Читать книгу The Captain And His Innocent - Lucy Ashford - Страница 12

Chapter Five

Ellie’s father, André Duchamp, was a geologist, surveyor and map-maker. He had lived with his wife and daughter in Paris, close to the church of St Denis in an apartment off the Rue Tivoli, which had a little balcony from where Ellie could look out on to the main street. She remembered being enthralled as a five-year-old child to one day see ranks of soldiers marching by, their tricolours held aloft, and two years later she’d seen Napoleon himself, the newly crowned Emperor of France, ride past at the head of his cavalry on a prancing white horse, acknowledging the cheers of the crowds who’d gathered to see him.

‘He is a great man,’ her father used to say. ‘He will bring peace and prosperity to France again.’

Their apartment was small, but even so, a whole room was given up to her father’s work, and he used to let Ellie watch him while he drew his maps. She was fascinated, too, by the telescopes and star charts he had in there, for he was a keen astronomer. ‘Why should I only map the ground beneath my feet?’ he would say. ‘When there are also the heavens above us to explore?’

Best of all, she loved to gaze at the array of geological samples he kept in a glass cabinet in that room. To Ellie they were as beautiful as any jewels, and her father would tell her about each one.

‘These pink crystals are feldspar, Ellie. Such a delicate colour, don’t you think?’

‘Oh, yes! And the green one, Papa?’

‘That’s olivine. And here’s a piece of hematite—such a dark, deep red that it’s almost black.’

Ellie nodded eagerly. ‘And that one must be gold!’

‘Fool’s gold, alas.’ Her father smiled at her excitement. ‘It’s called pyrites and it’s tricked many a fortune-

hunter.’

She’d gazed at him earnestly. ‘You know so much, Papa.’

He’d ruffled her hair. ‘Ah, but there’s always more to learn, little one.’

‘Is that why you go travelling?’

‘It’s my job, Ellie. I’m lucky to have a job that I love.’

She was always sad when her father was away. He went travelling for days—sometimes even weeks—at a time and only later in her childhood did she realise why he was so busy. It was because his expertise in both geology and map-making meant that he was invaluable in the planning and the physical creation of new roads that were intended to connect all of the cities and ports of France for travellers and traders.

When he was away, Ellie would gaze down the street from her window for his return, waiting for him and missing him. She was only vaguely aware of the wars the Emperor Napoleon was waging on France’s borders and beyond. But as the years went by, her father was away more and more often, for longer periods of time, and when he returned, his mood was often heavy, sombre, almost—though he always smiled to see his daughter.

When Ellie was seventeen, her mother died. She’d been ill for only a short while, and her father was brokenhearted. And that was truly the end of their old, familiar way of life, because one night, a few weeks after the funeral, Ellie found her father packing all his precious things into his leather valise. She saw how his face was etched with grief, how his hands trembled as he put them on her shoulders and said, ‘Ellie, my darling, we must flee Paris, you and I. This city is no longer safe for us.’

* * *

It made her almost smile to remember how in Brussels Lord Franklin had expressed his fear that the journey to England might exhaust her, because Ellie was used to the kind of journeys Lord Franklin probably couldn’t even imagine. She was used to travelling under a false name, and often by night; sometimes in mail coaches if they had the money, and in farm carts or on foot if they hadn’t.

They’d headed for Le Havre first, where her father had once had relatives—only to find that they’d long since disappeared, in the upheavals of revolution and war. After several cold and lonely weeks, her father came home one day with the heavy news that they were still being pursued—and so their travelling began again and they headed north.

If they felt they were safe—if they’d gone for a day without suspecting anyone was on their tail—they would treat themselves to a room in an inn for the night, even if the room was flea-ridden and furnished only with a couple of lumpy, straw-filled mattresses. More often they had to sleep in barns, or ruined cottages—places left derelict by years of war.

And Ellie had to be the strong one, because already her father’s health was failing. She had to do things she’d not have believed possible—become a liar, a thief, a fighter, even. Her father had taught her to use that small but lethal pistol, and though she’d never been forced to fire it, she’d made it plain to anyone who threatened their safety that she would—and could—shoot to kill.

She’d had to plan their route, make the decisions, and find—or steal—medicines for her ailing father, who was becoming weaker and weaker each day.

‘Soon we will be safe, Ellie,’ he would murmur each night, as he carefully unpacked his valise and checked his precious instruments. ‘Soon we will be able to stop running at last.’

For her papa, the running had indeed ended. He was dying of pneumonia in Brussels when Lord Franklin came to them—Lord Franklin Grayfield, a wealthy middle-aged English aristocrat who travelled abroad a good deal, he told Ellie in fluent French, because he was fascinated by European culture and art, and was eager to add to his collection of paintings and sculptures. To his great regret, he had been thwarted in his travels by the long war. ‘But now,’ he told her, ‘I am making up for lost time.’

He was clearly rich. He was also ferociously clever. And never in her life had Ellie been so astonished as when he told her, in the Brussels attic where she lived with her dying father, that her mother was a distant relative of his.

Ellie had been astounded. A relative? But her mother had told her that her English family had disowned her completely when she told them she was marrying a French map-maker.

‘How I wish I’d known this earlier,’ Lord Franklin said earnestly. ‘I’m afraid it’s only a few weeks ago that I was making some family enquiries and learned your mother had died; learned, too, that she had a daughter. I vowed to find you, although I wasn’t sure how. But my search for antiquities happened to bring me to Brussels. And you can imagine my surprise, to find out by chance in the marketplace that living here was a gentleman from Paris called Duchamp, whose wife was English and who had a daughter.’

Ellie had listened to all this with her heart pounding. Since arriving in this city, Ellie and her father hadn’t troubled to change their name, Duchamp, for it was common enough; but they’d done their utmost to conceal the fact that they were from Paris. And Ellie couldn’t recollect telling anyone, not even Madame Gavroche, their landlady, that her mother was English.

Lord Franklin was kind. He paid for an expensive doctor to visit her father, although it was far, far too late for anything to be done. He paid for the funeral and the burial, and afterwards he had taken her hand and said kindly, ‘You must come with me to England, Elise. And I promise I will do my utmost to make up for the dreadful grief you have had to face, alone.’

He never once asked her why she and her father had left Paris. He was thoughtful, he was generous; but she was wary of his generosity, and of him. Her strongest instinct was to stay in Brussels, in the little apartment above the bread shop, where Madame Gavroche and her son had been so good to her. But her dying father had pleaded with her to let Lord Franklin take her into his care.

What else could she do, but agree?

* * *

And so Ellie travelled to England—first in an expensive hired carriage to Calais, and then on Lord Franklin’s private yacht, across the Channel to Tilbury. And from there, they went on in Lord Franklin’s own carriage to his magnificent house in London. The city astonished her with the magnificence of its buildings, and she was overwhelmed by the elegance of the Mayfair house on Clarges Street in which Lord Franklin resided. And there, every possible comfort was offered to her by her new protector.

She was given her own maid. She was visited in rapid succession by a hairdresser, a modiste and a mantua maker. Soon a selection of expensive and fashionable gowns began to arrive for her. But Lord Franklin seemed—

despite his generosity—to be reluctant to let her meet anyone, or to let her go out anywhere. Once, she had asked him if he was in contact with any of her mother’s other relatives, and he replied, ‘Oh, my dear, most of them have died, or live somewhere in the north. No need to trouble yourself over them.’

Ellie was surrounded by a luxury she’d never known, but she hated being confined in that big house. Nevertheless she was determined to keep her promise to her father. Lord Franklin will keep you safe, as I have never been able to.

But her trust in Lord Franklin was badly shaken when one day she returned to her room after lunch and realised that, in her absence, someone had made a very thorough inspection of all her belongings.

She felt sick with the kind of shock and fear that she’d hoped never to feel again. To anyone else, certainly, there were no outward signs of disturbance—but she, who was used to running, used to hiding, could tell straight away. Someone—surely not her maid, who was a young, shy creature—had been through everything: every item of clothing, every personal effect in her chest of drawers and wardrobe. Ellie even felt sure that each book on her bookshelf was in a different place, if only by a fraction of an inch.

With her pulse pounding, she’d pulled out her father’s old black valise from the bottom of her wardrobe.

The lock was still intact—but if she looked closely, she could see faint scratch marks around it. Someone had been trying to get inside.

She went downstairs to find Lord Franklin. He was out a good deal of the time, either at his club or attending art auctions; but from the housekeeper she learned that, as luck would have it, he was in his study, talking to a man called Mr Appleby, who was, the housekeeper informed her, the steward at Lord Franklin’s country home, Bircham Hall.

Ellie had knocked and gone in.

‘Elise!’ Lord Franklin had turned to her, with his usual pleasant smile. ‘What can I do for you?’

Mr Appleby stood at his side; he was a little older than Lord Franklin, clad in a black coat and breeches, with cropped grey hair and with spectacles perched on the end of his nose. She glanced at him, then said to Lord Franklin, ‘Someone, my lord, has been through my possessions. Has searched my room.’ She’d meant to sound calm, but she could hear a faint tremor in her voice. ‘I would be obliged if you would question your staff. I really cannot allow this.’

Mr Appleby had looked as shocked as if she’d challenged Lord Franklin to a pistol duel. Lord Franklin himself was frowning in concern.

‘This is a grave allegation, my dear,’ he murmured. ‘But are you sure?’

‘I am completely sure. My lord.’

‘You perhaps doubt the honesty of my servants, Elise? You doubt their loyalty to me? Is anything actually missing?’

‘No! But that is not the point...’

Lord Franklin had turned to his steward. ‘Leave us a moment, would you, Appleby?’

‘Now, Elise,’ said Lord Franklin, when Mr Appleby had gone. ‘I’ve been thinking lately that perhaps London does not suit you. I’ve been wondering if you might like to live in my country house in Kent for a while—it’s in a peaceful area near to the coast and it will, I’m sure, be more restful for you than London, after the various ordeals you have endured. Do you have any objection?’

For a single wild moment, Ellie had thought of fleeing the Mayfair house, and of running back to...to where?

His lordship was already opening the door, to indicate their interview was at an end. ‘Bircham,’ he informed her, ‘is barely sixty miles or so from London, which makes it an easy journey, if spread over two days. And you really will be most comfortable there.’ He stood by the open door, waiting for her to agree. Her father’s voice echoed insistently in her ears. Lord Franklin will keep you safe.

She had bowed her head. ‘As you wish, my lord.’

* * *

And now, here she was at Bircham Hall. It was almost six o’clock and dinner would be served shortly. She paced her room in agitation. It must be safer than France, she kept telling herself. And safer than London, where someone had searched her room—she’d been sure of it. But here, she’d found danger of an entirely different kind.

Lord Franklin’s formidable mother she felt she could deal with. But now, despite the heat of the room, she shivered afresh as she remembered the man on the road—the dark-haired man in the long coat, with the black-gloved hand—holding her father’s compass so casually. Lord Franklin is said to be a great collector of foreign objets d’art. And what could be more fitting than for him to return from the Continent with a pretty French girl in his care?

Ellie gazed at herself in the mirror, seeing her face, with her wide green eyes and dark curls and even darker lashes. Was she pretty? She’d never troubled to think about it. She’d spent months hiding from men who might be hunting her, months concealing her feminine figure with drab clothing, keeping, always, in the shadows.

But now, she remembered the way that man by the roadside had looked at her. She’d been travel-weary and full of foreboding about her future, and the sudden and silent arrival of someone she realised instantly posed as strong a threat as any she’d yet faced should have set fierce alarm bells jangling in her brain. She’d behaved stupidly, by not running straight away, back to the coach—surely he wouldn’t have dared to pursue her?

And yet, the very moment she saw him—yes, with his old, patched coat, his overlong black hair, his dagger-sharp cheekbones and his black-gloved hand—her heart had stopped and her breathing had quickened. Try as she might, she could not banish the memory of the way his blue eyes—his utterly dangerous blue eyes—had scoured her and seen through her, until her whole being had been infused with a sense that here was a kind of man she had never met before. The kind of man she had perhaps dreamed one day of meeting...

Fool. You fool. Even now, she shivered with something that had nothing to do with the coldness of the night and far more to do with the memory of his lean, powerful body and his husky voice. Drawing a deep breath, she looked around her suite of rooms. All quiet. All undisturbed. But what next? Whom could she trust? Could she even trust herself?

The dinner bell clanged loudly in the hall downstairs, and then Miss Pringle arrived to escort her to the dining room. To ensure that Ellie remembered to go down to the dining room, more like—and poor Miss Pringle, she appeared even more nervous than Ellie was. ‘Such an honour,’ she exclaimed, ‘to be invited to dine with her ladyship. But...’ She was eyeing Ellie’s faded gown with obvious trepidation.

‘Yes?’ Ellie asked politely.

‘I think—I think Lady Charlotte might expect you to wear something a little more appropriate for dinner...’

‘I am perfectly comfortable in this dress,’ Ellie said quietly but firmly.

‘Yes, of course.’ Miss Pringle nodded, wringing her hands a little. Then she led the way, along the corridor and down the stairs.

* * *

Dinner lasted over two hours. And at the end of the final course, Lady Charlotte expressed herself to be profoundly disappointed with Ellie’s company.

‘I thought the French were renowned for their wit and gaiety,’ she said. ‘I was going to invite you, Elise, to join me in my parlour; but I think it better if you retire to your room and count it your very good fortune that my son has taken you into his care.’

Thankful for her escape, Ellie went upstairs and closed her door. But she knew that sleep wouldn’t come easily.

Had Lord Franklin really found her by chance? Why had her room in London been searched? And the man. The man on the road. He’d probably forgotten her

already—but she already feared she would find it impossible to forget him.