Jane and the Damned (29 page)

“Can we trust the footmen?” George asked.

“Why, certainly. They know we shall hunt them down and rip their throats out if they betray us. But this is what comes of involving mortals in our affairs, Luke. We have always regretted it. Always.”

The door slammed as William left.

“‘Pon my word, he‧s a sympathetic fellow,” George said.

Luke shook his head. “Jane, pack your things and then come with me. We‧ll take a walk around the town and see what the mood is.” He added with a wink: “Pray put on a pretty gown if you so wish.”

Jane went upstairs to the room that she had not even slept in
yet, and packed the clothes that she had unpacked the day before. She hesitated as she picked up her manuscript. At this point it was only so much ballast, fit only for converting to spills or cutting into strips to curl her hair. But she put it in with her other possessions, if only to remind herself of her former life and of Cassandra.

Ann, dark shadows under her eyes, arrived yawning to help her with stays and gown, and repacked some of the clothes, complaining that Jane would make yet more ironing for her. Finally, bonnet on, with a muff and gloves she did not need but had to wear so as not to attract attention to herself, Jane arrived downstairs to find Luke giving directions to a group of roughly dressed men who had dragged some boxes and chests into the hall.

“Where will we go?” she asked.

“You‧ll find out tonight.” He raised a hand to her cheek. “But how do you do this day, Miss Austen? You have a certain sleek, satisfied air I‧ve not seen before.”

“I do very well. You look much the same.”

“Our blood is well matched.” He raised her hand, pushing the glove back to kiss the bare skin of her wrist, a sensitive spot that made her shiver with delight. So she had discovered last night, when other mysteries were revealed to her.

“Oh, do go out and do something useful.” William pushed the dining-room door open and viewed them with distaste. “And be careful. Luke, remember you are supposed to be dead, and Jane, keep your wits about you.”

Luke fitted a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles on his nose as disguise and took his swordstick from the stand in the hallway. Arm in arm, he and Jane left the house.

“I should like to walk with you and not feel that I must guard myself so,” Jane said.

“I regret it is how things are for us, even when the country is
at peace. We have always had our enemies. Tell me what you can sense.”

She concentrated. “I feel … I feel a little anger. It‧s strange, there was even less when the French invaded, for then people were mostly sullen and shocked. But also hope and excitement, and some relief. And there‧s food again—look how many people carry baskets as though they have been to the market.”

Luke stopped to view the wares of a woman who sold gingerbread on the street.

“Go on, sir,” she said. “Buy a piece for your sweetheart—look how hollow her cheeks are, poor thing. The waters will set you up right away, miss—that and my gingerbread.”

Luke smiled and handed the woman a sixpence. “Is trade good, mistress?”

“Surely it is, just as the Frenchies said it would be.” She handed Luke a handful of gingerbread molded into fantastic, twisted shapes, sprinkled with sugar. “Why, yesterday the market was as full of goods as I‧ve ever seen. Of course, the town is always cheered by a hanging, but it‧s a pity they blamed honest men for what those wicked Damned did.” Her fingers, freed of the gingerbread, formed the ancient sign against evil, forefinger and pinky extended, the others tucked under.

Jane, her mouth full of gingerbread, swallowed and would have said something, but Luke flashed her a warning to be silent.

“Indeed!” Luke said. “How extraordinary the Damned should be here, when everyone knows the waters are poison to their kind.”

“Oh, not for long.” The woman nodded at a poster stuck to the side of a building. “They‧ll round them up and cut off their heads, to be sure, and good riddance to them. Why, that storehouse of grain they blew up last night was to have been given to the poor.”

“Quite an extraordinary explosion that ‘grain’ made,” Luke said.

“Yes, that‧s what my man said, but doubtless, they have their wicked ways.” The woman dipped a curtsy and approached another customer on the street.

Luke pinched off a piece of gingerbread before Jane devoured it all and led her over to view the poster on the wall. In unevenly set type, it announced that a tribunal led by General Renard was to seek out enemies of the city. Citizens who reported suspicious activities would be given rewards.

“So it has begun,” Jane said. The gingerbread turned dry and tasteless in her mouth.

“So it has, but it will not last long.” Luke did not sound overly concerned.

“How do you know?”

“Oh, things are going well elsewhere.”

“What things? Where?”

“Patience. May I have another piece of gingerbread?”

She handed him a very small fragment. “Mmm, delicious,” she said to provoke him as she chewed the last mouthful.

“What next? Would you like to see the hanged men? I believe they‧re outside the Abbey where I met my most recent end.”

“Oh, stop it.” She pulled her gloves back on. “What a dreadful thing to say. That was horrible.”

“It wasn‧t very pleasant for me, either.” He linked her arm in his and they strolled on.

As they turned into Westgate Street, the door of a house flew open and a number of French soldiers pulled a struggling man, coatless and with a spoon in one hand, into the street.

“But I haven‧t done anything! I was eating my dinner!”

“You are to be questioned. Come with us.”

“But—”

One of the soldiers hit the man with the butt of his musket. He dropped to his knees, one hand at his bloodied face, and they dragged him away, his feet slithering on the paving stones.

Is he one of us?
Jane asked in horror.

No. The French seek to take advantage of peoples fears. They hand out food, yet arrest or hang the innocent. They seek to divide us.

“Sir!” A voice came from behind them. “Miss Austen, I have a message for you.”

They turned to see one of the footmen from the house, out of breath, who must have run after them.

“Miss Austen, a message came from Paragon Place just after you left and Mr. William told me which way you‧d gone. Mr. Austen is ill.”

“Oh no!” She turned to Luke. “I must go to him.”

“As you wish.”

“He is my father! Do not be so cold, Luke.”

He drew her aside, her hand in his. “Do you wish me to accompany you?”

“No, of course you cannot! It would be exceedingly awkward to have a dead man sit in the drawing room and make conversation over tea. Pray tell me where the new house is and I shall make my way there when I can.”

He shook his head. “No, it is too dangerous for you to know. One of us shall come for you. You will be safe enough with your family, but you will need to dine.”

Memories flooded back into her mind, pricked at her skin and tantalized her fangs. “Of course.”

“You should go.” He raised her gloved hand to his lips and sought the small gap where his fangs could graze her wrist.
There is so much I would say to you, yet I fear you will surrender to your family‧s influence. Come back to me.

“As soon as I can I shall return.”
Despise me for it if you will,
but I cannot surrender my former loyalties as easily as you expect me to.

He straightened and clasped her gloved hand briefly between his. “Go, then. Simon shall escort you. Be careful.”

She set off with the footman, turning back for one last look at Luke, and then chided herself for being overly dramatic. Now she had to think of her father and her family, and not agitate herself with thoughts that this might be her final duty as Jane Austen.

“What did the footman from Paragon Place say?” she asked.

“Very little, miss, only that you must come home.”

They continued through streets that still showed signs of recent battle, and Jane was surprised to see several people, mostly young men, wearing revolutionary cockades, strutting about and ostentatiously addressing one another as “Citizen.” But they were regarded with cynical tolerance by most of their neighbors; and altogether there was the feel of a community trying to establish some sort of normalcy.

When they reached Paragon Place, Jane ran ahead and the front door opened. A footman must have been watching out for her arrival, but the hall was deserted. There was no sign of either Cassandra or her mother.

Garonne stepped forward. “Citizeness Austen, I arrest you in the name of the Republic.”

“What!” Jane shook his hand from her arm. “How dare you! I am not subject to you.”

“On the contrary, Citizeness, I have every right to exercise my authority over one who is the enemy of the Republic.” He nodded to a pair of soldiers who stepped forward and gripped her arms.

“What on earth do you think I have done?” Rapidly she assessed her situation. She could break away, but it was still daylight, too early for her to seek refuge in the shadows.
Luke, help me.
But there was no response.

“Where are my parents and Cassandra?”

“Not here,” Garonne said. He gave her an unpleasant smile. “If you were to escape, ma‧amselle Jane, even if you were able to, I should be obliged to arrest them in your stead. They are at church. They are safe enough for the moment. Or for as long as you comply with the authorities and tell them all they wish to know.”

He led her into the street. A cart stood there, with half a dozen
other prisoners, their hands bound, their faces showing varying degrees of shock and bewilderment.

“If I may, Miss Austen.” Garonne held out a length of rope.

She could snap the rope with very little effort, lunge forward and tear out Garonne‧s throat and probably take the two soldiers as well, but she did not dare risk her family‧s safety. She held out her wrists. “So this is how you repay my family‧s hospitality, Captain.”

“Most grudging hospitality, as you have said many times.” He let her bound hands drop and helped her into the cart in a mockery of civility. “Tell the tribunal the truth and you shall be home again soon enough, ma‧amselle Jane. Or back in your lover‧s bed, whichever it is you prefer.” He gave her an insolent salute as the cart bumped forward.

Jane apologized to the other people in the cart and squeezed herself down into the straw that covered its floor. This might even have been one of the food carts she and the others had captured—it held a faint scent of blood but a stronger sense of terror from the people already aboard.

“I was having my dinner!” complained a familiar voice, coming from a man whose face was now covered in drying blood. He still clutched his spoon in one hand and, despite the violence of his arrest, which Jane had witnessed only a short time before, his napkin remained tucked into his waistcoat.

“There has to be a mistake,” another man muttered. “I am a very respected member of the city. I own three shops.”

A young woman wearing an unseasonably flimsy gown and with the remains of rouge on her face gave a cynical smile and leaned forward to stroke Jane‧s fur tippet. “Very nice. My advice is, sell it once we‧re inside, and buy yourself some comfort.”

“Inside where?”

She shrugged. “Oh, they‧ll imprison us I should think for a
time. But we‧re not headed for the prison. This is the fashionable part of town. What did a nice young lady like you do to fall afoul of the Frenchies?”

“Hold your tongue,” said the respectable shopkeeper. “You‧ve no cause to address your betters.”

“My betters? We‧re all the same in this cart, sir. Liable to lose our heads.”

Another woman gave a frightened whimper. She held a basket with a lid on her lap, her hands clenched tight on the handle.

“They say they‧ve beheaded over fifty in London so far,” said a pale-faced young man with shaky hands. Jane could scent his fear and wondered what he had to hide.

“You are misinformed, sir. I heard only thirty-two.” The gentleman whose dinner had been interrupted removed his napkin and dabbed at his face. “But they say the Prince of Wales was among them.”

“No, I have it on good authority that he is in Scotland, where one of the most noble families in the land has the privilege and honor of protecting him,” said the shopkeeper.

“And they‧re welcome to him,” said the painted woman.

Jane, who had last seen the Prince standing bewildered among shards of broken glass, wearing only his shirt, did not bother to argue with them.

“What‧s in your basket, mistress?” the painted woman asked.

The older woman whimpered and clutched the basket even tighter. The cart jolted, bumping the riders in the cart together, and the basket flew open to reveal a chicken that squawked and flapped among them.

One of the soldiers guarding the prisoners darted forward, grabbed the bird, and wrung its neck, making a cheerful comment about dinner, while the chicken‧s owner wept, her apron held to her face.

“That‧s a pity, we could have eaten it,” said the painted woman.