The Count stood at once, apologetic. 'Of course, both of you must be worn out: how thoughtless of me to keep you up talking of sad yesterdays. Yesteryears, rather. But tomorrow perhaps weshall dine at a more suitable table - I must be the first Count of Rennes to entertain in his own dining room with his guests seated round a scrubbed kitchen table.'
Ramage laughed and turned to Sarah. 'In Jean-Jacques' defence, I should explain that the house he bought in England was furnished with the finest English furniture he could find!'
'Ah, the house in Ruckinge. You know Kent, my dear? Not Ruckinge? I was fortunate enough to be able to carry jewellery with me when I left here for England and by selling some I could buy a house in Kent. Although I love that house, my heart is really here, even though the château is almost empty. I spent my childhood here. My father's father's father - so many forebears - grew up here and died of old age. The vaults in the chapel an nearly full. There'll be just enough room for me. Perhaps the original builder saw into the future and knew how many of us he would need to accommodate!'
'You seem to be full of gloomy thoughts tonight,' Ramage said as he helped Sarah from her chair.
'Yes, and as your host I am appalled that I have to put you in a suite over in the east wing furnished only with a bed, two chairs, commode and a single armoire. And no curtains at the windows.'
'You should see the great cabin of a frigate,' Ramage said dryly.
The Count led them to the door and once out of earshot of the two servants said: 'I met an old friend today. He lives at La Rochelle but travelled to Rennes by way of L'Orient to arrange some business. He was an officer in the old Navy and like me escaped to England. He says that five ships of the line and six frigates are being prepared at La Rochelle, and seven and eleven of each in L'Orient. How does that compare with Brest?'
'Eleven and sixteen,' Ramage said grimly. 'So twenty-three ships of the line and thirty-three frigates are being commissioned along the Atlantic coast. I wonder what's going on at Toulon?'
'I must admit that's a large fleet for peacetime,' Jean-Jacques said, and then added, as if to reassure himself that there was a future: 'But I am sure Bonaparte wants peace now. At least, he wants to - how do you say, to 'consolidate'. You've seen how he has sent most of his soldiers home to reap the harvest. There are many hundreds of miles of roads still to be repaired - thousands in fact. Today France is a whole country where reaping, ploughing and sowing will take every available man this year if the people are not to starve. Already he is gambling on a good harvest - a bad one would topple him. People will go short in time of war, but with peace they want full bellies.'
Ramage shook his head. 'Ten bad harvests won't topple a man who controls the biggest army and the most powerful police force the world has ever seen.'
'Still,' the Count persisted, hope overcoming reason, 'Bonaparte has concluded a peace with the Russians, and Britain is isolated. The world is at peace. I have no need to remind you that bythe Peace of Amiens England has surrendered most of her colonial conquests - and in return Bonaparte has given up the deserts of Egypt. He has all he wants. You don't suppose he needs Spain, Portugal, the Low Countries, Scandinavia ...?'
'I do, but I'm probably in a minority,' Ramage said, 'Bonaparte has kept control of the Italian states and Switzerland.'
'But he knows he can't beat the British at sea. Think of the Battle of Aboukir Bay - what a disaster for France! He is a soldier; he has created a great army. But he can't use it to attack England because the Channel is in the way. He realizes this. And that is why he sends his soldiers home.'
'But why does he prepare his Navy - the Navy you say he knows cannot defeat the Royal Navy?'
Jean-Jacques held out his hands, palms uppermost. 'Perhaps tomake sure they are in good condition before he stores them away - or whatever you sailors call it.'
'Perhaps,' Sarah said, taking Ramage's arm. 'You must excuse the bride for dragging her groom off to bed, but she is going to sleep standing on her feet!'
CHAPTER TWO
She was lying on her side with her back to him, and for a moment hemarvelled that the female body had been so shaped that in this position it fitted the male so perfectly. But sleeping alone in a swinging cot at sea - for him that would from now on be an almost unbearable loneliness. Quite why horses should now be galloping with harness jingling he did not know, and he opened his eyes to find the first hint of dawn had turned the room a faint grey.
Horses? Harness? Now, as he shook the sleep cobwebbing his head, he heard shouted commands coming from the centre of the château; from the wide steps leading up to the front door.
He slid out of bed and walked to the window, cursing the coldness of the marble floor although too impatient to find slippers.
A dozen men on horseback, blurred figures in the first light. Perhaps more. Now he could just distinguish that they were dismounting. Some were hurrying up the steps, sword scabbards clinking on the stone, while a single man held all the reins.
One man was making violent gestures at the great double door - presumably pounding on it with his fist. Then he heard more horses and another five or six men cantered past the window towards the others. Soldiers. Even in the faint light it was possible to distinguish them - and only cavalry would have so many horses.
She was standing behind him now; he could feel her breasts pressing into his shoulder blades. 'What is it?' she whispered. 'It's so cold. Why aren't you wearing a robe? You'll get a chill.'
'French cavalry,' he said briefly. 'Quickly, dress in riding clothes. Don't try and light a lamp.'
He hurried across the room and pushed their two trunks so that, from the door, they were hidden by the armoire and commode. He then bundled up the clothes they had been wearing the previous evening and which they had been too tired to do more than drape over the chairs, and pushed them under the bed.
'What are you doing?'
'Hurry, darling. Something's happened and these soldiers aren't here on a search for Army deserters. They look more like an escort for Jean-Jacques or me. The second group was leading a riderless horse.' 'You don't think ... ?'
'The mayor of Landerneau may be trying to keep his furniture by telling the préfet some tale. Don't forget Jean-Jacques is very vulnerable - he's only recently returned from exile.'
She shivered as she sorted out underwear. 'And he has the notorious Captain Lord Ramage staying in his house.'
'That can't be a crime,' Ramage said as he pulled up his trousers, but his voice was doubtful, so that what was intended as a statement sounded like a question. 'Anyway, whatever they're up to I can't think the soldiers know anything about us. One spare horse ... that's for Jean-Jacques.'
'The officer in charge can easily leave two of his troopers behind, or have two of Jean-Jacques' horses saddled up for us. Or make us walk.'
'Let's rely on them not knowing we're here!'
'The servants,' Sarah said, ignoring her husband's attempts to reassure her, 'can they be trusted? Will they tell the soldiers we are here?'
'If you hurry up, we won't be here, darling,' Ramage said, reaching for his jacket. 'We'll be hiding in another room, so if the French soldiers search our suite they won't find us.'
'Dearest,' she whispered, 'do up my buttons.' She turned her back to him so that he could secure her coat. By now, he noticed, it was getting appreciably lighter. He had been thinking that the first cavalry had passed only a couple of minutes ago, but he realized it was now nearer five.
'There - now, my lady, hurry up or -'
He stopped and listened to the gentle but persistent tapping at the door. Tap, tap, tap - and then a hissed 'Milord ... milord...'
He recognized the voice: Jean-Jacques' valet Gilbert, a tiny, almost wizened Breton who had gone to England to share his master's exile and then returned after the Treaty of Amiens.
Ramage hurried to the door and the moment he had opened it the valet slipped through and shut it again.
'Ah, milord - and milady, of course - you are dressed.' Gilbert glanced round the room, noted the trunks and the lack of clothing and toilet articles lying about. 'You are prepared, then: this suite looks deserted - they will say the English have flown, if indeed they know you are supposed to be here. Quickly, please follow - I take you to a small room where you must hide.'
'But what -'
'I explain in a few minutes, milord: first, to safety!'
The valet shut the window ('No Frenchman would have a window open,' he explained) and they followed him out of the room, along the corridor away from the main part of the château, down a staircase where it was so dark they had to grip the rail and feel for the next step before moving, until finally the valet opened a door.
'An old storeroom, milord,' he explained. 'No one would seek you here, and there's a side door leading into one of the gardens.'
He extended a hand to Sarah. 'There is a small step up, milady. I am afraid there are simply these old packing cases, but we hope you will only have to wait an hour or two before returning to your suite.'
Ramage felt like a piece of flotsam swirling round rocks at the mercy of random waves, but before he had time to ask, the valet said: 'I have a message from the Count, milord, and some information I - er, well, I happened to hear. I took the liberty of listening beyond the door.
'The message from the Count is that he thinks France is again at war with Britain and you must escape. That was all he could say before the cavalry officer and his men came in to arrest him.'
'But you heard more?'
'Yes, sir, it is indeed war. The most important thing the cavalry officer said as he arrested the Count - on direct orders from Paris - was that Lord Whitworth, your ambassador in Paris, had left the capital on the twelfth of this month. He said this was close to a declaration of war. Then on the seventeenth the British authorities had detained all French and Dutch ships in their ports and issued commissions to privateers.'
He paused a moment, pulling at his nose as though that would stimulate his memory. 'Yes, then on the next day, the eighteenth, the British declared war on France and on the nineteenth ships of the Royal Navy captured some French coasting vessels off Audierne - almost in sight of Brest and, of course, in French waters.
'Then, according to the cavalry officer, on the twenty-third Bonaparte issued an order to detain British men between the ages of eighteen and sixty who are liable to serve in the British Army or Navy.'
