Baron: The Deception Part 6

"But why? There's nothing for it. This gown won't change itself into a riding habit."

"You have known me for nearly twenty-four hours, Evangeline. Have I given you any reason at all to distrust me?"

"No. But on the other hand, you're a gentleman, and gentlemen have odd notions about ladies' clothing and-"

He lightly touched a finger to her mouth. "Go," he said, and she went. "Trust Papa," Edmund said, but he was looking at his gun, not at her. She wondered if he even knew what they were talking about.

Thirty minutes later, Evangeline made her way down the wide, ornately carved staircase clad in an elegant royal blue riding habit, a plumed riding hat set jauntily over her plaited and pinned hair. She'd stared like an idiot when she'd opened the door to her bedchamber, and there'd been Mrs. Raleigh, holding the beautiful habit in her arms, smiling at her, telling her that it had belonged, naturally, to Marissa. "Indeed, her grace only wore it once, as I remember. It's from her favorite modiste in London, Madame Fallier."

"Oh, goodness. Surely I can't wear my cousin's riding habit. Besides, it wouldn't fit. I am much larger than my cousin. No, Mrs. Raleigh, I simply cannot wear my cousin's riding habit."

Mrs. Raleigh just shook her head. "Surely you don't think this was her only riding habit? It is merely the newest one, ordered just months before her death. His grace ordered it altered for you, Madame, early this morning. Unfortunately, I had only enough time to let down the hem. Since her grace's death, we do not have a seamstress on staff."

"Three inches," Evangeline said when she met the duke and Edmund, who was showing Ba.s.sick all the finer points of his gun. "Mrs. Raleigh let the hem down three inches. Look, it nearly covers my ankles." "I see that it does. Ankles would surely overset me. This addition greatly relieves my mind."

She laid her hand on his arm. "It is very kind of you. Why, you even foresaw that I wouldn't have a riding habit and you ordered it up. You are too kind, your grace."

"I can see that more alterations are in order." He was staring at her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. She hunched forward, and he laughed. "No, don't do that. I suppose Mrs. Raleigh has some ideas on enlarging the jacket at least another five inches?"

"She said that she would have to add material from the skirt. The waist is too tight as well."

"I hope the skirt has enough extra material to-ah-cover your other parts." Ba.s.sick frowned at the duke and cleared his throat. "You acted very quickly," she said. "Yes, I tend to act quickly when meticulous deliberation isn't required."

She knew he was jesting with her. But she didn't understand what the jest was, and so she just nodded.

"So that went sailing right over your head, did it? I'm shocked, utterly stunned really, that you don't understand my impertinent reference, Evangeline. The sainted Andre, surely he knew about easing into things, about moving forward to the next step only after being completely certain when it was appropriate to move forward?" She stared him down. "He was very deliberate." "Ah," he said, lifting his fingers to straighten the dyed blue feather on her riding hat. "I wonder, would you tell me what he was deliberate about?"

She couldn't think of a single thing. Then she thought of her father's meticulous housekeeping accounts and said, "Andre never paid the butcher until he remembered eating every haunch of beef that came from the shop. And that required that Cook keep all her menus, with proper notations. Now, that certainly demonstrates a high level of meticulous deliberation, don't you agree?" He stared at her, fascinated. "A haunch of beef?" She gave him a triumphant look and called out, "Edmund? Are you ready to go? Would you show me all your special paths?"

Edmund, who had stuffed his gun into the belt of his trousers, walked out the front doors just in front of Evangeline, Ba.s.sick standing behind them as he said in a low voice to the duke, "Your grace, she is a young lady."

"I know," the duke said, and frowned after his son, who was gesticulating toward one of the Chesleigh peac.o.c.ks. "Yes, I know. It's strange." He shook his head.

Ba.s.sick frowned at his master, watching him follow the young lady in question and his excited son. However had she known to bring Lord Edmund a gun? It was his experience that ladies couldn't even bear to look at one of the ugly things. She was an unusual young lady, he was certain of that. He wondered what was in his master's mind.

Ba.s.sick heard the duke call out, "Do the riding boots fit?"

"No," She said, turning to face him. "They pinch. All of me is bigger than Marissa." She stopped and lifted the skirt of the riding habit to show her own short walking boots. "It really doesn't matter; mine are fine. But I do thank you for lending me the habit, truly."

"I'm not lending you anything. The riding habit is yours, as are all of Marissa's other gowns."

"You are kind, but I will not take my poor cousin's clothes."

"Why not? The cost of her wardrobe would support a small village for a year. The clothes are merely hanging in her armoire, currently of use to no one. My mother taught me to despise waste. So, you are a.s.sisting me to be virtuous.

"Besides, having you well dressed will make my neighbors think more highly of me."

"Papa, I just shot Rex!"

"Not a clean shot," the duke called out. "He's still staggering around. The peac.o.c.k," he added to Evangeline.

"Oh, dear, I didn't want him to do that," she said. "That poor bird."

"What did you expect him to do with a toy gun?"

She looked distressed. He lightly touched his fingers to her chin. "Don't worry. It's a wonderful present. I will have a father-to-son talk with him later, but I can't imagine what I will tell him. From what I remember, children are bloodthirsty savages, at least all the boys I knew. We dispatched each other with swords, knives, rocks, tree branches, boulders, you name it. Actually, I wouldn't mind it a bit if Rex would go to his fowl rewards. The blighter never shuts up, except perhaps now, since Edmund shot him." Rex squawked and Edmund shot him again. The duke called out, "Edmund, tuck your gun back into your belt and ask McComber to saddle Pansy for you."

The Chesleigh stables stood in splendid isolation near the north wing of the castle. Just outside in the yard, the scent of freshly cut hay mixed with the salty smell of the sea. There was a slight rise just off to the right of the stables, and Evangeline walked there, then stood still, staring out over the water, some three hundred yards beyond the rugged promontory upon which the castle was built. The water was deep blue, calm save for the frothy white caps of the waves breaking on the beach. For the moment she felt almost carefree, as if nothing could touch her here. But it was a lie, of course. It was an odd thing, to live a lie.

"You can't see France, even on the clearest of days. If you like, we can take my yacht to the Isle of Wight. I own a small estate near Ventnor. Edmund loves it there. There's a protected cove where he swims, and a small sailboat I bought him last summer."

"I enjoy sailing," she said. "I've never sailed in the sea. It is different, is it not?"

"Oh, yes. You'll see. It's far more exciting. Do you swim well?"

She nodded, turning to follow him back to the stable yard. Why, she wondered, had he spoken about visiting the Isle of Wight, and what had he really meant about deliberations?

Chapter 11.

"McComber," the duke called to a tall, gaunt man dressed in homespuns and wearing the most beautiful leather boots Evangeline had ever seen. He was as gnarled and weathered as an old witching oak tree, and looked as strong as Hercules.

"Good day, yer grace. Emperor's snorting his head off, heard ye, he did. He wants a good gallop, and ye can wager yer best carriage he'll try to hurl ye off. I thought Biscuit could do the young lady. Tommy's saddling Lord Edmund's pony."

Edmund, hearing his name, stuck his head out the open stable door. "I'm showing Tommy my gun, Papa," he shouted, then disappeared inside again. They heard popping sounds.

"I don't know how well you ride," the duke said to her. "Biscuit is a sweet old girl who's never caused anybody a moment's worry in all her twelve years. She loves McComber's apple pieces. Give her just two slices, and she'll swim the Channel with you and three pieces of luggage tied to her back. Give her an entire apple, and she'll seduce every stallion in the area."

"Aye," McComber said, "that's true enough. She's a good girl, my Biscuit, a plodder, but that's just fine if that's what ye need. Biscuit is the only mare her former grace would ride." McComber shrugged his ma.s.sive shoulders, giving her a look that clearly said, You're probably not much at all on a horse, so give over. Ride the sweet old girl.

A great black stallion, with a white stripe down his nose, came prancing out of the stable, held by a nervous-looking stable lad. He was at least seventeen hands high, utterly magnificent, and knew it. He sent a look at the duke and reared back his head, snorting loudly. It sounded like a challenge to Evangeline. The duke laughed and strode to his horse.

"He's incredible."

"Aye," McComber said, his eyes on the man who was now being b.u.t.ted backward by Emperor's mighty head. "The stallion is a pretty boy as well. He's full of vinegar, he is. His grace would kill for that animal. His father brought him four years ago, a gift to his son."

"The duke's father, he was a good man, a good father?"

If McComber thought this an odd, too personal question, he didn't let on. He scratched the side of his head. "Aye, his old grace was big and strong, loved life and his family more than any man I've ever heard of. He shouldn't have died when he did. A stupid accident it was. He tried to stop two friends dueling, and he was the only one to get killed."

"That's horrible. What happened?"

"My master"-he nodded toward the duke-"he went to see both men after it happened. Odd thing was that they both left England only three days later. Left their families here and picked up and left. Never heard of them again. I heard him tell her grace, his mother, that he'd rather have shot both of them and left the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds in a ditch to bleed to death, but he knew he couldn't get away with it. So his grace just made sure they lost everything that was important to them. Ah, there's sweet old Biscuit."

Good G.o.d, to have your father killed so stupidly. She wondered what she would have done. She looked up to see a lovely, gentle old black mare, all flowing mane and black and white withers, swaybacked, sweet-eyed, blowing softly.

The thought of those two horses side by side, one of them snorting and rearing, the other plodding and swishing her tail, made Evangeline laugh. "Oh, no, McComber, not dear Biscuit. That would be a travesty. Have you another horse with perhaps enough spirit and heart to keep pace with Emperor?"

The duke, who'd just been nearly knocked into a bush by his exuberant stallion, called out, "McComber, get her Dorcas. We'll test her mettle." Dorcas proved to be a velvety bay mare whose brown eyes held wickedness. She was much smaller than Emperor, but she had strong legs, a deep chest, and a proud head. Evangeline drew a deep breath. It was possible she was being a bit impetuous. She hadn't ridden since she and her father had returned to France. She looked up briefly at the clear summer sky, so blue it could have been August. She felt a trickle of perspiration at the small of her back. She gave a brief prayer and sent it winging upward. If her prayer wasn't answered, well then, it was a beautiful day to take a toss. At least she wouldn't have to worry about breaking her arm on a slick of ice.

The duke strolled over, Emperor walking behind him, his reins loose, chewing on an apple slice from McComber. The duke cupped his hands and tossed her into the saddle. Dorcas wasn't seventeen hands, but she was high enough off the ground for Evangeline to think again that it had been a very long time indeed since she'd ridden. She stared down at the gravel drive that was surely an inordinate distance away. Even before, she hadn't been a horsewoman of extraordinary ability. This should prove interesting. She just hoped it wouldn't also prove a broken neck. Evangeline held Dorcas's reins firmly, knowing that Dorcas would lay her low if she gave her the smallest chance.

Pansy was a Shetland pony, all s.h.a.ggy and gold, and Edmund would outgrow him in a year. At least Edmund wasn't trying to shoot him. The duke led the small cavalcade down the lime-bordered drive toward the homewood that lay to the north of the castle. He skirted the forest and headed east, paralleling the coast, and pointed out the various tenant farms as they pa.s.sed the neat patchwork fenced fields.

"Papa, let's go down to the beach. I want to show cousin Eve my boat. Eve, do you want to see my boat? Say you do, please?"

"Oh, yes," she said. "Please, your grace." She was thinking that she had to become very familiar with the cove and all the terrain between there and the castle. She didn't know when Houchard would have someone come to her, but she knew it would be soon. Thinking of Houchard, of her father, she jerked on Dorcas's reins. The mare snorted and snapped up her head. She reared, then slammed back down to the hard ground, nearly knocking Evangeline's teeth loose in her head. It took her a few moments to bring her horse back under control.

"Evangeline, pay attention!"

"Just a wayward thought, your grace," she said, leaning over to pat Dorcas's neck.

If she remembered the directions Houchard had given her, the cave was in this cove, at the southern end, just before the out-jutting finger of land. "Let's go, Edmund," she called out and wheeled Dorcas around to face the cliff.

The incline to the beach was slight because it cut back and forth across the cliff, easing very slowly downward, the path well trodden and very wide. The path appeared to be ancient. She wondered if some long-ago druid had walked down this way to the beach below. Evangeline turned in her saddle and looked back at the castle, judging its distance. It was a half mile, no more. The terrain wasn't hazardous. She wouldn't kill herself getting back and forth in any case.

Chesleigh's private stretch of beach was, Evangeline knew, blessed with a curved inlet surrounded by scrubby bushes and trees and hundred-foot, steep cliffs. It was indeed a very private spot, Evangeline soon saw, well hidden from the path above.

Traitors needed to be hidden, she thought, and wanted, quite simply, to fold up into herself and die. But she couldn't yield to conscience. If she did, it would mean her father's life. No one, nothing was more important than her father. And Houchard knew it.

Before Evangeline had a chance to swing off Dorcas's back, the duke clasped her waist and lifted her down. He didn't release her immediately, just stood there, staring down at her, his hands still at her waist, tightening just a bit, his fingers splaying to cover more of her, and then he said, "You're a big girl. I will enjoy waltzing with you. I won't get a crick in my neck."

"Then it's a good thing you're a big boy," she said.

He threw back his head and laughed, sending gulls careening into the sky overhead.

"Papa, what did Eve say to make you laugh? Can I shoot some of the gulls? There are dozens of them. Just a few won't matter, will it?"

"Shoot away, Edmund. You have more than enough bullets. As for your cousin Eve's humor, she put me in my place. Come along, Eve, let's show you Edmund's boat."

A half dozen gray-and-white bellied sandpipers scurried across the coa.r.s.e beach sand as fast as they could run, as the duke and Evangeline walked toward a small sloop anch.o.r.ed at the end of a long wooden dock. Then Edmund ran in front of them, dashing onto the narrow dock. He was waving his gun in the air, shouting like a pirate after booty.

"Edmund, be careful," the duke shouted. He said to her, "The boy has no fear. He fell out of a tree six months ago right into a briar bush and came away laughing. It's natural, I suppose," he added, more to himself than to her. He turned to see that Evangeline had paused and was staring back at the cove and the surrounding steep cliffs. She appeared to be completely absorbed. He lightly touched his hand to her arm. "It's beautiful, is it not?"

No, she wanted to yell at him, it was terrifying, and she had no choice, no choice at all. He had welcomed her to his home, given his son into her care, provided her clothing, and she would betray him.

Evangeline looked down at the sand clumping on her boots. She wanted to howl. But she couldn't. She'd also been too obvious, studying her surroundings as if it were an a.s.signment, which it was. She said quickly, "Yes, certainly. Smell the air, it's so very invigorating. I love the sound of the waves. They're endless, those sounds. We could all be gone, and still the sound would be there; it wouldn't matter that there was no one to hear it." "Are you perhaps a changeling?" "I don't believe so. My father always said that I was the picture of my mother when she was young. Now I'm more the picture of him."

"You misunderstand me. Your uncle and your cousin Marissa, both hated the sea. Marissa would never walk down here, said the salt air was too cold, and gave her gooseflesh. The noise from the waves made her head ache. As for the nasty salt spray, it made her hair stiffen into tight little screws."

"Actually, your grace, my uncle was afraid of the sea, for he nearly drowned when he was a boy. Perhaps he pa.s.sed his fear on to Marissa. I wonder, though. Why did she consent to live here? It's not as if you don't have other houses."

It was impertinent, she knew, but it had come out of her mouth. She waited. He didn't change expression, just shaded his eyes with his hands to look at Edmund rocking himself in his small sloop.

"My father and mother believed it was romantic here at Chesleigh, just perfect for two young people newly wed. They returned to London, leaving us here." He laughed, but it wasn't a pleasant laugh. "This romance my father spoke of, I never imagined such a lunatic thing possible. Two people cooing at each other, whispering nonsense, looking into each other's eyes, spending hour upon hour in bed." He laughed again, and this time it was even deeper, uglier. "Well, the last certainly, but that has nothing to do with the finer emotions. After marriage to your cousin, I can still not imagine such a thing. The only time your cousin ever whispered to me was when she told me she never wanted me to touch her again." He sighed, slicing his fingers through his thick hair. "Forgive me. Leave be, Evangeline. Marissa was very young. She shouldn't have died. She would have loved her son. She would be living in London." "I was told only that she died in an accident." "Yes," he said. "Ah, you really want to know, don't you? Very well. Marissa was terrified she would die in childbirth. She didn't, but her terror only grew. When she became pregnant again, she went to this woman in Portsmouth to rid herself of the child. Her life bled away. She was dead before she was even back to the castle. A d.a.m.nable waste. I didn't know until I found and read her journal after her death that she was so very afraid. I wouldn't have ever touched her again, had I but known." "I'm sorry," Evangeline said. "Yes, I know." He strode away from her to the dock, where Edmund was preparing to unloop the sloop's rope from the ring on the dock.

He called out, "Edmund, if you fall into the water and I have to come in after you, I'll turn you over to Bunyon. He'll pin your ears back, my boy, if my Hessians get soaked with salt water."

Edmund couldn't get the rope unlooped. He tried three times. Then he shot it.

Evangeline waited until father and son were talking together before she turned her attention back to the beach. But she pictured her cousin's face as she remembered her from all those years before. Poor Marissa. Poor girl. The duke was right. It was tragic.

She looked back toward the path, so wide and easy, trod upon by hundreds of boots and horse hooves over the years, over the centuries. Even Edmund's Shetland pony hadn't hesitated to go down the path. The three horses stood in the sand, nickering to each other, eyeing the stream of gulls that dipped and wheeled over their heads, just out of reach. She scanned the cliff face for a sign of the cave Houchard had told her about. Nothing. She thought she saw a shadowy indentation and walked toward it. No, it was just a sharp bend in the rocks. Where was the b.l.o.o.d.y cave?

She slewed about at a shout of laughter. The duke held Edmund high above his head, threatening, she imagined, to toss him into the water. Then he lowered Edmund and tucked him under one arm, like a small, wriggling package.

"I think he's half fish," the duke said as he set Edmund back on his feet.

"You mean, Papa, like Eve's half foreign?"

"Yes, that's exactly right." His eyes roamed over her, pausing at her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. He opened his mouth, then shut it. He said finally to his son, "Have patience, Edmund. We'll leave your cousin in a ditch somewhere and come back for a swim. If, of course, it stays hot a while longer. Do you think Eve would like to join us?"

"My gun would float," Edmund said.

"True."

"But we don't wear any clothes," Edmund said. "Girls always wear clothes."

"He is very young," the duke said to her.

Houchard had described him very well, but this man, he was so very alive, so outrageous, so utterly wicked. Such a short time she'd been here at Chesleigh, with him, and she felt that wickedness twining around her, burrowing deep inside her, and she liked it very much. She said, "I am very likely a stronger swimmer than your papa, Edmund. Perhaps if it continues this warm, why then, you and I will swim together and we'll leave your papa in a ditch. But you know, even though it's so very warm today, it's still February, the dead of winter. The water must be frigid." "What's frigid?"

"It means," the duke said, "that a girl's parts would become too chilled to react. She wouldn't drown, she'd just freeze. She wouldn't be any fun at all."

She said, "I haven't the faintest notion what you just said, but it was probably perfectly wicked."

"Here you are, an old married woman, and you don't know anything about freezing up." "I'm not old."

"You're older than I am," Edmund said. "And Papa says I'm quite the young gentleman now."

She looked from father to son. It was time to give up. She threw up her hands, laughed, and said, "I retire from the field, defeated."

"Good," said the duke. "It isn't healthy for a lady to ever win a battle. Remember that, Edmund. Although it's true that sometimes a gentleman must pretend that a lady wins. Remember that as well." "I will, Papa, but I don't know what it means." "You'll learn soon enough. I doubt the lessons involving the ladies ever stop until you croak it." "You are a cynic, your grace." "I have become a realist, Madame." They said nothing more. Evangeline was vastly relieved when the horses climbed back up the cliff path with no hesitation.

Chapter 12.