Before the Storm (33 page)

He gasped. ‘5,000 livres? What on earth do you need that much for?’ He stood up then and began to agitatedly pace the room.

Clementine folded her napkin on her lap. ‘I would rather not say,’ she murmured, praying that he wouldn’t press her any further.
 

He swung around on her. ‘Has Venetia been taking you to those gambling hells that she frequents because if she has then I really must forbid you from...’

She looked up quickly at that. ‘No, it isn’t that.’ Was he going to prevent her seeing her friends now? He’d already banned Sidonie from the house. ‘It’s for a charity.’

Charles looked astounded. ‘A charity? Do we not give enough already?’ He glared at her and she could tell that he was beginning to lose his temper.

‘Apparently not,’ she replied with a wry smile.

‘This isn’t funny, Clementine,’ Charles snapped before turning away and patting his disordered hair into place again in front of the huge mirror that hung over the red marble fireplace. Clearly his aversion to mirrors had vanished overnight. Eventually he turned back to her again. ‘Very well then - let me know the name of this charity and I will give them the money myself.’

She stared at him with gathering alarm. ‘No, I would rather do it myself,’ she said as calmly as she could. ‘It was to be an anonymous donation so I would prefer to make the arrangements.’

Charles regarded her suspiciously and she did her best to meet his glare as calmly and innocently as she could. ‘Please, Charles. I don’t often ask you for anything.’

His gaze softened then. ‘No, you don’t,’ he agreed, ‘but even so...’

Clementine stood up then and threw her napkin on to the table. ‘If you don’t want to let me have the money then just say so,’ she said with as much dignity as she could muster. ‘I’m sure that I can make other arrangements.’ Wildly, she considered writing to her father and asking for it.

Charles shrugged. ‘It’s not that I don’t want to let you have the money,’ he explained. ‘It is just that I would like to know where such a considerable sum is going.’

‘I don’t see why I should tell you that,’ she replied before going to the door. ‘Am I to take it therefore that you won’t help me?’

He nodded. ‘I’m sorry, Clementine,’ he replied. ‘However, if you change your mind and decide that you can tell me who it is for...?’

She shook her head. ‘I’m afraid that I can’t do that,’ she said, not a little bitterly. ‘I wish that I hadn’t asked now.’ She slammed the door shut behind her and leaned for a moment against it, cursing her own clumsy stupidity and wishing that she had just a little of Venetia, or even Phoebe’s feminine wiles. They would have known exactly how to ask Charles for the money and would probably have ended up dancing out with twice the requested amount clutched in their perfumed paws.

She sighed and slowly climbed the stairs to her sitting room. ‘Clementine, wait!’ Charles was running up the stairs after her, a crumpled packet in his hand. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, gasping for breath as he handed it to her without ceremony. He’d hastily shoved the money inside and it was almost falling out. ‘It was wrong of me to pry into your personal affairs.’

Clementine gave a wry smile. ‘I am your wife,’ she reminded him, clutching the bulky packet to her breast. ‘You have every right to ask questions of me but not to press me for an answer when I do not wish to give one.’

Charles nodded. ‘I know this and I am sorry.’ He pointed to the pocket. ‘It’s all there.’

‘Thank you,’ she replied, leaning forward to gently kiss his pockmarked cheek. ‘I’m very grateful to you.’

Clementine didn’t waste any time but immediately ordered a carriage be brought round and prepared to go to Venetia’s apartment on the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré to give her the money right away. She spent the journey there feeling immense relief that it had all gone to plan and also extremely happy to be able to help her friend, but both these feelings immediately evaporated when a wan faced, terrified looking maid opened the apartment door to her and she was greeted with the sound of Venetia loudly sobbing in the untidy blue and green sitting room. The curtains were drawn against the sunlight and there was a heavy whiff of cheroot smoke and male sweat in the air.

‘They’ve taken Jules!’ she wailed from the floor when Clementine stepped into the room. ‘Someone must have told them that he was here and soldiers came to take him away. They’ve taken him to La Force.’ She was still dressed in a thin linen and gauze nightdress with a teal satin robe fastened over it, while her hair hung in disordered, tangled crimson ringlets about her shoulders.

Clementine put her arms around her pale and very frightened friend and gently hugged her as she cried on her shoulder. ‘Do you know why he was arrested?’ she asked, waving the maid away and mouthing that she should fetch wine. ‘Why was he here anyway?’

Venetia sat up then and wiped away her tears with the back of her hand. ‘How inelegant I am today,’ she remarked ruefully as Clementine handed her a clean linen and lace handkerchief. ‘The fact is that Eugène and I have been tiring of each other a little bit and Jules and I...’ her voice trailed away as she dabbed at her eyes. ‘We are married after all and have a child together,’ she said defensively.
 

Clementine nodded and gave the other woman a squeeze. ‘I always suspected that you might reconcile one day,’ she said.
 

Venetia laughed then. ‘Did you? I never thought that it would happen - it’s been so horrible since we came back to France but he really seems to have changed lately.’ She shrugged. ‘It’s too late now, of course. Some nasty sneaking little informer told the authorities that he was fighting for the King at the Tuileries and so they decided to arrest him.’

‘They’ll release him when they realise that he hasn’t done anything wrong,’ Clementine said with a confidence that she didn’t at all feel. She’d been hearing alarming things lately about people vanishing overnight from their homes, whisked away in the darkness from their loved ones to one of the increasingly overcrowded Parisian prisons, of which La Force was said to be one of the very worst.
 

Venetia squeezed her hand. ‘You don’t really believe that, do you?’ she whispered, her eyes wide with fear. ‘I’ve heard of so many arrests lately and they never seem to let anyone go.’

‘Phoebe says that they will start releasing the prisoners soon,’ Clementine murmured. ‘What else can they do when the prisons are so full?’

Venetia laughed mirthlessly. ‘What else can they do? They can kill them all.’ She sat up and scrubbed impatiently at her eyes. ‘As for what Phoebe has to say on the matter...’

Clementine remembered the packet of money and rather diffidently pulled out from inside her tasseled yellow silk reticule and handed it silently to her friend who accepted it without enthusiasm.

‘It doesn’t seem quite so important any more,’ she said with a bitter little smile, ‘but thank you.’ She leaned forward and kissed Clementine’s cheek. ‘Was Charles difficult about it?’
 

Clementine smiled and shrugged. ‘No more than usual.’ She looked away.

Venetia looked at her for a moment then shook her head. ‘You should go back to London while you still can,’ she said. ‘Heaven knows that Phoebe is always offering to get the papers for us all.’

Clementine stood up and brushed down her crumpled primrose yellow silk skirt. ‘Mama would be furious,‘ she said shortly.

Venetia sighed. ‘You have to stop using your mother as an excuse for not doing the right thing,’ she said gently. ‘You’re a married woman now, Clemmie. You don’t even need to see her if you don’t want to.’

Clementine laughed harshly. ‘Mama would never stand for that,’ she replied. ‘You know that she’d be desperate to parade me around like a trick pony in front of all her new society friends.’

‘Then parade for a few days before putting yourself out to grass as far away from her as possible?’ Venetia suggested. ‘Come on, Clementine, it’s got to be better than staying here and wondering what mad thing Charles is going to do next. He’s already tried to forbid you from seeing Sidonie and I expect it’s only a matter of time before he decides that I’m just as objectionable, not to mention Phoebe with her unaccountable liking for politicians,’ she said shrewdly.

Clementine blushed. ‘I’d never let him stop me seeing you,’ she said awkwardly.

Venetia raised one elegantly plucked eyebrow but said nothing. Instead she clambered to her feet then opened the tightly shut blue brocade curtains before staring down meditatively onto the bustling street below. ‘How quickly things change,’ she said sadly.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Late that night, Clementine watched in horror from her own sitting room windows that overlooked the Place Louis le Grand as a large jeering mob cheered on a ragged culotte wearing young man who shimmied swiftly up the statue of Louis XIV seated on a rearing stallion that had stood in the middle of the square for just over a century and tied the ends of several nooses around the king’s bronze head and that of his horse. Once he was safely down again, they pulled on the rope has hard as they could until the statue began to topple, cheering wildly as they did so.

‘Come away from the window,’ her husband said behind her. He had entered the room without her realising. ‘We don’t want the mob to spot you and then turn their attentions to us.’

‘Lucien says that they are going to change the square’s name to something less royal,’ Clementine said with a sigh, not turning away from the window. ‘Place des Piques doesn’t have quite the same gravitas, does it?’
 

‘I’m only surprised that it has taken them so long,’ Charles replied, coming to stand next to her and staring down at the scene outside, where huge bonfires had been erected in the very centre of the square. Drunk women danced around the blazing fires, swigging from bottles and indiscriminately kissing any men who came near them. ‘They are no better than animals,’ he sneered disgustedly before turning away.

‘They are excited that finally things are changing for them,’ Clementine said quietly. ‘They’ve felt powerless for so long and now finally they feel like the things that they do are really making a difference.’

Her husband looked at her coldly. ‘I might have known that you would try to make excuses for them,’ he replied crossly. ‘I wonder if your heart will still bleed for the rabble when they come to arrest us both.’
 

Clementine could think of several retorts to this comment but decided after a glance at Charles’ bad tempered expression that her best option was to remain silent. ‘I am going to retire to my room now,’ she murmured with a polite curtsey before leaving.

She heard him say her name as she closed the door quietly behind her but did not stop and instead hurried across the hall to her bedroom. Her maid was already there and immediately set to work silently removing her diamond earrings, bracelets and necklace and then pulling off her pale blue velvet shoes. Clementine usually liked to have a chat while she was getting ready for bed but tonight she was content to sit quietly in front of the mirror and watch as the other girl cleaned powder and rouge from her cheeks.

When the tap on the door came, her heart sank but she was not altogether surprised. Hadn’t she been expecting it, deep down, ever since she’d accepted that bulging packet of money from her husband that morning? She exchanged a look with her maid and gave a discreet nod. ‘It’s alright,’ she whispered and the girl unlocked the door and let Charles in before leaving with an anxious look back over her shoulder at Clementine.

‘I didn’t think you would mind...’ he said nervously as he padded towards her on bare feet, holding his crimson brocade night-robe close around his body. He’d clearly hurried to his own room and got ready for bed as soon as she had left the sitting room.

‘Of course I don’t mind,’ she made herself say, adding a smile for good measure.
 

Charles reached out and touched her cheek. ‘Clementine,’ he whispered huskily, ‘I’ve missed this.’ He leaned forward and kissed her lips as she tried her best not to flinch.

‘Not now,’ she murmured against his mouth as he pushed her back towards the bed. ‘Let me call for my maid. I’m still in my dress, Charles.’

‘There’s no need for that,’ he muttered impatiently, first trying to shove his hand down the front of her tight bodice then instead pulling up her skirts and grabbing roughly at her thighs. ‘I want you now.’

He pushed her back onto the bed and she closed her eyes and tried to think about other things as his wet mouth trailed down the side of her neck and he thrust his fingers inside her over and over again. ‘Is this what you want?’ he mumbled, releasing her now to fumble beneath his nightgown. ‘Touch me,’ he ordered, his wine scented breath hot against her cheek. He grasped her hand and pulled it towards him.

She thought about the lovely flowers in her sitting room, pretty dresses and the sunlight scattering across the lake at Versailles as she grasped hold of him and began to unenthusiastically move her fingers up and down as he groaned and became sweaty on top of her. ‘I can’t,’ she whispered, turning her face away from his lips. She tried to concentrate on the sun dappled lake but Antoine’s face, his smile when they’d last been together kept floating into her mind no matter how hard she tried to banish him.

‘Harder,’ her husband ordered, putting his hand over hers and moving it even faster until he became hard. ‘That’s enough,’ he gasped and then lifted her skirts up around her waist.