Charles shrugged. ‘It’s not that I don’t want to let you have the money,’ he explained. ‘It is just that I would like to know where such a considerable sum is going.’
‘I don’t see why I should tell you that,’ she replied before going to the door. ‘Am I to take it therefore that you won’t help me?’
He nodded. ‘I’m sorry, Clementine,’ he replied. ‘However, if you change your mind and decide that you can tell me who it is for...?’
She shook her head. ‘I’m afraid that I can’t do that,’ she said, not a little bitterly. ‘I wish that I hadn’t asked now.’ She slammed the door shut behind her and leaned for a moment against it, cursing her own clumsy stupidity and wishing that she had just a little of Venetia, or even Phoebe’s feminine wiles. They would have known exactly how to ask Charles for the money and would probably have ended up dancing out with twice the requested amount clutched in their perfumed paws.
She sighed and slowly climbed the stairs to her sitting room. ‘Clementine, wait!’ Charles was running up the stairs after her, a crumpled packet in his hand. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, gasping for breath as he handed it to her without ceremony. He’d hastily shoved the money inside and it was almost falling out. ‘It was wrong of me to pry into your personal affairs.’
Clementine gave a wry smile. ‘I am your wife,’ she reminded him, clutching the bulky packet to her breast. ‘You have every right to ask questions of me but not to press me for an answer when I do not wish to give one.’
Charles nodded. ‘I know this and I am sorry.’ He pointed to the pocket. ‘It’s all there.’
‘Thank you,’ she replied, leaning forward to gently kiss his pockmarked cheek. ‘I’m very grateful to you.’
Clementine didn’t waste any time but immediately ordered a carriage be brought round and prepared to go to Venetia’s apartment on the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré to give her the money right away. She spent the journey there feeling immense relief that it had all gone to plan and also extremely happy to be able to help her friend, but both these feelings immediately evaporated when a wan faced, terrified looking maid opened the apartment door to her and she was greeted with the sound of Venetia loudly sobbing in the untidy blue and green sitting room. The curtains were drawn against the sunlight and there was a heavy whiff of cheroot smoke and male sweat in the air.
‘They’ve taken Jules!’ she wailed from the floor when Clementine stepped into the room. ‘Someone must have told them that he was here and soldiers came to take him away. They’ve taken him to La Force.’ She was still dressed in a thin linen and gauze nightdress with a teal satin robe fastened over it, while her hair hung in disordered, tangled crimson ringlets about her shoulders.
Clementine put her arms around her pale and very frightened friend and gently hugged her as she cried on her shoulder. ‘Do you know why he was arrested?’ she asked, waving the maid away and mouthing that she should fetch wine. ‘Why was he here anyway?’
Venetia sat up then and wiped away her tears with the back of her hand. ‘How inelegant I am today,’ she remarked ruefully as Clementine handed her a clean linen and lace handkerchief. ‘The fact is that Eugène and I have been tiring of each other a little bit and Jules and I...’ her voice trailed away as she dabbed at her eyes. ‘We are married after all and have a child together,’ she said defensively.
Clementine nodded and gave the other woman a squeeze. ‘I always suspected that you might reconcile one day,’ she said.
Venetia laughed then. ‘Did you? I never thought that it would happen - it’s been so horrible since we came back to France but he really seems to have changed lately.’ She shrugged. ‘It’s too late now, of course. Some nasty sneaking little informer told the authorities that he was fighting for the King at the Tuileries and so they decided to arrest him.’
‘They’ll release him when they realise that he hasn’t done anything wrong,’ Clementine said with a confidence that she didn’t at all feel. She’d been hearing alarming things lately about people vanishing overnight from their homes, whisked away in the darkness from their loved ones to one of the increasingly overcrowded Parisian prisons, of which La Force was said to be one of the very worst.
Venetia squeezed her hand. ‘You don’t really believe that, do you?’ she whispered, her eyes wide with fear. ‘I’ve heard of so many arrests lately and they never seem to let anyone go.’
‘Phoebe says that they will start releasing the prisoners soon,’ Clementine murmured. ‘What else can they do when the prisons are so full?’
Venetia laughed mirthlessly. ‘What else can they do? They can kill them all.’ She sat up and scrubbed impatiently at her eyes. ‘As for what Phoebe has to say on the matter...’
Clementine remembered the packet of money and rather diffidently pulled out from inside her tasseled yellow silk reticule and handed it silently to her friend who accepted it without enthusiasm.
‘It doesn’t seem quite so important any more,’ she said with a bitter little smile, ‘but thank you.’ She leaned forward and kissed Clementine’s cheek. ‘Was Charles difficult about it?’
Clementine smiled and shrugged. ‘No more than usual.’ She looked away.
Venetia looked at her for a moment then shook her head. ‘You should go back to London while you still can,’ she said. ‘Heaven knows that Phoebe is always offering to get the papers for us all.’
Clementine stood up and brushed down her crumpled primrose yellow silk skirt. ‘Mama would be furious,‘ she said shortly.
Venetia sighed. ‘You have to stop using your mother as an excuse for not doing the right thing,’ she said gently. ‘You’re a married woman now, Clemmie. You don’t even need to see her if you don’t want to.’
Clementine laughed harshly. ‘Mama would never stand for that,’ she replied. ‘You know that she’d be desperate to parade me around like a trick pony in front of all her new society friends.’
‘Then parade for a few days before putting yourself out to grass as far away from her as possible?’ Venetia suggested. ‘Come on, Clementine, it’s got to be better than staying here and wondering what mad thing Charles is going to do next. He’s already tried to forbid you from seeing Sidonie and I expect it’s only a matter of time before he decides that I’m just as objectionable, not to mention Phoebe with her unaccountable liking for politicians,’ she said shrewdly.
Clementine blushed. ‘I’d never let him stop me seeing you,’ she said awkwardly.
Venetia raised one elegantly plucked eyebrow but said nothing. Instead she clambered to her feet then opened the tightly shut blue brocade curtains before staring down meditatively onto the bustling street below. ‘How quickly things change,’ she said sadly.
Chapter Thirty Seven
Late that night, Clementine watched in horror from her own sitting room windows that overlooked the Place Louis le Grand as a large jeering mob cheered on a ragged culotte wearing young man who shimmied swiftly up the statue of Louis XIV seated on a rearing stallion that had stood in the middle of the square for just over a century and tied the ends of several nooses around the king’s bronze head and that of his horse. Once he was safely down again, they pulled on the rope has hard as they could until the statue began to topple, cheering wildly as they did so.
‘Come away from the window,’ her husband said behind her. He had entered the room without her realising. ‘We don’t want the mob to spot you and then turn their attentions to us.’
‘Lucien says that they are going to change the square’s name to something less royal,’ Clementine said with a sigh, not turning away from the window. ‘Place des Piques doesn’t have quite the same gravitas, does it?’
‘I’m only surprised that it has taken them so long,’ Charles replied, coming to stand next to her and staring down at the scene outside, where huge bonfires had been erected in the very centre of the square. Drunk women danced around the blazing fires, swigging from bottles and indiscriminately kissing any men who came near them. �
��They are no better than animals,’ he sneered disgustedly before turning away.
‘They are excited that finally things are changing for them,’ Clementine said quietly. ‘They’ve felt powerless for so long and now finally they feel like the things that they do are really making a difference.’
Her husband looked at her coldly. ‘I might have known that you would try to make excuses for them,’ he replied crossly. ‘I wonder if your heart will still bleed for the rabble when they come to arrest us both.’
Clementine could think of several retorts to this comment but decided after a glance at Charles’ bad tempered expression that her best option was to remain silent. ‘I am going to retire to my room now,’ she murmured with a polite curtsey before leaving.
She heard him say her name as she closed the door quietly behind her but did not stop and instead hurried across the hall to her bedroom. Her maid was already there and immediately set to work silently removing her diamond earrings, bracelets and necklace and then pulling off her pale blue velvet shoes. Clementine usually liked to have a chat while she was getting ready for bed but tonight she was content to sit quietly in front of the mirror and watch as the other girl cleaned powder and rouge from her cheeks.
When the tap on the door came, her heart sank but she was not altogether surprised. Hadn’t she been expecting it, deep down, ever since she’d accepted that bulging packet of money from her husband that morning? She exchanged a look with her maid and gave a discreet nod. ‘It’s alright,’ she whispered and the girl unlocked the door and let Charles in before leaving with an anxious look back over her shoulder at Clementine.
‘I didn’t think you would mind...’ he said nervously as he padded towards her on bare feet, holding his crimson brocade night-robe close around his body. He’d clearly hurried to his own room and got ready for bed as soon as she had left the sitting room.
‘Of course I don’t mind,’ she made herself say, adding a smile for good measure.
Charles reached out and touched her cheek. ‘Clementine,’ he whispered huskily, ‘I’ve missed this.’ He leaned forward and kissed her lips as she tried her best not to flinch.
‘Not now,’ she murmured against his mouth as he pushed her back towards the bed. ‘Let me call for my maid. I’m still in my dress, Charles.’
‘There’s no need for that,’ he muttered impatiently, first trying to shove his hand down the front of her tight bodice then instead pulling up her skirts and grabbing roughly at her thighs. ‘I want you now.’
He pushed her back onto the bed and she closed her eyes and tried to think about other things as his wet mouth trailed down the side of her neck and he thrust his fingers inside her over and over again. ‘Is this what you want?’ he mumbled, releasing her now to fumble beneath his nightgown. ‘Touch me,’ he ordered, his wine scented breath hot against her cheek. He grasped her hand and pulled it towards him.
She thought about the lovely flowers in her sitting room, pretty dresses and the sunlight scattering across the lake at Versailles as she grasped hold of him and began to unenthusiastically move her fingers up and down as he groaned and became sweaty on top of her. ‘I can’t,’ she whispered, turning her face away from his lips. She tried to concentrate on the sun dappled lake but Antoine’s face, his smile when they’d last been together kept floating into her mind no matter how hard she tried to banish him.
‘Harder,’ her husband ordered, putting his hand over hers and moving it even faster until he became hard. ‘That’s enough,’ he gasped and then lifted her skirts up around her waist.
‘Charles, I don’t want to,’ she said, struggling to pull her skirts down. ‘I can’t do this.’
‘I must have an heir,’ he muttered furiously into the side of her neck. ‘You took my money, you little bitch!’
Clementine pushed him away and struggled to the side of the bed. ‘You weren’t buying me,’ she said, rolling onto the floor and backing away from him. ‘It doesn’t work like that.’
‘Doesn’t it?’ he snarled, glaring up at her, his deflating erection peeping absurdly from beneath his rumpled nightgown. ‘I wish I had known before that I had only to give you money to get you to spread your legs for me.’
She glared at him. ‘Don’t speak to me like that,’ she said before retreating in terror as he suddenly jumped off the bed and strode towards her.
‘I will speak to you any way that I choose,’ he shouted into her face, his spittle hitting her cheeks. ‘You may be keen to pretend that you are my wife, madame, but I will never forget it.’ He took hold of her wrist and shook her. ‘You belong to me, do you hear me? Don’t think that I haven’t seen you making eyes at other men like the Comte and Lucien, hoping they will take pity and bed you behind my back.’
Clementine shook her head, hardly able to believe what she was hearing and at the same time feeling a pathetic gleam of relief that he hadn’t mentioned Antoine. ‘If you believe that then you must be more stupid than I thought you were,’ she said, struggling to release herself from his grip.
‘You bitch.’ He raised his free hand and hit her as hard as he could across the face, releasing her at the same time so that she staggered then collapsed onto the floor, hitting her forehead on the corner of her ornately draped and decorated dressing table as she fell. ‘Whore.’
Clementine began to sob wildly then shuffled away from him before using the sofa to pull herself up again. Her hair had fallen down around her face and she shivered uncontrollably with anger and fear as she looked at him across the room. ‘You will never lay a finger on me again,’ she said, struggling to control her voice and trying not to gag as she tasted the blood that trickled from the corner of her mouth. ‘This marriage was a mistake and from this moment on it is at an end.’
‘I will do as I please,’ he replied, taking a step towards her and lifting his hand again. ‘This marriage, madame, is only over when I say so and...’
Clementine didn’t wait to hear more and snatched up her shoes, which lay beside the sofa before rushing from the room. A pair of chattering maids stared at her in surprise as she hurried past them down the staircase to the huge entrance hall below. ‘Stop her!’ Charles shouted behind her. ‘Don’t let the duchesse leave the house! Damn you, you bitch, you aren’t getting away from me!’
A footman appeared from the library on the ground floor, his arms outstretched as though to grab her but she managed to neatly sidestep him before hurrying to the front door and with trembling hands, heaving it open. ‘Stop her! Stop her now! Clementine, I’m warning you...’ The door slammed shut behind her, cutting off her husband’s high pitched impotent threats. She was free.
Even the sight of the shouting drunken mob and bonfires blazing away in the square couldn’t dent the elation that she felt as she paused to pull on her shoes then rushed down the steps and away down the pavement. A few people looked at her curiously as she went past, noticing her youth and dishevelled appearance but beyond staring, no one troubled her and she was able to go on her way unmolested.
It didn’t occur to her that she should go to Eliza’s house on the Rue de Grenelle - she instinctively knew that her bruised, untidy and clearly fugitive state would make her an unwelcome guest at the Hôtel de Clermont and that her sister would waste no time in bundling her into a carriage and sending her back across the river to Charles. Instead, she turned her feet in the direction of Phoebe and Lucien on the Rue Saint-Honoré, knowing that they, at least, would be sympathetic to her plight as hadn’t they been urging her for months to leave Charles and return to England?
Clementine walked quickly across the square, adroitly avoiding the drunken revellers as they danced wildly around the bonfires and paired off with each other to slink into the shadowy corners. She heaved a sigh of relief as she turned onto the busy Rue Saint-Honoré, which was packed with people as usual and where hopefully her appearance wouldn’t provoke too much comment. It was a long time since she had walked alone in Paris at such a late hour and she pulled he
r tumbled hair over her shoulders and kept her eyes carefully lowered as she walked briskly along.
The city streets had been in turmoil ever since the Tuileries had been invaded less than a week earlier and the filthy blood stained pavement beneath Clementine’s now sadly grimy shoes was littered with wickedly glittering shards of glass and chunks of burnt wood from the beautiful old buildings that had been destroyed by the rampaging mob. Safely ensconced in the Place Louis le Grand, she hadn’t given much thought to the lives of ordinary Parisians as rioting and looting swept through their streets, but now she saw the evidence everywhere in the tear stained faces of women who limped past, their bewildered children held close to their sides and the angry unfocussed expressions of the men who loitered drunkenly in doorways and stared at her rudely as she hurried past.
She almost wept with relief when she finally reached the front door of Phoebe’s building. ‘Madame la Duchesse?’ The maid who opened the door peered at her in confusion, taking in her lack of a coat and hat, muddy feet, burgeoning black eye and the blood smeared at the side of her mouth. ‘What has happened to you? Did someone attack you?’ The girl ushered Clementine into the welcoming yellow entrance hall then peered out into the street as if expecting to see a horde of attackers advancing upon them both.
‘Who is it, Barbe?’ Phoebe’s dark head appeared over the bannisters above them. ‘Is everything alright?’ She peered at Clementine without recognising her then gave a cry of shock. ‘Clemmie! Is that you? What on earth has happened?’ She ran down the marble stairs towards them with her arms outstretched. ‘Did Charles do this to you?’ she hissed as she gently moved her friend’s auburn hair out of the way and examined her eyelid, which was beginning to swell up and turn an alarming shade of purple. ‘That bastard,’ she whispered when Clementine silently nodded. ‘You can’t go back to him.’
‘I’m not going to,’ Clementine muttered as they went upstairs together with Barbe trailing behind them.
Before the Storm Page 25