Miss Antiqua's Adventure

by Fran Baker

  “Oh, my God,” he said in disgust, flinging her roughly away.

  Antiqua shrank into the corner, thankful for the darkness there which covered the relief spreading through her. Terror again sprang up as he tilted toward her, but he merely reached over her to let the square window of the coach door the rest of the way down.

  “If you must be ill,” he said without a hint of sympathy, “please have the goodness to aim well.”

  With that, Vincent removed himself to the opposite cushion, where he stretched himself across the length of the velvet seat.

  “I am sorry, sir. I—I shall be better once we are stopped,” Antiqua replied softly.

  She received no reply and reflected ruefully that she would obviously have to make her own way to Dover. Drawing his cloak about her shoulders again, she gave herself over to pondering the situation she had rushed headlong into. Not a moment was wasted in useless regret. She was enough of her father’s daughter to enjoy a high-spirited adventure and had long ago accepted her impulsiveness as an inescapable Greybill trait. Had not her own father run off with her French mother the very day they met? The only difference, she thought, between her father’s brand of impulsiveness and her own was that he always had the convenient excuse of having been foxed. Viewing her current circumstances, Antiqua thought perhaps she, too, had been somewhat drunk. Drunk with the desire to return home. And Mr. Allen’s packet had provided her with the perfect excuse to do what she wanted without guilt.

  For one monstrous moment, she considered the possibility that Lucy would not have brought the packet. But as silly as she was, even Lucy was capable enough to have slipped the leather bundle into her portmanteaux. Her other fear, that of the assassins who killed Allen, was shelved easily enough. How could anyone know he had given the packet to her? She need only worry about stretching her limited funds all the way to London and once there, discovering Mr. Allen’s brother. Her mood lightened. She would see her adventure out to its conclusion.

  At length, Antiqua relaxed enough to doze off, though she woke each time the carriage stopped to change horses. Vincent did not stir once, for which she could only be most grateful. The coming of dawn spilled light into the coach, giving her an opportunity to examine him more closely. Without his air of disdainful composure, he appeared not that much older than herself and much less menacing than he had during the night. She thought it a great pity that one so young and handsome should already be such a libertine, so experienced in the ways of making a woman tremble with incomprehensible yearnings.

  Removing her gaze to the window, she firmly set aside all such thoughts and once again fell into a light sleep.

  * * * *

  When Antiqua next awoke, they were no longer moving and the carriage was surrounded by the hustle and bustle of a seaport full of barking vendors, swaggering sailors and parading doxies.

  There was a tapping on the chaise door and she quickly drew herself into the depths of Vincent’s coat. She lay very still as the door was pulled open and a toneless voice informed them that they had arrived in Calais. Peeping through the cover of the coat, she saw Vincent stretch, then rise and descend from the coach without so much as casting a glance her way. Unreasonably, Antiqua was incensed by this treatment. What Mr. Vincent needed, she promptly decided, was a severe set-down. An expressionless footman broke through her hostile reflection to beg mademoiselle to follow him.

  She quivered slightly as she stepped from the coach as the air stunk of dead fish and sweating men loading and unloading the ships bobbing on filthy the water. To her great relief, Antiqua was immediately led to a private chamber on the upper floor of what seemed to be a respectable inn. Her gaze swept the room, which was of generous proportions and far finer than the cramped chamber she had bespoken in Amiens.

  Her spirits, which had risen considerably, now fell again when she saw that the door to her right had no lock. Powers of perception far weaker than hers would have realized to whose room that door must lead. She repressed with difficulty the desire to run from the room at once.

  Being of an optimistic nature, however, she buoyed herself by reasoning that the problem of the door was no problem unless her fellow traveler tried to come through it. She decided she would worry about that if and when the time came. Removing Vincent’s coat and laying it over the bright yellow seat of an oval-backed armchair, she went to a mahogany commode standing in one corner and washed her face in the porcelain ewer. Feeling much refreshed, she attempted to brush through her tangled hair with her fingers, then did what she could to revive the folds of her crushed muslin gown. She buttoned both sleeves and neck. Her fingers grazed her skin and a ghost of a shiver coursed through her. His fingers had been so cool, yet his touch had burned . . .

  The door behind her abruptly flew open and she jumped and spun round in one motion.

  “Oh, Miss! I’ve never been given such a fright in all me life,” Lucy declared from the threshold.

  Antiqua ran forward to throw her arms about her astonished maid. Then she drew back to hurriedly whisper, “The leather packet?”

  “I might’ve been murdered in this heathen land by rogues and vagabonds and you can only ask about that wicked man’s papers,” Lucy grumbled with a shake of her dark-red curls. From the frown in her green eyes to the funereal turn of her wide mouth, her face blazoned total disapprobation. Reaching inside the ample bosom of her gown. Lucy extracted the bundle.

  Antiqua snatched from her, then flung her arms about Lucy’s neck once more. “You dear, dear thing!”

  “Now, give over, Miss Antiqua, do,” Lucy said not unhappily.

  The arrival of a strapping young footman carrying their cases interrupted their reunion. He threw the plump, pretty maid a saucy smile as he deposited their bags upon the stand at the foot of the bed, but Lucy affected not to notice. No sooner had the door been closed upon him than Antiqua was demanding to know in detail what had occurred the night before.

  “I near had my wits scared out o’me, Miss, when I was await’n for you and in comes this hulk of a man bidding me to be a’bustlin’ as we don’t have time to waste. He then tells me as pretty as you please that you have gone off with a perfect stranger! A stranger you’d have done well to avoid,” she ended on a sniff.

  As Antiqua chose to ignore the disapproving glare, Lucy was forced to add darkly, “What I heard about your Mr. Vincent! Gave me a fair turn, it did.”

  “He’s not my Mr. Anything,” Antiqua protested even as she demanded to know what Lucy meant.

  “The second footman—him there as had pert ways—told me—” Lucy paused to inhale deeply, then expelled an expressive gust and continued, “He told me that your Mr. Jack Vincent was leaving France in such haste because he’d shot and killed a man!”

  If she had been Edmund Kean himself delivering Shakespeare’s finest soliloquy, Lucy could not have produced a more dramatic effect. All color drained from Antiqua’s face. She sank limply down upon the edge of the feather bed. She covered her ears, but they still echoed with Thomas Allen’s voice hoarsely whispering, “English traitors . . . beware Vi . . .”

  Vincent was English. Vincent had seen her leaving Allen’s room. Vincent had whisked her out of the hotel in precipitate haste. Vincent, Vincent, Vincent. It was clear as crystal Allen had meant “beware Vincent.”

  She had fallen like a ripe plum into the traitor’s hand!

  Chapter 4

  For those amongst London’s haut monde—and these were many—who believed Jack Vincent could never be discomposed, the scene in the private parlor of le Pélican that morning would have been highly edifying. The room itself was nothing out of the way, remarkable only for the tiled fireplace in which a cozy blaze leaped to expel the damp from the air. A barback settee was placed before it, with chairs at both ends. Numerous side tables were dotted with vases of yesterday’s faded flowers and plain candelabrum bearing half-burned stubs. One corner held a tall cherrywood secretary with leaded glass doors; the other an oval table laid w
ith breakfast covers for two.

  It was beside this table that Vincent stood reflecting upon the delights of a pair of big brown eyes, a pert, upturned nose, and a mouth, if he remembered correctly, most definitely made for kissing. He recalled, too, that he hadn’t received his fair share of kisses from those lovely lips, a deficiency he intended to correct before the day was out. Thus, when his petticoat of the previous night at length appeared, Vincent sustained a severe shock.

  In place of the experienced Paphian he had been expecting stood a female obviously innocent and absurdly young—looking barely out of the schoolroom, in fact. As she poised in the frame of the door, intently studying him with her expressive eyes, Vincent sent up a silent curse on all French brandy. Drunk or not, how in God’s great name could he have mistaken this . . . this waif for a bit of muslin?

  Indeed, small and delicate with dark smudges enlarging her already enormous brown eyes, she appeared to be the veriest waif. Slim ankles showed beneath the hem of her outdated rose percale gown, a gown which had faded with age, but was otherwise neatly kept. With her hair piled atop her head in a vastly becoming, if somewhat unruly, Grecian knot, she appeared to Vincent to be a child playing a grown-up. He again mentally swore, this time at her, for what the deuce was the chit about, embroiling herself in his devilments? And why did he still want to scoop her up and carry her to bed?

  Fortunately, as she would have been most highly incensed to have been thought such a child, Antiqua was more worried about her own safety than her effect upon his sensibilities. Vincent was a dangerous man—just look what had happened to Thomas Allen!—and the thought that something similar could happen to her filled her with dread.

  But as soon as she realized he was not going to brandish a pistol and demand the packet, she stepped fully into the room and offered him a polite greeting. “Good morning, Mr. Vincent.”

  “Would you like coffee or tea, my dear?” he asked casually as he pulled a chair from the table.

  “Coffee, if you please, sir,” she replied as she took her place in the proffered chair. Seeing him, knowing what she now knew, Antiqua wondered how she maintained her pretense of civility. She experienced a wave of regret that a man who could look so crisply polished after a night spent in the cramped confines of a chaise, however well-sprung, could be such a licentious, murderous traitor.

  He did not look the least treacherous, she thought, but rather like a painting she had once seen of a Greek god. Even the aroma of warm bread in a silver basket lined with linen and the sight of ripe red apples in a pewter bowl did little to lighten the lowering sensation produced by this reflection. Why must he be so disobliging as to be so very handsome?

  The entrance of a servant carrying a tray copiously furnished with baked eggs, fat fragrant sausages, milk, honey and cream drew Antiqua’s attention. She’d had nothing to eat since a meager meal the evening before and she was famished. With a silent sigh, she shoved thoughts of Mr. Vincent’s perfidy aside and applied herself with vigor to the abundant offerings served up by the wooden-faced servant.

  That animation was also lacking in her companion, who occupied himself with mere sips from his coffee cup and occasional remarks upon the weather. Antiqua was disconcerted by his prosaic demeanor, and could not help but wonder if all spies behaved with such propriety toward their enemies. She wished she knew how she should react, but the proper etiquette when dealing with a traitorous agent had not been among the few lessons she had had during her brief stay at Miss Braxton’s Seminary for Young Females.

  After a time, Vincent raised one hand and the servant vanished. “I trust you have recovered from the . . . distressing, shall we say? . . . effects of the journey and are feeling more the thing this morning . . . er, Lizzy, was it?

  The porcelain cup resting against Antiqua’s lip was set down with a thump as she choked. Impassively, Vincent leaned forward to pound on her back.

  “What? Oh. Oh, yes,” she gasped when she could.

  The lids dropped over his sapphire eyes. “And did you find your room to your liking, Lizzy?”

  “Lucy, sir,” she corrected, her voice faltering slightly.

  “Odd,” he commented, once again lounging back in his chair. “You do not have the look of a Lucy.”

  Staring fixedly at her plate, she sat still, hoping vainly a blush was not rising at her deception.

  “I think perhaps it best if you tell me your real name, Brown-eyes, for whatever I may do in my cups, I certainly shall not call you Lucy when sober.”

  Her gaze flew up to his. His blue eyes had narrowed and sharpened. No, he would not be an easy one to deceive. Inexpert at lying, Antiqua decided she must stick to the truth wherever possible. Finished with her eggs and sausage, she busied her hands with lacing a small slice of bread with honey. “My name is Antiqua Greybill.”

  For the second time that morning, Jack Vincent received a severe jolt. He stared, then managed, though with less than his usual composure, to ask, “Greybill? Never tell me that you claim relationship with Sir Arthur Greybill!”

  “Naturally I shan’t tell you such a thing, sir, for I do not claim a relationship which my grandfather has refused to acknowledge,” she replied before sinking her teeth into the bread.

  “Grandfather!”

  Antiqua swallowed and gave a most unladylike shrug. “Pray, do not let it weigh with you. He does not.”

  “Sir Arthur is one of my father’s closest friends,” Vincent said without expression.

  “Is he?” Antiqua reached for an apple from the bowl in the table’s center. “They do say it is a small world. I myself have never met him.”

  Recovering, Vincent began to enjoy the exchange. The chit was definitely out of the common way. She lacked the nose-in-the-clouds, snobbish bearing that should have gone with her name. That intrigued him.

  “And why is that?” he prompted.

  “Sir Arthur cast my father out when he married my mother. Though I think perhaps if it had not been over that, there would have been some other reason to sever relationships between them.” She crunched into her apple, chewed and swallowed before continuing. “Father was not at all a likeable fellow, you know, and was just the sort of hard drinking, gaming profligate to drive any parent mad.”

  “Such filial affection does you credit, Miss Greybill.” If he thought to put her out of countenance, he failed singularly to do so.

  “Well, Father was quite utterly self-centered, you know, and had not the least ounce of common sense. I have often wondered just what made my mother marry him.” Her eyes met his now. “Unless, of course, she was determined that I should not be some gentleman’s side-slip.”

  It was Vincent’s turn to choke. Setting down his cup, he inquired severely, “What in god’s name does a schoolroom miss like you know of such matters?”

  “I am not a schoolroom miss,” she snapped.

  “You’re what—seventeen?”

  “Eighteen.”

  A rueful smile lurked at the corners of his mouth. “And innocent as a lamb.”

  She looked offended. And to his eyes, ridiculously sweet. He pushed aside the thought. He could not permit himself to be taken in by a pretty face, however sweet. There were questions the chit had to answer. He hadn’t forgotten the manner of their meeting.

  “What are you doing in France? Why are you unescorted?” he demanded in tones that required an answer.

  “I’m not,” she objected, reaching as discreetly as she could for another apple. “I have my maid with me. I am—I was—on my way to Paris to live with my mother’s sister. And what business of yours it is, I do not fully comprehend.”

  “Whenever a lady—without a maid in sight—begs for my escort at an hour when all decent young ladies should be sleeping, it most definitely becomes my business.” Something came into his eyes, curious and hard. “Which brings me to wonder, Miss Greybill, just what you were doing leaving a gentleman’s chambers at that time of night?”

  Antiqua had expected a spy t
o have more subtlety. “We were discussing the—the merits of the gothic cathedral in Amiens,” she improvised, thankful to the hôtelier who had supplied her with this information. “It’s quite the oldest one in France and has much to recommend it, you know.”

  “At two in the morning?”

  “Oh, the cathedral beats all the others to flinders, I assure you.” She bit into the second apple. “The time had quite passed by before we knew where we were at.”

  “And this . . . er, discussion . . . quite naturally accounts for your extreme state of déshabille as you left the room.”

  She found she could no longer meet his hardened gaze. “I—I daresay I may have dozed for a bit and the gentleman did not wish to disturb me.” It sounded lame even to her ears. To cover her consternation, she went on the attack. “In any case, sir, I don’t believe I owe you any explanations. When I found I could not continue on to Paris and saw you leaving, I thought perhaps you would be kind enough to let me journey with you. I offered to pay you.”

  “As I recall, Miss Greybill,” Vincent drawled, “you offered quite an unusual payment.”

  Her mouth dropped open in speechless outrage. Of all the vicious, malicious, mendacious—

  “And in due time, I shall be paid,” he added, bringing her mouth shut with a snap. He rose and crossed to the door. There he paused and gave her a heated look that made her whole body tingle. “In full, Miss Greybill.”

  The menace of his soft, yet steely, voice was not lost upon her. She swallowed hard, her heart thudded sickeningly.

  “There is, meanwhile, one apple which I fear you may have overlooked,” he murmured, then was gone before Antiqua could gather her thoughts to favor him with her view of his ill-bred and ungallant behavior.

  Left to consider her situation, she sat nibbling on the apple he had so kindly pointed out while arguing with herself over the merits of leaving le Pélican immediately versus the dangers of remaining under Vincent’s escort.