Chapter 11
When Damien returned to the tower, he answered Ardbury’s interrogation as dispassionately as he could. “I took refuge in her tent to avoid a guest at the party I did not wish to meet. The fortune-teller had black curly hair held back in a blue headband. Her skin was the color of light tea. She had a basket at her side. And there was some nostrum on the table that she knocked over.”
“She robbed the house?” the journalist asked for the third time.
Damien shrugged. “So I was told. For all I know she may have robbed the guests who came to her tent to have their fortunes told.” He slipped his hand inside his vest. “My watch is still here. She is obviously not a professional.”
“You should have done us a favor and taken her to the brook to make sure she would never remember your face again,” Lord Ardbury said.
“The authorities aren’t going to care about anything except that she robbed the wealthy citizens of the parish,” Damien replied. “It would astonish me if she heard anything incriminating or that she possessed the wherewithal to turn evidence against us.”
He threw Damien a thunderous look. “She overheard enough to have us all dancing in air.”
“One of us needs to go after her,” the major, seated at the table, said. “Angus, you had the closest look. Search for her as you would one of your lost sheep.”
“The rest of us will be on the lookout in the other directions of the compass, in the village outskirts, and away from the party,” Ardbury said. “It can’t be that hard to find two gypsy maidens.”
The journalist laid down his pen. “I have made a sketch based on Angus’s description. Perhaps, Lord Ardbury, you can ask another guest for more details.”
“We have this.” Lord Ardbury reached beneath his chair and lifted the card that had apparently blown across the floor when the trapdoor opened. “What does it signify?” he asked, flicking it in the air.
Damien’s expression did not change as he caught the card in his left hand. “It is written in French and English. Four Hearts. I’ve seen a few suits like this in my travels. I believe it was part of an old court game played in France. The original cards came from Egypt, as I recall.”
“How did it get in here? If the gypsies had only theft in mind, what lured them to the tower?”
Damien shrugged. “Perhaps they hoped to hide themselves or their loot. As to this card, it is used for divination and in private parlors. Some members of the royal family are said to request a secret reading before they make any important decisions.”
“Divination.” Ardbury drew on his cigar. “One of us needs to divine whether the fortune-teller was invited here tonight or invited herself. If Fletcher paid her to entertain, she should not be difficult to trace.”
“I am not returning to the party,” Damien said, resisting the impulse to make sure the clothing was still covered. He had the signed letter and another card in his possession. That was enough.
The farmer surged to his feet, moving to the window at some noise outside before Damien could intercept him. “Shit and damn,” he said. “It’s only another couple from the party. Sooner or later a pair of lovers are bound to wander up here for privacy.”
Ardbury studied him through a bank of smoke. “Lord Brewster, Major, I will give Fletcher your regrets. The rest of you know what has to be done. Mr. Dinsmore, you will notify our contacts and send out our messengers. Now find those women before Viscount Deptford’s assassination, Angus.”
? ? ?
In one moment Michael appeared on his gelding and ordered Iris to mount behind him. In the next Sir Angus trotted his horse to the thicket from which Emily had emerged. He spoke to her in a tone that forbade resistance.
“Give me your hand.”
She looked up, dumbfounded, into his bearded face. Her brother and Iris had vanished without a word into the woods. Why had Michael abandoned her to this man of dubious credentials?
And why was he staring down at her again as if he realized something was off? Had he noticed the bare patch on the scalp of her wig? No—he shook his head in obvious exasperation at her refusal to obey. “It is an inconvenient time for an explanation.” He swung around in the saddle, offering her his hand with impatience. “You can either trust me or meet the men in the tower.”
She wavered another moment before she lifted her hand to his. There was no other choice. “Where are we going?”
“To your encampment. It must be hidden somewhere in these woods.”
“My what?”
“Your encampment. Your camp. Isn’t that what your people call the place where they park their wagons while plying their trades? Or would you rather admit the truth now and tell me who you really are?” he inquired, his voice soft and yet underlaid with iron. “I can find out myself. But as a courtesy I’d prefer you spare me the time and be honest.”
“I can’t,” she said in hesitation. “I’d get into so much trouble.”
“You’re in trouble now, my darling.”
“Are you going to take advantage of my innocence on the back of a horse?”
He laughed. “It hadn’t entered my mind—the part about the back of a horse.”
“Oh. And the other part?”
His deep laughter was an alluring sound in the dark. “It entered my mind, yes.”
“I wanted to dance tonight,” she said ruefully. “I wanted to drink champagne and twirl around in—” She broke off. Camden was banished from her dreams.
“In . . . ?” he prompted.
“The arms of a handsome gentleman who did not see me as an undesirable.”
“You enjoyed my kiss. Don’t deny it. You don’t need to admit it, either. I’m not trying to put you in an embarrassing position. I enjoyed it, too.”
He was so full of himself that she couldn’t help laughing. “I am accustomed to embarrassment.”
“But not kissing?”
“And I’ve never been in the position of having to flee for my life.”
He breathed a sigh into her hair. She was terrified he would notice it was a wig. “I’m sorry,” he said at last.
“For what?”
“Not for the kiss. I’d have asked for more at another time. I’m sorry that you’re no longer safe because of our association.”
“I thought England was at peace with her enemies.”
“But not within her own lands.”
“Will you send me a wool shawl when you go home?” she asked quietly. “Something to remember you by?”
He frowned. “Why on— Oh, of course. A brightly patterned paisley?”
“Oh no. That would look awful with my hair.”
He was silent. She knew he was thinking about what she had said. “You aren’t a gypsy, are you?” he said at length.
“All gypsies don’t have to act and look a certain way.”
He nodded, considering her confession. “You wanted romance and—let me guess—it had not come into your life, so you thought to give it a push.”
“More or less,” Emily said, lapsing into silence.
“Which path should I take here?” he asked, his rough voice giving her a jolt. “Gather up your thoughts, girl. My associates have already put together a description of you. Believe me, you have no desire to meet one of them in these dark woods. Nor do I.”
“I had no desire for any of this.”
“Young fortune-tellers who prey on the romantic delusions of others take their chances, don’t they?”
“Go to the left, you odious wool vendor. Follow the moonlight and guide the horse with care. And I’ve taken all the chances tonight that I had on my list for eternity.” She glanced back at him, wondering whether it was her imagination or whether his left shoulder seemed narrower than the other. “Riding to who knows where with you was not one of them.”
“A decent fortune-teller would have seen this coming.”
She shook her head. “I didn’t need to look at the cards to know I would have been better off had we not met.”
“You feel quite sorry for yourself, don’t you?”
“Yes,” she said. “I do.”
“Why?” His voice was museful.
“Because instead of dancing in a red ball gown with the gentleman of my dreams, I’m slung over the horse of a dangerous stranger who just witnessed, if not accelerated, my complete social decline. It would be easier for me to climb the back of the tower than out of the mess I’ve made.”
His hand brushed the cusp of her cleavage. An accident, she was sure, but it put her on the defense. “You aren’t dropping any more of those accursed cards, are you?” he asked dourly.
“What if I am?”
“Do you not understand me? Your life is as nothing to those men.”
The horse walked slowly past a landmark that Emily recognized as a deserted vixen’s den. The Scotsman hooked his arm around her ribs, an awkward captivity that challenged her concentration. She gripped the basket to her lap.
“I see a barricade of blasted tree stumps ahead,” he said, slowing his mount.
“Veer around the blackest end of the last trunk. I wish I had gone with my brother. I resent him for rescuing Iris and not me as well.”
“You’ll be safe soon,” he said distractedly.
But was she safe now, with him?
“Oh no!” She wriggled from his loose grasp to the ground, aware he had drawn a gun. “I’ve lost another card.”
“For God’s sake.” He dropped to his feet beside her. “You do realize you’ve left a trail for the entire village to trace?”
“I’ve got it now. Do you have to raise your voice?”
“I am not raising my voice.”
She hooked the basket over her arm, reached up to grasp the pommel, and lifted her foot to the stirrup. He gave her an undignified boost in the behind, which she refused to acknowledge. He mounted from the other side, wasting no further time arguing with her. Uncomfortable and cold, she kept one eye on the basket and the other on the path for guideposts.
Her half boot slid off her heel and sat dangling on her toe until it fell in the dirt. “Sir Angus,” she whispered in hesitation, afraid of his anger.
He dismounted, sighing, and wedged the boot tightly back on her foot. He vaulted up behind her before she could explain that the boot could fall off again. She had borrowed the pair from Lucy, and she might be wiser removing them for the duration of the ride. But Sir Angus didn’t appear in the mood to make any concessions for fashion, so she refrained from comment. Until the other boot came off.
“Heaven help me,” he muttered. “What is this preoccupation you have for shedding various belongings at the most dangerous moment of your life? A ball gown, a deck of cards. Anything else?”
She wanted to answer, Yes. This hideous wig. It’s going to droop to the side of my head at any moment. But again she managed to hold her tongue, slipping the boots back on in reflective silence.
He grunted as he settled back in the saddle. “Under normal circumstances I would encourage you to disrobe to your heart’s content.”
“Would you?” she said, not at all surprised.
He laughed. “Shameful, isn’t it? I’m not impartial to a beautiful woman, dishonest though she might be.”
A beautiful woman. Was that what he said? Ordinary Emily Rowland, a beauty? Lies must come as second nature to a spy, she thought.
Besides, she was the one who should feel ashamed instead of oddly flattered. But, then, neither of them had started out on the right foot. Or feet. One of her boots had fallen off again, and she knew he’d noticed. She shivered under her shawl as he jumped from the horse, this time removing both her shoes and handing them to her before he remounted. “I am sorry,” she said. “I suppose you could accuse me of ruining your plans, too. It wasn’t on purpose. I didn’t set out to deceive you.”
He blew out a breath. “What did your scheme involve, anyway? It had to be more than romance. Plain jewelry theft? A few coins from a gullible guest? You didn’t try to rob me. Are there others in your group? I cannot believe that Michael would be a party to such a low-class crime. What did you hope to gain tonight?”
She decided to ignore his questions. His mind was sharp enough that eventually he would find the answers he sought without her help. “Stop a moment, Sir Angus,” she said, gesturing to a pattern on the path of twigs around the crop of toadstools. “Do you see that signpost?”
“What signpost?”
“Are you telling me that with your highly trained senses you cannot see what is arranged around those toadstools?”
“The toadstools? Oh yes. It’s obvious. How could I have missed them? Surely they were there last night when I pranced naked through these woods, playing my reeds.”
“Are you finished, Sir Angus?”
He took some time to answer. “I was going on like an ass, wasn’t I? It is a habit I’ll have to break if I’m to travel through England.”
Emily didn’t care if he traveled to Prussia and back in a bad temper. She wanted to go home. “As I was about to say, just beyond the toadstools is a passageway concealed between those juniper and aspen. It’s an escape route the gypsies use when they’re blamed for a sickness in the parish.”
“Show me.” He sounded serious, if not contrite.
“It’s right in front of you,” she said, pointing to a stand of silver-gray branches. “We’ll have to walk your horse the rest of the way.”
“Is it the fastest route?” he asked hesitantly.
“It’s the safest that I know. We don’t want to ride across an open ridge with only furze as cover. In the moonlight we’d be too easy to spot.”
He hesitated, then slid to the ground, holding out his arms to catch her. She fell into his arms and against his chest, which felt strangely uneven. What was he hiding under his coat? He pulled away. It was clear he was anxious to be rid of her, and she had no particular desire to become further involved in his life. “We have to arrive home before my father,” she said. “Once I’m back I assure you that you will be absolved of all responsibility for me.”
“I hope you are right.” He frowned. “Where did you put the stolen jewels?”
“The jewels— Oh. Iris has them.”
“So you are the decoy, and a good one at that,” he said, with a dark smile. “I might have been one of your victims.”