The Enemy At Home

by Meriol Trevor

Genres: Historical Romance; Regency Romance

Synopsis

For Seraphine de Trévires, love would have to wait. It was marriage she longed for - marriage to Dominique d'Erlen, traitor and usurper of his brother's estates. But this was the time of the French revolution; armies were on the march and disaster threatened all of Europe. The loveless union was Seraphine's only hope of seeing Paris and the glittering world of her dreams. And then she met the handsome English soldier who, left by the French to die in a forgotten dungeon, so completely won her heart that love left her no choice. No choice, but instead an agonizing decision...

Release date: August 15, 2013

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 192

Sample

That journey to Luxembourg during the Peace of Amiens, which turned out so much more dangerous than was expected, was to alter the whole course of life for Marie Elisabeth de Gaudray. So it did too for Toby Kingston, but neither could guess it when they met for the first time at the cottage in Brompton where Toby’s sister Petronella lived with her husband Thierry de Ravanger, Comte d’Isenbourg, exiled from Luxembourg by the Revolution.

It was M. de Ravanger who came to see Marie Elisabeth after the death of her old uncle, the comte de Rehoncourt, one of the stiffest of the French émigré nobility. She was all alone, except for the servants, in the rented house in Marylebone, wondering what was going to happen to her. It was late in the autumn of 1802 and she was not quite eighteen.

M. de Ravanger was an unimpressive man of about thirty-five. Slender in build, he limped in his walk, with one leg a little crooked. But he had a pleasant wide smile which made deep creases in his thin cheeks.

“My wife and I hope you will come and live with us, mademoiselle,” he said. “After all, your young cousin Ludovic d’Erlen lives with us—though his father is supposed to be coming to fetch him away soon.”

Marie Elisabeth was astonished. In her mind she could still hear her old uncle’s acid remarks about M. de Ravanger.

“Sells pianofortes! There is a Luxembourgeois for you! The comte d’Isenbourg selling musical instruments to rich Englishmen! It is very sad that Louis has to live in such surroundings.”

He always called his grandson Louis, not Ludovic. After his daughter’s death he had wanted to keep the boy and was indignant that his absent father, Gabriel d’Erlen, insisted that Ludovic should live with Thierry de Ravanger. Old M. de Gaudray had kept up quite an enmity against M. de Ravanger and so Marie Elisabeth, who had never met him, imagined that he would be hostile to anyone of the name of Gaudray.

“Live with you, monsieur!” she said now, in her surprise. “But I have no claim upon you.”

All the same, since she had no claim upon anyone else in England, it was a relief to think she might find a home at all, even if it was with a count from Luxembourg who was so ungentlemanly as to sell musical instruments for a living.

“You have the best claim, my child,” said Thierry de Ravanger with his friendly smile, “in that you have no family left to look after you. Besides, my wife would like your company, for except for my English stepmother, we are rather a masculine society when we are all at home. You have been at school here, I know, so you will be used to speaking English.”

They had been talking, of course, in French.

Marie Elisabeth had indeed been wondering if she should not write to her old schoolmistress and ask if she might go back there, perhaps to teach French. It was not an exciting prospect.

“At any rate, come and stay with us for a while,” said Thierry de Ravanger.

And so Marie Elisabeth went to Brompton, a village on the western outskirts of London. The cottage was a comfortable small house with a garden, and seemed to the lonely girl overflowing with people, mostly men and boys. The only one she had met before was her cousin Ludovic d’Erlen, who was now fourteen.

Ludovic, a wiry, brown-skinned boy with a shock of dark hair, greenish gray eyes and a wide grin, greeted her cheerfully.

“A bit different from grand-pére’s miniature Versailles, isn’t it, Marise?” he said, catching up a barking puppy under his arm.

Her mother had called her Marise, and she liked it. She found that at Brompton she became Marise to everyone within a few hours.

Marie Elisabeth had come to England in the year of terror, nine years ago, fleeing with her mother from Paris after her father had been sent to the guillotine. At first they lived at the school kept by her mother’s friend. Old M. de Gaudray thought his much younger brother had made a mésalliance, and when they visited the house in Marylebone they were always nervous. It was only when her mother died that Marise went to live there and it had never seemed like home. The comte de Rehoncourt had strict ideas on manners and expected instant obedience, submissive silence and a straight back at all hours of the day or night.

His only daughter, Madame d’Erlen, who was Ludovic’s mother, had been no easier, a cold, critical person. She had died, however, in 1797, five years ago—that was when Ludovic had gone to live with M. de Ravanger, who was his godfather and his father’s cousin.

At Brompton, Marie Elisabeth’s boxes were carried upstairs, rather to her embarrassment, by two young men who were, it seemed, Thierry de Ravanger’s half brothers.

“I’m Sigi and that’s Jo,” said the slighter of the two, fair, with bright blue eyes and a sideways smile. “You won’t see much more of him for he’s in the British army and off soon to the carousels he calls work.”

Jo, tall and brown, smiled and put Manse’s box down in a tiny room. “We do apologize for the room, Mademoiselle Marise,” he said. “This house never seems big enough, somehow.”

He hauled his more talkative brother away, leaving their guest to herself. Marise took off her hat and stood in front of the glass smoothing her glossy brown hair, combing a curl or two around her fingers.

She was not a beautiful girl, but she had an appealing charm; her figure was well made, rather plump, with pretty arms and shoulders and she had a heart-shaped face with very large brown eyes gazing somewhat anxiously out.

“One has to make the best of oneself,” she murmured, settling her dress carefully. The dark color of mourning did not suit her, She was inclined thus to address herself; it seemed to give her confidence.

There came a quick knock at the door and a large fair woman who looked about fifty came bustling in and warmly embraced her, explaining that she was Sophie de Ravanger, Thierry’s English stepmother. “And the mother of those dreadful boys,” she said. “Though as both of them are now over twenty I suppose I must try to think of them as men.” She giggled at the notion and went on to give apologies from Petronella, Thierry’s English wife, who had been resting when Marise arrived.

“Poor lamb, she has had an unhappy year,” said Sophie. “They lost their little girl—such a love, not two years old—and then Petronella had a miscarriage. She is never ill in general, but all this has pulled her down. I am glad you have come, for it will be nice for her to have a young girl about.”

As they went downstairs they could hear a pianoforte. Marise recognized the rapid rippling music. “Those variations of Mozart’s!” she said with pleasure. “On the old tune of La Belle Françoise, isn’t it? Who is playing?”

“Oh, Thierry—no one else here can play like that,” said Sophie, with a smile.

They went into the drawing room quietly; he did not see them and continued playing. A young woman of about thirty, rather thin, with a head of coppery curls, was lying on a sofa listening. She smiled at Marise.

A moment later the gentle tune concluded the variations.

“And here is la belle françoise in person,” said Petronella de Ravanger. Her husband turned around on the stool and apologized.

“She recognized your Mozart,” said Sophie, sitting down.

They all sat and talked, Marise rather shyly. She was glad when attention was diverted by the arrival of a little boy about five years old, who came charging in headlong. He was the most attractive little creature, Marise thought, with thick red-brown curly locks and forget-me-not-blue eyes. He was thin and brown, with his father’s wide smile, and bursting with restless energy and curiosity. He stared at Marise with keen interest.

“Who is that pretty lady?” he demanded.

“She is Ludovic’s cousin, Marise,” said Thierry de Ravanger. “Make your bow, Reynault.”

The little fellow jumped up and made a very neat bob. Marise smiled at him.

“Ludovic is lucky,” said Reynault jealously. “Why haven’t I got a pretty lady cousin?”

Petronella laughed. “Because none of your uncles is married,” she said, “not even your aged Uncle Toby.”

“Uncle Toby isn’t aged,” said Reynault. “He’s got red hair, not gray hair.”

“Toby is my brother,” Petronella explained to Marise.

Ludovic just then came in, saying that surely it must be dinner time, he had never been so hungry in his life. Shortly afterwards they went to dinner, rather a crowd around the table, and all talking at once, sometimes in English and sometimes in French, and sometimes in the Germanic dialect of Luxembourg, which sounded outlandish to Marise.

“We don’t like to let the young one forget it,” Thierry de Ravanger said to her. “Reynault has never been in Luxembourg, of course. We are thinking of going there now that there’s peace, to see how things go on.”

“Could you do that safely?” Marise asked. She knew that the duchy of Luxembourg, once part of the Holy Roman Empire, had resisted the revolutionary army which had invaded it and conquered it, making it a part of France. “I know that some French émigrés are returning to France now, under the consulate,” she said. “But I suppose it is different for you.”

“I should not go under my own name,” said Thierry de Ravanger. “Perhaps as a businessman for my own firm, here in London!” He smiled. “I have been back once, when the situation was much more disturbed than it is now—in ’98, when Gabriel was fighting in the peasants’ rebellion.”

“Ludovic’s father, Gabriel d’Erlen,” Petronella explained. “We are expecting him here soon to fetch Ludo, whom he hasn’t seen for years. That house where you lived with M. de Gaudray really belongs to Gabriel, you know.”

Marise had not known; her uncle had never mentioned it. She was very surprised. M. de Gaudray had never had a good word for his son-in-law and yet the very house where he lived was his.

Petronella noticed her expression. “Gabriel and madame your cousin never got on well together, Marise,” she said. “It was a marriage made by the parents which did not work. He has married again and I sometimes wonder how that will do. I remember Claudine as a quiet little girl—she is much younger than he.”

Thierry smiled. “I fancy Claudine manages Gabry all right!” he said. “She grew up with a mind of her own.”

Marise asked Ludovic if he could remember his father, since it was seven years since he had seen him.

“I remember someone who seemed enormously big and had a red scar on his cheek,” said Ludovic. “He used to pretend to fight me—that was great fun, especially when he fell down.” Then he said carelessly, “I don’t know that I want to go and live with him in Vienna, all the same.” He jumped up and ran away, chasing his puppy, with Reynault at his heels.

“It is something of a problem,” said Petronella. “Thierry is much more like a father to him than his own father.”

“That is not Gabry’s fault,” said Thierry.

“I think he might have come sooner,” said Petronella. “We have had over a year of peace now—or the Austrians have.”

They talked on about the war and the present situation while Marise listened and thought that staying at Brompton was a great deal more interesting than living with old M. de Gaudray, for though he had many visitors, they rarely took any notice of her except to ask occasionally whom she was to marry.

Marise had always hated this, because her uncle would run through a list of possible husbands, most of whom seemed to be as old as himself, widowers and émigrés. The only one under fifty was a M. de Clairville, who had recently come back from a period in America, but M. de Gaudray had been shocked to find he was considering a return to France, to the new order instituted by Napoleon Bonaparte. M. de Clairville was tall, a soldierly, fair man, but Marise found him formidable. His cool, critical gaze reminded her too much of her much older cousin Anne-Louise, Ludovic’s mother; as they were related, the likeness was not fortuitous. He appeared not averse to marrying Marise but had never said anything to her about it; no one had asked her opinion.

Marise found her first evening at Brompton interesting, but not a little tiring, meeting so many new people all at once. In the morning, however, Thierry and his brothers had left the house before she got up. Petronella explained that Jo had gone back to his regiment and Sigi to his present job. “He is always getting thrown out of his jobs,” she said. “I am sure he will never stick to this one, in a bank where a fellow émigré is a partner.”

“And does M. de Ravanger really … work for a music firm?” asked Marise, not liking to say “Sell pianofortes.”

But Petronella was not sensitive on the point. “Oh yes, and the firm values him so highly that they made no difficulty about taking him back after he was away for months in Luxembourg, in ’98,” she said.

Although Petronella was twelve years older than Marise, the girl found her a lively and friendly companion. They went out walking and shopping together, and Marise helped to teach little Reynault to dance. He did lessons with old Abbé Kiëm, the priest who had come with the family, but his mother taught him music and drawing and dancing; she was quite accomplished in the arts. Ludovic went to school at Westminster, starting out every morning with Thierry and Sigi.

Although it seemed to Marie Elisabeth a casual and informal household, it had a basic order, she discovered, and everybody was always busy with something. As money was a problem, even the women contributed, Petronella coloring drawings for a printseller and Sophie copying sheets of music. “I never was much good with my needle,” she confessed. “You do it most beautifully.”

It was true; Marise had a talent for embroidery and she liked doing it. One could sit and listen and think, while one’s fingers worked at some elegant pattern. Now she began to wonder if she should not help too, and try to sell her work. When she shyly suggested it, Petronella laughed and said, “But what would M. de Clairville think?”

She had soon discovered about M. de Clairville and liked to tease Marie Elisabeth on the subject. It appeared that years ago, M. de Clairville had been something of an enemy to M. de Ravanger. “But that is all forgotten,” Petronella said. “We have not met him, however, for a long time.”

She thought he must be forty at least. “He is too old for you, little Marise! No, no—you must marry a nice young Englishman, one of Jo’s friends.”

“Why not Jo?” said Sophie, with a laugh.

“Jo can’t marry with nothing but a lieutenant’s pay,” said Petronella. “Don’t I remember Toby’s youthful frustrations—but how lucky he wasn’t able to marry the silly girls he fell in love with! Any pretty lively girl could catch Toby’s fancy.”

Marise was amazed at the freedom with which they discussed such subjects. It was hardly even surprising when Reynault, who was sitting beside her looking at a picture book, suddenly stood up on the sofa and hugged her, saying with enthusiasm, “I am going to marry Marise, when I’m grown up!”

That caused much laughter and Sophie said, “Reynault seems to have been born with the droit de seigneur fixed in his mind!”

It was November before a letter arrived from Gabriel d’Erlen, which Thierry read out to them in the evening.

“Every fate seems to be against our getting to England,” Gabriel had written. “I told you Claudine was anxious to travel before the baby’s arrival. Well, now he has come early, and here we are, stuck in Baden—a pleasant enough place to be stuck in, but a long way from England.”

“The baby born before time? Oh dear,” said Sophie.

“Gabriel says Claudine is quite well, however,” said Thierry, “and the baby evidently has sufficient Erlen forcè to make up for what Gabry calls his haste to seize the pleasures of existence at the earliest opportunity.”

“A boy—and they have a girl already,” said Petronella. “Well, Ludovic! A brother for you.”

“It can’t seem like one,” said Ludovic, lounging by the fire, hands in pockets.

“Of course Claudine can’t travel immediately,” said Sophie. “What will they do?”

“Gabry suggests I take Petronella to Baden and bring Ludovic,” said Thierry. “He says to sell the house in Marylebone and come on the proceeds.”

Petronella’s amber-brown eyes glowed. “Oh, Thierry! Could we? How wonderful it would be!”

He leant on the end of her sofa, looking at her with affection. “Would you like that, my love?” And when she breathed assent he went on, “Well, why not? And then fulfill our plan and go into Luxembourg? I could get myself papers in Baden as a German—with an English wife.”

The plan was talked of all the evening and Thierry decided to speak to his employers next day. “Though I don’t suppose we can get off before Christmas,” he said.

In fact, it was to be much later than Christmas before they actually left, for it was just about then that Petronella discovered she was pregnant again. After the loss of her little girl and her miscarriage, she longed for another baby and was so much afraid of losing this one that she dared not travel. But Thierry knew it would be a great disappointment to her, as well as an anxiety, if he were to go without her. In the end they decided to wait three months and then, if all was well, Petronella thought she might risk the journey. They would travel en famille, with Reynault as well as Ludovic.

“And you too, Marise, if you would like to come with us,” said Petronella in her warm, generous way.

It made Marise feel almost part of the family; she was eager to go with them.

And Toby Kingston, who had come for Christmas, observed that as he was due for some long leave in March, he might as well come with them.

Toby had walked in one cold December evening, with presents in the pockets of his big overcoat and the minimum of luggage—one bag which he carried himself. He had sent his personal servant home for Christmas.

Reynault rushed up to him in high excitement and played hide-and-seek through his pockets till he had found everything, with whoops of delight.

“Hey! That sovereign’s not for you—it’s for Ludo,” said Toby. He spun the coin through the air to Ludovic, who dived forward to catch it.

Toby, like his sister, had thick curly red hair, but his was much redder and thicker than hers. He had none of her waiflike charm, being strongly built, though not heavy, with a snub nose and a large mouth which seemed almost always to be smiling. His eyes were gray and good-humored.

To Marie Elisabeth he seemed impossibly English, and she was astonished that he was an army officer, a major, she gathered. She could not imagine anyone ever obeying his orders; she could not re. . .