Jane Feather - Charade

by Unknown

  "And also St. Estephe," Tony said, throwing Jeanette up ahead of him before mounting himself.

  "He is now but three to our four," Jules reminded.

  "Five," Danielle declared. "I am not as weak as I seem. If you have a spare weapon, I claim the comte

  for my own."

  "We have not and you may not," Julian told her flatly. "You will keep your mouth shut, cousin, until we are again aboard Dream Girl."

  "If she has not already left," Danny said soberly.

  "That is not a helpful remark! Will you please keep quiet."

  Danielle took no offense at Julian's autocratic tone, sensing both his acute anxiety and his relief at finding her relatively unharmed. The days of her captivity must have been almost as horrendous for her friends as they had been for her.

  Meanwhile, Jake had reluctantly made up his mind that he must sail on the evening tide. He had intended to leave that morning but perversely the clamoring insistence of his passengers that he wait not a moment longer had kept him on deck, straining his eyes desperately for the flash of the beacon. Wby the devil anyone would bother to save this ungrateful lot, he thought disgustedly as a whining voice came up behind. They were concerned only for their own skins and quite happy at the idea of abandoning their rescuers in that inhospitable land. Then something caught his eye, a bright scarlet glow coming from inland. It bore no relation to the signal of the beacon, but it was just possible . . . An accidental fire on

  this damp windy coast where material possessions were treated with all the desperate care of poverty was almost inconceivable, particularly one that had been allowed to get out of hand, judging by the brilliance of that light. He had nothing to lose at any rate, and if it were indeed a signal then everything to be gained by having the dinghy on the beach waiting for them. He gave the orders for the boat to be lowered and then resumed hia impatient pacing, ignoring the excitable foreign babble as his passengers demanded to know what was happening.

  "We will leave the horses here," Jules said as they reached the cliff head. "They will find their way back or someone will find them." He dismounted. "A thousand pardons, Danny, but I cannot carry you in my arms down that path to the beach." Danielle was about to say that she was quite capable of walking now, when she found herself draped over his shoulder.

  "This is most undignified, Jules," she grumbled, bumping uncomfortably as he began to leap down the steep path.

  "Well, I am sorry for it, but it cannot be helped. And I am telling you straight, Danny, if we come out of this one alive, none of us are making such a journey again."

  Danielle said nothing. One of these days she was going to kill St. Estephe very slowly, but since she was sure Jules would not approve of her bloodthirsty thoughts she kept them to herself.

  "Odd's breath, there's the dinghy." Westmore crowed with delight. "Jake must have seen the fire and drawn the right conclusions. What a stroke of luck!"

  "We are certainly due for some," Philip said with absolute truth. "Viens, Jeanette." He took her hand and rap with her to the shore where the two sailors held the dinghy against the crashing surf.

  Danielle sat huddled in Julian's cloak on the thwart, watching the cove recede as the powerful arms of the oarsmen bore them away from the nightmare. In three days she-would be back with her son and maybe there would be some news. Black spots danced before her eyes and the strangest sensation crept up her neck, like being enclosed in a gray fog ....

  Tony caught her as she slumped sideways and began chafing the white face. But she was out for barely

  a minute and came to, muttering apologies even before her senses had fully returned. "It is perhaps because I have had little food," she mumbled, struggling upright.

  "Lie still." Tony put her head back in his lap. "It will not be long now."

  Half an hour later Jake had the anchor taken up with an overpowering sense of relief. Ominous clouds scudded across the evening sky and the wind was coming in unpredictable spurts that gathered strength

  as the yacht moved into open water. The coastline offered no safe shelter with its riptides and concealed reefs and, unable to hug the shore, they had no choice but to put to sea. It was going to be a very long rough voyage, Jake thought, wondering grimly how those refugee passengers were going to manage in their cramped quarters below decks.

  * * *

  Justin paced the long drawing room at Mervanwey, fighting the helplessness, the hopelessness of his frustration. He could make no plans until Dream Girl returned, could only renew his relationship with

  his son—an immensely rewarding process, but Nicky asked constantly for his mother and was happiest

  in the rose garden where his father held him as they sat on the low wall both gazing at the noncommittal sea, waiting.

  Lavinia looked at the man she now loved as if they were tied by blood, as helpless to help him as she was to help herself. They had dined at five o'clock, keeping country hours as usual. Nicky had been brought down in his nightgown to eat sugar plums and almonds, nestling in his father's lap as they took dessert before Justin carried him to bed, told one of the stories from his own childhood that returned with amazing ease to memory. It was nine o'clock and the November wind battled against the windowpanes.

  "D'ye care for a game of piquet, Justin?" Charles asked as his wife plied her embroidery needle.

  "By all means." Justin came over to the crackling fire. "I am poor company these days. I beg pardon . .."

  "Tiens! You have tried my patience beyond bearing. I cannot help it that you are wet and that it is a steep climb from the beach. If you do not care for your hospitality, I suggest you swim back to France where I am certain Madame Guillotine will make you most welcome!" The unmistakable voice rose in exasperation from the hall and the three in the drawing room gazed at each other in wonder and disbelieving hope.

  The door burst open. "Grandmere, I do beg your pardon. You must have been in such a worry but . . ." Danny stopped on the threshold. "Justin?" Six months hadn't changed him at all, except for the drawn look about his eyes.

  "Danny, you wretched little vagabond!" It was the most extraordinary salutation from a man who hadn't seen his wife in six months and who, for the last week, had assumed that she was dead. For Danielle they were the most wonderful words. She sprang across the room and into his arms, heedless of the tiresome group crowding the doorway or the soft exhalations of relief from her colleagues.

  Justin kissed her, hugged her, feeling the remembered pliancy under his hands, the firm yet soft lips beneath his own. He pushed the cap from her head and gasped in sudden outrage at her cropped head. "Brat, how dare you do that again!" Gripping her shoulders, he shook her with all the vigor of a terrier with a rat, giving vent to the pent-up fear of the last seven days.

  "P ... p ... please! Do stop," Danielle stammered when her head seemed about to leave her shoulders,

  and with a muttered exclamation he hugged her to him again.

  "Incorrigible urchin! Why are you so wet?" Justin demanded as his senses returned and he became aware of her sopping britches pressing against his thighs.

  "The surf was too high for Dream Girl to make the dock. We had to land in the dinghy," Danielle explained. "And the dinghy had to make several journeys because there are so many of us, you understand. Jules, and Tony and Philip and I had to wade in to help beach it. It is quite simple. But what is most interesting, Justin, is that I am no longer seasick. It was a monstrous tempestuous voyage but I

  felt not the slightest need to puke."

  A tired grin suddenly split her face. "I do beg your pardon for my vulgarity, Grandmaman. But you understand how things are at the moment." She left her husband to embrace her grandparents. "How

  has Nicky been?"

  "He is well and asleep these last two hours," Lavinia reassured, holding her granddaughter in a fierce grip.

  "I will go up to the nursery shortly. But first we must do something for these . . ." Danny gestured toward the miserable group of ut
terly bewildered French who had been unable to follow a word of the conversation and could not begin to understand the extraordinary reception this diminutive bully had met at the hands of the tall Englishman.

  "We are all like to die of hunger," Danielle went on. "We have been living off salt pork and ship's biscuits for the last five days."

  "You are more like to die of the ague if you do not get out of those wet clothes this instant." Lavinia expressed her relief in severity, belied by the warm glow in her eyes, and took charge. "Justin, look to your wife while I do what I can to make these poor people comfortable. The rest of you may look after yourselves," she declared briskly. "There will be a meal in the dining room within the half hour."

  "Jeanette." Danielle turned to the young girl standing awkwardly, twisting her red chapped hands into impossible knots. "I will take you to Tante Therese. She will look after you and make you quite comfortable, and I can visit my son at the same time."

  "No," her husband said, recovering at last from his bemused joy and deciding that it was time he took a hand in this affair. "I will take the child to Tante Therese and you, Madam Wife, will put yourself into a hot bath without further ado. You may see Nicky when you are in dry clothes."

  "But that is ridic . . . Justin!" She yelped as he grabbed the collar of her jacket and marched her to the door.

  "It is quite clear that I have been away far too long," he told her. "You appear to have forgotten in my absence that I do not tolerate disobedience." His eyes teased in the old way and his voice carried that

  note of mock severity that was part of their private language.

  "I thought you were dead, love," Danny whispered, standing outside the door, away from the eyes within.

  "And I you," he whispered back. "I will never leave you again, my love. What we do, we do together in future."

  She nodded. "Come to me quickly."

  "As soon as I have taken your little Jeanette to Tante Therese."

  He found her in the porcelain tub before a blazing fire, receiving Molly's relieved ministrations and the reproaches that her privileged position allowed her to make. But a strange thing happened when Justin's gaze slowly traversed his wife's naked body with all the wonder of remembrance. A panicky flash of

  pure fear shot into the wide brown eyes and an unmistakable shudder ran through the slender frame.

  What the devil? He opened his mouth to exclaim and then closed it again and simply sat on the window seat leaving Molly to complete her work. The fear in the eyes became relief and his lips tightened. What had happened to her in those long months of their separation?

  They talked into the early hours in the dining room that night as Danielle and her four colleagues told of their adventures. Jules and the others waited for her to bring up her ordeal with St. Estephe and when

  she did not do so felt that her silence was in some way a command that they must follow. They now all knew the comte's motives and it was for Justin's wife to tell him at what time and in whatever manner

  she chose. Their delay in returning was easily explained by the mayhem in Paris, the difficult personalities of their passengers, and the storm.

  Justin found it possible to laugh at Jules's description of Danielle's play-acting at the barrerre, although

  he knew that the ghosts of horror at the risks she had taken would haunt him for many months. The camaraderie existing between the five of them was very clear in the way they teased each other, the way they were able to leave sentences half finished, thoughts uncompleted, and the meaning was immediately grasped. It was also clear that Danny was their chief planner, although she admitted, quite cheerfully when reminded, that on occasion her imagination got the better of her and it needed a more sober appraisal to make her plans at least safer if less imaginative.

  Justin wondered if he were jealous of this easy relationship based on so much intimacy and terrifying danger. He was, he decided. But it was a mean-spirited emotion that must be repressed. What concerned him more was the brittle quality of Danielle's laughter, the ease with which she slipped over the description of the attack on the Tuileries, their return to the scene of the massacre, her earlier attempts to find D'Evron, and the days when she had run beside the tumbrils looking for a familiar face.

  His own adventures had paled in comparison. The czar's court had received him kindly and it had been a series of misadventures that had delayed his homecoming—that and the czar's pleasure in the company

  of the Earl of Unton, pleasure that had become a royal edict which under that absolute rule could not be gainsaid.

  It was Julian not Justin who told Danielle that she looked like the very devil and it was time she was in bed. As for the rest of them, they were too nerve-riddled to sleep and would play cards until exhaustion took over.

  Danielle did not demur, saying only to Justin in a low whisper that he should stay up as long as he wished; she was utterly exhausted anyway. To her relief, he merely nodded and walked her to the door, tipping her chin to place a light kiss at the corner of her mouth.

  She ran up the stairs, tore off her wrapper, and flung herself into bed. Something she could never in her wildest imaginings have foreseen had happened. Not only could she not tell her husband of St. Estephe's violations, but she could not bear the thought of being touched, of being looked at. Her skin crawled in revulsion as she hugged her breasts beneath the sheet in fierce protection of her bodily privacy. What was she to do? Pretend to be asleep when he came to her bed, as he most assuredly would? Tonight, perhaps, it would work, but for how long could she maintain the deception?

  Justin remained in the dining room for half an hour after his wife's departure and he learned much. He learned the full truth of their experiences in Paris and Danny's reaction to what they had seen and done, and he learned that something was being kept from him; something other—far worse than what he had been told. No one gave him the barest hint but the secret hummed in the air, lurked in their eyes.

  "Well, gentlemen, I will bid you good morning. Enjoy your play. You have earned some relaxation, I think." He left them amidst chorused good nights and went upstairs, both thoughtful and determined. His wife by some miracle had been returned to him, but she was not whole and he would have her so.

  The bedchamber was in darkness, except for the dying embers of the fire. He lit two tapers and carried both tb the bed. "You are not asleep, Danielle, so do not pretend to be so."

  Danielle muttered incoherently and curled more tightly beneath the covers, but they were wrested from her grasp and drawn back. "I wish to look at you," Justin said softly, sitting on the bed and turning her onto her back. She began to shake even as she tried to offer herself to his gentle hands, simulating the

  old eagerness.

  It was such a pathetic attempt. The fear stood out in her eyes and shudders of revulsion crept over her skin as he caressed her breasts, rolling her nipples between finger and thumb in the way that had always drawn moans of pleasure from her.

  "What has happened to you?"

  "Nothing . . . rien du tout. It is simply that it has been such a long time and I am out of the way of ...

  of loving." It was a poor offering and Danielle knew it.

  He took her hands, palm against palm, holding them above her head and she cried out in terror.

  "No ... no please, not in that way."

  Once he had made the almost fatal mistake of allowing her withdrawal, gentling and courting her, hoping that she would recover, without intervention, from what was troubling her. But those methods had failed and Justin never repeated his mistakes. Now he stood up and reached for her discarded wrapper. "Get up." His voice was quiet.

  Danielle had not the slightest idea what he was going to do and made no move to comply. Nothing had ever frightened her as much as this petrified reaction to Justin's touch and look and now she just lay

  there.

  "Get up!" The voice this tinr.e was a lash and Danielle found herself on her feet without conscious
thought. He pushed her arms into the wrapper, tied it securely about her waist, and then, without speaking, took her hand and led her back to the dining room.

  Four startled pairs of eyes looked up from their cards. "Now," Justin said to his wife, "I am going to ask you the question again. What has happened to you?"

  Four hands of cards slapped onto the table and her friends sat back in total silence looking into the middle distance, for once offering her no support and telling her husband all that he needed to know at this point.

  "Thank you." Justin turned back to Danny. "Since it is now clear that something has happened, we will dispense with further prevarication, if you please. You may tell me here or in private. If you are unable

  to tell me yourself then I am certain someone else will oblige."

  "They may be able to tell you the facts, Justin, but only I can'' tell you of the horror." Her voice shook.

  "I do not wish to."

  "No," he said, suddenly gentle. "But sometimes one must do what one does not wish to do. Let us go upstairs now." Not a word had been spoken by anyone but themselves in the quiet dining room.