Before the Storm (37 page)

Eventually they were ready to leave and the coachman turned the horses in the direction of the Rue Saint-Antoine, while inside the carriage Lucien quickly briefed them both on how to remain safe during their long journey to the Italian border. ‘Only ever speak English and pretend not to understand French if you possibly can,’ he warned them. ‘You are far less likely to be molested or stopped if you are thought to be English young ladies.’ He gave a rueful smile. ‘We aren’t at war with England yet so might as well take advantage of the last surge of good will between our nations.’

It took a few moments for them to realise that the carriage had come to another halt and Alexandre whimpered as Venetia anxiously hugged him close, her eyes wide with fear while Lucien jumped soundlessly down from the vehicle. ‘What is happening?’ Clementine asked as he carefully closed the door behind him but her friend put her finger to her lips. She stared out of the window but it was dark and she didn’t recognise any of the buildings looming over them. This was clearly a part of Paris that she had never before visited. ‘I wonder where we are.’

They both gave cries of shock when Lucien suddenly appeared a few moments later at the window then pulled the carriage door open. ‘I have something for you,’ he said with a smile to Venetia before pushing Jules into the vehicle and climbing up after him. ‘A present from the bowels of the La Force prison.’

‘Pleased to see me?’ Jules drawled with a grin at his wife before holding his arms open to Alexandre who shyly went to him for a hug, wrinkling his nose as he buried his face in his father’s dank smelling shirt. He looked thin, dirty and half starved but seemed to have lost none of his good humoured charm. ‘Clementine,’ he said, smiling across the carriage at her. ‘Surprised?’

She shook her head and smiled. ‘No, not really.’ She looked at Lucien, who had thumped the roof of the carriage, making them go forward again and was now settled back in his seat, silently observing the happy reconciliation in front of them.

‘Thank you,’ Venetia whispered to Lucien, her eyes full of tears as she hugged her husband and son close.

Lucien shrugged. ‘Phoebe would never have forgiven me if I hadn’t managed to save him,’ he said. ‘You understand, of course, that this means you can never return to Paris?’

Venetia nodded then buried her face in her son’s soft fair hair as Jules kissed her and held her close. ‘I’m sure we can be happy in Rome,’ he whispered to her. ‘I’ve always longed to go there. Imagine it, Venetia, the eternal city. We can even visit your name sake, Venice, if you like?’

Clementine smiled and looked away, meeting Lucien’s eyes as she did so. ‘This was a very brave thing for you to do,’ she said quietly. ‘You haven’t endangered yourself, have you?’

He grinned wolfishly and shook his handsome head. ‘If I was likely to put myself in danger then I wouldn’t have done it,’ he said candidly.

They were travelling down the Rue Saint-Antoine now and Clementine peered out into the darkness as they drew level with the spot where the Bastille had once stood. She’d never really noticed the medieval fortress with its ominous blackened walls before the events of that long, hot summer in 1789 but now she felt its absence keenly because of everything that it represented.

‘Is it true that they are thinking of rebuilding the Bastille again so that they have somewhere to keep all the prisoners?’ Venetia asked mischeviously.

Clementine looked anxiously at Lucien and was relieved to see him smile. ‘No, it’s not true,’ he said with a laugh. ‘I admit that it would have a delicious irony though.’ ‘Wait! Stop!’ There was a loud shout from behind the carriage and they pulled up with an abruptness that caused Clementine to cry out and fall forward from her seat, almost landing in Lucien’s lap.

‘Oh no,’ Venetia whispered, clutching her frightened son close to her while beside her, Jules pulled a cloak over himself and closed his eyes, pretending to be asleep.

They all shrank back fearfully as the carriage door beside Clementine was pulled roughly open and a lantern was held aloft, almost blinding them. ‘Clementine?’ She’d closed her eyes in fear, half expecting to be shot or dragged out and interrogated in the street but now she opened them and looked into bright blue eyes that she thought she would never see again.

‘You came,’ she whispered, falling forward into Antoine’s arms as he lifted her out and covered her face with kisses. ‘What about your father and Mon Clos?’

‘I don’t care about that,’ he said. ‘Did you really think that I would let you go without me?’ He held her face in his hands and kissed her lingeringly on the lips. ‘I was so afraid that I would be too late,’ he whispered before turning to beckon someone forward.

‘Sidonie!’ Clementine cried out and she ran to throw her arms around her former governess. ‘Are you coming with us?’

Sidonie laughed and shook her head. ‘No, my place is here,’ she said softly. ‘Phoebe wrote to tell me that you were leaving tonight and to tell Antoine that there were papers for him too, if he chose to go with you.’

Clementine kissed her cheek. ‘But what about his father? Won’t he be angry with you?’ she asked anxiously.

Sidonie shrugged and gave a very slight smile. ‘Leave him to me,’ she said. ‘He’ll be furious when he finds out that Antoine has gone but I’m sure that he’ll come round in time.’ She looked across at Antoine, who smiled at them both and stepped forward to slip his arm around Clementine’s waist.

‘It doesn’t matter what objections you come up with,’ he whispered. ‘I’m still coming with you.’

She gazed up at him and lifted her hand to gently touch his cheek. ‘Are you sure?’ she asked. ‘What if your father never forgives us?’

He shrugged. ‘Then we will learn to live without his approval,’ he said. ‘I’m sure we will manage.’ He turned to Sidonie and took her hand in his. ‘You have no idea how grateful I am to you, Mademoiselle Roche,’ he said. ‘Let me know if there is anything I can do to smooth things over between you and my father.’

Sidonie smiled. ‘I’m sure that won’t be necessary but thank you.’ She kissed Clementine on both cheeks. ‘Be happy,’ she whispered. ‘Write to me as often as you remember.’

‘I will always remember you,’ Clementine murmured through her tears. ‘Always.’ She clung to other woman for a few moments then regretfully allowed Antoine to help her up into the carriage and then climb in after her.

She lifted her hand in a silent tribute to Sidonie as the little governess smiled her farewell and then vanished into the gloom. ‘I wonder when we will see each other again?’ she asked Antoine, loving the feel of his hand clasping hers in the darkness of the carriage.

‘Soon, I hope,’ he whispered back, gently kissing her forehead.

Lucien pulled down the window beside him and looked along the road. ‘We’re almost at the Vincennes gate,’ he said with a look around the carriage. ‘Jules, it might be best if you pretend to be asleep again for this.’

Clementine watched anxiously out of her window as a group of armed guardsmen ran alongside the carriage and shouted for them to stop, which they immediately did. Jules gave Venetia one last kiss then settled himself in the corner with a cloak over his face as if asleep. ‘Papa,’ Alexandre grizzled as Venetia gently shushed him before looking across fearfully at Clementine and Antoine.

The door was wrenched open and a bearded guardsman poked his head into the carriage. ‘Papers,’ he said roughly, holding out his hand without really looking at any of them.

Lucien handed them over, taking his time so that the guardsman was forced to look at him and gave the expected start of recognition and surprise. ‘Citizen Delorme,’ he said deferentially. ‘Are you leaving Paris?’ He looked down at the papers in his hand and flicked through them.

Lucien shook his head. ‘No, just escorting some friends to the city gates to make sure that they go on their way safely.’

‘These are friends of yours?’ He looked around the carriage at them all, while Clementine forced herself to look boldly back at him and not shrink back fearfully in her seat. Word had spread that one of Robespierre and Danton’s closest associates was in the carriage and a group of guardsmen had gathered to peer curiously in at them. ‘They are English?’

Lucien nodded. ‘Yes, as is my wife. They are old friends of hers.’

The guardsman looked down at the papers and then directly at Clementine. ‘You aren’t returning to England, citizeness?’ he said brusquely.

Clementine swallowed and shook her head. ‘No, we are travelling on to Italy,’ she said in English as he frowned and tried to follow her. ‘I’ve always wanted to visit Rome,’ she stammered on as Lucien nodded his approval, while Antoine gave her hand a secret reassuring squeeze.

The guardsman sighed, gave the papers another flick through then handed them to Antoine. ‘You are free to go,’ he said with an airy wave of his hand. ‘Have a good journey, citizens.’

‘Is that it?’ Clementine whispered to Lucien.

‘That’s it,’ he said before jumping down from the carriage. ‘Stay safe,’ he whispered to Clementine as he closed the carriage door. ‘Write to Phoebe when you get to Rome - she’ll worry herself sick until she hears that you all arrived in one piece.’ He stepped back with a smile and a wave as the carriage lurched forward again.

‘I can’t believe how easy it was,’ Venetia said as they drove through Vincennes towards the stately old château, which had once been a royal palace on the outskirts of the city.

Clementine nodded then turned to look out of the window again. It was profoundly dark now so there was very little that could be seen other than the dark shapes of a few houses and churches. Opposite her, Venetia and Jules were buzzing with excitement and making grandiose plans for the future but she found herself thinking of the past and of everything that she was leaving behind her in Paris, including the hopeful, romantic girl that she had been before her marriage.

‘We’ll come back one day,’ Antoine whispered to her as if he had read her thoughts.

She turned to him and he saw that her hazel eyes were bright with tears. ‘Do you promise?’ she whispered.

‘With all my heart.’ He pulled her close and together they watched from the window as Paris was swallowed up by darkness.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I couldn’t have written this book without the support of my long suffering husband, Dave and our boys, Felix and Oscar who have all put up with more than their fair share of grouchiness, grumbling, long winded (and usually one sided) conversations about the French Revolution, angst, woe, threats of deletion and beans on toast dinners.

Thanks also to the lovely encouraging people I have met on Twitter. There’s too many of you to name but I must give special thanks to Catherine Delors, Susan Higginbotham, Joanne Harris, Jane Holland, Faye L Booth and Sara Sheridan for being showing me how it SHOULD be done and giving me something to aspire to when times were dark and inspiration wasn’t exactly flowing!

I must say thank you, as well, to the fabulous readers of my blog and the uncanny way that one (or several!) of them would comment with something simply wonderful on a day that I was feeling more than usually down in the dumps about my writing. You’re all brilliant and I hope you like this book that I wrote for you.

This book was written on a bit of a whim really - I wanted to write another novel set in my favourite historical period, the French Revolution and I wondered what would happen if I combined this with one of my all time favourite books, The Buccaneers by the wonderful Edith Wharton. I differed quite a lot from the original, but I hope you won’t mind that.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Melanie Clegg is a pink haired art history graduate, casual historian, GIN taster, lapsed goth, failed Parisienne, Versailles obsessive, proud Ripperologist, Georgette Heyer fanatic and Victorian Prostitute re-enactor who lives in deepest darkest Bristol with her family but would rather be in either Whitechapel or Paris.

Meticulously researched and elegantly crafted,'The Secret Diary of a Princess' was her first novel and was born from a desire to tell the story of Marie Antoinette from an unusual and yet still fascinating angle, focusing on her early life at the Viennese court, the machinations behind her betrothal to the Dauphin Louis and then finally her initial impressions of her new home, Versailles. All told by Marie Antoinette herself as she grows from an enchanting, wilful child into a poised and beautiful young woman.

Melanie's second book, 'Blood Sisters', a sweeping and dramatic saga set during the turbulent years of the French Revolution, follows the fortunes of a trio of aristocratic sisters who are caught up in the Revolution while trying to discover the truth about their past.

Her third book, ‘Before the Storm’ is a re-imagining of Edith Wharton’s The Buccaneers set in the opulent and often treacherous worlds of Georgian London, Marie Antoinette’s Versailles and the bloodshed and terror of Revolutionary Paris. It’s been described as having ‘Lush, dreamy historical detail with a slightly punk rock aesthetic…’

Melanie is now working on three very different books - the sequel to The Secret Diary of a Princess, a novel set in Whitechapel during the Ripper murders of 1888 and another about Henrietta Stuart, the favourite sister of Charles II and sister in law of Louis XIV.

You can find out more by visiting Melanie's popular art, history and writing blog at www.madameguillotine.org.uk.