Highwayman Husband. Helen Dickson
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been greeted with suspicion and made me most unpopular at the time. I was taken back to Paris, where I was pronounced a traitor, and without a trial I was thrown into prison—La Force, a notoriously vile, appallingly overcrowded place, a common jail, where criminals of every kind who roam the slums of Paris and elsewhere are incarcerated.’
Laura was horrified. ‘But—how could they imprison you, an Englishman?’
‘My mother was French,’ he told her. His voice was grim. ‘They knew this. She was a member of the detested aristocracy, from the Languedoc region—the same aristocracy the people are feeding to the guillotine every day.’
‘Oh!’ Laura exclaimed, expressing her surprise. ‘I didn’t know.’
‘No,’ he said quietly, his eyes calmly watching her. ‘There is a lot we don’t know about each other, Laura.’
‘We—we hear such dreadful things about what is happening in France…with so much internal unrest,’ she faltered, unable to stem the warmth his disturbing gaze sent pulsating through her veins. ‘Did—did they interrogate you?’
‘I was—subjected to questioning,’ he told her hesitantly, sparing her the gruesome details of how he had been shackled with a length of heavy chain hand and foot, tortured at the hands of experts, before being dumped unceremoniously into an underground hell-hole, a pathetic, clanking heap of misery. This was not for the ears of a respectable young woman.
‘But I gave no account. In the beginning I was kept in complete isolation—unable to make contact with the outside world—in a place where a man loses count of the days and where death can strike in many ways. I had plenty of time to think, but I tried not to. When a man loses his freedom, thinking is a dangerous business—apt to drive him mad. Eventually I was taken out and put in a cell with two other prisoners.’
Pain and disbelief streaked through Laura at the thought of Lucas languishing in one of France’s prisons. If only she had known, she would have moved heaven and earth to rescue him.
‘How I wish I’d known…’ A knot formed at the base of her throat, shutting off her words, and, leaning forward, Lucas saw tears in her eyes.
‘You weep for me?’ he murmured, deeply touched. ‘How strange!’
‘Strange?’ she asked, finding her voice once more. ‘Is it strange for a woman to weep when her husband tells her what you have just told me—of the tragedy that befell you, of the pain and indignities you must have been subjected to at the hands of those…those foreigners, knowing you could emerge at any time and be taken to the guillotine in one of those creaking carts of death?’ She dropped her gaze and looked down at her hands. ‘I’m sorry. You must think I’m very silly.’
Lucas’s face seemed transfigured and he was looking at his wife as if he could not gaze too long. Quietly he said, ‘I happen to think you’re very sweet.’
Raising her eyes, she looked across at him. She felt a sudden quiver run through her, a sudden quickening within, as if something came to life. Something was happening to her, something golden and wonderful, and when she spoke she could only stammer, ‘H-how did you manage to get out of the prison? Did you escape?’
‘No. I was released when war broke out with the Prussians. When thousands of patriotic volunteers went to defend the revolution their departure from Paris provoked concern about the prisons, which were crowded with counter-revolutionaries who might threaten a city deprived of so many of its defenders. Already there was a rumour spreading that they were plotting their escape and would avenge themselves on the remaining defenders and hand Paris over to the Prussians.
‘Marat, a powerful member of the commune, declared that the enemy within must be destroyed before the invader could be repulsed. He called for the conspirators to be put to death. Armed bands began visiting the prisons, and the advance of the enemy gave an excuse for the mob to vent its hatred in an orgy of bloodshed.
‘There was absolute mayhem as improvised courts were set up to try prisoners. Hundreds of counter-revolutionaries were killed—and a large number were released. Miraculously I was one of them. I didn’t hang around to find out why. I immediately left Paris and headed for the coast, where I managed to find a boat to take me across the Channel.’
Laura was not ignorant of what had been happening in Paris. Since these ‘September massacres’ which Lucas spoke of, the French troops had halted the enemy advance. On September 21st the convention had abolished the monarchy, and the next day it proclaimed the republic. She had listened to Lucas calmly, deeply moved by everything he had told her, but she had the distinct feeling that there was a great deal more he had left unsaid.
‘We will speak no more of this now,’ Lucas said, ‘and not a word of it to anyone.’
‘You can rely on me not to breathe a word. I promise.’
Lucas’s eyes warmed. ‘I know. Despite betrothing yourself to Carlyle, the way you have behaved during my absence proves to me that you are a person one can depend on in a crisis.’
He watched the youthful, graceful line of her neck at the back of which her hair nestled, soft and shining. He saw the sensitiveness of her small hands folded in her lap, and the dark sweep of her long, curling eyelashes against her flushed cheeks, and wondered why he hadn’t noticed before. ‘You have spirit and courage, Laura. I commend that. In fact you are a complete contradiction in terms and appearance.’
‘A contradiction?’ she queried, looking slightly bewildered.
‘I already know that you are direct and intelligent—and quite lovely. I saw that before I married you, and it appealed to me even then. You give the impression of being rather delicate, weak and extremely vulnerable, yet I believe you are both strong and determined—and more than a little obstinate. I suspect you are not always the easiest person to get along with.’
Encouraged and warmed by his words, she tilted her head to one side, a slow smile tempting her lips. ‘I have my moments,’ she told him.
‘Oh?’
‘Now and then,’ she said.
He chuckled, and then said, ‘Have you any idea how lovely you look tonight, in your fetching blue gown?’
There was a soft, caressing note in his voice that almost turned Laura’s bones to water. She looked at him and smiled, enjoying the warmth and the intimacy of their conversation. ‘I am exactly the same person I was when you went away. I have not changed.’
‘I disagree. The charming girl has become an elegant woman. Perhaps I have changed, also.’
‘After all that has happened to you, it is hardly surprising. Will you get involved again? I ask this because I need to know. If you decide to disappear again, I should appreciate being informed before you go.’
‘I am still involved, Laura—in one way or another.’
There was a faint accent on the last sentence and Laura shivered. ‘Are you in danger? Am I in danger?’
Lucas’s look was piercing, his expression grim. After a moment of deliberation he nodded slowly. ‘Possibly, which is why it is important that no one knows I am here for the present—particularly Edward Carlyle. I have one final mission to complete before I can reveal myself. All I ask is that you be patient.’
Laura would have liked to ask him to explain more about this final mission, but the warning in his eyes seemed to pierce her as if it were a knife. ‘But—the servants. You know what they are like. The invisible grapevine that exists between them will spread the news that you have returned from the dead throughout Cornwall.’
‘I know them. They have been employed by the Mawgans for years and can be trusted; after all—’ his eyes twinkled merrily across at her ‘—they kept my presence in the house from you.’
‘So they did. When everyone finds out that you are still alive, what will you tell them when they ask where you’ve been?’
‘The