“The Princess—”
“Will be ready,” he finished for her. “You will make sure.”
Her head spun. Costumes to be created, the Princess at least taught how to smile, whether or not she wanted to smile. Perhaps Verbeux’s methods should be employed and Her Royal Highness instructed to keep quiet, unless she would promise to be polite and animated. So much to do, and although she had known their preparations must eventually be put to the test, she didn’t feel ready.
“Come,” Verbeux said, and she saw how he frowned a little, and how there seemed to be a reflection of her own anxiety in his expression. He escorted her from the shop, and to Meg’s horror, she noticed even more idle watchers had assembled. Some crowded around the coach and horses.
“I will not have any part in such theatrics as this,” Meg whispered. “And I will be much obliged if you go back to Mr. Birk and tell him there has been a mistake. We don’t want the shoes.”
“You already accepted them.”
Meg stopped, and he was forced to stop also. “I don’t need or want however many pairs are ordered. I cannot afford them.”
“Hush,” Verbeux said with a smile on his lips and a warning flatness in his eyes. “Be silent. They are paid for. And not by you.”
“Is that supposed to lighten my heart?”
“The Count is a man with a great many responsibilities. You are to help him with the Princess—by accompanying her. You need appropriate clothes.”
“I have clothes that will do well enough.”
He sighed hugely and said, “You are unsophisticated. You will be guided. Consider your master. That is your job. To do whatever he requests. There is no more to say on the subject.”
“What is wrong with the Count that he should need so much consideration?”
“Impertinence,” Verbeux said. “You are causing a stir.”
“I have already caused a stir, wouldn’t you say, sir? I will continue this with the Count. He is a reasonable man. He understands the importance of a person’s pride.”
She carried on to the coach, pretending not to hear a shout. “You let ’im ’ave it, missus. We knows ’ow men are, don’t we? But ’e’ll let you ’ave it later.” Coarse female laughter followed.
Once more Verbeux closed her inside the coach and climbed up to sit on the box. Meg heard the coachman shout and knew he was warning people to clear a way for the horses and carriage.
As relieved as she was exhausted, she closed her eyes. Only her need for money would make her remain in her position. Wouldn’t it? She was confounded by her own head—and heart.
She opened her eyes. The thought of speaking to Jean-Marc pleased her. She relished having a reason to seek him out. The carriage jerked forward and hoofbeats joined the din outside. Two possibilities lay ahead for Meg. She might accept Jean-Marc’s invitation to become his mistress, and consign herself to a life of shame punctuated by moments of bliss, or she could refuse, retain her pride and be content never to see him again. Content?
The lump in her throat was no stranger. Of late she had cried too much.
Shrill screams jarred Meg. Screams, then shouts, and the sight of people in the street falling back, their eyes and mouths stretched open.
A different scream came to her, and she clutched the edge of the seat. The sound of horses snorting and whinnying, their terrified cries high, all but deadening the confused babble of the crowd.
The carriage shook, jerked forward. Outside, the faces swung at horrible angles, tipped like a bubbling pink concoction in a great glass. There would be a terrible accident, she was sure.
Meg prayed. She swallowed against sickness and prayed for stillness and silence. With every thud and jolt, her body felt bruised. Her own cries were obliterated.
She would die here, crushed inside this beautiful carriage that was about to be ruined.
More grinding sounds assailed her. Verbeux’s voice rang out. “Hold them, fool.” Meg knew he spoke to the coachman, exhorted him to control the cattle, who were clearly beyond panic and pulling this way and that in their struggle to be free.
The mighty jangling of tack went on and on.
The carriage swayed perilously, its top tilted toward the road, and Meg slid along the seat, unable to gain purchase. Her shoulder thudded into the polished wood that surrounded the window. She tried, without success, to quell her tears. Inch by inch the carriage tipped until she was certain only two wheels touched the ground.
Faces spun now. Stranger and stranger angles. She fastened her eyes on first one, then another onlooker. Her body twisted sideways, and the door handle thrust into her stomach. Winded, she gasped for breath and settled a fist on the window. Mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters held young babies and young children high, the better for them to view disaster.
One face, and then another, and another made vague impressions on Meg. A comely mother, a bright scarf over her head, cradling a chubby infant and laughing. Several young fops in the height of fashion, twirling their canes and lifting their lips in disdain. A serious, thin face in profile as if the man tried to appear above it all. Nevertheless he stole stares in Meg’s direction.
She heard the vicious crack of the coachman’s whip, and another. The carriage careened in the opposite direction, and Meg was thrust along the seat to the other side—in time to witness the extraordinary spectacle of Verbeux being thrown from the box, turning a complete backward somersault and disappearing in the throng.
Meg’s opposite shoulder ached cruelly.
Again a veritable froth of all but indistinguishable faces flowed hither and thither. Meg thought she saw one that was familiar, but as quickly as she noted it, the face ceased to be there. Once more the maddened horses made a crazed lunge, and people fled, their arms outstretched.
Neighing and snorting escaped the horses in gusts, and froth from their mouths whipped backward against the windows.
Without warning, the coach shuddered almost to a halt and shot backward, grinding Meg’s head into the squabs. Another pause and the vehicle surged forward once more—and Meg’s head slammed forward, her chin to her chest. Pain shot up her neck and through her temples.
She screamed and fought to pull air through her mouth. Her bonnet slid sideways. She could no longer hang on. From side to side the coach wove. Meg grabbed for some handhold—with her one good hand. Useless. One more swing and she was tossed to the floor.
“Jean-Marc,” she cried, and pressed a fist to her mouth. Again and again the unexpected motions of the coach sent her sliding and bumping about the floor. The soft seats were little kinder to her body than the hard floor, and she felt light-headed. Lightheaded and like a woman who had been severely beaten. Each time she forgot her wound and tried to use both hands, she cried at the pain.
With no warning, the carriage took off at a great pace. Meg thudded backward, then managed to curl into a ball.
A great bellow, part animal, part man, eclipsed the babble, and the coach ground to a halt. Gasping, Meg scrambled up, thinking to leap for safety. A man with his arms curled over his head, his hat obscuring most of his face, appeared to moan and rock. Another, sharper angle, and it was a thin woman’s face she fixed upon. Her arms were crossed, and she looked away, dispassionate. The carriage was tipping sideways ever more steeply. Meg looked toward the uppermost side, the side gradually rising, showing the top stories of buildings and a strip of bright blue sky.
As abruptly as they had stopped, the horses fled again, and the carriage thumped down squarely on all four wheels.
Meg’s scream lodged in her throat. She could see the horses. They galloped directly toward shop windows, and clattered onto the flagway. Their flesh would be torn. People would be badly hurt by the broken glass.
Her scream ripped free, and at the same moment a man leaped between the carriage and the windows. He launched himself at the animals and managed to mount the back of one. He wrestled, and the horses veered from Meg’s sight again.
Jean-M
arc. Count Etranger was that man who was, as Meg prayed for him, on the back of a horse turned wild. No, you can’t die like this. If he did, it would be for her, and she might live. She could not bear to think of being alive while he was dead.
Following the passage of the team, the carriage mounted the flagway. She felt when the horses were back on the roadway, and hope overwhelmed her. Once more the carriage followed and began to slow down. All would be saved. Jean-Marc would be spared, and so would Meg.
The right wheels bumped from flagway to road.
Almost slowly, the left wheels skipped from the ground and balance was lost. “Jean-Marc!” He couldn’t hear her. No one could hear her. With the inevitability of a falling object too heavy to be stopped, the coach made a mad, sluggish arc before it crashed to its side. The windows smashed seconds before Meg’s last grasp failed and she landed on her back against the door, against hard cobbles that filled the spaces where the glass had been.
Dust filled her nostrils, but what did it matter? The world became gray, a gray film that dimmed her eyes. And she coughed. Silence blessed her ears, and she rested there.
“Mon Dieu!” a familiar voice roared. “Get back. Get away. You do not help, so go. Go!”
He was there, close. Meg blinked. Sunlight shone directly through the windows that faced the sky. How very odd to lie on one’s back in Bond Street and stare at a sun-bright sky through windows above your face.
“Damn it to hell, I will kill the next man to get in my way. Verbeux, hold the team. But do not touch them. You understand me?”
“As you say.” Verbeux sounded quite unlike himself. “Thomas, assist me, please.”
Thomas, Meg thought serenely, was the coachman. So, they were both safe, too.
Thuds on the uppermost side of the coach soon brought the Count’s head and shoulders into view. He wrestled with the door, wrenched on the handle and threw the door back against the vehicle’s side. Over his shoulder he barked, “Make no attempt to right this thing until I’m sure it’s safe to do so.”
He peered down at her. “Meg. Speak to me.”
“What would you like me to say?”
“That will do nicely. How are you, how do you feel?”
“Where do I hurt? I am thrown about in here like an abandoned doll, and you ask how I am? Very well, thank you.”
Jean-Marc sat carefully on the rim of the door and lowered his feet inside. He would hope that her saucy chatter meant she wasn’t seriously hurt. “Please remain still. I must reach you without making your situation worse.”
“Worse?” She giggled. “How could it be worse, My Lord? Look at me.”
He did look at her. The dark green gown and pelisse she wore were covered with dust and ripped in numerous places. Her bonnet was nowhere to be seen, and her hair could well have been home to birds. “Dear Meg,” he said. But despite her sad appearance and pallor, he thought her irresistible. “I shall get you to safety and make sure you are cared for with the greatest gentleness.” He would take her home—to his home—and see her put to bed and attended by his own physician.
Her eyelids lowered, and he knew a bound of fear. “Meg,” he said urgently. “Please don’t go to sleep, not until a doctor has seen you.”
“I can’t afford doctors,” she said sharply. “What are you thinking of? Always pushing me into inappropriate situations even when I have told you not to.”
She had probably hit her head.
“Hush,” he told her. “We’ll soon have you out of here. Verbeux, can you hear me?”
“Yes, My Lord.”
“Procure a blanket at once.”
“Mr. Birk of Birk’s Shoes here, My Lord,” a man called out. “We have blankets. Should I throw them to you?”
“At once, sir,” Jean-Marc responded without looking at the shopkeeper.
“Blankets?” Meg tittered. “Am I to sleep here? Will the doctor climb in as you are?”
“You are hysterical,” Jean-Marc told her. He was too anxious to control his own tongue, damn it. “I want to cover and keep you warm on the way to another conveyance.”
Blankets landed beside him. Jean-Marc selected two large ones and let himself slide inside the sadly damaged interior of his coach. With great care he maneuvered himself to stand beside Meg and used one blanket to make a thick cushion to kneel on.
She tried to turn her face away, but he gently spread his fingers over her cheek and urged her to look up at him. “My poor girl,” he said. “What can be afoot that such viciousness should touch you?”
“An accident,” she whispered. “The horses were frightened and they ran away.”
“No,” he told her, leaning to look closely into her eyes. “Not an accident, as you will discover. Can you see me clearly?”
She actually smiled! “You find the question humorous?” he asked.
“No.” Her voice was so soft it stroked him, and he quickened. “I am a little befuddled, My Lord, and since you are so near to me and I see you so well, the question seemed reason to smile. I like looking at you.” Her eyes drifted shut again.
Jean-Marc couldn’t take his gaze from her. What madness. A man who had left all of a young man’s romantic notions behind him—if he had ever known them at all. A man whom other men knew as a cynic, whom they expected to turn his back on any hint of weakness, of vulnerability.
She said she liked to look at him because she had probably hit her head and was not quite herself.
He shook out the other blanket, put a hand behind her neck and raised her gently until her face was pressed to his shoulder.
Meg murmured and sat straight. She smiled up at him.
“Meg, what is between us will not be easy to forget—if you insist that it must be forgotten.”
Her eyes narrowed a little, and she pressed her lips together. He had met a woman he could care for deeply, and who had a very good mind that would never make his way easy—if he were to have any way with her. “Do you insist, Meg?”
“Your Lordship?” Verbeux shouted. “I need to speak with you.”
“Soon,” Jean-Marc called back. To Meg he said, “Do you insist that we must pretend to feel nothing? Will you try to force me to forget you? I never will, you know.”
“Life is cruel,” she said, and there was no smile now. “It hands us impossible choices. I am supposed to take whatever I can have of you, or have nothing at all. Of course, I don’t want to force you to forget me. I will never forget you, either.”
“My Lord!” Verbeux cried. “There has been foul play here.”
“I know,” Jean-Marc told Verbeux loudly and shortly. “I told you not to touch the horses—other than to calm them. Do you understand me?”
After a slight pause, Verbeux said, “I understand perfectly. Is Miss Smiles injured?”
“She is catching her breath. She will be well.” Very well. He slipped the blanket around her, swathed her and gathered her in his arms. “I cannot change what is, Meg. You deserve to understand exactly what my position is. Then you will understand why we must learn to snatch what we can.”
Because she was not good enough for him, Meg thought, not good enough to be more than the mistress of Count Etranger, a prince’s son. With his hair swept and tangled by the wind and his neck cloth loose and with dust on his clothes, Jean-Marc only appeared more handsome, more enigmatic, except for the intensity in his eyes when he looked at her.
“I must get you out of here now,” he told her. “I will have the coach held fast and then hand you out to Verbeux. That will provide the least chance of doing you further damage.”
“I am shaken, not damaged.”
She watched carefully enough to unnerve him, watched his mouth when he spoke, his eyes when he fell silent. Her study of him stoked the steady rise of his passion. “Very well, Meg. Let’s get you out.”
Another smile tipped up the corners of her mouth.
“I humor you again?” he asked.
“Mmm. I am gathering little memories to carry
with me. So many little memories.”
He was but a man, and an aroused man. Jean-Marc kissed Meg Smiles, planning to take his advantage of her surprise in only a small way. But her soft lips parted, and her eyes closed. He kissed her with a power that made him tremble and felt her arms steal around him beneath his coat. Meg’s sighs mingled with his low groan.
Meg gave herself up to his kiss. They had both been through a fearsome time, and it felt so right to reach for his warmth and strength. For him there must be some of the same need—to assert again his life and manliness.
He stole her breath. And he stole her heart—again. The one thing she wanted most to tell him, yet must never speak aloud, was that she had fallen in love with him. Others would laugh at such an idea. She was in his employ, a woman of a most ordinary station, while he was royalty. The scoffers would remind her that she was a joke, an example of how foolish women could so easily be bent to an important man’s will.
There would never be another her equal. Jean-Marc knelt over her, held her to him, crossed his arms around her and allowed the mixture of lust and tenderness he felt flow from him. She would never know she had been the only woman to touch him, to touch Jean-Marc, the skeptic. Their desperate kiss delved at his gut. Sweet pain. Need. Longing. He would have her if he could, keep her if he could, but although there would be parts of his life he would want to share with her, he might never be able to take her completely into his confidence.
They broke from each other, their mouths parting with mutual reluctance.
“They will wonder why we take so long,” she said, passing her tongue over kiss-swollen lips.
“So they will.” He grinned at her. “But you do know that I must have many kisses from you, Meg Smiles. Don’t you?”
And what the Count thought he must have, he would undoubtedly try to take. Meg put three fingers on his mouth. She frowned at him. “I know what would please you, I think. And I know what would please me. But I don’t know what the future holds for us.”
Jean-Marc stood and lifted her into his arms. “Have men hold the coach steady, Verbeux,” he ordered. “Then ready yourself to take Miss Smiles from me. With great care.”
All Smiles Page 22
