Читать книгу A Reckless Beauty - Kasey Michaels, Кейси Майклс, Kasey Michaels - Страница 11

THEY RODE INTO Brussels with the sun just sliding behind the Gothic buildings at the heart of the teeming city filled beyond overflowing with, Valentine thought, imbeciles.

Had half of fashionable London gotten together to say, “Here’s a brilliant thought. Bonaparte has escaped, he’s marching somewhere on the Continent with a reformed Grande Armeé, there will be a terrible battle, perhaps a terrible war—what say we all go watch? What fun! Jolly good time, what?”

Idiots. Fools. Did they plan to ride out in their fine open carriages, picnic on some grassy hill overlooking whatever battlefield might present the best view of the carnage?

There were times Valentine Clement heartily despised his fellow Englishman. Or perhaps he was tired, weary to the heart. Of war. Of the things he had witnessed, things he had done.

He’d not spoken above a few words to young Lieutenant Rian Becket, and less to his sister, in the past several hours, but had turned inward, considering what he’d learned on his last foray into French territory, and how best to present that knowledge to Wellington and the others.

Everyone was so sure the battle was still weeks away, and the Russians and Austrians would have by then swelled the ranks of the British and Prussians, turning that battle into a rout.

But if they were all wrong and he was right? What then? If he was right, even Blücher’s Prussians might not arrive in time, leaving Wellington’s depleted force alone to face what could be more than seventy thousand Frenchmen. All those French soldiers and, much worse, the most gifted, charismatic commander the world had seen in a long time.

And, while he should be thinking—gathering the right words, the most convincing arguments—Valentine was instead playing nursemaid to a foolish young girl whom he’d deem as having more hair than wit, if it weren’t for the fact that she’d damned near shorn herself like a spring sheep in a ludicrous attempt to pretend she was a man.

With eyes like that? Granted, her brother was a shade too handsome to be taken seriously, but at least he was obviously male. This Fanny Becket, with her catlike, tilt-tipped green eyes, could no more conceal her sex than she could climb to the top of that bell tower over there and hang from the steeple while singing verses of “God Save the King.”

The coach traffic on the streets had slowed them, and Valentine kept his slouch hat pulled down low over his face to lessen the chance that anyone would recognize him, try to stop him. He needed his house, his valet, a hot tub and a hot meal. He had no time to be corralled by some curious peer who wanted nothing more than a fine bit of gossip with which to regale his companions at tonight’s dinner party, tonight’s ball.

Valentine heard a muffled giggle from behind him, and turned back sharply to remind Miss Becket that someone in her tenuous position should have precious little to laugh at. But then he smiled, for the young woman who seemed completely at ease in her uniform, riding astride, was pointing toward the public fountain featuring the figure of a small boy urinating into the water.

“The Mannekin-Pis, Miss Becket,” he told her, and watched as she blushed furiously and dipped her head so that he couldn’t see her face. “Very famous. It amuses you?”

“No, my lord,” she muttered, and for the first time since Valentine had met with him today, Rian Becket grinned, looking young and eager, and more than happy to join in the joke at his sister’s expense.

Good God, Valentine thought, turning front on his mount once more, I am a nursemaid. Jack, my friend, we are even, more than even. He touched his heels to the gray’s sides and pushed ahead through the congestion, and a few minutes later they arrived at the narrow house he’d rented.

Not waiting for the other two to dismount, he tied Shadow to the black iron railing fronting the street, and bounded up the full flight of stone steps to the bright red door, banging down three times with the knocker.

The door opened to reveal his man, Wiggins, looking comfortable in shirtsleeves, two buttons open at his neck, his usual lace cravat nowhere in place. “My lord! You…you were not expected.”

“I should never have guessed,” Valentine drawled, stepping past the short, red-haired man and into the infinitesimally small foyer. “Rouse the cook, Wiggins, as I’m starving. Oh,” he added, turning back to look at his two charges, “and…do something with these, if you please.”

“Do something, my lord?” Wiggins asked, but he’d asked it of his lordship’s back, as the man had already bounded up the stairs. “Um…” the servant said, turning to smile rather weakly at Fanny and Rian. “Would…um…would you two gentlemen care to follow me?”

“The one gentleman might, Wiggins,” Fanny said, used to the free and easy way of the Becket servants—actually referred to as the crew by the Becket family, who had all been raised to lend a hand whenever one was needed. The protocol between London society master and servant was totally lost on her. She looked up the empty staircase, longing to know if this small household boasted more than one bathing tub. “However, I, lady that I am beneath this dirt and uniform, would much rather be pointed in the direction of my chamber so I can wash off this dirt. Would that be possible, please, Wiggins?”

The servant pushed his head forward on his short neck and goggled at her. “A lady, sir? Never say so.”

Fanny looked to her brother. “At last, Rian, someone who believes my deception. And at entirely the wrong time.”

Rian stepped forward, taking the servant by the elbow and walking him to the other end of the foyer—not a large distance. “My sister, Miss Becket, is in dire need of food, a bath and a change of clothing. Mostly, Wiggins, that change of clothing. Now, how do you suppose two intelligent gentlemen like ourselves are going to manage that, hmm?”

While Fanny kept her head lowered, pretending not to hear, Wiggins said worriedly, “Why, sir, I surely don’t know. Your sister, you say?”

“Wiggins!”

All three people in the foyer lifted their heads to look toward the upstairs landing where the Earl of Brede stood, stripped to trousers and shirt. He tossed a folded square of paper over the railing. “Take this to my sister in the Rue De La Fourche, if you please, and fetch her back here with you. Don’t allow her to say no or I may have you flogged. And where in bloody hell is my supper?”

He disappeared again, that disappearance followed quickly by the sound of a slamming door, and Fanny rolled her eyes in disgust. “What a monster he is,” she told Wiggins, who was in the process of hastily rebuttoning his shirt. “Wiggins, do as he says or else he’ll most likely bite your head off. My brother and I will find our own way to the kitchens, as we’re able to more than bellow to fill our bellies. We’ll even fill his for him before he tears down the house.”

Wiggins looked caught between loyalty to the Earl and his need to take the note he clutched in both his hands to the man’s sister. “I…um, that is…thank you, miss. I’d say I shouldn’t be a minute, but the good Lord knows Lady Lucie can’t so much as say good day to a person in less than ten, so I don’t know when I’ll be back.” He pulled a plain brown jacket out from behind a small marble statue of some Greek goddess and slipped his arms into it. “Did his lordship say anything about…That is, he’s not usually so…so in his altitudes. The battle comes soon?”

“It would seem so, Wiggins,” Rian said, motioning for Fanny to join him, as he’d opened a narrow door, exposing a set of equally narrow stairs leading down, and from the smells emanating from beyond, felt certain he’d found the way to the kitchens. “So, your master isn’t always so unfriendly?”

“Oh, no, Mr. Becket, sir, I wouldn’t want you to think that,” Wiggins said, winking. “He’s always so unfriendly. He just usually takes pains to hide it better. We’re sorely short-staffed, what with the city so crowded. So I thank you for your help, sir. We’d best feed him. Soon.”

FANNY KNEW SHE WASN’T a patch on her sister Elly when it came to organizing a household. But she’d watched her enough, and had spent enough hours in the kitchens at Becket Hall to know the rhythms and routines of that particular area, usually chopping up carrots as punishment for something she’d done and would doubtless go off to do again once Bumble released her from her stool and pile of vegetables.

Within the hour she had struck up a smiling, gesturing friendship with a buxomy old woman named Hilda, who spoke no English. As for herself, she spoke no German or whatever language the woman kept tossing at her. She’d washed her face and hands at the wooden trough in a corner of the narrow kitchen, shoved some lovely fat slices of ham into her cheeks and made certain a heavily loaded tray had been sent up to the Ogre in the Tower, which is how she’d decided to think of the Earl of Brede.

Her filthy scarlet jacket draped over the back of one of the high-backed chairs, Fanny sat cross-legged on her chair—wonderfully comfortable in her uniform trousers—and looked across the scarred wooden kitchen table at her brother, once again urging him to, for pity’s sake, stop pouting and eat something. After all, it wasn’t the end of the world, was it?

Rian sat back in his chair, shaking his head at her. “You have no bloody idea how difficult you’ve made things, do you? Just as long as you’re happy.”

“Rian, that’s not true,” she said, waving a fork at him, the threat lessened quite a bit by the small roasted potato stuck on the tines. “I said I was sorry, and I am. But we’ve suffered no major setback, now have we? I’ve seen you, I’m safely here with the Ogre, and you’re to be joining Wellington’s staff in the morning, or even later tonight. I know how happy that makes you. I’ll pen a note to Papa tomorrow and I’m sure the Ogre will frank it, so there’s nothing to worry about there. All in all,” she said, pushing the potato into her mouth and maneuvering it against the inside of her cheek, “daring to overlook my punishment when I get back to Becket Hall, I’d consider the exercise a success.”

Rian gave up his moody pose and smiled. “As I remember the thing, you also thought coaxing Molly safely over that five-bar fence a success, even if you’d fallen off and broken your arm in the process, and couldn’t ride again for the rest of that summer. But Wellington’s staff, Fanny! Can you imagine? I’ll be right in the thick of things.”

Fanny plunked an elbow onto the tabletop and rested her chin in her hand. Although at least six years her senior, he was so, so young. “What do you suppose you’ll do?”

“I’ve thought about that, about how Brede mentioned how Jack told him I can ride anything with four legs—or even three. So I’m thinking, since I really don’t know anything about strategy so that the Field Marshal will be soliciting my opinion on matters, I’ll just be one of those riding out again and again, taking orders from Wellington to his generals during the battles. Jupiter will be magnificent there. He may not be the fastest of foot, but he’s got the best heart, and he’ll go forever. You know that.”

Fanny speared the last potato on her plate and popped it into her mouth, mumbled her question around it as she chewed. She knew she was being inelegant, as Elly would call it, but real food tasted so good. “So, then, you’ll be safely behind the lines?”

Rian shook his head. “Would you stop that, Fanny? But, yes, I’ll be fairly safe. Except when I’m riding by myself, between our ranks. Then things might become interesting.”

“You’re just saying that so I’ll worry,” Fanny said, gathering up her dish and utensils and carrying them over to the sink already piled high with plates and pots. “But if you’re not, please remember to ride low on Jupiter’s back, your head close down by his neck, so that you don’t present too tempting a target.”

Rian set his own dishes into the sink and smiled a thank-you to Hilda. “How many times, Fanny, have I outrun the Waterguard on the Marsh?”

Fanny took a quick look at Hilda, not that she thought the woman could understand her, yet when she answered Rian it was in a whisper. Beckets learned early not to trust many people. “Riding with the Black Ghost and outrunning the Waterguard from time to time as you guard the men moving a haul inland is not facing Bonaparte’s army, Rian Becket. I’m just saying—don’t go riding along the top of a ridge with the sun at your side, waving your hat in the air, that’s all.”

Rian bent and kissed her cheek. “You’re such an old woman. You’ve been listening to Court entirely too much, you know. I won’t let any of Boney’s men kill me. I wouldn’t give you the satisfaction of believing yourself right.”

Fanny shut her eyes, swallowing down a sob. “Oh, Rian…”

He put a finger to her lips as he turned in the direction of the narrow staircase. Moments later a pair of legs appeared, followed closely by the head of Wiggins, who looked none too happy. “His lordship’s sister is here and with his lordship in the drawing room. You’re to join them, please.”

“Is the Ogre still biting off heads, Wiggins?” Fanny asked as she hastily grabbed her uniform jacket and shoved her arms into it. “Or has food soothed the savage beast?”

“That’s very funny, miss,” Wiggins said, not smiling at all. “If you were please to follow me?”

Rian pushed a nervously giggling Fanny up the stairs ahead of him, then pulled her aside to insist she spit on his hands so that he could attempt to tamp down her butchered and dirty hair with his fingers. “Now, remember, Fanny-panny. Not a word of protest, no matter what the man says. As Sergeant-Major Hart warned us, even the luck of the Irish runs out from time to time.”

Fanny nodded quickly, reluctant to tell Rian that her entire insides seemed to be shaking. Would she be back aboard ship by morning, heading to Becket Hall? Had this all been for nothing? Was the Ogre about to send her on her way?

Together, they entered the small drawing room.

“Ah, and here they are again. It wasn’t a nightmare and I’m awake now. How unfortunate,” Brede said from his place standing in front of the cold fireplace. Rian stopped short to slam his ankles together and smartly salute him. “Yes, yes, very pretty, thank you, Lieutenant. And the redoubtable Miss Fanny Becket, as well. Don’t you look—so depressingly the same.”

Fanny opened her mouth, but Rian’s elbow was in her ribs before any words could come out, so she merely inclined her head slightly, mockingly, in his lordship’s direction.

“My stars, Valentine, you weren’t funning me, were you? And you expect me to, as you begged me, do something with that? My stars!”

Fanny’s attention went immediately to the couch and the petite young woman sitting there, at the moment waving a black-edged lace handkerchief beneath her softly rounded chin. The woman was handsome rather than beautiful—there was too much of her brother in her for beautiful—and dressed in the most becoming mourning black London could fashion.

Not that she held a patch on Brede himself, who was also in black, his linen white as a gull’s wing, his streaked light brown hair ruthlessly combed back from his face. Rough and tumble, dirty, he was formidable. Dressed as he was now, he was truly frightening. And, again, those eyes. And that dangerous, smiling mouth…

“Ma’am,” Fanny said, caught between a bow and a curtsey, so that she nearly tripped over her own two feet, eliciting a short bark of laughter from the Earl.

“Did you see that, Valentine? Oh, my stars!”

“Lucille, if you could dispense with that repetitious and quite annoying exclamation, so that we might move on? Lieutenant Rian Becket, Miss Fanny Becket, you are in the presence of my younger sister, one Lady Lucille Blight, widow of the late and largely unlamented Viscount Whalley, although she is quite enjoying her blacks, aren’t you, Lucille? Please, Miss Becket, don’t attempt that maneuver again—you may injure yourself.”

“Valentine, you’re such a wicked tease,” the woman said, waving at Fanny. “Please, call me Lucie. Everyone does. Everyone save Valentine, but I pay him no never mind, although he is quite right about poor William. I don’t know what possessed me to think I had to have him, and all over my dear brother’s objections. He drank like a fish, you understand, and chased anything in skirts. Oh, don’t scowl so, Valentine, it’s not as if no one knows. And aren’t you pretty, Lieutenant? Valentine—isn’t the Lieutenant pretty? You couldn’t give me him, could you, and just keep the girl for yourself? You go about looking nearly as bedraggled half the time anyway. I mean, she’s wearing trousers. My stars!”

Fanny, unable to help herself, actually snorted, and Rian rushed into speech to cover her rudeness. “Thank you, ma’am,” he said for lack of anything more intelligent springing into his mind, bowing yet again. “My lord, again I apologize for the monstrous inconvenience my sister and I have put you to, and I would like to say that I am more than cognizant of your forbearance and—”

“Oh, for the love of heaven, Becket, shut up,” Brede said wearily, looking at Fanny. “Lucille, what do you think? Can you rescue that?”

“In time for the Duchess of Richmond’s ball this Saturday night? That’s only four days away. Oh, I hardly think so, Valentine. My stars. When have you known me to perform miracles?”

Brede smiled slightly. “A miracle? Surely, Lucille, you don’t see Miss Becket here as on a par with loaves and fishes?”

Lucie gnawed on the side of her index finger as she looked at Fanny, who was caught between amusement and longing to wring the Ogre’s neck with his own snowy cravat. “I suppose a bath might be of some small help? And then I could have my Frances attempt something with the hair. And there’s this lovely little modiste a few blocks from—Yes, all right, Valentine, if I must. I shall gather all of my depleted strength and attempt to do my best.”

This last was completed with the tragic pose and half-gulping voice of the truly put-upon, and Fanny looked at Rian, whose shoulders were shaking as he attempted to tamp down his mirth at her expense.

“That’s my brave Lucille. The trials you endure for your quarterly allowance,” Brede said bracingly, wondering idly if he was right as to Bonaparte’s current position, and the possibility of riding there, lashing himself to the mouth of one of the French cannon. “You’re dismissed.”

Lady Whalley got to her feet, clearly in a huff. “Dismissed, is it? You drag me away from a perfectly marvelous lamb cutlet, just to dismiss me? Oh, very well.” She looked to Fanny yet again. “Tomorrow. But no one can see her until I work this miracle you require of me. Bring her round to the servant’s entrance tomorrow morning at eleven. Clean, if possible.”

Fanny didn’t bother to either curtsey or bow as Lady Whalley swept out of the small room, trailing her ruffled black skirts and enough scent to make a meal of by itself, and then turned back to glare at the Ogre. “Definitely your sister, my lord. There’s no question there.”

Brede ignored her, the cheeky brat. When forced to deal with females, ignoring them had always topped his list of the ways preferable to him. “Lieutenant, you will accompany me tomorrow morning at precisely eight of the clock. You’ll be quartered with other more junior members of the Duke’s staff, which means the food will be good and the beds dry. Take any opportunity to ride out these next few days, familiarize yourself with the topography of the area—I suggest you concentrate on the area south of Brussels, all the way to Quatre Bras, Ligny, and beyond—as I expect you’ll be traveling that ground quite often in the next week or two. But keep an eye out for Boney’s advance parties. I last spied one only a few miles below Givet. He’s been there before with his army, years ago. But he won’t wait for us to come to him there, fight on traditionally French soil. For the moment, I suggest you scare up Wiggins from where he’s hiding himself and he’ll show you to your chamber. The same goes for you, Miss Becket.”

“I’ll want a bath,” Fanny dared.

“If you are applying for my opinion, I completely concur. However, I do not number that among my duties to Jack Eastwood. There are other females in this house—I’m sure I’ve glimpsed at least two of them. Go find one, Miss Becket, and beg a tub. Difficult as this may be for you to comprehend, I have other things to do.”

Fanny watched, her mouth screwed to one side, her fists jammed on her hips, as the Earl of Brede quit the room in much the same way his sister had moments earlier. The sound of the door to the street slamming behind him lent her the happy information that the Ogre was gone.

She turned to Rian and grinned. “Papa would adore him, wouldn’t he?”

Rian gave a single shake of his head. “If he didn’t kill him, yes.”