Merriana grimaced. “It has occurred to me, of course, that I might have problems in regard to finding my uncle, but I will worry about that when the time comes. If he is not available to me, I can always seek work as a cook.”
He shrugged again, then sighed. “I’m sorry, Mary, if I distressed you by insisting that you tell me about your background, and by raising questions about your uncle. However, please rest assured that I will personally escort you to London upon the completion of this mission, and if your uncle is unavailable, I will see that you are provided for.”
“Very well, my lord,” Merriana agreed somewhat stiffly. The last thing she wanted was for the earl to accompany her to London. She’d just have to come up with a way to leave him behind.
But she’d worry about that when the time came. She had enough to concern her for the time being.
As they walked toward their destination that afternoon, Justin was in a wonderful mood, unconsciously whistling the tune that Mary had been humming that morning. Now that he no longer suspected Mary of being a spy, he could admit to himself that he was attracted to her as he had been to no woman since he was seventeen years old and had fallen madly in love with an actress. Since his actress had been more than willing to accept his protection and the house, clothing, and jewelry that went with it, he had been able to fulfill his needs that resulted from the attraction he felt for her. Unfortunately, she had soon bored him to distraction and he had found it necessary to bestow both the house and a good bit of additional jewelry on her in order to end the liaison.
He had no intention of trying to seduce Mary while they were traveling together. No matter what her background might be, he still felt that since he’d brought her along on this journey against her will, he couldn’t in good conscience try to make love to her. But when they returned to England, it would be a different matter. He strongly suspected that she would have difficulty locating her mother’s brother. And even if she did find her uncle, the man might not be willing to give her a home. If he were poor, he might feel as though he couldn’t afford another mouth to feed. If, on the other hand, he turned out to be a respectable Cit, he might not want to acknowledge his sister’s illegitimate child.
Justin, however, was more than willing to set Mary up with her own house, servants, and carriage. He was actually looking forward to buying her clothes and jewels, for he could easily imagine how unbelievably beautiful she would be when dressed in the quality of clothing he would buy for her. Of course, since she appeared quite innocent, he would have to go slowly so as not to frighten her, but he had little doubt of the eventual outcome.
He, of course, would have to marry someone from his own class someday. After all, it was up to him to provide an heir. But even then, he had no intention of giving up Mary. A woman such as he would marry would have been raised not to question her husband’s affairs, so he anticipated no problems from that quarter. Thus, he could have the best of both worlds—a wife with the essential social background and a mistress whom he could enjoy and cherish.
From time to time, he glanced at Mary as they walked and would imagine her in his arms, hungering for his embraces. He wanted to stop her now and kiss her until he aroused in her a longing to know him much more intimately, but he refrained. He was determined to wait until they reached England to approach her, even if it killed him.
Merriana, obviously unaware of the plans being made for her future, interrupted Justin’s daydreams with a practical observation. “We’re getting close to Vilon. Do you see the house there in the distance, nearly hidden behind that clump of trees? Vilon is only about two miles from there.”
Justin frowned. “It’s not the village proper I need,” he explained. “It’s a farmhouse about a mile from the village where a man named Lousant lives. Do you know of him?”
“Why, yes,” Merriana said. “He’s the man who allowed me to stay in his barn for two days when I was trying to leave France. I can take you right to his farm.”
“Interesting,” Justin murmured, glancing at Merriana with renewed suspicion in his eyes. “Where is this place?”
“On the opposite side of the village. We can cut around, behind the farm I pointed out to you, and approach it from the rear.”
Justin nodded and then began walking again, leading Merriana in the opposite direction.
“But you’re going the long way around,” she objected.
“We’re in no hurry,” he responded. “I told you I didn’t want to approach the place before dusk.”
“Then let’s sit for a while,” she suggested. “Or is it that you still don’t trust me?”
He stopped and turned to her, consciously wiping the frown from his face and replacing it with a smile. Alienation was the last thing he wanted at the moment, but caution was too much a part of his training to be ignored now. “I trust you as much or more than I would trust anyone, Mary, but I feel we should enter the farm from the side rather than from either the front or the rear. The front would be too obvious to those who might just be curious, and the rear would be watched if our friend Lousant is under suspicion. We will slip in from the side and will do so most carefully. If Lousant is in the habit of helping people escape from France, he may well be under constant surveillance by now.”
They approached Lousant’s farm a little before dusk and sat for a while in a grove of trees. Justin indicated that Merriana was to remain quiet, and she did so. She was beginning to become a bit nervous, for he had not given her any details about what was to take place. She assumed, from the little he’d said previously, that he was to meet a man here and escort that man back to England. If that was the case, the man must be a close friend or a man of great importance to the English war effort. Perhaps he was a French spy who had decided to switch sides or perhaps he was even an English agent who had been on an assignment in France. Her thoughts turned to De la Nuit, who was supposedly the best English agent in the war, and wished it might be he, but she was too realistic to hope for such a coincidence. That she might never see De la Nuit was much more likely.
The sun set slowly. Just before the light was completely gone, the earl motioned that they were to move closer to the large barn that stood near the smaller farmhouse. Merriana followed his lead in keeping low as they crept across the open field. When they reached a clump of shrubbery about fifty yards from the barn, he drew her close and whispered to her that she was to stay there. “I prefer to go in alone,” he said, “and if you hear anything strange—shouts or gunfire—I want you to run. Go back the way we came, for I’m fairly sure that route isn’t watched, but be careful. Wait for me in the grove of trees. If I’m not there in thirty minutes, leave me and try to make your way back to the coast. Isaac has orders that, if you return alone, he is to take you back to the Drake and Cock. Understand?”
Merriana nodded. She didn’t want to stay behind, and she was surprised he would leave her. If a trap awaited him, he would believe that it was of her doing, and he had threatened more than once to kill her before he died. She realized now that his threats had been empty. Even if he walked into a trap, he was going to let her go. But it was obvious he didn’t believe she’d laid a trap for him, for he seemed sure that she stood in as much danger as he. That realization made her inordinately happy and on impulse, she pulled him to her and kissed him briefly. “Take care, mon ami,” she whispered. She could see his smile in the dying light. “Count on it, ma petite,” he said before slipping out into the night.
The following thirty minutes seemed like a hundred and thirty as Merriana waited, crouched in the shrubbery. But at least all was quiet. She strained her ears for any unusual sounds, but all she could hear was the occasional call of a night bird or the hum of an insect. Finally, as her nerves seemed stretched beyond her ability to endure, she saw two figures coming toward her in the soft glow of the rising moon. They moved with stealth, and Merriana could only pray that one of them was the earl. Her prayers were answered as the two men slipped beside her into the shrubs.
“All was clear,” Justin whispered to her. “And I have with me our guest. Mary, may I present to you Monsieur Henri de Dalmy.”
Although the light was dim, Merriana could see that their new companion was a slight man, barely taller than she, with a wiry frame. He instantly bowed low, contriving somehow in the shrubbery to be as graceful as if they had been in a ballroom. With a flourish, he kissed her hand, whispering that, had he known his guide would be so beautiful, he would have contrived to leave France decades ago. Merriana laughed softly while the earl sighed. “We can’t afford to stand here playing the chevalier,” he said. “Let’s try to put a few miles behind us while the moon is still up.”
No one objected to this plan, and the trio traveled for about three hours before Justin indicated that they were to stop for the night in a stand of trees that afforded a bit of shelter. He distributed the blankets and then strategically placed himself between Merriana and their companion as they lay down to sleep.
The morning light revealed that Monsieur de Dalmy was a young man and, although there were unmistakable signs of stress in his eyes, they also contained a delightful twinkle. He had a ready smile and a soft chuckle that made Merriana feel like chuckling too. He laughed often, seemingly finding a childlike delight in any situation, and Merriana discovered that she liked him a great deal.
Justin seemed less pleased with their companion. It was obvious that the two men had never met before, and Merriana assumed that the young man was indeed a French agent who was defecting to the English. If so, he would have a great deal of important information to share, which would explain the earl’s determination to transport him to England. Merriana found herself just as determined to see de Dalmy safely out of France, for she was already too fond of him to think about what would happen to him should he be captured. That similar unpleasant fates might await herself and the earl was a fact she pushed far to the back of her mind.
Her fears were needless. The trip back to the coast was even less eventful than the trip to Vilon had been. They met no French patrols and saw only two farmers at a distance. The weather remained pleasant, and in only three day’s time, they were once again at the fishing village, waiting for Isaac to pick them up.
The Frenchman had been a pleasant traveling companion. After one brief episode of paying fulsome compliments to Merriana and seeing the earl’s narrowed eyes, he had treated her as he might a sister and refrained from flirting with her. He had been uncomplaining and unfailingly cheerful, and by the end of their trek, he seemingly had succeeded in circumventing the earl’s distrust so that the two men were on reasonably friendly terms.
On the night of the fourth day after they left Vilon, in answer to a signal from Justin, a rowboat came into the hidden cove and Isaac jumped from it to assist his three passengers into the boat. “All well, my lord?” he asked and merely grunted at the earl’s affirmative answer. The captain nodded briefly at his introduction to the Frenchman, but he approached Merriana with a warm smile and a small vial containing a thick, dark liquid.
“Now missy,” he said. “My missus concocted this brew for you and you’re to drink it all down. It may taste like poison but she swears it will keep you from being sick, and I intend to see that you take it all.”
“No need to coerce me, sir,” Merriana responded. “Even if it were poison, I would drink it. It couldn’t be worse than what I suffered on the trip over.”
“That was bad,” Isaac agreed, shaking his head in sympathy, “but you needn’t fear the trip back. My missus is an old hand at medicines and when she says her brews will help a body, they always do.”
Justin watched this exchange with a mixture of pride and exasperation. He knew Isaac was not a man to be won over by a pretty face, so he couldn’t help feeling a little pride that the gruff seaman was so taken with Mary. At the same time, he wished people did not fall so quickly under her spell. He was aware that de Dalmy had refrained from attempting to form a closer relationship with Mary only because of his own possessive attitude toward her, and he was feeling a bit guilty.
Would Mary have preferred de Dalmy to himself? No, he didn’t believe that. He knew women too well not to know that Mary was attracted to him. Perhaps she was even beginning to fall in love with him. He hoped she wasn’t, because a relationship based purely on physical attraction and mutual respect was all he wanted. Still, he was honest enough to admit that he would much prefer to have Mary all to himself, and he was determined to approach her as soon as possible with the plans he’d made for their future liaison.
However, seeing Mary alone proved more difficult that he had imagined. De Dalmy stayed close to her on the trip back to England, watching her for signs of illness, and teasing her to take her mind off the rolling of the boat. Isaac, too, managed on several occasions to visit the special area on deck he’d had prepared for Mary with a chair near the railing and as much protection from the winds as could be contrived with sailcloth. The old captain appeared delighted to discover that Mary was not in the least sick, and, although the sea was much calmer than on their trip to France, he gave full credit for her lack of nausea to his wife’s concoction, promising Merriana that he would send her the recipe for it.
Once on land, Justin still could not manage to be alone with Merriana. As soon as they changed into their clothing that Isaac had stored for them, they took their leave of the captain. De Dalmy thanked him profusely and shook his hand warmly. Merriana, too, thanked him for his care, but she accompanied her goodbyes with a swift hug and a kiss on his weathered cheek.
Justin would have said his goodbyes with a quick handshake had not the captain detained him by demanding that he take good care of “the little lady” and looking into his eyes with such a knowing expression that Justin was strongly tempted to demand what in the devil he meant by such a statement. Instead, he gave an abrupt nod, then turned to de Dalmy and Merriana. “Let’s be on our way. We have a good bit of territory to cover before we reach the Drake and Cock.”
Chapter 8
When Merriana, Justin, and de Dalmy arrived at the Drake and Cock in the early afternoon, all three sighed with relief. Justin’s curricle had never been intended for three passengers, and although both Merriana and de Dalmy were small, the ride had still been cramped.
Tom and Luke expressed delight that the travelers were back safely, and both welcomed Merriana as warmly as if they did not still suspect her of being a French spy.
“You’ll be wanting to freshen up, Mary,” Tom said as soon as the trio entered the common room. “We’ve had a gal from the village in cleaning this week, and Mrs. Harvey’s cooked up a decent meal for us. Why don’t you go up to the back bedchamber and rest a spell if you want. Then, in about an hour, we can eat.”
“That sounds delightful, Tom,” Merriana said with a smile. “If you gentlemen will excuse me?”
As soon as Merriana disappeared up the stairs, both Tom and Luke turned to Justin with expectant looks on their faces. He smiled reluctantly and answered their unspoken question: “No fellows, I no longer suspect Mary of being a French agent.”
“A French agent?” de Dalmy echoed. “What are you talking about?”
And so, over brandy, Justin filled de Dalmy in on the circumstances that had made him suspect Mary.
“But of course she is not a spy,” de Dalmy stated emphatically at the end of Justin’s story. “I would have heard of her had she been. A woman so beautiful could not escape attention for long in our business, my lord.”
“No, I believe you’re correct,” Justin agreed. “I’d decided for myself that she’s not a French agent. But you will have to admit that the circumstances at the time were enough to make anyone suspicious. With that French guide breaking his leg…” Justin paused and turned toward Tom and Luke. “Speaking of the guide, have you two been to the Harveys’ to check on this fellow?”
“Sure have, Justin,” Luke replied. “He swears there was a rope across the road that caused his accident. He was sure upset that he coul
dn’t go with you. Said he knows you and has worked with you in France but under a different name than he’s going by in this country. Said you would know him as Duller Noot.”
“Well, the man’s either a fool or a liar,” Justin exclaimed. “I have never in my life had the misfortune of knowing someone with the name of Duller Noot!”
The Frenchman’s sudden hoot of laughter drew their attention.
“What the devil is wrong with you?” Justin demanded.
It was a few seconds before de Dalmy could contain his laughter enough to reply. “But of course you would know this man,” he informed Justin. “I, too, know him. Have you, perchance, ever worked with the agent known as De la Nuit?”
“That’s the name,” Tom exclaimed. “I was afraid I didn’t have it exactly right.”
This statement sent both the Frenchman and Justin into peals of laughter while the two innkeepers glared at them. “I ain’t never claimed to speak any foreign tongue,” Tom said at last with a disgusted look on his face, “and I don’t see what’s so funny.”
“Sorry, old fellow,” Justin apologized with a grin. “But I’m laughing partly from relief. I had feared that De la Nuit was dead. He’s not been heard from for some time.”
“Well, like I said,” Luke continued, “he’s been in this country for a while, going by a different name. Says he planned to retire but was needed to check up on some Frenchmen here that the government thought might be spies. When he finished that chore, he was told about your next assignment in France and volunteered to go with you. Only one person in our government knew his real identity and he wasn’t telling. Guess that’s why we had so much trouble finding out anything about him before he was to meet you here.”
“No doubt,” Justin agreed. “But I can hardly wait to see him. And you, too, de Dalmy, will wish to visit with him. Is there time to go to the Harvey farm this afternoon, Luke?”
The Mysterious Merriana Page 7
