Chapter Nineteen #2
Giselle clutched her gown to her chest. To protect herself, she pretended embarrassment and frowned at the woman.
She had faked her monthly courses so that the three men would leave her alone.
If they remained to watch her disrobe, they would see she had not donned her apparel for that.
Worse, if Suzette took her clothes away, Giselle would lose her coins.
“I need nothing from you,” she declared to the woman.
“But you enjoy rich attire.”
Another fact they knew about her. How had they learned this? She employed no maids, no retainers. Those she had met while here in the South of England were strangers. Only Clive, his sister, and Langley were her new friends—and they were not ones to tell such tales to French conspirators.
“Why treat me well, madame?” She tossed her curls over her shoulders in feigned defiance. “Your new clothes will not persuade me to your cause.”
“I supply you with finery to appeal to men.”
“I have no desire for that either.”
The woman thought that over. “You will if you want to gain favor.”
And live? A shiver ran down Giselle’s spine. She had watched her sister suffer the outrageous attack of three rapists—and die from their barbaric assault on her pretty body. No one—no one—would ever touch her like those men had hurt her sister. She would happily kill them, no matter the cost.
“She’ll want to look pretty for Faucon,” said Maurice with a lewd light in his watery eyes.
“True,” offered the woman. “Faucon may treat you well if you are kind to him.”
Giselle sent the woman a look of damaging rebuttal. Whoever this so-called “Falcon” was, whatever power he had, she would give him no quarter.
The woman clapped her hands to hurry her along.
“No more delay! Take it all off, lovely Giselle. That gown is ruined. Do not worry. What do you say if we replace this tattered rag with a very nice sarsenet of blue? I will, and soon. You do look best in very pale sky blue. I knew it the best color for you the first time I saw you.”
Giselle’s lashes flickered. She could not help it.
“I see that you wish to learn where and when it was I first laid eyes on you?”
Giselle would not give her the satisfaction of an answer.
“Ah, yes. Here in Hastings. But you were so involved in your own thoughts, you did not notice me. And that was good. Paul, Maurice, you two go outside. The lady will disrobe!”
As the two men closed the front door, her lady captor swung her hips this way and that as if she danced her way toward Giselle. It was the first movement that told Giselle her female captor was no aristocrat. Perhaps an actress. Or a courtesan.
She put her face in Giselle’s again and sneered. “You still have that superior way about you. Your mother taught you that.”
This woman knew her mother? How? When?
“I will leech it out of you. Humility is such a useful emotion. Levels us all, no matter to which class our parents we were born. Strip. Get in that tub.”
Anger burned into Giselle’s veins at the lady’s hauteur. But, grateful to have only females for her audience, she did as she was told.
“No corset? Huh,” remarked the lady, her full attention on Giselle’s body. “Nice breasts. Full.” She reached out and caressed the curve of one.
Giselle set her teeth. You will die for that.
“Ever had a woman to your bed?”
Giselle remained stoic.
“Tell me!” La Mère pinched Giselle’s nipple.
She lost her breath, but her voice was strong. “Non.”
“You might like it. Hmmm. So might I. Ah, but that is for another day. For now, you must wash away the grime of your journey. When we leave here, you will be not only clean but pristine. We like a lady to look and smell like one. Even one who has spent her last few weeks in the bed of her very attentive lover.” She leered at Giselle, her cold jade-stone eyes tracing her form.
Her words only made Giselle ache for the sight of that dear man.
She prayed as often she could these past few days that Clive had recovered from his injuries.
She put a hand to her forehead, a sob of despair rising in her throat.
She hoped that no one hired by this woman found him on the floor of their rooms and hurt him even more.
Wherever he was, how ever he was, she prayed he was safe. That he searched for her, she believed with her heart and soul.
Would he find her? Could he?
He’d been thoroughly surprised by their attackers, despite all their precautions and his two hired men. Despite his own connections to agents of his own and the prime minister.
Yet there was hope.
Ah, my darling man, what do you know, what can you learn that you might help me escape from this band of cutthroats?
*
The days wore on. Days grew to weeks. Two, three.
Giselle grew weary of the wait. She was not the only one.
The three men grew testy, arguing with each other about who took up the watch.
At night, they drank after dinner. La Mère warned them if they fell asleep on watch or missed the approach of a foe, she would see they never worked for her again.
She’d send them back to Paris—and Vaillancourt.
Giselle began to welcome the respite from traveling. She was still tied to a chair and to her bed each night. But that was small discomfort after what had come before.
But on an afternoon in the third week, horses’ hooves and a dog barking announced a visitor.
“Faucon!” Franchot whispered with glee.
La Mère picked up her pistol and strode to the side of the small window. Using the butt of her gun to move aside the crocheted curtain, she put down her weapon. “Go greet him, Franchot.”
“I hope he has a new bottle of cognac,” Maurice said with a grin.
“You need none of it, clod,” La Mère replied.
“I’ll take my money, too, witch.”
The four of them had engaged in many an argument over the payment of the fee for their services. La Mère claimed not to carry such large amounts. “Faucon will pay you.”
They had grumbled. When will that be? they wanted to know.
Now the fellow was here, with whatever rewards he had for his minions…and for his prize captor.
Giselle sat, calm as death, her breathing saving her sanity as she awaited the arrival of the man who was to be her doom.
*
Faucon was a tall, nimble fellow who spoke excellent, refined Parisian French.
He entered the room to fill the cottage with a fragrance of expensive cologne.
There he stood examining each of his four cronies, finding fault with each man for some small infraction of bad grooming and praising La Mère for her pretty décolleté and her wisdom to wear the mask.
With eyes of green so dark they were nearly black, he was an athletically built man who glided toward Giselle as if indeed he flew before her.
Then he took her by her chin and bent close.
Too close, his breath minty, he spoke with a relish that was salacious.
“A beauty.” Then he leaned nearer and inhaled as he ran his nose down her throat to her cleavage.
“You smell sweet and succulent. Your doing, is this, Sa—La Mère?”
Giselle blinked. What was La Mère’s real name? Samartine? Sanibel? Sabine? Sandrine?
“She had to be cleaned, Faucon. None of us could stand her.”
“Well, my lovely little artist,” Faucon breathed, “I’ve come to view your work.” He whirled away from Giselle toward the others. “Show me what you have of hers.”
So this is why they took my drawings and watercolors and oils. To show Faucon.
The three men scurried to grab it all up and array it on every available space. Faucon took his time examining them all.
Finally, he turned to La Mère and grinned. “Well done. This lady is the one we seek.”
Did they believe the drawings to be accurate? Or false? Giselle sat, so frozen in fear that she could not breathe.
If Faucon thought them accurate, then the reason to take her to Vaillancourt was for that man to imprison her for personally working against him, despite her so-called good work for the navy.
If Faucon thought her work false and the basis of the French navy’s analysis of the amphibious invasion boats, the charge against her would be treason.
Either way, she was doomed.
How to learn the answer?
“Surely Monsieur Vaillancourt did not send you to detain me if you question that I am a woman he wants?”
Faucon turned on her with such a vicious look, narrowing his eyes and thinning his lips, that she saw why he was named after a bird of prey. He chucked her under her chin. “Not to worry, ma petite. Vaillancourt eats delicacies like you for any reason he chooses.”
Well, that was a truth she’d learned long ago. But his answer held no new meanings for her.
“When do we leave this place?” Maurice asked Faucon, irritated.
Faucon sniffed, seemingly indifferent to the man’s need for haste. “Ah, well, soon.”
So…he has no idea when we can leave. Giselle grabbed a few breaths and, in her heart, warmed to the news.
“How soon?” Franchot sneered.
“When I find a Frenchman eager to risk his neck and the guns of the British navy. Want to go in the midst of them? Swim well, do you?”
Faucon left within the next few minutes. He’d come, gone, satisfied himself that Giselle was the captive he wanted, but gave no other news.