A Lady’s Secret (26 page)

He knew the dog’s sin was to remind him of Petra. He’d only had Coquette for a week when he’d met Sister Immaculata, and after that, they’d shared some remarkable adventures, all three of them. He remembered to send the lad off to his other duties, and sat back at his desk, putting Coquette on the surface, something she seemed to love.

“Pet and Petra,” he said, tilting the dog’s head up as if there might be an intelligent response in the bright eyes. “Is she, unlike you, a faithless bitch?”

The dog tilted her head as if thinking, but offered no wisdom.

“You’re finally going to be useful, though, my little nothing. With any luck, you’ll alert signor Varzi to my presence in London, and he’ll emerge from hiding. Then we can pay him back for his cruelty to you.”

Petra did indeed arrive in Guildford in less than two hours, and paid Mighty Mike Cockcroft his shilling.

“What you going to do now?” he asked gruffly.

Petra hesitated. He was a weather-beaten rock of a man but had a kindly look in his eye.

“Take a bed here, sir, then continue my journey in the morning.”

“Not back to Maidstone, I assume.”

What point in concealment now? “No. To Farnham.”

“There’s a slow coach to Farnham. Shamleigh, the innkeeper here, will put you right for it, but it won’t run tomorrow, love, it being Sunday.” He touched his big hat and shambled off.

Petra had no trouble getting a bed in another common room, but her spirits were low. She was stuck here until Monday, so she’d wasted her shilling, and by now she was desperate to know her fate and be able to make some sort of plan.

There were only two other travelers in this room—a middle-aged woman traveling with a slow-witted daughter. When the woman struck up a conversation, Petra took part lackadaisically.

“You look troubled, dear,” Mistress Culler said.

Wryly, Petra adapted an old story. “My mother’s sick near Farnham and I’m rushing to her side, but with Sunday, I’ll be stuck here.”

“But I thought you were Welsh, dear.”

Petra invented quickly. “My father was. When he died, my mother came back here to look after her mother, but I stayed in my position. Near Monmouth.”

That seemed to satisfy. “No one could blame you for traveling in such a cause, dear, but it’d have to be Shanks’s pony.” Petra’s puzzlement must have shown, for the woman added, “On foot, dear. It’s not much more than ten miles, and likely you’ll get a ride here and there from people going to church and visiting family.”

Heartened, Petra lay down to sleep, resolved to walk the ten miles and complete her journey the next day.

Robin hadn’t expected many attendees in July in London, but his house was soon crowded. Those in Town had sent alerts to others whose country residences were nearby. Everyone wanted details of the duel with a highwayman in broad daylight.

Some men brought beautiful women of obliging natures, all of whom seemed eager to oblige him. Robin felt an alarming lack of enthusiasm and used his leg as an excuse. That didn’t deter them all, and a few began to tease him about where the wound actually was.

He greeted the sight of a strapping blond gentleman in a spectacularly braided uniform as escape. “Christian!” Robin declared with true enthusiasm, but not rising from his place. His leg was giving him hell.

“What news of court, my friend? Damme, that sounds like a line from Shakespeare.”

“No, that would be
‘that shrewd and knavish sprite called Robin Goodfellow,’”
said Major Lord Grandiston. “How did a fribble like you acquire a wound?”

“Ask rather how anyone got past my impenetrable guard. You’ve never managed it.”

Christian laughed. “Very well. How?”

“He was rather good.”

“And dead?”

“Yes, but I can’t take credit. The story’s been in the papers.”

“Never read ’em. Anything really interesting is all the buzz at court.” Christian accepted wine from a servant, but said, “Good God, what’s that?” He was looking at Coquette, who had danced out to be adored.

“Fluff,” said Thorn dryly. “Someone sweep it up.”

“Princess Coquette,” said Robin. “I swear that her ears grow larger with admiration. She was the heroine of the hour.”

“How?” Christian asked in disbelief.

“Startled my opponent at a crucial moment.”

“That, I can believe.”

Robin summoned a hovering footman to help him up out of his chair, then grasped his walking stick. “Let’s find a quiet corner and I’ll tell the tale.”

“Is a quiet corner possible?” Christian asked, already bombarded with greetings and teasing about braid from all sides.

It took time to work out of the room, but then it was a short distance to the parlor that was part of the earl’s suite of rooms. Robin still thought of them as his father’s. Thorn had come with them and, of course, Coquette. Robin gave his friend the true account of his Kentish adventures.

Christian whistled. “Only you, Robin. Only you.”

“Why does everyone say that?” Robin scooped up Coquette and put her on his lap. “You take me seriously, don’t you, my little papillon?”

“The dog makes you ridiculous,” said Thorn.

“You have no appreciation of the art of frivolity.”

“Thank God.”

“One day merely being a duke won’t be enough to charm people.”

“Evidence says otherwise,” Thorn said dryly.

“Children,” Christian chided. “Back to matters of moment. Robin, you wrote to ask about Italians at Richmond Lodge. The reply is, none in the past week.”

“No one fitting the descriptions?”

“No. We live very quietly.”

Robin hesitated about the next question, because Petra’s story was probably all lies, but he lost the struggle. “Can you think of anyone attached to the court who would have been in Italy about twenty-two years ago? If he really was young, then we’re talking about a man close to forty now.”

Christian thought for a moment. “In London, court would be crawling with them. Nearly every peer visited Italy as a youth.”

“What about permanent court officers?”

“Not offhand. I’ve finished my stint at court, by the way, but I know people there I can ask.”

“Thank you,” Robin said. “I doubt there’s anything in it. It was all a story made up to amuse me. I did,” he recollected, stroking Coquette, “demand amusement. As always, beware what you ask for.”

“Good advice,” Christian said, but added, “Is there any danger of Lady Fowler’s Fund increasing?”

“That idiotic vow we took? ’Struth, no,” said Robin, hoping he’d put the right degree of amused disbelief on it. As he hobbled back down the corridor he heard one of the men behind him murmur, “A side bet that the Foul Fund will be a thousand richer by year’s end?”

That must have been Christian, because it was definitely Thorn who replied, “Done. He’d never be such a fool.”

P
etra walked through placid countryside, along a high ridge that spread patchwork fields around her. The land looked so prosperous and well tended, and bells pealed from many churches. When she passed through villages, some people gave her good morning, but most eyed her warily, seeing a vagrant.

Why hadn’t she thought of that? She’d not even get close to a marquess in Mistress Waddle’s donations. As the woman had said, she needed her better clothing to meet her relations.

Once she got to Farnham, she went into a small inn to ask to pay for a room and soap and water. She told the suspicious woman that she was going to apply for a position and wanted to look her best. Three pennies bought her use of a small room and a generous jug of hot water, soap, and a towel. She stripped to her shift, washed, and then changed into the green sprigged dress. It was still a simple garment, but much more respectable. She put the mobcap and wide hat back on, but she’d discard the battered hat before requesting admittance to Rothgar Abbey.

How precisely was she to do that? She’d be driven from the front door, but how to explain her mission at the servants’ entrance? Perhaps she should ask for employment, but that would only take her to the housekeeper at best. Was she then to sneak around the house, seeking an opportunity to accost the marquess? That would get her thrown out, without doubt. Some servants never saw the family side of the house at all. All she could do was put her faith in God and her mother.

She looked in the small mirror, hoping for an appearance that would penetrate the barriers, but knew it wasn’t there. The only comfort she found was the minor reassessment in the innkeeper’s eyes. Up from vagrant to respectable peasant, Petra assumed.

She set off again, now only a couple of miles from Rothgar Abbey. She found a signpost to
ALTON
, 10
MILES
. That was her road. But she smiled at the other fingerposts nailed beneath it.
BENTLEY, 5 MILES
.
CUCKOO’S CORNER, 8 MILES
.

“Cuckoo” was close to “cock.” She hoped it was another good omen that she was heading that way.

Robin didn’t suffer the aftereffects of drink, but for some reason he awoke on Sunday feeling stale, foulmouthed, and fuzzy headed. He listened to a clock chime ten, wished a glass of water would miraculously appear and someone would raise him to drink it, and went back to sleep again.

He felt a cool hand on his forehead and opened his eyes, only just managing to change “Petra?” to
“Maman?”
at the last moment.

“How could you, you careless wretch?” his mother demanded furiously in French. “They say you have had no doctor here. How
could
you?”

She was still in black, and it didn’t suit her delicate skin and brown hair.

“Wright checked my leg at Thorn’s house,” Robin said in the same language, struggling to sit up. “I’m perfectly well.”

“Do not seek to deceive me, me who bore you and raised you—”

With the help of about twenty servants,
Robin thought.

“—and suffers terrors whenever you are out of my sight.” She used her hands like Petra. Why had he never thought of that? “And now,” she exclaimed, “and now, you get into a duel. You get a wound! You are a monstrously ungrateful child!”

He managed to capture a sharply gesticulating hand. “My dearest mother, my wound is small and healing. I am perfectly well except from revelries last night.”

She stilled, assessing him with fierce blue eyes. “Truth?”

“Truth.” He would not think of Petra, or of Powick marking similarities. They were nothing alike.

She sat on the edge of the bed, sagging with relief, and he kissed her plump, perfectly manicured hand. “I almost dismissed Trevelyan for worrying you. I should have.”

“I would have rehired him. I hired him to begin with.”

“To be my tutor,
Maman
. I believe I may dismiss my secretary.”

“You would not do anything so dishonorable. He only obeyed me.”

Pointless to suggest just now that her interests and his might sometimes split.

“You are truly healing well?” she asked, cradling his face. “You do not lie?”

“On my honor. But if you came to minister to me, I would be grateful if you brought me a glass of water.”

She laughed and went to the carafe, a well-rounded woman with strength and grace in her movements. No, his mother had never used sword or pistol as best he knew, but she was active morn till night in the ruling of her domain, and fierce in fighting for her chicks.

What would she do when he took over the reins, which he feared he’d have to do soon, if only to hold on to his self-respect?

She returned with the water, smiling now.

“Ma belle,”
he said, toasting her.

It was flattery designed to amuse, but also true, or had been when she wore colors that suited her. Would she ever do so again?

“Why is Fontaine not attending to such things as water?” she demanded.

“I sent him on holiday.”

“To Cheynings?”

“If you know everything, why ask?”

“But I don’t know everything. I don’t know
why
.”

“It’s a long story, but he is well. Powick is well.”
All your lovingly chosen attendants and watchdogs are well.
As if on cue, Coquette wriggled up from under the sheets, tail wagging.

She stared. “What is that?”

“A papillon dog. You’ve seen them at the French court.”

“Then
why
is that? In your bed, even!”

“She begs most effectively. But to be precise, she’s in her bed in my bed.” He flipped back the covers to show Coquette’s new basket, complete with pink velvet cushion.

“But you like big dogs. You have described my spaniels as fribbles.”

“I’ve been seduced.”

She reached to feel his skin again. He caught her hand and kissed it. “My dearest, darling mother, I’m not fevered. I will tell all.”
Almost all.
“It will entertain, it will amuse, it will even thrill you, for any dangers are past and survived. But I pray you, let me rise, bathe, dress, and breakfast. I assume you have just arrived?”

“Would I delay in coming to you?”

“Absolutely not. So you will appreciate some time to recover from the journey.”

“Oh, will I?”

He didn’t reply.

“You’ve changed,” she said, startling him.

“I assure you—”

She waved him to silence. “Definitely. A woman?”

Robin very much feared he blushed.

“For marriage or pleasure?” she demanded, all business now. “You haven’t done anything foolish, have you?”

Robin crushed a flustered response and said, “I’ll tell you all when I am bathed, shaved, and dressed.”

She straightened as if challenged. Which, he realized, she was. When he didn’t quail, she said, “Very well. I will summon a servant for you.” At the door, she fired a parting shot. “I told you you should have bellpulls put in here.”

Once she’d gone, Robin felt an alarming temptation to wriggle down under the covers, like a child attempting to hide. Coquette, ever sympathetic to mood, licked his hand. He stroked her. “She’s not going to be happy.” But then he corrected it. “No, nothing will distress my mother, for Petra d’Averio is a deceptive adventuress and I’ll probably never see her again.”

Robin’s temporary valet entered and was sent to prepare a bath. Since the wound, Robin had only washed, but now he removed the bandage and sank down into hot water—and tumbled right back to Montreuil.

He’d lain in the bath there imagining Petra so very nearby, soaping her lovely body. He’d gone hard and had to relieve himself, but he’d still roared into that insane passion an hour later….

Petra d’Averio. He’d known some of the most beautiful women of his world, and some of the most alluring, and definitely some of the most skilled at the seductive arts, but with her, it had been madness from the first. She’d caught him at first sight in the innyard of the Tête de Boeuf. No, at first word.
Maledizione
. A warning, that, for anyone with wit enough to realize it.

Her power had sizzled in the coach and then burned at Mère Goulart’s under the extra fuel of danger. It had flared out of control in Montreuil, but reached its full, wildfire power on the
Courlis
.

Now she was gone—but not from his mind.

Petra in the smuggler’s house, stretching in morning light. In the Gainer bedroom, tending to his wound with serious attention. A Sister of Saint Veronica, dedicated to aiding the wounded in the streets?

He surged out of the tub and swore at the strain on his wound. The alarmed footman supported him to a chair and helped him dress. He had things to do today, and the most difficult would be dealing with his mother. He replaced the bandage and dressed in plain breeches, shirt, and waistcoat. Instead of a coat, however, he wore his blue silk banyan on top—a touch of the invalid to soften her.

She was right. He had changed, perhaps because of a brush with death, or perhaps, as she’d implied, because of Petra. Whatever the cause, it was time to put his father’s spirit to rest and assume full responsibility for his earldom. Strangely, he was even looking forward to it, but he didn’t expect to achieve it without a battle.

He went to his mother’s rooms, which wasn’t a long journey, as she still used the ones next to the earl’s suite. She should vacate them. She’d have to when he married.

Marriage. Despite their agreement, she probably had a list ready. A list of well-bred, well-mannered young ladies of excellent family and fortune. Young ladies raised to understand the ton, and understand how to be discreet and pragmatic in marriage. Not an adventurous, Italian sword-wielding nun among them.

He found his mother changed out of her traveling clothes and refreshed, but she frowned to see his limp and stick.

“The wound is fine,” he assured her, kissing her hand and cheek. “There was some muscle damage and I’m pampering it. Truly,
Maman
.”

“I suppose I shall have to trust you. I don’t see why you brought that with you,” she said, turning her annoyance on Coquette. “It’s a mockery.”

“She was a means to an end,” he said, and related the story of the reluctant comtesse because he knew she would approve of that.

“Wicked boy,” she said, but smiled.

How nice to live up to someone’s expectations.

“May I summon my breakfast here,
Maman
? Then I can tell you my misadventures as I eat.”

“Of course. Felice, see to it.”

“Plain coffee,” Robin told the diminutive maid, who’d come with his mother to England thirty years ago. “I need intense restoration.”

The woman’s wrinkled face creased with a wide smile as she curtsied and left.

“Now,” said his mother, pacing restlessly. “Who is she?”

“Coquette?” he asked, deliberately misunderstanding. “I don’t know her antecedents.”

“The woman in this! I know there is one. Trevelyan said something before becoming difficult.”

“
Maman,
I truly will have to dismiss him if you make him your spy.”

She actually flushed, a bright, rather beautiful flare of color high in her cheeks. “What could you want to hide from me?”

He just stroked Coquette.

“Who is she, Robin? Italian, I gather.”

“I don’t know why you say it like that. It means she’s Catholic.”

“Which is a great trouble in this country. Consider me, who has had to watch my children raised without the sacraments.”

He gave her a look. Her devotion to her religion was weak at best.

“You will not put me off,” she snapped. “Is she your mistress? That is no big thing, a mistress. I see no reason for you to conceal that. Which is why I demand, who is she? What is she to you? Where is she?”

He answered the last. “I have no idea. That, at least, should make you happy. I encountered a lady in distress and aided her. You would not wish me ungallant.”

“Fah!” Her favorite exclamation. “She caused you to be wounded.”

“She was pursued by some Milanese determined to drag her back to service their master. You would not want me to have permitted that.” He suspected she disagreed. “We crossed to England, but one of them caught up with us near Folkestone. There was a sword fight, I was injured, but am now recovering well.”

“And your opponent? He is dead?”

“Yes.”

“That is good. Very good. I do not like to think of you fighting with swords, but if you fight, you must win, and an enemy is better dead. Otherwise, they could seek revenge.”

“Pragmatic, and completely correct, as usual.”

The coffee came along with a loaded tray. Robin dismissed the servants and served himself. He sipped and shuddered with relief, his mind coming more alert.

His mother was drinking café au lait. “Strong coffee in the morning,” she said, frowning. “It will weaken you. Felice!”

“I prefer it this way,” Robin said, smiling at the maid who’d hurried in. “But to please you,
Maman,
I will choose a weak bun over strong beef.”

“Fah!”

He ate a mouthful. He knew he shouldn’t revive the topic of Petra, but felt compelled to ask, “If I find my damsel in distress, will you be kind to her?”

“If she is to be your mistress, yes. If you think to marry her, no.”

“You know nothing of her,” he protested.

“On the contrary. I know everything. She fled Milan, so she has no powerful family there to assist her. She was in distress, so she has no money. She chose to travel with a young man like you, so she has no discretion, or perhaps worse, no morals. She is probably a whore.”

“No.”

“You failed with her?”

“
Maman,
you are in danger of becoming vulgar.”

She jerked as if he’d hit her. “Perhaps, but…” She exhaled. “Very well. You have never disappointed me in these matters before. I will trust you to do what is right.”

“What I
believe
is right,” he said, and took another bite.

She didn’t respond, which was, he supposed, a victory of sorts, but he knew her vigilance would be extreme from now on.