The English Heiress Page 23

  After that there was nothing more Roger could say. He agreed to terms with Lefranc and promised to return to complete the formal arrangements the next day. However, he was thoroughly angry with Leonie. He had intended to get the shop, using his first statement as a bargaining point, but paying a fair rent. Leonie had not given him a chance. Women either got their way or made a man pay for it, he thought bitterly. When they were out of the premises, Roger headed back toward the café but Leonie tugged at his arm.

  “I’m tired,” he remarked coldly. “I’ve been walking all day, down to the gate and–”

  “We need not go far, but I want to talk in private,” Leonie said. “You are angry. I’m sorry, but I couldn’t let you refuse the place after he said it belonged to a conspiring royalist.”

  Roger had been about to point out that he realized she liked the house and she could have trusted him to try to satisfy her, but her reason stopped him cold. “Conspiring royalist? What has that to do with accepting a favor proffered on the basis of a lie.”

  Now Leonie was confused. She could not imagine what Roger was talking about, and she said so. When he had clarified his thinking to her, she had a very difficult time keeping herself from laughing. “I regret I did not think the matter through,” she said as gravely as she could. “All I could see was that the man was imprisoned, tried and will be executed in this Section and that, perhaps in other places it would not be known. No doubt Lefranc believes you to be an ardent republican. He is sure that if the tailor’s royalist friends—or rather those who knew he was a royalist but did not know him personally—came to the shop, you would report them. I was afraid that if you refused the place, Lefranc might find someone who really would… Have I said something wrong?”

  Roger had stopped in his tracks and was staring at Leonie with his mouth slightly ajar. The ideas she had suggested had never crossed his mind. Now that Leonie had stated them, he had to agree that what she said was logical and might well be true. It made him feel much better.

  The next day, Roger completed the formalities and paid the very reasonable rent for the first quarter. Remembering the events of the previous night had eliminated any twinges his conscience might have felt. Although he had little patience with the extravagance and stupidity of the king and his court, Roger was coming to hate and despise those who were presently in control of Paris. Thus he was beginning to take considerable pleasure in the idea that he might be able to cheat them. What had sparked this intense feeling was hearing, through Aunay, that there had been a repeat at La Force prison of the massacre carried out at the Abbaye.

  The first massacre might have been a result of confusion, lack of preparation or powerlessness on the part of the government. Once the mob was on the move, it could be stopped only by force, and it was plain that the assembly did not trust the present army to a carry out its orders. Thus, what had happened at Abbaye might have been unavoidable, at least in the sense of being unexpected. Young St. Méard had said a deputation from the assembly tried to stop the executions. However, the same excuse could not be given for what had happened at La Force. Whether or not the assembly had initiated the massacres did not matter. They had had a full day to prevent a similar event from taking place and had done nothing. If there was anything Roger could do to save someone from falling into their hands, he would be overjoyed to do it.

  They moved the next day, carrying with them a generous supply of food from the larder of the café. Madame Aunay had pressed this upon them, saying it was only a trifle compared with what Roger had saved them by his cleverness. Leonie accepted finally with the most heartfelt thanks she could muster. She should be grateful, she knew, but it had only just occurred to her that she had not the faintest idea what to do with the stuff. The closest she had ever come to cooking was slicing the sausage she and Roger had eaten in the tunnel or handing him the bread and cheese she had found in the café kitchen.

  The most pressing problem, Roger said firmly, was setting up his stock and tools, using the counters, hooks and other furnishings left by the tailor. He began to work at this with great energy, making himself too busy to answer Leonie’s questions about helping him and becoming quite short with her. Leonie was surprised at first but then began to feel frightened and guilty. She had pushed Roger into setting up a business, but he was not a gunsmith. He was an English gentleman and, she guessed mistakenly, knew very little about the art. Now he was worried about betraying them by his ignorance.

  It was too late for regret, she realized. The best she could do was keep out of his way until he got his worries under control. Then they could think of some way to conceal his lack of knowledge and training until they could escape. She lugged the traveling bag with their clothes up to the living quarters and, to submerge her own uneasiness, began to consider her duties. The first was easy enough. She stripped the bed and opened the window to air the room. After that she hung up their few garments. Then, searching produced sheets and pillowslips, which after some puzzling and trial attempts she got on the bed in a reasonable fashion. Finally, she came down again and went into the kitchen at the back.

  Roger heard her, but did not lift his head from what he was doing. His frantic activity had, of course, nothing to do with acting the part of a gunsmith. It had occurred to him during the process of moving that there was no longer any reason for Leonie to share his bed. The house was, like most in Paris, tall and narrow with the shop on the ground floor and the kitchen built out in the back. On the floor above was the tailor’s bedroom and dining parlor, but there was still another floor where the children and servants had slept. Roger knew quite well that he should choose one of the upper rooms as his own. That would be the proper thing to do. Nonetheless, he simply could not do it.

  Conscience warred with desire. They were so even a match that all Roger could do was metaphorically stick his head in the sand and drive Leonie to make the choice without any influence or suggestion. When he had snapped at her until she trudged upstairs dragging the heavy cloak bag, he was flayed by guilt. If he had had a chance, he told himself, he had just spoiled it by implying he would be hell to live with. What was wrong with him that he could not make himself agreeable to the only two women he had ever wanted?

  That thought started a new train of guilt. What right had he to want a girl like Leonie? She was half his age, literally, and ten times as rich—a great heiress. His scowl was so black, as he fastened a vise to the counter where cloth had been cut, that Leonie tiptoed past close to the wall. She knew she had been wrong, and she did not want to draw notice to herself. Aware of every move she made, almost of every breath she drew, Roger read the guilt in her manner but misinterpreted it. His heart sank sickeningly.

  Again war raged in his mind. Desperation urged him to go and know the worst so that he could come to terms with the bitter knowledge and not make himself even more obnoxious. Cowardice whispered that he should wait. Perhaps shame at seeming ungrateful for his protection would make her change her mind when she saw he was unhappy. Appalled at the notion of such crude and disgusting blackmail, Roger promptly dropped what he was doing and ran up the stairs. He went all the way up first, but obviously Leonie had not been there at all. Suppressing the hope that rose so fast it nearly choked him, he came down to the main living floor. The parlor was empty. Biting his lip he walked through to the bedchamber. The first thing he saw was the empty traveling bag, the second was the neatly made bed. That was not final, he told himself to still his leaping heart. There was no reason why Leonie should make a bed for him. She was not a servant, after all. She might expect him to make his own bed. But Roger did not believe his own arguments, and when he saw their clothing hanging side by side in the wardrobe, he knew Leonie assumed they would share the room.

  Perversely, conscience immediately gained the upper hand. Roger came down, passed through the shop and came upon Leonie staring bewilderedly at the crane, with its hook and ratchet in the fireplace. “Leonie,” he said more harshly than he int
ended, “there is no reason we should continue to sleep together. There are rooms—”

  She whirled on him, her face flushing, which make her eyes bright as new-minted gold. To scold her for stupidity would be reasonable. However, it was cruel and spiteful, Leonie thought, to withdraw the comfort of his physical presence, to leave her alone to worry and regret what she had done. Angry as she was, Leonie would not plead, but she was not angry enough to want to do without Roger either. Nor was she going to let him have his own stupid way just because he had flown into a temper.

  “Don’t be stupid,” she snapped. “I’m sorry to have put us in a dangerous situation, but it can’t be improved by adding to duties for which I am totally untrained and unfit. It’s enough to make one bed and keep two rooms and this kitchen clean. I have no desire to add another bed and room to my burdens.”

  “Good God,” Roger exclaimed. “I had never thought of it. It’s not fitting for you to do such things, Leonie. I will have to find a servant for you.”

  “Are you mad?” Leonie cried, bitterly hurt at how far he was willing to go to free himself of her and suddenly wondering if the bad temper was only an excuse. Could he already want a different woman? “What would Lefranc think, after you said you were too poor to pay the rent, if he came here and found we had a servant? Not to mention that anyone who employs a servant is just begging to be spied upon and have everything done or said reported to the commissioners of the Section. Can we endure such examination?”

  “No,” Roger agreed. “No, we can’t. But what is to be done, Leonie? You can’t cook and scrub.”

  “If you can learn to be a gunsmith, I can learn to cook and scrub,” Leonie said.

  “You are an angel,” Roger sighed, marveling at her sweetness and adaptability.

  It was only a fit of temper, Leonie thought. He is not yet really tired of me. “You will not think me an angel when I have prepared a meal,” she assured Roger. “It is far more likely to taste like a devil’s brew than angel food. Tell me, do you know how this contraption works? I can see that it is to hang pots over the fire, but…”

  “Yes, I can show you that,” Roger replied. “Our cook was a motherly body and didn’t mind if we ‘helped’ in the kitchen—so long as no big dinner was being prepared. I loved putting pots up and down the ratchet and turning the spit when I was a boy. But what to put in the pots—that’s another matter.”

  Leonie allowed her eyes to wander from the fireplace to the packets of food and spices piled on the table. Madame Aunay naturally assumed that she had been trained by her mother to her duties as a wife. Had she a modicum of sense, she would have said her mother was a bad cook or had died young or some such tale when she explained the loss of her clothes. It would have been natural to confess all her troubles at once. She had missed a second opportunity when Roger announced they had taken the shop. Now it was too late. It would seem odd, Leonie feared, if she said she could not cook. Besides, bad cooking was one thing, total ignorance another.

  “We will contrive,” Roger was comforting her. “I can get food at a cafetier.”

  Leonie nodded, but in a dissatisfied way. It was ridiculous that a person who could read several languages and discourse on philosophical theories of government and science could not produce a simple stew.

  “That would do for a few days,” she replied, “but it would be expensive. Besides, unless you go a long way, they will soon know you have a ‘wife’ and begin to wonder. It will be best if there is nothing special to remark on about us.” She frowned. “Roger, there are books on deportment, on how to build a house—on everything. Surely, there must be books on housewifery.”

  He burst out laughing. “My dear girl, you have the kind of courage that leads a forlorn hope. By all means, let us go out to dinner this afternoon—that will be nothing to remark upon, when we have been so busy moving and are tired—and we will search the bookstalls for a treatise for your edification.”

  “If you think I am brave,” Leonie giggled, “wait until you have to taste what I have prepared.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  The book on housewifery and a second on cooking were found. All in all, Leonie discovered that a mind strong enough to grasp political theory, science and languages could usually grasp instruction on cleaning and washing. Cookery was another matter. Sometimes her efforts were successful, sometimes all Roger’s courage and her own were insufficient to cope with the disaster she produced. On such occasions, the cafetier and Leonie’s sense of humor came to the rescue so that they did not starve.

  The fact that the visits to the cafetier were relatively frequent soon did not matter from the point of expense. Citizen Lefranc had not forgotten his promise to his republican friend and recommended Roger’s shop to everyone he knew who owned a gun. Since Roger was a good and a most unusually honest workman, those he served also sang his praises. Soon he was as busy as any tradesman could desire and was making, to his stunned amazement, a great deal of money. If he had not found such great difficulty in obtaining parts, he believed he would soon have become rich.

  Although this situation tickled his pride and his fancy, Roger would greatly have preferred if Citizen Lefranc had minded his own business and been less helpful. The money he made was useless to him now because there was still no way out of Paris. The feeling against émigrés was hotter than ever, and each person who left the city was closely scrutinized. Those caught escaping were as good as dead. What was worse, Roger’s popularity as a workman and Lefranc’s good offices had made him known to a great many people. He received compliments on his patriotism from men he had never seen before.

  It was thus impossible for Roger to ask for a pass to leave. What excuse could be offered by a patriot for wanting to leave a booming business when he had only been in Paris for a few weeks? After some months or a year, a man might say he wished to make a visit to relatives left behind or see to some property in the hands of an agent. A dying relative could be used as an excuse, but the commissioners who issued passes had grown strict. They wanted to see the letter, know who had brought it or examine the news bearer if the information came by word of mouth.

  Had Roger been desperate to leave, he might have searched harder for, and found the means. Actually, his personal life—aside from twinges of his conscience when he saw Leonie down on the floor scrubbing, or with soot-smudged face, wrestling with her recalcitrant cooking pots—was so delightful that he hated the thought of disrupting it. For the first time in his life he was truly and completely happy in a woman’s company. He had little fear of being rejected, not that Leonie did not sometimes refuse him, she did. But there was tenderness and regret in the refusal when she was too tired or had her flux. She was never cruel or contemptuous. Nor was there any chance that a particularly satisfactory lovemaking would be turned sordid and ugly by a coy demand for some financial reward.

  Sometimes Roger wondered if Leonie would conceive. The thought brought him alternate flushes of joy and chills of horror. A child would bind them together irrevocably. There would be his perfect reason for marrying Leonie—and it would be a sheer joy to have a child with her. Her boundless warmth and generosity proved she would make a perfect mother. Still, the danger of childbearing was something Roger dreaded for his pearl without price, and an infant would be a dreadful additional burden and danger if their situation became worse. Nonetheless, hope outweighed fear, and it was more than sexual disappointment Roger felt when Leonie refused him because her monthly flux had come.

  Naturally enough, Leonie did not press Roger to find a method of escape. Had anyone told her, before Marot had destroyed her world, that she could be happy scrubbing floors and sheets, polishing furniture and cooking, she would have thought that person demented. But she was happy. Not that she like the crude, hard work of housekeeping; she did not. Nonetheless, there was a sense of satisfaction in it, a challenge fairly met and conquered as Roger met and conquered the challenges of the gunsmith’s trade. In the small hou
se Leonie could hear him at his work, humming sometime when a job went well, cursing and grunting with effort when his tools were inadequate or something did not fit as it should. Some things Leonie did enjoy, among them dealing with customers in the shop when Roger was out or busy.

  Even if Leonie had hated what she was forced to do—and she did not hate it, merely felt there were other things she could do better—she would have been happy. Roger showed no further signs of tiring of her. He had opportunities enough now if he wanted to seek pleasure or variety elsewhere, but Leonie did not think he did. He never went out alone, except when it was a matter of business and he could not find a trustworthy messenger or his own presence was necessary. Leonie knew the district well now and could judge how long it would take to go somewhere. Roger was always back before she expected. It was obvious that he hurried back as fast as he could when he did go out without her.

  Thus, both were happy, and although they sometimes talked of escape, neither really wanted to leave. Within the satisfaction of each was a shadow, but not so dark a shadow as had lain there previously. Roger was beginning to hope that he might win Leonie. Solange had done him great damage, but bitter as he was, he could not completely dismiss Leonie’s response as all gratitude. A few times he had been on the verge of asking her to marry him. He had checked the impulse sternly, knowing it to be completely unfair. There were two big roadblocks.

  The age difference was large, but it was common enough for twenty years to separate marital partners without unhappiness. His stepmother was more than twenty years his father’s junior, and no one could doubt Lady Margaret’s satisfaction with her husband. Unfortunately, Roger could not lean too hard on that happy example. Lady Margaret had been a widow, a mature woman in her thirties, when his father had courted her. Leonie was an inexperienced girl, under twenty. He could not take advantage of her innocence. He must give her a chance to enjoy the courtship of the many gentlemen who would flock to her. She was also the heiress of Stour, fit by birth and wealth to a far more exalted social position than the youngest son of a baronet.