The Abandoned Bride (12 page)

Julia rose from her chair and went to her traveling case. She rummaged about within it, taking care to conceal the actual location of her purse by positioning her body so that her precise actions could not be seen. The good women at Mrs. White’s boarding house had instructed her so thoroughly that by the time she turned around with a few coins in her hand, she was sure that no eagle, much less maidservant, could have spied the location of her funds where they were sewn into a clever little side pocket of her traveling case.

“Thank you so very much,” Julia said with some aplomb, now that she had the situation well in hand, as she offered the coins to the woman. She had expected some thanks, but no tears. Instead, the woman looked at the coins and backed away from them as though they were tainted, while her eyes filled with unshed tears.

“Ah non, mademoiselle,” she said with evident despair. “Monsieur le Baron has already paid me handsomely. But what have I done wrong?”

It would have been difficult for an observer to guess who was more overset by the turn of events. It was not until Julia attempted to ease the maidservant’s fears, and she in turn had tried to still Julia’s anxieties, that both women were calm long enough for the matter to be made clear.

The baron had engaged her, the maidservant said, when she could control her trembling lips, to act as personal maid for the English lady for the duration of her stay in France. As she had been without work for a long time while war had cruelly ravaged her country, she was ove
r
joyed to have found employment again. In fact, she ventured to say, the moment Francois (an old friend who was assistant to the night manager at the hotel) had heard of the position, he had sent word to her. She had been patiently standing in the hallway for hours, she explained simply, waiting for the dawn to arrive so that she could be prompt to serve her new lady when she arose. She had been in service to the noble Bonneuil family before the war, and had her English from her husband, who had been their children’s tutor. And she assured Julia with an admixture of pride and a certain amount of trepidation, if only the young English lady would try her, she would find that Celeste Vit
r
y was an admirable lady’s maid.

Celeste began to nervously enumerate her many abilities, since the look upon the young English miss’s face did not encourage her to think that her brief spoken resume was suitable. When she had gotten to her skill with a needle, having just left off explaining her competence with a curling iron, Julia interrupted her gently.

“No
,
no,” Julia said quickly, “I do understand, Celeste, I assure you that I do. And there is little doubt in my mind of your excellence. But it is only that I do not require your services. I’m not actually a lady, you see. I myself work in the capacity of a servant when I am at home. I am a governess and a companion. It is only that I am traveling with the baron just now as
...
” But here Julia’s invention failed her, for she could not say precisely what she was. She did not wish to make it public knowledge that she was employed by the baron. Nor did she wish her connection with Robin to be noised about. Neither did she want to explain the circumstances involving the absent Lady Cunningham. She knew precisely how deeply the waters of convention were closing over her head when Celeste grew ve
r
y still.

“Ah, I see,” she said a little sadly, “but then Mademoiselle, Monsieur le Baron would wish for you to do him proud, would he not? You are very lovely, but I can make you appear even more so, I promise you. He would never look at another when I was through dressing you, I assure you.”

It was rather a relief for Julia to throw caution to the winds and tell Celeste the truth of her reason for being in
France, but even so it took ten minutes for her to fully explain the matter. The maidservant was
an excellent listener and when Julia was done, she shook her head sagely, as though she heard such tangled tales every day of the week. But there were many strange stories told in her country in these days, she assured Julia.

Then she artfully said three artless things which won her a new position. For first she told Julia that she was ve
r
y glad to hear of her new mistress’s virtue, since she had never worked for a “petite amie” before. Next, she explained that her own circumstances were such that she would have been forced to take whatever employment offered, whatever her own moral compunctions, for she had no husband since her man had marched off with the Emperor to Russia in 1811, and no employer since the noble Brouilles had been beggared by the new government. And then she told Julia quite simply that anything told to her in confidence would be as a thing dropped into a bottomless well. A fine lady’s maid, Celeste said proudly, was expected to go to her grave with her lady’s secrets upon her heart, and never upon her lips.

The baron looked at Julia’s hair with approval when she met him belowstairs in the private dining room. He rose when she entered the room and did not seat himself again until she had taken her place at the table. But he did not say a word to her until he had cleared his breakfast plate, and noted that she had done with moving the food about on hers so that, at least, her place setting could be removed. Then, when there were no longer any servants in the room, he leaned back and addressed her. “So you approve of Celeste?” he asked pleasantly enough.

“She is charming,” Julia answered slowly. “I did tell you that I had no need of a personal maid. But as you have hired her,” she
added quickly, remembering that her maidservant had no other place to go should she lose this position,
“
it would not be fair to dismiss her now. I am only glad that she has had experience in her job, for I haven’t the slightest notion of how to go on with her.

T
he baron only nodded and then asked idly, “She is old enough to suit her taste?”

Julia turned her large light eyes to him in puzzlement.

“I believe you requested an older woman to accompany you,” he said a bit testily. “As chaperone,” he reminded her, when she did not reply at once.

Julia rose from her chair and faced him.

“I am glad for her company, my lord, but I do not consider a lady’s maid to be a chaperone. It was my reputation that I had a care for, and not my hair or my clothes.”

He rose as well and gazed at her for a long moment before he spoke. When he did, his voice was so expressionless that she could not say if he were annoyed or amused with her.

“I wonder if anyone has ever taught you how to say a simple ‘Thank you,’ Miss Hastings? No matter,” he went on. “We haven’t the time to discuss your upbringing. We leave for Doullens now. I shall be riding alongside the carriage, and I don’t know whether we will have a chance to speak alone before we get to Sir Sidney’s pleasure palace. So I must tell you now, beware of everyone you meet at his home. He is a rackety sort of fellow, and has been living abroad for years, entertaining every Englishman that ventures across the channel in that rented chateau of his. His wife is a tart, his guests are disreputable, and he is not to be trusted. If there is anything you do not wish to be known, it follows that it is a thing that you would not wish him to know.”

A shadow passed over the baron’s ste
rn
face as he went on, “I must speak with him upon a matter of business. Unpleasant business,” he added, “so be prepared to leave quickly, for he may not like what I have to say and we may depart at an odd hour. However, I will attempt to discover something of Robin’s whereabouts from some of his guests before I have that private word with our host. In any event, Miss Hastings, I will take care to introduce you with a name that you have never heard before, and I strongly advise you to remain in your rooms for the duration of our visit. We shall say that you are victim to headaches.”

Julia looked down at her folded hands, and tried to conceal her dismay at discovering she was to be mewed up as a prisoner in her rooms for an indeterminate time, under a false name and an assumed illness. The baron paused. Then he said in a more gentle tone than he ordinarily used, “Of course, if you wish to become famous, or infamous, Miss Hastings, you are free to come and go as you please at Sir Sidney’s. I sha
l
l not chain you up or ask my host to accommodate you in his dungeons. But if as you say you feel the lack of a chaperone so acutely, I strongly advise you to follow my advice.”

Looking at her downcast head and the shadow of her lashes upon her cheek, he added rapidly before he went to the door, “And if we stay for longer than I’ve planned, I’ll see to it that you get to take the air, at least. You won’t dwindle to a skeleton through my neglect. I assure you that it is privacy we are after, Miss Hastings, and not punishment.”

Julia had dreaded the prospect of another long coach ride as much as she had detested the entire journey she was now undertaking, but as the miles slipped by, she discovered that travel in the company of the baron was quite unlike anything she had ever experienced before. She had ridden by coach many times at home, and had taken both the mail and the stagecoach as she traveled to her many different and far-flung places of employment. But now she appreciated the wide gulf that separated the wealthy from the common man as she never had before.

For this coach that the baron had engaged for herself and Celeste was so well padded and well-sprung, that instead of a lurching shock being registered at every fault in the road, there was only a softly cushioned bounce felt by the passengers. There were flasks of beverages available, a hamper filled with light refreshments, and even a small vase with some wild flowers arranged in it pinned to the inner door. She and Celeste had room and to spare to relax in, for the baron’s valet rode in a second coach, and he himself rode on ahead, mounted on a fine bay thoroughbred.

From time to time the baron would drop back to inspect the coaches as they went down the road. As her maidservant dozed, Julia could watch her employer-captor-nemesis unobserved. He was all three of these things, she thought, as she watched him through her window, and perhaps even more as well. For she noticed that when he was not with her, and when he did not think himself observed by her, he became quite a different man than the one she had come to know and fear.

She had thought that there was little family resemblance between the baron and his lost nephew, Robin. Robin’s hair had been long and tawny, where his uncle’s was curled and dark. Robin’s eyes were light brown, and his uncle’s were that odd shade of hazel that imitates all colors. But the difference went further than that of superficial features. Although they both were slender,
well-muscled
, and straight-limbed, she would have never thought them related. For Robin had been full of youth and laughter, full of grace and joy, and his uncle was ste
rn
, controlled, and stiff in his eve
r
y ang
r
y gesture toward her.

But now as she observed the baron, unobserved, she could see that when he laughed at some jest that their coachman called down to him, he threw back his head and his haughty features could relax and his white-toothed smile was dazzling in its surprise. His eyes could sparkle with wit, not malice, his laughter could be infectious, not mocking. His slender body could be as graceful as his nephew Robin’s when he was not pokered up with suppressed rage, his countenance could be light and open when he was not rigid with fury, he could be amazingly young and merry when he was not, she thought suddenly, with her.

But it made no difference whether he resembled Robin or not, Julia thought, for Robin had loved her, or at least, she had thought he had. And his uncle detested her, and that at least, was a fact that required lit
tl
e thought. She did not know why Robin had written those letters so full of lies, but she now could at last admit that he must have done so. For whatever else the Baron Stafford was, and he may have been a great many things, she no longer thought he was either a lunatic or an inveterate liar. He had the letters he claimed he did, of that she was convinced.

She had lain awake in the night, and thought of little else in the day, and now she believed such letters existed. She had been vilified because of them, she had been coerced into leaving her homeland because of them, she had even been offered violence because of them. But as the coach traveled on into the heart of France, she found she was as anxious to continue this journey as she had been loathe to begin it.

She had
never wanted to see Robin again after that wild October night, but she knew that she must see him, she must face him, and demand to know why he had invented such monstrous stories about her. Not for his uncle’s sake, although the fact that he treated her with such revulsion stung more now than when she had thought him simply deranged. She had to learn the truth for her own heart’s ease.

Julia gazed out the window at the rolling fields of France, and only closed her eyes to rest when the baron rode by and chanced to glance at her.

It was nearing twilight when the coach rolled down the long drive to Sir Sidney’s leased chateau. Julia might have shut her eyes for an instant to escape the baron’s notice, but when the stir Celeste made as she gathered up possessions came to her ears, she realized that she had drifted off into the first easy sleep she had experienced since setting foot upon foreign soil.

The chateau was huge, and all Julia could take in was the startled impression that she was to spend the night in a castle, before the coach stopped and the footman raced to assist her from the carriage. Before she had a chance to wonder at how she was supposed to go on, the baron appeared at her side and took her arm, and Celeste took her place obediently in their wake. They walked the many stone steps to the huge oaken door, which swung open to meet them as smoothly as though they were taking part in a well-rehearsed ceremony. It seemed that everything was going according to some prearranged formula, and that she all unknowingly fell into the scheme of things without so much as a ripple.

When the short, stout, balding gentleman appeared and clapped the baron on the shoulder, shouting a jolly, “Hallo, why it’s Stafford! Delightful to see you, m’boy,” and his stunning lady-wife cooed her greetings, Julia did not have to breathe a word. She was introduced to the pair before she could take in her breath at the sight of the size of the vast entry hall.

“Miss Foster,” the baron said calmly, “may I present Sir Sidney and his beautiful lady-wife?”

“Oh never so formal, Nicky,” the statuesque red-haired lady chided him, taking the baron’s arm and disengaging him from Julia.

“We don’t stand about on ceremony here, Miss Foster,” the portly older gentleman said merrily. “Now, come, how can I call you Miss Foster, when I insist you call me Ollie as all my friends do?”

“I fear,” the baron said at once, before Julia could begin to stammer out an answer, “that you will not be able to call her anything for a space, sir, for she has been suffering from a thunderous headache all day and I promised her some rest in a quiet bedroom immediately we arrived here.”

“Suffers from the headache, and demands her own bed? Just like my little Gilly.” Sir Sidney guffawed. “But I thought it was only the married ladies that protested so. Never say you’ve tied the knot, Nicholas old fellow?”

“Never say is quite correct,” the baron drawled, as Sir Sidney’s wife let out her indrawn breath in laughter, “but I should be pleased if Miss Foster could be shown to her room at once.” Even as the baron had done speaking, Celeste began to tug Julia toward the stairs, so she had only a fleeting glimpse of the crowd of well-dressed people who had come from the recesses of the great house to greet the baron and to try to catch a glimpse of the young woman he had brought with him. As she mounted the stair Jo follow a footman to her room, she had only the briefest view of the hack of the baron’s head as he lowered it to catch Lady Sidney’s whispers to him as she linked her jeweled arm in his and led him away.

Julia’s room was large and sumptuously f
urn
ished. Fat white and gold cupids cavorted across its vaulted ceiling and snuggled together on her bedposts. But as she had to remain in her room for the night, and for the next few days and nights as well, she came to be the most grateful for its cushioned windowseat. From there she could observe that the world continued to go on around her.

Sir Sidney came and went with a variety of lovely female guests, but Julia became accustomed to the sight of his flame
-
haired wife with the attentive figure of Nicholas Daventry in constant attendance upon her. She saw Lady Sidney and the baron ride out with the other guests in the early afternoon, she could observe them strolling through the rose gardens after luncheon, and in the night, she was able to crack the window open and hear their laughter above the music until almost dawn.

It seemed to Julia that her captor was well occupied upon this visit, but she only added that information onto her present store of resentment. She stayed in seclusion in compliance with his wishes. Her meals were brought to her room, along with various medicaments that their host thoughtfully provided for his unknown, ailing guest.

Celeste was very good company, but Julia was growing restive as another soft summer night came on and the music struck up once again. It was not that she wanted to dance, she told herself, it was just that she very much wanted to use her limbs. Even Celeste had been able to go for a walk in the afternoon, while she could only complete useless circuits of her room.

The evening was advanced and Julia was about to put on her nightshift, when a soft knock came upon her door. After Celeste had made certain that Julia had scrambled into bed with her coverlets up about her chin, she opened the door cautiously. The
maidservant
held whispered conversation and then, closing the door once again, came into the room with a wide grin upon her face.

“Ah, mademoiselle,” she said happily, “you have not been forgotten.”

“Don’t tell me,” Julia groaned. “This time they’ve sent up powdered newt or frog instead of hartshorn and warm milk for my headache. I think if I took all their remedies, I should never leave this place alive.”

“No, no. This is a much better cure for your poor head. For
I
told Makepiece, M’sieur le Baron’s valet, that if you lingered in your room any longer, you would in truth be ill. So he has spoken with the baron, and he brings you this message. There is a small garden he has discovered, very much in disuse, to the side of the house. You may go there tonight and breathe in some fresh air. Of course,” Celeste warned as Julia positively leaped from her bed as though it were red-hot, “if anyone comes along, you must clutch your head,” she pantomimed agony, “and return here at once.”

With her maidservant to lead the way, Julia stole out into the halls of Sir Sidney’s vast house and crept down the servant’s stairs. She drew her beige shawl around herself tightly and paused at every noise. Their dinner done, the other guests were at cards or dancing, but still she dared not risk discovery. Finally, they achieved a back door. Celeste pushed it open with the flourish of a woman presenting the royal gardens of Versailles, instead of a simple deserted knot garden.

It was only the size of the bedroom she had just left. As it had no ceilings, the omnipresent cherubs that the Sidneys seemed to adore had to make do with sporting atop a bird bath. That, and a few thoroughly chastened rosebushes and a marble bench completed the decor of the forgotten garden. It was close to the house, but privacy was assured as it was ringed around with a hedge of boxwood. The spare, empty garden was like paradise to Julia.

After Celeste had left, Julia sat down on the stone bench and breathed in the rose-scented air and stared up at the moon as though she had been a prisoner in the Bastille for twenty years, rather than penned in a plush guest bedroom for two days. She could hear the faint, far-off music of a waltz, she could feel a slight, light summer night breeze stir her hair, and she felt at once elated and depressed to be abroad on such a night. It was a night made for adventure, but she wanted none. It was a night made for memories, but she dared not recall hers. It was a night made for lovers, and that she could never be.

So she sat and raised her face to the moon in much the same way that a pagan might make obeisance to the sun, as though she could draw warmth and sustenance from it, and she let the silve
r
y light wash over her and tried to transcend the night. Then she scented something different on the night wind and heard a small sound too large for an animal to make, and she tensed.

“No need to be a Sarah Siddons, Miss Hastings,” the baron’s voice drawled, “for it is only your obedient servant. You can take your hand from your brow and drop that look of intense pain, unless the sight of me provokes it, of course. I only came by to see how you are faring.”

She turned and saw him in the shadows. He was splendid in his evening clothes, and the white of his shirt and his eyes gleamed against their dark background in the bright moonlight.

“When can we leave?” she asked simply.