Kitabı oku: «Those Scandalous Ravenhursts»
Those Scandalous Ravenhursts
The Dangerous Mr Ryder
The Outrageous Lady Felsham
Louise Allen
www.millsandboon.co.uk
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LOUISE ALLEN loves immersing herself in history. She finds landscapes and places evoke the past powerfully. Venice, Burgundy and the Greek islands are favourite destinations. Louise lives on the Norfolk coast and spends her spare time gardening, researching family history or travelling in search of inspiration. Visit her at louiseallenregency.co.uk, @LouiseRegency and janeaustenslondon.com
Contents
Cover
Title Page
About the Author
The Dangerous Mr Ryder
Author Note
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
The Outrageous Lady Felsham
Author Note
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Copyright
The Dangerous Mr Ryder
Author Note
Jack Ryder first appeared—of his own volition—in No Place for a Lady, and took on a life of his own. I found myself wondering about him, what his background was, where he had come from, and I realised I needed to tell his story.
Then I discovered that Jack is not alone—he has siblings, he has cousins, and some of them have a story to tell as well. So this is Jack Ryder's tale, but it is also the first of the stories of THOSE SCANDALOUS RAVENHURSTS, and of how they, like Jack, find the loves of their lives.
It is the start of a journey for me, and I hope you will come along and discover with me what befalls the Ravenhurst cousins.
Chapter One
The evening of 7 June 1815
No one had told him that she was beautiful. Jack Ryder crouched precariously in a stone window embrasure two hundred feet above the ravine river bed and stared into the candlelit room. Inside, the woman he had been sent to find paced to and fro like an angry cat.
He kept his eyes fixed on the image beyond the glass as he wedged himself more securely into his slippery niche. Below, the void beneath the castle was shrouded in merciful darkness, the faint sound of the river floating upwards. Although his whole body was aware of it, he ignored the cold fingers of fear playing up and down his spine, knowing full well that if he let his imagination have full rein he would never be able to move at all. His studded boots ground on the stone, and he froze for a moment, but the sound did not seem to reach her.
Jack gave himself a mental shake and began to work on the knot that secured the end of the long coil of rope around his waist. As it came free he gave it a jerk, flicking it outwards, and the whole length detached itself from the battlement high above and fell out of sight into the void.
Now his only way down was through that window. Despite his perilous position, Jack had no intention of going through it until he had a chance to size up the woman inside. The woman he had been sent to bring back to England by whatever means he found necessary, including force.
It was for her own good, as well as in the interests of both countries, they had explained at Whitehall. The officials had spoken with the air of men who were glad it was not they who had to attempt to convince the lady of this. They had told him a number of things about her Serene Highness the Dowager Grand Duchess Eva de Maubourg. Intelligent, stubborn, anti-Napoleonic, haughty, independent, difficult and demanding was how she had been summed up by the various men who had gathered to deliver the hasty briefing, fifteen days before. Half-French, they had added gloomily, as though that summed up the problem.
She had not left the Duchy since her marriage and was likely to be near impossible to move now, the officials added. That was all right; he was used to being asked to do the near impossible.
But there had been no mention of darkly vivid looks, of a curvaceous figure or the lithe grace of a caged panther. And Jack was having trouble believing she could possibly be the mother of a nine-year-old son. It had to be the thick glass in the window panes.
She was alone in the room; he had waited long enough to be convinced of that. Jack shifted his position, focusing his mind on opening the window and not on what would happen if he lost his balance. The flat of a slim blade slid easily enough between the casement and the frame. Thankfully the window opened inwards, for its height above the floor would make it impossible to use otherwise. He eased it ajar by inches, waiting long minutes between each adjustment so there would be no sudden drop of temperature or gust of wind to alarm her. If she screamed this would likely end in bloodshed—he did not intend that it would be his.
Grand Duchess Eva ceased to pace and sank down in front of a writing desk, her back to the window, her head in her hands. Jack wondered if she was crying, then started, with potentially lethal result, when she banged her fist down on the leather desk top and swore colourfully in English. He could only admire her vocabulary—he was tempted to echo it.
It was definitely time to get off this window ledge. He grasped the frame, put his feet through and swung himself down into the room. There was no way he could land silently, not dropping eight foot on to a stone-flagged floor in nailed boots. She spun round on her chair, gripping the back of it, her face reflecting the gamut of emotions from shock, puzzlement, fear and finally, he was impressed to see, imperious anger masking all else. They had not told him about her courage.
‘Who the devil are you?’ she demanded in unaccented English, getting to her feet with perfect deportment, as though rising from a throne. Her right hand, Jack noted, was behind her; he searched his memory for his survey of the room. Ah, yes, the paperknife. A resourceful lady.
‘You speak English excellently,’ he commented. He knew from his briefing that she was half-English, so it was only to be expected, but it was a more tactful beginning to their conversation than Put down that knife before I make you! might be. ‘But how did you know I would understand you?’
She looked down her nose at him. Jack registered dark eyes, thinly elegant eyebrows arched in disdain, a red mouth with a fullness that betrayed more passion than she was perhaps comfortable with and one deep brown curl, disturbed from her coiffure and lying tantalisingly against her white shoulder. He focused on those eyes and banished the fleeting speculation about just how the skin under that curl would feel.
‘You will address me as your Serene Highness,’ she said coolly. ‘I was thinking in English,’ she added, almost as an afterthought.
‘Your Serene Highness.’ He swept her a bow, conscious of his clothing as he did so. He was dressed for the purpose of shinning down castle walls, not making court bows, but he managed it with a grace that had one of those dark brows lifting in surprise. ‘My name is Jack Ryder.’ He had wrestled with whether or not to tell her his real name and decided against it. His nom de guerre would be safer in the event they were captured.
‘Then you are English, Mr Ryder?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘So you have not come to kill me?’
That has taken the wind out of his sails, Eva thought, watching the narrowing of the deep grey eyes that had been studying her with what she could only describe as respectful insolence. There was absolutely nothing in this Jack Ryder’s expression to which she could take exception, yet somehow he managed to leave her with a distinct awareness of her own femininity and his appreciation of it. It seemed a very long time since anyone had looked at her quite like that and longer still since she had felt her pulse quickening in response.
She managed to keep her breathing under control with an effort, and flexed the fingers cramped around the paperknife. If he was English it was highly unlikely that he was a danger, but she could not afford to take the risk, not after what had happened yesterday. And his unconventional entry through the window had to mean trouble.
‘No, ma’am, I have not come to kill you.’ A smooth recovery. Why had he not asked her what she meant? Eva studied him while she pondered the disturbing implications of that thought. Some years older than her own twenty-six, but far from middle aged. Slim, dark haired and grey eyed and in obvious control both of his body—given the way he had gained entry to her room—and his face. She had a vivid mental image of him with a sword in his hand; he had a duellist’s balance. He was showing no emotion now, after that first fleeting reaction to her statement.
‘Convince me,’ she said, hoping he had not noticed the tremor that vibrated the hem of her evening gown. ‘If you do not, I will scream and there will be two guards in here within seconds.’
He produced a pistol from one pocket. ‘And one of them will be dead in as short a time. There is no need for this, ma’am.’ The sinister black shape slid back into his coat. ‘I am here at the behest of the British government. Your son’s godfather is of the opinion that it would be better for the young Grand Duke if you were with him.’
‘The Prince Regent? He has hardly shown any interest in Fréderic since he wrote to send the christening gift.’ She wished she could move, but the necessity to keep the knife out of his sight kept her pinned against the desk.
‘Nevertheless, ma’am, the British government keeps an eye on the Duchy of Maubourg and its affairs, and has done ever since the outbreak of war. To have a neutral country embedded within France can only be a diplomatic asset, however small it is.’
‘Of course.’ Eva shrugged negligently. He was telling her nothing she did not know all too well. ‘Presumably you are aware that my late husband did what he could to mitigate the situation by acting as a go-between. He opposed the French, naturally, but he was too much of a realist to think we could resist in any way.’
‘I believe you first met the late Grand Duke in England.’ Ryder shifted position, his eyes skimming over the furnishings, searching the corners of the room. She felt it was more an habitual wariness than a search for anything in particular. His knowledge of her history did not prove he had received a government briefing; anyone with an interest in her affairs could have discovered that easily enough, it had made a big enough stir in the news sheets.
She inclined her head. ‘We were in exile at the time. My father had died in the Terror, Mama returned home to her father, the Earl of Allgrave. I had my come-out in London and I met the Grand Duke at my very first ball.’
It had seemed like a fairy tale, looking back now. Louis Fréderic, tall, darkly handsome, sophisticated far beyond her experience, an exotic presence on the English social scene, was a catch outside her wildest dreams. The fact that he had been thirty years her senior and that she was barely seventeen had weighed neither with her mother, nor with her.
The Grand Duke carried out his mission by negotiating for an exchange of prisoners, enjoyed a whirlwind courtship and returned to Maubourg with his future Grand Duchess at his side. Eva stared back down the years of memory at herself. Had she ever been that young and innocent?
‘And since your husband’s death almost two years ago, his brother Prince Philippe has acted as Regent and you and he are joint guardians of your son.’ Ryder was not so much asking, as establishing to her that he knew the facts. It seemed he was not completely up to date, but she did not hasten to inform him that Philippe had been confined to his room with some mysterious illness ever since the news about Napoleon’s escape from Elba had reached them. That was almost three months ago and she was beginning to despair of his recovery.
‘Yes.’ Her legs had stopped trembling. Eva shifted her position slightly, resting her left hand casually on the chair back. She could swing it across his path if he lunged for her. ‘I have not seen my son for four years. My husband judged it best that he should be educated in England.’
The pain of that, the sense of betrayal, still stabbed like a knife. Louis had not even given her the opportunity to say goodbye, justifying it by saying her tears would weaken the boy. First a private tutor, shared with the sons of a ducal family, then Eton. Little Freddie, will he even recognise me now?
‘There is no easy way to say this…’ Ryder began, and Eva felt the blood begin to drain from her face. No…no…they have sent him to tell me he is dead… ‘Your son has been the victim of a series of accidents in the last month—No! Ma’am, he is quite well, I assure you!’ She felt herself sway and he was at her side supporting her even faster than her own disciplined recovery.
‘I am quite all right,’ she began, then, as his solicitous fingers closed around the paperknife and whipped it from her hand, ‘Give me that back!’
He lobbed it through the open window with scarcely a sideways glance to take aim, but stayed at her side. ‘I prefer to remain unpunctured, should I happen to displease you, ma’am. Your son is alive, despite his run of bad luck, and even now, I am certain, is ploughing through his Classical studies.’
‘What accidents?’ Eva demanded, moving away. Mr Ryder’s proximity was strangely disturbing. If she had not been a sensible widow she would have put it down to the close presence of a handsome, dangerous man. But it could not be that. It must be the relief at hearing that Freddie was all right.
He made no move to follow her, simply shifting his position to keep her in view. ‘First, in the middle of May, there was a fall down a stone staircase, which was fortunately interrupted by a number of youngsters on their way up. They shared a number of interesting bruises I gather, but that is all. Then on the eighteenth, there was a runaway carriage in the High Street, which only missed the Grand Duke because he was pushed to safety by a passer-by. The carriage and its driver could not be traced afterwards. Then—’
‘Hoffmeister should have been taking better care of him,’ Eva interrupted angrily.
‘His personal secretary and tutor can hardly be expected to keep a lively nine-year-old in leading strings, ma’am. And to his credit Hoffmeister became suspicious enough after the third incident to make contact with Whitehall.’
‘Third incident?’
‘The inexplicable appearance of one poisonous toadstool in a fricassee of mushrooms that was set before Fréderic for dinner on the twentieth.’
‘How…’ Eva swallowed, fighting to keep her composure ‘…how did he escape that?’
‘By being immediately and very thoroughly sick. His personal physician tells me that his Serene Highness has a very sensitive stomach.’ She nodded, dumbly. ‘On this occasion it probably saved his life. He has additional security now, believe me.’
This time she made no pretext of hiding her shaking limbs. Eva sank down on to the chair and tried to tell herself that Fréderic was safe, that all his servants, and especially Hoffmeister, would be guarding him closely now.
‘I realise this may be hard to accept, ma’am—’ Jack Ryder began, then broke off as she lifted her head to look at him.
‘No, Mr Ryder, it is not at all strange. I am fortunate, it seems, that Fréderic gets his sensitive digestion from me, for I spent a miserable few hours with a badly upset stomach two nights ago. At the time I put it down to shock after the accident when the wheel came off my carriage as we were crossing a narrow bridge. Only the parapet stopped it tipping into the gorge. And then yesterday I slipped on the top step of the stairs outside my room; it seems someone had carelessly stood there with a dripping candle for some time. The stone was quite encrusted with wax.’
‘Were you hurt?’ His instant concern sent a flash of warmth through her and she found her cold lips were curving into a small smile for the first time in days.
‘No, I thank you. But the tapestry hanging beside the staircase is the worse for being torn from its hooks as I clung to it.’
‘And how did Prince Philippe react to this chapter of accidents?’ Jack Ryder took a chair, swung it round and straddled it, his arms along the back. He had stopped calling her ma’am, his behaviour was shockingly casual, but somehow none of that mattered just at the moment.
‘My brother-in-law has been indisposed—in fact, in a state of mental and physical collapse—since the news of Napoleon’s escape from Elba reached us. We assumed at first it was a stroke. He has been in that condition now for three months. My personal physician and a bodyguard are with him around the clock.’ She stared at him, seeing her own scepticism reflected in the steady grey eyes. He looked like an austere priest hearing a confession, with his straight nose and his tightly closed lips.
‘You suspect poison. And who rules Maubourg now?’
‘My younger brother-in-law, Prince Antoine.’
It was obvious that had been a rhetorical question—this Englishman knew exactly who would be holding the keys of the Duchy. ‘Ah, yes, the gentleman who was so anxious to persuade Price Philippe to end your neutrality and join forces with Napoleon after the death of your husband?’ Eva nodded. ‘And the man who would become Grand Duke should your son and Prince Philippe die?’
‘Yes. That is why Philippe is protected as he is. I had not thought Antoine’s arm would reach as far as England,’ she added bleakly. It had never occurred to her that Freddie would be in danger; she had believed up until now that it was a struggle for power between two brothers.
‘It is very likely that an enemy from here could strike at the young Grand Duke, and they could certainly reach far enough to remove the one person who has the authority to protect the Regent,’ Ryder pointed out, resting his chin on his clasped hands. It was a well-sculptured feature, she noted absently.
‘Myself. Yes, I had thought of that. And I have had time to realise that Philippe’s illness happening as Napoleon lands in France is too much of a coincidence. Antoine worships the Emperor—he will throw Maubourg on to the French side in the hope of patronage from Napoleon.’
‘Forgive me, I do not wish to insult your country, but while a neutral Maubourg has proved very useful to the Allies in the past, why should Napoleon be bothered with it now, one way or the other?’
‘In the past, he was not, or we would never have stayed untouched as we have. But now, I think we may have something he would want.’ Jack raised a sceptical eyebrow, but she shook her head. ‘I am not certain, it is only a suspicion. What do you know about explosives?’
Instead of answering, Ryder got to his feet and walked quietly to the massive panelled door. He eased the key round, cracked the door open and looked out, then, apparently satisfied, locked it again and came back to her side. ‘There are guards at the end of the passage—are they loyal to you?’
‘I…I think so.’
‘Hmm. I know less about explosives than I suspect I am about to need to. What is going on?’
Eva so far forgot herself as to begin to run her hands through her hair, then caught herself. A Grand Duchess did not give way to displays of weakness, nor was she ever anything but coolly immaculate under all circumstances. She folded them elegantly in her lap.
‘The main industry of the Duchy is perfume.’ Ryder nodded. It seemed he knew that, too. ‘The State perfumery employs a number of chemists, for it is very much a process of distillation and blending. I take an interest in the enterprise and I was looking through its books last week. Antoine has taken on a number of new men without asking myself or Philippe—professional men by the size of their salaries, not workers or craftsmen.
‘And then there have been explosions up in the mountains. That is where I was driving on the day of the accident. We found deep craters, signs of burning, but that is all, although I had the feeling we were being watched. The wheel came off on the way back.’
‘So, Prince Antoine is possibly experimenting with some new form of armament, just when the greatest general of his generation lands on the doorstep. And everyone who stands between him and the title suddenly becomes ill or has accidents.’
‘Yes.’ They stared at each other, Eva wondering suddenly why she had found it so easy to blurt all that out to a complete stranger. He might be a spy of Antoine’s, he might be a freelance, after some end of his own. She had been completely naïve to have trusted him. ‘Have you any credentials, Mr Ryder?’
‘A little late to think of that, ma’am,’ he said, echoing her thoughts. The way his lips twitched with amusement had her eyes flashing.
‘Better late than never, sir.’
He raised a hand, its long fingers unadorned by rings, and flipped back his lapel to reveal a small silver greyhound pinned there. ‘I am a King’s Messenger, ma’am.’
‘A glorified postman?’ She was feeling chills running up and down her spine as the extent of her indiscretion grew on her. If she could only be certain he was just what he said.
‘We do rather more than deliver the diplomatic post,’ he said mildly.
‘How do I know you haven’t murdered the real King’s Messenger?’
‘You do not. What did you intend to do about all this before I came through your window?’
Eva found her thoughts were suddenly running very fast, very cold. He wanted to know too much. She got up and began to walk up and down the chamber, her crimson skirts brushing against the bed hangings. It did not take much skill to pretend agitation. ‘I was thinking how I could get out of the castle and raise the population against Antoine.’
‘Madness,’ Ryder said flatly, just as she reached her bedside nightstand.
‘Oh!’ Eva raised one hand to her face and feigned a sob, then opened the drawer and began to fumble in it as though looking for a handkerchief. It was in her hand as she straightened up. ‘I think it would be madness to trust you any further with the scant identification you have, sir. I am going to ring this bell and when my maid comes I shall send her to fetch my private secretary and my personal bodyguard. Then we shall see.’
‘No.’ Ryder took two long strides across the room and had his hand outstretched to intercept hers on the bell pull as she flicked aside the handkerchief and revealed the little pistol beneath it.
‘Thank you for coming so close, sir. This is not much use over a long distance, but, near to, I believe it would seriously inconvenience you.’
How he did it she had no idea. One moment the muzzle of the pistol was virtually pressed to his waistcoat and he was staring at her in apparent shock, the next the pistol was flying across the room and she was picked up and thrown on to the bed, Jack Ryder’s long body pinning her into the yielding mattress.
He stared down into her furious face, his own showing nothing more extreme than irritation. He was, damn him, hardly breathing any harder than he had before. ‘Madame, you may walk out of here and come with me to England willingly, or you may leave this room unconscious and make the journey under restraint. It is your choice.’
Chapter Two
As a way of restraining her it was remarkably effective, Eva admitted to herself as she lay glaring up at the man pinning her to the bed. She could struggle—fruitlessly no doubt, given the size of him and the strength he had already demonstrated—but that would simply press her body into even closer contact with his. She had far too much dignity to do so and he obviously knew it. He would probably enjoy it, too.
She regarded the wicked glint in the grey eyes stolidly for a moment, then said, ‘Would you kindly remove your person from my bed?’ She could only admire the steadiness of her voice, especially as some part of her, a tiny, suppressed sensual part, was aching to arch against the hard masculinity that was dominating her. She fought down the urge; she had, after all, been fighting that particular instinct for two years.
Jack Ryder responded by raising himself on his elbows, the better to look down into her face. The movement caused even more disturbing pressure on her pelvis; Mr Ryder did not appear to be fighting his own inner sensuality very energetically. His eyes were hooded, watching her with speculation. ‘In a moment, ma’am, when we have sorted this out. I am not sure what written proof of my identity and mission you would accept, given that, as you say, I could have stolen it. Will you accept your son’s word?’
‘Freddie? What do you mean?’
‘When I was talking to him, telling him I was coming to fetch you, I asked him if there was a password I could give you in case you did not believe me. He thought for a moment, then said, “Ask Mama how Bruin and the Rat are. It’s all right for me to say it, because we aren’t at home.”’
‘Bruin? Oh, the little wretch! Mr Ryder—’ She gave him a shove. It was like trying to shift one of the castle’s wolfhounds when they got on to the bed. ‘Please get off—I believe you.’ Too relieved to be indignant with him any longer, Eva sat up as Jack rolled off the bed to stand leaning against the bedpost, his eyebrows raised interrogatively. ‘They are his nicknames for his uncles and I made him promise never to use them to anyone but me because they might be offended. At least, Antoine would be.’
‘The Rat I presume?’
‘Exactly. He has a long nose that twitches when he is agitated. I believe you, Mr Ryder—now, will you get me out of the castle?’
‘That is my intention.’
‘And help me raise resistance to Antoine?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’ Eva swung her feet off the bed and confronted him, all her indignation surging back. This official, this postman for the English government, had no right to dictate to her. He was obviously a man of action, just what she needed in these circumstances—he should do as he was told. ‘It is your patriotic duty, sir.’
‘Humbug.’ Eva gasped. No one spoke to her like that. It was so unexpected that she gaped at him. ‘Leaving aside the fact that I have no allegiance to this Duchy, it is not my duty to get most of its male population massacred by French troops, which is what will happen if Bonaparte wants this place and you resist. If he doesn’t, then you are risking a civil war for nothing. My duty, as I have already explained to you, is to remove you safely to England where you have the legal authority to look after your son until all this is over. It will also remove one hostage from Antoine’s grasp.’
‘What, slink off and abandon the Duchy to Antoine and the French just because I am a woman?’ He obviously thought she was some milk-and-water English miss. Despite him remembering—occasionally—to address her with due respect, he had no idea of the role she had had to play these past two years since Louis’s death, nor the iron that had entered her soul as she had done so.
‘No, execute a strategic retreat because that is the sensible thing to do,’ he retorted. ‘You do understand the concept of sensible action as opposed to romantic gesture, I presume?’
‘How dare you speak to me like that? You insolent oaf—I can perfectly well look after myself.’
‘Indeed, ma’am? You have escaped two accidents and one poisoning by the merest chance. If I was an assassin, you would be dead by now. Your son needs you, and you need me. Now, are you going to sit there on your—’ his eyes flickered to her body ‘—dignity, clutching an invisible coronet to your bosom, or are you going to come with me?’
I should slap him, but he is too quick for me. How can I leave? This is my duty, my country now…but Freddie. This Jack Ryder thinks I am an hysterical woman…
‘What about Philippe? He cannot be moved.’
‘Then we leave him. He is the Regent, he accepted the risks along with the office.’ He spoke as though it was a matter of leaving someone behind while they went on a picnic, not that they might be abandoning a man to his death. Dear Philippe, Freddie’s favourite Old Bear…‘Can you help him if you stay?’ She shook her head dumbly. ‘Then we go.’
‘Now?’ Her head was spinning. For so long it seemed she had had to think for herself—now this man was calmly taking over her decisions and her actions and the frightening thing was, it felt like a relief to let him do so. Eva straightened her spine and tried to think this through, ignoring the hard grey eyes fixed on her.
‘Yes, now. Unless you can think of any reason why leaving in broad daylight might be safer. Can you change into something completely neutral—a walking or carriage dress with a cloak or a pelisse? Something an ordinary lady would wear, if you own such a thing.’ His gaze swept down over the rich figured silk of her crimson evening gown to the tips of her exquisite slippers, assessing it, and probably, she thought irritably, pricing it, too.
‘I will need to pack,’ she began. How was he going to get them out of there?
‘A valise only. Essentials—one change of outer garments at the most. A discreet gown, nothing showy.’
‘But it will take us days to get back to England, I need more clothes than that.’ Court routine, even on a quiet day, demanded a minimum of four changes from rising to retiring.
‘We can buy more as we go. Have you any luggage here?’
‘Of course not. I will have to ring for my maid to help me change, and how am I going to explain why I need a valise at this time of night?’
‘Tell her you want to pack up some clothes for the poor—No, better, you know of a deserving young woman in the town who has the opportunity for a post as a governess and you want make her a gift of a valise and have decided to give her one of your old ones. Then tell her you want to change into your nightgown because you have a headache and do not want to be disturbed again tonight.’
‘And how, pray, am I going to get into a walking dress by myself?’ She knew the answer as soon as the words left her lips and spoke before he could. ‘I presume you are going to tell me that King’s Messengers have training as ladies’ maids?’
‘No, but I am capable of tying laces with my eyes closed,’ he confided.
‘I am quite sure you are, Mr Ryder,’ Eva said grimly. And untying them, too, no doubt. He would have a certain appeal for some women who liked the quietly dominant type, she could see that. It was fortunate that she was inured to male appeal. She tugged the bell pull and watched with a certain malicious interest to see where Mr Ryder was going to hide himself. It was a positive disappointment to see him drop to the floor and slide under the bed without any apparent discomfort.
She was beginning to wish she could catch him out in some way—he appeared to have an answer to everything. In fact, the only sign of humanity she had witnessed so far was the occasional glint in his eyes which, in anyone else, she would put down to mischief.
‘Your Serene Highness?’ It was Hortense, her dresser, slipping into the room with her usual soft-footed discretion.
‘Fetch me my valises, Hortense, if you please.’
‘Now, ma’am? All of them? You want to pack?’
‘Yes, all. And now, and of course I do not want to pack, Hortense. I am thinking of ordering a new suite of hand baggage from Paris and I want to see what I have.’ There was no reason why she should not have used Mr Ryder’s ingenious excuse—it was sheer stubbornness on her part and she knew it.
She was not given to issuing capricious orders and made a point of being considerate to the castle staff, so such a quixotic demand at that hour of the evening was unusual. But Hortense was too well trained to register surprise. ‘Yes, ma’am, right away.’
It took almost twenty minutes, but eventually the dresser was back with four menservants carrying fifteen bags between them. ‘Thank you, Hortense. I had no idea I had so many. Put them over there, please.’ She waited until the men had gone, then added, ‘Help me undress, please. I am a little fatigued and I will not need you after that.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
It felt decidedly risqué to be undressing with a man under the bed, even if he could see nothing. Eva slipped her arms into a wrapper and tied the sash firmly. ‘Good night, Hortense.’
As soon as the door shut behind the woman, she ordered, ‘Stay there,’ and began rummaging through her clothes presses for a suitable walking dress. She was answered by a faint sneeze as she threw her wrapper and nightgown aside and began to pull on her underthings again. A simple pair of stays which she could lace from the front solved one problem, but what to wear on top?
Finally she struggled into the plainest gown she had, which by almost dislocating her shoulder she could button up behind by herself, and found a stout pair of walking shoes to match. There was a large, but rather worn, valise in the pile and she added a good selection of undergarments before announcing, ‘You may come out now.’
Jack Ryder slid out from beneath the bed and got to his feet as she was gathering up toothbrush and toiletries. ‘That bag? No, far too large.’ As Eva gasped, he delved into the valise, extracted the pile of frills, fine lawn and filmy silk and deposited it on the bed.
‘Mr Ryder! That is my underwear!’
‘How very dashing of you to mention it, I was endeavouring not to. French, I observe,’ he added outrageously. ‘That bag there will do, but you will need to halve that pile of frippery. Here.’ He flipped through the pile, sorting it into two, and handed half to her.
Eva contented herself with one glare, dumped it into the small bag, then began to find the other items, trying to think which were the essentials to take. ‘What about money?’
‘I have enough. The journey to the frontier should only take us just over a week.’
‘But Napoleon controls France!’
‘He is in Paris, massing his troops. It would not do to show we are foreigners, but we should have no trouble passing as French travellers—it worked well enough on my journey down. Your French is perfect, mine good enough to pass as regional.’
Eva shrugged; he had got to Maubourg, true enough, now she just had to trust he could get them both back to England. ‘How do we get out of the castle?’ Travelling virtually the length of France seemed simple in comparison to walking out of her own castle with a strange man and a valise.
‘Have you a cloak with a hood?’ Eva nodded and went to take it from the press. Ryder folded it, placed it in another of the valises, then stripped off his own coat and added that to it. ‘I need a sash.’ He stood there, waiting for her to catch up with him; of course, in shirtsleeves with his dark waistcoat and breeches, he could be taken at a distance for one of the menservants, except that they all wore a red sash around their waists. But what did that achieve? She could hardly disguise herself the same way.
And if he could see from his hiding place under the bed the way that the footmen were dressed, what else had he been able to see?
Eva forced that worry away and rummaged in the press until she found a long scarf of almost the right colour. ‘Let me.’ She was so focused on being brisk and matter of fact that her arms were round his waist before she thought what she was doing. Jack stood very still for her, his arms lifted. Eva felt the colour rising in her cheeks; it was impossible to do this without touching him.
‘The way it is knotted is distinctive,’ she said briskly. ‘There, that should do.’ She stepped back, hoping her blushes would be taken for general agitation. The heat of his body had been disturbing for some reason. She forced herself to think clearly—it had to be the shock of the whole situation, otherwise what could account for the way she was reacting to this man? ‘Now what?’
‘Do you know which way to go to reach the lower courtyard without passing many guards?’ Ryder was securing the pistol out of sight in the swathing sash, his movements crisp.
‘Yes, of course, but we cannot avoid them all, there are two at the end of the corridor, for a start—my bodyguard.’ She watched him, puzzled. ‘I doubt I can disguise myself to deceive them, nor any of the others, for that matter.’
‘You don’t even try. Just walk with me, scolding me for something or another, then take the route for the lower courtyard using the least frequented areas.’ He swung the small valise up on to his shoulder, casting his face into shadow, and lifted the other one in his other hand. With only the cloak and coat in it, it hung in his grasp, obviously light and apparently empty.
‘I understand.’ Eva found her face relaxing into a smile. It felt strangely stiff and she realised how long it was since she had found anything genuinely to smile about. ‘Come on.’ She pressed open the door and led the way out into the corridor. A short distance ahead, where the passage to her private suite joined the main gallery, guards stood on either side, pikes at the slant. At the sound of her voice, they snapped to attention, their weapons crashing upright.
‘I cannot imagine how it can take one man so long to mend a simple strap,’ she complained, remembering at the last minute to speak the Maubourg patois. ‘And how you can say you do not understand which valise I want to replace it with, defeats me! I suppose it will be faster to come and look at them myself. How long have you been employed here? I must speak to the major-domo about his selection of staff.’
They passed between the guards, Eva, nagging away, keeping herself between Jack’s unprotected side and the right-hand man. There was no response from the guards as she marched along, her heels clacking on the stone floor, her voice raised peevishly. ‘This way, man, I do not have all evening!’
Jack strode along in Eva’s wake, suppressing a grin at her tone. Although, if she was this bossy in real life, it was going to be a tense trip back. It was hard to understand how such a feminine-seeming creature could be so hard. He had seen genuine tears when she had feared for her son’s life, but beside that she seemed cold, arrogant and wilful. As he had been led to believe.
He kept his head down as they passed a knot of female servants, all too busy bobbing curtsies to look at him, and followed the willowy figure of the Grand Duchess.
She wound her way down spiral stairs, along narrow passages and through what were obviously the working areas of the castle with surprising confidence. Perhaps, despite her autocratic manner, she took a practical hand in the supervision of the household. Jack found himself admiring the way she moved, the swing of her hips in the plain gown, then made himself concentrate on trying to maintain his sense of direction and to keep count of floors.
Eva opened a heavily studded door, then stopped. Puzzled, Jack glanced at her and saw she had gone pale. There seemed nothing to account for it, no voices, nothing but the start of a dark spiral staircase. It seemed she braced herself, her fingers white on the ring handle, then she stepped forwards.
After that hesitation she led the way unerringly down the precipitous flight to the solid oak door at the bottom. She pushed it and they stepped out into a brightly lit hubbub of steam, cooking smells and bustling women. In the centre of the room a massive, florid-complexioned individual brandished a ladle and harangued his subordinates. ‘Which criminal idiot put cream in this?’ he was demanding. ‘Do you not know what her Serene Highness likes? Do you wish to poison her?’ He glanced across the room, caught a glimpse of the newcomers through the steam and gasped. ‘Madame!’
‘Just carry on.’ The Grand Duchess waved a hand imperiously and the workers turned back to their tasks, leaving the maestro goggling amidst his cooking pots. ‘Through here,’ she murmured and Jack found himself outside in the wood yard. A lad staggered past carrying a basket of logs, then the door into the kitchens swung shut and they were alone in the dark.
He put down the lighter valise and took out her cloak and his coat. ‘Here, pull up the hood and hide your face as much as possible.’ He kicked the empty bag into the shadows, took her arm and began to walk steadily towards where he guessed, if his internal compass had not failed him, the lower courtyard would be. The townsfolk had unrestricted access there; in a few moments they would be simply two passers-by.
It proved easier than he had hoped, although the Grand Duchess was stiff at his side. She was obviously unused to being manhandled by subordinates. There were guards, but only on the main entrance to the inner courtyard, and no one took any notice of one couple amongst so many townsfolk.
‘I’ve a carriage waiting down by the East Bridge,’ he said as he steered her out of the gates and past a group laughing as they headed for a tavern, then dodged a stallholder who had finally given up for the night and was packing his wares into a handcart. ‘This is busier than I expected.’ At least the woman was less trouble than he had feared she might be from the way she had been described. She had a cool head, even if she had a sharp tongue.
It was hard not to give in to the temptation to run—the slope of the street towards the river encouraged haste—but that would only draw attention to them. Below, Jack could just make out the glint of water and ahead was the creaking inn sign he had used earlier as a landmark. ‘Down here.’
It was a steep lane, almost an alley, with steps down the centre and cobbles at the sides, and it led directly to the riverside. Beside him Eva was walking briskly along, clutching her cloak at the throat and showing no sign of fear. Now they were well embarked on their escape she was still calm. Jack offered up thanks for being spared an hysterical female and allowed himself to think they were going to make it.
Then, only yards down the alleyway, Eva slid away from him with a little gasp of alarm, her feet skidding on the greasy stones. He dropped the valise and used both hands to reach for her, but she tripped on the steps and was down with a loud noise of rending cloth.
‘Ouch! Oh, that is hard.’ She sat up, batting irritably at the tangling folds of the cloak. In the gloom he could make out the white oval of her face, and the moth-shapes of her moving hands, but that was all.
‘Are you hurt?’ Jack dropped to one knee and reached out to support her.
‘Bruised, I expect, nothing serious.’ Eva began to get up, then clutched for her cloak. ‘Oh, the wretched thing! The fastening at the throat has broken.’ Jack helped her to her feet and steadied her. She moved well, he noted automatically. She was fit, slender, active. That was a relief—he had feared finding a pampered, plump princess on his hands. The cloak slipped away, invisible in the shadows at their feet.
‘Just stand there a moment, I’ll find the cloak and bag,’ Jack began, then froze at the sound of loud voices. The flare of torchlight lit up the mouth of the alley with dramatic suddenness as booted feet hit the cobbles. He spun back against the nearest shuttered shop front, pulling Eva to him. The narrow lane filled with torchlight. ‘Make this look good,’ was all he had time to say before he bent his head and fastened his lips over hers.
‘Mmmf!’ she protested against his mouth, trying to jerk her head back. Jack applied one palm firmly to the back of her head, held her ruthlessly around the waist with the other hand and focused on giving a demonstration of blind rutting lust in action. It was not easy when the lady in question was trying to bite your tongue with vicious intent.
‘Hey! What have we here?’ The voice was loud, cultivated and arrogant. ‘Can we all join in, friend?’
Jack raised his head, catching a glimpse of furious, rebellious brown eyes in the second before he pressed Eva’s face into his shoulder, muffling her snarl of fury in the cloth. ‘Sorry, but this lady’s all mine.’ There were half a dozen of them, officers in the pale blue-and-silver Maubourg uniform that he had learned to recognise as he had scouted the castle and its defences. They had been drinking, but only enough, it seemed, to make them boisterous and over-friendly.
He kept his accent pure Northern French, gambling on them finding that more intimidating than provocative—which was more than could be said for the Grand Duchess’s efforts to free herself from his grip. He had his hands full of scented hair and sweet curves and she was pressed intimately against him. He tightened his hold, which had the unfortunate result of pressing her harder against the part of his anatomy that was entering into the deception with enthusiasm, and growled, ‘Patience, sweetheart, wait until these gentlemen have gone at least.’ Her reaction was to attempt to plant a knee in his groin. ‘Friends, give us some privacy, the lady’s husband will be looking for her—have some fellow feeling.’
That provoked the predictable lewd reaction, guffaws of laughter and cries of encouragement. They turned away, beginning to descend again to the river, when one, the most senior by the glimpses Jack had of his epaulettes, stopped.
‘Why, the lady has dropped her cloak. Allow me.’ He stooped, gathered it up and stepped close to lay it over Eva’s shoulders, holding up the torch, all the better to see exactly what he was doing, and, Jack guessed grimly, to catch a glimpse of the lady in the case.
Chapter Three
Colonel de Presteigne! At the sound of his voice Eva stopped her efforts to free herself from Jack’s outrageous embrace and clung to him instead, pressing her face into the angle of his neck. This was not a group of young subalterns who could be relied upon not to recognise their Grand Duchess in a plainly clad figure glimpsed in a dark alleyway. This was a senior officer who knew her all too well.
Against her lips she could feel the pulse in Jack’s neck, strong and steady, and tried to stay as calm. ‘Here, allow me, ma chère.’ The weight of her cloak settled heavy on her shoulders and the colonel’s fingers trailed, lingering, across the nape of her neck. He had done exactly the same thing two nights before as he had restored her gauze shawl at a reception, counting on her not knowing whether it was deliberate or accidental. Now she could recognise that it was quite deliberate, no doubt a favourite ploy of his he could not resist trying on any female, whether noble or bourgeoise.
‘Merci.’ Jack’s hand came up, ostensibly to smooth the cloak around her shoulders, in effect bringing the edge of his palm sharply against the colonel’s groping fingers. ‘Bon nuit,’ he added pleasantly. Under the words the threat of violence hung like a lifted rapier.
Eva could feel the atmosphere crackle between the two men and knew instinctively that Jack had let his gallantry override his common sense. It was foolhardy, yet she felt a frisson of pleasure run through her that he had reacted that way. To be protected as a woman and not as a grand duchess was so novel she felt quite flustered. Or was that simply the effect of his outrageous kisses?
She felt Jack’s arm tighten and could tell from the way the muscles flexed that he was preparing to push her out of harm’s way if the other man reacted. There was a second where everyone seemed to have stopped breathing, then de Presteigne laughed. ‘Bon nuit. Bon chance, mon ami.’ The officers clattered off down the hill, leaving them in darkness and silence. Eva felt herself slump against Jack in relief as she felt both her poise and her balance desert her. She dragged down a deep breath and tried to stiffen her shaking knees, even as her arms clung to him.
Before she could free herself, Jack lifted both hands, cupped her face and kissed her again with a fierceness that spoke of relief, tension released and, quite simply, sexual demand. His mouth was hot, hard and experienced and Eva surrendered to it, swaying into his embrace again with a sensation of letting go. Physical pleasure, direct and straightforward, was such a liberation that she felt her mind go blank and let herself slide into the moment, ignoring the squalid little alley, the greasy cobbles underfoot, the danger of pursuit.
Her mouth opened to the thrust of his tongue, its message echoed by the hardness of the male body she was clinging to. Behind her closed lids stars spun against blackness. Need flooded her body like the kick of a glass of spirits at the male taste of him, the scent of his skin.
‘Hell.’ He lifted his head, still holding her tight against him, and reality and reaction hit her simultaneously.
Hell? They were very nearly making love on the cobbles and all he could say was Hell? She must have been mad—what would have followed if that moment of insanity had happened in her bedchamber? How dare he presume to touch her? How could she have allowed it?
‘You…’ she began furiously.
‘I forgot myself, indeed.’ The rueful admission was tinged with a satirical note, reminding her of her own part in what had just occurred. In the darkness she could not read his face; it was perhaps as well he could not see hers. ‘Relief and tension do strange things to us. Shall we go on?’
It was, certainly, the most dignified course to say nothing at all about the incident. Discussing it would lead nowhere but into more embarrassment—as it was, thinking about it made her skin hot all over. ‘Certainly, Mr Ryder,’ she said haughtily. ‘Have you the valise?’ Eva clutched the broken cloak clasp at her throat, feeling her pulse race against her knuckles.
‘Here.’ He stooped, a dark shape in the shadows, then took her arm. Knowing another fall risked injury, she made herself accept his touch, and tried to focus on something other than the newly re-awakened demands of her body.
‘Who is looking after the coach?’ She had not thought to ask, but this was the real world outside the castle, the world where coaches did not appear with drivers, grooms and outriders ten minutes after one had the whim to drive out. In this world people stole horses if you left them unattended. It was a world she had been insulated from for almost ten years, one she was going to have to learn to understand and survive in very rapidly.
‘My groom, Henry.’ Jack’s pace increased as the hill levelled out and they reached the quayside. Light spilled out from taverns and bawdy houses all along its length; the destination, no doubt, of the colonel and his companions.
‘What if someone speaks to him?’ Eva pulled up her hood and watched her feet as they stepped over mooring ropes stretched taut across the quay.
‘He spent two years in a French prison, so his grasp of the language is adequate, if colourful.’ Jack sounded amused and alert, not at all like a man who had been indulging in a torrid kiss with a virtual stranger not minutes before. She only wished she had his sangfroid. Perhaps he had not found her very exciting. Now, that was a dampening thought. ‘Here we are.’
The carriage was drawn up opposite the entrance to what Eva was quite certain was a brothel, as though waiting for its owner to return from his pleasures. A group of men were standing outside, talking over-loudly, and a bruiser with fists like hams stood watching them in the doorway. From the brightly lit windows came the sound of music and laughter.
The driver must have been on the lookout, for Eva saw a figure in a greatcoat sit up straight from its huddled position on the high box seat. ‘There you are. Quel surprise.’ He bent down as they came alongside and addressed Jack in accented French and with a familiarity that amazed her. ‘Thought I’d be picking your broken bones off the rocks come morning. Quite resigned to it I was. This the lady, then?’
‘No, just one I picked at random,’ Jack said sarcastically, opening the carriage door and helping Eva inside. ‘Of course it’s the lady. Did you have a scout round this afternoon like I told you to?’
‘Yes, guv’nor.’ The man had dropped into English. ‘And a very nice little burgh it is, too, not up to Paris, of course, or even Marseilles, but a man could have a bit of fun here, given the time.’
‘Well, we haven’t got any time, and speak French, damn you,’ Jack retorted. ‘Did you see the perfume factory?’
‘I did. Ruddy great place and smelling like a Covent Garden flower stall. Why? Were you wanting to buy any presents?’
‘No, I want to break in to it. Take us there now, and go steady, I don’t want to attract attention.’ Jack swung into the carriage, closed the door and lay back against the squabs opposite her. He breathed out a heartfelt sigh and Eva glimpsed the flash of white teeth. ‘Phew. That all went better than I had expected.’
There did not seem to be much to say to that, at least, not anything that didn’t risk an allusion to that episode in the alleyway. ‘Do you really intend that we break in to the factory?’
‘I am going to, you are not.’
‘Mr Ryder, do I need to remind you who I am? I say where I go and do not go. Besides, I have the key.’ The lights from the various establishments flickered into the carriage, illuminating Jack’s face in flickering bursts. She caught a look of surprise before he had his expression under control again.
‘Here? You have the key here? Why on earth would you bring it?’
It was tempting to pretend that she knew he would need it, but honesty got the better of her. ‘It is in the pocket of this cloak; I forgot I had put it there last time I visited. It was when I discovered about the chemists Antoine is employing—I had gone down one evening to look in the old recipe books, because I had found a perfume receipt up at the castle that sounded promising and I wanted to see whether we had it at the factory already.
‘I used to visit all the time, but since Philippe became ill I had stopped going. I don’t think Antoine knows I have a key to the offices. What are we looking for?’
‘I am looking for formulae, drawings, equipment—anything that might give me an inkling of what they are up to.’
‘We will need to start in the offices, then,’ Eva said, loftily ignoring his carefully selected pronouns. ‘Then we can move to the laboratories if we find nothing there. The actual workshops are unlikely, I think—after all, the production of perfume is continuing as normal, or I would have heard about it.’
‘It will be easier if you draw me a sketch.’ Jack rummaged in one of the door pockets and came out with some paper and a pencil.
‘I told you, Mr Ryder, I am coming with you.’ Eva pressed them back into his hands. Even in the gloom of the carriage with the occasional flashes of light, she could see from his expression that he had no intention of agreeing. ‘I have a perfect right to be there,’ she said, with sudden inspiration. ‘I can walk in with whomever I like—who is to refuse me? And the caretaker will not think to wonder what I am doing, he is so used to seeing me. It will reduce the risk, and hasten things, if you do not have to break in.’
‘That is true,’ Jack conceded. He must have sensed her surprise at his capitulation. ‘I am not in the habit of turning down perfectly good arguments just because someone else makes them.’
‘I thought you objected because I am a woman. Or because of my position.’
‘Neither. What you do in your position is your choice. I have a history of disagreements with dukes, but not grand duchesses, and in my experience women have an equal tendency to good and bad sense as men.’
‘Oh.’ He had taken her aback and it took a moment to recover. Whatever their station, the men in her life made it quite clear—deferentially of course—that she must be treated with respect for her position and with patronising indulgence for her opinions. Even dear Philippe was prone to treat her as though she had hardly a thought in her head beyond gowns, good works and her son. A grand duchess was expected to be a dutiful doll.
She was beginning to relax a little too much with this man, beginning to like him. In her position it was dangerous to do any such thing just because someone did not treat you like a brainless puppet—and kissed like a fallen angel. ‘Do you treat the dukes with as great a familiarity as you treat me? I have a title which you should use—’
‘Your Serene Highness, if I address you as such, then not only will every sentence become intolerably prolonged, but we risk exciting interest at every point along our journey.’
‘Ma’am would do excellently,’ she retorted, finding all her irritation with him flooding back.
‘What is your full name? Ma’am,’ he added belatedly just as she drew in a hissing breath of displeasure.
‘Evaline Claire Elizabetta Mélanie Nicole la Jabotte de Maubourg.’
Jack whistled. ‘I can see why you are referred to as the Grand Duchess Eva. I think we are here.’
Eva looked out at the high wall and the double gates with a little wicket set in them. ‘Yes, this is it.’ She found the key and handed it to him. ‘I shall tell the watchman that you are a French visitor from Grasse, interested in seeing how we make perfume here. And do try to remember to address me properly,’ she added as Jack handed her down from the carriage.
‘Yes, your Serene Highness.’ The click of his heels was a provocation she decided to ignore.
Old Georges, the watchman, came out with his lantern before they were halfway across the courtyard. He was pulling on his coat one handed, his wrinkled face a mask of concern at being caught out. ‘Your Serene Highness, ma’am! I wasn’t expecting you, ma’am—is anything wrong?’
‘No, nothing at all, Georges. This gentleman is from Grasse where they also make fine perfumes, as you know. He has no time to visit tomorrow, so I am showing him the factory tonight.’
‘Shall I light you round, ma’am?’
‘No, that is quite all right, just give monsieur your lantern. We will let you know when we leave.’
She opened the door into the offices, nodding a dismissal to the old man. Jack followed her in and closed the door. ‘That was almost too easy,’ he observed.
‘What do you mean?’ Eva opened the heavy day book and began to scan it. ‘There is always just Georges on duty at night. Now, this is the outer office; I doubt if we’ll find anything in here and the day book seems innocuous.’
‘If you were operating a secret laboratory, would you leave just one old man on duty? He did not seem at all alarmed by our presence, so he cannot be in on the plot.’ Jack scanned the room, opened one or two drawers, then moved into the next room. ‘Therefore it must be well hidden.’
‘I see what you mean.’ Eva picked up her skirts and followed. ‘The laboratories are through here; I have the master key.’
One after another the doors swung open until she reached the last one. ‘We do not use this one any more. Oh, look—the lock has been changed.’ Suddenly the familiar surroundings of the factory, which she had often walked through at night without a qualm, seemed alien and full of menace. She found she had moved closer to Jack and bit her lip in vexation at the betraying sign of fear. ‘This key will not work on it.’ She held it out as though to explain her instinctive movement towards him.
‘I’ll have to pick it, then.’ Jack fished in his boot top and produced a bent piece of thin metal, then hunkered down and began to work on the lock. Eva picked up the lantern and came to hold it close. ‘No, I do not need the light, thank you. I do this by feel and by sound.’
She watched, fascinated by his utter concentration. Again, the image of a swordsman, balanced and focused, came to her as she studied, not his hands, but his profile. His eyes were closed, his face relaxed as though listening to music, hearing and analysing what he heard at the same time.
Dark lashes fanned over tanned cheekbones. She saw a small crescent scar at the corner of his eye and observed the darkening growth of evening stubble begin to shadow his jawline. He was a very masculine figure, she thought, aware of the ease with which he balanced, the way his breeches moulded tightly over well-muscled thighs, the warmth of his body as she stood close.
I am too used to courtiers, too used to velvets and satins and posturing politicians and officials. Even the officers wear uniforms that speak more of the ballroom than the battlefield. This man looks dangerous, feels dangerous. And the biggest danger was, Eva realised, dragging her gaze away from his body to concentrate on the movement of the picklock, that she found him exciting to be with. Infuriating, insolent, casual and peremptory—and exciting.
It was something she had been wary of, these two years of widowhood, letting herself get close to another man, allowing the chill of her lonely bed to drive her into some rash liaison. You overheard too many people sniggering behind their hands as they recounted the tale of yet another widow of high rank taking a lover. It was risky, demeaning and ruinous to the reputation, for the secret always seemed to get out and, of course, it was inevitably the woman who was the butt of the jokes and the object of censure.
This feeling of arousal, this sense of hazard, was simply due to the shock of Jack Ryder’s eruption into her life and the stress of her worries for the past weeks. Everything was heightened, from her fear, her anxiety, to her sensual instincts. That was all it was, all it could ever be.
‘Got it.’ The lock clicked and the door swung open. Inside was a room laid out as a drawing office, with two desks on one side, a wide, high table in the middle and two drawing slopes with stools on the other side. Along the back of the room was a range of chests fitted with wide drawers.
‘Not a scrap of paper.’ Jack pulled open the desk drawers. ‘Empty except for pens and ink and rulers.’
Together they went to stand in front of the chests. Eva reached out a hand and touched the dark wood, noticing how heavily the piece was made. ‘Look at the locks. I have never seen anything like that before.’
‘Neither have I, and I will tell you now, I cannot pick these.’ Jack straightened up from a minute inspection of the locks, each made of steel, with double keyholes and strange rods and bars on its surface.
‘We will just have to smash the chests, then,’ Eva said robustly. ‘There are fire axes in all the rooms. Look, here.’ She lifted the axe from the corner where it stood next to a pail of water and swung it experimentally. It was heavy.
‘If I do that, then there is no hiding the fact that we have been here.’ Jack leaned back against the chest, folded his arms and regarded her steadily.
‘Of course.’ That much was obvious.
‘When Prince Antoine discovers your disappearance from the castle he may give chase, he may not. It is unlikely to be a matter of such desperate urgency to him that he will throw great resources into the pursuit. But if he links your disappearance with a raid on his secret laboratory, he is going to tear the countryside apart to find you.’
‘But we must find the proof of what is going on.’ Eva knew she was frowning in puzzlement. Was he really asking her if she would put her personal safety before her duty?
‘We have enough to confirm that Prince Antoine is experimenting with explosives. My orders are to get you back safely, not to engage in espionage.’
‘Are you telling me that you will walk away from this?’ Eva demanded.
‘No, I am asking you whether you want to. It is your life. It is your son waiting in England.’
Eva found the axe was still dangling from her hand. She propped it against the nearest chest while she tried to sort through her thoughts. Jack was offering her the choice, as he would to another man. He was not trying to hide the dangers from her. He wasn’t happy about it, but she was here inside the factory with him because he was prepared to listen to her ideas.
‘If there is a risk that some weapon that might aid him falls into Napoleon’s hands, then I would never forgive myself,’ she said, meeting the cool grey eyes. ‘I married a ruler of a country, albeit a small one. This goes with the territory.’ And she knew that if her life was at risk, then so was Jack’s—at greater risk, in truth, because she was coming to realise that if Antoine wanted her, he would have to go through Jack to get to her.
His lips curved in a smile that held admiration and a certain wry acceptance that she had just raised the odds stacked against them and that the counters she was pushing on to the gaming table represented both their lives. He held out his hand for the axe. ‘Right, let’s get started.’
Eva picked up the rough wooden handle, set her teeth and tightened her fingers. ‘No, let me.’ She raised it, her arms aching at the weight, and smashed it into the first lock. Wood splintered and the jolt as the blade hit metal ran up her arm. ‘That is for Fréderic. How dare Antoine try to take what is my son’s? I wish he was here at this moment!’
Chapter Four
Jack reached across and prised Eva’s fingers from around the axe handle. ‘Allow me. I fully appreciate your wish to decapitate your brother-in-law, but I think I may be faster at turning these into firewood.’
She nodded abruptly, letting him take the axe and stepping back, her eyes fixed on the chests with angry intensity. God, that’s a woman with backbone! he told himself as he set to work to hack the locks out of their setting. She should be the Regent, she deserved to be. The way he was addressing her, the approach he had taken to their relationship, was simply because he could not afford for her rank to stand in the way of the mission. It was not through any lack of respect, whatever she might believe.
What the Whitehall officials who had sent him on this mission would say to him embroiling her in breaking and entering and spying, he shuddered to think.
The final lock in the first chest yielded in a mass of splinters and Jack began on the next. Beside him he was aware of Eva pulling open drawers, taking out piles of papers and laying them in order on the big table.
The physical effort of swinging the axe, hacking into the solid wood, made the sore muscles around his ribs where the rope had cut earlier ache savagely. He had not realised the strain his body had been under while he was doing it—the mentally numbing effect of the drop beneath him as he had lowered himself over the battlements was probably enough to account for that.
Jack made himself concentrate on breaking into the chests as fast as possible. There was too much distraction already in this mission to be thinking about bruised ribs. The revelation about the Regent’s health, the positive identification of Prince Antoine as the source of the treachery, the discovery of this factory and its secrets, were all outside his briefing and must be factored into his plans. And the impact that Eva was having on him was entirely unexpected and was going to need more than a change in tactics to neutralise.
He was not surprised to find himself admiring her for her coolness and courage, but he had not expected to find himself lusting after her. And that was what it was, there was no excuse for blinking at it. And it wasn’t just beauty that was having this effect. Jack delivered a final blow to the last chest and began to wrench out the drawers. There was something else—a passion behind those steady brown eyes, an energy and anger concealed under cool grace and dignity. And her body in his arms, the sweet fury of her mouth under his when he had kissed her…
He stepped back as Eva came to lift out the sheets of drawings from the drawers he had just opened. She moved as though in a state reception, but her hair was coming down and her face was flushed from hurrying backwards and forwards in the stuffy room. Her cloak was in a crumpled heap on the floor and she had pushed back the sleeves of her gown to expose strong, slender forearms and fine-boned wrists.
The drawings were already arranged on the table, he saw, as she darted about, brow furrowed in concentration, sorting the latest collection. Jack put down the axe and leaned back against the splintered chest to watch her. He should never have kissed her, of course, although as a ruse in the crisis they had found themselves it, it had worked very well.
The frankness of her kiss when she had stopped fighting him, when the officers had gone, should not have surprised him, either. She had been a married woman, she knew what she was about. From the briefing he had received, if she had taken a lover she had been very discreet about it—he may have been receiving the benefit of several years of chaste frustration.
They had both been under pressure, in danger, and that embrace had been a response as natural as two soldiers going out and getting drunk after a battle—a life-affirming release. It seemed she had dismissed it now, and so should he. Which was easier said than done.
‘Mr Ryder. Have you gone to sleep?’ The tart enquiry was sufficient to dampen any wandering fantasies of unpinning the rest of her coiled conker-brown hair and letting it flow over her shoulders.
‘No, ma’am, merely keeping out of your way until you had finished.’ The meek response had her narrowing her eyes at him, but he kept his face straight and she turned back to the table with nothing more than thinned lips to show her displeasure. Grand Duchess Eva had a knack of ignoring unpleasantness and skimming straight over it—presumably a useful skill in court life. ‘How have you sorted the papers?’
‘These are drawings of different mechanisms, but I think they all go together.’ She frowned and Jack found his hand lifting to smooth away the little crease between her brows. He jammed his fists in his pockets and came to stand next to her. ‘I have stacked each one with the most recent drawing uppermost; they are all dated.’ Eva pointed to a pile of black-bound notebooks. ‘Those are all figures and calculations. Formulae. They make no sense to me.’
‘To me, neither.’ Jack flicked through the topmost one and turned his attention to the drawings. ‘These are rockets.’
‘Fireworks?’ Eva leaned over close to his side to see and Jack drew in a sharp breath between his teeth. Her body was warm and fragrant and conjured immediate memories of how she had felt in his arms.
‘No, artillery weapons.’ Jack shifted round away from her as though to show what he was talking about. ‘They were invented by Congreve and the British have been using them at sea and on land since about 1805. Napoleon offered a reward for anyone who could invent one for the French army—but they haven’t got them yet. They aren’t very accurate, though.’ He leant over to study the other drawings. ‘See, these are frames and carriages for firing the things—I wonder if they have worked out a way to aim them better?’
‘And the notebooks might be formulae for the explosive powder?’
‘Yes, that could be it. We need to get these back.’ A look which could only be described as smug passed fleetingly over Eva’s face. ‘Ma’am, if you are about to say “I told you so”—’
Her eyes opened wide in hauteur. ‘I would say nothing so vulgar, Mr Ryder. Just how do you suggest we get them all out past Georges?’
‘We don’t. Not all of them.’ Jack picked up a pair of shears and began to cut down the top drawing from each pile, removing every scrap of waste margin. ‘We take the most recent of each of these, the most recent notebook, and we destroy the rest.’
‘The fireplace.’ Eva nodded and began to scoop up the remaining drawings, jamming them into the cold fireplace in the corner of the room. She picked up the notebooks and started to tear the pages out. ‘They’ll burn better loose.’
The half-dozen reduced drawings folded into a neat packet with the notebook. Jack jammed them into the breast of his coat and lit a spill from their lantern. The paper flashed into flame, blackening and falling apart in moments. Jack beat out the ashes with the poker and straightened up, observing, ‘How to make a prince angry in one easy lesson.’
‘Antoine will be beside himself,’ Eva agreed, picking up her cloak and shaking the dust out of it with a moue of distaste. Jack took it and put it around her shoulders. ‘Thank you, Mr Ryder. We had better be off, had we not?’
‘Indeed.’ Jack scanned the floor until he found what he was looking for: a shard of broken metal smaller than his little fingernail. ‘I’ll lock the door behind us.’ It was a matter of moments to flick the lock shut with the pick, then he eased the fragment of metal into the keyhole and tried it again. The fine pick jammed and grated against the foreign body. ‘There, they won’t be able to get the door open, but at first they will simply think the lock is faulty. It might buy us a little time.’
Eva led the way back out into the yard, keeping up a steady flow of polite chitchat that could only have come from years of practice at mind-numbingly tedious parties and diplomatic events. The caretaker came out and stood waiting for them. ‘Ah, there you are, Georges. We are off now; I am sorry to have disturbed you. Is your daughter well? Excellent.’
Jack paused to hand the lantern to the old caretaker and followed his gaze as the Grand Duchess made her way across the cobbled yard with all the dignity and grace of a woman stepping on to the ballroom floor. Her hair was coming down at the back, her face was flushed and there was dust around the hem of her skirt. Her dirty, crumpled cloak looked as though it had been used as a bed by a pair of hounds. It gave him an idea.
‘Thank you.’ Jack pressed a coin into the gnarled hand and lowered his voice. ‘Her Serene Highness can count upon you to be discreet, I am certain.’ The man stared at him, comprehension dawning on his face, then he nodded vigorously.
‘God bless her, monsieur, she deserves someone to care about her.’
Jack let one eyelid droop into a slow wink and sauntered out of the yard in Eva’s wake, the bulge of the documents flattened under his arm.
Eva allowed herself to be assisted back into the carriage and sank back against the squabs. ‘That wretched little rat! If Philippe recovers, he is going to make himself ill all over again when he finds out about Antoine. To ally us with Bonaparte is treachery enough, but to create weapons to put into his hands, that is beyond forgiveness or understanding.’
Now they were out of the factory, the full magnitude of what they had found was beginning to dawn on her. Inside it had all seemed an adventure. She had found it exciting, even though she had been frightened. She had enjoyed the give and take with Jack, both of words and, as she had swung that axe, of physical effort. He brought something alive in her, something that had been repressed for a very long time. It was enjoyable, and it must be resisted.
‘How long will that lock hold them, Mr Ryder?’
‘Quite a while. They will have to get a locksmith and although they will be impatient, I do not think they will realise it has been sabotaged. A locksmith will realise at once that it has been jammed, of course, then they will break the door down, I should imagine.’ He sounded as though he was frowning in thought. ‘From the weight, it may have been reinforced—they’ll be cursing their own precautions by the time they get inside.’
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