TheEnglishHeiress

by Roberta Gellis

  “In Versailles, if he has not left also, but I think he has,” was the sullen reply.

  Roger went back to where Leonie waited in the carriage with the strangest mixture of feelings. He had been so relieved when they passed the gate that he had for the moment forgotten he would lose Leonie when they reached Lord Gower. As he rang the bell, that realization had made his heart sink painfully. To hear Lord Gower was gone, which should have brought him near despair, had quite the opposite effect. Instead of worrying about the danger they would face, all Roger could think was that he would not lose Leonie.

  Leonie’s emotions mirrored Roger’s almost exactly, with the exception that she had been wondering whether he would be glad to be free of her to look for a fresher and more interesting companion. Thus, when he said he had bad news and told it, he was rewarded with the sunniest of smiles.

  “Well, that is a sad disappointment,” Leonie said brightly, not looking disappointed at all. “What shall we do next?”

  “I suppose,” Roger replied slowly, “that we had better cross the city and take the road to Versailles. If Lindsay is about to leave, we can go with him. I doubt there will be any trouble about it—I know him fairly well. However, if he has left already…”

  The sparkle of Leonie’s eyes had dimmed. She had thought that with Lord Gower gone Roger would be bound to her until they found another way to leave France, and leaving the country had definitely fallen very low on her list of priorities. First and foremost among those was keeping her hold on Roger. Leonie was more interested in avoiding Lindsay, whoever he was, than in catching him if that meant Roger’s responsibility for her would end.

  “If he has already left, we could go on toward Brittany, if we had money. Roger, would it be safe, do you think, to try to obtain coin for those assignats you have? Do you know anyone who might do that?”

  “I do,” Roger answered much more cheerfully. Leonie’s obvious indifference to Lord Gower’s departure improved the situation enormously. Then he reconsidered, frowning. “Well—I used to know people in Paris. God knows if the poor devils are still free, or even alive, and whether, if they are, they still have the resources to help me. There is another problem. If Lord Gower left under a cloud—that is, if England is about to declare war—it may not be wise to identify myself as an Englishman.”

  “I wonder if we could pick up a newspaper?” Leonie suggested.

  That was a practical move that could hold no danger, but it probably was not wise to drive a horse and carriage, even so shabby a vehicle as Roger had, all over town. Leonie suggested a stable not far from where they were, which she remembered from her earlier stay in Paris with her family, and they set out on foot for one of the political centers. It was one Leonie’s father had told her was republican but not violent about it. They expected a hive of activity, with people coming and going, where no one would notice another couple who came in to talk and read the papers and notices. However, to their surprise they found the place strangely silent and deserted. The few men there looked at Roger with suspicious surprise when for something to say, he asked for Citizen Brissot.

  “How do you not know that he is at the Salle de Ménage? There is a most important meeting of the assembly,” one said.

  “I have only come to the city today,” Roger replied. “I thought I might be useful in these perilous times. I am a gunsmith, but I do not know to whom to offer my services.”

  His voice was perfectly calm and his face nearly expressionless, but Leonie, who was close beside him, saw a sheen of sweat on his temple, and his right hand was in his pocket where his pistol lay. She looked around for a movable object she could lift and throw to protect herself, but the bad moment passed.

  “Ah,” the spokesman said, “you will be very welcome. Do you have guns? We need muskets.”

  “I have a few, but not with me. One does not carry muskets around the streets. And mostly I have tools and parts for handguns.”

  “That is reasonable,” the man agreed. “Where are you from?”

  Roger knew better than to claim residence in the east. He would be suspected of fleeing the Prussians. “I am from Brittany,” he replied, “but I am French.”

  “Ah.” That was a sound of satisfaction. “I thought your accent was strange. You are a good citizen to come. Where are you staying?”

  “I have not yet found a place. You see, my wife is with me.”

  The man peered past Roger. Leonie hung her head modestly, grateful for the voluminous ruffle of the cap that fell before her face. Feeling her tension, Fifi squirmed in her arms and growled softly.

  “There is a café, not far.” The man drew a sheet of paper toward him. “What are your names?”

  “Citoyen et Citoyenne Saintaire,” Roger replied. It had flashed through his mind to give a false name, but he only made his own into one word to avoid the chance it would sound too aristocratic divided. To abandon it completely seemed unnecessary and would subject him to the danger of failing to answer when he was spoken to. He could always change his name later, if it were necessary, since he had no papers of identification anyway.

  “Here,” the man said, handing Roger the torn sheet. “Tell the landlord at the Café Breton that Lefranc sent you, and he will take you in. Return here tonight. Citizen Brissot or perhaps Vergniaud or Gaudet will be here to speak to you.”

  Concealing his relief as well as he could, Roger drew Leonie out. They walked quickly in the direction pointed out to them before circling back toward the stable where the horse and carriage had been left.

  “I don’t like this, not at all,” Roger said. “Everything is too quiet. It’s as if people were holding their breaths. I think we should try to get out. God knows what we will do if Lindsay is gone, but I have the feeling that Paris will be a very unhealthy place soon.”

  Leonie could not object. She sincerely hoped that Lindsay would be gone, but she too felt the sense of waiting. They had the horse harnessed and then drove toward the western gate that led to Versailles. As they passed down the rue de Rivoli, Roger exclaimed. The brass plate of a lawyer he had dealt with for many years was still in place and, more importantly, still shone brightly with recent polishing. Roger pulled the horse to a halt.

  “Fouché is still here,” he said. “He is one of the men I know, and I do not believe he would betray me even if France and England are on the brink of war. Shall I take a chance, Leonie, or do you just wish to leave as quickly as possible?”

  “Let us try,” Leonie responded quickly. “Surely the few minutes it will take to see if he can help us will not be significant. And if he can give you money for the assignats, we will be much better off.”

  The street seemed quiet. Roger set Leonie in the back of the carriage where she would not be seen and left her a cocked pistol while he went in. He did not expect her to hit anything if she was forced to fire, but the shot would bring him to her rescue. A few minutes later he came out again, accompanied by a clerk who now took over the job of holding the horse.

  “Come with me, Leonie,” Roger said. “Fouché is here, and he will help us as much as he can, but I fear I have led you into a trap.”

  “What kind of trap?”

  “No one is to be allowed out of Paris. That is why it was so easy to come in. They do not care even if spies come in since they will not be able to get out again.”

  Leonie absorbed that as they walked up the stairs. “But it cannot be for long, Roger,” she said finally. “It is quite mad. Trade will come to a standstill. People will starve. Sooner or later they must allow the people to move.”

  “Certainly, in fact—” Roger stopped speaking as he opened the door for her. Maître Fouché rose from his chair, and Roger said, “Maître Fouché, let me present you to Lady Leonie de Conyers, daughter of the Earl of Stour. She has been living in France for some time, but in view of the situation here her people asked me to fetch her home. Unfortunately, I was not quite quick enough, and we have had some difficulties. I was just telling he
r that we seem to be trapped in Paris.”

  “An honor, my lady,” Fouché said.

  He did not inquire, Leonie noticed, why she had remained so long or where she came from. Clearly he realized she was an aristocrat on the run. Whether he was powerless to help and felt that ignorance of the true situation would be a protection for her or whether he simply did not wish to become entangled in something dangerous to himself, Leonie could not guess. She made the proper replies to his conventional remarks and then reintroduced the subject she had started.

  Fouché smiled at her. “You are quite right, my lady, but you have not understood. It is not so much that no one will be permitted to leave—although even that may be true for a few days. To get out will require special permission, a passport signed by a special officer of the Commune of Paris. I have heard some very disquieting rumors. We—er—have ‘friends’ who sit in the gallery of the assembly, listen to the debates, and bring us news.”

  “At the Girondist headquarters I was told there was a crucial debate going on right now.” Roger said.

  “Yes, Danton—” Fouché looked around as if to be sure he was far enough from the open windows and then lowered his voice until Roger and Leonie had to lean forward to hear. “That monster, that traitor to his own kind, is calling for the seizure of ‘all traitors’. He means by that anyone who opposes him.”

  “Do you not think we should try to leave before the debate ends?” Roger asked.

  “No! Merciful heavens, no! They will regard as suspicious anyone who tries to leave. They will think you are fleeing from the Prussians and question you most severely.”

  Roger laughed. “Probably we would be safer with the Prussians! Well then,” he added, sobering, “can you give me coin for these assignats? I know they are now worth virtually nothing, but I will repay the face value when I return to England. Whatever you can spare would be very helpful. If we have some money, we can stay in Paris for a few days and leave whenever—”

  “I can give you money,” Fouché interrupted, “but you will need papers or protection, and I cannot give you that. I wish I could. Indeed, I wish it most sincerely, Monsieur St. Eyre, and I hope you believe that it is not fear of danger for myself that prevents me. My name is valueless to you. Although I am not actually suspect, as far as I know, my connection with the past government…”

  “Do not distress yourself,” Roger said, “I think I know how to manage.” He told Fouché how he had pretended to be a gunsmith to disguise his purpose in traveling in France, then described the conversation he had had with Lefranc at the Girondist headquarters and showed Fouché the note Lefranc had given him. “If I voluntarily bring in the muskets I brought to support my role as gunsmith and offer them for the defense of France, I can probably get one of the deputies to give me a ‘certificate of residence’ or whatever is necessary. All I ask of you is that you admit you have done some trifling business for a Citizen Saintaire, that is the name I will use, from Rennes, if you are asked. You need not say you know me. In fact, that would not do either of us any good.”

  “Yes, I see. That will establish that you did come from Brittany.”

  They decided quickly that the business would be the failure of a British gunmaker to provide replacements for some parts that had arrived damaged. Fouché was well known to have an influential British connection, which happened to be Roger himself, but that would be reason enough for a person from Rennes to employ Fouché rather than a lawyer of his own city. Then he gave Roger a substantial sum of money.

  “One last thing,” Roger said. “I have a horse and carriage. Do you think it would be safe for me to keep them?”

  “Safe? It is not safe to breathe these days.” Fouché said bitterly. “I will keep them for you, if you like.”

  He told Roger where to leave the equipage after he had settled and how to reclaim it when he wanted it. They took leave soon after and Roger drove directly to the Café Breton, where he and Leonie found, to their shocked surprise, that the owner was expecting them.

  “I wondered what had happened to you,” he said worriedly. “Citizen Lefranc came more than an hour ago to ask for you. He said you wished to speak to Citizen Brissot, who had come in for a little while.”

  “I had to get my goods and tools,” Roger replied.

  “We were lost,” Leonie added, realizing that a good deal more time had passed than was reasonable for fetching Roger’s property. “We have been all over Paris, I swear, looking for this place.”

  “Ah,” the landlord said, his face clearing, “it can happen so to a newcomer. This is your first trip to Paris?”

  “Yes.” Roger’s voice was reluctant. The innkeeper smiled at him, thinking he did not wish to admit he was a ‘rustic’, but Roger’s anxieties were more practical. In fact, Paris was almost as familiar to him as London, and he was afraid he would expose his knowledge in some inappropriate way.

  “You had better hurry,” the innkeeper urged. “Perhaps you will still catch Citizen Brissot. You may leave your wife here. I will show her the room we have and help with the luggage.”

  Roger got down from the carriage. “Leonie?” he said questioningly, then turned to the landlord. “She is very young,” he told the man apologetically, “and she is afraid to be alone in such a strange place.”

  His eyes searched the landlord’s face and found nothing there to distrust. The expression was open, kind and cheerful. Leonie had been watching the man also, and now she smiled at him and came down from the carriage. Still, she clung to Roger’s arm.

  “Will you be long?” she whispered. “Can I not come also?”

  “It would be better for you to stay here,” he said slowly, trying to convey to her that it would be a form of protection for him. If he should not return, at least someone would know where he had disappeared from and that he had disappeared involuntarily. “Unpack the very small black case first,” he said to her.

  After a blank, wide-eyed stare, Leonie nodded her head sharply. She had remembered the small black case. It held a pair of pistols, not so fine as those Roger carried constantly, but quite effective. He handed it to her and she went into the café, where she asked for the jakes. In that privacy she loaded the pistols as Roger had taught her on their first day on the road and replaced them in the case. If Roger did not come back in a reasonable time, she would go and get him. It surprised Leonie that Roger should make such a suggestion. Usually he was very protective, trying to shield her from any danger or even inconvenience and seeming surprised when she did not dissolve in the rain. He was coming to see, she told herself, that she was not a child but a responsible, grown woman.

  Roger would have been far more surprised than Leonie, and thoroughly horrified, if he realized how she had misinterpreted what he said. He had offered the pistols as a consolation, so that she should not feel totally defenseless when he left her alone. It never crossed his mind that she would actually consider firing one, much less that she would consider coming to his rescue.

  Fortunately the ridiculous misunderstanding did not precipitate the disaster it could have if Leonie had become frightened or impatient. Roger drove to the Girondist club and actually met Brissot coming out the door. The deputy looked harried and very worried, but he listened to Roger’s brief tale. In fact, Brissot’s distraction worked strongly to Roger’s advantage in that he asked only the most cursory questions, and when Roger offered the muskets he had to “the cause of the war”, Brissot went back into the building signaling Roger to follow him. He not only gave Roger a receipt for the guns but filled out an identification form and then another that gave Roger permission to reside in Paris and perform the “useful and necessary duties” of gunsmith. Then thanking Roger for his patriotism, he rushed out to return to the assembly in which, Roger gathered from what he heard as he left the place, a momentous vote was about to be taken.

  Later, after dinner that evening, Leonie and Roger discovered how close they had come to utter disaster and precisely what Fouché h
ad meant when he said they needed protection. Before the light failed, a decree was posted ordering all citizens to shut up their business and go to their homes. The next day and all following days until the order was rescinded, they were to wait at home for a Committee of Inspection, which was empowered to collect all muskets. That was the surface reason for the “domiciliary visits”. However, the committee was also empowered to seize any “suspicious persons” and this included any person not in his own dwelling. The simple fact of being a visitor in a friend’s house was enough to make one suspect.

  That night in bed Leonie snuggled comfortably into Roger’s arms. She was completely content. For a week or two anyway, Roger would be hers, and by then, Lindsay would certainly be gone. That meant she and Roger could take a leisurely trip to Brittany. With any luck, they would be delayed until the weather was too bad to cross the Channel. Perhaps she could hold Roger until spring, and by then he would not seek another mistress.

  “I think we will be safe,” Roger said softly, assuming the cuddling was a seeking for reassurance.

  “Oh, I am sure we will,” Leonie replied lightly. “Just think of the way things have happened to us. It is as if there is some power guarding us from harm.”

  “It must be a pretty absentminded power,” Roger replied caustically. “It sort of forgot to get us to Paris in time to travel with Lord Gower, which would have removed the need for any further intervention.”

  “How do you know?” Leonie pointed out. “This is not a responsible government that acts according to protocol. Perhaps Lord Gower’s word would not have been enough to protect me. I would not be surprised if his entourage was examined with particular care to prevent the escape of anyone ‘guilty’ of being an aristocrat. Anyway, I do not care,” she said defiantly. “I do not think I would have liked to travel with Lord Gower as well as I like being with you.”

  “Leonie, does that mean…”