CHAPTER 11
The Retrun to Ghenes Noir
The windswept clouds shifted with color as violet deepened the east. Twilight pooled in shadowy vales as the sun tipped the trees across the river. Cranes and storks posed in reeds, but ducks splashed noisily as Quenton rode by. Beneath an ancient oak, the poor livery horse stumbled where the road fell into a turn. Quenton gave his thin neck an encouraging pat. "Ce n'est pas trop loin maintenant; nous serons ld bientot." The meager animal snorted as it plodded along with a brighter eye.
Shifting to ease the discomfort of the hard rented saddle, Quenton was just as eager to reach their destination. His heart called him onward, yet he did not know what he would find. Upon his arrival at Nantes, he had purchased the ready-made riding clothes he wore and packed his British suit in the valise tied behind his saddle. Stagecoach and ferry had taken him farther, until he disembarked upriver from Limoges. The poor brown horse he rode was hardly adequate, but it had been the best available, and since he was too close to spend another night without seeing his house at Chenes Noir, Quenton had set out immediately. Now they traveled the opposite bank, looking at the trees marking the boundary of the black-oak forest that had once belonged to him.
When he had left on that fateful summer day years ago, he had ridden with his men, herding cattle for his brother's estate at Mont Blanc. The journey was to be only a routine delivery to his ancestral home in the Alps, and he had expected to return home with warhorses to fill the army contract.
Quenton had departed without an inkling of his future and now returned much the same. He had no clue of what he would find when he passed through the old ironbound gates. At one time, he had crossed over the arched bastions of the old Roman bridge without consideration of anything but its convenience. Now it marked his homecoming. On the opposite side, the darkening woods waited in dusky shadow. If his place survived, he would see the pointed rooftops of Chenes Noir before nightfall. As he put the thin horse into a shambling gallop, he experienced his return to the black-oak forest as far less auspicious than his leave-taking.
Bats flitted overhead between the trees, filled with twittering birds nesting for the evening. Frogs sang with crickets and toads, creating a peaceful harmony. Quenton could not remember if he had ever ridden a slower nag but was enjoying his remarkable voyage nevertheless. Here was the corner marker of the lower pasture, where red deer grazed by the pond with a sagging windmill. Over in the shallow cove, the old boat dock was afloat, but only as a barge for noisy geese and swans teeming toward the shuttered boathouse.
Before reaching the gates, Quenton slowed the tired horse. When the barrier of the imposing wall rose before him, he stepped down to walk. Silence echoed where a watchman should have hailed him, but his hand stopped shy of the lever hidden in the shelter of protective stone. Chenes Noir had been confiscated with everything else that his family once owned. While his heart denied it, by returning he had assumed undeniable risk. He pulled the lever, and the latch, in need of grease, released in rusty protest.
The companionable livery horse nudged his shoulder.
Quenton gathered the reins and returned to the saddle. The horse puffed amiably and sauntered through the gloomy twilight, which lent the grounds an amorphous ambiguity. Bats escorted them past angled rooftops rising through the stark, billowing silhouettes of trees. Instead of following the curving driveway to the house, he went straight to the barn and found its stalls devoid of life.
Quenton cared for the shabby horse in the dark and left him free to wander for his food. When he emerged into the night, the house was a black shape without lights. He followed the lane along the overgrown rose of Sharon hedge under a sky of stars with a crescent moon and searched blindly for the courtyard gate. The sweet pungency of flowers filled the air with promise as he pushed through a scant opening. The melody of the fountain swelled with singing frogs, and the perfume of jasmine welcomed him up the steps beneath the broad portico. Feeling as if he were moving through a dream, he put his gloved fist through a square pane in the glass door and flipped the lock. Shattered glass scraped and hinges squeaked when he stepped inside to close the door.
His feeling of dreaming increased a thousandfold. The house was too dark for him to determine whether the furnishings were familiar. He finally struck his flint in the north salon, where denuded windows reflected closed shutters. Sheets covered everything not stripped, and the carpets had disappeared. Other than obvious neglect, the welcome home was suddenly worth celebrating.
"Damn me," Quenton murmured, lighting a few nearby candelabra. He rummaged swiftly through the sideboard, still complete with monogrammed glassware. As if the ensuing years stripped away, he searched his old liquor cabinet. Triumph filled him when he found a bottle of bourbon, and he gratefully kissed its embossed label. Polishing a dusty glass with his shirttail and pouring with a hand trembling with emotion, he dutifully lifted a salute to his eerie welcome home.
"Sante." He quaffed his drink and threw his glass into the cold fireplace to bind his oath. Its crystal shattered the empty silence when it broke against the marble hearth.
AS THEY STOOD TOGETHER at the row of mirrors surrounded by other women ogling one another in the plush ladies' lounge at Brighton Hall, Sarah sighed with admiration, plucking at Alix's black tulle overskirt. "This is fantastic. Who would dare such creativity?"
Alix liked the enormity of the old building dating back at least a century. The ceilings were high and the hallways broad, designed when life had been a little richer than current fashion warranted. The ornate woodwork was heavily gilded, and old- fashioned tapestries still hung in places along the walls. Enormous murals of medieval hunts involving unicorns and lions made for a fascinating study that no one except Alix seemed to notice.
The invitation to join the Wesleys for an evening of dancing had been unexpected, and now, in response to Sarah's question, Alix could not share that she designed her own gowns or that experimenting with fashion had become almost an obsession during her long hours of seclusion. Lily's poor husband footed the bills, but Lily would pay the full price upon her return, because her sister would swiftly discover Alix's snug measurements would not fit her.
She turned from her reflection, uneasy, as always, about the close proximity of other women, and joined Sarah in the hall, where John Wesley waited to escort them to the ballroom. Alix scanned the crowd for the police she had expected ever since the near disaster at Oxley. As the hours eked into days, her initial presumption that their delayed appearance was to save Nicholas from public humiliation had transformed into a fearful puzzle of how and when she would be apprehended.
Now, as she passed a table, a barrel-chested man with a curled mustache noticed her. He looked as intelligent as a detective and sat with a man wearing a monocle who looked distinguished enough to be an official. Amplifying her suspicion, they leaned together to speak quietly. Alix's heart pounded when the man with the monocle pretended to polish it. He peered through it experimentally and looked directly at her.
Alix realized the time to escape was nigh. Desperately, she looked for the exit while following Sarah and John to their table. The monocle-wearing man commented to his mustached partner, surveyed the room, and then scrutinized Nicholas, who rose at their approach. The mustached man held his drink balled in his fist; was it a secret signal to seal the exits? Alix panicked. If she did not leave quickly, her flight would be useless, but when she jumped up, she sprang into John's waiting arms.
Sarah giggled commiserat