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  This was fairly uncomfortable, for we sat on opposite benches, and before long Aiglon used it as an excuse to move over to my seat. I promptly turned my head to look at the scenery, as though unaware that my fingers were firmly clutched in his. The sea was a cold, green-gray sheet of rumpled metal, dotted with dark splotches of boats, above which sails ballooned in the wind. It was pretty, but could hardly claim more than a few minutes of observation. Next I looked out the other window, where hillocks rose up from the coast road. The horizon was interrupted here and there by the Martello towers and furze stacks.

  Suddenly I felt Aiglon lurch forward and followed the line of his gaze. A man was galloping across the hills, but this was hardly unusual enough to have caused his lurch. The guards were changed at regular intervals. Soon I noticed that a second mounted figure dogged the first, following behind him, but careful not to be seen. He would change his course to keep himself behind a tree or a furze stack.

  I think it was the first rider whom Aiglon recognized. I soon discerned the shape of Jeremy in the follower and deduced that Retchling was the followee. Without a word, Aiglon reached into the side pocket of the carriage and pulled out a telescope. He knelt on the floor at the window, adjusted it to his eye, and stared at the riders for about a minute.

  It was hard to keep up any appearance of unconcern, but I tried. “What is it, Aiglon?” I asked in a casual way.

  “I don’t know. Someone’s following that man up there. I wonder if he plans to do him a mischief. He has a secretive air about him.”

  “In broad daylight? I shouldn’t think so.” I laughed.

  “But look at the way he goes on, dodging behind stacks, always keeping out of sight!” he insisted. “Here, you have a look. You might recognize the man following. I think that’s Retchling he’s after.”

  I put the glass to my eye and soon confirmed my suspicions. As Aiglon hadn’t recognized Jeremy, however, I had no notion of giving him away. “Yes, it looks like Retchling, all right. What do you suppose he’s doing up there? Look, he’s stopped to talk to the guards at the tower!’’

  Aiglon lifted the glass from my fingers and confirmed this news. Jeremy’s orders were to remain unseen, so he cantered on. He would take up the chase when Retchling moved on, but his not stopping seemed to ease Aiglon’s fears.

  “Any visitor to the coast at this time takes an interest in the preparations to thwart Napoleon,” Aiglon answered.

  “Most do, but somehow I had the impression your genius friend meant to spend his days in the library. Was that not what he said?”

  “He’s just taking a breath of air,” Aiglon decided, and went on to distract me with the most foolish conversation about the doings of the ton in London. I listened with apparent interest, but I didn’t forget Aiglon’s worry that someone was following Retchling. Why should it matter a groat if Retchling was only out for a breath of air? Of course, Retchling’s duty was really to arrange for a ship. The harbor seemed a more likely place to do it, but that was quite public. It was possible some of the men guarding the stacks might possess a boat, for the fishermen were active in the militia.

  When we reached town, Aiglon had the carriage taken to the inn and we alit to walk down to the fishing village. It wasn’t necessary for me to direct Aiglon’s steps toward Madame’s shop. He was perfectly familiar with the route. But before we got there, he said, “Why don’t you stroll along and do whatever it is you do when you come to town, Constance, and I’ll meet you in, say, a quarter of an hour?”

  My suspicions soared to new heights, and I determined that I would accompany him to Madame Bieler’s place if I had to break his bones to do it, but first I’d try a polite approach. “I have nothing special to do; I’ll be happy to go with you.”

  “It will be boring for you when you’re not buying anything from her today,” he claimed, pretending it was me he was thinking of. “I’ll meet you at the ‘everything’ store. I know ladies can’t come to town without dallying there for an age.”

  “As it happens, I’m looking for material for a new gown myself. I’ll look today and buy another time,” I persisted.

  His smile was still pleasant but less so than before. “Now that’s a pity. I promised my valet I’d pick up some shoe blacking and thought you might get it, while I speak to Madame.”

  “You should have brought some with you, Aiglon!” I declared. “They don’t carry it in Folkestone. Lord Ware is always lamenting the fact. But I’m sure he wouldn’t mind letting you have some, if you’ve run out.”

  The smile had quite vanished, but frustration hadn’t taken over yet. “I expect Retchling has some with him,” he said, while pondering his next pretext.

  “I’m sure he has. Shall we continue? Madame’s shop is just along here—the one with the blue door.”

  “I know where it is,” he said, becoming a bit curt now.

  “I wasn’t sure you’d recognize it by daylight. You more usually visit Madame in the evening, do you not?” The shorter his temper became, the more I poured the honey on my words.

  He made one last effort to ditch me. He looked up and down the street and spotted the used-book shop. “I wonder if they have any copies of The Anatomie of Melancholy there. I’ve been trying to find one this age in London. Would you mind terribly, Constance—”

  “They don’t have one. I asked just a week ago. Strange how similar our tastes are.” I smiled firmly.

  “They might have got one in since!”

  “There’s one in the library at home,” I lied hastily, losing track of the discussion but not of my purpose.

  “Then why did you want to buy another?”

  “Because that one is yours, Aiglon. And you know how reluctant I am to claim what is not mine. But, as you hinted, there comes a time when a lady should stake a proprietary claim on a gentleman. I don’t plan to let Madame get you all to herself.” I tried a fluttering smile, feeling like a fool the whole while.

  I was vastly relieved when Aiglon gave in. His knowing look accepted defeat and acknowledged as well that he had some notion why I was sticking like a burr. “I believe I’ve met my match in stubbornness,” he said, relaxing back into a real smile.

  “No, you’ve met your better, Aiglon. Let’s go.”

  “Onward to the blue door,” he agreed, and without further ado, we proceeded to the shop.

  Madame’s appearance was typically French in style, though above the norm in beauty. She had dark hair, flashing eyes, a nose a trifle pointy for my own taste, and a very winsome smile. It was her figure, however, for which she was more famous. She was on the petite side in height, but full-bosomed, wasp-waisted, and well-dimpled at the elbow. As clothing is her trade, she is always well dressed. That day, she wore an elegant golden gown, got up with a lot of lace and ribbons. Her manner is customarily vivacious, but I found her closer to hysterical that morning. Oh, she was polite enough, but her eyes had a febrile glow, and her white fingers twitched nervously.

  “Bonjour, mam’selle, monsieur,” she said, curtsying gracefully. She was pretending not to recognize Aiglon by not using his title, but as I was already aware of their acquaintance, that formality soon disappeared.

  “Good morning, Madame Bieler,” Aiglon said. “I’ve come about that silk you mentioned the other night.”

  Madame turned a startled eye at his plain speaking, but I walked over to look at her new bonnets. I picked up a leghorn, for which I had no use in the world, and tried it on at the mirror, to encourage them to speak freely.

  “Ah, yes, for the countess,” Madame said, and went to lift down an ell of shocking red that no lady his mother’s age would be caught dead in.

  After that speech, she lowered her voice. I walked away to the farther end of the shop, in hopes that they’d think I wasn’t listening. I remained there a moment, picking up a couple of bonnets to try on, and when I returned to the mirror, I could just overhear their words. Madame had become Yvette by that time.

  They were still discu
ssing silk. She had Aiglon climbing up on a chair to retrieve a green piece from a top shelf. I began to think the visit was entirely innocent of anything but flirtation, for there was plenty of that going on. Madame had to hold every bolt up to her own face to show him how the color would look “on.”

  “Marvelous, you bring it to life, but somehow I don’t think it would suit Mama quite so well,” Aiglon was saying. I recognized his accents as those used for serious flirtation.

  “Ah, I bring nothing to life today,” she said in doleful tones.

  “Why, is something the matter, Yvette?” he asked, concern throbbing in his lying voice.

  “A little trouble last night, monsieur. Just shortly after you left, I discovered it.”

  “What sort of trouble?”

  “I was robbed,” she told him. Her whisper carried across the room so loudly that I feared they’d realize I could hear it. I took a quick peek at them and saw her gazing up into his face while he gazed back. They weren’t aware of anything but each other. It was hard to credit, from his sympathetic face, that less than twelve hours before he’d been discussing her with Retchling in quite a different way.

  “How much did you lose?” Aiglon asked.

  “I had three hundred pounds in the shop. A whole week’s income. And it was higher than usual, too, as I had gotten some fine silks in recently. I don’t know what I shall do.”

  “I wish I could help. You’ll think it paltry of me not to offer some assistance, Yvette, but the fact is, I’m just about in the basket myself at the moment. Why, if Mama hadn’t given me the money to pay for these silks, I’d have to put them on tick. I wish I knew some way we could both recoup our losses.”

  From the corner of my eye, I saw Madame’s dark head turn slowly in my direction. I opened my reticule and took out my brush to arrange my hair, as though unaware that she was looking at me. The silence in the shop stretched until my nerves were on edge.

  “Ah, well,” she said in a low voice. “Honest money is hard to make. C’est dommage. Now about the green peau de soie, Lord Aiglon, do you think the countess would care for it?”

  Aiglon bought enormous quantities of silk, which Madame bundled up and said she would have delivered to his carriage at the White Hart right away. Aiglon paid her in cash, and we left, with every polite compliment imaginable on both sides. I was surprised that something more hadn’t developed. I was sure Madame would get him out to the back of the shop, away from me, on some pretext or other. I was left to wonder whether my presence had defeated Aiglon’s purpose in going or whether his mission had been accomplished.

  “Satisfied?” he asked, taking my arm in his when we walked along the street. I concluded that he was. Whatever reason took him to Madame Bieler’s, he had achieved his aim.

  “If you are,” I parried.

  “Now that’s odd. You claimed to be interested in looking at stuff for a gown, but you only tried on chapeaux.”

  “It was pretty obvious you planned to buy all the silk in the shop, so I looked at bonnets instead. Your mother won’t care for that hideous red silk, Aiglon.”

  “Oh it’s not for Mama!” he said, and laughed.

  “No, I should think not. For a lightskirt is more like it!”

  “I thought it would suit you remarkably well, Constance. Have I erred?” he asked.

  “I have no desire or intention of decking myself out as a scarlet woman, and if you ever bothered to look at my gowns, you would know scarlet is not my color.”

  “That’s true, but Madame didn’t have anything in gray.”

  I felt his ironical eyes sliding in my direction and ignored them as well as the taunting remark. Instead I dropped a hint to see if he’d tell me about Madame’s robbery.

  “Had Madame anything interesting to say?” I asked.

  “When one has a face like Madame’s, the most commonplace remarks have a way of becoming interesting. She mentioned someone robbing her.”

  “You sound as if you don’t believe it.”

  “I don’t disbelieve it, but why tell me? She took the notion I had money to burn and was only trying her hand at relieving me of a little of it.”

  “Is that what she was up to, with that story of losing a week’s income!” I gasped, astonished at her duplicity.

  “What big ears you have, Constance! Your careful perusal of the bonnets made me wonder whether you were executing the proper care for my welfare. I’m relieved to confirm your performance a sham.”

  “I couldn’t help overhearing a few words,” I admitted, blushing like a rose. The snort that issued from his lips told me as clearly as words his opinion of that statement.

  “Well, why did you go, then, and why were you so eager to rid yourself of me, if you only meant to buy silk and hear that Madame was robbed. Oh, dear!” I gasped.

  “Precisely, my dear. I had to hear whether Madame was robbed.”

  “Was it her money in our cellar?”

  “Probably.”

  “Aiglon, she can’t make that much in a week! Even a good week, with new silks from France.”

  “You heard those ‘few words,’ too, did you?”

  I was doing some quick figuring and soon spotted a flaw in Aiglon’s glib explanation. “You already knew Madame had been robbed. You knew her money was in the cellar. You didn’t go to her shop to learn that, Aiglon. You’re hiding something from me.”

  “No, Constance, I am only trying to hide something from you. I’m quite sure that before we get home you’ll have weaseled every detail from me.” He slowed the pace and directed a wickedly suggestive smile at me. “At least you could, if you wanted to,” he added. That look was more effective than a gun in silencing any further questions from me.

  We went for a walk along the Leas to ensure that Aiglon’s parcel had time to reach the carriage. The wind was damp and cool, and the view was not at all pretty on such a cloudy day. There were only a handful of people out walking.

  “Strange thing, you know, about gentlemen’s boots,” Aiglon said, staring at the Hessians of a passing stroller.

  “What’s strange about them?”

  “They look so well polished, considering that there’s no boot blacking to be had in Folkestone. Truth is indeed stranger than fiction, especially when you invent it. I’m quite shocked at your mendacity, Constance.”

  “It wasn’t exactly a lie,” I equivocated. “You knew I was only funning. You haven’t been entirely truthful yourself, Aiglon,” I was obliged to remind him.

  “There are times, I admit, when a lie is not really a lie,” he said.

  “When it is told by Lord Aiglon, for example?”

  He didn’t acknowledge my jibe but only frowned in a meditative way out across the water. “Or even Madame Bieler. She tells a sort of truth, yet she misleads. You know that old gray mare in the stable at Thornbury, Constance ...”

  “Yes, what about it?” I asked, curious to hear how a poor old mare should be involved in this discussion.

  His frown turned to a triumphant smile. “Ah, then there is a gray mare at Thornbury! I suspected as much. And it was a kind of lie by omission for you not to tell me who was following Retchling.”

  “You tricked me!” I accused. “You let on you were talking about Madame Bieler!”

  “No, no, I was only dealing indirectly. Let’s go back to the inn now. I’m eager to read the note Madame will have slipped into the packet of silk. All your morning wasted,” he taunted, wagging a finger at me. I was so frustrated I wanted to hit him.

  And, to make matters worse, he took the note out right in front of me, read it, and tore it into a hundred pieces, which he threw out the window, to flutter off in the wind.

  I was furious by the time Rachel quizzed me about my morning’s activities. “What did you learn?” she asked eagerly.

  “That your cousin is a devious devil!”

  “Good gracious, we already knew that. Retchling has been out scouring around the countryside, discovering exactly where the a
rmy has outlooks and what routes are safe for the guns. I believe they are coming by land, Constance, and will be taken away on a ship after Aiglon has stolen them.”

  “Aiglon knows Retchling was followed. And, by the way, I forgot to tell you last night that Retchling is not Retchling. I think he might be Riddell.”

  “No!” Her face turned bone-white. “I’m sunk. Oh, Constance, I have this very morning been walking around the house with him, discussing the curtains and everything in the most frank way, never thinking he could possibly know my little tricks. He even asked if there was not a dovecote at Thornbury! Thank God I told him it had been vandalized.”

  “Well, that’s something.”

  “He was so very attentive, too. He came home half an hour before you and spent the entire time with me, just walking around the place, you know. I took the idea he was rather interested in me. The Retchlings are quite unexceptionable. To think I wasted my time being pleasant to Riddell!”

  “But you were always buttering him up,” I reminded her.

  “Only by letter! I would never be so condescending to him in person!” she replied, shocked at my ignorance.

  Her next concern was for Aiglon’s shopping. “Did he pick up some nice silks for Lady Aiglon?” she asked.

  “I doubt if his mama will care for the scarlet. Even the peacock blue and gold silk looked a trifle gaudy to me.”

  “Peacock blue! How well that would suit the saloon!” she exclaimed. “Scarlet—I don’t know that I’d care for that, but perhaps in one of the smaller guest rooms...”

  “There was one other thing, Rachel,” I said, and waited for her to return to the present conversation before continuing. “That money in the cellar was stolen from Madame Bieler. It was three hundred pounds.”

  “That’s impossible. She wouldn’t make that much in a year,” Rachel objected.

  I relayed to her what I had overheard the men discussing the night before, and we talked it over for a while. “So you think Retchling stole the money from Madame Bieler? How would he know she had it?”

  “Mickey would know, but I can’t see why he’d tell Aiglon or Retchling.”