The French Affair (Endearing Young Charms Book 2)

by M C Beaton

  The papers were lying on the table in front of the comte. Bodet made a grab for them, and the comte whipped them up and put them in his pocket.

  Bodet fell full length across the table and lay still.

  “Poisoned ‘im, ‘ave yer?” asked the sweep.

  “No, Charlie,” said the comte without turning around.

  “I’ve drugged him. What on earth are you doing with a black face?”

  “The military’s closing in,” said Charlie urgently. “That Maria Bencastle’s hiding in a carridge outside wiff the Bryce-Connell lot. Looks like a trap. Here, you ain’t a traitor, are you?”

  “No, Charlie.”

  “Well, can’t you tell them, like?”

  “No. By the time they believed me, if they believed me, it might be too late.”

  “It nearly is too late,” said Charlie. “I thought you was up to somethin’ you wouldn’t want anyone to know abaht. Here, black your phiz and cover yourself up wiff this dirty great cloak and take me poles.”

  “Do you think it will work?”

  “Surely. When did a body ever look close at a sweep?”

  Quickly the comte blacked his face with soot from the fireplace. He swung a ragged, burned cloak over his clothes.

  “Yer hair’s too bright,” said Charlie. “Here!”

  He pulled a dirty hat and kerchief out of his sack.

  Soon the comte’s gold curls were extinguished.

  Charlie jerked a thumb in the direction of the sleeping Frenchman. “Wot abaht ‘im?”

  “Leave him,” said the comte. “I meant to give him to the authorities, but since they are already here, they will find him.”

  “Someone’s coming out of the inn,” hissed Maria. “Are they going to take all day?”

  “Relax,” said Harriet. “Here comes the brave colonel and his men.”

  They watched while the colonel and one of his officers walked up to the inn.

  “They’re talking to those two sweeps,” said Geoffrey.

  All watched while the taller of the sweeps nodded to the colonel and jerked his thumb in the direction of the inn they had just left.

  The colonel pressed a coin into the taller sweep’s grimy hand and then waved his arm. The yeomanry began to creep towards the inn from the side streets until it was surrounded. The two sweeps strolled off down the street, chatting easily, and occasionally turning to look behind them.

  Then, at another signal from Colonel Arburthnot, his troops stormed the inn.

  Maria opened the carriage door and stepped down. This was her moment of triumph. When he was dragged from the inn by the soldiers, she wanted to make sure that the first face the comte saw was her own.

  There was a long silence.

  The townspeople had been alerted and everyone was indoors. Curtains twitched, smoke rose lazily to the clear blue sky from cottage chimneys, far away a dog barked.

  Then the inn door burst open, and Colonel Arburthnot shot out into the street.

  “Those sweeps!” he shouted. “Find them.”

  “Oh, lor’,” came Harriet’s tinkling voice. “How stoopid! Those sweeps. I declare it must have been Jules and probably that tiger of his. And Arburthnot gave him money!”

  She began to laugh and laugh while Maria’s face grew as black as her clothes.

  She was consumed with rage. He had escaped.

  But one thing was certain. All the world would now know him for the spy he was.

  Soldiers carried out the drugged body of Monsieur Bodet and walked off down the street. The rest spread out, searching for the two sweeps, calling on the townspeople to come out and help.

  All the long day they searched. But of the Comte Saint-Pierre and his tiger, Charlie, there was not the slightest sign.

  “Well, that was all very disappointing,” said Harriet, yawning, as the carriage bearing her, her brother, and Maria rolled slowly homeward in the early evening twilight through the country lanes leading to Littlejohn.

  As the carriage passed through the main square of Littlejohn, Geoffrey Bryce-Connell suddenly rapped on the roof of the coach with his cane. “Stop, I say,” he called to his coachman.

  “What is the matter, Geoffrey?” said Harriet wearily. “I want to go home.”

  “What on earth is that Partington chap putting up in his shop window?” said Geoffrey. The carriage pulled alongside the haberdashery shop and rolled to a stop.

  With tears running down his face, Mr. Partington was pasting a huge notice on the window of his shop. It said:

  THIS ESTABLISHMENT IS LOYAL TO THE COMTE SAINT-PIERRE AND DOES NOT BELIEVE ONE WORD OF THE WICKED SLANDERS AND LIES ABOUT HIM THAT HAVE BEEN PUT ABOUT.

  Maria Bencastle gasped.

  “Poor Maria,” murmured Harriet. “I really don’t think all your great efforts are going to make you the teensiest bit more popular. Do you?”

  The Battle of Waterloo was finally over. The allies, headed by the great Duke of Wellington, had defeated Napoleon Bonaparte.

  Jules Saint-Pierre sat at a country inn outside Brussels with his tiger, Charlie, and wondered whether to return to England or to go on to Paris and offer his services to the restored king, Louis XVIII. It was good to be away from the terrible scenes of death and disease which still haunted Brussels.

  The evening was golden and still. They were seated at a small table outside the inn, watching the sun going down over the fields at the end of the town.

  “I thought they would’ve given you a uniform, guv,” said Charlie plaintively. “You know, one of them like the prince regent wears, all gold and stars and things.”

  “I was not out of place, Charlie,” said the comte, looking down ruefully at his battle-stained morning coat. “There was not time, and a great number of the officers were even wearing evening dress, having gone straight from the Duchess of Richmond’s ball.”

  He had delivered the information he had collected from Bodet about the strength and position of Napoleon’s troops to the Duke of Wellington’s staff before the battle. The information stolen from the general by Bodet he had left at Horse Guards in London, before leaving for Belgium.

  “Do you fink they’ll fink … think … you’re a spy back at Marsham?” asked Charlie.

  “I shouldn’t think so. The kind gentlemen at the Horse Guards sent off a letter to the lord-lieutenant telling him of my help.”

  “Didn’t it feel funny fighting them French, I mean being French yourself?”

  “I was fighting a tyrant. That was all I thought.” The comte sighed. “My poor people, all those poor soldiers, English and French alike. I never thought to get the stink of gangrene out of my nostrils again. Never will I forget the fields of Waterloo and the terrible harvest of dead bodies, fields and fields of them.”

  “Are we going to Paris?”

  “My adopted regiment has already gone, what’s left of them. I do not think, apart from my commanding officers, they quite knew who I was. I joined, I fought, I stayed alive, and you stayed with me right through it. I’m proud of you Charlie. You’re a Trojan.”

  Charlie’s wizened little cockney face turned pink with pleasure.

  “It makes you fi … think,” he said, striving as usual to emulate his master’s upper-crust tones. “It makes you wonder about Marsham and how they all are. Quiet there it was, guv. Luverley and quiet, like. All them horses. I used to sit in the stables of a morning wiff the sun coming in at the door and feel as ‘appy as … as anything. We ain’t going back?”

  “I fear we would not be welcome.”

  “Didn’t you tell her, then?”

  “Tell who … what?”

  “Why, the missus, guv.”

  “What are you talking about, man?”

  “Well, see here,” said Charlie awkwardly. “There waren’t time to go into it, like. You see, I saw that Mrs. Bencastle leaving, and she looked at me with a kind of gloating look. So I ups and hangs on the backstrap o’ her carriage. She only had one groom driving, James, it was, but n
o other servants. She goes right to them Bryce-Connells and sends the carriage home. I crept up to the windows but could only hear a bit but it was enuff. She was sayin’ somethin’ about, ‘Now, I have him. He’s at the Green Man at Hegsley,’ and then I couldn’t hear no more.

  “I pinches a horse from their stables and rode into Littlejohn and saw the sweep and gave him a crown to let me have his duds for the day. Then I rode to Hegsley, and the rest you know. I knew you was in trouble, so I thought I’d best bring a disguise for you as well. We’ve had to run so many times, guv, but usually from the duns. Nearly knocked me flat when I thought you was a spy.”

  “Yes, yes! You have told me all this a hundred times. But what didn’t you have time to tell me?”

  “I was waitin’ in the hall for you the morning before that, case you wanted me, when that Miss Bryce-Connell sails in and plants a kiss right smack on your mouff, and there’s the missus standing up on the landing looking like she’d been shot. But arter you had told that Harriet woman that you loved your wife and all that and she had raged off, I sees you go up the stairs, and then you comes down whistling and says you’re off to Farmer Yardley. So I thought, that’s all right. Then the missus leaves, and I tried to say something and you yells at me to shut my phiz, so I did, but I thought I’d tell you next day what she’d seen, but by that time I was too busy finding out wot Mrs. Bencastle had in mind.”

  “Do you mean her ladyship thought that I …?”

  “Well, if you didn’t explain nothin’ to her, guv, then it must have looked right bad.”

  The comte struck his fist on the table, sending the glasses rattling.

  “That’s it!” he said. “That is why she left me that disgusting note.”

  Charlie watched him with bright eyes.

  “So where are we going, guv?”

  “Home, Charlie. London first. She may still be there.”

  “Home, it is.” Charlie grinned.

  Delphine had been living for over a month in a trim house on Berkeley Street that was owned by a family who had followed the ton to Brussels and had moved on to Paris after the victory at Waterloo and were not expected to return until August.

  Since it came at a modest rent, fully furnished and with a resident staff of servants, all Delphine had had to do was move in and take up residence.

  She was using her previous married name and was known to society as Lady Charteris. Maria Bencastle had been unable to find her, since Delphine had left strict instructions with her lawyers and servants that her address was not to be given to anyone.

  Delphine had written to Maria, however, urging that lady to find herself a new home as soon as possible. For Delphine had heard all about the comte’s spying activities. The fact that it had been discovered he was spying for the English and not the French had not yet reached her ears. Mr. Garnett, the steward, had assumed the lord-lieutenant had written to her, and the lord-lieutenant had assumed her husband had kept her informed of events, and so she was left in miserable ignorance.

  The news that Jules was a French spy was somehow a confirmation of all her worst fears about him.

  It underlined his shameless behavior with Harriet. She had been tricked. That was all. Life must go on.

  But to return to Marsham meant to return to memories of him, and so Delphine stayed on in town.

  She had hired an elderly dowager, Mrs. Castle, as companion and chaperone. Mrs. Castle was the complete opposite of Maria Bencastle. She was a middle-aged lady with a great deal of vivacity and a frivolous mind. She lived for fashion and pleasure. She did not know of Delphine’s second marriage and assumed she was a widow.

  Mrs. Castle had short skirts on her gowns and false curls on her forehead and never stopped talking. But she was amiable and uncritical, and her endless energy kept Delphine busy on a round of calls and engagements.

  Delphine had become very fashionable in appearance. Mrs. Castle had no taste in dress when it came to herself but seemed to know to a nicety how to set off Delphine’s dark and vital good looks.

  One by one, Delphine had begun to gather a small court of admirers. They were mostly gentlemen without any serious intentions, gentlemen who liked to be seen courting, and so she enjoyed their company without ever having to worry about any relationship developing into anything deeper.

  Mrs. Castle’s rouged and wrinkled face would sometimes crease up in perplexity over Delphine’s choice of gallants. Lady Charteris seemed to go out of her way to encourage men who did not want to get married and shunned those who did.

  Delphine refused to read the newspapers and seemed totally uninterested in reports of the famous Battle of Waterloo.

  The fact was she did not want to read anything that might remind her of her husband’s betrayal of his adopted country.

  But it seemed that celebrations of the battle were everywhere. At Astley’s Royal Amphitheatre in Lambeth, Delphine sat with the spectators and watched a reproduction of the village of Quatre Bras being shown “partly by moonlight and partly by torchlight and firelight.”

  And at Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens at ten o’clock in the evening, the famous battle was staged with a thousand men and two hundred horses in action, a great deal of gunpowder and shot, and a scenic display which sent the French up in flames, much to the delight of the English audience.

  Delphine tried very hard not to think of the comte at all, for, if she did, she saw him through the distorting glass of her hurt. His handsome face became weak, his curls brassy, and his manners posturing and effete.

  One evening, she set out for Vauxhall with her current escort, Mr. Jeremy Heaton, a tall young man who hardly said a word, and Mrs. Castle. Vauxhall was not so fashionable as it had been, but it still drew a vast number of pleasure seekers of all ranks of society. Its illuminated grounds were a great attraction. Thousands of little colored lamps decorated the trees and the triumphal arches, and flimsy pavilions glittered in the evening air above cascades of water and romantic sylvan grottos.

  Much squealing and squalling was heard from the girls who ventured into the notorious Dark Walk in the hope of being ambushed by some of the gay bloods who were hanging about for just that purpose. There were fireworks, tumblers, rope dancers, singers, Indian jugglers, and sword swallowers to provide entertainment, and geegaws to be bought at rackety prices.

  Mrs. Castle felt that her young friend was a great deal too interested in all the vulgar performers who crowded the gardens, and was amazed when Delphine’s eyes filled with tears at the sight of a young man juggling balls.

  Delphine appeared content at first to sit in the box hired for the evening by Mr. Heaton, sipping rack punch and watching the colorful passersby.

  “Aren’t some of these ladies, if one can call them ladies, quite shameless?” exclaimed Mrs. Castle, putting up her glass and staring through it with one snapping black eye at a rouged and painted female who was shrieking with laughter and ogling all the boxes.

  “I really think Vauxhall has become too—how shall I put it?—demi-mondaine,” Mrs. Castle continued. “People stare so. Now, do but look at that funny little creature with the straw sticking in his mouth. Quite like an ostler. I declare he cannot take his eyes off you.”

  Delphine idly glanced to where Mrs. Castle was pointing with her fan, and her face went rigid. “Charlie,” she whispered.

  “Charlie!” exclaimed Mrs. Castle. “You know that creature?”

  “Some servant who used to work for me,” said Delphine, turning her head away.

  Charlie approached until he was standing under the box.

  “Shooo!” said Mrs. Castle, flapping her fan. “Be off with you.”

  “Missus!” said Charlie coaxingly. “Please listen to me, missus.”

  “Hey, what’s amiss?” said Mr. Heaton, rousing himself from his usual silent torpor. He looked from Delphine’s averted face down to Charlie’s impudent, wrinkled one and stood up.

  “Be off with you, fellow,” he said. “Here!” Mr. Heaton looked around
for help. “This fellow is making a nuisance of himself.”

  When he looked back, Charlie had gone.

  Delphine was very white. “I must go home,” she said, getting abruptly to her feet.

  “But we have only arrived!” said Mrs. Castle. “But you do look so white. Did that horrible man frighten you? Was he sent off without a character? Did he steal the silver?”

  “No, no, nothing like that,” said Delphine in a trembling voice. “It’s simply my head aches so.”

  Mrs. Castle chattered the whole way home, speculating on Charlie’s imaginary crimes. Then she insisted on following Delphine up to her bedchamber and fussing about, ringing bells and demanding a hot posset for Delphine to drink and burnt feathers to be held under her nose.

  “Don’t chatter and fuss so,” snapped Delphine at last. “Just go away!”

  And at that, Mrs. Castle, who had never heard a harsh word before from Delphine, burst into tears and turned faint and ended up drinking the hot posset and having feathers burnt under her nose. By the time the companion’s lacerated feelings had been soothed and she had finally been persuaded to leave, Delphine felt exhausted.

  The room felt hot and stuffy, and she pushed up the window and took a great gulp of warm, sooty London air.

  If Charlie were in London, then it followed that Jules must be in London as well. Did he ever think of her?

  Should she tell the authorities that his accomplice, Charlie, had been spotted, and have them both arrested?

  It was her duty.

  A carriage full of noisy bloods clattered down the street, their drunken voices raised in song.

  They saw Delphine at the window and began to shout and exclaim. Delphine shut the window firmly, planning to open it again when they had gone.

  She did not notice the small figure of the tiger moving back into the shadows across the street.

  Delphine now had a lady’s maid, Baxter, who came in at that moment and stood ready to help her mistress prepare for bed.

  “Leave me, Baxter,” said Delphine wearily. “I will put myself to bed. Tell the other servants to go to bed, also. I will not be needing anything else.”