Chapter 10 #2
Anton beckoned to several of his companions to join them. “An Englander,” he heard the young man mutter. “Bastards,” he heard one of them say, spitting harshly on the ground, and another man growled, “English spy.”
“Search the carriage,” Doret ordered.
One of the national guardsmen climbed into the carriage and began thumping the cushions, sliding his hands between them, and peering under the seats.
As he stepped out of the chaise, Alix’s beribboned hat fluttered out after him, settling onto the rutted road, where it was promptly stepped on by one of the nervously stamping horses.
The guardsman swung up into the coachman’s seat and began searching there.
A moment later they heard him call down, “Anton, I’ve found a pistol here. ”
The postilion protested. “I got papers showing I’m employed by Citizen Pascal, carriage builder on the Rue Guengaud in Paris. I’m a loyal citizen, I am, and I need that pistol for protection.”
Doret answered roughly, “You’ll have it back when we’ve settled this matter.
It’s not you we’re interested in, it’s these possible English spies.
” He gestured for the guardsman searching the carriage to inspect the rear of the coach.
The man climbed down and unstrapped the trunks fastened in the back.
Dropping them into the road, he began rifling their contents.
Rafe saw Alix tense as the guard lifted out her stays and waved them appreciatively at his mates. They laughed and he tossed them, along with several of Rafe’s freshly laundered shirts onto the road.
Stepping forward to block Alix’s view of the searchers, Rafe addressed Captain Doret.
“You can see, Captain, we carry no weapons. As our papers clearly state, we are cloth merchants on our way back to England. My understanding was that your new government was encouraging a continuation of trade between our two countries. However, should you require some contribution to demonstrate our support for your revolutionary cause...” He let the words trail off suggestively.
The young man wheeled on Rafe and snapped, “You are mistaken in thinking we are like the corrupt officials of the old regime. You cannot buy us off. You will stay with us overnight and in the morning, if the revolutionary tribunal decides that you are indeed what you say, then you shall be permitted to continue on your way.”
“But, citizen, my papers,” protested the postilion.
“You,” Anton responded, “are free to go.” Then turning to the men guarding Rafe, Alix, and Jervis, he directed, “Huget, put these three in the storeroom.”
Rafe balked. “Our property citizen, my wife and I would appreciate it if after you’ve searched our clothes, your men would return them to the trunks.”
Doret nodded, then motioned for Huget to take them away.
Huget, a massive figure armed with a bayonet, motioned for them to follow him across the road.
Rafe could make out a row of steep-roofed houses, candles flickering in the windows and smoke curling from their chimneys.
As they passed between two of the houses, he caught the sound of laughter, and the clink of plates and glasses.
Rafe scanned their surroundings with a soldier’s eye, finding nothing that would aid their immediate escape.
There were guards in front and behind them; he glanced at Jervis whose hand had crept to his boot where he kept a throwing knife hidden.
Catching Jervis’s eye, Rafe shook his head warningly.
He and Jervis might be able to take the guards, but he was unwilling to risk Alix’s safety should the soldiers start firing their muskets.
Better to see what prospects for escape the storeroom might hold.
Huget led them across the courtyard toward the stables.
The ground was uneven and muddy, and Alix had to lift her skirts to keep them from becoming sodden and filthy.
The guardsman behind her whistled admiringly at her ankles.
When they reached a small curved hut adjacent to the stables, Huget held his lantern high and gestured with his rifle for them to enter.
Jervis swung open a crude wooden door and they filed into a dusty, windowless room.
“Can we at least have a light?” Alix asked.
The man who had whistled at her ankles snickered. “Can’t risk you burning down the place.” And the door banged shut behind them.
Rafe immediately began feeling about the corn cob and mud-daubed walls; they were surprisingly solid and the room was without windows. He could hear Jervis moving about in a similar inspection, heard him drop down and utter a disgusted sigh.
“Nothing but feed sacks and buckets, not a nice stick or sharp implement in the place.” Jervis sneezed. “And hay, damned hay, makes my eyes itch. Why couldn’t they have put us into a cell like normal jailers? No, it had to be a stable.” He sneezed again.
Alix slid to the floor and leaned against the crude stucco. “Forgive me for my lack of sympathy Jervis, but I think I prefer this to a prison.” Her voice rose questioningly. “Surely they wouldn’t have put us in here if they anticipated keeping us for a long time?”
Jervis blew his nose loudly into what Alix hoped was a handkerchief, but Rafe suspected was his sleeve. “Do you think the ship will sail without us, Captain?” he asked.
“Williams is paid good money to wait,” Rafe’s voice cut assertively through the darkness. He knew that if the weather changed, it wouldn’t matter what Williams had been paid to wait, he’d sail to protect his ship and cargo; but he didn’t want Alix more worried she already was.
“Yes, but how long? We could be here for days, that is, if we’re able to leave at all.” Alix’s stomach contracted. Until then she’d been worrying about whether they’d escape the local revolutionary committee; now she worried that they might miss the packet altogether.
“She’s right,” Jervis sniffled. “I say we break out of here.”
“How do you suggest we do that?” Rafe asked.
“Well, we could tell the guard that the lady is sick, then you could hide behind the door and conk him a good one when he comes in to check.”
“An original plan,” Rafe said dryly, “but after I’ve conked the guard, how do we get past the rest of the armed men out there? Do we steal the horses before or after we’ve overcome the guards? And as Captain Doret is holding our papers, how do you propose we make our way to Calais without them?”
“Details, you’ve always got to be so caught up in the details, Captain,” Jervis grumbled.
“Might I remind you that this is the French countryside, not the wilds of the colonies? It’s not as if we can just slip away amongst the trees and live off berries and deer meat.”
Alix cut in. “Well, what do you suggest Monsieur Harcrest?”
“Rafe,” he corrected. “I suggest we get a good night’s sleep. In the morning I will show these gentleman the bills of lading in my luggage that prove you, Jervis, and I are exactly what we say.”
And if that doesn’t work, he thought grimly, he would insist word be sent to the English ambassador in Paris.
Relations between France and England were deteriorating, but, he speculated, they had not eroded to a point where the fledgling French government was ready to risk the political and economic repercussions of harming a British peer.
His business operations would be exposed, and there would be a scandal, but at least Alix would be safe.
It struck him that Lady Anne would be most displeased to discover the source of the fortune she was seeking to marry.
Jervis sneezed again and the room fell silent.
Alix lay back against the wall, listening as Jones’s congested breathing gradually slipped into a snore.
Her fingers worried at the bits of dry straw covering the floor and she wished that sleep would come as easily to her.
Rafe’s argument made sense and he seemed so sure that the papers would get them through, but she wished wildly that they’d followed Jervis’s plan.
Fighting their way out seemed better than patiently waiting to die.
Rafe listened to Alix’s restless stirrings, wondering that after all she’d been through she hadn’t swooned or broken down in tears.
Such a tough exterior for the gently bred daughter of a French aristocrat, and yet he knew she was afraid.
She’d be a fool not to be, and that Alix de Rabec de La Brou was not.
He wished he knew how to comfort her, to reassure her in some manner that would not ring false.
He thought of the nights he’d spent before battle with his men, breaking the tension by swapping insults and bald-faced lies.
Alix heard Rafe draw closer, felt his shoulder bump against hers, then his breath warm against her neck.
“Are you really merchants?” she asked.
“Are you disappointed we’re not English spies?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she retorted.
“So tell me, little Alix, are you a snob? Are you disappointed you’ve married beneath yourself, married a man who earns his living rather than living on what he can inherit or gamble off others?”
She inhaled sharply. “You do have an amazingly low opinion of me, Monsieur Harcrest.”
“Rafe,” he corrected once again.
“I’ve lived among enough titles to know they’re no guarantee of a man’s quality.”
“So,” he teased, “you’re beginning to think I’m a man with qualities.”
“Are you fishing for compliments?”
“Are you avoiding answering, Alix?”
“You are persistent.”
“Is that a quality?”
“Yes,” she whispered, laughter mingling with the annoyance in her voice.
“See,” he said, “I knew I’d begin to grow on you.”
He pulled her close, tucking her head into the crook of his shoulder. “I also make a fine pillow.”