Almost a Lady (29 page)

Meg heard his voice but kept on walking, kicking up pine needles with every step. She was numb. She could not in her worst nightmare have imagined something this dreadful. He had played with her. Used the passionate enjoyment she had never attempted to disguise as a means of manipulation. She felt dirty, and as worthless as an abandoned mongrel.

“Meg.”

The sharp urgency of his call this time stopped her. Reality told her she couldn’t leave this horror behind her, walking away forever through a pine grove. She turned back and walked straight past where he stood a few feet away, back to the horses. She picked up her hat, untethered her mare, and remounted with the aid of a fallen log, then sat, holding the reins loosely, waiting for Cosimo to mount.

He said nothing as he brought the gelding up beside the mare, leading the packhorse. There was nothing to be said at this juncture, he knew that even without looking at her face. He nudged the gelding forward, back towards the dusty road, and Meg dropped back a little but followed throughout the long, hot afternoon.

Miramas stood at the head of an estuary. The hostelry Cosimo had chosen was in a small village on the shores of the estuary. It was an isolated building, at least a mile away from the nearest habitation, and bleakly Meg recognized it as exactly the sort of place off the beaten track that a man of Cosimo’s profession would know. They had stayed in many such in the last weeks. Some pleasant, some not.

This one, however, was in the former category. They were greeted warmly, the horses taken from them with promises of good oats and clean hay, and the lady of the house led them into a pleasant garden behind the inn, insisting they sit beneath the grape arbor and try a glass of the local wine. “From my father’s vineyard,” she said. “A fine Rhône, as good as anything you would get in the valley.”

Meg wanted to refuse, but the woman’s eager hospitality would not permit the discourtesy. She sat down on the wooden bench at the wooden table and smiled her thanks, leaving the verbal expressions to Cosimo.

The woman brought a dish of olives and a plate of salami with a copper pot of wine.
“Et, Madame Ana, elle va bien, j’espère, m’sieur?”
She beamed at Cosimo as she took two glasses from the capacious pockets of her apron and set them on the table.

“Mais oui, Madame Arlene, merci,”
Cosimo returned, his voice expressionless.

The woman cast a quick look towards Meg’s still figure and set countenance. She looked a little discomfited, bobbed a slight curtsy, and hurried away.

Meg took an olive and spat the pit into the flowerbed beside her. She took a sip of wine. How many times had Cosimo and Ana been here on some clandestine mission? Often enough for the innkeeper to refer familiarly to Cosimo’s previous companion and ask after her health.

“I’d like to go to my bedchamber,” she said, rising to her feet. “I assume you and Ana always shared a bed. I would prefer my own. I trust that’s possible?” Her voice was flat.

Cosimo stood up. “Of course. I’ll come with you and talk to Madame Arlene.” Meg was already at the brink and he could see no possible virtue in pushing her at this point. He had played his card, and while he was not prepared to accept that he had lost the game, he would accept the loss of a trick. He didn’t think he had any aces in his hand, but he had a few lesser cards that he could play to win, if he laid them down skillfully.

He didn’t touch her, merely walked beside her into the inn’s stone-flagged kitchen. Drying herbs hung from racks above the range and the air was filled with the scents of thyme and tarragon, marjoram and rosemary.

Meg inhaled the scents; they reminded her of quiet kitchens in Kent, of a time when such a betrayal was unimaginable. She listened as Cosimo talked to Madame Arlene. He was saying that he was escorting Madame Giverny to Marseilles. That Madame was tired after the long journey and would like to rest in her bedchamber.

Whether Madame Arlene believed a word of it was unclear. What was clear to Meg was that it didn’t matter either way. She followed the smiling innkeeper up the stairs to a small but clean chamber that smelled of lavender.

“Merci, Madame Arlene,”
she said with genuine appreciation. It was a very pretty room.
“C’est très jolie.”

Madame Arlene murmured appreciation of a deserved compliment, but her eyes ran over her new guest in a quick inquiring examination and Meg guessed that she was being compared to Ana and somehow found wanting. She offered a flick of a smile in dismissal, and the innkeeper backed out, saying she would send up hot water as she closed the door on her departure.

Meg took a deep breath of the fragrant, peaceful quiet. She cast aside her hat and went over to the open casement. And then wished she hadn’t. The window looked down on the arbor. Cosimo had returned to the table and was sitting twirling his glass between his fingers, his expression dark. There was nothing easy in his posture. All the composure, the certainty that was the essential Cosimo was missing.

He’d made a mistake. Meg turned away from the window. Cosimo was unaccustomed to making mistakes. He’d miscalculated and he was suffering for it. How often did a plan of his go awry?

Meg dropped onto the bed, linking her hands behind her head. The chintz tester enclosed her in the smell of the sun and sea. Abruptly she sat up to pull off her boots, kicking them across the room. An invincible need to sleep swooped over her.

She opened her eyes onto the same view. The sun was low in the sky but not yet set. She had slept for perhaps thirty minutes. She sat up and struggled to her feet, feeling dry mouthed and headachy. Wine and turmoil under the sun could wreak havoc, she thought with a grimace.

A jug of hot water, still slightly steaming, stood beside the bowl on the dresser. Madame Arlene had fulfilled her promise. Meg undressed with fingers that were all thumbs and sponged herself. The valise that contained her own clothes was on the floor by the wardrobe, but she realized she had no interest in dressing or doing anything except falling into a deep, deep sleep.

Naked, she crawled beneath the lavender-scented covers and curled herself into a ball. She would sleep and afterwards she would be able to face this and find her way through it.

Cosimo stood beside the bed and looked at her. A shaft of moonlight fell across her face, accentuating her pallor, so that the dusting of freckles across her nose stood out dramatically. The hint of bronze that days in the sun had given her countenance was wiped away, as if it had been painted on. He ached as if he’d been racked but the pain etched on her face hurt him more than his own distress. He had come to her now prepared to face the situation, to compel Meg to face it, to accept that there were no alternatives . . . no alternatives for either of them. She had to partner him because only thus did they have a chance of survival.

But as he looked at her he knew he could not disturb the peace of her sleep. She needed the strength it would give her. He moved away from the bed and leaned out of the window to draw the shutters closed, blocking out the moonlight, then he threw off his clothes and slid under the covers beside her. He didn’t touch her, but he needed the sense of her body, the warmth of her flesh to close the distance between them. After a while he fell asleep, soothed by her rhythmic breathing and the familiar scent of her skin.

He awoke with a violent start. Meg was curled on her side, driving her feet into his thighs, trying to push him away.

“Get out,”
she said furiously. “How
could
you? Get away from me.” She kicked at him, flailing with her hands at his chest. “You disgust me. Get away.”

“Wait . . . wait,” he said, seizing her hands. “Meg . . . sweet, please. Stop for a minute. I’m not touching you . . . I’m not going to. Be still.” He wriggled away from her driving heels, still maintaining a hold on her hands.

Meg wrenched her hands free and sat up. The chamber with the shutters closed was in pitch darkness. Panic caught at her chest and she took several breaths, orienting herself to the world beyond sleep. She had been so deeply asleep, so roughly awoken by the unwelcome knowledge of his body beside her, by the rush of loathsome memory, that it took many minutes to steady herself.

Cosimo had left the bed and now stood beside it, a tall dark shape barely distinguishable from the darkness around him. “I didn’t mean to frighten you,” he said. “I didn’t mean to wake you . . . I fell asleep beside you . . . forgive me.” He sounded wretched.

Meg’s eyes slowly accustomed themselves to the darkness. She pushed the tumbled hair back from her forehead. “Light a candle.”

Cosimo felt his way across the chamber to the dresser, where he found flint and tinder beside a fresh candle. He lit the candle and the flame steadied, illuminating the room with a faint golden glow. “I’m so sorry,” he said.

“What for?” Meg asked bitterly. “Creeping into my bed and scaring me? Or for the rest? But of course you have no regrets for that, do you? It’s who you are . . . what you do . . . and it doesn’t matter a damn to you who you use to help you on your way.”

Cosimo pulled on his britches. Ordinarily his nakedness wouldn’t have troubled him in the least but not in this situation. “Actually, it does matter a damn,” he said. “You matter to me a great deal more than a damn, Meg.”

“Oh, I can believe
that,
” she said, as bitterly as before. “I’ve been a tool from the first moment you saw me. Deny it.”

He sighed. “No, I can’t.”

Meg was silent for a moment. She had expected a fervent denial, something she could attack with the bright sword of righteousness. An admission was impossible to confront.

He spoke swiftly into the silence. “Meg, I ask you to believe that it’s been a long time since I thought of you as anything but a lover, a partner, a companion whose wit and strength have been ever a source of delight.” He took a step towards the bed, his hands outstretched. “I freely admit that you agreed to join me on this journey because I spun you a tissue of lies. But there hasn’t been a day in the last weeks when I haven’t regretted that.”

“Then why didn’t you tell me the truth sooner?” She was sitting bolt upright, the covers tight beneath her chin.

“There you have me,” he said ruefully.

She gave a short ironic laugh. “Yes, because you would not jeopardize your mission . . . this assassination . . . by risking my refusal a minute sooner than you had to.”

“I don’t deny it.”

It was impossible to quarrel with a man who admitted every accusation, Meg thought with angry frustration. But it changed nothing.

“I will not help you kill a man,” she said steadily. “Leave me here if you wish and I will make shift for myself. But I will go no further with you in this business, Cosimo.”

“Napoleon has sworn to conquer England,” he said quietly. “And there is every reason to believe that he will succeed. He was given command of the Army of England last October.”

“Then why is he going to Egypt?” Meg demanded. “Or was that a lie too?”

“No,” Cosimo said. “But his decision to postpone the invasion of England gives us a brief opportunity. The man menaces the entire continent of Europe, Meg. England is protected by the Channel and her navy. Nothing more.” He stepped closer to the bed, his hands still open. “Imagine how many lives will be saved by the loss of just this one.”

There was something inexorable about that logic. But he was asking her to seduce a man, to lure him to his death. In cold blood. Death in battle was dreadful, but . . . She thought of the brief and relatively clean engagement the
Mary Rose
had had with the French frigate. She remembered the screams of the sailor who’d been pinned by a loose cannon, his chest crushed. She remembered the blood of wounds caused by something as simple as a splinter. It was not difficult to imagine the casualties of a full naval engagement. And history had taught her all she needed to know about battlefields.

And yet despite logic, everything she was, everything she had ever believed in, shrank from the very idea of taking part in such a way in such a death. “I cannot do it,” she said, turning her head away from the light.

Cosimo said nothing for a moment, then he bent to pick up his shirt and the rest of his clothes. “The decision has never been anyone’s but yours, Meg.” He left the chamber, snuffing the candle on his way out.

Meg threw off the covers and jumped from the bed. She went to the window and flung open the shutters. The moon was setting. She could not do such a thing . . . bring a man to his death. She
could
not.

But Cosimo would do it anyway. With or without her. She knew that without asking him. And she would wait on the sidelines until he had completed his mission, and then join with him to make the rendezvous with the
Mary Rose
and sail merrily back to England.

And how on earth could she do that?

Meg shook her head in amazement at her own stupidity. She was going to sit and twiddle her thumbs while Cosimo trotted off to assassinate Napoleon Bonaparte, then she would happily join him on the way home?

And how would he complete his mission without her?

He would have an alternative plan, she told herself. But what if that alternative had no safeguards? As he’d outlined the plan to her, she would provide the means for his escape, or at least the situation in which he could safely get away. Without her, how would he do it?

Chapter   21

T
hey spoke little the next day as they rode through the mountainous landscape of Chaîne de l’Étoiles, dotted with wind-blasted olive trees above Marseilles. The deep blue of the Gulf of Lions glittered way beneath them and the hot, dry Provençal air was filled with the scent of herbs crushed beneath the hooves of their horses. They rode through small villages of white-washed cottages, their red roofs glowing under the sun’s relentless gaze, the massed colors of bougainvillea dazzling the eye. They rode through sandy-soiled vineyards of low-growing knotted vines carefully tended by wizened, deeply tanned farmers, who seemed to have developed a permanent stoop from their work.

They began the descent down to the coast as the afternoon waned. Meg was bone-tired after eight hours of riding, but she thought her exhaustion was more mental than physical. The strain of their silence was intense and her own thoughts were too fragmented, too jumbled for any sort of clarity.

She knew she needed to be thinking of a way out of this situation, one that didn’t involve Cosimo, but she could come up with nothing. She needed him to help her get home. Hard as she tried, she could reach only one conclusion. Stranded as she was in the middle of enemy territory, independent action was not an option. And the knowledge of that made her burn with frustration that only added to her weariness.

Cosimo was aware of her fatigue. He could see it in the set of her shoulders, the angle of her head. Uncharacteristically, he was at a loss to know how best to proceed, to breach the wall she had thrown up. He was still not ready to give up, even after her violent rejection the previous night, but he knew that realistically he would only have one more chance to persuade her to join him. He could not afford to bungle that chance.

It was twilight when they stopped for the night at a tiny hostelry at the edge of the mountain range. In the morning they would drop down to Cassis and continue along the coast to Toulon.

Meg almost fell off her exhausted mare and for a moment wondered if her legs would hold her. They had done other hard riding days but this one seemed to have been the worst of them all.

Cosimo instinctively put out a hand to support her but she brushed him aside and forced her knees to straighten. “I’m all right,” she said sharply. “But my horse is done in.”

“I’ll see to them. Go inside,” he returned, his voice even, his tone neutral.

She managed not to totter too obviously as she walked away, resting her hand for a moment on the doorjamb before entering the low building. The light was dim and it took a minute for her eyes to adjust. She was in a square room with a floor of dark red tiles, a single long plank table with benches either side running down its center. The air was heavy with the smell of wine and strong tobacco.

An elderly woman emerged from somewhere in the back and asked a question that Meg could only guess at. The accent in this region was even thicker than she’d encountered before.
“Deux chambres, madame,”
she said tentatively, wondering if indeed this place ran to two bedchambers.

As she’d feared, the woman shook her head vigorously and held up one finger.
“Une chambre,”
she stated flatly.
“Six sous.”

Well, Cosimo would have to sleep in the barn, Meg decided. She nodded her agreement. Her stomach growled loudly.
“Dîner?”
she asked as tentatively as before. The woman nodded and disappeared into the back regions.

Meg sat down on one of the benches, drew off her leather riding gloves, and unpinned her hat. Dust coated her skirt and the feather in her hat had lost all its jauntiness. Much as had its wearer, she thought aridly. She could even taste dust on her tongue.

A small boy appeared with a copper pot that he set down on the table, regarding her solemnly through huge brown eyes. He didn’t offer a glass or cup but scampered away immediately.

Meg lifted the pot to her lips and drank deeply of the pleasantly light red wine that it contained. It washed away the taste of dust and her tongue began to feel a normal size again. Cosimo came in, ducking his head beneath the lintel. He took in his surroundings with one swift glance, then came across to the bench, pulling off his gloves.

“The horses are probably better housed,” he observed, taking up the pot and drinking as deeply as Meg had done. “Will they feed us?”

“She says so,” Meg answered. “Or at least she nodded when I asked.” She stood up abruptly. “I’m going to see if I can wash off some of this dust.” She walked towards the back where a door stood ajar. She pushed it wide and stepped into an outdoor kitchen. It had a tin roof, but was open on all sides, and the woman was frying something that smelled wonderful over an open fire.

She looked up as her visitor entered and, when asked about water, pointed towards a courtyard to the rear of the kitchen. There was no well but a filled rain butt, where Meg did what she could to freshen her face and hands before returning to the kitchen to ask where she’d find the bedchamber.

The woman called and the small boy appeared out of nowhere. With a shy smile he gestured to Meg that she should follow him. Instead of returning to the main building, they crossed the courtyard and entered the barn. Well, if she was sleeping in the barn, then Cosimo would have to make do with the table or the courtyard, Meg reflected, following the boy up a rickety ladder into the hayloft.

She was pleasantly surprised when she emerged into the sweet-smelling space at the top of the ladder. It was a lot cleaner and more fragrant than many actual bedchambers they’d been given on the journey. The straw mattress seemed fresh; the linen, though coarse, was clean and smelled of sunshine. A round, unglazed window looked out onto the courtyard. An oil lamp stood on a wooden chest against the wall.

“Merci.”
She thanked the boy with a smile, and taking it as dismissal, he disappeared down the ladder with the speed of a sprite.

Meg unbuttoned her jacket and dropped it on the bed. The shirt beneath was none too sweet, but her only clean one was in the valise strapped to the packhorse, and Cosimo didn’t appear to have brought it into the inn with him. She unbuttoned the wrists and rolled the sleeves up. The cooler evening air was pleasantly refreshing on her bare arms. She lifted her hair from her nape, thinking how wonderful it would be to have it cut again.

“Meg?” Cosimo’s voice called from the bottom of the ladder. “I have your things.” His head appeared and he reached up and put her valise on the floor before hauling himself up. He looked around. “I’ve seen worse,” he commented laconically. “Madame is putting supper on the table. I don’t think she’ll appreciate it going cold.” With that he went back down the ladder.

Meg thought about changing her shirt and then decided it was a waste of clean linen. She could start the day fresh tomorrow. She followed Cosimo back into the inn and sat down in front of a steaming plate of various cuts of meat, most of which were unidentifiable. She was still hungry but she ate without relish, almost as if it was a duty, although the food was surprisingly good.

Finally she pushed aside her platter and stood up. “How far do we ride tomorrow?”

“No more than half a day,” he replied, not looking at her as he ladled red currants onto his plate and added a spoonful of creamy cheese. “The horses need to be cosseted. We won’t leave too early and we’ll rest every hour.”

“Good night then,” Meg said. “I won’t see you until the morning. I imagine Madame can find you somewhere to sleep.” She left him.

Cosimo tapped his fingernails on the edge of the table. This was getting him nowhere. And he was damned if he was going to sleep with the horses, which seemed his only alternative to the hayloft.

He uncorked a flagon that his hostess had provided and inhaled the powerful fumes of a potent fruit liqueur. It tasted of pears, he thought, letting it lie on his tongue. And it went down with a sensation that was both fiery and smooth. Not unlike Meg. The reflection brought an ironic half smile to his lips.

He had three of the tiny glasses before deciding that it was time to do what had to be done. If he lost, so be it. He reached up to turn out the lamp, then made his way by the thin ray of moonlight from a small window to the door. The building was dark and silent, but the courtyard was bathed in silver light.

He looked up at the round window of the barn, but there was no lamplight. He went to fetch his portmanteau from the stables where he’d left it with the horses, half filled the pail with water from the rain butt, stripped and roughly washed off the day’s dirt, put on clean linen, took a few things from his portmanteau, and then quietly climbed the ladder to the hayloft.

“Please go away,” Meg said from the straw mattress the very instant his head appeared above the ladder.

“You’ll have to forgive me, my dear, but there’s nowhere else to sleep,” he said calmly. “And I have no intention of bedding down with the horses. The packhorse farts pure sulphur.”

Meg turned on her side, pulling the cover up to her shoulder. “Please go away,” she repeated.

Cosimo ignored the request, instead expertly piling hay into a thick mattress beneath the window. He threw his boat cloak over the makeshift bed, rolled up his discarded clothes into a pillow, and lay down, pulling his riding cloak over him. He fell asleep instantly, his breathing deep and rhythmic, interrupted occasionally by a soft rumbling snore.

Meg had lain beside the privateer for long enough to know when his sleep was genuine, and she knew this was. She had been lying awake, taut as a violin string, waiting for the moment when she would know where he’d decided to sleep.

And now, despite her exhaustion, she could
not
go to sleep. Listening to him slide into the depths of deepest repose, she wanted to jump on him, pull his hair, his ears, anything to get him to wake up and experience her own miserable sleeplessness, a sleeplessness that
he
had caused. Instead she lay there, watching the thin ray of moonlight, throwing herself from side to side, until sleep finally overtook her racing thoughts.

She awoke only a few hours later, just as the first faint graying of the light was visible through the window. She still felt tired, but somehow calm. At some point during the miserable night she had accepted the inevitable, as she had known she would eventually.

Cosimo always awoke at dawn. It didn’t matter how late he had gone to bed, and she propped herself on an elbow, watching the pile of hay, waiting for the first stirring.

He awoke gracefully, as he did everything. A small movement of the shoulder, a stretch of his legs, an easy roll onto his back, both arms reaching up in a long stretch that rippled down his body. Then he sat up in one smooth movement and reached his arms languidly sideways and back.

He turned his head towards her. And she knew that he had been aware of her watching him from the first instant of his awakening. But then, he was an assassin. It astonished her that he even allowed himself to sleep. When he was awake, she knew from experience that he did not close his eyes, mental or physical, for an instant.

“You’re going to do it anyway, aren’t you?” she said. “Without me.”

“Yes, of course,” he replied.

“Of course,” she repeated, the cynicism only barely veiled. “How will you do it?”

Cosimo stood up in one fluid movement. He went to the window and looked out at the gathering light. “I’ll establish a pattern of movement, discover everything I can about the man’s plans, then pick an appropriate moment and strike.”

“Will you use a knife or a pistol?” The questions came so easily now.

“I would prefer a knife, it’s quieter and therefore safer,” he said in the same level tone. “But if I can’t get close enough, then I must use a pistol.”

“Will you be able to get close enough?” Meg leaned forward a little as she asked this question, the sheet falling away from her breasts, clearly visible beneath the fine cambric of her chemise.

Cosimo considered this, then he shook his head. “I doubt it.”

“But then you won’t get away.”

“You don’t need to worry about that, Meg. Your safety won’t be at risk. I’ll make all the arrangements so that if I can’t take you, then you will be able to make the rendezvous with the
Mary Rose
. They have my orders to take you back to England. They will obey those orders, whether I am there to enforce them or not.” He spoke with calm certitude and Meg knew that he was right.

“I’m not concerned about my safety,” she said flatly.

“Then what are you concerned about?” He sensed the line they were both walking. Meg was feeling her way to something and he had to be very careful not to disturb the path.

Meg stared beyond him towards the sliver of pink sky visible in the window. She spoke softly but the vehemence was not blunted. “I loathe what you have done to me. But I love
you
. I would not watch your death.”

The declaration winded him. But it was not so much what she said that took his breath away as the unleashing of his own feelings at that one word, a word he had never used . . . never before felt the need to use.
Love
had no place in his mission. Could not have a place. Such enterprises could not be trammeled by emotion. But Meg had opened a door somewhere inside him that would not now close.