“Thus, I was hauled back to an episode, the pretty details of which there is no reason for you to know. Georges tried to pull me away, and was drawn in so.”
“Oh, Émile!” she heard her voice whine. “Were you Monsieur Gilles?”
He smiled and pinched her cheek, amused. “Ain’t I always?”
She seized him about the neck. “You were in danger!”
He was looking inscrutable. “Nothing worth speaking of, ma chère. But I fear for your safety, Sophie. I begin to suspect this will be a regular thing with me, that when you took on the great prize of the ruffianly Gilles Long Legs, you also got as part of the bargain impromptu trips to that rogue’s lawless past. I would not have you involved in those episodes for a kingdom. I should have sent you a message advising you to leave me at the alter, if you saw fit, but as Georges and I did not return until the morning, there was some difficulty.”
She held him tighter. “Émile, as if this would deter me. After all, the Other Danger did not.”
“Yet of nights I think I must leave your bed betimes like some illicit lover rather than ton mari, for it seems to happen when I am half asleep.”
“I would only follow you, Émile, and you cannot stop me short of locking your chamber door against me.”
“Certainment, that would be a sad irony in view of my desperate attempt upon your virtue not so long ago. Recollect you my speech? ‘I must have you, before I am led off to the madhouse, burbling of your wonderful bosom and derrière.’ I hadn’t then become acquainted with these delectable plump knees and adorable toes.” He did some tickling.
Sophie wriggled. “Oh, stop! It is too bad of you to make me laugh, Émile. If you locked me out I would steal the key.” “And if I had the locks changed?”
“Then I would bawl loudly and bring humiliation on us both.” He laughed and held her tightly. “Alors, if I see the flickering, I will put you out of bed. You are a foolish girl, Sophie, and I would not change you, though I do not deserve you.”
And I certainly do not deserve you!
Sophie ignored this detached internal voice that sometimes made cynical remarks, even while the rest of her was carried away by sentimental excess. Wasn’t she married to the dauntless Monsieur Émile whom she had admired from afar for so many years?
She stared at him adoringly. It was as well you didn’t wear people’s faces out by gazing, as she knew she would be doing it constantly. He stared back equally adoringly. They began to kiss. His nails were sharpening, but it didn’t seem to matter.
Some time later she came out of a doze to say, “She must be acting to some purpose?”
Émile kept his eyes closed and didn’t answer for some moments, so she thought him asleep. Then he said, “I am not sure if it is That Jade. If so, she may be trying to break my spirit, for while I would not for the world tell you how she used me, I think she hates me.”
“Hates you?” Sophie thought of Mistress Kenrick at the ball, laughing and joking with Émile. If she hated him then, she concealed it well. “But why?”
“You do not understand hating or evil, ma petite, but I saw them in her eyes. I don’t care about her motives, neither. We won’t sour our first morning together by speaking of her any more, but I will keep you safe, whatever happens. I am not going to endure this tamely, though I must wait on events for now. You will be delighted to hear they will be away for some time, so presently I can do little. Georges and I laid our plans; now for certain reasons with which I shall not trouble you, I begin to think we must alter these. Meanwhile I must think over what best to do. You must not worry.”
“Ah, my poor Émile!” Sophie showered more kisses on his face. She knew it would be as much a waste of time trying to persuade him not to confront Kenrick as it would to urge him to change the colour of his eyes. She ordered herself not to agonise over it until the time came.
He gave her some kisses in return. “Now I am sure you want your hot chocolate, and you must reassure Agnes how I used you as gently as may be.” He jumped up to put on his robe. She kept her lashes lowered – she was still shy – as she admired his muscular body in the light of day.
Sophie felt her cheeks go hot as Agnes bustled in, eyes twinkling. “Bore da (Good morning) Miss Sophie – I mean – Madame Dubois. You do look so pink and contented, my lovely.”
Sophie blushed some more, so happy she took several sips of the hot chocolate before she detected a bitter taste. “Why, Agnes, this tastes odd.”
“It is the same recipe…Now, what does Madame care to wear from her trousseau this morning?”
Chester
“I would do anything to have you mine. You have the name of an enchantress and you are one indeed.” Captain Alick Mackenzie and Ceridwen Kenrick were in bed together. With the combined dusky good looks of each, they looked like an erotic painting commissioned by some debauched patron of the arts.
It was dawn. Kenrick was asleep in another suite of rooms, a sated bat. Somewhere up in the servant’s quarters, Arthur Williams slept too, his thirst quenched. But neither was happy, now or ever.
Alick Mackenzie’s penetrating dark eyes were intense; Ceridwen was looking bored. She glanced at the ceiling, thinking longingly of Kenrick’s book.
Mackenzie had sometimes stood and witnessed crew members getting the cat o’ nine tails*. A couple of times Ceridwen stole Kenrick’s precious book to enjoy looking at these punishments. Some of the sailors were swaggering, arrogant young men when brought up to the deck, and Ceridwen enjoyed seeing how long it took for their spirit to break – for them to scream with every lash as their back became a stream of blood – until finally they sank into unconsciousness.
Mackenzie realised that she wasn’t listening and his dark eyes flashed. He was used to women fluttering about him. It was part of her appeal to him that she treated him with such coolness, even after they became lovers. “Do you hear?”
She turned her own eyes, almost black and beautifully slanted, upon him. “What? Oh, yes! You will be going off to fight the French soon. Well, they will have some work of it killing you!” She laughed outright.
“It is not that of what I was thinking.” He caressed her face, but she ducked her head impatiently.
“I never imagined the day would come when I would say this to a woman who I cannot even rely upon to be faithful to me.” He seemed about to grind his sharp teeth. She sniggered.
He was unable to keep himself from going on. “I know that Filthy Frenchman has been your lover.”
She laughed. “Faithful to you? Anyone would think you were my husband, not my Dear Kenrick. If you mean Dubois, as a matter of fact, when we were dancing, he told me by a fluke he was born in this country. In Oxford, I believe, like Richard Coeur de Lion. Therefore, he is not strictly either a Frenchman or an émigré. Filthy, perhaps. Was he my lover?”
He gazed at her. “Come away with me. Everything will be different. I care not how it affects my promotion. Leave that dismal Kenrick creature.”
“Be quiet. You become tiresome.”
At this final humiliation, he jumped out of bed. She tittered again. “Is the hero on his way? It is impossible to make a dignified exit stark naked.”
He made no reply and began to pull in his clothes, stony faced. She closed her eyes and seemed to have dozed off. In his Captain’s uniform, he was as striking and handsome as any hero in a book. Over by the dressing table, he ran her comb through his wavy dark hair and bitterly put on his hat. He paused at the door to stare back.
She was wearing a white silk nightdress, unpinned, her creamy throat and a large part of her full, high bosom revealed. Her closed eyelids were a delicate mauve, her lashes like fur. Her jetty hair spilt over the pillow and down the side of the mattress.
Gulping, he wrenched open the door and slammed it to behind him. As he stalked down the corridor, an early maidservant stared in awe and admiration.
She was fortunate he was too angry to notice her. He went on his way instead, heading instinctive
ly to the harbour to make his breakfast of some unlucky women who wouldn’t believe her luck in having attracted so handsome an officer.
Plas Uchaf
Famau Mountain
“I hope you will oblige me with a song, Morwenna?”
Morwenna couldn’t refuse the Count’s diffidence. Yet she murmured, despite herself, “Of course, Ynyr, though I make no claims to have as angelic a voice as the former Miss Sophie.”
Lord Ynyr’s eyebrows went up. “Yours is a lovely voice, Morwenna.”
It had been an effort over the past few days to hide his gloom. While he realised it wouldn’t have been sensible to marry Sophie himself, he couldn’t stop feeling unhappy that Émile had come along and done so. He realised that to be mean-spirited, which upset him more than anything.
Of course, Morwenna duly noted the mournful air of another victim of the now Madame Dubois’ wiles.
They were in the second sitting room, which also had an instrument. By tacit agreement, they had come here to escape the Dowager Countess. She was out of sorts for different reasons. She was put out at Émile’s depriving her of both her companion and his own cheerful company; she had indigestion and her crocheting was already in a twist. Besides, her maid Mrs Brown was annoying her by dwelling on the talk of sightings of giant bats.
The Dowager Countess had fidgeted and complained of the babies who insisted on being born and the depleted Poor Box. Sophie may have left two beautiful shawls, some bonnets, frocks and bootees in readiness, but the Dowager fretted these couldn’t last long.
“What shall I sing, Ynyr?” Morwenna asked him now.
“Let us have some Welsh songs.”
She played, ‘Men of Harlech’. Then she broke off to rise from the piano and approach where he stood, staring into the fire. “Lud, Ynyr, this will not do. I will set the proprieties aside, and say that I think we are both feeling a little hurt and foolish.”
He smiled ruefully. “Morwenna, that is so like you! I do feel a little deceived, yet I have no reason.”
“I think their secrecy was extraordinary. You and Émile have ever been such good friends you are bound to feel let down by it. I confess I do myself. There was something constrained in his attitude towards the girl, but that was all. I could tell she admired him.”
“And I must admire Émile for his setting the opinion of the world at nought, Morwenna.”
“Certainly, that is always commendable.” Morwenna caught sight of the Louis Quatorze clock. “My goodness, Ynyr! I must up to dress for dinner at once!”
Lord Ynyr hurried over to open the door to bow her out. “Morwenna?” As she turned about, he added – scarcely knowing what he meant – “I am glad you are still here.”
Morwenna suddenly felt a rush of warmth. He had twice the looks of Émile, if only one quarter of the dash.
Émile was the talk of her friends for his adventures and gallantry in France in smuggling out Charlotte while staying himself to try and save his parents (particularly as he never willingly spoke of those times). She had been proud of him, while wishing to subdue the rascal into becoming a fervent admirer. His falling in love with their Poor Relative instead was mortifying.
Still, often finding Émile wearing, she had decided some time before his startling news that if she could bring him to make an offer, it would only be to turn him down gently. He needed a wife who would listen to him in quiet admiration. In that, he had been sensible to marry Miss Sophie, who would be happy to gaze wonderingly upon him indefinitely.
“I am glad I am still here, too, Ynyr.” Morwenna was dimpling as she went out.
The Count had meant to say he valued her company; how she was more dear to him than the now Madame Dubois. That, however, was only part of what he wanted to convey; he wished to say too he feared for Sophie without knowing why.
It had something to do with the strange look flaring in the back of Émile’s eyes now and then since his illness.
Lord Ynyr wandered over to one of the windows and pulling back the curtain, stared out a while through the darkness towards the roofs of Plas Cyfeillgar. He frowned and once he muttered, “Nonsense!”
PART TWO
Chapter Fourteen
Plas Planwydden
February 1795
Émile and Sophie were playing chess in the library. A minor blizzard raged outside, so Émile was teaching her chess rather than riding.
This was a much smaller and warmer room than the library at Plas Uchaf. Sometimes Émile read to her here in the evenings, while owls hooted outside and she did her work for the Poor Box, wriggling her toes by the crackling fire.
“You must needs trick me and lure my pieces to their doom. Think in terms of Machiavelli, Sophie.”
Sophie didn’t like to admit to not having heard of Machiavelli. “But it is so difficult. I would rather you won, anyway. Or better still, both of us.”
“Alors, this is a game of wits, chérie. You must cultivate some competitive spirit for it. Now see, I have placed my Bishop and Castle so I have your Queen trapped in a pincer movement.”
Sophie looked about the board. “Couldn’t I tempt you away with my Knight?”
“Of course not. They are not valuable enough to distract me from your prize piece.”
Katarina played on the rug with Jem the kitten. Sophie had insisted she not work this morning (Katarina usually worked in the morning and took lessons in the afternoon) having the symptoms of a cold. Sophie then settled her by a roaring fire in the sitting room and her books, but she invaded the library and they hadn’t the heart to send her back.
Sophie stretched luxuriously and wriggled her toes. The doom hanging over them seemed remote. The wind might howl eerily down the chimney, but the room was cosy. She roused at a bawling from the stables. “I do hope the horses and donkeys are warm enough.”
“Bien sûr, I told the stable boy to increase their hay…Sophie, taking into account where my Knights are, do you really want to do that with your Queen?...Now, there are some urgent matters I must be about. Meanwhile, see if you can find a means of rescuing your Queen. I have left some pieces vulnerable.” He kissed her hand.
Sophie laughed. “No doubt you can see how to save her, but I fear with me she is doomed.” Troubled suddenly by what Agnes would call a ‘Bad Feeling’ she added, “Émile, I’ll hazard you intend to go out into the snow. Do take a greatcoat and take care too.”
As Émile bounded up the stairs, Mrs Kit, who was standing further up adjusting a picture, slipped, overbalanced and plunged towards him with a cry.
He caught her easily with one arm, and half carried her down to a nearby chair. “Mon Dieu, Dolly, I thought that it was me who was liable to take flight.”
She sat gasping while he rearranged her cap. “Sit you down, you have had a shock. I will fetch you some wine to settle your nerves.”
“No, indeed! You must learn to act the grand gentleman again, else folks will be guessing how you lived before.”
“They would never have the imagination, Dolly. Alors, here is Éloise, and I leave you with her.”
Mrs Kit’s puzzled gaze followed Émile as he loped up the stairs once more. Then she rounded on Éloise. “Less of those flirty looks, girl! A young girl like you ought to be ashamed. You’ll keep away from Georges, too, if you Know What’s Good for You. As for Guto, I warned him yesterday a fair face don’t mean a good heart.”
“Yes, Ma’am!” Éloise impassively fixed her sparkling eyes on Mrs Kit’s own face. She knew her position to be secure, having gained Monsieur’s lasting friendship through nursing him.
When Émile opened the stable door, letting in an icy blast, his greatcoat speckled with snow, Georges was watching the groom finish saddling the horses. “Put up the thick blankets, boy.”
The bitter wind covered them with snow as they rode to the Famau Mountain. As the lane opened up onto the foothills Émile brushed snowflakes from his eyes yet again. “Pretty weather for this jaunt, eh? Let us hope for no more foiled att
empts due to carpenters.”
“When first I saw snow, I found the stuff magical.” Georges looked haggard in the harsh light, although the wind whipping their faces brought colour to his former pallor.
“A magical landscape is appropriate... Arrête, you have had oats enough!” Émile tapped his mount as it tried to poke at the hedgerow, though there was no foraging to be had in the snow covered landscape.
“Georges, you are unwontedly quiet. I know that fear has no part in you, so it must be jolie Agnes, n’est pas?”
Georges snorted. “She gives herself airs so that I almost hate her.”
“I know too well. But for her former care of me and more importantly, her loyalty to ma petite, I must love her, so try you to endure it gallantly, Georges. When Madame and I drove past yesterday, did I not spy you with the red-headed chit we met after that comedy with the brigadier? I trust you behave yourself with so young a creature?”
They were on the long, flat track which led round the side of the mountain to Plas Cyfeillgar. Georges said, “Mair Jones. She begrudges me a kiss.”
“Jones, Jones. Why does everyone hereabouts have the same name?”
They stopped talking as the snow smothered roofs of Plas Cyfeillgar came into view. Smoke rose from a couple of chimneys at the back of the house.
The snow muffled beat of their horses’ hooves seemed loud in the silence. They tethered and blanketed their mounts outside the gates. Émile brought out his watch.
“We are early. I want you to take no chances, Georges. It is different for me, but as I take it you want to stay human, make sure you have the – the poisonous stuff to hand. I wonder I have not smelt it upon you.”
Georges sneered. Émile stared at him. “What have you been about, mon ami, you look ill?”
Georges sniggered. “Your face has ever looked ill to me, Gilles Long Legs.”
“There is something to be said for turning into a monster, besides inhuman strength and seeing in the dark, namely the disappearance of my ridiculous freckles.”
That Scoundrel Émile Dubois Page 21
