Ramage's Devil

She was standing behind him now; he could feel her breasts pressing into his shoulder blades. 'What is it?' she whispered. 'It's so cold. Why aren't you wearing a robe? You'll get a chill.'

'French cavalry,' he said briefly. 'Quickly, dress in riding clothes. Don't try and light a lamp.'

He hurried across the room and pushed their two trunks so that, from the door, they were hidden by the armoire and commode. He then bundled up the clothes they had been wearing the previous evening and which they had been too tired to do more than drape over the chairs, and pushed them under the bed.

'What are you doing?'

'Hurry, darling. Something's happened and these soldiers aren't here on a search for Army deserters. They look more like an escort for Jean-Jacques or me. The second group was leading a riderless horse.' 'You don't think ... ?'

'The mayor of Landerneau may be trying to keep his furniture by telling the préfet some tale. Don't forget Jean-Jacques is very vulnerable - he's only recently returned from exile.'

She shivered as she sorted out underwear. 'And he has the notorious Captain Lord Ramage staying in his house.'

'That can't be a crime,' Ramage said as he pulled up his trousers, but his voice was doubtful, so that what was intended as a statement sounded like a question. 'Anyway, whatever they're up to I can't think the soldiers know anything about us. One spare horse ... that's for Jean-Jacques.'

'The officer in charge can easily leave two of his troopers behind, or have two of Jean-Jacques' horses saddled up for us. Or make us walk.'

'Let's rely on them not knowing we're here!'

'The servants,' Sarah said, ignoring her husband's attempts to reassure her, 'can they be trusted? Will they tell the soldiers we are here?'

'If you hurry up, we won't be here, darling,' Ramage said, reaching for his jacket. 'We'll be hiding in another room, so if the French soldiers search our suite they won't find us.'

'Dearest,' she whispered, 'do up my buttons.' She turned her back to him so that he could secure her coat. By now, he noticed, it was getting appreciably lighter. He had been thinking that the first cavalry had passed only a couple of minutes ago, but he realized it was now nearer five.

'There - now, my lady, hurry up or -'

He stopped and listened to the gentle but persistent tapping at the door. Tap, tap, tap - and then a hissed 'Milord ... milord...'

He recognized the voice: Jean-Jacques' valet Gilbert, a tiny, almost wizened Breton who had gone to England to share his master's exile and then returned after the Treaty of Amiens.

Ramage hurried to the door and the moment he had opened it the valet slipped through and shut it again.

'Ah, milord - and milady, of course - you are dressed.' Gilbert glanced round the room, noted the trunks and the lack of clothing and toilet articles lying about. 'You are prepared, then: this suite looks deserted - they will say the English have flown, if indeed they know you are supposed to be here. Quickly, please follow - I take you to a small room where you must hide.'

'But what -'

'I explain in a few minutes, milord: first, to safety!'

The valet shut the window ('No Frenchman would have a window open,' he explained) and they followed him out of the room, along the corridor away from the main part of the château, down a staircase where it was so dark they had to grip the rail and feel for the next step before moving, until finally the valet opened a door.

'An old storeroom, milord,' he explained. 'No one would seek you here, and there's a side door leading into one of the gardens.'

He extended a hand to Sarah. 'There is a small step up, milady. I am afraid there are simply these old packing cases, but we hope you will only have to wait an hour or two before returning to your suite.'

Ramage felt like a piece of flotsam swirling round rocks at the mercy of random waves, but before he had time to ask, the valet said: 'I have a message from the Count, milord, and some information I - er, well, I happened to hear. I took the liberty of listening beyond the door.

'The message from the Count is that he thinks France is again at war with Britain and you must escape. That was all he could say before the cavalry officer and his men came in to arrest him.'

'But you heard more?'

'Yes, sir, it is indeed war. The most important thing the cavalry officer said as he arrested the Count - on direct orders from Paris - was that Lord Whitworth, your ambassador in Paris, had left the capital on the twelfth of this month. He said this was close to a declaration of war. Then on the seventeenth the British authorities had detained all French and Dutch ships in their ports and issued commissions to privateers.'

He paused a moment, pulling at his nose as though that would stimulate his memory. 'Yes, then on the next day, the eighteenth, the British declared war on France and on the nineteenth ships of the Royal Navy captured some French coasting vessels off Audierne - almost in sight of Brest and, of course, in French waters.

'Then, according to the cavalry officer, on the twenty-third Bonaparte issued an order to detain British men between the ages of eighteen and sixty who are liable to serve in the British Army or Navy.'

Ramage glanced at Sarah. It was now the twenty-fifth of May. Britain and France had been at war for exactly a week. Yet yesterday when the two of them spent much of the day out on Pointe St Mathieu there had been no sign of police guarding the roads, no sign of a blockade; not a frigate on the horizon.

The valet seemed to have more to say, but whatever it was, he was not enjoying the prospect.

'Well, Gilbert, is that all?'

'No, milord, I regret it is not. You appreciate that my purpose in listening at the door was to obtain information to pass to you...'

'I am sure you were doing exactly what the Count would wish you to do, Gilbert, and we are grateful.'

'Well, milord, the cavalry officer stressed that the Count was being arrested on the orders of Bonaparte but as the result of information laid by the Countess - the former Countess, I mean. And she had told the authorities that he was likely to have English guests staying with him. That was why I wanted you to leave your suite quickly.'

'But they'll look in the trunks...'

Gilbert shook his head. 'I doubt it, sir: the suite looked unoccupied when I came to you. Not only that, it is hardly where you would expect to find guests...' There was no mistaking Gilbert's horror at the choice of rooms forced on the Count by the Revolution. 'The Count's own suite has even less furniture. Anyway, the soldiers will start their search in the kitchen -'

'The kitchen?'

'Oh yes, milord, straight to the kitchen - to look for wine. I sent Edouard there at once to make sure there was plenty readily available. Once the officer has taken the Count away and the soldiers start searching, they will be half drunk. I do not think it will be a careful search.'

'They were taking the Count away at once?' Sarah asked.

'The officer gave him ten minutes to dress and pack a small bag, milady.'

Ramage was conscious that what he did from now on would govern whether or not he was marched off to a French prison as a détenu, but he was much more frightened of Sarah's possible fate. A selfish thought slid in before he had time to parry it: being married did indeed mean you had given a hostage to fortune. Now he could understand Lord St Vincent's dictum, that an officer who married was lost to the Service. Quite apart from Sarah's own safety in a case like this (which was admittedly unusual), would a happily married officer risk his own life in battle with the same recklessness as a bachelor, knowing that he now had something very special to lose? And if he had children...