The English Heiress (3 page)

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Sir Joseph did not mention Pierre Restoir—in fact, he did not remember the name of the man involved in Roger’s early adventure. Nor did he connect the smuggler with Roger’s profitable career. Roger never mentioned Pierre to anyone, because every person who knew of him and his trade increased the danger forhim. However, Pierre was well to the forefront of Roger’s mind without mention. Even before he went to tell Philip and Lady Margaret that he intended to post up to London, Roger stepped out of the house to speak to his groom, Shannon, in the stable. He told the man to leave a message at the Soft Berth, the little alehouse south of Kingsdown, that Pierre should call in at Dymchurch House as soon as it was convenient. Then he went to explain to Philip that he would be away for a day or two.

He almost missed his son, who was already on his way out dressed in rough country clothes. His news did not dim the brightness in Philip’s eyes, Roger saw with relief. There was nothing left of the haunted look, the forced smile, with which Philip had accepted such news in the past. Roger smiled. The boy was perfectly happy here. Grandpapa was even more amusing than Papa. The gamekeepers of Stonar Magna were well broke to child and did not mind a boy tagging along and asking questions. The same was true of the grooms and the local farmers. Best of all, Lady Margaret—called Grand-mère, although she was totally unrelated to Philip except by marriage—never scolded over dirt or torn clothing or stable smells. With a clear conscience and a strangely lifting heart, Roger set out for London.

Chapter Two

Leonie de Conyers stared at the solid wooden door of the cellar that was her prison as if the pressure of her gaze could force it open. She would not die! She would escape. Now that Mama and François were dead, the possibilities were much better. A lash of guilt made her wince, but it eased quickly. Leonie knew that if her being in prison could have kept her mother and brother alive she would have remained patiently incarcerated forever. But they were gone and nothing could bring them back. And if she and Papa did not soon escape, they would be dead also.

How? There were so many hows. Not only how to get out of this cellar, but how to rouse Papa so that he would wish to escape also, how to get out of the town, possibly even how to get out of France altogether. Her mind lingered on that for a moment. At least she and Papa had a place to go. Papa was not French-born. He was an Englishman, youngest brother of the Earl of Stour, and he was on good terms with his family. In fact, Papa’s brother had urged him many times in the last two years to “come home” and bring his wife and children. Tears rose to Leonie’s eyes, but she blinked them back. There was no sense in dwelling on such might-have-beens. She glanced at her father and noticed with satisfaction that he was sitting up. Last night he had eaten willingly. Perhaps it might not be so difficult to get him to agree to escape.

The trouble with Papa, Leonie thought, rising suddenly and pacing the confined space, was that he blamed himself for everything, for all the terrible things that had happened to them. That was nonsense. One could not see the future. One could only act as it seemed best at the moment. Nonetheless, Leonie’s mind could not help ranging back, wondering at what point, had Papa acted differently, the whole train of events would never have taken place. She paused. If Papa had refused the nomination to the Estates-General? Instinctively Leonie shook her head in negation and began to pace again. A de Conyers did not refuse a duty to the nation. A de Conyers always fulfilled his or her responsibilities.

Anyhow what had happened had not really started with the calling of the Estates-General. Papa always said the trouble had started long, long ago when Louis XIV gathered the entire government into his own hands, giving power and wealth only to those men who hovered around him. Thus, the nobles were divided from the people, and… Leonie stopped, shook her head again. It was ridiculous. She sank down to the dirt floor. Of course the history of France had affected their lives, but Louis XIV had acted as he had because of the history that preceded him. The abuses that had exploded France into revolution had grown slowly. One could go back and back to Adam and Eve.

Besides, it was not the trouble in France that had thrown them into prison and killed Mama and François. Color fed by hate and rage rushed into Leonie’s face, making her light brown eyes as fierce and golden as a she-wolf’s. The lips of her wide mouth curled back, showing strong, white teeth, and the nostrils of her straight nose flared. Leonie was not, strictly speaking, a beautiful girl. Her features were too strong to satisfy the current craze for porcelain-delicate, pretty dolls. Also, the mingling of her father’s blond and her mother’s dark coloring had produced an odd combination. Leonie was a brunette in complexion, but with honey-gold hair.

Leonie looked down at her hands, which in her tense anger had curved into claws. She sighed and straightened her fingers. Hate was unpleasant and unnatural to her. She had inherited her mother’s temperament, placid and sunny. Hate made her feel shaky and sick, yet there was no other response possible to the memory that had come to mind. Papa had made one mistake. Once only, he had done something that should have been done differently. When Jean-Paul Marot had tried to incite the peasants on Mama’s estates to rebellion, Papa had prevented the people from killing him. The peasants had been enraged against the rabble-rouser because Papa had offered to excuse all rents and taxes—after the poor crops of 1787 and 1788 people were already starving. Jean-Paul Marot had stood up and begun to shout that Papa’s offer was no favor, that it was the right of the people to be free of rents and duties.

Perhaps it had not been gratitude toward Papa that made the peasants so angry. Perhaps they had secretly agreed with Jean-Paul and had only been afraid that Papa would take back his offer of relief. That made no difference. If Papa had not intervened and had Jean-Paul arrested, the peasants would have torn him apart. He would have been dead. He would not have been released from prison in Dijon when, after the Bastille had fallen, the whole country had gone mad and opened all the jails.

Jean-Paul Marot was the beginning, middle and end of all the trouble. Leonie jumped up again, breathing fast. He, so full of noble words about equality and justice, so full of vicious, evil deeds that hurt everyone… She tried to wrench her mind away, but it was impossible. The whole story played itself out again.

They had come home from Paris several months after the constitution was approved, and Papa had suggested that the mayor call a meeting of the electors and other responsible citizens so he could report to them. Was the mayor ignorant of the fact that Jean-Paul had been rousing the unemployed, the dissatisfied, the dregs of the town, or did he simply discount the importance of such people? Papa would not have made that mistake. He had seen what the mob could do in Paris. But Papa did not know there was a mob in peaceful Saulieu.

All the family had come with Papa to be at the meeting. They were all so proud of him and of the new hope for France. Instead of joy, violence had resulted. Instead of freedom, the despotism of mob rule was created. Jean-Paul had planned it well. With all the responsible citizens in one place, his mob had only to storm the hall. Jean-Paul and his mob had seized power. Even then Papa had not recognized him. It was only when the monster had reminded him…

Leonie shuddered and buried her face in her bands for a moment, struggling to block out the memory of that night, of herself and her mother spread-eagled on the floor, violated by man after man while her father, bound and gagged, was forced to watch. Jean-Paul had taken her first, not even looking at her, laughing in her father’s face and reminding him of the “injury” Papa had done him. Papa had saved his life! Leonie lifted her head, her eyes brilliant with hate again. Jean-Paul had intended to destroy her, but he had failed!

Then the flame died out of Leonie’s eyes and her expression grew thoughtful. It was strange but that horror had not been all bad. The thing itself, yes, but the results… She considered what she had been before that night, a person insulated from life. Nothing unpleasant had ever touched her. Even the bloody violence she had seen in Paris had seemed like scenes in a painting—dreadful, but nothing to do with her. What she had not realized was that nothing good had really touched her either. She had accepted the love of her parents, her physical comforts, the courtesy of everyone around her with mild pleasure. She had known neither love nor hate.

Now she knew both. Strangely, love had come first in a burning uprush that had seared out the pain and shame of rape. As soon as Jean-Paul and his mangy dogs had left them, Mama—battered and bleeding as she was—had crawled to wrap her daughter in her arms, to comfort her, to assure her it was a passing thing, that she would be better in a very little while. It was true too, Leonie remembered. Perhaps because she had not been alone, because Mama had undergone the same horror and made light of it perhaps because the eruption of violence, the sudden seizure, had shocked her so much already that she could feel nothing strongly. She remembered what had happened, but the memory of horror was less important than Mama’s tenderness and Papa’s wild grief. How she loved them for what they had given her! For the first time in her life, she had really loved.

Hate had come later, after her stunned mind had taken in what had happened, after Leonie realized that they would not be killed as those others in Paris had been killed and their heads paraded through the streets on poles. Perhaps that was the strangest of all, the way a love for life had grown up side by side with the hate.

Jean-Paul had come again to the cellar the next day, and after his men had subdued Papa, he had laughed at them again and told them that they would not be killed—that was too good for them. They would learn what he had learned in the prison at Dijon—how to die by inches.

There could be no doubt Jean-Paul had done his best to fulfill his threat, but instead Leonie had learned what joy was. All the things she had taken so much for granted that she had not even noticed them became a source of infinite pleasure. A breath of fresh air or taste of wholesome cheese was more wonderful than the most elaborate dinner.

Unfortunately, the things that bred strength in Leonie had worked as Jean-Paul planned on the others. The dark and filth, the slimy cold in the cellar, even though it was summer now, had sapped strength from Mama and François. The child had sickened first. Tears dimmed the glow of Leonie’s eyes, and she began to pace once more. She had done her best to save him, inventing stories and games, trying to make him laugh and want to live, but she had not been able to save François or Mama.

Leonie stopped again and allowed her eyes to rest thoughtfully on the wooden door. She had been out of that door any number of times. Possibly she could have escaped herself, but she had never considered it—not while Papa, Mama and François were still prisoners and might be tortured or killed for her freedom. Now there was only Papa, and he was not so physically weakened as Mama and François had been. Escape was no longer impossible. What was more, her lover—Leonie uttered a slightly hysterical giggle. What an inappropriate word for Louis le Bébé. Louis loved nothing and no one, except himself.

A disdainful smile curved Leonie’s lips briefly as she sat on the floor, her legs pulled up close to her body, resting her chin on her knees. She did not hate Louis. After all, their purposes were exactly alike. He used her to satisfy the needs of his body, but she was using him also—and she had the better of it because she knew what Louis was, but he was much mistaken about her. He thought her weak and stupid. Perhaps he even thought she was in love with him. Leonie laughed softly.

Then she grew thoughtful again. She could have loved Louis. She was ripe and ready for love, and at first he seemed so lovable with his round, innocent face. Heaven made a great many mistakes, but Louis’ soft features—youthful, guileless—which had gained him the soubriquet of le Bébé, must be more than a mistake. It must have been a deliberate joke or a deliberate test of people’s perceptiveness. Louis was everything his face was not. He was a thief with a keen eye for what would do him good and a heart as cold as ice. Louis sought comfort, pleasure and advancement. He had chosen his profession deliberately and had never gone hungry or been caught. Louis never did anything without a good reason, and although he took no personal pleasure in the misery of others, he would never hesitate to use pain and misery to advance his own cause. But Leonie did not know that in the beginning.

Leonie only knew that Louis had shrunk away rather than press forward when Jean-Paul had signaled his other dogs to take their turn on her abused body. It was a small thing, but that had burned itself deeply into Leonie’s mind, one tiny flicker of humanity in a black night of bestiality. Weeks later she recognized him at once when he brought them food, and her good opinion was confirmed because for once the meal was not deliberately made more foul. Louis, unlike the guard who usually brought the food, did not throw the stale, moldy bread into the slime on the floor or spit into the stinking soup, prepared with meat a starving dog would have refused. Made bold by desperation, Leonie whispered a plea for a drop of clean water, a crust of fresh bread, for her little brother. Louis had not answered but had given her some decent bread. He had had to be quick, for the other guard had come down the stairs to curse him for spending too much time with the prisoners.

“You were late I thought you were not coming,” the young thief had answered mildly.

“So what? Let them starve as we have starved,” the older man growled, his eyes suspicious.

Leonie had turned away, sick at heart, hiding the clean bread with her body. Sometimes she could hear what went on in the courtyard through the half-window in their cellar, and she had once heard one of Jean-Paul’s men threatening to accuse another of treachery, or currying favor with the ex-magistrates of the town so that if the revolution should fail, he would be safe. If the old guard wanted to get the young one into trouble, he had only to accuse him of trying to ease the lot of the prisoners whom Jean-Paul hated so much.

At first Louis did nothing to help the de Conyerses, but neither did he do anything to increase their torment. Once in a while, the rarity heightening the value of what was received, he did more. He pretended fear when he brought a decent stew, fresh bread, a wedge of good cheese. He said he had thrown away the foul portions destined for the prisoners and taken the good food from his own table. He could not do it often, he whispered apologetically. Someone would notice or his own family would starve.

Later, when they believed in him, he offered to take Leonie out for “exercise”. He could not take the others, he said. No one would question him or look to see the face of a young girl with whom he chose to walk, but an older man or woman or a young boy would cause comment. Once, the first time, they actually did walk a little way while Louis explained what he wanted. He gilded it finely with hints of the desperate danger he courted to give Leonie’s family the little ease he could. He veneered with talk of self-sacrifice the ugly fact that he was demanding that Leonie pay with her body for the favors of clean water and an occasional mouthful of unspoiled food for her mother and brother.