Follow My Lead (26 page)

Of course, somehow, her darling friend Winn had managed to find the most outrageous form of trouble possible by teaming up with an unmarried Duke on her cross-continent adventures, but then again, that child had always exceeded expectations. Still, said actions were not capable of unseating Totty. What left her dumbfounded, bewildered, and yes, unseated, was George Bambridge’s reaction to them.

They had made the annoyingly tedious journey from Dover to Hamburg, following Winn’s footsteps without so much of a trace of the flash of temper George had showed ever so briefly before they left. A flash that Totty had never been privy to before . . . but she feared Winn knew of it, more than she spoke.

Which was why Totty insisted on coming along. She would do her best to slow George down (counter to her promise to him), but she feared they would catch up with Winn all too easily, and there was no way she was going to let Winn face George alone.

Perhaps Winn had the same notion, and that was why she had the Duke of Rayne following after her like a lover on a lead.

At least, they assumed it was the Duke of Rayne. When they got to the Schmidt und Schmidt offices in Hamburg, they had met with a stereotypically efficient German—yet surprisingly English by birth—woman, Mrs. Schmidt.

“Yes, I directed the girl to a coaching yard,” Mrs. Schmidt had told them after being assured not only of their interests in Winn but in their financial solvency. She pocketed the coin George had tossed her. “She was desperate to get to Nuremberg. Although what awaited her there, I do not know. She was always jabbering about old paintings and bothering the crew about mundane things, like what the rigging did or how they navigated by the stars. Oddly naïve, that one.”

George nodded sympathetically and agreed. “And do you happen to know where in Nuremberg she intended to go?”

“No,” Mrs. Schmidt replied, “but that Duke fellow might know.”

Both George and Totty froze at her words.

“What Duke fellow?” George asked finally. And at Mrs. Schmidt’s shrug, put another coin in front of her.

“At least, I think he was a Duke. That’s what he said he was, but he presented no card to me, or any such thing. Ran right on board the ship after Miss Crane, just as we were about to cast off.”

“Did he happen to have red hair? A good height?” George continued. “Not as good as me, of course,” he said with an offhand grin that Totty knew was intended to set people at ease.

“Yes,” Mrs. Schmidt agreed. “Hair as red as the blazing sun. Miss Crane and the gentleman rarely spoke on board the ship, mind, but rumors were rampant that they were—”

Totty finally found her voice. “Yes, we have some idea as to the rumors, thank you.”

“Don’t know if you do, as one of the crewmen said the gentleman winked at
him
, but that’s neither here nor there,” Mrs. Schmidt continued pertly, unhappy to have been interrupted in telling her juicy story. “I wish my husband were here, but he had to set out on another voyage. He could tell you more about the chap, but I really had very little to do with him.”

After they left the offices of Schmidt und Schmidt Shipping, and rid themselves of their money-grubbing company, George grew alarmingly silent as they stalked in the direction of the coaching yard Mrs. Schmidt said she had directed Winn toward.

He remained alarmingly silent while they were told by the stable lad at the coaching yard that a woman matching Winn’s description had purchased tickets to Nuremberg with a man with red hair.

And silence reigned now, as Frau Heider sat across her kitchen table from them and told them that Winn had introduced herself as Mrs. Cummings, and the red-haired gentleman as her husband.

It was the silence that worried Totty more than anything. Mr. Tottendale, God rest his soul, was a genial sort who had an occasional hot head . . . one that Totty herself seemed to set off more than any other person. He would stomp around the house in a fit of pique but then be back to himself.

George was not stomping around the house, burning off his justified frustration. And from that flash of unreasonable anger that she had seen earlier, she knew he was capable of such stomping. No, instead he was keeping it bottled up. And playing Frau Heider like a fiddle.

“I cannot believe Mrs. Cummings would be so heartless as to jilt her fiancé and marry another man,” Frau Heider said after George had laid out a particularly glassy-eyed version of his romance with Winn to his captive audience. Totty couldn’t help but be impressed by George’s eloquence in German. The things that boy could have done if he’d actually cared to apply himself.

“It is not heartlessness on her part. I am afraid it is my fault. We quarreled about these letters, and she took off. I did not support her as I should. And she has been so sheltered and naïve . . . I fear this man with the red hair, Mr. Cummings, is taking great advantage of her. Tell me,” George said, his voice warm and controlled, “did Miss Crane . . . er, Mrs. Cummings, did she, perhaps, find these letters?”

Frau Heider hesitated a moment. A moment long enough for George to make his voice crack with emotion. “I’m so sorry, I just . . . finding those letters was her father’s dying wish . . . He put all of these notions into her head, and all I want is my darling Winnifred back, and if she found those letters perhaps . . . perhaps there is no marriage. Perhaps she will return home.”

Frau Heider looked to Totty for confirmation of George’s story. And what was she to do? He was not lying to the woman, merely playing it out from a different side. “He’s very upset,” Totty said dryly, in her schoolgirl German. “And was wondering if Winn had found the letters she sought.”

Frau Heider clucked at George’s almost teary eyes and stood up to fetch the teapot. As she poured hot water into the pot and left it to steep, she placed a tray of bread and cheese in front of George with a sympathetic smile.

“Yes,” she told Totty and George, “Miss . . . Mrs. . . . Winn left here not a half hour ago, saying she found the letters and she had to go tell her husband. He had walked to the market.”

George wasted no time standing and oversetting the chair on his bid to get out the door.

“They should be back soon!” Frau Heider cried to his retreating form. “At least I hope so. Oh dear, oh dear.” The delicate-looking woman worried her hands in a decidedly un-German fashion. “Did that young woman truly get married? Or didn’t she? I should like to get this whole thing sorted out.”

“As would I, Frau Heider,” Totty agreed from her chair. She would have gotten up to follow George, chase right after him and make certain he did not find Winn immediately . . . if she hadn’t already seen, out of the corner of her eye, Winn and—lo and behold—the Duke of Rayne, when they were still outside.

“Don’t worry, he won’t find her,” she said, only to receive a quizzical look from Frau Heider. “You don’t happen to have anything stronger than tea, do you?”

“W
INN, stop!” Jason hissed, finally catching up to her halfway across town, near the entrance to the coaching yard where they had first come into town two days ago. His legs might be longer, he thought grimly, but that did absolutely no good when she was not only able to duck and weave through the flow of traffic with impunity, but also desperate enough to do so.

“Winn!” He managed to grab her arm, pulling her to a stop. Then, bending over, gasping for breath, “Hold on . . . one . . . moment . . .”

She was breathing as heavily as he, her skin flushed aglow from her exertions. But whereas Jason needed a minute to recover from his running after her—and possibly from her appearance—Winn apparently did not.

“We haven’t got a moment, Jason. We have to get out of here now!” Winn replied in a rush, her eyes shining with fear and excitement.

And before Jason could ask why or how or where they were going, Winn pulled her arm free and set off into the madness of the coaching yard.

Almost a week in Germany, and two days of doing nothing but reading cramped Renaissance German handwriting must have elevated Winn’s skills with the language considerably, because she read down the chalkboard list of coaches and their destinations, chose one, and headed for it decisively.

That or she was quickly choosing at random.

But whatever the explanation, Winn had chosen the one carriage that was rigged to depart. It would be leaving in very few minutes.

“Why that one?” he whispered in her ear.

“It’s going to Vienna,” she whispered back. “And it’s the only one going today.”

“Vienna?!” he exclaimed, causing no small number of heads to turn their way. “Why on earth are we going to Vienna?”

“I’ll explain on the way, but it’s about to leave . . . Come on!” she cried, taking his hand and pulling him toward the carriage door.

“Wait.” He pulled her up short. “You don’t have your bag.”

“A sacrifice we’ll have to live without,” she replied.

“All of the money is in your bag,” he hissed in her ear. “We can’t purchase tickets.”

As he watched her turn pale, then tug at the heart-shaped locket around her neck, Jason groaned. “All right,” he said with resolve. “Just follow my lead.”

He took a few seconds to eye the situation. There was no driver on the carriage yet, but all the luggage was loaded on the back. The last of the porters turned away and started to load packages onto a different carriage. The only one watching the Vienna carriage was a young boy, holding the leads of the horses while taking the fares handed him by passengers who then loaded themselves on.

Jason straightened, and turned to the young boy who was holding the horses. “Excuse me!” he called out jovially in German. The young boy looked up, and the horses danced and shuffled. Jason realized his luck when he saw just how young the boy was and how unused he was to controlling horses. Perhaps he was new enough to his position that he could be intimidated.

“Where is the driver? I absolutely must speak with him about these appalling accommodations!”

The young boy looked left and right, blanching. He stuttered a moment before saying, “He’s gone inside . . . to get his kit for the voyage.”

More likely to finish off his pint, but Jason declined to dwell on that.

“Well, I’ll talk to you, then. What kind of slipshod business is it when I am expected to
share
carriage space with others? I am the son of a baron. Surely you have something better for the likes of us?” Jason continued in what he hoped was a dead-on impression of Frederick Sutton, son of Baron Sutton, turning the young boy away from facing the carriage door.

“It’s . . . it’s a public carriage,” the boy answered, uncertain of himself.

“It’s a disgrace is what it is. All I want to do is go see the opera dancers in Vienna, but do I have to put up with this madness to do it? Crammed next to any old fishmonger or bank clerk?” As he gave this speech, Jason fleetingly locked eyes with Winn and urged her into the carriage.

“The upholstery isn’t even velvet!” Jason decried with a sigh.

The young boy could only shrug and say, “I’m sorry, sir.”

Jason sighed the sigh of the righteously put-upon. “I’ll be the laughingstock of all my friends. You’re lucky I don’t make a mockery of this whole operation and
walk
to Vienna.”

“No sir! Please don’t do that!” the young boy cried, terrified. “I just got this job, and I’ll lose it for certain if a passenger decides to walk.”

Jason eyed the young boy circumspectly. “Well, just this once, I suppose I can be accommodating. I won’t mention it to your driver if you don’t.”

The boy nodded vigorously, and Jason turned on his heel and stepped up into the carriage.

Inside he was met by indifference from the few other travelers, and the decidedly interested gaze of Winnifred Crane. He held up a hand as she opened her mouth to ask one of probably four thousand questions, cutting her off into silence. The seconds ticked by, falling into a few minutes, before the sound of shuffling feet outside the carriage met his straining ears.

“Hans,” a deep German voice called out, followed by a belch. “Are we ready? Everyone loaded?”

“Yes, sir,” the young boy replied.

Then there was the sound and motion of a significant amount of weight climbing up to the driver’s seat.

“Good!” the driver replied. “Any problems?”

There was the slightest of pauses, wherein Jason could feel the tiny bead of sweat form at the back of his neck. But before it could break, the tiny voice of Hans the stable lad answered directly. “No, sir. No problems,” the boy said from beside the driver.

The driver snapped the reins, and they were off, Jason and Winn comfortably aboard.

Of course, it was not two hours later that they were uncomfortably kicked off board.

It couldn’t have lasted, in any case. They would have never made it all the way to Vienna. There would be stops to change horses, feed the passengers . . . and an overnight stop wherein they would be discovered as not paying and not able to afford the rooms they were made to take. But still, Jason had hoped to make it farther than they did.