settled for the night.’

‘You know where we are staying tonight, then?’

‘Why, yes, ma’am. The guv’nor doesn’t leave things to chance. All booked, right and tight on the way down, and the landlord expecting us late, so no suspicions there. It’s a nice little place used by gentlemen on hunting expeditions in the foothills, but it’s quiet now.’

Eva sank back against the squabs and fell silent. Henry was certainly not in need of setting at his ease in her presence, so, strange as it felt, she did not have to make conversation. It was curiously peaceful to realise that she had no duties, none at all, other than to survive this adventure and reach England.

‘Ma’am!’ She jerked upright, startled to find they had stopped moving and there were lights outside. ‘You’d dropped off, ma’am,’ Henry added helpfully.

‘Yes, thank you,’ Eva said repressively. Goodness knows what sort of appearance she must present with her gown crumpled, her cloak filthy and her hair all over the place. She pushed it back and pulled her hood up to shadow her face as best she could. People saw what they expected to see, and this innkeeper would not be expecting a weary traveller to be his grand duchess. She must just be careful to do nothing to attract his attention.

The door opened, Jack helped her down and the landlord came bustling out to greet them, cheerfully prepared for their arrival at this late hour.

‘Welcome, sir, welcome, madam! Come along inside, if you please.’ Eva let the familiar local patois wash over her as the horses were sent off to the stables, their luggage carried in and Henry vanished in the direction of the taproom. ‘The room is just as you ordered, sir. The bed has been aired and I am sure your wife will be comfortable.’

The man led the way up the stairs. Eva stopped dead at the bottom, the last traces of sleep banished. ‘Room? Wife? Which room are you in?’

‘Ours.’ Jack took her arm and began to climb. Without actual violence she had no option but to follow him. ‘Thank you.’ He took the branch of candles from the landlord’s hand and pushed her gently through the open door at the head of the stairs. ‘This looks excellent. Some hot water, if you will.’

Eva stood in the middle of the room and looked around. One dresser, two chairs, a rug before a cold grate, a clothes press, a screen and a bed. One bed. ‘And just where are you sleeping?’ she enquired icily. Beneath her bodice her heart was thudding like a military tattoo.

‘With you. In that bed. Why? Where else do you expect me to sleep?’

Chapter Five

‘I expect you to sleep in your own bed, in your own room.’ Her mouth had gone dry, her stomach was full of butterflies.

‘I am your bodyguard. I need to be close to you.’ He was touching the flame to the other candles in the room, his hand steady as he did so. Eva felt her irrational panic building. What was she afraid of? That he would ravish her? Ridiculous. Somehow common sense did not stop the unsettling physical reactions.

‘Then sleep on the floor.’ She pointed to the far corner, hidden behind a screen.

‘Why should I be so uncomfortable?’ Jack enquired. ‘The role of the modern bodyguard does not include sleeping at your threshold like a faithful troubadour. I have had a long hard day. That looks like a very large, very comfortable bed. I’ll put the bolster down the middle of it if that would make you feel any better.’

The click as he turned the key in the lock brought the panic bubbling closer to the surface. ‘It is scandalous,’ she stated. ‘I am—’

‘My wife,’ Jack said, turning from the door to face her across the expanse of snowy-white quilt. There was not a trace of amusement on his face. ‘For the rest of this journey you act, think, live as my wife.’

‘No!’

‘Eva, what are you afraid of? Do you think I am going to insist on my conjugal rights? That would be carrying the deception a little too far. This is for your safety.’ It was not a small room, but his masculine presence seemed to fill it. Part of her mind registered that he had called her by her first name; part of it dismissed that as an irrelevance. The forefront of her consciousness was full of the reality that she was going to have to spend this night, and goodness knows how many nights after it, in bed with this man.

‘Of course I do not think that.’ She was fighting not to think of it! ‘And I am not afraid of you.’ She tilted her chin haughtily and tried to stare him down.

No, she was not afraid of him, she was afraid of what he was reminding her she missed, afraid that every hour spent with him would tear away a little more of the screen she had erected round her needs and desires. Afraid that she might turn to him in the night for strength and comfort and…It was easy to resist temptation when it was not a fingertip away, easy to ignore yearnings when there was no way of satisfying them.

‘You are tired. We both are. They will bring hot water up soon and you can wash and go to bed.’ As he spoke there was a tap at the door. Eva watched, startled, as Jack slid a knife from his boot and went to open the door. By the time the little maid had come in with the pitcher of water, the knife was out of sight. He turned the key in the lock again once she was gone and gestured towards the washstand and screen. ‘Go on.’ He lifted her valise and placed it behind the painted wooden panels.

‘Thank you.’ Eva forced the words out of stiff lips and stepped past him into the fragile privacy. She was going to have to use her cloak as a dressing gown. Her hands shook as she delved into the valise, but she lifted out the scanty contents, shook out the one spare gown he had allowed her and sorted through the rest. Oh, no!

‘Mr Ryder.’ It was the tone she used to point out some grave dereliction of court protocol and it normally produced a reaction of instant, anxious, attention on the part of the person so addressed.

‘Yes?’ His voice sounded muffled, but unconcerned. Eva had a momentary vision of his shirt being pulled off over his head and turned her back on the join in the screen panels resolutely. For a moment she had wanted to peep, like some giggling maidservant spying on the grooms.