The Duke's Messenger

by Vanessa Gray

  She hesitated, indecisive, wondering just how she could properly end this too-prolonged conversation. Suddenly, as though losing interest in his joke, he said, “I did make inquiries at the embassy, miss.”

  Gratefully accepting the small olive twig, she said, “Of course, Reeves. I understand.” She did not in the least understand, but it was of no account, after all, how Reeves got his information. Nor why he chose to laugh at her. He was no ordinary coachman.

  The man was impudent, no question about it. But perhaps he had earned the right to be independent — he had been, apparently, a sailor at one time, and a fisherman, judging from his appearance at Calais. She wondered then whether he had sailed with the fiercely provincial Norman fishermen. If he had, it would explain his fluency in French, including a certain low jargon that she had seen commanding respect from ostlers from Calais to Paris.

  It was likely, too, that he had seen service in the peninsular armies, as had many thousands of Englishmen. If he were accustomed to violence, then, it could only redound to their benefit. As he had said, they were a small party indeed.

  *

  They were soon under way again. The road out of Paris had been bleak and uninteresting. Now the character of the landscape altered. The road itself was well marked, consisting of great frozen ruts made in all likelihood by the broad wooden wheels of farm wagons bringing in the vendange from the wine country to market in Paris.

  The road ahead now stretched straight and broad into the horizon. Thin trees had been planted on both sides of the track, providing in some future time a pleasant green wall enclosing the road. Farmland stretched away on both sides of the road, and the land here seemed more prosperous than that nearer the capital.

  The next time they stopped to rest the cattle, Nell was determined to avoid the coachman. She walked briskly back in the direction they had come until the coach was a small object in the distance, a dark splotch on the pale frosted ruts.

  She breathed deeply of the chilly air, feeling the cold sharp in her lungs. She must make sure she had sufficient exercise on the journey, for the stuffiness of the coach interior had brought on a headache. She wandered slowly a little farther away from the coach.

  She did not hear Reeves approaching. When he spoke, she quivered. “You startled me!” One might suspect, she thought crossly, that he was practicing to be a successful footpad.

  “I’m sorry, miss. I came to warn you — best not to stroll too far alone. It is not safe.”

  She looked around her. The scene was peaceful, bucolic, uninhabited by pedestrians. The only living objects she could see were a small herd of black and white cows, beset by curiosity as to the strange two-legged creatures on the road.

  “They do not seem unduly belligerent.”

  He seemed about to throw up his hands in exasperation. He said forcefully, “Beats me how a lady dare not walk down Oxford Street in broad day without a maid and a footman to protect her and then believes that all the rest of the world is filled with kindness!”

  She was startled. “Reeves, who are you?”

  “Lady Sanford’s coachman, miss. John Reeves by name.”

  Dissatisfied, but not knowing just how to wrest the truth from him, she turned again to the ‘bovine spectators. “I cannot think they are in the least ferocious. Indeed, I understand them, I believe, better than you do. For you must know that I am accustomed to being around the stock on our own farms.”

  “No doubt.” As an afterthought, he added, “Miss.”

  He made to turn away, but she was reluctant to let him go. Nodding her head toward the cows in question, she asked, “Do you truly think they would attack me?”

  “Not them,” said Reeves. “But you know this is war’s old invasion route. The way the armies have always come to Paris.”

  Perversely, scornfully, Nell said, “I don’t see any armies.”

  “Where armies go, stragglers remain behind. No armies now, perhaps, but the inhabitants are not likely to mind a robbery — or worse.”

  Without further protest, she turned and walked quickly back, Reeves beside her, to the coach and mounted into it. She realized how foolish she and her aunt were, driving through an alien landscape as though they were simply tooling up from London to Essex carrying jewels and fine gowns, as well as their own vulnerable persons.

  Not until they were under way again did she remember — all traces of subservience on the part of Reeves had vanished, at least for the moment. She withdrew into puzzled thought. Reeves was not what he seemed. But if he were not, why did he choose to take employment as Lady Sanford’s coachman? There was no way, she decided, that he could know about the precious parcel. At least…

  No, she reflected, she had covered her tracks carefully. Reeves could not know about Mr. Haveney’s visit, for he was in France at the time, unemployed on the waterfront at Calais where she had found him.

  But all the same, she would see to it that night that she removed the parcel from her jewel case and found a safer place to hide it.

  Chapter Thirteen

  They came in early afternoon to a town called — so Reeves informed them Dorman. Here the road crossed a bridge over the Marne River to the north bank, and for a while the traveling was less difficult.

  Epemay was far behind them, and they had reached a point beyond Cumières when they halted again to rest the horses. On this occasion Lady Sanford descended from the coach as well as Nell, and in spite of the brisk wind gusting up the slope from the river valley below marched ahead to speak to Reeves.

  “Reeves, where are we?

  “I dunno what your ladyship means.”

  “Perhaps I can be more explicit. I am assuming you know the names of the villages, if that is what they are called, through which we have passed?’

  “Yes, my lady. If you were wishing to know, that last ‘un was called Cumières.”

  “And the next one?”

  “Hautvillers.”

  “Your French accent is excessively good, Reeves. You have lived in France, I surmise?”

  “No, my lady. Only passed through, as you might say.”

  “Well, you have done well then. I vow you speak as well as though you had been tutored in it since your childhood.”

  He said only, “Your ladyship is kind. Was you wishing to stop for the night?”

  “Yes, Reeves, I should. I do not know precisely our direction, but I am told the château is near Hautvillers.”

  “There is an inn farther on at Champillon, called the Royal Champagne, my lady. Very comfortable, I am informed.”

  “However, Reeves, I wish to halt at the Château Penoud, near Hautvillers. Pray secure directions to the château when we near the town.”

  An odd expression flitted across the coachman’s rough features. For a moment, he seemed ready to object to Lady Sanford’s plan, but instead he touched his hat and went to his horses.

  Nell noticed without favor that there was no amusement in the man when he addressed Lady Sanford. He apparently found all the entertainment he needed in Nell. She resented his impertinence more than she could ever say. She would find a way to put him in his place, indeed she would!

  The Château Penoud, where they arrived in the late afternoon, stood, as suited its age, on a defensible promontory overlooking the valley of the Marne. The coach lumbered down a winding drive through a heavy forest lying between the road and the gaunt arrangement of old stone that was the castle.

  Nell gazed at the crenellated turrets, the slits of windows wide enough for a flaming arrow to be shot from the interior while protecting the castle defenders, the ivy-blanketed walls of gray rock.

  “Just like The Mysteries of Udolpho,” she breathed. “I wonder whether Mrs. Radcliffe has seen this place?”

  “More like Romance of the Forest, it seems to me,” said her aunt. “You won’t remember that one, but it was popular when I was a girl.”

  “How do you know about this place?” marveled Nell.

  “Well,” said Ph
rynie, complacently, “I have never seen it, of course. But I was invited once, long ago, by the Comte de Pernoud, who I sincerely trust still owns it.”

  “You know the count?”

  “He visited in England at one time. After the Revolution, of course, when aristocratic émigrés swarmed across the Channel. My dear husband was much taken with him and insisted that he spend a month with us at Sanford Hall. Now, my dear, you are speculating — I can see suspicion springing to life in your eyes — and I must inform you that you are quite incorrect. I should never have dishonored my husband, you know.”

  “Of course not.”

  “The count was most understanding when I met him later in London, after I was widowed. I was still in half mourning then.”

  Their acquaintance might have flourished long ago, but the count’s memory was green as springtime. Professing himself delighted at the advent of unexpected guests, he proclaimed himself enchanted beyond measure at the sight of his old acquaintance, Lady Sanford.

  “Acquaintance, Count?” asked Phrynie in a gentle voice.

  “Dear lady,” responded her host, “a bit more than acquaintance.”

  Belatedly Lady Sanford remembered the pristine presence of her niece. “Friend, let us say,” she said firmly.

  When Nell could examine the chateau more at her leisure, she could see that the entrance tower was as forbidding in aspect as the Tower of London. But the wings, even though of the same gray stone, added on either side spoke more of Louis XIV than they did of Rollo the Viking. The windows of the east wing were of the casement variety, opening pleasantly to the outside in clement weather. The west wing, as Nell faced the entrance, was older, judging from its more austere facade.

  The suite upstairs that was put at their disposal was impeccable if, thought Nell ungratefully, you like ancient towers and antique furnishings. There was, however, a fine Chinese rug on the floor and a bright fire in the grate, evidence of excellently trained servants. She had instructed Reeves to hold the baggage, all but the small jewel cases and bandboxes, with the carriage.

  “Yes, miss,” he had said. Something in his manner held her. “You are not entirely happy that we are staying here, are you?”

  “It’s not for me to say, miss, but it looks chancy to me. The château, if that’s what it’s called, looks like it might have a dungeon underground.”

  She turned to look thoughtfully at the stone building. “I wouldn’t be greatly surprised. But it’s only for tonight, Reeves, and surely not much can happen in a few hours.”

  “If you need me, miss, I think they put us over beyond the cobbled yard. Where the stable is. I’ll keep my peepers open on the horses, too.”

  “Peepers? Oh, a night watch? Why ever for? The count is a friend of aunt’s.”

  “Aye,” said Reeves, “but I should judge his servants are not?”

  “You are right,” she conceded handsomely, “as always.” Reeves’s expression turned wooden. “Yes, miss.”

  *

  Nell dressed in the lilac crape that she had worn to dinner in the embassy. She had packed other gowns, in anticipation of events to be attended in Vienna, but they were all in the baggage now watched over by Reeves. He had not intended to alarm her, she was sure, but all the same she felt a frisson of uneasiness as she draped a shawl of deep lavender trimmed with silver thread lace around her shoulders.

  She followed her aunt down the winding stairway, not hopeful about the quality of dinner. “Probably a haunch of venison,” she suggested to her aunt, “smoked on a spit in that great hearth in the foyer.”

  “I do not doubt,” Phrynie pointed out, “that there is sufficient game in these woods to provide for an army of knights. One can only be thankful that one lives in the modern day, Nell, for I cannot conceive that a roomful of metal-clad gentlemen would be in the least restful.”

  “My idea of that time, on the contrary, is one of windows open to the balmy breeze, while gentlemen strum their lutes and sing plaintive love songs.”

  Phrynie gazed at her, enthralled. “In their armor?”

  “Truly I think not, Aunt. Besides, this air is far from temperate. Perhaps I am thinking of the south of France.”

  Phrynie’s education had not been broad. Because Nell had shared her brother’s tutors, she was better informed than the ordinary young lady of breeding. Now Phrynie brushed the troubadours aside with an airy gesture. “How dull to listen to love songs all the day long. But as long as the champagne is adequate, I believe we shall survive our one night here.”

  “Isn’t this the region where that wine comes from?”

  “Oh, yes. But so often one cannot count on logic in these matters. The shoemaker’s children, you know.”

  Nell was pleased to see that the château was not ancient in its entirety. As she had guessed, the wings had been added at some time in the past century in a successful attempt to improve the Pernoud style of living. Since the ancient rock structure was impervious not only to siege but also to alterations, the additions were attached to the original fortress-tower at right angles. The original castle looked out over the valley, as Nell had seen. The wings formed two sides of a small cobbled court. At a short distance the stables and other domestic offices formed the other two sides of the square.

  The present count clearly preferred the modern rooms. One door cut in the two-foot thick walls of the round tower stood ajar. Beyond it could be seen a library of the kind frequently found in gentlemen’s houses in England, containing a massive table, fitted in all likelihood with several shallow drawers, and rows of leather-bound books on shelves. A flickering light indicated that a fire burned in the grate.

  Another door on the same foyer wall led into a spacious salon, with windows providing another view of the river valley. This room was illuminated by wax candles in plentiful supply. There were chairs with elegantly curved legs, a pair of settees that might well have been at home in Marie Antoinette’s salon at Le Petite Trianon. The unkind thought came to Nell that perhaps these were the identical items of furniture that the lamented queen had possessed. Nell believed she had heard that many of the luxurious appointments of the royal family had vanished. If so, why not to this out-of-the-way place?

  The salon in Château Pernoud stretched the entire length of this wing, judging from the several windows at the opposite end of the room. A door close on Nell’s right hand provided access to the library, and another door farther along the same wall led, as she later learned, into the dining room.

  Phrynie’s eyes sparkled as brilliantly as the diamonds she wore around her throat. Trust her aunt, thought Nell darkly, to be dressed appropriately for a gala, even living out of a bandbox.

  Nell’s thoughts moved smoothly from her aunt’s diamonds to her own jewel case, holding mere amethysts, a string of small pearls left her by her mother as well as the garnet earrings. And, of course, the parcel.

  She swallowed too fast, and choked. She waved the count’s concern aside. “I’m quite all right, thank you. The salad is delicious.” She had intended to move the parcel from her jewel case to secrete it in her bandbox, in case the count’s servants were curious or light-fingered — or both — but Phrynie had been impatient to descend to dinner.

  Upon further consideration, she concluded that if the count’s staff were indeed prone to pilferage, her aunt’s sapphires would be the first items to disappear. Besides, there was nothing to worry about, for Mullins was to stay in their rooms. Her supper was to be brought up to her on the pretext that she was overly weary from the long carriage ride. Clearly Lady Sanford too was uneasy over their night’s lodgings. She had not sufficiently accepted Reeves’s caution. She would rectify her lapse later, before she retired for the night.

  She allowed her mind to drift, as it seemed often to do, toward Reeves. If Stuston were still with them, even though he would have mistrusted every Frenchman on sight, she would not have been so convinced of the worst as she was by the simple fact that Reeves expected to stand guard that n
ight.

  He would not, she was certain, take such precautions without reason. But why was he so apprehensive in a private residence? Nell herself would expect to be safer here than on the road, where only cows placidly chewed their cuds and the landscape was empty.

  Just now, Phrynie was entertaining the count. “How delighted you must be that the Bourbons have been restored, and you are back in your ancestral home.”

  The count hesitated only a second. “Of course it is good to be home again. My servants, even though I had to be away for years, were nonetheless loyal to me, and I found my affairs in good condition when I returned.”

  “I wonder that you did not stay on in England. So many émigrés found London a delight.”

  “So they did,” said the count. “I myself found refuge — elsewhere.”

  “Oh?” said Phrynie, inviting him to continue. When he seemed not to wish to relive painful memories, Phrynie, with the tact that was such a large part of her charm, turned the subject deftly. “We were just now in Paris, you know. So many new buildings. I had not seen Paris since I was a very young child, as you know, but my mother spoke of it so many times that I do believe I could have found my way around the city blindfolded. I particularly admired the Rue de Rivoli. The colonnade is so unusual”

  “Those are the things the Emperor did for their spectacular value, for display, so to speak. You did not see the covered food markets? Nor realize that the city’s water supply is now adequate?”

  “No, I confess we were not shown those amenities. We were there for only a day, however, and I am sure that Lady Westford would have instructed us eventually.”

  Amusement gleamed in their host’s pale blue eyes. “Ah, yes, the Lady Westford. One cannot ignore her, however much one might desire to.”

  Springing reluctantly to the defense of her countrywoman, Phrynie said, “She was kind enough to take us to the Tuileries. But the court seems very quiet.”

  “I imagine,” said the count drily, “that the Princess has much the same sentiments as I. My father as well as hers was caressed by Madame la Guillotine.”