The Ruby Pendant (32 page)

Curiosity
overcame him. 'Wait there.'

Juliette
watched, with her heart in her mouth, as he disappeared into a building behind
him.

`He has gone
for the officer of the watch,' Philippe said. 'And I must go.'

`Philippe...'

He put two
fingers on her lips to silence her. 'Listen, my darling. We must part. It
breaks my heart to say it, but there is no alternative. One day, perhaps, when
the world is at peace, we shall meet again. But, if we do not, know always that
I loved you.'

`Don't say
that. Oh, Philippe, don't talk as if this were the end. I cannot bear it.' She
clung to him while the tears rolled silently down her cheeks unheeded.

He enfolded her
in his arms, stroking the hair back from her forehead and tracing the outline
of her face with a gentle finger. 'I need to know you are safe, my love. It is
the only way I can go on. Go back to Hartlea, it is where you belong.'

`Do you
remember once telling me to wait and you would be back?' she asked.

`Did I?' he
said vaguely, though he remembered well enough.

`Yes. Only I
didn't wait. I ran away and caused no end of trouble and danger for everyone.
But this time I shall wait and pray for an end to all this enmity and carnage.
I shall pray every day that you will come safe through and back to me.'

`I cannot ask
that of you. You are young, one day you will fall in love and marry someone far
more eligible than me. If you think of me at all, think of me with affection,
as someone you met, a passing acquaintance with whom you once shared a short
journey.'

`Philippe, how
can you talk like that? You are not a passing acquaintance, you are my only
love. You will be here, in my heart, always.' She pulled herself away from him
and delved into her pocket for the ruby in its heart-shaped setting. It had
been safely hidden there ever since Major Clavier had searched the chateau.
'Here, take this as a talisman.'

`No. '

`Please,
Philippe.' She put it into his hand and closed his fingers over it, attempting
to smile. 'Keep it safe, because one day I shall want it back and you with it.'

He took her
face in his hands and kissed it, tasting the salt of her tears on his lips and
tears sprang to his own eyes. 'Very well. I shall hold it in trust.' She was so
absorbed in looking at him, trying to convince him that she meant what she
said, she did not hear the sentry returning with the officer, but he did. He
released her and turned her to face them. 'Go, my valiant one,' he said,
putting her cloakbag into her hand. 'God keep you safe.'

She stood and
watched the two men approaching as if in a dream. She knew she ought to walk
forward to meet them, but her feet would not carry her. She turned back to the
man she loved, but he had gone, melted away into the shadows.

The officer of the watch took her to his colonel, who had
made his headquarters in one of the larger houses on the west side of the town,
overlooking the little harbour. Here they interrogated her mercilessly, but she
had nothing to tell them but the truth. Unable to make her change her story and
admit she was a spy, they took her bag from her to search it and it was then
they found the package, clearly addressed to Field Marshal, the Duke of
Wellington, Commander in Chief of the British forces.

`Where did you
get this?' the officer demanded, holding it under her nose.

`I don't know
anything about it. I don't know how it got there.'

`The Frenchie
did say something about a package,' murmured the officer who had escorted her.
'We thought the fellow was referring to the girl.'

`Give it here.
I'll take it to the Peer. Watch over her and give her something to eat and
drink. She looks as though she could do with a good meal.'

He disappeared
and by the time Juliette had made an attempt at eating the food they brought
her, he had returned, smiling. 'Come with me.'

Five minutes
later she was in the presence of the great man and acutely conscious of her
unwashed face and torn clothes. But he didn't seem to mind that, as he asked
her to be seated.

`Well, Miss
Martindale, I have seen some very strange letter carriers in my time, but you
are, indeed, the most extraordinary.'

She stared at
him. He was not particularly tall, nor was he extravagantly dressed, but he had
a commanding presence and a way of looking at those he was talking to as if he
knew exactly what they were thinking. He reminded her of Philippe, but then her
thoughts were so full of the Frenchman she saw him at every turn. 'Is that all
I am, a letter carrier?'

`You think you
have been used?'

`Wouldn't you?'

`Then let me
reassure you, Miss Martindale, you are infinitely more than a letter carrier.
That was my little joke and a very poor one, for which I beg pardon. You have
brought me important information that will shorten this war by months. And you
have brought me good tidings of one of our country's most trusted agents.'

`Philippe?' she
whispered.

He smiled.
'Yes.'

`Why did he not
tell me?'

`That would
have been a very dangerous thing to do.'

`Yes, I suppose
it would.' She paused and lifted her eyes to his. 'But why did he have to go
back?'

`His work was
not done. It won't be done until this war is at an end.'

`Then I pray it
will end soon.'

`Amen to that,'
he said. Then, suddenly becoming businesslike, he added, 'Now, there is a
supply ship in the harbour which will be returning to England with some of the
wounded. I shall send you on that, but in the meantime, I am sure you would
like a wash and change of clothes...'

`Yes, thank
you, but can I not stay in France until...' She paused. 'I want to be near at
the end.'

`My dear Miss
Martindale, we have no facilities for ladies. And we can never be sure the tide
will not turn against us again.'

'I could work,
help with the wounded, be a letter-carrier, if you like. I do not mind.'

`And what would
Monsieur Devereux say to that idea, do you think?'

She was silent,
knowing how much Philippe had risked to send her back.

`Viscount
Martindale has been badly set back by your disappearance,' he went on. 'He will
be overjoyed to see you safe.' Without giving her time to argue, he rang a bell
on his desk and one of his aides appeared almost instantly. 'Find Miss
Martindale a comfortable room and ask Sergeant Wetherby's wife to look after
her and find her something to wear.' Then to Juliette, with a disarming smile
which took the sting from his words. 'I am not accustomed to being argued with,
my dear. My orders are usually obeyed implicitly and at once. Now you must put
yourself in our hands and before long you will be once again in the bosom of
your family and able look back on the last few months as a bad dream.'

It was spring, a wonderful joyous spring after one of the
longest and coldest winters anyone could remember. Flags and banners flew from
every masthead, church bells pealed out from one parish to another, bonfires
were lit and everyone was out, laughing and singing. The war was at an end, the
allies were in Paris and the tyrant had abdicated and been sent to the island
of Elba. In England, everyone was preparing to welcome the heroes home, among
those the Duke of Wellington.

When the news
of the surrender came to Hartlea, Juliette was in the garden with Anne
Golightly, in the same spot she had been occupying exactly a year before, to
sit for her portrait, a portrait that had set in train a sequence of events
which had changed her life forever. Dressed once again in ladylike fashion, in
a soft blue gown decorated with tiny embroidered rosebuds over a pale
eau-de-nil petticoat and with her glorious hair brushed upwards and held so
that its ringlets fell about her face in a silver cascade, she had become once
again the fashionable debutante, far removed from the tearful ragged urchin who
had faced Wellington in that bare room in St Jean de Luz.

While she had
been away, Lord Martindale had convinced his wife that she had been mistaken in
her belief that Juliette was his daughter and his brother had simply been
making mischief in telling her that she was. Lady Martindale had asked and been
granted forgiveness and their relationship had been strengthened because of it,
but it bad made Juliette's disappearance all the more distressing. Just when
they had almost given up hope of ever seeing her again, she had returned,
escorted by an officer appointed by Wellington to see her safely home. Her
French birth had been forgotten and she was, once again, the beloved daughter
of Viscount and Lady Martindale, though now the adoption had been legalised.

The story
everyone had been told was that she had been abducted by a group of French
prisoners of war to aid their escape and that James Martindale had set off in
pursuit and disappeared. No hint was ever dropped that he was other than a
patriotic Englishman who had risked his life to save the woman he loved and
Juliette had never mentioned seeing him in France. She was afraid it would hurt
her father too much to know the truth and so she had simply said a French
officer had rescued her and helped her to reach the British lines.

In some ways,
she supposed, Wellington had been right - it had been a nightmare - but in
others, it had been the happiest and most glorious episode of her life. And though
she could not have asked for a more fervent welcome home from her Mama and
Papa, her thoughts were constantly with the man she had left behind in France,
the man who held her heart.

While everyone
rejoiced, Juliette began thinking of what had happened there, of Henri and
Anne-Marie, of James and Michel Clavier, but most of all of Philippe Devereux,
who was undoubtedly a Frenchman; it was Philip Devonshire who was not real. How
had a man so honourable and brave made the decision to help the other side? If
his clandestine activities helping the allies were to become known to his
compatriots in France, he would be branded a traitor. Would he be punished or
would the British forces protect him?

Ever since she
learned that he was a trusted British agent, she had realised that he and James
could not be on the same side and it followed that James was a traitor.
Thinking about his behaviour, his manner towards her and the escaped prisoners
on the fishing boat, his anxiety about losing Napoleon's letter, and his extraordinary
laughter when she told him she thought he was a double agent, had convinced
her. As far as the world was concerned, they were still betrothed, and if she
was not out and about in Society, it was because she was waiting anxiously for
his safe return. If he came back, pretending nothing had changed, could she
remain silent? She could never marry him, not only because of his perfidy, but
because she was forever pledged to Philippe Devereux.

Earlier in the
year she had attended Lucinda's wedding to Arthur Boreton. Lucinda, gowned in
heavy oyster satin and bedecked with jewellery, had fairly glowed with
happiness. Juliette did not begrudge her friend her joy and had been one of the
first to wish her well, but the occasion served to remind her of what she had
lost and she had been glad to return to Hartlea to wait for the end of that
terrible war, praying that Philippe survived.

Now the waiting
was done, the guns were silent and the men coming home. In France, too,
soldiers would be returning to their loved ones and her thoughts constantly
drifted to the other side of the English Channel. She would not allow herself
to dwell on the possibility that Philippe had been killed; she held on to the
conviction that their talisman, the ruby pendant, would keep him alive. 'I
shall want it back,' she had told him. 'And you with it.'

But he had made
no promise to return to England, even though she had said she would wait for
him. She remembered him saying that when the war was over, he would go home,
and home was a village close to Hautvigne. She would ask Papa to take her to
Hautvigne. She could visit Henri and Jean and Anne-Marie and look for him from
there. She hurried back to the house to put the idea to her father, impatience
and hope lending wings to her feet.

His lordship
had been spending more time at home as the war drew to its conclusion and he
was not wanted so frequently in London. But he still received intelligence, was
still visited by government officials and as she approached the house, she
became aware of a carriage clattering to a stop at the front door. A tall man
in a blue superfine coat, buckskin breeches and shining leather boots jumped
down almost before it had come to a stop and hurried up the steps.

He was too far
away to recognise, but she assumed he had come to see her papa on business and
now she would not be able to ask about going to France until he had left. Her
footsteps slowed. By the time she entered the house, the two men were already
shut in the library.

`Philip, how good it is to see you.' His lordship embraced
his visitor. 'It has been so long, I had almost given up hope.'

The young man
smiled. 'I am not easily disposed of, my lord. And I had a very strong reason
for staying alive.'