The Danbury Scandals

by Mary Nichols

  She hurried over to the bed and sat on the side of it, taking his hand. ‘Lie still,’ she whispered. ‘Lie still or you will bleed again.’

  Her voice roused him and he opened his eyes. ‘Maryanne, my faithful Maryanne, still with me, I see.’

  ‘Where else would I be?’ she asked with some asperity, then regretting her sharpness, added, ‘How do you feel?’

  ‘Better. You know, Maryanne, we cannot linger here; our arrival was too conspicuous. I wonder how often they see an English fishing boat as far inland as this, and how often a gentleman and his lady disembark, not to mention the gentleman being wounded. News of that will travel fast, you can be sure.’

  ‘Surely no one will follow us to France.’

  ‘I wish I could be sure.’ He paused to study her face. ‘Is anything wrong?’

  ‘Wrong?’ How difficult it was to behave naturally. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I don’t know, but you seem tense and afraid, and that’s something you have never shown before, not even when you were alone in your uncle’s cottage, nor when we were being shot at; nor, according to the doctor, did you flinch when he dug that bullet out of me.’

  She made an effort to sound light-hearted. ‘There’s nothing wrong with me that won’t be put right as soon as you are well again.’

  ‘Oh, my poor Maryanne. I’m so sorry, my little one, but you coped well, very well.’

  ‘I did nothing, and it was my fault you had so much trouble. You could have escaped unscathed without me.’

  He smiled and lifted her hand to his lips. ‘I could not have left you behind, my love; you know too much.’

  She jerked her hand away, as if his touch had burned it, and began straightening the bedcovers, anything to cover her dismay. ‘I promised the doctor I would see that you rested, so no more talking. Tomorrow we’ll decide what is to be done.’

  ‘Very well, but please rest yourself. I don’t need a nurse and you are not looking at all like my high-spirited Maryanne.’

  It was easy to convince the innkeeper that she was afraid she might disturb her husband and that what she needed was a room to herself, and one was soon found for her along the corridor. She ordered a light meal to be taken there and retired for the night, hoping that her fatigue would make sure she slept. But again and again her thoughts echoed his words - ‘you know too much’- as if repetition would make them go away or mean something different. The trouble was, she knew nothing, nothing at all, and she would not rest until she found out what was in those papers. The knowledge might be dangerous, but she had to risk that.

  When she went to him next morning, he seemed much stronger and although he occasionally grimaced with pain he did not seem to be suffering too much and he was inordinately cheerful. ‘Ah, Maryanne, my love, I do believe I feel well enough to travel.’

  ‘The doctor said...’

  ‘Be blowed to the doctor. I mean to take you home.’

  ‘Home? Back to England?’

  He smiled and reached for her hand. ‘You must stop thinking of England as home or you will never become a real Frenchwoman. Maman, you know, forgot she was English when she married Papa. For her, Challac was home and she never wanted anything else.’

  She smiled wanly. ‘She had married the man she loved.’

  ‘Yes.’ He spoke abruptly and pulled himself into a sitting position. ‘I think the time has come to...’ He smiled wryly ‘... to put that little matter right. We can be married before the day is out.’

  ‘No!’ She spoke so sharply that he looked up at her in surprise. ‘I mean,’ she added, before he could comment, ‘let’s wait until you are fully recovered. There is no hurry.’

  He grinned. ‘No, I suppose the damage has already been done as far as the world is concerned. I wonder what they are saying about us in the drawing-rooms of London.’

  He had not said he loved her; he had not said he wanted to marry her for herself; he had not said anything at all to put her mind at rest, and yet he must know that she was troubled by more than what people might be saying about her. She smiled to herself, remembering the Dowager Duchess; enough scandal for generations, she had said, and that was before Maryanne had added to it. And for what? For a man who had held her in his arms once or twice and kissed her, a man who might be a murderer. It was nothing to smile about. ‘It will be a nine-day wonder,’ she said. ‘soon forgotten.’

  ‘By all except Mark Danbury. He will not forget. And I do not wish him to. He will live to regret the inconvenience he has put me to.’

  ‘Inconvenience!’ She threw back her head and laughed. ‘Is that what you call me?’

  He grinned and swung his legs over the side of the bed. ‘I am glad you can laugh about it, my dear. Now I must dress. Be so good as to see if the coach is coming.’

  ‘What coach?’

  ‘The one I ordered yesterday. If you had not taken it into your head to make a little excursion on your own, you would have known what the arrangements were. Where did you go, by the way?’

  ‘Just for a walk. I wanted to be by myself for a while.’

  ‘You were alone?’

  She looked at him sharply. ‘Of course I was alone. Why do you ask?’

  ‘I don’t know. I wondered if you might perhaps have wanted to return with the boat.’

  ‘Why should I want to do that?’

  ‘A change of mind perhaps.’ He paused. ‘Or a change of heart.’ He sat on the edge of the bed looking up at her, searching her face. ‘I was right, you are tense. Do you think I cannot tell when something is wrong with you?’

  ‘Nothing is wrong.’

  ‘Is it because I subjected you to a rough crossing and being shot at and having to nurse me? I thought you were made of sterner stuff than that, Maryanne Paynter,’ he said.

  ‘None of that would have made the slightest difference if...’ She could not go on.

  ‘If what? Come along, tell me. We can’t go on with this between us; it will be unbearable. Do you want to leave me and go back? I’ll make what arrangements I can, but I can’t guarantee your safety.’

  ‘Is that what you want me to do?’

  ‘What I want is of no consequence. I am asking you, once and for all, are you going back or coming with me?’

  ‘You are determined to go, then?’

  ‘Yes. Are you coming?’

  ‘I have no choice, have I?’

  ‘My dear Maryanne, you have always had a choice. You chose to come with me in the first place, remember?’ He smiled but there was evidence of pain in his dark eyes. ‘Come along, we are wasting time.’

  They were saved further argument by the sound of horses’ hoofs and carriage wheels on the road below the window. She went to help him dress but he shrugged her off, insisting she wait for him downstairs.

  He followed soon afterwards, moving slowly and painfully, but he disdained the offer of her arm and made his own way out to the coach which waited for them at the door. It had certainly seen better days; its paintwork was scratched, its hood torn and, what was worse, its springs looked decidedly lop-sided.

  ‘How far are we going in that?’ she asked, knowing it would be uncomfortable for someone fit and well, but for a wounded man it would be excruciatingly painful.

  ‘To Challac.’ He opened the door and motioned her inside. ‘Five days, a week perhaps more, who knows?’

  ‘A week! No, Adam, you will never survive. Couldn’t you find something a little better sprung?’

  ‘Nothing is new in France these days,’ he said, climbing in beside her and giving the order to move off. ‘Unless it belongs to a wealthy Englishman. There are plenty of those lording it about. They are not exactly loved by the French, you know, and we need to avoid making ourselves conspicuous.’

  ‘You didn’t think of that when you dressed in that finery.’ The coach lurched as the wheels began to turn and she looked at him to see if he was in pain, but if he was he concealed it well.

  ‘I had your support then, or at least y
our compliance. Sir Peter and Lady Adams, on a sightseeing tour.’ He sighed and looked down at his clothes. He had discarded the embroidered waistcoat, which had been too blood-stained to clean, and put the diamond pin in his pocket, and, although his coat had been cleaned, it was not what it was when they left Dover. ‘Now it will have to be Adam Saint-Pierre returning home from the wars and unsure of the welcome he will receive.’

  ‘Why are you unsure?’

  He smiled. ‘The people are not always pleased to see the landowners returning to their estates; too much has happened in the years since the Revolution. They have found a kind of independence and going back to a life that was little more than serfdom is something they will resist.’

  ‘But wise landowners will not try to turn the clock back, will they?’

  He laughed. ‘Tell that to the Bourbons. Louis thinks he can pick up where his brother left off and ignore the fact that the Republic and Napoleon’s Empire ever existed. I fear he will learn the hard way.’

  ‘You don’t think the bad times will return, do you? Surely everyone is sick of war and anxious to make peace.’

  He laughed. ‘You wouldn’t think so with all the bickering that is going on. They are trying to carve up the Continent as if it were a slab of cake, and the French people wait and watch.’

  ‘For the Emperor’s return?’

  ‘I don’t know. Perhaps for a sign that their lives will improve.’

  ‘Surely that is up to those who govern them?’

  ‘Precisely. That is one of the reasons for going home; I must do what I can for my own people.’

  ‘How long is it since you were at home?’

  ‘Not since...’ He paused, trying to remember. ‘I believe it was six years or more ago. I was quartered near by and decided to go and see what the old place was like. It was a mistake.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Memories, Maryanne, memories of times which could never return, some happy memories of childhood but others too painful to dwell on. I did not stay.’

  ‘Then why are you going back there now?’

  ‘It is time to try again. The place cannot be left to fall apart and we need somewhere to lick our wounds, do we not?’

  ‘If you get there alive,’ she said sharply. ‘This journey is madness.’

  ‘Have you a better idea?’

  She did not answer, because answer there was none. She could not leave him, even if she wanted to; she was committed to staying with him at least until he was well and she had unravelled the mystery of James’s death. And, in any case, for all his saying he would arrange to send her back, she doubted he would do it, not after telling her she knew too much. She wished she did know; most of all she wished she knew what went on in that head of his. Innocent or guilty? Why would he not tell her? ‘Only the guilty flee,’ she said. ‘So what are we guilty of?’

  He smiled. ‘Flying in the face of Society. We are outcasts, you must know that.’ He sighed. ‘You are travelling alone with me, not only unmarried, but disinclined to remedy it, so would you have us travel openly?’

  ‘I did not mean that and you know it. I was talking about the night we left Castle Cedars.’

  ‘What do you want to know? That I did not kill the Dukes of Wiltshire?’ He gave a cracked laugh. ‘Either of them.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Very well. I did not cause the death of either man.’ It wasn’t exactly a straight answer, but it had to suffice. ‘But you know who did?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Who was it? Why did you not denounce him?’

  ‘I have yet to prove it and until I do no one will believe me.’

  ‘I might.’

  He smiled. ‘I doubt that.’

  ‘Tell me anyway. I want to know.’

  ‘The man you were betrothed to marry.’

  ‘Mark?’ She was shocked. ‘I don’t believe it. The idea is preposterous. He would not kill his own father.’

  ‘I notice how quick you are to defend him,’ he said with a twisted smile; her words were almost as painful as his shoulder, which was causing him agony with each turn of the wheel. ‘You have never been that sure of my innocence. I wonder why?’

  She did not answer and they journeyed on in silence, each thoughtful, each aware of the presence of the other, sitting so close that they could touch hands and where every jolt threw them against each other. And every time it happened he grunted with pain and she felt guilty, terribly, terribly guilty. She found her eyes filling with tears and wished they could start again, trusting each other.

  ‘What have I done?’ he asked softly, seeing her misery. ‘You were right. I was mad to contemplate such a journey.’

  ‘We can always stop until you have rested.’

  ‘I was not talking of my state of health. It is you.’

  ‘Me? What have I to do with it? I am no more than baggage and not to be trusted.’

  If it were not so painful and if she had not been so serious he would have laughed aloud at her choice of words; as it was, he confined himself to a wry twist of his lips. ‘Trust is a mutual thing, Maryanne; it has to work both ways.’

  ‘So it does,’ she said angrily. ‘If I had not trusted you I would not have come.’

  ‘But not enough, my love,’ he said. ‘Not enough.’

  ‘Why do you call me your love, even when we are quarrelling?’

  ‘Because you are my love, and nothing you say or do will alter that. You are my one and only love, now and for always, and if I live a few days or many, many years, nothing will change it; it is unchanging and unchangeable.’

  His tenderness made Maryanne burst into tears and for several minutes her sobs were uncontrollable. He moved awkwardly to try and comfort her. ‘I never knew such a woman.’ He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and attempted to dry her eyes. ‘I didn’t realise a declaration of love could reduce someone to such tears. Come, dry your eyes and we will talk.’

  ‘T... talk about w... what?’

  ‘Whatever you like, the weather, the scenery. France was beautiful once, but look at it now.’ He nodded at the countryside through which they were passing. ‘Devastated by war, all the men gone, nothing but women who work like cart horses, old men and children. How long do you think it will take to recover from that?’

  ‘It is not only France,’ she said.

  ‘No, the whole of Europe.’ She was not sure if he wanted to cheer her up, or to avoid answering questions. He need not have worried; she was incapable of thinking clearly. ‘I pray we are given the time to put things to rights. Take that chateau over there; it looks beautiful with the sun shining on its roof, but if we were to go closer I’ll wager we would find it in ruins. My old home is like that, but we will do what we can to bring it back to life, you and I.’ When she did not reply, he went on, ‘It is especially beautiful in the autumn when the trees around it are changing colour and the vines have withered and all that’s left on them are the big purple grapes of the late harvest, so full of juice, it makes you feel thirsty to look at them. They make the best wine of all, did you know that?’

  She shook her head. Her sobs had subsided but she could not bring herself to look up into his eyes for fear of another outburst. Why was he so kind and gentle with her? Why, if he were a murderer and knew that she knew it, did he carry on as if conducting her on an afternoon’s ride through the park?

  ‘I’ll teach you about wine,’ he said. ‘I’ll show you how they tread the grapes, how they store the vats underground in huge vaults. I’ll take you to the cellars where the monks make a local liqueur, which is smooth as silk and tastes of heaven.’ He bent to kiss her without passion. ‘Just as your lips give me a taste of heaven.’

  ‘Oh, Adam, I don’t know what to think any more...’ Maryanne sighed.

  ‘Then don’t think. Trust me now and time will do the rest.’

  If only they could be sure of being allowed that time. Would they both end on the gallows, unable to prove their innocence? Dared she allow
herself to hope? He had said he loved her; she had to believe that, or what was the point of going on?

  ‘You need to rest,’ he said firmly. ‘Looking after an invalid can be very tiring, especially when he is as contrary as I am, but I am on the mend and feeling stronger by the minute, so close your eyes, my lovely Maryanne, and I will watch over you.’

  Exhausted, she lay back against the cushioned seat and shut her eyes. What was the good of fighting? She was lost before she had even started. His voice continued to murmur endearments in her ear, like a softly sung lullaby, and, in spite of the jolting, she was soon asleep.

  She awoke briefly when they stopped to change the horses, but soon drifted off again, unaware that his shoulder was giving him so much pain that he was having to fight to remain conscious. How long he could keep going he did not know, but they were still too near Calais to relax. When darkness came and with it the need to stop for the night, he forced himself to walk into the inn they had chosen, as if his wound were no more than a minor irritation. The place was, like everything else, run-down and dirty, but his request for separate rooms was accepted without question when he explained that he was likely to be very restive and would disturb his wife.

  Maryanne had stopped thinking for herself, because to do so was painful, and even knowing that she was living in a fool’s paradise and sooner or later she would have to face reality did not rouse her from her lethargy. It was almost as if she had been drugged, drugged with soft words and a soothing voice. Tomorrow would be soon enough to have it all out with him: the possession of the documents, the implication that she knew too much to be left behind, all the doubts and suspicions, once and for all. Tomorrow, she would insist on being told exactly what had happened at Castle Cedars on the night James died and why he had accused Mark. Tomorrow, not tonight.

  But the next day she could not speak to him on the subject because he was so obviously worse. When he appeared at the breakfast table, his face was grey with pain and there was fresh blood on his shirt. She was allowed to renew the dressing on his shoulder, but that was all; her arguments that they should stay at the inn and rest until he recovered were swept aside with bad-tempered intransigence. ‘We go on,’ he said. ‘Don’t fuss, woman.’