The Secret History of the Pink Carnation Read online

  ‘I was afraid that was what you might have said.’ Richard smiled winningly, while taking care to move himself out of the path of the parasol. ‘You see, I also paid the captain for the sole use of this ship.’

  Miss Gwen’s face darkened alarmingly. Richard watched in some fascination as the flowers on her hat began to quiver with rage. Had she been a man, she would undoubtedly be indulging in strong language. As it was, given the ominous way she was swinging her parasol, it appeared that she was planning severe bodily harm to the captain, Richard, or both.

  The quiet girl, Jane, moved forward to put a reassuring hand on the chaperone’s arm. ‘There must have been some mistake,’ she said soothingly. ‘I’m sure we can all reach an amiable conclusion.’

  Miss Gwen looked about as amiable as Attila the Hun.

  ‘The only possible conclusion is for this gentleman to remove his person from our conveyance.’

  Richard felt himself beginning to grow annoyed. Watching the chaperone bicker with her charge had been a mildly amusing diversion, but, blast it all, he had real work to do. Important work. War Office work. And, anyway, he had been here first.

  That fact seemed like a particularly conclusive one to Richard, so he decided to point it out.

  ‘Who was here first, madam?’

  That argument had failed the Saxons in 1066; it was equally ineffectual with Miss Gwen, who regarded Richard with all the imperiousness of William the Conqueror. ‘You, my lord, may have been here first, but we are ladies,’ Miss Gwen responded with a most unladylike scowl. ‘And there are more of us. Therefore, you should cede your place.’

  ‘Why don’t we all go to the inn for a nice glass of lemonade and talk it over?’ suggested Amy hopefully.

  Neither of the combatants paid the least bit of attention to her.

  Standing back with her arms folded across her chest – highly unladylike, but then, Miss Gwen wasn’t looking – Amy watched the debacle with the avid interest she would have accorded to a duel. As the two sparred, their barbed sentences ended with incongruous civilities, like protective tips on epees.

  Lord Richard took a step closer to Miss Gwen, close enough that the chaperone had to tip her head back to see him. Miss Gwen was fairly tall for a woman, but Lord Richard Selwick topped her by nearly half a foot. His blond head loomed over the waving purple flowers on her bonnet, gleaming with its own light in the dim cabin. Unlike the men Amy had known back in Shropshire, who still wore their hair clubbed back with a ribbon, Lord Richard’s was cut short in the new French style. Lord Richard carried himself with an air of easy assurance infinitely more convincing than Derek’s swaggering. From his highly polished boots to his waistcoat embroidered in a subtle pattern in silver, he was dressed with a casual elegance that made Derek and his ilk look foppish and overdone. He had evidently anticipated being alone on the boat, because his black frock coat was tossed over a chair, his waistcoat unbuttoned and his cravat loosened. Where his collar gaped open, Amy could see the strong lines of his throat. He looked, Amy thought, like an illustration she had once seen of Horatius at the bridge, defending Rome against all comers.

  Her cheeks flushed a deep, uncomfortable red as she realised that the cords of his throat had gone still, the room was silent, and Lord Richard was staring at her staring at him.

  Amy covered her confusion by saying hastily, ‘This is absolutely ridiculous! There’s no reason at all why anybody should be forced to wait for the next boat. After all, there’s plenty of room for all of us.’ With a sweeping gesture, she indicated the four walls of the room.

  ‘Out of the question,’ snapped Miss Gwen.

  Amy shook her dark curls in an unconscious gesture of defiance. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because,’ Miss Gwen pronounced witheringly, ‘you cannot stay the night in the same room as a gentleman.’

  ‘Oh.’ Amy took a quick look at the watch pinned to Miss Gwen’s bony chest. From what she could make out, it looked to be just a little past four. Edouard’s carriage wasn’t due to pick them up until the following morning, anyway, so they would put up for the night at an inn in Calais. Surely it couldn’t take all that long to cross such a narrow body of water as the Channel. As long as they reached France before midnight, remaining in the cabin with Lord Richard couldn’t really be counted as spending the night in the same room as a man. After all, Amy resolved with splendid illogic, if nobody went to bed, it wasn’t spending the night.

  ‘How long does it take to reach Calais, my lord?’

  ‘That depends on the weather. Anywhere from two hours to three days.’

  ‘Three days?’

  ‘Only in very bad weather,’ Richard drawled.

  ‘Oh. But look! It’s absolutely lovely outside. Really, what’s the harm of sharing the space for an insignificant two hours?’

  Amy looked around the small group expectantly. Jane suddenly turned towards the window, and held up her hand for silence. ‘Listen,’ she said.

  Amy listened. She heard the steady slap of waves at the keel of the boat, the keening cry of a seagull, and the scrape of their bags on the wood floor as the motion of the boat made them shift back and forth. Nothing more.

  ‘What am I supposed to hear?’ she asked curiously. ‘I don’t hear anything. Just – oh.’

  From the disgruntled expression on Lord Richard’s face, she knew he had reached a similar conclusion.

  Miss Gwen rapped her parasol impatiently on the ground. ‘Just what? Speak up, girl.’

  Amy glanced from Jane to Lord Richard for confirmation. ‘I don’t hear the sounds of the people on the dock anymore.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Lord Richard nodded grimly. ‘We’ve set sail.’

  Amy’s face fell for a moment. ‘So much for plan A,’ she muttered. Stopping at the inn had ceased to be an option. At least she had the consolation of knowing that the odds of running into the Purple Gentian there had been slim in the extreme. For all she knew, he was in France at this very moment, giving instructions to his band of devoted men or filching documents from under the noses of French officials or… Upon reflection, it really was best that they get to France as quickly as possible.

  ‘Well, that’s that, then!’ Amy proclaimed cheerfully, making for the porthole to peer out. ‘There’s no point in arguing about it anymore, is there? Two hours and we’ll be in France! Do come look, Jane – don’t they look like dolls on the wharf?’

  Miss Gwen stayed where she was, standing ramrod straight smack in the centre of the room. Richard sank back down into the chair he had been occupying when the ladies had barrelled into the room. ‘I don’t like this any better than you do,’ he said softly. ‘But I shall endeavour to stay out of your path if you will keep your charges out of mine.’

  Miss Gwen afforded him a grudging nod. ‘We must hope it doesn’t rain,’ she said tartly, and stalked off to join her young ladies at the window.

  Precisely three-quarters of an hour later, the first drops hit the porthole. Richard was alerted to it by Amy’s loud cry of distress.

  ‘It can’t be raining, it can’t be raining, it just can’t be raining,’ she muttered, like an incantation.

  ‘Yes, it can,’ said Richard.

  Amy’s expression indicated that she was not amused. She cast him a look of great disdain that was somewhat diminished by the fact that the boat swayed suddenly and she had to stagger to catch her balance. ‘I can see that, can’t I?’ She returned to her mournful vigil by the window, but couldn’t resist turning around to ask anxiously, ‘How much longer do you think the trip will take?’

  ‘My dear girl, I already told you, anywhere from—’

  ‘I know, I know, anywhere from two hours to three days.’ She looked as frustrated as his mother’s cat when someone dangled a cloth mouse in front of her and then drew it away.

  ‘It depends on how bad the storm is.’

  ‘How bad do you –?’ A low growl of thunder cut off her words. ‘Never mind,’ she finished, just as Richard answered her
unfinished question, ‘That bad.’

  Despite herself, Amy laughed. The sound rang an unexpected note of gaiety in the rain-dimmed chamber. The portholes were too small to let in much light under any circumstances, and with the sun overcast with clouds, only the eerie grey glow of a stormy sky crept into the room. The gloom created a Sleeping Beauty effect. Jane had succumbed to sleep on a berth across the room, her embroidery still in her hand, her feet discreetly tucked up under the hem of her gown. Defying the usual laws of nature, Miss Gwen had managed to fall asleep upright in a rickety wooden chair. Even the combined forces of sleep and the rocking motion of the boat failed to relax Miss Gwen’s iron spine; she sat as bolt upright asleep as she had awake.

  The only other person awake was Lord Richard Selwick.

  Amy stifled the ignoble impulse to shake Jane awake. She needed to speak to someone about something, anything, just to dull the anticipatory jitters that were making her palms tingle. If she didn’t do something to distract herself soon, she would probably start running madly about the room or jumping up and down or twirling wildly in circles, just to spin off some of her excess energy. Even one of Uncle Bertrand’s lectures on cross-breeding sheep would be welcome.

  Across the room, Lord Richard was sitting in a stiff wooden chair too small for his large frame, an ankle propped against the opposite knee, utterly engrossed in what looked to be some sort of journal. Amy stared shamelessly across the room, but she couldn’t make out the title. Whatever it was, it couldn’t possibly be worse than Uncle Bertrand’s husbandry manuals. Unless…she had heard of one journal devoted entirely to the planting of small root vegetables. But Lord Richard really didn’t look the sort to have a turnip obsession and Amy could feel the pins and needles of nervous energy darting from her hands all the way down to her feet, pushing her forward.

  Her yellow skirts made a bright splotch of colour in the rapidly darkening cabin as she crossed the room.

  ‘What are you reading?’

  Richard flipped the fat pamphlet over to the other side of the table for her. Antiquarian literature usually worked as well for discouraging inquisitive young ladies as it did French spies.

  Amy strained to see in the dim light. ‘Proceedings of the Royal Egyptological Society? I didn’t know we had one.’

  ‘We do,’ said Richard dryly.

  Amy cast him an exasperated look. ‘Well, that much is clear.’ She flipped through the pages, tilting the periodical to try to catch the light. ‘Has there been any progress on the Rosetta Stone?’

  ‘You’ve heard of the Rosetta Stone?’ Richard knew he sounded rude; he just couldn’t help himself. The last young lady to whom he had delivered his Rosetta Stone soliloquy had asked him if the Rosetta Stone was a new kind of gemstone, and if so, what colour was it, and did he think it would look better with her blue silk than sapphires.

  Amy made a face at him. ‘We do get the papers, even in the wilds of Shropshire, you know.’

  ‘Are you interested in antiquities?’

  For the life of him, he couldn’t figure out why he was going to the bother of carrying on a conversation with the chit. First off, he had better things to do, such as plot the Purple Gentian’s next escapade. Daring plans didn’t just invent themselves; they took time, and thought, and imagination. Secondly, voluntarily entering into conversation with young ladies of good family was inevitably a perilous venture. It gave them ideas. It gave them terrifying ideas that involved heirloom veils, ten-foot-long trains, and bouquets of orange flowers.

  Yet here he was encouraging the girl to talk. Absurd.

  ‘I don’t really know much about antiquities,’ said Amy frankly. ‘But I love the old stories! Penelope fooling all of her suitors, Aeneas fighting his way down to the underworld…’

  It was too dark to read, reasoned Richard. And the girl didn’t seem to be flirting with him, so carrying on a conversation with her was a harmless and sensible means of passing the time. Nothing at all absurd about that.

  ‘I haven’t read any Ancient Egyptian literature, though. Is there any? All I know about Ancient Egypt is what I’ve read in Herodotus,’ Amy went on. ‘And, really, I get the sense that about half of what he wrote about the Egyptians is pure sensationalism. All of that nonsense about sucking peoples’ brains out through their noses and putting them in jars. He’s worse than the Shropshire Intelligencer!’

  Richard managed to stop himself from asking whether she had really read Herodotus in the original Greek. Coming on the heels of his Rosetta Stone comment, it might seem a bit insulting. ‘Actually, we think Herodotus may have been telling the truth on that one. In the burial chambers of tombs, we found canopic jars with the remains of human organs.’ If the girl wasn’t genuinely interested, she was putting on a far better act than any Richard had ever seen.

  ‘We? Were you actually there, my lord?’

  ‘Yes, several years ago.’

  Questions tumbled out of Amy’s mouth so quickly that Richard scarcely had time to answer one before another rolled his way. She leant forward across the table in a way that would have had Miss Gwen barking, ‘Posture!’ had she been awake to see it. She listened avidly as Richard described the ancient Egyptian pantheon, interrupting him occasionally to compare them to the gods of the ancient Greeks.

  ‘After all,’ she argued, ‘there must have been some sort of communication between the Greeks and the Egyptians. Oh, not just Herodotus! Look at Antigone – that’s set in Thebes. And so are the myths of Jason, aren’t they? Unless, do you think the Greek authors used Egypt the way Shakespeare used Italy? As a sort of miraculous once upon a time where anything could happen?’

  Outside, the storm still splattered across the windows and rocked the little boat away from its destination, but neither Amy nor Richard noticed. ‘I cannot tell you,’ Amy confessed frankly, ‘how good it is to finally have a genuinely interesting conversation with someone! Nobody at home talks about anything but sheep or embroidery. No, really, I’m not exaggerating. And whenever I come across someone who has actually done something interesting, they change the subject and talk about the weather!’

  Amy’s face was so disgruntled that Richard had to laugh. ‘Surely you must allow the weather some consequence?’ he teased. ‘Look at the impact it has had upon us.’

  ‘Yes, but if you start talking about it, I shall have to remember something I’ve forgotten on the other side of the room or develop a passionate desire to take a nap.’

  ‘Do you think it will be fair tomorrow?’

  ‘Oh, so that’s your ploy, sir! You really want to read your journal in peace, so you’ve decided to bore me away! That’s terribly devious of you. But, if I’m not wanted…’ Amy swished her yellow skirts off her chair.

  The plan she described did rather resemble his intentions of an hour before, but, without even taking the time to think about it, Richard found himself grinning and saying, ‘Stay. I’ll give you my word not to talk about the weather if you swear you won’t mention gowns, jewels, or the latest gossip columns.’

  ‘Is that all the young ladies of your acquaintance talk about?’

  ‘With a few notable exceptions, yes.’

  Amy wondered who those notable exceptions might be. A betrothed, perhaps? ‘You should count yourself lucky, my lord. At least it’s not sheep.’

  ‘No, they just behave like them.’

  Their shared laughter rolled softly through the dim room.

  Richard leant back and regarded Amy intently. Amy’s laughter caught in her throat. Somehow, his gaze cut through the gloom, as if all the light in the dim cabin were concentrated in his eyes. Suddenly dizzy, Amy lowered her hands to the sides of her chair and held on tightly. It must be that the boat is swaying more now because of the storm, she thought vaguely. That really must be it.

  Richard contemplated Amy with puzzled pleasure. He did know other intelligent women – Henrietta, for one, and a few others of his sister’s circle, bright, intelligent women who were too pretty to be dism
issed as bluestockings. He had even, of his own free will, dropped by the drawing room to join them in their conversations on one or two occasions. But he couldn’t imagine bantering so easily with any of Hen’s entourage.

  Perhaps it was the intimacy of darkness, or of the small quarters, but absurdly, he felt quite as comfortable chatting with Amy Balcourt as he ever had with Miles or Geoff. Only Miles didn’t have immense blue eyes fringed with dark lashes. And Geoff certainly didn’t possess a slender white neck with kissable indentations over the collarbones…

  At any rate, Richard concluded, the Fates had known what they were doing when they set Amy Balcourt upon his boat.

  ‘I am truly delighted to have met you, Miss Balcourt. And I promise not to talk about the weather or sheep unless it is absolutely imperative.’

  ‘In that case…’ Amy clasped her hands under her chin and launched back into her eager inquisition.

  Only once she had satisfied her curiosity on such important subjects as tombs, mummies, and curses did Amy ask, ‘But wasn’t Egypt swarming with French soldiers? How did you manage to slip in?’

  ‘I was with the French.’

  For a moment, the words just hung there. Amy frowned, trying to make sense of what he had just said. ‘Did you – were you a prisoner of war?’ she asked hesitantly.

  ‘No. I went at Bonaparte’s invitation, as one of his scholars.’

  Amy’s spine snapped upright. Head up, shoulders back, as she stared at Richard her posture locked into a steely rigidity to please even Miss Gwen. ‘You were in Bonaparte’s pay?’

  ‘Actually’ – Richard lounged back in his chair – ‘he didn’t pay me. I went at my own expense.’

  ‘You weren’t coerced? You went of your own free will?’

  ‘You sound horrified, Miss Balcourt. You must admit, it is the chance of a lifetime for a scholar.’

  Amy’s mouth opened but no sound came out.

  Richard was right; she was horrified.

  For an Englishman to accompany his country’s enemy… to disregard all duty and honour in the pursuit of scholarship… Couldn’t he have waited for the English to take control of Egypt before pursuing his pyramids? And how could any man, any thinking man, any intelligent man with a modicum of feeling, have anything to do with a nation which had so cruelly and senselessly slaughtered so many of its own people on the guillotine! And to disregard all that for the sake of a few tombs! It was a slight to his country and a slight to mankind.