by Jayne Davis
Leon helped her scramble up onto the box and she tucked her cloak around her skirts. With that, and the oiled cloth the drivers used to cover their legs, she should be warm enough for a while. Regardless, not having to face her aunt’s hostility would make up for the cold.
There was a heavy lump in the coat. Putting her hand in the pocket, she found that Leon had left one of his pistols there. She withdrew her hand carefully; she didn’t trust the thing not to go off by accident. He had moved something from this greatcoat to the jacket he still wore, so he must have deliberately left this pistol for her. Did he think she might need it?
Leon and Brevare conferred, their heads bent together over a book as Leon pointed out something on the pages. Leon straightened, giving her an encouraging smile as Brevare climbed up and sorted out the reins. Below them, the coach door finally slammed, and Brevare flicked the whip to get the horses moving.
The earlier clouds had cleared and the wintry sun had a little warmth in it. Phoebe enjoyed looking at the scenery for a while as they passed through several villages, before turning her thoughts to Brevare. He was travelling with Leon, but if they were colleagues, why had he sat eating dinner in the inn where they’d been arrested instead of returning with a horse straight away? Where had he been during the fight? Leon could have been seriously injured or even killed.
He seemed to know where he was going, slowing only briefly to check the fingerposts, but after an hour or so, he felt in his pocket and handed a book to Phoebe. It looked like the one the two men had been consulting earlier.
“Here, take this, will you?” he said. “The page is marked.”
It was a road guide, well thumbed.
“Which village should we be looking for next?”
Phoebe opened the book, fumbling in gloved fingers. There were pencil marks against some village names. She guessed that these were places they would pass through, but she hadn’t been paying attention to the fingerposts and didn’t know how far they had come.
“You can read, can’t you?”
Surprised, Phoebe glanced at him. His attention was on the road and a particularly deep set of ruts.
“Yes,” she said.
Brevare muttered a curse and pulled the horses to a stop. He took the book out of her hands, flicked through the pages, and jabbed a finger at the name of a village. “We have just been through there,” he said, then moved his finger to the next name with a cross by it. “We are going there next. When we get there, tell me the name of the next village with a cross. Can you manage that?”
“Yes.” Did he think she was an idiot?
“Is there a problem?” The voice was Leon’s, calling from a coach window.
“Only checking directions,” Brevare called back, urging the horses into motion again. They drove on through another village, and Phoebe pointed out the way at the next signpost.
“Just tell me the next village,” Brevare snapped.
“Sainte-Marie.”
Keeping one finger in the current page, Phoebe surreptitiously looked through the book, checking that the marked sequence of villages was taking them north-west, towards the coast somewhere near Caen or Le Havre. Then she tried to trace the way they’d come, but she hadn’t been able to read fingerposts from inside the coach yesterday. Making a rough estimation of how far they’d travelled each day, she smiled. She couldn’t be sure, but she suspected they’d been heading for Caen from the moment Leon took charge.
“Miss Deane!”
She looked up with a start, and turned to the correct page in the book. “Condret.”
Brevare made the turn before he glanced at her. “Have you worked for the comtesse long?”
His tone had lost the earlier impatience, but he was frowning. Not merely making idle conversation, then? She faced forwards, keeping most of her face hidden from him by the rim of her bonnet.
“I have been with her for four years.” Phoebe carefully phrased her reply to tell the truth, if not the whole truth.
“You are English, are you not?”
“Yes.”
“You speak French well.”
Phoebe decided to act the rather unintelligent servant he appeared to think her. “Thank you, sir.” He sighed, and she suppressed a smile. She was annoying him nicely.
“Tell me how an English girl like you comes to speak French so well,” he said.
“The comtesse visits her château and brings me with her.”
“Do you like it in France? Or do you prefer England?”
“They both have very pretty countryside.” What did he really want to know?
His lips thinned, but he didn’t speak as he slowed through the next village, carefully guiding the coach past market stalls lining the road.
“Miss… er…”
“Deane.”
“Yes,” he said. “Miss Deane, are you loyal to your country?”
“Of course, sir.”
“I…. I need your help with something.”
“Yes, sir?”
“My… my colleague is carrying a message. I need to see it.”
The packet. “A message, sir?”
“You don’t need to know the details. You must trust my word on this. It is vital I see that message.”
“But I don’t know who you are.”
“My name is Hugo de Brevare. I am… I was the Vicomte de Brevare.”
That would fit with his accent.
“I need that message to… it is necessary to stop these revolutionaries. There’ll be a few livres in it for you.”
A few coins for betraying the man who had saved her? But it would not be wise to refuse outright. “I don’t know what I can do, sir.”
“You can begin by searching the pockets of that coat you have on.”
So that was why he’d asked if she wished to ride on the box. Phoebe obediently felt in the pockets, showing him a handful of coins and a handkerchief. She didn’t mention the pistol.
“Nothing else?” he asked, disappointed.
“No, sir.”
“Feel the linings,” he instructed. “The message may be sewn inside it somewhere.”
Phoebe went through the motions of searching for the packet already tucked inside her stays. “There is nothing there,” she said at last.
He cursed under his breath. “You must try to find it later,” he said. “It is really very important. You should be able to search his bag and his other clothing tonight!”
Phoebe’s amusement vanished. She turned her face away, afraid she could not control her expression. Not only did he think she was a servant, but he assumed Leon had bedded her and was going to do so again.
She took a deep breath. For a man of his class, such an assumption was not unexpected. She had spent the night in Leon’s room, and had readily accepted his coat this morning. Muttering something that could be taken as agreement, she pretended to concentrate on the road guide until they stopped for refreshment.
Chapter 10
The inn where they stopped to eat wasn’t busy, and there were plenty of tables to choose from in the dining room. Alex sat with Brevare, keeping a wary eye on everyone else as he ate. The comtesse was not deigning to speak to Miss Deane, and although Hélène cast a sympathetic glance at her cousin, the sentiment did not seem to be strong enough for her to go against her mama’s orders. Nor did the comtesse wish Miss Deane to sit with them, pointedly choosing a table with space for only two.
Alex noted Miss Deane’s hesitation, her lips turning down a little, then her shoulders squared as she took her plate over to a window seat. His dislike of the comtesse grew.
Perrault ate his way through a huge plate of food, occasionally brushing breadcrumbs from his coat, his eyes continually moving from one person to the next. Perrault had been alone in the carriage with the comtesse and her daughter for several minutes before they set off. Had either of the women said something they should not have done?
Casting a sideways glance at Brevare, Alex wondered what he’d
said to Miss Deane while they were on the box of the coach. He could have made a grave error of judgement in asking her to look after his message and then leaving her alone with Brevare.
Brevare rose and went over to Miss Deane, his sudden movement pulling Alex from his worries. Brevare gestured towards their own table. Miss Deane’s posture stiffened, and she stood abruptly, sending her chair scraping across the floor. Turning on her heel, she stalked out of the room, her food hardly touched.
Damn. None of this was her fault, yet she was being treated like a pariah by her family, and now Brevare had upset her as well.
Alex moved over to where Brevare still stood by the window. “What did you say to her?”
Brevare glanced at him. “Nothing,” he muttered, and went back to eat the rest of his meal.
There was no sign of Miss Deane in the entrance hall. Remembering her preference for being outside this morning, he headed out of the building only to see her disappearing behind a team of horses being harnessed to a carriage. By the time he’d moved beyond the animals she had reached the road, striding at a brisk pace towards a crossroads.
She wasn’t trying to escape or abscond with his message; she had more sense than that. Perhaps she was trying to walk off her feelings.
Sticking two fingers in his mouth, he whistled. She turned to face him, but made no move to return. Their way lay to the left at the crossroads, so he pointed. They would catch her up soon enough with the coach.
She took a few steps in the direction he’d indicated, then looked towards him. He waved a hand and went back into the inn.
Phoebe had stormed out of the inn without Leon’s coat, but walking soon warmed her against the chill air. Had she misunderstood Brevare’s suggestion? He’d said that sitting with Leon now would make it easier for her to get close to him tonight.
No, she had understood him perfectly well. It was little different from what he’d implied on the coach, and it was foolish of her to get so upset about it. True, he had made assumptions about both her and Leon’s morals, but that reflected more on his own standards than hers. It was the idea that she should actively pursue the presumed liaison, following her aunt’s snub, that had tipped her into anger.
Her pace slowed. What her aunt thought was more important—that could have a drastic effect on her future. A blackbird crossed her path, chattering in alarm. Phoebe, diverted from her worries, stopped to watch it swoop over the hedge and vanish into the adjacent field. Her uncle was a fair man; surely he would not hold the events of yesterday against her?
She marched on at a more moderate pace until she heard the clop of hooves behind her, appreciating the opportunity to get the blood moving in her limbs. Her mood lifted at the sight of Leon, rather than Brevare, in the driving seat. He was the nearest thing to a friend she had at the moment.
He pulled the horses to a halt and leaned over, holding out a hand to help her up onto the seat. She took it gladly. A cold ride on the box was far preferable to joining her aunt inside the coach.
“You’d better put that on again,” he said, nodding towards his coat lying on the bench between them. She struggled into it as he flicked the horses into motion, and arranged its length under her bottom. He handed over his road guide when she had sorted herself out.
“Can you look after this? I might need it later.” He gave her a small bundle wrapped in a napkin. “You’d better have this, too.”
Unwrapping it, Phoebe found a bread roll and some cheese. “Thank you,” she said, biting into the roll. The exercise had helped to calm her emotions; the food, and the kindness behind it, cured what remained of her irritability.
“Better now?”
“Much better, thank you.” She settled against the backrest and looked around, beginning to enjoy the scenery. But the memory of Brevare’s request—no, instruction—that morning returned too quickly, along with her conclusion that the two men were not working together.
She opened her mouth, about to ask him, but thought better of it.
“Out with it,” Leon said, with a sideways glance.
“I beg your pardon?”
“You were going to say something, or ask something.”
She didn’t reply.
“Nice weather for the time of year, isn’t it?” he offered blandly. “Lucky, really. It could be raining, or even snowing, then you’d have to choose between sitting in silence with your aunt glaring at you inside the coach, or sitting in silence with me getting cold and wet.”
She shot a quick glance at his face—the bruises she had seen earlier were darkening, the black eye developing into a real shiner. Added to his unshaven jaw, the whole effect was completely disreputable. He must have intimidated the comtesse this morning in the coach, for Phoebe hadn’t heard a single word from her. But he did not look as tired and strained as he had when she had first seen him, and she wasn’t afraid of him any longer.
“I never thanked you for saving me from Sarchet,” she said. “And for not…” Her voice faded out.
“You are very welcome. Although I had more than one reason for fighting him, and might not have won without your help.” A sheepish grin spread across his face.
“You enjoyed it?”
“I’m afraid so. Right up to the point when he picked up that bottle. But at least we’re rid of him now.”
“And now there’s one less person to share the ransom with.”
The silence grew, and Phoebe wondered if she’d overstepped the bounds of his tolerance.
“What were you originally going to say?” He kept his eyes on the road, and his voice held little expression.
Beating about the bush wasn’t going to get her anywhere with this man. She needed some answers: where they were really going, what further lies she might be forced to tell.
“Brevare—is he really a vicomte?”
“He told you that?” His voice was as expressionless as before.
“Yes. Is he your friend?”
“An acquaintance, rather than a friend. And yes, he is, or was, a vicomte. Why do you ask?”
“He asked me if I was loyal to England, and told me to look for a message you were carrying. He said it was necessary to stop the revolutionaries.”
“You didn’t show it to him?” His voice sounded remarkably calm after the consternation he’d shown in the night when he thought he’d lost it.
“No. I have it safe. Do you want it?” She put her hand inside her coat, but he shook his head.
“It’s safer with you than me at the moment, if you don’t mind keeping it.”
“Very well.” He trusted her—the notion spread a warm feeling through her chest.
“Why didn’t you give it to him?” Leon’s gaze searched her face.
“Why should I?”
“I haven’t given you any reason not to,” he said, turning back to the road. “Unless it was some kind of gratitude for last night?”
“Mostly that, I suppose. But also, you are our best chance for getting home. He’s done nothing to help.” She reconsidered her words. “That is, nothing deliberately to help.”
“What do you mean?”
She hesitated, wondering if she was imagining things, reading too much into little details. “At the inn where Perrault tried to get us arrested, Brevare was eating in the taproom when we arrived, taking his time. If he’d gone back for you with the spare horse right away, you could both have eaten at the inn and been on your way long before we arrived.”
“I thought he’d taken a long time.” He was almost talking to himself.
“Why would he delay you?”
“I’m not sure. Have you noticed anything else?”
“I think it may have been him at the door in the night. Whoever was there was searching your coat, and today he asked me to look through its pockets.”
“Which you did?”
“Oh yes. Strangely, I didn’t find anything he was interested in.” She smiled.
“You lied to him?”
“
No.”
“Hmm.” He had his eyes on the road ahead, but she could see the curve of his lips before he spoke. “In the same way you didn’t lie about the squire’s horse.”
She laughed this time. “Someone searched your bag, did they not?” she went on. “It wasn’t Perrault—at least, not while he was in that room with me. It could have been Brevare. I didn’t notice him in the yard when you were fighting Sarchet.”
“You are very observant. But none of that proves whether either of us is acting in the interests of your country.”
She switched to English. “My country and yours.”
The reins jerked, making the horses toss their heads. “Je ne vous comprends pas.” He sounded as if he really hadn’t understood what she’d said.
“Then why did my words surprise you?” Phoebe asked, reverting to French. Now she was more confident that she was correct. “You are English, aren’t you? Brevare started to call you a different name this morning. An Englishman carrying something to England is more likely to be supporting England than France.”
“Who else have you said that to?” His words were sharp, tension evident in the muscles of his jaw.
“No-one.”
His face relaxed a little. “How did I give myself away?” he asked, resignation in his voice.
Phoebe closed her eyes, sighing with relief. She’d worried that what she wanted to be true might have clouded her reasoning. “There were some distinctly English oaths when I poured the brandy on your arm. I doubt anyone else would have any idea.”
Leon shook his head. He drove in silence, coming out of his abstraction at turnings only to read the signposts. Phoebe watched him covertly, wanting to ask what he was doing here, but it was none of her business. He hadn’t said so, but she knew now that he was taking them home—that should be enough.
“Why are you in France?” he asked eventually. “Does your uncle have estates here?”
“A château and lands at Calvac,” Phoebe said. “My uncle moved us all to London over a year ago, when the situation became too dangerous. Then in January he went away somewhere on business. I think he sent Anson over here to collect some remaining documents.” She stiffened, ashamed that she had given no thought to Anson over the last couple of days. “I don’t know what happened to him.”
