Travers?”
“Josephine?” Travers asked in surprise. “Why, she flew away, sir.”
“You must have had her a dozen years. What happened?”
“One day I took her out of her cage and she simply flew out the window. That was the last I saw of her.” He sounded more bemused than aggrieved.
“Perhaps she grew tired of her cage,” Giles said, thinking of how shocked he’d been when Avery had said she intended to leave Killylea. He couldn’t envision Killylea without Avery and even though in the last years they’d rarely been here at the same time, he always imagined her here, studying in the library, tromping through the orchards, stretched out on her back on the topmost crenellations and staring into the sky. Why, there’d been a time… but that was long ago when he’d been hardly more than a boy.
The pertinent point was that Giles had inherited Avery as part of his bequest. Despite what he owed Avery for her timely intervention with Sophia, he felt the obligation his father had incurred far more deeply. Something must be done with her and this, apparently, was what she wanted.
He poured himself another glass of port, fully aware of Travers’s expectant gaze, so different from Avery’s challenging glare.
She’d looked unearthly attractive standing on the ramparts this evening, her eyes so dark they seemed to have drunk the midnight hue from the heavens and her deep auburn locks coiling and dancing out behind her in the wind.
“How in the name of all that’s holy does she ever hope to fool anyone?” he muttered. “She is too… her form…”
“She has enlisted Mrs. Bedling’s aid in manufacturing a wardrobe suitable for a young country gentleman. She has a plan to deal with her, ah, her silhouette.”
Giles gave a short laugh. “Avery has a plan. Ah, well then, we’re all fine as five pence.” He heaved himself to his feet. “You might as well start packing.”
“Sir?”
“As soon as the Norths have left, we’ll ride at breakneck speed to the coast, cross to the Netherlands, and ramble about for a week or so before hieing ourselves back to London in all due haste that we might meet up with Mr. Quinn, whom I shall then inform all and sundry that I met while in the midst of said rambling. During which time I also happened to develop a sudden passion for stargazing. Oh, yes. No one will think anything smoky in that. Not at all.”
His sarcasm was lost on Travers. “But… we , sir?”
Giles was not above enjoying Travers’s discomfort. Between them, he and Avery had all but assured his own. He clapped the older man on the shoulder. “Yes. If this rattle-pated plan has a chance of succeeding, Avery will need an ally in the house. Someone amongst the servants who knows who she is and can protect her identity from the others.” He smiled. “You, my friend, have just been demoted.”
“Sir?”
“You’re Avery’s new valet.”
Chapter Seven
M iss Avery was gone. She’d disappeared, having been last seen entering a private sleeping room in a coaching inn forty miles north of London. She never emerged to rejoin the stage coach on the last leg of its journey. But as the room had been paid for in advance and was left neat as a pin and with no hint of anything untoward having occurred within it except, perhaps, for a plethora of shorn mahogany-colored locks found in the waste bin, the innkeeper decided not to pursue the matter. Why, girls eloped all the time and in truth, Miss Avery had hardly been a girl, being clearly on the wrong side of twenty.
However, the stagecoach gained a new passenger to replace her. A small, fat, and flushed young man found shivering on the bench outside the inn early the next morning joined them. He gave his name as Mr. Quinn as he handed his single piece of luggage, an over-stuffed valise, up to the driver and climbed aboard.
For all his youth—and he was young, having skin as smooth and soft looking as a puppy’s belly—the matronly lady seated
“Josephine?” Travers asked in surprise. “Why, she flew away, sir.”
“You must have had her a dozen years. What happened?”
“One day I took her out of her cage and she simply flew out the window. That was the last I saw of her.” He sounded more bemused than aggrieved.
“Perhaps she grew tired of her cage,” Giles said, thinking of how shocked he’d been when Avery had said she intended to leave Killylea. He couldn’t envision Killylea without Avery and even though in the last years they’d rarely been here at the same time, he always imagined her here, studying in the library, tromping through the orchards, stretched out on her back on the topmost crenellations and staring into the sky. Why, there’d been a time… but that was long ago when he’d been hardly more than a boy.
The pertinent point was that Giles had inherited Avery as part of his bequest. Despite what he owed Avery for her timely intervention with Sophia, he felt the obligation his father had incurred far more deeply. Something must be done with her and this, apparently, was what she wanted.
He poured himself another glass of port, fully aware of Travers’s expectant gaze, so different from Avery’s challenging glare.
She’d looked unearthly attractive standing on the ramparts this evening, her eyes so dark they seemed to have drunk the midnight hue from the heavens and her deep auburn locks coiling and dancing out behind her in the wind.
“How in the name of all that’s holy does she ever hope to fool anyone?” he muttered. “She is too… her form…”
“She has enlisted Mrs. Bedling’s aid in manufacturing a wardrobe suitable for a young country gentleman. She has a plan to deal with her, ah, her silhouette.”
Giles gave a short laugh. “Avery has a plan. Ah, well then, we’re all fine as five pence.” He heaved himself to his feet. “You might as well start packing.”
“Sir?”
“As soon as the Norths have left, we’ll ride at breakneck speed to the coast, cross to the Netherlands, and ramble about for a week or so before hieing ourselves back to London in all due haste that we might meet up with Mr. Quinn, whom I shall then inform all and sundry that I met while in the midst of said rambling. During which time I also happened to develop a sudden passion for stargazing. Oh, yes. No one will think anything smoky in that. Not at all.”
His sarcasm was lost on Travers. “But… we , sir?”
Giles was not above enjoying Travers’s discomfort. Between them, he and Avery had all but assured his own. He clapped the older man on the shoulder. “Yes. If this rattle-pated plan has a chance of succeeding, Avery will need an ally in the house. Someone amongst the servants who knows who she is and can protect her identity from the others.” He smiled. “You, my friend, have just been demoted.”
“Sir?”
“You’re Avery’s new valet.”
Chapter Seven
M iss Avery was gone. She’d disappeared, having been last seen entering a private sleeping room in a coaching inn forty miles north of London. She never emerged to rejoin the stage coach on the last leg of its journey. But as the room had been paid for in advance and was left neat as a pin and with no hint of anything untoward having occurred within it except, perhaps, for a plethora of shorn mahogany-colored locks found in the waste bin, the innkeeper decided not to pursue the matter. Why, girls eloped all the time and in truth, Miss Avery had hardly been a girl, being clearly on the wrong side of twenty.
However, the stagecoach gained a new passenger to replace her. A small, fat, and flushed young man found shivering on the bench outside the inn early the next morning joined them. He gave his name as Mr. Quinn as he handed his single piece of luggage, an over-stuffed valise, up to the driver and climbed aboard.
For all his youth—and he was young, having skin as smooth and soft looking as a puppy’s belly—the matronly lady seated
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