They proved to be their host and hostess, Viscount and Viscountess Paignton. Charles made the introductions.
While the men shook hands, Paignton—who went by the name of Deverell—expressing his disgust that he’d missed the action, both ladies, far from turning up their aristocratic noses as Linnet had fully expected, smiled delightedly and welcomed her eagerly, touching fingers, then turning to flank her as they escorted her up the front steps. “You truly are most welcome,” Phoebe, Viscountess Paignton, assured her. “I had no idea Monteith was bringing a lady with him, but I’m delighted he did.”
Linnet looked from one delicate face to the other, sensed sincerity and a certain determination behind both, and felt curious enough to admit, “The truth is, I had no idea I would be traveling on with him. I found him shipwrecked on my land on Guernsey, my household cared for him until he regained his strength and his memory, then I brought him to Plymouth on my ship, but I expected to leave him there and sail home—”
She broke off as they halted in the lamplit front hall and Lady Penelope waved her hands to halt Linnet’s words. “Wait, wait! I’m already dying with envy. First let me say that along with Phoebe here, I am most sincerely thrilled to see you, because you clearly know something about this mission all our men are about to embark on, so you can tell us—give us a feminine view of the matter. However, my head is reeling, filled with avidly green jealousy.”
In the better light, along with Phoebe, Lady Penelope ran her shrewd gaze down Linnet, taking in her jacket, leather breeches, high boots, and her cutlass still riding at her hip, then she pointed a delicate finger at the cutlass. “Don’t tell me they allowed you to fight alongside them?”
Linnet looked from one openly amazed face to the other, but could detect not a single hint of censure. “I didn’t actually ask their permission.”
Lady Penelope blinked, asked of no one in particular, “Why didn’t I ever think of that?”
Intrigued, Linnet added, “I have two daggers in my boots, as well.”
“Did you account for any of the attackers?” Phoebe’s eyes had hardened, her chin firm.
“Two. But we didn’t wait to check if they were dead. It started off as nine to three, and once we’d accounted for the first nine, there were more coming, so we ran.”
“May I?”
Linnet turned to find Lady Penelope with a hand hovering by her—Linnet’s—thigh, fingers waggling, wanting to touch her breeches. Bemused, already fascinated by these totally unexpected gently bred females, Linnet nodded. “Of course.”
The Countess of Lostwithiel ran her hand over the fine, butter-soft leather, felt its quality, and heaved a long, wistful sigh. “Please call me Penny—and I would really love a pair like that. Can I inveigle you into telling me where you got them? On Guernsey, or farther afield? Not that I care—I’ll send Charles anywhere.”
“Actually, they’re from much nearer to hand.” Linnet grinned at Penny’s eager expression. “Exeter—there’s a leathermaker there I convinced to make them for me. I can give you his direction.”
Penny clasped her hands to her bosom, her face alight. “Wonderful! I’ve just decided what Charles can get me to make amends over me having to miss the action in this latest adventure.”
“I’m still working on what to wring from Deverell,” Phoebe said. “But I have another question. You said you conveyed Monteith to Plymouth on your ship. You own a ship? Do you sail it?”
Her lips curving irrepressibly, Linnet snapped a jaunty salute. “I’m afraid I left my captain’s hat on board, but I’m Captain Trevission, owner of Trevission Ships, and in particular, the barque the Esperance .” She glanced over her shoulder at Logan, lightly frowned. “Mind you, I’m not, at this precise moment, exactly sure where my ship is. My crew were seduced into letting me be carried off it, but I suspect the Esperance is currently riding in Plymouth Sound, safely tucked among His Majesty’s warships.”
The men had followed them into the hall. Logan heard her comment, smiled crookedly, and inclined his head.
“I think,” Phoebe said, tucking her arm in Linnet’s, “that you and I, Penny, should escort Captain Trevission to a nice guest room, and learn just how she’s achieved such things in no more years than we’ve had.”
“Indeed.” Penny took Linnet’s other arm. “Clearly there’s much here we can learn.”
When Phoebe paused to give instructions to her kindly butler and her efficient-looking housekeeper, Linnet glanced back at the three men, and saw Charles’s and Deverell’s faintly concerned expressions—remembered Charles’s comment about not giving their ladies ideas—and finally understood.
Smiling, she looked ahead and allowed Penny and Phoebe to sweep her up the stairs. “Actually, there is one thing you could help me with.” Reaching the head of the stairs, she glanced at Penny, confirming, as they started along the corridor, that they were much the same height and not dissimilar in shape. “In return for the direction of my breeches maker.”
“Anything!” Penny declared. “At the moment, I would even gift you with my firstborn—he’s been a handful all day, wanting to follow his father, of course.”
Linnet laughed. “Thank you, but I have one of those—well, not mine, but one of my wards. But I really do need some gowns.”
“My wardrobe is yours.” Penny smiled intently. “Just as long as you tell us all you know.”
“All,” Phoebe said, halting at a door along the main corridor, “that our dear husbands are keeping to their chests.”
She set the door swinging wide, then ushered Linnet in. “Now—how about a bath?”
S he had, Linnet decided, landed in some strange heaven.
She’d never had feminine companionship like this—freely offered, from ladies of her own class, her own generation. It was . . . a revelation.
Under Phoebe’s direction, a bath had been prepared, and Linnet had luxuriated, then Penny had arrived with a selection of gowns, all of which she’d insisted Linnet take, assuring her, “I always pack so much more than I need.”
While Linnet had dressed, then dried and combed out her hair, the other two had perched in the window seat and they’d talked. They’d shared bits and pieces of their lives openly with her, and she’d found herself reciprocating.
She and Penny had exchanged tales of horses and riding, shipwrecks and sailing, and she’d listened with rapt attention while Phoebe had explained about her agency, then they’d listened with real interest while she’d described Mon Coeur and explained about her wards.
Phoebe had instantly volunteered her agency should any of Linnet’s brood ever want to find work in England. “I can always place well-educated young women, and even young men, as companions or personal secretaries.”
Linnet had had no idea aristocratic ladies were so engaged and active.
When she’d said so, Penny had pulled a face. “The sad truth is, a lot aren’t, but we are, and all those you’ll meet when you reach Elveden—the end of your journey—are like us, too. We have the position, the wherewithal, and the ability, and so we do. Sitting and embroidering is definitely not for us.”
Phoebe had laughed. “In fact, not many of us can embroider. Minerva, Royce’s wife, does, beautifully, and perhaps Alicia might. But most of us are not, as one might say, accomplished in that direction.”
Linnet had grinned. “In that respect, at least, I’ll fit in.”
By the time the three of them went downstairs to join the men for dinner, Linnet was, to her very real surprise, relaxed, at ease, and indeed, in that moment at least, enjoying herself.
Not that she didn’t have a bone or two to pick with Logan, but that would have to wait until later.
Over dinner, the others were eager to hear about Logan’s mission thus far, from its beginning in India to when he and Linnet had arrived at the Seafarer’s Arms.
Reassured that all was well with Linnet—very aware that it was at his insistence that she’d been forced into a world she wasn’t
accustomed to, and that any consequent unhappiness would lie at his door, and thus relieved and cravenly grateful to Penny and Phoebe for smoothing her way—Logan set himself to succinctly but comprehensively satisfy their curiosity.
Linnet listened, too, no doubt adding flesh to the bare bones he’d previously revealed to her, but she left all questions to the others. Charles and Deverell were experienced interrogators; they knew what to ask to clarify his story.
When it came to Linnet’s part in it, he didn’t hold back. She blushed at his compliments, his very real praise, tried to deflect attention by claiming it was no more than anyone else would have done—which argument none of the others accepted.
Penny waved Linnet’s words aside. “There’s no help for it—you’re heroine material. No point trying to clamber off the pedestal. You’ll just have to get used to the height.”
Which shut Linnet up. Logan thought she was dumfounded, which in his admittedly short experience was a first.
He took pity on her and quickly summed up their time in Plymouth, which brought them to the present and Paignton Hall.
They paused to allow the empty dessert dishes to be cleared.
When the footmen had withdrawn, Deverell asked, “So your mission’s a decoy run?”
When Logan nodded, Charles said, “From the way Royce is managing the four individual threads of this action, I suspect Delborough’s most likely a decoy, too. Hamilton I’m not sure about.”
Logan thought of his comrades, of Gareth, and especially Rafe, about whom he’d yet to hear definite information. He stirred, looked down the table at Deverell, then across it at Charles. “So what now? Where to from here?”
Deverell raised his brows at Phoebe, at the other end of the table. “Shall we repair to the drawing room to make our plans?”
Phoebe nodded decisively. “Yes, let’s. Aside from all else, we ladies aren’t about to leave you gentlemen to swap secrets over the port. If you want any spirits, bring the decanters with you.”
Deverell checked with Charles and Logan, but as none of them felt the need for any further bolstering, they left the decanters on the sideboard and fell in on the ladies’ heels as they led the way to the drawing room.
A minor distraction occurred when the respective nannies ushered in the Deverell and St. Austell children to say their goodnights. Logan watched as Linnet smiled and shook hands with Charles’s two little boys, and Deverell’s eldest daughter and his son, admitting that yes, she really was a ship’s captain, that yes, her ship was a big one with lots of sails, an oceangoing vessel, not a sailboat, but that as yet she hadn’t ordered anyone to walk the plank.
Satisfied, the children smiled huge smiles, bobbed bows and curtsies, and chorused their goodnights.
Penny and Phoebe handed their youngest children—Penny’s daughter, Phoebe’s second girl—to their husbands to jiggle, kiss, then return to the nannies’ waiting arms.
When the door finally shut behind the small cavalcade, Penny fixed her eyes on her husband’s face. “Right. Now cut line, and tell us what your orders are.”
Charles arched a brow at Deverell.
Subsiding beside his wife on one chaise, Deverell said, “I’ve already sent a messenger to Royce to report that Logan’s reached us hale and whole, and with his scroll-holder still in his possession. However, Logan was late in to Plymouth, so Royce has already sent us our orders for the next leg. We’re instructed to reach Oxford by the evening of the nineteenth, traveling via Bath, where we’re to stay at The York House. Further orders will await us at the University Arms in Oxford. Our ultimate goal is Royce’s house, Elveden Grange, just short of Thetford in Suffolk, but he’ll want us coming in on a specific route, on a particular day. Presumably we’ll learn which route and what day once we reach Oxford.”
Lounging beside Penny on the opposite chaise, Charles said, “Given the enemy knows you’re in England, and will almost certainly trace us to Totnes, I suggest we remain here in safety before doing a dash in the minimum number of days required to reach Oxford on the nineteenth.”
Deverell nodded, his gaze going to Logan. “We’re safe here—it’s close to impossible to successfully attack this house.”
Logan inclined his head. “So what’s the minimum number of days on the road to get from here to Oxford?”
“Two,” Deverell replied. “With the days so short—and we certainly won’t want to be traveling through the night, inviting attack—then it’ll take us one long day to reach Bath, and then a shorter day’s journey to Oxford.”
“That should allow us some flexibility as to which roads to take,” Charles said, “although I assume we’ll stick mostly to the main highways.”
Deverell leaned back. “Unless we have reason to do otherwise, that would be my plan.”
“All right,” Phoebe said. “It’s the sixteenth today, so that leaves you tomorrow to make preparations and get everything arranged, then the day after tomorrow, you leave for Bath.”
Everyone nodded. Charles looked at Phoebe, then Penny beside him. “I still can’t believe Minerva invited you and the children—and the other wives with theirs, too—to join us at Elveden.”
“Minerva,” Penny stated, adding for Logan’s and Linnet’s benefit, “she’s Royce’s duchess, is an eminently wise and sensible lady. And she’s now one of the grandest of the grandes dames , so of course we can’t possibly decline the invitation.”
“Especially not when that invitation so perfectly aligns with your own wishes,” Deverell rather acerbically remarked.
Phoebe struggled to keep her lips straight as she patted her husband’s hand. “Indeed. Especially not then.” She looked at Penny. “If they’re leaving the day after tomorrow”—she glanced at Deverell—“and I expect you’ll be away at dawn?”
Resigned, he nodded. “We should leave at first light, if not just before—if there’s any surprise to be had, we want it on our side.”
“Well, then”—Phoebe looked at Penny—“I can’t see any reason why we couldn’t set off within an hour or so.”
Logan shifted, frowning as he imagined it. “If you can, it would be wiser to wait a few hours at least.” He met Deverell’s, then Charles’s, eyes. “We have to work on the assumption that the cult will locate us here, that they might be watching. If we leave, they’ll follow us, but it would be preferable that they get no hint that anyone else might be leaving shortly after.”
“In case they think to take hostages?” Charles asked.
“No point taking chances.” Logan looked at Phoebe. “Don’t start making preparations—any that might be seen from outside the Hall—until we’ve been gone for at least two hours. If there’s others waiting for us further up the road, those watching might mill about for a while when we leave, but if there’s nothing happening here, they won’t stay—they’ll fall in on our tail.”
Charles and Deverell both nodded emphatically.
“That’s what you’ll need to do.” Charles looked at his wife. “Where had you planned to stay on the road?”
Penny exchanged a look with Phoebe. “We’d planned to make Andover on the first night, which we still should be able to do.” When Phoebe nodded, Penny went on. “There’s a very large hotel there—what with our guards around us as well, we’ll be perfectly safe. On the second day, we’ll travel through London to Woodford.”
“Another very large hotel, again with lots of other people around,” Phoebe put in. “Which means we’ll reach Elveden easily on the third day. We’ll be there to welcome you when you get there.”
Charles glanced at Deverell, grimaced. “I suppose, as neither of you will consent not to go, then the best we can do is surround you with guards.”
Penny smiled resignedly. “We’ll take however many you want to send, but if I might point out, we’re already resembling a royal procession.”
Charles grunted.
Linnet asked a question about Elveden Grange, and the talk veered into less fraught waters.
&n
bsp; L eaving the three men reminiscing about the war and their respective parts in it, Linnet climbed the stairs with Phoebe and Penny, very ready to rest. The day had been beyond eventful; quite aside from recouping physically, she had a great deal to review and digest. Parting from the other two at the head of the stairs, she found her way to her comfortable chamber and what promised to be a very comfortable bed.
Undressing by the light of a small lamp some maid had left burning, Linnet let her mind range over all she’d learned that day—the true danger of Logan’s mission, the reality that she could, and now looked set to, play a part, in her mind as his guardian, his keeper, regardless of what he might think. The abrupt shift in her view of aristocratic ladies, the realization that, at least in terms of Phoebe’s and Penny’s world, she might indeed fit in; they thought like her, had so much in common, shared so many attitudes, and had no more patience with social pretense than she did. She had a shrewd suspicion that, given the circumstances, they could both be as bold and as brazen as she.
She found Charles’s and Deverell’s attitudes to their wives interesting, too. Revealing, intriguing—their marriages were definitely not the norm, or at least not the norm as she had previously understood it.
There was a lot to assimilate, a large number of her views to reassess and rescript in light of what she’d observed. Yet one topic, one piece of news, increasingly filled her mind, increasingly captured her thoughts. Increasingly commanded her entire attention.
Logan was an earl’s son.
What did that mean with respect to her?
In a nightgown Penny had loaned her, wrapped in the counterpane for warmth, she was standing by the window staring out at the restless sea and wrestling with that question when the door opened and Logan came in.
She glanced at him. “I wondered if you’d come. I’ve no idea which room you were given.”
With a quirk of his brows, he sat on the end of the bed and bent to ease off his boots. “I could tell you it was my superior tracking skills that led me to your door, but the truth is my room is two doors further along, and going down to dinner I passed this door and heard your voice.” Setting his boots aside, he looked at her. “Regardless, I would have found you. I wasn’t about to stay away.”
The Brazen Bride Page 25
