Prelude to Love Read Online Free Page B

matter of the utmost importance. We are to guard it with our lives."
    There was a good deal of excited chatter, taking up ten minutes of the allowed thirty before they were to leave. The colonel came along to his daughter's room to hasten her departure, and to give more instructions for the disposal of the letter.
    "Tuck it into the front of your gown," he suggested. "And don't let it out of your hands, even when you are sleeping."
    "Can't you tell me what is in it?"
    He considered doing so, but as Miss Simons chose that moment to stick her head in at the door, he hastily reconsidered. "Be sure to take an extra pair of kid gloves, Nessie. Gloves always become smudged on a journey," Miss Simons said.
    Nessie would in all likelihood tell that rattlepate of a woman what the message was. He could not trust Elleri Simons as far as he could throw a house. "I can't, but you may be sure of its importance, Nessie. I have to speak to Parkins now. Don't waste a moment."
    Her father turned to leave, then spotted her new ball gown, hanging on the door. "Sorry about your missing the dance. I see you have had a new gown made up. You shall wear it when you return—at your own ball. I'll give you a fine ball here at Levenhurst, Nessie, as a reward. Ask who you like to it." This was oblique permission to include the detested young colonel.
    Her old remorse returned to plague her. Papa was not depriving her of the dance on purpose. That the letter contained any message vital to the safety of the country, she could not believe for a moment, but that her father thought so, she reluctantly accepted. She went to the door and placed a kiss on his cheek. "Thank you, Papa. That will be lovely."
    He patted her hand, feeling a twinge of conscience that he did the proper thing, to send his helpless daughter on so dangerous a mission. "Be very careful."
    "I will, Papa."
    "Of course you will. You are your father's daughter, after all," he consoled himself.
    After he left, Vanessa tried to stick a thick letter into the bosom of a lightweight sprigged muslin gown. Its four corners stuck out, calling more attention to it than Papa would care for, or than was quite comfortable for herself. She held it in her hands a moment, looking around for a better place to hide it. She had a small valise on her bed, the only case she intended taking. Elleri came into the room again. "The letter would be safer in the large trunk, would it not?" she asked.
    "We are not taking a large trunk. There isn't time to pack one."
    "It is half packed, goose. Go to Ipswich without a trunk? You are mad. Give me the letter."
    "No, I'll keep it," she said, putting it into her small valise and folding a spare petticoat on top of it. “We had better go now."
    "I shall be ready in two minutes," Elleri said casually, then went back to her room to sort in a leisurely fashion through her gowns, selecting one, and pushing another aside. She trotted back and forth, down the hall, reminding her charge to pack extra stockings, for a stocking was bound to poke out a toe on a trip; to bring her own soap—there was nothing but lye soap to be had at an inn, and a dozen other non-necessities, till the trunk was filled to the brim. When the servants took the trunk down, her aunt even picked up a glass-faced traveling clock, framed in brass, with a ring on top to aid carrying.
    "We would not want to be without a clock in the carriage," she said. "Handsome, is it not? My father gave it to me when he died—in his will. I never travel without it."
    Its handsome hands showed the half hour allowed by Colonel Bradford for their departure had doubled to an hour, and still they had not left.
    Their exit down the front stairs was silent, to prevent his hearing at what time they were finally going. When they got in the carriage, Vanessa noticed that in all the confusion, she had worn her oldest slippers, blue ones that were so very comfortable but not at all stylish.
    Abovestairs, Bradford sat worrying that he