Lady of Fortune Read online

  Lady of Fortune

  Mary Jo Putney

  Contents

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Copyright

  To Zim and Estill:

  I have been fortunate in my siblings

  Prologue

  NORMANDY, FRANCE

  MARCH 15, 1794

  The moon’s cool, bright fullness made the escape attempt more hazardous, but scudding clouds and fitful wind drew a dark veil of safety over the fugitives. The stealthy figures following the cliffside path kept silent even though the crashing waves far below them would have obscured their voices. They moved by touch and instinct as the damp, bitterly cold wind numbed hands and feet.

  They were only a headland from their goal when the leader slipped on an unexpectedly icy patch of rock. Cat-quick, the smaller figure, anchored to a convenient branch, reached out to secure the other. Pulled back from the brink, the leader wrapped an arm around his companion, gasping his thanks in a voice that still retained a thread of laughter.

  “One more for you, Christa. I make it three times you have saved my life tonight, while I have rescued you but once.”

  The clouds broke for a moment, silvering the pair with moonlight. Even in the unreliable shadows, the smaller figure was clearly female, though she wore breeches for her dangerous trek. She answered in English as fluent as her companion’s, but her low chuckling voice had a definite French accent.

  “Women are always more surefooted than men, Charles. Even when we were children I could outclimb you.” She took advantage of the moment’s pause to rest her aching body against her half-brother’s lean strength. This nightmare flight across France seemed endless; she had trouble believing safety was within grasp. Concentrating on the hazardous footing blocked her worry about her mother, who was following another path to the rendezvous point. Their party of five had split up to reduce the chance of attracting attention, with her and Charles taking the more dangerous coast path while their longtime servants Jean-Claude and Anne Bohnet accompanied her mother, Marie-Claire.

  While Christa knew it was safer to separate, she felt irrational fear at letting her mother out of her sight. During the long months of nursing Marie-Claire after her husband’s death, Christa had come to feel more like the parent herself. Her mother’s fragile strength had been tested to the limit in these last days.

  For the thousandth time Christa blessed the kindly providence that had taken her father’s life before the Committee of Public Safety could send him to the guillotine. His well-known liberal sympathies and friendship with Lafayette had protected them all through the early years of the revolution, but the spiraling madness of the Reign of Terror left no one safe. Friends and relatives she had known all her life had fled or died. Her father’s failing health kept them in France, and his wife and daughter refused to abandon him.

  Her father had been Philippe, Comte d’Estelle, with properties across the breadth of France. Under the French rules of succession, Christa was a countess in her own right as well as her father’s sole heir, and she had been one of the most sought after young ladies in Paris during her one brief social season before the ancien régime collapsed around their ears. Afterward, the d’Estelles lived quietly in Paris while the count worked for the social reforms he had urged for the previous two decades.

  Christa privately thought her father’s illness was caused by a broken heart over the tragedy revolution was bringing to his beloved France. Her half-brother, Charles Radleigh, had repeatedly urged them to come to England, but her father refused, determined to use his influence to moderate the explosive political situation. After his death and her mother’s subsequent collapse, Christa waited in an agony of anxiety until Marie-Claire had regained some of her strength.

  As soon as her mother was able, Christa hired a shabby cart and started them north from Paris, toward Normandy and the small estate where they had often summered. The d’Estelles had been well-liked in the area, and she thought a fisherman would take them across the Channel. The noblewomen and their two servants had dressed in the drab clothes of peasants to prevent unwelcome attention from suspicious Guards or hostile sans-culottes.

  Alarmed by the lack of news, Charles had crossed the Channel to find them. For all his blond English looks, his long visits in France with his mother and her second family enabled him to pass as a Frenchman. He and his young half-sister were closer than most full siblings, and he used that bond to deduce what she had done. After weeks of searching he found them resting in a village fifty miles south of their goal.

  Christa had never been so glad to see anyone in her life; she hadn’t really acknowledged her fear and exhaustion until she had someone to share the responsibility. With Charles’s help they made much better speed. He had crossed the Channel with a helpful English fisherman cum smuggler who promised to return to a remote cove on the night of three consecutive full moons. The deserted site chosen was accessible only on the high twice-monthly spring tides. March was the third month; if they missed this meeting, they would have to find other transport, running the risk of being seized as traitors.

  Christa released her brother and put as much raillery in her tone as she could. “And you, great oaf, must move those clumsy feet or we shall be late for our appointment. On with you!”

  He squeezed her hand encouragingly. “Almost there, little one. We shall be in plenty of time.”

  Christa’s world narrowed to the rhythm of her footsteps. Place the foot carefully, don’t shift full weight until sure it will be supported. Ignore the twisted ankle and bruises from earlier falls, the hunger from a day and a half’s fasting, the fear of being discovered by Guardsmen or bandits. Left, right. Left, right.

  The path slanted down to the shore and she collided with Charles when he reached the beach level and stopped. He put one arm out warningly, his eyes scanning the shadowed beach for the smugglers’ skiff. They both jumped when a voice sounded from no more than two arms’ lengths away.

  “Are ye looking for us, yer lordship?”

  Charles’s soft laughter was shaky with relief. “Alan, you blackguard! Are you trying to scare me into an early grave?”

  “I misdoubt it would take more than me. Would this be her ladyship?” The voice was uneducated but immensely comforting to Christa—the sailor sounded so very English. In these past months she had come to fear the voices of her own countrymen, always worried that someone would choose to denounce the d’Estelles for some imagined crime.

  She stepped forward, one hand out exploringly. “Is this the so-brave English captain? You have my gratitude, monsieur.”

  “Eh, I’m no monsewer, little lady. Just plain Alan Brown the fisherman. And happy the lads and me are to save some folk from the chopping block.”

  A thinning of the clouds showed her his burly shape, with the shadows of two more sailors behind him. She reached out and grasped the captain’s hard hand. In the moment of silence that followed, the explosive sound of bullets shattered the night air. All three of them whirled. The shots were close, perhaps no farther than the other side of the sea cliff. A woman screamed, her voice cutting off abruptly as another shot sounded. />
  “Maman!” Christa cried out, and tried to bolt toward the cliff.

  Before she could take three steps, Charles seized her and pulled her back. His voice razor-sharp with tension, he said tersely, “Alan, take care of Christa! I will see what has happened.”

  “Charles! I am going with you!”

  “You can do nothing but cause me worry. I am armed. If anything can be done, I will do it. Alan, hold her! Bind her if you must, but don’t let her follow. Promise me you will get her to safety … no matter what happens to the rest of us.” He grabbed her in a quick savage hug. “If Maman and I don’t make it back—remember that you must do enough living for all of us.”

  Christa hugged him in fierce response but released him quickly. Though her heart cried to follow, she knew he was right—her presence might only make things worse. One of the silent sailors from the darkness beyond Alan slipped up the path after Charles as a fusillade of new gunshots sounded. Her body shaking uncontrollably, Christa saw the two men dimly silhouetted against the night sky as they silently moved over the bluff. She was possessed by an icy conviction that she would never see her brother and mother again.

  Alan grasped her upper arm and said with rough kindness, “Come on, lass, I’ll row you out to the ship. Whether they return or no, we’ll have to leave soon or we’ll lose the tide.”

  Her shivering worsened on the short ride to the vessel and she almost fell from the rope ladder as she pulled her exhausted body up. Alan Brown sent the skiff back to the beach as a stiffening wind broke up the clouds, revealing the shore with dangerous clarity. The boat had hardly touched ground before a dark figure ran over the bluff, skidded down the sandy incline, and raced across the beach to hurl himself into the waiting boat as wild shots pursued him. The skiff flew across the choppy water to the mother ship; as soon as it was secured, the three sailors inside scrambled up over the railing, their leader calling hoarsely, “Away now!”

  Christa watched it all, numb to her very core. As desperately as she hoped the fugitive was Charles, she had known immediately that it must be Alan’s crewman—the height and build were wrong for her brother. As sails were raised and the anchor lifted, Alan conferred with the man who had escaped. Her teeth chattered and she gripped the railing with blue-white fingers as the captain turned and came reluctantly toward her. She was paralyzed by the fear of learning irrevocably what she had lost.

  “I’m sorry, lass. Apparently Guardsmen set on your mother’s party. Bob here saw your brother take a bullet in the head.” He stopped, unnerved by the implacability of the words, then added quietly, “No survivors.” He took her arm again and said, “Come below now, miss. Have some soup to warm you. We’ll see you make it home to England.”

  She stared at the black shore falling away behind them, orange flashes and dark echoes rolling across the water as futile shots followed the rapidly departing ship. In a voice as stark as death she said, “I have no home.”

  She watched until nothing more could be seen, the creaking rigging and forlorn cries of gulls making a mournful accompaniment to her desolation. When she finally slid into a faint, only Alan’s watchfulness saved her from falling over the railing. As he carried her below, he glanced at the still white face and thought it a mercy that for the moment she could feel no more.

  RADCLIFFE HALL

  BERKSHIRE, ENGLAND

  MARCH 16, 1795

  Marie-Christine Madeline Louise d’Estelle, Comtesse d’Estelle, usually known as Christa, sat in the velvet-cushioned window seat and traced patterns on the fogged window. When she looked at what she had drawn and saw that it was the d’Estelle coat of arms, she smiled with faint sadness. The time had come to let go of her old life and to begin again.

  She rose and crossed the richly furnished room to the fireplace, where a lively blaze worked against the damp chill of the gray March morning. On her way she picked up three pastel sketches from the satinwood Sheraton table. Kneeling before the flames, she lifted the first drawing and studied it. She was not a great artist but had a knack for portraits, and had made many drawings in the last year. From her portfolio she had chosen three pictures as the most characteristic.

  This first one was of her father, and it caught him well. Philippe and her mother had been cousins and they shared the dark hair and slight stature she had inherited. Her father’s merry, irreverent face was much like her own; not strikingly handsome, but with a brimming charm and vitality. He had given Christa his own curiosity and passion for learning, and the ability to find laughter in the midst of blackest tragedy. Laying the sketch carefully on the fire, she watched it char and curl around the edges before bursting into flames. “Adieu, Papa,” she said softly.

  When the paper was completely reduced to ash, she lifted the next sketch, studying the classically lovely face that radiated peace and serenity. Her mother was the most remarkable woman Christa had ever known, wise in the ways of the heart, knowledgeable about many things ladies seldom understood, and showing unshakable bravery during the horrifying months of the Terror.

  Most of all, Marie-Claire knew how to love with courage and generosity, never counting the cost though she had lost two husbands and three infants to premature death. Her daughter knew that if Marie-Claire were still alive, she would go forth and love again after she had done with mourning. Christa had never known her mother’s equal for womanly warmth and strength; while she herself was incurably frivolous and too impatient to achieve such heights, she dreamed that someday she would be at least half the woman her mother was.

  She looked one last time at the portrait, at Marie-Claire’s wondrously clear and expressive gray eyes that she had bequeathed to both her children. “I know you are taking care of Papa and all your children, Maman, wherever you may be. Do not fear for me; you taught me well. I shall strive to be worthy of you.” She watched as the flames consumed the picture, then looked at the last portrait.

  “You are the one who gave me the idea for this, Charles,” she said thoughtfully as she studied the handsome laughing face. “Remember the song you taught me, called the ‘The Unquiet Grave’? You have forgotten? So careless, Charles! It was about a maiden who sat and wept on her true love’s grave for twelve months and a day. Then his spirit rose and complained that her grief disturbed his peace and she must cease to mourn. You told me I must live for both you and Maman, and I promise you I shall.”

  The portrait was overlaid with a vivid mental image of her brother, and her voice was a whisper as she added, “But I would not be denied my year of grieving.”

  Christa laid the picture on the flames and continued unsteadily, “No one has ever been more fortunate in her father or mother or brother. I thank you all for the love and joy you brought into my life. And now I release you.”

  She stood and watched as the last scrap of paper was devoured, Charles’s smile lingering in her memory. “Va avec le bon Dieu, ma chère famille,” she said quietly. There were no tears; she had shed enough in the past twelvemonth.

  Now that she had performed this private ritual to honor her lost family, she felt a sudden rush of freedom and lightness. Throwing her head back and spreading her arms outward, she reached inside to the central core of exuberance she had voluntarily abandoned in the last year. “I have honored my dead with grieving; now it is time to honor them with life.”

  Chapter One

  BRITISH CROWN

  COLONY OF GIBRALTAR

  MARCH, 1795

  Peter Harrington braced himself before knocking on the door. His noble patient, Captain Lord Alexander Kingsley, Viscount Kingsley and officer of His Majesty’s Royal Navy, had been raising merry Hades with the household ever since he had recovered consciousness from his wounds. His good-natured mischief made him a handful under normal conditions; how would he react to Harrington’s unwelcome news?

  He knocked and entered the high-ceilinged bedroom without waiting, only to be walloped full-face with a feather pillow. “Alex Kingsley! What the devil … ?” Further commen
t was cut off by a new barrage of pillows. Abandoning his Hippocratic oath and doctorly dignity, Peter scooped up one of the pillows and fired it back at the tanned face grinning from the bed. The ensuing five minutes bore considerably more resemblance to a nursery riot than a meeting between two gentlemen of mature years and superior station.

  The battle ended when Peter collapsed laughing into a chair by the bed. “Now, just what the devil was that all about?” he demanded. Alex brushed a few feathers out of his collar-length blond hair and chuckled, amber-brown eyes twinkling from his long, high-cheekboned face.

  “I wanted to prove that my throwing arm had recovered. Now will you let me out of this cell?”

  Peter scanned the whitewashed walls, comfortable furniture, and bright fabrics, then snorted. He was a solid man of middle height; the premature streaks of gray in his dark hair made him look older than his thirty-one years. “If you think this is a cell, I should have left you in the military hospital. This is a palace by comparison.”

  His gaze was affectionate as it rested on his childhood friend. They had grown up on adjoining estates, running wild together whenever they could escape their keepers. Both had cherished inappropriate ambitions—Peter to become a doctor, Alex to go to sea. It had been hard for Peter to convince his father to let him study such a middle-class profession as medicine, but he was the youngest of three sons in a family of no extraordinary fortune, and his father was an understanding man. The Honorable Alexander had a much harder struggle; his father had been reluctant to let his heir embark on the dangers of a military career and had given permission only after a younger son was born and giving every evidence of lusty good health.

  Alex looked repentant. “You must know how much I appreciate your taking me in, Peter. If you hadn’t stopped them, they would have cut off my left arm. Cursed nuisance, since I’m left-handed.” He gave a half-smile and added, “Considering the shape I was in at the time, they could have taken anything they wanted, and welcome. I’m still surprised Sarah would let you in when you brought my battered carcass home.”