Love Charade Part 37

smell of smoke and charred hay.

"Set fire to the barn," Jules clipped, handing Danny to Westmore as he swung astride his horse and then reached down for her again. "We are but five miles from the coast and the lights may perhaps alert Jake."

"And also St. Estephe," Tony said, throwing Jeanette up ahead of him before mounting himself.

"He is now but three to our four," Jules reminded.

"Five," Danielle declared. "I am not as weak as I seem. If you have a spare weapon, I claim the comte

for my own."

"We have not and you may not," Julian told her flatly. "You will keep your mouth shut, cousin, until we are again aboard Dream Girl."

"If she has not already left," Danny said soberly.

"That is not a helpful remark! Will you please keep quiet."

Danielle took no offense at Julian's autocratic tone, sensing both his acute anxiety and his relief at finding her relatively unharmed. The days of her captivity must have been almost as horrendous for her friends as they had been for her.

Meanwhile, Jake had reluctantly made up his mind that he must sail on the evening tide. He had intended to leave that morning but perversely the clamoring insistence of his pa.s.sengers that he wait not a moment longer had kept him on deck, straining his eyes desperately for the flash of the beacon. Wby the devil anyone would bother to save this ungrateful lot, he thought disgustedly as a whining voice came up behind. They were concerned only for their own skins and quite happy at the idea of abandoning their rescuers in that inhospitable land. Then something caught his eye, a bright scarlet glow coming from inland. It bore no relation to the signal of the beacon, but it was just possible . . . An accidental fire on this damp windy coast where material possessions were treated with all the desperate care of poverty was almost inconceivable, particularly one that had been allowed to get out of hand, judging by the brilliance of that light. He had nothing to lose at any rate, and if it were indeed a signal then everything to be gained by having the dinghy on the beach waiting for them. He gave the orders for the boat to be lowered and then resumed hia impatient pacing, ignoring the excitable foreign babble as his pa.s.sengers demanded to know what was happening.

"We will leave the horses here," Jules said as they reached the cliff head. "They will find their way back or someone will find them." He dismounted. "A thousand pardons, Danny, but I cannot carry you in my arms down that path to the beach." Danielle was about to say that she was quite capable of walking now, when she found herself draped over his shoulder.

"This is most undignified, Jules," she grumbled, b.u.mping uncomfortably as he began to leap down the steep path.

"Well, I am sorry for it, but it cannot be helped. And I am telling you straight, Danny, if we come out of this one alive, none of us are making such a journey again."

Danielle said nothing. One of these days she was going to kill St. Estephe very slowly, but since she was sure Jules would not approve of her bloodthirsty thoughts she kept them to herself.

"Odd's breath, there's the dinghy." Westmore crowed with delight. "Jake must have seen the fire and drawn the right conclusions. What a stroke of luck!"

"We are certainly due for some," Philip said with absolute truth. "Viens, Jeanette." He took her hand and rap with her to the sh.o.r.e where the two sailors held the dinghy against the cras.h.i.+ng surf.

Danielle sat huddled in Julian's cloak on the thwart, watching the cove recede as the powerful arms of the oarsmen bore them away from the nightmare. In three days she-would be back with her son and maybe there would be some news. Black spots danced before her eyes and the strangest sensation crept up her neck, like being enclosed in a gray fog ....

Tony caught her as she slumped sideways and began chafing the white face. But she was out for barely a minute and came to, muttering apologies even before her senses had fully returned. "It is perhaps because I have had little food," she mumbled, struggling upright.

"Lie still." Tony put her head back in his lap. "It will not be long now."

Half an hour later Jake had the anchor taken up with an overpowering sense of relief. Ominous clouds scudded across the evening sky and the wind was coming in unpredictable spurts that gathered strength as the yacht moved into open water. The coastline offered no safe shelter with its riptides and concealed reefs and, unable to hug the sh.o.r.e, they had no choice but to put to sea. It was going to be a very long rough voyage, Jake thought, wondering grimly how those refugee pa.s.sengers were going to manage in their cramped quarters below decks.

Justin paced the long drawing room at Mervanwey, fighting the helplessness, the hopelessness of his frustration. He could make no plans until Dream Girl returned, could only renew his relations.h.i.+p with his son-an immensely rewarding process, but Nicky asked constantly for his mother and was happiest in the rose garden where his father held him as they sat on the low wall both gazing at the noncommittal sea, waiting.

Lavinia looked at the man she now loved as if they were tied by blood, as helpless to help him as she was to help herself. They had dined at five o'clock, keeping country hours as usual. Nicky had been brought down in his nightgown to eat sugar plums and almonds, nestling in his father's lap as they took dessert before Justin carried him to bed, told one of the stories from his own childhood that returned with amazing ease to memory. It was nine o'clock and the November wind battled against the windowpanes.

"D'ye care for a game of piquet, Justin?" Charles asked as his wife plied her embroidery needle.

"By all means." Justin came over to the crackling fire. "I am poor company these days. I beg pardon . .."

"Tiens! You have tried my patience beyond bearing. I cannot help it that you are wet and that it is a steep climb from the beach. If you do not care for your hospitality, I suggest you swim back to France where I am certain Madame Guillotine will make you most welcome!" The unmistakable voice rose in exasperation from the hall and the three in the drawing room gazed at each other in wonder and disbelieving hope.

The door burst open. "Grandmere, I do beg your pardon. You must have been in such a worry but . . ." Danny stopped on the threshold. "Justin?" Six months hadn't changed him at all, except for the drawn look about his eyes.

"Danny, you wretched little vagabond!" It was the most extraordinary salutation from a man who hadn't seen his wife in six months and who, for the last week, had a.s.sumed that she was dead. For Danielle they were the most wonderful words. She sprang across the room and into his arms, heedless of the tiresome group crowding the doorway or the soft exhalations of relief from her colleagues.

Justin kissed her, hugged her, feeling the remembered pliancy under his hands, the firm yet soft lips beneath his own. He pushed the cap from her head and gasped in sudden outrage at her cropped head. "Brat, how dare you do that again!" Gripping her shoulders, he shook her with all the vigor of a terrier with a rat, giving vent to the pent-up fear of the last seven days.

"P ... p ... please! Do stop," Danielle stammered when her head seemed about to leave her shoulders, and with a muttered exclamation he hugged her to him again.

"Incorrigible urchin! Why are you so wet?" Justin demanded as his senses returned and he became aware of her sopping britches pressing against his thighs.

"The surf was too high for Dream Girl to make the dock. We had to land in the dinghy," Danielle explained. "And the dinghy had to make several journeys because there are so many of us, you understand. Jules, and Tony and Philip and I had to wade in to help beach it. It is quite simple. But what is most interesting, Justin, is that I am no longer seasick. It was a monstrous tempestuous voyage but I felt not the slightest need to puke."

A tired grin suddenly split her face. "I do beg your pardon for my vulgarity, Grandmaman. But you understand how things are at the moment." She left her husband to embrace her grandparents. "How has Nicky been?"

"He is well and asleep these last two hours," Lavinia rea.s.sured, holding her granddaughter in a fierce grip.

"I will go up to the nursery shortly. But first we must do something for these . . ." Danny gestured toward the miserable group of utterly bewildered French who had been unable to follow a word of the conversation and could not begin to understand the extraordinary reception this diminutive bully had met at the hands of the tall Englishman.

"We are all like to die of hunger," Danielle went on. "We have been living off salt pork and s.h.i.+p's biscuits for the last five days."

"You are more like to die of the ague if you do not get out of those wet clothes this instant." Lavinia expressed her relief in severity, belied by the warm glow in her eyes, and took charge. "Justin, look to your wife while I do what I can to make these poor people comfortable. The rest of you may look after yourselves," she declared briskly. "There will be a meal in the dining room within the half hour."

"Jeanette." Danielle turned to the young girl standing awkwardly, twisting her red chapped hands into impossible knots. "I will take you to Tante Therese. She will look after you and make you quite comfortable, and I can visit my son at the same time."

"No," her husband said, recovering at last from his bemused joy and deciding that it was time he took a hand in this affair. "I will take the child to Tante Therese and you, Madam Wife, will put yourself into a hot bath without further ado. You may see Nicky when you are in dry clothes."

"But that is ridic . . . Justin!" She yelped as he grabbed the collar of her jacket and marched her to the door.

"It is quite clear that I have been away far too long," he told her. "You appear to have forgotten in my absence that I do not tolerate disobedience." His eyes teased in the old way and his voice carried that note of mock severity that was part of their private language.

"I thought you were dead, love," Danny whispered, standing outside the door, away from the eyes within.

"And I you," he whispered back. "I will never leave you again, my love. What we do, we do together in future."

She nodded. "Come to me quickly."

"As soon as I have taken your little Jeanette to Tante Therese."

He found her in the porcelain tub before a blazing fire, receiving Molly's relieved ministrations and the reproaches that her privileged position allowed her to make. But a strange thing happened when Justin's gaze slowly traversed his wife's naked body with all the wonder of remembrance. A panicky flash of pure fear shot into the wide brown eyes and an unmistakable shudder ran through the slender frame.

What the devil? He opened his mouth to exclaim and then closed it again and simply sat on the window seat leaving Molly to complete her work. The fear in the eyes became relief and his lips tightened. What had happened to her in those long months of their separation?

They talked into the early hours in the dining room that night as Danielle and her four colleagues told of their adventures. Jules and the others waited for her to bring up her ordeal with St. Estephe and when she did not do so felt that her silence was in some way a command that they must follow. They now all knew the comte's motives and it was for Justin's wife to tell him at what time and in whatever manner she chose. Their delay in returning was easily explained by the mayhem in Paris, the difficult personalities of their pa.s.sengers, and the storm.

Justin found it possible to laugh at Jules's description of Danielle's play-acting at the barrerre, although he knew that the ghosts of horror at the risks she had taken would haunt him for many months. The camaraderie existing between the five of them was very clear in the way they teased each other, the way they were able to leave sentences half finished, thoughts uncompleted, and the meaning was immediately grasped. It was also clear that Danny was their chief planner, although she admitted, quite cheerfully when reminded, that on occasion her imagination got the better of her and it needed a more sober appraisal to make her plans at least safer if less imaginative.

Justin wondered if he were jealous of this easy relations.h.i.+p based on so much intimacy and terrifying danger. He was, he decided. But it was a mean-spirited emotion that must be repressed. What concerned him more was the brittle quality of Danielle's laughter, the ease with which she slipped over the description of the attack on the Tuileries, their return to the scene of the ma.s.sacre, her earlier attempts to find D'Evron, and the days when she had run beside the tumbrils looking for a familiar face.

His own adventures had paled in comparison. The czar's court had received him kindly and it had been a series of misadventures that had delayed his homecoming-that and the czar's pleasure in the company of the Earl of Unton, pleasure that had become a royal edict which under that absolute rule could not be gainsaid.

It was Julian not Justin who told Danielle that she looked like the very devil and it was time she was in bed. As for the rest of them, they were too nerve-riddled to sleep and would play cards until exhaustion took over.

Danielle did not demur, saying only to Justin in a low whisper that he should stay up as long as he wished; she was utterly exhausted anyway. To her relief, he merely nodded and walked her to the door, tipping her chin to place a light kiss at the corner of her mouth.

She ran up the stairs, tore off her wrapper, and flung herself into bed. Something she could never in her wildest imaginings have foreseen had happened. Not only could she not tell her husband of St. Estephe's violations, but she could not bear the thought of being touched, of being looked at. Her skin crawled in revulsion as she hugged her b.r.e.a.s.t.s beneath the sheet in fierce protection of her bodily privacy. What was she to do? Pretend to be asleep when he came to her bed, as he most a.s.suredly would? Tonight, perhaps, it would work, but for how long could she maintain the deception?

Justin remained in the dining room for half an hour after his wife's departure and he learned much. He learned the full truth of their experiences in Paris and Danny's reaction to what they had seen and done, and he learned that something was being kept from him; something other-far worse than what he had been told. No one gave him the barest hint but the secret hummed in the air, lurked in their eyes.

"Well, gentlemen, I will bid you good morning. Enjoy your play. You have earned some relaxation, I think." He left them amidst chorused good nights and went upstairs, both thoughtful and determined. His wife by some miracle had been returned to him, but she was not whole and he would have her so.

The bedchamber was in darkness, except for the dying embers of the fire. He lit two tapers and carried both tb the bed. "You are not asleep, Danielle, so do not pretend to be so."

Danielle muttered incoherently and curled more tightly beneath the covers, but they were wrested from her grasp and drawn back. "I wish to look at you," Justin said softly, sitting on the bed and turning her onto her back. She began to shake even as she tried to offer herself to his gentle hands, simulating the old eagerness.

It was such a pathetic attempt. The fear stood out in her eyes and shudders of revulsion crept over her skin as he caressed her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, rolling her nipples between finger and thumb in the way that had always drawn moans of pleasure from her.

"What has happened to you?"

"Nothing . . . rien du tout. It is simply that it has been such a long time and I am out of the way of ... of loving." It was a poor offering and Danielle knew it.

He took her hands, palm against palm, holding them above her head and she cried out in terror. "No ... no please, not in that way."

Once he had made the almost fatal mistake of allowing her withdrawal, gentling and courting her, hoping that she would recover, without intervention, from what was troubling her. But those methods had failed and Justin never repeated his mistakes. Now he stood up and reached for her discarded wrapper. "Get up." His voice was quiet.

Danielle had not the slightest idea what he was going to do and made no move to comply. Nothing had ever frightened her as much as this petrified reaction to Justin's touch and look and now she just lay there.

"Get up!" The voice this tinr.e was a lash and Danielle found herself on her feet without conscious thought. He pushed her arms into the wrapper, tied it securely about her waist, and then, without speaking, took her hand and led her back to the dining room.

Four startled pairs of eyes looked up from their cards. "Now," Justin said to his wife, "I am going to ask you the question again. What has happened to you?"

Four hands of cards slapped onto the table and her friends sat back in total silence looking into the middle distance, for once offering her no support and telling her husband all that he needed to know at this point.

"Thank you." Justin turned back to Danny. "Since it is now clear that something has happened, we will dispense with further prevarication, if you please. You may tell me here or in private. If you are unable to tell me yourself then I am certain someone else will oblige."

"They may be able to tell you the facts, Justin, but only I can'' tell you of the horror." Her voice shook. "I do not wish to."

"No," he said, suddenly gentle. "But sometimes one must do what one does not wish to do. Let us go upstairs now." Not a word had been spoken by anyone but themselves in the quiet dining room.

In their own chamber, Danielle crawled again beneath the covers and Justin undressed, blowing out the candle before slipping in beside her. "Now . . . ?" he asked softly.

She told him the whole as he held her close in the cloaking darkness as one would hold a child in the midst of a nightmare, and after she had at last fallen asleep in the arms that simply held and made no demands he lay awake and allowed the bitter rage full rein. He would not rest until he had hunted down St. Estephe as one would rid the world of a rabid cur, and from Danielle's account that was a perfect description of their enemy.

Chapter 23.

Viscount Beresford darted from his hiding place behind a rhododendron bush and scampered across the lawn, chuckling gleefully. He had managed to evade the watchful eyes of Tante Therese, Maddy, and Jeanette-some considerable achievement. His goal was the great barn behind the stables where, on one of his earlier escapades, he had discovered a litter of kittens. It was nearly his teatime and the hue and cry would start up at any moment, but Maman and Papa were out riding on this crisp March afternoon and so long as news of his flight was not discovered by either of them, there would be no uncomfortable consequences.

As luck would have it, however, his dash across the open ground of the stableyard coincided with the clattering of hooves on the cobbles and the return of his parents.

"Nicky?" his mother called and, with a pout, the small boy stopped.

Danielle dismounted unaided and marched toward him, the tawny velvet of her riding habit swinging around her. "Mediant,'' she scolded. "Where are you going?"

"Lespet.i.ts chats, maman." He grabbed her hand eagerly, eyes s.h.i.+ning. "Viens, vite."

"Kittens!" his mother exclaimed. "Where?"

"The barn." Nicky tugged on her hand.

"Just what are you up to now?" Justin strode across the yard. There was an ominous frown in his eyes that the little viscount recognized and he pulled anxiously on his mother's hand.

"Nicky has found some kittens, Justin," Danielle explained. "We must go and see them. Show us, mon pet.i.t."

"Danielle," Justin expostulated. "Kittens or no, he knows he's not to be here alone, or anywhere else for that matter."

"Oh, pah!" She dismissed such rigidity with disdain. "Do not tell me that you were able to resist a litter of kittens at his age? It is no fun to be always doing things with one's nurse, and not at all amusant never to do things without permission."

"No," Justin agreed, struck by the truth of this statement. "Well, let us go and see these fascinating creatures." He held out his hand to his son and received the small trusting one with a smile and an admonitory headshake. Nicholas just beamed, quite unabashed, and trotted between them, chattering in his fluid mixture of French and English, interspersed with baby burble when his as yet simple vocabulary failed.

Danielle's pleasure in the kittens easily matched her son's and Justin watched as she sat on the dusty barn floor, her skirts spread to receive the furry parcels, as Nicky picked them up with exaggerated delicacy and deposited them in her lap.

The last five months had seen the execution of Louis XVI- a king who had died with dignity beneath the blade of Madame Guillotine amidst the jeering crowds of his erstwhile subjects and the Reign of Terror now gathered momentum. England had been at war with France since the beginning of February and it was now impossible for an Englishman to travel openly in that beleaguered country. Danielle's clandestine activities had been dangerous enough, but now the danger was increased a hundredfold.

Justin had controlled his impatience and devoted his attention to his wife and son, taking pleasure in the former's growing relaxation. It had been many weeks before she had responded with the pa.s.sion and eagerness of the past to his gently determined lovemaking. But understanding had leant him compa.s.sion and the patience of Job. She was her old self again now, less tempestuous perhaps, and the months of wearing britches had given her an inordinate dislike of such attire, even when riding. Her hair had grown, the thin cheeks had filled, and there was a seriousness in the brown eyes that denoted maturity rather than pain.

But the winter storms that had prevented safe pa.s.sage from Cornwall to the north coast of Brittany were now on the wane and Justin was growing restless. Images of St. Estephe hung on the periphery of his sleep, sometimes intruded in violent dreams, and it was time to begin the chase. How to tell Danielle that he wished to take his revenge alone?

He looked at her as she explained to Nicky that the kittens were still blind and could not be taken from their mother however well Nicky could look after one in the nursery. He must wait for at least another month before they would be ready to live without their maman. Nicky listened seriously, understanding the import if not every word. And how was Justin to leave them both-his wife and his son, dearer to him than life itself? But it was because they were so that he had no choice but to follow his obsession. If he did not take matters into his own hands, then St. Estephe would be an ever-threatening presence in their lives. Until Justin was certain that the comte was dead, there would be no safety for himself, his wife, or his children. Danielle's description of the St. Estephe that she now knew had convinced Linton of the cold, detached fanaticism, bordering on madness, of the man who had set his heart on revenge on the house of Linton.

"Come, children." He broke into their game with a broad smile and the brisk directive: "Tante Therese is waiting for one of you, at least." The kittens were returned to their nest and, laughing, Danielle allowed him to pull her to her feet.