The Ruby Pendant (28 page)

`Naturellement.
Did you think he was loyal to King George?' He threw back his head and laughed,
making his companions grin.

She did not
answer. She was thinking of something the captain had said about James. If he
has been wasting his time here when he should have been elsewhere, then his
masters will not be pleased. They will seek to punish him. He had implied James
was working for the French and she had chosen to believe differently. Had she
been wrong? James had agreed with her theory of why he was in France just a
shade too readily and his strange laughter still echoed in her mind. And, on
reflection, she realised he had not left the château at all until the letter
had disappeared, which he would surely have done if he had had intelligence to
gather. His one obsession had been to find the jewels and he had wept with
frustration when the box was found to be empty, not the reaction of a man who
had been using the search as a cover. But still her mind refused to accept that
he was a traitor.

`The devil of a
job we have had to track him down,' the major broke in on her muddled thinking.
'If it were not for Lieutenant Veillard, we might never have traced him.'

She looked at
Pierre who grinned sheepishly. 'I am sorry, mam'selle,' he said. 'I had to do
my duty.'

`We are not the
only ones looking for him,' Clavier went on. 'There is a certain cavalry
captain. He'd have a scar, a new one. We have to get to him first.'

Juliette
gasped. She looked across at Michel Clavier, whose lips were curled in a cruel
grin.

`This captain,'
she ventured, piling the major's plate with chicken, though her hands were
shaking so much she thought they could not fail to notice. 'Who is he?'

Major Clavier,
pulling the chicken apart with grubby hands, shrugged. 'We don't know his real
name. We only know he is a thorn in our side, a snake in the grass, who creeps
about in the dark and disappears when daylight comes. But if he is after our
young English friend, then we must find him first. I have a fancy to end this
war at home with a nice fat pension. This we have been promised.'

`There was a
cavalry captain here,' Anne-Marie said, because Juliette had been struck dumb.
She forced herself to pay attention as Anne-Marie continued. `If we had known,
we would have thought of a way of detaining both men, but we were glad to see
them go.'

`No matter, we
will find them,' he said, reaching out for a bottle of wine and tipping it up
to his mouth.

As soon as they
had disposed of everything that was eatable and drunk the very last bottle of
wine, they began a systematic search of the chateau, not bothering to hide
their frustration when they realised there was nothing to loot, not even a few
bottles of wine, for the last of those stood on the kitchen table, or valuables
in the form of jewellery. The inlaid box they found among Juliette's
possessions, but its contents were more than disappointing. And Henri, seeing
it, laughed himself into hysterics. When they had satisfied themselves that
neither James nor the captain were hiding in the house, they began on the
outbuildings, but that search, too, proved fruitless.

`No matter,'
Clavier said. 'We'll take the girl with us. She will be better than nothing and
we will soon have her chattering like a magpie.'

`But why?'
Juliette protested. 'I have done nothing wrong.'

They ignored
her protests and ordered Anne-Marie to accompany her to her room and watch over
her as she packed her few clothes in her old cloakbag. Half an hour later, she
was put on Henri's old donkey and led away.

It was very
uncomfortable riding the donkey with her hands tied and several times she
thought she would fall off. By concentrating hard on keeping her balance, she
stayed in the saddle, but it left her little time to dwell on her predicament,
or her surroundings. After a few miles they came to a river and followed its
line through beautiful rugged scenery, with the sun at their backs, which
meant, she concluded, that they were moving in a northerly direction, but it
was not until they stopped for the night that she began to wonder where they
were taking her and what they meant to do with her. They would not tell her
when she asked.

They made camp
in a clearing in a wooded area near the banks of the river, tethering the
horses on a line strung between two trees and then building a fire to cook a
meal. Juliette was glad of the fire because it was very cold and growing
colder, and she sat on the ground as close to it as was safe. She ought to have
been glad of the food, but it was an unappetising stew and tasted dreadful. She
pushed the tin plate away. 'I'm not hungry.'

`Eat it,'
Michel commanded. 'You'll get no more. Food is scarce, had you not noticed?
Everything is scarce.'

`It's the war,'
Pierre added, almost apologetically. 'It has been going on too long. Nothing is
left, no food, no weapons, no men.'

`No pay
either,' someone else put in.

`Then why go on
fighting?' she asked.

`What would you
have us do?" another demanded. `Give up? Or turn traitor like that slimy
Englishman?'

`No.' She did
not want to talk about James, traitor or patriot, for fear of doing irreparable
damage to the allied cause. Her heart was English, as English as Lord
Martindale's, whatever else she pretended.

`Where is he?'
Pierre asked. 'If you told us that, we might let you go.'

`Who?'

`Martindale, of
course. He promised information, reliable information, enough to turn the tide
of war in our favour. He should have handed it over when he came on board the
fishing boat at Lowestoft but when he found you he changed his mind. He said it
was too important to trust to a courier and he was going to deliver it
personally.' He grinned suddenly. 'He thought he could have the jewels and his
pay.'

`Traitors, I
spit on them all!' Michel said, suiting action to words and only just missing
Juliette's skirt.

She hitched
herself a little further away and spoke to Pierre. He seemed a little more
civilised than the others. `It was your idea for me to come to France. You
arranged it.'

`So I did, but
how was I to know our contact was your husband-to-be? I did not even know his
name. I would never have brought you if I had. What is the English expression,
set the cat among the pigeons? That is what I did.'

`We need the
information he brought to France with him,' the major said. 'And we need the
man who followed him. I nearly had him once, but he's as slippery as an eel.
Slid through my fingers, though I did mark him.'

She knew they
were talking about Captain Devereux. Did they know who he really was? She
thought it wiser not to ask. Instead, she said, 'But I am a loyal citizen of
France, just as you are, though I was kept in ignorance of it until this year,
just as I was ignorant of what James was doing.'

`Maybe,' Michel
said. 'Maybe not. We shall soon see. Now get some sleep, all of you. We move on
at dawn.' He went over to the line of horses and pulled a blanket roll from one
of them, which he threw at Juliette's feet. `Here, wrap yourself in this.'

She stood up
and picked it up. It was smelly and dirty, but this was not the time to be
fastidious. She dropped it, took up her own bag and set off for the river bank
to perform her ablutions, but though they pretended not to look, she knew they
were watchful and alert; running away was out of the question. Besides, the
water was icy; she did not dally but washed quickly and put her riding breeches
on under the old skirt she had been wearing when she left England. When she returned
they were all grinning, but she ignored them and, picking up the blanket, took
it to a spot beneath the tree where the horses and donkey were tethered.

`Where do you
think you are going?' Clavier demanded.

`Over there. To
get a little privacy.'

He laughed.
'You prefer the company of horses to humans, do you?'

`Yes,' she
snapped. 'They smell sweeter.'

He laughed
again and ordered two of the men to stand watch, then made up the fire and
rolled himself in his cloak beside it. Soon all but the sentries and Juliette
were asleep.

Her mind was
buzzing. Had James really betrayed his country? Was he a traitor or a British
double agent? She could not understand how a man like James, heir to a great
estate with everything to live for in England, could turn traitor. It was
easier to believe he was a patriot. Easier, but was it true? The more she
thought about it, the more doubtful she became. But what did that make Philip?
Was he a traitor too? Another escaped. prisoner'? A French spy? No, that was
not possible, given all the years her father had known him. And she loved him.
She had to escape before they forced her to talk.

She raised her
head to look about her. The guards were talking together on the other side of
the clearing. Then they turned and patrolled the perimeter, before retracing
their steps.

She watched
them make the circuit several times, wishing they would stop on the other side
long enough for her to make a run for it, but there was never enough time. A
twig snapped among the trees that encircled the clearing, and both guards
dashed off towards it. Blessing whoever or whatever had made the noise, she
seized her opportunity. She rose, slung her bag over her shoulder, picked up a
saddle from the heap nearby and hoisted it on to the horse Michel had been using,
praying the animal would not whinny and alert the sleeping men. She did not
notice the sentries return until she became aware of someone moving among the
horses; he would reach her in a matter of moments. Having put the saddle on,
she undid the rope that tethered all the horses and took hold of the reins. In
her haste, she pulled too hard on the bit and the horse snorted and pawed the
ground. Before she could calm it, someone grabbed her from behind and put a
hand over her mouth. She struggled to free herself but he was far too strong
for her.

`Don't make a
sound.' The words were said in a whisper. 'Not this way, you will rouse them.
Walk. Quietly.'

She recognised
Philip's voice and suddenly she felt so happy she wanted to laugh and cry at
the same time, but she did neither because he did not remove his hand from her
mouth as he propelled her between the trees, leading the horse she had saddled.

The others were
moving about restlessly as if, discovering they were free, they were uncertain
whether to take advantage of it. Still holding her, he picked up a stick and
hurled it at the horses. It hit one on the rump and, with a snort of annoyance,
it trotted quietly away, followed by the rest. 'That should delay them. Now, if
I let you go, will you keep quiet?'

She nodded.

He released
her. 'I am sorry if I was rough,' he said, still whispering. 'But if you had
simply ridden away, they would have heard you and caught you again immediately.
Hurry now.'

He held her arm
to help her along and five minutes later they came upon his horse tethered to a
tree. He tossed her up in the saddle of Michel's horse, before untying his own
and mounting. 'Come on, before they round up their horses and come after us.'

Almost giddy
with relief and happiness, she rode out behind him on to a road that ran
alongside the wood, sometimes in shadow, sometimes bathed in moonlight. There
was no one else to be seen.

`How did you
know I was with them?' she asked

`I was
returning to the chateau when I saw them bring you out. I could not let them
take you, could I?'

When he spotted
the band of mounted soldiers, he had been riding along the rough unsurfaced
road from Hautvigne up to the chateau, wondering how to persuade Juliette that
her best hope of safety lay in going with him and whether to tell her he meant
to take her to the Spanish border and the British lines or whether it would be
safer, for her own sake, to keep her in ignorance. He could say nothing about
his Intelligence role because if they were ever captured, she would be
interrogated, probably tortured, and he could not, would not, expect her to
withstand that. The despatches he carried could shorten the war and save
hundreds, perhaps thousands, of lives on both sides. But he had to protect her;
if he allowed anything to happen to her, he would not want to live himself.

They had not
seen him and he had lost no time in turning off the road and hiding himself and
his horse in a ditch. Peering out, he had watched them ride towards him, six of
them with Michel Clavier and Pierre Veillard at their head. And then he had
seen Juliette on the donkey. Her hands were tied and all her concentration was
on trying to stay on its back. He had cursed under his breath, but managed to
resist the impulse to rush out and try to tackle them. He loved her with an
intensity that burned in him like an unquenchable fire, but he had to guard
against acting rashly for fear of endangering her. And he was only too aware of
the despatches he carried and his orders not to allow himself to be taken. And
where was James Martindale? He had curbed his impatience and followed at a safe
distance.

`Why not?' she
asked.

`Why not?' he
repeated and smiled. 'Because you are too young and beautiful to be left to
their tender mercies. They have ways of making you say anything that suits
their purpose.'