To Dance until Dawn (Girls Who Dare Book 12) Page 9

  He looked around as Jack gestured to him from outside the carriage and got out quietly, not wanting to disturb Phoebe.

  “Any sign?” he asked.

  Jack scowled and shook his head.

  “Not a sniff of the shiftless cove,” he grumbled. “Reckon he must have changed his mind and arranged passage with smugglers or something of the sort for he’s not booked on any of the regular crossings. Stands to reason he’d not want to leave a trail to follow.”

  Max nodded, disheartened but unsurprised. “Ah well, it was too much to hope for, I suppose.”

  “You’re certain he’ll head for Paris?”

  “Yes.” On this at least he felt confident. “I doubt Alvanly has connections of the sort to get the best price for the painting, but there are dealers enough in Paris with access to the kind of wealthy buyers who won’t ask too many awkward questions. He’d not be able to sell it here in time before he was caught, not now.”

  “Right, then. Paris it is,” Jack said. Max went to turn away, but Jack laid a meaty hand on his arm, stilling him. “You’ll marry her?”

  Max nodded.

  “Not just for duty though, eh?”

  For a moment Max hesitated, wondering what exactly to say, but it was clear this fellow would walk through fire for Phoebe and it would be wise to discover what it was Lucian saw in the man so, he took a risk.

  “I’d have asked her anyway, if I’d thought there was the slightest chance she’d have me.”

  “You don’t care she’s illegitimate?”

  Max scowled at him, something hot and angry unfurling in his stomach. “I do not.”

  “Ah,” Jack said, nodding thoughtfully, and Max wondered if perhaps that was approval in his eyes. “Does the lord know?”

  For a moment Max thought he was asking if God was aware of his feelings, and stared, a little taken aback. Then the penny dropped. “Oh, Montagu. Yes. He knows.”

  “And he approves?”

  Max nodded. “For all the good it does me. Phoebe—Miss Barrington—does not see me as… as a suitor. I believe she considers me too staid and sensible, but—”

  “But you’re hopin’ this little lark might help her change her mind.”

  Jack stared at him: a piercing, somewhat unnerving scrutiny that made Max’s ears feel hot. He cleared his throat.

  “Yes,” he said, a touch defiantly. “I suppose I am.”

  The stare continued for a moment longer, and then Jack pursed his lips. “Right ho, then. We’d better get moving. They’ll be boarding soon.”

  Max nodded, once again with the slightly unsteadying feeling of having passed some kind of test. He only hoped he didn’t fail one of them, especially whilst they were at sea. Jack looked well capable of pitching him overboard if the mood took him.

  He climbed back into the carriage and closed the door quietly, but Phoebe stirred as the carriage moved forward. She blinked owlishly in the dim light, then her gaze settled on Max and her eyes opened very wide.

  “Oh, now I remember,” she said, sitting up in a rush. His coat slithered from her shoulders and she looked at it in surprise. “You gave me your coat.”

  “I was afraid you might be cold.”

  The smile she returned was pleased and a little shy, and quite unlike any he’d ever seen from her before. It struck his heart with the force of a hammer blow.

  “That was kind, thank you.”

  “My pleasure,” he said, somewhat winded still.

  “What time is it?”

  “Close to seven in the morning. We’re about to board.”

  She drew in a shaky breath and it occurred to him that perhaps she was nervous. “Have you ever been on a boat before?”

  Phoebe shook her head. “Not at sea.”

  “It will be fine.”

  “Yes,” she said, brightly, nodding too vigorously to be convincing. “Yes, of course it will, and I’m so looking forward to seeing Paris. I mean, I know we are in pursuit of the painting, and if we catch up with Alvanly quickly, there may be no need to continue, but….”

  “We’ll see Paris,” he promised her, wanting to do anything, give her anything, to make her keep smiling at him. It worked, and her delighted expression left him giddy with pleasure.

  “Oh,” she said on a breath of delight, and then frowned a little, folding her hands neatly in her lap. “And you mustn’t worry, Max. I have learned my lesson, truly I have. I shan’t get into any more scrapes or embarrass you. I shall behave properly, I promise.”

  What? No!

  “Oh, there’s no need for that,” he said at once, but she shook her head, a frown drawing her eyebrows together.

  “Yes, there is. You’re being too kind, but you’ve always been kind. I can see that now. I… I was just too headstrong and stupid to see it before, and I’m sorry for that. I think perhaps I need to grow up, and I shall. I give you my word.”

  Max stared at her, wanting to demand she take it back. He didn’t want her to change a bit. He’d fallen in love with her madcap ways and the scandalous things she said, and the fact she was so astonishingly, vibrantly alive. He could say nothing else, though, as Jack came and opened the door.

  “Right, we’re on. You’ve got a private cabin, lord. They’re arranging for someone to show you to it.”

  “Thank you,” Max said, stepping out of the carriage and helping Phoebe down.

  She looked out across a grey sea, the waves topped with little white fringes, and swallowed hard.

  “Oh, dear,” she said.

  Chapter 8

  My dearest Papa,

  Please don’t be cross…

  ―Excerpt of a letter to The Most Honourable Lucian Barrington, Marquess of Montagu, from Miss Phoebe Barrington.

  My Lord Marquess,

  Lucian,

  I hardly know where to begin.

  I’ll marry her.

  ―Excerpt of a letter to The Most Honourable Lucian Barrington, Marquess of Montagu, from The Right Hon’ble Maximillian Carmichael, Earl of Ellisborough

  8th April 1827. Calais, Pas-de-Calais, France.

  “Are you feeling better?”

  “Yes, thank you,” Phoebe said, lying through her teeth. She was damned if she would be any more of a nuisance to Max, though. As it was, she was burning with mortification and she had never missed Pippin more in her life. Pippin would have known what to do, and would have had some disgusting mixture at hand, which would have made her quite well in no time at all.

  Pippin was not there, however, but tucked up comfortably in a neat little cottage at Dern. Phoebe sighed. As someone who rarely succumbed to so much as a sniffle, to have been brought so low by seasickness was incomprehensible and infuriating. Yet, no amount of willpower could rule her ungovernable stomach, and she’d been violently ill for the entire crossing. Worse still, it wasn’t even that rough, according to Jack. She could have wept at that information, handed over so cheerfully once they were back on solid ground. Not that it felt solid. It was still swaying and pitching as far as her stomach was concerned, though they’d been disembarked for the best part of two hours. It had taken an age for Max to bribe the necessary officials, as she did not have a passport, and neither did Jack nor Fred… a fact which had not even occurred to her.

  In exasperation, he’d finally been forced into telling a whopping lie and had told the douanier they had just eloped and were just newly married, so he had not had time to put her on his passport. This, at last, had convinced them—this being France, after all—and they had let him go.

  Phoebe glanced up at him, remembering how kind Max had been when she was ill, and how utterly horrified she still was at having had him see her in such a revolting state. To have such a man treat her so gently, holding the basin for her to be sick into…. Oh, she wanted to die. She was still in the dress she had worn last night, which was crumpled and wrinkled beyond saving. Her hair was a mess, as she’d not had the energy to put it to rights, and she was well aware she looked a fright. How was
it only now, when he’d seen her at her very worst, when she’d dragged him into this terrible situation, that she saw what she had failed to notice before?

  Max was rather wonderful.

  He’d not once reproached her for entangling him into this ungodly mess, or for forcing him into a marriage he could surely not look upon with anything but regret. By neither word nor deed had he made her feel the least bit to blame, when she knew it was entirely her fault. Not only was he kind and patient and unfailingly good-humoured, he was also dreadfully handsome.

  Phoebe watched him covertly, studying him for perhaps the first time, and discovering herself unsettled by what she saw. She’d always thought the grey hair at his temples made him look rather severe, but it was more that it gave him an air of gravity, of dependability, of a man who would never let you down. Something she now knew was true. His dark eyes—which she’d believed so disapproving—were in fact warm and full of humour, and crinkled at the corners when he smiled… which he did far more often than she might have credited, especially given the circumstances. He also had a square jaw with a little cleft, which was rather adorable, and that she was itching to touch. If she were honest—and Phoebe was always honest—it wasn’t the only bit of him she wanted to touch.

  She remembered last night, when he’d rescued her from her bindings—rather heroically, now she came to think of it—and she’d thrown herself at his neck. He’d been warm and so solid, and when he’d eventually put his arms about her, it had felt…wonderful. So wonderful she’d not wanted to let him go, startled by the rush of feeling she’d experienced in his arms. He had only done what he ought, to comfort her as she’d been overwrought, she knew that. If he’d wanted her in his arms, she supposed he’d have been a bit more enthusiastic about responding to her, but she could hardly blame him. She acted abominably, and now he’d been forced to offer for her. The most terrible part of it all was, she was beginning to see marrying Max in a new light, but he’d only offered because he had to. The idea made her feel sick again.

  So, she was turning over a new leaf. She would be a well-behaved, polite, young lady. She would no longer be a hoyden, but behave with decorum and perhaps… perhaps, if she tried very hard, Max would decide that marrying her wouldn’t be so bad.

  ***

  Once Max had dealt with the bureau of the customs house, he’d been quite out of temper. Despite being an English lord, or perhaps because of it, he’d been subjected to a rigorous search, from his boots—the polished shine of which was now smeared with fingerprints—and even the band of his hat, for heaven’s sake, followed quickly by an interrogation as to his purpose in France that would have satisfied the Spanish Inquisition. What the douaniers expected an English earl to be smuggling out of the country he could not fathom, but then he remembered Baron Alvanly had smuggled a priceless artwork and decided he’d best keep his mouth shut. Still, it was not the treatment he was used to, and even the saintliest tempered of men would have found themselves hard pressed to withstand it with equanimity.

  That Jack and Fred passed by relatively unmolested did not help matters. Next, they were inundated by touters, that breed of fellows who snapped up passengers and all but press-ganged them into staying at the hotel for which they worked. The Hotel du Bourbon at least employed a commissionaire, which meant they did not have the further indignity of presenting themselves and their passports at the Marie. The price of this service was so shocking Max almost protested, but one look at Phoebe’s wan face told him she needed to rest, and so he swallowed his ire and demanded they be taken to their room at once.

  The moment Phoebe was settled, with a maid in attendance to help her with her toilette, Max sought out the manager once more. The rather inappropriately named Monsieur Joly was a neat, prim little fellow with a small perfectly shaped moustache. The pince nez that perched so precariously on the end of his nose seemed to defy gravity, and Max watched in fascination for the moment they gave into the inevitable and fell off.

  “There was a mishap with my wife’s luggage on the journey here,” Max said, wishing he was better at lying through his teeth and determined to be as inscrutable as Montagu by the time this adventure was over. Practise made perfect, after all, and he had the daunting premonition that he was about to get practice a-plenty. “And she is in urgent need of a new wardrobe. I trust that you can accommodate her needs here in Calais.”

  The manager’s eyes grew very wide behind his ridiculous spectacles, which quivered on his nose. “Mais, monseigneur, you tell me you stay only one night and leave in the morning, c’est impossible!”

  “Nothing is impossible, Monsieur Joly,” Max said curtly and placed an outrageous pile of gold coins on the manager’s desk. “Not if one is suitably motivated.”

  Monsieur Joly’s eyes lit up and he returned a confident smile. “Mais, oui, monseigneur, you ask, and I, Monsieur Joly, will provide.”

  “I felt sure you would,” Max replied dryly. “If you would be so good as to send our dinner to our rooms. A light supper for Lady Ellisborough, if you please. She suffered rather on our journey over.”

  “Ah, le mal de mer, is an ’orrible thing, monseigneur.I will have something prepared, light as a feather, oui?”

  “Oui,” Max replied with a distracted nod, feeling somewhat overcome as he realised it was the first time he had referred to Phoebe as Lady Ellisborough.

  Lady Ellisborough. Lady Phoebe Ellisborough.

  His chest felt tight with hope, and a tentative happiness he had all but given up on. Well, she might not have the title legally yet, but in his heart it was hers and always would be, if only she would take it.

  ***

  Phoebe awoke in the early evening as the pleasant scent of food drifted through the room. Sniffing appreciatively as her stomach gave an audible and hopeful growl, she sat up and then squealed with alarm. Max nearly leapt out of his skin, almost dropping the silver domed cover on the dish he’d been inspecting.

  “Oh, I do beg your pardon,” she said, once more mortified.

  Lud. What a ninny he would think her. They were travelling as man and wife, were they not? Of course they would share a room. Only, this was Max, who was always so conventional, and she had assumed that… that….

  Phoebe held the bed covers up to her neck as she realised she was wearing nothing but a thin shift, and Max hurriedly replaced the cover and turned his back.

  “Forgive me,” he said, sounding a little strained. “They just brought the meal in and… and the bedroom is rather warmer than… and I thought it would look odd… but…. You need not worry. There is a perfectly comfortable day bed in the attached sitting room. I shall sleep there. Don’t… Don’t be alarmed.”

  This rather awkward and disjointed statement made her feel even more a fool as she realised that of course, of course, Max would not think of her in such a way, let alone take advantage of her. He was far too much the gentleman for that.

  “It’s quite all right,” she said, striving to sound calm and matter of fact, as if she dined with gentlemen in her rooms all the time. “It’s only you gave me a start. I did not expect to see you in my room.”

  “Naturally,” he replied and, though his back was turned, she could hear the smile in the word and blushed. How ridiculous. “I believe you will find a dressing gown on the bed. I have made arrangements for gowns and shoes and… and everything else you might need to be brought to you by morning.”

  “Goodness,” Phoebe said, impressed. “So quickly. However did you manage it?”

  “Well, I haven’t yet, but let us hope the manager has managed it, at least.”

  Phoebe laughed and reached for the dressing gown, which was a rather lovely deep plum velvet, and very warm and snug, if a little too big. “Did you bribe him or bully him?”

  “Oh, bribery, of course. I detest bullies.”

  Phoebe laughed. “I’m glad to hear it. You may turn around now.”

  “Are you feeling better?”

  “I am,” Phoebe
said, moving towards the table. “And I’m famished.”

  “Excellent.” Max pulled out a chair for her and she gave him a swift smile and sat down. “It all looks rather good.”

  It was, and Phoebe practically inhaled two bowls of soup, which Max insisted she must have to ensure her stomach was quite recovered, before attacking the carbonnade flamande. A traditional local dish, it was a beef stew with a distinct sweet and sour flavour, and was served with a spiced bread which was quite delicious.

  “More?” Max asked politely, viewing her empty plate with an amused eye.

  Phoebe blushed, realising she’d barely spoken to him at all, too intent on feeding her face. Good heavens, what a mannerless hoyden he must think her. She cast the dish of stew a regretful look and shook her head.

  “No, thank you. I have had sufficient.”

  “Stuff,” Max said with a chuckle. “You’re still ravenous, and you’ve some colour in your cheeks at last. Come, have a little more, to please me.”

  Phoebe stared at him, wondering if it were possible to fall in love with a man for offering her a second helping instead of looking disapproving when she took it. It seemed to her to be perfectly reasonable to do so.

  “Thank you.”

  Max gave her a generous second helping before serving himself, and they ate in companionable silence for a while.

  “That was excellent,” he said with approval, pushing away his empty plate. “And this claret is very tolerable. Perhaps we should buy some wine whilst we are here. The cellars at Ellisborough could do with replenishing. I’m afraid I’ve rather neglected them, not being much of a one for entertaining. At least, I haven’t been,” he added hurriedly. “I don’t particularly care for hunting parties, and one needs a wife for… well. I should enjoy giving parties and balls, if… if you should like to.”