She made it downstairs to find Beau in the library reading a dispatch.
“Your friend was more efficient than I’d anticipated,” she said. “I didn’t expect anything ’til noon.”
“It isn’t from Nate,” he said, walking over to tug on the bellpull.
Billings came almost at a run.
“Ask the Hall if we might borrow a carriage,” he said. “And tell Hawkins to ready Ares for me. It seems we are going to be releasing you all back to your positions, Billings. I am needed at Delamere. As soon as we are gone, go ahead and close up the house. And I will be writing a glowing report to the duchess about everyone’s service here.”
Billings gave a bow worthy of obeisance to a minor prince. “It has been our pleasure, milord. Glad we satisfied. What about…?”
Beau flashed him a quick grin. “Our apprentice groom? Put him under Hawkins’ wing as soon as possible and reinforce the sad fact that his mother may not know until we tell her. Oh, and is the messenger still downstairs?”
“He is. Said as how he was to return an answer.”
Beau nodded. “Then feed him up and I’ll have something for him to take back as soon as may be. Please close the door on the way out.”
Billings had no more than shut the door before Beau turned concerned eyes on Pip. “Are you all right?”
Pip lifted up on her toes and dropped a kiss on his mouth. “Is it too trite to say I feel like a new woman?”
It might not have been trite, but it definitely crossed the line of intimate, certainly in the daylight hours. Beau did her the service of returning her kiss and then moved to put the desk between them, leaving Pip to feel as if he had run as far as he could from what they had shared. It was all she could do not to chase after him, just like she’d always done.
“If the message isn’t from your friend,” she said instead, “who is it from?”
“Drake,” he said, pulling out paper and pen. “I am needed in London immediately.”
She frowned. “I thought you said Delamere.”
He didn’t look up. “I am going to London. You are going to Delamere. I will leave immediately on horseback as if I am responding to an emergency at the estate, but I will be going on. You will support the fiction that we were needed at Delamere by proceeding to the estate in the carriage with your woman and Sullins.”
Pip sank into the armchair across from the desk. “Does it have to be Delamere? Couldn’t there be an emergency in, say, Bath? Paris? The Antipodes?”
Beau didn’t stop scratching his message. “The excuse must be believable. We cannot give away the fact that we know anything. Drake has decoded our message. The guns are meant for riots that are to be blamed on luddites and protests against the corn laws, but are organized for the sole purpose of destabilizing the government.”
“You’re certain it isn’t because I convinced you to be intimate last night?”
Beau looked up and she could see the distress in his eyes. After what they had shared she couldn’t bear it. So, she focused on the business at hand.
“And the assassinations?” she asked.
Beau dropped his attention to whatever he was writing. “Will happen, I imagine while the population is being distracted by the civil unrest.”
“And will be blamed on that as well?”
Beau briefly looked up. “Smart girl. We need to vacate as quickly as possible so the guns can be moved, and Nate’s people find out where exactly. We still don’t know.”
Pip got to her feet. “I shall let Joyful and Sullins know to prepare our things. I will also need to bid farewell to the duchess. Do I also say goodbye to your aunt and uncle, or are they hopefully already gone if we are to support this fiction?”
Beau looked up, looking disconcerted. “If you see them tell them instead that it is your grandmother’s property across the road that has the crisis. A fire in the house, perhaps. Which is why you must stay at Delamere.”
She took a moment to look out onto the fields that swept away up towards the hall. “Will Robbie be safe in the stables? For that matter, will Hawkins? I hope to take Macha with me.”
“Once we get away they can both go up to the hall.” He looked up, thinking. “As a matter of act, why not tuck the boy in the carriage when it comes and drop him off when you see the duchess. One stable is as good as the other.”
Pip climbed to her feet. “Are you sure it has to be Delamere?”
Pip met with an implacable gaze. “I don’t want you in London, Pip. There will be nothing there for you to do.”
