“Mr. Wedderburn—the King’s messenger,” he answered.
“The white rose and the golden lily—England and France.”
She opened the door at that and motioned him to enter.
As he obeyed he found himself face to face with a young girl; she held a candle in her hand that guttered in the draught and sent a trail of smoke and flame over her shoulder; round her brown bodice was a kerchief of vivid scarlet and in her ears hoops of red-gold glittered and swung.
“My father is out looking for you, Mr. Wedderburn,” she said with the calm of one grown easy at a perilous trade, careless and used to danger.
“I am late,” he answered. With a heavy step he advanced into the room. She bolted the door.
“Yes—the boat was expected two hours ago—we were there to meet you—you missed my father, sir?—he went to the coast; he will be returning soon.”
In silence he flung off his dripping cloak and hat and half-turning, glanced at Celia Hunt. She looked back at him with a sudden arrested interest.
It was the most remarkable, the handsomest face that she had ever seen; both his expression and the carriage of his splendid person indicated an arrogance that neither speech nor action might express; it seemed as if he forever contained a surging, passionate haughtiness; it was in the lines of his clear-cut mouth and in the expression of his dark blue eyes; eyes whose beauty was marred by a look, strained, slightly distraught. He wore no peruke and his short hair was black as his heavy brows; he was of a pale complexion naturally, and now his eyes showed dark in a face markedly pale.
“Ye are the messenger from St. Germains?” asked Celia Hunt.
“Have I not said so?” demanded Mr. Wedderburn with a curl of his short upper lip. “Why do you stare so, wench? I am not used to wait for my welcome.”
“Ye are not he who came here last under the name of Andrew Wedderburn,” said the girl.
“You must be used to feigned names here,” was the answer. “Do you doubt me?—be satisfied.” With the slightly grandiloquent magnificence that was his unconscious manner, he drew forth the papers from his breast and held them out.
She saw the seal of King James on the topmost. “You will stay the night here?” she said.
He gave a reckless little laugh and seated himself at the table.