With luck, and he knew he"d need it, the Inhaber also would still be abed, wherever he was, and his guard would not be too numerous, and as hapless as the four he"d put to guarding Ashurst Hall. Money could buy many things, even men. It could not insure competence or inspire loyalty.
Justin wanted this over, the Inhaber dead, Alina safe. He and Rafe had agreed that this would be the easiest, the quickest way to guarantee both. That success this morning would also hasten Justin"s departure from England, never to see Alina again, could not be a factor. Giving her his possessions to make up for having killed her uncle, no matter how justified, was not his penance, as he"d thought it would be. Never seeing her again, never holding her, never smiling at her frank speech and her attempts at being worldly and sophisticated? Never really knowing her?
That was to be his true penance, and it would last a lifetime.
Luka had his orders. Employing a circuitous route, he was to remove Alina to the home of Rafe"s sister Nicole and her husband, Lucas Paine, Marquess of Basingstoke, and once she was safe, from there to Malvern, and the home of Rafe"s other sister, Lydia, and her husband, Tanner, Justin"s closest friend. Once the Inhaber was dead, Justin would get word to his friends before himself heading to Dover, the port of choice, it seemed, for those finding it necessary to escape England. Byron had made his a dramatic exit, Brummell had slipped the web of creditors to make for Calais, and soon Justin Wilde would escape the hangman via the same route, his destination Ostend, then Brussels and, finally, a ship bound for America.
A world away, as Alina had said last night-had there been a hint of sadness in her voice?
Brutus put out his arm and grunted, bringing Justin back to his surroundings. d.a.m.n. He"d nearly ridden straight down the hill leading into the small village, his mind elsewhere. His friend looked at him quizzically, or at least Justin decided the look was quizzical; with Brutus, it was difficult to tell.
"My apologies," he said as he saw the four horses tied up in front of a ramshackle inn, the only building of more than two stories the backwater village could boast of, and only then because there was precious little of note elsewhere on the single street that bisected the rutted dirt road that clearly was meant to lead somewhere else.
He doubted the place even had a name. Which made it perfect, in so many ways, both for the Inhaber and for Justin.
They turned their mounts into the trees bordering the road. Battling low branches, they walked the horses a good twenty yards before dismounting and leading them farther into the trees, where they tied their reins to branches. "We don"t know how many there are. Are you ready?"
In answer, Brutus pushed back his coat, revealing an amazing total of five heavy, workmanlike pistols stuck into his stout waistband. He then pulled knives from both his boot tops, and two more from elsewhere on his person.
"Only four?" Justin asked facetiously.
Brutus reached up behind his back and extracted a fifth knife from its sheath hidden beneath his coat, this blade even uglier than the others.
"My faith has been restored, but with only a modic.u.m of luck, you won"t need any of them. Unless the Inhaber is a complete fool, he"ll be heading out shortly, to regroup somewhere else."
Brutus carefully replaced the knives, looking only slightly crestfallen. The man did enjoy the exercise of a good fight now and then.
Rafe had insisted that he go with Justin, as well as some of his own men from the estate, but Justin had refused. He"d worked alone for too many years, and with Brutus for the last five. He had his own way of doing things, ways the large man understood, and too many people presented opportunities for too many mistakes. Not that he didn"t trust Rafe Daughtry, but he would not chance having that man"s blood on his hands in order to solve his own problems.
Brutus slung Justin"s custom-designed rifle over his shoulder and followed him. When Justin hunkered down at the crest of the small hill that looked down on the few buildings, Brutus hunkered down behind him. When Justin pulled out a collapsible spygla.s.s and lifted it to his eye, Brutus squinted. When Justin inhaled, he smelled the sausages Brutus had ingested for breakfast two hours earlier.
Justin stood up once more and looked about, noting the substantial cover of the trees, the fine elevation that had him looking down at the inn roof and the cleared ground around the building. He could not have asked for better; barely a test of his particular skills, actually.
"Now we wait. This terrain reminds one of Remiremont, does it not? The same sort of fine vantage point. May we have the same success here today."
No more than ten minutes later, they watched the team that pulled the black traveling coach being led from the stables, to be maneuvered into the traces with more haste than expertise.
"He"s already on the move. Our friend the Inhaber must be an early riser," Justin said to Brutus unnecessarily, thinking of their mounts, which had never been pressed to a gallop on their more than ten mile ride here, but which were nonetheless not precisely fresh. He held out his hand for the rifle. "We"ll make the first shot count, Brutus, as we won"t get a second chance."
As Justin dropped to his knees and removed his hat and gloves, tossing them aside, Brutus went down on all fours in front of him, offering his back as a human platform Justin could use to steady his arms and the rifle.
Justin raised the rifle and sighted down it to a spot approximately six feet beyond the door leading to the dirt yard and the coach, his heart rate slow, his breathing slower.
He could do this. He had to do this.
How many times had he been in this position? Too many. The French major who"d ordered the execution of British soldiers after they"d surrendered. The t.i.tled English general who"d been pa.s.sing secrets to the French, supposedly brought down by an enemy sniper and transported home to be buried with honors so that no shame could be a.s.sociated with the family name. The Swedish diplomat who had resisted the break from Bonaparte and had fought against the inst.i.tution of a secret treaty between his country and Britain and Russia against France. The pompous Austrian financier-for reasons Justin hadn"t even bothered to learn, because by then he had been past caring. Did any soldier marched onto a battlefield stop to ask the name and occupation of the enemy he had been ordered to kill?
For Justin, the only difference was that he had often dined with his unknowing target only a few hours earlier, and more than once had even bedded the man"s wife.
The hustle and bustle in the yard below him increased, until at last the coach seemed to contain its limit of trunks and other luggage, and the outriders were all mounted and ready to leave.
Justin relaxed his shoulders as the door to the inn opened one last time, taking in a long breath, ready to let it ease back out as he squeezed the trigger and put an end to Alina"s danger, and quite possibly to his own future.
He heard the cries before he saw the man he"d first seen at Carleton House. Inhaber Novak emerged from the inn carrying two poorly dressed children, girls of no more than ten. He held one clamped tight in each arm; both struggled to be free of his viselike grip. Human shields.
For a moment, Justin thought he might vomit. He dropped the rifle as the Inhaber covered the few feet between the inn and the coach, ducked his head and disappeared inside. Moments later both children exited the equipage, roughly tumbling to the ground and then quickly regaining their feet and running toward the frantic woman who had just exited the inn.
The coach sprang forward, the half-dozen outriders flanking it as it headed for the roadway and quickly disappeared, leaving behind only clouds of choking road dust, three horses and their dead riders, and the baron, the fugitive Justin Wilde, who could only look down impotently at his badly trembling hands.
"He knew," he said at last. "That"s where he got the idea. d.a.m.n him, how did he know?"
The big man picked up the rifle and then held out one hamlike hand to a.s.sist Justin to his feet before patting him on the back and making sympathetic sounds.
"Yes, you"re right, my friend," Justin said, determined to shake off what had just very nearly happened, what had happened before. "No sense rehashing my failure. He can"t know for certain I was even here. And he has the letter. It"s not as if we"re totally out of the game."
Brutus, clearly trying to cheer his friend, pressed his hands together and put them to his cheek, tipping his head almost girlishly as he smiled a wide, gap-toothed smile.
Justin nodded. "Yes, and we"ll see the pretty lady again. And the scowling major, who warned me I was doomed to fail, so that he made plans of his own, thank G.o.d, and will no doubt enjoy hearing of my lack of success," he added as Brutus made a show of twirling the ends of an enormous, nonexistent mustache. "Come along. We"re off to Basingstoke."
ALINA WATCHED AS WIGGLESWORTH carefully picked his way toward her along the narrow, rutted track that was somewhat the worse for wear after a morning of rain, the expression on his face a mix of horror and determination.
He was dressed as always in shimmering silver satin and ridiculous amounts of dripping lace, the style of his suit one that hadn"t been seen in England or anywhere else in many a year, but one that matched his, as Tatiana termed it, hoity-toity ways.
Lifting his befeathered tricorn hat from his powdered wig, the valet swept Alina an elegant bow and then gave in to his obvious distress. "Surely, my lady, this is a jest. We cannot possibly be abandoning the comfort and consequence presented by my lord"s fine coaches in favor of-" he pointed toward the gaily painted caravans in abject horror "-those."
"Oh, Wigglesworth, but we are. And we do it, I understand, with the full blessing of his lordship. The coaches will return to the main road as soon as we transfer the most basic of our needs to these two fine equipages that have been waiting here for us, the bulk of our baggage still visibly strapped to the coaches and ready to lead anyone who might somehow stumble over them and then follow them off on a merry chase while we safely proceed to our next destination."
Wigglesworth looked about in panic as a few-a very few-bits of baggage were lowered to men waiting to transfer them to the caravans. "I see none of his lordship"s baggage, my lady. His ensembles? His linens? His tins of food? But...but how is he to perform his toilette? How am I to present him in his best light? How...how will he survive?"
Alina"s smile faded. "His lordship most probably won"t be here at all, Wigglesworth. The coaches go to a seaport by the name of Rye, the major tells me, and he will be reunited with his belongings when they are shipped off to their final destination in Brussels. Mine," she added without much interest, "remain for the most part at Ashurst Hall, and the trunks you see are in fact empty."
The valet looked to the coaches and then back to the pair of gaily painted caravans. "But...but where am I to be? n.o.body told me."
"Why, I don"t think I know, Wigglesworth. I"m sorry. I supposed you"d continue on to Rye with the coaches, and I imagine the baron did as well, although the major insists that no bad penny ever disappears forever, and he is confident the baron will show up here eventually, which will mean he has failed to...to eliminate our problem as simply as he"d hoped."
Had she ever prayed harder for failure, even as she stormed heaven with entreaties to keep Justin safe? And did that make her the most terrible person in the world?
Wigglesworth turned his hat round and round in his hands, clearly caught on the horns of a dilemma.
If he opted for Rye and a reunion with his employer in Brussels, he could continue on in comfort, as he"d been doing for the past three or more hours, ever since leaving Ashurst Hall. Unless, of course, the Inhaber"s men accosted the coaches and became perturbed when they did not discover Lady Alina inside one of them. Why, they might even take out their anger and frustration on his fragile body, mightn"t they?
With Brutus nowhere to be found, he would be defenseless. After all, he might pretend that it was his sartorially enhanced figure and his consequence as the baron"s man that opened inn kitchens and such to him and his demands, but he knew it was Brutus standing at his back as he made those demands, smiling his gap-toothed smile as he drew up his hands into huge fists, who made the difference between success and being stuffed upside down in the midden.
On the other hand, if his lordship was not successful in his mission-heaven strike him down for thinking such a calumny!-who would take care of him if his own personal manservant had been too particular to travel in a rackety contraption that looked very much like a small red house on wheels, accompanied only by Lady Alina and a gaggle of variously toothless and garishly clad creatures who all seemed to be even now gaping at him as if he were the most amusing creature on earth? Who would shave his lordship if he were not available? Who would see to it that his linen was spotless? Who would cut the fat off his meat? Why, the man couldn"t exist without him!
When the coachies climbed back up on the boxes, Wigglesworth turned and ran toward them, waving his arms wildly and calling out, "Wait! Wait!"
"Comin" with us, pretty man?" one of the coachies called down to him.
"I...don"t be ridiculous! Someone has to remain to protect the lady, what with all you huge, strapping men deserting her here, in the middle of G.o.d only knows where," Wigglesworth declared even as he climbed halfway into the coach and pulled out his most important case, the one containing all his most prized possessions (including a half-dozen bars of scented soap; he was already convinced there could be no soap in either of the caravans).
He stepped back onto the roadway and pointed imperiously at a large black trunk strapped to the boot of the first coach. "And that one."
"Nope," the coachie said, shaking his head. "Stays with the coach."
Wigglesworth was not by nature a brave man. One might say he was not by nature even a timid man. But he did have his priorities, and his limits. Traveling without his lordship"s own fresh linens exceeded those limits.
A rather dashing yet dainty ivory-handled pocket pistol of a type most often seen in the reticules of the more daring ladies in society appeared in Wigglesworth"s hand. "It might well not prove a fatal shot, but I won"t miss, either," he told the coachie. "The black trunk, if you please. Now."
One of the outriders, who had been amusing himself by dancing about behind Wigglesworth, imitating him for the delight of his fellows, had nearly reached the valet when Alina pressed the barrel of the pistol she"d earlier taken for herself from the coach into the small of his back.
"Let him alone, please," she said quietly. "Clearly he is under considerable duress. We will take this one trunk. In point of fact, you, personally, will offload it for him and place it in one of the caravans. Are we agreed on that?"
"Yes, milady," the outrider said meekly, and Alina quickly put the pistol behind her back and smiled at Wigglesworth as he turned to her in triumph at having rescued the precious trunk.
"So, you"re going to travel with us," she said, happily letting go of the pistol as Tatiana casually strolled past behind her and took it from her. "Does that mean that you think his lordship will be joining us?"
"I pray he won"t, as he is certainly unused to such...simplicity," the valet answered, sighing and looking rather longingly at the coaches as they moved off, heading once more to the main road. "But as I do him no good at all in Rye or on a ship bound to wherever it will be bound, I see my place as here. His lordship will have me fetched in any case," he added more brightly. "He can"t survive without me, you understand."
"We"re ready to go, my lady," Tatiana said, joining them. "He is to come with us?"
Wigglesworth drew himself up straight. "He is."
Tatiana nodded, eyeing him up and down as if measuring him. "When we get to the camp, I"ll see if someone can find him some clothes. Perhaps one of the children has extra."
The valet"s eyes grew so wide they seemed in danger of popping straight out of his head. "I beg your pardon," he said haughtily.
"Not mine you should be begging," the companion said, winking at Alina. "It"s everyone who has to look at you who you should be apologizing to. My lady-that is, Magdalena-there is clothing for you in the first caravan. Danica is grumbling mightily, but she is seeing to sorting it all out and will help you change. Then we must be going."
Alina thanked Tatiana and then looked kindly at the woe-begotten face of the valet. "We have to do this, Wigglesworth. The major arranged it all even before the ship docked here in this country, and the Romany will protect us as we travel on. We will keep to the back roads the Romany know so well, and we will be safe. But not if we don"t appear to be Romany ourselves, or otherwise all this fine subterfuge will have gone for naught. You do understand, don"t you? It will be an adventure, Wigglesworth, a grand adventure."
"Playing the page and watching as that rascal Napoleon greeted his lordship at the Grand Trianon at Versailles, all unknowing we were there to steal his plans for the proposed march on Russia, my lady. That was a grand adventure. This, begging your ladyship"s pardon, is a mockery of all that is civilized. If I am needed, I will be in my...domicile."
And with that, Wigglesworth was off, heading for the caravan holding his case and the coveted black trunk. He was no longer tiptoeing through the mud, but rather ignoring it, strutting with his nonexistent stomach pushed out, his shoulders flung back, his arms straight as they sawed back and forth through the air, front to back.
"It"s called a vardo, not a domicile," Alina was left to say quietly, knowing she had just been firmly put in her place.
CHAPTER NINE.
AS THEY HAD BEEN HEADING in nearly diametrically opposite directions, and because Justin could only estimate where, generally, the Romany camp might be, it was not until he smelled the smoke from the cooking fires that he was able to track it to its source...and to Alina.
He knew that their progress for the past mile or more had been noted, could actually feel the eyes watching him and Brutus from the trees, and that comforted him, although he wouldn"t be truly at ease until he saw Alina.
He"d been alone for a long time, and had convinced himself that he would continue alone, without feeling the loss. And then Alina had stood at the head of the gangplank in that ridiculous cloak and his carefully crafted world had tipped on its axis. Before he"d known who she was, why they"d been brought together the way they had, he"d already known she was someone who could shake him to his core-wake him up, because he"d been asleep for too many years, even as he"d traveled the Continent doing the Crown"s bidding, even as he"d believed his one true happiness would be attained only if he could return to England, no matter what the means, or the cost.
Now the prospect of departing England, never to return, seemed a simple thing. Watching Alina leave him last night had been the most difficult thing he"d ever done, but he had been right to send her away. He didn"t know if he could survive leaving her another time.
But he"d find out....
They rode into the camp at a sedate walk, and he counted the caravans. Eight in total, and in varying stages of repair and disrepair. He"d never known this many caravans to travel together here in England. That could be problematic, most especially when he informed the major that at least two of them would have to go.
The last thing he wanted was to attract attention as "those d.a.m.ned thievin" Gypsies" often did in the less enlightened areas of the country. If there was one sin Justin rarely committed, it was overestimating the intelligence of his fellow man and thereby underestimating the chances of something or someone totally unrelated to the point causing trouble for him.
As he led the way through the camp, caravans on either side of the clearing, mongrel dogs barked and ran around the horses as the men, from boy to man to aged grandfather, fingered the weapons stuck into their wide waistbands. Women raised themselves from their vigils over the campfires, pressed hands to aching backs as they pushed their ample bosoms forward and eyed him with a frank appraisal that had him smiling and tipping his hat to them all.
"Brutus," he said, his lips barely moving, "as I lack eyes in the back of my head and am loathe to turn around as we travel this gauntlet, I do hope you"re smiling as you demonstrate how harmless you are. And perhaps a cheery wave to those kiddies over there wouldn"t come amiss. We"ll dismount at the last caravan once we"re past it and wait for someone to alert the major that we"re here. Unless Wigglesworth does it for us. What the devil is he doing here?" he ended as his valet cried out his name in a voice that could probably be heard for miles.
"My lord!" Wigglesworth yelled once more. "Thank the lofty heavens you have come to rescue me! I vow, I cannot exist like this for another moment!"
Justin turned the bay about and looked back from whence he"d come, taking in the small clearing and the caravans and the Romany who still watched him, but now with wide smiles on their faces.
"Wigglesworth?" he said in some astonishment a moment later. "What in the name of all that"s wonderful are you supposed to be? My G.o.d, man, have you no pride?"
"Not any longer, my lord, no," the valet said, sighing deeply as he waited for Justin to dismount. "It was either this or show my head to the world, which I most firmly and reasonably refused to do."
Justin attempted to take in the apparition standing before him clad in a voluminous homespun blouse, its rather indiscreet neckline embroidered in red and green thread, a wide green sash about his waist above a black skirt, also embroidered, the fabric shiny in places from wear, all but threadbare in others. Atop his head was one of his wigs, still showing signs of the powder he used on them all, but combed out so that it hung in straggled disarray to his-dear G.o.d-bony bare shoulders.
From somewhere behind him, Justin could hear Brutus gasping for breath.
Justin was a gentleman, raised to never betray shock or surprise unless either was expected of him. It took all of his long years of hiding his true feelings to help him maintain a bland countenance at the moment, however.
"Please pardon my curiosity, but what would be wrong with your head, Wigglesworth, that you"d consent to...this."
The valet walked closer and crooked his index finger, so that Justin lowered his head to listen to the man"s confidence.
"I have no hair, my lord."
"Really." Justin bit the insides of his cheeks. "All these years together, Wigglesworth, and I had no idea. None at all?"
"I shave it off every morning, my lord. My wigs fit much better that way. Many in the last century did the same."
"Yes, I seem to remember something about that. So, beneath that fairly ruined wig there is..."
"Nothing save my bald pate, my lord. I attempted to tie one of those colorful handkerchiefs about my head, as some of these people seem to do, but it...it kept sliding off, my lord." Wigglesworth lifted his chin in something nearing defiance. "I cannot allow anyone to see my naked head, my lord. It isn"t proper, and might frighten the ladies."
"At the moment, Wigglesworth, you"re doing a fair job of frightening me, if you"re at all concerned with my sensibilities. But I"ll bow to your ingenuity if you"re content with the costume."
"Disguise, my lord, not a costume," the valet corrected. "I am incognito."
"Not to mention incomprehensible, and rendering me nearly incoherent," Justin muttered under his breath as his attention turned to the far side of the camp, because he believed he had heard his name being called. "As long as you"re happy, Wigglesworth."