The Sherbrooke Bride (31 page)

New energy pounded through her. Alexandra untied the rope about her ankles. She stood and promptly fell back onto the bed. Several minutes of rubbing her ankles, of trying to stand and falling and trying yet again.

And when she could finally walk, she ran on light feet to the door. She knew it was locked but she tried it nonetheless. She turned back to the single window. It was narrow, maybe too narrow for her shoulders and her hips.

She could but try.

* * *

Douglas and Tony rode from Calais toward Etaples. The day was warm, the sun bright overhead. It was market day and the roads were filled with open wagons and drays and laden-down donkeys and farmers walking with their produce in bags slung over their shoulders. It would also be market day in Etaples. Perhaps it could be useful if they were forced to escape. Market days always were chaotic. Too, there were all the French soldiers, all the French carpenters and artisans and laborers and ship builders. Cadoudal was mad to have brought her here. It was beyond dangerous. It was foolhardy and it was precisely something that Georges would do. It was like laughing in the devil's face; it was like twitching his forked tail.

Tony said, riding close, “Did this Cadoudal fellow give you precise instructions, Douglas? You appear to know exactly where to go.”

“Yes,” Douglas said, looking between his horse's ears, “I know exactly where to go.”

“I really don't understand this. What does he want from you?”

Douglas only shook his head. He couldn't get that damned insubstantial ghostly dream out of his mind. And it had been naught but a dream. He realized now that he'd been thinking so deeply, his thoughts so concentrated, about where Cadoudal had taken her, that he himself had come up with the likely solution. For some unknown reason, his mind had insisted upon giving further credence to his own deductions by providing him with a prescient ghost.

Yes, everything fit. Everything, once he knew Cadoudal had taken her to France. Everything,
except the absurd ghost, the ridiculous Virgin Bride.

Even the house where he was holding her. It was the grandmother's farmhouse, and Douglas had seen the place. It was ideal for Cadoudal's purposes. Yes, everything fit.

Why the devil would a ghost give a damn about what happened to Alexandra?

He dismissed it; he needed to plan, to decide upon their best strategy. He realized that Tony had asked him another question, one he couldn't answer, one he didn't want to attempt to answer.

It was another hour to Etaples and then another ten minutes to the farmhouse.

 

Alexandra managed to twist enough to get her shoulders through the dirty open window. Her hips were more of a problem but she finally popped through, falling four feet to land on her face on the muddy ground. She lay there a moment, breathing hard, then lifted her head to get her bearings.

There was a small garden just beyond, filled with weeds and a few surviving vegetables. She was at the back of the farmhouse. There was a stable, dilapidated, with very old shingles hanging off the roof at odd angles. She heard chickens squawking. There was a goat eating what looked to be an old boot not ten feet from her. He chewed and looked at her with complete indifference.

She didn't hear any voices. There was no sign of life.

How long did she have before Georges Cadoudal returned?

That galvanized her. She kept low, skirting the
vegetable patch, running toward the straggly stand of trees some thirty feet beyond. She was panting, a stitch in her side, when she slid behind one of the trees, falling to her knees, and peering back toward the farmhouse. She saw nothing except that goat, still chewing on the boot.

Now, where was she? She looked at the sun, hot now in the midday, and gathered her wits together. She wanted to go north to the English Channel. But where the devil was she? Surely not too far away from the sea because she hadn't been unconscious for all that long. Had she?

She realized after five minutes of running that the trees were going to give out. There was nothing northward save an endless stretch of meadow, not even any low bushes, nothing to protect her, to hide her.

She couldn't remain here. It was now or never. She rose and began to run northward.

The sun beat down. She was bareheaded and soon she was light-headed from the heat and from hunger. Her breathing was rough and getting rougher. She was so tired she couldn't imagine being more so, but she forced herself to keep running, even walking quickly as the stitch in her side forced her to hobble like an old woman.

When she heard the horse's hooves pounding behind her, when she felt the earth shaking from the horse's hooves, she wanted to scream with fury, but instead, she just kept running.

She heard his voice and it was loud and mean. “You perfidious female!”

In the next moment, he scooped her up about her waist, bringing her against him and the horse's side.

Alexandra twisted around and struck at his face. She clipped his jaw solidly and knew a flare of success, but he jerked back and her next blow did nothing but glance off his cheek. He shook her like a bundle of rags and threw her facedown over the saddle. His hands were on her back to prevent her from lurching up. “Hold still, damn you!”

Alexandra felt bile rise in her throat. She tasted failure and she tasted fear and her own nausea. She was going to throw up. She tried desperately to control herself, but in the end, she couldn't. She vomited on the saddle, on his buckskins, on the horse.

The stallion went berserk at her uncontrollable jerking, the horrible retching noises. He reared violently, jerking the reins from Cadoudal's hands, flinging them both onto the ground. Alexandra came up immediately, her arms around herself, jerking and shuddering with dry heaves. Finally, the dreadful cramps stopped and she remained still, on her hands and knees, her head lowered, trying to control her breathing.

Finally she looked over and saw Cadoudal on his side looking at her.

She said, “I'm sorry. I tried to stop it but I couldn't. Is the horse all right?”

He could only stare at her and wonder if he hadn't struck his head when he landed on the ground. He shook his head now as if to verify that his brains were still inside his skull. His horse was grazing some yards away, looking quite unperturbed by all the ruckus.

“The horse looks to be fine, no thanks to you.”

Her belly cramped again and she moaned softly, jerking once again with the dry heaves.

She was panting when she said, “I'm glad you didn't feed me. That would have been awful.”

“Why are you ill? I didn't hurt you, dammit!”

“I don't know.”

Georges Cadoudal rose and dusted himself off. He leaned down, clasped her beneath her arms, and drew her upright. He frowned at her. “You're a frowzy mess. You look like hell. I can't abide a woman who looks like you do.”

Alexandra's eyes narrowed. “And you look like a man who's not been outside a brandy bottle in two nights. Ha! Telling me I looked awful!”

Georges Cadoudal laughed.

“Come along. I'm taking you back to the farmhouse.”

She had no choice but to follow him. When they reached the horse, the animal slewed its head around and gave her a ruminating look. “I can't,” she said, pulling back. “I'll throw up again.”

She turned to look up at him. “You wouldn't be so cruel, would you? To make me get on that horse again?”

“I won't throw you across the horse on your stomach. That's what made you sick. If you promise to behave yourself, to just sit in front of me, we'll go slowly.”

“All right.”

It took only a few moments to return to the farmhouse. Alexandra had felt as if she'd run at least one hundred miles if not more. The stitch in her side was only now easing. With a horse, it took only a few minutes. It wasn't fair.

He dismounted first then lifted her down. “Go into the farmhouse. Drink some water. Sit down. If you so much as show your nose out the door or any of
the windows, you will be very sorry.”

Had it been one of Douglas's threats, Alexandra wouldn't have paid any attention. However, Georges Cadoudal was an unknown. He was cruel and ruthless and he'd shown himself to be quite determined. It was possible that he planned to kill her. Of course he had given her water to drink. It didn't quite fit together.

She went into the farmhouse, drank a little water, and sat down on one of the rickety chairs.

When he stepped through the door, kicking it closed behind him, she merely looked at him. He had washed his buckskins and the sick odor was no longer clinging to him.

She said, “Are you going to kill me?”

“No.”

“What are you going to do to me?”

He eyed her.

“Will you ransom me? Oh, no!” Her face, already pale, was now paper white. And he knew what she was thinking. He would send the Earl of Northcliffe a note and he would come and Georges would kill him. He had never before in his life seen such naked pain. He wouldn't let it touch him. He had seen more death in his lifetime than this tender pullet would in a dozen lifetimes. He'd brought about more deaths than an English regiment.

She rushed into speech. “No, Douglas won't come to me, he won't, I swear it to you. He is in love with my sister, Melissande. He had to keep me, his cousin married me to him by proxy. It was all a horrible mistake. Douglas wants me gone, truly. Please, monsieur. Please, he won't care.”

“I don't suppose you can cook? I'll just bet you are one of those utterly useless English ladies who never
soiled her hands in her life.”

“I am not useless! I am a fine gardener, though.” She paused, then continued slowly, “I really can't cook anything that would look toothsome. I am sorry but in truth, I'm not at all hungry.”

He grunted, then turned toward the small kitchen set back in the far corner of the room. He said over his shoulder, “Don't move.”

She didn't. She sat there staring at the door, at him in the small alcove, at the thick layer of dust on every surface in the room.

“Where are we?” she called out.

“Be quiet.”

“I know we're in France.”

“How do you know that?”

She hadn't been completely certain, and she was pleased to have her conclusion so easily verified. She had remembered smelling the sea; then deep inside her, she remembered the rocking of a boat.

Some minutes later, he came into the room carrying two plates. One held slices of thick bread, the other a stew of sorts, reeking of garlic. Alexandra nearly gagged.

He said only, “Eat a piece of bread. It will probably settle your guts.”

She chewed on the bread, trying to avoid looking at him downing the noxious stew.

The few bites stayed down. She looked toward the small crock of butter but was afraid to smear any on the bread. Georges continued to spoon down the stew.

When she couldn't bear it any longer, she said, “What are you going to do to me?”

He raised his head and simply looked at her. “I'm going to strip off your clothes first and I'm going
to bathe you. Then I'm going to rape you as your husband did to my Janine. I will keep you with me until you are pregnant. Then I will send you back to Douglas.”

She stared at him. Men were unaccountable. “But,” she said, cocking her head to one side, “that doesn't make any sense, does it?”

He flung his spoon against the wall, rising from his chair, and leaning toward her, his palms flat on the rough wooden surface. “You will cease your unexpected prattle! I don't like it. It annoys me. Do you understand me?”

“No, I don't. It seems vastly stupid and just plain dishonorable and ungentlemanly to even consider doing such a thing. To force me? To keep me a prisoner and humiliate me like that? No, it isn't reasonable. Besides, Douglas says it can take a long time to create a babe. Will you keep me with you here for the next five years?”

He growled in fury, in frustration. “Damn you, beg me not to do it!”

She stared at him.

“Ah, be quiet!”

She was still quiet.

He said, “I am going to fetch you some bathwater now. I want you sweet-smelling when I take you.”

She couldn't allow him to do that. She knew she wouldn't allow him to do that. The only problem was how to stop him. He was the stronger; he had hit upon this revenge and she realized that he was a man, who, once committed to a goal, couldn't be easily swerved from his set course. The thought of five years in her company didn't even seem to deter him.

What to do?

* * *

The main street of Etaples was crammed with stalls with people hawking everything from potatoes to blackberries. Tony and Douglas dismounted, leading their horses, pressing always forward.

Douglas cursed. They should have skirted Etaples but no, he'd thought he'd take a good look around in case they needed to hide here. How could he have forgotten the utter confusion and madness of market day?