Love Charade Part 6

She gazed around her with great interest as they came up on deck. The famous white cliffs of Dover were asawe-inspiringas she remembered from her childhood journey and the small seaside village bustled under the early morning sun. The Pelican Inn stood back from the quay, the gleaming, white-washed brick and sparkling mullioned cas.e.m.e.nts ample evidence of its prosperity.

In the clean, orderly stableyard behind the inn the earl surveyed the five available horses critically.

"Do you have a preference, Danny?"

She clearly took the question very seriously and he watched with interest and growing respect her thorough examination of the candidates. Sensitive fingers explored tendons, checked the broad backs for a hint of concealed saddle-soreness, lifted thick velvety lips to reveal yellow, tombstone teeth.

"The piebald gelding and the gray mare. They're not pretty." Two enchanting dimples peeped in the thin cheeks. "But they have the most stamina. The black will be blown after twenty miles, the bay is swaybacked, and the roan fit only fora child in leading strings."

Linton nodded, having reached much the same conclusion himself. The two she had selected were certainly rawboned jobbing horses but quite the best on offer.

"See that they are saddled then. I'll be in the coffee room."

Danielle watched him go into the inn, reflecting that this role of servant was not becoming less irksome with practice. Soon she would have to face the uncomfortable task of informing her self-appointed guardian that she had rescinded her promise made in Paris. Having pledged the word of a Varennes she could not, in honor, break it, so the promise must be openly withdrawn first.

She saddled the mare herself while a stableboy performed the same office for the gelding and then, mounting without a.s.sistance, took the piebald's rein and rode to the front of the inn. Linton swung himself into the saddle and the portmanteau was strapped securely behind. Danny, he noticed, sat the large gray as if she were an integral part of the animal, its personality a mere extension of her own.

"We take the London road," he declared briskly. "I hope to do sixty miles today."

"Why London?" Danielle frowned in puzzlement. "As I recall, we did not pa.s.s through London on the way to Cornwall when I came with Maman."

"I have some business to transact first."

"Oh?" His inquisitive charge raised a pair of inquiring eyebrows and Linton decided that now was probably as good an opportunity as any other to broach some part at least of his plan.

Danielle heard him out in interested reflective silence. "But in what guise am I to meet your Monsieur Pitt?"

"He is Milord Chatham, actually," Linton corrected her. "As to your question, I am in something of a puzzle as how to contrive for the best. But I daresay something will occur to me."

They made good speed, stopping only twice to rest the horses : and take refreshment at the inns liberally scattered along this ' busy post road. It was late afternoon when they clattered into the stableyard of the Red Lion, some twenty miles outside London. Danielle showed no obvious signs of fatigue and if it hadn't been for her ordeal of the previous night, linton would have been tempted to complete the journey that evening. But, in spite of the straight back and easy seat, there were drawn lines around the purple-smudged eyes and a pallid tinge to the ivory complexion.

"Gad, Linton! Is it indeed you? Well, 'pon my soul, what brings you here, Justin?"

Danny, gazing wide-eyed at the author of this exclamatory speech, missed the look of annoyance that flashed across her companion's features which were instantly schooled to their customary impa.s.sivity.

"Good day to you, Julian. My dinner, as it happens," the earl replied calmly, reaching down a slender hand to take his cousin's beringed fingers.

Danielle had never seen anyone quite so magnificent as Lord Julian Carlton. A coat of claret velvet with silver lacing, dove-colored britches clasped at the knee with sapphire buckles, white silk stockings, and diamond-heeled shoes encased a frame quite as powerful as her guardian's. Sapphires gleamed in the lace at his throat and his own hair was hidden beneath a magnificent perruque whose curls fell artlessly on the broad forehead of a surprisingly boyish face.

"Then, m'boy, you are in luck," Lord Julian boomed jovially. "I have already bespoken a dinner to gratify even your exacting tastes, and Mine Host has a.s.sured me of the excellence of his '67 claret." A cerulean blue eye suddenly fell on His Lordship's mount. "Lud, Justin," he murmured in awe, "what the devil are you doing racketing around the countryside on that boneshaker?"

"It has stamina, Julian," His Lordship observed blandly, "although, I confess, little claim to grace."

He swung easily to the ground and turning toward Danny surprised the look of ill-concealed admiration on a face that suddenly looked too feminine for comfort.

"Your manners appear to have left you with your wits, boy." He spoke harshly in rapid French as he handed her the reins of his gelding.

Lord Julian, for the first time, noticed his cousin's companion and his eyebrows shot up at the most un-servantlike look of indignation that the lad flashed at his master before, with an almost defiant gesture, s.n.a.t.c.hing the reins from His Lordship's hand and turning the horses toward the stables. Any comment he might have made, however, was forestalled by Linton who, laying a friendly arm over his shoulders, moved him toward the inn with a polite inquiry as to his presence on the road to Dover.

Justin was actually very fond of his young cousin whose guardianship he had relinquished some four years previously when the orphaned Lord Julian came of age, but at this moment he wished him at the devil. Nothing could be more unfortunate than this unexpected meeting. Julian, for all his dandified affectations, carried sharp eyes and a good head on those broad shoulders and he could place no reliance on Danielle's powers of discretion. In fact, he strongly suspected that she didn't know the meaning of the word. It looked as if he was facing a most uncomfortable evening that would not be compensated even by the Red Lion's best dinner and the '67 claret.

His worst fears were confirmed by Danny's somewhat precipitate entrance some minutes later into the private parlor that he had perforce agreed to share with Julian. Both men turned in surprise as the door burst open with a lamentable lack of ceremony.

"It is customary to knock on a closed door, brat," Linton said in that soft voice that Danielle had come to recognize as denoting annoyance.

"Well, I'm sorry, milord, I'm sure-I jest come for me orders." She had reverted to her backstreet French but her whole body radiated challenge and her eyes kept sliding toward Lord Julian. "I seen to the 'orses and if you'll not be wantin' me agin, I'll go fer me dinner."

Linton sighed. His cousin's presence obliged him to respond to the challenge. If he let it pa.s.s Lord Julian's curiosity would be piqued even further-he was already gazing in startled amazement at this extraordinary display of impudence from a mere servant lad.

The earl crossed the room. "You are insolent, boy," he said gently, the handle of his riding whip catching the urchin's chin, pushing it upwards to meet his narrowed eyes. "I do not tolerate insolence, as you will discover if you are not very careful. Is it understood?"

The brown eyes sparked fire, but the earl had placed himself between Danny and his cousin, effectively blocking the latter's view. "You will go to my chamber," he continued as gently as before. "Unpack my portmanteau and lay out my clothes for the evening. I shall require hot water and your presence when I come up myself in about fifteen minutes."

A look of uncertainty crossed the small heart-shaped face as Danielle wondered uneasily if this time she had perhaps gone too far. She murmured a meek "Yes, milord," and on being released beat a hasty retreat.

"Pon my soul, Justin, that's an engaging scapegrace! Not your usual style though. Where'd you acquire him?"

His Lordship examined his cravat minutely in the mirror above the mantel, making an imperceptible adjustment to a fold before replying lazily, "It was a vast error on my part, Julian, I must confess. I yielded, would you believe, to a moment of pity and intervened in a brawl between that vagabond and a mountain of a baker. It was the odds, you see," he added with a weary sigh. "They were really not entirely fair and I felt an unaccountable urge to even them. It was an impulse I have since had cause to regret on many occasions."

"Gad, Justin!" Lord Julian's shoulders were shaking. "No one is going to believe that, moved by such an energetic emotion as compa.s.sion, you of all people have saddled yourself with an impudent whelp."

"I do beg of you, Julian, that you will not feel the urge to try our friends' powers of belief. It is a tale I prefer kept secret." Arched eyebrows lifted, and Lord Julian, realizing that he had in some way been issued an order, made haste to ensure his cousin that his lips were sealed.

"What do you intend doing with him, though? You'll hardly keep him beside you. I'd lay a thousand guineas to see Petersham's reaction!"

The earl shuddered slightly. He could well imagine the reaction of that august personage to the incorrigible Danny.

"I shall send him to Danesbury," he replied with a bland disregard for the truth. "The lad hasa way with horses, he'll do well enough in the stables, and John will knock him into shape."

Julian nodded his agreement. The head groom at Linton's Hampshire estates had been responsible for knocking more than stable-boys into shape over the years. He himself had spent some uncomfortable moments under that rough tutelage.

Linton found his urchin in an unusually subdued frame of mind when he entered the large, sun-filled chamber some minutes later. He bent a stern eye on the small figure curled up in a large chair by the window.

"Your hot water is here, milord, and I unpacked your toilet articles, but I-did not know what you wished to wear this evening," she murmured placatingly, dropping her eyes under that unrelenting gaze.

"Danielle, you should know by now that I do not expect you to play the role of servant when we are private, but if we are to brush through this ridiculous charade with any degree of success, you must maintain your part in public. That ill-conceived performance you have just put on for my cousin's benefit was foolish beyond tolerance. Do you choose to spend your life a social outcast immured in the depths of Cornwall? Because, make no mistake, my girl, that is exactly what will happen if any part of this escapade of yours becomes common knowledge!"

"You made me cross and I ... I sometimes don't think very clearly when I am cross." It didn't sound much of an explanation even to Danny's ears and her guardian was clearly unimpressed.

"If by that you mean my attempt to bring you to your senses in the stableyard then you are even more foolish than I thought. You were looking at Julian with the doe eyes of a heartsick debutante-hardly an appropriate expression for a servant lad!"

"He is very handsome," Danielle muttered and the earl shot her a startled look, surprised by a curious stab of a most unusual emotion-not jealousy, surely? Of course, his cousin was much closer in age to this disreputable vagabond than he, who was undoubtedly viewed as an irritatingly dictatorial guardian. He shrugged slightly. In both their interests it was a role he must maintain to the hilt, at least until he could hand the charge over to the Earl of March.

"He may be handsome, brat, but he is also a rake, as you will no doubt discover when you make your debut," he declared curtly, turning to his portmanteau for a change of shirt and cravat.

"My plans, milord, do not include making my debut," Danielle said steadfastly, deciding that since Iinton was already but of temper now was as good a moment as any other to make her declaration.

"Now what the devil do you mean by that?" Linton went impatiently behind the dressing screen. "Of course you will make your come-out, unless you intend to marry some clod of a country squire and bury yourself amongst the cows in Cornwall."

"My lord, I should tell you that the promise I made in Paris must be withdrawn. I can no longer accept your protection."

If she had expected an explosion, she was disappointed. His lordship merely said, in a tone of polite interest, "Now why should that be, brat?"

"I have plans, milord, that I do not think you will approve. I am sure I can count on my grandfather's a.s.sistance, but I am afraid you will attempt to dissuade him."

This disengenuous statement brought a smile to the Earl of Linton's lips. "If they are anything like your usual plans, infant, I am sure you are right. Am I to know what they are?"

"I may be foolish, milord, but I am not an imbecile," Danielle stated with dignity. An involuntary shout of laughter came from behind the screen.

"However," she went on, disregarding this unseemly reaction as utterly contemptible, "I will not leave you until we have met your Lord Chatham. I will help there in any way I can."

"Well, brat, I am obliged to you for informing me of these new developments. However, I should inform you that you will not be leaving me at all before I hand you into the charge of your grandfather." The earl reemerged, a new man in fresh linen and snowy lace, and reached for a soft silk coat of midnight blue, easing it over his shoulders, making minute adjustments to the ruffs at cuffs and throat before inserting a large diamond in the latter.

"I do not think, milord, that you will succeed in preventing me," Danielle p.r.o.nounced stoutly.

At that His Lordship's eyebrows rose. "Oh come now, child, that is truly idiotish, if not imbecilic. I am only sorry that you wish to put me to the test, for it will add most considerably to the tedium of our journey, I do a.s.sure you. However, we must hope between here and London that you will come to your senses, for you are really not stupid at all," he added kindly, taking snuff from a pretty enameled box.

Danielle glowered at him in wordless indignation. She was strongly tempted to launch one of her tirades of abuse at this insufferably arrogant individual but that was a lesson she had learned well and wisely decided to keep her own counsel.

"I will not insist you remain abovestairs this evening," Linton continued thoughtfully, "although I do recommend it. You must certainly seek your bed at an early hour, however. You had little enough sleep last night and a long ride today. Shall I have your dinner sent up?"

"No, indeed not," Danny declared. "I will take my meal in the kitchen as befits the public role of a mere servant."

"As you wish," the earl said calmly, refusing to rise to the challenge. "You will stay out of trouble, though, won't you, brat?" He pinched- her cheek carelessly before leaving the chamber to seek his dinner and his cousin in the private parlor.

The gesture for some reason infuriated Danielle. She muttered crossly as she used what water her companion had left to cleanse herself of the worst of her travel dust before making her own way to the kitchen and what proved a very convivial evening. Her ready wit and easygoingfriendliness endeared her rapidly to the large group of servers, wenches, and stablelads crowding the long kitchen table. Mrs.

Jarvis, the innkeeper's lady, was a motherly soul who instantly decided that this scrawny lad was much in need of feeding and piled the wooden trencher in front of her with mounds of floury boiled potatoes and thick slices of mutton. Danny didn't particularly care for the taste of ale but the foaming pitchers pa.s.sed back and forth down the table and, in the absence of anything more palatable, she sipped circ.u.mspectly, carefully hiding the involuntary moue of distaste.

Supper over, the group repaired to the stableyard to enjoy the first and last half hour of leisure their long working day afforded. Rising before the dawn, working without respite until the dinner hour, they would all seek their pallets by sundown. Thus it was that the Earl of Lin ton, strolling with Lord Julian after an excellent meal and a claret that was all and more than the landlord had promised, came across a sight that filled him with a black rage.

Danielle de St. Varennes, granddaughter of the Due de St. Varennes and the Earl and Countess of March, was sitting astride a low wall alongside the well-kept stables, a foaming pewter tankard in her hand, regaling a laughing circle of louts in exaggeratedly broken English with some of the riper stories she had picked up in her wanderings.

The earl was beyond careful thought. Striding through the group who, one look at the dark face and blazing eyes, fell back hastily, he reached the startled figure of his ward. The tankard crashed to the ground, splashing its contents on all and sundry and the next minute Danielle was reeling on her perch, hands clapped to a pair of tingling ears.

"How dare you drink that!" her mentor hissed.

"But. . . but all the lads do," she protested in a shocked whisper.

The earl's face came very close to hers. "You, Danielle de St. Varennes, are not one of the lads, do you understand, me?"

She shrank away from the naked fury in those black eyesand the hard, narrow line of his lips, managing only a wordless nod as the tears filling her eyes threatened to spill in a hot flood down her cheeks.

A pair of large hands caught her under the arms and she was swung through the air to land with a jolt on the cobblestones.

"Get to bed!" The earl turned on the curt command and strode back to where Lord Julian was standing in amazed wonder at the scene he had just witnessed. He had never seen his cool, deceptively lazy cousin lose his temper, let alone strike a servant.

"Gad, Justin! What was all that about? The lad was doing no harm, 'pon my soul."

"He's far too young to be drinking ale and has an insolent tongue to boot," Justin spat, struggling with the extraordinary emotions shaking him-fury at Danielle for her lack of conduct, but more so at himself and a deep regret for his violent reaction.

Lord Julian shrugged and suggested peaceably that they sample Mine Host's excellent "port over a hand of piquet before retiring. My Lord concurred. He needed time to calm himself and for Danny to get to bed before he attempted to repair the damage. Lord Julian, however, found him an abstracted companion and achieved the unheard-of success of rising from the table a hundred guineas ahead.

"Lud, Justin, but you've windmills in your head tonight. You gave me that last hand, I swear."

"Probably, Julian, probably. I cannot imagine how else you should have succeeded in taking such a sum from me. You play as abominably as ever."

"That's the outside of enough, Linton. I take every hand from you and you insult my skill."

The earl laughed softly. "Come out of the boughs, Julian. You find me somewhat distracted tonight."

A sharp look crossed the heavy-lidded eyes as Julian refilled his gla.s.s. "Nothing to do with that lad of yours, coz, I suppose?"

"I cannot imagine why it should be," Linton murmured dismissively. "No, I must see Pitt tomorrow and the news I have of France will not please him."

The red herring worked as well as he had hoped and all thoughts of the strange waif his cousin had in tow left Lord Julian as he questioned with an intelligent eagerness belied by the slightly vacuous look he cultivated.

It was considerably later, when, his cousin's curiosity satisfied, My Lord took his candle and made his way to bed. A soft knock eliciting no response, he unlatched the door gently and entered the dark chamber. Danielle had extinguished all the tapers before retiring to her cot in the corner-a gesture that could have been interpreted as unfriendly had the earl not strongly suspected she required the cover of darkness in which to lick her wounds. He placed his own candle beside the bed and lit the tapers above the mantel before crossing to the cot and examining the diminutive mound under the covers. His urchin was definitely asleep, but the tear-streaked cheeks and sticky lashes bore witness to the outburst of emotion that had preceded sleep. Linton sighed, bending to pull the disarrayed cover over the slight shoulders before blowing out the candles on the mantel and making his own preparations by the single, dim, flickering light by the bed.

Chapter 5.

The Earl of Linton woke to an empty chamber and a countryside shrouded in that fine English mizzle that made the seasons in this damp land so hard to differentiate. It was definitely not riding weather and he reconciled himself to completing the last leg of the journey to London by post chaise.

The parlor, in which a bright fire now glowed, was also empty of everything except his breakfast. He had not expected to find his cousin, for whom the matutinal hours before ten o'clock were supposed not to exist, but he had expected some indication of his urchin's whereabouts. An inquiry of the wench who served him his coffee produced the information that Danny had been seen by Mrs. Jarvis at around six o'clock but not since.

The earl frowned at his sirloin, wondering if Danny had thought better of her agreement to remain with him until London, but he dismissed the suspicion as unworthy. The child quite clearly had a very rigid code of honor and even if she were laboring under a sense of injustice would not break her word.

In fact, the subject of his thoughts was making her damp way back across the fields after a sorely needed period of quiet reflection. She had awoken before the first bird song and making her way to the kitchen had found that hub of the hostelry already seething with life. She had been bidden to the breakfast table by the motherly Mrs. Jarvis but had accepted instead a meat pasty and an apple and set off on a long trudge across the surrounding countryside. Her reflections had been gloomy and the steady drizzle had done nothing to spark her usual optimism. Milord appeared to take his guardianship much more seriously than she had thought, as last evening's episode so clearly demonstrated. It seemed to encompa.s.s far more than a simple concern for her physical welfare. That being the case he would, without doubt, do his possible to prevent the furtherance of her plans once she reached Cornwall. She had hoped, she now realized naively, that once she had effected her escape from his protection that apparent careless lethargy of his would persuade him to put the entire episode out of mind. His fears for her safety, now she was out of France, must surely be considerably allayed and he would know that a simple and relatively short journey across England would be easily accomplished by one who as a fugitive had made the infinitely longer and more hazardous trip from Languedoc to Paris. But he seemed to have some strange and most exasperating notions about the manner in which Danielle de St. Varennes should proceed both now and in the future.

Pausing, she threw her apple core into a small stream, watching the circle of ripples widen on the rain-pitted surface of the sluggish brown water. She had ceased to think of herself as Danielle de St. Varennes since that February night, had concentrated only on a plan that required the ident.i.ty of "Danny" to carry it through. But the Earl of Linton seemed only to acknowledge Danielle and his constant reminders of this person were disturbing, forcing her out of hiding in the deep recesses of the mind of Danny. Now she seemed to slip with bewildering rapidity from urchin to aristocrat and the only fact of which she was absolutely convinced was Linton's determination that she a.s.sume the latter role permanently, at the earliest possible moment.

Maybe her grandparents, whom she remembered as a gentle, kindly couple, would share Linton's view of the matter and be much less amenable to persuasion than she had antic.i.p.ated? But she could not return to France without their help-or someone's at least-and return she must, albeit for as brief a stay as possible. She had a task to complete and not all the Earls of Linton should stand in her way. She had reached this rousing decision as she attained the courtyard of the Red Lion to come face to face with her protector who was about to sally forth in search of his errant ward.

"Good morning, Danny," His Lordship murmured courteously, stepping aside to allow her entrance into the inn.

"Morning." She made to brush past him, but a lazy hand took her wrist.

"You appear to be rather wet, brat."

"It's raining."

"Yes, I had noticed," he concurred silkily. "I think you had better change your clothes before we continue our journey."