The Adventuress (30 page)

“I shall do my best to be as entertaining as possible,” Monsieur Guérin said, smiling to reveal a wide gap between his front teeth. We set a time to meet, bid him adieu, and headed downstairs to find our friends. Everyone had gathered except for Amity and Jeremy, who, Christabel explained, were seeing to the final details of tomorrow's Roman banquet. They would meet us as soon as they could. After piling into carriages, we were driven down the hill to the sea, where we strolled along the Promenade des Anglais. Lest anyone believe the city of Nice owes its prominence to any other group of travelers, the name of this famous walk should disabuse said person of his erroneous notion.

The sea views from the wide promenade were nothing short of spectacular, but I was more taken with the views back over the city, where, past the hills, the snow-covered Alps thrust toward the sky. It was as beautiful a sight as could be found anywhere in the world. The promenade itself was lovely as well, with gleaming white benches placed all along it beneath a wide pergola, the harmonious simplicity of it complementing the whitecaps of the waves crashing against the pebble-filled beach. Tourists, decked out in their finest garb, processed along, some of them better pleased with themselves than their surroundings, but that is not to say that many of them did not stand, breathless, watching the sea before turning around and taking in the mountains and the elegant villas and hotels beneath them.

“Everything is set for tomorrow night,” Amity said, looking up adoringly at Jeremy as they walked toward us. “I cannot tell you what a help my darling boy has been.” She gave every appearance of brimming with excitement. Her face was flushed, her eyes shining, and her lips were so red I wondered if she had used something to color them. “Although I am confident that nothing we can do will even approach the splendor of what I have planned for tomorrow, I am consumed with the notion that we must find something spectacular to do this evening.”

“I am quite in agreement,” Margaret said. “What do you propose?”

“The theater, perhaps?” Christabel suggested. “I saw several notices in the hotel lobby that looked interesting.”

“Pedestrian,” Margaret said, her nostrils flaring.

“Not if it is the operetta at the casino,” Jeremy said. Margaret raised a skeptical eyebrow.

“What are they playing?” she asked.

“I am afraid that whatever you decide, you shall have to count me out,” I said. “I have had an invitation to dine with the director of the excavations at Cimiez.”

“That is not pedestrian in the least,” Margaret said. “You must take me with you!”

“I am afraid the invitation was extended only to me,” I said, and recounted for her Monsieur Guérin's visit. “I am dreadfully sorry, Margaret.”

“I told her you would be fiercely angry,” Colin said. “I do hope having said that in front of Monsieur Guérin was not what dissuaded him from including you in the party.”

“Colin!” Margaret whacked him on the arm. “How could you?”

“He did nothing of the sort,” I said. “He is merely tormenting you.”

Margaret threw up her hands in despair. “You are a scholar of Greece, not Rome! This is wholly unfair.”

“That it is,” Amity said, coming close to Margaret and taking her by the arm. “Shall we insist on going without an invitation? It would be simply too very.”

“We could follow Emily in disguise if she refuses to let us accompany her,” Margaret said.

“We could wear our Roman gowns!”

Now Amity was getting carried away, and I scowled at Margaret. “What would Mr. Michaels say if word reached him of such a breech of etiquette?” I asked. “Indeed, what would the scholars of classical Rome think of him once his wife's ill-breeding was so revealed?”

“You know as well as I that neither Mr. Michaels nor the scholars of classical Rome would even notice,” Margaret said. “I would never show up uninvited and am wounded you suggest I am capable of such a thing, but I am certain that, somehow, I shall find it in the depths of my soul—the very deep depths, the deepest of all depths—to forgive you. Eventually. At any rate, I have just discovered an idea for tonight that is far better even than dining with Monsieur Guérin. Look!” She pointed above us, where a hot air balloon floated, its large basket full of passengers. “That is what I want to do.”

“I should be terrified,” Christabel said. Jack started and stepped forward, as if he meant to offer her comfort, but retreated when he saw Mr. Fairchild already at her side.

“Nonsense,” Margaret said. “My parents rode in one in Paris at the 1878 exhibition. I have never forgiven them for insisting I was too small to accompany them.” She took Colin by the wrist. “Come and help me arrange it.” As no one other than Christabel objected—I am confident Mr. and Mrs. Wells would not approve, but as they had stayed behind at the Regina, they had no say in the matter—it was soon agreed.

Colin and Margaret returned half an hour later. The ride could not take place for nearly two more hours—the balloon was a popular attraction—so it was determined that we would sit and listen to one of the small orchestras playing a program of Mozart and Strauss in a nearby park to pass the time. Because I would need to dress for dinner, I left the others there, leaving before the concert was over. Back at the hotel, a message awaited me, informing me that Her Majesty requested my presence at breakfast the following morning. This came as no surprise. My mother's relationship with the queen, whom she had served for years as a lady-in-waiting, made the summons a foregone conclusion. They were still close friends. As much as Victoria Regina adored my husband, she shared my mother's low opinion of myself, and I had no doubt that I would be treated to a stern lecture over porridge. Still, it was not to be avoided.

I would worry about the queen later; now I had to decide what to wear this evening. A dinner dress would not be practical for exploring ruins, so I instead donned a smartly tailored suit and a pair of sturdy boots, assuming that the wives of archaeologists and scholars would not balk at the lack of formality. Meg, however, did not approve. “No matter what you are doing first, you ought to be dressed properly for dinner, madam,” she said.

“Just wait until you see what Miss Wells is requiring for tomorrow night's banquet,” I said.

“That is entirely different, madam,” Meg said. “When the hostess has given specific directions—”

“Thank you, Meg.” I said. “That will be all.”

I set off from the hotel a little after eight o'clock. Twilight had drenched the sky in indigo, but there were still traces of pink in the scattered clouds. A bright moon had risen, and I was anticipating with a thrill of delight the effect it would have on the ancient stones I was about to see. There was an iron gate at the entrance to the site, and a chain and open padlock hung on it.

“
Bienvenue
, Lady Emily!” I could not quite make out Monsieur Guérin's face in the dim light, but I recognized his voice, cheerful and strong, and followed the sound through the gate. Before I had taken no more than six steps, pain exploded in the back of my neck and everything around me went black.

 

Amity

The balloon ride proved a spectacular success. Amity could not have been more delighted. She had disappointed herself, though, by not being able to muster the courage to step into the basket. Instead, she was forced to watch from below, waving as her friends floated above her. If Jeremy considered this a weakness, he showed no sign of it. He offered, gallantly, to remain behind with her.

“I only said I would go because I thought you wanted to,” he confessed, standing next to her watching the balloon. “It is much more pleasant to have a few moments alone, is it not?”

“I could not agree more,” Amity said. “Do you think they are high enough now that I could kiss you without anyone we know seeing? Had I realized the potential of this situation, I would have engineered the entire scheme just for this purpose.”

“I am willing to take the risk.” He lowered his face to hers. “Our wedding cannot come soon enough.” They stepped back from the railing and sat on one of the benches that stood on the Promenade des Anglais, facing the sea. There was almost no breeze now, a happy circumstance for the ballooners, and fortunate for the gentlemen who often had to cling to their hats as they walked along the shore. The sun was setting, filling the western edge of the sky with bright streaks of vermillion, while the east fought to remain blue, even as the shade grew more and more pale before retreating in the face of dusky twilight.

“Where shall we go on our honeymoon?” Amity asked. “The sky is so lovely here it makes me feel quite romantic.”

“Anywhere and everywhere that strikes your fancy, my love,” Jeremy said. “India, perhaps? You say you came to adore it, and I have never been there.”

“There is nowhere I would rather go.” She let her head drop onto his shoulder. “I should very much like to hold my husband's hand and gaze with him at the beauty of the Taj Mahal. I suppose that makes me sound very boring and predictable, doesn't it?”

“Amity, my dear, I do not think most ladies would brave a trip to India, even for the Taj Mahal,” Jeremy said. “You stand so far above your peers it seems wrong to even classify them with you. I do apologize, I am not good with words, but I do hope you catch my meaning.” Amity smiled and opened her mouth to reply, but stopped when a man appeared in front of them.

“Monsieur le duc?” he asked, whipping the hat from his head and holding it in front of his chest. “Are you the Duke of Bainbridge?”

“I am,” Jeremy said, rising.

“A message for you, sir.” He smiled, revealing a gap between his front teeth, gave Jeremy an envelope, bowed awkwardly, and gestured for him to follow.

 

21

When I opened my eyes, pain at the base of my skull consumed me. Something felt as if it were oozing, but when I went to reach up to see if I was bleeding, I found that my hands had been bound behind my back and my ankles tied. I was somewhere in the ruins, on the ground next to the wall of what remained of a semicircular space. Above me, there was no longer any trace of sunset left in the sky, only the moon, now fighting with clouds, and darkness. Wriggling, I managed to sit up and assess my situation. By kicking, I was able to loosen the rope around my ankles enough to free my feet. This gave me better control over my posture, and I compensated for the awkwardness of the position of my hands. Much though I struggled, I could not make any headway toward releasing them. My eyes, well adjusted to the low light, could make out scattered rock over the ground, and the bruises I could feel developing over my body told me that I had been flung into this pit.

When I stood, I discovered it was not a pit, just what was left of an ancient room, now without a ceiling and in possession of walls that stood only a few feet taller than I. My shoulders aching from the position into which they had been wrenched, I started to search for a stone, or brick, or bit of column that had an edge rough enough to work its way through the twine around my wrists. The action was more than awkward, as I could not see what I was doing with my arms behind my back. I rubbed and rubbed, hoping I was making progress.

The repetitive motion seemed to be taking more of a toll on my hands and wrists than on the rope, but eventually I felt it start to give, and I applied myself to the task with an increased vigor. When the bonds fell away, my hands were raw and battered, and my arms cramped. I shook them to throw off the pain and stretched as best I could before trying to get a sense of my bearings.

Because I had not before been in the ruins, I had little way of taking stock of the situation. The moon was much higher in the sky than it had been, so some considerable amount of time had passed. I did know, as well, that the site was not enormous, and I hoped it would be easy enough to find my way out. The chamber, for lack of a better word, into which I had been thrown, had neither door nor window, but I used the bricks that formed the walls as a makeshift ladder, and climbed to the top. This effort put me above a longer passage that, so far as I could see—which was not far, given the darkness of the night now that the moon was partially covered with clouds—had on its far end a doorwaylike opening. I tried to lower myself from my perch, but my hands were too shredded to hold my weight while I tried to find a purchase for my boots, and I slipped, down to the bottom of the wall.

At least I landed, more or less, on my feet. I wished I had a candle or something that might illuminate my progress, but even as the thought entered my mind, it occurred to me that I did not know if I was alone in the ruins. Was my captor lingering somewhere nearby? If so, light would give away the route of my escape. I moved ahead slowly, careful to avoid tripping over any debris strewn in my path. Knowing what little I did from having read about the site, it consisted of thermal baths, some sort of an early Christian church (my Baedeker's described it as a Temple of Apollo; perhaps the precise details of the structure was a subject of some debate), and an amphitheater. All of these would have been discovered well below the street level of our present day, so I would have to somehow climb my way up and out when, if ever, I reached the end of what was beginning to feel like a never-ending maze.

I could see a wall in front of me now, and I felt my way to an opening in it. It wasn't a door, as it did not go all the way to the ground, so rather than directly climbing through it, I inspected the room to see if there was a door somewhere else. There was not, so I swung my leg through what appeared to be a window and heaved myself to the other side. The clouds were moving above me, and I stopped to watch them, hoping the moon would reappear and better illuminate my efforts. It did, which was helpful, but as soon as the silvery light fell on the stones, creating an eerie contrast with the dark shadows, I heard a sound, something like footsteps, but not quite. I froze and pressed myself flat against the nearest wall, my heart pounding.