Endearing Young Charms Series

by M. C. Beaton

  Again, her head broke the surface, and the watery moon and stars wheeled above the rushing river.

  They were close to the brush and undergrowth of a small island.

  “Put your arms around my neck,” said the comte in a low voice, “and don’t make a sound. Voices carry easily on the water.”

  Numbly, she did as she was bid. He swam with strong steady strokes around the island so that they were on the far side of it, away from the bridge.

  There was a small pebbly beach, gleaming white in the moonlight. They crawled up it on their hands and knees. Delphine was shivering uncontrollably.

  “Wait here,” said the comte. He moved off across the little island, creeping silently from tree to tree. Silence fell, broken only by the sounds of the river.

  After what seemed an age, he came silently back. “They’ve gone,” he said cheerfully.

  “Are you mad?” demanded Delphine through chattering teeth. “You nearly drowned me. I have money with me! We could have given it to them, and then they would have let us go on our way.”

  “Not these men,” he said. “I had forgotten until they held us up. There have been reports of two highwaymen on the Richmond road who enjoy killing their victims. Why do you think they let the coach go? Why do you think they stayed, risking capture, in order to shoot at us in the water? Charlie, the grooms, and the coachman survived because these men are only interested in killing the rich, not their servants. That tawdry coach of Duelos looks like the carriage of a very rich aristocrat in the darkness.”

  Sitting on the beach, Delphine hugged her knees and tried to control her shivering.

  “In any case,” he said, “we may as well swim to shore.”

  “What!” screamed Delphine. “No! I am not going back in that water again.”

  “Then wait here,” he said with unruffled good humor, “and I will swim to shore and find a boat.”

  There was a sharp crackle in the undergrowth as some nocturnal animal made its rounds.

  Delphine started. “No! Don’t leave me,” she pleaded. “What if the highwaymen have found a boat and come looking for me?”

  “I don’t think they will,” he said. “Never mind, we will wait until morning. Now, I should have my tinderbox somewhere. If we can have a fire…. Ah, here it is.”

  He gathered up dry ferns and brush and piled them up. “Now let us see if I can get a spark from this poor, wet device.”

  Delphine sat and watched him as he patiently tried to light the fire. She had almost stopped shivering as an all-consuming rage engulfed her.

  Never had she been treated thus!

  “You do not seem particularly worried about my health, sir,” she said, between chattering teeth.

  He looked at her with infuriating calm. “No, I think you will survive,” he said reasonably.

  “You forget, I am a gently bred lady and not some doxy who lives on the streets!”

  “I was told by the Marquis de Graux,” he said, “that you worked hard and rode out in all weathers. I was most impressed. I must remind you again, furthermore, that we have not all been as fortunate as Delphine de Fleuris, and most of us have had to live lives of hardship and, sometimes, danger. If you were desperately concerned that you might really die of cold, then I am quite sure you would have allowed me to swim to shore and find a boat. There!” The comte sat back on his heels with a grunt of satisfaction as the brush caught, and a satisfying yellow and red flame sprang up.

  “Now, you may sit at the fire,” he went on, “or you may help me find more wood, an exercise which will serve to warm you.”

  Without waiting to see what she was going to do, he set about finding dead branches and breaking them and arranging them in a pile beside the fire.

  Delphine’s nerves were completely overset by the danger she had been in and by his outrageous callousness. She stood up, marched over to him, and boxed him on the ear as hard as she could.

  He caught her wrist and looked down at her, his eyes glinting dangerously in the moonlight.

  Then he said mildly, “You are not really much help in an emergency,” and went on breaking wood.

  Delphine stood with her hands clenched at her sides, feeling suddenly miserable and deflated. With her head averted from him, she began to pick up sticks and throw them on the fire. At last she said in a low voice, “I am sorry, Jules. I did not mean to strike you.”

  He gave her a bow. “Your apology is accepted. There is nothing more beneficial, however, than a good outburst of temper when one has escaped death and is wearing an evening gown and little else.”

  Delphine blushed and glanced down at herself. Her gown and pelisse were pasted to her body, leaving little of her figure to the imagination.

  The blaze climbed higher. At last the comte sat down beside the fire. Delphine sat down beside him, stretching out her hands to the warmth.

  “Perhaps someone will see the fire and come to investigate,” he said, putting an arm around her.

  Delphine made to shrug it off, but decided almost at the same moment that she had already behaved badly enough. If what he had said was true, that the highwaymen would have killed them if they could, then he had saved her life.

  But underneath, a niggling, peevish, feminine voice was still complaining that it was all his fault, and if he had waited on her pleasure at Manchester Square as he was supposed to do, then she wouldn’t have been on the Richmond road in the middle of the night in the first place.

  He dropped his arm from her shoulder and shrugged out of his wet coat. He rolled it into a pillow. “Oh, my beautiful new clothes.” He sighed. “How proud I was of them!”

  “I shall buy you more,” said Delphine quickly.

  “Money does not solve every problem,” he said gently. “There are some ruined and broken things it cannot mend.”

  He lay down and pillowed his head on his coat. “Join me,” he said. “I am going to sleep.”

  “You can’t just go to sleep at a time like this!” cried Delphine.

  “I am so tired, I could sleep through an earthquake,” he murmured sleepily. “If you insist on staying awake, remember to put more wood on the fire.”

  Delphine glared down at him. Any gentleman, she thought angrily, would be worried sick about her welfare. Did this wretched man think she was made of steel?

  But he fell almost immediately into a quiet, soundless sleep. Delphine wrapped her arms around her legs and stared into the fire. And then, as the fire crackled and roared, she was suddenly transported back in time. She could feel the cold of a stone floor under her bare feet, hear the crackling, roaring whoosh as the château was set alight, hear the screaming, screaming, screaming, and under it all the cackles and yells of the mob.

  The vision left as quickly as it had come. She started to shiver again. An owl hooted from the woods on the shore, and every plop of a rising fish seemed like the sound of a dipped oar as the highwaymen glided along the river, looking for their prey.

  Delphine crept to where her husband lay sleeping so peacefully. She curled into his side and put her head on his chest. He stirred in his sleep and mumbled something and put both arms tightly around her.

  Gradually, Delphine’s shaking and shivering subsided. The fire blazed away merrily, and she was just thinking about disengaging herself and going to put on more wood when her eyes closed and she fell fast asleep.

  A shrill voice, calling from the riverbank, woke both of them several hours later. Delphine stared wildly about. A gray dawn was spreading over the sky. Mist was rising from the river and curling around the boles of the trees. The fire was nearly out.

  The comte cocked his head on one side and listened intently.

  “Guvner!” came another faint cry.

  “Charlie!” said the comte. “Thank God he’s safe.”

  He ran over the island. Charlie was standing on the parapet of the bridge, his diminutive figure in its new livery appearing and disappearing in the writhing mist.

  “Get a boat!
” shouted the comte.

  Charlie waved and disappeared.

  The comte went back and found Delphine putting wood on the fire. Her gown had shrunk, and she was exhibiting a neat pair of ankles.

  “Charlie will find a boat,” said the comte. “Your ordeal will soon be over.”

  Delphine bent her head and searched in her reticule for a comb, suddenly shy of him.

  She pulled the comb through her tangled locks, first removing the last remaining silk rose.

  The mist turned yellow and gold as the sun came up.

  The comte watched her as she combed her hair.

  “Your hair ordinarily looks brown,” he said reflectively, “but then one notices it has little gold lights in it. Fascinating!”

  Delphine flushed and put the comb back in her reticule.

  “We will soon be back in London,” he went on in a kindly voice, “and then we can go on our separate ways.”

  Delphine did not know what to say. One part of her longed to run back to the old life at Marsham Manor; the other wanted to try to make the marriage work, if only in honor of her parents’ memory, she told herself severely.

  Then they heard the rhythmic sound of oars moving in rowlocks, and soon Charlie’s figure in a small green boat could be seen rounding the island.

  He beached the boat and jumped out on the little beach, grinning all over his face.

  “Knew’d I’d find you hale and hearty,” he crowed.

  “Everyone seems to have more faith in my stamina than I have myself,” said Delphine tartly.

  “What happened?” asked the comte, ignoring her.

  “Well, soon as you both landed in the drink,” said Charlie, “them high pads runs frough the carridge and out the door you just quit.

  “They’re standing on the bridge with their pistols cocked, peering at the water, so the coachman whips up the horses and off we goes. Couldn’t help you by staying, because that fool of a coachman has a pistol, but it’s so old and rusty it’s no good to anyone. We stops at the nearest roundhouse and raises the alarm, but by the time the men gets back, them high pads has gone. The coachman and grooms ups and says they ain’t your servants but belongs of Monsoor Duelos, and they ups and offs. Everyone else tells me it’s ten to one you’re dead, and they ups and offs. But I knew you, guvner, so I decided to wait till morning. Which I did.”

  “Well, we’d best get ashore and find some sort of transport back to London,” said the comte, grinning. He picked up his jacket and unrolled it, looking ruefully at the dirt and creases.

  “Leave it,” said Delphine. “It’s ruined.”

  “I may be able to do something with it,” he answered, tossing the coat into the boat.

  Delphine watched him covertly as the tiger rowed them towards the shore.

  The comte’s gold curls were being ruffled by the morning breeze. His face showed no signs of strain whatsoever. The thin cambric of his shirt revealed the breadth of his chest. His eyes were blue and carefree. He did not seem to have a care in the world.

  That was what rankled.

  He didn’t seem to care in the slightest about his new bride.

  It was as if he had finally come to a decision in his mind that the marriage had never existed.

  Delphine pictured him going back to his old life with hardly a thought for her.

  She had a childish desire to catch his attention.

  “I have most likely caught the ague,” she remarked.

  “No. You have a fine color which owes nothing to fever,” he said. “In fact I would say the experience has improved your looks.”

  Delphine had an impulse to burst into tears.

  There was a humiliating time to be gone through while Charlie returned the boat to its owner in Richmond, and she had to endure the stares of the early morning passersby.

  Then at the livery stable the owner wanted a sizeable deposit for a horse and carriage, going so far as to say he had kept his trade solvent from being able to tell the villains from the right ‘uns.

  “You are not going to sleep again,” protested Delphine sharply when they were finally seated in the carriage.

  “But of course, my sweeting,” he said amiably. “I am tired. I am always tired. Furthermore, since we are shortly about to part company, I do not see why you should wish for my conversation.”

  Delphine was prey to a series of conflicting emotions. Why could he not realize she had ambivalent feelings towards this marriage?

  “You never told me about my parents,” she said.

  There was a silence, and, for a moment, she really thought he was asleep. But finally he said, “I did not see much of them. I remember you vaguely. You were a fat little thing, always falling over the furniture.”

  “Fat!” said Delphine, outraged. Somehow she had thought of herself as being a slim, waiflike child, all eyes.

  “Yes, fat,” he said sleepily. “And very rude. You were thoroughly spoilt. You expected me to play silly games with you any time I went on a visit. I did not want to, but my parents pointed out that you were a rich baby who would one day inherit the de Fleuris lands because there was no male heir, and so I had to play with you. But now I am heading rapidly for middle age and I do not have to play with you if I don’t want to.”

  His eyes began to close again.

  “Would you not like to see Marsham Manor?” asked Delphine in a voice that quavered slightly.

  He reached forward and took her hand and kissed it gently. “Later,” he said. “Not now.” And with that he composed himself for sleep.

  Delphine tried to decide what to do. But her head began to nod and soon she was fast asleep as well, not waking until they were clattering along Oxford Street.

  After she had bathed and changed in the dingy flat in Manchester Square, she sat down at the dressing table to brush her hair and think things over. The comte had changed first, saying he had a call to make but promising to return within the hour.

  Not for the first time did Delphine ponder over the mad impulse which had prompted her to marry a man she had never seen before. She decided at last that she must have been overset by the news of the manner of her parents’ death. Then, any formal and lengthy arrangements would have involved Maria Bencastle. Also the call of the past was strong. She had been convinced that any man chosen for her by her parents must be perfect.

  After all the work and worry of the estates, she knew now that she also had had a longing to be a child again, to have her decisions made for her.

  Sir George had cosseted her and protected her too much. She realized that now. He should have let her meet her compatriots. He should have told her about her parents’ death and let her listen to the other terrible stories of the Terror. Children who are protected too much from care and pain and responsibility are apt to remain children, and such was the case with Delphine. She had rushed blindly into the marriage simply because she wanted someone to take care of her as Sir George had done.

  Instead, she was wed to Jules Saint-Pierre, who dragged her over rooftops and expected her to survive a plunge into the river without even a maidenly scream.

  She realized now she had not really wanted frivolity and excitement. She had wanted an escape from responsibility.

  If only he would rant and rave and insist that the marriage stand. If only he might lie a little and pretend to love her so that she might save face.

  But she knew he would not command; neither would he beg or plead.

  If she wanted to try to make the marriage work, then she would need to tell him so.

  But did she want to continue with it? A vision of Jules juggling in the middle of Littlejohn Square flashed before her eyes. What on earth would people think of him? Did it matter what people thought of him? What did she think of him?

  Delphine buried her aching head in her hands. Somehow it was better not to think. The very thought of him created such a jumble in her brain.

  But surely she could change him. Surely she could turn him into the s
ame sort of man that Sir George had been, quiet, unassuming, and protective.

  A sound in the other room alerted her that her husband had returned.

  Taking a deep breath, she rose and went to join him.

  He was wearing a new coat of bottle green with a smart buff waistcoat, leather breeches, and new Hessian boots.

  His linen was of the finest, and his golden hair was arranged artistically in the Windswept.

  “You are looking very fine,” said Delphine shyly.

  “I am lucky. I bought these clothes from a friend with gambling debts who is of my size and could not afford to pay his tailor,” he said cheerfully. “Madame de Manton paid me the money she owed me, and so I was not only able to buy this finery but to pay off my creditors.”

  “Indeed!” said Delphine acidly. “And just who, pray, is Madame de Manton?”

  “A friend,” he said simply. “The lady who took me to Mrs. Brandenbaugh’s at Richmond. Her horses ran fleet at Newmarket for once.”

  “The very day after you are become wed,” said Delphine, her eyes blazing, “you go to a party with some woman to whom I have not even been introduced!”

  “I know a great number of ladies to whom you have not been introduced. Madame de Manton for one. She remembers your parents, and mine.”

  “Oh, an old woman,” said Delphine, her face clearing.

  “Ah, Delphine, you give me all the sorrows of marriage and none of the pleasures. Jealousy being one of them.”

  “Jealous! I! I have not one jealous bone in my whole body.”

  “Then what are we arguing about?”

  “I am not arguing!”

  “Then what are you doing?”

  Delphine clenched her fists and glared at him. “I am simply trying to point out to you the error of your ways,” she said in a voice which sounded horribly pompous even to her own ears. “Did you not stop to think that your behavior was irregular?”

  “No,” he said calmly, “in view of the fact I thought you had up and left me. In any case, I have paid my shot to that old witch, Mrs. Jenkins, and so I can return to my room. Charlie awaits me downstairs. I have not yet told him that he must once again face a future without horses, but no doubt he will survive.”