Jack Chiltern's Wife (1999) (11 page)

His use of the word aristos served to remind her of what had happened in Paris and she shuddered. Surely the whole countryside was not infected by this madness? ‘You did not have to say we were married.’

‘Our passports say we are, you know that. How else can I protect you? A woman alone, and not just any woman, but a very young and beautiful one, would fall prey to the first lecher who knocked on her door. And standing on your dignity would avail you nothing.’ He came over and took the blanket and shawl from her to throw them on a chair, standing for a moment with his hands on her shoulders and looking down into her upturned face.

Her eyes were bright and her cheeks rosy with cold; her lips were slightly parted and the pink tip of her tongue protruded between her teeth. Did she have any idea of what she was doing to him? Did she know that her mixture of hauteur and innocence was having a profound effect upon him, turning him into a quivering mass of indecisiveness and desire? He was rapidly losing the initiative.

He dropped his hands to his sides and took a deep breath to regain control of the situation. ‘Now come and sit by the fire and warm yourself. It is not necessary for us to fight.’

He pulled a chair close to the meagre blaze and motioned her to sit. ‘I told you before and I shall tell you again, I have more important things to do than seduce an unwilling chit. We share the room and that’s an end of it.’

She had seen that look in his eyes again, the look of pain and doubt, as if he were undecided whether to take her into his confidence or not, but before she could say anything the innkeeper returned with a tray of food and a hot brick wrapped in flannel. Jack took both from him and thanking him, ushered him out again.

‘Now, eat,’ he commanded, pulling a small table close to her chair and setting the tray on it. He put the brick in the bed and returned to add another log to the fire before bringing up another chair for himself. The meal was only a thin stew, with a few grisly pieces of meat, some onions and carrots, accompanied by cabbage and a couple of tiny potatoes, but it was nourishing in its way and she knew they would not even have had that if Jack had not given the couple more money than they could earn in a month.

He poured the wine which was surprisingly good and they ate and drank in silence. She wanted to ask him what his business was and, if it was so important, why was he taking time to escort her on this journey? Why wasn’t he concerned about his wife? Shouldn’t he be searching for her? Unless she was in Lyons too, or somewhere on the way. Was James even in Lyons? She had only Jack’s word for it.

So many questions buzzing round in her head, but she knew it was no good asking them. He told her only what he wanted her to know. Besides, she was feeling replete and sleepy, but unwilling to admit she wanted to go to bed. ‘I worked it out,’ she said.

‘Worked what out?’

‘At six miles an hour with stops we shall cover no more than thirty miles a day. We shall be on the road for ten days at least.’

‘Two weeks would be nearer the mark.’

‘And we go all the way like this?’

‘Like what?’

‘Plodding along all day with you on the driving seat and me rattling round inside and the nights spent …’ She spread her hands to encompass the room.

‘If we are lucky.’

‘If we are lucky!’ she repeated. ‘You call this miserable existence lucky? I should hate to encounter ill-luck.’

‘So should I,’ he said laconically. ‘A broken axle, perhaps, a lame horse, bad weather, brigands …’

‘Stop! Stop! I really do not want to know.’

He smiled. ‘If you had known what was ahead, I’ll wager you would never have left home, would you?’

She looked at him with her head on one side, pondering the question and he found himself holding his breath for her answer. ‘No, for I would not then have been the cause of Judith’s death and I can never forgive myself for that.’

He supposed it was the kind of answer he should have expected from her. She said nothing of her own ordeal, or the discomfort she was being forced to suffer, the poor food, the filth, his overbearing manner. ‘You should not blame yourself,’ he said. ‘She chose to come with you.’

‘She was loyal and my stepmother would have turned her out of the house in any case, so what choice did she have? And it was my decision to leave Monsieur Clavier’s, not hers.’

‘You could as easily blame me for taking you to Paris. I should have forced you to return to England.’

She smiled mischievously. ‘Do you really think I would have gone? It seems to me I gave you no choice either because, in spite of your efforts to prove the contrary, I do believe you have some gentlemanly feelings …’

He inclined his head, amusement in his brown eyes. ‘Thank you, ma’am.’

She stood up, trying not to let him see how nervous she was. ‘Now, I think I must put that to the test. I am going to bed.’ She went over to the four-poster and removed a blanket and a
pillow which she dropped into his lap. ‘It will be warm by the hearth. I bid you goodnight, sir.’

He scrambled to his feet and watched her clamber on to the bed and draw the curtains round her, dislodging a thick film of dust which made her cough. They had obviously not been drawn for a very long time and she was lucky they did not fall down about her head. He thought about going to help her but such a move would undoubtedly be misunderstood.

He heard the bed creaking as she endeavoured to undress on it and then there was silence.

‘Goodnight, my dear Kitty,’ he murmured, putting out the lamp before taking off his coat and boots and stretching himself on the hearthrug in shirt and trousers and pulling the thin blanket over him.

Kitty had removed her skirt and blouse and lay down in her shift and petticoat, but in spite of her fatigue she could not sleep. She was acutely aware of his presence in the room. The fire went out and the wind began to rattle the window panes and creep into the cracks around the door; she could hear the inn sign creaking as it swung to and fro. The moon rose and cast long shadows on the curtains that surrounded her. She felt closed in, unable to breathe and at the same time shivering with cold.

She pulled the curtains to one side so that she could see the window. Clouds were gathering, obscuring the moon. Tomorrow, there would be rain. The brick at her feet lost its warmth and she pulled it out and put it on the floor, glancing between the bed hangings at the huddled form on the hearthrug. He must be even colder than she was. She lay back on the pillows and shut her eyes, trying to empty her mind of all that had happened, so that she could sleep. She was so tired …

Her own screams woke her. Woke Jack, too. He rushed to her side, pulling aside the curtains and sitting on the bed to hold her in his arms. ‘Hush, hush,
ma petite
, you are safe. I have you safe. Look, there is no one here but me. Hush, hush …’

She clung to him as her screams subsided into sobs and the sobs into long heaving breaths, as she tried to throw off the nightmare. It had been so real, so terrifying. She was being buried alive in a dark cellar with hundreds of dead bodies. They were all about her, mangled, grotesque. She saw Judith’s face, her mouth and eyes wide open. There was a door and James stood by it, looking for her, but she could not move, could not cry out to let him know she was there, alive, not dead like everyone else.

‘That’s better,’ he said, stroking her hair. ‘Try and go back to sleep.’ He laid her back on the pillow and pulled the blanket over her, but she continued to shake. ‘You are cold.’ He fetched the blanket she had given him and tucked it round her.

‘No, no,’ she murmured. ‘You will freeze.’

He smiled and climbed in beside her, taking her shivering body into his arms and holding her close against him. ‘We will share. Go to sleep. No more nightmares.’

His voice was so soothing, the warmth of his body so comforting, she forgot to be afraid. A tiny voice in her head reminded her that what they were doing was scandalous in the extreme, but the voice had no strength and was lost among the screeching of the demons of her nightmare. She was tired and afraid and he comforted her. She put her head on his shoulder and risked shutting her eyes. The nightmare did not return and she slept.

When she woke again, dawn was breaking and rain was beating against the window pane. Had she dreamed that Jack Chiltern had lain beside her, that he had held her in his arms and soothed her? Or was that a dream too? She turned her head. The imprint of his head dented the pillow beside her, but of Jack Chiltern there was no sign.

She sat up in a sudden panic. His boots and coat had gone. He had abandoned her, gone on without her. She scrambled out
of bed and reached for her skirt and blouse just as the door opened. He came in bearing a tray.

‘Good morning, sleepy head,’ he said, smiling. ‘I thought you would never wake. Now, come and have breakfast, we must be on our way as soon as you are ready.’

It was all so very normal.

That day and night were the first of many, all very similar. Sometimes it rained; sometimes the sun shone; sometimes they made only half a dozen miles a day because the poor old horse could do no more. When that happened, they had walked beside it, talking in desultory fashion.

Without once mentioning his wife, he spoke of his parents and his boyhood which had been spent in England, of the countryside, the hunting and fishing with which he had filled his leisure, of his liking for books and learning and his assessment of the political situation. He talked of France under the
ancien régime
which he seemed to know just as well as England, and the changes brought about by the Revolution.

‘Theory and practice do not always go hand in hand,’ he said on one occasion. ‘Equality when applied unequally does not work. The new regime was supposed to have addressed the problem, made things more even, but the rich still escape while the poor still pay. They pay taxes to the state, taxes to the church, taxes to their
seigneur
. The cost of the intervention in the American War was bad enough, but now France is at war with half of Europe and the cost in money and lives is crippling. The country is all but bankrupt.’

She smiled. ‘You care, don’t you?’

‘Of course I care. Ardent patriotism soon turns to fanaticism, and fanaticism to despotism in the hands of powerful men, especially when the supreme authority is weak.’

‘You mean the King?’

‘Yes, the King. He was made the symbol of repression and it was easy to incite the poorer sections of the community into believing he was the author of all their ills.’

‘Now he is dead, has anything changed?’

‘No, of course not, so they turn their attention to the Queen and anyone seen to sympathise with her.’

‘They will never execute her, surely?’

‘Who knows?’

‘Poor woman.’

‘As you say, poor woman. If England were to win this war …’ He stopped, realising he was getting dangerously close to confiding in her and that would be bad for her safety. ‘It’s beginning to rain again and Samson has had his rest, so into the coach with you.’

She had returned to the vehicle and he had climbed on to the driving seat again, and they had continued their bone-shaking journey. But she was slowly beginning to understand him, and in that understanding there was a flicker of something more. Of love.

During the day she could set aside the terrible memory of Judith being hoisted up to the top of the lantern; during daylight hours, she could pretend there was nothing wrong, but when night came, when she went to sleep, the nightmares returned and then she was glad that he slept in a chair in the same room or across the foot of the bed.

Hearing her cries, he would wake her and murmur softly and lay beside her and both would sleep. She no longer argued against sharing a room with him. If they derived comfort and warmth from each other, that was good. She was as chaste as the day she left the vicarage, though she doubted if anyone would believe it. But England seemed far away and the proprieties she had been brought up to observe hardly seemed relevant.

They travelled almost due south, passing through the forest of Fontainebleu, favourite hunting ground of kings, on through
Sens, with its tall cathedral and half-timbered houses, to Auxerre and Avallon, set on a promontory jutting out over the river valley along which they meandered, as if they had all the time in the world, then through forests, stopping to rest beside lakes, where Jack caught fish for their mid-day meal.

Sometimes he snared a hare to supplement their diet of onions, peas, beans and cabbages and whatever they could glean from the hedgerows. Bread was in very short supply and very dear.

The days became a little warmer and the bare fields changed to sloping vineyards, each overlooked by its château, some quite small, others as big as castles. Beaune gave way to Chalon-sur-Saône, then Tournus and Macon, and still they journeyed on, following the banks of the river, sometimes hemmed in by towering cliffs, at other times gentle rolling hills, dotted with little villages.

The people they met on the roads and on the river barges pretended little interest, but Kitty was sure that they were watched and their presence commented upon. Occasionally they met soldiers on the march and Jack pulled off the road to let them pass. But even then the violence of Paris seemed a long way off; the gentle pace they had maintained for the benefit of an old horse also served to calm their own separate conflicts and produce a kind of euphoria.

But as they neared the city of Lyons, Jack fell silent and Kitty began to think more and more about her brother and what lay ahead. What would James say to her? What was he doing in France that prevented him from going home? He had always been headstrong, even more so than she was, so had he become involved in revolution or counter-revolution? Why Lyons?

It was nearer three weeks than two when they stopped at Villefranche-sur-Saône, capital of the Beaujolais region, and next morning turned off what was euphemistically called the
high road on to one that was even worse. Here the land was marshy and dotted with lakes, home of thousands of wild birds: waders, herons, birds of prey. Their pace became even slower.