For Our Liberty (13 page)

I admired the Abbé and Beston for maintaining their principles for so long but I had to wonder if I would have done the same in their place. Now that the excesses of the Committee of Public Safety were in the past a strong leader like Bonaparte was little different from any other King in Europe, even if he did keep the illusion of a being just a Consul. It was obvious that all was not well in the Royalist camp. After ten years of struggle against the Revolution only the diehards were still espousing their King’s cause. Bonaparte had begun to entice many nobles back to their estates. As Beston said, if something did not happen soon the Royalists would whither and die as a younger generation accepted the status quo.
 

I slowly walked up the stairs holding my hand in front of the spluttering candle, past the portraits of Beston’s ancestors. If they could see their chateau in that state they would be spinning in their mausoleums.
 

My room had been aired but still smelled musty and unused. I doubt that Beston entertained much these days. I took off my coat and turned a graceful chair around so that I could look out of the window overlooking the terraces at the rear of the house. The grass was long and the topiary neglected and misshapen; the moonlight silhouetted what might have once passed for a peacock but years of growth had turned it into a dragon-like mass. I sighed and leant back, put my feet up on the windowsill and ignored the creaking protests of the chair as I rocked it back onto two legs.
 

What plans the Abbé had laid for our escape back to England I knew not. I couldn’t wait to find out either. The traitor, whichever of the three it was, may have known them as well and the only way that I could be certain of staying a move ahead of him was to implement a plan of my own. The details could wait. I wanted to get away from the chateau that night. I was tired and I’m sure Dominique was exhausted, but if the Abbé was correct in his assumption that Bonaparte had spies everywhere then staying at the home of a known Royalist was not an option to be considered. Not unless I wanted to be captured. And I didn’t. Did I? Part of me felt it would be easier to just give in. What could I expect when Lacrosse caught up with me? A beating? Questions? I thought of the packet of papers and looked towards the empty fire grate. If it wasn’t for those damn plans then I’d become just another Englishman trying to get home. Who could blame me for that? Beston had told me that most of the English prisoners were going to Verdun where they’d live freely if they gave their parole. Was that so very different from my own self-imposed exile in Paris?

The nuisance was that I’d already made myself a promise. I had wallowed in self-pity long enough and, truth be told, I did want to get back home to London. Now that we were at war with France again there was a chance I could atone. Then there was Dominique. I have always had the habit of fitting myself to the woman I was with. Over the past year I had been as lazy and immoral as the bits of muslin who shared my bed. I had a suspicion that Dominique would demand more of me. I would have said that the thought of her was what made me stop cogitating and do something but it was likely the chair collapsing that did it.
 

I brushed myself down, put my coat back on and picked up my cloak and hat. I reloaded the pistols and went back out into the corridor. Dominique had a room a few doors down from mine. I began to walk softly towards her door when it opened and a thin shaft of light stabbed into the darkness. A maid left her room and quickly walked to the back stairs. I breathed again. The door was just closing as I got there and at my knock it opened instantly. Dominique was expecting it to be the maid and let out a yelp when she saw that it wasn’t.

“Be quiet.” I ordered and barged into the room, shutting the door quickly behind me.

“Ben…” She looked at my cloak and hat and decided that I had evidently not come for the usual reason one tiptoed around corridors at night. I might have fooled myself that I saw a flash of disappointment had I not been so pre-occupied with escape.

“Dominique, I think we should go.” I was whispering but since there wasn’t another occupied room in the whole wing I don’t know why.

“But why? The Abbé said he will get us to his house in Boulogne in the morning.”

“I know but I have my suspicions that someone forewarned the gendarmes of our escape,” I said. We didn’t have the time for a debate but I knew she would demand some explanation for such a claim.

“Ben, but who? Why?” she asked.

“We left Paris faster than a horse can ride but still the patrols were waiting for us here. So somebody betrayed us. Fauche, Duprez or Montaignac I think. No one else knew did they?”

“No, no one.”

“We have to assume that the traitor also told Lacrosse or whoever where we are going.” I bent down and snuffed out the candle. She had not moved.
 

“I’m sorry Ben, but I don’t believe it. I have known each of them for years. They would not betray you.”

“Somebody did. It’s the only explanation,” I said. “Come on. We have to leave.”
 

“But how do you plan to get across to England?”

“I don’t know yet; steal a boat, signal a frigate. We’ll work it out when we reach the coast.”

“That isn’t good enough. The patrols will know we are trying to reach the Channel. Our only hope is with the Abbé’s help. He knows people.”

“No, Dominique. We cannot trust him.”

“Ben, it is you who must trust me. How long have you been doing this kind of thing? I have been an agent since I was fifteen. Trust me. The Abbé is a good man. He will help.” She had put both her hands on my shoulders and was looking at me, pleadingly. “Let me speak to him in the morning, please.” She stepped closer.

“We can’t trust anybody. We must go,” I said but without conviction as she had placed her head on my chest. Suddenly my heart was pounding and my palms damp.
 

“Ben, the worst thing we can do is panic. We must think. If there is a traitor then Claude is in danger and I can’t bear the thought of that.” Her voice was tremulous and slightly muffled. I stroked her hair and kissed her forehead. She let her hands drop from my shoulders down my back. Before I knew what I was doing I lifted her face to mine and kissed her softly and slowly. Her lips still tasted of the Calvados, sweet and ripe. She shivered and backed away. I began to apologise but she was soon reaching forward and unbuttoning my coat. My mouth went dry. She slipped the coat from my arms and came forward again, her hands running across my chest, her fingers finding their way beneath my shirt and burning my skin with their caress. I kissed her again and this time with a passion that I could barely contain. My hands found the hooks on the back of the dress and clumsily tried undo them. She backed away and again I thought I had gone too far. I started to speak but she silenced me with a finger to my lips. I held it there and kissed it, working my way slowly up to her hand and then her wrist.
 

She slipped from my grasp and stepped into the silver square of moonlight in the middle of the room and undid the dress herself. The material sighed onto the floor. Her under-garments quickly joined it. Her skin was pure alabaster, her proportions as perfect as any of the three graces. Her hair was released from the pins and clips and fell across her shoulders and down to her breasts. She held out her hands. They were shaking as I took them and led her to the bed.

Well that’s quite enough of that, I think. If you are surprised that she succumbed to my charms with such alacrity then I will not pretend that I wasn’t also mildly shocked. I expected the chase to be a long and very thrilling one and was slightly disappointed when she fell into my arms so easily. Not that I demurred of course. I’m not that stupid. I know the more prurient of you will want me to linger on the finer points of the evening but no doubt your imaginations can fill in the gaps. My children will have the dubious pleasure of reading this memoir some day so I shall draw a respectful veil over the rest of that night and skip to the bit where Lacrosse turned up the next morning.

CHAPTER TEN

The first morning that you wake up with a girl is always special. The preceding night should have ensured, but not always, that you know sufficient about her to be glad that she shared your bed but without yet having identified those peculiarities and habits that will, in due course, exasperate you. Of course the pre-coupling conversation will have been full of front, bravado and exaggeration but once the deed is done I always find that both parties become more relaxed and sincere. The talk turns to the past, to hopes and to regrets and you find out more about the girl you’ve just bedded in quarter of an hour than you would do in a year of small talk, gossip and seduction.

That was certainly the case with Dominique. She spoke of the fond memories of her youth growing up, playing amongst the vines. They were the usual tales of doting parents and dutiful children that so many people recall later in life but like the flattery of a portrait painter they may not contain much truth. In her case her parents could do no wrong. They were frozen in time by the tragedy of their end and Dominique had blotted out any bad memory of them, not even admitting to herself that they may have ever delivered a harsh word to an errant child. She also told me how she had begun as a courier for the Royalist cause, taking messages from Paris to other groups around the country. Her uncle had trusted her with ever more important communiqués and then other tasks, such as keeping watch during meetings or persuading others to join the conspiracies. I had no doubt how persuasive she could be. She told me of her liaison with Montaignac. It had apparently been brief and tempestuous. I had no right to feel any jealousy but that didn’t stopping me seething with it all the same. Her uncle had encouraged the romance and been angry when Dominique ended it. She said Montaignac only really loved himself. The story of her life was quite a tale, all told. Whilst Dominique talked I listened but said little. There was little that I could say to such a story. Usually my post coupling conversations had not strayed much further than the odd confession of former loves or secret dreams. When she stopped telling her tale it was late. We were both exhausted and we moved on to the next stage of intimacy, the next stage of a turning a dalliance into something more.

After the talk, you both begin to slumber and you learn more still, does she like to be held? Well they all do, don’t they? But is she clinging to you like a drowning sailor, frightened that you’ll leave and thereby ensuring that you do? Or does she collapse in a sweaty heap, lie on your arm and begin to snore, and possibly fart, like a game pullet who’ll be doing the same with your best friend tomorrow? Or sometimes, just sometimes, she’ll let you lie on your back and place her head on your chest so that all you can smell all night is her hair. One leg will hook over yours and her fingers will idly play across your chest until you’re asleep. When you awake they are lying peacefully beside you and you feel that you are the luckiest man alive. Nothing else matters but her. That’s how I felt when I saw Dominique lying there beside me.

Now I do not wish for you to get the notion that I was some sort of Giacomo Casanova. True there had been a reasonable number of women who had shared my bed, but the sum total would be less than some men I have known have managed to bag in a month. I was also fool enough to lose at least part of my heart to each of them, whether they were a maid or a Lady. I prided myself that each had spirit and each was willing, again more than I could say for some of my contemporaries. The only one whose name I never knew was the girl from the first chapter of this tome. I remember them all still, but Dominique was unique.

It was still early and as the sun attempted to get past the heavy drapes and eventually found a small gap through which to get a single shaft of sunlight into the room, it wisely chose the most beautiful object to alight upon. I half sat up and leant on one elbow, following the sun’s path over Dominique’s naked form with my fingertips. I started in her tangled curls and then crossed her cheek. The sun highlighted every tiny hair and, as my fingers softly caressed her, they began to stand up as the skin goose-pimpled. I left her cheek for a short and agreeable excursion across her neck and shoulders and then my fingers came to the end of the sunlight and lingered, like the rays, on the soft curves of her breast. I bent forward and let my lips take over my fingers’ duty. Dominique smiled and placed one hand in my hair.
 

Then I heard the scream.
 

Then a single pistol shot.

Dominique’s eyes opened and we both sat up.

“What was that?” she asked, pulling the sheet up around her.

“Trouble,” I said as I got up and started to get dressed as quickly as I could. She got the message and did the same. This was distressingly familiar; I began to think that the authorities had taken it upon themselves to forestall all my romantic liaisons. I had no doubt about whom was causing all the mayhem this time and told Dominique my suspicions. I went to the door, still doing up my breeches and with my shirt undone. I opened it just a crack. The corridor was empty but I heard the recognisable sounds of boots on stairs, all too near. I cursed myself for being stupid enough to stay the night, and shut the door. I looked around the room for options and there was just one. Only the window offered any chance of escape. I went over to it and looked out. A monkey could have climbed down to the ground forty feet below; I might have made it but Dominique never would.

She was almost dressed now and turned her back for me to do her hooks up, I was just as clumsy fastening them as undoing them.