The Danbury Scandals (32 page)

He had been on
his way to Brussels with his intelligence when he had fallen foul of a patrol
from the Seventh who had recognised him, and he had been obliged to fight his way
out of his predicament. He had killed one, left two others mortally wounded and
the remainder searching the cornfields for him. Evading them had taken the best
part of half a day and, in his haste to make up for lost time, he had been
careless of his horse; the stallion had fallen and could not rise. He had put
it out of its misery, cursing in at least four languages, but it had made no
difference; he could not turn the tide; it rolled inexorably on towards the
fields of Waterloo. Afterwards, returning to the British lines on foot, he had
come across the wagon under a tree, with its button-covered owner dead across
the seat; it was better than walking.

The last
hundred days might have solved Europe’s problems but they had done nothing to
solve his. He could no longer live in France, where those still loyal to the
Emperor might seek revenge, but neither was he sure England was the answer.
Even if he was not indicted for murder, there would still be the scandal; ought
he to subject Maryanne to that? And, more to the point, could he stand by and
let Mark Danbury usurp his title and say nothing? But he was tired of fighting.
All he wanted was to live in peace; surely, somewhere, there was a haven for
the two of them?

He smiled
slowly, painting pictures in his mind’s eye. Maryanne at Castle Cedars, young
and fearful of the future, even more fearful of the past; Maryanne helping a
chubby little doctor dig a bullet out of his shoulder - how the damp weather
made that ache! - Maryanne laughing, Maryanne angry, Maryanne sad. He saw her
dressed for a ball in a pure white gown, wreathed in greenery, and Maryanne in
rags, covered in mud and blood, her hair hanging damply about her face, her
eyes wide with anxiety. The vision was so real that he pulled on the reins and
the horse stopped with an abruptness which nearly threw him off the driving
seat. Was it a vision, a ghost come to haunt him for neglecting her?

‘Maryanne,’ he
croaked. ‘Maryanne.’

‘Adam!’ She
reached up tentatively to touch his thigh. ‘Adam, can it really be you?’

He blinked and
slid down from the seat. Her hand was warm in his, her eyes were vibrant and
alive. Real tears were sliding down her face, making channels in the dirt. He
took her in his arms and held her close against his chest, feeling the warmth
of her, the trembling of her, felt her heartbeat under his hand, tasted her
lips, gently lest she disappear like the apparition he had believed her to be.

She wanted to
stay in the security of his arms, but the urgency of her errand forced her to
be practical. ‘Come,’ she said, scrambling up on to the driver’s seat and
picking up the reins. ‘Come quickly. Lord Brandon has had his foot blown off.
Caroline is with him. They are up at the chateau. We need the cart.’

He looked up at
her in a daze, still bemused by her sudden appearance, unable to believe she
was real. He climbed up beside her and took the reins from her. ‘How did you
come to be here?’ he asked. ‘And where is
Maman
? You look as though you
had been in a battle yourself.’

‘I very nearly
was.’ She laughed. ‘But I’ll tell you about that later. We left
Maman
fast asleep in Brussels; she is perfectly safe and well. Now we must get Lord
Brandon back there where he will be looked after. He and Caroline are married;
did you know? No, of course, you didn’t...’

He let her
prattle on. Time enough later to tell her the wedding had been the talk of
Vienna when he had been there in February; time enough to talk and make plans
for the future. He guided the cart into the courtyard and towards the spot
where Caroline sat with her husband’s head in her lap, waiting for them.

The rest of the
day was a blur of activity. Maryanne’s senses were heightened by the fact that
Adam was at her side, but there was no chance to speak of personal matters. They
took Lord Brandon to the hospital on the cart and comforted Caroline who,
understandably, burst into tears as soon as her husband had been delivered to
the surgeon. She insisted on staying with him, but begged Adam and Maryanne to
make themselves at home in her apartment.

Madame
Saint-Pierre’s joy at seeing Adam
soon dispelled her annoyance at being left behind and she gave orders for an
early supper to be served and a bed to be made up.

By the time
Maryanne had bathed and changed her filthy clothes, and sat down to their meal,
she was too tired to eat. She wanted to be alone with her husband, wanted to be
held in his arms, to know their quarrel was forgotten. She begged to be excused
and went up to their bedroom. Adam followed her, shutting the door behind him.

She turned
towards him with a smile, but it faded when he kissed her and then held her out
at arm’s length to look into her face. ‘Now, madam,’ he said severely. ‘An
explanation, if you please.’

Chapter Twelve

All day
Maryanne had been looking forward to being alone with her husband, to feel his
kisses on her lips and know that the rift between them had been healed. And all
he could do was continue their quarrel as if there had been no interruption!

‘Explanation?’
she retorted. ‘You are asking me for an explanation?’

‘Yes. I expect
my wife to obey me. I sent you to Paris with instructions to go back to London.
Robert and Jeannie were expecting you. How do you think I felt when Robert
wrote to say you had not arrived and when I went to Paris you were not there
either?’

‘No worse than
I felt when you disappeared.’ She failed to see the twinkle of amusement in his
eye. ‘And how could Robert write to you, when no one knew where you were?’

‘He knew I
could be reached through the Duke.’

‘Which Duke?’

‘Wellington, of
course.’

‘It seems to
me,’ she said tartly, ‘I am the one requiring an explanation.’

He burst out
laughing. ‘I knew we should fight but I did not imagine it would be so soon.’

‘I believe you
enjoy it.’ She was bewildered and angry at his behaviour. ‘You deliberately
provoke me.’

‘And you rise
to the bait every time, my darling.’ He pulled her towards him to kiss her.
‘There will be time for explanations later. Now I want to make love to my
wife.’

He drew her
down on to the bed beside him and she melted under his caresses, forgetting the
past, the unbelievably long day, all the things which divided them, giving
herself up to her undenied and undeniable love. He took his time undressing
her, kissing her lips, her neck, her shoulders and arms, letting his mouth roam
down her body to her stomach with its tiny bulge. ‘Maryanne,’ he said suddenly,
sitting up to look down at her, naked and glowing with a kind of iridescent
beauty which made him ache with love. ‘Are you...?’

She laughed at
the expression on his face: delight, concern, wonder. ‘Yes, I am increasing,’
she said.

‘Then should
we...?’

Her answer was
to wind her hands round his neck and pull him down on to her. ‘He is only very
tiny,’ she whispered. ‘You will not hurt him.’

He smothered
her with kisses, forgetting his intention to savour their lovemaking slowly.
She would not have let him do that in any case; her passion was as great as his
and they were carried away on a cloud of rapture which took them to paradise.

It was some
time later when he murmured dreamily, ‘You said "he".’

‘Isn’t that
what you want, a son and heir?’ she asked.

‘An heir,’ he
repeated. ‘Heir to what? I cannot go back to France, and returning to England
means...’

‘I know what it
means,’ she said. ‘It is why I delayed so long, I was too cowardly to face it
alone.’

‘You are not
alone now.’

‘No, but how
long before you disappear again? How can I ever be sure of you? You have so
many secrets. Why didn’t you tell me you were James’s heir? I had to learn it
from
Maman,

‘When could I
have told you? When we first met? Should I have said, when you fled from Castle
Cedars and threw yourself into my arms, "By the way, I am the Viscount’s
son"? Should I have told you at the ball? Do you know, I very nearly did?
That was why I asked you to meet me in the conservatory but, as always, we
misunderstood each other and I let it pass. And later, when you announced your
engagement to Mark, was I supposed to step in and spoil your happiness by
throwing a cat among the pigeons? I fully intended to return to France without
speaking to my father, but I could not leave before the curricle race because
that would have been construed as cowardice. After that everything was taken
out of my hands by events I could not control. And the longer we have been
together since, the more difficult it has become.’

‘Try now. From
the beginning.’

He put his arm
around her and drew her head on to his shoulder. ‘The beginning. I suppose it
began with the Revolution, the Terror and the execution of the man I had always
known as my father. Before he went to the guillotine, he told me to go to
England and find Mr Rudge - Robert’s father - who would look after me. I set
out and reached Paris, but there I stayed. I had neither the means nor the inclination
to go further. As far as I was concerned,
Maman
and Papa had been my
parents, and if I felt anything at all it was anger at the callous behaviour of
a father who did not care about the child he had brought into the world.’

His grip
tightened as he remembered. ‘I became
Le Choucas
, the Jackdaw, the
thief. I would have slit your throat for a few
sous
. I forgot my loving
home, I forgot my birthright; my only thought was to stay alive and out of the
dungeons of Paris. At sixteen I was a man you would not have liked.’

‘But how could
you forget all your adopted mother had taught you, to live like that?’

He laughed.
‘You still do not understand, do you? That was the way I wanted to be. I wanted
to deny my background because then it did not hurt so much, and if I could
damage someone in authority, if only in a small way, then I was avenging Papa.
And later, when I enlisted in the army, it was not to fight for my country, not
from any sense of patriotism, but simply to stay alive. I had no axe to grind
for Bonaparte; in fact as the years went by I became more and more
disillusioned.’

He paused to
kiss the top of her head. ‘One day, in Portugal, I was out with a patrol when
we missed our way in the fog and were captured. The others, including the Comte
de Challac, who was a captain at the time, were marched off to spend the
remainder of the war on the hulks in Portsmouth Sound, but because I spoke
English I was taken to see Viscount Wellington. We had a long talk and at the
end he said, "An Englishman in a French uniform is just the article I
need. Will you go back for me?".’

She lifted her
head to look into his face. ‘And you agreed?’

‘Yes. He
convinced me I could do most good by returning to the French lines.’

‘What happened
when you went back?’ she asked.

‘I pretended I
had escaped. The false information I had been provided with ensured my
welcome.’ He paused, smiling. ‘And, in the absence of the Count, my promotion.’

‘Didn’t you
feel like a traitor?’

‘Any qualms of
conscience were soon stilled when I thought about what Bonaparte was doing to
Europe, the devastation, the looting. He had no care for the casualties he
inflicted, not only on those who resisted him, but on his own troops. He once
admitted a million lives meant nothing to him. I lost many a friend to his
fanaticism, Jeannie’s husband among them. And, even though I had grown up in
France, I knew myself to be English, and it was the French who had executed my
adoptive parents.’ He paused. ‘If I had known
Maman
was still alive, I
might have behaved differently, but I don’t think so.’

‘So you became
a spy?’ Maryanne demanded.

He grinned. ‘I
prefer to say intelligence officer. I was Captain Choucas to the French and Sir
Peter Adams to the English. When the British army entered France, I could
neither stay with the French nor march with Wellington, so I decided, duty
done, to go to England as Adam Saint-Pierre. I had been forced to take Michel
into my confidence early on and he had risked his life on more than one
occasion to help me. I had promised him I would look after Jeannie, and she
wanted to return to London. It was from Robert I learned who my real father
was.’

‘Were you
shocked?’ Maryanne asked.

He smiled. ‘
Maman
had hinted that he was well born, but I had no idea who he was. I had already
planned to go to Portsmouth to expedite the release of the Count, and curiosity
took me to Beckford and Castle Cedars. I found myself wanting to meet my
father, but as he had acquired a second family, who obviously did not know of
my existence, I was hesitant, especially as I had no proof of my identity.’

‘How did Mark
find out?’

‘My father
spotted me at the Duke’s funeral and asked me to call on him.’