The Return of the Prodigal (7 page)

She turned away from him, to hide her smile. He really was a dear man. Pretty, yes, like one of the statues in her
papa
’s gardens come to life. But now, now that Loringa’s potions were slowly leaving his body, he was more than just a pretty man, a sad man. He was bright, he was amusing. His eyes shone with intelligence; they were no longer unnaturally bright with fever, or dulled by Loringa’s endless parade of mysterious potions.

She’d have to be even more careful now. Play the silly fool with even more determination.

There had been times, during the long summer and early fall, that the dark center of his eyes had gone so wide that she could barely see the beautiful blue-green around them. That had frightened her, so that she’d halved the amount of medicines Loringa had directed her to give him, pouring the morning measure into the bushes and giving him only the late afternoon dose.

Had that been a mistake on her part? Had it been a mistake to leave the medicines behind entirely, and bring only the laudanum, in the chance she needed to control him?

“Lisette? Are you going to spend the evening staring at the wall?”

She sighed, closed her eyes a moment, and then turned to face him once more. Time again to be the silly servant girl. “I am going to order a bath. Very hot, so I can soak my poor, aching self. Do not disturb me, Mr.
Fielding,
for you would do so at your great peril.”

“Mr. Henry Fielding,” he said. “I’ve always aspired to be a writer, you know—Mrs. Fielding.”

“A writer is it? Then you should aspire higher than this man whose name I have never heard.”

“Perhaps. But Mister and Mrs. Will Shakespeare might have sounded suspicious, even here, in the back of beyond. If we have need of another name, however, I’ll let you choose.”

“That would be more sensible. Cervantes.
Papa
would read Cervantes to me. I would like to be Cervantes.”

“Or his creation, the one who tilted at windmills. That ended rather badly for them all, you know.”

“Oh, just keep stuffing your face and don’t tease me,” she told him, picking up the remainder of the bread she’d buttered, for she was still hungry. “We will still reach this Ostend of yours tomorrow? You promise?”

“Depending on how strong I feel, tomorrow or the next day, I promise. And then, if we’re lucky, and the tide is with us, we can be in Dover in a matter of hours. Six, probably. Four, if we were on one of my family’s—Well, never mind.”

“One of your what, Rian? One of your family’s
ship
s? You own ships?” Lisette’s mind was whirling. Smugglers owned ships, didn’t they? Smugglers like the men who had nearly destroyed her
papa
’s own smuggling operation meant to funnel English gold to Bonaparte. If Rian’s family was made up of smugglers, and if the
gad
meant anything—and it had to, didn’t it?—then she was perhaps only days from coming face-to-face with her papa’s greatest enemies twice over. Would Geoffrey Baskin himself be among them? Was she soon to come face-to-face with the man who had caused her mother’s death?

“I didn’t say we owned ships.”

She wouldn’t allow him to put her off. “No, but you might have said that, if you hadn’t stopped yourself because you don’t trust me. Are you rich, Rian Becket? The boots are good. The uniform fit you very well, not like our poor French soldiers, who followed Bonaparte this last time in rags and tatters. Was the
Comte
right to think you were worth much to him, that you would help refill his coffers that were emptied by the years of war?”

He looked at her levelly, his eyes, always so expressive, grown suddenly cold, and she knew she had pressed too hard even before he said, “I thought you were longing for a hot bath.”

But she had to push at him just once more. By tomorrow evening they might be aboard ship. If she was to change her mind, abandon her idea of going with him without her
papa
’s men to follow, keep her safe, she had to make up her mind now. Could she really do this on her own?

Once they were aboard ship, on their way to England and his home, it would be too late to ask herself that question.

She jammed her fists onto her hips. “Why don’t you trust me, Rian Becket? I’m here with you, aren’t I? I saved you from the
Comte
’s plans for you. And what are my thanks? To be told to follow you blindly, perhaps even now with your seed growing inside me? I’m afraid to sleep, for fear you’ll leave me now that we are so close to your home. I would not be the first servant girl to be so badly used.”

“My—sweet Jesus,” Rian said, dropping his head into his hand. “How Spencer would laugh, the way I laughed at him….”

Lisette stepped closer to him. “Spencer? Who is this Spencer?”

“My brother, one of them,” he said shortly, shaking his head. He looked up at her, a thin white line around his mouth. “Call the innkeeper, Lisette. I need him to fetch me a priest.”

“You’re dying?” Lisette asked, her eyes going wide even as she swore mentally and slapped herself for at last going too far, saying too much. Dear God, the man had honor! How could she have not realized that. “You wish absolution?”

Rian got to his feet, and she quickly backed up two paces.

“You’ve been coming to my bed for over a month, Lisette. You’re right. There could be a child. Christ! What’s wrong with me? Why didn’t I even consider such a thing? How could I be so selfish!”

She spoke even as the words formed in her brain. “You needed comfort, Rian Becket. You needed to want to live, and I did nothing I did not want to do. To help you. To comfort me, because I, too, was all alone. There is no baby growing inside me, Rian Becket,” Lisette told him fervently, hoping that was true. “You have been sick. Your seed could have no strength, yes?”

Rian laughed, a bitter sound. “It was strong enough to get from me to you, Lisette,” he said, and then sat down again. “Never mind. No priest. Not now. But the minute we’re back at Becket Hall, there
will
be a marriage.”

“I will not marry you, Rian Becket,” Lisette told him with some heat. “I am not a silly innocent, to be looked upon with pity. Besides, your family, this family that owns ships? They would not want a servant girl to marry their beloved son.”

“You’re the daughter of a teacher. An Englishman. You’re perfectly respectable, Lisette, probably more respectable than I am,” Rian reminded her, so that again she cursed silently, caught up in her own lies.

“We will not speak of this now,” she told him, her heart pounding. “I go to order my hot bath. You stay here, you stupid man, and stop thinking stupid things that will not happen.”

She all but ran out of the room and then hobbled painfully up the stairs to their assigned bedchamber, closing the door behind her, leaning against it as she attempted to catch her breath, wincing as her sore backside hit the door.

“Merde!”

She was a catastrophe, from head to toe. Unable to sit, unable to think, cut off from all aid by her own rash decisions.

Could there be a child? No, that was ridiculous.

But possible. What a pigheaded person she was, to not think about something so very possible! She was being so clever, bringing Rian Becket closer and closer to her, gaining his trust, which she seemed to be losing as Loringa’s potions left his body, and his secrets, which he still held so tight.

Yes, and saving his life, making him want to live when he was in the depths of despair, believing himself half a man with his left arm gone. She had done that, hadn’t she? Helped him prove he was still a man?

That was what had prompted her to do what she’d done. She’d done it in a desperate attempt to get him to talk to her, and to save his life.

Unlike the other four with the name of Becket. Those four men Loringa had told her about, laughing in that evil way of hers. Men Lisette had never seen, never met, yet prayed for every night on her knees.

Just as she prayed that her
papa
had a very good reason for doing what he had done.

And he did! She knew the reason, Loringa had explained it all to her. She was a motherless child because of what this horrible Geoffrey Baskin had done, how he had hurt her
papa
so many years ago.

A privateer, not a pirate. A husband and father, not a murderer. A man betrayed by his best friend.

She had considered every measure, any means, justifiable, if Rian Becket would lead her
papa
to Geoffrey Baskin, or to the brutal men who had sailed with him.

She wanted to please her
papa,
this man who had given her over to the nuns and then gone off to recoup the fortune he had lost thanks to his traitorous friend, to build a new life for his daughter. For too many years she had been alone, not knowing she was loved, until he had come to the convent just this past year.

The
Comte
Neuveille Beltrane. She would never forget the day he’d arrived at the convent and introduced himself to her, told her who he was—who she was, that she was the picture of her dead
maman,
that she was also his daughter. So darkly handsome, dressed impeccably, with lace at his throat and cuffs. His grand carriage and the beautiful white horses in the traces, there to take her up, whisk her off to his country estate, and then take her to Paris, outfit her in the best silks and satins, introduce her to a world she had only read about in books. For her, he’d told her—he’d done everything for her, the child of his beloved Marguerite.

Lisette’s life this past year truly had been like something in a dream.

She loved her
papa.
Of course she loved him. She was no longer an orphan, no longer alone. For her, every orphan’s fantastical daydream had come true. Yes, she wanted, needed, to believe him. And, in return for all that he did for her, she would do everything in her power to please him.

Her mysterious, sometimes unnervingly strange
papa.
How ungrateful she would be to question him, to question anything about him.

But, increasingly, she did.

Lisette closed her eyes, and the voice of her conscience, or perhaps her guardian angel, tapped on her shoulder, began to whisper….

Those other four poor men, Lisette, singled out to be taken, simply because a name had been said two years previously, a name that could or could not mean something important?

Four men, all dying of their wounds? How had they come by those wounds, Lisette? In battle? All four of them?

Think, Lisette! This dream you wanted for so long could be a nightmare.

Loringa. She frightens you.

Your
papa
’s friends. They disgust you.

And do you remember the way your
papa
had looked when he’d said that Rian Becket would die for touching you without permission? Not for touching you…but for touching you without his
permission.
Wasn’t that a strange thing for a father to say?

Lisette? Are you listening, Lisette? How much can love and hope be made to believe before it begins to ask questions?

Lisette slapped her palms to her ears, as if the action would shut out those damning questions in her head.

She had other questions to occupy her mind. The most important of those, the most practical, was to wonder how long, having been left behind when she and Rian had sneaked away in the middle of the night, her
papa
’s men would wait at Calais before they reported to him that they had lost his daughter, and what her
papa
would do when he was so informed?

Would he set out himself, to find them? Would he blame her? For what did this man who had left her alone with the nuns for so many years love more? Her? Or his revenge?

R
IAN LINGERED
in the private dining room for more than an hour, alternately thinking about his welcome at Becket Hall, and the infuriating woman probably currently sweet smelling and rosy in the room he would share with her that night.

Increasingly, thoughts of Lisette won out over thinking of his family’s reaction when his hired coach drove up to the front door and he banged on the knocker.

Perhaps she was still in the tub.

He could find out. It would be a simple matter of climbing the stairs….

Where in blazes was this man the innkeeper had promised him when he’d inquired about purchasing a pistol and small sword? He should have gone out on the streets of the town himself, found a shop, and been done with the thing. But there remained some small chance they could still be followed by the
Comte
or his hirelings, and that was a chance he didn’t care to take.

Just when he had finally given up on the innkeeper’s promise, drank down the last of the wine in his glass and gotten to his feet, there was a loud, booming knock on the door, followed by the depressing of the latch as that same door opened all at once, slammed back against the wall.

Before Rian could actually think through the action, he had grabbed the wine bottle by its neck and smashed it against the side of the table, spraying glass and wine everywhere. He was holding the top half of the bottle like a weapon when the door filled with the shape of one of the largest men he’d ever seen.

“Oh…shit…”

“Here, now, Luis says you’re a gennelmun. Don’t sound like that to Jasper, it surely don’t. Don’t look like it, neither,” the man said, bending his head so that he could clear the lintel. “What are you planning to do to Jasper with that there thing, boy? Stick him?” He stopped just inside the doorway to scratch at the side of his immense head. “Jasper supposes you could try.”

Rian looked at the broken bottle in his hand and smiled, tossed it over his shoulder so that it smashed on the floor. “No, that’s all right. Jasper can just step on me and be done with the thing. So you’re the man the innkeeper tells me can provide me with a pistol and sword? I hadn’t expected a fellow countryman. Come in, sit down. I’d offer you some wine, but I’m afraid the last of it just met with an unfortunate accident.”

“Jasper sees that,” the man said, pulling back a chair and seating himself. “Jasper thinks you’re a gennelmun with a problem?”

“And Jasper would be—that is, and you’d be correct,” Rian said, retaking his own seat once he’d satisfied himself that no pieces of the wine bottle were on it. “You’re English.”

“Accordin’ to Mum, an’ unless she played Da false, God rest both their souls,” Jasper said, nodding. “Came here to run off Boney, and thought the countryside pretty enough to stay a while. But it’s good to hear Jasper’s own tongue, that it is. Still a bunch of us tarryin’ around here, but not so many as before. Been thinkin’ o’ goin’ home, Jasper has. You, too, sir? Jasper says ‘sir,’ thinkin’ it’s an officer you’d be. Got the look.”

“Lieutenant. Lieutenant Rian Becket, late of the Duke of Wellington’s staff,” Rian said, rather surprised to think of himself as still being in the army. He supposed he’d have to sell out now, as there couldn’t be a great need for one-armed lieutenants. “And you?”

“Not half so fancy as you, rubbin’ elbows with the Iron Duke,” Jasper said, sending Rian a rather mocking salute. “Jasper Coggins, private, First Army Corps, deserter. That’s what some might call it. Jasper calls it having enough after that bloody mess they call Waterloo and not wantin’ to chase that upstart Boney all the way to Paris a second time. So Jasper thinks of goin’ home, but doesn’t do it.”

“You’re probably listed on the rolls of the dead, like me,” Rian said as the innkeeper stuck his head in the open doorway. “Another bottle, my good man, and a glass for my friend.”

“A mug of your own homebrewed ale, Luis. Jasper has no truck with none of your wine.” He hooked a thumb at the empty doorway when the innkeeper had gone. “You’ll owe him for that bottle, you know—the broken one. Uses the bottles again and again, agin’ that stuff of his a full fortnight before sellin’ it to travelers what won’t be back this way again.”

Rian grinned. “Is that your way of saying I should have joined you in a tankard of ale?”

Jasper tapped his huge, bulbous nose. “On the spot, Lieutenant. Now, what is it Jasper can do for you?”

“I was hoping for a pistol, Jasper. And a small sword as well. Can you manage that?”

“French, English, or Prussian? Short, long, plain hilt, silver hilt—though no jewels in any, more’s the pity. Take your pick, Lieutenant. Jasper did, right there on the battlefields, from La Belle Alliance to Quatre Bras. Not ’til everyone had packed up and taken themselves off, mind you. ’Til then, Jasper was helpin’ bury our own poor bastards, diggin’ holes for more’n a week. Just took what was left then, you understand, fixed it all up fine, using parts of one to mend the other. Makes his own shot, Jasper does. Used to be a smithy, back in Shrewsbury. Pistols, rifles. Even got me a Froggy field cannon tucked up under a tarp back of Vachel’s privy. Supposin’ you ain’t wantin’ one of them. Not a lot of call for cannon these days. Thinkin’ of meltin’ it down, Jasper is.”

“Jasper, you’re a bloody thief,” Rian said in true amusement.

The man pulled at the edges of his thick woolen jacket, tugging them across his chest, although no stretch of the material, or the imagination, could ever make the two sides come together. “Jasper is that, yes, sir, Lieutenant. Twice over, once he tells you how much a pistol and sword will put you back. Toss in the shot. Jasper isn’t heartless, seein’ as how you look like a man what needs protection.”

“Because of this?” Rian said, bristling, as he held up his shortened sleeve.

“No, never said that,” Jasper said, motioning to the bits of green glass and spilled wine on the table between them. “Because of that. Who were you expectin’, sir, Boney hisself?”

Rian had been prepared for just such a question. “No, Jasper, not Boney. An irate father. I’m eloping, taking my beloved Lisette to England to marry me, live with my family. Her father objects.”

Jasper nodded. “Because you’re English.”

“No, because Lisette is already promised to a fat old man she despises, but who has offered a bride price her father would be loathe to give back. I fear he is in hot pursuit even now. I felt the need to arm myself—not literally, of course. That’s not possible,” he ended, smiling at his use of words.

The big man thanked the innkeeper for the tankard he’d set down in front of him, and then waited until the man had also uncorked the bottle for Rian and left the room, closing the door behind him. “So it’s young love, is it? Jasper likes a good story. Do you have another one for him, or are you plannin’ to go on with that one?”

“I beg your pardon?”

Jasper lifted the tankard and drank for the space of six seconds. Rian knew this, because he counted.

“Ah! A fine start to a good evenin’, that, don’t you know. Takes a liar to know a liar, Lieutenant. You’re a liar.”

Rian propped his elbow on the table and rubbed at his mouth, hiding his smile. “Is that a fact? And how would Jasper—how would you know that?”

“‘Cause you told Jasper flat out. No protectin’ the lady. Just flat out said so. Coulda said she was your sister, but you didn’t. Bam! Got me a fine, pure lady upstairs, trying to make hell-bent for the coast with her. So what you really got, Jasper’s thinkin’, is a not so fine, pure lady upstairs, and another reason entirely for thinkin’ someone’s huntin’ you both.” He ran his tongue over his top lip, as if to capture any last taste of the ale. “You kill somebody? Won’t have no truck with that.”

“We killed no one,” Rian said, searching his mind for something plausible to say, something Jasper would believe. “But you’re correct, Jasper. I was lying to you. Partially. The woman traveling with me is less the daughter of the house than a servant in that house. And perhaps we availed ourselves of some personal items—jewelry, for example—before taking our leave.”

“Now, see, how hard was that? Availed, is it? That a fancy word for stealin’? Can Jasper see it?”

“The jewelry?” Damn, the man was persistent.

“That’s how you’ll be paying Jasper, right? Can’t be nothin’ too fancy, or else there’ll be questions Jasper can’t answer.”

Rian shook his head. “There’s no need. I’ve also got some gold. English coins. Three of them are yours, if you can produce what I need.”

“Three, is it? Very well,” the man said as he got to his feet. “Jasper would have said two, but three it is. You’ll wait here?”

“The morning will be soon enough, thank you,” Rian told him, once again thinking of Lisette waiting for him upstairs. “But before you go, Jasper, I have another proposition for you.”

Jasper lowered his huge frame into the chair once more. “You want the cannon? Got six balls for it, too.
Six.
And the powder and fuses, o’course. Got a damn fine eagle stamped into the barrel. Real pretty.”

“Tempting as that prospect is, Jasper, no, I think not. But I am wondering something. How badly do you wish to return to England?”

“Not bad enough to hang.”

“Ah, but you were injured, Jasper. Grievously injured, cut off—no, abandoned—by your company, left to die. It’s only now, healed once more, that you are strong enough to return to your homeland. Why, Jasper, you’re a hero.”

Jasper grinned. “Is that so?”

“You most certainly are. And I, a member of Wellington’s own staff, will swear to it,” Rian told him, lifting his wine glass in a salute. “If, that is, you agree to accompany Miss Lisette and myself to Dover.”

“Dover, is it? Jasper isn’t all that good with such things as maps. A soldier like Jasper, he just marches where he’s pointed. And how far would that this Dover be from Shrewsbury?”

“Far enough. You’re not a forgettable man I grant you, Jasper Coggins, but there are places in England where a man can live out his life happily without ever seeing Shrewsbury again. I come from one of them.”

“Do you, now,” the big man said, folding the ham shanks that were his arms over his broad chest. “Would there be the need of a smithy in this place you come from?”

Rian shook his head, thinking of Waylon, their own smithy in Becket Village. “No, I’m sorry. But Waylon’s getting on in years, and perhaps he could use an assistant who could possibly lift up the entire horse while he shoes him?”

Jasper’s smile was so wide it was as if someone had just lit several candles in the small dining room. “That’d do Jasper well enough. Weren’t no smithy in Shrewsbury. Just the helper. Told you, Jasper’s a liar. So where is this place so far from Shrewsbury?”

Rian had been taught never to say more than was necessary about his home, but Jasper Coggins was the sort of man who would fit Becket Village like a glove. Alone in the world, not averse to bending the king’s laws. “My family’s home, Jasper, in Romney Marsh. If you help me return there with…with my friend, there will be a welcome and few questions waiting for you there. After all,” he said, grinning, “you saved my life.”

“Is that a fact?” Jasper comically peered into the bottom of his empty tankard. “Luis is making this swill stronger. Jasper’s head is swimmin’. Because he don’t remember doin’ no such thing.”

“Don’t worry about that. My friend—Lisette—is what you’d call a fair treat at making up stories. We’ll have a grand one for you by the time we leave here tomorrow morning. If you’re willing. And whether you choose to stay in Romney Marsh or not, there will be a fine reward for delivering me safely there. That I can promise you.”

Jasper wrinkled his brow, clearly in deep thought. He sat that way for some minutes while Rian mentally counted up the benefits of having a man-mountain like Jasper in his employ.

At last Jasper said, “We’ll be wantin’ more’n the one pistol, the one sword. Won’t we, Lieutenant? For this angry father?”

“Possibly, Jasper. I won’t say there will be no danger involved in accompanying Lisette and me to the coast, getting us safely to England.”

“From the father,” Jasper said flatly. “You know, Lieutenant, Jasper may not look it so much, but he didn’t come down in the last rain, neither. He’s smarter than that. Sometimes takes a while, but Jasper knows how to think. And Jasper looks at you, and wonders. Ain’t lookin’ so good, Lieutenant, sir, if Jasper can say so. Kind of white around the gills. You been sick? Maybe locked up, away from the sun? Ain’t no father lookin’ for you, is there? Somebody else. Somebody bad. That’s why you want Jasper to help you get clear of this place. Ain’t none of this for love, now is it?”

“Perhaps I should leave the lying to Lisette,” Rian said quietly, shaking his head. “Very well, Jasper, the truth. I think someone is after me. I don’t know who, I can’t be sure as to why, but someone definitely wants something from me.”

“But not the woman?”

“To a degree, yes, the woman as well. But there’s more than that. More that I really can’t discuss with you now. I need to get to my home, Jasper, the woman and me both, and we need to get there as quickly as possible, without being followed. For your help, you will be rewarded. That’s all I can say.”

“Jasper does want to go back to England. Haven’t had a decent raisin puddin’ in a long time. And there ain’t hardly nobody what speaks the good King’s English, not no more. Not since Willie left for New Castle last month, saying he’d had enough of foreigners bein’ knee-deep all over the place.” He slapped his meaty palms on the tabletop and got to his feet. “It’s settled then. Jasper will take you home.”

Rian closed his eyes for a moment, relief flooding him. “Thank you, Jasper. We’ll meet here again, in the morning. Is that time enough for you?”

The big man nodded. “Jasper moves easy enough. Can’t be waitin’ for customers to come to you, right?”

“I don’t understand.”

“You will, tomorrow mornin’. Jasper will be out behind the inn, waitin’ on you and the lady.”

“With the pistol, and the small sword.”

“With a lot more’n that, Lieutenant,” the big man said, grinning. “A whole lot more’n that. A fine thing, this, meeting up with you. Ah, Jasper’s already tastin’ good English ale!”