by Marie Laval
‘You’re hurt,’ Marie-Ange said when she noticed the nasty bruise on his cheekbone. His posture was a little stiff too, which wasn’t surprising considering the beating he had endured at the hands of the brigands.
He shrugged and pulled a chair out for her to sit on.
It wasn’t long before a duty officer reported to the inn. Saintclair gave him a succinct account of the attack in the forest. The gendarme then turned to Marie-Ange for her version of events.
‘The Capitaine said you killed one man with a knife and two others with a pistol, is this correct?’ He sounded sceptical.
Silently she nodded and closed her eyes. The sound the knife had made when she pushed it into the highwayman’s flesh, the warm, viscous feel of his blood on her hand and the startled expression in the eyes of his accomplices as she shot them would never leave her.
‘Can I see your knife?’ The gendarme enquired.
She bent down, lifted her skirt above the ankle and removed the dagger from her boot. She handed it to the policeman without a word.
‘That is a rather strange looking knife,’ the gendarme said as he returned the dagger a moment later.
‘It was my husband’s. He brought it back from the West Indies.’
‘The West Indies? That explains it…You were very brave Madame.’ He smiled and added before taking his leave, ‘I will dispatch a patrol to the forest at first light but with luck, the brigands will have frozen to death. Thanks to you, they won’t terrorize innocent travellers any longer.’
A servant girl appeared with some ale and two plates piled high with beef stew and vegetables. Marie-Ange protested that she wasn’t hungry.
‘You must eat,’ Saintclair objected.
‘I cannot.’ She pushed her plate away.
He pushed the plate back to her. ‘We have a long journey ahead of us tomorrow. I want to reach Beauregard by nightfall. The last thing I need is for you to be ill or too exhausted to travel. I promised Malleval I would look after you and I mean to do so. Even if I didn’t exactly cover myself with glory back there in the forest,’ he added with a grimace. ‘Saved by a woman! I’ll be the regiment’s laughing stock if the story gets out.’
Marie-Ange remained silent and toyed with the dagger on the table.
‘Where did you learn to shoot?’ he asked before tucking into his meal with relish. ‘You didn’t hesitate when you aimed at the men and both your shots hit their mark.’
It was obvious he wouldn’t let a few dead bodies spoil his appetite, she thought, watching him eat. He must have seen hundreds on battlefields all over Europe. It was different for her. She would probably have nightmares for a long time.
‘Robert taught me last summer,’ she explained. ‘He didn’t want to at first but I insisted. We made a bargain. He taught me to shoot and in return, I taught him…other things.’
She promised Robert she would never tell anyone about their French lessons. He was embarrassed at being so bad at languages. She drank a sip of ale, toyed with her food.
Saintclair stopped eating and looked at her. His blue eyes shone with curiosity.
‘What kind of things?’
‘Things that can help a young man both in a career and in polite society,’ she replied, deliberately vague. ‘We have had lessons every evening since he left boarding school.’
‘Is that what you were doing the other night?’
She felt she was blushing. So he had heard them giggling. ‘I am sorry if we kept you awake.’
Saintclair leant forward, his eyes intense now.
‘He must have enjoyed that particular lesson very much, judging by the happy grin on his face when he left your bedroom.’ He added in a low, slightly hoarse voice. ‘In fact, I wouldn’t mind a few lessons myself.’
She shrugged.
‘Oh no, he doesn’t like it, and he isn’t particularly talented but I do insist he stick at it. He will thank me in the long run.’ She looked up and added. ‘As for you, why would you need any lessons? You are French. You know all about…’
Saintclair was still staring at her. The silence between them sizzled with tension. Why was he looking at her like that, so close she could see the golden specks in the iris of his blue eyes and feel his warm breath on her face? And what exactly did he believe she had been doing in her room with Robert? Her face and throat started to burn, her fingers gripped the side of the table so hard her knuckles went white as realization dawned on her.
‘You cannot actually believe that Robert and I were…’ She couldn’t bring herself to say the word.
He didn’t answer.
‘How can you… Do you really think so little of me?’ She almost stammered with outrage. ‘Well, if you must know, I teach Robert French every evening while we play checkers in my room. He is hopeless at languages, whereas Christopher was fluent in French, German and Spanish, and as he wants to be a naval officer like his brother, he needs to speak French to improve his prospects.’
Saintclair’s eyes widened. He threw his head back and burst out laughing.
‘You teach him French! Well, I never… I do apologise.’ He shook his head, laughed again and drank his beer but his lips were still twitching when he put the empty pitcher of ale on the table.
She threw him a furious glance and hardly realized she was gripping Christopher’s dagger tightly to stop her hand shaking. Now she understood the comments he had made over the past few days. All this time he thought she was having a liaison with her brother-in-law while pretending to be a grieving widow.
‘Please don’t wave this thing about, you might hurt yourself.’ Saintclair gestured towards the dagger.
She hissed an angry breath between her teeth and put the dagger down, but didn’t let go of it. It had saved her life today—Saintclair’s and the coachman’s, too. It felt like a good omen. She stiffened in her chair and tilted her chin up.
‘Christopher was everything to me, Capitaine. He still is. He used to say this dagger was his lucky charm, I never knew why he didn’t take it when he left for Corunna.’ She paused. ‘Did you fight in the Spanish wars?’
Saintclair looked taken aback by her sudden question. ‘Some of them. Why?’
‘Were you at Corunna in January, 1809?’
He shook his head. ‘No, I was in Madrid at the time. Was your husband killed at Corunna?’
‘He served on board the HMS Amazon which was sunk by French artillery as it moored in the harbour. No member of the crew, and none of the British soldiers they rescued, made it alive. Or so they said.’
He nodded. ‘It was bad business, from what I heard.’
‘In your experience, is it possible for a soldier or a sailor to be declared dead when in fact he is still alive?’ She looked at him in earnest.
He shrugged, raked his fingers in his dark hair. ‘It could happen, I suppose. People get lost, or disappear in the heat of battle.’
‘I never believed Christopher died, you see. I never felt it, here.’ She put her hand on her heart. ‘And now I know he is alive.’ She leant across the table. ‘I saw him in Paris, two days ago.’
Ignoring the look of disbelief on his face, she carried on. ‘It was in a building in Rue de Condé. I am almost certain it was him. Christopher had the most unusual blond hair, pale, almost like white gold.’ Her eyes became dreamy and her fingers caressed the blade of the dagger, not stopping to think that a few hours before it had killed a man.
‘I went after him. The concierge told me this was where Fouché lived.’
‘So that was why you were so interested in Fouché and his spies,’ Saintclair exclaimed. ‘I will be blunt, Madame Norton. I don’t think the man you saw could be…’
She interrupted again. ‘Will you help me find him? You must know lots of people in the army and the government. You have contacts at the ministry of war and in many regiments. The man I saw is named Joseph Nallay.’
This time, Saintclair looked stunned. ‘You actually found out this man’s name?’
‘Hear me out, please. I think you must take time to consider the facts. The crew of the other English ships at Corunna looked for any missing sailors and officers. They would never have left without making sure there were no survivors.’ He sighed. ‘I don’t quite know how to say this but don’t you think you wanted this man to be your husband so much that you convinced yourself it was him? It has been six years after all. You were tired, confused.’
‘No, Capitaine, I am almost sure it was him, this Nallay has his face, his eyes, his voice…He even spoke English without the trace of an accent! Something terrible must have happened to him, though. He doesn’t remember me. He doesn’t even remember his own name.’
‘But why would your husband work as a spy for Fouché? Assuming that he did get injured in Spain, why did he not return to England when he was fit enough to do so? Why work for the enemy?’ He frowned. ‘Unless, of course, he was a spy all along, a traitor to his country.’
‘No,’ Marie-Ange cried. ‘Christopher would never betray his country! He is an honourable man.’
Saintclair didn’t answer. The servant placed a pint of ale in front of him.
‘It’s obvious you have turned your husband into some kind of heroic figure,’ he said, lifting his pitcher to his lips. ‘According to you, he was the bravest, the kindest.’
‘It’s because he is,’ she said softly.
‘Why would he work for the enemy, then, for France?’ He shook his head. ‘No, not even France, for Fouché. Damn it, the most despicable of all politicians, the greatest turncoat in history…unless he was one himself.’
She exclaimed in rage, ‘Very well, I will find him myself since I see you have no intention of helping me.’
‘I apologize, Madame,’ Saintclair mumbled, looking a little contrite. ‘I shouldn’t have spoken so harshly.’
She picked the knife up from the table and put it in her reticule before standing up.
‘No, you shouldn’t have. Good night, Capitaine.’
Saintclair stood up, bowed his head slightly then took his pint and went to sit near the fire. She turned round from the doorway and saw him gazing into the flames, his legs stretched in front of him and crossed at the ankles.
Once upstairs, she locked the bedroom door behind her and leant against it. She was still reeling from what Saintclair had said. Christopher was not a traitor. He was a brave, dedicated Royal Navy officer. Yet, when her anger subsided and she could think more clearly, she had to admit that the French cuirassier had a point. It didn’t make sense that Christopher hadn’t made his way back home. Even if it had taken months for him to recover after Corunna, he should still have come back to England. And to her.
Chapter Six
‘The chateau is at the end of the track. I’ll ride ahead and announce our arrival.’
Saintclair touched his heel to the horse’s side and disappeared down the lane winding its way through the forest. Despite the cold, Marie-Ange pulled the carriage window all the way down and leant out, eager for her first glimpse of Beauregard. As the road forked to the left, the chateau appeared through the trees. It seemed to glow in the fading light, ghostly white and luminous like the snow which covered the ground. On an impulse, she shouted to the driver to stop.
‘I wish to walk from here,’ she declared before jumping down.
Gathering the folds of her cloak, she started down the snowy track towards the iron gates marking the entrance of the estate. The forest gave way to a rolling park with a large pond in the middle, its waters still, dark and slimy, and with dead lily pads and broken reeds covering its surface.
She faced the chateau. Her breath caught in her throat, her eyes welled up with tears. This was where generations of her family had been born and brought up. This was the place her mother left when she was sixteen, never to return. The home she had painted, over and over again, like a haunting dream.
Capitaine Saintclair was waiting at the front porch and turned an impatient face towards her. Of course, he must be in a hurry to deliver her to Malleval and return to Lyon, his regiment and his family. And to make sure he had repaid his gambling debt.
They were shown inside by an elderly servant. As she walked into the hall, it was like stepping into her mother’s sketchbook. Nothing appeared to have changed since Catherine had painted the chateau twenty-five years before. She almost expected her mother, as a young girl, to appear from behind a door and skip alongside her in the corridor.
‘Monsieur is in the library.’ The servant knocked on a door hidden behind a black velvet curtain.
‘Oui. Entrez,’ a man’s voice answered.
Saintclair opened the door onto a room full of shadows which was lit only by the fire in the hearth. A man reclined on a couch. Propped on his elbow, he sucked on the tube of a strange smoking implement that made a gurgling sound, as if it was filled with water. Marie-Ange stopped in the doorway and wriggled her nose at the sweet, sickening smoke floating in the room.
Saintclair walked in. ‘What are you doing hiding in the dark, Malleval?’
The other man looked up.
‘Saintcair. At last! I was expecting you yesterday.’ He turned his head towards the door and gestured for Marie-Ange to enter without getting up from the sofa. ‘Approchez donc, ma chère.’
She obeyed, frowning at this unconventional and rather discourteous welcome by the relative she had travelled hundreds of miles to meet. Maybe Uxeloup Malleval was too injured to stand.
‘Good evening, Monsieur. I am delighted to meet you.’
In the semi-darkness she saw that Malleval was a very handsome man, despite being thin and pale. He had the most peculiar eyes, dark brown with a yellow centre and pupils no bigger than a pin. His lips stretched into a lazy smile.
‘So am I, my dear Marie-Ange. I trust Saintclair took good care of you?’ His voice was slurred. He sounded drunk.
‘Yes, he did,’ she answered. Somehow she didn’t think he would be interested in hearing about their encounter with bandits in the forest right now.
‘Bon. Sophie, my housekeeper, will show you to your room.’ Malleval turned to Saintclair. ‘You are staying the night, of course. Sophie has your usual room prepared.’
‘I was hoping to get back to my regiment tonight,’ Saintclair objected, although not very strongly.
Malleval waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. ‘You’ll go back tomorrow. I’m sure no one is expecting you in Lyon just yet. I heard it’s chaos at the barracks. Nobody knows who is in charge or who is supposed to be doing what.’
‘Very well,’ Saintclair acquiesced. ‘I will stay the night.’
‘You should go out, Malleval, get some fresh air,’ he added, gesturing to the shuttered windows. ‘It can’t be good for you to stay in here and smoke this thing all the time.’
‘You’re right, my friend,’ Malleval answered, ‘but it’s been a rotten few months for me, as you well know, and this…’ He pointed at the pipe. ‘This is one of the few things which brings me a little peace.’ He smiled. ‘I’ll see you both at eight, then.’
He reclined against the back of the sofa, took a long pull on his pipe and closed his eyes. So that was it. She crossed the English Channel and most of France at his request, braved highwaymen and rowdy soldiers, suffered discomfort and Capitaine Saintclair’s short temper and arrogant manners, and she was being dismissed after a five minute interview!
Saintclair sighed and took hold of Marie-Ange’s elbow to lead her out of the library.
‘I’m sure he will be in a more amenable disposition later,’ he remarked as they walked back to the hall.
‘This wasn’t the welcome I was expecting,’ she said. ‘What is he smoking? It has a very unpleasant smell.’
‘Opium.’
‘Really? Is that not a dangerous substance? Does he take it be
cause of his battle wound?’
Saintclair tightened his mouth. ‘Ah…Yes, I believe it helps with…the pain.’
A young woman was waiting for them in the hall.
‘Bonsoir, Sophie. You are looking beautiful, as usual.’ Saintclair kissed the back of the woman’s hand.
‘Good evening, Capitaine,’ she replied, a smile lighting her pretty face and warm, brown eyes. ‘It is nice to see you again. You can go straight to you room, I am sure you remember the way.’ Saintclair nodded and started climbing the stairs. The young woman turned to Marie-Ange and curtsied.
‘I am Sophie, Monsieur Malleval’s housekeeper. Please follow me.’
The green silk of her fashionable gown whispered as she led the way across the hall.
‘You must be exhausted after your journey,’ she remarked, pausing at the foot of the stairs to tuck a loose strand of long brown hair into the bun at the nape of her neck. The light from the chandelier flashed on the large cabochon ruby set in the gold ring on her finger. Marie-Ange frowned, surprised. Not only was Sophie very young, but her dress and jewellery seemed out of keeping with her position at Beauregard.
They went up to the first floor, and then along a wide corridor.
‘I hope you’ll like your room,’ Sophie said, opening a door. ‘I believe it was your grandmother’s.’
Marie-Ange stepped into the spacious bedroom where a welcoming fire burned in a white marble fireplace. The walls were painted white and blue and the ceiling reminded her of a summer sky scattered with wispy white clouds. Her mother had sketched the room and it too hadn’t changed. Sophie ordered her trunk to be unpacked and a bath to be prepared in the adjoining dressing room, asked her if she needed anything else and left when Marie-Ange said she was fine.
Once alone Marie-Ange ran her fingers along the smooth marble mantelpiece, touched the perfume bottles, the cloisonné jewellery boxes and the delicate porcelain figurines of shepherds and shepherdesses adorning the writing desk near the window. Had these belonged to her grandmother, Aline? Had her mother admired them too, or even played with them? She lay on the blue counterpane and gazed at the intricate patterns on the ceiling. She could almost hear a long lost voice—her mother’s, laughing, talking and singing to her. Tonight she felt her presence more strongly than she had in years. The mantel clock striking seven brought her back to reality.