The Eagle of the Empire: A Story of Waterloo, Cyrus Townsend Brady [best thriller books to read .txt] 📗

on service in Spain and the South of France with the Duke of Wellington's army, and only a few weeks before had he joined her uncle and herself in Paris on leave of absence. He had pressed her to name the day but she had temporized and avoided the issue; not for any definite reason but because as the time drew near she became less and less willing to be the Englishman's wife.

Marteau had been reported killed at Arcis. Perhaps that report had done more to enlighten her to the true state of her affections than anything else. Her pride of birth, her rank and station would never have permitted her, it may be, to dwell upon a living Marteau as a possible husband, but since he was dead there could be no harm in dreams of that kind; and in her grief she had indulged herself in them to the full. It had been a shock to her, of course, but not so great a shock as it would have been if an engagement had subsisted between the two, or she had permitted herself to think that she could ever look favorably on the proposition he had made to her. Nevertheless, it had been a great sorrow. There were some alleviations to the situation, however. Since it had become impossible, since she believed Marteau dead, she could indulge her grief and her mind could dwell upon those attractions which had influenced her so powerfully.

The period was one of intense anxiety and excitement. The old Marquis had lived much alone. He was not versed in woman's ways. Her agitation and grief passed unnoticed. By degrees she got control of herself. Since it was not to be Marteau it might as well be young Yeovil. The whole episode with which the French officer was concerned she viewed from a point of detachment as a romantic dream. His arrival had rudely shattered that dream and awakened her to the reality of the situation. She loved him.

For Laure d'Aumenier to marry Marteau was impossible. The Marquis would never consent. He was her legal guardian, the head of her race. Marriage without his consent was unthinkable. Loving Marteau she would fain not marry Yeovil; yet her troth being plighted in the most public manner and with her consent, the Marquis would force her to keep her word. She knew exactly the pressure that would be brought to bear upon her. Although she had lost some of the pride of her ancestors, she could see the situation from their point of view. There was a deadlock before her and there appeared to be no way of breaking it.

It was a wild night outside. The rain beat upon the casement windows of the old castle. The tempest without seemed fit accompaniment to the tempest within, thought the woman.

A long time she lay thinking, planning, hoping, praying; alike unavailingly. Toward morning, utterly exhausted by the violence of her emotions, the scene she had gone through—and it had been a torture to stand and receive the townspeople after the departure of Marteau—she fell at last into a troubled sleep.

She was awakened by a slight sound, as of a light footstep. She enjoyed the faculty of awakening with full command of her senses at once. She parted the curtains of the bed. With her eyes wide open, holding her breath, she listened. She heard soft movements. There was someone in the room!

Laure d'Aumenier, as has been said, had been trained to self-reliance. She could wield a sword expertly and was an accurate shot with a firearm. She could ride with any woman in England. She had, in full, the intrepidity and courage of her ancestors. Her prowess, so strange and so unusual in that day in a woman, had been a subject of disapproval on the part of her uncle, but Sir Gervaise Yeovil and his son had viewed it with delight. Frank Yeovil had brought her from Spain a beautiful Toledo blade and a pair of Spanish dueling pistols, light, easily handled and of deadly accuracy. The blade hung from a peg in the wall by the head of her bed. The pistols lay in a case on the table upon which her lighted bedroom candle stood. They were charged and ready for use.

Throwing back the cover without a sound, presently she stepped through the hangings and out on the floor. A loose wrapper lay at the foot of the bed, which was a tall old four-poster, heavily curtained. Whoever was in the room was on the other side of the bed, near the wall. The curtains hung between.

She was as light as a bird in her movements. She drew the bed-gown nearer, thrust her feet into heelless slippers, placed convenient for her morning rising by her maid, opened the box of pistols, lifted one of them, examining it on the instant to see that it was ready for use, slipped on the wrapper, stepped toward the foot of the bed and waited.

The beat of the rain, the shriek of the wind, the roar of the thunder filled the room with sound, but the woman had good ears and they were well trained. She could hear someone softly moving. Sometimes, in lulls in the storm, she thought she could detect heavy breathing.

The natural impulse of the ordinary woman would have been to scream or if not that, having gained the floor, to rush to the door, or if not that to pull the bell cord and summon help. But Laure d'Aumenier was not an ordinary woman. She knew that any sound would bring aid and rescue at once. There would be plenty of time to scream, to pull the bell or to do whatever was necessary later. And something, she could not tell what, something she could not recognize, impelled her to take the course she did; to wait, armed.

But the wait began to tell on her sensibilities. The sound of somebody or something moving mysteriously to-and-fro behind the curtains over against the wall at the other end of the room began to work on her nerves. It takes an iron steadiness, a passive capacity for endurance which is quite different from woman's more or less emotional courage, to wait under circumstances like that.

Just when she had reached the limit of her endurance and was persuaded that she could stand no more, her attention was attracted by a slight click as of a lock or catch, a movement as of something heavy, as of a drawer or door, and then the footsteps turned and came toward the window. The moment of action had arrived and with it came the return of her wavering courage.

To reach the window the intruder must pass by the foot of the bed where she stood. Now the light was on the table at the head of the bed and the table was far enough from the bed to shine past her into the room. The moving figure suddenly came into view. It was a man, shrouded in a heavy cloak. He did not glance toward the bed. His eyes were fixed on the window. His astonishment, therefore, was overwhelming when he suddenly found himself looking into the barrel of a pistol and confronted by a woman.

CHAPTER XXII IN THE COUNTESS LAURE'S BED-CHAMBER

That astonishment was so great when the man recognized the woman that he threw up his hands and stepped backward. As he did so his sodden cloak, which he had gathered closely around him, opened and fell. The next instant his hand tore his hat from his head and he stood revealed in the full light of the candle.

"Marteau!" exclaimed the woman in a surprise and dismay equal to that of the man she confronted.

Her arm that held the pistol dropped weakly to her side. With the other hand she drew the peignoir about her, a vivid crimson wave rushed over her whole body. To surprise a man, a thief, in her room at night, was one thing; to confront the man she loved in such a guise was another. Her heart rose in her throat. For a moment she thought she would have fainted.

"You! You!" she choked out brokenly. "Mon Dieu!"

"Mademoiselle," began the man desperately, his confusion and dismay growing with every flying moment, "I——"

"What do you here," she went on impetuously, finding voice, "in my bedroom at night? I thought you——"

"For God's sake hear me. I came to——" and then he stopped lamely and in agonized embarrassment.

"For what did you come?" she insisted.

"Mademoiselle," he said, throwing his head up, "I cannot tell you. But when I was stationed here before this was the bedroom of the Commanding-Officer. I supposed it was so still. I had not the faintest idea that you—that it was——"

"And what would you do in the bedroom of the Commanding-Officer?" asked the woman, forgetting for the moment the strangeness of the situation in her anxiety to solve the problem.

"And that, I repeat, I cannot tell."

"Not even to me, who——" she stopped in turn.

"Yes, yes, go on," urged the young man, stepping nearer to her. "Not even to you who——"

"Who espoused your cause in the hall this very night, who befriended you," she went on rather lamely and inadequately having checked herself in time.

"Oh," said the young officer in great disappointment, "that?"

"Yes."

"You see, the Governor——"

"Did you wish to kill him?"

"Mademoiselle!" he protested. "I swear to you that I would not harm him for the world but I——"

"Are you in need? He offered you money. I have a few resources."

"For God's sake, mademoiselle," interposed the officer desperately, but she went resolutely on.

"Whatever I have is yours. See——" she stripped rings from her fingers and proffered them—"take them."

"Mademoiselle," said the young man sadly, "you wrong me."

"Well, if it was not for murder or for gain, for what cause did you take so frightful a risk?"

"Is there no other motive, mademoiselle, that makes men risk their lives than revenge or greed?"

"What do you mean?"

"Love."

"But you said you did not know this was my room!"

The words came from her impetuously and before she thought she realized when it was too late.

"Ah, mademoiselle, love of woman is a great passion. I know it only too well, too sadly. But it is not the only love."

"Have you another in your heart?" asked the Countess with a sinking in her own.

"Love of honor."

"I don't understand."

"And yet I know that you are the very soul of honor yourself."

"I thank you, but——"

"Mademoiselle," said the young man, coming to a sudden resolution, "appearances are frightfully against me. That I should be here, in your room, at this hour of the night, under the circumstances, condemns me utterly in your opinion, especially as I have offered no adequate explanation. I am about to throw myself on your mercy, to trust to your honor."

"You shall not trust in vain, monsieur."

"I know that. I trusted to your honor in the Ch�teau d'Aumenier and you did not fail me then."

"Nor will I now."

"Will you give me your word not to reveal what I tell you, and not to make use of the knowledge I communicate, until I give you leave?"

"Does it concern the honor or the welfare of those I love?"

"You mean that Englishman?"

"I do not love—I mean the Marquis, my uncle."

"It does not," said the young man, noting with throbbing heart the broken sentence.

"Then I give my promise. Speak."

"I came here to conceal something, mademoiselle."

"What?"

"An emblem."

"Yours?"

"The Emperor's."

"You mean——"

"The Eagle of the Fifth-regiment-of-the-Line."

"Why here?"

"It is a long story. I brought it back, having fished it out of the river Aube, where it had lain since that day——"

"When I thought you killed," said the young woman, her hand pressed to her heart.

"And were you sorry?"

"Sorry? I—— But go on."

"I showed it to the officers of the regiment tonight at Major Lestoype's quarters. We were discovered. The matter was reported to your uncle. Rather than give up the Eagle I said that I would hide it."

"And why here?"

"Because being as I thought the quarters of the Commanding-Officer it would be the last place in Grenoble where it would be sought."

"And where did you hide it?"

"Back of one of the drawers in the cupboard yonder."

"And how did you know of the place?"

"I was stationed here when I first joined the regiment.