The Duke's Messenger

by Vanessa Gray

  She was almost ready to give up the question and go to bed. But just before she turned away from the window, she thought she saw movement on the front step again. Reeves must have doubled back out of her sight. She would just wait to see him inside the inn and then go to bed.

  She heard a door shut quietly below. But the figure below was still on the step, apparently just now emerging from the building. At this rate, the stable yard would soon be more densely populated than the inn itself.

  The man below, unaware of the watchful eyes on him, moved swiftly away from the lighted door. The snow was coming down hard now, and she viewed the happenings below as though through a lacy veil. They might well be snowbound by morning.

  She strained to recognize the second man. The archduke had come with so many servants that it was most unlikely she would know any except Fulke. But to her surprise, the man below, possibly aware of her eyes on him, looked up. And she recognized him!

  Hard on the heels of her recognition came decision. She would put Reeves out of her mind tomorrow. But tonight she must warn him that he was not alone in the stable yard — that from somewhere out of the storm had come Emile, the squint-eyed servant of the Comte de Pernoud!

  She snatched up her dark blue cloak, threw it around her shoulders, and slipped quietly through the door. The stairs were in shadow, but from below came sufficient light from a lantern left on the table in the common room for her to see her way. Like a shadow herself, she descended swiftly, and in a moment stood on the step beyond the front door. Mindful of the chance of eyes watching from the building behind her, or more likely the vigilance of the two men she knew were already abroad in the night, she stepped away from the circle of light at the door. She was grateful for the Muscovy sable lining of her cloak. She pulled it close at her throat, for the wind-driven snow was cold and wet on her skin.

  The yard was silent. The wind’s keening was the only sound to be heard. She thought, with some apprehension, that a regiment might march across before her, and she would scarcely hear them.

  Reeves had vanished into the broad band of darkness along the far fence. She had lost sight of the second man even before she had left the window. But she must first seek out the coachman and warn him that the enemy was stalking him in the night. Looking around her and seeing no sign of movement, she moved silent as a wraith across the intervening space. She found her breath again as she stood in the shadow of a great carriage wheel and believed herself hidden.

  The coach beside her shone dull red and gold. It occurred to her that Emile must have arrived with Phrynie’s Josef. Else how would it chance that the enemy, for he was that without doubt, could have emerged from the inn, moments ago?

  Perhaps Josef Salvator himself was just such another as the Comte de Pernoud!

  She must find Reeves…

  She looked around carefully, scanning dark corners, watching the snow swirl dizzyingly around her. Nothing moved. She took a step away from the gaudy coach.

  A hand from behind was clapped over her mouth, an arm snaked from behind to close like a vise on her waist. Her involuntary scream was no louder than a sigh.

  A voice spoke gutter French in her ear. “You know what I want, that bunchy package. Where is it?”

  She twisted futilely in his grip, making strangled sounds against his hand. His fingers smelled of rancid grease and only a remote acquaintance with soap. Unpleasant as it was, she buried her teeth in his hand, satisfied to hear him grunt in pain. Her cloak was twisted around her hips, from Emile’s grip on her waist. The wet snow found the opening, and her nightgown in only a moment became sodden, clinging clammily to her body. The cold stirred her to action.

  She was indignant at the presumption of this base Emile, she was incensed by the fact that she could not travel as safely in Germany as in her own precincts and determined not to faint away like so many Rosamunds and Julias in those idiotic novels that had no relation to truth.

  The garlic-breathing monster who had her in his grip now — that was reality!

  She did not try to scream again. She bit the filthy fingers, she kicked backward to hit her attacker’s shins — realizing with a start that she was wearing only thin heelless slippers. She bent double to take him unawares and writhed like an eel in his grasp.

  He cursed in French. He grunted in exasperation. At length, furious at her resistance, he lifted her up and threw her to the ground. She sprawled her length, her cloak billowing away from her. She was in a moment as wet as if she had fallen into a brook in spring flood.

  The fall took her breath away. She saw Emile tower over her and then drop to his knees beside her. His hand hovered over her mouth ready to cut off her first scream as he demanded, “Where is the package?”

  With guile she did not know she possessed, she said, quietly, “Why do you want it?”

  “My master sent me,” he said. She realized then that he was without wit, a mere automaton sent by the Comte de Pernoud, who must have surmised that the parcel would somehow act to discredit the Emperor. It would be a prodigy if she could not outwit the witless!

  She must not give any hint to him that it was upstairs in her room. She dared not think of Phrynie’s reaction were she to awake and find the man with the squint eye sorting through her personal affairs. She must think of something…

  “My brother has it,” she told him. “It is already in Vienna!”

  “You lie!”

  “On the contrary,” she said. “You must not believe I would keep it, when he was going to Vienna? I assure you it is in the hands of the English lord at this very moment.”

  He paused to allow the process that served him as thought to take place, and his attention left her for a moment. She saw her opportunity. The man’s wits were not the peril. His brute strength was, for he could easily give one buffet to her head, like brushing off a fly, and she would have no further interest in the parcel — or anything at all.

  She took her breath in silently. When she opened her mouth, her scream had all the force of a banshee’s screech. At the same moment, she rolled away from him.

  Emile grunted like a savage and raised his fist in threat.

  She was out of his reach. He scrambled for her on his knees, but she rolled over again. She attempted to scramble to her feet, but her knee on her wet cloak pinned her to the ground. Her nightgown bunched wetly between her thighs, and she fell back to the ground, knowing that Emile was a breath — perhaps her last breath — away.

  But her scream had not gone unnoticed. She struggled to sit up, her eyes, wide and full of fear, fixed on her assailant. Suddenly it seemed to her that something jerked the man up to stand swaying, the snow piling up on his shoulders. She hardly had time to notice the odd phenomenon when its cause appeared.

  Reeves was dealing effectively. A blow of seemingly insignificant force tapped Emile lightly, and the big man simply folded like a fan, to lie prone on the wet cobbles.

  Reeves lifted her gently in his arms. “Are you hurt?”

  “I don’t think so!” She was breathless.

  “Can you stand for a moment?” He set her on her feet, releasing her slowly. Assured that she would not slip to the ground again, he called into the shadows, and Fulke, Josef Salvator’s factotum, emerged in answer.

  “I don’t understand!” she thought she wailed, but there was no sound other than the muttered conversation between the coachman and the archduke’s man.

  She was watching experts in their trade, she knew.

  From somewhere Fulke produced a serviceable length of hemp, and Reeves tied Emile’s wrists. After a short consultation, Fulke pulled their captive to his feet and shoved him ahead in the direction of one of the sheds beyond the stable.

  “I don’t understand,” she repeated, this time aloud.

  His hands touched her lightly. “You’re drenched. Come. You’ll freeze else.”

  How relieved she was, she heard herself thinking, to place her life in the competent hands that now led her to shelter!
Muzzily she knew she had thought in error — not her life, of course! — but she did not feel able to come to more precise terms. She moved as he told her, took off her cloak as he commanded, all in a dream. She had no clear sense of time, nor of what had just transpired. He had brought her to an enclosed space floored with straw — in England it would be called a box stall, she believed.

  She shivered and thought she could never stop. Reeves placed his jacket around her. Her teeth chattered. He paused only long enough to drape her cloak, fur side out, over the low partition that separated this stall from the remainder of the stable. Then he dropped down in the straw beside her.

  “Where did he hurt you?” he asked. Not waiting for an answer, he touched her temples with fingertips delicate as butterfly wings. “Here? Here?”

  “N-no, he didn’t hurt me. But I think he would have.”

  “What were you doing out here? Can’t you ever stay quietly in your bed at night?”

  His voice was rough. Possessed of a strange insight, she knew he spoke not from anger but from anxiety for her. Even in her sudden satisfaction, she could not keep from shivering again.

  His arms closed around her and drew her close. She could smell the strong unmistakable smell of the Scottish tweed of his jacket, mingled with the dry scent of the straw under them and the clean aroma of soap, by which she believed she would recognize Reeves anywhere in the world. He rocked her gently, and she gave herself up to warmth and comfort, as though she were a child, secure and safe. Some long time later, she became aware that he was humming. A simple little tune, oddly quieting. She could feel his heart beat and feel the faint vibrations of his singing.

  Dreamily she murmured, “What is that air? Do I know it?”

  “Most likely not,” he said. “I learned it in Spain. In English, the words don’t fit the tune. It’s about what a man wants.”

  “And what is that?”

  “The reflective life,” he said, as though she had not spoken. “What a restful existence is that of the man who flees from the din of the world and follows the hermit’s path, down which have passed the few wise men whom the world has known!”

  “Restful? I wish I live to see that day. It occurs to me that the contemplative life does not include breaking into private castles? Nor being so very knowledgeable with your fists? I vow you hardly touched that man, and he dropped like a sack of grain.”

  “I never said I was wise,” he told her. “I do not hesitate to admit that at one time such a quiet life had its appeal.”

  “No more?”

  “A man, too, has a right to alter his thinking.”

  He put a finger under her chin and tilted her face up to his. His lips met hers, and totally of their own volition her arms went around his neck and pulled him closer to her.

  There was one moment when she recalled, as though standing to one side in censure, that of all things she had considered to be altogether disgraceful, none of them descended quite as low as reveling in the close and wonderful embrace of the coachman.

  The moment of hesitation, however proper, fled hastily, vanquished beyond recovery in the sheer deliciousness of her present situation, with which she was eminently satisfied.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Vienna at first sight was a city made of gingerbread, lavishly iced.

  There were confection palaces, riotous with trimmings on roofs, eaves, doorways. The streets went in different directions, with a bewildering change of name at every cross street. Nell knew she would never feel at home in this capital. However, it seemed that everyone else in the world had come to Vienna and felt as much at home as though they had been born Austrian.

  Within an hour only that morning, Nell reflected, she had seen the Emperor Francis, riding out through the great iron gates of the Hofburg behind armed postilions and outriders, his coachman driving six pure white horses. And Prince Clemens Wenzel Metternich, who considered himself the host of the glittering gathering of statesmen. The young Tsar Alexander, whom she had already met in London in the summer — he had recognized her and bowed most graciously.

  Tom had pointed out to her the man who, above all others, was responsible for Napoleon’s defeat — the eyes hooded like a hawk’s hid all expression on the features of Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Perigord. “He’s on our side,” confided Tom, “at least for now. Although he can’t be trusted — he was Napoleon’s adviser not a year since.”

  Nell tried to pay attention as her brother pointed out the various notables whom he recognized. Her abstraction was obvious to him, and at length he gave up. “What maggot’s in your head, now, Nell?”

  “Nothing, Tom.”

  “Don’t blame me, Nell. You’ve been moonish ever since you arrived last night.”

  “I am a little weary of traveling, I think. Pray, Tom, don’t scold me.”

  He looked sharply at her. He had been on the lookout for Lady Sanford’s blue traveling chariot since he had arrived himself three days since. Lord Castlereagh had generously set aside a suite of rooms in the palace allotted to the English dignitaries, and Phrynie professed herself delighted with the arrangements. Tom cast his mind back over certain remarks that his aunt had let fall, seeking some hint as to what had transpired since his own unceremonious but entirely necessary departure from the inn where Reeves had been recovering from the attack on the road.

  Now, seeing that Nell had little interest in the traffic along the Ringstrasse — in fact, he was positive she did not even see what crossed before her eyes — he took her arm and led her back toward their quarters. “Who is this gentleman, Nell, that our aunt mentioned? The one who escorted you here?”

  Nell forced herself to return a sensible answer. She had sunk low in her spirits, and the last three days on the road had been a trial, to put it mildly. “He is the Archduke Josef Salvator,” she told her brother.

  “Good God, an archduke? Trust Aunt Phrynie to fall on her feet even in a foreign country. He seems quite smitten, does he not?”

  Nell smiled reluctantly. “He has promised to give a ball in her honor. In his palace here. He — he was most helpful, you know. When — when Emile, Pernoud’s servant, you remember? — tried to steal that parcel. Tom, I must get that parcel to Lord Castlereagh!”

  “He was busy all morning,” said Tom.

  “I know they would not let me see him. But dear Rowland will manage all.”

  “Dear Rowland,” repeated Tom flatly. “Do I detect a certain lack of enthusiasm in your voice?”

  “Not at all,” she protested. “He is very busy. He has a great deal of responsibility here, you know. I am to see him later this morning.”

  “You did not tell me about Aunt Phrynie’s latest conquest. He was helpful?”

  “Oh, yes. You see, when that rogue of a servant attacked me, and then Fulke took him away — Fulke is the archduke’s man, you know — and then the archduke had Emile put into jail, and I do not quite understand, but he told me that Emile would not trouble us again.”

  They had strolled nearly halfway back to the palace. Tom pulled her to a halt. “What of Reeves?”

  “R-Reeves? What of him?”

  “Don’t pretend to be hen-witted, Nell. Where was Reeves while this attack was taking place? Why is it that Fulke captured the man?”

  “Reeves — helped. Pray do not persist, Tom. If you want to know all, ask him.”

  Tom was as nearly set back on his heels as he had ever been. He had his own reasons for asking these particular questions of his sister. He had in truth never seen her quite so — he could not quite find the precise word to fit. Mooning in a dream — that was quite the habit of young girls, he believed. But Nell’s dream was not a happy one. He was more troubled than he allowed her to see.

  *

  Nell had much to think about, and did not like any of it. Reeves had suddenly reverted to stiff remoteness. He had not once caught her eye on the journey from the inn to Vienna.

  They had traveled tandem with the archduke and his
three carriages, and there had been little opportunity for conversation. But he could have glanced at her. She found she had become accustomed to his habit of sharing amusement silently, the feeling of intimate conspiracy that lay between them. Now she sorely missed that.

  But how could she have expected anything more? In truth, it should have been Nell herself who ignored her aunt’s servant and put him in his place, as she knew well how to do. He had made insufferable advances, he had behaved as though they were equals, and he had even presumed to think that she would not object to the growing intimacy.

  How dared he take her in his arms…

  Her brother said, “Your cheeks are flushed, Nell. What are you thinking?”

  Tartly she snapped, “I’m cold, that’s all. What else would one expect with snow on the ground?”

  How dared he — but he had dared, as though he had no doubt that she would respond to him.

  The dreadful thing, though — the knowledge that kept her from sleeping for three nights, the realization that sent her emotions into dizzying swirls — was that she had welcomed his embrace, and more than that, she ached to be in his arms again, and again.

  *

  The parcel in her hand, she followed a page through the bewildering passages that led from the suite to Lord Castlereagh’s headquarters. The servant, chosen for his supposed fluency in English, chattered away as they walked.

  She could not understand everything he said, but it was clear to her that if they had delayed one more day on the road, they must of necessity have spent last night in the Prater, the park across the street from the Schwarzenbergh Palace. “Never seen the town so full of folk,” he told her. “A couple hundred families of royalty come to town to be in the swim of things. It costs a year’s pay to rent a room on the Karlsplatz. That’s the street that the church is on, the Karlskirche, I mean, not Saint Stephen’s.”