The Ruby Pendant (19 page)

`You mean she
had formed a tendre for the Frenchman?' The idea was insupportable. 'They have
eloped?'

`I had better
tell you the whole, my boy, then you must use your own judgement on how to
act.'

His lordship
rose and began pacing the room again. 'I was in Paris in '94,' he said. 'A
diplomatic mission, though why we should have wasted our energy on being
diplomatic with that bloodthirsty regime, I do not know.'

`I know, my
lord. You rescued my mother and me and I shall be eternally grateful. Maman
said so until the day she died.'

'What? Oh, yes,
but this was six months earlier. On the day I speak of, Madame Guillotine was
having one of her busiest days. The streets were so crowded there was no hope
of getting through with a carriage, nor even a chair. I was on foot and pressed
so close by the throng I found myself almost touching a tumbril taking the
Comte de Garonne and his family to their execution.

`The Count was
standing looking straight ahead with his arm about his ten-year-old son. His
wife stood just behind him clutching a baby.' He shuddered suddenly. `I shall
never forget that lady's anguished face if I live to be a hundred. She was
weeping pitifully, though her tears were not for herself but for the child in
her arms. That the beasts should stoop to slaughtering little children sickened
me and I was close enough to see she was a beautiful child. She could not have
known there was any reason to be afraid and smiled at me. I raised my head and
found myself looking directly into the eyes of the comtesse. The cart rumbled
by me, with the crowd pressing round it baying for blood and the guards kept
busy holding them off.

`I stepped
forward and held out my hands. "Give me the child," I called to her.
"I will care for her." She hesitated only a second and then handed
her over. I grabbed her, hid her quickly beneath my cloak and melted into the
crowd.'

`A risky thing
to do, my lord.'

`I did not stop
to consider it.'

`No, you would
not. The child was Juliette?'

`Yes. I took
her to the Embassy, where she would be safe. Then began the difficult part,
getting her out of France to safety. The family had had what passed for a
trial, and 1, as an envoy, could not be seen to flout the law of the land. The
only solution I could think of was to pretend that the child was mine, that her
mother, my mistress, had died and left her to my tender mercies.

`I made a great
show of being angry at being saddled with her. My friends advised me to leave
her in an orphanage, but though I pretended to consider it, I finally said I
could not do it, she was my flesh and blood. I brought her back to England.'

`You brought
her here?'

`Yes. While I
had been away, Lady Martindale had borne a son who did not survive beyond three
weeks, though I did not know of the tragedy until I returned. It was a trying
time and I wondered if I had done right to ask her to take the child on, but it
seemed to help her. We brought her up as our own.'

`Is Juliette
her real name?'

`Yes, her
mother whispered it when she handed her over.'

`And the rest
of her family, they really were executed?'

`Yes, apart
from some distant cousins who had embraced the new regime. I returned to France
six months later to find out what had happened. That was when I met you and
your mother.'

`For which I
thank you and the good Lord. But did you not tell Juliette who she was?'

`I always meant
to. I was simply waiting for an opportune time, but it never seemed to come.
And everyone believed she was ours. . .' He paused. 'And then that Frenchman
painted the portrait and Elizabeth recognised the ruby. It had been sewn into
Juliette's petticoat. I assumed it was put there in the hope of bribing a
gaoler or the executioner.'

`And you still
did not tell Juliette the truth?'

`No, to my
shame I allowed myself to be dissuaded by Elizabeth. She was worried about the
scandal, though I could not see that it mattered. We had done no wrong and
might even be applauded for taking the child. But Elizabeth could not see how
we could suddenly tell the world the daughter we had said was ours, was not
ours at all. And she wanted Juliette to make a good marriage, preferably to
James, for reasons you can guess.' He stopped pacing suddenly and sank into a
chair opposite the young man and put his head in his hands. 'If only I had
known what had been smouldering in her heart for years...'

For a moment he
could not go on and Philip waited impatiently. The tale was long in the telling
and he wanted to be on the move, to be doing something positive to find
Juliette, but good manners dictated that he must hear him out. His lordship
looked up at last. 'I had no idea my acting all those years ago in Paris had
been so convincing. It was only intended to deceive the French authorities and
I saw no reason to tell Elizabeth of it. How I wish I had! My brother heard of
it by chance four years later and he told Elizabeth that Juliette was my
natural child. It was done maliciously, I know that, meant to ruin our marriage
and put paid to any chance of my begetting an heir.'

He smiled
wryly. 'He did not know that Lady Martindale could have no more children and
his inheritance was safe. What he did not bargain on was that my wife would say
nothing to me of what he had said; the idea that I had once had a French
mistress simply festered inside her until she told Juliette two days ago.'

`Oh, ma pauvre
p'tite,' Philip murmured. What a shattering blow she must have suffered! Her
safe, comfortable, predictable world, her English world, had suddenly been
turned into a nightmare. She was not who she thought she was and her home was
only her home because Lady Martindale had condoned her husband's infidelity and
harboured his bastard.

What it must
have done to Juliette he could easily imagine. She would have felt let down,
abandoned, deceived by those she had revered and trusted. And she would have
felt unable to face the man she had promised to marry. Flight would have seemed
the only option, the French lieutenant her only hope.

`We have to
find her and stop her before she leaves the country,' his lordship said. 'Tell
me what you know of the escape route.'

Philip stood
up. 'I know nothing of value. I can only learn more by returning to the camp.
And you must not think of rushing after her yourself, you are needed here. Your
wife must be suffering for misjudging you. I will find Miss Martindale, even if
I have to go to France to do it.'

`Thank you, my
boy. I had hoped you would say that.'

`It is the
least I can do for someone who has been a second father to me,' he said,
omitting to add that he would go to the ends of the earth, through any danger,
if it meant saving Juliette. 'I will do my best to communicate with you, but if
I cannot, rest assured I have not given up the search.'

`And if I have
to recognise that scapegrace of a Frenchman as a son-in-law, so be it,' his
lordship added, as Philip made for the door.

The young man
did not answer. It was something that he did not even want to think about. He
rode at a gallop all the way back to his lodgings, changed into the garb of a
prisoner of war, dirtied his face and prepared to give himself up.

A north wind blew across the Wash in opposition to the
outgoing tide, making the sea choppy. The little boat rose and dipped so that
one moment the flat marshes could still be glimpsed on the horizon behind them
and the next they had disappeared behind a wall of water. Ahead of them, now
clearly to be seen, now hidden by the waves, a fishing smack lay at anchor.
Juliette was already feeling sick and longed for stability and warmth, even
that provided by a fishing smack. Her fingers and toes were frozen. Beside her
Lieutenant Veillard sat staring straight ahead, as if he, too, were having
trouble controlling his heaving stomach. There were eight others in the boat,
all French, all from the camp at Norman Cross. They had escaped and, given a
little luck, would soon be on their way home. She wished she could feel like
they did, optimistic, looking forward to seeing loved ones, rejoining
compatriots, but try as she might, she felt as though she had taken a great leap
in the dark and below her there was nothing but an abyss which would swallow
her, leaving nothing behind, not even an identity for someone to mourn.

It was only two
days since she had left the home she loved and yet it seemed like a lifetime.
From Hartlea, she and Pierre had walked to the river and gone on board a barge.
Aware that his French accent would give him away, he had pretended to have a
sore throat and left her to negotiate payment for taking them to Lynn. From
there they had walked for miles across the marshes. As if in a dream she had
stumbled after him, putting one aching foot in front of the other, hardly aware
that both were wet because her boots leaked. Nothing seemed real, neither the
river, nor the marshes, nor the extraordinary sunset, which tinged the whole
sky with orange and vermilion and purple, nor the crying of the hundreds of
seabirds that drifted down to feed as it grew dusk.

At last they
had stopped at the door of a hut, set beside a deeper channel, miles from
habitation. 'We stay here tonight,' he had said, pushing open the door and
ushering her. 'Tomorrow, we will be on our way.'

She had been
too tired answer. Huddled in her cloak, she had sat on the floor with her back
propped against the wall and dozed fitfully. Just before dawn the others had
arrived one by one, dirty, dishevelled and weary, but buoyed with hope. They
had not been at all pleased to see her, shouting at Pierre for being a fool and
threatening to kill them both. The arrival of their leader, a big man in a drab
overcoat with three capes and huge pockets, put and end to the arguments,
though she guessed it might only be a temporary reprieve.

The side of the
ship loomed above them and their leader, whose name she had learned was Michel,
reached out to grab the net that had been flung over the side for them, then
turned and pulled her to her feet. 'Up you go.'

She looked up
at the deck outlined against the night sky and recoiled at the height of it. 'I
can't. I'll fall.'

`You climb or
you fall, it is of no importance to me which you do,' Michel said
 
Reaching up, she grabbed the net with her
hands and placed her feet in the mesh. It swayed out with the movement of the
ship and then flung her back, banging her against the hull. She cried out, but
hung on grimly and then began to climb, hauling herself up a few inches at a
time. Behind her, she could hear Pierre's laboured breathing and behind him the
others, urging them both to make haste. She reached the rail at last and hands
came over and grabbed her shoulders, hauling her unceremoniously on to the
deck.

`A wench, by
God!' a voice said as she straightened up. 'No one said anything about taking
women.'

`She came with
me,' Pierre told them as he scrambled over the side to join her, followed by
the others. 'And she is not a wench but a comtesse, so you will treat her with
respect.'

`A froggy
countess, eh? Valuable cargo, indeed.' The man was apparently the captain, for
the rest of the crew stood behind him, gaping.

`You have been
paid,' Michel told him. 'Set sail, if you please.'

`Not until we
have negotiated a new price. Or overboard she goes.'

Juliette turned
her back on them, delved into the pocket tied about her waist under her skirt
and produced a single string of pearls that her father had given her for her
come-out. 'Will these do?' she asked, holding them out. `They are very fine.
Enough for my fare and a cabin.'

He took them
and examined them, holding them up to the light. 'Cabin, eh? This ain't the
cross-channel packet, you know.'

`But you do
have a cabin?' Pierre queried.

`Naturally,
there is a captain's cabin.'

`Then you will
not mind putting it at the disposal of the countess, will you?' He paused and
looked round at the motley collection of crew and prisoners of war. 'Can you
sail a ship when its crew are paying more attention to a lady's limbs than
their work?'

`Oh, very
well,' the man conceded. 'I'll take the mate's cabin and he can move in with
the crew. As for the rest of you, get below and stay there until we are safely
out of reach of the revenue cutters. We'll be taking on another passenger at
Lowestoft, but that needn't concern you.' To the crew he yelled, 'Weigh anchor
and let's be away.'

Five minutes
later there was no sign on deck that the ship was anything other than an
innocent fishing vessel. The crew were busy trimming the sails, the erstwhile
prisoners were confined in the hold and Juliette was sitting on the bunk in the
cramped cubbyhole that the captain graced with the name of cabin, wondering
what she was doing there. She had come from a beloved daughter to fugitive,
from a mansion to an evil-smelling boat, from dry land to heaving sea, all in
the space of two days. Her carefree childhood, her growing up, were behind her
and she could never return to them. They must be forgotten. She had thrown in
her lot with the enemies of her adopted country and the penalty for that was
death. The fact that she was travelling unchaperoned paled into insignificance
beside it. And any one of these men could rape her and she would be unable to
do anything about it. She doubted if Pierre would be much help, even if he
chose to try. In the last two days she had lost all her illusions about him. He
was not the romantic figure her imagination had painted. He was irritable and
selfish and grasping and it was only the prospect of her supposed wealth that
would protect her.