Prelude to Love by Joan Smith Read Free Book Online Page A

destination."
    "He'll soon know it's not London we're headed to, when we pass by it, won't he?"
    "All the more reason to leave at once."
    "I was looking forward to a quiet read of this paper I picked up downstairs," she said, looking down at it. "Bother, it is all in French. After studying it for ten years, I still cannot make heads or tails of it."
    "French!" Vanessa squealed. "Where did you get that?"
    "That fellow left it in our parlor. Oh, my goodness!" she gasped, sinking down onto a chair. "Nessie, you are right! Colonel Landon is a French spy! Imagine, they have infiltrated our army."
    "He's no more a colonel than I am. Colonel Landon indeed! Monsieur Ladonnée is more like it."
    "I confess I thought you were making a mountain of a mole hill, as young girls will always do. The fellow was casting such sheep's eyes on you, I thought he was only trying to scrape an acquaintance, but it begins to seem ..."
    "Wolf’s eyes is more like it. He was positively frightening. Certainly he is a spy." The French paper confirmed in her mind that her attacker was Landon. It also inclined Miss Simons to see the advantages of an immediate remove from the White Swan. The next decision was where to go instead. Any inn would be equally precarious. Their carriage's leaving the stable would be reported to the spy, and he would be after them.
    "Do we know anyone close by we could go to? He could not follow us to a private home if we got away before he saw us. What we must do is take our cases downstairs on tiptoe, and have Gretch bring the carriage around as quickly as possible. We'll be safe standing in the lobby."
    "The only soul I know within ten miles is the Raffertys, and I would prefer being assaulted to going near them," Miss Simons said, her face falling in chagrin. "We would do better to dart to London—the Halfords or Staceys ..."
    "No, he thinks we are going to London. That is the direction he will take. What is amiss with these Raffertys?"
    "They are Methodists, my dear. We would have a perfectly wretched time. They do not believe in drink, or music or any of the refinements of life. Mrs. Rafferty was a Featherstone before her marriage, and a friend of mine years ago. But she married a Methodist, and there is no doing anything for her now. I made the wretched error of stopping there once on my way from London to Levenhurst, and vowed I would never darken her door again."
    "You will darken it tonight, Auntie, and so will I. It is not refinement we are after, but safety. How far away is it?"
    "I remember there were lime trees in the orchard," Elleri stated unhelpfully.
    "Yes, but where was the house?"
    "It cannot be far from Tilbury. The highlight of our visit was a dart into this pokey place to look at a church, in the rain. About three miles away, I think, but I cannot recall in which direction precisely."
    "Ring the bell. We'll send a servant to the stable to have our carriage readied and brought around before the colonel gets to our keyhole. Can't you remember the direction? Try."
    "I've got it now! It is north, the right direction for us. We weren't coming from London but from Cambridge, when Jane's son was ..."
    "Good," Vanessa said, to interrupt the tale before it began. "Now let us invent an excuse for barging in on the Raffertys at such a farouche hour."
    "We'll be lucky if they're not in bed with the doors locked. There can be no excuse for rousing folks up out of their beds at night. Really, it would not be at all the thing, dear.''
    “Sickness is always an excuse for doing the inexcusable.''
    "That is true, and it would give me an excellent excuse not to have to sit down and talk to them. I shall say we were going to Cambridge, but developed a sick stomach from Gretch's cow-handling of the ribbons. Excellent! There will be no need for you to stay chatting more than half an hour. Claim fatigue and join me. Now all we require is an excuse for going to Cambridge. Jane's son is no longer there."
    "It doesn't have to be