Free The Cornish Heiress by Roberta Gellis Page A

Reviens bientôt, chéri . We will
be waiting.”
    To Philip’s relief neither followed him out the door. He
understood that his father and stepmother were worried, but he was not. Thus he
found their emotion irritating even while he was warmed by the knowledge of
their love. In the alley beyond the servants’ entrance was a rawboned bay
called Spite. The name was a family joke. Spite had the sweetest disposition
ever bestowed on a horse, but he had an odd habit that made him look vicious—of
laying back his ears and showing his teeth. Philip never thought about that
habit, he was so used to it, and in other ways the gelding was ideal. He had
speed, stamina, took fences standing or flying, and would burst his heart going
if it were asked of him. Last and best, he was not a handsome animal, and his
description would fit about two thirds of the common hacks in the country.
Philip stowed what he was carrying in the saddlebags, noting that there was
just room for the pistol case. When he went up into the saddle, it was with a
curious sense of release, as if the motion were a dividing line in his life.
Technically he had been a man for years, living his own life in his own rooms—in
London or at Dymchurch House. His income was assured and his own to manage as
he saw fit. Nonetheless, he had not felt like a man. Although his father did not
intrude in his life, he was there—a firm bulwark ready to offer support or
advice in any crisis.
    That was over. Philip blushed briefly as he wheeled Spite
out onto the street and headed toward Hyde Park. What a fool he had been for
the past half year. But it was partly his father’s fault. Philip had known he
could go his length, and come out scatheless. Mentally he shrugged. It was not
worth thinking about now. He was really on his own. Pierre would help all he
could, but Philip realized that once in France, Pierre probably could not do
much. He was too obviously what he was—a Breton fisherman, and not young. Not a
likely person to be wandering around military installations.
    First things first. He had to get to Pierre. How real was
the threat that someone would be warned that he was on his way? A possibility,
but not a strong one, Philip thought. In any case, not a thing he needed to
worry about while he was in London or the nearby towns. There was so much
traffic on the roads near London that it would be impossible to determine
whether anyone was following him or was just an innocent traveler going in the
same direction. On a lonely stretch of road it might be worthwhile to look
around, but not here. He rode contentedly, regardless of Spite’s one real
drawback, a bone-jarring gait that made long hours in the saddle painful and
exhausting for the best of equestrians.
     
    Just as Philip passed out of London proper, a young man was
shown into the library of Roger’s house. He bowed with a flourish but received
only the curtest of nods in reply. Roger did not like Jean de Tréport. It
seemed to him that this young scion of an émigré house had encouraged
all of Philip’s less endearing habits. The marks of dissipation on his face
made him look much older than Philip, although he was actually two years
younger. His reputation, aside from the drinking, whoring, and gambling—which
were accepted as normal in the circles in which he traveled—was good. He was
honest in his play and paid his debts and his share.
    “I’m sorry to trouble you, Mr. St. Eyre,” Jean said.
    He had hardly any trace of accent, less than Philip, because
he made a conscious effort to eliminate it. His parents had fled to England
shortly after the Revolution began in France. Jean had been only a boy then,
and he said he had few pleasant memories of his native land. Thus, when the old
people died, he refused to go back even when the option was offered by the
amnesty. He was more Englishman than Frenchman by now, he claimed, and besides,
there was nothing to go back for. His father had sold everything he had