The Soldier's Dark Secret Read online

  * * *

  Leaving the churchyard an hour later, Celeste found herself reluctant to return to the house. Stopping at the café for a breakfast of café au lait and freshly baked rustic bread, she watched the last of the fishing boats set sail, and the sky, in the way it did at this time of year, change from grey to pale blue. As she approached the house, her footsteps began to drag. She did not want Jack to tell her that he’d been unable to find any clue as to her mother’s connection with Arthur Derwent. This was her last chance to find her answers, and she needed them more than ever. She didn’t want to have to live with thinking so badly of Maman.

  More selfishly, she did not want to have to learn to live with the not knowing, and the guilt which nagged and niggled at her every time she thought of her mother’s last visit to Paris. She remembered all those weeks ago—goodness, a lifetime ago— asking Jack how the families of the men who had taken their own lives coped without answers. She furrowed her brow, trying to recall what he had replied, and realised that he had not. He had spared her the truth, that in most cases there were no answers. He would never know for certain why the girl chose to kill herself. He would never know if his being there made any difference. He would never know how close he had come that day to his own death. The girl had spared him. If only Jack would spare himself.

  Celeste walked on past the house to the end of the village and the coastal path. The series of limestone cliffs known locally as calanques embraced the vivid blue of the Mediterranean like welcoming arms. Some were deep-water bays, some more gently shelving sandy coves. Here was the one where the deep fissures formed a cave she had once been taken to on a boat trip. It had been summer. She remembered diving from the boat and swimming into the dark, dank cavern. She closed her eyes, trying to picture herself. Twelve? Thirteen? So she had been home from school for the summer. Another memory she had suppressed.

  The gentle breeze whipped her hair across her face. She had not bothered putting it into her usual chignon, but had tied it back with a ribbon. In the summer, the heat made walking along the calanques unbearable. Scrub fires were common. Surrendering to impulse, Celeste found the narrow footpath that zigzagged down the cliff to the sandy bay beneath. Sitting on the white sand, watching the waves lap at the steeply shelving beach, she finally allowed her mind to turn to last night.

  She was in love with Jack. A smile played on her lips, thinking of the wonder of their lovemaking, only for it to fade into sadness as she faced the sheer wall of hopelessness. Her own journey into her past had peeled from her the years of hard-earned indifference, exposing her to the storm of emotions she’d weathered since first reading her mother’s letter. This new Celeste could be hurt. She cried far too much. She felt guilt and anger, but she also felt love for the first time in her life. That too would cause her pain, because the man she loved could not come to terms with the horrors lurking in his own past.

  Thinking back to that night when Jack had told her about the massacre in the village, the horror of it struck her afresh, but she could not, as she had done until now, quite equate Jack’s story with Jack’s determination to make himself miserable. ‘Mon Dieu, that is exactly what he is doing, just exactly like Maman!’

  She picked up a handful of the soft sand and watched as it trickled through her fingers. Guilt. An emotion with which she had become very familiar, thanks in a way to Jack himself. He had known from the beginning how inextricably mixed were suicide and guilt. His desire to save her from that guilt was, she saw now, her thoughts racing, one of the reasons he had been so eager to help her from the first. But why must Jack’s guilt be any different from hers?

  And then there was the problem of Maman and the guilt which drove her to spurn her daughter’s love, and to reject her parents. Lord and Lady Wilmslow thought their daughter was dead. Who had told them this? Could it have been Maman? Ridiculous. Yet Jack had seemed certain only yesterday that Maman was hiding here in Cassis.

  Questions and more questions and yet more, whirling around her head like a sandstorm. But there, at the centre, like the sun, was her love for Jack. Only an hour or so ago, she’d knelt at her mother’s grave and told her that she loved her. All those years she had been forced to suppress her feelings.

  ‘Not again,’ Celeste said decidedly. ‘Never again. Even if it is hopeless. Even if this terrible, dark secret of his stops him ever accepting it. I’m going to tell him before he leaves me for ever. After we come to the end of this other dark secret of Maman’s— however that might end. Then I will tell him.

  ‘I will tell you, Jack Trestain, that I love you, whether you want to hear it or not,’ Celeste shouted at the now cloudless sky. Throwing off her clothes, and plunging into the bay, gasping as the water stung her Parisian-pale skin, she struck out strongly into the waves.

  * * *

  He retched violently, spilling his guts like a raw recruit, in a nearby ditch. Spasm after spasm shook him until he had to clutch at the scorched trunk of a splintered tree to support himself. Shivering, shaking, he had no idea how long the young girl had been looming over him. She raised her hand and pointed the pistol at his head. In her other hand, clutched to her chest, was a bundle of rags. Her eyes were vacant. Jack waited, certain that this was his last moment. The girl turned the gun. So slowly, yet he did not comprehend what she was doing until he heard the sharp crack.

  Jack sat up, gazing dazedly around him, the sweat cooling quickly on his naked skin. The room was freezing. The blanket in which they had slept was knotted around his legs. There was no sign of Celeste. In the scullery, he cranked the pump of the huge sink. Only then, as he ducked his head under the icy water, did he realise what he’d dreamt. The girl. The gun. Her face. His feeling of utter inertia. Just as he’d described it to Celeste, but never before had he dreamt it.

  Pulling on his crumpled clothes, he checked his watch and was astonished to discover it was past ten. Outside, the sun was making an attempt to part the clouds. He lit the fire, filled the kettle with water and set it on the hook which hung from the chimney, having decided, after one look at the complicated stove, that it was beyond him. There were coffee beans in a box in the larder. They smelled dusty, but he ground them anyway. Still no sign of Celeste, but her cloak was gone from the hook at the front door. He remembered now that she had been intent on visiting her mother’s grave.

  He could not decide whether it was progress or not, this extension to his dream. A direct result of his conversation with Celeste last night, that was certain.

  You are so very set on sparing me the guilt that you are so very determined to keep to yourself. Are the cases really so very different? Were they?

  The coffee tasted as dusty as it had smelled, but he drank two cups and ate some of last night’s stale bread. He had always assumed himself at fault. He had never once questioned that. Yet he had from the beginning seen Celeste’s case in completely the opposite way. Was he wrong?

  ‘Wishful thinking,’ he muttered, ‘and you know bloody well why, Trestain.’

  He put his empty coffee cup carefully down. Love. He closed his eyes, but it didn’t go away. He loved her. Last night, he had made love to her. He was a bloody fool. He loved her. Jack swore. Then he frowned. That didn’t change the fact he had no right to love her, and he was not fit to love her. But, dear heavens, how he loved her.

  Jack pushed his chair back, making it screech on the flagstones. ‘To work,’ he muttered. ‘Answers are what she needs, she told me so last night. And since I can’t provide her with anything else, the very least I can do is make sure that she has those.’

  * * *

  He was in Henri Marmion’s study when Celeste arrived back several hours later. Her hair was wet. Her skin was flushed. Her eyes sparkled. Jack’s heart gave the most curious little flip. Here she is, a voice in his head whispered insidiously. Yours.

  He was already halfway across the room when he caught
himself and came to a sudden halt, feeling decidedly foolish and a little bit sheepish and rather angry with himself. ‘Has it been raining?’ he asked gruffly.

  ‘I’ve been swimming.’ She smiled at him. ‘And thinking.’

  ‘Right.’ Did she want him to ask what she’d been thinking? ‘You look—different.’

  Her smile widened. ‘Yes? That is because my hair is sticky with salt and my clothes are full of sand and my skin is red with the sun. And because I have made some very important decisions.’

  ‘What decisions?’

  ‘I will tell you, but not yet.’ She hesitated, then put her hands on his shoulder and kissed his cheek. ‘That is for last night. And because I know you don’t want to talk about it, then I won’t, but I want you to know that I will always, always remember.’

  His arms went round her waist of their own accord. ‘Celeste...’

  Her expression became serious. ‘Do not tell me you regret it, Jack.’

  ‘Never,’ he said fervently.

  ‘Bien.’ She slipped from his embrace and looked around the room, taking in the open doors of the bookcases, the stacks of books on the desk. ‘What on earth?’

  ‘I thought yesterday that this little library must have cost a small fortune to amass. Look at these,’ Jack said, pointing to a row of thick volumes bound in tooled leather. ‘A full set of the encyclopédies, no less.’

  ‘I feel so stupid,’ Celeste said, running her hand along the shelves. ‘I was never permitted into this room, but even when I was here in January, I didn’t think— It is like the school fees, no? Where on earth did the money come from?’

  Jack grinned, producing the letter with a flourish. ‘At last,’ he said, ‘I think I might be able to answer one of your questions. I found this hidden away inside a copy of the Odyssey.’

  Celeste gave a little squeak. ‘Jack! What is it?’

  ‘A letter from a Madame Juliette Rosser of Boulevard de Courcelles, Paris. Madame encloses a draft for the usual amount,’ Jack said, ‘and expects a receipt by return of post.’

  ‘And that is it?’

  ‘It is enough.’

  ‘But—what shall we do?’

  ‘Isn’t it obvious? We go to Paris.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  Paris—one week later

  As the carriage came to a stop, Celeste smoothed a wrinkle out of her gloves. Her jade-green walking dress was simple but very well cut, the matching, short pelisse with long, narrow sleeves fitted to perfection. Her brown boots matched her gloves. The ribbon on her hat matched the strings of her reticule. Even in the rarefied surroundings of the exclusive Boulevard de Courcelles, which overlooked the elegant Parc Monceau, she hoped she would pass muster.

  Jack too was dressed elegantly, in knitted pantaloons and Hessian boots, his tailcoat fitting tightly over his shoulders. Unlike her, he did not seem nervous. No uniform, but today he was Lieutenant-Colonel Trestain. Rather than intimidating, for once Celeste found it reassuring.

  ‘Have you been able to find out anything about this Madame Juliette Rosser?’ she asked.

  ‘The Rossers are a very old family. Madame is related somehow to the Comte de Beynac, whose main estates are in the south-west near Cahors, where you thought Henri originated—which may or may not be a coincidence. This is the Comte’s hotel, though I gather Madame Rosser has been in residence for many years, through most of the Terror, unusually. She is one of those grandes dames of Parisian society whom everyone fears and few are permitted to actually visit.’ Jack smiled ironically. ‘It seems we are most honoured. Or rather you are, since we must assume it is the Marmion name which gained us this audience.’

  ‘I don’t know why, but I thought that a woman named Juliette would be young.’

  ‘Just because the most famous one of all died young doesn’t mean that none of her fellow Juliettes survived past twenty.’ Jack covered her hand with his. ‘You are nervous, and no wonder, but remember, this might prove to be another dead end.’

  ‘You don’t believe that, do you? You have one of your famous code-breaker hunches, don’t you?’ His smile was non-committal. Most certainly, he was the Lieutenant-Colonel today, Celeste thought. Caution personified.

  The door of the carriage was opened. She stepped out, and the butterflies in her stomach multiplied a hundredfold as she eyed the ornate portico of the Hotel Beynac. Behind these huge double doors might very well lie the answers to her questions. Which would mean the end of her journey. Which would mean, more than likely, and most importantly, the end of her time with Jack, for she could not imagine him returning to Trestain Manor.

  So be it. Celeste’s heart would be broken, but she would at least tell Jack that she had a heart and that it belonged to him and always would. He would not love her, but she would not let him deprive her of her love for him. She would not be miserable. Well, for a time perhaps, but misery was better than indifference, and she was done with indifference. She would find a way of being happy. She absolutely would!

  The door swung noiselessly open. Jack took her arm, smiling down at her reassuringly. Her heart turned over. Celeste gritted her teeth and walked passed the liveried footman, her head held high.

  * * *

  Madame Juliette Rosser was exceedingly tall, exceedingly thin and exceedingly old. Her white hair was piled high on top of her head. She had the kind of cheekbones on which, Jack thought, a knife could be sharpened, and the kind of long, thin nose that could cut paper. She was dressed in the height of fashion, in a black-silk afternoon gown with an overdress of grey—and very expensive—lace.

  The Hotel Beynac was also dressed in the height of fashion—also very expensively, though it had the kind of elegance which could only be achieved by a combination of money and power. The furnishings were new, but the tapestries were old, and the array of objets d’art which adorned every surface looked worthy of the Palace at Versailles. Which might well indeed have been where some of them had originated.

  As he made his bow low over Madame Rosser’s liver-spotted hand, Jack was aware that her gaze was fixed on Celeste. She nodded absently at him, but when Celeste made a deep curtsy showing, Jack thought proudly, not a trace of her considerable nerves, Madame Rosser raised the eyeglass which hung from her neck on a gold chain and slowly inspected her from head to foot.

  Celeste tilted her chin at the woman. ‘I trust I pass muster.’

  Jack bit back a smile. Madame Rosser, to his surprise, gave a crack of laughter. ‘Yes, there can be no doubt about it,’ she said.

  ‘Excuse me, Madame, but no doubt about what?’

  The woman raised her thin brows haughtily. ‘Why, that you are Georges’ daughter. I assumed that was why you were here.’

  Celeste’s hand went to her breast. ‘Georges?’

  ‘My nephew. Georges Rosser, the Comte de Beynac.’ The thin eyebrows were raised even farther as Celeste’s jaw dropped. ‘Sacré bleu, I don’t believe it. The little English milksop actually kept her mouth shut all these years. You had better sit down,’ Madame Rosser snapped, ‘and you too, Mr Trestain,’ she added in English.

  ‘I can speak French passably well,’ Jack said, helping Celeste on to a gilded sofa covered in wheat-straw satin.

  The old woman ignored him and picked up a hand bell, which was answered so quickly Jack suspected the butler must have been standing outside the door of the huge first-floor drawing room. ‘Cognac,’ she snapped, ‘and then you may go, Philippe. We are not to be disturbed.’

  ‘I am not going to faint,’ Celeste said, though Jack thought she looked as if she might very well. ‘I don’t need a cognac.’

  Madame Rosser sat down on the chair opposite. ‘Perhaps not,’ she said, ‘but I most certainly do.’

  * * *

  ‘They were betrothed in 1788, Georges and your mother,’
Madame Rosser began. ‘Blythe Wilmslow was not the match my family wished for such a prestigious title as the Comte de Beynac, but my nephew was one of those fellows who had read that dreadful man Rousseau’s la nouvelle Héloïse. Foolish boy, perhaps if he’d claimed a better acquaintance with Rousseau, he could have persuaded that madman Robespierre he was on his side. Rousseau, you know, was much admired by Robespierre and Saint-Just,’ Madame Rosser said. She took a sip of cognac and sighed heavily. ‘Perhaps you don’t know. You are so young. You can have no idea of what Paris was like then, during the Terror. Every knock on the door sent one’s blood running cold. There was no rhyme or reason, by then, for many of the arrests. A slighted neighbour. An old score being settled. Mourning too openly for a guillotined husband. Anything.’

  She slumped back in her chair, closing her eyes and rubbing her temples. Celeste looked helplessly at Jack. ‘If this is too much for you, Madame...’ she said tentatively.

  The old woman’s eyes snapped open. ‘No. I do not like talking of those times, but it must be done. You have a right to know what blood flows in your veins, though you have no entitlement to claim it, or aught else. I sincerely hope your motive for coming here is not based on avarice. If it is you will be sorely disappointed.’

  ‘All I require from you, Madame, is the truth, nothing more,’ Celeste said firmly.

  The old woman took another sip of brandy, visibly bracing herself. ‘Then you will have it. Your mother and my nephew were betrothed. Blythe Wilmslow was in France on the Quatorze Juillet, when the Revolution began. Her parents wished her to return to England, but...’ Madame Rosser shrugged. ‘We all thought at the time that the Revolution would come to nothing.

  ‘They were here with me in Paris when Georges’ arrest put an end to any hope of a marriage. I told Blythe that she should go back to England, but of course,’ Madame Rosser said sarcastically, ‘the little English miss was too much in love and too foolish to leave Paris without Georges.’ Madame took another sip of brandy. ‘And too much in love and far, far too foolish to refrain from surrendering to her grand passion. You, Mademoiselle Marmion, were conceived in the conciergerie where my nephew awaited trial.’