Lady Scandal (20 page)

"Who are they?" Diana asked, leaning closer
to Paxten.

"Gypsies," he answered, guessing and
glancing around the clearing again.
Something did not seem right.
The back of his neck tingled.
Too late, he realized what seemed
wrong—where were the men?

Picking up the reins, he started to
turn the donkey cart in the narrow lane, intending to gallop the
beast away if he must.
Before he could, two burly, dark-haired men
stepped from the woods to grab the donkey's bridle, both older men,
one with jagged scar across his face.
Paxten glanced behind them to
see if they could leave the cart and run.
But three more men—boys
really, but tall enough and broad in shoulder to mean trouble—stood
behind the cart.
He could not mistake the cold in their eyes, nor
the glint of sliver flashing in their hands.

Knives.

Merde
, now what had he dragged his Andria into?

At the appearance of the men, Alexandria
felt the sudden tension in Paxten.
She glimpsed the thoughts
turning behind his eyes; she had her own.
Five to one.
Paxten would
be on the ground and dead before he could do more than take a swing
at one of these ruffians.
She put her hand on his arm to keep him
still.
With her foot, she nudged her jewel box toward him and
whispered, "Give these to them."

He frowned at her, then answered in soft
English.
"That's a sure way to end with our throats cut."

"Then what—"

A querulous voice rose from beside the fire,
pulling Alexandria's attention to the old woman who had risen and
now stared at them.
"You are English!"

She spoke the words like an accusation, in
heavily accented English.
Alexandria glanced from the old woman to
the men with their hard faces and narrow-eyed stares.
They looked,
she thought, like a lean pack of wolves.

Straightening, her heart beating hard and
fast, she could see no reason to avoid the truth.
"Yes, we are."
Beside her, Paxten muttered a curse.
She glanced at him.
"What
choice do we have?"

The old woman's dry cackle filled the night.
Calling out something to the men in guttural French, the woman came
forward.
Her black skirts swirled as she walked.
Her silver-gray
hair had been pulled up into a knot on her head.
With the firelight
behind her, she looked a witch, her wide face lined by years and
coarsened by weather and a hard life.

"You are wise, little one." She glanced at
Paxten, at Diana, and back to Alexandria, her dark eyes glittering
in her heavily lined face.
"Your family?"

"My niece," Alexandria said.
She decided not
to attempt an explanation for Paxten.

The old woman glanced at
him, smiling now, but with a calculating look in her eyes.
"You
have not the look of the
Anglais
."

"I am
Anglais
.
And I am not.
I don't fit
anywhere, actually."

She grinned now, showing a gold tooth.
"Ah,
you are like us then!
Come.
Share our fire.
Maurice, bring our
guests."

It sounded more an order than a request.
The
old woman turned and limped back to the fire.
But the two older
men, Alexandria noted, seemed disappointed.
With a flash, the
knives disappeared.
She let out a soft breath.

Paxten did not look easy with the situation,
and she could share his sentiments.
But what else could they do
other than obey?
Only Diana seemed untroubled by the tensions
swirling around them.
Stepping from the cart, Diana bent to talk to
one of the children.
The child stared at her, eyes enormous and
solemn.

Glancing around him, Paxten eased himself
from the cart, and helped Alexandria from it.
The man with the scar
led their donkey away to tether it next to the shaggy ponies, and
two women, both of whom seemed younger than Diana, came out from
the shadows of the trees.
They stared at Diana, eyes wary.
However,
Diana chattered away in French to them, introducing herself,
admiring the children, and soon the women came forward.

The old woman gestured for them to sit.
Paxten did so, but with his back straight and his glance sliding
around him often.
However, it seemed to Alexandria as if these
Gypsies had nothing to offer but hospitality now.
Pewter plates
were brought out, hot rabbit stew served, wine filled metal mugs
that were passed to them.
Bread came out from a clay pot where it
had baked in the coals.

No one had much conversation.
The Gypsies
spoke little during the meal, and only to each other, talking in
low French with so marked an accent that Alexandria could follow
none of it.
Alexandria could barely eat, let alone converse.
And
Paxten, too, remained tense and alert.

After the meal, the women cleaned up and the
older man without the scared face brought out a guitar.
He began to
tune the strings.
The other young men ignored Paxten, and only
occasionally glanced at Diana or Alexandria from eyes still veiled
with suspicion.

Standing, Alexandria moved closer to the old
woman, her curiosity unbearable.
"Thank you for the meal.
But why
did it matter to you that we are English?"

The woman glanced at her, then smiled.
"We
lived once in the Vendée."

The name meant little to Alexandria, other
than as a name for a district in the west of France.
But Paxten
muttered a soft oath, and the old woman glanced at him.
"I see you
understand," she said.
She spoke to one of the younger men in her
own language.

With a sharp glint in his eyes, the man
moved to one of the carts.
He pulled out a leather bag that weighed
his arm, and spilled its contents onto the dirt.

Gold buttons glinted in the firelight.

The old woman grinned.
"We go where the
hunting is good these days." Still smiling, the old woman moved to
help the young man gather up the buttons.

Alexandria stepped closer to Paxten.
"Were
those—"

"Buttons from uniforms.
Yes.
And these
aren't Gypsies as I had thought."

She glanced around them, nervous again
now.

Paxten's hand gripped hers.
"Don't worry,
ma chére
.
They're brigands right enough.
Bonaparte named them such,
and aptly.
But it's him and his army that they have no love
for."

She edged closer to him.
"But who
are they?"

"In parts of France, including Vendée, the
Revolution never took, not with its hatred of both king and Church.
The royalists there fought back.
Then Bonaparte took power, so they
fought him.
Or they did until he sent his army against them."

"But why should they care if we are
English?"

He smiled.
"Because,
ma chére
, England most
generously sent weapons to Vendée.
Not that it did these poor
devils much good.
I heard of families burnt alive in their homes.
Bonaparte wanted an example made, in case others in France decided
they disliked his being made First Consul for life."

She shivered.
And she thought of the
soldiers who were following them.
Would they prove to be such
ruthless men, led by the example of the General who had made the
French army victorious?
She decided she did not want an opportunity
to learn if they were.

Despite her uneasiness, Alexandria soon
found little else to do other than to sit close to Paxten.
With the
guitar strumming softly and the fire warm on her face and hands,
her eyelids began to droop.
She yawned, and noted that Paxten sat
straight as ever, watchful.
She realized that she had not seen
Diana since their meal, and panic flared.

Sitting up, she gripping Paxten's hand.
"Where is Diana?"

An answer came to her from the darkness
outside the circle of firelight.
"I'm here, Aunt."

A black-haired girl with Diana's blue eyes
stepped into the firelight.

Paxten straightened and stared at the
girl.

With her golden hair and pale skin, she had
been lovely.
But with her curls now dyed black, and her skin turned
a dusky hue, she looked an exotic temptress.
Her blue eyes startled
by their contrast with the dark tresses.
And how had she managed
that copper tint to her skin?

He grinned at her.
"
Magnifique!
But
hardly a disguise that allows you to fade into insignificance.
Perhaps, Andria, you should have allowed her the breeches of a boy
after all."

Diana gave him a saucy look, but Alexandria
was on her feet and touching a hand to her niece's cheek.
"What
have you done to your skin?”

"It is only dye.
Madeleine swears it will
wear off in a few weeks."

"Weeks!"

Paxten decided he had best intervene.
Alexandria's eyes had darkened and her brows pulled flat, and
unless he missed his guess, she was about to give her niece a
thundering scold.

He owed the girl no help.
However, he had no
heart to take the triumphant gleam from her eyes.
Besides, she did
look quite fetching, and they could use any help they could come by
to keep themselves hidden.
This made her no less stunning, but
heaven help anyone now searching for a beautiful blond girl.

"
C'est bien
, Andria.
Perhaps you
should dye your skin as well.
I think I would like you dusky as an
exotic houri."

She glared at him.
"Yes, I expect you
would."

"And why not—I should like
you in any form,
ma
chére
.”

She glanced at him again, but stepped away,
as if she did not trust him.
Or did not trust herself with him.
He
smiled at that.

With a resigned sigh, she looked again at
her niece.
"Well, I suppose it cannot be too awful if it will wear
off."

Diana's new appearance seemed to amuse the
Vendéans.
As did Alexandria's reaction to her niece's
transformation.
Paxten did not relax, however.
The men might smile,
but he did not trust that their mood might not shift.
And so he lay
with a tree against his back, and his eyes open a slit as the moon
rose and the fire died and the others settled to sleep.

The morning dawned with mist, and Paxten
watched it rise, swirling thick around the camp.
He had been lost
before this.
In such fog, how would he find the road to Dieppe?

Shaking his head, he turned to wake Diana
and Alexandria.

By the time he had them alert, the Vendéans
had a fire lit to heat water for tea and coffee, and to make bread.
The men moved about quiet, their faces as expressionless as last
night.
The women chattered, however, in soft voice, talking to each
other, waking their children.

He stepped closer to Alexandria, a hand
pressed to his side, for the cold of the night had left him stiff
and aching.
"We should go soon.
We have a way yet to the
coast."

He spoke softly, and in English, but the old
Vendéan woman still overheard him.
She looked up from her seat by
the fire, a steaming mug of tea in her hands.
Her eyes glittered
with speculation.
"The coast?
What—ah, now I see.
You must be that
half-Englishman the soldiers seek.
The dangerous one who raped a
Frenchwoman, is that not what they say?"

#

Paulin saw his comfortable retirement
disappearing.
He would be lucky not to end his days posted to the
farthest colony possible for his failure.

He could swear they had caught the trail of
that damned Marsett and those Englishwomen.
They had been seen in a
town during its spring fair.
Only now all trace of them had
vanished again.
Did the man have a pact with the devil?
Or had he,
after that fair, raped and murdered the women and doubled-back to
Paris?
Is that not how a desperate criminal ought to act?

Only no one acted as they should in
this.

The captain had made this hunt an obsession.
And this Marsett danced them around the countryside as if it were a
game.
Bah, why did they not just find someone who looked enough
like Marsett and shoot him?
Who would know, after all?
And they
could go back to Paris and to the real work of a soldier.
France
was at war, again, was she not?

But that would not do for the captain, it
seemed.
No, he had to have this half-English cur even if it meant
they must search for phantoms.
They would become ruined men if this
misadventure went any more sour.