“Patrick, this is Daniella.” He left off her surname and the newcomer didn’t ask for it, although his brows were high as he looked between Trelissick and her.
“The events of the last few days have been taxing on her,” the marquess offered by way of explanation.
Patrick inclined his head and went back to eating his breakfast without question. Daniella huffed and glared again at Trelissick before sitting at the table where her breakfast had already been placed. Ham, eggs and toast. Simple, but it smelled heavenly. She was even prepared to risk food poisoning, so great was her returning hunger.
No one tarried. Tea was gulped rather than sipped, every last scrap eaten as though it was their last meal and not another word was spoken.
Before they left the room, Trelissick pulled her hood so far forwards she almost couldn’t see where she was going and had to follow his shining boots out into the yard, where the carriage already waited.
Hobson waited with it.
“You are staying here,” Trelissick told him in a tone that brooked no argument.
Except Hobson must have been used to arguing with Mr I’m In Charge Of The Universe. “You need me to come along. I’ll sit alongside Willie and rest for a spell.”
“And what of Mrs McDougal? How will she return home?”
“I’m not going back to the city with her. She’s a big gel and can make it without a nanny. I gave her money enough to hire a sparkling new carriage and riders to accompany her if that is her wish.”
“You have it all sorted, haven’t you?”
Hobson grinned but his pale face gave truth to the lie that he felt better.
“Very well, but if you’re going to be sick, you’ll have to carry the bucket.”
“Already up there.”
“I will ride with Miss—” he stopped himself “—with Daniella, Patrick will ride behind and you will go with Willie.”
Hobson shuffled forwards a few steps until he was close enough to talk into Trelissick’s ear. Daniella leaned in to hear what was said.
“Are you sure this boy can be trusted?”
“No more than the girl can be.”
Daniella gasped in outrage but the answer seemed suitable to Hobson. He climbed the carriage and dropped down next to the driver’s seat, his mussed hair blowing in the wind, his booted feet crossed at the ankles.
Trelissick opened the carriage door and bowed to her in his first real public show of chivalry. “After you, m’dear.”
Her chin rose as she stepped up without taking the hand he offered and settled herself against the squabs in the farthest corner from the door. When she could no longer stand the silence, she snapped, “What of this Patrick? How do you know he isn’t an agent for my father sent to check up on me?”
“Is he?”
James lifted his head and stared at Daniella for a moment too long. He had resolved not to let her draw his temper out today but resisting that was an almost impossible feat.
She shook her head after a few moments. “I don’t know. He isn’t one of my brother’s cronies nor one of my father’s regular sailors.”
“I think he’s just an ordinary lad in need of a few guineas and company for the road.” If he disappeared without word, then James would know he’d wrongly placed his trust in the boy.
“I hope not.”
“If he is a spy for your father, why not steal you away in the dead of night?”
Daniella smiled that knowing smile that made him itch to shake her. “My father would know I don’t require his assistance to escape you if he’d been watching so far.”
“Wrong. I sat outside your door last night so no such attempt by you or he would have worked.”
She rolled her eyes and he had to curl his fingers into his palms. She really needed a good shake. It might rattle her common sense loose from wherever it had fallen.
“You don’t think much like a military man. Were you very good at it?” She gaped with more theatrics than a Vauxhall actress. “Don’t tell me you were an officer? One of those who stayed in a tent while the others risked their necks for king and country?”
“You show your youth when you mock something you know nothing about.”
“And you show your ineptitude when you leave me in a room with an unlocked window and an unconscious chaperone. My father is probably rolling on the floor with laughter waiting for me to tire of you and make my own way.” The next emotion to cross her big green eyes was a thoughtfulness that worried him.
“You are not going anywhere on your own. I wouldn’t even give you one day until you were molested or worse.”
Her cheeks tinged with pink and James settled back, confident he’d won the argument.
For now.
*
The stranger who was no longer quite a stranger rode at the rear of the carriage for a few miles and overheard the heated conversation drifting from inside. He wondered for a brief moment if he should have warned the marquess that the countryside knew everything he and the girl spoke of.
Willing allies. Who would have thought?
He let some distance grow between him and the now quiet carriage so he could think clearly. Seeing the crested conveyance leaving the city as he’d made his way back to Trelissick’s townhouse had been a stroke of luck indeed. Only now he had no clothing and not enough food in his saddlebags to last very long. The effect was that he appeared penniless and in need of a traveling party.
He couldn’t have planned it more perfectly.
Now all he had to do was divine the right time to recruit Miss Germaine and find out what the hell was going on.
Once they’d left London, he became less convinced about the facts of the whole situation, but for the moment he would have to wait it out. It wouldn’t do for Trelissick to start asking questions about why he was asking questions.
If the all-powerful marquess knew
