Arms of a Stranger

by Danice Allen

  Katherine revived while Reggie hovered over her, patted her hand, and looked fit to be tied. He mentioned sending for the doctor more than once, but Katherine refused, finally convincing him that all she really needed was a bit of fresh air. It occurred to Anne that Reggie was more than a little upset by Katherine’s slight swoon, and that Katherine was really enjoying the extra attention he was giving her.

  Reggie assisted Katherine to her feet and, with much attention and care, guided her out of the drawing room and into the hall without an apparent thought or a backward glance at Anne and Jeffrey. Perhaps because she’d left her cane behind, or perhaps because she was still playing out the farce, the notoriously vigorous Katherine Grimms leaned on Reggie’s arm the whole way.

  “Well,” said Anne, chuckling softly. “That was some show!”

  “Anne, come here.”

  Anne turned around, surprised by the coy sound of Jeffrey’s voice. She discovered him sitting on the sofa and patting the cushion next to him. “Just what do you think you’re summoning me to do, Jeffrey?”

  Jeffrey grinned. “I’m not a dolt. I saw Katherine wink at you when Reggie fetched the wine and I know she didn’t really faint. There can be only one reason why you’d go to so much trouble to get rid of your uncle. I only wonder that your aunt was a party to the mischief.”

  Anne crossed her arms and arched a brow. “What reason is that?”

  Jeffrey shrugged. “So we can be alone. If this isn’t an invitation to kiss you again, what else can it be?”

  Anne shook her head and crossed the room to sit next to him on the sofa—but well out of arm’s reach.

  “You’re a conceited dog, Jeffrey. I’ve not got you alone to kiss you. Have you forgotten? You promised to tell me what you know about Renard’s planned escape tonight.”

  Jeffrey’s face fell. “Renard again!” he said with a bitterness that took Anne by surprise. “Is he all you think about? Or do you just think about him when you’re with me?”

  Anne’s own good humor instantly fled. Jeffrey’s sudden contemptuous manner of speaking about Renard confused her. It seemed ridiculous that he could be jealous of a man to whom Anne had absolutely no access, but … was Jeffrey jealous of Renard?

  “I thought we shared an admiration for the Fox,” she said in a reasoning voice. “I thought you enjoyed talking about him.”

  “Yes,” said Jeffrey, raking a hand through his hair. “I do admire him, and I do like discussing him with you. But, as I’ve told you before, I don’t like talking all the time, especially when I want to be kissing you instead of talking to you.”

  “Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you,” said Anne, a little nettled and afraid she was going to be denied her longed-for treat in hearing what Jeffrey knew about Renard, “but I didn’t get rid of my uncle so you could kiss me. I told you I’m not ready for that yet.” Silently she added, I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready—not with you. “You told me you’d tell me all about Renard’s planned escape, and I knew you couldn’t tell me with Reggie in the room. That’s the only reason I asked Aunt Katherine to help me out.”

  Jeffrey sighed and shook his head. “Very well. I ought to be used to your missishness by now.” After a moment of heavy silence, he managed a grimacing sort of smile. Anne was relieved to see even this small sign that he was returning to his usual friendly manner toward her.

  “Let’s not waste any more time. Tell me, Jeffrey. Tell me what you know about Renard.”

  Jeffrey sat staring at his hands for some time, then looked up at Anne soberly.

  “Well?” she prompted, mad with impatience.

  He sighed. “I can’t tell you anything.”

  “You’re angry with me, and this is your way of getting back!” she exclaimed.

  “No, that’s not true. I really can’t tell you anything. It’s too risky, for you and for everyone involved.”

  “Then why did you say—?”

  “I wasn’t thinking. I was wrong to make you think I could tell you anything. I’d forgotten all about my promise to confide in you till you brought it up just now, ruining my more pleasing ideas about why you’d got rid of your uncle.”

  Anne frowned and was silent for a moment. Then she said, “Can’t you even tell me what time you’re going to be having this wonderful adventure? When the hour comes, I can think of you and imagine being there.”

  “You’ll be fast asleep by then. Believe me, you’re best off sleeping blissfully in your bed while we fellows face danger.”

  Anne decided to let this arrogant comment pass, then tried a different tack for prying information out of Jeffrey.

  “You will be careful, won’t you? It would be dreadful if you fell off your horse and broke your neck.”

  “You know I don’t have a horse, Anne. And—thank God!—I won’t be needing one to—” He stopped short and looked suspiciously at Anne.

  “Does that mean the rendezvous point is nearby? Perhaps inside the city?”

  “No more questions, Anne.” He stood up. “I know what you’re up to, and you won’t get another word out of me.”

  She looked up at him beseechingly.

  Jeffrey groaned. “And to be sure I don’t cave in to your little female tricks, I’m leaving.”

  Her beseeching look changed to a scowl.

  Jeffrey sighed. “You’re miffed with me, which is another compelling reason to make this an early evening.” When Anne didn’t answer, he reached for his hat. “Good night, Anne.” But when he began walking away, Anne felt guilty. She stood up and held out her hand.

  “Wait, Jeffrey.”

  He turned around and looked questioningly at her.

  She smiled. “Are we still friends?”

  For a long moment he just stared at her. Then he walked back, caught her chin in one of his large hands, and kissed her hard and full on the mouth before she had time to protest. He laughed at her surprised expression. “Anne, we’re more than friends.” Then he put his hat on his head at a rakish angle and strode toward the door. Seconds later, as she stood rubbing her jaw where Jeffrey’s fingers had pinched into her skin, Anne heard the front door close behind him.

  She should have been angry that he’d kissed her, but at the moment it was the least of her concerns. She’d barely registered the sensations of his lips on hers. She was thinking ahead. She was making plans, considering possibilities. She was going to be at that rendezvous point tonight right along with Jeffrey. There were ways of getting there without her friend’s help. Well, he would be assisting her, but he’d never know he was, and he’d never ever know she was there. Even if she was noticed some time during the planned escape, no one would recognize her. She was going in disguise.

  Anne excused herself early that night, her mind busy with thoughts of Renard and the adventure ahead. She’d told her aunt and uncle she was having the housekeeper, Theresa, mix her up a sleeping potion. She knew one or both of them would check on her in her room before they retired to their own bedchambers, and she planned to look sound asleep, although she had no intention of actually taking the medicine. Naturally Reggie had commended her good sense in wanting to get an undisturbed night’s rest.

  As she ascended the stairs to the upper floor, Anne’s only regret in leaving so soon after Reggie and Katherine returned from the garden was that she couldn’t observe how the two of them behaved toward each other after the “swooning” episode. She had a feeling that a turning point had been reached in their relationship. She was sure an attachment was growing between them.

  Reggie had been seriously alarmed by Katherine’s supposed indisposition, and Katherine had thoroughly enjoyed his gentle solicitude. Could two such disparate personalities be happy together? Anne thought they were almost as dissimilar in their attitudes and philosophies as she and Delacroix!

  Intriguing as the subject was, however, Anne had more important things to think about at the moment. Before going to her room she took a detour to t
he deserted servants’ quarters and sneaked into the small chamber where Reggie’s manservant, James, slept. She got what she needed, then left without being seen. She made another short jaunt to Reggie’s room. Once inside her own room, she hid the borrowed items in her wardrobe, then rang for her abigail, Sarah, to help her into her nightgown and comb out and braid her hair. Then Anne sent her downstairs for the sleeping potion.

  While Sarah was gone, Anne couldn’t resist opening her wardrobe and reaching in the back for the black suit of clothes she’d taken from the closet of Reggie’s manservant He was shorter and more slightly built than Reggie, and his clothes actually came close to fitting her. The tailored trousers and jacket were sober and inconspicuous, as befitted his station, and would lend her the anonymity she needed to succeed in her masquerade.

  Her plan was to leave the house as soon as she thought Reggie and Katherine were asleep, walk to Jeffrey’s boardinghouse, then wait till he came out. It was fortunate that he’d pointed out his lodgings to her one day while they were driving down Camp Street, an offshoot of Canal Street in the American District.

  Jeffrey’s conversation had not clearly indicated when the slave escape would take place, just that it would occur at an hour when she was normally sound asleep. She hoped she’d get there in time. He had, however, obligingly let it slip that he was going on foot to the rendezvous point. As she was an excellent walker, Anne knew she could easily follow him.

  Anne heard Sarah’s footsteps coming down the hall, so she hastily put the clothes back in the wardrobe and shut the doors. Sarah carried a cup of steaming tea. “Here, miss. Theresa says the stuff what’ll make ye sleep is in the tea. Drink it all up, she says.”

  “I will, Sarah, as soon as I’m settled in bed.”

  Sarah nodded, lifted up the mosquito netting, turned down the coverlets, and plumped Anne’s pillows. While her back was turned, Anne took the opportunity to dump the tea into her chamber pot. “There ye go, miss,” said Sarah, turning around to face her mistress. “You’ll be as comfy as can be.”

  “I’m sure I will,” said Anne with a smile. Sarah knew about her run-in with the drunkard in the alley. By now Anne supposed that most of the servants had heard various versions of the story. She handed Sarah the teacup. “I’ve already finished my tea and will be sleeping like a babe in no time.”

  “Lor’, miss, ye drunk it already? Wasn’t it hot?”

  “Not intolerably so.” She climbed into bed and pulled only the sheets to her chin. The night was too warm for anything heavier. “As I am sure he’ll wish to know, please tell my uncle I took my sleeping potion.”

  “Yes, miss, I will.” Sarah arranged the mosquito netting so that there were no openings, curtsied, and smiled. When Sarah closed the door behind her, Anne immediately turned on her back and stared across the dark room at the open window. It was still hot. Hot in November. The weather here was nothing like England’s. And in England she’d never be lying in her bed contemplating such a daring adventure.

  Anne frowned. Reggie would say it was stupid. Most people would think it was stupid, and very dangerous. And maybe it was. But she had such a strong compulsion to see Renard again—even from a distance—that she felt she had no choice but to follow the driving instincts that urged her on.

  Last night he’d been in that very room, holding her, kissing her. Anne closed her eyes and remembered the sensation of his lips on hers, his hands moving over her bare skin. No one had ever made her feel so sensual, so alive.

  No one, that is, except Delacroix! She hated to admit it, but both men had the same devastating effect on her. She’d had intimate encounters with them both in the last twenty-four hours, and if she was honest with herself, she’d have to admit that sometimes the memories got confused and intertwined.

  The curtains moved in the incoming air as if in slow motion, a languid breeze rolling across the room to the bed. Anne welcomed its cooling effect on her flushed cheeks. The moon was nearly full that night, and the room had a dim, preternatural glow about it. Nothing was really in complete shadow. The furniture, the cushions, the bric-a-brac, everything was still and solid, everything but the curtains belling in the breeze.

  She might have slept if she weren’t so full of expectancy, so full of thoughts of Renard … and Delacroix. Anne shook her head in the dark. How she wished she could keep that scoundrel from weaseling his way into her thoughts!

  She heard movement and lowered voices outside her door, then the knob turned carefully. Quickly she rolled on her side and closed her eyes, forcing herself to relax completely. She must look convincingly, peacefully dormant.

  She sensed the light of a lamp falling across her face, the darkness behind her closed eyes brightening infinitesimally.

  “She’s done up, the poor dear,” whispered Reggie.

  “Yes,” said Katherine. “The herbs seem to have done the job well enough.”

  “We really must do something for Delacroix,” said Reggie. “He might have actually saved her life, the little scatterbrain.”

  “Yes,” agreed Katherine. “We’ll do something to show our appreciation.”

  There was a pause, during which Anne supposed she was being studied. She felt a little foolish, though thoroughly loved. How often was a twenty-three-year-old woman so completely mollycoddled?

  In another moment the light withdrew and the door was closed. She opened her eyes and listened while her doting relatives moved away, each to his or her own room. She wondered with what feelings they parted tonight.

  Just to be safe, Anne waited another ten minutes or so after the last squeak of a floorboard was heard in the hall, then she threw off the sheets, flipped up the mosquito netting, and got out of bed. She lit a lamp, turned it low, then quickly donned the trousers and jacket over her chemise. She pulled on a pair of sturdy half-boots, then finished the outfit with the hat she’d borrowed from Reggie’s room. She had wound her braid in a coronet and secured it with several hairpins. She hoped none of it would come loose and hang down her neck, revealing to everyone the true nature of her sex.

  She studied her reflection in the mirror and acknowledged that she’d be instantly known for a fraud—or at least an oddity—if she were trying to go about town in the daylight hours. But in the dark she hoped to get by with such a hastily devised disguise.

  Now she had only to wait a few more minutes before leaving the house to walk to Jeffrey’s lodgings. She looked at the mantel clock. It was forty minutes past ten. She sat down at her dressing table and stared at her reflection, waiting, waiting … The tick of the clock sounded through the silent room, its slow-creeping measures of time completely out of rhythm with Anne’s racing heart.

  Soon she would see Renard again. Soon.

  Chapter 10

  Anne walked quickly through the quiet residential streets of the Faubourg St. Mary, discreetly keeping in the shadows of the trees as much as possible, crossing to the other side if it looked as if she was about to encounter someone on the banquette. Her disguise was adequate, but it was best not to take chances.

  Jeffrey lodged in a respectable boardinghouse on Camp Street, just down the block from the new St. Patrick’s Church and not far from Canal Street and the Vieux Carré. The closer Anne got to Canal Street, the more people she saw, and the more nervous she got. It was one thing dreaming up a daring scheme in the safety of her bedchamber, and quite another actually to undertake it.

  But despite her anxieties, she did not regret the deception and danger in which she found herself hopelessly tangled. She had to see Renard again, and this appeared to be the only way to accomplish what had become an all-consuming desire.

  Last night’s encounter in her bedchamber played over and over again in her mind, spurring her on. She had no way of knowing when or if he’d ever visit her again. He was elusive, a dream that had to be pursued. He certainly hadn’t been knocking on her aunt’s door lately, or—like Delacroix—turning up like a bad penny everyw
here she went.

  The night was balmy, the air redolent with scents both good and bad. The stars hung low, their brilliance softened and blurred at the edges, as if shining through the thin translucence of Chinese lanterns.

  Mrs. Cavanaugh’s Boardinghouse, a moderate-sized two-story building surrounded by a tidy garden, was just ahead, the gables and shutters limned by moonlight. Jeffrey had made the point once that he was plump enough in the pockets to have his own house, but, being a bachelor, he found it more convenient to come and go as he pleased at Mrs. Cavanaugh’s.

  But when discussing the advantages of having his meals and laundry taken care of, Jeffrey always made it quite clear to Anne that he’d give up these admirable arrangements at the drop of a hat if a woman he couldn’t resist marrying came along. He’d said it in that coy way of his, leaving Anne no doubt that he thought of her as just such an irresistible woman.

  Anne determinedly put Jeffrey’s troublesome infatuation out of her mind. Tonight her thoughts and feelings were consumed with the idea and image of her hero, Renard.

  Anne stared up at the only lighted window in the house, an upper outside window with the shade pulled down. She decided that it must be Jeffrey’s room. When a shadow from inside suddenly loomed over the shade, Anne realized how exposed she was standing there in the moonlight. If Jeffrey happened to look out, he couldn’t help seeing her. She crossed the street and scanned the area for a good hiding place. She saw a large rhododendron bush near the street, in a corner of someone’s small yard. Hidden behind it, she could still command a comprehensive view of the boardinghouse.

  Anne was just about to take up her position for spying when she heard fast-paced footsteps on the banquette. She snatched a glance up the road and saw two gentlemen quickly walking her way. She’d have to wait till they passed by before she could hide, and she wondered how she was going to manage to look inconspicuous in the meantime. Surely it would appear odd to the gentlemen if she simply stood there twiddling her thumbs!