72. The Impetuous Duchess

by Barbara Cartland

  “There is no time,” the Duke said briefly. “When the General is found, the whole countryside will be scoured for us. If we don’t get away tonight, Jabina, we can hardly escape being arrested on a charge of murder!”

  The Duke spoke very cautiously and Jabina shuddered.

  “I don’t want to frighten you,” he said more gently, “but we must not remain in France a minute longer than is necessary.”

  “No, of course not,” she answered.

  The Duke helped her down from the cart and, turning the horse around, set him off in the direction they had just come from.

  Then taking Jabina by the hand, he started to walk with her along the opposite side of the road from the river.

  “Would it not be better to follow the water?” she whispered.

  “That is exactly what they would expect a stranger to do,” the Duke replied.

  They had walked on for some way when suddenly the Duke pulled Jabina down beside a bush.

  He put his fingers to her lips as he did so and she realised that she must not speak.

  While they had been driving, the stars had come out and there was a pale moon creeping up the sky.

  It gave very little light but enough for Jabina, from where she was crouching, to see two soldiers silhouetted against the moonlight standing with their backs to them looking down onto the river.

  The Duke was very still.

  “We have to take a chance,” he whispered after a few moments. “Will you go up to the men and tell them that you have lost your dog? Try to persuade one of them to go in search of the animal, but keep the one who remains in conversation.”

  Jabina was still, but, although he could not see her face, the Duke knew that she was looking at him.

  “Be brave!” he said softly. “If there are any difficulties, I swear I will rescue you.”

  Because she knew he expected it of her, Jabina forced herself to obey him.

  She wanted to cling to him, to plead that she would not leave him, but then she knew he would despise her for being chicken-hearted.

  With an effort she straightened herself and stepped into the middle of the road whistling as she did so.

  “Fido! Fido!” she called and whistled again.

  She saw the two soldiers turn round sharply at the sound of her voice.

  Then one man, who she guessed must be the senior, stepped into the centre of the road and barred her way.

  He was about to speak, but Jabina forestalled him.

  “Oh, monsieur – help me! I am in such trouble!”

  She pushed back the hood of her cape as she spoke so that he could see her face in the moonlight.

  “What is it, m’mselle?” he enquired.

  “My employer sent me out with her dog for a walk,” Jabina said with a most convincing little sob, “and the dog has run away. She will be in such a rage if I cannot find him.”

  “What is he like?” the soldier asked.

  Now the other man, who had been watching with him, climbed up onto the road to stand beside him.

  “He is small and dark and very intelligent,” Jabina answered. “He always comes when I call him. Do you think someone has stolen him?”

  “Much more likely he’s inside a rabbit hole,” the man said. “Come on, Henri, you have a look round for him. Try whistling.”

  “I’ll do that,” the other soldier said. “In which direction did he go, m’mselle?”

  “I think he went up there,” Jabina said pointing her hand to the side of the road away from the river. “Please whistle very loud. I feel he will not have heard me, not if he was hunting.”

  “That’s more than likely,” the Corporal said. “Get going, Henri, you’ve a way with dogs.”

  The younger soldier started off whistling loudly as he went.

  Jabina looked up at the Corporal.

  “You are very kind,” she said. “It’s difficult to find employment these days and I don’t want to lose my job.”

  “I’m sure someone will give you another one,” the Corporal said in obvious tones of heavy gallantry.

  “It’s very difficult,” Jabina said. “The lady I am with now is very harsh and often unkind to me. But I have my old mother and three sisters to look after. My father and brother are both serving in the Army.”

  “Are they indeed?” the Corporal replied, “and what Regiment are they in?”

  Jabina told him the name of the Regiment that was on the Duke’s papers.

  “Ah! I know it well! A fine crowd, cut to pieces in Austria they were.”

  “You don’t think – my father and brother – may have been – killed?” Jabina asked. “We have not – heard from them for a long – time.”

  “No. They will be all right,” the Corporal said soothingly as if he was sorry he had worried her. “It’s just that war is war and life is often uncertain.”

  “It is indeed,” Jabina said, “and it must be hard for you having to be out here on duty in the cold night after night.”

  “We’ve to look out for spies and now they tells us there’re a lot of tourists trying to escape from France. Blasted English! The sooner they’re in prison the better. That’s what I says!”

  As the Corporal spoke something hit him hard on the back of the neck. His head jerked forward as he received another smashing blow from a stone that the Duke applied with such violence that it knocked him completely unconscious.

  As the Corporal tumbled to the ground, the Duke grabbed Jabina by the hand and ran with her down to the water’s edge.

  Then still running he dragged her along until just ahead of them she saw a bend in the river and beside it a shed.

  It was difficult to see exactly what was there except that there was a light inside the shed. Through an open door she could see men coming in and out carrying bundles on their shoulders.

  The Duke, still holding her by the hand, moved nearer and now at last Jabina could see men going down to the river where tied up to the bank she could vaguely discern the outline of a long boat.

  Nearer and nearer the Duke crept, keeping first in the shadow of some bushes and then some thick rushes that grew down to the water’s edge.

  “’ow much more for this end?” she heard a man say in English with a countryman’s broad accent.

  “Four more barrels after this lot should fill the stern,” another man answered. “Then we’ll start on the bow.”

  The Duke was motionless and Jabina hardly dared to breathe.

  Four men, each carrying a round barrel on his shoulders, piled them into the boat and then went back into the hut.

  There was the chatter of voices and, as the last man disappeared, the Duke pulled Jabina forward.

  Keeping well in the shadows of the rushes, he reached the end of the boat and, bending down, threw three barrels into the water.

  He lifted Jabina into the hole he had made in the cargo and, as she settled herself as comfortably as she could, he crept in beside her.

  He was only just in his place and hidden by the pile of barrels on each side of them as the men returned.

  Jabina trembled with apprehension.

  She was well aware that the smugglers would take swift vengeance on anyone who disposed of the cargo they had already paid for.

  Fortunately the man who was giving the orders was occupied in filling the bow with the contraband.

  “Keep them bales of baccy in the middle,” he ordered. “We don’t want ’em splashed with sea water.”

  “We can’t pack in much more!” another man remarked.

  “You’d be surprised what we can carry!” the man who was giving the orders replied. “We’re all a-goin’ to make our fortunes out of this little lot and make no mistake about it!”

  “I hopes you be right!” another man said. “But if the cargo be o’er heavy, we’ll not be able to run from the Revenue Cutters.”

  “Stop grousing!” the head man snarled. “’Tis unlucky!”

  Jabina had the feeling that was a wor
d they did not wish to hear.

  They went back to the shed again and now more men came back with more barrels to go into the stern. Jabina could feel the boat sinking lower into the water.

  “That be the lot!” the head man said. “Tell the others we be ready. We don’t want to waste time!”

  “Nay,” the man who was nervous replied. “We wants to get ’ome afore it’s light.”

  “We’ll be back long afore that!” the head man replied.

  Jabina made herself a little more comfortable.

  There was only very little room for her to sit and she was so close to the Duke that only by putting his arms around her could they both squeeze into the space he had made by removing the barrels.

  The men came running from the shed.

  It was difficult to count them, but Jabina thought that there must be twenty oarsmen. That meant that the boat was a large one and they should cross the Channel more swiftly than if it had been one of the smaller type.

  A Frenchman must have come to see them off because, as they started to move, pushing the boat away from the bank with their oars, a voice speaking in broken English said,

  “Au revoir, messieurs! Bon chance! We’ll be lookin’ out for you next week.”

  “We’Il be with you, Frenchy!” one of the oarsmen cried and then they were moving down the river.

  “How did you do?” Jabina heard one of the men ask.

  “Well enough,” was the reply. “They drives an ’ard bargain, these Froggies, but they wants to trade agin now the war ’as started up. They needs our gold, as we well knows. They be prepared to sell anythin’ for it. Even Josephine, if we asked for ’er!”

  There was laughter at this.

  Then the head man said sharply,

  “You can laugh when you are ’ome and safe. Get on with it now. There be a wind a-getting’ up and, if it be choppy, I don’t want any of you a-throwin’ up.”

  “We be too nervous to be sick, Bill,” one of the men replied.

  They settled down to rowing and there was no doubt that they were proficient, for they swept down the river quickly and quite soon Jabina could feel waves slapping against the sides of the boat.

  Once they were out in mid-Channel it began to be choppy and she was thankful that she did not suffer from seasickness.

  Now the oarsmen were silent except for occasional grunts and groans as they sweated at the oars, using every ounce of muscle into rowing their cargo back safely.

  At the same time they were heavy-laden and they must have been able to move much more swiftly on the outward journey.

  Jabina began to feel desperately cramped, but she dared not move.

  She thought that perhaps the Duke was even more uncomfortable than she was, because she could lean against him and his encircling arm cushioned her from the barrels that moved occasionally from the roughness of the sea.

  Jabina put her head against the Duke’s shoulder and closed her eyes. She tried to pretend to herself that he was holding her close because he wished to do so.

  She thought that, if he bent his head only a little, it would be easy for him to kiss her.

  She could almost feel his lips against hers!

  She felt herself quiver at the thought and, because the Duke must have thought that she was cold, he tightened his arm and with his free hand pulled her cloak closer around her.

  She loved him because he was being kind and considerate to her.

  She could not have imagined it possible that a man could kill to save her honour.

  But the mere thought of the General’s hands on her breasts made her feel again the horror and terror that he had evoked in her.

  The weight of his body on hers had made her feel paralysed with fear and she knew now that but for the Duke’s intervention she would have been ravished. Although what that actually entailed she was not quite certain!

  She only knew that it would have frightened her almost to death!

  Thinking of the soldiers she had seen in the tavern and of the General’s behaviour tonight, she felt very young, very vulnerable and very ignorant.

  ‘How could I ever have done anything so foolish as to run away from home?’ she asked herself now, ‘and imagined that I could look after myself in the outside world?’

  For the first time since she had met the Duke, it occurred to her to wonder what would have happened to her had he been like the General. Perhaps then she might even have encountered the same sort of soldiers, who were behaving so indecently in the tavern.

  How incredibly fortunate she had been that it was the Duke who had given her a seat in his carriage and then carried her in his yacht to France.

  He had protected her and kept her safe from many evils of which she had been totally unaware before.

  She knew that all her life she would be haunted by the memory of the sword sticking out of the General’s back and of the Duke dragging him across the floor to the Breton cabinet.

  He had killed a man to save her!

  It was as if the shock of what she had been through had at last begun to make itself felt and the effect of the brandy was no longer sustaining.

  Quite suddenly Jabina wanted to cry.

  She wanted to sob her heart out because she had been frightened, because the Duke had saved her and because she wanted him to understand how grateful she was.

  Then she knew that she must somehow control herself. She might make a noise if she cried and the smugglers would discover them.

  Jabina had the idea that should they be discovered the smugglers would have no compunction in throwing them both overboard, just as the Duke had thrown the barrels into the water to make a place for them.

  If that should happen no one would ever know what had become of them.

  They would be dead and perhaps soon forgotten.

  ‘I must not let my imagination run away with me,’ Jabina told herself as she had done so often before.

  But this time she knew that the danger they were in was very real and, until they actually reached the shores of England, they must be on their guard.

  ‘Please God, let us get there!’ Jabina found herself praying.

  And then, with her cheek against the Duke’s shoulder, she whispered in her heart,

  ‘And please let Drue like me a – little – let him not wish to get rid of me too – quickly. Please God – ’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The hours passed slowly and Jabina found herself growing sleepy.

  The motion of the boat rocked by the waves and the strong sea air made it hard for her to keep her eyes open. Moreover there was nothing in front of her but the sight of wooden barrels.

  Her legs felt cramped and began to ache. She was quite certain that the Duke was experiencing the same discomfort as his arms were round her.

  But it was impossible for either of them to move and after a time she deliberately tried not to think or to be afraid, but rather to hypnotise herself into a kind of oblivion of everything but the closeness of the Duke’s body to her own.

  She tried to remember how long it took to cross the Channel and she had a feeling somewhere in the back of her mind that in faster boats smugglers could go from Dover to Calais in three hours.

  She was certain, however, that the boat they were travelling in was so heavily laden that it would take longer.

  Then she started to dream and she was back in the parlour of the inn and the General had thrown himself on top of her.

  She could feel the weight of him on her body and she opened her lips to scream.

  The Duke with an extraordinary perception must have known what was happening, for he covered her mouth with his hand and Jabina awoke with a start.

  She felt his fingers warm against her cold lips and knew that he had saved her from revealing their hiding place.

  “I am – sorry,” she wanted to say, but knew that she must not make any noise and instead looked up at him pleadingly as he took his hand from her mouth realising that she was at last fully a
wake.

  She was aware now that she could see his face, although only indistinctly through the luminous softness of a morning mist.

  The night was over. It must be nearly dawn and above them the stars would be disappearing. Soon the first fingers of the sun would sweep away the last darkness of the night.

  ‘Thank Heaven for the mist,’ Jabina thought, aware that it would hide them from being seen as they neared the coast of England.

  She had a feeling that the Duke was smiling at her, but she could not be sure.

  She only felt his arm tighten as if in reassurance and then his fingers that had covered her mouth touched her face gently as if to tell her that all was well.

  His face was very near to hers and she had a sudden longing to put her cheek against his or even to kiss it.

  ‘Would he understand that I am showing my gratitude?’ she wondered.

  Then she feared that if she did such a thing, he would stiffen as she had seen him do before.

  Then there would be the same expression of disdain and contempt on his face as there had been when he had raged at her in the inn in Scotland and told her that he had no wish to be married.

  She could remember so well the words he had used then and the thought came back to her accusingly as if he was sayiny them to her all over again,

  ‘An irritating, impulsive, half-witted chit is not the type of wife I require.’

  Jabina had hoped he would change his mind about her, but she was now quite certain that he had not done so.

  If he had grown to care for her in the slightest, would he not have shown some sign of it when they had shared the bedroom together at Verdon?

  Would he not have held her in his arms and kissed her after the General had frightened her and they had hidden his body in the Breton cabinet?

  Instead the Duke had simply marched her out of the inn and hurried her away in the farm cart to where they had finally been able to hide themselves in the smugglers’ boat.

  ‘Even now,’ she thought, ‘when we are so near home and his arms are around me, he has not made any gesture of affection.’

  It would be so easy for him just to kiss her forehead and tell her without words that he knew she was frightened but that he would protect her.