Their Foreign Affair (Scandalous Family--The Victorians Book 3), page 6
Adam made a sound in his throat. Annoyance? Frustration? “They anticipated you.” He hefted the wallet as if he was weighing it and she realized that he was weighing a decision. “Back to the carriage.” He turned her around. “We will find a different station. Or I will buy a hack to get you there.” Determination made his voice harsh.
They turned and made their way back toward the entrance. Ann gripped the folds of Adam’s jacket compulsively, keeping it tight about her. Not once had she considered that Filip might pursue her. He had been a lukewarm fiancé, more proud of her antecedents and what they would do for his family and the strengthened ties with Silkeborg.
Then Harry Dahl himself stepped in front of them, bringing Adam to a halt. Ann stayed behind Adam, a soft, almost soundless shriek pulling from her at Dahl’s sudden appearance.
Dahl dropped his gaze from her face to her hems, taking in her dishevelment. “You are a disgrace, Mademoiselle Thomsett.” He shifted his attention to Adam. “I was told you had escaped with a peasant,” he added.
Adam glanced at her. “Dahl?”
She nodded.
Adam turned back to Dahl. “You should watch yourself, Dahl. This peasant punches. Step out of my way.”
Dahl smiled. “You do not seem to understand. I am here to return Miss Thomsett—”
Adam’s fist flashed out. With a crack, it landed against the very corner of Dahl’s weak jaw.
Dahl dropped with a soft cry, while travelers paused to gasp and watch the drama.
Adam bent over the moaning man. “I warned you. Tell the Duke to come and get her himself, if he really wants her.”
Then he turned and picked up Ann’s hand and pulled her around Dahl and on toward the entrance.
They emerged back into the late afternoon sunlight. Ann could barely keep up with Adam, for he strode with his long legs. “Adam, please! Slow down!”
He relented and walked beside her, still holding her hand.
“Onto the next station, then?” Ann said breathlessly.
“No,” he said shortly, his voice harsh. “You are coming with me to Hamburg. I will take you to Brussels myself.”
Her heart leapt. “Just because Dahl tried to stop you?”
Adam stopped abruptly and Ann almost collided with him. He scowled heavily. “Because Dahl was about to scoop you up and return you to the Duke. He didn’t give a damn how you felt about the matter.”
“It isn’t his responsibility to worry about such things,” Ann pointed out.
Adam’s scowl deepened. “Which means the Duke waved a hand and ordered it so. That makes it even worse.” He began to stride again, heading for the landau.
“It is how things are done,” Ann said breathlessly, behind him.
“It is inconsiderate,” Adam replied over his shoulder. “And it offends me.” He opened the carriage door and helped her up into it, then paused. “I’ll need my jacket back. It’s cool, on the driver’s bench.”
She blushed as she took the garment off and handed it back to him. “I’m sorry about this, Adam. It is far more fuss than I anticipated…that I should have anticipated, if I’d simply thought it through,” she admitted.
He shook his head. “The more they fuss, the more determined I will be to make sure you get your silence.” His gaze met hers. “Someone must.”
Ann drew in a breath. “Thank you,” she whispered.
Adam nodded. He was still angry. She could see it in his jaw and his eyes. But he was controlling it. “Hold tight,” he told her, as he dogged the door. “This will be a fast ride.”
It was a very fast journey, but night had fallen by the time they arrived in the outskirts of Hamburg. The big town was smog-filled and crowded. Adam directed the coach through the town to a riverside wharf where large buildings hunched, none with any lights or welcoming windows.
He opened the coach door and Ann stepped stiffly to the ground. “This is the warehouse?” she asked, looking up at the building.
“One of them,” Adam said. “Come along.”
She wrapped her arms around her middle once more, for the night air was damp and cool.
A watchman challenged Adam as he unlocked one of the man-sized doors in the side of the building. Adam showed him a business card, which sent the watchman away with a tug on the peak of his cap.
“You speak German, too?” Ann asked.
“Enough to get by,” Adam said. “German often serves when French does not.” He unlocked the door. “Wait a moment,” he told her and moved into the pitch dark inside.
She heard scrabbling, then the sound of a match being struck and the smell of sulfur. Light blazed, then was turned down to a warm orange glow. He’d lit a lantern.
Adam brought the lantern back to the door. “Come in,” he told her and shut it behind her. He had to tuck a small iron bar under his arm to do so.
Just inside the door was a small office with a desk, with three other lamps standing in a row on the front of it and a big box of matches.
Another door was on the other side of the office and Adam moved through that and held up the lantern for her to see.
The entire building seemed to be one big room, beyond the office. It was enormous. It was also full of crates stacked nearly to the roof.
“This is all yours?” Ann breathed.
Adam smiled and shook his head. “We rent space in the warehouse. Our goods are in one small corner. Come along.” He moved down an aisle made by the stacks of crates and goods. Ann caught a hint of aromas. Herbs and spices and more. Oils and perfumes. Everything was contained inside nailed crates.
“Ah, there is our label,” Adam said, sounding pleased. He put the lantern and the bar on the floor and peered up at more of the crates, studying the labels pasted to the side. The handwriting was in French.
With another pleased sound, he lifted the highest crates down to the floor, spreading a small stack of them around, until he reached the one he wanted. Then he picked up the bar and put the end of it under one of the slats and levered it up. Nails shrieked and wood groaned, then the board came away.
He loosened the other three slats and stacked them carefully out of the way.
There were boxes inside the crate. White, flat boxes which Ann recognized.
“Boxes of dresses…” she murmured wonderingly.
“What is your waist measurement?” he asked her.
“I…um…twenty-one inches.” She blushed
Adam merely nodded and pulled out box after box, studying the flat end of each, until he found what he wanted. He lifted the lid, peered inside, then closed it and held it out to her. “Here.”
She took the box and lifted the lid. She saw brown and red flecked tweed and cotton lace. Pearl buttons.
“Ann.”
She looked up. Adam held another box toward her.
“Two?”
“A jacket,” he told her, then piled the boxes back into the crate and hammered the lid back into place. Instead of stacking the crates back into place, he turned to the other crates sitting on the floor and pried the lids off those.
He pulled out a bundle wrapped in brown paper and stripped off the paper to reveal a leather valise, which he put to one side.
A third crate produced another flat box. Then Adam hammered the crates back together with the crowbar and stacked them, all except the tallest, which was too hefty for him to manage on his own. He left it on the floor, up against the others. He stacked the third box he had removed from that crate on top of the two Ann already held in her arms.
“What is this, then?” she asked.
He tapped the two bottom boxes. “Kirkaldy tweed.” He pointed to the valise. “Spanish leather.” Then he touched the top box. “Bruges cotton and lace. Luxuries for eager shopkeepers to sell.”
“Except they cannot, now,” she pointed out.
“There are many more where they came from.” He picked up the valise, the crowbar and the lantern. “Tired?”
“Yes,” she admitted. Her body ached with it, even though it was still early in the evening. This would have been her wedding night, she realized and shivered.
It was as if Adam had caught the thoughts going through her mind. He nodded. “A meal, tea and sleep, yes?”
“Yes, please!” she breathed.
“Then tomorrow, I will see you reach Brussels.” He stepped around her. “No matter what,” he added, some of his earlier anger coloring his voice.
CHAPTER SIX
The next morning, Ann’s delight over the new dress and the very fine lawn and lace shirt that went with it was short lived.
Adam had paid for separate rooms. Ann slept more soundly than she thought she should. She had been too tired to care about her troubles. Instead, after a sandwich and a cup of tea, she had climbed onto the very high bed and closed her eyes, grateful to have a warm cover and a pillow beneath her cheek—and that Adam had known where to acquire them.
Adam was clearly familiar with Hamburg, for he had driven the coach to an inn and steered the conveyance through a lane beside the inn to the carriage house at the back. A stable boy ran to help Adam unhitch the horse. Adam flipped him a coin, then led Ann into the inn itself.
The next morning, Ann donned the new clothes. Kirkaldy tweed was a vibrant, soft fabric and the styling of the travelling suit was the very latest. The quality was just as good as any dress Ann ever had made for herself and fit her surprisingly well. She had not thought that women were so similar in sizing that a mere waist measurement would ensure the other measurements would match. The jacket was a little loose around her breasts and arms, but not enough to pronounce the garment a bad fit.
The skirt fit exactly and was the correct length—another astonishment. It hovered an inch above the floor, which was a good length for a travelling suit.
The white shirt had glorious lace ruffles at the neck and sleeve, which showed from beneath the jacket.
Ann was very pleased to be able to put aside the cream satin gown. She went downstairs to the dining room, where she had eaten her sandwich last night. Adam was already there, drinking coffee and reading newspapers, which he had spread all over the table. He looked up as she sat on the chair opposite and did not smile.
Ann caught her breath. “What is it? What is wrong?”
Silently, Adam turned the paper he was reading around. He folded it so it sat properly in front of her and tapped the headlines, although he really did not need to do that, for she could already see what it was he attempting to draw her attention to.
Her own image stared back at her.
Six bridesmaids and her father stood beside her, and the glass coach was behind them.
It was the photograph which had been taken of her, yesterday.
“They put my photograph in a newspaper?” she breathed. “So quickly?”
“It is sensational news,” Adam said, his mouth turning down. “The article which goes with it speaks of you abandoning a noble at the altar and running off with…well…” He grimaced.
“They named you?” Ann breathed, horrified. This was far worse than she had anticipated. “Do they really make it sound as though you and I are…?” Her cheeks warmed.
“I’m afraid so. They used the word ‘affair’,” Adam told her. He glanced around the dining room. “They did not name me,” he added, lowering his voice.
Ann glanced around the dining room, too. There were at least a dozen guests sitting at the small tables with their pristine white cloths and curved-back chairs. Was she imagining the stares being sent her way?
She tried to see what newspapers laid upon the diners’ tables. Perhaps they were not reading the same journals as Adam. Although he had least three upon the table and none of them was in English.
With a sinking heart, she saw her image upon the outer page of many of the newspapers which gentlemen were holding up to their noses.
Then she saw the wife of one of those gentleman was staring at her. The matron’s gaze swiveled from the front of her husband’s newspaper, which was right before her, to Ann’s face.
Ann looked away quickly. “Oh dear,” she breathed. “They are looking at me!”
Adam did not have his newspaper up in the air the way some of the men were reading. He gave her a small grimace which she thought was supposed to be a smile. “The image is somewhat blurred. They may just think you bear a resemblance.”
“Really?” Relief touched her. She looked at the image once more. “I believe this is the very first photograph anyone has ever taken of me.”
Adam shook his head. “That is not quite true. There was that very large one taken at Innesford, years and years ago—do you remember? Absolutely everyone in the family was in it. We were much younger. I was sitting on the gravel and couldn’t wait for the man to finish because the gravel poked me in all the wrong places.”
Ann frowned. “I do remember that, very vaguely. I was hungry and couldn’t wait for lunch.”
“Yes, it was just before lunch. So you have been in one photograph before this one.”
“How marvelous that you were in that one, too. I haven’t looked at that picture for the longest time. I’m not even sure where it is, anymore.”
“Somewhere at Innesford, I imagine.”
“I will ask Cian, next time I am there,” Ann said firmly. Her heart fell. “If there is a next time,” she added. “What if he finds me?” she asked Adam, lowering her voice. “By now Dahl will have learned who punched him yesterday. They might think to look in Hamburg, if you are here so often you have a warehouse of goods stored here.”
Adam scratched his temple. “I have been thinking about that,” he said. “But first, I must eat. Then we can talk, yes?” He lifted his hand and beckoned the waiter.
The waiter ignored him and moved over to another table and bent to speak to the man there.
Adam frowned.
“You can’t beckon like that,” Ann told him.
“Like what?” Adam returned shortly. “I merely waved to him to catch his attention.”
“Yes, exactly. It’s considered crude,” Ann replied. “You should merely catch his eye and raise your brow. Like this.” She demonstrated.
“And he is supposed to know I want to speak to him when I do that?” Adam asked, sounding irritated. “I already have enough trouble arranging for my meal to arrive quickly…and hot.”
Ann hid her smile. “Oh dear. Cold meals are always a sign of a waiter or footman who does not think well of you. They deliberately let the meal wait until it is near cold.”
Adam stared at her. “That is…” He shook his head. “Simply because I wave at them?”
“I think you may be surprised by how effective lifting your chin can be,” Ann assured him.
“You do it, then,” he shot back. “I am not pandering to the sensibilities of a waiter in that way.”
“Oh, I cannot deal with the waiter,” Ann said quickly. “Not if you are at the table. It is simply not done. Not in polite society.”
Adam tilted his head to consider her. “Ridiculous…” he muttered. Then he turned to see where the waiter was. When the man in tails turned, Adam raised his brow and lifted his chin. His enquiring air was a perfect replica of hers.
The waiter scurried over. “Ja mein Herr?” he said gravely.
Adam’s eyes narrowed as he studied the waiter. Then he stirred and said, “A pot of tea for the lady, plus eggs and kippers,” he said in English. “Do you understand me?” he added delicately.
“Perfectly, sir,” the waiter said, in good English, and paused expectantly.
“Coffee for me and a croissant—or a pastry. I don’t care which.”
“At once, sir.” The waiter gave a little bobbing bow and hurried away. Adam scowled at the man’s back, then glared at Ann. “Breakfast may still be cold,” he warned.
“How did you know I would want kippers?”
“You ate them every morning for breakfast at Innesford, whenever they were on the sideboard,” Adam said.
Their breakfast plates arrived only a few minutes later. Ann’s kippers wafted steam into the air. A second waiter carried a tray with a coffee pot and a tea pot, plus cups for both of them, sauces, teaspoons, sugar lumps and cream.
Adam glared at Ann the entire time the two waiters added the dishes to their table, as if it was all her fault that the hot meal had arrived promptly.
Ann smiled back.
After his first bite of the pastry they had brought him, Adam glared at her again. “It isn’t stale,” he added.
Ann used the tongs to drop a lump of sugar into her tea, stirred, and managed not to laugh. “As you travel so much and must eat in dining rooms all over Europe, I imagine your meals have been somewhat lacking of late, if you deal with all waiters as you tried to deal with this one.”
Adam didn’t scowl this time. He took a mouthful of coffee instead.
Ann ate the excellent kippers and eggs, buttered the toast which came with them and added a dollop of jam.
Adam, instead, ate quickly and dropped his napkin upon the table. Then he got to his feet and rested his hand on the newspapers folded by his plate. “You should go back to your room when you have finished eating. If you will excuse me, I will see to having the carriage prepared.”
“You might consider sliding the coin to the boy so no one else notices, instead of flipping it to him,” Ann replied serenely.
Adam’s eyes narrowed again, although he left without speaking.
Ann’s smile lasted until she noticed another matron staring at her, her eyes wide and her expression puzzled, as if she was trying to determine if Ann really was the woman on the front page of her husband’s newspaper.
As soon as she could, Ann escaped to her room, her breakfast sitting like a hot rock in her stomach.
Adam was used to reading about the private affairs of notable public figures in newspapers. He had used the fact for years as a swift way of learning who was an influential person in any new city or town he came to. Meeting such people or those who reported to them always helped smooth business along.
The speed at which the papers had reported about yesterday’s drama at the cathedral was a surprise to him, though. It was unsettling. What if, in the future, all such matters were reported to everyone, everywhere, at such great speeds? How could a man live his life in peace and go about his business unmolested?
