Almost a Lady (26 page)

Meg warmed to her even as she realized that her disguise was harder to maintain for a woman’s eye. She followed Cosimo’s advice and kept the cap low, spoke in barely a mutter, but let her eyes and hands do the work. There was a deep-chested gelding that would do for Cosimo. She ran a knowledgeable hand down his hocks, feeling for warmth or tenderness, stroked his withers, pushed back his lips. His teeth seemed sound and his mouth had no sores from an ill-used curb.

She nodded an affirmative to the woman and moved down the line of horses. She knew exactly what would suit her. A gelding or a mare of medium height with a smooth mouth and good back. A bright-eyed piebald mare was in the last stall, shifting restlessly on her straw. She was a beauty and Meg’s eyes sparked with the excitement of the shopper who has found the perfect purchase.

“Celle-ci,”
she said firmly.

The woman named a price. Thirty livres. Meg didn’t hesitate. The mare was worth every penny. They would have to forgo the packhorse and travel light. She counted out the money, arranged in the same monosyllabic mumble to collect the animals before dawn in the morning, and returned to the inn, delighted with the success of her errand.

Cosimo was rather less delighted. “You paid thirty livres for a mare?”

“Cosimo, she’s worth twice that. She’s beautiful.”

His lip curled a little. “What has beauty to do with stamina?”

“Everything,” Meg stated. “It has little to do with looks, but everything to do with health, and muscle, and temperament.”

Now there Cosimo could not disagree. “I’m going to look at her,” he said, and left.

Meg paced the small, unpleasant chamber, aware of both hunger and the most appetizing smells coming from below. After a while she addressed herself to the trunk that Cosimo had brought back with him on a cart. There was a sheet of heavy canvas that had been dipped in tar. In ordinary circumstances it would make the most abominable sheet, but she was by now used to the smell, in fact she liked its association with salt and sun, and no fleas would penetrate such a barrier. She occupied her time throwing the canvas over the crackling straw mattress and searching through the trunk for something that would serve as a makeshift cover.

“I can’t argue with your judgment on horseflesh,” Cosimo announced from the doorway, surprising her as her head was buried in the trunk. “She is indeed beautiful, and the gelding will serve well. I bought a packhorse and they’ll all be delivered here at four o’clock tomorrow morning. What are you looking for?”

“Something to cover this canvas. It’s so stiff to sleep on. Although I’d sleep on concrete if it would keep the fleas at bay.” She sat back on her heels, flushed from her exertions.

“Use my boat cloak.” He stood over her with an appraising eye. “My handiwork is smudged. If we’re going to eat supper below, then we need to repair the damage.”

“I’m famished, and whatever it is it smells amazing,” Meg declared, letting him pull her to her feet. “I wish I could see what your artistic efforts are producing.”

Cosimo reapplied pencil and charcoal. “I do assure you, it will pass muster,” he stated, adding, “in a dim light.”

“I’m so hungry I’m not sure I really care.” She went ahead of him to the stairs, inhaling the rich fragrant smells from below. “What do they cook here?”

“Fish aplenty, but also duck, goose liver is a specialty, sausage, lentils . . .”

“Enough,” Meg said, her saliva running.

They ate at the common board and Meg was relieved to find that the food and wine were the most important elements of the evening. None of their table companions seemed particularly interested in conversation. Bread was passed with flagons of good Bordeaux, and spoons plunged into the communal dishes of a fish stew and a cauldron of potatoes, onions, and bacon. Knives sliced into garlicky sausage and slabs of cheese, and voices rose as the wine flowed. She passed unnoticed, slumping down on the bench, taking care of her appetite, but listening all the time, trying to absorb the accent, identify the vocabulary. She had been taught French by a Parisienne who spoke with a perfect diction that had no affinity with the rough vowels of provincial France. But the more she listened, the more she understood. Whether she could imitate it was another matter.

The conversation grew louder as cognac began to circulate, and Meg thought she could safely slip away unnoticed. She slid off the long bench and beat a retreat to the room upstairs. She found a tallow candle on the windowsill and lit it. The smell of tallow was unpleasant but the light at least softened the contours of the uninviting space. The bed should be safe enough, though. Fleas would have a hard time biting their way through tar-soaked canvas.

Meg didn’t trouble to undress. This was no place for the niceties of nightgowns. There was no basin and ewer, so she went in search of the well and the privy. She filled the bucket at the well and dipped the cup to drink, then splashed her face. If she was washing off Cosimo’s artistry, so be it. The privy was even worse than she’d expected, but needs must. Keeping as much to the shadows as she could, she returned upstairs.

Cosimo came in a few minutes later. He held two cups of cognac. “As good a prevention against infection as anything else,” he said. “Drink it.” He gave her one cup. “I’ll be back soon.”

He left, presumably to take care of his needs as Meg had taken care of hers. Meg drank the cognac and thought about questions that had been nagging at her for days, but that she’d pushed aside as unimportant, irrelevant to her own adventure, merely a part of the mystery that surrounded Cosimo and that added to his attraction. Now, for some reason, she wanted them answered. It seemed she’d had enough of mysteries.

Cosimo returned, his auburn hair glistening with water. Meg tossed him the towel she’d used herself and he caught it with a murmur of thanks, roughly toweling his head.

“Why was Ana traveling with you?” Meg asked without preamble. “Does it take two people to deliver dispatches?”

The question took him by surprise, although he supposed he should have been ready for it at some point. Meg was far too shrewd not to have seen the holes in his concoction. “No, it doesn’t,” he said, shaking out the towel and spreading it near the open window to dry. “Ana was sailing with me as far as Bordeaux, where she would assume her own mission.”

“Oh,” she said, nodding, but still frowning. “At the beginning you said your mission could only be accomplished at a certain juncture . . . that was why you couldn’t take me back to Folkestone. I assume you meant delivering the dispatches? It seems strange that they should be so time-sensitive.”

“Now why should that seem strange?” He perched on the windowsill and regarded her with a faint smile. “You’ve seen how difficult it is to make contact along the courier route. I explained to you that we work in closed circles and once an opportunity for contact is missed, it can’t be recaptured. I was rather hoping not to miss any of my contacts.”

He shrugged. “Had I not done so, I wouldn’t be making this journey now, and we’d be on our way back to England.” The lie slipped smooth as silk from his tongue and for the first time it made him acutely uncomfortable. Up until now he’d seen the fabrication as a necessary evil, but now it troubled him. He didn’t want to lie to her. Deception was so far from Meg’s character that she would never understand his reasoning. He wanted to take her into his confidence, he wanted her to partner him fully. He wanted her approval for what he was doing.

That last recognition shocked him. Since when had he sought anyone’s approval? Even as a child other people’s opinions had mattered little to him. He did what he believed in, without compunction or hesitation. His decisions and choices were ruled by the necessities of his deeply held convictions.

“What’s the matter?” Meg asked, seeing his expression. He looked suddenly vulnerable, as if he’d lost a skin. She was so accustomed to believing in his absolute confidence and competence that such a look of insecurity alarmed her. And then to her relief it vanished.

He shook his head as if dismissing whatever it was that had troubled him and said firmly, “Nothing, unless it’s the prospect of another visit to that vile privy.” He stood up. “Come, let’s get some sleep. They’re delivering the horses before dawn and we’ve a hard day’s ride ahead.”

Meg accepted the change of mood, as much as anything because it was easier to do so. She wasn’t sure she wanted to probe into whatever demons had entered his soul for however brief a time. She wrapped herself in her cloak and lay down gingerly on the canvas-covered straw, grateful for Cosimo’s boat cloak that offered some softness.

Cosimo wrapped himself in his own traveling cloak and lay down beside her, pushing an arm beneath her to roll her into his side. She rested her head in the crook of his shoulder, flinging her arm over his body, feeling the steady beat of his heart.

“What was Ana’s mission?” she inquired sleepily.

“You’d have to ask her,” he said. “Now go to sleep.”

Ana was off limits as usual, Meg reflected. And she didn’t believe for a moment that the mystery woman’s mission had nothing to do with Cosimo’s. It was her last waking thought before a black cloud of sleep rolled over her.

Chapter   19

I
t was amazing how one could sense the sea, even when it was two days’ journey away, Meg thought, lifting her face to the sun’s rays. There was a certain limitless quality to the horizon that was unmistakably connected to the vistas of the sea, even here in the peaceful, verdant green valleys of Vaucluse nestled between two mountain ranges.

On this soft late spring day, they were resting from two days’ hard riding, and the inn that they had found was one of the prettiest places Meg had visited. She was sitting now on a wooden seat in the garden on the banks of a narrow river, almost mesmerized by the swooping dragonflies and the dancing light of the sun on the smooth brown water, overwhelmingly thankful that the mountain rides were behind them. Another two days following the path of the Rhône River, and then the coastal route towards Marseilles, then finally to Toulon. At which point this adventure would be over. Or, at least, in essence it would be once they’d made the rendezvous with the
Mary Rose
and were homeward bound.

The last two weeks had had an almost dreamlike quality, a time out of time. Sometimes they had been acutely uncomfortable in filthy inns with unspeakable food. They had ridden through rainstorms and under a burning sun. But then there had been the other side of the coin, breathtaking views and delightful hostelries, and the never-failing delight of lovemaking. There had been no repercussions from that impulsive coupling on the windowsill at Cadillac, and they had never been careless again.

The only difficulty they had encountered thus far on their journey had been her own fatigue. The mountainous roads made hard going for both horse and rider, and at one point towards the end of the first week of the journey, Cosimo had insisted despite her objections that she travel by carriage. Meg had discovered to her astonishment that she was no match for his determination. It wasn’t just the glacial look, but resisting the steely insistence that would brook no argument was like pushing Atlas’s boulder up the mountain. In the end, although dreading what she knew would happen, she’d accepted the decree, seeing it as the only way to convince him that she was right.

It was a sound decision for all that she suffered for it. Cosimo had been appalled by the middle of the first day after four stops in as many hours for her to crouch retching miserably by the roadside. His remorse had been profound, his apologies reiterated so many times that in the end she’d begged him to stop blaming himself, even though she did get some perverse satisfaction from his guilt-ridden dismay that went some way to compensating her for her wretchedness.

After that Cosimo had accepted the need to rest every third day. Meg knew he fretted at the inaction even though he never said a word, but she also knew she could do nothing about it. She didn’t have his stamina, it was as simple as that.

Of course, Ana probably would have matched him mile for mile, she thought with a tinge of resentment, but that reflection remained unspoken.

“Bonne après-midi, madame.”

The soft voice startled her out of her reverie and she turned her head sharply. An elegant man, whom she’d seen earlier that day talking to the innkeeper, was crossing the grassy bank towards her. She looked around automatically for Cosimo, but he’d taken the horses to the farrier to have their shoes checked and picked for stones, and he wouldn’t be back until close to evening.

She had grown unaccustomed to conversation with strangers, whether she was in the guise of Anatole Giverny or, as today, dressed in Nathalie’s petticoats and gown. However, she was more at home in the latter and managed a smile and a “Good afternoon, m’sieur,” that was politely restrained.

He came up to her and bowed, his tall shadow blocking the sun. “Daniel Devereux at your service, madame.”

Her smile, while unwavering, was cool and she merely inclined her head in faint acknowledgment without offering her own introduction.

“Your cousin is not keeping you company,” he observed, glancing around as if expecting to see Cosimo pop out from behind one of the weeping willows that lined the bank.

He must have made inquiries of the innkeeper, Meg thought, and she was aware of a little frisson of alarm even though there was nothing about Monsieur Devereux’s appearance or manner to invite such a response. His dark brown coat and britches were impeccably tailored, the expression on his lean face and in the light brown eyes merely friendly. He probably had a perfectly natural curiosity about his fellow guests, with whom he’d be dining that evening.

“My cousin had business in the town,” she said in the same cool tone, hoping he would take it as dismissal. Instead he took a seat on the bench beside her.

“Forgive the intrusion, Madame Giverny,” he said with a smile that was not in the least apologetic. “Your French is flawless, but I do not think it is your native tongue?”

So he knew her name too. She decided she had no choice but to satisfy his curiosity at this point, as briefly and uninvitingly as she could. “My father had French relatives, m’sieur. I spent some part of my childhood in France. My late husband was Swiss.”

“My condolences, madame. You are so young to have such a loss.” He nodded gravely. “You are going to Venice, I understand.” Then he raised his hands in a gesture of appeal. “Ah, I can see I’m annoying you. My infernal curiosity! I do beg your pardon, madame.”

She gave him another chilly smile. “My destination is not a secret, m’sieur.”

“Nathalie?”

Cosimo’s voice, unusually abrupt, came from behind them. Meg looked over her shoulder and saw him in the shadow of the trees a few yards away. “Oh, Cosimo, I didn’t expect you back so soon.”

“That much, my dear cousin, is clear,” he declared coldly. He looked put out, almost angry, his jaw set, no warmth in his eyes.

Meg blinked in surprise. What on earth was the matter with him? “Monsieur Devereux . . .” she said with a vague gesture to her companion, who stood up and bowed to the newcomer.

Cosimo gave him a curt nod, then said equally curtly, “Cousin, a moment of your time, if you please.”

Meg rose, smoothing down the skirts of her cambric gown. In private she would have told him in no uncertain terms that she resented his tone whatever its reason, but in the company of a stranger she would hold her tongue. She took Cosimo’s proffered arm and walked away with him towards the tree-shaded path that led back up to the inn.

“What the devil’s the matter with you?” she demanded in an undertone, once they were out of earshot.

“Hush,”
he directed in a sharp whisper, placing his other hand over hers where it rested on his arm and pressing hard. His expression didn’t soften as they entered the dim hallway of the inn. He took his arm from hers and gestured silently that she should precede him up the narrow flight of stairs.

Meg, puzzled and more than a little discomfited, went up ahead of him, to the small landing where they had a suite of rooms. The innkeeper’s wife was just coming out of the little sitting room that connected their bedchambers.

“I’ve just freshened the flowers for you, madame,” she said with a smile and a curtsy. “And Amelie will be pleased to help you dress for dinner. Just ring for her when you need her.”

“Thank you, Madame Brunot,” Meg responded, powerfully aware of Cosimo looming behind her in scowling silence. The innkeeper’s wife looked up at him, then rapidly looked away again, her smile fading. She bobbed another curtsy and ducked past them towards the back stairs.

Meg entered the parlor, then wheeled around upon Cosimo as he closed the door. “Just what the . . .” Her voice died as she saw his expression. His shoulders shook with his silent laughter, his eyes alight with amusement. “What game are you playing?” she demanded furiously.

“A rather serious one actually,” he replied, chuckling. “But you should have seen your face, Meg.”

Infuriated, she pummeled his arm with her closed fists. “I will not be made mock of, Cosimo. How dare you do such a thing.”

He caught her hands, holding her at arm’s length, laughing down into her enraged countenance. “Oh dear, I didn’t realize I would make you so angry. I ask your pardon, but I had good reason for it, I promise . . . no . . . no, I’m not going to let you go until you say you forgive me and you’ll listen to me.” He tightened his grip on her hands as she tried to wrench them free. “Pax, love.”

Meg’s anger, rarely aroused and never inclined to persist, died down. But she continued to regard him suspiciously. “Very well, so tell me.”

“Say you forgive me.”

“I don’t know whether I do yet. I’ll tell you when you’ve told me what this is all about.”

Cosimo released her hands, banishing the amusement from his countenance. “I’m very much afraid that this Daniel Devereux is up to no good,” he stated baldly. “I’m guessing he’s in the pay of the local municipality, on the lookout for any undesirable travelers. The countryside is crawling with such informers,
canailles
for the most part, only interested in lining their pockets. I don’t know about Devereux, but he may be more dangerous than that. So, my sweet, we have to put him off any scent that he might think he’s picked up.”

“Oh,” Meg said, frowning, crossing her arms over her breasts. She didn’t doubt Cosimo’s instincts for a minute, but she was still puzzled. “And how does that act you just put on throw him off this scent?”

“It’s merely a part of it,” he told her. “The rest of it is up to you.”

“How so?” She rubbed her crossed arms, still frowning.

Cosimo’s smile now was a little rueful, hiding the sharp intensity of his thoughts. He wasn’t sure how Meg was going to react, but what he wanted of her was vital, not to deal with the possibility of any threat posed by Devereux, which he thought was unlikely, but to show him whether she was capable of handling the mission that awaited her in Toulon. He’d been watching for the perfect opportunity for this test throughout the journey, and it had just been handed to him on a plate. Everything now depended on Meg.

“You need to convince Monsieur Devereux that you are the genuine article . . . that we are who we say we are,” he said carefully.

“And how am I to do that?” She wasn’t going to give him an inch. After his amusement at her expense, she wasn’t going to make his task of persuasion any easier.

“By charming him,” he said, opening his hands in an isn’t-it-obvious gesture. His eyes narrowed. “Flirt with him, my dear, flatter him, draw him onto your side. You did once say that you enjoyed flirtation.”

“As I recall, I said there was a place and a time for flirtation,” she retorted. “It’s not the same thing.”

A quizzical eyebrow flickered. “But it’s a game you enjoy and one I know you’re good at.”

Meg knew herself to be a mistress at the game of flirtation. And with the right man, one who approached the game in the same spirit, it gave her enormous pleasure. But this was something different. Cosimo was asking her to initiate the moves with an end that had nothing to do with mutual amusement.

“I don’t understand what good it will do,” she said eventually, still rubbing her crossed arms as if she was cold. “And why do I want him on my side? My side against whom?”

“Against me, of course. Your predatory cousin-in-law who has his eye on the fortune you inherited on your husband’s death, and that will be augmented by the sum that will come to you on your mother’s death. He intends to marry you, and he’s not going to be in the least diverted at seeing you engaging in a flirtation with another man.”

Enlightenment dawned. Her green eyes widened, little golden sparks of reluctant amusement flickering across the surface. So that lay behind the performance. Meg had to admit it was good. But she still wasn’t sure she wanted to take on the part he’d laid out for her. She didn’t know whether she could flirt convincingly with someone who didn’t attract her.

She said as much and saw disappointment cross his eyes. “Well, if you can’t, you can’t, and there’s no more to be said,” he replied.

“I didn’t say I wouldn’t try,” she said. “But am I going to do this under your nose?”

“Initially,” he responded, hiding his satisfaction. “At dinner. I will fulminate, attempt to interrupt you, behave in short like a boor. This will naturally ensure you the gentleman’s sympathy and, since I know how men’s minds work, cause him to feel a not unnatural sense of male triumph.”

“You mean like two stags fighting over one doe?” she said sardonically.

“Precisely, my dear.” He took her hands again, uncrossing her arms, and pulled her towards him, putting her arms around his waist, holding them at his back. “If you play your cards right, love, you can charm the man insensible. Act the cocotte, promise more of the same tomorrow, and we’ll be on our way before he wakes in the morning.”

“But won’t that arouse his suspicions again?”

He shook his head. “No, not when the innkeeper and his wife tell him how I compelled you to leave at daybreak. And how angry you were.”

Such a scenario could work, Meg reflected. “Are you certain he’s a government informer?”

“No, how can I be certain?” he responded with a touch of exasperation. “But you don’t stay alive in this business, Meg, by waiting for hard evidence in such instances.”