Jack Chiltern's Wife (1999) by Nichols Mary

Author:Nichols, Mary [Nichols, Mary]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Romance
Published: 2009-08-26T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

‘She’s in here, citizen Santerre,’ he called to someone behind him. He stepped forward and walked round her as three more men entered.

‘Who … who are you?’ Kitty managed to ask, not daring to move, although her knees were shaking so much she was afraid they would let her down.

‘We ask the questions,’ a second man said. The cockade on his cap had a gold edging and she supposed that was a sign of authority. ‘You are under arrest.’

‘Pourquoi?’

‘That we will discover when you have been questioned. It is enough that you are suspect. Come with us.’ He grabbed her arm and dragged her out into the open where two more men waited on guard. It appeared they had arrived on foot; she supposed they were the men she had seen at the château. They must have looked back and seen her leave and followed her.

They harnessed the horse to the carriage again and bundled her inside. Two climbed in with her, two sat on the driver’s seat and two more walked either side of the horse’s head to guide it in the dark. And thus they arrived in Lyons just as dawn was breaking.

If Kitty had not been so immersed in her own seemingly insurmountable problems, she might have been able to admire the view from the steep cliffs above the city of Lyons. They were breathtaking. Lyons lay below them at the confluence of two rivers, the Saône and the Rhône, a sprawl of old and new, low red roofs, a church spire here and there, open tree-lined squares.

It was France’s second city and, according to Jack, had always prided itself on its independence from the central government, but now all that was changing. Paris was dictating policy.

Jack. Had these men been looking for Jack when they found her? Jack Chiltern or Jacques Faucon? Did they think she would betray him? If so, they would be disappointed. She was alone now and, whatever she did, she must not implicate him or say anything to endanger the Saint-Gilberts. She must remember what Jack had told her. She was an innocent visitor. She had simply been out for a drive and was drawn to the deserted château out of curiosity.

She knew there were huge holes in her story that any good lawyer would probe, but she would have to trust to luck. She could protest her innocence, pretend to be younger than she was, perhaps a little simple. Would that do?

She did not need to force the tears that ran down her cheeks as the old carriage bumped down the mountain track, on to a lower road and into the old town, through its warren of narrow streets and alleys, to a small square lined with elegant old houses built for the town’s rich bankers and silk weavers.

Years ago Kitty remembered her mother speaking of Lyons silk and showing her a lovely puce-coloured gown. What had happened to the silk weavers since the Revolution? she wondered. Had they, like

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