HerOutlandishStranger

by Summer Devon

  When they stopped to rest, she ate her brown square, then turned around to tug at his sleeve. He stopped chewing and turned to look down at her. The tender warmth she saw in his smile relieved her worries, so she could speak lightly. “Forgive my impertinence and do not feel that you must share the pain you appear to carry, but please… Tell me a thing or two about yourself, Mr. White. You leave me without a morsel of comfort.”

  He raised his gilded eyebrows. “What on earth are you talking about, Eliza?”

  “Come, sir. At least tell me you sucked your thumb at an advanced age, or you made an attempt to climb the church steeple and were caught by the sexton. Please, I have told you of my most desperate follies. Can you not take pity on my embarrassed notion that I have betrayed my worst moments to a man who seems entirely too perfect? Can you not betray at least a hint of your own failings? Faults other than continuously playing with a bit of wood, I mean.”

  He laughed as she hoped he would.

  Jas shoved the rest of his food into his mouth. Then he stood and shook out the cloak they’d been sitting on. “I promise to spill some of my imperfect guts as we go. Fair enough?”

  Jazz gripped her hand and pulled Eliza to her feet. He’d stall for time as he wondered what more he could tell her about himself.

  Rule number one for the DHUy—reveal nothing in a past time that was not already documented in that time. During his training Jazz had asked what happened when a DHUy broke that number-one rule.

  He’d gotten an amazed look from the trainer. “That’s a ludicrous question. I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

  To make certain, the trainer had made a thorough search. “No DHU agent ever has,” he had concluded with relieved satisfaction.

  Already Jazz had broken that first commandment dozens of times, probably starting with the moment he told Eliza his name and continuing from there with his simple nattering about his family. And the story of Madame Blanro. Why in the world had he told her about that?

  He cheered up by reminding himself that at least lately he wasn’t showing that peculiar behavior of constantly “playing with a bit of wood”. He’d grown out of the habit of consulting the CR as often. He’d simply stopped thinking of it as a kind of companion.

  As he gathered their belongings together and slung them over his shoulder, he watched his real companion, Eliza. She wiped the dust from her hands and tried to peer over her shoulder to see if she had a patch of dirt on the back of her skirt. He grinned. Who in the world would care if more grime covered already filthy clothes? Eliza the well-bred lady was a constant source of amusement to him.

  They strolled now in the early-spring day and Jazz picked up a few pebbles and tossed them at trees as he searched his memory for a story that would entertain her. Chunks of his life had been erased from his memory, but he could fetch back scenes of early childhood.

  “This might be embarrassing enough to satisfy you. When I was about three, maybe four years old, I got into my mother’s medical equipment. Anyway, I found some kind of ointment and smeared it all over myself. Eh, I mean head to foot. Hair too. The stuff turned me bright blue. The color didn’t wear off for weeks. People laughed everywhere I went.”

  ”Yes, that story will do,” Eliza said promptly, her face lit with delight. “Was your mother very angry?”

  “I don’t remember but I recall she said the color suited me because it matched my eyes,” he recalled with a chuckle.

  Liza gave a lugubrious sigh. “Ah, such a pity the color wore off. I should have liked to have seen you blue like the blue Celtic warriors. They used wode, which also means mad, you know. You’re mad.” She burst into laughter. “But your story reminds me about the time I also was turned a very different color. Don’t dare remark about matching my eyes, though, Mr. White.”

  “Go on,” Jazz urged.

  “One day, when I was perhaps six, my sister and I managed to escape our very strict governess. We were determined to go riding. And we decided that the only animal that we could manage to control was our neighbor’s plow horse, an ancient creature.”

  Her eyes glowed warm with amusement. “I sat on the poor horse’s back. The animal was very high and very broad, I recall. Jane pulled and pulled with all her strength at the rope around its neck. At last the horse must have grown bored by such pests. He pulled away from Jane and lay down for a roll to get rid of me.”

  Now Eliza laughed so hard, Jazz had trouble understanding her. “I-I jumped off in time to save myself from injury but I landed in an unfortunate spot in the pasture. Oh, I was covered in manure. We ran home as fast as we could. Jane poured buckets of freezing water over my head and we scrubbed at my hair, my dress, my shoes, my stockings. Ugh. It was everywhere.”

  “Did you get in trouble?”

  “Indeed. Our neighbor the farmer had been leaning on a fence and watching the whole thing. He told our father that very evening. The two men had a hearty laugh about it, but our governess was mortified. She scolded us for days, I recall.”

  Jazz shook his head. “A fine story, Liza. But since you seem to keep score, I bet you will now demand I fork over another embarrassing episode from my past.”

  “Perhaps,” she said thoughtfully. “Yes. Indeed, I believe that is fair.”

  “I thought so, but I am sorry. I have no intention of digging up any more of my most absurd moments for your amusement, young woman. I can barely stand to think of ’em myself, much less confess them to anyone else.”

  She stopped walking to look at him, a wide smile on her face. “Ah Jas,” she said, “I do not know why I feel the need to confess my worst moments to you. Perhaps I have been too long without a friend or companion and that is why you must hear these stories.”

  “A friend,” he repeated. “No, nothing you could tell me would be a burden, just because we are friends. It is wonderful, isn’t it? Friendship, I mean.”

  She again laughed. “Ah, now there is a profound statement.”

  He even enjoyed her mockery. “You don’t like my sage observations, eh, Miss Wickman? Let me hear your words of wisdom about friends then.”

  “My aunt once told me that a friend is a person who knows you well, but likes you nonetheless,” Eliza said pertly.

  Just like that Jazz’s joy dissolved. He knew her, very well. But she didn’t truly know a thing about him, did she?

  He shook off the too-familiar spasm of chagrin. No point in ruining Eliza’s happy frame of mind because he felt guilty chattering with her. She had sprung back from her first frightening reaction to the knowledge of her pregnancy. Don’t smash the mood, he thought.

  “Clever woman,” he said, and forced himself to smile again. “Do you have many what-are-they-called, bon mots like that to keep me in my place, eh? I think I want to go back to learning nursery rhymes.”

  When he saw the shared amusement in her eyes, he had to quench his usual desire to hold her, but in addition now he wanted to tell her everything. He wished he could bare all of his secrets. A stupid, dangerous instinct almost as difficult to suppress as his animal craving for her.

  Chapter Nine

  Their walk slowed as they talked. Eliza loosened her cloak then took it off. Jazz reached for it.

  She rolled it into a bundle and thrust it under her arm. “No,” she said. “I am not so helpless yet that I cannot carry this. So you have not told me. What is the first dish you will order when you return to your country?”

  He shrugged. “I do not think about food that much.”

  “How can you not? Good food properly prepared is one of life’s greatest joys. Surely you have favorite dishes?”

  “Hungry, eh?”

  She laughed. “Why is it you never give straightforward replies to my questions, Mr. White?”

  As they strolled, he barely took note of the shattered landscape around them. The tumbled-down walls of a ruined farm, the overgrown orchard, the corpse of a starved farm animal, didn’t draw his attention. They could have been taking a ramble thro
ugh a country garden.

  With their dirt and their clothes reduced to tatters, Jazz had supposed they looked inconspicuous, despite his own fair complexion, and so he no longer made an effort to avoid the other ragged, blank-faced people they passed on the weary tramp.

  He still stayed alert for the agent. But not alert enough.

  She sat down on a wall to take out her shoe and retie the cloth around it. He made the mistake of walking into a field to forage for some food. As he squatted to dig through the dirt, looking for root vegetables, a soft footstep behind him made him spring to his feet. But not fast enough. The arm around his throat belonged to a man almost as well trained as he’d been.

  Dark spots appeared in his vision.

  “No. Miss Wick—” he managed to gasp before the arm cut off his breath.

  “She’ll be safe,” a voice said, almost kindly. “Of course she will be.”

  Jazz twisted and ducked. The man did not loosen his grip. Another DHU agent…sent to kill him?

  No, Steele, in a good disguise. Again a Spanish farmer.

  Jazz fought back, but he restrained his madness. He twisted and drove an elbow into Steele’s ribs. Not enough to shatter bones, though and he wanted to crow with glee—no one would die today.

  He slammed the man’s ribs again.

  “You fight like a Truthie vermin,” Steele snarled. “No need to worry. I’ll keep her safe.”

  Jazz managed to get his hands around the man’s waist but as he began to administer the dig to the kidneys, Miss Wickman’s voice cried out in Spanish, “What are you doing?”

  He heard a dull thud, a blow on Steele’s head that Jazz felt vibrate through his own body and the man’s grip on Jazz’s throat loosened at once.

  Steele rolled away. He stood and ran—hiding his face from her. Jazz wanted to call after him, ask him why he’d done that and when he could expect another official visit.

  She dropped to her knees, still clutching the large rock she’d hit the man with. She echoed his own thoughts. “Why did he attack you? What did he want?”

  Jazz rubbed at his throat. “Not you, Liza. You’re safe.” He felt almost delirious with relief. He had only to protect himself from this enemy. She would be safe.

  The whole DHU, out to get him? They would succeed. But he recalled the Director’s blunt warnings. “Some are revolted that a Truthie is being sent on a mission. For your own safety we’re making some of the mission details need-to-know.”

  He’d thought the director meant he’d be in danger when he returned—not here in the past. The director didn’t tell him the blessed details, so maybe the “need-to-know” was that he would be hunted and killed in the past to quell public anger.

  “Jas, can I help? Are you all right?” Eliza’s urgent questions pulled him from his rambling thoughts.

  He climbed to his feet. “Thanks. All this time I thought I was supposed to keep you safe, not the other way around. You gave him a good hit. Sounded like you’d whacked a melon.”

  She frowned. “It is not even slightly humorous, Jas. That man was trying to kill you.”

  “Yeah. And thanks to you he didn’t succeed. Did you see his face?”

  She shook her head. “He has brown hair.”

  “Probably a wig.” Definitely a wig.

  “Oh. So perhaps he does have dark hair?” She at last dropped the rock and wiped her hands on her skirt. She stared off in the direction the man had run. “He had the same kind of bearing you do. Is he from your country?”

  He nodded and grinned at the thought that an expert agent hadn’t managed to disguise himself from the natives any better than amateur Jazz.

  His throat hurt from Steele’s grip but he still felt lighter hearted. Eliza was safe from the assassin. He was too, as long as he stayed near her. The agent obviously didn’t want Eliza to see his face. Jazz laughed. Eliza protected her official protector.

  She sighed. “You are so odd. A fellow countryman, the only one you’ve seen, has called you horrible names, tried to kill you and you laugh. I wish you would explain why he did this.”

  Jazz shrugged.

  “I don’t believe that you have no suspicions.” She snorted. “I’m convinced that you are a pestilential knave, Mr. White.”

  “No doubt you are correct, Miss Wickman.”

  She glared at him, but the corners of her mouth tucked into a grin. “Idiot.”

  “Harpy.”

  “You win.” Her shoulders relaxed and her smile glowed.

  *

  Relief—and the sheer pleasure of Eliza’s company—made Jazz too careless yet again that afternoon.

  He didn’t notice the five Spanish guerilleros strolling in their direction until the two groups could see one another.

  Everyone froze.

  “Dear God. What shall we do?” Eliza murmured. “Haven’t we faced enough trouble today?”

  Jazz heard the fear in her voice and answered calmly, “If we take off running or turn away, they’ll be more likely to notice us. Just put your head down. Here, take my arm and we’ll shuffle past them. We’re so battered we probably don’t look worth the trouble.”

  They shambled slowly past the soldiers, but Eliza’s quiet exclamation of relief came too soon. One of the soldiers turned and called back to them in Spanish.

  “They want us to identify ourselves, and show them our papers,” Liza said. “They fight the French, but I wish to heaven they were regular forces,” she added with a shudder. Jazz nodded his understanding. She had told him a group of guerilleros fighting for the British had raided their villa for supplies and had killed her friend, the maid Maria.

  The five ragged fighters looked scruffy rather than fierce. Only one wore a uniform, and that had been made for a much taller man. But Jazz knew they were seasoned combatants and didn’t like the tension he sensed in the knot of men who waited and watched as he fished Eliza’s reticule from her sack. He smiled and moved with a cheery air of unconcern, praying his instinct about the soldiers was wrong. In case his hunch was right, he kept his hand loose and ready to reach the dirk in his boot, and well away from the pommel of the sword. No need to draw attention to the ridiculous thing.

  He put his other hand on Eliza’s shoulder to comfort her as she rummaged through her now-shabby beaded reticule for papers.

  A young man with dark, angry eyes grabbed at the papers Eliza held out. Jazz simply shrugged when they spoke to him.

  “English,” the man said and spat at the ground near Jazz’s feet.

  “I don’t understand,” Liza said, bewildered. “Our countries are allies.”

  Jazz suspected he knew. These men might have heard how the British soldiers celebrated their hard-won victory after the siege of Cuidad Rodrigo by pillaging the city. Life could be uncomfortable for foreign civilians, especially the English.

  One of the other men spoke to the young man in a jovial tone. Even Jazz understood that the older man wanted to get back to eat some food before that pig Manuel got more than his fair share of venison stew.

  The young man with the dangerous eyes seemed to be in charge of the little group. He didn’t seem to hear his friend’s words. He thrust Eliza’s papers into his jacket and suddenly reached out and grabbed her wrist. “My sister was one of the women they took. She’s dead now,” he said, and he spoke to Jazz. “To hell with Napoleon, to hell with the British. I would drive all of the foreigners out of our country. I want to teach them a lesson. This man we met before. He told us the tall blond one was at Cuidad.”

  The agent trying to get someone else to do his dirty work for him. Steele again?

  A man with thin red lips and a fat mustache spoke. “It is true this girl is pretty, the large man with her could cause some trouble. I am sick and tired of trouble.”

  The young man barked, “I am not interested in your troubles.” He looked at Jazz. “She is dead because of you British.”

  The man didn’t even glance at Liza as he yanked her toward him. He wrapped an arm a
round her, pinning her arms to her sides. The hostile glare remained fixed on Jazz.

  “I’m no British,” Jazz said in his bad Spanish.

  He wouldn’t need the dirk. The tension he’d felt had only come from the one man. No one else was spoiling for a fight, so maybe he could talk their way out.

  “You are not Spanish. You come to our land and kill.”

  In countless nightmares Jazz had seen that mask of bitterness on other faces. His heart dipped when he realized that good sense had been sapped from the young man. The soldier operated on pure hatred.

  Not the knife, he reminded himself. Nothing more than necessary.

  “We are making our way to a port and will leave as soon as we can,” Eliza said, breathless from the pressure of the young man’s strong grip.

  “No, señorita, you are never leaving.”

  Jazz took a step forward but stopped when he saw the steel at Eliza’s throat. The man held a small blade pressed just below her ear. Jazz’s heart froze. Did the stupid DHU agent think of this possibility when he riled the men up? Perhaps Steele lurked nearby and would barge out to rescue Liza. Or try to.

  Jazz gave the man a small apologetic smile. “You must let her go, my friend. I do not want to hurt you.”

  The other Spaniards snickered, whether at his terrible accent or the bravado of a single man threatening a company of five, he didn’t care.

  “Payaso,” one of the other soldiers called. Clown.

  He only wished their laughter would defuse the situation, but the hatred darkening the young man’s face ran too deep.

  “I will have her, then cut her throat. That is what they did to my sister.” His voice rose to an unsteady, high pitch. “You both shall rot in hell.”

  Jazz moved again, impossibly slow, toward Eliza and the man, as if he approached a wild animal in a trap. He wanted to look at Eliza, to reassure her, but he couldn’t allow his eyes to leave the young man’s face. He stopped only when he stood so close he could hear and almost taste the mingled unsteady breath, anger and fear, of the man and of Eliza. Then, in a flash, the man’s wrist was caught up and bending backward in Jazz’s large hand. The knife thudded to the ground.