'Twelve more days to wait,' Roger sighed. 'I can hardly bear it. But you are right. For Mary's sake we must not rush our fences; and now, at last, I'll not be tempted to leave England ever again.'
Entering a big, domed glass house, they walked to the far end. Inside were growing palms, orchids and tropical creepers with great leaves that would prevent anyone passing outside from seeing them. He took her in his arms and pressed her to him. After several long, sweet kisses she suddenly broke away from him and exclaimed breathlessly :
'No, Roger, no! Lud, how I long for you! But desist, I beg. I'll trust neither you nor myself if you go further. Take me out of here.'
As they left the hothouse, both of them were trembling, and he said, 'To be with you again after all these months, yet unable to possess you will drive me crazy. So I'll make some excuse to take Mary home on Monday, instead of Tuesday as we planned.'
She nodded. 'Yes, that would be best, for I feel the same.'
Back at Richmond he resumed with Mary the pleasant life they had been leading before their visit to Stillwaters. The following Sunday he mentioned casually that he would be from home on the coming Wednesday night, to attend a gathering at a club of which he had long been a member, and where he would again meet old friends he had not seen since his return.
Having never before moved in London society, Mary was unaware that such men's drinking clubs were a feature of it; so when he was about to mount his horse on the Wednesday afternoon, her kiss was a little cold as she wished him a merry evening.
Having stabled his horse at Amesbury House and spent a pleasant hour with Droopy Ned, Roger took a coach out to Georgina's villa-studio which stood on the rise north of Kensington village. Her new maid, Jane, proved to be a buxom wench with a merry smile and red-gold hair.
An adept at making himself agreeable to servants, when she opened the door to him he said with a laugh, 'M'dear, your hair is the same colour as my money.' Taking a guinea from his breeches pocket, he held it up against her nearest ringlet, then pressed it into her palm and kissed her lightly on her rosy cheek. Blushing with pleasure, she ushered him into her mistress.
Georgina, as ravishing as ever, her black curls tied back with a broad red ribbon and clad only in a silk chamber robe, was reclining on a sofa. Jane had barely left the room before Roger was kneeling beside her, smothering her face with kisses, inhaling the special, delicious scent she used only for their secret meetings, and with eager hands exploring for the thousandth time the hidden glories of her lovely person.
As they had so often done before, when Roger had changed into a chamber robe she kept there for him, they feasted off pate, lobsters, glazed duck garnished with red cherries, and nectarines, washed these good things down with goblets of champagne, teased each other, recalled old times and laughed until they cried. Then, at length, he picked her up and carried her into the next room, where Jane had already turned down for them the black silk sheets of the big bed.
Alternately they made ecstatic love and dozed, embraced, until the morning. At eleven o'clock Georgina rang for Jane, who brought them a freshly opened bottle of champagne and iced melon. After they had breakfasted, Roger reluctantly began to dress. As he tied his cravat before the mirror, he said:
'What would I not give to be able to spend the day and yet another night here, as I have oft done in the past.'
Georgina yawned, then replied with a smile, 'Yes, to be out of the world together for two or three days at a stretch was truly heaven; but, until Mary has become more used to your absenting yourself, we must make do with single nights.'
'That's a sound reason why we should not too long delay our next.'
'I think we should restrain our impatience for ten days at least.'
Turning, he shook his head, 'Nay, sweet. 'Tis already July 15th. Come the end of the month the season will be over. In August London will be as empty as a drum, providing no possible excuse for you to come up from Newmarket. Before the calendar imposes on us eight weeks or more of abstinence, we must indulge ourselves again at least twice.'
'To start with, weekly meetings were more than I intended. Yet, with the desolate weeks at Newmarket to be faced, I've not the strength of will to refuse you. Having but recently returned after so long an absence, Mary should not regard it as unreasonable if you wish to attend the last two meetings of this club you've told her of before everyone leaves town.'
Thus the matter was agreed, and on the evening of Wednesday, the 21st, Roger was again admitted by pretty Jane to his earthly paradise.
During the past week, memories of the previous Wednesday night had been so frequently in his mind that, if possible, he was more eager than ever to have Georgina in his arms, and she received him with equal fervour.
Again they feasted, laughed, loved and drank the night away until, as daylight was showing between the chinks of the curtains, satiated, blissfully happy and without a care in the world, they fell asleep.
It was about an hour later when Roger was roused by Georgina crying out in her sleep. 'O God! No! No! No!'
To wake her from her nightmare, he put a hand on her shoulder and gently shook her. With a start she sat up, covered her face with her hands and sobbed through them in agonised tones, 'No, no! It can't be true! Oh, God, please don't let it be true.'
Roger threw his arm about her shoulders, drew her to him and asked anxiously, 'What is it, my sweet? Please! You'll be all right in a moment. You've only had a horrid dream.'
As she took her hands from her face, he saw that her great eyes were brimming with tears. She shook her head and the tears ran down her cheeks as she sobbed:
'It was Charles. He was riding through a wood with half a dozen other mounted men. Suddenly they were fired upon. They had run into an ambush. Charles and his men broke into a gallop. One of them was hit and fell from his horse. The others got away—except for Charles. His horse was shot under him. A score of French soldiers
ran out of the wood. Charles had scrambled to his knees. They seized him and hauled him to his feet. He .. he's been taken prisoner.'
Frowning, Roger strove to comfort her. 'Beloved, it was only a dream. Nothing but a dream. You've been worrying about him too much.'
Swallowing hard, she said hoarsely, 'Yes, a dream; but a true dream. It was in colour. Oh, what will happen to my darling boy?'
Roger knew of old the psychic powers Georgina had inherited from her gipsy mother, so he feared she was right and did not argue with her. Instead he said:
'There are worse things than being captured. At least for a few months, until it can be arranged for him to be exchanged for a French officer of equivalent rank, he'll be in no danger of being killed or wounded. And as an officer he will receive decent treatment.'
'Perhaps. I can only pray that it will be so. But by some accounts the French have become savages. I must find out. I must find out what the future holds for him.'
As she spoke, Georgina scrambled out of bed, went to a bureau, took her crystal from a drawer in it, put it on a small table nearby and, sitting down, riveted her gaze on the globe. For several minutes she was silent, then she murmured:
'I can see him. He looks well, except that there is a bandage round his hand. I see him again. This is much later, and he has grown a beard. I think he is in a castle. But not in a dungeon. There is plenty of light. He is with other officers, but their uniforms do not look like those of Englishmen. Some of them are playing cards. Charles is laughing. How strange that I should have a son old enough to grow a beard.'
As she sat at the table she was still naked. Now that
Roger could believe that Charles would be safe and well cared for, he allowed his mind to dwell on her beauty. She was sitting in profile to him, her dark ringlets falling to her shoulders and hiding her face, except for the corner of an eyebrow, thick, curling black lashes, well-modelled nose and one side of her very full, red-lipped mouth. As she leaned forward, her breasts rested on the edge of the table, an upturned
nipple protruded from the semi-circle of brown corona. Below the table, her powerful hips tapered to smoothly-rounded knees then, drawn back beneath them, perfect calves, slim ankles and arched feet.
She had remained silent for several moments. Suddenly she gave a gasp of horror, thrust the table violently from her so that the crystal rolled across the carpet, jerked herself erect, gave a piercing scream and fell in a dead faint on the floor.
Leaping out of bed, Roger seized her shoulders and cradled her head in his arms. Jane came running in, her mouth agape. Together they got Georgina back into bed. Roger sent Jane for brandy, and forced Georgina to swallow a little of the spirit. She began to moan, then opened her eyes and looked desperately about her.
'What did you see, my poor sweet?' Roger asked her frantically. 'Tell me! Tell me! What did you see?'
She groaned again. 'They . . . they're going to hang him. He ... he was standing beneath ... beneath a tree. It was in a long avenue. There were . . . French soldiers round him. They . . . Oh God! ... his hands were tied behind him and . .. and they were just about to put the noose of a rope round the neck of a comrade standing near him.'
Roger signed to Jane to leave them, then took both Georgina's hands and said firmly, 'Light of my life, I do not believe one word of this. The whole thing is a fantasy.'
'But I saw it! I saw it. And my crystal never lies to me. Remember how in the autumn of 1809 I saw you with a pastor in a cell for the condemned. We persuaded ourselves it was a glimpse of the past, when you were in Guildford gaol. But it was not. I was seeing you many months later, after you were tried for murder in Berlin.'
'True, but I was reprieved. And this vision of yours lacks all credulity. Charles is an officer, and officers condemned to death are shot. They are never hanged.'
'Roger, I saw it as clearly as I see you now. That avenue of tall trees and Charles standing among their fallen leaves with . . . with other prisoners who were already hanging from the branches of the trees.'
'It would then be in the autumn.'
'Yes, yes, it was autumn. 'Twas this morning he was captured. Of that I'm certain. But in a few months' time he ... he'll do something ... then ... oh, is there nothing we can do to save him ?'
As her big eyes, misty with tears, stared into Roger's, he knew what she was thinking. He knew, too, that she would not ask it of him; but there was something that could be done, and he was the only man in England who might be able to do it.
On the Continent, wherever France's writ ran, he was Colonel Comte de Breuc, a Commander of the Legion of Honour and an A.D.C. to the Emperor. He had for years formed one of Napoleon's intimate circle, and a single prisoner would mean nothing to a man whose prison camps held many, many thousands. He had only to go to the Emperor and ask for an order for Charles's release, and he had not the least doubt that it would be given him.
Through Roger's mind raced distressing thoughts of what such a commitment would entail. He had vowed never again to leave England until the war was over. His desperate craving to be done with risks and to lead a life of ease must go by the board. Once more he must face the chance that he would be found out to be an English secret agent. But that was not all. There was Mary. She had been settled into her new home barely a month. Must the man she loved so devotedly be snatched from her, and her happiness be turned for many weeks into miserable anxiety at the thought that she might have lost him for good?
It was not as though he could hope to accomplish such a mission in a fortnight by a swift crossing of the Channel and return. The Emperor was in Germany and Charles in Spain. To reach northern Germany, ride all the way across the Rhineland through France, find Charles, secure his release, then get home, could easily take two months.
But wait! Was it necessary to go to the Emperor? No. Roger knew King Joseph well, and Napoleon's eldest brother was a kindly man. It was men of his army who had captured Charles, and he could easily be persuaded to give an order for the boy's release. To go direct to Spain would save a month or more. And time was important, for any unforeseen delay in the much longer journey could mean not reaching Spain until the autumn, and perhaps too late.
Roger had as good as made up his mind that he must inflict a month or so of misery on poor little Mary when another thought struck him. If Georgina's vision had been a true one, no order for Charles's release could prevent his standing beneath a tree about to be hanged. In that case, any attempt to save him must prove, as near as made no odds, futile.
Again his thoughts raced furiously. Himself apart, Georgina loved her son more than anyone in the world. How could he possibly tell her that, unless the crystal had misled her, there was no hope for him ? Besides, while there is life, there is always hope. She had not seen Charles hanging, only about to be hanged. It might be that his captors were only threatening him with death as a means of wringing some information from him. That was a possibility as slender as a gossamer thread. On such a chance to shatter poor little Mary's happiness and resume the dangerous game that, with fantastic good fortune, he had survived for so long was, when regarded cooly, sheer madness.
But wait! Perhaps Georgina's vision had been sent her as a warning—a warning of a fate likely to overtake Charles unless some action was taken to prevent it. There had been many instances of people who had appeared to stand no hope whatever of escaping execution, yet had been saved from death by some quite unexpected intervention. All forecasts of future events were, Roger knew, no more than probable indications of the course fate would take. None were inevitable.
With sudden resolution he took Georgina's hands firmly in his and said:
'I will go to Spain and spare no effort in an attempt to save him.'
13
To Go, or not to Go
It was with a heavy heart that Roger rode home that afternoon, to face Mary and tell her of the scurvy trick fate had played them. Anxiously he wondered how she would take the news that he must leave her. Very badly, he was certain, and he was terribly distressed at the thought of the grief he must inflict on her.
He was also grimly conscious of his own misfortune. Gone was the future to which he had looked forward for so long: to leading the life of a well-to-do gentleman of leisure, mingling with high society at gay balls and routs, frequenting the most exclusive clubs and discussing there with the best informed men of the day the latest news from courts and camps, pleasant visits to Brighton and big country houses, sleeping always in comfortable beds, hearing Mary's merry laughter daily, having Susan and Droopy to stay and, as a priceless spice to life, from time to time renewing his youth by revelling in a hectic night with his beloved Georgina.
Instead, he was doomed, for a time at least, to a renewal of the hard and dangerous existence he had led for so long. He knew from bitter past experience how easy it was, once on the Continent as Colonel Comte de Breuc, to become involved in hazardous undertakings. They could lead to having to spend days on end in the saddle until he was half-dead from exhaustion, to sleeping wrapped in a cloak on the hard ground, to coming unexpectedly face to face with someone who knew him to be an Englishman and who might denounce him as a spy; or, once again, having to gallop through smoke and musket balls carrying orders from Napoleon during one of his battles and fearing every moment to be killed or maimed for life.
But Mary was his immediate worry. In vain he had racked his brain for a way to soften the blow, but there was no avoiding having to deliver it. However, on one aspect of the matter his mind was made up. In no circumstances must she be allowed to know that it was for Georgina's sake that he was leaving her. And, fortunately, he thought he had the means of preventing her suspecting that.
Following a procedure he had decided upon during his ride from London, when Mary ran out of the house to greet him as he crossed the garden from the stable yard, he gave her only a pale smile and kissed her in a slightly off-handed manner. When she asked him how he had enjoyed his dinner the previous night, he replied, 'Oh, well enough,' then said that afte
r freshening himself up he had some letters he must write.
Although he did not put pen to paper, he remained in his small library until the gong sounded for dinner, moodily contemplating the distressing task before him. Over the meal he appeared distrait and answered Mary's questions only very briefly. She waited until the parlourmaid had put the dessert on the table and left the room. Then she asked with deep concern:
'Roger, whatever ails you? I've never known you like this. Are you in some trouble ?'
Beginning to peel a peach, he replied, 'I am not, but someone very dear to me is and, alas, it entails great unhappiness for both of us.'
'For us? But why, and in what way?'
'Because, my dearest, I'll have to leave you for a while.'
Mary's mouth dropped open and she exclaimed, 'Leave me! Oh, no! You cannot mean it.'
‘I do. I hope not to be absent for more than a few weeks, but I have to go abroad again.'
'Abroad!' Mary gulped, then her eyes became angry. 'Roger! When we sailed from Sweden, you swore to me that you would never accept another mission. Yet you must have. And we've been living for scarce a month the life I've dreamed of. Oh, how could you? How could you?'
' 'Tis not a mission. I mean, this is no matter of going to the Continent again as a secret agent. It is a personal affair. Young Charles St. Ermins has been taken prisoner.'
Mary lowered her eyes. 'I am indeed sorry to hear that. But I do not see what you can do about it.'
'Joseph Bonaparte, as King of Spain, is the titular commander of the army there so it was his troops that captured Charles. I have known the King well for many years. I have no doubt whatever that I can obtain from him an order for Charles's release.'
Again Mary's glance was angry. 'As an officer he will be well treated, and in due course an exchange will be arranged for him. At best you could only spare him the inconvenience of a few additional weeks in captivity. And anyway, why should you go there on his account?'
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