“Non! I know a way. Your hat will hide most of it. Pity you’re so fair. We might have blackened your face. But, you’ll do. Luckily, you’re petite; you might be a young boy. But don’t look directly at people. Avert your eyes. Leave the talking to me.” She removed a tall black hat from the peg.
The hat was too big, but once Henrietta’s hair was cunningly arranged by Mademoiselle, the high crowned hat sat firmly atop her head.
Mademoiselle dressed in a tight waisted oyster gown, a kerchief fastened with a cameo broach covering the low neckline. Her redingote was charmingly decorated with peridots in sky blue and her gloves the same blue. Her tall coffee-colored hat matched her shawl, which was also adorned with blue peridots. Her blonde hair was arranged in curls down her back. “I am, how you say, a widow of the haute bourgeoisie.” She put a gloved hand to her small waist. “A little behind the latest fashion, and not too rich, but not too poor either.”
“Won’t your troupe be angry if you are not here for a performance?”
She shrugged. “Not with Mrs. Siddens in the play. Her portrayals of Ophelia and Lady Macbeth are legendary. My understudy is competent and will be only too delighted to fill in for me.”
They left the theatre and crossed to where the coach waited. The coachman gaped. He grasped the edge of the box. The wide-eyed groom jumped down from the box. “Please fetch the trunk,” Verity said.
“Why do we need a trunk?” Henrietta asked. “It will make our journey more difficult.”
“Because I am a well-to-do widow. Without baggage I will appear suspicious. And we shall need the extra clothes I assure you.”
“On to Portsmouth, John, and as quick as you can,” Henrietta ordered, forgetting that a page displaying such authority would be noticed immediately. Fortunately, the pavement was empty.
The coachman drooped on the box. “But, Lady Henrietta, I am instructed to take you home to the country.”
He received a ferocious glare for his pains. “Portsmouth, please. You are not to tell a soul where I’ve gone. It is a matter of life and death. I must have your promise.”
“Life and death?” James, the groom’s voice rose an octave. He turned to stare at the coachman who shrugged and attended his horses.
Henrietta climbed into the coach behind Mademoiselle. She enjoyed the freedom of movement the boy’s clothes afforded her. In this attire, she could handle herself well in a skirmish. She could ride astride quite well, in fact she preferred it. She hoped she’d get the chance.
The carriage jingled down the road. They had embarked on a great adventure, and Henrietta would be thrilled but for her father. Was he walking into a trap?
* * *
Christian Hartley, his mahogany cane resting over his shoulder, strolled toward Brook Street, having just left the Horse Guards in Westminster. He’d received his orders and would leave London in two days’ time. While he waited to cross the street, he barely acknowledged the coach drawn by four thoroughbred gray horses. He’d not been able to get a certain young lady out of his mind. He kept seeing Lord Beaumont’s daughter, Lady Henrietta, her elfin face, and bright green eyes lit by moonlight on that carriage ride from Vauxhall. She sparkled with a youthful vigor he seemed to have recently lost. When she’d lifted her chin to him, he’d been tempted to kiss her. Thankfully, he’d resisted the urge. Wise to resist the attraction. He wasn’t in the market for a bride.
Lady Henrietta had expressed her very real concerns for her father and her uncle, Baron St. André. He could do nothing to help. He was hamstrung by his own commitments. Hopefully there would be a happy outcome. An English lord would carry some weight with the French. On this mission he planned to forget all about the lovely Henrietta. He wasn’t foolish enough to succumbed to the charms of a green girl. He wanted nothing more than to retire to his house in the country and fish for trout in his river. If he survived this mission, he would do precisely that.
Christian attempted to banish her anxious face from his mind as he went over the details his spymaster had given him. He took no notes committing his instructions to memory. At the corner a carriage pulled up to allow a crossing sweeper to sweep the road for two ladies waiting to cross.
A page in a black hat gazed at him from the carriage window where a lady traveled. The page’s big green eyes rested on Christian. They widened. The page’s rosebud mouth formed an ‘O’ before the boy pulled down his hat and quickly turned away. Christian stood rooted to the spot. The coach moved off again. Was he seeing things? Was Lady Henrietta’s visage burned into his brain? Those eyes. That mouth. He stared after the vehicle. The carriage turned a corner, and he checked the crest on the door panel. Beaumont’s!
Christian watched it disappear. He whipped off his hat and raked his fingers through his hair. What was that young lady mixed up in now? She had the devil in her. Hadn’t he just rescued her from a scrape before it turned nasty? In all his eight and twenty years, he’d never encountered anyone quite like her, and as his work involved him in all sorts of situations that was saying a lot. She wasn’t alone, Mademoiselle Garnier accompanied her. Where were the two of them going?
He ran out to signal an approaching hackney. He had another briefing in the morning, but would call on Beaumont at Lady Belden’s tomorrow afternoon, damned if he wouldn’t.
