The Counterfeit Lady_A Regency Romance

by Alina K. Field

  “Come,” he said. “Let’s hurry.”

  Minutes later, Perry turned the key in the lock on the grand entrance door and went to stand next to Jenny at the windows in the nearby parlor.

  “Like shadows, they are,” Jenny said approvingly.

  “Yes.” What they were truly up to, she couldn’t be sure. Both men had donned the darkest of jumpers and trousers, black watch caps jammed tight over their already dark hair, and all done in minutes. Men’s clothing was so freeing.

  “Are we really in danger?” the girl asked.

  “Of course not.”

  In the gloom, she couldn’t see Jenny’s expression, but her skepticism was palpable.

  Her answer had been reflexive, unnecessary, almost disrespectful noblesse oblige. She was forgetting, this was Jenny, former urchin of the Seven Dials. Didn’t she herself hate being treated like a child?

  “Well, maybe.”

  Besides, Jenny might know more about this—didn’t the servants always know more than they let on?

  “Did you hear tell in the servant’s hall of Gregory Carvelle?”

  The girl stiffened. “Miss Gracie’s fiancé, who beat her? The one they never found?”

  She sighed. “Is there anything the servants don’t talk about?”

  “I only listened, my lady. Is Gregory Carvelle the one Mr. Fox and MacEwen are after?”

  “So he told me.”

  “He told you? Then you got more out of him than I did MacEwen. You promised to teach me to load the pistols, miss.”

  “Indeed I did.”

  Upstairs in her bedchamber, they closed the curtains, turned up the lamp just enough to see, and she showed Jenny how to load and prime a fine pair of Mantons she’d filched from Shaldon House.

  “Shall we wait in the kitchen?” Jenny asked. “I can make us another pot by the light of the fire.”

  Fox had warned them about keeping the house dark, so as not to draw interest out at sea. He’d issued a password, with instructions for them to keep the door closed to anyone who didn’t know it.

  Her gaze landed on the sketchpad she’d pushed to the side. What other secrets was Fox hiding? He would go down the cliff side, do whatever he had to do, and would have to climb back up. She had plenty of time to investigate.

  “I’m going upstairs, Jenny.”

  The girl picked up a pistol and held it carefully pointed at the floor. “I’ll go with you, miss.”

  Jenny went to the curtains in Fox’s room.

  “Wait,” Perry said. “Don’t close them. He’ll notice they were disturbed.”

  She shuttered the lantern as much as she could. Surely, they were high enough not to be seen, but she would risk a dim light anyway. As her eyes adjusted, she saw Fox’s coats and white shirt tossed carelessly on the bed.

  “He’s made his own bed,” Jenny said.

  Perry had noticed that before. “So he has.”

  His paints and brushes were also in neat order on a table near the draped canvas, rather too near the window for searching by lamplight. A travel trunk lay on the floor near the bed. They would start there.

  Perry took the trunk and had Jenny look through the mattress and bedding.

  “What are we looking for?” Jenny asked.

  “Something hidden. Careful. His neatness perhaps has a purpose.”

  “Ah. Of course.” Jenny patted the pillow back into place.

  Perry went through the clothing, looking for filled pockets and finding nothing. She sat back on her heels and studied the trunk. She’d seen similar ones in the attic at Cransdall. She ran her hand over the leatherwork, feeling for notches or latches. Nothing. She tapped the bottom—quite solid.

  “Under the lid?” Jenny knelt next to her. “That’s a great deal of padding.”

  Perry slid her fingers along the seams and picked at the corners until she found a button buried there. The lining peeled away, revealing a notebook of superfine paper.

  “Numbers. Letters. What do they say?”

  She looked at the girl. “You can’t read?”

  “Yes, some.” Jenny frowned trying to puzzle out the text.

  “This is a code book. It says nothing on its own. And you must learn to read more than ‘some’.”

  The girl’s frown deepened. “Mr. Fox is a spy.”

  “So it seems. And don’t ignore me about the business of reading. You are far too bright to be ignorant. Let’s put this back.”

  “Who does he spy for?”

  Perry ran her fingers over the pages. Likely, he’d been spying for the Americans during the most recent war. Except, that war had started the year after his visit to Cransdall, and by that time, he’d disappeared.

  There was no war now, but he claimed to be here at her father’s behest, and MacEwen backed up the story.

  “I think it’s true that he’s working for my father. Beyond that I cannot say.” She flattened the book back into its hiding spot.

  “You don’t want to take it?”

  “No. I’ll know where to find it.”

  “Unless he moves it,” Jenny said.

  They shared a wry glance. Perry tucked the book in, secured the lining, and closed the trunk. “He’ll know we were here, I suppose.” She might as well try to keep a secret from Fox as travel to the moon. He’d see right into her heart and do his best to confound her. As a young artist newly arrived at Cransdall, he’d gone right to the business of punching holes in her puppy love. Because she was too young, too high in station above him, and too much the ugly duckling.

  No one had told her that—she’d just known.

  She’d stepped down from her high station for good, and she wasn’t too young any more, nor did she have any illusions she’d transformed into loveliness. Let him come after her for searching his room.

  “I might as well have a look at what he’s working on.”

  “The light—”

  “Be damned.” She got to her feet and lifted the drape on the painting.

  “Oh.” Jenny breathed out the word.

  A roomful of butterflies broke loose in her heart.

  “It’s you.”

  So it was. It was her, and not her. This woman looked like a goddess. She was no goddess.

  “It’s beautiful, miss, but, er—”

  “Improper.” The fluttering inside made her dizzy. “I didn’t pose for this.”

  She wished she had. Her body tingled the way it had done when he’d kissed her.

  She eased in a breath. “And look. In truth, there’s more to me than he’s painted here. He didn’t allow for my stays squeezing me in tighter here.” She touched the painting. It was dry.

  Jenny giggled.

  “Perhaps I should pose for him. You won’t tell, will you, Jenny? And everyone who sees this will assume that I already did anyway. I’ll remove all of Fox’s illusions.” And refute all of his lies to her. She was tired of lies. Tired of being an interesting specimen for the men in her world to poke at.

  “Oh, my lady,” Jenny’s voice held a smile.

  That the girl wasn’t judging her eased some of her tension. She smiled back. “Oh, Jenny. What were you and MacEwen up to while we were outside?”

  “Nothing,” the girl said, too quickly. “That is, he’s a terrible flirt.”

  And Jenny liked it. And she liked him. She and Jenny might both have a chance for a romantic adventure. “Will he talk to you? I need to know what’s going on. I don’t want you to do anything you’re not willing to do, of course. You have a reputation to protect also.” She pulled the drape over the painting. “There. I’m decent again. Jenny, I will work on learning things from Fox, and you can work on MacEwen. I promise, hand to my heart, no matter what happens, I will look after you.”

  “If you’re not yourself exiled to an island somewhere like Napoleon, my lady.” She laughed. “But, as you said, in for a penny, in for a pound. I’ll work on MacEwen.”

  And enjoy doing it, her smile said.

  In the sh
adowed cove, the four new men leaned against the rocks, all of them turned to the sea, watching the oars pushing against the surf.

  “There,” Davy whispered, pointing inland.

  Gaz pushed the hand down and shushed him. He and his cousin Davy sat apart from the others, thank goodness. Blasted Davy and his ghosts.

  “No such thing as ghosts.” Gaz wrapped the other man’s cold hand around the flask. “Take a swig. ’Twill wash out your brain.”

  Davy took a long hit and wiped his mouth. “I tell you, I saw her earlier, on the outcrop in front of the cottage. Come back to haunt us, she has. Scruggs—”

  “Shut your face.” The other four men he didn’t know, not well anyway. They’d been brought in, part of a gang from somewheres further north. “The drink and your flappin’ jaws’ll get us both kilt.”

  Davy handed him back the flask and then froze next to him. “Look, Gaz. You’ve got to look.”

  He sighed and turned, tipping the bottle as he did.

  Chapter 10

  Gaz choked. The raw gin scalded his lungs and he had to muffle his wheezing. Two of the new men glanced over and then turned away.

  “Bloody hell,” Gaz croaked.

  He glanced up again, and what he saw set his heart racing. In a top floor window, the white figure glowed like a selkie, tall, unmistakably feminine, shimmering hair streaming.

  He’d seen her ladyship more than once, as a boy, delivering his mam’s eggs. The lady used to come to the kitchen door herself when she was in residence, many a time. It was her. He dropped his gaze. Always kind, she’d been. “Bloody hell,” he whispered.

  “Bloody hell, ’tis where someone is going,” Davy said, darkly. “We shouldn’t—”

  “Shush, man.” He needed to think. He needed to get them through this night in one piece, and shutting Davy up was first. “’Tis the new tenant’s woman, is all.”

  “Nay. He’s but one man alone by hisself.” Davy leaned close, blowing gin-breath at him. “Came alone, he did. An’ he’ll run, soon as she shows herself to him. That earl can’t keep a tenant. She drives them all off.”

  Gaz didn’t believe in ghosts. Not really.

  Still…his jaw ached from the punch he’d caught earlier that day. Bloody Scruggs was on edge. The Dutchman was coming back. The town was too leery even to whisper.

  If she’d come back for revenge, almost he’d be willing to help her.

  “Oh, God.” Air whooshed from Davy.

  “What.”

  “The maid too. Oh, God, Gaz. She’s back too.”

  “And I suppose all that’s lacking is the bloody coachman,” he said, trying to bring some humor. “I suppose he’ll be lurking here somewhere, dressed all in black.”

  “’Tisn’t funny.”

  The boat was nearing, and one of the new men was beckoning.

  “Here.” Gaz handed Davy the flask. “Pour this down your maw and stop talkin’.”

  Perry and Jenny moved downstairs, choosing to wait in the dark in the house’s main parlor with its tall French windows and view of the sea. If the village used this inlet for its smuggling, then the residents of this cottage had been able to see everything. Mother’s grandfather had been in trade and then banking—likely his mercantile career had begun on this Yorkshire coast where he’d had strong connections.

  Free trading, she realized, must have been part of it. Perhaps her grandfather had stood on that balcony observing the proper dispersal of goods.

  Or—no. Like her own father, he would have been down in the thick of it. Which was where she wanted to be, and it was fair enough since the blood of smugglers and spies ran in her veins.

  She was still accommodating the idea that Fox was a spy. Yes, during his long months at Cransdall ten years ago, he had produced portraits of all the family but Bink and her father, who had both been, presumably, on the Peninsula in different capacities supporting Wellington.

  Besides the portraits, why had Fox been at the Earl of Shaldon’s home? Was he spying for France or America? Or was he somehow helping her father?

  Mother had displayed a high regard for Fox, and if she’d asked him to accompany her here, she’d trusted him.

  And then he’d disappeared until last winter, when she’d found his painting and recognized the scenery, the folly on the lake at Cransdall at sunset, streaks of light coloring the scene like a magical fairy world.

  She’d run into him by that lake one boring evening, long ago, when she was angry and frustrated with Bakeley. Fox had teased her out of her foul mood.

  “Where are they, do you think?” Jenny asked.

  She shook off the memories. “Down there somewhere with the shadows.” The smugglers had their lanterns turned to the dimmest of lights.

  “Do you suppose someone else might be watching from high up like us?”

  A pang of guilt went through her, and to be honest, jealousy. She should have thought of that. Jenny, a servant, was more astute, more practical, more level-headed than she. The daughter of a spy should have realized the free traders had lookout men, and yet, she’d stupidly exposed the light in the upper floor window.

  “A very good point. That’s entirely likely.”

  “Good that our two men have vanished into the night.”

  Fox was good at vanishing, as he’d done after Bakeley’s wedding ball. No one knew to where. Except possibly her father, and if she’d asked him, he’d never have told her anyway.

  The hair on her neck prickled. She’d found Fox again, even though she hadn’t been looking for him, even though her father had not thrown them together.

  He was here, she was here. He was, perhaps, the one for her, the one to help her launch her new life.

  If he wanted to kiss her and lie to her, well, she might as well accept the dishonesty and see if it led to seduction.

  Seduction…yes, she hadn’t a clue how a woman went about seducing a man, but Fox certainly knew how to draw her out. Even when she’d hated him, it had been his teasing, goading, infuriating voice she’d wanted to hear. She’d stay to see where things led.

  And then there was the matter of Carvelle. He’d mistreated Charley’s wife, and he’d escaped Father’s net. What he had done, besides acting with Father’s enemies, she didn’t know. But she would help Fox to capture him. And when Father came swooping in, she would try her own luck at vanishing. On the other side of that water lay the lowlands, and beyond that, France.

  Fox took the spyglass back from MacEwen.

  “Might be him,” MacEwen barely whispered the words.

  He’d moved noiselessly behind Fox, skirting the lookout the gang had placed on the crest of the cliff. Fox had found a snug spot to watch both the watcher and the action below.

  The casks were offloaded, counted, and parceled off to the six men on shore. The oarsmen helped with the offloading, then climbed back into the boat. Their passenger came ashore and stood to the side talking to a seventh man who appeared, a burly man who fumbled his hat in his hands.

  “Scruggs.” Fox whispered.

  “Aye.”

  The passenger had the advantage of height, but not bulk. Yet in spite of his wiry frame he commanded the other man’s obeisance. Surely this was Carvelle.

  He should send MacEwen back on the fresh gelding with a message, and himself follow the man to his destination. Likely, Scruggs would take him to the inn, and it was too late in these parts for a man to stop in for a tankard without arousing suspicion.

  And he had Perry to think about. If he went to the inn, and MacEwen went with a message, Perry would be alone and unprotected.

  Already she’d put a tall slender cog into her father’s spy works.

  The boat pulled away and the men started up the trail to the road, passing them not ten yards distant. Fox counted six men passing. Scruggs was one of them, as was the intimidating passenger. MacEwen took the glass and eyed the lookout man until he too had left.

  When the others had cleared, he handed the glass back and whisper
ed “Message?”

  Fox shook his head. “Follow him,” he said, breathing the words. He signaled that there were two men left below, and he would watch them.

  MacEwen departed in utter silence. A skilled operative, he needed no more instruction than that. No matter the watchers or followers, MacEwen would find a way.

  The two below were weighting and sinking the excess casks in a tidal pool trapped by the rocks. Fox picked his way nearer.

  They muttered and grunted as they worked and he heard snippets of words over the sound of the surf. “Shut up,” the bigger one kept saying, but the other continued to mutter as they ran the casks down on lines. Though hidden from view of the sea or the shore, it was a shoddy job of concealment. A man could pull up those casks without so much as getting his boots wet.

  So it was when a gang of smugglers had both the Riding Officer and the local Justice of the Peace in their pockets. The only reason they bothered with the sinking was to conceal the booty from the likes of him.

  When the men finished their task, they hoisted their own casks, and headed straight for him. He slid into the shadows and held his breath.

  “I tell you, Gaz, it was her. She’s come back for revenge.”

  His nerves stood on edge, sharpening his hearing. They were almost upon him.

  “Shush with it. No such thing as ghosts.”

  “You saw it.”

  “Will you shut it?”

  They stopped right in front of him, voices so clear he could but whisper and join the conversation.

  “I saw a woman, all in white. The tenant’s got hisself a girl, is all. Snuck her in, he did when all the busybodies weren’t looking.”

  “An’ I says he’ll be gone soon enough, just like the other tenants, and we be using that stable again.” This one slurred his words. “Ain’t no regular woman, Gaz. She’s back to get the ones as threw her over that cliff, is she. I tell you—”

  “Listen.” A cask dropped. A shuffle. Someone gasped. The man called Gaz had resorted to force. “Listen. You yammer this to anyone else, it’ll get to Scruggs. He’ll know we know, and how long till he sets his man on us? Ya bleedin’ idiot. You want to live, Davy?” More shuffling, grunting, and panting. “Then shut your trap. No more. No more to me, either, Davy, ’cause we don’t know who’s listening, and we don’t know who to trust, ’ceptin’ no one.”