Lady Scandal Read Free Page B

table, so
they would not drag her away. She had an aunt who worked for a
count and was sent to the guillotine during the Revolution."
    Alexandria glanced at the maid—no wonder the
girl had hidden herself. Remorse stirred in her for Fenwick and the
other servants she had brought with her—they had been in her care
and she had failed them.
    The footmen came back into
the hall, lifting empty hands as if to show the lack of anyone else
in the house. Diana began to untie the strings to her cloak, and
that set the maid into a new round of nearly hysterical
French. "Non. Non,
mademoiselle!"
    An outpouring of protests followed this, and
when the maid seemed to run down, Alexandria asked, "What has upset
her now?"
    Diana turned from comforting Marie-Jeanne.
"She seems to think the soldiers will come back—that it is not safe
and we ought to leave at once."
    "I doubt they will return tonight—we cannot
be of that much interest, and I imagine they have their hands full
with other English visitors." Alexandria frowned. Had the
Fairchilds left Paris in time, or had they and their English staff
been taken up? She had so liked plump and chatty Mary Fairchild.
And what of the Aldersons? And the Bentleys? And a dozen others
whom she had met?
    She pushed aside such worries. What mattered
now was to see Diana out of this. The last outbreak of hostilities
had dragged on for nearly a decade. She could not risk that Diana
might spend who knew how many years of her youth trapped as a
prisoner of war. And she did not trust that Bonaparte would only
arrest Englishmen and allow women passage home, nor that he would
give his prisoners the respect due their station.
    The one glimpse she had had of the man,
actually, had given her the impression of a dynamic personality,
but also of a man unconcerned with anyone other than himself. She
certainly knew far too much about such gentleman.
    Once Diana was safe, however, she could see
to her responsibilities to her servants who had been arrested. For
now, all that mattered was her niece.
    Turning she gave a last look at the Paris
house. She had brought not just her staff with her but her china,
and the good linen from home, the ones embroidered with the Sandal
crest of interwoven holly and oak leaves. And she had brought some
of her favorite paintings and furnishings, for she had seen no
reason not to travel in comfort. Now, what had not been taken
already must be left behind for other thieves. But she had her
jewel case in the coach—and they had the clothing that they had
taken to the château. Still, they had traveled light for it had
been but a short visit.
    She would hope it would also be a fast trip
to the coast.
    Focusing on plans helped her ignore the
faint edge of fear that shivered on her skin.
    Calais gave the shortest crossing of the
channel, but Dieppe lay closer to Paris. Or they could choose a
port between and make for Boulogne. But first priority must be to
leave Paris—if they could.
    Turning her back on the nearly-empty house,
she ordered, "Diana, tell Marie-Jeanne to go to the coach. We leave
at once. You two, take the trunk back to the carriage—oh, they are
giving me that blank look again. Diana, dear, see if you can make
them understand that we are leaving Paris again."
    "Do we return to the Chateau d'Esclimont?"
Diana asked.
    Alexandria shook her head. "Laval is a
military man, and if orders are now indeed that all English must be
detained, we cannot put him in the position of having to arrest his
guests. So we shall leave as we arrived tonight—through the north
gate, past Montmartre—and then start for the coast."
    And they might also be better off burning
their passport papers and relying more on Diana's beauty and a good
amount of bribery, she thought. She kept such plans to herself.
But, of all the absurd things, her stomach rumbled, protesting the
lack of a regular dinner. She pressed a hand to it. What a bother
this was—why must these Frenchmen make everything into a