The English Heiress (Heiress, Book One)

by Roberta Gellis

  The doors were yanked open and the crowd poured in. Torches sprang alight. In a corner of his mind Roger again complimented the patron. Everything had been planned, and planned very well. Mostly however, Roger was wondering how he was going to find Henry and his daughter. A desperate visual sweep of the area, just before it was filled to overflowing with the mob, showed him a small quiet figure standing in a plain undecorated doorway to the far right of the entry. The man who had offered the bench as a “key” now let out a whoop of triumph and called to the mob to wrest open the ornate doors to the offices.

  “In one we will find what we seek,” he assured them. “And remember, it is to be shared among us all. We are brothers and sisters in misfortune.”

  He harangued for a few moments longer, the crowd pausing to listen to him, but Roger paid no more attention. His watchfulness was rewarded. Two men had very quietly detached themselves and were moving toward the silent figure nearly hidden in the shadow of the doorway. As quickly as possible Roger inched his way in that direction also. He was in time to see that the figure in the doorway was Louis—a strangely disfigured Louis. His hair and face were splotched with blood and his garments were torn, his shirt nearly in shreds.

  There was no time to wonder about such signs of violence when no violence had taken place. Roger saw Louis hand one of the men a set of keys and melt away from the doorway into deeper shadow. The door was unlocked and the men went down a steep, unfinished flight of stairs. Roger followed quietly, not too closely, his hand on the pistol set at half-cock in his pocket. Once well down the stairs, one of the men paused to light the torch he carried. Roger stopped abruptly where he was and flattened himself against the wall, afraid of being revealed in the light, but neither man looked back.

  They moved forward from the base of the stairs. Roger came down only a step or two farther. He found that if he crouched and peered down the stairs he could see what was happening. Farther along was another door with a heavy lock. One man was struggling with it and finally got it open. Roger could not hear the click of the latch because of the noise behind him, but he heard a girl’s light voice, high with fear cry, “Papa!”

  “Courage, Leonie, courage,” a man’s deeper voice came. Roger’s heart jumped and began to pound even harder. The man had spoken English! This must be de Conyers. That there should be two Englishmen imprisoned in a town like Saulieu was virtually impossible.

  “Come quickly!” one of the patron’s men urged. “Quickly! Quickly!”

  “Remember what I told you, Leonie,” Henry said firmly but still in English. “We are forewarned.”

  The man in the cell door stepped back, the other raised the torch a little higher to provide better light. Roger saw a man—gaunt, bearded, clothed in filthy rags. Immediately behind him came the girl, one hand stretched to touch her father as if she feared to be separated from him. She was a little less ragged, a little cleaner, so that Roger could make out her features clearly—and the face held him riveted for a long moment before he remembered how dangerous it would be for all of them for him to be caught. He backed hastily up the stairs, just before the man with the torch came into sight.

  Beautiful! No, not really beautiful, Roger contradicted himself as he drew back farther into the shadows where Louis had disappeared. Not really beautiful, but… What am I thinking, Roger snarled to himself. I will not be caught by a pretty face again. Besides, she must be young enough to be my daughter. And then, just as the patron’s man emerged from the doorway to the cellar, the tocsin began to clamor from the belfry. Roger gasped a curse, and the crowd which had been cheerfully engaged in looting the building, froze silent for a moment.

  In the next moment a new and more urgent bedlam broke loose. Snatching at anything of value, the mob began to rush for the doors. The alarm bell would bring the civil guard. What had been an amusing adventure with a chance for loot had taken on the aspect of real danger. If the mob had been inspired by a desire for justice or revenge or political purpose, they might have stood their ground, barricaded the doors, and demanded to parlay. Since no high ideas had animated them, only a desire to steal, they thought only of escaping.

  To Roger, cursing luridly under his breath, the meaning of Louis’ disheveled appearance was suddenly apparent. The little devil was saving his hide. Roger was far angrier with himself than with Louis. It should have been obvious from the beginning that Louis would need some defense. He was the night watch. If he did not intend to leave Saulieu forever, he needed a good excuse for not sounding the warning before the mob reached the Hôtel de Ville. Roger could not guess what that excuse would be, but no doubt Louis’ bloodied and tattered condition would lend verisimilitude to what might otherwise be an unconvincing story.

  Those thoughts flicked across Roger’s brain only briefly. The one really important aspect of what Louis had done, as far as Roger was concerned, was how it would affect getting Leonie safely away. It did not occur to Roger at the moment that it was Henry he had come to rescue or that it was remarkable her name should come first into his mind.

  He had looked away from the doorway for just an instant after the tocsin rang and the crowd reacted to the warning. Now Roger’s eyes swung back just in time to see the patron’s man pitch forward as Henry pushed him violently from behind. Simultaneously the light in the stairwell went out and a crash came as Leonie turned and shoved the man behind her down the stairs. Meanwhile Henry had kicked his victim in the head hard enough to stun him and turned to help his daughter. She needed no assistance but bounded up the remaining stairs and slammed the door behind her.

  Shock at the mass of men and women struggling in the exit was mirrored on both faces, but Leonie grasped her father’s hand and pulled him strongly toward the struggling figures. “Let us mix with the crowd,” she called. “It will be harder to find us.”

  “No,” Roger shouted. “Wait!”

  But he was too late and could only force his way forward, keeping as close as possible. He had one advantage at least. Although Leonie and her father were as dirty and ragged as everyone else, Henry de Conyers’ gray-blond hair and Leonie’s honey-gold mane gave him a way of following their progress in the generally dark-haired mob. He pressed hard toward them, but did not attempt to call out again. For one thing, he doubted he would be heard over the shrieks and imprecations all around them for another, he did not wish to call out in English for fear of calling attention to them.

  Actually, it was not as difficult as it seemed it would be to get right behind Henry and Leonie because, for a little while, all forward movement in the crowd had stopped. The panic and desire for escape had worked in their usual fashion, turning the mob into a mindless mass that pushed and shoved, jamming itself even more firmly together, until so tight a plug of entangled people had formed that the doorway was completely blocked. Adding to the problem were those who had been caught behind the half-open doors and were pushing wildly at them in an effort to get to the opening.

  Finally the pressure built up such a degree that those in the opening were catapulted forward. The men in the center were flung down the stairs, a woman on the extreme side had one arm torn from her body because her shoulder had been pressed against the frame of the door. Screaming horribly, she staggered a few steps and also fell down the stairs, causing those who were pushed through after her to stumble and fall atop her. Another ten or fifteen forced their way out, trampling the fallen and injured before the crush formed a second plug. This broke somewhat more quickly, there being fewer pressing forward and thus less entanglement. So by fits and starts, the mob that had broken into the Hôtel de Ville was breaking out of it.

  Henry, Leonie and Roger were near the back of the group. They were thus in considerably less danger of being knocked down and trampled, but by the time they reached the street, the civil guard was running from its quarters firing indiscriminately into the crowd. It was quite apparent there would be no attempt to round up the mob, nor was the firing intended to disperse them—they were
dispersing as fast as they could already. The orders of the men must have been to kill as many as they could, presumably as a lesson to any other group that wished to protest. Roger leapt forward, seizing Leonie by the arm and interposing his body between the advancing civil guard and the girl.

  First she uttered a shriek and then launched a vicious blow at Roger, which he barely managed to duck.

  Henry swung around, his fists raised.

  “For God’s sake, de Conyers,” Roger bellowed in English, “run! Don’t fight me I’m trying to help.”

  Whether Henry or Leonie really heard or understood what he said, Roger couldn’t guess. The danger from the civil guard was now so apparent that it was obvious unless they got away into one of the side streets they would be killed. Both men pushed Leonie and urged her to run, Roger managing to steer them toward the west rather than the south where most of the crowd was headed. Leonie hardly needed their encouragement. The explosions of the muskets and the screams of fear and pain lent wings to her feet.

  Just short of a dark alley, Henry de Conyers paused and exclaimed. Roger turned toward him, but he was already moving forward on his daughter’s heels again. They traversed that alley and turned into another with the sounds of firing and anguish dimming behind them. Halfway down the second lane, however, Henry de Conyers faltered again, calling, “Leonie.” She stopped and turned, just in time to see Roger catch her father to prevent him from falling to the ground.

  “Monster!” she shrieked, coming at Roger with hands curved into claws.

  “No!” Henry gasped.

  Simultaneously Roger said, “Miss de Conyers, I did your father no harm.”

  “Go ahead, Leonie,” Henry cried. “Go ahead, my love. I am hit. I cannot keep up.”

  “I will help you, Papa. I will not leave you.”

  Roger would have liked to examine Henry and find out how badly he was hurt, but a new spate of shots and shrieks, sounding closer, warned that that might finish them all. Instead, he drew Henry’s arm over his shoulder. Leonie seized Henry’s other arm, and they ran forward again. For a while, Henry was able to keep to his feet with their support. However, by the time they reached the avenue leading to the western gate in the wall, he was nearly helpless. Roger took more and more of Henry’s weight, but he could not support him completely with the grip, he had. Soon Henry’s feet were dragging limply behind them and Leonie was staggering under the burden.

  At least all sound of pursuit had died away. The mob instinctively headed for its accustomed hideouts in the thieves’ quarter in the south of the town. The moon was half full and the stars bright in their faint light Roger could just make out Leonie’s blanched face with its fear-dilated eyes. In the shelter of a shop doorway he stopped.

  “My name is Roger St. Eyre, Miss de Conyers,” he said quickly. “I beg you to trust me. I do not have time to present my credentials, but I have come from England to this country only for the purpose of finding your father.”

  “You had better help him now,” Leonie whispered, too frozen with terror to cry.

  Roger let Henry down gently. His breath drew in sharply when he looked at him. In the moonlight the whole right side of Henry’s body was black and glistening with blood.

  Chapter Six

  Roger tore off his coat and then his shirt. Meanwhile, Leonie shook herself out of her paralysis of terror and began to pull off the rags that clothed her father. She uttered a low, choked cry as she saw the wound, still pulsing blood. Roger ripped a sleeve from his shirt and wadded it against the hole in Henry’s back.

  “You will have to hold that,” he said to Leonie, “while I tear up the shirt.”

  He hoped his firmness would encourage her to help him, but he feared she would fall over in a faint. She did utter a little choked wail and begin to sob, but her hand came out steadily to press the already blood-soaked pad against the wound. Henry did not stir. Roger suspected he was already deeply unconscious. He could not bear to look up and meet Leonie’s eyes. He knew Henry could not live. There was nothing Roger could do to stop the bleeding, and he was certain from the way the blood was flowing that some important organ had been damaged. Nonetheless, he bound strips of his shirt together and then wound them as tightly as he could around Henry. Even as he tied the knots, the strips were soaked through with blood.

  Desperately, Roger racked his brains for a way to tell Leonie that her father was dying when, to his surprise, Henry’s eyes fluttered open.

  “Go, Leonie.” It was only a thread of a whisper, but there was real authority and force in it. “I am dying. Do not let me die knowing I have killed you also. Go.”

  “Monsieur St. Eyre will help you, Papa,” Leonie sobbed. “We will all get away.”

  “St. Eyre?” Henry’s eyes moved to Roger.

  “Yes. I have come from England.” Roger said nothing of the reason. Henry did not need the additional grief of hearing at this moment that his brothers were dead. “Do not worry about your daughter, sir. I swear I will get her safely home.”

  Tears of relief swam in Henry’s eyes. No one outside his own family could possibly know the name of his father’s neighbor and closest friend. This was no trick and no trap. He managed almost to smile and made one single effort to utter his thanks—to Roger, to God, to anyone—but he had not the strength, and his eyes closed for the last time. Roger glanced at Leonie, expecting that her attention would be on her father and hoping to read in her face whether or not she realized that Henry could not possibly live. To his surprise she was looking at him, but the utter desolation of her expression answered Roger’s question. Leonie knew.

  “I have a carriage waiting,” Roger said. “The gate is about a quarter of a mile down this avenue. I will carry your father. I—I do not think he will—will feel any pain.”

  The wide eyes, black in the dim light, stared at him and then past him. Roger prayed that the girl would not faint or begin to scream. Tears began to trickle down her face, but she gave no other sign of weakness except that, gently, very gently, she patted her father’s face.

  “He does not wish to live,” she whispered. “He always wanted to die, so he could be with Mama. He only tried to live because he felt it wrong to leave me unprotected.” Then she brought the focus of her eyes back to Roger. “How will we get out the gate? Is there something l can do to help?”

  They made a plan, as soon as Roger discovered that Leonie was not afraid to hold and fire his pistol—but it was not necessary. As soon as Roger appeared, the guard nodded and turned his back. Roger darted back into the shadows and lifted Henry again. Although he had some experience with wounds, he had none with death. Still, something in the feel of the body told him that life was gone. This was not the time, however, to stop and make sure. Staggering slightly under his burden, with Leonie close on his heels, he made for the small door to the side of the larger entry. Just as they reached it, Leonie darted ahead and swung it open. As soon as Roger was through, she pulled it shut behind them.

  Roger paused, gasping with effort. He had come in from the north of the town and did not know this area at all. The road was unmistakable, wider and more traveled than the way he had come. It was paler in the moonlight than the grass edging it—and it was empty. A combination of rage and helplessness flooded him. Even if Henry was dead, they could not leave him. Yet how could they escape burdened with a corpse? It would be impossible…

  Before the thought could be completed, Leonie tugged at his arm “There are two carriages,” she whispered tensely.

  Roger turned his head to follow Leonie’s apprehensive gaze. Alongside the town wall was a narrow lane. There, his carriage stood and some yards behind it, another, far more shiny and elegant.

  “The first carriage is mine,” Roger said very low. “The man in it should be Maître Foucalt’s clerk—do you know him?”

  “I have seen him.”

  “Good.” He switched to English. “He may have a gun. Do not be afraid. Do you remember how I told you to cock and f
ire the pistol I gave you?”

  “Yes.”

  Leonie’s whisper was thinner, but it did not tremble. Roger could not see her because Henry’s body blocked his vision. He took a breath and again prayed the girl would hold steady.

  “If anyone gets out of the second carriage, tell him to stop or you will fire. If he does not stop—shoot! Can you?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right. Walk a little behind me, just enough to the side so that you can see.”

  Probably the precautions were not necessary. Roger realized that the complications of demanding ransom were almost certainly too great to make it worthwhile to the patron. The real danger would come later after Roger had handed over the money. It was possible that Louis or the patron would wish to buy favor by killing them all or by killing Roger and handing Leonie back. Roger wished mainly to discourage any such idea by exhibiting that he was ready for any surprise.

  They reached the carnage without incident, and it was indeed Foucalt’s clerk who got down He uttered an exclamation of distress when he saw Henry, but was sensible enough to help Roger get the body into the carriage. As he helped lift it, Leonie stood with the pistol in both hands, leveled and ready. Just as he propped Henry’s body against the side, Roger heard her call, “Stop! I will shoot!”

  He was out beside her in a moment, a second pistol in his hand. A man he did not know stood in the road, but the patron’s voice called from the carriage, “Where are my men, honest businessman?”