by Louise Allen
Jack turned the key in the lock and let the man in. ‘Thought I’d better check, seeing the time’s getting on.’ He glanced round the room and added reprovingly, ‘You know, guv’nor, you shouldn’t be walking about like that, stark naked with your wedding tackle on show. There’s a lady to consider, and not just any lady. She’s a grand duchess, when all’s said and done.’
He looked defiant as Jack glared at him, but the retort came, not from him, but icy—if somewhat muffled—from the bed. ‘The Grand Duchess in question is right here, Henry, and the reason I am stuck under these very hot covers is to spare myself the sight you so graphically describe. If you gentlemen would be kind enough to remove yourselves, dressed or undressed, I would like to get up now.’
Jack dragged on his breeches and shirt, scooped up the rest of his things and strode out of the room. ‘We will be in the private parlour, ma’am. Please be so good as to lock the door behind us.’
The lock clicked before they were three steps along the landing. Jack dropped his shoes, swore mildly, and kicked them ahead of himself into the parlour. ‘You don’t half whiff, guv’nor. Like a flaming lily,’ Henry observed.
‘Gardenias,’ Jack corrected, dragging off his clothes again so he could put on his drawers and stockings. ‘Better than smelling like the banks of the Rhône, believe me.’
‘Can believe that.’ The groom hitched one hip on the window ledge and regarded Jack critically as he dressed. ‘You hurt any? You look banged about.’
‘Nothing that won’t heal soon enough.’ He felt as though he had been stretched on the rack, then beaten with broom handles, but admitting to that would only lead to Henry offering one of his brutal massages.
‘Good enough.’ The groom looked uncomfortable. ‘Look, guv’nor, you really shouldn’t be getting involved with her Highness like this.’
‘Like what?’ Jack demanded.
‘No, don’t you go pokering up on me, guv’nor, you look like your late unlamented father when you do that, and it’s enough to give a man the colic, with all due respect…’
‘The chance of some due respect would be welcome, but I suppose you are going to have your say,’ Jack retorted grimly. To an outsider the liberties he allowed the groom would have been inexplicable, but Jack was prepared to listen to a man whose loyalty and courage had been proven over and over again, even if his tendency to embarrassing frankness was legendary.
‘I am that. She’s a real lady, that one, and royalty, almost. You shouldn’t be—’
‘I’m not.’
‘Yes, that’s all very well for you to say, but when you come hopping out of her bed in a state of Abram, who’s going to believe that?’
‘You are, if I tell you so, you suspicious old devil. There’s a bolster down the middle of the bed every night—stop laughing, will you!’
‘Are you two going to indulge in whatever crude conversation is amusing you for much longer?’ a frosty, disapproving voice enquired from the doorway. ‘Because I want my breakfast.’
Jack saw Henry’s jaw drop and turned slowly. The figure standing on the threshold was clad in breeches, boots, a snug-fitting waistcoat and white shirt. Her hair was bundled into a net at her nape and a neckcloth dangled from her hand. ‘Can one of you show me how to tie this?’ Eva enquired calmly, her eyes defying them to comment on her attire. ‘I must say, I had no idea how difficult it is to get into men’s clothes.’
The unfortunate turn of phrase was too much for Henry, who collapsed in hoots of laughter. Eva went scarlet. ‘You should meet Mr Brummell,’ Jack said, attempting to save her blushes by pretending not to notice the double entendre. He kept his face straight with an effort that hurt and aimed a kick at the groom’s ankle. ‘He would assure you it takes two hours at the very least.’
Chapter Twelve
Embarrassment and her own sense of the ridiculous fought inside Eva and humour won. Her lips curled in a reluctant smile. ‘I am not used to using my English every day,’ she admitted. ‘Thank you, Jack, it was, as you kindly assumed, the difficulties of dressing as a man I was referring to. You,’ she said with calm reproof to Henry, who was still spluttering gently, ‘have a dirty mind.’
‘Me! Now, that’s unfair, ma’am, I was only this minute lecturing the guv’nor on proper behaviour.’
‘Hmm.’ She handed the cravat to Jack. ‘Please?’
‘Fold it like this, then wrap it round once, and again and then…The devil—I can’t explain. Sit down, please.’ Eva sat obediently while Jack went to stand behind her and took the ends of the cravat in each hand. The warmth of his body was pleasant, although she could almost feel the tension in him as he tried to avoid pressing close to her. ‘Then under here, spread it out, tuck it in…Let me see.’ He came round to the front and regarded her, hands on hips. ‘Not bad.’
‘Thank you,’ Eva responded demurely. Jack was different this morning, she concluded sadly. He was pleasant, apparently cheerful, yet there was a reserve underlying his words and his eyes were impossible to read when she managed to catch them directly—which was not easy.
Last night, of course, that was what was concerning him. They had almost—what? Made love? But he had made no move to caress her, to seduce her, only to hold her. The fact that she had found the entire experience utterly arousing would, she suspected, surprise him. He seemed not to have any vanity about the effect he must surely have on any woman who had the slightest interest in the opposite sex.
She let herself be concealed behind a screen while the maids laid the table and brought breakfast in, hardly listening to Jack’s explanation that she must not be seen in men’s clothes by the inn staff in case they were questioned later. It must be, she concluded, that he saw the problem as his own desire for her—and she had too much experience of the instinctive masculine response to any halfway attractive woman to be greatly flattered by that—and did not have any concept of how much she was coming to want him.
Eva could feel the bedrock of her preconceptions, of the limits she had set on her life, her rules of conduct, begin to shift subtly. It was disturbing, like sensing that the ground you were on might slip, yet not being able to see any fissures yet. Was it just that she was too weak to resist temptation? Or that something had changed?
‘Safe to come out now,’ Jack called, and she emerged, frowning, to take her seat.
‘What is it?’ Jack put out a hand as though to smooth the line she could feel between her own brows, then turned the gesture by pulling out her chair. ‘Are you very tired after yesterday?’
‘I am well, a little stiff, but that is all. It is nothing. No, perhaps not nothing after all. Something I need to think over and perhaps talk to you about later.’ When she had some idea if she was just overwrought and adrift, or whether she really did need to think again about her life and how she lived it. ‘Where are the horses?’
‘At a livery stables on the Lyon road. We will travel that far with Henry, and then you and I will leave him to the post road and we will take to the minor roads that parallel it.’ Jack cut a healthy slice off a beefsteak and bit into it with the appetite of a man who had exercised hard.
Eva toyed with the preserves spoon. ‘And we meet at the inn tonight?’
‘No. We travel separately, with rendezvous points we have already agreed. It will be easier then to spot danger, see if we are followed.’
Henry finished chewing his mouthful of ham. ‘I called on our agent here first thing this morning. Word is that Bonaparte’s moving troops towards the frontier. Thought you said they aren’t expected until July, guv’nor.’
‘Well, Wellington certainly wasn’t expecting the French until then,’ Jack said, frowning at his coffee cup. ‘That timing was what persuaded us to plan for this route, otherwise I would have organised some convenient English smugglers at Calais.’
Eva supposed she should be anxious about this news, but somehow she couldn’t manage it. She trusted Jack to get her back, and after last night she was half-convinced he
could work miracles. In any case, she felt too strange to worry.
He put down his fork and eyed the slice of bread and butter she was nibbling. ‘Eat! That is not enough to keep a sparrow alive. Eggs, ham, black pudding.’ Jack pushed the platter towards her. ‘Goodness knows when we will get our next square meal.’
Obediently Eva helped herself, piling the food on her plate until Jack nodded approval. Jack was the expert—if he said eat, she would eat, even though she had little appetite. Possibly it was the water she had swallowed last night, or perhaps it was the unsettling, hot, ache inside her that had started last night and now would not leave her. When she looked at him it got worse.
Desire. I should be ashamed. But where, exactly, was the shame? she pondered, dutifully chewing her ham like a small child told to eat up. She set her own standards, it was herself she was letting down if she fell short of them, and it was her own conscience she must consult.
But there were two people in this equation. Eva looked down and saw her plate was empty. Suddenly finding her appetite restored, she reached for the bread and butter and spread a slice with honey. There were Jack’s standards to consider, as well, his conscience. She gave herself a little shake. They would ride, it would clear her mind. Then they would talk. Frankly.
The horses Jack had hired were fine animals, strong, sound and looked fit enough to carry them to the frontier, provided they kept to a steady pace. Eva stayed with the carriage until they were some distance from the stables, then Jack, leading her saddle horse and a laden pack animal, caught up with them and she was able to shed her cloak and mount.
‘Oh, you lovely thing.’ She ran her hand down the arching, satiny neck of the bay gelding, settling herself in the saddle while Jack checked the girth and adjusted the length of the stirrup leathers for her. ‘It seems so long since I was able to ride anything so big and powerful. Since Louis died I have been expected to ride side-saddle at ceremonies, or on gentle hacks around the vicinity of the castle on a nice, quiet mare.’
‘You can mange him, then?’ Jack swung up on the black horse, a good sixteen hands, with a wicked glint in its eye. ‘I hoped perhaps you could, because of the distances we need to cover, but I did have one in reserve.’ He grinned suddenly. ‘A gentle, solid little mare.’
‘An armchair ride?’ Eva enquired indignantly. ‘Certainly not.’ She did feel an inner qualm that perhaps she was so out of practice that she might not manage, or that she would slow him down. Jack’s high expectations of her reinforced her determination to live up to them, gave her courage, even while part of her wondered sceptically if this was just good management of the forces under his command. She decided to test him. ‘Why do you think now that I can ride this horse?’
‘Because you’ve got guts, determination and a certain natural athleticism,’ he said matter of factly, neck-reining one handed to turn his horse towards the track that led away from the post road. Eva stared at his retreating back. ‘Come on.’ Jack twisted in the saddle. ‘Don’t you believe me? When have I ever flattered you or been less than honest with you?’
‘Never.’ Eva dig her heels into the horse’s flanks and cantered up alongside him. ‘I don’t think so. Thank you.’
‘Thank me later, when your muscles are remembering that they have not worked like this in months—’
‘Years,’ she said ruefully.
‘Years, then. You will be convinced your posterior is one big blister and your shoulders will ache like the devil and then it will all be my fault.’
‘I’ll just have to look forward to a good deep hot bath,’ Eva said without thinking, then went red to her ear tips at the recollection of last night’s bath.
But Jack was already forging ahead, up the slope. ‘I wouldn’t count on it,’ she thought he said. But that could not be right—any inn would be able to provide a tub.
The pace Jack set was steady but fast, wending their way between the small ponds, thickets and fields on the east side of the wide river. They would canter, then drop to a walk to spell the horses, then canter again. From time to time he would check a compass, glance at the sun or stop to study the black notebook he kept in his pocket. He took half an hour at noon to eat from the packages of food that were stowed in their saddlebags, then watered the horses and walked, leading them for half an hour before mounting again.
They spoke little, although Eva was aware of Jack’s eyes on her from time to time. Something strange was happening to her as the lush countryside unrolled beneath their horses’ hooves, as the wildfowl rose in honking panic from the pools or the cattle raised their heads and watched them pass with great liquid brown eyes.
The wind was in her hair, the air was sweet in her lungs and it was as though she was stripping off some heavy, uncomfortable robe, freeing her limbs so she could run and laugh. Reality narrowed down to the landscape around them, the feel of the horse beneath her, her awareness of the man by her side.
Slowly, very slowly, the realisation came to her that she was herself again, not the girl who had left England, a wide-eyed bride, not the Grand Duchess with the weight of a tiny country on her shoulders, but herself, the Eva who had always been inside. For years she had looked out through her own eyes as though viewing the world from behind a mask, and in time she had become to believe that that was who she was.
I was beginning to think I was middle-aged, she thought in amazement as she followed Jack’s lead and popped the gelding over a low post and rail and whooped in delight at the sensation of flying. I was a mother, a widow, a Duchess. They are all important, but they are not me, not all of me. I’m me and Freddie’s mother. Me! Eva, having an adventure. Last night I nearly died and now I feel more alive than I ever have in my life.
Jack reined in and pointed upwards and she squinted into the blue sky at the pair of kites wheeling above them. Free. She was free. What did she want? What was important for her, inside? Inside, where she was a woman…
Despite her euphoria she was beginning to flag, to think longingly of the inn ahead. As the sun dropped low over the hills of the Beaujolais to the west, Jack reined in. ‘This will do, I don’t want to press on past Châlon tonight.’
‘What? Where?’ Eva stood in her stirrups and looked around. There was no sign of so much as a farmhouse, let alone the snug inn she was imagining. ‘Are we going back down to the post road?’
Jack, she saw suspiciously, had the air that seemed to be shared by every male with a guilty secret from small boy to King’s Messenger. He was trying to look innocent—and failing.
‘Well?’ she demanded.
‘We are camping out,’ he admitted, cornered.
‘Out here? What about my bath?’ Now they had stopped she was painfully aware of her sore bottom and the fact that she was going to have to unbend her legs and stand.
‘I did warn you. Look, there’s a nice grove of trees and a stream.’
Nice grove, indeed! Eva considered grumbling. Complaining loudly even. She wanted a hot bath, she wanted a good dinner and she wanted a soft bed. She wanted her major-domo, her footmen, her Swiss chef and her maids. She wanted clean, soft linen. She sat on the tired gelding, absently rubbing her hand along his neck and watched Jack, who had swung down off his horse and was exploring the glade.
It was rather nice, now that she came to look at it. The trees whispered softly in the warm evening breeze, there was fine grass and the stream ran busily over glinting pebbles. And there was the man in the middle of it, stretching mightily, his hat tossed on the ground. As she watched he stripped off his coat and threw that down, too, then turned and smiled at her. And Eva smiled back, her aching muscles, her grumbles, her empty stomach forgotten. He was why she felt so free, so new. And she was going to have to decide what to do about that.
‘It is lovely,’ she called, and sensed, rather than saw, the way he relaxed. Had he expected her to be difficult? ‘I don’t think I can get down by myself, you will have to help me.’
It was part calculation on her part, a
feminine wile to get his hands on her, and partly the absolute truth. Jack strolled across and held up his hands. ‘Throw your leg over the pommel and slide,’ he suggested.
‘I don’t think I can throw a shoe, let alone an entire limb,’ she joked, slipping her foot out of the stirrup and creakily lifting the leg over. The horse, impatient to get at the water and soft grass, shifted and she slid, with more speed than elegance, into Jack’s waiting embrace.
He caught her around her waist and held her for a second, feet dangling, then he let her slide down, sandwiched between his body and the horse. She was aware of every inch of his body, and of hers. As her feet touched the ground she realised she was holding her breath and raised her eyes to search his face.
It was expressionless, those searching eyes shuttered and uncommunicative. Jack opened his hands and stepped away. ‘I’ll gather firewood. Can you water the horses?’
‘Yes, of course.’ So, the door was still firmly closed. If she wanted him, she was going to have to be very explicit, not rely on hints or flirtation. Eva unsaddled the riding horses, removed their bridles and led them to the stream, then tied them on long leading reins to a sturdy branch. The pack horse stood patiently while she fiddled with straps and buckles, but soon he too was free of his burden and cropping the grass with the others.
‘I did not expect you to do that.’ Jack was back with an armful of wood. He crouched in the middle of the glade where travellers had obviously lit fires before and began to methodically stack the wood, sliding twigs and dried grass in at the base.
‘Why not? I am perfectly capable of it.’ Eva searched in the unloaded packs and found food, then bedrolls, which she shook out by the fireside. ‘Can we eat all of this tonight? I am starving.’
‘So long as we have something left for breakfast.’ Jack finished lighting the fire and stood, studying his surroundings, shading his eyes against the setting sun as he watched the track and the fields that lay between them and the river. He looked back at the fire, apparently satisfied with the almost invisible trickle of smoke from the dry wood.