Chapter 5
Chapter Five
She lowered her hand and smoothed the lapel of the officer’s military coat, which she was still wearing.
His eyes narrowed to two icy slits.
“I did not have the opportunity to introduce myself yet,” she said carefully. “But my name is… Clara. Clara Honeywell.” She nodded firmly. “Yes.”
“Are you Lady Evangeline’s companion?”
“Indeed.” She scrutinised him from head to foot. “Are you indeed friends with the Duke of Aldingbourne? Have you known him long? Are you on the way to Vienna?”
He made an impatient hand movement. “Yes, yes and yes. But that is beside the point. We need a doctor. Lady Evangeline is gravely ill.”
She pushed past him into the room. “Cla—I mean, Evie, my dear. Can you hear me?” She shook her arm.
Lady Evangeline tossed her head from one side to the other, groaning.
The maid was cooling her forehead. “I’m afraid it’s rather worse than a mere influenza, my lad—”
Miss Honeywell scowled at her. “My lady needs the doctor. You are right, my lady isn’t doing well at all. Lady Evangeline needs a great deal of rest. It is best you don’t talk too much to Lady Evangeline.”
The maid blinked at her, bemused, and snapped her mouth shut again.
Schneider arrived with a doctor in tow, having had the presence of mind to enquire amongst the guests. His aide-de-camp was resourceful, quick-thinking, and, most importantly, loyal. In situations like this, he was indispensable.
The doctor emerged sooner than expected, shoving the poppet, who was protesting, out of the room in front of him. “Measles,” he said curtly.
Georg exhaled sharply. Just what they needed. A measles outbreak in an overfilled inn.
“And what’s worse, this lady here has not had the measles yet.” The doctor jerked his chin at the poppet. “I fear she’ll be our next patient.”
She disregarded him, and pivoted on her heel with the intention of re-entering the room.
Georg’s hand clamped about her arm and held her back.
“You can’t go in there if you haven’t had the measles, Miss Honeywell.” Schneider’s voice was dripping with horror. “You’ll fall ill yourself.”
“Will you unhand me, sir!” She turned to him with such imperious outrage that Georg almost, just almost, dropped his hand, but instead tightened his grip.
“We must talk,” he bit out. “Downstairs.” To Schneider, he said, “Get the details from the doctor.”
Since she seemed disinclined to follow his order, he unceremoniously marched her down the stairs and steered her towards a table in a secluded corner of the room, and gestured for her to sit down. The innkeeper approached them and he ordered a meal for himself.
“Fr?ulein?” the innkeeper asked.
She shrugged. “The same.”
“We appear to have a grave problem,” Georg said without ceremony.
“The measles might be a childhood illness, but it can have severe repercussions on adults.” He was speaking from experience.
Any outbreak of such disease within his ranks was every commander’s nightmare.
Disease often killed more men than combat itself.
“You cannot enter Lady Evangeline’s room without risking coming down with the illness yourself. The doctor says—”
Was there something wrong with her? Was she truly daft? She kept staring at him with wide, astonished eyes, as though he were the fire-spitting man at a village fair.
He interrupted himself, unnerved, wishing she would blink.
When she finally did, he was rather relieved.
She muttered something.
He leaned forward to catch her words, and he may have imagined it, for he thought she said something sounding suspiciously like, “It’s beyond belief. The joke of the century.”
“I beg your pardon?”
She eyed him from head to foot. “Are you truly Lady Evie’s betrothed? You did not make that up?”
He threw her an irritated look. “Why the devil would I make that up?”
She made a throwaway hand movement. “Oh, I don’t know. Men can have all sorts of motives. To take advantage of a pair of helpless travelling females, for one.”
“It would never occur to me to take advantage of a pair of helpless travelling females,” he snapped.
“Who do you think I am?” Really, the nerve of the girl.
He had much better things to do with his time than concern himself with her, but she was Lady Evie’s companion, so he could hardly disregard her.
“That is the question, is it not?”
He huffed. “I have already introduced myself. I need not do so a second time.”
She crossed her arms. “Prove it.”
“Prove what?”
“Your identity, naturally. What was it you said? It is a mere precautionary measure to prove one’s identity.”
For a moment he was speechless. The poppet was asking him to prove his identity?
He’d never had to prove his identity to anyone, least of all to a lowly lady’s companion.
He struggled to answer in a level, reasonable manner.
“I already did. By mentioning Lady Evangeline’s way of escaping from her governess.
How would I know that if I had not read it from her brother’s letters? ”
Her eyes flashed. “Piffle. You clearly know little about a lady’s upbringing. For if you did, you would know that there is hardly anyone who is pestered by tutors and governesses who does not attempt to escape them at some point in their life.”
He lifted a supercilious eyebrow. “Through the window and down the rose trellis?”
She waved a dismissive hand. “Coincidence. If you can answer three more questions about either Lady Evie or her brother correctly, I shall consider your identity established. If not…”
“If not?” he asked softly.
“Then you are a fraud, and I shall report you to Metternich himself.”
He bit back a smile. The girl certainly had spirit.
“What a terrifying prospect. Metternich, of course, would be vastly entertained by this farce. But very well.” He made a gesture. “Ask away. I shall do my best to prove my, err, authenticity to you.”
“Good.” She furrowed her brows and chewed on her lower lip as she thought. “A-ha, I have it. What are the names of the duke’s favourite hunting dogs?”
Julius did mention them now and then, as he was uncommonly fond of his retrievers. “Romulus and Remus.”
“Hm.” Her fingers drummed on the table, unimpressed. “Correct. Second question. When the duke eats his favourite food, jellies, does he prefer them to be filled with fruit or vegetables?”
She had him there. Julius never discussed food in his letters, and he had not had the opportunity to share a meal with him lately, so he would not know how he preferred to eat his jellies.
But, knowing that his friend shared his own tastes and preferred savoury to sweet, he would wager on the savoury. “Vegetable jelly.”
Her eyes flashed triumphantly. “False! His Grace wouldn’t touch jelly with a ten-foot pole. He despises jelly, whether savoury or sweet. It was a trick question and you fell for it. Which only proves one thing: you are not Hartenberg after all.”
“I’ve never heard such nonsense,” he said irritably. “I answered one question correctly, in addition to my knowledge of Lady Evie’s escape habits from the school room. That ought to be sufficient.”
She shook her head. “One last question.” Her eyes narrowed to two slits.
“This will determine whether you truly are who you say you are.” She took a big breath.
“You claim you are Lady Evie’s betrothed.
Very well. You have been engaged to her for a monstrously long time.
Then surely you must know Lady Evie very well.
Her preferences, her likes and dislikes.
She must be very happy about the impending nuptials, hm?
Surely you must know what she feels about it.
She can barely wait to marry you and has her wedding dress designed already, the flowers chosen and the wedding breakfast planned.
Yes?” She leaned forward and there was something glittering in her eyes.
“What colour did she decide should be the theme of the wedding?”
How the devil should he know? She had him there.
Good and tight. It might be black, for all he knew, and he certainly cared even less.
Colour indeed! For, of course, he had not an inkling about what Lady Evie’s plans were.
The best he could do was take a guess, and considering that he had been engaged to the lady for so long, it felt a shameful thing to have to do.
He rubbed the back of his neck.
The chit watched him closely, an odd sort of smile playing upon her lips. “You do not know the answer, do you?”
“The duke says—”
“Who cares what the duke says? But what does Lady Evie feel? Really. Truly. In her heart.” She pounded a fist against her chest. “Surely she must be hopelessly in love with you.” The chit clasped her hands together and lifted her eyes to the ceiling.
“Having waited for you so faithfully all those years. Not knowing what you even look like. How romantic it must be.”
“Hardly,” he said dryly. “I daresay she takes it like most women in her class who are expected to marry for name and rank. With fortitude, most likely.”
The girl’s hands dropped. “Fortitude.”
He shrugged. “Certainly. She is a duke’s sister. She grew up expecting an arranged marriage. The notion can hardly be new to her.”
“Fortitude.” She clenched her hands to fists.
He shrugged again. “Maybe more resignation. She appears to be of the stoic kind, with the strength and endurance to weather any situation life throws at her. I find that admirable, incidentally. It speaks of a strength of character. Is she happy about our engagement? Is anyone happy about having their life arranged due to class and circumstance? I don’t suppose so. ”
She opened and closed her mouth like a fish.
“Am I right?”