The Ruby Pendant (24 page)

`Ugh.' She
shuddered; he was nothing like her father, after all. 'How could you?'

`Oh, very
easily, chèrie. He had no further use for it and I did. One must take one's
opportunities where one finds them. Is that not a sensible maxim?'

`Does war make
everyone so callous or were you always like that?'

He laughed and
again she was reminded of happier times and she wished he would not confuse her
so. 'Why don't you come down and join me?' he suggested. 'We could take a
stroll and discuss it.'

`Certainly
not!'

`Then I shall
have to come to you. I am getting a crick in the neck looking up at you.' He
grabbed a thick strand of the creeper and began climbing. 'I think that you, my
lovely Juliette, have taken a grave risk coming to Hautvigne. You might have
been killed, might still be if those cousins of yours decide there is no
treasure. Why don't you persuade James Stewart to take you home?' His head was
on a level with the window sill now. `You do not really belong here, do you?'

`I do not know
where I belong.'

`Then the story
of being Juliette Caronne is a fiction?'

`No. That is
true.'

`Do the others
believe it?'

`Yes, or they
would not have given us shelter.'

He smiled knowingly.
'Or they fear that Monsieur Stewart is really who he purports to be and his
papers are genuine. They are simple people accustomed to bowing down to
authority and looking on the Emperor almost as a god. They dare not disobey
what they see as his orders.'

`Perhaps, but
they also know I am who I say I am, and blood is thicker than water.'

`As long as the
jewels remain unfound. They are motivated by greed, not family feeling.'

`Are you always
so cynical, Captain?'

`That is not
cynicism; it is facing up to reality,' he said. 'It is a dangerous game you are
playing.'

`No more than
yours, for now you have to climb down again.'

He laughed.
'Now who is unfeeling? For one moment I felt like Romeo, reaching out towards
his Juliet and you have spoiled it all.' He gave a melodramatic sigh. 'Ah,
well! "Good-night, good-night! Parting is such sweet sorrow that I shall
say good-night till it be morrow."'

In spite of her
misery, in spite of her confusion, she found herself laughing. A French soldier
who could quote Shakespeare was the last thing she expected. `Oh, that's
better,' he said, then let go of the creeper and disappeared. She gasped and
leaned out of the window, expecting to find him laid out on the ground, but he
knew how to fall and was standing below her, brushing down his overlarge
breeches. It seemed to her at that moment that he looked taller, less bent, but
it was an illusion, she realised as he walked away. He was as unprepossessing
as ever, certainly no handsome Romeo.

Chapter Eight

In the following days, Juliette thought she must have
imagined the soldier who quoted Shakespeare. Captain Devereux was there, to be
sure, lazing about the house, grooming his horse, riding out to explore the
countryside surrounding the chateau, playing cards and drinking noisily with
the other men. But he was as far removed from the romantic man who had
intrigued her the night of his arrival as James Martindale was from the
gentleman she had once believed him to be. There was something about him she
could not fathom and, as the days went by, she began to wonder why he had come
to the chateau. His story of being on his way to rejoin his regiment in Spain
did not ring true. She was convinced he was a deserter and yet she could not
quite believe he lacked courage. He would laugh and joke with Henri and Jean
and treat James with thinly-veiled contempt, but there was about him a
watchfulness, a way of moving which reminded her of a cat, a large and powerful
cat, a lion or a tiger. The claws were sheathed for now, but she knew they
could be deadly. But if that were so, who at the chateau was his prey? Had it
anything to do with the pendant? Or the war? It was like living on a knife
edge.

And then one
day, when they were alone in the kitchen, he began talking to her, asking her
about her life in England and treating her with a deference he had never shown
before. Although his accent did not lose the patois of the region, his voice
softened, its cadences became sympathetic to her ear and she was almost lulled
into believing he was a friend.

She longed for
someone to confide in, someone who would not laugh at her as the others did,
finding amusement in her mistakes with the language and her ignorance of
viticulture, someone who was not heartless as James was heartless, and so she
sat at the table opposite him and told him of her childhood, of the portrait
and her come-out, of James and Philip Devonshire.

`They arranged
to fight a duel,' she said. 'But Mr Devonshire did not turn up. James said he
was a coward.'

`There is a
little of the coward in every man,' he said, resisting the temptation to reach
across and take her hand. Already it was becoming work-worn. 'And a little of
the hero, too. Circumstances dictate our actions; one man's honour might be
another's shame and there may have been mitigating circumstances.'

`I should like
to think so, because nothing he had done before indicated he was anything but
an honourable man.'

`Do you miss
your old home?' he asked softly.

She looked at
him sharply, wondering if he were trying to trap her. She must not let him
think she was yearning for England, in spite of what she had said. 'I am a
Frenchwoman, Captain,' she answered carefully. 'And this is now my home.'

'And you are
determined to make the best of it,' he said softly. 'I admire your courage,
mam'selle.'

She was not
afraid of him, was not intimidated by anyone, but he knew that underneath that
brave exterior was a young girl who had been dreadfully hurt. Why had Lord
Martindale not told her the truth long before and not left it to his wife? Why
had he not explained to Lady Martindale how he had brought the tiny child out
of France? It would have saved a great deal of heartache for all of them. But
there were compensations. If that had happened, he would not be here with her
now, learning to love her all over again, not as the pretty daughter of an
English aristocrat, but as the wonderful, resourceful, delightful young woman
she was when the gloss was stripped away.

The change in his manner confused her. He was no longer
the crude soldier, but a gentleman making reasonable conversation, paying
compliments, and what was more, making them sound genuine. It would be easy to
forget he was almost ugly with his untidy red beard and heavy eyebrows. What
did he hide beneath all that facial hair? She tried to imagine him without it,
but gave up when all that came to mind was the image of another man, taller,
straighter, with a dimpled chin, a man she would never see again, a man who had
touched a chord in her emotions that had never had the chance to develop.

`It is not
courage, it is necessity,' she said. 'The vineyards must be made to flourish
again, it needs only a little ingenuity and hard work.'

`You cannot do
it alone.'

`I am not
alone. I have my family.'

`Yes, I have
noticed how affectionate they are and how ready to share the work with you,' he
said with studied irony.

She smiled
suddenly and he was reminded of the girl she had once been, carefree and loved.
Who was there to love her now besides himself? He was certain James did not.
His anger at the man darkened his eyes for a moment and his expression became
grim.

`We have to get
to know each other,' she said. `You cannot blame them for mistrusting me.'

`Your loyalty
does you credit. But what about Monsieur Stewart?'

`What about
him?'

`Are you still
going to marry him?'

She looked at
him sharply, wondering what had prompted the question. 'Of course.'

`Because you
love him or because you see no alternative?' She did not answer, but he seemed
unperturbed. 'Why have you not married him before now?'

`It is none of
your business.'

`No more it is,
but it seems a strange way to go on. You have come all the way from England and
halfway across France with him. Surely his protection would be more effective
if you were married?'

`His
protection!' Her lovely mouth twitched into a hint of a smile, proving that,
through all her troubles, she had not lost her sense of humour. 'I sometimes
wonder who is protecting whom and why.'

`You have a
point,' he said, glad that she did not seem as enamoured of James as he had
feared. 'Without you, Henri or Jean might turn him over to the authorities as a
spy.'

`That's
nonsense and you know it.'

`Oh, come,
mam'selle', think about it. He says he is Scots and he has a letter supposedly
signed by Bonaparte himself. He claims to be the Emperor's agent. Either that
is true and he is a traitor to the country where he was born, or it is false
and he is playing a very dangerous game of counter-intelligence. Which is it?'

She decided
against telling him she thought the letter was a forgery. 'I think he is more
interested in treasure than in spying,' she said.

'Oh, I do not
doubt that,' he said. Her answers convinced him she did not know the truth.
What he could not decide was if she was safer not knowing. On the whole, he
thought she was. Her safety was paramount. His mission for the British
Government was becoming insignificant beside that, although he could not afford
to neglect it altogether. 'But have you wondered what he will do if there is no
treasure?'

She did not
dare tell him that she hoped James would keep his promise to take her back to
England, though that was becoming increasingly unlikely. 'I have no idea.'

`If he has been
wasting his time here when he should have been elsewhere doing whatever he came
to France to do, then his masters, whoever they are, will not be pleased. They
will seek to punish him. Have you thought of that?'

`Would you
denounce him?'

`To whom? If he
is working for Napoleon, I, a French soldier, can have no quarrel with him, can
I?'

She got up to
fetch a broom from the cupboard and began sweeping the floor, sending up a
cloud of dust and cursing herself for a gullible fool. He wasn't interested in
her, after all, he had simply been trying to find out what he could about
James. She had been deceived once again by soft words. She told herself she
wasn't very good at judging the characters of men. Her father, James, Mr
Devonshire, Pierre and now Captain Devereux, she had misjudged them all.

He said no more
because they were interrupted by Jean coming in and demanding his dinner, and
no further opportunity for private discourse came their way. Her relatives did
not trust her and were afraid she might be telling him things she had not told
them and so they rarely left them alone together. Whether she would have told
him more or learned any more about him if they had continued the conversation
she did not know. But he had set her thinking.

If James was a
spy, who was he working for? He had told the Caronnes that he was sympathetic
to France, but what if he had been sent by the British government, even by her
father, to gather information? Until the captain had started to question her,
she had been so wrapped up in her own problems, she had not given it a thought.
Now he was making her think. She could not believe that a Martindale, a nephew
of an English peer with an impeccable reputation, could ever be a traitor. It
was easier to think of him as a patriot and the more she thought about it, the
more the facts fitted that conjecture. But all this business of spying and
counter-spying was doing nothing to help her confused emotions. She was, she
realised, a pawn in their game and she was expendable. If only there was
someone she could trust, someone to confide in, to lean on. Someone who could
put everything right. But that was asking too much of anyone, especially
Captain Devereux. But occasionally she caught him looking at her from across a
room and then his mouth would lift in a faint smile and his eyes convey a kind
of empathy, as if they shared a secret.

She spent some
time cleaning the château and when that was done, started on the upper slopes
of the vineyard, clearing the weeds that strangled the vines. It was a far more
productive exercise than yearning for what she could not have or looking for
treasure.

`It is a waste
of time,' James said, one morning when they were having breakfast. So far, only
he and the captain had put in an appearance; the rest of the family were still
abed, though she could hear Gerard out in the yard clucking at the hens as he
fed them. `Those vines will never amount to anything, they have been neglected
too long. You'd have to grub them out and start again. And where's the money
coming from to buy fresh rootstock? Unless you think there is a cache of gold
buried out there on the slopes.'

`Oh, for pity's
sake, can't you forget about gold and jewels and buried treasure for two
minutes together?' she demanded in English. 'It would be more to the point to
try and do something to make the château pay.'