Mystic Rider Read Free Page A

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time she would have had a grand carriage to take her the mile to her family’s
home, but in these days of the glorious Revolution, her father’s position in
the Assembly required that they suppress any conspicuous show of wealth. They
kept the carriage and horses out of town, where her father could use them to
travel long distances.
    Chantal did not mind the walk home or the necessity of
wearing old dresses. As long as she had her music, she was content.
    But Pauline’s incarceration had thrown her off her safe path
onto an unknown side road. She wished she had someone wise to talk to, but she
couldn’t bear to think of Pauline and the children locked behind bars while she
scoured the streets for sage advice. Even if her father arrived this evening as
planned, it would take time to negotiate a release. Travel in France was
erratic, based on politics as much as weather and the condition of the roads.
Anything could happen to Pauline before Papa returned. Chantal shuddered in
horror and walked faster.
    The massive wrought-iron gates enclosing the carriage drive
to her father’s home did not swing wide at her approach. Instead, a small door
in the block wall opened to let her in. Chantal nodded a worried greeting to
the guard, then hurried up the marble stairs. The town house was not so grand
as their country home near Le Havre, but she preferred the coziness of the
smaller rooms, and the acoustics of the music chamber were ideal.
    A maid met her at the door, and Chantal handed her the bell.
“Shine it until it gleams, if you please. Then ask Girard to join me in the
music room as soon as he arrives. Madame Pauline and her children have been
imprisoned for helping her brother.”
    The maid gasped, curtsied, and hurried away.
    Pauline had her own small townhome, but she and the children
ran in and out of Chantal’s suite as often as they did their own.
    Chantal lifted her skirts with both hands and raced up the
stairway to the family wing where she kept her rooms these days. After Jean had
died — almost two years ago today — she’d sold their flat and moved home to share
her grief with her recently widowed father. So many deaths in so short a time…
    The mansion had been built for a large family, but the
Orateurs were not fortunate in that way. She was an only child, and Jean had
never given her an infant of her own.
    She did not regret that she had no child to worry about now.
Her work with her father on France’s revolutionary course and her music lessons
kept her well occupied. All in all, her new life would be almost perfect — if not
for the hotheadedness of these new radicals who condemned all aristocracy and
believed the poor and uneducated should rule the kingdom.
    If it hadn’t been for the protests of members of the middle
class like her father, the Assembly would never have been created, so she
couldn’t argue with the need for change. She simply wished the radicals weren’t
so… extreme in their demands. Compromise was essential. The alternative was
civil war. She hummed to shut out that unpleasant idea and turned her thoughts
to her immediate concerns.
    To imprison a young mother because she loved her brother… It
was barbaric, even if Pierre had refused to take the oath of loyalty. He was a
priest. He owed his loyalty to the church. One could not ask a priest to forswear
God.
    Hastily washing, Chantal discarded her drab twill and
replaced it with a flowered muslin dress wrapped with a bold satin sash. Her
father’s chargé d’affaires ,Girard, was elderly. As a concession to
his preference for the stiff elegance of an earlier time, she chose the
delicate gown instead of the practical twill in hopes of persuading him to do
her will.
    Bribery, however, was illegal, and considering such an
action disturbed Chantal on many levels. Her father, Alain Orateur, was a
lawyer sworn to uphold the law, as had been Chantal’s husband and her maternal
grandfather. But the latter were gone now, Jean to