Chapter 26
Twenty-Six
“This is the route we are on now.” James unfurled a map across Elizabeth’s knees.
“Rouen is here. Not much farther, as you can see.” He tried not to smile as she stifled a yawn.
If she had thought their time in Amiens would be a grand adventure, she’d been sadly mistaken.
Each morning, he’d dragged her out of bed early to meet the textile merchants whose names were listed in David’s invisible ink on the inside of his trunk.
He’d leave her to sit with the wives while he spent the day negotiating with the men over endless cups of coffee and glasses of wine.
At first, he’d brought her along, because, as he’d told her at the onset of the trip, he didn’t trust her alone in the inn.
And, as he’d told himself, he didn’t trust her alone with his luggage.
But gradually he realized he needed her.
The merchants were suspicious. Times were tense in France.
The political ground was constantly shifting, and today’s friend could easily become tomorrow’s enemy of the people.
And though the government was encouraging the continuation of trade with England, everyone knew the two countries were on the verge of war.
The merchants met with him because of the letters of introduction he carried from Rafe Harcrest, an English merchant they knew and had learned to trust over the course of many years of transactions.
It was a trust they did not automatically extend to James.
But when they met his wife, their suspicions eased.
What English spy would travel with his wife?
And when they learned James’s wife was sister to the man Harcrest, they listened with care to what he had to say.
He realized Grenville had been right; the skills he’d developed enchanting and seducing his way through the ton were well suited to the task of recruiting volunteers.
He could tell from their eyes, from the expressions of their mouths, or the movements of their hands, who would be willing to provide assistance for his network and who would not.
And when he was uncertain, he found himself soliciting Elizabeth’s opinion.
She studied people nearly as carefully as he did.
Indeed, comparing observations had once been the source of much of their banter in the ballrooms and house parties of London.
She had a gift for seeing beyond the social pose.
Though not because she was looking for a weakness she might exploit.
Even so, he had no doubt her skill at seeing through people had been sharpened by her encounters with Anne and her circle of harpies.
And with me. He glanced at her, sitting beside him in the coach, and wondered what she saw when she looked at him.
Highly unlikely it was anything good. He turned his head to look out the window.
“Christ,” he said as he caught sight of the men standing in the road ahead of them. “Get out your papers. It’s another bloody roadblock.”
The Norcrofts’ house party was dreadfully dull.
Still, Anne reflected as she gazed at the women gathered about the parlor, sewing baby clothes and talking softly, it did have a certain appeal.
She pulled her needle through the cambric of a tiny shirt; first there was the lovely way in which everyone in the house fussed over her.
She smiled. Her family might have less money, but the Dinsmores had been peers when the Norcroft babies were still wrapped in rags, their fathers chasing sheep.
And then there were the comforts of the house.
Not as large as her father’s country home, but not as drafty, either.
Plenty of fuel in every fireplace, plenty of food on the tables, not a threadbare carpet or curtain about the place.
Of course, the stuff wasn’t of the quality of her father’s things; it was all new.
“What a charming gown you are making for the baby, Mrs. Fenwinkle,” Anne said conversationally. “The fabric is as fine as anything you’d find in London.”
Annabella Fenwinkle shook out the little gown, the better for her noble guest to admire it.
“The fabric is a bit extravagant for an infant, but it was a gift. From a family that lives far above our simple country ways.” She paused to make certain she had Anne’s attention.
“The Earl of Moreham and his lady,” she said, emphasizing Rafe’s title.
Anne wasn’t aware her hands had tightened on the little shirt she was holding until she heard the cambric start to tear. “The Morehams,” she said, with none of the emotion she was feeling.
“I believe they are your neighbors?” Annabella persisted.
Anne nodded.
“I was not at the earl’s wedding,” Annabella continued, patting her stomach as if the pregnancy, and not her common status, had been the only thing that prevented her from receiving an invitation. “I understand they are a handsome couple and that Lady Moreham is most elegant.”
“Her style is very…” Anne paused, as if searching for just the right, polite word. “French. I’m afraid I’ve always preferred our simpler, English fashions.”
There was a murmur of agreement around the circle of women.
Annabella, clearly put out that Anne’s status as the daughter of a duke was upstaging hers as the mother-to-be, made another attempt to flog her connection to the Morehams.
“My sister Arabella, you know, was bosom friend to the earl’s sister. Before the—” Her mouth froze on the S of scandal, as it suddenly occurred to her where and with whom the scandal had taken place.
Anne smiled, her eyes gliding over the drab figure of Elizabeth’s friend, Arabella.
Of course, she’d recognized the little wren the moment she’d laid eyes on her.
“Such a painful episode. So disappointing when a young lady from such a good family, a young lady who is supposed to set the example for us all…falters.” Her hand fluttered to her breast, but her eyes remained steady on Arabella.
“We are all wounded by it, are we not? Still, I cannot help feeling sorry for her, buried in the countryside.”
Arabella tried to hold Anne’s gaze, but in the end, she dropped her eyes.
If she were bolder, more quick-witted, like Elizabeth, she’d have delivered some witty retort to Anne’s barb.
Lady Elizabeth Harcrest? She’s far from buried, far from the countryside—indeed, she’s far from the country.
And she’s traveling with your brother. Wouldn’t Anne’s jaw have dropped?
Not to mention the rest of the sewing circle.
Arabella slid a glance through her lashes at the women, imagining them erupting in scandalized chaos.
Like a coop full of headless chickens, they’d be, desperate to run off and spread the story.
She dropped her eyes to her sewing; her hands were shaking as she imagined the trouble Elizabeth would be in then.
And for the first time in her life, Arabella Norcroft felt infinitely grateful she hadn’t an adventurous, impulsive bone in her body.
The gendarmes at the checkpoint on the road to Rouen were in a particularly surly mood. They scrutinized the papers James gave them, demanding over and over that he explain what he was doing in the area, and why he’d chosen to travel at this time.
“Tell me again, Citizen Dinsmore, why are you visiting Amiens and Rouen?”
“Who are you meeting with?” A guardsman shoved James with the butt of his musket.
“Textile merchants in Amiens and Rouen,” he responded, resisting the urge to grab the musket and hit the man over his heavily jowled head with it.
“Then, where are your goods?”
“We’re having them shipped back; we’ve purchased far too many things for our carriage to accommodate them all.”
“As if an Englishman would tell you the truth,” a guardsman with crooked teeth snapped. “Let’s search them.” The gendarme with the musket turned the muzzle toward James. “You others”—he jerked his head at Elizabeth, Marcus, Andre, and David—“over here.”
“I don’t know why we should bother to search them; we should take them in—or better yet, cut out their hearts.” A young guardsman brandished the bayonet attached to his musket.
The gendarmes untied the luggage from the coach and tossed it down onto the road.
Rifling the contents, they amused themselves by trying on Elizabeth’s hats, mocking Marcus’s severe waistcoats, and pocketing Andre’s shoe buckles.
The young guardsman pulled the bottle of cologne from James’s trunk, shook it, unstopped the bottle, and inhaled.
“Merde.” He jerked the bottle back, splashing the trunk and its contents with the liquid.
“This must be the scent of decaying aristocracy.”
The others, with the exception of the jowled gendarme with the gun pointed at James’s head, gathered round, sniffing and snorting.
“L’eau de rotting regent.”
“Cologne de la corpse de Citizen Capet.”
Elizabeth, who was not standing far from the trunk, couldn’t help but agree. She waved a hand, fanning away the odor.
“Look! Even his wife can’t stand the stink.” The young gendarme moved away from the trunk, pointing the bottle at her.
She turned to look at him, noticing as she did that there was something peculiar about the lid of the open trunk. Where the cologne had splashed, brown specks were beginning to appear. She needed to get a better look. Taking a step toward the soldiers, she continued to fan the air beneath her nose.
“It is noxious, is it not?” she agreed in the fluent French Rafe had hounded her to learn.
She’d have to thank him someday. “I have begged my husband to dispense with it, but he swears…” She glanced at James and then back at the soldiers and the trunk—and realized that the brown specks were letters.
Where the cologne had splashed, writing was emerging—more of it with each passing moment.
So that was what James and his men had been trying to conceal!