Lady Merry's Dashing Champion (15 page)

Dizzied from being carried near upside down so unceremoniously, Meriel spoke in a thin voice: "I could scarce talk if allowed." She felt the distinct need to point that out to him.

She had no doubt that Giles would use almost any means to silence her. His rank and manhood demanded he master her. The wonder was that he had not already done mayhem upon Felice for her debauchery. That he hadn't was all the more to his credit. He deserved the best a woman could give, which made her own deception of him a great wrong. "What will you do with me?" Her voice trembled.

His hand hovered before her mouth, then dropped to his side, and he set his face away from hers. "You need not be frightened, if you do not call out to your fellow pranksters."

"As you well know, they are part of the king's merry gang. They are not
my
pranksters."

His lips twisted with bitter sarcasm, his famed wit entirely missing. "Have I here a victim of a vile kidnapping?" But he turned his face away from her to save his determination from the innocence she managed to so artfully display on that beautiful face and in those tender, trembling lips.

Meriel did not try to answer him or quiet his anger. She could not tell him that calling to those raucous lords was the last thing she would do even if Nell were not leading them away at this moment. She could not tell Lord Giles anything at all. 'Od's grace! Though she never gave in to self-pity, at that moment she felt sorely tempted.

Because she could not look on his hero's profile without feeling great confusion (she refused to call it lust), she was the first to see the lanterns of a small ship moving toward the shore. She recognized it for the kind of shallow draft coastal ketch she'd seen many times come up the Stour River to the markets at Canterbury.

"Ah, they received my message and here she is," Giles said, great relief in his voice. "Bid London farewell, Felice. You're going home."

Meriel almost repeated his last word, but swallowed it as she always did, so that it lay as a familiar lump against her heart. The word obviously held a deep meaning for Giles, as it did for her, though she had never had a home beyond a straw pallet in the work house or a maid's rope bed in an attic. Yet had she lived all her life within the hearing of that word, and cherished it all the more because she longed to know its truest meaning.

The Thames was now at flood, fog rolling in and tide ebbing. The ketch came in close enough for a gangway to reach the water steps. Giles handed off Meriel to a sailor. ... With a determined shove ... and jumped aboard himself, helping to pull in the gangway. "Take Lady Felice to my cabin below," he ordered, "and bar the door."

"Aye, my lord," the man said, touching two ringers to his forehead in salute.

"Giles, I must return to Whitehall, for... clothing ... and, er, my maid Agnes." He turned his face from her, but not before she caught his look of utter scorn.

"If I promise to tell you the truth," she said, desperately searching her mind for some truth that she could tell, "could I plead my case?"

"There is no truth in you."

She couldn't argue that.

The sailor knuckled his forehead, amused at the goings-on of his betters. "This way, yer ladyship, and be watchful on the low overhead."

Meriel glanced back to see Giles already in command. He stood on the rail, holding to the standing rigging of the mainsail, leaning far out to guide the helmsman tacking leeward. The wind had picked up and the ketch caught the current. Giles dipped his knees, riding his ship like a great racehorse. For an instant she felt resentful, because love and joy were writ across his face and she had not put them there.

Meriel scrambled down the wide ladder and stepped across the high threshold into Giles's small cabin, the door closing behind her. She heard a bar fall into place. Quickly crossing the small lantern-lit cabin to the stern windows, she saw that the ketch had now come about and they were heading down the Thames toward the English Channel.

She mounted the bench seat to push against the middle stern window and it opened, allowing the smell of the river carrying away all London's waste to assail her. She had ever been too tender in her nose. Still, she would wait until they came to the river's turning near to Whitehall Palace, then she would hold her nose and jump. Since Chiffinch had sent a message by Nell that the Dutch fleet was moving south and he was ready to act, she would be expected. There would be ciphers to prepare and instructions to memorize. . . . One all important: How was she to get to the enemy fleet?

And what would Chiffinch do if she did not return tonight? He would never dare harm Giles. Or would he? Thanks be. she could swim. Like all the orphans at the workhouse, she had escaped to the Stour River for swimming on hot summer evenings.

Minutes later, Meriel unlaced her gown and let it drop on the cabin deck, happily followed by her corset. She kneaded her stomach, erasing the welts left by staves, and smiling at the thought of arriving at Whitehall wet through her clinging scarlet silk petticoat, she thrust a leg through the stern window. She'd think later of what lie to tell about her attire. Now she must away, and quickly. Then she saw the dinghy bobbing below in the dark waters.

The sailor who'd brought her to the cabin grinned up at her, mostly toothless, but still able to spew a warning. "I would not do it, my lady. 'Tis colder than a whore's cunny, the river is, and my lord has promised me a guinea if I catch ye. I be swimming ter hell for a guinea."

"I'll give you
two
guineas to row me ashore."

"Ye must think me daft, my lady. As well ye know, all us Barnes's been Harringdon men fer all time. Lord Giles be sendin' a midwife for me woman when her belly was big and her all bleeding and screaming. He be the kindest, bravest lord in all England, and begging your ladyship's pardon, pull yer pretty leg back in afore I whack it with me oar."

In no doubt as to his sincerity, Meriel obeyed rather too hastily, falling backward into the cabin, sprawling on the deck, her shift over her head, her drawer ties ripped asunder.

It took her a moment to catch her breath, and then she began to giggle, a giggle that turned into a full laugh. It was so ridiculous to be kidnapped and lying near naked on a boat making way past the Tower for the second time in a fortnight. There was naught else to do but laugh.
Hey, well, nothing I try seems to be working. At least my humor still does.

Directly above, Giles leaned against the richly carved taffrail and heard all. He was not surprised that Felice had tried to escape. He'd expected it. What surprised him was the helpless laughter that followed. It was the kind of infecting glee that made others laugh though they knew not the jest. He found himself smiling before he could stop it, though he tried to close his ears. He could not allow his heart to rule his head, a head that knew all Felice's former tricks and now this new pretense at change. He moved quickly amidships to better stifle the sound of her, resting his forehead hard against the mainmast as they made passage between the pillars, the mainmast just clearing Tower Bridge, toward the open sea.

Nell raced up the king's private stairs as the sun rose, and burst into his closet to find him, always an early riser, examining one of his many pendulum clocks with Chiffinch. Breathless, she collapsed into a chair. Only two people in England—the king's spymaster and chief procurer, William Chiffinch, and the king's younger brother, James, Duke of York—had the right to enter Charles II's closet without invitation. And not even these high persons were allowed to sit if the king stood.

The young actress fanned herself with a rather bedraggled feather fan, one feather floating away, where it was immediately pounced on by the king's spaniels.

At once, the king came to Nell. "Are you not well, Nellie?" He looked over her small body, obviously not displeased and seeing far more than infirmity.

Chiffinch approached, cautious as always. "Madame Gwyn," he said, bowing.

"I have news for Your Majesty and for you, Spymaster. Lady Felice, your new agent against the Hollanders, has been abducted and spirited away by her amorous husband, I know not where." She repeated the adventures of the night, omitting the highway robbery.

Chiffinch struggled to keep his face respectful. "Your Majesty, I had not realized that Madame Gwyn had your confidence in secret matters of state."

But the king heard no censure because he expected none. Indeed, the king almost smiled. "My lord Giles is a more jealous husband than we thought. If we know our man, he has taken her to Norfolk." The king clapped his hands. "What a story we will tell when we may!"

Chiffinch was not amused. "Sir, I beg your most humble pardon, but this is a story we may never—"

"Yes, yes," the king admitted, hearing the censure this time.

"Your Majesty," intoned Chiffinch, "this is a most grievous turn. I have urgent dispatches for that lady to cipher, and instructions we intercepted from the Dutch for a rendezvous, and now that we have taken up the last of their agents, there is no way to delay them other than our Felice."

The king nodded. "Yes, yes," he said again, now obviously impatient with instruction. "We see the problem clearly, but we have full confidence that you will discover that particular lady, no doubt at her husband's estate, and settle the matter to our benefit. You may go to your duties, William."

The king now looked upon Nell with more than interest. "My dear, it is against protocol to sit in our presence."

Nell's small pouting mouth spread with a smile, since she was quite recovered. "But, great sir, is it against protocol to lie down in your presence?" She stretched her slender body, a goodly amount of pretty leg showing.

The king's eyes half closed, and he held out his hand to her.

Chiffinch hastily bowed and left by the rear stairs, closing the door rather sharply so that he could be heard departing.

By that afternoon, he had questioned Nell, gaining the full tale, which she exchanged for knowing that Meriel was a false Lady Felice, though Nell had half guessed something of the like. "Have I a rival for the Theater Royal?" she asked, laughing.

"I must swear you to secrecy," Chiffinch responded severely, having no humor.

Nell was sworn to secrecy, which she exchanged for Chiffinch's silence about the Hyde Park adventure.

While decrying to the silent walls of his office that he had ever begun this scheme, Chiffinch had also determined on a course to follow without allowing more gossiping courtiers knowledge of the plot. The king could not resist pillow talk, which meant that a dozen ladies might know before long, and every day brought the Dutch fleet closer. Their last communication with their Hollander spies in London had convinced him that they planned an attack on the capital. And soon! The English fleet was anchored in the Medway, and must be prepared to sail, lest they become a sitting target. But where and with what monies and crews? Best if his counterfeit Felice could warn them off, since she had not succeeded in ferreting out Dutch spies in the court.

It was the last gamble he could take, and if he won the wager there was surely a knighthood in it... mayhap a peerage.

Chiffinch sent for Dr. Wyndham, who was attending Admiral Cheatham's lady. It was an hour by his clock before the doctor was announced.

"You are ailing, sir?" the little doctor said, his peruke askew from his hurry, opening a tapestry bag of pills, powders, elixirs, leeches and all such nostrums.

"Nay, Doctor. I have need of your other services."

Dr. Wyndham sniffed. "I have no other service than to physic, sir."

- "You serve as royal physician at the king's pleasure, and therefore, at mine. I have need of your knowledge of a certain lady."

"I carry no tales of my patients, sir." Wyndham stood very tall, though still quite short, and Chiffinch saw the man had dignity, which was to say, self-regard. A bad thing in the spy trade, when spymasters must rule men by money or fear. Chiffinch clamped his teeth. He'd get rid of such unwanted dignity. Wyndham turned for the door. Quickly stepping behind the little doctor, Chiffinch pulled his coat over his head and kicked his arse.

Stumbling against the wall, the doctor whirled upon the spymaster. "Sir, I call you out. I am a graduate of the Universities of Padua, Bologna and—•"

"You will be a graduate of the Tower lion pens if you do not shut your gob," Chiffinch said in a low, menacing voice that had chilled many a man of higher station. "You twice gave physic to our counterfeit Lady Felice and thus are part of our secret plans against the Dutch, whether or not you wish it." He let his words have their effect. "I speak for His Majesty in this matter."

"Lady Felice," Wyndham said, straightening a peruke that was hanging off one ear. "Yes, I would help that lady in any way a true gentleman could. You have sorely used her beauty, sir, and will reap God's—"

Chiffinch put up a warning hand, wearying of teaching such a numbskull proper respect. It might take more time than he could spare. He gathered documents together from his writing table, wrapped two bundles in silk and then oiled vellum and attached two red wax seals. "You are to take these to Harringdon Hall in Norfolk at once. The smaller is for the earl, explaining that His Majesty has sent you, his personal physician, to tend his wife's health... . Her injured ankle and burn, if you will. That will ensure you are not denied. The other packet is to be delivered into Lady Felice's hands by her maid, without the knowledge of her husband. On your life, sir, promise to accomplish this."

Wyndham remained full angered. "I am no member of your secret service, Master Chiffinch. How do I accomplish such a feat?"

"That is for you to determine. Surely a graduate of universities beyond number will be clever enough..."

Dr. Wyndham listened no further, but interrupted bluntly, "What mode of transport?"

"A carriage and four will be waiting below the king's outer stairs within the hour. Lady Felice's maid, Agnes, accompanies you as my accomplished agent. You will be under her orders."

Wyndham braced himself for another assault, but raised his chin and spoke boldly. "I leave not before two hours' time, sir. My wife, Kate, is with child again and I must take my leave of her and provide for her belly sickness, which comes every morn like the sun."