‘Harwich?’ Max murmured, when he was told. ‘Hardly the most direct route to France, surely?’
‘Nor the most watched,’ Alistair pointed out.
After Alistair had left them, Max and his entourage would continue on to Diss, thence to Norwich, and finally to Cromer. During the first part of the journey, Alistair, dressed far more plainly than was his wont, was posing as valet to the new duke – much to Max’s amusement. He was less entertained when he discovered that at Colchester, Alistair’s own valet, who was travelling separately, would be taking his master’s place.
‘I don’t need anyone to dress me,’ he declared in exasperation.
‘You do if you intend to look like me,’ Alistair replied. ‘If, on the other hand, you want to arouse suspicion by going round dressed with as much care as the lowest mudlark on the Thames, then by all means dispense with him.’
Max stared at him for a long moment, remembering that what was a rather tiresome subterfuge to him was a matter of life or death to his cousin. ‘Sorry,’ he muttered, looking away.
‘You’ll find he’s more than a valet,’ Alistair told him, after a brief pause. ‘He’s utterly discreet, completely loyal, and surprisingly handy with a pistol if need be. If he tells you something is so, then it is so. I’m loath to part with him.’
‘If he’s so valuable to you, don’t you need him more than I do? Besides, I will have Abdas, remember.’
‘I don’t forget, and if he’s all that you say, I’m glad that you will have him at your side,’ Alistair replied. ‘But I doubt if there are many blacks in Norfolk. You may need someone inconspicuous to go on an errand, and Barnes is very good at that. He can turn his hand to anything. I’d strongly advise you to get him to double up as your butler. That way, you’ll always have complete control over who comes and goes.’ He paused. ‘Besides, I have to be able to act alone. It’s the only way I can have a chance of coming out of this alive. Just be on your guard even when speaking to Barnes or Okoro. You never know who might be listening.’
‘In Cromer?’ asked Max incredulously.
‘People talk,’ Alistair replied. ‘Cromer is not far from Blakeney and Wells, both of which can take bigger ships. It’s even possible to bring larger vessels quite close in at Weybourne, which is only seven miles down the coast.’
‘I’ll be careful,’ Max promised.
They set off very early from London, and, with a stop for refreshment just over halfway at Chelmsford, were in time to dine at Colchester. Given the need for discretion, they avoided visiting any of the hostelries in Chelmsford and instead decided to stop some two miles outside the town at a small place named Widford. They had been chatting idly as they drove, but shortly before they arrived at the inn, Max fell silent, a crease between his brows.
‘What is it?’ Alistair asked him. ‘Having second thoughts?’
‘And thirds and fourths,’ Max agreed ruefully. ‘Alistair, I’m very afraid I’ll let you down. I’m no actor. If a group is ever got up to read a play, then I’m put in charge of moving chairs.’
After a brief pause, Alistair said, ‘Listen, Max, what we need is for any interested observer to note that the Duke of Haslingfield has set off to inspect his Cromer property. On the journey, a display of your pomp and circumstance will establish the fact in anyone’s mind that you have passed that way. No one in the vicinity of Beacon Tower will have any reason to think that you are other than what you appear to be. Rather than playing a part, you’ll need the ability to think on your feet, and I know that you can do that.’ He paused briefly. ‘As for letting me down, I can’t think of anything less likely.’
Shortly after this conversation, they arrived at Widford, where the carriage drew to a halt outside an inn called the Silent Woman. They both looked up at the sign which displayed a picture of a woman standing, rather improbably, since her head had been cut off. ‘The only silent woman I’ve ever met,’ murmured Alistair, as they prepared to alight. ‘Remember, I’m the valet and you’re the duke.’
He sprang nimbly from the carriage, and let down the steps with his own hands. ‘This way, Your Grace,’ he said, holding out his arm.
Max stared at him. Although he’d known this man for years, suddenly, it was as if he didn’t know him at all. He had become a gentleman’s personal gentleman; courteous, unobtrusive, conscientious. All at once, Max felt completely adrift. He had no idea of what to do or say.
‘Your Grace?’ Alistair prompted. His tone was perfect for the role. It was that of a servant whose master is not behaving as expected.
Still Max stared at him, and as he did so, he remembered a little outing that he and Alistair had enjoyed a few nights before. There had been a masquerade at Vauxhall Gardens, and the two of them had gone in masks and dominos. ‘Watch how some of the fops behave,’ Alistair had advised him. ‘It may give you an idea or two.’
Together, they had sauntered about the avenues, sampling the arrack punch and wafer-thin ham, and observing the antics of those present. One fop had made a terrible fuss because he declared that his chair was dirty. ‘Zounds! Look what a mark it has made on my new coat!’ he had exclaimed. ‘Dammit if I don’t speak to the owner.’
The two cousins had grinned as various members of his party had tried to soothe him, one making matters worse by dabbing ineffectually at the almost undetectable mark on the man’s blue brocade sleeve. Now, seized by sudden inspiration, Max took out his handkerchief and waved it. ‘Take it away, Field,’ he said in disgusted tones.
‘Take it away, Your Grace?’ repeated the ‘valet’.
‘Your hand, man,’ Max answered. ‘Your hand!’
‘My hand, Your Grace?’ ventured Alistair.
‘Your hand, Your Grace,’ mimicked Max. ‘What are you, a damned parrot? Look at your hands. Dash it all, they aren’t even clean!’
‘I beg pardon, Your Grace,’ Alistair answered humbly.
‘So you should,’ answered Max, strolling towards the inn door. ‘You need to mend your ways, Field. I’m far from satisfied with your work; very far from satisfied.’
‘That was good,’ said Alistair when at last they were in the private dining parlour which he had insisted was essential for his master’s comfort. They were bowed in by an obsequious landlord, anxious to make himself and his hostelry agreeable to a guest more illustrious than any he had entertained in at least a twelve-month. ‘Any casual observer couldn’t fail to notice that the situation between us is not a happy one. All you need to do is to find fault with me at Colchester, dismiss me, and take on Barnes.’
‘I was completely at a loss at first,’ Max admitted. ‘It was only when I remembered that fellow at Vauxhall that I managed to say anything.’
‘My dear cousin, you were inspired!’
‘Will you stay and eat with me, or ought I to send you to the kitchens?’ Max asked.
‘Keep me with you,’ Alistair replied. ‘The fewer people either of us mix with, the better.’
Chapter Four
‘Well really!’ Miss Church exclaimed, her fine hazel eyes flashing indignantly as she stared after the two men who had just entered the inn. ‘Did you hear how that brutish-looking dandy raked down his servant? And in the public inn yard, too.’
‘I dare say he deserved it, dear,’ answered her travelling companion comfortably.
Unlike the men who had attracted their notice, the two ladies were on the point of leaving, having taken refreshment already. They were only waiting whilst their driver supervised the harnessing of the horses to their post chaise.
‘I do not know how you can possibly suppose that, Aunt Roberta,’ Miss Church replied, ‘seeing that you do not know either man.’ The younger of the two, she was slightly taller and slimmer than her aunt, who was comfortably rounded and in her mid-forties.
Holding back the retort that if she did not know the man or his master, neither did her niece, Miss Roberta Fellowes simply commented on the one remark that Miss Church had made with which she could q
uite truthfully disagree. ‘All the same, Constance, I do not see how you can call the man brutish and a dandy. He can only be one or the other.’
Constance helped her aunt up into the carriage, then pressed a coin into the ostler’s hand and climbed in herself. She looked at Miss Fellowes, her lips pressed firmly together. ‘He certainly was both,’ she declared. ‘And as for his valet’s hands, did you see them?’
Miss Fellowes shook her head slowly, a slight frown on her face. ‘Certainly not at this distance, and I doubt if you could either,’ she declared.
‘They were spotless,’ Miss Church answered, as their chaise drew out of the inn yard. ‘Absolutely spotless.’
Constance Church was the only child of the Rev’d Peter Church and his wife Alice. Mrs Church had been the sister of Miss Fellowes and her brother Augustus, with whom Constance had made her home since the death of her father in 1791, two years before.
For the first fourteen years of Constance’s life, she had lived with her parents in a small parish in Lincolnshire. Mrs Church was always fragile, and as soon as Constance was tall enough to unlock the cupboard containing the account books, much of the running of the household had fallen to her lot. When she was not thus occupied, her father would give her lessons, educating her as he would have done the son that he had never had.
Mr Church had appeared to be happy enough in carrying out his various parish duties. On the death of his wife when Constance was only fourteen however, he had given up his parish and moved to Cambridge to pursue a scholarly career.
Constance had always been closer to her father than her mother and, as far as she was concerned, he could do no wrong. So, trusting him completely, as she had always done, she had packed up their household effects and had set about making their home in the ancient university town.
The situation in which she now lived, in a country parish, mixing with country people, was much more akin to the place in which she had been brought up. Nevertheless, she missed the evenings when some of her father’s fellow scholars would gather round the table, hotly disputing the American question, or universal suffrage, or problems with France, whilst she remained curled up in an armchair, occasionally interjecting some opinion, when most other girls of her age would long since have been in bed.
It had been from her father that she had gained her fierce sense of fairness. Whilst she was realistic enough to accept that, regrettably, revolution would probably not sweep through the country, levelling everyone, and bringing haughty aristocrats – like the one whom they had encountered in Chelmsford – to their knees, she saw no reason why the nobleman that they had seen – and what a misnomer that was – should be permitted to treat his employee in such a way. What made it worse was that Aunt Roberta was quite right: a man could not be a brute and a dandy.
He had undoubtedly been turned out in the latest style. Dressed in a silk striped coat of violet with a high collar, a white waistcoat embroidered with silver and tight-fitting pantaloons, and with a tall crowned hat on his powdered head, he would not have been at all out of place in St James’s Street. However, when the insufferable creature had made reference to his valet’s hands, Constance’s attention had been drawn to the hands of the nobleman himself. Here was the only flaw to his fashionable appearance, for he was not wearing gloves. As he had taken out his handkerchief to wave it in the air, she had noticed that his hands were tanned, square, and looked strong and capable. They were certainly not the hands of a dandy. They weren’t even as white as the valet’s hands, which had attracted such criticism. From this one small observation made quite by chance, she concluded that although he was definitely dressed like a dandy, he could not possibly be one. This meant that he had to be a brute. But what a brute he was!
‘Constance, my dear? Where have you been? I declare, I must have addressed my last remark to you three times.’
‘I beg your pardon, Aunt Roberta,’ she replied, dredging up from her mind the very few fragments of information that she had picked up from what her aunt had just been saying. ‘You were observing that Mrs Marriot looked better than you had expected.’
Miss Church and her aunt had just spent two weeks with a recently widowed school friend of Miss Fellowes outside Chelmsford. They had stabled the horses and post chaise at the Silent Woman in order to spare Mrs Marriot’s small household any extra trouble, hence their presence in the inn yard.
Miss Fellowes directed a shrewd look at her companion. ‘I was remarking that Mrs Marriot’s granddaughter was getting on better, given the poor start that she had had,’ she replied, a hint of asperity in her voice. ‘I knew you were not listening.’
‘I was in part,’ said Constance placatingly.
‘A very small part, perhaps. You need not think to pull the wool over my eyes. You were still thinking about that obnoxious man, and how to put him in his place.’
Constance laughed. ‘Why do you know me so well?’ she asked. ‘It really isn’t fair. It was a dear little baby, though, wasn’t it?’ It was in order to see the baby that they had postponed setting out that morning.
‘A delightful creature,’ Miss Fellowes agreed. ‘I hope she continues to take after her mother. Her father is an excellent man, I am sure, and a first-class lawyer, but I think that that long nose and those thick brows would be very unbecoming in a female.’
They were proceeding at a smart trot. The road was generally quite a busy one, since it carried some of the London traffic. Unusually, on this occasion, they had almost reached Witham, which was nearly halfway between Chelmsford and Colchester, without meeting more than a handful of wagons, and single horseback riders.
‘How agreeable it would be to be driving,’ Constance sighed. She had been taught to drive by her father, and although she had never handled a team, was very well capable of guiding a pair of horses.
‘You could never have driven us all this way in an open carriage,’ her aunt pointed out. ‘And Patch would never have managed the distance.’
Constance chuckled. ‘After half-a-dozen miles, he would probably have turned back of his own accord,’ she agreed. Patch was the Fellowes’s venerable pony, brought into service for short distances when the gig sufficed. For this excursion, they had borrowed a post chaise and pair from Mrs Brewer, an acquaintance in a nearby village. Fred, the coachman, was driving it by riding one of the horses.
A gig passed them, travelling the other way. The driver, who was dressed as a clergyman, touched his hat politely as he caught sight of the ladies.
‘How agreeable it is, my dear, to travel upon well-kept roads, where people are so polite,’ Miss Fellowes remarked. The words were barely out of her mouth, when there was a sound of a carriage approaching them from behind at considerable speed, accompanied by two outriders. Seeing that the driver was clearly in a hurry, Fred took steps to guide the horses to the side of the road, and indeed had begun to do so when they were all alarmed by a blast on the horn from the oncoming vehicle.
‘Have some patience!’ Miss Church exclaimed. Mercifully, the horses appeared to be good-tempered and placid, and did not take fright at the noise. The carriage swept past them and as it did so, Constance caught a glimpse of a familiar crest on the side. ‘It’s him,’ she said, losing control of her grammar in her exasperation.
‘To whom do you refer, dear?’ asked her aunt, retaining hers.
‘The dandy brute!’ Constance replied. ‘Now why am I not surprised?’
‘I don’t know, dear,’ said Miss Fellowes.
‘Trust him to drive at such a wicked pace, to the danger of any other road users.’
‘He wasn’t driving,’ pointed out Miss Fellowes reasonably.
‘You can be quite certain that it was he who gave orders for the man to drive at such a speed. I hold him entirely to blame.’
‘Yes, dear, I thought you might. Still, at least he has gone on ahead of us. As he is in such a hurry, he must have some distance to go, mustn’t he? I should think it very unlikely we shall encounter him agai
n.’
‘Thank goodness,’ said Miss Church heartily, as they continued on their way.
The ducal carriage arrived at Stanway, a small village outside Colchester, just as the light was fading, and drew up outside the Swan. They had set a smart pace from Chelmsford, since Alistair did not want to miss the tide at Harwich. As they travelled, they spoke little, for the most part resting in a companionable silence. As they drew near to Colchester, Alistair said, ‘By the way, I’ve made my will.’
‘Really?’ said Max.
‘You don’t sound very interested.’
‘In the nature of things you’ll predecease me. I doubt it will be for another forty years at least.’
‘Such touching faith in the success of my venture,’ Alistair murmured. ‘Nevertheless, I’ve done so. I’ve named you as executor. I hope that’s all right.’
‘I’m honoured,’ Max replied, and meant it.
On their arrival at the inn, Alistair once more took on the persona of Field, whilst Max, who was beginning to enjoy himself, swaggered into the inn as though he owned the place.
‘My Lord,’ murmured the landlord, bowing low.
Max stared at him, his chin high. ‘I am Haslingfield,’ he said. ‘My servant should have sent ahead for lodgings for me.’
The landlord looked back at him in some consternation. ‘I regret, My Lord… .’ he began.
‘This is monstrous,’ Max declared. ‘Positively monstrous. Is it really beyond your ability to hold a room in reserve when it has been booked in advance?’
‘I swear, My Lord,’ the landlord protested, ‘I have had no instructions from your lordship.’
‘Evidently,’ replied Max, his chin high. ‘Otherwise you would be addressing me as “Your Grace”.’
There was a faint snigger from the corner of the taproom. ‘He’s a bleedin’ archbishop,’ someone said.
Max could feel his mouth twitching. Had he been in their position, his attitude might have been the same; but he could not afford to let his performance slip. He swung round to face them, glaring at them from beneath his brows. Thus had he looked when he had confronted a pair of insolent sailors before knocking their heads together. Despite his dandified appearance, there was something about him that said he was a man to be reckoned with. The sniggering stopped at once, and the three individuals buried their faces in their tankards.
Imperfect Pretence Page 4
