Polonaise (12 page)

Glynde greeted Jan cheerfully but swore to himself. He was convinced that Miss Peverel had something on her mind, and had hoped much from his rare chance alone with her.

‘I only asked if you were going on the hunt today?'

‘Oh, I think so. And you?'

‘The Princess has very kindly promised to lend me a horse. I love riding … and to get into those great forests!' She meant it, but the thought of plunging once more into those dark woods was frightening, too.

The hunting party gathered in front of the palace soon after breakfast, and Glynde, sparing an anxious glance for Jenny Peverel, saw with relief that she sat her lively little cob firmly, very much mistress of it and herself. The men were after bear, and the ladies would follow at a discreet distance, joining them at last for a picnic at a remote hunting lodge where a posse of servants had been working for several days, making all ready for them. A ride had been cleared into the forest, too, and Glynde marvelled, as he often did, at the lavish use of serf labour. If only one could find out what the serfs thought about it all, but by all appearances they adored their Princess. Her father had actually freed them, during the brief period of progress and enlightenment before the Russians foreclosed on King Stanislas Augustus, but so far as he could gather the experiment had not worked very well. They were not trained to cope with freedom, and he thought that what the Princess was doing in the way of education and medical advice was probably very much more to the point.

‘Keep close to the others,' he told Jenny, when they reached the place where the men were to follow a tracker into the deep forest, while the ladies, and the Prince, took the cleared ride to the meeting place. He watched for a moment as Jenny set off down the ride, side by side with Marta, the Princess's half sister. Her messenger. His hand worried at his hair as he looked farther down the ride to where the Princess and her husband were leading the way, their erect backs rising in
unison, the Princess leaning towards her husband to hear what he was saying.

It was only much later, when they had found their bear and loosed the hounds on it, that he remembered something that had faintly troubled him as he watched the ladies setting off. Something about the way Marta was looking at Jenny Peverel? Ridiculous. But, a trained watcher, he had seen Marta looking at Jenny before, as if she did not much like her. Suspecting perhaps a new friend for her half sister? Someone who might displace her?

The bear was killed messily, with two young men both claiming to have delivered the
coup de grâce
. ‘Let's go.' Glynde sought out Jan Warrington. ‘Let's join the ladies. I'm sick of this quarrelling.'

Why did he feel this passionate need to hurry? When he heard the screams, he was hardly even surprised. Without a word, he and Jan put spurs to their horses and galloped down the ride, pausing at last at a point where it crossed an old forest path. Dead silence now. Which way?

‘You go that way.' Glynde pointed to the left. ‘I'll go this.' He turned his horse into a little-used path and pushed it as fast as possible under the low-hanging trees. On impulse, he shouted, as loud as he could, ‘I'm coming, Miss Peverel.' And, emerging into a little glade, found Marta trying to catch her horse.

‘Miss Peverel!' She pointed into the forest. ‘Something frightened the horses. They bolted.'

‘That way?'

‘Yes.'

Should he believe her? He thought so. ‘Wait here. I'll be back.' Large trees here, and small scrub under them. He pushed forward in the direction Marta had indicated, and called again. ‘Miss Peverel, can you hear me? Where are you?'

No answer. But the sound of a horse thrashing about somewhere ahead of him. She must have been thrown, too. Or worse? His own horse had instinctively turned towards the sound, and he let it have its head, calling again. And, at last, a faint answer. ‘Here. This way. I'm here.'

He found her at last, sitting very still and small under a huge oak. She did not rise as he emerged from the trees, but
sat there, motionless, looking at him, the scarlet weal across her face startling against its dead white.

‘What happened?' He jumped to the ground beside her, and still she did not move.

‘Something frightened the horses.' She was holding on to herself with an immense effort. Blood seeped from the wound on her face. ‘They bolted.' It was exactly what Marta had said. Too exactly? ‘Thank you for coming so quickly.'

‘But your face?'

‘A tree branch. And – I've twisted my ankle. I can't stand. I'm … so sorry!'

He did not believe a word of it, but picked her up gently, recognising once again that elusive scent that reminded him of his mother. Her breath came fast; her eyes were bright with tears she would not shed. ‘This was worse than a fall.' He settled her sideways on his saddle. ‘Tell me.'

‘No! Mr. Rendel, I am most terribly sorry, but I believe I am going to faint.'

‘Don't be afraid. I have you safe.' He held her tight as she drooped against him, sure she was faking it, but what could he do but admire her quick wit and high courage? And here came Marta, riding towards them.

‘You found her! Thank God.' And then, seeing the drooping figure, the savagely marked face. ‘Mary, Mother of God! What happened?'

‘She says her horse bolted. A branch marked her face. She twisted her ankle. She has fainted.'

‘No. I'm better now.' She stirred a little in his strongly encircling arms. ‘Did you get thrown too, Marta? Are you hurt?' And that was all she said.

By the time Jenny was able to walk again, most of the wedding guests had left the palace. Days of lashing rain had been a warning of the morasses forest roads would soon become. The nights were getting colder, too, and armies of servants were at work preparing the palace for the rigours of winter. Venturing downstairs at last on the day the huge majolica stove was lighted in the main salon, Jenny found the Prince and Princess enthroned side by side on a wide, gilt-backed sofa, busy over an immense batch of mail from Warsaw.

Her first thought, as she curtseyed and acknowledged their enquiries, was that the Princess did not look well. The glow of health had faded from her clear skin and been replaced, she suspected, by a finely applied touch of rouge. She looked eagerly around, her heart sinking. Glynde and Jan must have left, and Olga had not thought to tell her. She would never see Glynde again. And a good thing too. It was extraordinary how it hurt.

‘A chair for Miss Peverel,' said the Prince. ‘You must not be standing yet, ma'am. Your ankle hurts you still, I can see. Did you not say there was a letter for Miss Peverel, my dear? News from home will be just the tonic she needs.'

‘Oh, thank you!' It was the first that she had had, and she read it eagerly, half aware as she did so of the Prince and Princess discussing their own mail. It was extraordinary how completely the Prince was now established as master of the household, which, Glynde had told her, had once revolved so entirely round the Princess. If only she had arrived before the wedding, instead of in the Prince's train, she might have had a chance of achieving some kind of relationship with the Princess, making herself useful to her. But the Princess, who had greeted her as an old friend, had subsided into cool indifference after the wedding, totally absorbed in her new relationship. If only her mother's letter were a summons home.
But it was nothing of the kind. Between every loving line lay the clear message that whatever happened, her father did not want her back. He was not well, her mother wrote, and even thought of retiring.

‘Here are your cavaliers back from their ride at last.' The Prince sounded amused. ‘None the worse for your drenching, gentlemen?'

‘Not the least in the world.' Jenny's hands clenched on the letter at the sound of Glynde's voice.

‘That's good.' The Prince was at his most urbane. ‘For I am afraid I have some news from Paris that you will not much like, Mr. Rendel. The French have reoccupied Switzerland, and show no sign of evacuating Holland, as they undertook to do under the terms of the Treaty of Amiens. I am sure you will feel, as I do, that this must mean a renewal of hostilities between your country and France. As your host, I dislike suggesting it, but as your friend, I think I must advise you to think about leaving us, sad though my wife and I will be to see you go. The First Consul is an unchancy man. I think you would be wise not to be anywhere his long arm can reach when war breaks out. Of course, we would do our best to protect you, my wife and I – I know I can speak for you, my dear – but these are unhappy times. You will forgive me, I know, for speaking so frankly.'

‘Highness, I am most grateful. I would not dream of involving you and the Princess in any kind of unpleasantness. I will make my arrangements to leave in the morning.'

‘And Mr. Warrington?' The Prince turned to Jan. ‘I have news which must interest you, too, both as an American and as a man of business. The French seem to have concluded their arrangements to take over Louisiana from Spain. I wonder how even your peace-loving President Mr. Jefferson will relish the prospect of having Bonaparte's France for so near a neighbour. I hardly imagine that you renounced your allegiance to one European power in order to find yourselves dominated by another.'

‘Dominated?' Jan's transatlantic drawl was more pronounced than ever. ‘I doubt Mr. Jefferson will allow that to happen. Nor yet the British!' He stepped forward, took the Princess's hand. ‘Highness, I shall never forget your hospi
tality, but the time has come to thank you and leave you.'

She smiled up at him. ‘You were to call me cousin, cousin. You'll go to Warsaw, the two of you? You must let me give you letters to my friends there. And could I persuade you to stay one more day? My beloved Marta has decided she must quit me and yield to her vocation. She longs to be in her convent at Warsaw and has waited only for a suitable escort. You will take care of her for me, I know. And,' turning to Jenny, ‘Jenny dear, you will take her place at my side?'

It was only when the whirl of preparations and the silent anguish of the parting were over, and the oddly assorted trio were on the road to Warsaw that Jenny had time to sort out the impressions of that scene and remember the shock of surprise on Marta's face. It had been the first she had heard of the plan too. Happily busy in taking her new place at the Princess's side, Jenny warned herself never to forget the surprising streak of ruthlessness in Isobel, who could dismiss even a half sister so suddenly. The Prince's doing, perhaps? She had never thought he quite liked Marta.

For herself, it was an immense relief. Marta had lured her into the Brotherhood's ambush that day of the hunt, and it was small comfort that Marta had been appalled at what had happened to her. It had been savage enough. She would remember until she died the quick brutal movements with which the hooded figure had slashed her face, twisted her ankle. ‘That happened when the horse bolted,' he had told her. ‘In future, you will report regularly.'

She had done so, and had stuck to her story about the bolting horse, grateful to the Prince for putting a brusque stop to his wife's questioning. ‘Some salve for the wound would be more to the point. We do not want Miss Peverel marked for life.'

In fact, a natural healer, she had soon been able to face her reflection in the glass with no more than her normal stoicism, and in the end the only lasting reminder of the blow was a slight, ironic twist to her upper lip which she rather liked. But relief at Marta's going was small consolation in the wrench of Glynde's. She would probably never see him again. She made herself face it, and plunged heart and soul into the business of making herself invaluable to Isobel.

The first snow showers worked their magic on palace and park; preparations for Christmas were going on apace; Jenny was increasingly puzzled by the Princess's behaviour. All the symptoms she knew so well suggested that Isobel was pregnant, surely a matter for great rejoicing, but the most delicate of probings were met with a kind of regal blankness. Perhaps this was the way Polish ladies behaved, and there was nothing to do but go along with it, and take as much care of her as she could.

She then noticed that the Prince was doing so too, refusing, for instance, his wife's suggestion that they ride out through an early snowfall to show him her model village, and insisting that the Christmas festivities at Rendomierz be kept simple. It was not until well into the New Year that they made their announcement, and then it was precipitated by a messenger from the Tsar.

‘He wants me back at Petersburg.' The Prince had joined his wife and Jenny where they sat sewing in a small south-facing salon, which caught every bit of the rare winter sun. ‘Not immediately. He says he would not ask that of a newly married man, but before the spring, while the roads are still frozen and travelling possible. He flatters me by saying he needs my wise counsel. Of course, he expects that you will come with me, my dear. He says he longs to meet you.'

‘Too kind,' said the Princess. ‘In the ordinary way, naturally, I would like nothing better, but as it is, in my condition, a winter journey …'

‘You would get the very best of medical attendance in Petersburg. The Tsar, I am sure, would offer his own doctor, Dr. Wylie.'

‘I have the greatest confidence in my own Dr. Scott,' said the Princess. ‘And in my dear Jenny, who I believe has had some experience … You do understand what we are saying, Jenny?'

‘I cannot tell you how happy I am, Highness.'

‘Miss Peverel could accompany us to Petersburg,' said the Prince. ‘I know her for an intrepid traveller. And indeed it might be best for her to do so. The threat of war between France and England is my master's reason for summoning me.
She would be much safer in Russia than here. The First Consul's hand will never stretch that far.'