The Danbury Scandals (25 page)

‘You are
right,’ he said with a twisted smile, directed at Adam. ‘He is not worth the
effort and neither is she. My lawyers have found a way to release the
inheritance back to the family. As a criminal, she has forfeited it.’ His laugh
was an ugly sound and made diners from other tables turn to look at them. ‘He
is welcome to the whore for I no longer need her.’

‘I say, Mark,
that’s a bit strong,’ Lord Brandon said. ‘He could call you out for it.’

‘No,’ Mark
said. ‘He dare not fight me.’ He turned to Adam, his confidence returned. ‘You
won’t, will you, no matter what I say?’

Maryanne tugged
at Adam’s sleeve. ‘Please, Adam, let us go. He is only trying to goad you into
something foolish. Please, please, let’s go.’

He shrugged her
off, still looking at Mark. ‘May I suggest you go armed in future?’ he said
evenly. ‘Paris is a dangerous place for Englishmen at present. But then I have
no doubt you have brought your bodyguards.’ He affected to look round the room.
‘Where are they, by the way? I hope their aim has improved; when we last met
they could not hit a barn door at twenty paces.’ With that he took Maryanne’s
arm and walked out to their waiting carriage, with Mark’s harsh laugh echoing
behind them. He bundled her inside and got in beside her.

‘Why did you
have to speak to them?’ she demanded. ‘Why? We could have ignored them.’

‘It was you who
said you wanted to look the world in the eye...’

‘I did not need
a demonstration that we could not do it, I know that already.’

He turned and
seized her arms. ‘You would have me ignore his insinuations? For two pins...’

‘It was me he
insulted, not you, and I do not care what he says. We often say things when we
are hurt that we would not otherwise dream of uttering.’

‘Hurt? He is
hurt?
Mon Dieu
, why do you always have to find excuses for him? After
what he called you...’

‘He is like a
spoiled child who can’t have what he wants. I don’t understand why you attach
so much importance to it. If we are to appear in Society at all, we shall have
to become used to being reviled.’

‘I will make
him eat those words,’ he said. ‘As heaven is my witness.’

‘And I wish you
would release my arms; you are hurting me,’ Maryanne said.

He dropped his
hands and mumbled an apology, and they arrived at the house without either of
them saying another word. He escorted her to the door, where he lifted her
fingers to his lips and turned to leave her.

‘Where are you
going?’ she asked.

‘I have
business to attend to.’

‘Adam, you
won’t do anything foolish, will you?’

‘Foolish, my
dear Maryanne?’ He gave a cracked laugh. ‘It seems that these days I do little
else. Go to bed; I will not wake you when I come in.’

No, he would
not wake her, she thought, and how she wished he would! They lived openly as
Sir Peter and Lady Adams and yet, in private, they were no more than
companions, not even friends. And now there was Mark to contend with. Why had
he come to Paris? She had been terrified they would come to blows. As it was,
she was not at all sure the incident was over. If she had any idea where Adam
had gone, she would have followed him. Instead, she climbed the stairs to a
bedroom that was nothing short of luxurious and stripped off her finery,
wishing they could go back to the humble lodgings in Montmartre where, because
he was dependent on her, they had been so close. Now they were as far apart as
ever.

Adam, pacing
the streets, could not have wished it any more fervently than she did. He fumed
with frustrated fury at a fate which seemed to be determined to deny him the
one thing he wanted above all other. Maryanne had been right, he should have
walked right out of that restaurant without speaking, but his pride would not
let him; he had wanted to show her that they had nothing to fear while they
remained in France, that he was master of the situation. But was he? One way or
another, he had to resolve his dilemma, even if it meant going back to the man
who was the cause of all the trouble. But he could no more indulge in a duel
now than he could in London, as Mark very well knew, though with a right arm
which was still not functioning properly the odds had certainly turned in the
other’s favour.

And Maryanne.
What in heaven’s name was he going to do about her? Send her back to England?

‘Choucas!’ The
voice came to him from out of the darkness, and he realised he had wandered far
from the genteel, civilised side of Paris and was in the Stygian gloom of the
narrow alleys of the Quartier de St Antoine. It was here, as a twelve-year-old,
he had found himself after the death of Louis Saint-Pierre. Here, he had become
known as Le Choucas; here he had fought, eaten, slept and thieved to stay
alive, until one day, when he was sixteen, nearly seventeen, his closest
companion had died and he had realised that before long he would go the same
way, just one more death in the thousands that went unknown and unmourned in a
city that did not care.

He had
enlisted. But some of his links with that past had survived the years; they
were often a source of information no amount of bureaucracy could match, though
if any of them realised the use he made of what he had been told his life would
not be worth a
sou
.

He turned to
face the speaker who, at first glance, appeared to be a wizened old man, but on
closer inspection was found to be no older than Adam himself. ‘Lerue,
mon
cher ami
!’ Adam grinned and held out both hands, which were immediately
clasped. ‘How are you,
mon vieux
?’

‘The same as
ever.’ The little man laughed. ‘But you have come up in the world, I can see.
Not in the army now?’

‘Discharged.’

‘Come home with
me, share a bottle of wine and we will talk.’

‘I am not sure
I can,’ Adam began, thinking of Maryanne. ‘I am not alone in Paris...’

‘The English
mam’selle
can wait. I have something to tell you. That is if you want to hear it?’

‘Yes, but how
did you know about the lady?’ Adam asked.

Lerue tapped
his nose and laughed. ‘I know. Lady Adams! That is a good joke,
n’est-ce-pas
?
You, who swore no woman could hold you, are enslaved.’

‘It is no jest,
mon ami
, and I wish you would drop the subject.’ They made an
incongruous pair, as they made their way along the dingy street, the one tall,
broad-shouldered and elegantly dressed, the other bent and grey-haired and
indescribably dirty.

‘Then tell me
this, are you turned
anglais?
’

‘I have never
made a secret of the fact that my mother was English,’ Adam said, carefully
controlling his voice so as to sound relaxed and easy, but he was acutely aware
of the shadows in the darkness. What had they found out? Was he to die in this
filthy slum after all?

‘And
bourgeois,
I know, but you have been forgiven for what you cannot help, and that is not
what I meant. There is going to be trouble.’ They had reached a tumbledown
hovel tucked into a dark courtyard. Lerue opened the door, ushered Adam inside
and groped around for a taper to light a candle.

‘Trouble?’ Adam
looked round the filthy, barely furnished room. It seemed incredible that he
had once lived like this and it was only by the grace of God that he had
escaped. ‘For whom?’

‘Monsieur
Villainton,’ he said, using the derogatory name the French Press had given the
British Ambassador. ‘He is a great soldier but...’ He paused to fetch a bottle
of wine and two cracked cups from a cupboard.

‘But no
diplomat?’ Adam guessed.

‘On the contrary,
he is proving to be a very good one. He manages to calm the fears of the
legislatif
while he consorts with the Bourbons and makes an ally of Talleyrand.’

Adam laughed.
‘That is not difficult; the Prince de Talleyrand has turned his coat so often,
he no longer knows which side is outside. But if it brings peace, surely that
is what you want?’

‘With Louis le
Gros on the throne? He is no more than a puppet of
les anglais
. He would
take us back a quarter of a century to the France we shed a river of blood to
destroy.
Non, mon ami
, the people want the return of the eagle.’

‘Ahh.’ Adam let
out his breath in a long sigh. So this was what the preamble was leading to. ‘I
thought as much. But why are you telling me this, when you clearly have doubts
about my allegiance?’

‘I did not say
I doubted it, though there are those who do.’ Lerue paused, peering up into
Adam’s face. ‘And there is a way to demonstrate your loyalty. You have the ear
of the Ambassador...’

‘No.’ It was
not something Adam could admit to. ‘I would not be accepted in the rarefied
atmosphere of the Ambassador’s court.’ He grinned. ‘It is a matter of the
lady...’

‘Pah to that,’
Lerue retorted. ‘The Duke is not innocent in that respect; he understands about
l’amour
. You must go to him, tell him to leave Paris, or there will be a
new bloodbath, beginning with him.’

‘You do not
care a fig about the blood of one Englishman, so why do you want him out of
Paris?’ Adam asked.

‘If the eagle
flies again, Wellington is the only man on earth who can stop him. He is the
only man the prisoner on Elba fears.’

‘I can’t go to
His Grace with a tale so flimsy, he will laugh in my face. If there is a plot,
who is behind it? Bonapartists? The army? The people?’

Lerue smiled.
‘A plot? Perhaps. But be sure of this: for every shako with a white cockade
there is a red cap, for every
fleur-de-lis
there is an eagle. Tucked
into many an otherwise empty cupboard is a treasured
tricolors
. We are
all Frenchmen, Choucas, we believe in the Resurrection.’ He nodded at the cup
Adam held. ‘Will you drink to France?’

‘Willingly. To
France.’ Adam emptied his cup and it was immediately refilled.

‘And to the
eagle.’

‘To the eagle.’

‘Death to our
enemies, wherever they are.’

‘That too.’

‘And to peace.’

‘To peace.’

‘To love.’

‘And love.’
This was said softly, with thoughts of Maryanne uppermost in Adam’s mind.

With each toast
there was a fresh cup of wine and although they became slightly tipsy they
could both hold their drink and were by no means drunk. They moved from making
toasts to reminiscing and from remembering things past to thinking of the
future, and that brought them round to their starting-point. It was nearly dawn
when Adam finally left and made his erratic way home. He was aware that he was
being watched and that if he did not persuade Wellington to leave he could
expect retribution, but the wine and comradeship of his old friend had dulled
his senses; he was in a cheerful mood. He had almost forgotten Mark Danbury.

It was dawn
when he let himself into the house and crept upstairs. Outside Maryanne’s door,
he paused, putting his hand on the handle, but then changed his mind and went
on to his own room. There was no point in waking her; he had nothing to say to
her. He changed quickly into riding clothes and then went out again.

He cursed Lerue
and his wine and he cursed the headache he had now. How he was going to
persuade the Duke to see him he did not know, but speak to him he must. He rode
to the Bois du Boulogne where His Grace liked to ride of a morning, only to
discover that the Duke had cut short his exercise to return to the Embassy.
Adam had no choice but to go there himself.

He was told to
wait in an ante-room and then cursed his fate when the aide who came to enquire
his business turned out to be Lord Brandon. ‘I don’t know how you have the
temerity to come here,’ he said.

‘Why not?’ Adam
grinned at the other’s discomfiture. ‘Be so good as to ask His Grace if he can
spare me a few minutes of his time.’

‘You surely do
not expect him to receive you?’

‘If you tell
him I am here, I think I can safely guarantee he will see me.’

‘What can you
possibly have to say which will interest His Grace?’

‘I will tell
him that.’

‘Then write to
him. His Grace is dressing and has no time to see you.’

‘What I have to
tell him cannot be entrusted to paper. And he is not the only one short of
time. I am in a devilish hurry myself.’ Adam’s sword was out and pointing at
his lordship’s throat before the astonished man could do anything about it.
‘You already believe I would not hesitate to kill in cold blood, so conduct me
to His Grace, if you please.’

Lord Brandon
spread his hands. ‘As you can see, I am unarmed.’

‘Good, then we
should have no trouble.’

His lordship,
remembering the bloodthirsty tales Mark had told him about the Frenchman,
decided not to argue. He led the way from the room and up the stairs where he
knocked on one of the many doors.