Souvenir Countess (Souvenir #1)

Chapter 1

One

“Please let it still be here,” Alix prayed as she ran her hands frantically over the floor.

Her fingers at last grazed the rough cloth of the sack containing supplies she’d stored several weeks ago.

She reviewed the items by touch: the wool clothing, the flask of water, the parcel of dried fruits, the porcelain chamber pot.

Fumbling with trembling hands, she found a candlestick and a stub of candle.

She didn’t dare light it, but knowing she had it made the darkness more bearable.

No light penetrated this airless room behind a false panel, but Alix closed her eyes anyway.

So many nights she’d lain awake thinking about this hiding place, tucked beside the mantle in one of the chateau’s many guest rooms, but she’d never truly believed she’d have to use it.

Her father had been so confident that the trouble in the village would pass, that the people would see reason and release the king.

She’d almost begun to believe him. She pressed her back against the rough wall and hugged her knees tightly.

Every nerve ending screamed with fear. It seemed as if the quick intakes of her breath and the whisper of her silk gown were the only sounds in the world.

And then the monstrous symphony began.

The peasants stormed through the grand entranceway of the chateau screaming for the blood of the de La Brous.

Catcalls and jeers, bits of martial songs and the shuffling stomp of many feet penetrated the secret room.

The people were moving through her home, up the grand staircase and down the long portrait gallery.

The sounds became sharper, clearer, and Alix heard the clang of pitchforks and scythes against wood and glass, the crash of furniture falling and the tearing of fabric as the villagers entered the grand salon, nearing her father’s library.

She’d begged her father to flee or at least to conceal himself.

“Alexandre Charlotte, don’t be ridiculous. De La Brous do not scurry off, or crouch in dark corners like rats.” His lips thinned in distaste. “But if it suits your delicate nature to hide away from our people, you may.”

By then the sounds of the angry villagers outside had become distinct in the grand salon, the hoarse shouts of the men, the screamed curses of the women and the relentless pounding of thick-soled shoes against the wide gravel drive.

“Papa please...” she tried a final time, but he didn’t bother to rise from his chair or even close the book he had resting on the knees of his satin britches. Waving a lace-draped wrist in her direction, he said simply, “Go hide, Alexandre. When the fellows come up the drive, I’ll treat with them.”

They were his last words to her.

Even to the end, her father had not believed the peasants would harm them.

The din from below lulled. It could only mean one thing—the mob had found her father.

As clearly as if she were standing by his side, she imagined him confronting them, his thin shoulders thrown back, his powdered head as proudly erect as if he were attending the king at Versailles.

He’d address them as if they were children, as he had so often spoken to her, patiently explaining that he was their lord, their master, the Comte de La Brou, descended from a family that had defended them for centuries.

There was a swirling howl, a sound more terrible than any she had ever experienced.

Her blood seemed to freeze. Then she heard a roar of indignation she recognized as her father’s.

A single animal scream. The people’s voices rose in triumph.

The villagers had cut her father down as if he were nothing. She knew this with awful certainty.

Crouching in the stifling darkness, she felt she could no longer breathe.

The floors and walls were vibrating with the orgy of looting and destruction just beyond, and she lost all sense of time.

At one point the sounds were so clear she realized that people were just beyond the thin barrier of the false wall; she thought she might even recognize some of the voices.

Was it hours or days that she lay curled in this little passage, her hands vainly pressed against her ears?

Gradually she became aware again of the sounds of her breathing, the rustle of her skirts and the soft scrape of her own foot against the floor.

The Chateau Valcour, always so full of voices, movement, and music, was as still as death.

She pressed her ear to the panel beside the mantle, straining for any evidence that she was not completely alone.

When she heard nothing, she quickly began to unlace her gown, dropping it to the floor.

She rolled down her silk stockings and tossed them in a heap, along with her satin flowered garters.

Reaching into the cloth bag, she pulled out a pair of cotton stockings and a coarse wool gown, donning them with damp and shaking hands.

She raked her fingers through her stylish coiffure, twisting her tangled hair into a thick bun at the nape of her neck, topping it with a cotton mobcap.

Willing her hands to be still, she unlatched the panel and pushed it open.

Porcelain and glass shards popped and scraped beneath her plain leather shoes as she walked slowly through the once elegant sitting room.

The portable furniture was gone, the larger pieces gouged and slashed.

She knew she shouldn’t look, couldn’t linger, but as she hurried out of the room small things caught her eye and seared themselves into her memory.

A book she had been reading the night before lay in a doorway, the charred crescents of its pages fluttering.

A silver hand mirror her grandmother had given her, its glass gone, was bent and battered on a stair.

Things, just things, she told herself, trying not to think about where and how her father’s body might lie.

She crept down a back staircase, reminding herself with each step to concentrate on reaching her mother in Paris.

If she could just find Madeleine, she told herself, everything would be all right.

She hadn’t heard from her mother in over a year, but the post had become notoriously unreliable since the revolutionary government had taken over.

All she knew for certain was that after the royal family had been imprisoned in the Tuileries, her mother had moved to an apartment in the Faubourg St. Honoré area.

She’d found the address when she’d gone through the center drawer of her father’s desk, where he kept his most important papers.

Her foot bumped the remains of a Sèvres vase, and it rolled down several steps and shattered.

She froze against the wall, waiting to see if she would be discovered.

But the only sound was the rocking of the curved shards of porcelain as they settled into place.

She exhaled slowly and continued down the stairs, her mind still on her mother.

She hadn’t seen her in three years, not since she’d lived with Madeleine at Versailles in preparation for her marriage to the elderly Marquis de Beincourt.

The Marquis had died of smallpox and Alix’s father had demanded her return to Valcour, complaining loudly about the collapsed betrothal and hinting darkly that Madeleine was somehow responsible.

He’d made no efforts to arrange another marriage.

She grimaced; her father probably thought he’d have plenty of time to find her a husband.

He’d refused to consider death the way he’d refused to consider the consequences of the overthrow of the king.

She unlatched a small side door and stepped outside.

“Hisst, mademoiselle, over here.”

Alix spotted Solange and David Chaumier standing by a tall hedge that banked the formal gardens. She exhaled slowly; she hadn’t allowed herself to think what she would do if her maid didn’t come to find her as they’d planned.

“Come, mademoiselle, Lord knows what scum might be watching the place or roaming the grounds. David’s got the horses waiting on the other side of the garden.” When Alix didn’t move, Solange reached out and tugged her sleeve. “There’s nothing for you to do here now.”

Alix turned for a final look at the chateau, its circular towers and long rectangular wings wreathed in smoke. She wanted to howl, she wanted to scream, to roll on the grass and gouge at the earth. But it wouldn’t change anything. It wouldn’t bring her father back, and it wouldn’t restore Valcour.

Tearing her eyes away, she reminded herself that nobility didn’t lie in buildings or fortunes, but in blood.

She was the last of the de La Brou line, and she would prove that the strength of the ancient warrior dukes still ran in her veins.

She would survive and return to reclaim her heritage.

Wrapping her arms tightly around her corseted waist, she felt the reassuring rustle of her father’s property titles against her chemise.

Feeling armored against the uncertain future, she hastened to join David and Solange.

Robert Lamartine stood in the copper light of late afternoon, looking out the tall windows of the Comte de La Brou’s grand salon.

A movement below suddenly caught his eye.

A footman was holding apart branches of the thick garden hedge for two housemaids to pass through.

All three had cloth sacks slung over their shoulders.

He chuckled, thinking he was not the only faithful servant collecting long-overdue rewards from the comte.

But as the last woman ducked through the hedge her mobcap caught on a branch and a wealth of dark hair tumbled down her back.

She turned and a ray of fading sunlight caught her face.

“Why Alix, you naughty little minx,” Lamartine muttered unpleasantly, “wherever do you think you are going, and what do you have in that bag?”

He shrugged. It made no difference to him where the comte’s daughter thought she was headed. Without the proper identification papers, there was little chance she would make it very far without being arrested and executed. She might just as well have died with her father.

He caught his reflection in the fractured remains of a gilt-framed mirror and smiled.

It had been so easy to arouse the peasants.

He’d simply spread a few rumors that the Comte de La Brou was raising money to send to supporters of the imprisoned king.

Then he’d paid an orator to stir things up with a lovely speech detailing the comte’s efforts to betray the new republic.

The villagers had been incensed, spilling out of the market square, grabbing up pitchforks and pikes, and marching up to the chateau demanding vengeance.

He really was quite gifted when it came to planning and coordination.

Not that his master had ever truly appreciated him.

No, the ridiculous old man had been too busy prancing about in his powdered wigs and painted heels.

Making tiresome speeches about the noble history of the warrior de La Brous.

When all along it was he, Robert Lamartine, who was responsible for Valcour.

His work as steward—collecting the rents and duties, overseeing repairs, keeping an eye on the staff—had made the chateau a showplace and enabled the comte to live a life of comfort and ease.

Lamartine crossed the grand salon, the crackle of broken glass beneath his feet sending shards of pleasure up his spine.

When he reached the doorway at the far end of the room, he stopped and the head of a small porcelain milkmaid came to rest against his buckled shoe.

He knelt to pick it up. A shame it had been broken; he’d rather liked the little piece.

It reminded him of his sister Marie, though her clothes had never been as lovely as this figurine’s.

Nor had they been warm enough to protect her from the consumption that had taken her life.

Robert opened his hand. The head rolled off and shattered.

Straightening, he sidestepped the remains of a paneled door and entered the comte’s private library.

The comte had never thought fit to thank his steward properly, so Lamartine had been thanking himself, skimming generously from estate accounts.

He smoothed the front of his simple olive and brown striped waistcoat and patted his old-fashioned bagwig.

From his modest appearance no one would ever guess he was really quite a wealthy man.

However, a man of wealth should have property.

As soon as he found the comte’s titles, he’d have that, too.

The foolish comte had relied upon him to sign all his papers.

Lamartine doubted anyone could tell their signatures apart.

Which was how he’d convinced a registrar of deeds to notarize papers transferring the de La Brou estates to one Robert Lamartine, in the unlikely event of the comte’s own demise.

Eyeing the headless body splayed across a delicately inlaid desk, Lamartine reflected idly that some might raise questions as to why the comte hadn’t left his property to his wife or to his daughter.

He had little doubt they could be laid to rest. After all, the comte had frequently been heard to say that the only responsibility a woman could be entrusted with was birthing a man’s heir.

With effort, Lamartine rolled his former master’s battered corpse onto the floor.

Grinning, he drew a fine linen handkerchief from the comte’s waistcoat pocket and wiped the desk drawer’s lock free of gore.

Then he inserted a fine gold key. It turned with a satisfying click, and he slid the drawer open.

His smile was short-lived.

It was empty. His hands scrabbled wildly, like crabs trying to escape a box, searching the corners, the back of the drawer, behind the drawer. Nothing! Enraged, he turned to the body on the floor and kicked it. “You stupid, useless old man. What have you done with those papers?”