“GOOD GOD, SIR, WHAT now?” Meriel cried, forgetting her hunger and giving thought to nothing but their immediate danger.
The priest had leapt to his feet, but even as he replied hastily that the situation was clearly altered, he continued to seal his letter. Turning at last to face her, he said tersely, “There can be no thought of your remaining here another moment, mademoiselle, for if they have reason to believe you are in this house, they will make a search. Fernand will take you and your maid by the back way to the river. Trust him. He will see you safely to the coast by the water route. No one will detain you, and your progress will be nearly as swift as by road, for the current will be in your favor, after all. If you depart at once—as, indeed, you must,” he added, cocking an ear toward the sounds of horses and men outside in the street, “you will arrive at the village of Lillebonne at the mouth of the Seine before dawn, which is of utmost importance, because now you must not use your American papers. Fernand will find another way. There are persons—”
“Free traders,” Meriel breathed, her eyes lighting with excitement.
The priest shook his head, but his lips quirked in involuntary amusement. “You are a strange one, mademoiselle. One expects a proper lady to be repulsed by such a thought. ’Tis more likely Fernand’s friends will be fishermen, but I confess it reposes my soul to know that you will not derange yourself if an untoward eventuality should come to pass. But now, there is no time. Allez!” He pressed his letter into her hand and took the liberty of giving her a firm push in the small of her back, turning her toward the hallway, where Gladys Peat, fairly dancing in her agitation to be off, already waited beside the stoic Fernand.
The servant soon showed that he could bustle himself, however, for at the first creak of the front gate, he hissed a warning at Meriel and Gladys, who followed him rapidly down the hallway through a tiny but immaculate kitchen, where they found the two portmanteaux from the chaise awaiting them. Then, with Fernand snatching both of these up to carry one in his left hand, the other under the same arm, they sped out the kitchen door into a small garden. There was a scattering of stars and a slim crescent moon overhead, scarcely enough to light their way, and Meriel and Gladys followed the man more by guess than by sight. As they crossed the garden, Meriel heard a clamorous thundering on the front door of the cottage and hoped desperately that none of the visitors—for she was certain there must be an entire patrol after them—would take it into his head to look round the back.
Fernand led them past a small shed at the rear of the garden, then through a swinging spring-hung wicket gate, which led onto the towpath beside the river. Turning quickly to his left, he said over his shoulder in a low tone, “Along here, mam’zelle, we must hurry. We are too exposed until we reach the bend. Then there is a boat, and safety.”
There was silence behind them now, and her heart was in her throat as she followed the wiry Fernand, but there was excitement within her as well. She glanced at Gladys Peat. The dim light made it difficult to see more than the woman’s shape, but Meriel could tell by her rapid breathing and the stiffness of her posture as she hurried along that Gladys was deeply frightened. She reached out a hand to press the maid’s shoulder reassuringly, but Gladys made no response except perhaps to move a trifle faster.
At the bend, heavy foliage overhung the narrow path, plunging them into pitch darkness, forcing them to slow their pace. Only the reflected glitter of the stars and the threadlike moon on the river told them where path ended and water began. Thus it was that when Fernand stopped suddenly, Meriel bumped right into him. He gave a grunt, then set down with a heavy double thump the two portmanteaux he had been carrying.
“The boat is here, mam’zelle,” he said, moving toward the shrubbery at the bank. “I regret the necessity, but I shall require assistance.”
“Of course,” she said briskly. “Show us.”
Again by feel more than by sight, they located the boat, which proved to be a wooden rowboat that Meriel was certain could be little more than six feet long and surely not big enough to hold the three of them along with the two portmanteaux.
Despite the fact that once they had dragged it to the riverbank, righted it, and pushed it bow-first halfway into the water, the little boat proved to be closer to eight feet, Gladys clearly shared her misgivings.
“I ain’t setting foot in that thing, m’lady,” she said firmly. “We’ll be drownded certain sure.”
“Nonsense,” Meriel said weakly, gulping as she watched the bow of the boat begin to bob about as the current attempted to snatch it from the shore. Indeed, the craft seemed dangerously small to carry them all along the fast-moving river.
Fernand heaved it further up onto the bank again, then turned and disappeared into the darkness, only to reappear within seconds, carrying two oars, which he fitted carefully into the oarlocks. He had said nothing in response to Gladys’ refusal to get into the small boat, but now he loaded the portmanteaux, one in the bow, the other between the two seats. Straightening again, he turned to the women.
“We must go,” he said simply. “To wait is to invite danger.”
When Gladys balked again, Meriel said, “’Tis this or prison, Gladys, and I won’t go without you, so you needn’t think it.”
Gladys stared at her, then looked at the little craft. “We’ll be killed.”
“No, madame,” said Fernand calmly. “A small craft serves our purpose better than a large, more conspicuous vessel. Moreover, it moves more quickly upon the current. You will see.”
He took her elbow and urged her gently toward the boat. Meriel heard Gladys give a long sigh, but the poor woman said nothing more, merely allowing Fernand to assist her into the boat and uttering a sharp gasp when it lurched with her shifting weight.
“Bend, madame,” Fernand suggested in that same calm tone. “Hold to the sides as you move, else will you dampen yourself.”
Meriel heard a chuckle from her handmaiden then and knew that Fernand’s understatement had done much to reconcile Gladys to her fate. A moment later she, too, was in the boat beside Gladys, her back to the bow, and Fernand was pushing them off. For one horrifying moment she thought he meant to send them on their way alone, but at the last possible instant he pushed off with his feet, shifted his weight to his hands, and deftly swung himself into the stern seat, facing them.
When the current seized the small craft, it bobbed and weaved for several nauseating seconds before it steadied itself and began to move forward purposefully. “Gracious,” Meriel exclaimed, making an effort to keep her voice low, “we are flying.”
“The current, she moves at something more than twenty kilometers in the hour when the tide flows out at Le Havre,” Fernand explained, unshipping one oar in order to adjust their course when an eddy midstream expressed momentary determination to fling them toward the opposite bank. “She will slow for a time when the tide turns, but still we will go rapidly. But is best we not speak, mam’zelle,” he added after a brief pause. “The sound, she flies too well over water, and your voice is not that of a Frenchwoman. Best you should sleep if you can.”
Meriel nodded, but how she was to sleep in that tiny boat, she knew not. She could scarcely lean against Gladys, who was as tired as she was, and with the portmanteaux beneath their feet and in front of the narrow seat upon which the two of them were perched, there was little room for experimentation. At last, when exhaustion made it possible for her to ignore such things as the corner of one portmanteau digging into her ribs, and the unnatural angle in which her body found itself, she managed by stuffing her reticule into the space between to find a nearly prone position across both seat and baggage that would allow her at least to doze from time to time.
None of these little naps lasted above a few minutes or so, for just as she would begin to doze, the creak of an oar in an oarlock or an unfamiliar sound from the shore would jerk her into wakefulness again. Beside her, Gladys Peat was faring no better. At one point, exasperated, Meriel offered to take the oars from Fernand, assuring him that she had often managed a tippy coracle on far wilder rivers than the Seine.
“No, mam’zelle. I do not know what is this thing, a coracle—”
“A Welsh boat made mostly of hoops and hides but surprisingly reliable nonetheless,” she interposed, her smile sounding in her voice.
“Ah, then I must not doubt your ability with an oar, must I? But for you to row would be to cause comment. We have passed few other boats, and we shall likely pass fewer still as the night advances toward the dawn, but ’tis better I should keep the oars in hand. Are you sufficiently warm?”
Until he mentioned it, she had not thought of the cold. Her cloak was a warm one, but the damp chill of the river penetrated nevertheless. Only her toes and left side, the side away from Gladys Peat, were really uncomfortable. But now that he had brought the matter to her attention, she could think of little else. Mentally taking herself to task for dwelling upon what could not be helped, she assured him that she was well enough, then turned her thoughts toward London and the family, wondering if Lady Cadogan was truly finding her charges burdensome. They were a lively lot, to be sure, and her ladyship had little confidence in her ability to make them mind her. It was that lack, Meriel was certain, which gave the children to believe they could take advantage of her. No doubt one or another of them had got into a scrape by now. Really, she decided, she ought to have departed for London long since. By now the Season would be half gone, and she would not be astonished to discover that Eliza fancied herself promised to some entirely unsuitable young man or that Gwenyth and Davy had driven their aunt to distraction with their squabbles and mischief. The sooner she returned to take up her duties again, the better it would be for everyone concerned.
The breeze increased noticeably, reclaiming her thoughts to her physical discomfort. This trip was certainly nothing to compare with her earlier journey. How comfortable everything had been then, how pleasant. Then, with amusement, she recalled such details as storms at sea, a boatload of sick passengers, a shipboard assault, and a thief in the night. Odd how those matters had drifted to the back of her mind, leaving her with only pleasant memories. Breakfast on the road, fascinating conversations, her every wish seen to, her every comfort assured. Not that it would have been so, she admitted, had she followed through with her original intention to travel alone. Her regrettable experience at the inn in Rouen had proven that much. Without Sir Antony’s capable assistance, she would no doubt have suffered as much on that trip as she was suffering on this one, only for a longer period of time. The chaise would certainly still have broken down. Sir Antony had proved most useful.
A small, guilty suspicion stirred that she was not being entirely fair to Sir Antony. He had made it clear, after all, that he liked looking after her. No doubt he had enjoyed their flirtation as well. He had never attempted to kiss her again after that one time, so she flattered herself that she had managed to flirt without giving him any false notion that she would be amenable to improper advances. As the thought crossed her mind now, she sighed, conscious of a strong wish that he had kissed her again. But since the mere wish set her nerves to tingling, and since Sir Antony was doubtless interested in nothing more than mild flirtation—even, she reminded herself firmly, if she had the time or inclination for anything else—it was just as well that she would probably never see him again.
Somehow this thought, too, struck her as false. She shifted her position slightly, attempting to find comfort where there was none to be found, and bent her thoughts once more to the large, lazy, but eminently capable gentleman. She wondered what had been his thoughts upon discovering that she had left Paris. Despite what she had said to Nest, she was nearly certain he would not have gone away without first being assured of her safety. Would he be distressed to learn that she had left Paris without first discussing her plans with him? She rather thought, now that she came to dwell upon the matter at length, that he would be annoyed. A smile twitched upon her lips when she decided that what would undoubtedly annoy him the most would be the fact, when he learned of it, that she had left quite half of her wardrobe behind. That, he would say, had been careless and unnecessary. She had got her priorities wrong again, he would say. She ought better to have left her reticule behind.
By imagining such foolish scenes as this, she managed to while away the hours between Rouen and the coast so well that when the little boat suddenly bumped against the shore, she was unprepared and was nearly betrayed into a startled shriek. As it was, she managed to stifle all but a small gasp, and even this noise was sufficient to bring down a reprimand upon her head.
“Silence, mam’zelle,” Fernand whispered, carefully removing one oar from its oarlock in order to use it as a pole, standing up to jam it into the river bottom, then pushing with all his wiry might. His energy brought Meriel to her senses. She moved to stand up also, thinking that she could turn and clamber over the portmanteau in the bow to the shore and thus help haul the boat to safety. “No, no, mam’zelle,” Fernand warned quickly.
His words came too late. She had already discovered that her legs were numb and her body too stiff from the river’s chill to serve her properly. Lurching sideways, she landed in Gladys’ lap, bringing a loud “Oof” from that lady, who awkwardly attempted to upright her again.
Meriel giggled, then clapped her hand over her mouth, astonished to hear such a sound from herself. Suddenly she felt like crying, but she managed to straighten herself, clasping both hands firmly in her lap and wondering how in the world she was going to get out of the little boat without making an utter fool of herself.
She felt the scrape of solid ground beneath her as the boat settled, and Fernand uttered a sigh of relief. “Now, mam’zelle,” he said very quietly, “if you will allow the liberty, you and Madame Peat, I must attempt to climb between you, for I fear that neither of you is in any condition to alight unaided.”
They made no objection, and he was able to make his way to the bow of the boat. Once there, he leapt briskly to the shore and turned to extend a hand first to Gladys Peat and then to Meriel, who was able with such assistance to clamber awkwardly out of the little craft. Walking was another matter.
“I’m sorry,” she said after her first attempt, “I cannot.”
“You must, mam’zelle,” Fernand said urgently. “This is not a safe place. There are houses just beyond those bushes.”
She shook her head, slumping down against the bank. “My legs simply will not cooperate, Fernand. They are filled with pins and needles. If you can let me have just fifteen minutes to rub some proper feeling back into them—”
“Impossible.” He looked right, then left. The village of Lillebonne appeared to be asleep, but the darkness did little to reassure him. “We must still find my friends, mam’zelle.”
“You find them,” she said, “Gladys and I will await you here. You will be safer going alone, anyway, and I believe the two of us can contrive to keep out of harm’s way while you search your friends out.”
He hesitated, but decided, as she had been sure he must, that she was right. A few minutes later, curled up next to Gladys beneath a leafy bush, Meriel fell fast asleep.
She was partially awakened sometime later by a rough shake, and moaned irritably when the indignity was repeated.
“Wake up, Meriel,” commanded a familiar voice. “Wake up at once. What on earth are you about, to have fallen asleep like this when your very life is at stake? Unnatural brat, wake up, I say!”
She stirred, wanting to open her eyes but failing miserably. She was simply too tired. She had been ready to drop when they reached the priest’s cottage, and that had been hours and hours ago. Who dared to try to waken her now? The shaking went on until her teeth threatened to fly from her head, and she opened her eyes at last to mutter indignantly, “For heaven’s sake, would you kill me?”
“Cheerfully,” came the unexpected response. “Sit up, damn you. At once.”
She managed to obey, hearing an authority in the tone that she could not remember hearing from anyone since her father’s passing. Though her eyes were open, she could not see well enough to make out the features of the figure leaning over her, a figure so large as to block out all light from the reflections in the river. Since she knew it could not logically be the one person she would most like it to be, she shook her head, trying to clear it and succeeding only in making it ache. It was protesting, no doubt, the shaking it had already endured.
“Come now, get up. We must go at once.”
While she was still attempting to accept the reality of that voice, she heard Gladys say, “Come, come, m’lady, stir your stumps. It don’t do to keep Sir Antony waiting now he has found us.”
Meriel frowned, allowing the large man to help her to her feet, then slumping sleepily against the solid bulk of his warm body. “Sir Antony? But it cannot be. Sir Antony is still in Paris.”
“The deuce he is,” said the deep voice close to her ear. “Not that you might not wish he were still there when I’ve done with you, my girl. How dare you be so foolish as to leave without waiting for me!”
“What?” She struggled to stand upright and succeeded well enough that she was able to peer up at him through sleep-filled eyes. “You are here.”
“Indeed, I am, but what the devil you are doing here is what I should like to know.”
“We came in a boat,” she said, fancying that she spoke with great precision of mind.
“Only from Rouen,” he reminded her. “Before that you were on the road playing at being Americans for the entertainment of the French military. You idiotic female. For that alone you deserve to be well thrashed. Do you not know the penalties in this country for traveling with false papers?”
“We bubbled them neatly,” she said, yawning and leaning gratefully against his solid body again. “You will scarcely credit it, sir, but I lost my temper twice and that answered the purpose excellently well. Are we leaving now?”
He sighed in resignation. “We are. Fortunately, your man came across us near the village harbor. I had been near frantic with worry for your safety before that. But all is well now. We have friends here with a boat, and there is a yacht waiting offshore to take us home. Can you walk?”
“Oh, yes,” she murmured, still disoriented and scarcely able to take in what he was saying. “I daresay I have been able to walk for a good many years now, sir.”
“Don’t try me too far, my lady,” he said grimly. “Within the hour we’ll be where it will no longer matter if you make a bit of noise.”
“Sir,” said Gladys in anxious haste, “she knows not what she says. Indeed, an I mistake not, she be still more than half-asleep. Don’t let go of her when she tries to walk, I beg you.”
“I won’t. Carruthers, get those bags, will you? It looks like I’m going to carry her ladyship.”
Meriel opened her mouth to tell him that it was Fernand who accompanied them, not Carruthers, who was no doubt safely locked up in a French prison by now, but before she could form the words, an unmistakable cheerful voice sounded out of the darkness, assuring Sir Antony that everything was well in hand. What on earth Carruthers was doing there, she could not imagine, but the effort required to ask was too great. When she felt herself lifted into a pair of strong arms, she gave up with a sigh of contentment and leaned her head into Sir Antony’s shoulder. That was the last thing she remembered other than vague imaginings having to do with another small boat, rough voices, and a sort of swinging sensation that made her think she had been hung out to dry in a cool breeze. The sensation passed quickly, however, and the next to come was one of softness and warm comfort. After that, there was not so much as a dream to disturb her until the soft gray light of morning touched her face through a round brass porthole in a mahogany-paneled wall.
Slowly she opened her eyes, feeling at once the rocking motion that she associated with shipboard life. She was at sea. A second, even more exciting thought followed hard upon the first. She was out of France. She was safe.
Then, as memory of the previous night returned, she remembered Sir Antony with a vague but distressing notion that he was vexed with her. Sitting up, she looked around to discover that she was in a small mahogany-paneled cabin in a narrow cot fastened to the interior bulkhead. There was another cot under the porthole, but it was presently empty. The two portmanteaux sat side by side upon the floor nearby.
Noting that she was clad only in her shift, she swung her feet to the floor, intending to search for something to wear, when a noise from the door sent her scrabbling for the gray woolen blanket. Snatching this up to her breast, she watched wide-eyed as the door to the cabin opened slowly and silently. But the face that peered cautiously around it a moment later made her grin, relaxing.
“Come in, Gladys. You needn’t fear to waken me.”
Gladys Peat came inside with a responding smile. “Sir Antony bade me let you sleep, m’lady. He could see as well as anyone that you was exhausted.”
“A poor honey he must think me,” Meriel said ruefully, “but all those late nights in Paris, and then the excitement of our journey—I suppose anyone must have been tired out by all that.” She paused, regarding her handmaiden searchingly. “Is … is he angry, Gladys?”
“Oh, I daresay he’s recovered his temper by now, miss. If he were a bit cagged like afore, ’twas only that you gave him a scare.”
Meriel nodded, but she was still wary of her first meeting with Sir Antony. As it transpired, after looking at her searchingly as though he would determine for himself whether she ought to have risen from her bed, he smiled at her and shook his head, his amusement setting his eyes atwinkle.
“You look well,” he said. “Are you hungry?”
“Famished,” she replied, grinning in her relief that he was no longer angry with her. His behavior, as always when she knew she had vexed him, surprised her, but she believed she was coming to know him better at last. He was simply not a man of strong emotion. Though she had seen his temper flare occasionally, it always burned itself out quickly. No doubt, for him to sustain it would be too wearing.
Still, she thought, it was as well that he did not know the power of his least frown or blandest smile to disturb the order of her mind and body. That twinkle in his eyes just now, for example, and the sensuous way his lips parted slightly as he watched her, stirred her blood and warmed her from the center of her body outward to her fingertips and toes. She felt as though he had kissed her, which was absurd, of course, since he was across the room. Her tongue darted out to dampen suddenly dry lips. Really, she decided, this warming sensation made one much too aware of one’s own body and was not something a lady ought to allow her thoughts to dwell upon. She quickly turned her attention to filling her breakfast plate.
The trip across the Channel was a swift one, whiled away in the playing of backgammon and three-handed whist. The subject of their hasty flight was avoided, much to Meriel’s relief. Since they were all safe now, she had no wish to hear the gentlemen’s comments regarding her escape and thus did not inquire into theirs.
Only once, when they had docked in Portsmouth and Meriel, at the request of a stern-faced customs agent, produced her British passport without ceremony from her leather reticule, did Sir Antony look at her with anything other than warmth and lazy amusement in his eyes. Then, for a fleeting second, she saw what appeared to be a glint of near-fury. The look disappeared at once, however, when the agent turned to ask him for his papers, and she told herself firmly she must have imagined it.
Sir Antony booked a parlor at the George for their comfort while he arranged for a post chaise to carry them to London, and Gladys and Meriel were sitting comfortably in a sunny window embrasure enjoying tea and cakes when he and Mr. Carruthers returned. The men pulled up a pair of chairs and sat down, Mr. Carruthers immediately beginning to examine the platter of cakes, while Sir Antony poured the two of them glasses of Mountain from a decanter sitting cheek by jowl with the teapot.
He sipped appreciatively, then said, “The chaise will be ready in half an hour, ladies. ’Tis all of seventy miles and more to London from here, so I’ve told them we’ll rack up in Guildford for the night. I hope that meets with your approval.”
“Could we not reach London tonight?” Meriel asked him. “I should prefer to delay as little as possible now we are back in England.”
“Even a fast chaise would take all of eight hours, ma’am, and that only if the roads are clear and in good condition.”
“Well, they cannot help but be in better condition than the road from Paris to Rouen,” she pointed out.
He smiled. “True, but you will not wish to arrive in Berkeley Square in the same condition that you arrived in Lillebonne, and you will be all the better for a good night’s rest.”
“I do not like having such decisions made for me, sir. I should prefer to make London tonight.”
“Now, Miss Meriel,” Gladys said firmly, “’twould be ten o’clock at the earliest if we set forward at once and experienced no delays along the way. You’d do better to do like Sir Antony tells you, and no mistake.”
Meriel’s temper flared instantly, but a swift glance at Sir Antony caused her to swallow before replying in a carefully even tone, “I have been too long away as it is.”
Mr. Carruthers chuckled. “You won’t see anyone until tomorrow in any event, I daresay. ’Tis Wednesday, ma’am. Unless your sister has not been provided with vouchers, which I cannot think probable, she and your aunt will be at Almack’s tonight, and if they return before two in the morning, they will be quite unlike any ladies of my acquaintance.”
She was forced to admit the truth of what he said. Eliza and Lady Cadogan would certainly attend the weekly assembly at Almack’s, for to do so was the delight of all young ladies in their first Season. To be denied the privilege was to be denied entry to the first ranks of the beau monde. And Gwenyth and Davy would be in bed asleep by the time she would arrive in Berkeley Square. Still, when she noted that Sir Antony was regarding her with a mixture of understanding and amusement in his eyes, she had all she could do to refrain from emptying the decanter in his lap.
“Very well,” she said at last, high upon her dignity, “I daresay it will be better to arrive refreshed, rather than travel-weary.”
“To be sure,” Carruthers said. “I should not wish to see you so tired as you were in Lillebonne, ma’am. You quite frightened us when Sir Antony couldn’t waken you.”
“I have been meaning to ask you, sir,” she said calmly, ignoring his comment, “how it is that you were with Sir Antony in Lillebonne. I had been given to believe that he had left Paris for a short time in order to accompany Lord Whitworth’s party some distance along the road to Calais. I realize that you charmed most of Paris into accepting your presence in their homes, but surely the British ambassador did not number among your conquests.”
Carruthers opened his mouth to respond, but Sir Antony’s bland tones were heard first. “Devilish lucky for me that he did choose to come along,” he said, “what with all those blasted soldiers at every turnpike. We left in such haste after learning that you had already departed from Paris, that without Carruthers here to show me the way to avoid the turnpikes, I’d have been dished. I had only my British papers and my original French pass, which was useless, of course. There was no time to provide myself with anything else.”
Meriel said to Carruthers, “You must know the terrain well, sir.”
“Well,” he acknowledged modestly, “in my previous trade, you know, such intimate knowledge was rather a necessity. I was glad to be of service. Even so, we were too far behind to catch up with you before Rouen, and then we arrived after the soldiers had been to the priest’s cottage—for you must know that your sister told us you had been advised to seek aid there.”
Meriel turned in surprise to Sir Antony. “Than you did not speak with Monsieur Deguise?”
“No,” he said. “We discovered at Maison de Prévenu where you had gone, and the good father was kind enough to direct us to the estuary at Lillebonne, where we were most fortunate in running his man to earth. You can imagine our distress when we saw that Fernand was alone.” His tone was light but there was a look in his eyes that gave Meriel to understand that despite what she had thought before, he had not entirely recovered from that fright. Suddenly she was grateful for the presence of the others and for Sir Antony’s strong sense of propriety.
The trip to Guildford was uneventful, and the Angel Inn proved to be neat and tidy with an excellent table. Making an early night of it, they set forth early the following morning and accomplished the remaining miles to London with admirable speed, arriving in Berkeley Square not long after eleven o-clock. Speeding around the southern end of the square, past the magnificent grounds of Landsdowne House and beneath the tall plane trees of the central garden with its statue of George III on horseback, the chaise rolled to a halt before Traherne House, located in the center of the square’s west side.
The house was just as Meriel remembered it. Ordinary enough from the outside, it was four stories tall, three bays wide, and constructed of yellow brick with elaborate rustication around the deeply inset front door. As she allowed Sir Antony to assist her from the chaise, she kept her eye on that door. One of the postilions dismounted and ran up the steps to exercise the brass knocker, so it was not long before the door was opened by a porter in green-and-silver livery, who took one look at the equipage drawn up at the flagway and gestured to someone behind him. The next moment, Marwyn appeared, and seconds later Davy pushed excitedly past both servants and ran pell-mell down the steps.
“Meri, Meri,” he shouted, “you’ll never guess who’s here!”
She had no need to guess, however, for stepping through the doorway at that very moment was a man of medium height with light brown hair and extremely broad shoulders, a man whom she could not fail to recognize, though she had not seen him in seven years. She uttered a shriek of astonished pleasure.
“Joss!”
The twelfth Earl of Tallyn had come home from the New World at last.