Paxten lifted one shoulder. "Perhaps only threats. In any case, we are best served if we take the chance out of it. Which means we need to acquire another means of transport—and new identities."
Diana's eyes brightened. "Really? Oh, may I disguise myself as a boy and wear breeches?"
Alexandria gave her niece a withering stare. "My dear, if you put on breeches, a boy's figure is the last thing any man will think about. With your curves, you are more like to begin a riot, so no, you may not disguise yourself as a boy."
Diana's face fell. Alexandria turned her stare back to the road, and the wide, mismatched rumps of the horses pulling the gig. Now she felt the worst spoilsport. She put a hand on her niece's leg. "Now, I suppose I could make a perfectly adequate boy, what with my lack of curves."
Paxten glanced at her, an odd light in his eyes. "I should like to see you try."
She blushed hot, and since she could think of nothing to answer him, she glared at him and asked, "What did you really do to Lisette D'Aeth to bring so much wrath down on your head?"
"Only what I told you—but I am certain she gave her husband a story of the worst crimes. Ironic that I am now hunted for a sin I did not commit when I have so many others waiting judgment."
Diana leaned forward to glanced at Paxten around Alexandria. "Madam D'Aeth—so that is your Lisette! Whatever did you see in her? I always thought her rather common, actually."
Paxten opened his mouth to answer, but Alexandria interrupted. "Diana, you will forget that you heard anything mentioned about Madam D'Aeth, and you will not repeat that remark again, please."
"But I won't forget." Alexandria turned to glare at her niece, and the girl smiled back. "I mean, of course I should never dream of mentioning it to Father, or to Mummy for that matter—oh, wouldn't she just faint if I brought up anything so indelicate. But I am hardly a child. And if you can speak to Mr. Marsett of such matters, why can I not? Is not honest conversation of any value anywhere?"
Paxten grinned. "Not in the salons of Paris or London, but we are in the French countryside. And we are about to become solid French citizens, at one with the land and the seasons."
Diana's eyes brightened. "That sounds lovely. How do we do that?"
Inside, Alexandria groaned. Now he had her niece under his spell. And she could not think that his next idea would be any better than the last. But he was right. They needed to do all they could to throw off the trail of that captain and his men.
Why, she wondered, had she not set him down from her carriage at the very outset of this? She would certainly never forgive herself if her weakness for him led Diana into further dangers.
#
Alexandria held up the rough, cotton shift and the high-waisted dark-brown dress. On the ground lay a straw bonnet, wool stockings with plain garters to tie them up and sturdy half-boots. Behind her, a stream gurgled over pebbles, rocks and fallen branches in a light rush of sound. Breeze whispered though the trees overhead, and dappled sunlight shifted across the spring grass and dark earth.
A longing for her own gowns tightened in her chest. Soft silks and bold satins. Lace so fine that it seemed tatted from a fairy's web. Soft muslin designed to float and spin as one danced. Kid gloves made to fit, satin dancing slippers and boots so soft the leather molded itself to her feet. All gone.
Well, she had the lawn chemise she wore, the material so fine as to be nearly transparent. And soft. She would keep that. And her corset. And her own silk stockings. Perhaps she could wash them in the stream nearby. And she could still use her own pink, satin garters trimmed in lace. And her boots.
That left the horrid dress. And the bonnet.
She glanced around her.
Paxten had left them at the edge of a wooded area, near a thick stand of beech trees and not far from a narrow, fast stream fed by a spring. Flowers of some sort—small and white—bloomed in the shade. She had never known the name of any plant, other than knowing a rose from a lily.
"Best if you're not seen in town when I sell the gig," he had said. Alexandria had winced at the effort it took him to climb back into the carriage.
"I ought to come with you," she told him.
With a smile, he shook his head. "And have your description left behind for those soldiers to follow? The idea here is to hide our tracks, and I cannot do that with a lady beside me."
She had frowned at that, wanting to argue, but he had driven off before she could come up with better reasons why he needed her assistance.
He returned an hour later, riding the roan without a saddle but with two cloth bags slung before him over the roan's withers. After sliding off the roan's back, he pulled the bags down and opened one, producing a wine bottle, thick-crusted bread wrapped in a cloth, cheese covered in red wax, and sweet green apples.
Ravenous, she had eaten like a peasant, sitting on the ground, drinking the wine—a sharp red that tasted of oak and spices—from the bottle, letting Paxten entertain them with the story of his horse trading.
"Is that all you got for the gig?" she said, outraged when he counted the few coins from his leather purse
"No, it's not, but I spent some of it." He pulled out the clothes then from the other bag. "For you Mistress Marsett, and for you Mademoiselle Marsett. We are now the Marsett family, en route to Boulogne to see our lovely daughter here wed to a fisherman's son whom she met last year while we were visiting cousins. And scowl you may, Andria, for you are to be the wife who dislikes the marriage and therefore says little. You should be able to manage that with your French."
She lifted one eyebrow. "You could teach me to curse."
"I may just. Now, if you will excuse me, I've a horse to sell and other transport to arrange."
With a grin he started back to the horse. Alexandria followed him. "You were supposed to be in bed today."
He had been gathering up the reins to the bridle, but he paused and turned to her. His color had gone pale again, and a sheen lay on his skin. She wanted to touch her hand to his face and decided that she could risk that much. So she brushed the back of her fingers across his forehead. Not too warm. No fever. But he looked so tired.
He caught her hand and brushed his thumb across the inside of her wrist. "Worried for me?"
She jerked away from his hold. "If you collapse while away, you leave us stranded here, so yes I am worried!" She sounded sharp as a shrew, but he did not seem to mind.
He grinned. "Ah, but how could I stay away from two beautiful women, even if I had to return as a ghost?"
"Please do not joke about that."
"Then give me a leg up, if you like. Or do you care to ride before me on this old roan? I cannot swear she will take both our weights, however, even though you are still almost as slim as a girl."
She glanced at the horse. "You have an annoying habit of being right about things. How do I give you a leg up?"
He had to coach her in how to grab his left leg when he bent it, one hand wrapped around his knee and the other at his ankle. It brought her closer to him than when she had been sitting in the gig with him, and the awareness of him tingled on her skin.
The first time she did not boost enough, and he glared at her. "I'm not china to break!"
The next time, she lifted hard on his count of three and he almost sailed over the horse's back. Catching the mane with one hand, he grinned down at her. Reaching out, he caught and twirled a lock of her hair around her fingers. With a tug on it, he let go. "I'd kiss you if I could do so without slipping off this beast. Make yourself pretty for me while I'm gone."
But how could anyone be pretty in these clothes?
She nearly jumped as a twig snapped behind her, and she turned to see Diana.
"Look at me, Aunt! Do you think Father would even know me now?"
The girl twirled, spinning in the small clearing of trees like a wood nymph. Alexandria shook her head.
Diana had let down her hair, and the golden curls fell to the middle of her back. She had on a simple, blu
e muslin gown, high-waisted, with a yellow scarf tucked into the neckline. It looked appropriate for Marie-Jeanne, not a young lady of birth who had, only a few weeks ago, had graced the grandest salons of Paris.
Skipping forward, Diana picked up the sleeve of her aunt's dress, holding it out. "I suppose he did not get you as pretty a gown, but if you are supposed to be my glowering mère...." Diana glanced at her aunt.
The poor dear had not been happy about leaving their things behind, and Diana almost gave a sigh for the dresses she had bought in Paris and had left at the inn. Such pretty things, and all in the latest fashion. It would have been lovely to take them home and show them off. However, far better to have a story to tell.
So how did she coax her aunt into a better humor so that she did not spoil this most amazing experience?
She put an arm around her aunt. "You know we could ask him to get you something a bit more...well, more scandalous. You could be disguised as his mistress, and I could be the daughter who disapproves."
Her aunt snatched the dress from Diana's hands. "I am not Lady Scandal."
Diana's face warmed. She had not meant to bring this up, but since her aunt had mentioned it, she decided she might as well use the opportunity.
Stepping around to undo the ties at the back of her aunt's lovely gold-patterned gown, Diana asked, "Of course you are not, Aunt. But something must have occurred to cause you to once be known as Lady Scandal."
CHAPTER EIGHT
"It was years ago," her aunt said, her voice as closed as her expression. She dropped the cotton shift, slipped out of her gold gown and busied herself in pulling on the brown.
Before she had it so much as up over her knees, Diana stopped her. "Really, now! How will you ever look the part proper if you do not wear everything?"
"I am not going to itch in uncomfortable undergarments."
"What if we are stopped and searched? There might be any number of barricades that have been set up along the way to catch fleeing English. And the ports are bound to be full of soldiers!"
Her aunt frowned, glanced at the clothes and gave a sigh. "Oh, very well."
Smiling, Diana started to help her again, undoing the laces to her aunt's corset. "I suppose what you did could not have been all that scandalous, for I have never heard so much as a breath of it. Still, I supposed Father would know—"
"No!"
Diana blinked.
Her aunt had turned positively red. Now she fussed with slipping out of her light corset and chemise and into the rough linen, hurrying with the changing. "I beg your pardon," she muttered as she dressed. "I do not mean to be harsh about it. But I wish the past left where it is. That means I will not discuss it, and you are not to ask your father about it if...when we return home."
Diana frowned. Honestly, her aunt could be so stubborn at times. Plucking the straw bonnet from the ground, she studied it. "Yes, but dear, do you really think the past will stay in the past what with Mr. Marsett with us every moment of the day?"
"It had better. Now help me get the rest of these ghastly clothes on."
Subdued now, Diana did so.
Alexandria found that they fit far better than she had thought they would. The dress, far from being shapeless, clung tight around the bodice and had been cut close in the skirt, probably to save the cost of fabric. The results revealed her narrow waist and the curve of her hip and pushed up her breasts. She had not felt so well endowed since she was pregnant and nursing. It seemed a dress to suit a Lady Scandal after all.
She turned and glanced at Diana. The girl's eyes sparkled with delight. "Why, no one in London would know you!"
"I am not certain of that. Still...." Reaching up, she started to pull the pins from her hair. Diana moved forward at once to help.
Her hair was not as long as Diana's, but she had not had it trimmed since they had arrived in France. Once loose, it brushed her shoulders. She pulled back a section from the front on each side and asked Diana to take the ribbon from the straw bonnet to tie up the strands.
Glancing at her white hands and at Diana's, she said, "Neither of us look as if we have done a day's work in our lives, which is just about the truth."
Picking up a handful of dirt she scrubbed her hands and Diana's. "This will not produce appropriate calluses, but I hope we may avoid such close inspection."
Diana wrinkled her nose. "I have not been allowed to play in the dirt since I was five."
Giving her a stern glance, Alexandria shook her head. "This is not play. I do not know what those soldiers intend for Paxten if they find him, but it cannot be good. And I doubt it will go well for us, either. Not when we have been aiding him. Keep that in mind."
Her warning sobered the girl, and Alexandria almost wished she had not needed to be so plainspoken. But it would not do to make this into some May-game. Not with the stakes so high.
They settled under the beech trees to wait for Paxten. The sun fell lower, pulling long shadows from the trees. The breeze shifted to the north and took on a chill so that Diana hugged herself against it. And they saw nothing more than a farmer bent over on a donkey cart, slowing making his way along the winding, dirt lane.
Alexandria alternated between inventing pictures of Paxten collapsed along the roadside and worrying that perhaps he intended to leave them in the woods. The Paxten she had known could never have done such a thing, but she was not certain that man still existed. At times she had thought she had glimpsed him, but was that the truth, or her own wishful thinking?
Still, she had her jewels, or most of them, with her. If need be, she could manage without him. But what if he had not managed so well on his own? She ought never to have allowed him to go off without her.
Watching the road, she saw the farmer, bent over the donkey cart, veered off the lane and head towards them. And she recognized the broad shoulders of that slumped figure.
It was Paxten.
As he neared, he looked up. Under the black slouch hat pulled low, his dark eyes glittered bright with wicked humor. He had exchanged the footman's black breeches and coat and stiff white shirt for tan breeches, an open-necked, muslin shirt with billowing sleeves. With a plain, black waistcoat, white stockings and sturdy black shoes, he looked almost a peasant. Almost. That face—finely made, with wide intelligent eyes and aristocratic nose—belonged to no peasant. He might, however, pass for a brigand dressed as he was. No wonder he wore that hat pulled low.
She wondered if her own disguise, and Diana's, was as thin. Did they look like a farm wife and a maid? Or like the aristocrats that had once fled the guillotine?
In the golden twilight, Diana bounced to her feet and hurried forward. "A donkey! How adorable! Can I drive him?"
"I think Maximilian has gone far enough for the day," Paxten said, halting the cart and easing himself from it. He moved with care, Alexandria noted, and if his face had looked pale before now it seemed drained of color and tight with new lines.
Because of that, she held back her irritation. A donkey cart of all things! What would he be putting them in next? A dung wagon? She certainly ought to have gone with him, only for different reasons than she had thought earlier.
Diana petted the donkey's face and drew the long ears between her fingertips. The donkey seemed to like the attention well enough, or at least stood placid in its traces. The attached two-wheeled cart had a wooden bench seat and a canvas covering over what looked to be a flat area for storage.
"Care to help with the harness, and take Maximilian to water?" Paxten asked the girl.
"Oh, can I? But I can manage on my own. I used to have a cart at home with the sweetest pair of cream ponies. Father always says that a horsewoman must be able to care for her mounts as good as any groom or she is nothing more than a passenger."
"You've a wise father."
"Terribly so. You have no idea how dull it is. Come along, Maximilian—such a mouthful of name for such a darling, little thing." Diana unbuckled the harness with an efficiency that showed
her familiarity with the task. She led the donkey to the nearby stream, talking to it as if it were an old friend.
Paxten smiled at her. Was there anything as energetic as youth? Had he ever been so young? Pressing a hand to his aching side, he decided not. Turning, he found Alexandria staring at him, wearing her disapproving face, lips taut and gray eyes storming.
"Is it the donkey, or something else?" he asked, his tone cautious.
"The donkey—and you. You look exhausted. I do not know how we shall get you to an inn tonight."
"No need. I've brought the bed to you—voilà!" He drew back the canvas covering on the cart, revealing blankets, pillows, and a basket from which the aroma of a meat pie teased.
She stared at him, dismay in her eyes. "You mean there is to be no roof over our heads?"
"We had best avoid any more inns for they leave too easy a trail to follow."
No inns? No beds? Her mind struggled to grasp such a concept, and the urge to sit down and cry swept into her. Tears burned the back of her eyes and stung her nose. Shocked at herself, she turned away. He was beside her in an instant, his arm around her waist, his wide shoulders temptingly close. "Ah, what is it, ma petite chou? Is it the donkey cart you so dislike?"
She longed to lean against him and give into this absurd weakness. She had not known until just an instant ago how much she had been looking forward to a hot meal and a bed and...and oh, how ridiculous she must look to be nearly crying over such trivialities.
Sniffling, she stepped away. "I beg your pardon. It is nothing—nothing, except that I am tired and hungry, and...and I thought you were lying dead beside the road, or that you would not come back at all, and I...oh, it is nonsensical, but I've never slept on the ground, and it sounds so uncomfortable!"
He closed on her again. She batted his hands away, but still he gathered her in his arms and pulled her head against his chest, muttering things in French that she did not understand.
She sniffled again. She ought not to stand in his arms, her control threatening to come undone and his hand stroking her hair. It did no good for his injury. And he had probably held that Lisette of his just so only a few days ago—horrible woman that she was. And...and what if Diana returned to see this?
Lady Scandal Page 9
