‘No—I was right. I don’t know you.’
‘The fire? Whose house is it?’ Charles asked, appearing coolly unruffled by the interruption to their journey and the threat this band of miscreants posed to their safety.
‘The house of the Seigneur,’ the man growled. ‘And the Seigneur is feeding the flames this very minute.’
Apart from a darkening of his face, Charles was careful not to show the horror and revulsion he felt. ‘What precisely did he do?’
‘What’s it to you?’ he snarled. ‘But I’ll tell you if you want to know. That rich bloodsucker said that a man with a family could live on ten sous a day. That’s never right, don’t you agree, eh?’
Charles shrugged. ‘What is that to me? I’m a stranger in these parts. I was not acquainted with your Seigneur, but he sounds just like any other I have come across.’
The hatchet face thrust itself further into the coach. ‘Are you sure he’s not a friend of yours?’ He turned and roared, ‘Look, boys! I don’t think we can trust this man who calls himself one of the people.’
Obscenities were loudly uttered and sticks were raised, and, before the echo of their shouts had died away, to Maria’s horror Charles opened the door and climbed out, the pistol he held concealed in the folds of his coat. Taken unawares, the crowd backed away. Charles stood before them, smiling his icy smile.
‘You’re the leader of this rabble, are you?’ he said quietly, addressing himself to the hatchet-faced man.
The man hesitated. ‘I might be.’
Charles started walking straight towards him. The rabble were at the man’s back. The crude weapons wavered. This was unusual. They were not prepared for this. Nothing in their experience had prepared them to deal with a man who wouldn’t turn and run when confronted.
Pierre had scrambled down from his seat and stood close to the window. ‘Savages,’ he murmured, just loud enough for Maria to hear. ‘Savages, the lot of them, that’s what they are. The devil’s own. God save us.’
Pierre voiced Maria’s own apprehension. The horses were uneasy, their eyes alert, ears pricked and tremulous tails.
That was the moment when Charles took positive action. When he was close enough his hand shot out and he caught the leader by the coat front. Then his arm stiffened and he shoved the man backwards to crash into his comrades. The impact knocked several of them down into the dirt. They got to their feet, shouting and cursing, only to stare straight into the muzzle of Charles’s pistol. The mob had no stomach for gunfire.
‘A man’s a fool to wander through France unarmed today,’ Charles said, hoping it would discourage these madmen from inflicting harm and allowing the incident to degenerate into wholesale brigandage, as it threatened to do.
Inside the coach Maria watched the whole terrifying proceedings, the howling of the village’s inhabitants loud in her ears. An odd shiver tingled down her spine at the sound and she set her teeth and tried to shut her ears.
Until that moment she had admired Charles’s utmost forbearance in his dealing with the crowd, but she uttered a gasp of horror when she saw him brandish the pistol. Knowing that one man armed with a pistol didn’t stand a chance of surviving against an angry mob, thinking quickly, inspiration struck. Opening her reticule, she pulled out a small pot of rouge.
Shrouded in her cloak, her hood pulled well over her head and holding it together so that only her eyes showed, she opened the door and climbed out. All eyes except Charles’s became focused on her, but he knew she was there and silently cursed her idiocy for disobeying him.
Moving closer to Charles, Maria could almost feel the effort he was exerting to keep his rage under control. She knew that relaxed, almost indolent stance of his was only a surface calm, beneath which was a murderous fury which he would no doubt unleash on her later.
She was numb to every emotion save a gnawing fear that feasted heartily upon what courage she could muster. She set her mind not to appear frightened beneath the hideous stares and bold leers that were directed at her, yet her knees had a strange tendency to shake beneath her. Despite her show of self-control, she was desperately afraid, not knowing what lay in store for them, but convinced now that the miscreants planned some hideous fate.
Disconcertedly she moved her gaze to Charles. His dark hair was stirred by the light breeze. Standing stiff and appearing to be in complete control of his actions, he seemed like a stranger, a man she did not know, distant, frowning.
Suddenly a bearded rough standing to one side of the leader nudged his neighbour with his elbow.
‘Nice, isn’t she?’ he said. ‘But I’d like to see more of her, eh?’
‘Lends a bit of a swank to our company,’ said another.
Another ill-favoured, toothless individual shrilled his assent to the statement, lifting his stick to emphasise his words.
Beneath Maria’s blazing glower, the bearded man made a turn about her, a careless swagger in his walk. He gave her a lusty perusal, his mind holding lewd thoughts. Reaching out with his gnarled hand, he gave her hood a firm tug with a gesture that was at once peremptory. ‘I’m Handsome,’ he said.
She slapped down his hand with ill temper. ‘That’s a matter of opinion.’
A roar of laughter shook his audience.
‘That’s got nothing to do with his looks,’ snarled the hatchet face. ‘It’s his name. Handsome, that’s what he’s called.’ He scowled at her. ‘Going far, are you?’
‘Yes, as a matter of fact. To the coast. The doctor recommended it for—my health, you see.’ When the bearded rough made a move to touch her again, she glared at him. ‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you. You might have cause to regret it. I’ve been ill, you see, and I’m not completely recovered—smallpox, it was.’
The leader’s eyes narrowed as they flicked like a rat’s from Charles to Maria and back to Charles. ‘Is this true? She doesn’t look like she’s got much wrong with her.’
As if on cue, Maria calmly folded back her hood, relieved that they stood some distance away from her and that it was almost dark so they would just be able to make out the occasional spots of rouge she had dabbed on her face, hoping fervently they resembled pock marks.
The rabble gave a collective gasp and backed away, each and every one of them having a horror of contracting that often fatal, disfiguring disease.
Apart from a slight raising of his eyebrows when he looked at her, Charles’s expression didn’t alter. ‘My wife does not lie,’ Charles remarked, joining in the pretence. ‘As you see, she is not marred quite as severely as some are, but the doctor advised her against coming into direct contact with others for fear she might still carry the infection. Maria, get back inside the carriage.’ He issued the order without taking his eyes off the rabble. She hesitated, but only for a moment, for there was a steely edge to his voice she would ignore at her peril.
‘Now, gentlemen,’ Charles said pleasantly, ‘you will have the goodness to go home to your wives and children. If you refuse, you will leave me with no alternative but to blow your brains out.’
The pistol levelled at them, and one other held by a steady hand in the doorway of the coach, was persuasion enough.
‘From the look of the Seigneur’s home, you have done enough mischief this day,’ Charles said, softly. ‘I have not done any hunting lately, which is a sport I always enjoy, so do not follow me.’
Then he spun on his heel and walked back to the coach, moving calmly and without haste. The rabble didn’t follow him. He had known they wouldn’t—although he didn’t know whether that was down to the fear of being shot or contracting Maria’s feigned smallpox.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked when he had settled himself across from her and ordered Pierre to