Читать книгу: «In the Commodore's Hands»

‘You can’t stay in here,’ she said.

‘You would not turn me out, would you?’

‘But it is unseemly.’

‘You should have thought of that before you stowed away.’

‘Yes, but I did not think…’

‘That is your trouble, Miss Giradet, you do not think. I recall you promised to be good if I brought you.’

‘Good, yes. Wanton, no.’

‘Touché!’ He laughed.

‘You could have told him I was not your wife.’

‘I could, but then he would have drawn his own conclusions, to your detriment. Besides, I could see the advantages…’

‘I’ll wager you could.’

‘Do not be so waspish. Let me finish. If we pretend to be man and wife you will, as a British citizen by way of marriage, be safe from arrest even if it is discovered who you really are—or were before you married me. You will be able to go out and about openly. Otherwise you will have to stay in hiding. You may not care for your reputation, but I certainly care for mine.’

‘So what happens tonight?’ she asked.

AUTHOR NOTE

If you have been following the fortunes of The Piccadilly Gentlemen’s Club series you will recognise the name Drymore. Captain James Drymore, later Lord Drymore, was the instigator of the club in THE CAPTAIN’S MYSTERIOUS LADY, the first book of the series (short-listed for the Romantic Novelists’ Association Love Story of the Year award). The Commodore in this story is his son, carrying on the tradition of the Gentlemen and rescuing damsels in distress—this time the daughter of a French count in Revolutionary France, where the Gentlemen are a thorn in the side of Robespierre. Naturally, she doesn’t make it easy for him. Sir John Challon, Lady Drymore’s father, appeared in the first book as a follower of the Young Pretender, who was forced into exile in France, but here he plays a part in the rescue and is reunited with his daughter.

I hope you enjoy reading it.

About the Author

Born in Singapore, MARY NICHOLS came to England when she was three, and has spent most of her life in different parts of East Anglia. She has been a radiographer, school secretary, information officer and industrial editor, as well as a writer. She has three grown-up children, and four grandchildren.

Previous novels by the same author:

 RAGS-TO-RICHES BRIDE

 THE EARL AND THE HOYDEN

 CLAIMING THE ASHBROOKE HEIR

 (part of The Secret Baby Bargain)

 HONOURABLE DOCTOR, IMPROPER ARRANGEMENT

 THE CAPTAIN’S MYSTERIOUS LADY*

 THE VISCOUNT’S UNCONVENTIONAL BRIDE*

 LORD PORTMAN’S TROUBLESOME WIFE*

 SIR ASHLEY’S METTLESOME MATCH*

 WINNING THE WAR HERO’S HEART

 THE CAPTAIN’S KIDNAPPED BEAUTY*

*The Piccadilly Gentlemen’s Club mini-series

And available through Mills & Boon ^® Historical eBooks:

 WITH VICTORIA’S BLESSING

 (part of Royal Weddings Through the Ages)

Did you know that some of these novels are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

In the Commodore’s Hands

Mary Nichols

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Chapter One

Early summer, 1792

Lisette could see the crowd from her bedroom window, marching towards the château, pulling a tumbril containing a tree decorated with flowers and ribbons in red, white and blue, and although they were singing and laughing and banging drums, she did not think they were coming in a spirit of friendship. Since the King had been forced by the National Assembly to accept the new constitution, the peasantry seemed to think they were no longer required to pay taxes and they were insisting that the seigneurs, among them her own father the Comte, should remit those already paid, not only for this year, nor even for the period since the beginning of the Revolution, but for many years previously. Naturally her father had refused. He had his own taxes to pay and many of the privileges he had enjoyed before the Revolution had been abolished. Times were hard for everyone.

She left the window and hurried downstairs to alert her father, who was working on papers in his library, though he could not have failed to hear the noise. ‘Go out of the back way and fetch help from the maréchaussée,’ she urged him. ‘I’ll try to delay them.’

‘I will not be driven from my home by a mob,’ he said and set his jaw in a rigid line of obstinacy. ‘And I will not give in to demands.’

Comte Gervais Giradet was a third-generation aristocrat. His grandfather had become very rich through colonial trade and bought his title and lands in the village of Villarive close by Honfleur in Normandy for 60,000 livres, an enormous sum, enough to keep two hundred working families alive for a whole year. The village was part of the Giradet estate. It had a village green with a fountain from which the women drew their water, one church, two inns, a leather worker who made the harnesses for the horses and the shoes for the villagers, a blacksmith and a vendor of comestibles and candles, although most of the shopping was done in Honfleur. The village showed no sign of prosperity—except, perhaps, the surrounding apple orchards which provided most of the inhabitants with their living and the Comte with his wealth, though that was declining.

Until the Revolution Gervais had lived quietly in his château, an autocratic but benign seigneur, minding his own business farming and growing apples to be made into cider and Calvados, and not interfering in anyone else’s. Now everything was in turmoil. The aristocrats were the people’s enemy. Hundreds of them had already fled the country, mainly to go to England.

‘But you cannot stand up to a mob like that, Papa,’ Lisette protested. ‘They will lynch you.’

‘Do not be so foolish, Lisette; they will not harm me. I shall speak to them. After all, we are all equal now—or so they say.’

The crowd had reached the courtyard and had set up the tree in the middle of it. There was a traditional belief that if a May Tree was put up in the lord’s courtyard and hung with small sacks of grain and chicken feathers, the peasants were telling their seigneur they thought his dues excessive and if it was kept standing for a year and a day, they would be free of their dues to him. Lately the May Tree had become the Liberty Tree and now it symbolised the freedom given to the people by the new Constitution and their contempt of the lords of the manor.

They were calling on the Comte to show himself and Lisette repeated her plea that he should leave. ‘You can come back when they have gone away again.’

He smiled, adjusted the lace frills of his shirt sleeves and straightened his shoulders to go and meet them. On the way out he passed a gilded mirror and stopped to straighten his wig and give a tweak to his neckcloth, settling the diamond pin more securely in its folds. Then he nodded to a footman who opened the door for him.

His appearance at the top of the steps seemed to inflame the mob. They all began shouting at once. ‘Give us back what is due to us,’ one man yelled. ‘You have been bleeding us dry for years, you and the rest of your aristocratic friends. You are rich and we are poor and that situation has been denounced by the new government. Even King Louis thinks it is wrong. The rich can afford to pay, we can’t…’

‘I have to pay taxes too.’ The Comte attempted to make himself heard, but they were in no mood to listen.

‘You have no right to our taxes.’ The speaker was a big man, dressed in a faded black suit and wearing the red cap of the Revolutionaries. Lisette knew him as Henri Canard, a lawyer and ardent Revolutionary who led the local peasants, rousing them from their apathy to take part in demonstrations against the nobility. ‘You have no title to the land you hold.’

‘I certainly have. My grandfather bought it…’

‘Obtained by trickery,’ Canard said, taking a step or two towards the Comte, his dark eyes gleaming, a threat in every gesture. ‘We demand restitution.’

‘I cannot pay what I do not have.’

‘Then we’ll take what we want in kind,’ someone yelled. ‘I’ll have that diamond pin in your cravat.’

‘And I’ll have the silk cravat,’ cried another.

‘I think we should lock him in prison until he pays,’ added a third. ‘See how he likes prison fare. No more fat pigeons until he pays what he owes.’

‘À bas les aristos! Down with all aristocrats!’ This became a growing chorus and they milled round Gervais and began pulling at his fine clothes. Lisette ran to intervene, but was pushed roughly aside. Having divested him of everything except his breeches and shirt, they put him in the tumbril while others entered the house and began gathering items they thought they could use or sell and piling them into the cart alongside the Comte. Some went into the cellars and emerged carrying bottles of Calvados, still more invaded the pigeon loft and wrung the necks of several birds before the remainder flew off to safety. Lisette watched in horror as they set off again, taking her father with them. One of the crowd was even wearing his wig and laughing at his own cleverness.

She ran after them, pulling on Henri Canard’s arm. ‘Let him go,’ she cried. ‘He is an old man and has done you no harm. You can keep the other things, just let him go.’

‘He needs to be taught that the old order is gone,’ the man retorted, shaking off her hand. ‘We are all equal now. If prison is good enough for those of us who cannot pay our taxes, it is good enough for him who will not.’

She continued to run alongside him. ‘What are you charging him with?’

The big man laughed. ‘Withholding what belongs to the people, plotting against the State, hiding a refactory priest. I am sure we can find something.’ The National Assembly had confiscated all Church property and stripped the clergy of their rights, requiring them to sign an oath of loyalty to the new regime. Those who did so were allowed to remain at their posts and paid a stipend by the state, making them virtually civil servants. Those who refused were not allowed to practise; they could not say mass or officiate at funerals, baptisms or weddings. They either fled the country or went into hiding and practised secretly. The Comte was known to have sheltered one of these until recently when the poor man had died—of a broken heart, so her father maintained.

‘And you would do that to an innocent old man?’

‘Innocent, bah! Now out of the way, before we put you in the cart along with him.’

She fell back and the crowd passed her and bore her father away. She needed help and the only person she could think of was her twin brother, Michel. He was an equerry at the court of King Louis. If Louis ordered the mob to release her father, they would surely obey.

She returned to the château and set the servants clearing up the mess, then made preparations to leave for Paris. Hortense, her faithful duenna, packed a small portmanteau and Georges, their coachman, prepared the travelling carriage and harnessed the horses. She would travel faster without a large entourage, but Georges insisted two of the grooms should ride alongside, armed with pistols. It was not going to be an easy journey and would take at least three days.

Lisette had always been close to her brother. There had been no families of equal status close by as they grew up, no children with whom they could associate, so they had spent all their time in each other’s company, especially when their mother died. Their father had been too immersed in his grief to pay attention to them and it was Michel, miserable himself, who had tried to comfort her.

Physically they were very alike, though she was an inch or two shorter than her brother, and good living at court had made him heavier. They both had fair hair and grey-blue eyes. She was unusually strong, probably due to the rough games she played with Michel when they were children, and because she had taken over her mother’s role in the household she was used to giving orders and having them obeyed. Michel laughingly called her bossy and perhaps she was. She had tried, in her rather confused way, to take the place of her mother and her brother in her father’s life and feared she had failed on both counts.

She was convinced that was the reason for her single state at the age of twenty-five. Five years before Papa had taken her to Paris and introduced her to any number of eligible young men, but nothing had come of it. Perhaps she was too particular, perhaps reluctant to give up the independence she was used to, or perhaps, as she later suspected, they were put off by her unfashionably lean figure and self-sufficiency. They had come home again with Papa grumbling he had wasted his money and she might as well have married Maurice Chasseur in the first place.

Maurice Chasseur lived in Honfleur and his parents had earlier talked to her papa about a possible match, but when the young man was approached after they returned from Paris, he flatly refused to co-operate, saying she was too hoydenish, more boy than girl, and he was not at all surprised none of the Parisian eligibles had wanted to take her on, not even for a fortune. The remark had come to her through a servant in his father’s household who had relayed it to Hortense.

‘He is simply annoyed because your papa hoped to do better for you and, when nothing came of it, went back to him and he didn’t like the idea of being second-best,’ her maid had told her by way of comfort. But it had hurt far more than she cared to admit and left her firmly convinced she was unmarriageable. It had become even more imperative to maintain her life at the Château Giradet and hang on to whatever privileges that still remained.

She was not an ardent royalist; she deplored the extravagance of the King and his court, the secret whisperings of scandal, the way favours could be bought and sold and the courtiers indifference to the suffering of the poor, made worse by the Revolution that should have eased it. Neither did she like the way the country was being run, the summary justice and injustice, the constant edicts that confused rather than enlightened. Surely, she thought, there must be a middle way, something like the English system where King George ruled in a democracy, though it was said he was mad.

The countryside they passed through was showing signs of poverty and neglect. The fields were not tended as well as they once had been, the livestock grazing on the meadows was thin. Everywhere had an overgrown, neglected air and the people who watched the carriage pass were poorly clad. Some looked on with the dull eyes of dejection, others were angry and spat at the coach as it passed. Lisette was thankful for their escort, especially when they stopped each night at posting inns.

Paris, when they reached it three days later, was seething with discontent. Everywhere—in the crowded narrow alleys, in the wider main streets, in the squares and public buildings—noisy crowds gathered, sporting red caps or wearing a red, white and blue cockade in their hats. The carriage made slow progress, being frequently stopped and searched on its way to the Tuileries Palace, where the King held court. He had been forced to leave his preferred home at Versailles by a mob of women who thought he should be with his people in the capital where they could keep an eye on him. Lisette was thankful when the carriage drew up in the main courtyard of the palace and she was able to go in search of her brother, followed by the rather nervous Hortense.

There was an air of agitation mixed with despondency in the demeanour of those she encountered as she hurried through the maze of corridors to reach Michel’s apartment. People were either hurrying from one place to another or huddled in groups, whispering. They stopped their chatter as she approached and watched her pass without speaking. No one challenged her.

She was admitted to the apartment by Michel’s valet, Auguste, who invited her to be seated and went off to tell his master she was there. The room, not one being in the front of the building where the public were admitted, was shabby. Whether that was a sign of the times she could not tell.

‘Lisette, what are you doing here?’ Michel demanded, emerging from his bedchamber in nothing but breeches and a silk shirt, followed by Auguste with a fancifully embroidered waistcoat into the sleeves of which he was endeavouring to put his master’s arms. ‘I am about to attend the King. And where is Papa?’

‘Papa has been seized by a mob and taken to the prison at Honfleur.’

‘Mon Dieu! Whatever for?’

‘For refusing to remit the taxes he has collected over the years. They seemed to think they had the King’s blessing to demand them back. They stole pictures and plates and bottles of Calvados and wrung the necks of some pigeons as well.’

‘That’s ridiculous, the King would never sanction that. He is not in a position to sanction anything. Since his failed attempt to flee the country, he is no more a free subject than our father.’

Lisette’s heart sank. ‘I was hoping for his intervention.’

‘Not possible, I’m afraid.’ Auguste had succeeded in putting on the waistcoat and tying his master’s cravat and was now in the bedroom fetching his wig and coat.

‘What are we going to do, then? I can’t leave Papa to rot in gaol, can I?’

‘You could ask the Citizen Deputy for Honfleur to intervene. Let him earn his keep.’

‘I did that on my way here. He refused on the grounds that justice must run its course. Is there no one in this benighted country that can do anything but rant and rave?’

Michel was thoughtful for a moment. ‘You could try Sir John Challon.’

‘Sir John! What can he do?’

‘He’s English, he might know someone in authority in England who could be persuaded to help, especially since our dear mama was English.’

Sir John Challon was a neighbour and lifelong friend of her father’s. He had been a firm supporter of the exiled King James of England and came to France shortly after the abortive uprising of the Jacobites.

‘But he’s an old man, older even than Papa.’

‘What is that to the point if he can summon others to our aid?’

‘Then I must return home.’

‘Yes, you must, Paris is not safe for you. The outcry against the aristocracy is becoming more vociferous. It does not look good for any of us.’

‘But what about you?’

‘I stay by my sovereign’s side. It is my privilege and my duty.’ He was fully dressed now in a blue-satin coat with a cutaway skirt, wide revers and silver buttons. His formal white wig was firmly on his head and his high-heeled shoes put extra inches on his height. He bent to kiss her cheek. ‘Go now, sister dear, and God go with you. Let me know how you fare with the Englishman.’

Lisette returned to Villarive more dejected than ever. Her beloved papa was in prison and there didn’t seem to be anything she could do about it. She felt somehow that she had failed him, that she ought to have been able to do more. The château when she reached it already had a neglected, unlived-in air. That once-great house was no longer a home and it took all her self-control not to burst into tears.

‘We will go and see Sir John tomorrow,’ she told Hortense as they unpacked. ‘He is our last hope.’

John James Drymore, known to friends and family as Jay, rode into the stable yard at Falsham Hall at the side of his ten-year-old son, Edward. Behind them rode Anne, who at eight, promised to become the image of her dead mother. He liked to take them with him when he rode round the estate; it was good for Edward to learn that with wealth and property came responsibility and Anne must learn the gracious demeanour which was the mark of a true lady.

Jay adored his children, nothing was too good for them, and he loved his home, but just lately he had begun to feel unsettled. It might have been the threat of war with Russia which had made the government increase the size of the navy and, as a naval man, he felt he ought to be involved instead of resting on his laurels in the quiet Norfolk countryside. Or it might have been the calamitous events in France, which had everyone worried whether such a thing could happen in England.

He handed his white stallion to the care of a groom and left the children looking after their own ponies and went indoors. The house was not large, but solidly built, with spacious lofty rooms downstairs and deep windows which let in the sun. The furniture was, like the house, solid and useful. The wide stairs were made of oak and led to half-a-dozen bedrooms on the first floor and servants’ quarters above them. The household was perfectly managed by his housekeeper, Mrs Armistead, and a small army of servants; he was not necessary for its smooth running.

The children were another matter. Since their mother’s death three years before, he had made a point of spending as much time as he could with them. It was a time he valued, but was it enough to keep his mind and body occupied?

He had hardly divested himself of his riding clothes and dressed in a plain suit of fawn silk when he heard the sound of carriage wheels on the drive below his window. He looked out to see his father’s travelling carriage pulling to a stop outside the front door. He slipped his feet into buckled shoes and ran lightly down the stairs, just as a footman admitted his parents.

‘Mama, Papa, I did not expect you. Is something wrong at Highbeck?’

‘No, all is well there,’ Lord Drymore said. ‘We have come on another matter.’

‘Then come and sit down and I will have refreshments brought in.’ He turned to give the order to the waiting footman before leading the way into the withdrawing room. His parents settled on a sofa and he seated himself opposite them. ‘Now, what’s afoot that brings you over here without warning? Not that I am not pleased to see you, you know you are welcome at any time.’

‘As you are at Blackfen Manor,’ his father added.

‘We have had a letter from my father,’ his mother put in. ‘He hasn’t written to me since poor Mama passed away and then it was only a letter of condolence, but now it seems he is wishing to leave France.’

‘I can hardly blame him for that,’ Jay said. ‘Is he asking if he might be pardoned?’

Amy laughed. ‘I rather think he is taking that for granted. What he is asking is a little more complicated. He has a friend, the Comte Giradet, who has been thrown into prison by the mob for not giving in to their demands and his daughter is distraught that he might lose his life. He requests help from us in securing his friend’s release and getting all three out of France.’

‘He has apparently heard that others have been helped in that way by some Englishmen,’ James added with a laugh. ‘It seems the Piccadilly Gentlemen’s fame has spread to the Continent.’

‘I thought you were going to wind up the Society,’ Jay said. ‘After all, you are none of you as young as you were when you started it. How long ago was that?’

‘It was just after you were born in ’54. And you are right, it has had its day, but recently Harry Portman and some of the younger ones have kept its spirit of adventure alive. They have been over to Paris to help those being persecuted by the new regime to escape, but Harry’s wife has finally persuaded him to retire after the narrow squeak they had when they were there the last time.’

‘Lord Portman knew Grandmother Challon well, did he not?’

‘Yes, they trod the boards together.’

‘Did he ever meet my grandfather?’

‘Once, I believe. I recall he had little sympathy for him.’

‘He is my father, after all,’ his mother put in. ‘And I think he should be helped to come home. I am sure no one thinks he is a threat to the monarchy now.’

‘Then your visit is to ask me to go to France.’

‘Would you?’ Amy’s voice was a plea which was hard to resist. ‘The children can come and stay with us while you are gone.’

‘You can take the Lady Amy,’ James added. ‘It will save having to take the Dover packet and you can sail directly to Honfleur.’

Lord Drymore had never quite abandoned his love of the sea and had bought the yacht to sail up and down the coast and make an occasional trip to France before the troubles began. Jay and his siblings had also used her to take their children on pleasure trips, so the vessel was always kept seaworthy and the crew on call. She was moored at King’s Lynn, only a day’s ride away.

While servants came in with the refreshments and his mother took over the serving of them, Jay considered the proposal. It might very well furnish the antidote to his ennui and he had a curiosity to meet the grandfather after whom he was named and who had been exiled in disgrace the year he had been born. ‘What do you know of this Comte Giradet?’

‘Nothing but what Sir John tells us in his letter,’ his father answered. ‘He is a third-generation seigneur who has always treated his people well. His estate is at Villarive, not far from Honfleur. He is a widower whose home is managed by his unmarried daughter. There is a son, too, who is in the service of King Louis.’

‘Can he not help?’

‘Apparently not. The King himself is virtually under house arrest.’

‘The people of France are becoming more lawless every day,’ Amy said. ‘We cannot leave Papa to their mercies.’ She was naturally thinking more of her father than the unfortunate Comte and his daughter. ‘He is an old man and should be enjoying his declining years in the bosom of his family. I am sure that old misdemeanour is long forgotten.’

‘Of course I will go.’ He did not need to think twice about it. His parents had always stood by him, even when he had gone against their advice and made himself the subject of gossip; he would do anything for them. ‘Shall you take the children back with you now?’

‘Yes, if it is convenient. Where are they?’

‘I left them grooming their ponies.’ He rang a bell on a table at his side and a footman appeared almost at once. ‘Fetch the children here, if you please,’ he said. ‘Then tell Cook there will be two extra for luncheon and after that, send Thomas to me.’

‘Will you take Thomas with you?’ his mother asked.

Jay laughed. ‘I think not. He will be forever worrying me about the cut of my coat and tweaking my neckcloth. I can valet myself. I would rather take Sam Roker if you can spare him.’

‘Of course, if he agrees,’ James said. ‘He will be an ideal choice.’

Having made his decision, the preparations went ahead at lightning speed. Jay, when in the navy, had always been used to packing up at a moment’s notice, and it was as if he were back in the service as he issued his orders and explained to the children that he was going away, but they were to stay at Blackfen Manor in his absence. They took this news without a qualm. To them, being spoilt by Lord and Lady Drymore and playing with the cousins who also frequently visited the Manor was a great treat, and they happily set off with Miss Corton, their governess, in their grandparents’ coach in the early afternoon.

Jay had finished his preparations and was instructing Mrs Armistead and his steward about carrying on in his absence, an instruction they did not need, having done it countless times before, when Sam Roker arrived, sent by James.

‘Did my father explain why I need you?’ Jay asked after they had greeted each other.

‘Yes, sir. We’re to fetch Sir John Challon and his friends out of the hands of those froggies. Not that I—’ He stopped suddenly.

Jay smiled, realising the old retainer was about to commit an indiscretion and say what he really thought of Sir John. ‘Will you come?’

‘Try keeping me away.’ Sam had been in the navy with Lord Drymore when he was a sea captain and had served him ever since, both in an unspecified domestic capacity and as an associate member of the Society for the Discovery and Apprehending of Criminals, popularly known as the Piccadilly Gentlemen’s Club. He had known Jay all his life and was allowed a familiarity others would not have dared.

‘And Susan doesn’t mind?’

‘Susan does as she’s told,’ Sam said firmly. ‘’Sides, she’d do anything to please her ladyship, as you well know, so we go with her blessing.’

‘Good,’ Jay said. ‘We sail on the Lady Amy on tomorrow’s tide. Can you be ready?

‘I am ready now, Commodore.’

‘You can forget the formality of address, Sam. I do not think an English naval officer will be welcome in France at this time. I shall go as a private citizen on a visit to my grandfather and you will simply be my servant, Sam Dogsbody.’

‘Yes, sir.’ He laughed suddenly. ‘It is an age since I went on an adventure for the Gentlemen and longer still since I set foot in France.’

‘This isn’t being done at the behest of the Gentlemen,’ Jay said. ‘It is a personal errand.’

‘I know, sir, I know. Let us hope we are in time.’

‘Amen to that,’ Jay said fervently.

Sir John lived in a small villa on the outskirts of Honfleur, a picturesque port on the south bank of the Seine estuary. It had once been a transit point for trade from Rouen to England, but the blockade imposed by Britain had put a stop to that. Perhaps that was why Sir John had chosen to live there; in the early days of his exile it had offered a tenuous link with home. He was an old man and English to boot, but because the locals were unsure what the attitude of the new government was with regard to aliens, he had so far been left unmolested.

Lisette had known him all her life and now felt as if he were her only friend and ally, and though he had not promised he could help free her father, he had written to his daughter and son-in-law on her behalf. ‘I think it is about time I went home myself,’ he had told her. ‘France is a cauldron about to boil over.’