“With grace and dignity as befits your station, my lady.” Miss Wood swung open the window, letting in a breeze redolent of the ocean, mingled with the tavern’s stables on the other side of the yard. “Besides, I expect us to be leaving Calais the day after tomorrow. That’s scarce time for any intriguing, no matter how determined.”
“You are too cruel, Miss Wood!” cried Diana, hurling one of her pillows across the room at the governess. “Too, too cruel!”
“So you’ve often said, my lady.” Unperturbed, Miss Wood plucked the pillow from the floor beside her, smoothed the linen with her palms, and returned it to the end of the bed. “But you’ll have to tolerate my decisions, especially now. There was a letter waiting here at the inn for me from Monsieur Leclair, the gentleman His Grace your father engaged as our bearleader.”
“‘Bearleader,’” Mary repeated, unable to resist the silliness of the expression. “It sounds as if we’re his pack of she-bears in some vagabond circus. Why aren’t they just called guides?”
“Because they’re not, my lady,” Miss Wood said patiently. “In any event, Monsieur Leclair’s mother has been taken grievously ill, and he begs our understanding and forgiveness while he makes arrangements for her. Instead of attending us here in Calais, with our leave he shall join us in Paris instead.”
“Of course he’ll have our leave,” Mary said. “Poor Madame Leclair! She should have her son with her. We can manage perfectly well on our own from here to Paris.”
Diana smiled mischievously at Mary. “You are so independent, Mary.”
“It’s an admirable trait to possess, Diana,” Mary said, praying that Diana would offer nothing more incriminating. “Especially whilst traveling.”
Miss Wood nodded with approval. “That is true, my lady. We’ll have our two days here in Calais, and then on to Paris. That was the itinerary approved by His Grace your father, and we shall follow it even without Monsieur Leclair to lead us.”
Two days, thought Mary with regret, and one of those days was nearly done. Miss Wood and Father had been wise to leave no time at all for intriguing in Calais. Their only miscalculation had been which daughter had longed for the intrigue.
“Oh, monsieur, I do not believe I could allow that,” said Madame Gris, the innkeeper’s wife, guarding the doorway to the private dining room as conscientiously as any royal sentry. The Coq d’Or had its reputation to maintain as a respectable house, especially among the English gentry. “The young lady is dining alone, and wishes not to be disturbed. Her governess and her sister—the mal-de-mer, you see.”
“Then all the more reason, madame, that the lady’s in need of company and cheer.” John glanced down at the bouquet he’d brought for Lady Mary, a confection of pinks and roses gathered in a paper frill and red ribbon, the way that the French did so well. Other times, he would have simply sent the flowers, but given this was bound to be a hasty flirtation at best, he’d decided to bring his offering himself.
But Madame Gris still shook her head, her plump chin shaking gently above her checkered kerchief. “This is no scandalous house of assignation, monsieur.”
“Keep the door open, madame, and listen to every word that passes between us,” John said, placing his hand over his heart. “I swear to you that not even a whisper of scandal will pass my lips.”
The innkeeper’s wife stared at him with disbelief. Then she tipped back her head and laughed aloud.
“You’d laugh at me, madame?” John asked, striving to sound wounded, yet unable to keep from joining her laughter. He never had been able to feign earnestness, and he hadn’t succeeded this morning, either. “You’d laugh at my humble suit?”
“‘Humble,’ hah,” she said, giving his arm a poke with her finger. “I’d wager you’ve never been humble about anything in your life, monsieur, a fox like you! Go, go, take your posey to the lady, and plead your heart to her. But mind you, the door stays open, and if I hear one peep from her—”
“No peeps, madame,” John said, winking wickedly as he slipped past her. “Only the greatest gratitude for your kind understanding.”
Madame Gris laughed and jabbed at John again, her good humor following him as he headed down the hallway to the small private parlor at the end. The inn had welcomed its respectable guests for the last two hundred years, and the wide old floorboards creaked beneath John’s feet, and he had to duck his head beneath the age-blackened beams overhead. Yet the whitewashed room before him seemed to glow, the windows with their diamond-leaded frames open to the bright summer morning and sunlight falling over the girl.
Lady Mary was sitting in a spindled armchair with her back to the half-open door. Her hair was loosely pinned in a knot on top of her head, the sunshine turning the escaped tendrils dark red. She was dressed in a simply cut white linen gown with a wide green sash around her slender waist, the style that the French queen had first made so famous, yet now was associated almost entirely with English ladies. Lady Mary wore it well, the simplicity suiting her creamy skin and dark hair and the full, layered skirts, falling softly around her chair, made translucent by the sun.
Yet what caught John’s attention first, and held it, was the delicate curve of her neck, the pearl earrings gently bobbing on either side of her throat. With her head slightly bent over her dish of tea, her nape was exquisite, the vulnerability of it almost heartbreaking.
His weight shifted, just enough for his foot to make the floorboard beneath it squeak. She twisted around in her chair and caught her breath, a slice of bread with jam forgotten in her fingers.
“You!” she cried, her cheeks flushing a furious pink. “How did you come here? How did you find me?”
“Calm yourself, Lady Mary, please, I beg you!” he exclaimed, holding one hand palm up to signal for quiet, and the other brandishing the flowers. He’d told Madame Gris that she could interrupt if she heard the girl object, and he had no doubt that the innkeeper’s wife would enjoy doing exactly that. “I don’t mean you the least bit of harm!”
“Oh, no, no, I didn’t intend that.” Hastily she rose to her feet in a swirl of white linen, the bread still in her hand. “That is, you have surprised me, but I—I am not upset. Not in the least, not when—oh, blast!”
A forgotten, glistening blot of red jam dropped from the bread in her hand and splattered on her arm, barely missing her white sleeve. She dropped the bread, grabbed the napkin from the table, and slapped it over the jam, pressing the cloth there as if she feared the errant jam would somehow escape to shame her again.
John smiled: not only because he knew he was the cause of her being so discomfited, but because that extra blush and fluster was a side of her he hadn’t seen at Dumont’s. There she’d been so much in control of herself that she’d been able to steal the painting away from him. But now—now she was as rattled as a cracked teacup, and all because of a blot of jam.
“I’ll have you know I’m not like this, my lord,” she confessed. “Not generally. Not at all.”
“I’m not like this, either,” he said. “Rising at this unholy hour, begging Madame Gris for entrance, startling ladies at their breakfast. Not like me at all.”
“Of course it’s not.” She rubbed the napkin over her arm one last time to make sure the jam was gone, crushed the napkin into a lumpy knot, and stuffed it under the edge of her plate. “I wouldn’t give you permission to walk with me yesterday, but if you ask to take breakfast with me now—even though it’s a meager sort of French breakfast, without eggs or meats—why, I shall agree.”
“You will?” No matter how confident he’d been before, he hadn’t expected this invitation. Not that he meant to accept it. Because he half expected her sister or governess to join her at any moment,