Miss Antiqua's Adventure

by Fran Baker

  Miss Antiqua’s Adventure

  Fran Baker

  Chapter 1

  The shot sounded like a hammer on stone, shocking everyone in the card salon into silence.

  Within a wisping haze of smoke, a bloodied figure tottered and then staggered backward. Half a dozen men, their studied elegance shattered with the report of the pistol, rushed to his aid. Grasping the wounded man by the arms, they shuffled from the dimly lit room. One gentleman paused to turn a shaken gaze on the lone figure at the far end of the chamber.

  “Nom de dieu!” he swore hoarsely. “You may have killed him!”

  The man he addressed raised a shoulder ever so slightly. A look of boredom mantled his handsome features as he drawled with disinterest, “What must be done, LeCour, must be done.”

  “Vincent, you must be mad.” The Frenchman swept a hand toward the stains darkening the floorboards at his feet. “There was no need to go this far.”

  Candlelight flickered over dark, disheveled hair as Vincent bent his head. He studied the pearl handle of the pistol in his palm. Softly, very softly, he murmured, “No need? Yet you, LeCour, were the first to agree on the necessity of this.”

  “But even so! It’s dashed irregular!” protested a rotund Englishman in abominable French. “No one intended you kill—”

  “Are you suggesting that my conduct has been improper?” Vincent inquired in a clipped voice.

  “N-no! No such thing! Naturally not!” stammered the heavyset man, gaping into a pair of cold blue eyes and backing away from the danger he saw in them.

  Vincent’s lips stretched into a sneer as he calmly laid his pistol into its velvet-lined case. He snapped his fingers and instantly the matching pistol was carried from where it had fallen on the floor to be placed beside the first.

  “You gentlemen will understand, I am certain, that I must excuse myself. If we do not meet again, I shall see you all in hell.” With a mocking bow, Vincent strolled from the room.

  “Mon dieu!” exclaimed the Frenchman fervently. “He has blood of ice, that one.”

  Had he heard that last remark, Jack Vincent would have been highly amused. At that moment, however, with his lips pressed tightly together and his lids dropping heavily over his deep blue eyes, Vincent stood outside looking far from any such happy state. The dueling case had been given a casual toss into the hands of a waiting footman, who in turn passed it to a postilion standing at the door of an elegant traveling coach. The postilion placed the rosewood case in its pocket within the coach while two more liveried footmen sprang forward to let down the steps as Vincent neared. Still another stood beside the door holding a glassed lantern high, for Vincent traveled with all the entourage befitting a son of the Duke of Sedgwick.

  Lithely entering the carriage, Vincent leaned into a velvet corner and stretched his legs out before him in a leisurely manner that would have convinced a casual observer he was without a care in the world. But, in fact, Monsieur Vincent, having sobered considerably in the last thirty minutes, was forming plans for his immediate departure.

  Perhaps he had not killed his man, for though he had done what he knew he must, his heart had not been in it and he had been unusually negligent in his aim. All the same, he could not linger to await word of the duel’s ultimate outcome. There would be repercussions from this pistol-shot. Even now his opponent’s associates could be preparing to eliminate him. He must leave France at once. He must, in fact, return at last to England. It was time, past time, for him to do so.

  The elegant equipage had barely rolled to a standstill when Vincent descended. “Prepare for a journey,” he directed as he stepped from the coach. “We leave within the hour.”

  When Vincent threw open the door of his spacious hôtel chamber, he surprised his valet in the act of laying out a frogged burgundy brocade dressing gown upon the satin cover of a fluted poster bed. Oliver Fawkes looked as if he would have been more at home in the stables than in his present position as a gentleman’s gentleman. He had, in fact, been a stable hand at Sedgwick Abbey when the nine-year-old Jack had first been brought under his father’s care, and it had been Oliver Fawkes who had shown the lad how to so expertly handle whip and reins. In his youth, he had been a giant of a man, and his size was still impressive though he had begun to stoop with middle age. His hair was an indeterminate brown turning into a grizzly gray, while the only remarkable features of his square, rugged face were his wiry brows and his pressed-in nose.

  Those wiry brows beetled together as he watched Vincent amble easily into the room. One brief glance was all Fawkes needed to ascertain that Master Jack had been into mischief again. Knowing the young man as he did, the glint in the blue eyes was enough to tell Fawkes just how many bottles the master had dipped into this evening.

  “I’m glad to see you’re still up,” Vincent said, as if his old servant had not waited up for him every evening for the past fifteen years. With the barest of slurs, and in the casual manner of one remarking upon the weather, he apprised Fawkes of their impending journey. “I’m afraid there has been an unfortunate incident. We shall be leaving Amiens within the hour. Sooner, if you can manage to pack us up that quickly.”

  “What sort of incident” the valet demanded.

  Yawning, Vincent dropped into a chair. He ignored the glowering adjuration of his servant and poured himself a full glass of cognac. He could not, of course, offer a true explanation. As trusted as Fawkes was, there were yet things with which Vincent trusted no one but himself. He stared down into the dark amber liquid, his lips tightening into a thin line. After a moment, he downed the contents of the glass on a toss.

  “I was forced, I am afraid, to offer a lesson in the proper handling of dueling pistols,” he finally said.

  A soundless whistle sighed through Fawkes’s crooked teeth. He did not ask if Vincent had killed his man. Knowing what a first-crack shot his master was, he simply assumed that this was so. What he did ask was, “Which of these Frenchies had the misfortune to need instructing?”

  “Lord, they all do!” he said on a half-laugh. “There’s not a one of them who knows how to aim worth a damn. Though, to be fair about it, many of our compatriots don’t shoot any better.”

  Though he had spoken lightly, the weight of what he had not said was not lost upon Fawkes. Vincent had quite neatly sidestepped answering the question. Oliver Fawkes stared long and hard, but to no effect. Having known the master from the time he was knee-high to a horse’s tail, he knew better than to press the issue. The boy had never been one to confide in another, and his dealings this past year and more had been such that Fawkes felt as much relieved as annoyed to be spared the details. Signaling his displeasure with a loud click of his tongue, he gave in to the inevitable. He bustled about the room, gathering up possessions and packing them haphazardly into a pair of cavernous trunks, covertly watching his deceptively impassive master refill his wine glass as he did so.

  With that dark hair falling over his brow and the patrician nose shadowing a mouth that could smile or sneer with equal ease, Vincent looked the sort of rich rakehell whose natural habitat was gambling dens and questionable salons. And for some time now that had been the exact image he had projected. But looks could be deceiving. His dissolute manner and rumpled evening dress could not mask a rapier-sharp intellect and an athletic ability that graced his every movement, even such a movement as the tipping of his crystal glass to his lips.

  Noting the action, and the meager amount of cognac left in the bottle, Fawkes paused in his tasks to inquire heavily, “And where will we be going, then?”

  “I’ve thought perhaps it’s time we called upon my esteemed family once again,” Vincent answered. “Twelve months is most certainly long enough fo
r us to have done without one another, don’t you agree?”

  “His Grace may not agree when he gets wind of this latest scrape of yours, Master J., and that’s a fact,” Fawkes said flatly before making his escape to finish arrangements for their imminent journey.

  Vincent emptied the rest of the bottle while pondering just how his father would react to his homecoming. It had been a sword thrust through George Porter which had obligated his hasty exit from England a year ago; it seemed fitting, somehow, that a pistol shot now necessitated his return. But he seriously doubted if his Grace of Sedgwick would appreciate the irony.

  With a light smile playing upon his lips, Vincent pictured his father. Physically, the Duke was very much like his eldest son, but temperamentally they were total opposites. The composed cynicism of the son could not be found in the volatile, unreserved disposition of the father. It was a certainty that after his inevitable initial outburst over his son’s profligate ways, Sedgwick would welcome him home with unconditional warmth.

  His musings were at this point interrupted by the reopening of the door. Fawkes returned to report that, after an explosive exchange of French, not to mention of sous, the innkeeper had quite understood the necessity of their immediate departure. Vincent did not evidence any interest in this message. Having quite disposed of all the cognac within the bottle, he was now pleasantly indifferent to the problems surrounding him.

  His condition was not unnoticed by his valet, who stood, arms akimbo and brows descending heavily, scrutinizing his young master. “Well, sir, if you’re still of a state of mind to leave, everything is ready to go,” he said in his most repressive tones.

  “By all means, Oliver, then let us go.” Vincent rose with languid grace, not looking in the least like a man who had just neatly polished off his third bottle of wine in as many hours.

  “To England!” he drawled as he sauntered toward the door.

  Chapter 2

  The only sound in the darkened room was the soft snoring coming from the hotel’s trundle bed where Lucy Summers lay sleeping. Despite the stillness and the lateness of the hour, Antiqua Greybill was not so fortunate as her maid. She could not sleep.

  The depression which had settled upon her since leaving Dover had increased to a restless discontent which did not allow for the merciful blankness of Morpheus. Her thoughts tossed as fitfully as her trim figure on the poster bed above Lucy. At an age when most young ladies would be concerning themselves with only what gown to wear to which ball and who had arranged to marry whom, the fidgety Miss Greybill concerned herself with just how she would direct the course of her life.

  She had not wanted to come to France. Living with an aunt whom she’d never met, knowing no one else in the country, she would be an outcast. But her father’s death had left Antiqua with little choice. Penniless and alone, she could either throw herself on the mercy of a grandfather who wanted nothing to do with her or accept the shelter of her mother’s sister in a foreign land.

  She again rolled uneasily over the sheets. Even if her aunt wished to keep her forever, pride alone would have prevented Antiqua from making such an imposition. She was, after all, a complete stranger to Madame Tallien. No, she decided resolutely, she must only stay with her aunt until she was able to find some means of employment, perhaps as a governess or a seamstress. That she had never been overly fond of her few schoolroom lessons and could only barely suppress a shudder at the detested thought of her uneven stitches wrung a sigh from her lips.

  Not for the first time, Antiqua cursed her lack of gainful skills. She had been reared most unconventionally by a father who only occasionally had remembered her existence, for once her mother passed away, he had fallen into the self-indulgent life of a profligate. In place of lessons in maidenly husbandry and arts, she had learned such practicalities as how to best judge when a man is merely muddled or when he is dangerously foxed, and how to acquire funds when one is at low tide, while yet staying one step ahead of the dun collectors. She had been forced much of the time to look after herself and considered herself quite independent. But even so, on this night, she felt terribly alone, adrift on an uncharted sea. To herself, she admitted being frightened by the uncertain future which lay ahead.

  A rapid staccato beating upon the door took Antiqua by surprise. She sat straight up, staring curiously through the darkness. On the second series of imperative raps, she threw back the quilted coverlet and slipped from her bed. Her dark chestnut hair waved starkly against the white of her nightdress as the urgency of the midnight knocks sent her hurrying across the bare floor. She cracked open the door only to have it forced wide.

  A body crashed into the room. Antiqua fell back and shoved a fist to her mouth, smothering the scream that welled up within her. After a few horrified seconds, she lowered her hand. The heavily cloaked figure sprawling on his back across the threshold did not move. She wavered a moment more, then knelt beside him.

  A low groan and an uneasy stirring assured her that the figure was not a corpse. She reached tentatively out, then gasped as a sudden hand trapped her wrist.

  “Close . . . the door.”

  Her only thought being to help the man so obviously in need, she did not question this hoarse command, but obeyed it the instant her wrist was released. Antiqua then stumbled to her bedside, colliding in her haste into her maid’s trundle bed.

  “Oooh, Miss,” grumbled the sleepy Lucy. “Whyever are you up?”

  Miss ignored her and continued to grope for the tinder box on her night-table. At last her fumbling fingers found their desired object and in a matter of moments the light of a single candle dimly illuminated the small chamber. By its shaky light, Antiqua was finally able to see her mysterious visitor.

  His sandy hair gleamed dully in the candlelight and his oval face appeared unearthly against the shadows. He was struggling to get up, causing his cloak to fall open, and she could see that he was of medium height and broadly built.

  And blood . . . she could see blood seeping from a bullet hole in the side of his shirt that his coat had originally covered.

  Lucy rose as well and, upon catching sight of the cloaked stranger stretched out not six feet away, screeched shrilly.

  “Be quiet, you silly thing!” Antiqua snapped. She crossed swiftly to the man’s side. In another instant she was back at Lucy’s trundle. “Give me your cap!” she ordered.

  “But Miss—”

  “Don’t argue!” Antiqua snatched the muslin from her reluctant maid, then returned quickly to the stranger. Taking a deep, steadying breath, she bent down. She balled the cap into a bulky wad and calmly pressed the muslin against the gaping hole in his side, trying to staunch the flow of blood. The cap turned crimson. The man moaned, a dry, cracked moan that brought Antiqua’s eyes to his shadowed face.

  “You! You’re the tutor I met in the coach from Calais!” she breathed.

  A ghost of a smile was her only answer for some seconds. Then, slowly, painfully, he rasped, “I am . . . no tutor. I need . . . your help.”

  “Shh, you must lie quiet.”

  “Ooh, Miss! What’s to do? He’s bleedin’ all over my cap!”

  “Hush, Lucy!” Antiqua saw that he was attempting once again to rise up. “Please, sir, lie still! I shall fetch a doctor—”

  “No!”

  The force of his explosive denial seemed to sap his dwindling strength. He lay back, breathing with a rattle that resounded in the tiny room.

  “But your wound must be attended to,” Antiqua argued, wondering how to move him onto her bed, how to find a French doctor at this time of night.

  “I am . . . done for . . . anyway,” he gasped.

  “Oh, no, never say so! You need only to be properly looked after.” But even as she demurred, she knew that he was right, for the miasma of death hung about his every breath. She presented no further protest and he acknowledged her tacit agreement with a grim tightening of his whitened lips.

  “How may I help you?” she asked in a cur
iously calm voice.

  “Pocket,” he whispered in reply.

  Antiqua hesitated, then began searching through the pockets of his voluminous cloak. It seemed to her an age, as she listened to his labored breathing and to Lucy’s occasional objections, but at last she pulled from the cloak a leather packet, tightly bound with dark vermillion ribbon.

  The man had closed his eyes, lying as if asleep, but he now opened them to focus a dull stare upon her. For a frightened instant Antiqua feared he would be unable to explain the meaning of the packet, of why he had come to her. Gradually however, the cloud lifted from his eye and she saw recognition return.

  “What is this, Mr. . . .?”

  “Allen . . . Thomas Allen . . . English agent.” There was urgency in his voice, fright and pain and the desperate need to speak. He reached up and clutched the edge of her sleeve. “Vital information . . . must get to . . . England.”

  Antiqua searched the pain-wracked face, seeing again the quiet stability which had drawn her secret approval during the day’s coach journey and led her now to accept his dictates without question. She sensed, too, an honesty, an integrity about him which she instinctively trusted. His lips moved soundlessly. She read the question he had no strength to ask and came to a typically impulsive decision.

  “I’ll take it to England for you,” she volunteered.

  “But Miss! We’re going to Paris!” Lucy put in.

  “No, we are turning back to England,” Antiqua contradicted. At that moment, she looked far older, far wiser, far more womanly than her years. “Tell me, sir, to whom I must give this message.”

  A spasm shook him, clenching and unclenching his body. When it passed he said brokenly, “Help me to my room . . . I must not die here.”

  Instantly, Antiqua jumped up. “Get dressed, Lucy!”

  “With him here, Miss?”

  “Quit being such a fool! He shan’t look at you. Now get changed—unless, of course, you’d rather be seen wandering the passageways in your nightdress.”