CHAPTER 6
Seeking Advice
Quenton rode away with her dream. Alix lay motionless, willing the return of the afternoon he had scolded her for standing on her saddle to pick apples for Chevalier, the white pony that her papa had brought home for her from Toulouse. Quenton had taught him all manner of tricks on command, including how to bow on one knee. The afternoon sky was filled with the kind of clouds that piled into castles and flying dragons or scattered herds of elephants, and the air hummed with the shimmering of cicadas and the rhapsody of birds. Quenton had been riding near the orchard on a warhorse he was schooling when he had caught her in an apple tree.
The dreams occurring nightly made her long to sleepwalk through the day. Quenton had shared stories, but they were akin to fairy tales, compared with now, and his vague allusions were deep with meaning but elusive, since he was always careful of being overheard. What Alix dreamed was not extraordinary, but it dazed her so that she carelessly spoke French or was helplessly tempted by the flute in the parlor to rediscover her forgotten music.
She had idolized her uncle as a child and thought him capable of anything. Now he worked as a servant and lived in the stables. What had happened to their lives?
With a yawn, Alix shrugged into a dressing gown and went to build up the fire. It had become her habit to draw the images from her dreams so she would not forget them. If nothing else, the dream of Chevalier suggested she should not wait any longer to solicit Quenton's counsel. He might not be as lenient as he had been in her dream when he caught her standing on her pony's saddle, but he would help her find a solution. The end to Lily's mad game was long overdue. For Alix to try to deceive someone as assiduous as Nicholas Griffon indefinitely was impossible.
THE MELODY OF A FLUTE stopped Nicholas in the hall. Winston closed the parlor doors silently at his approach.
"Does Lily have company?"
Winston put a cautioning finger to his lips and spoke quietly without yielding his post. "No, milady's practicing."
Abruptly, Nicholas pulled Winston aside. "What the devil do you know about this?"
"I don't know what you mean, milord," he replied, straightening his suit coat with an indignant tug.
"You know exactly what I'm asking. When did Lily start playing flute?"
"Just a few days ago. I'd say she doesn't wish anyone to know about it yet."
"If no one's teaching her, how is she learning?"
"Perhaps she came upon a book of lessons in the library." "Lily frequents the library?"
"I never thought you'd deny her a book, milord."
Nicholas was astounded that Winston would suggest anything so lowbrow. "Why would I prevent Lily from the opportunity of reading?"
"That's my point exactly. Milady has been working diligently to improve her mind."
"I'll eat my hat," Nicholas concluded, with an incredulous cough into his fist.
"Is there something wrong with bettering oneself ?"
"No," he replied, realizing the implication should the question be posed in court, and pulled himself together. He could ill afford to make an incriminating statement when his divorce proceedings were imminent. "Of course not; I daresay I'm pleased Lily's taking something serious for a change. I was caught by surprise, that's all. Since I returned only to change for the evening, I'd better get on with it."
Nicholas came away with the awkward opinion that Winston had protected her. To prove his disinterest over Lily's performance, he jogged upstairs. He was still puffing from the exertion when he found Albert in the dressing room.
"Good afternoon, milord. I wasn't expecting you home early."
"Wesley wants to have a few drinks before the theater,"
Nicholas explained, and used the excuse of tugging off his boots to drop onto the couch. "Do you happen to know what the devil is happening around here? I returned home to Lily playing flute and Winston questioning my intentions."
Albert came off with a boot and straddled the next. "I wish I could help, but I've gotten nowhere with Jenny Smith, and now Martha's not speaking to me because of it. I've heard rumors, but apparently everything that appeared to be evidence was coincidental after all."
Nicholas used a little more English than necessary on Frisk's backside and sent the man sprawling with his boot.
"Frankly, I have doubts about that rumor after dinner at Clarence House last week. Lily's many things, but pregnant can't be one of them." He rose to peel out of his coat. "Winston thinks she's turning over a new leaf, but she's different enough to be another person."
Albert picked himself up and gathered the boots to put out in the hall. "Isn't that a bit extreme?"
Nicholas shook his head with frustration. "It sounds irrational, but, for instance, Lily began speaking French at dinner the other night. I've never known of her to speak anything but English."
"Forgive me if I play devil's advocate, but did anyone else speak French?"
"The Frenchman she was speaking with, of course."
"Well, then I beg your pardon if I dare to point out the obvious."
"Damn you if you think you're funny, Albert," Nicholas retorted without vehemence.
"I did beg your pardon."
"Blast you anyway," he concluded, but the idea, once conceived, was difficult to dismiss. "I smell something rotten."
"A simple conversation could turn up something."
"Bite your tongue, lad; I can barely stand the sight of her, and you're suggesting I invite her for a cup of tea? I'd rather cut my own throat."
"As you say, milord, but the races will soon be upon us, necessitating her company either way."
"That's a bridge I'll cross when I come to it."
AS WITH EVERYTHING ELSE in her bizarre performance as Lily, Alix could not simply go to the stables or summon her uncle to the house. Her plan for a private meeting involved pilfering a maid's uniform from the laundry and waiting for Jenny to run errands in Piccadilly. Then she dressed in her makeshift disguise and crept out through the serving hall. The plan unfolded flawlessly until Quenton spotted her, and it unraveled from there.
Her uncle's shocked reaction cut into her heart deeply.
"You there-get away from those horses," he ordered curtly when he came through the door.
"Darling, it's me," Alix replied eagerly, turning from the coach horses. She might have dropped a bucket of water on his entrance, for his outraged expression.
"Allie," he spat in complete disbelief, dropping the grain sack from his shoulder as if it contained fire. She missed that bare opportunity to run for the door by hurrying straight into his iron-fisted grip. Instead of offering a kiss and his happy embrace, he held her at arm's length by her shoulders and raked her with eyes as hot as coals. "What in the blazes are you doing here?"
"I have to talk to you," she explained, still deluded his initial reaction was only fleeting astonishment.
"Talk to me!" he parroted, so angry that his words were choked. "Talk to me?" he repeated, so incensed that his grip on her tightened until it inflamed her scarred shoulder, but he was oblivious. "Talk to me about what? Are you going to explain why you're wearing that uniform?"
"I . . . It's a-"
He cut off her words when he clamped a hard hand on her mouth. Suddenly, he looked around. "Silence," he ordered cursorily, and, snatching her elbow in his viselike hand, marched her through the stable and up the steps to a bare room above the carriage house. "When did you come to London?" he growled along the way. "You'd better not be here to tell me you've run away to become a maid, or I'll have someone's hide, and I don't care whose it is."
"Uncle-"
"Don't call me that. How did you find me? Did Lily put you up to this? Damn it, Allie! You're not working here!"
"No!" Alix gasped defensively. "I'm only dressed like this so no one will look twice at me . . . because I've been here in Lily's place."