The Ruby Pendant

by Mary Nichols

  Or did he know already? Was that why he had held back, deciding it was easier to intimate he had another love than admit it? But why then had he kissed her and spoken so softly to her, telling her to wait and he would be back? He had come back, but now he was riding away again, sitting tall and upright in his saddle and taking all her love and hopes with him.

  Pierre had said he would be in the summerhouse again that night if she should have need of him. And she did need him because there was no one else. As soon as the house was quiet, she flung her burnous over her shoulders and left the house by a side door, making for the summerhouse.

  To give the lieutenant his due, he accepted that she could not go on living at Hartlea and put forward a plan of his own. 'We will go to Hautvigne and find the surviving members of your family,' he said. 'There must be cousins, uncles, aunts. You are so like your grandmere, they will recognise you at once.'

  `But how can we go to France? We are at war.'

  He tapped the side of his nose and laughed. 'Oh, there are ways, ma petite. Leave it to me.' Still she hesitated. It was such an enormous step to take and once taken, she could never return. It meant turning her back forever on the man she loved, but she was beginning to realise that love was not and could not be a consideration. What right had she to expect love? Her girlhood dreams were just that. Dreams. And now came the awakening.

  `I will look after you,' he added, as if reading her thoughts. 'I will not hurt you, as others have hurt you, I promise. When you are with your own people again, then we can think of the future. Until then, you may be as chaste as you wish.'

  It was that promise as much as anything that decided her. No doubt he would expect his reward when he had delivered her safely to her family, but she would deal with that when the time came. 'When do we go?' she asked.

  He kissed her lightly on the cheek. 'Go back to the house and fetch the ruby,' he said. 'We may need it to convince your family of your true identity. I shall wait here for you.'

  If she had not been so distressed, if Pierre had not been so persuasive, if Philip Devonshire had not come to dinner and fixed his dark eyes on her so that she felt uncomfortably exposed, if she had felt able to trust anyone else, she might have stopped to consider what a dangerous game she was playing. But all she could think of was distancing herself from all that had hurt her and finding a welcome somewhere else. And perhaps her French relatives would be pleased to see her, as Pierre had said they would. She had not told him that she was a love-child; she was too ashamed.

  Reluctantly she returned to the house. Her parents were still in the drawing room, she could hear their low voices as she passed the door. Resisting the temptation to listen at the keyhole, she crept up to her ladyship's boudoir and retrieved the jewel. Then she went back to her own room and scribbled a letter to them, saying she could not go on living a lie and intended to go where she would be accepted as herself. Having signed and sealed it, she packed a small cloakbag with a change of clothing, her personal jewellery and five sovereigns his lordship had given her for pin money. She had no idea how they would make the journey to France, but she realised it would hardly be in luxury, so she dressed in a simple homespun skirt, linen blouse and sturdy half-boots that she wore when helping out in the stables. Leaving the letter on her pillow, she threw her cloak about her shoulders and left the house, not daring to look back.

  Philip was at his lodgings, putting on the shabby clothes of a prisoner of war when a message arrived asking him to return to Hartlea at once. He threw the old uniform back in the cupboard and, unshaven though he was, dressed in buckskins, top boots, linen shirt, waistcoat and riding coat, not ostentatious but far removed from the ragged filth of a prisoner of war, and rode back to Hartlea, fuming at the delay but hoping that he might yet find an opportunity to speak to Juliette.

  He found Lord Martindale pacing the library, and her ladyship sitting rigidly upright in a winged chair by the hearth, stony-faced. His lordship turned as Philip was announced. 'Juliette has disappeared,' he said without preamble.

  Philip's heart missed a beat and he felt a constriction in his throat. He coughed to try and clear it and give himself time to sound calm. 'You mean she has been abducted? Surely your enemies would not stoop so low...'

  `It is possible, but unlikely. My wife tells me Juliette learned something yesterday which may have upset her...'

  So, there had been something wrong!

  `She has run away,' her ladyship said, and this time he detected a crack in her iron control; her voice was hoarse. She had never seen her husband so angry as when he discovered what she had told Juliette. All those years of misery and resentment, all so unnecessary. 'She always was impetuous and I...'

  Lord Martindale turned on her, momentarily forgetting the presence of the young man. 'You should not have told her, especially you should not have filled her head with half-truths. How did you expect her to react?'

  Philip looked from one to the other. 'You think I can help? I assure you, my lord, my lady, I have no idea where she may be.'

  `We think she may be trying to go to go France,' his lordship said.

  `France? But why? How?' He looked from one to the other. His lordship looked angry and her ladyship aggrieved and neither seemed disposed to enlighten him. And all the time they prevaricated, Juliette might be in danger.

  `She has been seeing the Frenchman,' her ladyship said. 'She admitted that to me yesterday.'

  Something clicked in his brain, like a piece of puzzle finding its place. 'You mean Veillard?'

  `Yes,' his lordship said. 'We think he means to use Juliette to help him escape.'

  `Oh,' he said, his mind working furiously. If Veillard was involved in the break-out being planned, he did not need Juliette to help him. In fact, she could very well be a hindrance.

  On the other hand, he might know nothing of his countrymen's plans, in which case he might put them in jeopardy by acting alone. The men would not hesitate to rid themselves of both Veillard and Juliette if it served their purpose. How much of the secret work he did was known to Lady Martindale? How much did Juliette herself know?

  `Have you told James Martindale that Miss Martindale is missing?' he asked.

  'No. I do not want him to know,' her ladyship said. `If it became common knowledge... the scandal. You do see, don't you?'

  `Yes, I understand.' The sooner he returned to the camp the better. Lord Martindale would understand that better than anyone. He turned towards him. 'You need my help?'

  `Yes,' his lordship said, then to his wife, 'Will you excuse us, my dear? I need to speak to Philip privately.'

  `Do you really think Veillard is involved?' Philip asked as soon as they were alone. 'If he is part of the plot to break out, why take Miss Martindale? The others would see her as nothing but an encumbrance.'

  His lordship smiled wryly. 'She may not have given him a choice. She must have been feeling very let down and unwanted and she would think he was the only one who understood.'

  `You mean she had formed a tendre for the Frenchman?' The idea was insupportable. 'They have eloped?'

  `I had better tell you the whole, my boy, then you must use your own judgement on how to act.'

  His lordship rose and began pacing the room again. 'I was in Paris in '94,' he said. 'A diplomatic mission, though why we should have wasted our energy on being diplomatic with that bloodthirsty regime, I do not know.'

  `I know, my lord. You rescued my mother and me and I shall be eternally grateful. Maman said so until the day she died.'

  'What? Oh, yes, but this was six months earlier. On the day I speak of, Madame Guillotine was having one of her busiest days. The streets were so crowded there was no hope of getting through with a carriage, nor even a chair. I was on foot and pressed so close by the throng I found myself almost touching a tumbril taking the Comte de Garonne and his family to their execution.

  `The Count was standing looking straight ahead with his arm about his ten-year-old son. His wife stood just b
ehind him clutching a baby.' He shuddered suddenly. `I shall never forget that lady's anguished face if I live to be a hundred. She was weeping pitifully, though her tears were not for herself but for the child in her arms. That the beasts should stoop to slaughtering little children sickened me and I was close enough to see she was a beautiful child. She could not have known there was any reason to be afraid and smiled at me. I raised my head and found myself looking directly into the eyes of the comtesse. The cart rumbled by me, with the crowd pressing round it baying for blood and the guards kept busy holding them off.

  `I stepped forward and held out my hands. "Give me the child," I called to her. "I will care for her." She hesitated only a second and then handed her over. I grabbed her, hid her quickly beneath my cloak and melted into the crowd.'

  `A risky thing to do, my lord.'

  `I did not stop to consider it.'

  `No, you would not. The child was Juliette?'

  `Yes. I took her to the Embassy, where she would be safe. Then began the difficult part, getting her out of France to safety. The family had had what passed for a trial, and 1, as an envoy, could not be seen to flout the law of the land. The only solution I could think of was to pretend that the child was mine, that her mother, my mistress, had died and left her to my tender mercies.

  `I made a great show of being angry at being saddled with her. My friends advised me to leave her in an orphanage, but though I pretended to consider it, I finally said I could not do it, she was my flesh and blood. I brought her back to England.'

  `You brought her here?'

  `Yes. While I had been away, Lady Martindale had borne a son who did not survive beyond three weeks, though I did not know of the tragedy until I returned. It was a trying time and I wondered if I had done right to ask her to take the child on, but it seemed to help her. We brought her up as our own.'

  `Is Juliette her real name?'

  `Yes, her mother whispered it when she handed her over.'

  `And the rest of her family, they really were executed?'

  `Yes, apart from some distant cousins who had embraced the new regime. I returned to France six months later to find out what had happened. That was when I met you and your mother.'

  `For which I thank you and the good Lord. But did you not tell Juliette who she was?'

  `I always meant to. I was simply waiting for an opportune time, but it never seemed to come. And everyone believed she was ours. . .' He paused. 'And then that Frenchman painted the portrait and Elizabeth recognised the ruby. It had been sewn into Juliette's petticoat. I assumed it was put there in the hope of bribing a gaoler or the executioner.'

  `And you still did not tell Juliette the truth?'

  `No, to my shame I allowed myself to be dissuaded by Elizabeth. She was worried about the scandal, though I could not see that it mattered. We had done no wrong and might even be applauded for taking the child. But Elizabeth could not see how we could suddenly tell the world the daughter we had said was ours, was not ours at all. And she wanted Juliette to make a good marriage, preferably to James, for reasons you can guess.' He stopped pacing suddenly and sank into a chair opposite the young man and put his head in his hands. 'If only I had known what had been smouldering in her heart for years...'

  For a moment he could not go on and Philip waited impatiently. The tale was long in the telling and he wanted to be on the move, to be doing something positive to find Juliette, but good manners dictated that he must hear him out. His lordship looked up at last. 'I had no idea my acting all those years ago in Paris had been so convincing. It was only intended to deceive the French authorities and I saw no reason to tell Elizabeth of it. How I wish I had! My brother heard of it by chance four years later and he told Elizabeth that Juliette was my natural child. It was done maliciously, I know that, meant to ruin our marriage and put paid to any chance of my begetting an heir.'

  He smiled wryly. 'He did not know that Lady Martindale could have no more children and his inheritance was safe. What he did not bargain on was that my wife would say nothing to me of what he had said; the idea that I had once had a French mistress simply festered inside her until she told Juliette two days ago.'

  `Oh, ma pauvre p'tite,' Philip murmured. What a shattering blow she must have suffered! Her safe, comfortable, predictable world, her English world, had suddenly been turned into a nightmare. She was not who she thought she was and her home was only her home because Lady Martindale had condoned her husband's infidelity and harboured his bastard.

  What it must have done to Juliette he could easily imagine. She would have felt let down, abandoned, deceived by those she had revered and trusted. And she would have felt unable to face the man she had promised to marry. Flight would have seemed the only option, the French lieutenant her only hope.

  `We have to find her and stop her before she leaves the country,' his lordship said. 'Tell me what you know of the escape route.'

  Philip stood up. 'I know nothing of value. I can only learn more by returning to the camp. And you must not think of rushing after her yourself, you are needed here. Your wife must be suffering for misjudging you. I will find Miss Martindale, even if I have to go to France to do it.'

  `Thank you, my boy. I had hoped you would say that.'

  `It is the least I can do for someone who has been a second father to me,' he said, omitting to add that he would go to the ends of the earth, through any danger, if it meant saving Juliette. 'I will do my best to communicate with you, but if I cannot, rest assured I have not given up the search.'

  `And if I have to recognise that scapegrace of a Frenchman as a son-in-law, so be it,' his lordship added, as Philip made for the door.

  The young man did not answer. It was something that he did not even want to think about. He rode at a gallop all the way back to his lodgings, changed into the garb of a prisoner of war, dirtied his face and prepared to give himself up.

  A north wind blew across the Wash in opposition to the outgoing tide, making the sea choppy. The little boat rose and dipped so that one moment the flat marshes could still be glimpsed on the horizon behind them and the next they had disappeared behind a wall of water. Ahead of them, now clearly to be seen, now hidden by the waves, a fishing smack lay at anchor. Juliette was already feeling sick and longed for stability and warmth, even that provided by a fishing smack. Her fingers and toes were frozen. Beside her Lieutenant Veillard sat staring straight ahead, as if he, too, were having trouble controlling his heaving stomach. There were eight others in the boat, all French, all from the camp at Norman Cross. They had escaped and, given a little luck, would soon be on their way home. She wished she could feel like they did, optimistic, looking forward to seeing loved ones, rejoining compatriots, but try as she might, she felt as though she had taken a great leap in the dark and below her there was nothing but an abyss which would swallow her, leaving nothing behind, not even an identity for someone to mourn.

  It was only two days since she had left the home she loved and yet it seemed like a lifetime. From Hartlea, she and Pierre had walked to the river and gone on board a barge. Aware that his French accent would give him away, he had pretended to have a sore throat and left her to negotiate payment for taking them to Lynn. From there they had walked for miles across the marshes. As if in a dream she had stumbled after him, putting one aching foot in front of the other, hardly aware that both were wet because her boots leaked. Nothing seemed real, neither the river, nor the marshes, nor the extraordinary sunset, which tinged the whole sky with orange and vermilion and purple, nor the crying of the hundreds of seabirds that drifted down to feed as it grew dusk.

  At last they had stopped at the door of a hut, set beside a deeper channel, miles from habitation. 'We stay here tonight,' he had said, pushing open the door and ushering her. 'Tomorrow, we will be on our way.'

  She had been too tired answer. Huddled in her cloak, she had sat on the floor with her back propped against the wall and dozed fitfully. Just before dawn the others had arrived one by
one, dirty, dishevelled and weary, but buoyed with hope. They had not been at all pleased to see her, shouting at Pierre for being a fool and threatening to kill them both. The arrival of their leader, a big man in a drab overcoat with three capes and huge pockets, put and end to the arguments, though she guessed it might only be a temporary reprieve.

  The side of the ship loomed above them and their leader, whose name she had learned was Michel, reached out to grab the net that had been flung over the side for them, then turned and pulled her to her feet. 'Up you go.'

  She looked up at the deck outlined against the night sky and recoiled at the height of it. 'I can't. I'll fall.'

  `You climb or you fall, it is of no importance to me which you do,' Michel said Reaching up, she grabbed the net with her hands and placed her feet in the mesh. It swayed out with the movement of the ship and then flung her back, banging her against the hull. She cried out, but hung on grimly and then began to climb, hauling herself up a few inches at a time. Behind her, she could hear Pierre's laboured breathing and behind him the others, urging them both to make haste. She reached the rail at last and hands came over and grabbed her shoulders, hauling her unceremoniously on to the deck.

  `A wench, by God!' a voice said as she straightened up. 'No one said anything about taking women.'

  `She came with me,' Pierre told them as he scrambled over the side to join her, followed by the others. 'And she is not a wench but a comtesse, so you will treat her with respect.'