The Spitfire (53 page)

Chapter Twenty-One

“My
God!” Lord Varden said anxiously. “You look like the very devil himself, Arabella. What has happened?”

“I am not certain that I want to discuss it, Tony,” she told him. “You have come, I presume, to tell me when we can leave. Please, let it be soon!”

“The king plans a day-long hunt tomorrow in his forest,” Lord Varden said. “It is the perfect time for us to leave, although there will be some questions, I’m certain, about our disappearance,” he told her, and then he took her hand. “Arabella, you really don’t look well at all. Are you certain that you are all right?”

“Tony,” she asked him, “have you ever shared a woman with another man?”

Lord Varden looked startled by her question, and then he blushed as he said, “Well, on one or two occasions, my dear, I—” He stopped suddenly, and blanching, said, “God’s bones! Are you telling me that the Duc de Lambour…that Adrian Morlaix… God’s bones, Arabella! Such a thing is not to be borne! You are a decent woman, not some common trull!”

“Oh, I bore it, Tony, for I had no other choice,” she told him. “Did you know that Adrian has a half brother who might be his twin? Only their eye color is different. His name is Alain de Morlaix.”

“But why would Adrian do such a thing?” Lord Varden wondered aloud. “It is obvious that he adores you. In fact, he is in love with you, much to the court’s amusement.”

“And it was for just that very reason that he did what he did to me last night,” Arabella said. “I played the game too well, Tony. I was so cool in passion in order to retain his interest that he felt he must give me complete fulfillment, as he so delicately put it.” She laughed ruefully. “Since he himself was unable to accomplish that feat alone,” Arabella continued, “he shared me with the one man he could share me with without being jealous. His half brother Alain.” She shuddered, and Lord Varden put a comforting arm about her.

“Are you strong enough to make this trip, Arabella?” he inquired of her, concerned.

“I
must
make this trip, Tony, for I cannot bear the thought of another night like last night. They planned to spend the entire night with me, and had their delicate attentions not rendered me unconscious for over an hour after their first assault, they might have. When I finally came to my senses at last, Adrian had, in a fright, sent Alain away. I began to weep and could not stop for some time, though my poor duc begged me to cease. Finally I fell asleep after he swore to me that he would not allow Alain back in my bedchamber that night.

“Let me rest today. Adrian has not visited me this morning. He was called to Amboise quite early, I am told. When he returns I shall be very angry with him. He will not spend the evening in my bed, and I shall cry sick tomorrow for the hunt. We will be long gone by the time he returns, for you may rest assured that the king will have them all back to his chateau for a feast afterward.”

“With luck,” Lord Varden told her, “we may well be gone a full day before the duc even notices that we are gone. I shall go off on the hunt myself, however, but I will slip away during the first chase and meet you at the inn at Villeroyale. We will continue on to Calais from there.”

“We must travel round-the-clock, Tony, but for brief stops. I do not want Adrian catching up with us, and we cannot rely on the Duchesse de St. Astier to keep our secret. Sorcha is not reliable, and she hates me, though she has no real cause. We cannot trust our safety to her goodwill, for she has none.”

“I fear you are right, Arabella,” Lord Varden said. “She persisted in keeping me by her side last night when we returned to the entertainment, and all her questions were of you. She is fearfully jealous, and you are correct when you say you believe her to be harboring a grudge. She is.”

“I was newly married to Tavis Stewart when we went up to court for my first visit,” Arabella explained. “Sorcha—she was Lady Morton then—attempted to rekindle her old friendship with my husband. I do not think I was too harsh in my objections.” She smiled a small smile, and Lord Varden was relieved to see it, for her pallor was greatly unnerving him. “Beware that she does not take advantage of you, Tony,” Arabella teased him.

He chuckled. “She will not have the chance.”

“Only because we are leaving,” she said.

“That too,” Lord Varden admitted, “but in actuality, our duchesse will not have the time. Poor Jean-Claude Billancourt had one of his attacks last night and insisted that his wife sleep in the kennels with him. No one dared to interfere, and so the lady is much the worse for wear this morning, for I am told the St. Astier hounds do not like her very much. So when she was not servicing her lord and master as a good bitch does, she was kept busy fending off the other dogs, several of whom—and I have this on the very best authority, my dear—nipped at her. She finally struck her husband on the head, rendering him temporarily unconscious, and then called for the servants to release them from the kennels, which they did immediately, fearing for the duc’s life.”

“Poor Jean-Claude,” Arabella sympathized. “How is he?”

“Quite recovered from his fit, so I have heard, but he does have a most dreadful headache,” Lord Varden replied.

Arabella could not help but giggle at this.

There was a knock upon the door and Lona bustled in. “The duc is back,” she said, “and heading this way, I’ve not a doubt.”

Lord Varden stood up. “I will return to my own rooms,” he said and hurried out.

“Quickly,” Lona told her mistress, for she knew everything that had transpired the night before, “into your bed, my lady!” She took Arabella’s
robe
de chambre
from her, laying it across a chair. “Will you see him?”

“If I do not,” Arabella said, “there is the danger that someone will tell him that Lord Varden was here, and he will wonder why I would see Tony but not him.”

“Lord Varden didn’t abuse you!” Lona said sharply.

“Still,” Arabella told her, “it is best I face him now. Then perhaps he will leave me be for the rest of the day.”

The knock upon the door sent Lona scurrying to answer it. She opened the door, and curtsying to the duc, admitted him before departing.

“
Ma Belle
!” Adrian Morlaix said as he sat down upon the bed and took her hand in his.

Arabella snatched her hand away as if it had been scalded.
“I detest you!”
she hissed at him. “How do you dare to face me after what you did to me last night?! I never want to see you again!”

“Don’t be angry,
ma Belle
,” he pleaded with her. “What I did, I did for you. I could not bear seeing you so close to passion yet unable to attain it. I love you!”

“Liar!
You do not love me at all! If you loved me, you should not have treated me like a whore! Like some common trull, passing me about like a sweetmeat to be shared! Go away! I hate you!”

“
Non, ma Belle
, you do not hate me. You are angry, and I understand your anger, but it will pass,” the duc answered her, and leaning over, he kissed her cheek.

“I will never forgive you,”
Arabella said honestly.

“Of course you will,
ma petite rose d’Anglaise
. Of course you will,” he told her with perfect confidence. “Our adventures
d’amour
of last night were a shock to you, I understand that, but you will admit that you reached out for passion as you have never before reached out for it. You attained
la grande petite morte, ma Belle
! You were magnificent, and I adore you for it!”

Arabella glowered at him stonily.

The duc chuckled, convinced that she was just having a tantrum, a tantrum that she would soon get over. He caught up her hand again and kissed it. “If I promise you never to introduce another into our bed again,
ma Belle
, will you forgive me?”

“Leave me!”
she commanded him icily, ignoring his query.

Rising from the bed, the duc departed her bedchamber, certain that in time his beautiful English mistress would forgive him, although he really did not understand her anger. There had been no real harm done. He and Alain had, indeed, been most tender and gentlemanly.

Arabella kept to her apartments all day, refusing even to join the duc and his guests for dinner. When he entered her bedchamber late that evening, he found Lona sitting by her mistress’s bedside. The servant stood and curtsied.

“My lady is not well, my lord, and has taken a sleeping draught,” she told him. “She begs that you make her excuses to the king tomorrow, but she says she will not be able to join the hunt.”

“Is she truly ill?” he asked Lona. “Or is she simply being petulant?”

“My lord!”
Lona looked indignant at the suggestion that her mistress might be shamming.

“That is no answer,” the duc persisted.

“Last night was too much for her, my lord,” Lona said bluntly. “My lady is suffering from nerves, the headache, exhaustion, and the effects of too much weeping. She is a gentle soul and has been badly used, though I know you will not like to hear it.”

The duc looked uncomfortable beneath Lona’s direct gaze. Finally he said, “When she awakens, Lona, tell her that I love her. Reassure her that the events of last night will never be repeated again, as I earlier promised her. I shall make her excuses to the king, and I shall make my own as well, for I will not leave her side in her illness.”

“My lady will be pleased to know that you’ve repented of your wickedness, my lord, but she’ll have a fit if you don’t join the hunt,” Lona told him frankly. “She likes King Charles very much, and she wouldn’t want him worried needlessly. If you don’t go on the hunt tomorrow, the king will, indeed, fret that her ladyship was so poor that you stayed home as well. Someone like that new duchesse—who hates my lady, and would grasp any opportunity to do her a bad turn—is certain to start a rumor of plague then. The next thing you know, we’ll all be forced to pick up and settle somewhere else for the summer. Why, the king might even decide to go to Normandy for the waters, and my mistress could scarce be your guest in Normandy, my lord, could she?”

“You’re a clever girl, Lona,” the duc noted with a chuckle, having fully understood the servant’s not-so-veiled hints. “You can assure me, however, that your mistress is not seriously ill?”

“Aye, my lord, I can.”

“Then I shall spend the day hunting tomorrow with the king and his guests. Tell your mistress when she awakens that I will undoubtedly return home late from Amboise. I shall not see her until the day after tomorrow, at which time I shall expect her to have made a full recovery. Do you understand me, Lona?”

“Aye, my lord,” Lona told him with a knowing grin and another pert curtsy.

“Good night, then,” the duc said, and returned through the connecting door to his own rooms.

When the door had clicked firmly shut and Lona could no longer hear the duc’s footsteps, she said softly, “He is gone, my lady.”

Arabella rolled over and sat up. “‘Twas nicely done, Lona,” she said, “and ‘twas quick thinking on your part when he said he would stay home with me. Thank you.”

“I’m as anxious to go home to England as you are, my lady, and so are the others too,” Lona told her.

“The trip will not be easy,” Arabella said. “We will travel without ceasing, stopping only to change the horses and to eat.”

“I’ll not be unhappy to see the back of France,” Lona said. “This life is too rich for me, my lady. I long for the simplicity of the borders. Besides, ‘tis past time Fergus and I were wed. What shall I pack for you?”

“Only a few changes of clothing, Lona, for I’ll not need all these beautiful clothes at Greyfaire. You may pack the jewelry that the duc has given me, however, for God knows, I have earned it! I shall not wear any of it ever again, but it can be placed with a goldsmith in York and drawn upon for funds to help me keep the estate in the bad years.”

In the early hours of the dawn, Arabella watched from the high windows of her rooms as the duc and Lord Varden rode out from Rossignol to join the royal hunt at Amboise. The chateau’s servants, a small staff, for the duc preferred it that way, were far too busy with their own tasks to notice the departure of their master’s leman. Besides, it was not their business to question Arabella. The coach had been quietly and carefully loaded in the dark hours before the dawn, when the chateau’s groomsmen had slept unawares in their loft above the stables. The mare that Arabella had brought from England was at her house outside of Paris, for the duc had given Arabella a new mare after their first night together, and she felt it unnecessary to bring both horses to Rossignol. They would retrieve Arabella’s English mare on their journey to Calais and leave behind the other beast. FitzWalter and the Greyfaire men escorted their mistress, drawing no attention at all, for such was their usual habit.

Several hours later they reached the inn at Villeroyale where they stopped to await Lord Varden. He arrived shortly before noon. After eating, they set out once again, and for the next several days they traveled round-the-clock, stopping only to change the coach horses, relieve themselves, and eat. From their third day onward until they arrived at Calais, there was the increased danger of pursuit. Arabella had left the duc a brief note saying that she could not forgive him for his conduct toward her and that she hoped he would accept her decision in this matter and not follow her. She had not wanted to do this, but Lord Varden had insisted that she could not simply disappear without causing an uproar. It was always possible that the duc would accept her judgment, but if he did not, perhaps his ego would allow him to believe she would return of her own accord in a few days after she had worked her temper off. These few days could give them the time they needed to reach Calais. Lord Varden had sent one of his own men ahead to arrange for their immediate passage across the channel to England. They must escape France without delay lest the Duchesse de St. Astier betray them.

They reached the safety of Calais in five-and-a-half days’ time, even with a brief stop at Arabella’s small house outside of Paris to collect her mare. They had arrived at Maison Riviere in the middle of the night. Fergus MacMichael crept into the stable to retrieve the beast while the stableboy hired to care for it slept quite soundly during his foray. He left a silver piece by the lad’s head, knowing that when the boy discovered the coin and the missing horse, he himself would depart lest he be blamed for being negligent in his duties. The silver would give him a new start in life. They fled on through Paris, leaving the city well behind them even before the dawn.