Chapter Three

      Oh, the devil was in it that Hal Arlington had decided that William Grahame could best be snared by the wiles of a pretty woman so that, instead of carrying out this mission on his own, Stair was saddled with an actress who carped at his every word. And her every word was devoted to denying him her bed, which would have been the only thing that made having to drag Catherine around the Low Countries worthwhile!

      The pox was on it that he had ever volunteered to try to turn Grahame at all! One last such junket, the very last, he had told Arlington and Sir Thomas, having at first refused to oblige them.

      “I am seven years away from being a mercenary soldier for anyone to hire. If anyone deserves a quiet life, it is I. I have served my King both before his Restoration and after—as you well know.”

      “The Dutch War goes badly—as you equally well know, Stair, and yours are the special talents we need.”

      In a sense that had pained him, for were not those talents the ones that he had needed to survive in the penury which exile from England had forced upon him during the late usurper Cromwell’s rule? Cunning, lying, cheating and killing, yes, killing, for that was the soldier’s trade. Leading men in hopeless causes that he had won against all the odds, by using those same talents.

      He thought that he had done with it, that he was now free to live a civilised life in peace. Not simply enjoying its ease, but also the pretty women to whom he need make no commitment, as well as music, the playhouse, books and the blessed quiet of his country estates, both in England and Scotland, when he was no longer at Court. Estates most fortunately restored to him when Charles II had come into his own again.

      God knew, he no longer needed the money in order to survive. If he did this thing, he would do it for nothing, which, of course, Gower and Arlington also knew and was partly why they had asked him to be their agent in the Netherlands. As usual, the King’s Treasury was empty, and not needing to pay him would be a bonus.

      So, he had agreed. Only to discover that they had also decided that he needed a woman to pose as his wife, and a pretty woman at that, skilled in seductive arts, for Grahame had a reputation for being weak where women were concerned.

      “As a bird is caught by lime, so will he be caught by a pair of fine eyes,” Sir Thomas had said. “And we know the very doxy who will turn the trick for us.”

      In consequence, he had found himself in his own proper person at the Duke’s Theatre, in company with Hal Arlington, trying to test the nerve of the young actress whom Sir Thomas knew that he could blackmail through her indiscreet and foolish brother.

      And nerve she had, no doubt of it, by the way in which she had refused to let his unsettling jests with oranges, posies and gloves disturb her. She had also displayed a pretty wit, which she was now constantly exercising at his expense—except when she was seasick, that was.

      Sir Stair Cameron, to be known in the Netherlands only as Tom Trenchard—Trenchard being his mother’s name, and Tom his own second Christian name—was leaning disconsolate over the packet’s side as it neared land, musing on his fate.

      He lifted his face to feel the rain on it. Blessed, cleansing rain. By God, when this is over, he vowed, I shall refuse to engage in such tricks ever again, but now I must go below and help my disobliging doxy to ready herself to be on dry land again.

      Tom did not reflect—for he never allowed the possibility of failure to trouble him—that having to take a young, untried woman with him might put his mission in hazard, even cause it to fail. He had made such a point to Gower and Bennet but they had dismissed it. And so, perforce, had he to do the same.

      All the same, the idea was there, very like a worm that secretly eats away at the foundations of a seemingly secure house until at last it falls.

      He shrugged his broad shoulders. No more mewling and puking over what was past and could not be changed, he told himself, no looking backwards, either. Forwards, ever forwards, was the motto his father had adopted on being made a baronet, and he would try to live up to it, as had always been his habit.

      The day was growing late, and it was likely that they would not dock until the morning. Once on shore they would travel to Antwerp where they might, please God, find Grahame and finish the business almost before it was begun.

      Time to go below to wake his supposed wife from her schnapps-induced sleep.

      “Aye, that will do very well, mistress, very well, indeed,” announced Tom Trenchard approvingly. Catherine had dressed herself in a neat gown of the deepest rose. Its neckline was low and boat-shaped, but was modestly hidden by a high-necked jacket of padded pale mauve satin, trimmed with narrow bands of white fur, which reached the knee and was fastened with tiny bows of fine gold braid.

      Round her slender neck was a small pearl necklace, and her hair, instead of being arranged in the wild confusion of curls popular at King Charles’s court, was modestly strained back into a large knot, leaving a fringe to soften her high forehead.

      This had the effect of enhancing rather than diminishing the delicate purity of her face and profile.

      For his part, Tom had also changed out of his rough and serviceable clothing. Although he was not pretending to be a bluff and conventional Dutch burgher, he looked less of a wild mercenary captain and more of a man who was able to conduct himself properly out of an army camp as well as in it.

      He was wearing jacket and breeches of well-worn, but not threadbare, black velvet, trimmed with silver. His shirt was white, not a dirty cream, and he sported a white linen collar edged with lace that, if not rich, was at least respectable. His boots, as usual, were splendid. He had also shaved himself carefully so he looked less like the wild man of the woods, which Catherine had privately nicknamed him.

      His hair was, for the first time since she had met him, carefully brushed and fell in deep red-gold waves to just below his ears. He carried a large steeple-crowned black hat with a pewter buckle holding its thin silver band.

      The whole effect was impressive. No, he was not handsome, far from it, but he had a presence. The French had a saying, Catherine knew, that a woman of striking, but not beautiful looks, was jolie laide, which meant an ugly woman who was pretty or attractive in an unusual way. It could, she grudgingly admitted, be applied to Tom, who was better than handsome.

      It did not mean that she liked him the more, simply that his brute strength attracted her more than the languor of the pretty gentlemen of King Charles’s court did. She had held them off when they had tried to tumble her into bed, and so she would hold off Tom. She would be no man’s whore, as she had told Sir Thomas Gower.

      “Deep in thought?” offered Tom, who seemed to be a bit of a mind reader. “What interests you so much…wife…that you have just left me in spirit, if not in body?”

      She would not be flustered. “Nothing, except that this morning, for the first time, I feel dry land firm beneath my feet again.”

      Forty-eight hours ago they had docked at a wharf on the coast well outside Antwerp itself, which by the Peace of Westphalia was closed to shipping. Antwerp was not Dutch territory, being situated in Flanders, territory still under the heel of the Austrian Empire, and it was always known as the Austrian Netherlands. Being so near to Holland, it would be a useful place to work from—if one were careful.

      Once safely on land again, Catherine had found the ground heaving beneath her feet as though she were still on the packet. It had needed Tom’s strong arms to steady her.

      Today,