The English Heiress

by Roberta Gellis

  “That was not what I meant at all,” Roger snapped, striding forward and then stopping abruptly when he realized he had intended to take her in his arms.

  He cleared his throat, telling himself sternly that the girl was not beautiful, that every one of his mistresses had been far prettier. Leonie’s skin, not pale by nature, had been bleached to sallowness by long incarceration. Her face was pinched by semistarvation so that the features were too large for it—a wide, mobile mouth, a straight, strong nose, and big eyes of a color that would have been hazel except that they lacked any touch of green. The hair was magnificent. Even Roger’s attempt to discipline his unruly emotions by looking for every fault could discover nothing to criticize in that honey-gold mane, just fluffing and curling after its recent washing. But it was not the hair that wrenched his heart and, even in these unromantic surroundings, sent a wave of warmth through his loins. There was something in the face, completely unrelated to its features, that made it surpassingly beautiful to him.

  “We had better see about that strong room,” Roger said abruptly. “I have the carriage cleared. As soon as you get the horse and I hitch it, we will be ready to leave.”

  Truthfully, Roger did not really believe there was anything in the strong room. He doubted it was a secret from the servants. Even if Henry had been careful in his use of it, previous owners may not have been equally cautious, and servants were often almost as hereditary as property itself. That is, servants often married other servants in the household and their children became servants in turn. Mostly, long-term servants were honest in large matters, although they might take a little food or candles or worn clothing for themselves or their families. Some were even devoted, especially those who had been with a family for many years. In such a case the strong room might have been emptied to “save” its contents for the master.

  Although Leonie handed Roger his coat and started for the library at once, she had as little confidence as he that her father’s dream would come true. She had little difficulty in finding the latch, but the door concealed behind the molding opened only an inch or two and then resisted. Roger stepped forward to apply greater pressure. He pushed sharply, then staggered back with an exclamation of disgust. Although he had not succeeded in opening the door all the way, the odor that hit him betrayed what he would find.

  “Go away, Leonie,” he said sharply, but the words were all but drowned in Fifi’s howl.

  “Hush!” Leonie ordered, but she was staring with dilated eyes at Roger. She backed a few steps, then stood again. “Someone is…was in there!” she whispered.

  “Yes,” Roger muttered, controlling his urge to retch with an effort.

  Doubtless there was some air vent into the room, but it could not have been large and the putrefaction of the corpse had been slowed. Thus, even after months, the stench was sickening.

  “Don’t—” Leonie began, but Roger cut her off with a gesture.

  “Go away,” he said again. “Go get the horse and bring it to the stables. I don’t think there’s anything in here, but I’d better look.”

  Leonie shuddered and fled. For her it was the end of any desire, present or future, to live in the château of her birth. The memories of her youth would become sweet when her immediate grief was past, but the château itself had become repulsive, a place of decay and blackened ruin, filled with a miasma of fear and death. All she wanted was to be away, to be rid of the place and the country, to begin anew.

  Roger thrust at the door grimly, breathing as little as possible. He did not enter far, just enough to see that the money boxes were broken open. He was backing out when his eyes fell on several packets of paper bound in tapes. They might be nothing, but they might hold Leonie’s claim to these lands—if France ever returned to quiet again. With clenched jaws he entered, scooped up the papers and turned to go. What he saw made him gag and then bring up the remains of the apples in his stomach. He had disarranged the body in moving the door. Nonetheless, it was clear that the man had not been killed. He had been locked in alive, to claw the door—from which the latch had been deliberately broken—and scream for help and die of thirst and starvation.

  Terrified, Roger leaped for the half-open door. Outside he leaned against the wall, shaking, trying to rid himself of the vision of being accidentally shut in to die. A sharp bark broke him free of horror, and he bent to scoop Fifi into his arms and bury his face in her fur. He was a fool. Leonie would have known where he was. Obviously she had sent the little dog to get him. Still, it was with an enormous sense of relief that he set down Fifi, who had been licking his face ecstatically, threw the papers he was carrying into his traveling bag, and went out toward the stable where Leonie waited. His spirits were rising again. The worst was over. All they had to do now was get out of France.

  Chapter Ten

  The next day, when Roger had a chance to count what money he had left, getting out of France did not seem quite so simple. They had traveled long after the light faded, stopping only at midnight where two cart tracks met outside of Semur-en-Auxois. In Roger’s opinion they were still far too close to Saulieu, but they could not make good time on the country tracks they had traveled in the dark. This fact, plus Roger’s realization that such behavior was far more suspicious than traveling openly by day, decided him. They drew behind a hedge and made a camp of sorts. That would be innocent enough. They would claim to be strangers to the area and, as such, could not be expected to know that there was a town a few kilometers farther on.

  Wrapped in Roger’s cloak and leaning comfortably against a wheel of the carriage, Leonie smiled happily. “Then we are to become respectable? Ah, what a disappointment. I had thought we would pretend to be tinkers.” She looked up at the star-spangled sky. “It is very pleasant, this camping out.”

  Roger laughed. “Yes, when the weather is warm and dry, but I fear it won’t hold much longer.” He had some experience of cold, wet nights huddled against a pony’s side waiting for word from Pierre. “It is also very pleasant to sleep in a bed, and I, to speak the truth, will find it a welcome change.”

  “A bed? What’s that?” Leonie teased.

  Once again Roger was amazed at her lightheartedness, her ability to accept physical privation. The cheerfulness was infinitely touching. It made him all the more determined that she should suffer no more.

  “Tomorrow night you will sleep in a bed,” he said, “even if I must shoot an innkeeper to obtain one for you.”

  “I was only joking.” Leonie was rather startled by the intensity of Roger’s response. “I really don’t care where I sleep—and I’m afraid you will have to shoot an innkeeper before he will let me in.”

  Although the tone was still light, Roger could see that Leonie had sensed his suppressed violence and was troubled. “Probably,” he replied, smiling at her and making sure his voice was easy, “but I think it would be easier and cause less disturbance if I got you some decent clothes instead.”

  For a long moment Leonie was silent, struggling with herself. She had not believed that the desire to be cleanly and becomingly clothed could be so strong. Over the bitter months in prison, she had learned what was truly essential, and certainly pretty dresses were not. Still, she had to bite her lips to keep herself from crying out, “Oh, yes!”

  “Money,” she forced herself to say calmly. “You told me you had not enough money. Should you—should you waste what you have on clothing for me?”

  “It will be no waste,” Roger assured her. “It is the only way we can travel safely. If word is sent out from Saulieu that you and your father have escaped, we must not match the description in any way. Now I do not look anything like your father, but you are blonde, and that is not common. However, if you are dressed as a respectable tradesman’s daughter, with your hair covered by a local headdress, I don’t believe anyone would look at us twice.”

  “Tradesman’s daughter!” Leonie exclaimed. “They will look at you several times more than twice i
f you are planning to claim to be my father.”

  “Well, we don’t look much alike,” Roger agreed, “but it is sometimes so. I don’t look anything like my father—”

  “Don’t be so silly.” Leonie giggled. “I’m not talking about looks. When would you have sired me? At ten?”

  “I am more than ten years older than you,” Roger said stiffly.

  “But not nearly old enough to have sired me respectably,” Leonie pointed out, laughing harder. “It may have happened,” she continued merrily, ignoring Roger’s affronted expression, “but only if you married my mother under the gun. Respectable tradesmen do not marry in their early teens.”

  Unable to help himself, Roger burst out laughing too. “You are shocking me,” he protested, and it was half true. The younger daughters of his friends and relatives either truly did not know, or more likely, pretended not to know where newborn humans came from.

  “Am I?” Leonie asked uncertainly. “I’m sorry. I will watch my tongue more carefully, but Papa and Mama—”

  “No, of course not,” Roger responded hastily, and then corrected himself. “I mean, you are not shocking me, but you will have to be careful what you say.” He grinned at her. “ Respectable tradespeople do not have the loose manners of the decadent aristocracy, you know.”

  Leonie smiled back, but her eyes remained serious. “It would not do, jesting aside, to try to pass me as your daughter. I do not look young or act young.”

  For a moment Roger was shocked silent. The simple statement was true. Leonie’s eyes had seen too much for youth, and the pinching of hunger had added ten years to her face, but it also explained Roger’s own reaction to her. Part of the distaste he felt for his desire was the thought of craving congress with a child. He was innocent of that, he now realized. However young Leonie was in years, she looked and acted like a woman, not a girl.

  “My sister, then,” he agreed.

  “No.” Leonie’s instant negative was instinctive and forceful, out before she really had a reason for it.

  “Now what’s wrong with that?” Roger asked, beginning to feel a little annoyed.

  By the time he had finished his question, Leonie understood why she had protested so vigorously. She did not want Roger to think of her as a sister, not for a moment. Such a thought can take hold in a man’s mind and make any other kind of relationship abhorrent. It was clear enough that Roger did not presently feel either brotherly or fatherly—Leonie had a clear memory of what had happened to him in the tunnel—and she wanted to keep it that way. However, she could not give Roger such a reason.

  “It will mean two chambers, and if you are going to buy clothes for me—which I admit I want very, very much… Oh, Roger, I can bear wearing these filthy rags if I must, but if I have a choice between decent clothes and sleeping in a field, I would gladly sleep in the field. Have you money enough to pay for two rooms as well as for clothes?”

  “Probably not,” Roger admitted slowly. “Perhaps I could sell a gun…”

  But he did not want to do that. It would mean seeking a buyer, drawing attention to the fact that he had a store of weapons, drawing attention also to himself and Leonie by making inquiries. What news Roger had heard before the riot had implied a deepening of the chaos in France.

  “No,” Leonie protested again, thinking along the same lines. “It is bad enough that you will have to buy clothes for me. A man buying women’s clothing will be remembered. To sell something also will mark us too much.”

  “Then what the devil am I to do? I’d—”

  “Just say I am your wife.” Leonie could see objections rising to Roger’s tongue and hurried on before he could make them. “Please. It is not only the money, Roger. Even if you have money enough, I would prefer that you said I was your wife. I—I am afraid to be apart from you. If I should somehow give myself away and be suspected as an escaping aristocrat, I do not want to be alone in a room where I might be seized before you could come to help me.”

  “Good God!” Roger exclaimed, “I never thought of that at all. You’re right. How could I be so stupid? Of course I’ll say you are my wife, and you must talk as little as possible so that your lack of patois will not betray you.”

  Leonie’s lowered eyes did not betray the satisfaction she felt. She had not really been untruthful, only exaggerated a little what was a vague anxiety. Thus she had successfully diverted Roger’s mind from what he felt to be an impropriety to what he felt was a real danger. Leave it alone now, she told herself. Let it seem like his own decision. However, she was at a loss for a new topic that would be related but not belabor the point. Fortunately, Roger solved that problem by pulling out his purse and a second, folded leather wallet in which he had assignats. He laid those aside, saying to Leonie that he dared not try to cash those in a small town because the denominations were too high.

  “They use them all the time in Paris,” Leonie remarked.

  “But we are not going to Paris. My friend Pierre, who will take us to England, lives in Brittany. We must…”

  Roger’s voice faded as he looked from the few coins in his purse to the assignats. It would not be out of their way to go through Paris. On the other hand it might be very dangerous. Would it be less dangerous to set up as a gunsmith somewhere to make some money? Leonie, meanwhile, had also been thinking about Paris. She had seen dreadful things there, but they had not touched her and she had no specific fear of the city. Suddenly she recalled that her father had brought them all to Lord Gower’s house for protection once when the quarter in which they were living was threatened with disruption.

  But you are English,” she exclaimed. “Couldn’t you get help from Lord Gower? Would he not at least—” A burst of laughter cut her off, and Leonie shrugged. “Is that so silly?” she asked, chagrined.

  “I am silly, not you,” Roger replied, chuckling. “Of all the classical asses, I am the stupidest and stubbornest. You have the right answer. The only reason I did not see it is that my mind was fixed into a rut. I came with Pierre, so I was going back with Pierre. But that is utter nonsense! Lord Gower will see us safe on a ship to England without the slightest difficulty. Well, now that puts a different light on things altogether. There is money enough to get to Paris. We may not travel in luxury, but there will be comfort.”

  There was also enough for an extra comb and brush, two dresses, a shawl and underthings. Roger chose one dress, the shawl, and the huge mobcap under which Leonie could stuff her hair, purchasing each item in a different shop as a “present” for his wife. In another town, Leonie purchased the other items, pretending shyness and stupidity so that she could point and mutter single words to hide her aristocratic accent. They heard along the way that the war was going badly. The Prussian troops had crossed the border on August nineteenth and Longwy had been bombarded and had fallen on the twenty-third. Now Verdun was under serious attack. This news suited Roger quite well. They would pretend to be refugees from the war zone if there was any question raised when they tried to enter Paris.

  What with the time taken for purchasing Leonie’s new clothes in enough different places not to rouse suspicion, they did not get very far that first day. It was growing dark, and Roger was thinking of seeking shelter in a farmhouse when they were told by a traveler going in the opposite direction that the town of Tonnerre was not far ahead. The town was smaller than Saulieu, but large enough for an inn where they had no trouble obtaining a room.

  Partly because he had gone a little overboard on providing for Leonie—it was impossible for Roger not to urge her to buy “just one more” when he saw the pathetic delight with which she greeted the coarse and common dress and shawl he had found—and partly to keep in character as a small tradesman whose livelihood had been swallowed up by war, Roger asked for a “cheap” room. It was, to his relief, commendably clean, but it was very tiny. Roger had been thinking in terms of the rooms in which he had stayed before when he agreed to the husband-and-wife arrangement. Th
ose rooms had had a comfortable chair or a padded bench on which he expected to sleep. This had nothing besides the bed and a rickety stand for the pitcher and washing basin.

  Inwardly Roger groaned, but he resigned himself to another night on the floor. They fed Fifi and left her with their bags, after which they went down and had a good meal—the second that day, for they had stopped at a hamlet and obtained large bowls of thick onion soup and loaves of fresh bread around midday. Roger could not help noticing how lovely Leonie looked. The new dress might be of coarse material, but Roger had an eye for color and had chosen a soft, clear blue that brought out the gold light of her eyes. He also was a most excellent judge of size. Wives buy their own clothing, but whores and even kept women, tend to put forth their best efforts when surprised by a gift of a pretty gown. Thus, Leonie’s new dress fit admirably. The sun and fresh air had given her a little color, and freedom from grief and anxiety had eased the lines of tension that had marked her face. Roger was uncomfortable already, thinking of the night in that cramped chamber, and Leonie was innocently making things worse. According to their plan, she pretended to be shy, sitting as close as possible beside him and ducking her head to his shoulder when spoken to.

  Good food and reduced fatigue added to the problem. Recovery from the stress he had endured stimulated Roger. Physically he felt fine—too fine. At last he suggested that they go upstairs. His original intention had been to leave Leonie there and come down to the taproom again, but in the empty corridor he remembered her plea not to be left alone. Although he was nearly certain no one was in the least suspicious of them, he did not think his assumption would be of much comfort to Leonie. He could not even say that he would hear Fifi barking an alarm, for it was very noisy in the taproom. There was nothing he could do but stay.

  As soon as the door closed, Leonie flung off her cap and shook down her hair. “Thank heaven you came up. If I had to act the shrinking violet for another minute, I would have done something desperate. It does not suit me at all.” It was too much like the part she had played for Louis and Leonie was through with that.