by Jo Beverley
Cyn put a blunt question to Verity. “The Earl of Walgrave could keep both you and William safe from Horrible Henry. Why are you fleeing him?”
Verity bit her lip. “It’s true. Perhaps I should go to him… I can’t risk William…”
“Nonsense,” said Charles crisply. “Father’s off in the wrong direction, and when he turns around he still won’t know whom or what he’s looking for. Henry V… Horrible Henry knows even less. We’ll get you to Nathaniel before Father can interfere.” She turned to Cyn. “Father stopped Verity from marrying Nathaniel once, and would do so again.”
“Ah. And instead he arranged your marriage to whom?” When they hesitated, he said, “Knowledge is power, and I think we need all the power we can get.”
“Sir William Vernham,” Verity said. “His brother is Henry Vernham.”
“Never heard of ‘em,” dismissed Cyn with the arrogance of the high nobility, and considerable surprise. “How was Sir William more eligible than your major?”
The sisters shared a glance. “We don’t know,” said Verity.
“Rich?” Cyn asked.
“Fairly, but I can’t imagine that weighing with Father. His own wealth is enormous. It is political influence he craves. He seeks high power. He believes he alone has the qualities to steer the nation to glory.”
“And Sir William had this political influence?”
“No.” For once Verity lost patience. “There’s no point in badgering me, my lord. I’m not being difficult. My marriage had importance for my father, but it never made any sense to me. No more than…”
Cyn caught the conscious look between the sisters and knew they were concealing something, something to do with his damsel. He let the matter drop, though he had more questions about this fascinating conundrum.
He turned his most reassuring smile on Verity, and said, “Don’t worry about your father. As Charles says, he’s haring off in the wrong direction. You’re of age, and entitled to marry whom you will. We appear safe now, so why don’t you go and tend to young Sir William.”
Verity went into the bedroom, comforted by his brisk confidence. Cyn removed his bonnet and poured a glass of wine. “For you, sir?” he asked Charles.
She was standing by the window watching the street, but at his words she turned. “No, thank you.”
He poured a little wine into her glass anyway. When she questioned it with a look, he said, “I intend to demolish at least half this bottle, if not all of it. It will have to appear that you have done your part.”
“You think of everything, don’t you?”
“You find that unadmirable? My dear Charles, in normal times, I’m an officer in charge of the lives of a great many men. Carelessness is not a failing I permit myself.”
Her chin rose under this rebuke before she looked away. “You think me a child.”
“No,” he said gently. “I think you very brave, given your circumstances. I just wish you would trust me and consider me your friend.”
She met his eyes again, and he saw the faintest hint of softening. “You know nothing of my circumstances.”
He wasn’t sure how to handle this, but it was an important moment. “I gather you and your father are not close.”
She laughed sharply. “No, we are not close.”
Cyn sat and deliberately relaxed. “I wasn’t close to mine either, but I admired him. How do you feel about the earl?”
He saw the tension leap into her. “That’s none of your business!”
It was fear. He could smell it. He was well acquainted with the many flavors of fear. What had Walgrave done to her?
Before he could continue his questioning, servants brought in the meal and set it on the table. Once they had left, Verity rejoined them. The time for stripping the layers of his damsel’s soul had passed. They all ate, though Verity needed some encouragement to consume enough.
“Father only needs one glimpse to know us,” she fretted, pushing bits of steak pie around her plate.
Cyn covered her restless hand with his own. “People generally see what they think to see. Let your face go slack and stupid, and in your present outfit you could walk by your father in the street and he’d not recognize you.”
Verity was only slightly reassured. “Perhaps we should hide here and write a letter to Nathaniel.”
“I don’t think so,” said Cyn. “There will be some kind of regular check on the inns, and from what Toby said, I suspect your father and Horrible Henry have spun a pretty tale. Since the earl knows all about Major Frazer, he’ll doubtless have told him the story too. He might believe it.”
“He wouldn’t!” Verity exclaimed.
“We can’t take the risk. As soon as your major sees you, he’ll know the truth.”
“But,” said Charles, “Father will have people watching Maidenhead and Nathaniel like a hawk.”
“Yes, but we can deal with that. In that,” said Cyn with a smile, “I’m your ace of trumps. The earl will be watching for Verity trying to sneak into the major’s rooms, but Captain Lord Cynric Malloren can stroll up to Major Nathaniel Frazer on the street and talk to him without raising any suspicions at all. I will merely transform back into my real self. I even have my uniform in my baggage to lend an air of business.”
They both seemed dumbstruck by this obvious solution. He looked at Verity. “Why don’t you lie down and rest for an hour? It would be foolish to push on to Basingstoke today, so we have plenty of time.”
With a wan smile, she went off to the other room.
Cyn regarded Charles, aware he’d deliberately arranged matters so they were alone. Noble intentions warred in him with carnal ones. He wanted to find out the truth of her so he could help her. He also wanted to explore her, body and soul, break down her reserves, and make love to her until there were no barriers left between them. At times like these he wished she were in skirts, and safe behind a barrier of propriety.
Faith! It suddenly hit him that the object of his lustful imaginings was the daughter of one of the highest men in the land. What the deuce was the Earl of Walgrave’s daughter doing living in a cottage, dressed in breeches?
He topped up her wineglass, hoping it would loosen her tongue. “And how shall we pass the time, Charles?” he asked. “Cards? War adventures? Bordello stories?”
She handled it well. “As you know, I can share none of those with you.”
“Not even the cards?”
“I have never gamed for more than pennies.”
“Then we have something in common. I rarely play for high stakes.”
That caught her attention. “Truly? Everyone does.”
“It doesn’t amuse me. I have no taste for giving other people my money, and find no pleasure in taking theirs, particularly if they can ill afford it.”
She relaxed and drank from her glass. It was a gesture of truce, but before he could press his advantage, she said, “Tell me of your adventures then. In the army,” she added pointedly. “Where have you served?”
“Mostly in the Americas. What is generally called the French and Indian War.”
Her eyes brightened. “Did you know General Wolfe?”
“Yes.” He eyed her humorously. “Are you a worshiper? He was a hard man to get along with, but a brilliant soldier.”
“He labored under ill health, I believe,” she defended.
“True.”
“Were you at Quebec?”
“Yes, and at Louisbourg, which is, I assure you, one of the most Godforsaken spots on earth. I think the French soldiers were pleased enough to lose it to us.”
“Which was the worst battle?”
“Neither,” he said with a grin. “We won both.”
“But so many men were wounded and killed.”
“ ‘Blood is the god of war’s rich livery,’” he quoted, and when she looked a question, he said, “Marlowe.”
“You enjoy soldiering,” she said with surprise.
“I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t
.”
“Being a man, and a Malloren…”
He swirled his wine. “You are not lowborn, and soon will be a man. Perhaps you should join the army too.”
It struck Chastity how peculiar it was to be having this conversation with a seemingly authentic lady who was knocking back an alarming amount of wine. Lord Cynric Malloren had a rare ability to tangle her mind. She had to admit, however, that the bizarre situation would tie anyone in knots.
“I don’t think I have a taste for blood,” she said.
“It’s remarkable what we are capable of when tested.”
“I find it difficult to imagine you as dangerous.”
He looked up from under those ridiculous lashes and smiled. “Try me sometime.”
The wine was affecting him; she could see it in his eyes, and the message there alarmed her. All the danger she had sensed this morning, both from him and in herself, rushed back. She leaped to her feet. “I think I’ll take a turn around the town.”
She was gone before Cyn could stop her. He cursed his drink-slowed wits. She shouldn’t be out there. She hadn’t even taken her wig and hat, and going about with a shorn head would attract attention in itself. It was all his fault. The conversation had been innocent enough, but wanton thoughts had stirred in him as they always seemed to when they were together. She had read him aright and fled.
It would only make matters worse if he pursued her precipitously. It would draw attention to them both. He put on his dratted cap and hat, and checked on Verity. She and the babe were asleep. He then picked up Charles’ wig and tricorn, stuffed them in his muff, and went out. He remembered to take small steps and keep his head demurely lowered. At first, pretending to be a woman had been novel and amusing. It was rapidly becoming a dead bore.
In the entrance hall of the inn, one portly gentleman tipped his hat and leered at Cyn’s bosom. Cyn wanted to plant the man a facer.
Salisbury’s main street was wide and open, and there was no sign of the girl. Cyn stopped to speak to a woman selling chestnuts. “Did you see a young man, bareheaded, pass this way?”
The woman hooked an eloquent thumb. “Went down the river, luv.”
Cyn turned down the alley indicated. He found himself in a tangle of winding lanes lined with cottages, gardens, and stables. Over three shoulder-high garden walls he glimpsed Charles, and beyond her, the river Avon.
He set off in her direction, but this warren was a veritable maze, and the lanes soon forced him away from his quarry. He plunged on, intent on getting Charles back to their parlor before she bumped into someone she knew. Then he caught the amazement on the face of a laborer in a corn factor’s barn. He realized he was striding along. With a muttered curse, he started mincing again.
A few moments later his path turned alongside some gardens, and he had a clear view of Charles standing by the riverbank, tossing dead leaves into the water. A sadness, a loneliness in her pose caught at him, and he wanted nothing so much as to comfort and protect her. She wandered further along and out of his sight. If only she would tell him her problems…
He was snapped out of his thoughts by voices approaching.
“I tell you, I saw the trollop,” drawled a well-bred voice. Cyn quickly slipped through a garden gate, and out of sight.
“ ‘Tis not the sister we’re after, sir.” This speaker was of a lower order, and Cyn guessed, a Londoner.
“Zounds, man, there’s no reason for the one to be here without the other! She’s as good as a prisoner since she made such a disgrace of herself.” Cyn thought the speaker might be Henry Vernham.
What disgrace?
The two men appeared to have stopped nearby.
“But we checked that cottage a few days back, sir, and there weren’t sight nor sound of Lady Verity.”
“They were lying, or my sister-in-law turned up later.” Definitely Henry Vernham. “That’s neither here nor there. I glimpsed the chit heading toward the river. You go that way and I’ll go this. With luck we can trap her quietly. I don’t want any fuss. Once we have her, we have Lady Verity.”
Cyn riffled through options with all the clearheadedness that came on him in battle—lightning-fast, rapier-sharp. He monitored the conversation at the same time.
“How’ll I know her, sir?” the henchman whined. “Is she like Lady Verity’s picture?”
“Not at all. She’s a bold piece of goods. High and mighty, or was.” Henry Vernham sniggered. “But you can’t miss her. She has no hair.”
“No hair, sir?”
“That’s what I said. Her father shaved it when he caught her in flagrante delicto.”
Cyn’s attention fractured.
Shaved!
In flagrante delicto?
With whom had she been caught? And why, in God’s name, had the man not stood by her? His hand went for the rapier that wasn’t there. That wrenched him back to his disguise, and his purpose.
“… only saw her from the chest up,” Vernham was saying. “She’s wearing something mannish—a habit or such. But you can’t mistake that hair. She looks a regular freak. Walgrave thought it’d trap her where he wanted her every bit as well as iron bars. That and the only clothes he allowed her. No true woman would poke her head out of the door looking like that.”
Cyn realized his hands were fists, and he wanted nothing so much as to vault the wall and thrash Horrible Henry to a bloody pulp for the smug satisfaction in his voice.
Instead, as soon as the men moved away, he gathered his damned skirts together and worked his way across the turned earth of the garden toward the next wall.
This had no gate and he discovered that climbing a wall in heavy skirts presented problems. He heard something rip but made it over. As he hoped, the next garden did have a gate giving onto the meadow by the river. He was almost through it when a women shouted, “Oy!”
Cyn turned and saw a brawny housewife glaring at him, fists on hips. He feigned fear. “Oh, please, ma’am! My brothers…”
The woman gaped at him. Cyn quickly pressed a sixpence into her hand. “Bless you, dear lady,” he murmured, then ran through the gate. A quick glance showed no sign of the hunters. He picked up his skirts and sprinted toward Charles. There was a rustic bench nearby.
He grabbed the girl and gasped, “Horrible Henry!”
He dragged her to the bench, flung himself down on it, and jerked her on top.
Then he kissed her.
It was just a pressing of his lips to hers, but she went stiff as a board. At least she did not fight. Cyn took the time to cram on her wig and hat. No one would be surprised to see them crooked in this situation. Over her shoulder he watched for their pursuers.
A sinewy, sallow-faced man came out of one alley as a handsome man-of-fashion came through the other. They looked around, then over toward Cyn.
Cyn turned his attention to his damsel. He put his large muff on her back so it covered part of her head, then made a thorough business of the kiss. His conscience sounded an alarm, but he easily muffled it. After all, this could well be the only chance he ever had.
She tried to keep her lips hard, but as he played his own against them they turned soft and sweet. So sweet. He tried to be gentle, though the taste of her leaped through him like an aphrodisiac.
He saw her eyes drift shut, and felt her response—the subtle movements of her body against the length of his, the clutching of her hands against his shoulders. He held her close, drowning in the pleasure of pleasuring her.
He longed to explore her mouth, but he knew he’d have a fight there, not least because she thought he thought her a man. Perhaps she remembered. She whimpered and tensed. Cyn’s pleasure fled, and he felt a cad for taking such advantage. When someone cleared his throat, he was pleased enough to break the kiss.
Horrible Henry was looming over them.
Cyn gave a shriek and clutched Charles face-down to his bosom. “Adrian! We are discovered! No, dear boy, stay safe in my arms. They shall not hurt you.” He fixed Hen
ry Vernham with what he hoped were tragically intense eyes, and declared, “Only death shall part us, sir!”
“Zounds, woman. We have no interest in you and your paramour. Did a young woman pass by here? A young woman with very short hair?”
Cyn assessed his enemy. He was tall and dark, and handsome in a shallow kind of way. His eyes were narrow but not stupid. Cyn was tempted to mislead him, but merely simpered and said, “I’m sure the king could have passed by these last few minutes, sir, and I’d never have seen. Do you speak truly? You are not sent to tear Adrian from my arms?”
Henry Vernham’s only reply was a sneer of disgust. He turned and stalked off back toward the town. The other man leered at the ‘lovers’ and trailed after. Cyn held onto his damsel until they were gone.
He allowed the feel of her to wrap around him, to weave into him. He knew with his nerve endings and his soul that he could make beautiful love with this woman. It was in the shape of her against him and beneath his hands, and the memory of the taste of her on his lips. It was in the faint aroma from her body, an aroma more potent than the finest French perfume.
He thought he could detect the slight swell of her bound breasts against his chest as she breathed. Her thigh had come to rest between his, a source of delightful torture. Driven by need, he slid a hand up between her wig and her head to feel the silky smoothness of her hair.
A shudder rippled through her.
He remembered what Henry had said. Walgrave had shaved her and forced her to wear the coarse penitent’s garments, because he’d caught her in some man’s bed. No wonder she preferred men’s clothing. But that meant she was no virgin.
It didn’t please him. Despite his lust for her, he didn’t want her to be a wanton…
“Are they gone?” she asked quietly.
Cyn realized he was softly stroking the back of her head, offering comfort, not lust. His instincts at least had found her innocent of the worst. She must have been caught in her first misdemeanor, doubtless swept away by love.
What, then, had happened to her lover?
Reluctantly, very reluctantly, he let her go. She scrambled to her feet rather dazedly, not looking at him at all, and straightened her wig and hat.