Chapter 9 #2
“The captain figured you wouldn’t be too comfortable going to the H?tel with him, it being the meeting place for all them government committees and all.
Not that you should have any trouble with your new identity papers,” he added reassuringly.
“Dubois is a master. It’s just that he thought, being who you are, you might not want mingle with all them National Assembly members. ”
She needed to think of a plan, if only her head would stop throbbing!
“Said he’d be by later this afternoon to pick us up for the ceremony and that I should have you dressed, packed, and ready to go.
Soon as I finish here, I’m going to check on the coach arrangements to Calais.
I tell you, I’m not much of a sailor, but the sooner I’ve got the boards of a ship bound for England beneath my feet, the better. ”
“But is such a marriage even legal?” she managed, finally lifting her head. Her queasiness was fast turning into fury. Rafe had moved ahead without discussing things further with her.
“I dunno,” Jervis admitted, scratching his head. “But,” he added brightly, “it is in France and that’s the important thing.”
Perhaps she could have it annulled as soon as they reached London, Alix speculated furiously.
“There now,” Jervis said, stepping back to admire his handiwork, “you look fine.”
“My thoughts exactly,” said a voice from across the room.
Alix turned to see Rafe leaning indolently against the doorframe. “You,” Alix said rising to her feet, “You and I, monsieur, need to have a serious talk.”
He cocked an eyebrow at Jervis. “Why is it that when a woman says that a man immediately knows he’s in trouble?”
“I think I best be checking on those travel arrangements,” Jervis muttered. He snatched up his jacket and tricorne and sped out the door.
“Because you are in trouble,” Alix snapped. “How dare you fetch a marriage license without my consent?”
Rafe dropped into a chair and regarded her questioningly.
“You’ve come up with a better idea since we last spoke?
” He continued without pause. “It’s simple really.
I’ve booked passage for us on a ship leaving Calais in three days time.
With valid papers proving you’re the wife an English citizen, we should have no trouble reaching the port.
No hiding in barns, no crouching among chickens, no pretending to be someone you’re not. ”
“And when we reach England?” she asked.
“I will settle a suitable allowance on you, and you can choose to live either in the city or countryside, whichever pleases you best. I will place few demands on you and, in return, I shall expect you to comport yourself with dignity and discretion.”
“And that is all you will require of me?”
“I will occasionally expect your attendance at certain social functions, and of course, your assistance in getting an heir.”
He stood watching her, waiting for her response. He was making her a generous offer, saving her life, and setting her up comfortably. It was an offer most women of the ton would have leapt to accept, but not, it seemed, Alix.
He felt an odd twisting in his chest as she turned away from him, staring out the window as if fascinated by the activity in the stable yard.
His eyes roved over the slim line of her back, the slender waist, the stiffly held shoulders.
Sunlight drifted across her hair, making it look like polished mahogany, richly threaded with russet and gold.
Rafe was seized with the desire to unpin Jervis’s painstaking coiffure and feel the silken strands slide across his fingers.
Instead, he rose and stood behind her, his hands clasping her upper arms. “Alix,” he said gently, “if I could think of another way to help you out of France I would. We’ve managed pretty well so far.
Would it really be so awful, being married to me?
” It occurred to him that he could dangle his title in front of her, tempt her with life as a countess and yet, brushing unpleasant memories of Lady Anne from his mind, he wanted to hear her say yes to Rafe Harcrest and not to the Earl of Moreham.
“It’s not you Rafe,” she said softly.
“Then what is it Alix?”
“I don’t know.” She gave a shaky laugh. “This isn’t exactly how I imagined my wedding day.”
He stroked her arms. “Alix,” he said, “in a few hours, just across the Seine, the tumbrels will begin to roll and people will die.” He felt her shudder but he continued, his voice insistent.
“You know what their greatest mistake was?” She remained unmoving.
“They couldn’t imagine that times were changing and they couldn’t change with them.
You understand that, Alix, it’s the reason why you didn’t remain at Valcour to perish alongside your father.
It’s what’s brought you this far. You can’t stop now.
Take another step forward, Alix, come with me. ”
She turned and looked up at him, her expression emotionless, but her gray eyes glistening. “This marriage at the Place de la Grève, will it be legally binding?”
He frowned. “I don’t know.”
“I’ll marry you.” Alix spoke stiffly. “I’ll move forward, but it will be my choice. I won’t be swept along like so much jetsam.”
A small breath of relief escaped him. Jetsam indeed, he thought, more like lost treasure.
After a moment, she added, “But I want it annulled as soon as we reach England.”
Somewhere deep in his heart he felt a sharp stick of disappointment, more painful than when he’d overheard Anne in the garden, and he wondered at it.
It was the long night, he told himself, the anticlimax of convincing himself that marrying her was the right thing to do.
He thought of Lady Anne waiting for his proposal and her threat to Elizabeth.
Alix was right, he reflected, an annulment would be best for them all.
“Very well, I will seek an annulment as soon as we reach England. In the meantime,” he said, “shall we go see about being united in wedlock?”
The coach was a ridiculous affair, Alix thought wryly, probably the gift of some wealthy lord to his mistress.
The exterior was painted a sapphire blue and the door handles and wheels were gilded gold.
Handing them up into the coach, the driver cheerfully explained how he’d bought the vehicle for a song from a desperate aristocrat.
He’d considered purchasing a fleet of coaches, he said, but with the rising price of grain, the damn horses cost too much to feed.
Inside the seats were upholstered in blue velvet, and gaily-painted shepherds courted coy shepherdesses around the windows and roofs.
Atrocious, she thought, but at least it was more comfortable than the lumbering old Berlin her father used to travel between his estates.
Her eyes blurred as she pictured the comte, great curled wig slipping to one side as he gestured out the window, enthusiastically pointing out historic sites of interest. She wondered what he’d think of this coach, and, as Rafe slid into the seat across from her, what he’d make of her husband-to-be.
She stared listlessly out the window, recognizing the route she had come with Henri only two days ago.
At least now she knew her mother was alive, she reminded herself as they passed the massive walls of L’Abbaye.
They crossed the Pont Neuf, and turned west, in the opposite direction of the Tuileries where the guillotine had been set up.
She reminded herself, as she stared at a particularly insipid shepherdess, that at least she was not traveling in a tumbrel.
The coach moved slowly through the traffic of the Rue Saint Antoine, pulling up shortly before the H?tel de la Ville.
Rafe, who’d respected her silence during the trip, helped her out.
“We’ll meet you back here as soon as the thing is done,” he said to Jervis, who was sitting up on the box with the coachman.
Taking her elbow, Rafe led down the street toward the Place de la Grève.
She looked at the fashionable crowds coursing up and down the street. “It’s amazing,” she whispered, “the carriages, the people showing off their finery, greeting each other as if nothing has changed.”
“Don’t let appearances fool you, Alix,” he said softly.
They entered through the arched doorway of the municipal building and joined a line of couples waiting to have their papers stamped.
Alix hadn’t cherished any romantic illusions about the marriage that her parents would some day arrange for her.
Still, she reflected, as they shuffled toward a table where a clerk was waiting with a heavy seal and wax, she hadn’t imagined anything quite so drab.
She glanced up at Rafe who stood quietly by her side and wondered what he was thinking.
Her father had anticipated marriage would bring him a dutiful wife who would wait on him hand and foot.
Rafe had said only that he required an heir, but what else did he expect?
Alix knew a moment of fear when the clerk examined her papers; Jervis and Rafe had assured her the forgeries were perfect, but still she waited for him to denounce her.
Instead, he asked if it was their intention to be married, and if they understood the seriousness of such a commitment.
It wasn’t a commitment, she told herself, as she signed the marriage license, it was just a temporary arrangement.
Intentions and expectations had no place at this ceremony.