Almost a Bride

by Jane Feather

  She knew the man he had shown her, the rake and the gambler, the man who could drive another to his ruin; she knew the sophisticated member of the world of fashion, the friend of the Prince of Wales; she knew his politics, knew that he took more than a passing interest in England’s government; she knew that all dogs without exception fawned upon him.

  But this man she had only heard about. She had not met him in person before. The man who smuggled refugees out of a revolution-torn country, who put his life on the line with appalling regularity. The man in his shirtsleeves, the neck open, eating with his elbows on the table, forking meat into his mouth as he talked with this motley crew who were both friends and colleagues in a shared enterprise. And yet, she thought, leaning back a little the better to see his profile, this aspect of her husband was probably the essential aspect—all the rest was a veneer, a thick one certainly, but a mask nevertheless. And this man was the one who could drive a man to ruin and death for vengeance’s sake.

  “You must be tired,” Jack said suddenly, turning to look at her. “Have you eaten enough?”

  “Plenty,” she said.

  “Then let us find you a bed.”

  “Not yet.” She took up her wine cup. “We have to plan for tomorrow and there’s much I need to know.” She looked towards the woman who had admitted her to the house. It seemed obvious that this was Therese’s house, and that she was one of the leaders of the group.

  Therese leaned her forearms on the table and said, “You will dress as a market woman, carry a basket of fresh loaves. There are jailers with money. They’ll buy from you, and if you ask in the right way, they’ll let you into the women’s quarters to see if you can sell the rest of your wares.”

  Arabella nodded, contemplating the right way. This was presumably where the little pinch came in. “What if they buy it all and I have none to take into the prison?”

  “There will be another layer of rolls under a cloth. You tell them it’s yesterday’s. They won’t want it, but if you play it right, they’ll let you in to see if you can get rid of it to the less discriminating.” Her voice had a bitter edge to it and Arabella understood her to mean those who were starving.

  Jack set down his wine cup. “I haven’t agreed to this yet,” he stated.

  “Then go apart with your wife and discuss it,” Therese said. “There’s a bed in the apple loft . . . it’ll give you some privacy.” There was a murmur of agreement and Jack swung his leg over the bench and stood up.

  “Come,” he said.

  Arabella swiveled over the bench and stood up. “Thank you for supper,” she said. “It was delicious.”

  “Our pleasure,” her hostess responded. “If you need anything, Jack, you know where to find it.”

  He gave her a short nod, then directed his wife with a hand in the small of her back towards the rear of the kitchen. He scooped up their bags and gestured towards a ladder in a pantry just off the kitchen. Arabella climbed up and emerged into a moon-washed loft that smelled of apples and hay. Jack followed her and leaned down to reposition the ladder so that it didn’t protrude through the floor, then he dropped a trapdoor over the opening.

  This was privacy, Arabella thought, looking around. There was a straw mattress with a piece of rough ticking over it, and a few wrinkled apples on a rack. Apart from some empty barrels in the far corner, that was all she could see. “If we’re to be up here until morning, I need to visit the privy,” she said.

  “There’s a chamber pot behind the barrels.” He bent over his valise, rifling through its contents while she took care of her needs. He was in his stockinged feet, his shirt unbuttoned to the waist, when she emerged from the seclusion of the barrels. He said without preamble, “I don’t want you to do this.”

  “No, so you’ve said.” She stood at the low window looking out over the roofs and chimney pots of the city. “But I want to do it. And I don’t see any alternative, do you?”

  He was silent for a minute, then he came up behind her, sliding his arms around her, drawing her back against him. He bent his head to kiss the nape of her neck. She turned slowly in his arms, running her hand down his bare chest, pressing her lips to his nipples, inhaling the earthy scent of his skin, the mingled smells of horseflesh and leather and sweat. So different from his customary crisp, clean fragrance of laundered linen and dried lavender. Her fingers fumbled with the fastening at the waist of her riding skirt. There was a sudden desperate urgency in the small bare room, a shared need that required no words. Her skirt rustled to the floor and she kicked it roughly aside.

  Jack unfastened his britches with one hand while the other pushed up beneath her now grimy petticoat to stroke over her hips, her thighs, to caress the curve of her belly. Their breath came quick as they stood together in the moonlit window. She pushed his britches down to his knees, grasped the taut muscular backside, stroked his penis between thumb and forefinger, moved herself against him in insistent demand.

  He took her waist and lifted her onto the narrow sill as she curled her legs around him, offering her opened body to the thrust of his penis. Her mouth covered his as if she would devour him, her tongue driving within as he drove deep into her body. He held her hips, supporting her as she moved against him, matching his rhythm that grew faster, deeper as her climax neared, a tightening coil in her belly. She heard her voice murmuring words she didn’t understand. She bit his lip, tasting his blood as the coil, tightened beyond bearing, sprang apart and she cried out against the stifling hand that he pressed against her mouth as his own climax throbbed against her womb.

  He let her slide down his body as he slipped out of her, his hands still clasping her bottom, pressing her against him belly to belly. He kissed her again.

  “No,” he said slowly, reluctantly, as if the last passion-filled minutes had not interrupted their earlier conversation. “I don’t see any alternative.”

  Arabella smiled with just a hint of triumph. “I am your match, my lord duke. In all things.”

  He laughed a little, although his eyes were still grave. “I don’t dispute it, my dear. I never have.”

  Chapter 22

  Arabella and Jack stood on the street corner, looking at the great gates to the prison of Le Chatelet. The gates stood open and people passed freely into the courtyard. Soldiers, gendarmes, vendors. The sounds of haggling and ribald laughter were on the air.

  Arabella glanced at her companion. If she hadn’t watched him dress that morning she would never have recognized her husband in this disreputable-looking character in filthy knee britches and torn shirt, a ragged kerchief around his neck, his black hair hanging loose and lank in greasy locks around his unshaven face. A filthy cap sat low on his forehead but beneath it she knew that the telltale white streak was gone, dyed as black as the rest of his hair. His front teeth were mostly blackened stumps.

  She looked down at her own ragged red petticoat, bare legs, and wooden clogs, reflecting that she made an ideal companion for the ruffian beside her. Her blouse had once been white with lace edging at the low neck. Now it was gray, the lace torn, but it exposed the same amount of her bosom as in its heyday, and the ragged equally grimy fichu did little to hide the mounded flesh. Her hair was pinned into a straggly knot on top of her head, covered by a mobcap that had also seen better days.

  A wide straw basket was slung around her neck on a long leather strap and bounced against her hip. It was filled with fresh-baked bread, brioche, and rolls whose baking fragrance had filled the apple loft from before dawn. Beneath a gray cloth was another layer, equally fresh, for distribution among the prisoners. There were two stale rolls that she would produce if the jailers demanded proof that the lower layer was inedible to all but the desperate.

  For an instant she thought of her London image, the exquisite care that Jack had taken to transform her country self into a leader of the world of fashion, the perfect consort to his own immaculate appearance. The contrast was so absurd she could have laughed if she wasn’t terrified out of
her wits.

  “Are you sure?” Jack asked quietly.

  “Positive,” she said, and moved away from him towards the prison gates. As she felt his presence recede with her every forward step, her sense of vulnerability increased and her heart was beating so hard and fast she thought she would be sick. But she kept walking, merging with a knot of other vendors, allowing herself to be carried in their midst through the gates and into the courtyard. The prison walls rose on three sides, tiny barred windows, mere specks in the forbidding gray stone. The courtyard was busy, even cheerful. Men were throwing dice, playing cards, women indistinguishable in dress from herself were selling wares from straw baskets. A donkey with heavily laden panniers stood patiently in the center of the courtyard, head lowered against the beating sun, while his driver haggled with a group of gendarmes over the copper-bottomed pans and skillets that filled the panniers.

  Arabella paused and took stock. Her heart had slowed a little now that she was through the gates and in the midst of what seemed a very ordinary scene, if it weren’t for the grim backdrop. She selected a group of gendarmes sitting in the shade by a closed door in the left-hand wall of the prison and made her way over to them, tossing her head in a little coquettish gesture as she reached them and dropped a curtsy.

  “I’ve fresh bread, citoyens—a sou for a loaf, two sou for brioche,” she said, lifting the napkin to reveal her loaves. “Straight out of the oven they are.”

  “You’re a tasty bit yourself, citoyenne,” one of the men said, beckoning her closer with the stem of a foul-smelling pipe. “Let’s take a look in there.”

  Showing him her basket meant bending low towards him, revealing her breasts almost to the nipples. Unflinching she did so, smiling with what she hoped had a hint of seductive invitation. This was a woman not much better than she ought to be, ready enough for a little slap and tickle.

  The gendarme prodded a loaf, then leered at her breasts. “Nice plump pair there,” he said with a grin at his companions. “Let’s see how fresh they are.” He thrust a filthy hand down her blouse, his fingers rough against her skin as he felt for her nipples.

  She jumped back with a cry of mock outrage. “Indeed, citoyen, that’s no way to treat a respectable married woman.”

  “Is that what you are?” demanded one of the others, who sported a thick red beard. “Come ’ere, then. Let’s get a closer look at that there bread of yours.”

  Once again she went through the humiliating little ritual. The men exchanged ribald jokes and intensely personal comments that fortunately required no complicated verbal response, so she bridled, and smiled, and murmured form protests that only made them laugh.

  “Well, let’s ’ave a couple of them rolls, then,” red beard said finally. He winked at his fellows. “Got a good piece of sausage here to go with ’em.”

  This comment drew raucous laughter and Arabella decided she’d had enough. She grabbed rolls from the basket. “One sou for two, citoyen.”

  He handed the small coin over and she turned cajolingly to the others. “It doesn’t come any fresher than this, citoyens.”

  “Oh, aye,” one of them said with a leer, revealing a mouth empty of all but one front tooth. “Bet you’re not such a fresh piece anymore, eh, citoyenne?”

  “One loaf, one sou,” she said, handing him a baguette.

  Game over, the others bought from her basket, joined by some of their fellow gendarmes, and when only crumbs remained she said, “I’ve yesterday’s here too. Any chance I could get rid of it yonder?” She gestured with her head towards the door to the prison behind them.

  “There’s some’ll be glad of it,” said the gendarme with the single tooth. He shrugged. “Don’t see no ’arm in it. Just the women’s jail, mind . . . and be careful they don’t eat you alive.” He cackled and blew his nose vigorously between finger and thumb.

  “It’ll cost you,” the first man said, getting to his feet. “A kiss first, citoyenne.”

  His breath stank of stale wine, garlic, and tobacco, and his mouth was wet as he grabbed her buttocks and pressed his lips to hers. She held her breath and endured. Finally he let her go. “This way.” He jerked his head towards a door in the opposite wall, and she followed him across the crowded courtyard.

  He spoke to the two gendarmes who stood leaning against the wall on either side of the door, one of them picking his teeth, the other reflectively scratching through his beard in search of lice. They nodded. One of them spat on the cobbles at his feet and unlocked the door with the great key that hung from his belt. He waved Arabella inside.

  The door clanged shut behind her. She heard the grating of the key in the lock and thought she would pass out. How would she get out of this place? No one had said. What if they all left and she was abandoned in here? Why would they care? One more woman prisoner more or less left to rot would make no difference. Then she told herself that as far as the gendarmes were concerned she was one of them. A hardworking citoyenne who wasn’t averse to a little ribaldry.

  She stood still and took stock. It was gloomy, hot, and airless but slowly she began to make out shapes, huddled shapes against the walls, lying on the floor. A low murmur almost like the subdued buzzing from a beehive filled the air. The only light was thrown from two pitch torches on the far wall, and when she took a step forward the wooden soles of her clogs stuck to the unspeakable mire that was the floor. An infant wailed and a child cried.

  Some of the shapes began to move towards her. Women. Ragged, thin, straggle-haired women, some with babies, all with haunted, hungry eyes.

  “I have bread,” she said. Hands were outstretched and the buzz became a clamor as women stumbled across the floor. She looked helplessly into her basket. There was barely enough to feed a small family let alone this throng of starved and desperate women and children.

  She put the basket on the floor, unable to bear the idea of handing it out, of picking and choosing. Her eyes were now accustomed to the gloom and she could make out the features of the women as they fell upon the basket. She stepped back a little and looked around. Prisoners still lay on pallets on the floor or huddled against the walls, and she guessed they were too weak to make the effort even for bread. She set off around the walls, sidling rather than walking, pausing at each bundle of rags, bending down to ask the same soft question. “Charlotte?” She met only blank stares from white or fever-hectic faces.

  She persevered along one wall, then turned to the wall beneath the sconces. She stopped; her breath stopped in her chest. A woman lay asleep on a pallet. A woman with a streak of silver-white running through her graying hair from a pointed widow’s peak.

  Arabella knelt beside the pallet and put her hand on the turned shoulder. The bone was sharp beneath her palm, heat emanating from the skin. Two red spots of fever burned on the woman’s cheeks and her breathing was labored.

  “Charlotte?” Arabella murmured, laying her hand now on the woman’s cheek. “Charlotte, is it you?”

  Paper-thin eyelids opened slowly to reveal deeply sunken eyes, but they were the same piercing gray as Jack’s. Purple bruises filled the hollows beneath. “Who wants me?” she said, in a voice that had more strength to it than her appearance would imply. “Who are you?” Suspicion lurked in her eyes, an alert watchfulness as she looked up at the woman leaning over her.

  “Jack’s wife,” Arabella whispered. “You are Charlotte?”

  “Jack?” She struggled up and Arabella supported her shoulders. “Jack is here?”

  “Outside. He thought you were dead.”

  The woman leaned back against Arabella’s arm. “I was . . . to all intents and purposes. I should have died, but somehow I didn’t.” She closed her eyes in a moment of exhaustion.

  “You must conserve your strength,” Arabella said urgently. “Please . . . sit back against the wall.”

  Charlotte did so, then she looked at Arabella with a clear, penetrating gaze. “Jack’s wife?”

  Arabella sat down on the filthy floor a
nd took the clawlike hand in both of hers. “My name is Arabella. Listen to me carefully, Charlotte.”

  Charlotte listened, not moving, not speaking, her eyes never leaving Arabella’s face. When the other woman fell silent she let her head fall back against the wall and closed her eyes again. “I have strange dreams,” she murmured. “This is not one of them.”

  “No. I’m truly here.” She took the other’s woman hand and held it up to her face. “Feel, Charlotte. I’m no figment, no chimera. I am Jack’s wife and we are going to get you out of here very, very soon.”

  Charlotte stroked Arabella’s cheek then let her hand drop to her lap. “I am ill,” she said with a sigh. “What’s left of my life is not worth putting anyone else’s in danger.”

  “Can you imagine what your brother would say if he heard you say that?” Arabella demanded, taking the woman’s hands again tightly in her own. “Charlotte, he’s on the rack. He was told you had been murdered in La Force and he can’t forgive himself for believing it.”

  “It would have been better if I had died there,” Charlotte said.

  “No,” Arabella declared. “You have to be strong for just a little while longer. And when you’re outside, in the fresh air, in the sunlight, with good food, and birdsong, and the scent of flowers, you will get well.”

  A flickering smile touched Charlotte’s bloodless lips, before her eyes closed again. “I own I would give my last breath to feel the sun on my face.”

  “You shall feel it,” Arabella said strongly. “Believe me . . . trust Jack.”

  “I would trust my brother with my life,” Charlotte said softly. The smile flickered again as she looked at her visitor. “I always wondered what kind of woman would be strong enough for Jack. Do you love him?”