Betrayed Countess (Books We Love Historical Romance) (2 page)

She clutched her bundle and thought of her mother’s words as in the dream, her father’s death, and their frantic escape from Paris after the attack on the Bastille Prison the previous year. Only seven days ago she’d been with her mother at their country château, until Armand convinced Countess Jonquiere that her daughter might be safer in Boulogne. Her mother would close up the house, her affairs, and follow as soon as possible.

She sniffed back tears picturing the black-haired beauty of her half-Spanish mother, a woman everyone said Lisbette resembled. The ship swayed, and in the oppressive gloom, more desolation crept over her. Then she tensed with frustration. She thought of Armand’s perplexing behavior in casting her out with six gold
louis and a foreign name on a sheaf of papers she had to deliver to a man in England. Why he entrusted her with such an important mission, Armand refused to say.

If her mother had faith in her mâitre d’hotel to manage any crisis, Lisbette’s trust had crumbled that morning. She rubbed the goose bumps on her arms and knew Maman hadn’t meant for her to be alone in a cargo hold bound for a strange land.

Lisbette took a deep breath and massaged her fingers over the pulse in her throat. Her head snapped up when the footsteps overhead increased. Shouts rang out and the ship’s fabric groaned around her. The ship seemed to slow; they must have reached Dover. Her fingers tight on her shins, she shrank into her rope cocoon.

Her wooden dungeon settled. More shouts and footfalls clambered above, an echo of her thudding pulse. She struggled to stand and stretched the cramps from her limbs. Her stomach in spasms, she groped in darkness towards the hatch. Her hands brushed over splintered crates that were slimy against her skin. She prayed the hulking man who stashed her here would help her slip out undetected.

The hatch cover high above grunted open. Lisbette ducked behind a barrel. She squinted at the shaft of light that pierced in, desperate to feel the sun’s warmth.

Two men scrambled down the ladder; a lantern light snaked over the cargo. She listened to them talk and grumble. Her fingers gripped her bundle tight. Neither of the men sounded like the one she sought.

“Unload these crates first. I’ll find the other lazy dogs and be right back. Weather’s botched it as usual.” One man scuttled up the ladder like a bug on a wall.

Lisbette remained stooped behind the barrel. If that giant didn’t show himself soon, she’d have to persuade someone to let her go. She gulped in a breath, straightened up and bumped the keg. A sailor with a mangled ear glared at her from a few feet away.

“
Merde
. Who are you?” The disfigured sailor rushed forward, grabbed her arm and jerked her into the light.

“Please, monsieur, you are hurting me.” Lisbette stumbled and tried to pull free. His ragged garments reeked with perspiration. “I only need to leave this ship, to get on the shore.”

“What are you doing here? This is no place for you!” His words were snarled out from the space where his front teeth were supposed to be, his breath smelling like rancid cheese. “Any more back there?”

“
Mais non
, I am by myself.” Lisbette yanked her arm from his grasp. “If you would be so kind as to help me.”

She looked up as more voices sounded. Three sailors gawked over the edge of the hatchway. With a mumble of curiosity, the men tumbled down the ladder. She realized not one of them stood large enough to be the man who placed her here hours before.

“There’s a problem, we have a stowaway,” the mangled-ear sailor announced in a spray of saliva. One of the men sniggered as the others scrutinized her in a way that made her cringe.

The shortest man came forward and snatched her wrist. Lisbette gasped. “This pretty girl? She looks harmless enough. I’ll take her to the captain, let him decide what to do with her.”

Prodded up the ladder, Lisbette hugged her bundle and blinked in the bright light of a midday sun. On deck, she staggered to keep her balance and inhaled the fresh salt air. “Please, wait a moment. I cannot see.” Yet she tried to peer over the rail toward the shore as her escort bounded up behind her. “Do you not have a very big man with scarred cheeks working with you?”

“Where is the Captain?” the small man asked the nearest seaman. Other sailors rushed to and fro along the vessel, or dangled in the rigging like spiders on webs.

“With the customs
canaille
, down there. He’s not in a good mood,” the sailor replied, before spitting a dark wad onto the planks. He leered at Lisbette. “But what have you here?”

“A vicious criminal.” The man laughed, then turned to her. “Down to the dock with you, mademoiselle.” He helped her over the railing to the gangplank and dragged her along it to the bottom and onto the wharf. Massive cliffs towered over them, a cool wall of chalk, intimidating in their stark beauty.

“Stop this, you are holding me too tight.” Lisbette jerked away from the sailor. She had no intention of facing an already disgruntled captain. Angry at having to leave France, she didn’t dare risk being questioned and sent back under these circumstances.

“You have no reason to complain after a free passage here.” He put his hands on the hips of his stained trousers and grinned. “With that dress, you look like you could afford to pay.”

Lisbette touched her silk skirt. This man didn’t seem as oafish as the first and retained the majority of his teeth. “Please let me go, monsieur, I have done nothing wrong. If you would—?”

“We have orders to report stowaways. How do I know what kind of thief you are?” He winked at her. “Why make such a foolish journey by yourself?”

Lisbette scrutinized her new surroundings—a long shingle beach where small boats were drawn up to a harbor bustling with activity. Around them teemed a mixture of scruffy seafarers, dockworkers and a few of the finer dressed. A drenching despair washed over her. “This voyage … it was not my idea.”

“Running away,
non
?” His chuckle pricked up her spine. “I think the captain would be interested in who you are and what you’re doing here.” He looked down at her bag. “The British authorities might put you in prison, to find out more about our troubles.”

Lisbette stepped back, her hands tighter around her bundle.
Prison?
Her head swam. “Ah … I must remove my damp cloak, if you do not mind? I am shivering.” She inhaled the invigorating breeze, the sun so warm on her face. That fool Armand hadn’t forced her into England to face the same threat as in France.

“You are a pretty girl, like I said. Sound educated enough.” The man smirked and leaned closer. “Are you an
aristo
? What did you plan to do over here?”

“I will tell you in a moment, please. My cloak is soaked, an awful mess.” She shrugged from the garment, smoothed her hand over the moist material and wondered if she could outrun this sailor. She glanced once more at him and smiled, then slapped the cloak into his face.

He swore and tripped back over an uneven plank. Stumbling near the quay’s edge, he lost his balance and fell over the side, dragging her cloak with him. Arms and legs flapping, he splashed into the sea.

“Good Lord!”
someone gushed out the words at her unladylike conduct, while others sputtered their amazement. “Did you see what that wisp of a girl…?”

Her bundle crammed under her elbow, Lisbette lifted her skirt and petticoat and raced along the harbor under the chalk cliffs. The shocked observers parted to let her by, before a man stepped out and blocked her path.

“What happened down there?” he demanded, his English sounding guttural to her ears. “Did you just arrive on that vessel?”

Swallowing a cry, she stared into his jowls and poked a finger on his chest to give herself a moment to think. “I came to
rencontrer
… to meet someone. Then that
roué
, he tries to … did you not see this?” Lisbette adjusted the fichu at her throat as if to prove her affront, but more so to calm the trembling in her fingers. “You should be careful who you allow on the
quai
.” She hated her thick accent and in her fluster had lapsed into French.

“Show me what you’re carrying in there.” He loomed over her.

Fingers stiffening, she hesitated, then opened her bundle just enough to reveal her extra chemise and stockings.

“Be off with ya then, wench,” he said with an impatient wave of his hand. “Don’t be plyin’ your trade here. You French whores keep to the taverns.”

Lisbette strutted past him toward the town at the base of the cliffs, hoping the heat in her cheeks didn’t show. A whore? Once out of his sight, she dashed into a market square, weaving through a blur of stands, people and carts. She hurried along a narrow, winding lane crowded with overhanging buildings and cow pens reeking of manure. Her breath wheezed, the blood pounding in her ears at the fear of being pursued once they fished that sailor out of the water.

Chapter Two

Lisbette stopped near a cow pen and gasped for breath, then regretted inhaling the stink. Leaning on a fence rail, she gripped the splintered wood to steady herself. A ragged girl about her age led a calf down the lane in front of her. “Please, Mademoiselle, where may I find a coach?”

“In the King’s Arms,” the girl said, pointing behind her before ambling past.

Lisbette frowned at that saucy reply. What did the arms of their sovereign have to do with coaches? She must have misunderstood. Slumped against the fence, she crushed the canvas bundle to her chin. She’d studied English in her lessons, but it might prove a stranger language than she anticipated.

She walked on, taking deep breaths to calm herself. When she reached the other side of the shabby town, she found a road leading uphill. Perhaps she’d find the coach station there. Following the road’s steep incline, her calf muscles straining, she observed a castle spread out higher on the cliffs. The walled fortress loomed in vigilance over the town below. Lisbette turned at the road’s summit to stare across the Channel. Through sudden tears, she saw the coast of France shimmering on the horizon, oblivious to her exile.

Her mother once told her that at the age of fourteen, when she was sent to marry the Dauphin, Marie Antoinette was stripped of her Austrian clothes and handed naked to France. Lisbette ran a thumb over her bodice, the silk mottled with stains, and felt stripped bare in England.

She smoothed back loose tendrils of hair and shook out her blue skirt. Her privileged upbringing had ill-prepared her for this adventure. The music, riding, and language lessons seemed a very weak defense.

Her father had often praised her tenacity and intelligence, though advised her to behave less headstrong. That dunked sailor would have agreed with him.

She smiled at that, but her throat tightened at the mere idea of her father. Her mother had found him slumped over his desk—a heart attack. Lisbette had never realized he had a bad heart, or any frailty. She pushed away the grief that clung to her.

Shoulders stiff, she looked before her. The straight road that led away from Dover bustled with drays, carts, wagons, and men on horseback. She stepped around steaming horse manure and stood on the roadside, wondering what to do. Never in her life had she been totally alone, without family, a nurse or a servant. She’d honor her father by testing his praise.

A coach and six thundered down the road from behind her, kicking dust in her face as it rumbled by. Her muscles clenched, but she didn’t dare return to Dover to risk facing any British authorities. A town must be ahead and Bath might be near. Armand said Bath lay to the west, but perhaps she should have insisted on geography lessons instead of pianoforte.

Lisbette walked at a quick pace, staying on the side of the road where nettles brushed her skirt and snagged her stockings. Moving distracted her from her gloomy thoughts. Her delicate slippers swished through the grass and she savored the earthy smell instead of the rotting fish of the ship.

A stream burbled to the right. She knelt and quenched her thirst by sipping water from her cupped hands. If not the
eau du roi
from the Seine, the brackish water cooled down her throat. Removing her shoe to shake out a pebble, Lisbette winced at the blister forming on her right heel. She resisted the urge to kick off both shoes, white with chalk powder.

Instead she pulled the pins from her hair and let it fly loose. Armand’s supposed niece had put up her thick locks, with angry ministrations and glares at the old man, to make her look mature. But Lisbette had forgotten and left behind the old-fashioned cabochon cap they forced on her, having removed it to dry in the ship’s hold.

A flock of birds in the branches of a nearby birch tree squabbled at her presence, then launched into the air. They soared into a clouding sky that looked too bleak for July.

She rested her forehead on her knees.

The previous year loomed over her again. Would she ever stop smelling the smoke from the wealthy Parisian homes—so close to theirs—burned by tradesmen over wage-cuts? Bullets cracked as soldiers fired into the mob. She and her mother fearfully read the seditious pamphlets that accused the royal family and many aristocrats of starving those beneath them. Furious trades people flooded the streets, demanding weapons to ensure their rights.