The Bachelor's Bargain (33 page)

The women dressed in two of the simple gowns they found inside—pale cotton garments and soft woven shawls. As they traveled the highway, passing through an occasional village, their hearing slowly returned. Neither Anne nor Prudence spoke French well, and they had no way of understanding the news of the battle. Was Napoleon defeated or victorious? And how would either result affect them—two young Englishwomen in France?

“The fountain,” Anne spoke up, tugging on a rein to turn the horses down a street in Valenciennes. “That is where Ruel agreed to meet his brother.”

“Sir Alexander gave us but three days to travel from Brussels, and many more than that have gone by, Anne. You know he will have gone to Paris to stay with his fiancée’s family.”

“Then I shall write him a letter and beg him to come to our rescue.”

Prudence studied her gloveless hands. “Oh, what is to become of us, Anne? I cannot have such faith as you that Sir Alexander or . . . or the other men . . . or anyone will be waiting for us.”

“I have little faith in it myself. I only know it was Ruel’s plan for everyone to meet in Valenciennes. If we have any hope of help, we must find that fountain.”

“What then? Do you mean for us to stay here in this enemy land? What shall we do with ourselves in France? We know no one here, and we cannot speak the language. I want to go home. I want to sit with my sisters at tea. I long to see Mary’s baby again, and listen to Sarah’s calming words. Oh, dear . . .”

“We have little money, Prudence, and we cannot leave until we have made certain whether the men came here or not.” Anne surveyed the town with its bustling market, narrow streets, and crowded, half-timbered houses. “Ruel must have planned to meet a person other than his brother in France. He surely had planned that someone here would set up the machine.”

“In this small town? It is hardly a commercial center. I presumed he would be going to Paris eventually to join Sir Alexander.” Prudence fingered her shawl as she scanned the streets, her eyes brimming with hope. “Anne . . . do you think Lord Blackthorne and Walker are here already? Could they be waiting for us?”

Even as Prudence spoke the words, Anne knew they were impossible. Not only would the men not be here, but she and Prudence already were in jeopardy. The two women had driven a cart full of contraband lace machinery into a country where the people spoke no English and most were loyal to Napoleon Bonaparte.

“I only know we must find the fountain,” Anne said softly. “Perhaps someone will help us there.”

As she guided the horses toward the center of the little town, she considered what she and Prudence must do after the reality of their situation became inescapable. It was foolish to believe Ruel and Walker could be there. Sir Alexander would not be there either. No one but God could help them.

They might sell the horses and cart, sell the gowns in the trunks . . . even sell the lace loom. With the money, they would have some hope of returning to England. But what awaited them there? Anne thought of her father languishing in prison. His case depended on the goodwill of the Marquess of Blackthorne.

Without him . . . without Ruel . . .

“There it is!” Prudence cried, pointing. “I see the fountain.”

Anne flicked the reins and sent the tired horses the last few yards toward the trickling cascade. Surrounding the fountain, small booths with colorful canopies offered cheeses, fresh strawberries, wooden clogs, and iron pots for sale. Ladies filled shopping baskets with goods while children played in their mothers’ skirts. It was a scene that brought Nottingham to Anne’s mind, and for the first time in weeks she felt the tension begin to slide out of her body.

“It reminds me of home,” she said softly as she pulled the horses to a stop and set the brake. “The houses. The gardens. The market.”

“But no one is here. No one awaits us.”

“No, indeed.” Anne drew her shawl from her shoulders and folded it into her lap. In the quiet of the morning, she could hear birds twittering in the trees overhead. A child laughed.

“Ruel wished this for me, Prudence,” Anne whispered, suddenly unable to keep back the tears. “We stood in the barn window at Waterloo watching the battle, and his words took me far away from those fields of slaughter. He told me he wanted me to have a stone house and a lace school and . . . and hedgehogs. Oh, Prudence, I would trade a hundred lace schools to see Ruel again!”

“Anne.” Prudence folded her friend into her arms. “He loved you, Anne. He loved you so.”

“I cannot believe you,” she wept. “How could he have cared for me? I was awful to him! I was mulish and impertinent. I could hardly bear the society of his acquaintances, and he knew it. I learned Society’s proper manners and decorous speech, but I never belonged in his world. Worse than my own incompetence was my harsh tongue. I accused Ruel of having a black heart, and I told him I found him stubborn, disputatious, and difficult. I was never anything but trouble to him.”

“But he loved you all the same.”

“No, Prudence.”

“Mr. Walker insisted it was so. He told me of the events that occurred one night at Marston House in London. Do you recall the first evening of our stay there? After dinner, the marquess held you in his arms in the garden outside the drawing room. You said the embrace had meant nothing. You insisted Lord Blackthorne was merely acting out a drama for the benefit of visitors to the house. But much later that night, after Walker had . . . after he had spoken with someone in the corridor . . .”

“With you, Prudence.”

“It hardly matters now, Anne. After that encounter, Walker was distressed. He went downstairs to Lord Black-thorne’s bedroom. The marquess, too, was distraught. Lord Blackthorne told Walker he was ready to abandon all his dreams for the future if only he could make you truly his wife. Yet he was convinced you loathed him. He believed he could never win you over.”

“He said I loathed him? But I did not. I struggled to control my affection for him.”

“Walker said he believed the marquess began to love you at that moment in the garden. Already Lord Blackthorne was an altered man, you see. Altered by his acquaintance with you. But not until the garden did he truly love you. From that time onward, though the marquess would not allow himself to acknowledge it, his heart belonged to you and you alone.”

Anne shook her head as the marketplace bustled around her. “Oh, Prudence, I never had faith in Ruel’s constancy.

I believed he toyed with me for his personal gain.”

“You were wrong, Anne. Walker knew Lord Blackthorne better than anyone did. He had loved the marquess himself since Blackthorne was but a small, lonely boy loitering outside the blacksmith forge in Tiverton.”

“Madame?
Bonjour
.”

At the heavily accented voice, Anne looked down from the cart to discover a short, wiry man smiling up at her. With a pair of gleaming spectacles perched on his large, hooked nose, he looked to Anne like one of the fairy-tale shoemaker’s elves.

“I am sorry,” she said, “I cannot speak French.”

“No, no. I have a little English. I see the . . . how you say? . . . the boxes here in your cart. The name is Cutts, and I am waiting for you many days. Hezekiah Cutts? He is with you?”

“No, he is . . . he was . . .” She gestured down the road. “We were separated at Waterloo.”

“Waterloo?” The man frowned. “He is killed?”

Anne bit her lower lip. “I fear it may be so.”

The man lowered his head and slowly removed his beret. “
C’est la guerre
. Very sad news. Very sad. His brother will grieve.”

“Is his brother here?”

“In Paris. He waits for Monsieur Cutts there.”

“He waits in vain.” Anne studied the little man for a moment. “May I ask your name, sir?”

“I am Monsieur Pierre Robidoux. And you?”

“I am Lady . . . Mrs. Cutts. Anne.”

“Your lovely
compagnon de voyage
?”

“I am Miss Prudence Watson.” The slender young woman held out her hand. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Robidoux. Can you tell us, sir, how you know of Mr. Cutts? Were you his friend?”

“
Oui
. His friend and business acquaintance. Perhaps you come to my house? We talk? Eat?”

Anne glanced at Prudence. Clearly charmed by the Frenchman, Prudence would have leapt at the chance for a glass of fresh water and a loaf of fresh bread. Anne had no such confi- dence in him. All she could think of were the trunks in the back of the cart and the danger they represented.

“Thank you, but we must find lodging in Valenciennes,” she replied before Prudence could protest. “We shall wait here for a few days in the hope that my husband may arrive.”

The man nodded slowly; then he spoke in a low voice. “Douai is a better place to wait, Madame Cutts. Your husband sent a letter instructing me to prepare a small house and also a place for your . . . for the boxes in the cart.” He regarded her for a moment. “It was his plan.”

“How shall I trust your words are true, Monsieur Robidoux? We have only just met.”

“Monsieur Cutts told me you were
la belle dame d’esprit
. The beautiful lady of wit.” Robidoux favored her with another warm smile. “I tell you this. The name of your new house is the Black Thorn.
Oui?
”

She shrugged. “A good name.”

“You are not convinced. Then I tell you this of which I know. I am the finest weaver of stockings in the whole of Nord-Pas-de-Calais. My looms are in the town of Douai near Valenciennes. Mr. Walker, I believe, is the finest blacksmith in all of southern England. And you,
madame
, I am told are the finest lacemaker in all of Nottingham.”

Anne clapped her hand over his to stop him from saying more. “Enough. Take us to Douai.”

“I shall drive the cart,” Robidoux announced as he climbed onto the seat beside the women. “You must think what your husband would wish to happen to his plans now.”

“What do you mean?”

The cart turned into a narrow alley. “I mean this, Lady Blackthorne,” Robidoux whispered. “Napoleon was defeated by Wellington at Waterloo. The general was expected to arrive in Paris this morning. There will be an uproar in that city.”

“Civil war?”

“But Sir Alexander is there!” Prudence exclaimed.

“Not war.” Robidoux shook a finger. “The Chamber will argue about what to do, and perhaps Napoleon will abdicate to his son, Napoleon II. But Fouché, who was Napoleon’s servant, also wishes to seize power. Of course, England and her allies wish to put King Louis XVIII onto the throne of France. The struggle for power will be fierce, but it cannot last for many days. A week or two at the most.”

“What does this have to do with us?”

“We have only a short time to make our decisions and act on our plans. I believe King Louis will be returned to France by the English within a month or two. By that time our machine must be assembled and prepared to operate. We must be the first to weave lace with the new English machine. We must obtain French patents for the loom. Everything must be done in order, or others will take our place at the front of this new industry.”

“But how can we do all that ourselves? Lord Blackthorne is . . . I think he must be dead.”

“Even so, you are his wife. Sir Alexander supports us, and he will inherit the duchy in England. Things do not change so greatly, do they?”

“Everything is changed! I have no husband. I have nothing.”

“You have all you need, madame. You have the name, the title, the inheritance, and most important, the skill. If you are able to design patterns as beautiful as Blackthorne promised, you and I can develop the most important lace center in all of France here in the region of Calais. We may rival Nottingham itself one day. We have the machines. We have the buildings. We even have the funds your husband established here to begin the work.”

“But we do not have him. Lord Blackthorne’s vision was behind this plan. It was his dream, not mine.”

“Then do this for him. Make his dream come true.” He looked into her eyes and gave a solemn nod. “Do this for the man you love.”

For a long time Anne rode without speaking. Fear urged her to leave the cursed machine with the little Frenchman and hurry back to England and her mother’s arms. If nothing else, she could take another position as a housemaid or a kitchen-maid.

She had not been brought up to smuggle contraband or apply for a patent or manage a business or establish a lace industry. She had no desire to rival Nottingham’s lace dynasty, and she could not imagine living in a country that teetered on the brink of revolution. She certainly had not been raised to promote the very machines her father was imprisoned for destroying. Reason told her to leave. Common sense insisted that she abandon the machine and return to safety.

But her heart . . .

She shut her eyes and allowed the jostling cart to rock her body with its rhythm. In her mind’s eye she pictured him then. Ruel. His gray eyes beckoned her. The curls of his black hair seemed nearly within reach. She could almost see that familiar grin on his face, one corner of his mouth turned up and his lips twitching with suppressed laughter.

Was he truly dead? The thought of him lying on that grisly battlefield was too much. If he had died, he had lost his life trying to save hers. If that was not a sign of love, what was?