Vintage Love (33 page)

Lacoste and Betsy were ahead. She saw the expression of the faces of the guards at Napoleon’s door as they walked steadily toward it. Then one of the guards lifted his gun and aiming it at them, he cried, “Halt!”

It was the signal for bedlam! Eric whipped out a gun and shot the guard down. At the same time Major Lacoste felled the other guard who had his gun raised.

Lacoste said, “This is your moment! Hurry inside!”

Heart pounding, she tried the heavy brass door handle, and it turned. She pulled the great door open and rushed inside. She found herself in a high-ceilinged, richly furnished room. Standing facing her with a look of fear on his face was a gray-haired, shrunken man with a moustache. He wore a shabby blue jacket and trousers, and she had to study him for a moment before she recognized this worn figure as the once great Napoleon.

She fell into the habit of years ago and dropped to her knee in a cursty as she said, “Sir! I am Betsy Chapman from Saint Helena.”

His eyes widened, and he seemed more the old emperor. In a hoarse voice he asked, “Why the shooting?”

“To get by your guards, sire,” she said frantically. “You have delivered yourself into the hands of a traitor. You are trapped. Your friends wish to save you! A ship waits for you in the Channel!”

Eric thrust his head in the door crying, “More guards coming! We must leave!”

“Valmy is deceiving you, sire!” she cried and then turned, leaving the astonished man staring after her.

The three men had waited for her, and now Eric took her by the arm and rushed ahead. He said, “We may be able to get out the rear before they block us off!”

Major Lacoste cried, “I will act as sentry until you are outside.” And the one-armed man took a stand at the end of the hallway.

“He’ll be killed!” she screamed.

“Maybe not!” Eric cried. “We can’t wait to find out!”

Betsy heard shots from behind and angry male voices. She turned in time to see that Lacoste had been shot down and at least a half-dozen guards were in pursuit of them. They made their way out a cellar door to a small dock and a waiting gondola.

“Help her in!” Eric shouted to Kingston.

The actor helped her down into the waiting gondola as Eric remained behind to barricade the iron door so it could not be easily opened from the inside. The gondolier had the gondola party out from the tiny dock when Eric came running to join them. Any onlookers must have been astounded to see the priest take a great leap and land in the water beside the craft!

The gondolier managed to keep the boat balanced as Betsy and Kingston dragged a soaked Eric out of the water. He now went about removing his priestly robes, and Kingston was busy taking off his bald wig and whiskers. The gondolier was far from the shore when the guards burst the door open and came out to shoot some futile rounds in the air.

“We’ve made it!” she said. “But Lacoste was shot down!”

“It was he who made our escape possible,” Eric told her. “He held them back just long enough to give us time to reach the dock and barricade the door.”

“Poor old man!” she lamented. “I hope he wasn’t killed!”

Eric looked bitter and pushed his wet hair back from his forehead. “Maybe he didn’t care! With the knowledge the emperor is doomed, he lost interest in everything but getting you free.”

Kingston said, “It has actually been weeks since we’ve been together.”

“Valmy told me you were both still captives!” she said.

Eric nodded grimly. “So Lacoste said.”

The gondolier had taken them along the canal to the mainland. There a black and red stage awaited them. The two men helped her onto the wharf and into the stage. They joined her, and in a few minutes the stage was moving at a fast pace.

“What now?” she asked Eric.

“On to Milan,” he said. “Then to Switzerland and finally Paris. We must manage it in record time. We need a few days planning before Valmy arrives with the emperor.”

“I saw him,” she said in an awed voice.

“What’s the verdict?” Eric asked.

“Yes,” Kingston said, leaning forward in the seat across from her. “Is it an impostor or the real Napoleon?”

She hesitated. “I believe it is the real Napoleon. I’m almost sure he recognized me.”

“Did you have a chance to warn him?” Eric asked.

“Yes,” she said. “I told him Valmy was a traitor. That he had escaped Saint Helena only to be trapped by a man mad with ambition!”

“You at least got that much over,” Kingston said.

“Yes. Then the guards came, and we had to run for our lives,” she said dully. “I don’t think it was worth it. We ought to have gone straight out. That way Lacoste would not have lost his life.”

“He may be alive,” Kingston said.

She grimaced. “If he is, Valmy will court-martial him.”

“The important thing is you came face-to-face with this man, and you believe he is the real Napoleon,” Eric said.

“Yes,” she nodded.

“So we have at least established that feet.”

“He has aged and he is ill,” she said as the carriage rolled on. “He is suffering the same sort of illness of the liver which killed my father. Many came down with it on Saint Helena.”

“Is he well enough to make the journey to Paris?” the actor asked.

“Valmy is worried about that,” she said. “Then when I supposedly fell ill, it was the last straw.”

Eric gave her a peculiar look; he was sitting close to her and the carriage rocked and swayed, making high speed over the rough road. He said, “You came to mean a great deal to him.”

She felt her cheeks warm, and she said, “I dealt with him on the only terms I could.”

Eric offered her a smile of understanding. And he reached out and took her hand in his. “I do not question any of it,” he said.

She looked at him. “He held the threat of killing you and Kingston over me.”

“And all the time we’d escaped,” Kingston said. “But then you wouldn’t know that. We had trouble finding out where you were.”

Eric said, “If Lacoste hadn’t become disenchanted, we might never have been able to get you out of there.”

“He’s a fine old man. And he believes in his emperor. It pained him to see Napoleon ill and nagged by a drunken mistress Valmy chose for him,” she said.

“About Valmy?” Eric said. “Do you consider him to be as dangerous as Felix Black painted him?”

“Every bit,” she said. “He has a great charm and an ability for leadership. He is also youthful and vigorous and he is mad with ambition. He sees himself as the successor to Napoleon! Emperor Raymond Valmy!”

Eric looked grim. “We may have a thing or two to say about that. And perhaps the emperor will begin to trouble him with a few questions now.”

“If he listened to me, it will have made the risk worthwhile,” she said.

“Paris is full of agents,” Eric told her. “And to top it all, there are the agents of the new empire, the group faithful to Louis.”

“They could be the chief hazard for Valmy,” she said.

“Yes,” he agreed. “We are only trying to get the former emperor out of his hands and see him safely on a vessel bound for America. But the supporters of the new king will want to destroy Napoleon, Valmy, and all his men!”

She said, “As I understood it from Valmy, he is counting on the ordinary people. He thinks when they see the emperor, they will rise up in a new revolution.”

Eric said, “The emperor you’ve described is hardly likely to be a figure to rally round. A sick and weary Napoleon can not hope to inspire followers to the death!”

“And it will mean no less,” George Frederick Kingston observed. “This new revolution could be a long and bloody arising.”

“I do not think the emperor equal to it,” Betsy said. “He has failed greatly.”

“It will be a race with time,” was Eric’s conclusion. “And the sooner we get to Paris, the better.”

The stage rode on until late in the evening. She became very weary and slept for a while, her head resting against Eric’s shoulder. At least she could relax and feel secure. They finally halted at a small country inn and made arrangements to remain for the night.

The owner was delighted to have customers from the outside world and made a great show of preparing food and drink for them. They sat before a huge, blazing fire in a fireplace that stretched across the end of the room. All the danger and tension seemed far away in this quiet place.

Kingston downed a glass of wine and smiled at her, saying, “I vow your ordeal has left you more beautiful than ever.”

“If that is what I must go through to improve my looks, I would prefer to become homely,” she said.

Eric gave her a fond smile. “I’m proud of you. You are the one who really brought our end of the venture to a successful conclusion. You have found definite evidence that it is the real Napoleon whom Valmy is bringing to Paris.”

“I could not have done anything without your help,” she said.

“Had a bad evening when you didn’t return that night in Naples,” Kingston said.

“I can imagine.”

“With Eric and you both gone, I didn’t know which way to turn. Then Raj Singh came staggering back to the hotel to let me know what had happened to you,” the actor told her.

Excitedly she asked, “So he lived! Did he recover?”

“That Indian is difficult to kill,” Kingston said with a broad smile. “I expect we shall be meeting him again in Paris.”

Eric spoke up, “I managed to escape from the dungeon in which they were holding me the following night. But by that time you were out at sea.”

“It’s a miracle that you found me at all,” she marveled.

“Valmy’s operation is growing. He has so many agents now that he’s attracting attention. I was told that someone had taken over that particular palace and placed guards all around it and in it. I deduced it had to be Valmy,” Eric said.

“But it wasn’t until the one-armed man came to us and offered to get us inside that we had a plan,” Kingston said.

“I shall always owe Major Lacoste a great debt,” she said with deep feeling in her voice.

Soon it was time to retire in preparation for their long drive the following day. When they went up to their rooms, a discreet Kingston left them alone. And on this night it was Betsy and Eric who shared a bed. At last she was again with the man she truly loved.

IT WAS raining and the streets of Paris were almost empty of people. Closed carriages and wagons rumbled over the cobblestoned streets and through great puddles of water, sending drops splashing high. Betsy was in one of the carriages with Kingston. She had gone out to do some needed shopping for clothes, and Eric had insisted that the actor accompany her.

She gazed out the window at the drab brick buildings and the storefronts. They all looked good to her. Just to be free was a luxury to be enjoyed after her long spell as a prisoner. She felt that they were near the end of the adventure on which she had embarked so recklessly. And she was anxious to return to London with Eric and lead a quiet married life!

Enough of adventure! Eric had professed an interest in going into a profession. He had a friend engaged in the import business from the Far East who had offered him help. Being a secret agent was not a proper career for a man with a wife. George Frederick Kingston longed for Covent Garden and Drury Lane and the backstage gossip of the theatrical pubs. He was more than ready to resume his career as a small-time actor.

But there was still work to finish! The climax would come when Napoleon was brought to Paris. Valmy must be close to the great capital now. None of them could truly relax until the final act of the drama was played out.

The journey from Venice to Paris had been a long and tiring one. They had been in Paris for forty-eight hours and were living in a modest pension not far from the Champs Elysées. Whether it was being with Eric again and the romantic mood this created in her or whether it was the beauty and charm of the city itself, she was convinced that Paris was an enchanted place.

Eric had to remind her that this languid city of serene beauty had not long ago seen the extravagant cruelties of the French Revolution. It had known the First Empire of Napoleon and was now content under a Louis again, paying homage to a king with the same name as the one they had so grimly beheaded.

Paris was blooming again under the new king. Even in a spring rain such as they were experiencing now, it was a lovely place. She did not want to see it drenched in blood still another time. If Valmy had his way with his planned new revolution, not only Paris but all France would be torn asunder. And after that it could be all Europe in a turmoil for a decade!

Just at the moment they were waiting. They had not been contacted by any of the other agents yet. Eric was worried, as he had expected to meet Raj Singh at the pension. But thus far there had been no sign of the Indian. She glanced across the carriage and saw that the veteran actor was nodding. A lurch of the vehicle, and he quickly opened his eyes.

“I do believe I dozed off,” he said apologetically. “Are we near our lodging place?”

“Soon,” she said. And she lapsed back into silence again. She was thinking of Valmy and her having been his mistress. Eric had chosen to black this all out and treat it as if it had never happened. She knew that while it was generous of him, it was also an example of the thinking of a secret agent. He considered her survival more important than anything else, and she had managed that.

Valmy had been a proficient lover. Had the circumstances been different, she might have wound up giving her heart to him as well as her body. But because of Eric she had been unable to feel love for the charming adventurer. Yet he had stirred something in her beyond a casual few moments of passion. She knew she would always remember him.

He was that mixture of villain and gentleman which had confused countless maidens from the beginning of the time of romance. She had known him as a lover, and she had also seen glimpses of his dark side when he abandoned every principle to his thirst for power! She much feared that this evil part of his nature would gain full sway as he lived longer, so that in the end there would only be his devouring ambition.