Forbidden Pleasure

Chetwyn, had not wanted them to go. The political situation in France was growing worse by the day. But her beautiful French mother, Claudine, had laughed at his fears.

'Most of the difficulty is in Paris, mon chou,' she had said. 'Caroline and I go no farther than Normandy. There has been little trouble there. Besides, Papa is in agreement with the Marquess de Lafayette and the others. Great changes are needed if France is to survive, and Monsieur le Roi and Madame la Reine must be brought around. I always felt sorry for that poor little Austrian princess who had to marry fat Louis. But everyone knows that my father, the duke, and all his extended family support the revolution. We will be perfectly safe, ma coeur.'

And so they had sailed in the Earl of Chetwyn's yacht across the Channel to Normandy to spend a few months with the countess's parents. And at first it had been just like every other summer Lady Caroline Thornton had spent in France at the charming little chateau of her maternal grandparents. Her mother's two sisters had been there with her. The elder and her family lived in the Loire region. The younger was Caroline's age but for a few weeks. They were seventeen, and they spent their days out of doors riding, or walking beneath the trees in the orchards. Caroline was to have a London season next year, and the lovely Louisa had been invited to share it, as society in France nowadays was precarious at best. The two girls giggled together as they imagined the gowns they would have, and the husbands they would soon find among the ton. The weather had been hot and sunny. It had been so perfect, and neither had even considered that it would be the last time they would be happy together.

And then one afternoon a ragged band of men had appeared at the door of the chateau demanding entry. Seeing them, the duke had been hesitant at first, but then he permitted the men entry. He was a good son of the Revolution. But they had arrested her grandfather and charged him with treason against the Republic. An anonymous complaint against him had been put into the box set up by the Committee for Public Safety in their village. The duke was accused of hoarding, and of mistreatment of one Citizen Agramant. Searching the chateau, they claimed the supplies in the pantry were evidence of his hoarding.

The duke protested. What was in his pantry was an average supply of foodstuffs for his large family and his servants. As for Citizen Agramant, he had been in the duke's employ as a stableman. He had been caught in the pantry stealing food, and there had been a bottle from the duke's cellar beneath his coat as well. He had been whipped, ten lashes only, and dismissed from the duke's employ. Had Citizen Agramant been hungry, the duke declared, had he come to his master, the duke would have given him food from his own stores. But he was not going hungry, and the duke had evidence that the stableman had stolen from him before, and was selling what he stole in the village at inflated prices.

But the band of men would not listen. The duke was taken away, and his household imprisoned within the chateau. Several days later they received word that the duke had been tried, found guilty of crimes against the republic, and taken to Caen to be executed. His body was never returned to them. Upon hearing the news the duchess had clutched at her chest and collapsed. She died several days later. As their servants were now forbidden from waiting upon them, the family of women had dug her grave in the family cemetery. A coffin had mysteriously appeared in her bedchamber. No one spoke of it or asked from where it had come. The old duchess was wrapped in a shroud and put into the coffin. And her two daughters and her grandchildren had gone to request that some of their manservants be allowed to carry the coffin to the grave.

The man who called himself the captain of the ragged band, one Captain Arnaud, had looked them over, licked his lips, and then said, 'For every favor there is a price, my pretty aristos. What have you to offer?'

Caroline's mother had immediately removed the gold-and-pearl chain and crucifix she wore about her neck and handed it to him. 'Will this do?' she asked quietly.

'For now,' Captain Arnaud had answered with a leer.

They had not known what he had meant then, but several days later Caroline, her mother, her aunts, and all the younger woman servants were taken to the chateau cellars, and imprisoned. Every night Captain Arnaud would come with his right-hand man, Citizen Leon. They would pick two of the young serving girls, and return them in the morning. Now and again a girl would not return for several days, if at all.

'What is happening to them?' Caroline had asked her mother.

'Better you not know,' her mother had replied.

And it had been better, until the night that Captain Arnaud had pointed his thick finger at Caroline and beckoned her to him.

'Non!' her mother had said, standing up and facing their captor. 'My daughter is the only child of an English lord. He will pay you a very generous ransom for her safe return.' The countess had put emphasis on the word safe. 'I have told you this before, Captain Arnaud. My husband will pay for all the women here. You have but to send to his yacht, which by now lies anchored in the village cove, waiting to return us to England. Ask what you will. My husband, the Earl of Chetwyn, will pay. Have you no desire to be a rich man?'

'Why is it that all you damned aristos think money is the answer? I've come to get a woman for a night's entertainment. If you do not want me to take your daughter, then come with me yourself. And your sister will do for Leon.'

Lady Caroline Thornton had not known then the terrible sacrifice her mother and her aunts had made for her that night- and in the nights that followed, for Captain Arnaud and Citizen Leon delighted in degrading the two women. Yet the two sisters retained their dignity in spite of it all. Her mother managed to write a note to the earl, and with the aid of the chateau cook it reached the yacht captain, who sailed immediately for England. And the Earl of Chetwyn had come immediately to rescue his family from the hands of the Revolution.

But it had been too late. Now bored with the two sisters, Citizen Leon had had them restrained by his men as they were taken from the cellars to the main salon. They were then forced to watch as the youngest of them, Louisa, had been raped first by Captain Arnaud, then Citizen Leon, and finally the other six men in their ragtag band. Her aunt had at first struggled and screamed to her sisters and then to the Holy Virgin to save her. The taking of the girl's virginity was a painful event, made more so by her eager rapist. Her pitiful cries had set Caroline's tante Justine into a frenzy of hysterical fury. She fought against her captors wildly, and then to their surprise she managed to break free. Snatching a knife from one of the men's waistband, she stabbed him to death before she was subdued by the others and her own throat was slit.

By now Caroline was numb with her fear of what was to come. But then, to her surprise, she was returned to the cellars of the chateau. She did not see her mother again. One of the serving women returned in the morning and told her that they had strangled pauvre Madame Claudine, but not before the countess had been forced to endure every possible indignity a man might visit on a woman. She had been raped over and over again, and beaten. As for her tante Louisa, she had not survived long after Caroline had been taken from the chamber. Now Caroline was alone. But Captain Arnaud did not point his fat finger at her again. And several weeks later she was led from the cellars to the chateau's elegant salon, where she found her father waiting with the captain. A ransom had been paid, and she was free to leave France.

The Earl of Chetwyn, while heartbroken at losing his wife, never knew how she had really died. He had been told she and her two sisters had suffered from the damp and cold of their prison. And Caroline had never told her father the truth. How could she? And if she could not tell her father, how could she tell her husband? How could she explain that when she disappeared from Malincourt it was to travel to France on her father's old yacht, which now belonged to her? Would he understand that she was the rescuer, Lavender, whom all the ton was talking about, and that at least half a dozen of her close friends were Lavender's Ladies? She had a mission to rescue those poor souls