Runaway Lady

London—Friday, 14 June 1667

Saskia was lost in London. She rode around a corner and straight into the middle of a riot. A burst of sharp, violent sounds and images exploded into her awareness. A flying brick…a man’s contorted face as he bellowed in rage…the bite of axe into a tree. Angry, shouting men were hurling stones at the windows of a grand mansion and chopping down trees in front of it. Her horse shied in alarm, nearly unseating her. Then she regained her wits sufficiently to control the frightened horse and get to safety.

Once she reached the sanctuary of a quiet street she pulled the gelding to a halt. Her heart was thundering, her body trembling with shock. She patted the horse’s neck, trying to calm both of them with the gesture. She’d sensed a growing agitation among the people as she’d approached London, but she’d never expected to find herself in the midst of a violent scene. Anxiety knotted her stomach. She didn’t have time for this. Benjamin didn’t have time. She was acutely conscious of the days relentlessly passing as she sought help. Remembering how the Cornish magistrate had fawned over her aunt, she’d been no more willing to ask him for help than the household servants. When her only other hope of finding help in Cornwall had been thwarted, she’d come to London in search of the one influential man in England she was sure would trust her word—her godfather, Sir Francis Middleton. But first she had to find his house.

As soon as she was calm enough to be confident not to pitch her voice too revealingly high, she asked a porter what was happening.

‘Breaking Clarendon’s windows? It’s his fault we’re trapped in this war with the Dutch!’ he exclaimed, spitting into the street. Clarendon? After a moment’s confusion, Saskia remembered he was the Lord Chancellor.

‘How can you not know?’ The porter stared at her in disbelief.

‘I’ve been out of the town, visiting friends,’ she replied, grateful for the shadows thrown by the tall houses on either side of the street. She was wearing male clothing, and in the poor light she hoped she looked like a dishevelled lad, rather than a frightened woman. ‘What have the Dutch done?’

‘Broke through the chain at Chatham, burned most of our ships and towed away the flag ship,’ the porter said in disgust.

‘My God!’ Chatham was only thirty miles from the heart of London. The Dutch had pulled off a daring raid on the English. Saskia wondered if Jan had been part of it—then her blood chilled as she realised that revealing her brother-in-law was an officer in the Dutch navy would not be prudent.

‘Did they attack the people of Chatham? Have they threatened to attack London?’ she demanded.

‘Who knows what they’ve done? Or will do. I’ve heard they are blockading the Thames. Our ships can’t get in or out. This government is a disgrace to us. Oliver would not have let us suffer such a defeat.’

‘Thank you for the news.’ Saskia extricated herself as smoothly as she could. She had no interest in debating whether Oliver Cromwell’s foreign policy had been superior to King Charles II’s.

The forced diversion meant it took a painfully long time before she was finally in sight of her godfather’s house. From the back of her horse she had a good view over the heads of the people crowding the street and she was sure she’d recognised it correctly. A wash of relief swept over her. Soon she would be with friends—

The front door opened and a man emerged. As he glanced around she had a clear view of his face.

Tancock!

She stared at him in disbelief, shock and weariness making her slow to react. Of course, Aunt Isabel knew Sir Francis was her godfather. She must have guessed Saskia’s destination from the first. Tancock would have been able to reach London quicker than a woman travelling alone.

Saskia suddenly realised it would be as easy for Tancock to see her as it was for her to see him. She started to kick her feet clear of the stirrups, but his gaze—which had passed uninterestedly over her once—returned and locked on to her face. His eyes widened in recognition. The semi-disguise of her men’s clothes had not deceived him. It was too late to drop out of the saddle and hide among the pedestrians. She dragged on the reins, intent only on escape. As she did so, from the corner of her eye she saw Tancock lift his arm and point at her.

‘Dutch spy!’ he shouted. ‘Seize her! Dutch spy! Plotting more atrocities on honest, hardworking Londoners!’

As the throng of nearby people murmured first in confusion and then in growing anger, Saskia kicked the gelding as hard as she could, urging him into a gallop. Her most important goal now was to avoid capture by an outraged mob of Londoners.

Covent Garden—London, Saturday, 15 June 1667

The back room of the coffee-house was small and poorly lit. Every time the door opened Saskia felt a shiver of anxiety until she’d seen the face of the man who entered—and even then a residual fear remained that one of those she interviewed might be in Tancock’s pay.

But there was no reason for Tancock to suspect she was here. Even Saskia herself had not remembered Johanna for nearly two, panic-stricken hours. Johanna was the cousin of Saskia’s late husband, Pieter van Buren. Johanna had married an English tradesman who’d gone into partnership with a silent investor to open one of London’s first coffee-houses. After her husband’s death, Johanna had continued managing the coffee-house alone. She’d been very willing to help Saskia. Yesterday evening she had sent a message to Sir Francis’s house on Saskia’s behalf—but the women had been shocked to discover he’d been struck by an apoplexy that same morning. No one knew if Sir Francis would live or die, and Saskia was terribly afraid Tancock might be the cause of her godfather’s illness.

Such a hideous mixture of guilt, fear and anger overwhelmed her at the possibility she almost didn’t hear the door open. She recovered her composure just in time to snatch up the mask from the table and hold it to her face as the next man came into the room.

She knew at once he wasn’t Tancock. He was too tall, too exotic—too obviously dangerous.

Her breath caught in her throat. One or two of the previous men had struck her as uncomfortably disreputable, but she’d called upon her experience of dealing with her late husband’s business to dismiss them as quickly and easily as possible. This man was different. A wolf, not a jackal. She could see it in the swift, appraising gaze he cast around the room, the silent, fluid way he moved and the self-assurance of his bearing.

His appearance was a combination of the foreign and familiar. His soft, tan leather boots made no sound on the floorboards. He wore a scarlet sash around his waist from which hung a curved sword. Unlike his boots and his sword, his broad-brimmed hat was English in style, but beneath it Saskia saw his dark hair was cut much shorter than fashion demanded.

He stared straight at her. As she met his dark eyes, even the anonymous mask seemed no barrier to the disturbingly virile, dangerous energy he radiated. Her pulse quickened. She couldn’t remember ever being so instantly, compellingly aware of a man’s physical—male—presence. Nervous tension skittered through her body. She was used to men who obeyed the customs and manners of civilised society. She was already convinced that this man obeyed no rules but his own. She didn’t need a wayward, edgy man. She needed one who would follow her commands obediently. Unquestioningly.

She was about to reject him before he’d even said a word. But then she remembered her first impression of Tancock. Until the evening she’d heard him plotting murder she would have said he was punctilious in observing the requirements of civilised behaviour. Perhaps an obviously dangerous, unpredictable man would be better than an apparently placid man. She’d never forget to be on her guard in his presence—and whoever she hired had to be capable of helping her rescue Benjamin.

‘Sit down,’ she ordered, determined to assert her authority from her first words.

Harry Ward had seen the woman snatch up the mask as he’d opened the door. She’d done it so quickly he’d had no chance to gain more than a fleeting impression of her features. Despite the summer warmth, she was wearing a dark hood and cloak, concealing both her hair and the shape of her body. He hadn’t seen her eyes, but he’d glimpsed a well-shaped mouth and a small but decisive chin.

Until a few weeks ago Harry had spent his adult life in lands where the veil was customary for women. One or two European merchants and diplomats took their wives and daughters with them to the Ottoman Empire, but Harry had never seen, let alone spoken to, the womenfolk of even his closest Turkish friends. Ever since he’d arrived back in England he’d had a nagging sense that he should be chivalrous in female company, without quite knowing what that entailed. From the moment he’d learned that the Dutch agent recruiting men in the back room of the coffee-house in which his brother was a silent investor was likely to be female, he’d been on edge. The confirmation that he was indeed dealing with a woman intensified his unease.

Of course, an Englishwoman who’d turned traitor had forfeited her right to be treated chivalrously. But Harry had been disturbed by the information he’d received. Apparently the woman was motivated by a desire to avenge her dead husband. Harry understood better than most how the burning need for vengeance—for justice—could overwhelm every rational thought. But treason could not be tolerated, nor could her activities be allowed to taint his brother’s reputation, even in passing.

Harry steeled himself to deal with the lady as ruthlessly as if she were a man. The mask she held to her face could not disguise the fundamental immodesty of her present situation. The mere fact she was interviewing strange men alone without even a chaperon meant she had forfeited her right to chivalrous treatment. On the other hand, since it wasn’t the custom for English women to be veiled, her determination to conduct her illicit business in his brother’s coffee-house behind the anonymity of a mask was in itself an insult. All in all, he concluded, she could have no expectation of receiving gentle treatment from him.

‘Are you afraid the mere sight of your beauty will make men run wild?’ he demanded, a little more scornfully than he’d intended.

‘Of course not!’ she exclaimed. ‘That is…my lord is most complimentary about my looks, but I do not expect to be universally admired.’

‘Who is your lord?’ Was she talking about her spymaster—or a man with whom she was on more intimate terms?

‘That is no concern of yours.’

‘And will I be of concern to him?’

‘I beg your pardon.’ She sounded confused.

‘Do you intend to disclose my existence to him?’

‘It was his idea I hire you!’ she snapped.

Harry was so startled he uttered a short Turkish curse under his breath. What kind of man encouraged his woman to act in such a forward manner? ‘Why isn’t he interviewing me?’

‘Because he’s in Portsmouth.’

‘Why did he leave you here?’ Harry was so distracted by the masked woman’s disclosures that for a moment he almost forgot what his former guardian, the Earl of Swiftbourne, had told him that morning.

He belatedly reminded himself that Saskia van Buren was the daughter of a Dutchwoman and an English baronet. According to Swiftbourne’s informant, she’d married a Dutchman at the age of twenty and spent the past six years living in Amsterdam. She’d returned to England a few weeks ago after she’d been widowed when her husband was killed in a naval battle with the English. Apparently, it was her husband’s death that had driven her to become an agent for the Dutch. If this was Saskia, it was extremely likely her ‘lord’ was nothing more than a fiction to cover her true plans.

She drew in a deep breath. ‘May I remind you, fellow, that you are the one wishing to enter into temporary employment with me,’ she said crisply. ‘I am the one deciding if I will hire you. I ask the questions. Is that clear?’

She didn’t sound as if she was overwhelmed with grief. Nor did Harry receive the impression that she was locked into the single-minded, bitter fury of vengeance. She did sound exasperated. Perhaps she wasn’t Saskia.

He grinned, amused despite himself at her irritation. He had a temper of his own, though it rarely manifested itself when he was questioning potential employees. There was a plain wooden chair obviously intended for whoever the lady was currently interviewing. He turned it around, straddled it and rested his forearms along the back.

‘Ask away,’ he said cheerfully.

There was silence for several moments.