The Songbird's Seduction

by Connie Brockway

  He’d been raised to believe in a very strict code of honor and the importance of personal dignity. In the last few days he’d more or less jettisoned the latter, but he’d hoped to retain his adherence to the former. Now—

  “Monsieur?” He looked up to find the waiter standing over him, holding a small silver salver with the bill. “The lady said you were ready for the reckoning.” He set the little tray down and withdrew.

  Had Lucy gone back to her room? She’d said she would be back but after reviewing his less than gentlemanly behavior perhaps she had decided she didn’t need to spend more time in his company. He could hardly blame her.

  He turned over the check. It was an exorbitant sum.

  But then this trip had already proved far more costly than he’d ever imagined and in far more ways than one.

  He reached inside his jacket for his wallet.

  “At least you haven’t said, ‘I told you so.’ ”

  “I’m biding my time.” Lucy, who had in fact returned, once again sat across from him, her head bent forward over the table in a conspiratorial manner. She gave him a cat-in-the-cream sort of smile.

  “I cannot believe that kid robbed me. I’ve a good mind to go back to his uncle’s shop and—”

  “I doubt the man was his uncle,” Lucy hurriedly broke in. “He was probably just convenient.”

  Archie sighed. “You’re probably right.”

  She regarded him sympathetically. “I also don’t think there’s a chance of your wallet being returned. You might as well chalk it up as a loss.”

  “I suppose. How much money did you say you had left?”

  She winced. “Maybe five francs. I’m sorry.”

  “I must say you’re being a real sport about this.”

  She demurred, her gaze falling modestly from his. “I don’t see as it would help to sit around bemoaning our plight. And it’s not really that awful a plight, after all.”

  “It’s not?”

  “No.”

  Even for Lucy, this seemed an unnaturally positive outlook. “Don’t get me wrong, I find your attitude admirable, but we stand a very, very good chance of not being able to deliver your great-aunt to Saint-Girons within the proscribed time period.”

  It was her turn to look bemused. “Why? We still have days to gather them up and see them to the meeting place. France isn’t that big.”

  For all her seeming worldliness, she really was engagingly naïve. “I wish things went as smoothly and quickly as they do in your imagination, Lucy, but I’m afraid they don’t. I don’t have any identification. It may take days for me to contact the proper bank authorities in England, have them determine my identity, and then wire funds here.”

  She frowned. “You’re not thinking of waiting here in Saint-Malo, are you?”

  “Ah . . . yes.”

  “But we can’t. We need to deliver my great-aunts to Saint-Girons.”

  “Lucy, we have no money. Well, as good as none.” He spoke very calmly, in measured tones, even as he felt his muscles tensing with foreboding. He picked up the chit. “We can’t pay this bill. We won’t be able to pay the bill for our rooms come morning. We have no money to buy train tickets. You’ve explained that you can’t return an altered dress. Ergo, we have no choice.”

  “I see.” She nodded in understanding.

  He relaxed, but he was not happy. Lucy was right, the gravity of her great-aunt Lavinia losing out on her share of the rubies couldn’t be overstated. “But what to do?” he murmured.

  She smacked her hand, palm down, on the table. “We make a run for it.”

  He peered at her closely, certain he’d heard her wrong. She couldn’t mean what he thought she meant. “Run for it?”

  “Yes,” she said decisively. “Clear out, vamoose, skedaddle. Flee.”

  “We can’t just run out on our bills. It’s not only dishonest, it’s criminal.”

  “We’ll pay them when we return.”

  “Return? We’re not going to return. We’re going to stay here. With any luck, things will be squared away in a couple days and we can take a train to Châtellerault and then another to Saint-Girons. We’ll ride at night, if need be.”

  She sank back in her chair, eyeing him disgustedly. “That won’t wash. You just finished telling me about the inevitable loss my great-aunt is sure to sustain. You can’t have it both ways.”

  Damn it. “There is a chance. Why, how many times have I heard you say, ‘things will work out?’ Don’t you believe that anymore?”

  “Of course I do. But having faith doesn’t entitle one to take Fate for granted. You have to show a little appreciation by helping Fate along whenever possible. And that’s what I’m doing.” She said this last with a great deal of emphasis. “I’m not going to let my chance of happiness disappear because I didn’t have the guts to act. I mean my great-aunts’ chance for happiness.”

  “Lucy.”

  “No. I’m not going to cool my heels here in Saint-Malo doing nothing while a fortune slips from my great-aunt’s fingers.”

  “You are the most wrong-headed girl I have ever met. You can’t just steal away like a thief in the night.”

  “I can and will. I have to.” She bit her lip. “And I was rather hoping it would be ‘we’ not just ‘me.’ ”

  “And how are we to get to Châtellerault without any money?” he asked, more desperate than hopeful that she would see reason.

  “We’ll beg a ride from someone on the road. Lots of people do it. Why Margery once traveled from Edinburgh to Chester without spending a penny.”

  Oh, yes. Margery. Lucy’s “friend” who was accompanying her great-aunts. Why hadn’t Navarre mentioned him, only this Mrs. Martin?

  “Well?” she asked hopefully.

  “No. I’ve already left one unpaid bill at the ferry office in Weymouth. I am not about to become a serial criminal.”

  “We’ll pay all of them back as soon as we’ve seen Great-Aunt Lavinia to Saint-Girons.”

  “No.” He shook his head. “Absolutely not.”

  “Jump!”

  Stuck halfway between the Hotel Ligure’s first and second stories, clinging to some sturdy vines, Lucy peered over her shoulder to where Archie stood frantically beckoning her from below. She could barely make him out in the predawn darkness. In fact, were it not for some wrongheaded larks trilling unseen from the surrounding shrubs she would have sworn it was still dead of night.

  She had been all for lighting out right after dinner. But Archie had convinced her that they weren’t likely to find many people on the road so late at night, at least any that were willing to pick up wayfarers, or, more to the point, who were the sort one wanted to be picked up by. They’d likely end up sleeping under a hedgerow.

  While she’d acknowledged his points were valid, she also thought she might like curling up with Archie, under a hedgerow or anywhere else. She supposed that made her a very fast girl, since Archie had revealed his intention to propose to another woman.

  Except he wouldn’t. He couldn’t. He mustn’t. And she had better be right because she was betting everything on that hope. No. Not hope, belief. Her heart was still thundering in her chest, either through fear of heights or in answer to her own audacity; it was impossible to tell which. She had convinced Archie to run out on a bill—amongst other things—a highly immoral act for a highly moral man. She had never done anything quite so . . . questionable. Would it matter that she’d done so in the best of causes?

  The stakes were impossibly high. What if she lost? What if he didn’t love her? No. No. NO. It was too late to reconsider, the die had been cast for better or worse, and she’d committed fully to her course. She took a deep breath.

  “I can’t see.” She bent her knees and scooched down, groping for a foothold. She’d changed back into her disreputable clothes, pulling the skirt between her legs and up, tucking the hem under her belt to create impromptu bloomers. Despite Archie’s protest that they ought to leave it behind, she’d
wrapped Madame Tuttle’s beautiful dress in a parcel and given it to Archie to stuff in his kit as best he could. It had been obscenely expensive, which was only to be expected. It was French, after all. But recalling Archie’s expression when he’d first seen her in it had been worth the price she’d paid.

  “Then jump,” Archie reiterated. “I’ll catch you. You’re not five feet off the ground. At this rate you’ll still be clinging to those vines when the iceman makes his rounds.”

  “All right.” She took a deep breath and pushed free of the wall. The next instant she was in Archie’s arms. She laughed breathlessly up at him. “You caught me!”

  “Of course I did. Did you think I wouldn’t?”

  “No,” she replied honestly. “I knew you would. I just wanted to hear you say, ‘Of course.’ ”

  “You are a very strange girl.” He shook his head. But, she noted in delight, he hadn’t released her.

  “I’m strange? I’m not the one who climbs about the outside of buildings like it was second nature to me. What were you before you became a professor, Archie? A second-story man?”

  “A sec—” She suspected if the lighting were better she would have seen his face go ruddy. “No. Let’s just say that when I was at school I had an adventuring spirit.”

  “You climbed out of your dormitory?”

  “Regularly. Oh, don’t feign shock. How else was I to get where I wanted to go? They weren’t going to hand me the keys. Besides, I always made sure to be back by morning.”

  She grinned, utterly charmed by the image of Archie as a tousle-haired, unrepentant miscreant sneaking out under the proctors’ noses. It was an entirely new aspect of Archie, but not altogether unexpected. She’d just known he was a pirate! “Far be it from me to throw rocks. My house is made entirely of glass,” she said.

  “Hmm.”

  “Bless you.”

  “For what?”

  “For not saying, ‘You can say that again.’ ”

  His mouth curved with humor. Lord, he was attractive! Especially when he smiled like that, black eyes snapping in the darkness. “I was thinking it.”

  She smiled back, thinking how odd it was that they could chat as easily as if they were on a church lawn after Sunday service, while all the time she became more aware of the tensile strength of his arms, his heart beating against her shoulder, the wool material that divided his warmth from hers. He was looking down into her face, his expression strained.

  “Come on,” he finally said, setting her on her feet. “We’d best get moving.”

  She fell into step at his side as he led them down the alley and out onto the thoroughfare. He didn’t speak, but she believed she understood anyway: his conscience is playing hell with him.

  She wanted very much to tell him not to worry.

  He wasn’t going to marry that other girl; he was going to marry her.

  She hadn’t realized it until last night, though she had probably known it since the day he’d shown up at Robin’s Hall and dripped all over the carpet. He’d been so handsome and earnest, the fact that he had no idea he was gorgeous making him even more appealing. He’d been distracted by her, as though he saw in her something he recognized but couldn’t quite place. Something he’d almost forgotten. She knew, because she’d had the same sensation, except she remembered what it was she saw in him: a feeling of being recognized, understood, and accepted. Which is why he always knew when she was acting: because he knew, on some deep ineffable level, who she was when she wasn’t.

  It was a feeling she hadn’t had since she was a child.

  She didn’t know just what people had been telling him he was all his life, but they were wrong. He was so much more than duty-bound, overly conscientious, brilliant Professor Ptolemy Grant. He was Archie Grant, boon companion, should-be pirate, and suspected second-story man who could melt a girl with his smile but then would have no idea where the puddle at his feet had come from.

  Archie Grant, with whom she’d fallen madly, deeply in love.

  And she was not going to nobly step aside while he proposed to another woman.

  She stared glumly at the road ahead, her conscience prickling annoyingly. Fine, she supposed she ought to spend some time, at least a few minutes, considering that other woman’s feelings.

  She tromped along and considered them.

  They didn’t change a thing. First, because whether or not this Miss Litchfield loved Archie, Archie categorically did not love her. She could not imagine any woman would want to marry a man who did not hold her in the same regard. In point of fact, she was doing the woman a favor.

  And yes, she conceded that the argument had a specious element to it, but simply because something was self-serving did not make it untrue.

  Second, and more importantly, if she had learned one lesson from Lavinia’s oft-told tale of love lost, it was that silently hoping for your happily-ever-after only guaranteed you silence. If you so much as caught a glimpse of that ever-after sort of love, then you pursued it, you fought for it, you seized it with both hands and you never let go.

  The only problem now was how to make Archie understand what she perceived so clearly? Likely he would take some persuading.

  Luckily, she could be very persuasive.

  “Whoa! Whoa!” The lead driver in a small caravan of gaily painted wagons pulled back the reins on his pair of shaggy ponies and leaned from his perch, craning his neck to admire the owner of the comely leg that had flashed winsomely from beneath a dusty, stained skirt.

  Lucy flicked down her skirts and lifted a single brow at Archie in a “told-you-so” manner. He’d been trying without success for the last four hours to talk their way onto a wagon, a cart, or a lorry while they trudged along the road. Her feet were sore and she was getting hungry and it was only midday. No one was interested in giving a pair of Englishmen a free ride. Finally, she’d decided it was time to take matters into her own hands. Or legs, as it were.

  As she’d known he would, Archie objected. As he’d known she would, she ignored his objection. And as she suspected they’d both known it would, her gambit had worked.

  Now she waved madly at the driver, a wiry, middle-aged whippet of a man. “Can we ride with you?”

  The man scowled.

  “Pouvez-vous nous emmener à la prochaine ville?” Archie called out.

  “What did you say?” Lucy asked.

  “Don’t you know?” he asked drily, then relented. “I asked if he could take us to the next town.”

  The man’s head disappeared. A moment later an old woman’s face appeared from around the other side of the wagon, iron-gray coils of hair escaping from beneath a battered felt hat. “Pouvez-vous payer?”

  “How much money did you say you had left?” Archie asked.

  “Five francs,” Lucy said.

  “What?”

  “Good dresses are expensive.” She lifted her chin. “It’s a very good dress.”

  “Oui ou non?” the old lady demanded.

  “Un peu,” Archie called back and started walking again.

  The woman disappeared.

  Lucy might not know much French, but she’d picked up enough to understand that Archie had asked for a ride to town and in turn the middle-aged woman had asked if he could pay. ‘Non’ Lucy had no trouble interpreting. She also had no trouble interpreting what the future held: blisters.

  “S’il vous plait!” she shouted desperately.

  The wagon started forward and Lucy’s heart plummeted but then the wagon abruptly stopped. The man reappeared. “Pouvez-vous gagner votre chemin?”

  Archie sighed. “Non.”

  “What did he ask?” Lucy demanded.

  He eyed her sardonically.

  She blushed. “I’m a bit rusty. What did he ask?”

  “If we could earn our way.”

  “Oui!” Lucy shouted and, lifting her skirts, ran to catch up.

  “Dark and burning eyes, dark as midnight skies

  Full of passion
flame, full of lovely game.

  Oh how I love you, oh how afraid I am of you

  The day that we met, is a day that I rue!

  Oh, dark eyes, you are darker than the deep!

  I see mourning for my soul in you,

  I see a triumphant flame in you:

  A poor heart immolated by you, untrue, so true!”

  Lucy’s lovely voice, clear in the upper ranges, smoky and elusive in the lower ones, pierced the night. If she’d been standing on a stage, hands clasped together as she warbled the evocative lyrics to the throbbing, melancholy tune, he would have been enjoying himself vastly.

  But she wasn’t. And he wasn’t.

  When she’d told the leader of what had proved to be a traveling troupe of performers that she would “sing for their supper,” he hadn’t thought she’d meant this.

  The troupe’s specialty was orchestrating shows performed out of doors—so as not to have to pay any theatre’s rental fees—dinner and drink included in the price of admission. They were traveling south, as the evenings here in the north were growing too cold to perform out of doors. But today had been fine, the sun’s warmth lingering into the evening so that when they’d approached the outskirts of the town where they’d intended to camp for the night, the leader had decided to take advantage of the unexpectedly mild evening for one last show.

  In Lucy they’d found an opening act, one proving to be a great success with the townspeople.

  She’d dressed as a Gypsy—despite their host-cum-employer denying that his troupe was Romani. Archie had been disappointed. Despite their appearance in almost every European country, the Romani remained an ethnic group as mysterious as ancient Egyptians. Due to generations of systematic oppression, the Romani’s distrust of outsiders was legionary and impenetrable. He would have loved the chance to interview them. But it appeared Lucy was as close to the real thing as he’d come this trip. And that was plenty close enough.

  The white blouse she wore beneath a heavily embroidered vest showed less skin than most ladies exposed in London’s best restaurants, and the multilayered skirts that belled out as she twirled allowed only fleeting glimpses of slender calves above sturdy, high-topped boots. It didn’t matter.