“What?”Allegra asked her gently. “What has happened?”
“Our niece is under house arrest. The local revolutionary authorities are threatening to take her children away from her!” wailed Lady Bellingham.
Now the Duke of Sedgwick found himself drawn into this tale of woe. He knelt before the distraught woman and said quietly, “How is it that you know this, Lady Bellingham? How has the information come to your attention and that of your husband?”
“My niece lives near the coast,” Lady Bellingham explained. “One of her servants took Anne-Marie’s letter to a cousin who is a fisherman. The fisherman brought it across the water, and gave it to a fish merchant heknows who was coming up to London, with instructions that the fishmonger would be rewarded if he delivered the letter to us immediately. Freddie gave him a whole guinea!”
“How long did it take for this letter to reach you?” the duke said. “Did your niece date her missive?”
“She wrote but five days ago,” Lady Bellingham said. Then she turned her tearstained face to the duke. “Ohh, Quinton, you must help us! You must go and fetch Anne-Marie and her children from the dreadful people in France!”
“You said she would not come,” Allegra reminded the older lady. “You said she didn’t want her son to lose his inheritance.”
“She will come now, child, I am certain of it. She sees the futility of trying to hold on to her son’s estate. Whoever has sought to have her placed under house arrest and steal her children away means to destroy the d’Aumonts, and have what is theirs. Anne-Marie is helpless before such an enemy. She is a country wife and has no influence with the authorities.” She burst into fulsome tears once again, her shoulders shaking with her grief.
Caroline rushed now to comfort her aunt while Allegra and her husband stepped aside.
“Why,” Allegra asked her husband, “did she ask you to rescue her niece and her children, Quinton?”
“Three years ago when the terror began, Ocky, Dree, Marcus, and I rescued a friend in Paris. It began as a lark. We knew Harry was in Paris visiting distant cousins. Then came word he had been arrested with those cousins. He had managed to get word out of prison because he was English, and had the ready to pay bribes. His family was all atwitter, and didn’t know how to proceed. His father kept blustering that the Froggies had no right to arrest an English citizen, butthere was poor Harry incarcerated, and a tumbrel’s ride away from Madame la Guillotine. So we sailed Marcus’s yacht across the channel, rented horses, and rode up to Paris.
“There, with supreme arrogance so common to us English, we went to the prison and demanded to see the governor of the facility. Marcus and Dree had brought a little money, and Ocky had just gotten his allowance from his father for the term. We threw money around as if we actually possessed it, but for me. My French is said to be peerless, and so I did the talking when the governor of the prison appeared. I explained that Lord Harry Carew was a wayward but beloved cousin of the English king who had sent us to request his return. And all the while I talked I kept jiggling this velvet bag in my hand. It jingled quite convincingly. As we anticipated, the governor was greedy.
“He could,” he said, “release the unimportant Anglais to us for a small price. No, said I. We wanted the Englishman and his relations unless, of course, they were criminals. The governor considered. Harry’s relations, it turned out, were two elderly ladies. So the governor decided he would be generous if we were generous. The exchange was made. We promised to take the ladies home to collect their belongings and leave Paris before nightfall. The governor agreed, especially as we got the ladies to sign over their house near Notre Dame to him.”
“So much for revolutionary ideals,” Allegra noted dryly.
The duke laughed. “You can only imagine our surprise when we got to the old ladies’ home and discovered that the Marquis and Marquise de Valency, along with their children, had been hiding in the cellars all that time! When Harry and his old cousins were arrested,the real prize was completely overlooked. Not knowing what else to do they had remained hidden in the house. We had passports for ourselves, Harry, and the old ladies, but how were we to get the de Valency family out of Paris with us?”
“And how did you?” Allegra inquired. She was fascinated by this tale, and would have never expected such heroism or daring-do from Quinton, although she did not think him a coward. How she wished he had been there to help her brother.
“The old ladies had a small coach, nothing however that you could hide anything in, and so we decided to take a baggage cart as well. We hid the marquise and her two youngest children in a small space beneath the cart bottom, and then we piled the luggage atop it. The marquis and his son we dressed as Parisian peasants. Their clothing was ragged and filthy. Only the marquis had wooden clogs on his feet. His son was barefooted. We made certain they were dirtied. Because they had been on the run for several months, they were not plump with good living any longer. Indeed they were quite thin and gaunt, which was fortunate for the deception.
“We took the chance that we could squeak the marquis and his son, who were driving the vehicles, by the authorities. When we got to the gates of Paris we showed our passports to the guards there. Then we explained that the drivers would be returning in a few days’ time to Paris with the carriage and the cart. That because the old sisters, and their English relation, had to be out of Paris by nightfall there was no opportunity to get the proper papers for the drivers. They would remain if the authorities wanted them to do so, and we would drive, but then how would the carriage and the cart get back to Paris? We said the two ancient mademoiselles were giving the transport to their drivers aswell as paying them in good French livres. This would mean the two citizens could earn a living when they returned to Paris.
“The guards at the gate hemmed and hawed for a few moments, and then having been slipped some silver coins, waved us through. It took us several days to reach the coast. A bit longer than if we had gone a direct route, but we traveled the back roads so we did not have to hide the marquise and her children beneath the boards of the baggage cart. Like the others, they were garbed poorly in case anyone saw us. We bought our food along the way and slept rough. We reached Marcus’s yacht without delay, sold the carriage, the cart, and the horses to an innkeeper, and set sail for England.” He paused, and then continued. “The four of us had such fun on that adventure that we returned to France several times after that to help friends, or relations of friends. That is why Lady Bellingham thinks I can save her niece, but I am not certain we can. She may have waited too long to ask for help, and the four of us have responsibilities now that we did not have then.”
“We must try, however,” Allegra told her husband. “First, let us find out where the Comtesse d’Aumont lives. How near it is to the sea, and where exactly it is located. Then we can make our plans.”
“Our plans?”the duke repeated.
“Of course,” Allegra said quietly. “You don’t think I am going to let you go to France and have all the fun, do you?”
“If any attempt is made to rescue the Comtesse d’Aumont and her children, Allegra,” the duke said sternly to his wife, “it will be a very dangerous undertaking, not a pleasure trip, my darling girl, but I love you for your bravery in wanting to go.”
“Quinton, when will you learn not to treat me as if Iam some delicate creature whose frail sensibilities must not be distressed? You were damnably lucky in Paris three years ago when you rescued your friend. This is a whole different matter and must be approached as such. I will need to think on it, but we must act quickly.”
“Allegra!”He sounded exasperated.
“Quinton, listen to me,” she said quietly. “My brother was murdered in that damned revolution. Many other innocent people have been. More honest simple people than the aristocrats the revolution claims to hate. Women are far more devious than men, my darling. Who sit beneath the guillotine grimly as heads fall? Who incite their men to revenge? Women! You are going to need me if you have any chance of rescuing the Comtesse d’Aumont. I have to do this for James Lucian’s sake. It is the only way I have of avenging his death.You must let me come.” Her fingers dug urgently into his arm, and she looked directly at him.
“It is madness,” he murmured, but he understood.
“I can help you,” she promised him.
“I will think on it,” he finally agreed.
“We will go together,” she said with a smile, indicating that the matter was closed.
