“Of course you wouldn’t,” he said quickly, smiling up at her. “You aren’t spiteful. I’m just too tired to think straight, and—and I can’t believe I’ve got you at last. For years and years I’ve been hating myself for letting you slip through my fingers. I just can’t believe it.”
Sabrina sighed, but before she could point out that their situation wasn’t quite that simple, they heard Charlot corning up the stairs. He did not enter the sitting room. Presumably he had brought the food up and would be setting the table in the dining room. It wouldn’t be safe to talk of personal matters until Sabrina could get rid of him.
“You will eat with me, won’t you?” Sabrina asked, seating herself on the sofa across from Perce. I told Charlot to set a place for you.”
“If you can stand me, I will. I must stink like a trooper.”
“You do,” Sabrina agreed, laughing, but she ran her tongue sensuously across her lower lip. “I don’t mind.” Their eyes met, and Perce’s brows lifted. “But if it bothers you,” she went on, “I think there must be hot water in the kitchen. Charlot could bring it up for you. Possibly he could do something about your clothing while you eat too, and you could wear something of William’s.”
To her surprise Perce flushed and said, “I’d rather not.”
She stood and put her hand briefly on his neck.” Don’t be silly,” she murmured. And before he could think of a way to phrase what he felt so that it could do no harm if overheard, she had opened the door and gone out.
He heard Charlot going downstairs again as Sabrina came back in. “I think I’m borrowing too much,” Perce said tightly.
Sabrina stopped and looked at him. “You aren’t borrowing anything,” she snapped. “I gave you something that was my own.” And then she asked, “Is your conscience bothering you?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he snapped back, low and angry, then looked away. “Oh damn,” he sighed. “I’m jealous.”
“Jealous?” Sabrina couldn’t understand that. “What have you got to be jealous about? You can’t believe I am promiscuous or that I care for William and would—”
“I don’t think you’re promiscuous,” Perce interrupted, his color rising still more, “but you’re his wife, damn it. He’s got a right—”
No one has a right!” Sabrina hissed furiously. “Love is an exchange. And I don’t sleep with William, if that’s what you want to know, because I am not promiscuous, and I love you.” She came forward a few steps and planted herself squarely in front of her lover. “I’m not a sharing kind of person. I hope you understand that.”
Solution to the doubts that had tormented him for months was a pure joy rising in Perce. He looked up at her and grinned. “You needn’t be so fierce. I’m not in the petticoat line. You know that. I may not be a saint—”
“No, I guessed that!”
“—but I don’t cheat, either,” he finished with dignity, ignoring her interruption. He stood up and drew her close. Brina, performance can be by inspiration as well as by experience,” he said softly. “I swear I never loved another woman like that in my life and I never will.”
She stared up at him, wide-eyed, and then dropped her head to his breast. In the next instant they had jumped apart in response to the sound of Charlot’s footsteps. Perce muttered an oath, and Sabrina bit her lip. This was horrible. Neither of them enjoyed this kind of intrigue, and both realized that the necessity to listen and lie would kill their mutual joy. The footsteps went past and heavily up the second flight of stairs.
“Go up now and bathe,” Sabrina said.
When he was gone, she went upstairs also and redid her hair. She tried to think, but her mind kept slipping away from fact to visions of Perce’s body, long and lean and naked, and her eyes kept sliding to the bearskin. Instead of thinking about what she could do to convince William that an annulment of their marriage would be desirable, she kept wondering where and how she could be alone with Perce again.
It was her attempt to find a solution to this problem that jerked Sabrina back to reality. The clothing Perce had peeled off so hastily was a uniform. She had been thinking of days and weeks as if Perce’s time were his own. He might not be able to stay more than overnight. Her heart sank as she remembered his distress when she told him the Prussian army was decimated. He had said something about doing the thing alone. Surely, then, he expected the Russian army to challenge Bonaparte. But when?
Sabrina finally got her hair into a semblance of order and went downstairs again into the dining room to peer into the serving dishes keeping warm on the sideboard. It was a very simple meal, for they had no cook now. Sabrina jumped when the door opened. “Lord Kevern, my lady,” Charlot said gravely.
“I hope you won’t be cross with me for asking you to stay,” Sabrina apologized. “I completely forgot that it wasn’t going to be much of a meal. Maybe you’d have done better in the inn, or wherever you’re staying.”
Perce laughed. “I don’t even know where I’m staying,” he admitted, “and I rather think my fellow aide is having some difficulty finding a place, since Sergei hasn’t come to give me the direction. I’ll take my chances with you.”
His eyes were alight, and his hair was very curly and still damp from toweling, not combed back into its usual smooth waves. Charlot had shaved him, too. Sabrina had to repress an urgent desire to play with his blond curls. She noticed that he had consented to wear William’s dressing gown and slippers as well as his shirt and, probably, his smallclothes. He was wearing his own breeches and boots, since he was too tall to fit into William’s. ‘Thinking about clothes gave Sabrina the excuse she needed to get rid of Charlot.
“Don’t bother serving,” she said to the valet. “I’ll do that while you do what you can with Lord Kevern’s clothing.”
“Yes, my lady.”
“And let Sergei in when he comes, will you, Charlot?” Perce put in as the servant went out the door.
“Yes, my lord.”
The voice was stiff. Charlot did not approve of his mistress doing butler’s work, and he disapproved even more of Sergei. He did not think Sergei was a proper gentleman’s servant. Katy Petersen didn’t seem to approve of Sergei ether, Perce thought, his lips twitching with amusement. At least, she spent a lot of time trying to change him. Sergei had complained bitterly that every time he met her she nagged the life out of him—only Perce didn’t think Sergei minded at all. There was a hint of pleased pride in his complaints.
Oddly, Katy did not seem to object to Sergei’s crudeness or his occasional drunkenness, although she scolded him loud and long about such failings. What Katy really disapproved of was Sergei’s acceptance of his role as Perce’s serf. Many times while they were still in St. Petersburg, Perce had heard Katy urging Sergei, in her own broken mixture of Scots-accented English, French, and Russian, to demand his freedom, assuring him that Perce would grant it. He smiled again, remembering poor Sergei’s horror, his protests, also in a triple mixture of languages, that he would not “belong.”
“Perce, how long will you be here?” Sabrina asked as she piled food onto a plate for him.
The question pulled his thought to the immediate present, and he sniffed appreciatively. “I had no idea how hungry I was,” he remarked as he received the plate, and continued, inelegantly, through a large mouthful, “I don’t know how long. Maybe we’ll be sent back tomorrow, but I hope not. Possibly a few days.”
Sabrina lingered beside him after she set the plate down. He smelled now of soap and shaving soap and, faintly, of himself. He had not used any of William’s scents, although Charlot must have offered them. Her hand lifted to touch him but fell away at once. It would be cruel to interrupt his meal. He was hungry. She went back to the sideboard and put a small portion on another plate and sat down.
“Can you tell me why you’re here?”
He grinned at her. “Yes, and that will make Bennigsen’s suspicions the truth for once. After all, I’m a Brit
ish agent, first and foremost. But I don’t think it’s a secret. General Bennigsen wants to know what, if anything, is left of the Prussian army.”
“Nothing,” Sabrina said. “I told you that.” There was hope in her eyes “Since that’s so, won’t the tsar order his army to wait until spring? Perhaps by then something can be salvaged of the Prussians.”
“I don’t know that, either. Alexander was in no rush to get started, and Marshal Kamansky is half-dead already, but it depends on what Bonaparte does, I suppose. If he sits still and talks sweet…“ He saw Sabrina’s expression change. “What is it, Brina?”
“Bonaparte certainly isn’t talking sweet. He’s loathsome! He seems to have found some letters from Alexander to Queen Louise—just sentimental claptrap, I’m sure. He published bits and pieces and…and remarks about the queen that were really despicable. She’s nice, Perce, a sweet person.”
Perce’s fork remained suspended halfway to his mouth, and he whistled. “That tears it! Alexander will fight now. He’s sentimental, and needs to think of himself as a chivalric hero. Brina, do you know where I can get some reasonably accurate information about military conditions?”
“Yes, I do. Colonel Sir Robert Wilson’s with Lord Hutchinson. He’s a bit unconventional, but I think he knows his business and he’ll tell you the truth, which the Prussians won’t.”
“Wilson…Wilson… No, I don’t think we are acquainted, Brina.”
“It doesn’t matter. William will introduce you, or I’ll give you a note. You don’t want to go tonight, do you? There’s a dinner, and I don’t know who the guests will be, except that William thought King Frederick William might attend.”
Perce thought for a minute or two while he continued to eat, and finally shook his head “No, I’ve got to get some sleep. I’m too…“ His eyes rested on her for a moment, and he moved them down to his plate with an effort. “I can’t think—at least, not about the damned war.”
There was another silence. Perce reached for the bottle of wine by his glass, poured, and drank. His eyes went to Sabrina again, and his lips tightened. Sleep! What he really wanted was to grab her again. Perce was somewhat surprised by his own reactions. He loved Brina, but he had never thought of himself as a lustful man. He had seldom been interested in joining Philip on his frequent tours of the bawdy houses. On the occasions he had sought sexual adventure, he had been very ready to leave his partner after one passage at arms. Yet he had taken Brina twice less than an hour ago, and he was finding it very bard now to think of anything except a third encounter.
He looked up, hastily averted his eyes, and refilled his wineglass. From Sabrina’s expression, she was thinking along the same lines. But it was impossible. It was a miracle they had not been caught. He would not expose Sabrina to such danger again.
As if she had been reading his mind, she said, “You could stay here, Perce.”
“No!” he exclaimed, then laughed. “I wouldn’t care to sleep with Elvan, and I would not be able to sleep in your bed.”
Sabrina giggled. “Don’t be silly. There are extra beds.” She blushed when she said it, and lowered her eyes. “The cobbler had five children,” she went on quickly. Charlot could set up a bed in the sitting room, or, perhaps, Sergei could set it up. Poor Charlot is having a very bad time of it, forced into all these tasks that are beneath him.”
“I can’t, Brina.” He cut off the senseless babble. Their eyes met. “It’s too crazy, too dangerous.”
Sabrina’s blush deepened painfully. She had been thinking under all the talk about Charlot that she might be able to slip down in the middle of the night. She hadn’t realized her intention was so obvious.
“I’d never sleep a wink,” Perce went on wryly. “I’d be too busy trying to pick the best time to sneak upstairs.”
He hadn’t read her mind; he’d just wanted the same thing. Sabrina looked at him longingly. “Katy sleeps in the other bed,” she warned. Then she sighed “I couldn’t get down to you, either, Perce. She has ears like a fox. If I turn over, she hears.”
“We must be sensible.”
“Yes,” she agreed, but in a very small voice.
Perce began to eat again. After a while he said, “You must go home, Brina.”
“I can’t,” she replied. “As soon as Lord Hutchinson arrived, William asked to have me sent back to England, but Hutchinson advised against it.”
“Against it?” Perce echoed, his opinion of the British envoy’s common sense plummeting to zero.
“Aside from trying to get a settlement on Hanover, Hutchinson is trying to keep King Frederick William in the war. You know, I guess, that all the Prussian ministers and those doddering generals have been urging the king to sue for peace. Hutchinson felt if I were sent home, it would imply that he and William really thought the situation was hopeless. It would turn everything they said into lies.”
Perce put down his fork, his appetite suddenly gone. The reasoning was good, but to sacrifice Brina seemed entirely out of order. But perhaps he was doing Hutchinson an injustice; perhaps the situation wasn’t as bad as he thought.
“I don’t know anything,” he told her. “We’ve been on the march since the middle of October. I didn’t learn about the defeats at Jena and Auerstedt until Bennigsen told me and Pëtr Pavlovitch a week ago. It was quite a shock. We all thought the Prussians intended to wait for our army to join theirs or, at least, get close before he gave Bonaparte an excuse to attack.”
“Sir Robert has been trying to find out discreetly, of course. Naturally, everyone blames everyone else, but it seems that the original intent was to declare war and then attack only the French outposts and the relatively small army quartered in Germany. Only, as far as Sir Robert can tell, the Prussian high command got cold feet. This comes mostly from one young general, Scharnhorst, who is very bitter. He begged them to take the offensive, but they just sat there on the banks of the Saale.”
“And gave Boney the chance to consolidate his force and get there himself,” Perce finished for her with a sigh. “Yes, I see. So he just rolled them up.” He picked up his fork and began to eat again. “Even so, I don’t understand. The Prussian army was pretty well trained, the numbers weren’t too far off… I think I’ll take you up on that introduction to Sir Robert.”
Sabrina had opened her mouth to answer when they heard the peal of the bell. It was annoying that it rang on the bedroom and living room floors as well as in the shop.
Obviously the cobbler was an ambitious man who did not wish to lose any business, even if he should happen to be eating or in bed. Sabrina had decided not to have the system disconnected, since messages for William came at odd hours, sometimes when neither the cobbler nor Charlot was on the ground floor.
“That must be Sergei,” Perce said. He looked at Sabrina for a long moment and then lowered his head. “I think I had better go.” His voice cracked, and he cleared his throat. “I’ll try to stop by tomorrow, Brina, but I can’t say when or even promise that I definitely will come.”
Sabrina stood up “I’ll go write that note to Sir Robert. Finish your meal, Perce.”
She reached the door just as Charlot opened it to announce in frigid tones that Lord Kevern’s servant had arrived. Over his arm he had the remainder of Perce’s clothing, restored to an approximation of cleanliness. Looking down his nose, the valet said he would await Lord Kevern’s convenience in Lord Elvan’s chamber where he would assist him to dress. It was markedly apparent that Charlot felt Sergei’s hands would dirty the clothes he had just cleaned, and if Sergei were allowed to help Lord Kevern dress, he would certainly put the garments on backward.
“That’s very kind, Charlot,” Sabrina said, with only the faintest quiver of mirth in her voice. “Er—what did you do with Sergei?” It was not impossible that Charlot had made the poor man wait out in the cold, and Sabrina could not permit that even if it offended Charlot’s sensibilities.
“The person is warming himse
lf and having a slight repast in My Room,” Charlot responded.
And it will have to be fumigated afterward. The words, although unspoken, hung in the air. Perce choked over his mouthful, suddenly remembering how Charlot had taken his clothes with an air of being at arm’s length and touching them only with long tongs; neither was true, of course. Gentlemen, to Charlot’s mind, did not get themselves into the condition in which Perce had appeared—at least, gentlemen who had adequate gentlemen’s gentlemen did not.
Perce was not offended; he could have kissed Charlot for breaking the tension and misery of parting that had seized him and Sabrina. From the corner of his eye he could see her. Her face was slightly pink and her body rigid with suppressed laughter.
“Thank you, Charlot,” he said. “I won’t keep you long.” Sabrina went out, and Charlot followed. As soon as Perce was sure Sabrina was engaged in writing the promised introduction to Sir Robert, he went upstairs. It would be better for them both if there was no further opportunity to be alone. He did not trust either himself or Sabrina just now. It was clear that their lovemaking had only whetted their appetites.
He was successful, managing to take the letter Sabrina had ready for him and say formal thanks for her hospitality under Charlot’s eyes and ears. He realized Sabrina must have known the action was deliberate. Since he had not sufficient courage to look directly at her face, he did not know whether she had been angry or reproachful. Her voice conveyed nothing, perhaps a shade more of formality than was usual between them. Plodding through the free night with snow stinging his face, Perce tried desperately not to think about the possibility that he had hurt her. Surely Sabrina would understand, surely.
The inn was dreadful, filled with smoke and noise. With typical Russian adaptability, Pëtr Pavlovitch had joined the crowd, singing Russian songs and conversing volubly in French and Russian interspersed with the few German words he knew. He bellowed gaily at Perce to join them, waving a dented and stained tin mug filled with God-alone-knew-what. Perce forced a smile and shook his head, calling back that he was tired. Then he could have kicked himself. Pëtr Pavlovitch burst into obscene laughter, yelling congratulations on Perce’s successful visit—fortunately in Russian.
The Kent Heiress Page 17
