by Amy Lake
Her aunt turned around with a puzzled expression. “Elizabeth?”
Miss Asherwood opened the door all the way and stepped into the room. “Yes, Aunt Philippa. I . . . I have a request.”
The letter was deciphered in short order, although Aunt Philippa seemed to harbor some doubts about its author.
“Who is this Monsieur Rabaillat?” she asked Elizabeth, frowning at the letter. “His French is educated, but the hand is unusual.”
“I know nothing of him,” replied Miss Asherwood.
“He is unacquainted with the family. He says that the area is quiet, but there is concern about the road between Ardres and Calais.”
Miss Asherwood felt her heart constrict. “Concern?”
“Soldiers, of a sort. I imagine the current government maintains some interest in the comings and goings near the Channel.”
“Oh.” Elizabeth’s worries were abruptly multiplied. Would soldiers have any interest in a fifteen year-old girl? And Marguerite was traveling alone—
“I was engaged once, you know,” said Aunt Philippa.
Miss Asherwood looked at her in astonishment.
“You needn’t look so surprised.”
“I . . . I’m sorry, Aunt. I’m not surprised, I just did not know of it.”
“My family did not approve of the young man. He was not quite of our class, as it happened, and unsuitable. I became engaged secretly, and planned to run away with him.”
Miss Cavendish’s eyes were focused on something that Elizabeth could not see. The older woman spoke softly. “But I allowed myself to be dissuaded. My sisters suspected, and reminded me that I owed loyalty to my family . . . above all else, in their eyes.”
“So you broke it off?”
“We were to meet one day, at a certain time. On the village green.” Miss Cavendish paused. “I did not go.”
The seconds ticked by. Elizabeth waited, wondering if her aunt would continue.
“I’m sorry,” she said, finally.
Her aunt’s eyes flashed. “Don’t feel sorry for me, young miss,” she said. “And don’t think I didn’t have other offers. There were more than a few. But when you have really loved someone, none of the rest seems to matter.”
Miss Cavendish returned her attention to her correspondence, and Elizabeth went back to the library. It was the last place she had seen Peregrine Blakeley, and she thought this might be all the room would now mean to her. Miss Asherwood sat down again at the library desk, staring at nothing except the place where he had stood, trying not to think. Her mind, however, insisted on flitting between his lordship and worry for Marguerite.
Monsieur Rabaillat knew naught of the family.
Lord Blakeley’s eyes, as he turned to leave. Hard. And final.
Soldiers. Patrolling the road between Ardres and Calais.
I should cry, thought Elizabeth. I would feel better if I cried.
She wondered if Miss Cavendish had cried, all those many years ago. And why on earth had her aunt suddenly spoken of her engagement?
Lord Blakeley’s eyes.
It was at that moment that Geoffrey, who suffered from dreadfully poor timing in several aspects of his life, chose to pay Miss Asherwood a visit.
* * *
Chapter 42
How Dare You?
She had heard the bell and someone opening the door, the faint sound of a male voice. And she had hoped. But then—
“Lord Winthrop is here to see you, Miss Elizabeth.”
It must be admitted that, at this moment and in his heart of hearts, Geoffrey was no happier to be engaged to Miss Asherwood than she was to him. Not because he had stopped caring for her in a general sort of way, or because he saw her as any less suitable, well-attired, or pretty.
But because he had discovered something else in his life, something entirely new to him. Lord Winthrop had discovered being in love.
Her name was Angeline Forbes-Treffy and she was a small, blue-eyed blonde with a tiny waist and a soft, breathy voice. Geoffrey had always found this type of woman appealing at some inexplicable, gut-deep level. Miss Asherwood was by no means deficient in figure, but Angeline . . . Miss Forbes-Treffy . . . had a particularly rounded form on top, and Geoffrey’s thoughts had been powerfully warmed by the sight of her décolletage.
He was suspicious of his current feelings, the depth of them being unfamiliar, but he could not deny their existence. Miss Forbes-Treffy was all he had thought of for the past twenty-four hours, ever since he had danced with her at a small party hosted by Viscount Marbrey. Geoffrey remembered her skirts brushing against him as she turned in a figure-eight, the sight of plump breasts pushing against the thin fabric of a tight bodice.
Gods.
He’d asked Miss Asherwood to accompany him to this event, but she had claimed to be too busy preparing for the arrival of Miss du Merveille, the supposed half-sister. Geoffrey was not happy about these plans, but as the girl was apparently already on the road to England, he had seen no way to object. Perhaps Elizabeth could be convinced to remove quickly to the Asherwoods’ country estate, and she and her sister could spend the rest of the summer at Camberley, in Surrey.
An image of Miss Forbes-Treffy came back to mind, suddenly, as Geoffrey remembered the touch of her small hand, the skin smooth under his fingers.
It did not occur to Lord Winthrop to suggest calling off the engagement to Elizabeth. It simply wasn’t done.
Miss Asherwood stepped forward. Lord Winthrop gave her a kiss on the cheek.
“How good to see you,” she said, and felt immediately that it was an odd thing to say, that it was somehow not how one ought to greet one’s fiancé. But Geoffrey did not seem to mind.
“I am sorry you could not accompany me to Viscount Marbrey’s,” he said.
“Ah, yes, I was sorry as well.”
Elizabeth rang for tea, and to ask that Bessie inform Aunt Philippa of her visitor. They moved toward the sofa, and it was then that Lord Winthrop noticed the envelope and its letter on the library desk.
“You have changed,” he said, smiling. “You always used to write letters upstairs, in your room.”
It was an offhand remark, meant only to pass the time. But Miss Asherwood blushed and stammered in her reply.
“Yes . . . yes, I just—I mean—”
’Twas impossible to say where Lord Winthrop’s thoughts went in that moment. Perhaps he was remembering Lord Blakeley. Perhaps the guilty memory of his dance with Miss Forbes-Treffy encouraged him to seek blame in Elizabeth as well. Without another word he strode to the desk and picked up the letter.
“Geoffrey!” Miss Asherwood was annoyed with this presumption. Her correspondence was her business, not Lord Winthrop’s.
“What is this?”
He was frowning at the letter. Lord Winthrop, who spoke a decent French, was well aware of Miss Asherwood’s deficiencies in that language, and he knew that Marguerite always wrote to her in English. Then he noticed the envelope. With its direction to Peregrine Blakeley of Saint Ann’s Lane, London.
He picked up the envelope, staring.
“What is this?” he asked Elizabeth.
The accusation in his tone stung Lizzie. She had not asked for the letter to be delivered personally, but thus it had been, and she was acutely aware of Lord Blakeley’s presence in this very room not two hours before.
“’Tis a letter, as you see,” she told Geoffrey.
“To Blakeley.”
“Yes.” Why should she need to explain? Lord Winthrop had picked the thing up, unasked, from her own desk.
“And how did a letter addressed to Peregrine Blakeley find its way to your house?”
Elizabeth considered lying, but could think of no simple lie that would make the tale any easier.
“Lord Blakeley . . . brought it here. ’Tis a letter from a Monsieur Jacques Rabaillat, of Calais, who has been helping with my inquiries of Marguerite.”
Geoffrey heard nothing beyond ‘Lord Blakeley brough
t it here.’ His face flushed, he advanced on Miss Asherwood, the envelope in hand. He raised it to her face and she stepped back in alarm.
“How dare you?” said Lord Winthrop.
“Dare!” cried Lizzie.
The situation deteriorated markedly at that point. By the time Lord Winthrop left some few minutes later, Miss Asherwood was in angry tears. But she felt no better about Lord Blakeley for crying, nor did Geoffrey find his guilt over Miss Forbes-Treffy one whit assuaged by his anger with Elizabeth.
* * *
Chapter 43
The Library
Marguerite du Merveille was not, by any stretch, a bookish girl. Her mother had tried, heaven knew, to interest her in literature and the arts, and to teach her some maths beyond simple arithmetic, but Marguerite would far rather be outside.
Languages were the only place where she excelled, perhaps due to a fine ear and an ability to mimic other voices. It was an ability which had kept the chateau’s servants in stitches of laughter more than once.
The frequent presence of her English-speaking father had no doubt helped. At any rate, in addition to French and English, Marguerite was fluent in Italian, and could read a bit of Greek, although the lack of hearing the latter language impeded her progress. She had been excited to discover, only last year, that there was a modern version of that tongue, and people who spoke it, but she knew of no-one in the area from whom she could learn.
Other studies, however, left her with a headache, or so she had always claimed to the comtesse.
“You cannot spend your life following rabbits and ducklings, or feeding the sow,” her mother warned her.
“But, maman—”
“I’m serious, child. A gentleman of class requires a wife with some learning.”
The child in question thought that she cared little for gentlemen of class, and whereas the Aisling House library was one of Elizabeth’s favorite places, the library at Beauvoir was simply a pleasant room in which Marguerite could wait out the rain.
She woke up the next morning refreshed from the first true rest she’d had since the attack, and only a little stiff from sleeping on the kitchen floor. Armand had left the remainder of the bread, and she ate a quick meal with that and the maroilles cheese. In better days she would have done a few chores outside before meeting the comtesse for breakfast, but the animals were gone now, and this more than anything—except the loss of her mother—made the chateau feel empty, desolate.
Marguerite crept up the stairs to the main floor of the chateau, and stopped there to listen for a long minute. There was no sound whatsoever. She shivered, and walked down the long passageway to the front of the house, where the public rooms—the salon and the music room, and the library—were located. The smell of smoke was faint in the air, then abruptly strong as she opened the library door.
She froze in shock at the sight of the demolished room, wishing Armand was here so that she could have someone to take her hand and pull her away. Volumes of all sizes were strewn across the floor, obviously the work of the men, who had nearly emptied the shelves. They had gathered a pile of books in the center of the room, on top of a beautiful Savonnerie carpet, and attempted to set them on fire. Marguerite did not know if someone had put out the fire later, or if it had gone out on its own; the latter she surmised, since the pile was intact and there was no evidence of water.
The walls were filmed and greasy with smoke, and the heavy damask draperies—which had been pulled down, ripping the rods and finials from their support, were also ruined. One of the sofas had been overturned. Marguerite tried to set it upright, but it was too heavy for her.
Stupid men. What were the comtesse’s books to them?
The map case had been untouched, she saw, a large table with oversized drawers to one side of the fireplace.
“Bon dieu!” came a soft voice.
Armand. Thank goodness.
“Dégueulasse,” said the boy. Disgusting.
“Yes,” agreed Marguerite.
“The whole village has heard. The men searched for the thugs, but—”
She nodded, unable to speak.
“Do you know where the maps are?”
“They’re right over here—” but Marguerite could not continue. She sank to her knees and began to cry.
“Margot—”
Armand kneeled beside her, with his arms around her thin shoulders. Marguerite shook with sobs.
“I’m . . . I’m sorry,” she managed after a few minutes, embarrassed and sniffling.
“I think you should cry some more,” said Armand, adding gallantly, “I would.”
This was much better advice than being told to stop. Marguerite took a deep breath and stood up, rubbing her nose.
“Let’s find the maps,” she said.
* * *
Chapter 44
Men Do Things
If Miss Perrin had chanced to call soon after Lord Winthrop’s departure, Elizabeth might have found her friend’s presence enough to restore her composure. But Penny did not. An hour went by, an hour in which Miss Asherwood paced the library floor, sniffling and occasionally breaking into renewed, quiet sobs. Bessie scratched at the door to ask if she wished more tea; Elizabeth managed a quick no, and a smile. She supposed that the whole household knew that she and Geoffrey had quarreled, and she was rather mortified by this.
If Marguerite would just arrive, ’twould all be forgotten, thought Lizzie, and she could throw herself into her sister’s visit.
Do you suppose it rains this much in Italy?
Penelope’s voice, unexpectedly, echoed in her head. Elizabeth recalled the carriage ride to the Tallfields’ ball, and Penny’s strange question.
Men do things, her friend had said. Real things. Why can’t we?
Lizzie knew she was always described as headstrong, but what did that word really mean?
She would not wear the typical white frills and furbelows of a young miss once she’d reached her fifteenth year. Her father had attempted to remonstrate, but without Lady Asherwood’s help he’d been unable to shake his daughter’s insistence on the muted colors and simple, elegant lines of a grown-up fashion.
She had refused to give up her friendship with Penelope on the occasion of one of Henry Perrin’s worst scrapes. The scandal eventually blew over, but in the meantime Sir Terence had been furious, and Lizzie had not given in.
After her father’s death she had utterly rejected the suggestion that she move—accompanied by her fortune, of course—to the house of Aunt Philippa’s grand-nephew by marriage, a connection so weak that Elizabeth was previously unaware of the man’s existence. And she had put Lord Winthrop off for years.
Headstrong, perhaps—but these were headstrong refusals, every one of them. She had done nothing.
Men do things. Why can’t we?
An hour later Miss Asherwood had instructed one of the footmen to look for a note outside her bedroom the next morning, and to deliver it to Penny. She put a few personal items in a small cloth bag, informed Pivens that she would be retiring early, and later—when the house was quiet, and the servants had gone to bed—she stepped out the front door of Aisling House into the dark of a warm London night.
* * *
Chapter 45
The Road to Calais
The late comte du Merveille had been somewhat of an enthusiast of cartography, and there were more maps in the chateau library than either child ever imagined to exist.
“I thought maybe there would be only one,” said Armand. “Of France.”
He had no idea what the country of France might look like, and was beginning to wonder if their plan was at an end before it started. Perhaps they could ask for directions along the way. But Marguerite had taken lessons in geography from Father Bernard, and thought she could find the map Father had shown her; it was prettily colored and had pictures of various animals and plants engraved around the edges.
“It’s this one,” she told Armand, pulling out a large sheet
from the first drawer. “I think Picardy is pink.”
Both children could read, fortunately, although Armand still sounded out letters. They pored over the map. After a few minutes they located Amiens, and by good fortune—as it was a much smaller town—Doullens.
“There’s Calais,” said the boy, pointing at a spot along the water of the Channel. “It doesn’t seem so far . . . ”
“Where’s Paris?” wondered Marguerite.
“There—”
He pointed to the capital city, which was marked out in large, florid letters. Marguerite and Armand exchanged a look. Paris, they knew, was a great distance from Doullens. Every adult said so. Calais did not look quite so far, but—
“Can we walk there?” asked Marguerite.
“I . . . I think so. But it might be better to take a horse.”
A horse. Marguerite could ride, of course, and Armand would like nothing better than to spend his life à cheval, but where were they to find a horse?
“We can’t hide a horse,” she pointed out.
“Oh. That’s true.”
“But, what if—” Marguerite bit her lip, thinking. “Did you already tell your father that you wanted to find work?”
The boy nodded. “He understands.”
“Why not ask him how to get to Calais? You could be looking for work on the docks.”
“The docks!” A country boy did not look for work at the docks when there were stables and vineyards nearby.
“Well, you aren’t really going to work there,” said Marguerite.
“He’ll never believe me. And maman would threaten a fit.”
They sat down to think about this for a few minutes, and to share the fresh baguette that Armand had brought.
“Why don’t you let me ask for help?” he said.
“No!” said Marguerite. She couldn’t explain why she felt this way, but her only security seemed to be in no-one besides Armand knowing where she was. She just wanted to find Elizabeth.
