by Darcy Burke
Guillaume Rousseau, though still a lad, was dangerous. He wasn’t going to be satisfied with looking for much longer, and he wasn’t going to wait for her consent to take things further. Even without the looming threat of Bonaparte’s secret police, Sabine needed to get out of this household, and soon.
Which brought him to the primary source of his agony: he could not tell from Sabine’s manner whether she had decided to leave with him or not. She gave no indication whatsoever of her state of mind, which was undoubtedly wise given the present company. He’d thought he could wait until after everyone retired for her answer, but now, the uncertainty was driving him mad.
He didn’t want to kidnap her, damn it. But if she refused to come of her own free will, he would have to. And then he’d be no better than her cousin.
“So, Monsieur Allard,” Mme Rousseau began, her words a welcome distraction from his own thoughts, “will you be staying with us another night? We can certainly do much better than this for dinner with advance notice.”
He shook his head as he swallowed the bite he had been chewing. “No, I could not trouble you by imposing upon you a second night. My business with your niece should be completed by tomorrow in any case, so there will be no need.”
“Tomorrow?” Sabine echoed, the quaver in her voice so faint, Thomas was probably the only person at the table who caught it. And that was because he was looking for something, anything, to suggest she was at least considering coming with him voluntarily. This was the tiniest of crumbs, but he would take it.
“Yes. Once I have given you the jewelry and you’ve agreed to the terms of the bequest, I’ll be on my way. I cannot see that taking more than an hour in the morning.”
“In the morning?” Etienne Rousseau interjected. “In that case, let us see to everything after dinner. No time like the present.”
“Oh, no, Uncle, not tonight,” Sabine responded quickly, casting a quick, worried glance in Thomas’s direction. “I have to see to the horses after dinner, as I always do. After that, I will be far too tired to spend an hour discussing things like jewelry and bequests. Aside from that, I imagine Monsieur Allard is quite exhausted from his travels.”
“I should check with my driver, as well, to make sure my team will be ready to depart on the morrow,” Thomas added to signal his agreement.
Sabine gave him a sharp look across the table. He responded with a tilt of his head. Yes, they would be talking sooner than originally planned. Rousseau had given them no choice. They needed to leave tonight.
“Well, at the very least, allow me to store the jewelry in my strong box,” Rousseau said, his attempt at amiability ruined by the eagerness he couldn’t quite keep out of his tone. “One never knows when one of the servants might succumb to such a temptation, after all. I like to think my staff are honest and would never resort to thievery, but it pays to be wary.”
Even before Thomas caught the warning look in Sabine’s eyes, he was already shaking his head. He knew very well who would be unable to resist such a temptation, and it wasn’t any of the servants. “I appreciate the offer, but I do not think that will be necessary. I have managed to keep the items safe for over a hundred miles, and I would prefer not to part company with them until I have turned them over to their rightful owner.” My grandmother, he added silently, who will have my head if I return to England without them.
“I am not sure that is the wisest course of action,” Rousseau advised sternly. “But it is, of course, entirely up to you.”
Yes, it was, thank God. He wondered which of the servants Rousseau would accuse of the theft after he himself removed the jewelry from the proffered strong box. Probably one of upstairs maids or one of the footmen, any of whom could be easily scapegoated and replaced. “Again, I do thank you, but I will feel better keeping them in my possession.”
The meal wound down relatively quickly, if uncomfortably, after that. Rousseau attempted to cover his disappointment at Thomas’s refusal of the use of the strong box by evincing interest in the Allard family’s current holdings and status, which may or may not have been feigned. The Allards were exactly the sort of people someone like Rousseau might desire to hitch his wagon to in his quest for wealth and status, although they were, to Thomas’s certain knowledge, divided on the subject of Napoleon Bonaparte’s rise to power. Thomas did his best to cast the entire lot of them as French patriots without specifically indicating which branches of the family were pro- or anti-Bonaparte. In his mind, they were all patriots, anyway; it was just that only some of them were correct.
Once the dessert course ended, Sabine excused herself, presumably to change back into the ugly but practical woolen sack of a dress she’d been wearing when they’d first met, or another one like it. Thomas declined Rousseau’s offer of wine and a cheroot on the grounds that he had matters to attend to before retiring for the night. Fortunately, Rousseau seemed to expect this and did not seem to take offense. Thomas said polite goodnights to the entire family, including the budding deviant, Guillaume.
The Rousseau estate featured an exceptionally large and elegantly designed stable, which made it easy to find, even at night. Located behind and to the north of the main house, the building was two stories tall. Constructed of brick, the facade featured large archways through which horses and carriages could be conveyed. Thomas entered through an open door at the south end of the structure and found himself in a wide, airy breezeway that ran in front of the stalls. The space was well-lit with multiple oil lamps, so that he could easily see from where he stood to the far end of the room, some fifty feet away. It was also considerably less odoriferous than most stables of his experience, owing no doubt to exceptional emphasis on mucking out the stalls on a daily—or perhaps even more frequent—basis. Claude Rousseau had been both a connoisseur and breeder of horses, but he’d obviously instilled a far more rigorous degree of discipline in his groomsmen than even the most zealous horse fanciers of Thomas’s acquaintance.
And Sabine had managed to maintain that regimen in the years following his death, which was something of a coup, given her uncle’s obvious disinterest in the business and blatant dislike of her. From what she’d told him earlier, Thomas had concluded that her father—the one who’d raised her, not the one who’d sired her—had found a way to leave the horses and the breeding business to her while ensuring that her uncle could not force her to leave the estate. Although he suspected a portion of the cost of maintaining the stables in their pristine state must fall to Etienne Rousseau as the owner of the property, some of the staff were probably in Sabine’s employ rather than his. She must be fetching high prices indeed for her stallion’s stud services and for any horses she bred herself to keep the facility in such excellent condition and still have money to set aside.
Thomas was impressed.
And here he was, proposing to rip her away from all of it. Anyone would be ambivalent at the prospect of leaving the only home and country she had ever known, but Sabine would be abandoning even more than that; he would not be able to blame her if she preferred to take her chances with Fouchet and his ilk. Given the fact that she had certainly never conspired with the British against the French as her uncle had alleged, she might well be able to convince the authorities of her innocence.
Being William Pitt’s daughter was hardly, in itself, a crime, after all, not even in the eyes of a power-mad dictator like Bonaparte.
Sabine stood with her back to him behind the second-to-last stall at the opposite end of the breezeway. With one hand, she stroked the nose and muzzle of a large black Percheron, whose head hung over the door to the stall while she spoke in muted tones to a stocky, middle-aged man, who Thomas guessed must be the head groomsman. Thomas picked up a few snatches of their conversation as he walked towards them, conscious of several horses poking their heads out over their stalls to watch him pass.
“…see no problem…long…” Sabine said.
“As long as…miles…in a day,” the groomsman responded.
/> “…lose the foal?”
“Unlikely. Bred for work, she is.”
This last, Thomas heard quite plainly because he stood no less than two feet from the pair. He cleared his throat to alert Sabine to his presence.
She spun to face him and nodded with obvious satisfaction. “You have come at the perfect time. I believe we have it all figured out.”
Thomas raised his eyebrows. “Have what figured out? And who is ‘we?’”
Her smile was brief but so radiant, it nearly took his feet from under him. “How to bring Gaston and Copine with us, of course. And ‘we’ is myself and Monsieur Fabron. He was my father’s head groomsman, and he is very knowledgeable ab—”
“Wait.” Thomas held up his hand. “You want to bring your horses, and you have been discussing it with your groomsman?” He was torn between incredulity and irritation, not so much over her desire to bring the horses—which he could understand, despite the obvious impossibility of the proposition—as that she had discussed the matter with a servant who was almost certain to cave under pressure and reveal everything to her uncle. Didn’t she understand how perilous their journey would be? It was a virtual certainty that her uncle would set the gendarme and perhaps even the military on them as soon as he realized they were gone. There was no way a man like Etienne Rousseau would allow a prize like the daughter of the Great Britain’s premiere to get away without a fight.
The horse, whose face Sabine still caressed, chose that moment to heave a hefty breath out through his nose, as if in derision.
“Just so, Gaston,” she said to the horse before turning her attention back to Thomas. “I not only want to bring them with me, it is the only way I will consider eloping with you at all. Gaston here—” she placed a hand beneath the horse’s chin and angled his head so Thomas could see the small, nearly perfect white star in the center of his forehead, “—and Copine, who is busy ignoring you in the next stall, are not only exceptionally valuable, but my father left them to me because he knew I love them and will care for them properly. Although Fabron will do his best to see that the other horses are well cared for, he doesn’t have the power to ensure that. It is bad enough that I will have to leave the rest of my breeding stock behind, but I will not leave Gaston and Copine, not even for you,” she finished, batting her eyelashes coquettishly at him. The gesture did not suit her.
Eloping? Not even for him?
Oh, that was clever. And now that she’d put the idea into words, Thomas wondered why he hadn’t thought of it himself. Elopement was the perfect cover for their sudden, secretive departure. Not only would it explain why Sabine had left without leading, but it would also provide a false trail for Rousseau’s minions to follow. As the Allards primarily resided in and around Lyon, which lay in precisely the opposite direction they would be traveling to reach Le Havre and transport across the Channel, anyone searching for them would start looking in all the wrong places.
He really wanted to hug her in delight at her ingenuity. Except there was still the issue of the horses. An issue he clearly couldn’t pursue in Fabron’s presence. So, he might as well hear her plan for bringing them. He would have to shoot it down later in private, of course, but if she was entertaining the idea of coming with him, he thought he could make her understand why traveling with two very conspicuous horses when they themselves were also so conspicuous was out of the question. “And what is this plan?”
“Simple. On the morrow, I will hitch Gaston and Copine to the hay wagon as if I were going to fetch hay. I normally take the trip once a week, but I doubt my aunt and uncle have ever paid enough attention to know which day I usually undertake that errand, and so they will not question my absence. You can leave separately in your coach and meet me in Igny.”
“But you cannot think to travel all the way to Lyon in a hay wagon,” Thomas pointed out, even though they were both well aware that they weren’t going anywhere near Lyon.
She waved a hand as though shooing flies, which were in unexpectedly short supply considering they were in a stable with more than ten horses in it. “Do not be ridiculous. We will hire a second coach and coachman, and leave the hay wagon in Igny. Fabron can come fetch it—along with hay—in a day or two.”
Thomas had to admit, this was a rather clever plan. If they left the separately and there was some reasonable explanation for her absence, her aunt and uncle were unlikely to miss her until well into the afternoon, or perhaps even until the dinner hour. They might also think her failure to return was due to some misadventure during her errand, rather than a deliberate act, and waste several hours following up on that notion before they realized she had flown the coop. All in all, this meant they might have up to a full day to put distance between themselves and any pursuit instead of the few hours a dead-of-night departure would afford them.
Her way really was better than his.
Except for the damned horses. There was simply no way that could work.
The groomsman took Thomas’s silence, correctly, as dissension and piped up in a slightly raspy voice that suggested a perpetual cough, “Will be no trouble at all for me and one of the stable hands to make the trip, sir. And I expect Monsieur Rousseau will be thrilled to have the lady off his hands. He has been trying to marry her off ever since her mama died, and to some of the worst wretches I ever laid eyes on. Long as you make the lady happy, she and the horses are better off with you than staying here.”
Well, Thomas thought, at least Fabron wasn’t aware that Rousseau’s plan for disposing of the responsibility of caring for his niece had changed. Or if he was, he was doing a damn fine job of hiding it.
“He is going to make me deliriously happy, I assure you,” Sabine told the groomsman, and her smile was so wide and her eyes so bright with happiness that Thomas himself almost believed her. “And I thank you for answering my putting my mind at ease about taking Copine on such a journey while she is in foal. I did not think it would be a problem, but I feel ever so much better knowing you agree. Please enjoy the rest of your evening.”
“It was my pleasure, mademoiselle,” the man responded, his cheeks tingeing with a slight blush. Thomas understood then one of the secrets to her success in managing the breeding business after Claude Rousseau’s death—she had wrapped the members of his staff around her finger with a combination of kindness and praise, two things often in short supply in the lives of servants in general and those employed by someone like Etienne Rousseau in particular.
Fabron made his regretful good-byes to Sabine, and then left through a door behind them that likely led to rooms for the stable staff in the shorter arm of the L-shaped building. Sabine obviously had faith that the groomsman wouldn’t reveal their plans to her uncle before they had set everything in motion, and Thomas hoped that faith was well placed. He didn’t think the man was likely to betray her, given his obvious admiration for her, but it was impossible to be certain.
Once the door had closed and Fabron was safely out of hearing, Sabine left off stroking the horse and took a few steps in Thomas’s direction. “So, it is a good plan, yes? Much better than sneaking off in the middle of the night and having the alarm sound the moment we’re discovered missing in the morning, yes?”
“Yes, it is, but what about the jewelry? How will I explain that I am leaving before I have given it to you?”
“That is the easiest part! My aunt and uncle will not rise until after I leave; they are never out of bed that early. Just tell my uncle that we ran into each other when I was on my way out and, as you needed to be on the road before I was likely to return, you handed everything over to me then and there. He will not have any reason to doubt you, and even if he did, he is far too in awe of your family connections to consider calling you a liar to your face.” She smiled, and mischief danced in her bright blue eyes. “It will drive him absolutely mad to think that I have the jewelry and he has no idea what it is worth or where I have put it. He will spend the better part of the day trying to work out where I hav
e hidden the jewelry before he even considers the possibility that I have left for good.”
Thomas had to smile, because she was right. That was exactly what Etienne Rousseau would do. The man wouldn’t be able to bear the thought that a veritable treasure trove was beyond his reach, even for a few hours. “Very well,” he agreed. “I like this plan of yours better than mine but for one thing.”
Sabine stopped stroking the horse’s nose and looked at him expectantly. “And what is that? I believe it is well thought out from beginning to end.”
“Your horses,” he said on a sigh. “We cannot possibly take them.”
She crossed her arms over her chest—and ye gods, he should not be noticing how that made her breasts look plump and enticing even in the shapeless brown dress she wore—and frowned up at him, her expression set. “Then I cannot go. I will not leave them.”
Thomas counseled himself to remain calm. Once he explained his reasoning to her, she would have to change her mind. Becoming impatient or irritated wouldn’t persuade her. Only a dispassionate explanation of the facts could do that. “If the situation were any less dire, I would see no problem with bringing them. But if we are going to outrun your uncle’s pursuit—even with a full day’s head start—we will need to cover ground quickly. That means changing horses several times so we can make ninety to a hundred miles each day. Not even the hardiest of teams can cover more than thirty.” Despite the obvious logic of his argument, he could see that she was becoming, if anything, more intransigent, so he continued, “And even if we could afford to travel that slowly, your horses are conspicuous. There are not many who use Percherons as carriage teams, and I saw your stallion’s face. That star is very distinctive.”
“Well, that is easily solved. Shoe blacking will cover it and the socks on his front legs,” she said. “Copine is a dappled gray without any unusual markings, which makes her perfectly unremarkable amongst Percherons. And in France, many people use draught horses to pull the family conveyance as well as to work the fields. As long as we hire a coach that is less extravagant than the one you arrived in, no one will look twice.”