The English Heiress (Heiress, Book One)

by Roberta Gellis

  Only desperation induced Leonie to suggest such a scheme. She did not have much hope that it would work, but she did not think it could do much harm. Louis could hardly be more cautious than he was right now, no matter what they did. And it should be safe because the good food and delicacies suggested that no retribution would be taken.

  In any case, all Leonie’s carefully laid plans went to waste. As the door opened, before she could thrust her foot into it, Louis whispered, “Préparez-vous! Cette nuit! Votre père aussi!”

  While Leonie stood paralyzed with surprise, the bowl was pushed at her, followed by the bread and then—wonder of wonders—two hard sausages. Leonie nearly spilled the stew down her dress while she clutched the sausages to her breast. A hard sausage… “Votre père aussi!” Hard sausage was the concentrated food the poor often carried on a journey. It was quite resistant to spoilage, only growing harder and more spicy with age. It could only mean one thing—escape.

  “What did he say?” Henry asked eagerly.

  “He said,” Leonie repeated in English, “be ready. Tonight. Your father also—oh Papa, perhaps you were right, at least partly. Perhaps there will be an attempt to free us. Look at this!” She thrust the sausage at Henry. “It can only be meant to sustain us while we hide. Papa—do you think…”

  “I do not know what to think,” Henry said slowly. “I could have believed in a revolt against that monster Marot and being freed by my friends when he was finished. But Leonie, they are not—not adventurous or daring men, and most of them are considerably older than I. Can you see Maître Foucalt arranging an escape? Child, I fear—I fear this may be a trap.”

  Leonie swallowed hard. It must be so. This must be the excuse that Louis and Marot were arranging, so that she and her father could be condemned to death and executed. She looked down at the sausage in her hand and nearly threw it from her. That was just the clever kind of thing Louis would do to convince them. Leonie began to shake.

  “No, Leonie,” Henry said, taking her in his arms. “Do not be frightened. Think. In order to accuse us of escaping, they must let us seem to escape. Since we are forewarned, we will still manage to get away. Do not fear. Only be ready to seize an opportunity.”

  For Roger, who sat down to his dinner at about the same time, it had been a particularly quiet day He had been briskly active on the three preceding days, inspecting premises that might be thought suitable to setting up a gunsmith’s shop and going to Maître Foucalt’s house on the pretense of consulting with him about rents and leases. At least, that was what the innkeeper assumed they talked about, because Roger was loud in his praise of Maître Foucalt’s, knowledge on these subjects. There could be no doubt either that Roger was a skilled gunsmith. Several men brought weapons to be repaired. After politely asking the innkeeper for permission to conduct business on his premises, Roger did a very creditable job, improvising very cleverly when he did not have the correct part for one gun.

  The previous evening, as he came back from Maître Foucalt’s house, where final arrangements had been made for insurance against treachery by the patron, Roger became aware that he was being watched. He was quite familiar with the sensation. Several times Solange had taken it into her head that he had a regular mistress among the upper-class ladies and had determined to find out who it was. She did not care, of course, except that she hoped to be able to hurt Roger by embarrassing or making trouble for his mistress by exposing her.

  In the past, Roger had been furious and disgusted. This time he was delighted. Either the patron was hoping he would go and collect his gold from wherever he had left it, or he was watching for the danger of betrayal. Whichever was true, the watcher was proof that the patron intended to get the rest of the money. Since there was no chance that Roger would betray the whereabouts of the gold, it was a sure bet that the raid on the Hôtel de Ville would take place.

  Not wishing to rouse suspicion of any kind at the moment, Roger stayed quietly at the inn all the next day. He spent some time writing a letter to his father, detailing what he had done and warning Sir Joseph not to worry if he did not hear from him again for a little while. He and the de Conyerses might need to hide until the worst of the fury over their escape had passed. He left it to Sir Joseph, he added, whether to show Philip the letter or not. He enclosed this letter in a cover addressed to Pierre Restoir. He would give it to Maître Foucalt’s clerk, who was coming to “borrow” his horse and carriage. The clerk was to drive the vehicle out of town, conceal it at a nearby farm until after dark, and then drive back and wait near the western gate after dark. Henry and his daughter were to be brought there by the patron and his men, who would then follow Roger in another carriage to the place where the gold was “hidden”.

  The carriage was “borrowed” exactly on time, as Roger was called to dinner. He found himself as shaken and excited by this preliminary move as he had been when he discovered the smugglers in the cove. It was very difficult indeed to do calm justice to the meal set before him, but he managed. He had contrived to get food down without strangling on it and with a calm and indifferent expression while Solange was berating him at the top of her lungs at a dinner party. To eat while his heart was pounding with pleasurable excitement instead of sick rage and shame was not nearly so difficult.

  Later, in the early evening, he engaged in his usual desultory conversation with the other customers of the inn. A traveler who bought wine had come on his way south. He began to regale the company with an eyewitness account of the massacre of the king’s Swiss guard and the deposition of Louis XVI. This was apparently not news to the others in the inn, although they listened avidly to the details. But Roger, who had left England on the twelfth of August, had not heard it previously. The events had taken place, he realized, on the tenth and the information had not come to England before he departed. Why he had not heard of it while he traveled south, he could only guess. Either the small towns he stopped at had not yet received word of the events, or the people there had been afraid to talk in front of a stranger.

  A lawyer had considerable practice in maintaining an impassive expression, but Roger felt sick with horror. He was no fanatical upholder of monarchy, but he realized this had to be only a first step along a more desperate and ultimately bloody path. England had tried deposing kings. One had finally been executed and the other escaped that fate only by fleeing the country before he was taken. Deposed kings were not conducive to political peace. Even from France, James II had caused much trouble and several bloody battles. How much more trouble, how many more insurrections Louis XVI would cause—even if he did not encourage counterrevolution, which was scarcely believable—was obvious. There would be no peace in France until Louis was either dead or restored.

  “You look troubled, monsieur,” one of the men who frequented the inn remarked. “Do you pity the king?”

  “I pity myself,” Roger said quickly, annoyed with himself for betraying more of his thoughts than he intended. “I am afraid there will be more violence and that it will spread to the countryside. I am an artisan, not an adventurer. I do not wish to be involved in these things.”

  As he spoke, Roger suddenly realized that his involuntary expression of distress and the excuse he used to cover it had been most fortunate. He began to express himself more and more freely on his disapprobation of violence. He had left Cambrai, he complained, because of the threat of war. Yes, business was good for a gunsmith so close to the Belgian border, but dead men could not enjoy profits. Then he began to wonder aloud whether there was any place in France that would be safe.

  “If you are so frightened,” the man who had asked why he was troubled remarked disdainfully, “perhaps you had better go back to England.”

  Roger first looked at him as if he had turned green, then slowly, he allowed his expression to change. “I had never thought of it,” he exclaimed. “What a fool a man can be! One grows into a habit, a certain way of thinking, and it takes someone outside oneself to point out the obvious. Mons
ieur, you have done me a great service. Let me buy you a drink. Indeed, you are right! That is just what I will do. I will go back to England where I will be safe.”

  The result of this announcement was really comical. Roger had considerable difficulty in keeping himself from laughing, instead painting an expression of uncomprehending hurt on his face. The man to whom he had offered the drink refused it curtly. The rest of the company withdrew from him. Even the innkeeper, who had been very pleasant to so well paying and uncomplaining a customer, grew very cold. Roger made one or two feeble attempts to rejoin the company, who now combined to shun a self-confessed “coward” and then he began to show signs of growing angry. At last, after seeming to seek to buy his way back into favor by offering to treat the whole group and being refused, Roger stalked stormily over to the innkeeper.

  “It seems that my custom is not appreciated here anymore,” he said angrily. “Very well. I can take a hint.” He drew forth his purse. “I would leave tonight, only that I was fool enough to lend my horse and carnage to one of your fellow townsmen. Tell me what I owe I will not trouble you even for breakfast.”

  In private the innkeeper would probably have changed his tune and tried to pacify so good a customer, but the eyes of the rest of the group were on him. He comforted himself with the consideration that Roger was about to move into a shop of his own in a few days anyway, and he coldly stated the charge. Roger paid and stamped angrily out, smothering his laughter until he was safely in his own room. Even there he laughed softly. It would not do to have the company guess how they had been used.

  Perhaps the, device would not save Roger from being associated with the raid on the Hôtel de Ville, but it might. After the sentiments he had announced that evening, no one would be in the least surprised at his disappearance after a mob attack on the center of town government. Since he had paid his bill, the innkeeper would not complain or seek for him. It might even be possible, if it was necessary, for Roger to return openly to Saulieu. He need only avoid the inn and its environs. That is, Roger amended his thoughts with a new spurt of excitement, it would be possible if no one noticed him among the “mob”.

  The next few hours were a terrible strain on Roger’s nerves. It was necessary for him to seem to have gone to bed. He doused his light and sat still in the dark until the last of the company at the inn was gone and the innkeeper had locked up for the night. Another hour passed while Roger waited for the innkeeper and his wife and servants to clean up and go to bed. Then, boots in hand, he crept down the stairs, trying to remember everything Pierre had taught him about entering and leaving premises. He kept as close to the wall as possible as he went down the stairs, to prevent them from creaking, and, after he slipped through the window of the private parlor, he pulled it shut and wedged the two halves of the window together. It was not that Roger was worried about the inn being robbed. This night every thief would probably have something better to do. However, Roger did not want the window to bang open and wake the innkeeper. He would prefer if his absence was not noticed until the morning.

  The wineshops in the disreputable neighborhood where Roger had made his arrangements with the patron naturally did not shut their doors and cork their bottles as early as the type of establishment patronized by hardworking tradesmen who had to wake early. In fact, all the wineshops were packed to the doors and free-spending agents of the patron were making rounds through the crowds buying drinks and urging the drinkers to stay. They did not need much urging, because they had congregated in response to hints that had flown from mouth to mouth all through the day that something “good” was “on the fire”.

  While Roger was sitting in the dark, counting the long minutes as they dragged past, speakers appeared in the wineshops. Each of them complained bitterly of the results of the “revolution” in France and particularly in Saulieu.

  “Are we not ‘people’ also?” the agitators cried “Think of the promises made to the ‘people’. Have we benefited in any way from these promises? No! I do not complain that we are still hunted and reviled—although we were promised that all men would be equal. But l say to you that we are worse off than before Jean-Paul Marot took this town into his power, and if he rules here much longer we will all starve. He has taken the wealth and power from those who had it, that is true. But what has happened to this wealth? Why, an honest thief cannot keep flesh upon his bones. There is nothing left to steal. The rich are poor, the tradesmen are poor. Only the town is rich.”

  Laughter and cheers hailed these speeches. The various agitators all used the same theme and all used the same reasoning. The patron did not want any blood thirst. He wanted no citizens torn apart, no heads mounted on pikes. The backlash from such a spate of violence would do him and his “employees” more harm than good. The patron had a double purpose. First, to fulfill his bargain with Roger and collect his fee; second, to discredit Jean-Paul Marot even further in the eyes of the townspeople.

  Louis was not physically the son of the patron, but he was a son in spirit. If the young thief’s plans worked out, the patron would enter into a liaison with the new town leader that would benefit both greatly. Those who did not pay their “dues” to the patron would be hunted and prosecuted and punished by the law itself. The gendarmes of the town would be the patron’s enforcers. On the other hand, if a particular crime caused a greater than usual outcry, the patron could and would furnish a “criminal” to be punished—even possibly, the criminal who had committed the crime—so that the townspeople would feel secure in the efficacy of their leader at keeping them safe from crime.

  Thus, the agitators did not attempt to awaken any real bitterness in those they addressed. They concentrated on inspiring them to raid the town treasury and take back “what was theirs”. There was, in fact, a considerable sum in the strongboxes kept in the Hôtel de Ville, Louis had informed the patron. Marot had been collecting the money for such worthy purposes as founding a hospital for the poor and supporting Saulieu’s home for foundlings as well as for purchasing better muskets for the civil guard. To some extent Louis approved of the last purpose, but in his opinion the first two were completely ridiculous. The money would be far more useful in his and the patron’s hands.

  By midnight one group had been whipped up enough to pour out of the wineshop—half laughing, half drunk—roaring, “To the Hôtel de Ville! We will take what has been promised to us.” The movement was totally contagious. From one wineshop to another the crowd rushed, gathering strength and purpose with each influx of men and women. Perhaps those who first rushed out into the dark were partly in jest, but their intention was firmed as the others joined and cheered them on.

  Soon the crowd had filled the narrow crooked lanes of the lower town and began to rush up toward the wider streets and central square of the Hôtel de Ville. The patron’s men ran the flanks, encouraging those who wondered whether the plunder of a private home would not pay better—while the civil guard and gendarmes were busy at the Hôtel de Ville.

  Somewhere along the way, a dark-garbed figure, face smeared with dirt out of which glinted two bright blue eyes, joined the moving mass. Roger was deeply impressed with the patron’s efficiency and joined in the cries and cheers with a good will. He had been concerned that the idea of looting rather than of looting a specific place might disperse the mob into parties that would commit outrages all over the town and not achieve the primary objective. This did not seem to be the case however, although Roger’s growing confidence in the patron’s management did not diminish the vigor with which he shouted, “The Hôtel de Ville! The Hôtel de Ville!”

  It was marvelous to be able to shout, to push forward in the crowd. It was a release after the years of strict propriety, of the sober and stuffy behavior required of a responsible barrister. The past few days of growing tension had added to the seething under Roger’s calm exterior. He yelled with a will, releasing just a little of his volcanic emotions.

  By the time they reached the Hôtel de Ville, Roger wa
s well up among the ringleaders, He was quite sure the patron would not expose himself to danger by being in the crowd, and the patron was the only man who could recognize him that was likely to be in this mob. There was a small chance that someone else who had been at the wineshop would recognize him, but Roger doubted it. It had been dark and the rest of the drinkers had stayed respectfully well away from the patron while he talked business. Besides, if he was a new member of the patron’s group, there was good reason for him to be in the mob without any particular association with the prisoners. It would be safe enough, Roger judged.

  Safe or not, he was determined to be right there when Henry de Conyers and his daughter were released from the cellar. He was taking no chances that Louis or the patron would foist two “ringers” on him and then demand ransom for the genuine pair.

  Roger had few moments of renewed anxiety when the mob reached the large, brassbound doors of the Hôtel de Ville. The men and women were largely the dregs of the town—petty criminals, whores, hangers-on of all types. To them the Hôtel de Ville had an aura of awesomeness. It was the place to which they were dragged to hear what punishment would be inflicted for the crimes they had committed. There was, therefore, a hesitation. Roger prepared to leap forward and fling himself at the door to break the pause before the entire crowd thought better of what it was doing and slunk away. He had however, underestimated the patron. Before he could, most unnecessarily, draw attention to himself, one of the agitators seized upon a study bench set near the doors.

  “Here,” he cried, laughing. “Here is your key of entry.” Half a dozen men, with Roger among them, leaped forward to swing the improvised battering ram with a will. It did not seem to Roger that those huge doors would even be shaken by so puny a ram, but he was wrong again. For all their imposing height and large, ornate lacks, the doors of the Hôtel de Ville were not meant for defense. The building was not the old donjon of the town; that had been abandoned more than a hundred years before because of its dark, damp discomfort. When this building had been constructed, no one considered needing to resist such an outrage as was now taking place. With the very first blow the doors shivered, with the next the lock groaned in the wood. Three more lusty swings and the brass tore its way free.