Practice to Deceive

by Patricia Veryan

  Very soon afterwards, her wet cloak having been carried off by the pretty chambermaid who had brought hot water and clean towels to the neat bedchamber of The Three Quails Inn, Penelope turned to where Quentin sprawled sleepily in a chair before the small fire. “Wake up, sleepy-head,” she admonished, tugging gently at his hair.

  He blinked up at her. The green gown was creased and rumpled, and her hair was dishevelled, raindrops glinting here and there among the tumbled curls, but meeting his gaze a deeper pink glowed in her cheeks, and shyness caused her lashes to droop. He stood, and said very softly, “How lovely you are, my lady.”

  “Oh, pooh,” she said in a rather uncertain voice. “Do you mean to go on tonight?”

  “If the weather clears. I must push on, dearest.”

  “To where, Quentin? Can you tell me?”

  He pulled her closer, paused thoughtfully, then chuckled. “You’ll know the instant you see a signpost with the name. No, love—for your own protection I’ll tell you no more than that it lies near the Ashdown Forest, and—” He slipped both arms around her waist, looking at her in a way that caused a strange tension to interfere with her breathing and set her heartbeat racing. “Penelope Anne,” he sighed, “how very much I wish I could wed you now.”

  Despite the knowledge that her face must be quite pink, she met his yearning gaze steadily. “And I. Is—is it possible?”

  “Oh, yes. If the banns had been called for three Sundays. If I had a special licence.” He kissed her eyebrows lightly, feeling her tremble. “Small chance of that.”

  “But—we will be wed. Tomorrow, or … the next day.” She saw desire turn his eyes to green flame, and she put her arms up around his neck, her skin tingling as she gave up her mouth to his. She was breathless and shaking when he lifted his head. “I want…” she whispered, “to belong to you, darling. Now. Tonight. I don’t want to wait another day.”

  ‘Another day,’ he thought, and his heart sank. What might happen tomorrow? What if he was taken, and Penny hounded? What if he went to his death, and she was left alone and unwed—perhaps carrying his child? “No!” he said harshly. “’Fore God, have I not done you enough harm that I must now tempt you to do this?”

  “You do not tempt me,” she argued.

  “Oho,” he cut in, with a rather uncertain grin. “I repulse you, do I? Now mark this, Mrs. Bainbridge—”

  She put her hand over his lips. “Stop. I belong to you. Whatever happens. Don’t you … want me?”

  He groaned and crushed her close again, kissing her hair, smelling the sweet faint scent of the perfume she wore, feeling her soft body pressing so enticingly against him. “Want you? Lord! How can I tell you—” He thrust her from him and turned away, drawing an unsteady hand across his eyes. With a really heroic effort, he faced her again and said lightly, “Just at the moment, m’dear, I want my dinner more.” And seeing her suspicious frown, he added quickly, “Besides—my arm is deuced troublesome.”

  “But,” she demurred reasonably, “you’d not need to—”

  “Penelope Anne!” Laughter danced into his eyes. He said primly, “I was never more shocked!” and retreated to the adjoining bedchamber.

  Left alone, Penelope sighed and did what she might to restore her appearance. She missed Daffy’s expert assistance as she dressed her hair, and even more when she put on a simple travelling gown of cream muslin, embroidered in shades of blue and with many little buttons down the back. She was still struggling with those fiendishly elusive buttons when a scratch at the door announced Quentin’s return. He looked rested and elegant in his coat of burgundy velvet, with snowy lace foaming at throat and wrists, his hair powdered and tied back neatly.

  “How well you have done, dearest,” said Penelope. “If you could possibly manage some of these irksome buttons…?”

  He managed willingly, but the business of the buttons became considerably extended since he found it necessary to kiss her back with each button he secured. Penelope’s skin began to shiver with that new electric excitement as his lips touched her bare back. His hands were very cold and she could feel them trembling. She spun around as he finished, reaching out to him with eager arms, but he retreated, gasping threadily that he must not, dare not kiss her again.

  “Coward!” she murmured. “That’s not fair.”

  He agreed. “I’m a selfish rogue, I own it, and fairly famished!”

  The dining room was occupied by only one other couple, a middle-aged pair with the stamp of nouveau riche upon them and an odd habit of either not talking at all, or bursting into impassioned utterances at the same instant. The lady’s wig was much too elaborate to be properly worn in a hedge tavern, and her wide hooped gown of magenta taffeta gained nothing from an elaborate garnet necklace. The gentleman’s chair faced away from them and he did not look up as they entered, but the woman’s narrowed eyes took in Penelope’s gown, shawl, and hair in one quick sweep, then passed on to Quentin. After that, she scarcely looked elsewhere save when engaging in the sporadic outbursts with her husband. Beyond having offered a polite bow when first he walked into the room, Quentin paid no attention to this behaviour. Penelope, however, was vastly irked by it.

  The serving maid hurried to their table with a bowl of watery and lukewarm chicken soup in which were dumplings that Quentin glumly pronounced no heavier than cannon balls. Penelope discovered she was hungry, and forgot their ill-mannered fellow diners as she struggled with the soup. “Dear one,” she said softly, “are you not too tired to press on tonight?”

  “You forget I had a good nap on the way here. I’m very weak, however, for I’ll be dashed if I can get my fork into this thing! How are you—Good God! Small wonder that lady stares so. Here, love…” He reached across the table to cover Penelope’s hand with his own. “Put this on as soon as you can manage it without causing the starchy creature to faint.” He pressed his dragon’s-head ring into her hand and, as she closed her fingers around it, he murmured, “If you wear it back to front, it should resemble a wedding band—temporarily, at least.”

  Unobtrusively, Penelope managed to slide the ring onto her finger. It was much too large, but to wear his ring brought a tightening of her throat and the sting of tears to her eyes. Quentin saw her distress, promptly misinterpreted it, and chatted easily, recounting some nonsensical episode he had involved his brother in when they were children. The waiter came to take the bowls and bring a basket of bread, a platter of cold pork, a half of a mutton pie, and a bowl of water in which huddled some pallid carrots. Looking up, Penelope found Quentin’s concerned gaze on her. A relieved smile lit his face. He said, “I don’t wonder that soup upset you. Dreadful stuff. You should do better with—” He glanced down, saw the drowned carrots and moaned, “Oh … egad!”

  Penelope smiled at him. “Geoff was the same. He despised vegetables.”

  “You will find it hard to convince me that those deceased objects are vegetables. And as for your brother, I wonder Lord Hector did not take that lad in hand. If he don’t pay less attention to his sweet tooth, he’ll be fat as a flounder before he’s—”

  The glass Penelope had been lifting crashed down. The woman in the magenta gown sent a supercilious glance her way, and her spouse turned to direct a curious glance at Penelope, then continued to stare at her, frowning. The waiter came running to mop up the lemonade and bring a fresh glass.

  “You’re tired, poor girl,” Quentin said worriedly. “Gad, I wish I’d not to drag you on, but—”

  “What did you mean about Geoff?” demanded Penelope urgently. “Can it be that you didn’t know he was killed at Prestonpans?”

  “The devil! How could—”

  “’Pon my soul, but it is!” exclaimed the magenta lady’s husband. Undeterred by the annoyed frown Quentin slanted at him, he stood and advanced on their table. “Your pardon, sir, but I believe I have the acquaintance of your companion. It is Miss Montgomery, is it not? Permit me to jog your recollection, ma’am. I am Sir Leonard Epps. Your pa
pa and I were old friends. I trust I see you well?” His brows lifting, he glanced at Quentin, who had risen politely.

  Aside from a vague sense of recognition, Penelope had no memory of a close friendship existing between this gentleman and her father. Confused, she lied, “Of course I remember you, Sir Leonard. May I present my husband, John—er, Somerville?” And she could have sunk as ‘Bainbridge’ rushed belatedly into her flustered mind.

  Sir Leonard shook Quentin’s hand, but he had noted Penelope’s hesitation and that, added to her vivid blush, brought the glint of suspicion to his eyes. He returned to his wife after the slightest of courtesies and bent forward to mutter to her. Lady Epps’ smile seemed to creak as she pinned it on her thin lips and, although she bowed to Penelope, her eyes were glacial.

  Agitated by the inexplicable reference to her brother, horrified by her blunder, and sure that Quentin would explode with mirth at any instant, Penelope concentrated upon her food. It was mediocre. She ate lightly and refused dessert.

  Very aware of her discomfiture, Quentin said, “We’d best go, love,” and rose to pull back her chair. At the same moment, Sir Leonard and his lady started past, murmuring farewells.

  Penelope reached for her reticule and her pro tem wedding band slipped from her finger, bounced to the floor and rolled to lie at Sir Leonard’s feet.

  Quentin moved very fast, scooped it up, and bowed to the astonished knight. “Old family heirloom,” he said with oblique honesty. “My love, since you’ve become so thin, it would behoove us to have this resized. I’d not like any gentleman fancying you to be unattached.” He winked outrageously at the shocked Sir Leonard, bowed to Lady Martha, swept Penelope from the room, and giggled hysterically all the way up the stairs.

  “Oh … Jove…!” he gasped, striding across the bedchamber to collapse on the bed with a shout of laughter. “Did ever you see two such quizzes? I thought the old fellow would swallow his eyeglass, and his lady looked about to burst her staylaces!”

  “Very well for you, sir,” said Penelope, mortified. “I was embarrassed to death, and am quite disgraced.”

  “Well—don’t blame me if you cannot remember your own husband’s name! John Somerville, indeed! I dashed near told ’em you were confusing me with your first husband!”

  “Oh! Quentin! You never did?”

  But he was off again, laughing so heartily she could get no sense out of him and at length sat beside him and pulled his hair.

  Lying there, laughing up at her, his eyes softened, and he reached up to touch her lips. “Such a sweet mouth.”

  She kissed his fingers, but when he sat up and slipped an arm about her, she said, “No, love. Not now.”

  His lips quirked. “Do you mean—no love? Or—‘no, love’?”

  “Quentin, please—this is so important to me. What did you mean about my brother?”

  He sobered at once. “Deuce take me for a fool. Of course it’s important. However came you to make such an error, Penelope Anne? You surely must have had his letters?” Scanning her face, he saw the colour leave it, and said, “Good Lord! You really believed him slain?”

  “Y-yes,” she whispered, her heart pounding dizzyingly. “Is—he … not?”

  “By God, he is not! How do you think I came to Highview, except that Geoff— Oh, no!” His arms were around her wilting form. Terror-stricken, he moaned an imploring, “Do not faint! Penny—you would not do so dreadful a thing! Lie down.” He tried to pry her hands from around his neck and, failing, looked frantically to the pitcher of water so near and yet so far, on the bedside table.

  Penelope tucked her head under his chin, the room distorting strangely about her. “I’ll be … all right … in a moment,” she whispered.

  Somehow, she was lying back against the pillows, and Quentin, his hand shaking, his eyes wide and dark with fear, was holding a flask to her lips and begging that she take a sip.

  She obeyed, coughed, and sipped again, a warm glow spreading through her to dispel the dizziness. “Oh, thank you, love,” she said, smiling tremulously up at him.

  “Now you mean to cry,” he groaned. “My dearest girl, what would you have done had I told you old Geoff was as dead as you’d thought? And how the plague could you have thought such a thing?”

  “I received a letter from Whitehall, telling me he was—was wounded at Prestonpans.”

  “Well, so he was, poor fellow. Out of his head for weeks, but he didn’t slip his wind.”

  “But—they sent a second letter, saying he had been killed and buried by the Scots in an unmarked grave.”

  “Damned idiots! My God, Penny, do you think if that were so I would have come to you for help?”

  She refused the flask he offered. “I—I didn’t know you had come to us. I thought it chance that my uncle had taken you. And I knew that Geoff would have deplored the treatment handed out to escaped rebels.”

  Quentin stoppered the flask and set it aside. “After their defeat at Prestonpans, Scotland was an unsafe place for King George’s soldiers, as you can guess. Geoff was taken in by a kindly Scots family, but for months his life was despaired of. He began at last to improve, but the family had come under suspicion and it was necessary that he be moved. They tried to smuggle him to the Border, but were balked at every turn and eventually were obliged to carry him to the northeast and Inverness. Soon afterwards, we suffered the tragedy of Culloden.” He frowned and left her to pace to the window and stare broodingly into the night. “The tables were properly turned. We suffered a crushing defeat and Jacobites were hunted, not the English.”

  “Thank heaven you got away! So Geoff helped you?”

  “He did indeed. The lady with whom he stayed chanced to be sister to Lord Boudreaux and great-aunt to Treve de Villars. Geoff discovered that she was also a staunch Jacobite and involved with Treve and many others, in helping fugitives to safety. You can guess he plunged in—up to his neck!”

  “But surely there would have been an English army garrison there after the battle. Did he not have to report his survival?”

  “Well … yes, and no. He reported his survival, but—not as Geoffrey Delavale.” Quentin saw her bewilderment and explained, “You see, there had been a typical army mix-up. There was an officer in Geoff’s Brigade named Geoffrey Delacourt who was killed at Prestonpans. They reported poor Delacourt missing, and your brother slain and buried. Geoff knew nothing of his premature demise until after Culloden. He was by that time deeply engaged in helping fugitives and decided, for the sake of his family, to keep his false identity. In that way, should he be caught, you would not be endangered, nor the estates confiscated.”

  “My heavens!” Sitting up, Penelope cried anxiously, “Is he now a fugitive also?”

  Quentin came back to reassure her. “No, no. But he’s running some blasted close risks, I can tell you. To all intents and purposes, he’s a hopeless invalid. Actually, he’s busier than a dog with two tails, arranging escape routes. That’s why he hasn’t come home.” He sobered. “I know for a fact he has sent several letters off to you. Why you haven’t received them—” His eyes narrowed. “Your uncle…?”

  Shocked that her own family would have kept such news from her, she nodded wordlessly.

  “That miserable bastard! I’ll warrant he kept you thinking Geoff was dead, hoping to ensure it and inherit!”

  “But, it would have been so easy to get rid of my brother. Uncle Joseph need only have told the authorities of his Jacobite involvement, and—”

  “And the estates would have been confiscated,” he interpolated grimly, sitting beside her again, and taking up one of her trembling hands. “No, he dared not do that. He probably hoped to receive word that Geoff was coming home, and could then have had him ambushed. Blast, but he’s a filthy swine! To think of them keeping you in those hideous blacks all these months and letting you grieve for Geoff—as though it were not bad enough to have lost your father.”

  “I remember,” she whispered distractedly, “that on the
first day you were hidden in the dressing room, I surprised my aunt reading a letter. She seemed so guilty, and whipped it out of sight. I fancied it was from one of her cicisbeos. I never dreamed it might be from Geoff.”

  “Likely it was, love. Lord knows how many letters they’ve intercepted. I fancy that’s how they knew I was on my way.”

  “Oh…!” She bowed her face into her hands. “How shamed Geoff will be when he learns how his own relations have betrayed him. Only think—if you’d given into them and let them have your message—or cypher, as you call it—we would have been responsible!”

  He patted her shoulder comfortingly. “Well, I didn’t—and at all events, I only carry part of the cypher. Just the first stanza.”

  “I saw that it was a poem. There are other verses, then?”

  “Yes. I don’t know how many, but when they all are pieced together the whole will tell where the treasure is to be taken, and to whom the list may be entrusted.”

  Penelope was quiet for a moment. Then, she said slowly, “What a fearsome responsibility. Dearest—heaven forbid the need should arise, but—if anything should go wrong, what must I do?”

  Quentin frowned and the faint premonition of trouble that had dogged him all day returned, stronger than ever. He said curtly, “Nothing. I will not involve you.”

  She dried her tears. “My brother risks his life to be involved. I am involved because I love you. And I am involved because had it not been for my family you might have safely completed your mission by now. Tell me, dear.”

  For a long moment he was silent, common sense battling the instinct to protect her. Then he stood and crossed to take up his sword-belt and carry it to the bed. He showed Penelope how to open the little plate on the hilt of the sword, then drew out the small piece of parchment upon which rested the lives and fortunes of so many. “If I should be taken and there is any chance for you to do so without endangering yourself, my heart, get this to Treve or my brother, or to Geoff. They’ll know what to do.”

  “May I see?” She took the parchment and read: