The Counterfeit Mistress

by Madeline Hunter

  Garrett pointed to the top of the arm of land. “See that fellow up there? When he signals, we can sail out.”

  “How long before he signals?”

  “That is up to His Majesty’s Navy. We don’t want to be interfering with their frigates.”

  “Perhaps we should wait for nightfall.”

  “That is hardly necessary, and unwise in a waning moon, I’m told. ’Course, if I had my way, I would not be doing this at all.”

  And yet he would be. What an honorable man, to follow through on his implied commitment, and even to arrange such splendid transportation, after having failed to inform her that he did not want the duty.

  Over on the ship, men continued with the sails. Two others climbed down into a small boat. One began rowing it toward the narrow beach where she and Mr. Garrett stood.

  The sun turned the boat and its occupants into silhouettes. She squinted. Something about one of them . . . “Who is that?”

  “That is the ship’s master, and he who owns the yacht and pays the crew.”

  “It isn’t yours?”

  Garrett laughed. He thought the question hilarious. She turned on him, vexed at the realization that he had involved someone else in her plans. “What did you say to obtain their agreement to use their ship? I wrote that I need to go over to bring back something of great value, but you have misunderstood. I can hardly afford such as that, and I am in no position to explain my intentions or purpose. You should have never taken such a step without sending word to me, so that I could—”

  “Is she burning your ears, Mr. Garrett?” a voice called.

  “That she is, sir. Interesting how it sounds sweeter with that accent, though.”

  Stunned, she pivoted toward the sun and the men crossing the beach. The one in front walked right up to her and looked down.

  Kendale’s green eyes reflected amusement at the sight of her gaping at him.

  Her heart glistened with joy, then sank as she realized what his presence meant. The little ship was not for her. She would not be going anywhere.

  For a few seconds Marielle appeared happy to see him. Then other emotions showed in her eyes.

  He took her hand. “Come with me.”

  He led her behind an outcropping of rock, so they would have some privacy. She sank to the ground and sat with her back against the hard, chilled wall. With her legs stretched out and her body slumped, she reminded him of that day in the alley, when he wondered if she even lived.

  He sat down beside her.

  “I did not know you had a yacht,” she said in a dull voice.

  “It is a recent acquisition.”

  “So you are going over in style then, and by sea all the way to your destination. Do you not worry that you will be too visible? Smugglers’ galleys are not ideal for longer voyages, but they do not herald themselves with sails either, or depend upon the winds.”

  “You sound as if you have weighed the alternatives carefully.”

  She laughed to herself, sadly. “I have had six years to do so.”

  “As it happens, I will not be taking the journey I had planned, Marielle. Those naval frigates are there to stop me. The soldiers in Dover and along the coast will detain me on sight. The government suspects my plans and has decided I am too dangerous to their own.”

  “They did not learn of it from me,” she said. “Penthurst asked, but I did not tell him even though I had guessed. I said you intended to visit your properties, which you had neglected too long.”

  “I know you did not tell him.”

  “You cannot be sure. Just as you know I am not a spy, but you cannot be sure.”

  Except he did know for sure. Not only because the evidence said so. Penthurst, in his own way, had been trying to act as a friend through all of this. If he had learned anything from Marielle, if she had been disloyal, he would have let it be known, again in his own way.

  “I am sure, of both things. My head says it is so. More important, my heart does.”

  She looked straight ahead, not reacting. Then she wiped her eyes with her hand. “You can still do it. You can go over on your own, one man, maybe two, at night. If you stay off the roads and avoid the towns, you can make your way overland, much as you made your way back that time.”

  “I considered it.” For a few minutes, after Penthurst had left that cave, the plans had taken form. “I have chosen to put it off for now. Perhaps forever.”

  She struggled valiantly against the tears that tried to conquer her composure. “I cannot do that. Put it off forever. I ask that you not force me to.”

  He gathered her into his arms. Within the billows of her skirt he felt the hard lump of a purse filled with coin, then the long shape of what might be a dagger in its sheath.

  “What is the treasure that you need to bring back? Garrett said that you wrote of something of value.”

  “Mr. Garrett is a poor excuse for a man if he revealed what I wrote in a private letter.”

  “He is a smuggler. He cannot be expected to follow the social niceties on such questions.”

  She looked up at him, her eyes glistening from unshed tears. “Did you threaten him? That was wrong of you, especially since it was only to pry and satisfy your own curiosity about something not your concern.”

  “Listen to me carefully, woman. Your safety is my concern. I have told you so before. You do not have a say in that, Marielle. I did not threaten Garrett, but if learning the truth required it, I would have held a pistol to his temple. Now, why are you so determined to risk everything to go back? Tell me.”

  She sank against his chest. The rebellion seeped out of her and she stayed there, limp and unhappy. “I may as well. I never did before because you would stop me. Since you have stopped me anyway— It is not a treasure, the way men like Garrett mean. I am going back to get my father. He stayed behind so I could get away.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Near the town of Savenay.”

  This did not sound very difficult.

  “He is in a château there,” she continued. “In its donjon, I would guess.”

  “He is a prisoner?”

  She nodded. “Not an official one. There was no trial. Lamberte captured him, and that château where Lamberte lives has a donjon, so he was put there. If he is alive, that is.”

  Her goal had changed from not very difficult to almost impossible with a few short sentences.

  He thought of that dagger in her long pocket. “Was it your intention to kill this Lamberte?”

  She took some time to respond, which perhaps was an answer in itself. “That château belonged to his half brother who was a baron. Lamberte is a bastard of their father. When I was very young, my mother became the lover of the baron, and went to live there. I would visit her, and came to know the château and its people well.”

  “Was her lover killed during the revolution?”

  She shook her head. “He survived. The Vendée was not very enamored of the revolution, however. Even so, the baron did not join the uprising against the new government when it came six years ago. He remained out of it, isolated in his château. While the army was crushing the rebellion and killing so many, my father and I took refuge there. We were there the day that Lamberte marched in with twenty-five men. His brother went to greet him and Lamberte shot him dead. Just like that. No accusations. No trial. No guilt. It was brother murdering brother, for reasons that were not political, I have realized. In the hell that existed then in that region, however, it was only one more death among many.” She took a deep breath. “And then he killed my mother too. And their closest servants.”

  “Did you see it?”

  “Yes.”

  It pained him that she had witnessed such carnage. As much as he had, maybe more. Only he had been a man and a soldier, and she had been a girl of perhaps fifteen years. Had he
r youth made it harder to overcome the memories, or easier?

  “She had hidden me, and given me this little book, like a journal, to take to Papa. It had been brought to the baron secretly, and it contained Lamberte’s own accounts of the money he collected in taxes. It shows his thievery. He must have learned his brother had it, and simply killed anyone who might be aware of it. I hid while he tore apart their chambers looking for it. When he left, I ran to my father, who got me out.”

  “If he sacrificed himself to do so, he would not want you to come back for him and risk undoing that.”

  She pushed out of his embrace, and scrambled to stand. “I knew you would say that. This is not about what he wants. It is about what I want.”

  He grasped her arm and held her in place. “Do you think to enter the château without this man knowing? Will you walk up to him and use that dagger that you have in your pocket? It is harder to kill than you may think, Marielle.”

  “If I did kill him, I would be justified. However, he is not in there now. Or he was not a few weeks ago, and I hope he has not returned but is currying favor in Paris.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “I ask. I speak to the new arrivals and find out what I can of the region, and of Lamberte. Why do you think I became the niece of a comte? So they will talk to me as an equal, who has suffered the same losses. They would never confide in the daughter of an engraver. Such as I filled the courts, calling for their heads.”

  She jerked her arm out of his hold, stood, and brushed off her skirt. “Now you have ruined everything, Lord Kendale. Mr. Garrett is probably afraid of you, and the trouble you can make for him. It will be years before I find another like him. I can only hope you forget about me by then, and do not ruin it once more.”

  He stood. “How did you plan to get your father free?”

  “I have money for bribes. I have been saving since I arrived.”

  Whatever she had, it would not overcome a man’s fear of someone like this Lamberte.

  She stepped away from him and the wall, into the sun. She eyed that high hill she had just come down. With a sigh, she walked toward it.

  “I will take you there.”

  She stopped, then turned. He walked over to her.

  “I will take you there, Marielle, and try to rescue him. However, you must obey me, and do what I say, without argument or question. If I conclude it is hopeless, you must accept that and leave with me when I say so.”

  She looked at the yacht. “Will the navy not—”

  “Leave that to me. Do you understand how this must be done? Do you give your word that you will obey my commands?”

  Her expression brightened. Her eyes took on the impish sparks that had entranced him from the beginning. “All your commands? I do not know, Lord Kendale. It might be improper for a lady to agree to some things.”

  He hardened at once. His mind began romping through all kinds of improper commands. “Damnation, Marielle, stop that. Do you give your word?”

  She stepped so closely that their bodies almost touched. She smiled coquettishly. “Of course, m’sieur le vicomte.”

  Up on the top of the cove’s outer crust, Garrett’s man waved his arms in a signal.

  He took Marielle’s hand and hurried her to the water and the waiting boat. It had been a hell of a time for her to flirt with him, let alone allude to those kinds of commands.

  And God help him, he loved her for it.

  “It is too big for you, but it was the best I could do at the last minute.”

  Marielle looked down at the yellow dress that Kendale referred to. It had been waiting on the yacht for her to put on. She sat beside him under an awning, with a neatly dressed Angus across on another chair. They might be merely three fashionable people sailing out to enjoy a fine day along the coast.

  Mr. Stanton, the yacht’s master, called orders to his crew to work the sails this way and that. They all kept an eye on the frigate a mile away up the coast. Presumably the frigate watched them as well. Back and forth they sailed, meandering without destination or purpose.

  Kendale held his pocket watch in his hand. “Soon, Mr. Stanton,” he called.

  Angus stood and gazed to the north, past the frigate. He squinted, and shielded his eyes from the sun with his hand. “Tarrington is on the move, sir.”

  “Be ready, Stanton.”

  “What is happening?” she asked.

  “We have it on good authority that a smugglers galley will make a run right about now. The frigate will probably assume I am on the boat, and move to stop them,” Kendale explained.

  Mr. Stanton peered north. Marielle did too. She could barely see a thick, dark, low line moving on the horizon. The frigate began turning toward it.

  Mr. Stanton called orders and a burst of activity bustled on the yacht. Sails moved. The yacht took a decided turn, so abrupt that the entire vessel dipped sideways.

  “While the frigate is busy chasing the galley up there, we will sail east down here,” Kendale said.

  “Will the galley be caught?”

  “After giving a good chase, it will be. The naval captain will find he has taken a boat of suspicious use with fifteen men aboard, but no contraband, and no trained fighters.”

  “And no you.” Those trained fighters lounged in the hold of the yacht, out of sight. It would be close quarters for everyone the next few days.

  Wind caught the sails smartly. The yacht sped forward through the sea. Mr. Stanton kept his gaze on that frigate. “Mr. Tarrington is providing excellent diversion, Lord Kendale. I do not think anyone on His Majesty’s Ship has noticed what we are doing yet.”

  “Can we outrun them if we have to?” Marielle asked.

  “That is questionable. Frigates are fast, as is this yacht. It need not catch us to matter. It only has to get within firing range, and Mr. Stanton will be forced to lower the sails. The real danger is when we turn south. If it follows, the frigate can cut across at an angle. Do not worry, however. The men on that galley will dodge it for at least a half hour.”

  She did worry, however. She could not take her eyes off the sails of the frigate, no matter how small they became in the distance.

  “You knew last night that you were going to take me over,” she said while staring north. “This dress says you did. Why did you not say so at once when I saw you?”

  “I only knew I might take you over. I needed to know the goal, and the reasons. And I had to obtain your agreement to my rules.”

  Rules. Command. Obedience. Kendale was acting and thinking like an officer. Perhaps he always did, at least with these men he now led. He appeared to consider her one of them on this mission. There had been little warmth from him since they left the beach. Not even a stolen kiss or secret embrace. Instead he had explained the yacht’s organization and hierarchy, as if she had signed on as cabin boy.

  They lost sight of land, and even the sails of the frigate. Nothing but water surrounded them. The yacht turned south and began a long, slow curve.

  Kendale stood and offered his hand to help her rise. “Come with me.”

  He led her into the owner’s cabin. The privacy delighted her. It had been hard to spend hours pretending that he only saw her as a lady in distress whom he was helping.

  She waited for him to embrace her. Instead he sat her down at the small table, and placed a sheet of paper and an inkwell before her. He took a small knife and sharpened a quill. “I want you to draw out the plan of the château, as best you can remember. I’ll not have these men going in blind and caught in a maze if one of them becomes separated from the rest.”

  “You can’t think to bring them all, surely. Twenty Englishmen filing through the countryside will be noticed. We must go alone, with perhaps one or two others at most.”

  “I promise that I will give your advice on military tactics all the weight it des
erves, Marielle.” He handed her the quill. “Now, please draw the plan.”

  She grabbed the quill, dipped, and pictured the château’s ground floor in her head. Her concentration did not entirely obliterate her annoyance that he would assume her advice deserved no consideration at all. Nor did his manner make her happy. They were alone now, and he might show her at least a little affection.

  She outlined the building, then divided out the public rooms. She took some time and great care in placing the stairwells correctly. “Have I offended you in some way?” she asked while she pictured the back servant stairs in her head, and the kitchen and services rooms to which they led. “Or does being a soldier just naturally bring out the coldness in you?”

  He stood beside her and leaned over her shoulder to watch the plan take form. “You are already a distraction. If I gave into my inclinations, it would only be worse. Should I do that anyway, and take you here? If I do, every man on the deck will hear it, and every one below.”

  “I was thinking more in terms of a kiss, so that I know you are not so angry with my deceptions that you have grown indifferent.”

  She felt the warmth of his lips on her temple. “I could never be indifferent, Marielle. Do not pretend that you are ignorant of the way you have thoroughly entangled me. As for your deceptions, both those revealed and perhaps those still to be known, that is for another day. Unless it bears directly on our chances for success, leave any surprises for then.”

  He left her to finish her drawing. She wished he had not. Better if he had thrown her on the berth even if it meant the whole ship heard and knew. Now, with him gone, she could not avoid the rest of this duty he had given her.

  Steeling her composure, she turned the paper, and dipped the quill. Then she outlined yet another level of the château, and filled in the one chamber up there that she remembered—the baron’s bedchamber, where her mother had died.

  Chapter 21

  With its sails down, the yacht did not call much attention to itself. Low and long, and obscured by the inlet’s reeds and overhanging tree branches, its profile would be missed by passing boats unless they deliberately looked for it. Kendale counted on no one doing that.