by Unknown
In their own chamber, Danielle crawled again beneath the covers and Justin undressed, blowing out the candle before slipping in beside her. "Now . . . ?" he asked softly.
She told him the whole as he held her close in the cloaking darkness as one would hold a child in the midst of a nightmare, and after she had at last fallen asleep in the arms that simply held and made no demands he lay awake and allowed the bitter rage full rein. He would not rest until he had hunted down St. Estephe as one would rid the world of a rabid cur, and from Danielle's account that was a perfect description of their enemy.
Chapter 23
Viscount Beresford darted from his hiding place behind a rhododendron bush and scampered across the lawn, chuckling gleefully. He had managed to evade the watchful eyes of Tante Therese, Maddy, and Jeanette—some considerable achievement. His goal was the great barn behind the stables where, on one of his earlier escapades, he had discovered a litter of kittens. It was nearly his teatime and the hue and
cry would start up at any moment, but Maman and Papa were out riding on this crisp March afternoon and so long as news of his flight was not discovered by either of them, there would be no uncomfortable consequences.
As luck would have it, however, his dash across the open ground of the stableyard coincided with the clattering of hooves on the cobbles and the return of his parents.
"Nicky?" his mother called and, with a pout, the small boy stopped.
Danielle dismounted unaided and marched toward him, the tawny velvet of her riding habit swinging around her. "Mediant,'' she scolded. "Where are you going?"
"Lespetits chats, maman." He grabbed her hand eagerly, eyes shining. "Viens, vite."
"Kittens!" his mother exclaimed. "Where?"
"The barn." Nicky tugged on her hand.
"Just what are you up to now?" Justin strode across the yard. There was an ominous frown in his eyes that the little viscount recognized and he pulled anxiously on his mother's hand.
"Nicky has found some kittens, Justin," Danielle explained. "We must go and see them. Show us, mon petit."
"Danielle," Justin expostulated. "Kittens or no, he knows he's not to be here alone, or anywhere else for that matter."
"Oh, pah!" She dismissed such rigidity with disdain. "Do not tell me that you were able to resist a litter
of kittens at his age? It is no fun to be always doing things with one's nurse, and not at all amusant never to do things without permission."
"No," Justin agreed, struck by the truth of this statement. "Well, let us go and see these fascinating creatures." He held out his hand to his son and received the small trusting one with a smile and an admonitory headshake. Nicholas just beamed, quite unabashed, and trotted between them, chattering in his fluid mixture of French and English, interspersed with baby burble when his as yet simple vocabulary failed.
Danielle's pleasure in the kittens easily matched her son's and Justin watched as she sat on the dusty barn floor, her skirts spread to receive the furry parcels, as Nicky picked them up with exaggerated delicacy and deposited them in her lap.
The last five months had seen the execution of Louis XVI— a king who had died with dignity beneath the blade of Madame Guillotine amidst the jeering crowds of his erstwhile subjects and the Reign of Terror now gathered momentum. England had been at war with France since the beginning of February and it was now impossible for an Englishman to travel openly in that beleaguered country. Danielle's clandestine activities had been dangerous enough, but now the danger was increased a hundredfold.
Justin had controlled his impatience and devoted his attention to his wife and son, taking pleasure in the former's growing relaxation. It had been many weeks before she had responded with the passion and eagerness of the past to his gently determined lovemaking. But understanding had leant him compassion and the patience of Job. She was her old self again now, less tempestuous perhaps, and the months of wearing britches had given her an inordinate dislike of such attire, even when riding. Her hair had grown, the thin cheeks had filled, and there was a seriousness in the brown eyes that denoted maturity rather
than pain.
But the winter storms that had prevented safe passage from Cornwall to the north coast of Brittany were now on the wane and Justin was growing restless. Images of St. Estephe hung on the periphery of his sleep, sometimes intruded in violent dreams, and it was time to begin the chase. How to tell Danielle that he wished to take his revenge alone?
He looked at her as she explained to Nicky that the kittens were still blind and could not be taken from their mother however well Nicky could look after one in the nursery. He must wait for at least another month before they would be ready to live without their maman. Nicky listened seriously, understanding the import if not every word. And how was Justin to leave them both—his wife and his son, dearer to
him than life itself? But it was because they were so that he had no choice but to follow his obsession.
If he did not take matters into his own hands, then St. Estephe would be an ever-threatening presence
in their lives. Until Justin was certain that the comte was dead, there would be no safety for himself, his wife, or his children. Danielle's description of the St. Estephe that she now knew had convinced Linton
of the cold, detached fanaticism, bordering on madness, of the man who had set his heart on revenge
on the house of Linton.
"Come, children." He broke into their game with a broad smile and the brisk directive: "Tante Therese is waiting for one of you, at least." The kittens were returned to their nest and, laughing, Danielle allowed him to pull her to her feet.
"Not an appropriate sobriquet," she informed her husband with a mock curtsy.
"On the contrary," he replied. "There is not a pin to choose between the pair of you." He lifted his son onto his shoulders and Nicky crowed with delight, bouncing up and down, his chubby fingers twisted in his father's hair as they made their way back to the house.
Nicky had learned enough in his twenty-one months not to protest too vociferously as he was returned to the nursery with the promise that Maman and Papa would visit him after his bath. Danielle, on the other hand, showed no such self-discipline when Justin broached the subject of his returning to France.
"We agreed that in future what we do we do together," she insisted. "I also claim St. Estephe for my
own. You are quite correct to say that we must make our move first, and he will not be expecting it for the nonce. If, as I suspect, he is playing politics with the tribunal, he will be too occupied preserving his neck to concern himself with us. He has the great gift of patience and will put aside what can wait. He
will assume that I am safe and his spies will by now have told him of your safety. He will be content to watch and wait, assuming that we will use la Manche and the war as our protection. We will strike now while the cobra watches another prey."
"Danny, St. Estephe is mine." Justin's eyes met hers in the dresser mirror as he fastened an emerald pendant around her neck.
"Very well," she agreed. "Yours or mine, depending how the hand is played. But I come with you, it is agreed?"
"And Nicky?"
"You know there is no choice." Her son would be safe, well looked after, with grandparents, cousins,
and friends to see him to maturity. She could not allow her husband to go alone into a danger that they both shared.
"It is agreed then." Justin yielded without the fight that would achieve nothing in the long run.
"We must bring Jules and the others with us." Danielle stood up, patting down her skirts with a femininity quite at odds with their discussion. "This is not something the two of us can accomplish alone and we work well together."
"You and they," said Justin. "How will the five of you manage with a sixth?"
"Quite easily," Danielle responded, fastening an emerald bracelet around her wrist. "As long as you follow orders, tu comprends, mon mari?"
Justin caught her by
the tiny waist and threw her, skirts, petticoats, emeralds and all, facedown on the bed. Planting a knee firmly in the small of her back, he demanded, "Say that again. I did not quite hear you."
"I do not remember what I said," Danny mumbled into the coverlet. "But it was of no importance."
"You are quite sure?"
"Quite sure."
"It is not, perhaps, something you may remember to say on a future occasion?" His voice was deceptively soft as he slid a hand beneath her petticoats.
"No!" Danny squawked. "It is quite expunged from my memory."
"That is most fortunate." He removed both hand and knee and Danny struggled upright, her face pink with laughing indignation. But she had provoked the attack and was not one to protest the consequences of her actions. They went down to dinner in smiling accord.
Jules and the others, who had eschewed the pleasures of the London Season this winter, preferring the simplicity of Cornwall after their adventures, heard the proposal with a considerable degree of enthusiasm.
"We have been waiting for you to decide when to make the move and so long as you are around, Justin, to keep a rein on Danny, you have my heartfelt support," Jules declared. "I am sure I speak for us all?" He looked inquiringly around the table and, while Danny spluttered indignantly, everyone pledged their support in the matter of St. Estephe.
Four days later, Dream Girl set sail again for the Brittany coast. Danielle, her hair again cropped much
to Justin's resigned annoyance, was back in her britches and full of strategies. There was no capacious master cabin on the small yacht and for the three day voyage Justin gained true insight into the close-quarters living of these five. He and his wife became simply partners, exchanging bunks automatically as the rested one went up on deck, taking turns at the wheel, putting to when sails needed reefing or unfurling. No one, least of all Jake; paid any attention to Danny's sex and she asked for no especial consideration.
When they made landfall, she was as wet as the rest, and as heedless of discomfort as they climbed the steep path to the cliff top. In the Legrands' farm house they explained their return, their needs, and heard the story of subsequent events after they had fired Betrand Ville's barn and the comte had returned in a fearsome rage to find his plans in ruins and his victim fled.
"As we expected, then," Danielle said thoughtfully. "The comte returned almost immediately to Paris and no one has disturbed our friends since. They know little of what is happening in the country but will lend us horses again, and anything else we may need. The carts are still here, but I think we need only take one."
"How do we enter Paris this time?" Philip asked. "It will not be as easy."
"Comme d'habitude—in the usual way." Danielle shrugged. "It is how we leave that will present difficulties."
They made the journey to Paris exactly as they had done in the past. The countryside was alive with rumor now but no one questioned the passage of five ragged sans-culottes and a scrubby lad whose command of the insults left them torn between laughter and annoyance. The boy's companions appeared to do what they could to control his excesses and those who had seen the urchin were not those who saw the coquettish peasant girl in a grubby blouse and torn skirt who made flirtatious play with the guards at the various posts now sprung up along the road to Paris.
The five men kept their hands on their pistols at each barriere but never had reason to use them as Danielle danced them through and Justin decided, like Jules, that she had missed her vocation. On stage, she would have been superb. They were through St. Antoine on the evening of the third day and, to their horror, found themselves caught up in a grim procession as the last tumbrils of the day moved through
the crowds to Place de la Revolution. It was impossible, in the wildly yelling throng, to turn the cart in another direction, just as it was impossible for them to allow their revulsion to show. Danny hissed suddenly to Justin, "I will meet you in Les Halles." Before he could react, she had leaped from the cart and vanished as if she had never been.
"No," Jules whispered, seeing his cousin prepared to go after her. "You'll never find her; she's as slippery as an eel and knows all the back streets, besides you will draw attention to us all."
Justin swore viciously, but there was nothing he could do but wait in a spiral of anxiety until the day's grisly business had ended and the last head rolled into the blood-soaked basket. The crowds thinned gradually as the spectators, exhausted by their day of shouting, jeering, and applauding, made their way back to the shops and hovels in the poverty-stricken faubourgs St. Antoine and St. Marcel from where they would crawl out again on jhe morrow, thirsty for more blood.
It was still an hour after the spectacle had ceased, however, before the cart with its five sans-culottes managed to reach Les Halles where the presence of one more cart would pass unremarked. Many of
the peasantry from the surrounding countryside poured into Paris these days to witness the executions, sleeping in the streets or, if they were lucky enough to possess one, in carts loaded with straw as Danielle and the others planned to do themselves.
Danny's flight had been inspired first and foremost by the knowledge that she could not stand to see again the sights in Place de la Revolution that still haunted her dreams. Her jump from the cart had been purely instinctive but once lost in the crowds she decided to put her freedom to good use. St. Estephe's previous lodging had been in a tall narrow house near the magnificent medieval edifice of Notre Dame. It would be as well to discover if he was still to be found there. With a stroke of luck, Danny found the concierge sitting in the courtyard with a flask of wine, taking the mild evening air. She was a slovenly, sour-faced woman who appeared to take her duties lightly, but she did not refuse the dirty urchin a glass of water, particularly in exchange for a lively description of the day's executions—a description Danny drew from memory and embellished lavishly. She encouraged the woman in her grumbles about her tenants—coming and going at all hours, quite prepared to wake her up if the gates were locked; as if she hadn't got enough to do keeping the stairs clean with the pains in her joints!
Danielle examined the swollen knees and ankles with much sympathy and mentioned some remedy that her grandmother had used. The concierge tutted and began a long description of everything she had tried and was kind enough to remark how unusual it was these days to find young people, particularly lads, prepared to listen to an old woman. Encouraged, Danielle broached the subject of the tenants again. It produced another diatribe but the names came out and Citoyen St. Estephe's was one of them. The woman coughed and spat and imparted the information that that citoyen had some strange habits—the noises she heard sometimes coming from his apartment directly above her own . . . Then she recollected herself hastily. The citoyen, of course, was an excellent man, a member of the tribunal and a good friend of the Citoyen Robespierre. He worked tirelessly for the republic, ridding the land of the aristos, and Citoyenne Gerard meant no criticism.
Danny made the appropriate responses, praising the work of the tribunal and damning the aristos in rich language that drew an appreciative chuckle from her companion. The sun was very low in the sky now and Danny became fully conscious for the first time of the dangerous position she was in—sitting in the lion's den! Her disguise would not fool St. Estephe for one minute, he was far too accustomed to it. With a hasty excuse, she darted from the courtyard just as St. Estephe rounded the corner of the street, deep
in conversation with another man. Danny darted into a doorway, her heart pounding, the sweat of fear misting her brow. Had he seen her? She would know soon enough—there was nowhere to run to. The door at her back was closed and she cowered in the narrow space as the loathsome sound of that remembered voice came closer and her skin felt as if an army of slugs undulated beneath her clothes, leaving a sticky trail in their wake.
But the voice faded. She kept to her hiding place for another petrifying five minutes before peeping around. There was no sign of St. Estephe or of his c
ompanion so presumably they had gone into the courtyard. She slipped from her hiding place and walked down the alley, hands in her pockets, whistling the "Qa Ira" as she kicked negligently at stones and garbage littering the street. If she ran, she would draw instant notice, but as it was, she was just another Parisian street urchin with an empty belly and pockets to let.
Danielle, at this point, was blissfully unaware that she stood in more danger from her husband than from St. Estephe. Justin was frantic and nothing his companions could say did anything to alleviate his fear or his fury. In fact, the more often they told him that they had grown accustomed to his wife's sudden disappearances, the more livid he became. The sights, sounds, and smells of this city disgusted him more than anything he had previously experienced and it was only now, he realized dimly, that he was experiencing the full emotional impact of the horrific risks Danielle had taken in those months of his sojourn in Russia.
Westmore spotted herfirst, wriggling like an eel through the crowd toward them. As usual, she was chattering nonstop, tossing off the light badinage that was perhaps the most effective part of her disguise. He nudged Jules and the four of them melted discreetly into the throng. Whatever was about to happen between husband and wife needed no witnesses.
