Calming her tangled thoughts took some work, and then she had the presence of mind to trust her own eyes and then to trust Julian. His presence could only mean good news.
Her stomach in knots, she hardly had an appetite, but there was nothing else to do. She sighed at the sight of yet another boiled potato and wrestled a chunk off with a fork and knife. The utensils struck resistance, she sawed harder, swearing that if she ever got out of there alive, she’d never eat another nasty potato as long as she lived.
A closer look revealed a shred of cloth. She dissected it from the potato and recognized the size and shape of the roll — the same as the ones Sir Julian’s pigeons delivered. She unrolled it to reveal a message printed in a compact, angular script she knew well:
If you can’t be sure of a safe way to dispose of this, be prepared to eat it.
“Couldn’t be worse than the food,” she said to no one.
Hold steadfast, our plans are almost ready but can only be carried out when the timing is right and I can guarantee your safety. Meanwhile do your best to recover your health; you look a fright, my lady.
All my love,
JG
PS Don’t eat the beans, they dropped them on the floor.
Which was better, impending news of her escape, or that he’d signed the letter with an unmistakable declaration? All my love was a far cry from Sincerely. She almost didn’t care that he’d commented on her dreadful appearance, but how long had he been watching, and without a word! And he was right; she’d let herself grow weak in body as well as spirit. In her defense, it was either that or go out of her mind trying to remain alert through months of nothing.
She expected Julian to sneak in that night and waited hours in the dark while nothing happened. Slouchy delivered the breakfast tray as usual. Sometimes he would linger to goad her, making rude suggestions which she ignored for the most part, but today he acted subdued. Finding no message from Julian was nearly as devastating as her first week in captivity when she expected him every moment. And now she’d pulverized her food for no good cause.
She spent over a week in that state before she saw him next, delivering her meal again with a clandestine note.
Pleased to report she is in the care of the most capable man imaginable. It is he who helped me locate you and made my arrangements here. The operation to remove you must be swift and flawless, please find patience. Meanwhile, know that your health and strength will improve our odds of success, as we will go faster if we don’t have to drag you along, my lady.
You know what to do with the paper. Bon appétit.
Love always,
JG
She barely kept herself from squealing — Sophia was safe. Chauncey had been away so long, Helena had feared he’d finally caught Sophia. Alarming that her protector was a man — so many implications — but if Sir Julian trusted him to keep Sophia from harm, then Helena did too.
Chapter Nine
She blinked awake, thinking it was too quiet. Slow footsteps approached the door, the key clicked in the lock, the hinges squeaked, and she felt the change in air that meant the door was open. Helena was ready to kick for all she was worth in case it was Slouchy come to make good on his threats.
“Helena,” Julian whispered, barely making any sound at all.
“Here.” She tried to match his non-volume.
“Come quickly. There’s not much time.”
Her eyes still hadn’t adjusted; she sat up and tried to see his silhouette in the doorway, but the room was too dark with the windows shuttered and sealed. A warm, strong hand landed on her shoulder, brushed down her arm, and folded around her palm. He pulled her to her feet and she followed along behind him, trying not to limp. Once they reached a hallway she’d never seen, moonlight from the windows showed a slumped figure on the floor. Slouchy, she assumed, and she didn’t dare ask if he was sleeping or if it was permanent.
The house was deathly silent, which had never happened before. She typically heard men coming and going at all hours. “Where are they all?” she whispered to his back.
He squeezed her hand, likely to command silence. It seemed he paused at the bottom of the stairway for a quarter hour, but it was probably a few minutes. Her first step onto the tile floor was clumsy; it echoed, and Julian froze.
An answering sound came from the next room over — a simple click, like a doorknob turning, or maybe the hammer lowering on a pistol. Julian burst into motion — he tucked her under his arm and dashed down a short corridor. Someone shouted a curse and ran after them. Julian surprised her by throwing his shoulder at the door, it gave way on the second shove, and even through being jostled, the moonlight struck her like the sun after so long indoors. She saw a sparse courtyard and a country road but recognized neither, including the old provincial-style house that had been her prison for so long.
Shouts and a deafening blast shocked her into inaction; her mind simply froze. The plaster column within arm’s reach exploded into powder. She went head over ears and felt Julian’s iron-hard arm across her hips before understanding he’d tossed her over his shoulder and took off at a run. Despite his smooth gait, it rattled her teeth. Jaw clenched, she closed her eyes for good measure; she couldn’t stand the dread of expecting an attack every moment.
More gunshots sounded, some seemed to come from Julian, then with a lurch and a moment of weightlessness, they stopped. Or landed, more like. On the footboard of a carriage.
Julian shouted a command and pressed her against the wall as the horses took off at a gallop with her and Julian riding on the back. He grasped her hand and guided it to the looped strap, though she feared with every bump she’d be tossed off. Had there truly been no time to climb inside the carriage? She couldn’t see past Julian’s shoulders, and wind whistled in her ears, but more gunshots and shouting came from at least two directions. One bullet must have ricocheted off the metal riveting on the corner of the carriage. Her ears rang and throbbed painfully — she’d had no idea gunshots in close range were so loud.
She closed her eyes and listened as Julian’s breath went from frantic gusts to a normal rhythm. If she had to be on the run from villains, riding on the back of a carriage tearing down the road at breakneck speed while being shot at, she couldn’t imagine anyone she trusted more to get them through it. With his chest pressed to her back, she was all too aware that any stray bullets would strike him instead.
A few miles later, the sounds of pursuit waned, but the carriage didn’t slow. They must have travelled ten miles before halting at a post stop for fresh horses. A young and gorgeous blond man who gave her a vague feeling of recognition bounded from the driver’s seat and went to speak to the proprietor while Julian ushered her inside the carriage.
Smoothing down her wild hair, she said, “I’ll never complain about a bumpy ride again.” Her poor attempt at levity missed its mark.
Julian’s mouth pulled in a grim line and he watched out the window, looking as though he expected the forest to sprout guns and attack.
The blond man argued in French with a groggy-looking man then paid in coin, and minutes later, they were underway. Still Julian kept vigil at the window, pistol drawn. She didn’t dare distract him.
Changing to a railway car went much more smoothly; once they took their seats and the train blew the whistle, the men seemed to relax. A few mechanical jerks, and the train was in motion. A collective sigh of relief should have been comical, but speaking for herself, she was too rattled to laugh.
“How do you fare, my lady?” Julian stretched his arm and grunted.
She leaned back against the seat, waiting for him to introduce the blond man whose name she couldn’t recall despite remembering she’d noticed him at parties in London — disreputable sorts of gatherings at which Sir Julian would never set foot. With some luck, no one would mention it.
“Hale and whole, thanks to you.”
She didn’t expect a reaction from Julian; he leaned across the aisle and grasped her in a tig
ht embrace, his face pressed to her hair. She squeezed her arms across his back, comforted by the solid, familiar shape of him. He lingered, she let him, then finally he turned and sat beside her with his arm still tucked across her back and his hand hooked in the curve of her waist.
She looked up to see the blond man still standing in front of the closed door, appearing aloof and hardly rumpled, in contrast to herself and Julian. Figuring protocol hardly mattered, she said, “Forgive me for not recalling your name, sir.”
He fiddled with the levers and barrel of a pistol with deft fingers. Hopefully he was disarming the weapon. “Sir Gideon Morrell.” He flashed a debonair smile the ladies probably fawned over. “A pleasure, Lady Chauncey.”
“Thank you for your assistance. I don’t know how to repay your bravery.”
“All in the line of duty, ma’am.” He sat on the bench Julian had vacated, and she had a moment to contemplate the organization Julian, and presumably Sir Gideon, belonged to. It seemed to employ former soldiers of some rank or gentility; men the general public would never suspect as spies.
Knowing they wouldn’t tell, she didn’t ask, and leaned her head on Julian’s shoulder to convince herself it was truly happening. “Where is Mrs. Grey? I hope you didn’t leave your mother alone at Millbrook Abbey.” Not with Chauncey on their trail.
He covered a yawn. “No. I sent her to stay with my brother in Kent.”
“Did you know you’re nicked, Grey?” Sir Gideon said lazily, and it took Helena a moment to register what he meant.
She sat up and searched over Julian’s coat, not seeing any signs of blood. Finally he leaned forward and shrugged out if his jacket, exposing a dark, wet stain high on his left arm. “Bugger,” he complained.
When Helena had imagined disrobing Julian, this wasn’t what she’d had in mind. That didn’t mean she was clinical enough not to look as she unbuttoned his shirt then helped him pull it over his head. All right, she was staring at his beautifully cut chest, but considering the circumstances — that she’d been deprived and hopeless so long — she figured she deserved an indulgence.
Everyone agreed the wound on the outside of Julian’s shoulder was just a graze. He was lucky. They all were; a few inches in any direction, and one of them would’ve been gravely struck instead. Once she bound the wound tightly, it quit bleeding. He claimed to be dazed and inured to the pain, and said as she helped him back on with the soiled shirt, “I promise to complain like a baby tomorrow.”
He dropped asleep to the rhythmic swaying of the car, his shirt left unbuttoned. She scooted closer and leaned against his chest, remembering why it wasn’t an entirely comfortable experience, but she didn’t care. She’d never been so content.
Sir Gideon sat under the dim light, cleaning a second pistol, which he handled with a certain grace that bespoke of fondness. The way some men loved their hounds, a prized horse, or wine collection, it was apparent he loved firearms. It was probably his sharpshooting that had kept Chauncey’s men at bay.
“Where are we, anyway?” Strange that she hadn’t thought to ask before.
Sir Gideon looked up briefly then back down at the pieces he rubbed clean with a cloth. “Leaving the countryside east of Versailles. We’ll sail from Lille and take port in Dover. By dinnertime tomorrow, you’ll be in Devon.”
“Devonshire?” She only knew one family there, but it had been ages since she’d last seen them. “Why are we going there?”
Julian gave a sleepy hum, and his chest vibrated her skin. “Lord Devon, at Rougemont. He has Sophia.”
“What?” She didn’t mean to shout; the men startled and regarded her with wary expressions.
“Are you acquainted with Lord Devon?” Julian sounded suspicious.
That time she didn’t enjoy the buzzing feel of his voice. “A little,” she answered, trying to sound innocuous, but it was too late, she’d given the truth away. A heavy silence lingered, and she knew by the way his body tensed that Julian no longer wanted her sleeping against him. She sat up and leaned into the corner instead, trying not to feel dejected and miserable.
It was an awkward time for convoluted old stories. How to explain that once upon a time she’d been mistress to Lord Devon’s deceased elder brother? That she had rather vivid memories at the Rougemont estate she’d rather keep private. And Julian was no fool; he’d probably already guessed the worst, assuming she was a former lover to the current Lord Devon. She’d correct the notion, but later.
She left the conversation incomplete, and after awhile, Julian dozed off. Sir Gideon produced yet another pistol and began his fastidious cleaning routine, bringing the total to three pistols in various states of dismantling, all in a row on the seat.
It was the perfect time to reacquaint herself with reality. She’d been months in isolation and had clung to the memory of Sir Julian because he represented hope. Desperation had made it easy to imagine a blissful life with him, but only because she’d conveniently ignored all the impediments in her fantasy.
He was a vicar, a holy man. And she was a wicked woman. At the least, she would ruin his reputation — if she already hadn’t by taking refuge at Millbrook Abbey — and at worst, he would run screaming from their bed on the first night. He was reserved and inexperienced, while she knew exactly what to do with a boudoir trapeze.
He seemed to take pleasure in his retiring country life, and she lived for the loudest, gayest party in the crush of Paris and London’s finest ballrooms.
This time his so-called sleuthing had saved her life, but how often would he be called away on missions, and she’d have no idea where, and whether or not he’d ever come back?
All those obstacles she imagined overcoming in the name of love, but if he couldn’t accept her past, it would drive a wedge between them. And Helena Duncombe knew when a man was on the verge of disenchantment with her; it was her exit music. Always leave while there’s still a mystery. Always leave him with fond memories and a little longing: her great secret to wielding a man’s desire for her purposes, tricks of the trade.
Now her time-tested creed didn’t make her feel mysterious and desirable at all. Just sad.
Chapter Ten
She owed Sir Julian her life, but Helena was indebted to Mrs. Grey for saving her pride. She’d had the foresight to send her trunks to Rougemont from Millbrook Abbey so that when Helena arrived to meet her daughter for the first time in months, she didn’t have to look like a street urchin.
Sir Julian and Sir Gideon bid her a good morning then went up the stairs without a staff escort, as though they owned the house. It struck her as strange, but it was hardly the most bizarre aspect of her day.
Rougemont was just as she remembered, only cleaner. She recalled the young Wilhelm Montegue had been fastidious, almost to a disturbing degree. It was no surprise to find that with the death of his brother and inheriting the estate, he’d indulged his eccentricities.
Helena lingered at the staircase on her way to the drawing room, hearing echoes of memories that seemed like a lifetime ago; fifteen years, to be precise. The reality of being aged over thirty, with her youth behind her, had made her a slave to her sense of the romantic. She’d resolved that she wouldn’t die with an empty heart, and Roderick Montegue had the soul of a poet. And that was how her career as a courtesan had begun.
Roderick had shown her why men loved a mature woman — her confidence and lack of inhibition, for starters — and she’d taken the lesson to heart. She’d made a fortune on it, which had sustained Helena and her daughter through depleted estate funds. When Roderick died of consumption a few years later, she’d been surprised to discover a painful loss that felt an awful lot like love.
She’d been careful to avoid that entanglement afterward, adopting her “departure before disenchantment” policy. In her quest to avoid an empty heart, she’d resigned herself to a half-full one. Or was it half-empty?
Rapid footsteps startled her out of her thoughts. She expected a man, by the sound of the boot
s on the stairs.
“What a naughty girl you are,” she heard a familiar voice say.
Wilhelm Montegue — Lord Devon, she corrected herself — rounded the corner of the last landing, carrying Sophia in his arms. Helena tried to keep her jaw from falling open and failed.
“What’s going on, Wil? Is it who I think?” Sophia regarded Lord Devon as though he’d single-handedly invented Christmas, and Helena couldn’t believe her eyes.
Helena tried to clear her throat but had to settle for swallowing without choking. “You call his lordship, the Earl of Devon, Wil?”
Sophia let out a little gasp, her face hidden with Lord Devon’s shoulder in the way. “Mother,” she said. “What a surprise.” Her voice sounded a bit flat. Couldn’t be annoyance?
Lord Devon jogged down the remaining flight of stairs and set Sophia on her feet. He kept hold of her hand, conspicuously tucked behind her skirts. He looked a fright; eyes bloodshot and hollow cheekbones, traces of strain and exhaustion taxing his otherwise commanding appearance.
What on earth was going on?
“Lady Chauncey,” he greeted genially, and she had to recall Julian had said it was Lord Devon who had aided her rescue. Her gratitude was overshadowed by suspicion.
And still the shock of it — her bluestocking, spinster daughter, who had eyes for no one. Now with a man Helena wouldn’t have picked for her daughter, not if he were the last male on earth. Perhaps Sophia didn’t know what Helena did, how disturbed he was, that he suffered symptoms of a mental ailment and episodes of violence. Her throat seemed to squeeze and swell. She couldn’t breathe.
Beauty and the Spymaster Page 8