Jane Feather - Charade by Unknown (top rated books of all time txt) 📗

Danielle soaked in the hot tub before her bedroom fire, feeling itswarmth ease her weary limbs and provide some comfort for her numb,deadened spirit. If the truth be told, she had heard almost nothing

of her mother's angry words which had washed off her like water on anoiled skin.

She was never sure quite what it was that first brought the goose bumpsprickling on the back of her neck. It was as if a curious expectantsilence hung over the house, but it was a silence bristling with menacerather than anticipation. Then a strange rumble filled the air.Danielle pulled a robe over her barely dried body, little knowing thatthe next bath she took would be many weeks later in a Parisian inn atthe insistence of an English earl.

She gazed in bewilderment at the scene below her window on the gravelsweep. Her eyes could not take in the reality of the vast mob advancingslowly across the beautifully tended park, mowing down her mother'sbeloved flowers under rough boots, wielding heavy cudgels, pitchforks,tree branches, and brandishing flaming torches. They all seemed to havethe same face—heavy peasant faces set in lines of grim determinationunder the flickering torchlight. But it wasn't what she saw that liftedher scalp and sent cold shafts of terror shuddering through her slightframe so much as the sound, a low menacing murmur that seemed to swellas the wave of humanity reached the front steps. Gently she cracked hercasement. "St. Varennes, St. Varennes," the voices rumbled as one,filling her ears, her head, becoming a part of her.

Suddenly the great doors were thrown wide as the irate family, headedby the old duke, pushed out onto the steps to confront the now stillbut not silent mob. Cruel they most certainly were, blinded to theneeds of their less fortunate fellowmen certainly, but no de St.Varennes could be accused of cowardice.

Danielle watched in hypnotized horror as her grandfather began toharangue the throng. She could imagine his own bewilderment anddisbelief—that they, the de St. Varennes, were being threatened bytheir own serfs. The duke gestured suddenly behind him and a group ofhenchmen from the house joined Antoine and his sons, training musketson the crowd. For a second there was utter silence and the girl at thewindow held her breath, sensing that the confrontation could go eitherway at this stage. Numbers were on the side of the mob, but thetraditional habits of obedience and the fear inspired by the show ofarmed force was on the side of their lords—until Louise de St. Varennesdecided to play the last role of her life. In a flurry of velvet skirtsshe brushed roughly through the line of henchmen, pushed past herhusband and father-in-law addressing the mob in cool, measured tones,sweeping away Lucien's restraining hand with all the contempt for himthat the last twenty years had wrought. Her hands opened in appeal tothe crowd and she began to walk down the broad shallow flight of stonesteps toward them. As she reached the gravel a large man brandishing athick staff made a move toward her— whether in aggression or truce noone was ever to discover. Shots rang out from the steps and Daniellewatched in disbelief the bright blood spreading from a tiny spotbetween her mother's shoulder blades to a wide stain covering thenarrow back as Louise slipped in slow motion to the driveway. She wasnot the only casualty of the nervous, quick-fingered firing which nowbecame totally uncontrolled, and figures in the front ranks fell underthe hail of bullets. Suddenly the murmur changed, became a great,unanimous shout:

"Lesaristos! Tuez!Tuez!"

Danielle saw little else, just an image of blood and tumbled limbsscorched into her retina. She whirled as the door to her chamber openedand Old Nurse, white-faced, the old myopic eyes glazed in shock, ran toher, dragging her away from the window, muttering incoherently as shepushed the britches and the damp, grubby shirt she had been wearing allday into the girl's hands.

"Vite, vite, mon enfant,''

thecracked voice repeated desperately, and, without understanding, thebemused Danielle obeyed. "The back stairs . . . you must go to thecure, he will help you, quickly, child!" The crone seized Danielle'shand, tugging her out of the room.

"No wait, Belledame." Danielle stopped suddenly in the corridor, hersenses returning sharply at the sounds of breaking glass andsplintering wood coming from below. A great roar of satisfactionbellowed through the house, and she thought with a strange detachment,"They have killed

Grandpere.

"

"No, milady, please. You must leave now," the ancient pleaded interror, but Danielle pulled her arm free and ran down the corridor toher mother's room. She knew exactly where the case was kept, at theback of the shelf of the wardrobe behind Louise's finest gowns—thoseshe rarely had occasion to wear in Languedoc. With feverish haste thegirl, standing on tiptoe, pulled the intricately carved chest towardher, catching it with a grunt as it toppled off the high shelf and intoher arms. It was more awkward than heavy and she had little difficultymaintaining a swift pace down the back stairs, through a kitchen nowsilent and deserted and filled with the acrid stench of scorching meatas the baron of beef rested neglected over the blazing fire, nopermanent pot boy sitting in its heat to turn the spit. It occurred toher as she ran into the kitchen courtyard, instinctively seeking theshadow of the high wall, that she had eaten nothing since the nightbefore, and an empty belly was an inauspicious beginning to a desperateflight that would take her God only knew where.

It was a five-mile walk to the cure's house in the village. She darednot risk detection by taking a horse. In their orgy of blood anddestruction the mob might well forget the youngest member of the houseof de St. Varennes and she could not afford to prod their memories. Butshe was young and strong after a life spent mostly out of doors, andone day's fast was unlikely to make too many inroads on a usuallyhealthy well-fed body.