A/N: Those of you who know the book will notice that I have shamelessly used some of Baroness Orczy's plot and dialogue in this chapter, simply because A) it cannot be improved upon; and B) I love it...enjoy.
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Anthony could hear his wife weeping. He wanted to chase after that measly snake and beat him to within an inch of his life. But that would not help Tom … or anyone.
But he could take care of his beloved Edith. He straightened himself and then meandered around the corner into the corridor as though he was merely wandering in the direction of the supper room, ignorant of what had just occurred.
When he saw her he feigned stopping short and then approached her with concern that was entirely genuine.
"Edith? Is something the matter?"
She looked up, trying to hide her tears.
"Nothing to worry about. I just met someone … who was involved with events in France. It shook me, that's all. I can cope."
"My dear, I would never presume but, well, I don't want you to have to just cope if there is something that I can do to make it better." He gave her a sheepish, lopsided smile. "If you will allow me, that is. Are you in trouble?"
"Would you actually care, if I was?" she murmured with resignation.
"Yes, I would, very much" he answered definitely, coming to stand squarely in front of her. "Won't you start by telling me what upset you so?"
She looked into his sea-blue eyes. She had always loved his eyes, but tonight, suddenly and for only a fleeting moment, they gave her a strange, unpleasantly uneasy feeling as if she had seen eyes like them somewhere before. She shook it from her head. It was just a silly reaction to seeing Chauvelin, she told herself. No one has eyes like Anthony.
She blinked and looked again, and the vision was gone. She concentrated on Anthony instead, shaking her head into the present. It was certain that he was being sincere. Despite that, she still couldn't bring herself to trust him completely, not yet, but something in her demanded that she leave his offer open.
"Please, don't let's talk about it here. I'll tell you when we get home?"
"As you wish. Right now, you seem to me to be in need of a cup of something to fortify you. Would you allow me to fetch you some punch perhaps?"
"Thank you. That would be most welcome."
He bowed and left for the supper room. She watched him go, feeling distressed and confused. How was she supposed to intercept a note from Matthew to Andrew? If she didn't manage it, just as she hadn't managed to bring about the Austrians' aims in France, then what would happen to Tom? She feared Chauvelin to her very marrow, but she would not fail her sister and her husband. She looked around the corner to where the dancing was continuing. With rising panic, she failed to see Matthew anywhere. Perhaps he had already seen Andrew, and all was lost.
"Edith?"
She jumped at Anthony's quiet voice.
"Your drink, my dearest."
She took the cup and let him lead her to a nearby seat. They drank in silence for a moment.
"Sybil looks well, as does Suzanne though she's further gone, and both as blossoming as any mother-to-be should be" she began.
"I have not seen Suzanne tonight. I, too, was waylaid by a disagreeable personage, who is, alas, too important to cut: the French Ambassador, would you believe?!"
Edith spluttered into her punch. When she had recovered she gasped "Why? W-what did he want with you?"
"Some agricultural advice. It appears that having a Revolution caused by a lack of bread does not, in and of itself, provide more bread!" he answered sarcastically.
"And did you agree to provide him with what he wanted? Oh, please, Anthony, tell me you didn't!"
"Actually, he left quite abruptly, excusing himself. I fear I may have told truth to power a little too directly. Why are you so set against the man? I grant you he has dreadful manners."
"No reason" she answered, too quickly. "Perhaps I am just sensitive about Frenchmen still."
He took her hand and kissed it gently.
"That is quite understandable, my love. Would you rather leave early? I have to speak to the Prince, but we can go home after that if you want?"
She thought quickly: how fast could she find Matthew and extricate the note, and then report back to Chauvelin? "Yes, yes, I think that would be for the best, but don't hurry your audience with the Prince on my account. I'll be all right. Thank you, Anthony."
They parted, she to the dances where she quickly found Matthew, and he to the gaming tables where he found the Prince, just to offer the thanks expected by propriety for the invitation. He grinned to himself as he went, pleased that, when he had collected the punch for Edith earlier, he had seen Geoffrey Caudwell and asked him to find Mr Crawley quickly, to give him another note addressed to Andrew, with instructions to allow Edith to find him easily, and to let her use her wiles to extricate that second note from him, and only then to relay the original note to ffoulkes. It was all working out nicely. Edith was getting to complete her mission, and the Scarlet Pimpernel was able to feed misleading information to Citizen Chauvelin.
All in all, he felt, a good night's work.
…
A little while later Edith was once more sitting in Sir Anthony's carriage. When they had been courting, she would sit with him on the box-seat admiring the strong, yet gentle way that he controlled the four splendid horses. How long it felt since those happy days.
Twice in her life it had been forcefully borne in upon her how thoroughly someone can be overmastered by Fate: in France, and now tonight. Had anyone told her a week ago that she would stoop to spy on her brother-in-law and their friends, that she would betray into the hands of a relentless enemy a brave and unsuspecting man whom she did not know, but who had once saved her own life, she would have retorted bitterly that she had learned her lesson, that she would never get involved in intelligence and politics again.
Yet she had done these things. In France, her words and actions had been twisted by others, so the consequences were not entirely her fault. At least, that is what she told herself over and over again, although it did little good because she still didn't believe it. However, this very night she had done something similar deliberately. Yet, it was to save another innocent, brave man, her darling brother-in-law, the husband of her wonderful Sybil. Wasn't that a good enough excuse?
She looked up at her husband's handsome face, in profile as he looked out of the window deep in thought. He, at least, didn't know what had led her family almost to the guillotine, and she would do anything to stop him finding out. It scared her that he asked her about it. Did he suspect? He would hold her in such contempt if he knew. How much more would he despise her if he knew what she had done at the ball.
The carriage slowed and then veered into the expansive gates of their beautiful house. When Anthony had described it as "a modest place" he was most certainly lying: it was not palatial in its dimensions, but it was a very fine and substantial Palladian building, larger and as utterly charming as Loxley, though stone-built where Loxley was red brick. It stood in the midst of exquisitely laid-out gardens with a picturesque terrace and frontage to the Thames. Great cedar trees lent cool shadows to the grounds, and now, just as when she first saw it, Edith thought the house and garden looked the most peaceful in the world.
With unerring precision, Stewart brought the four bays to a standstill immediately in front of the fine entrance. Anthony himself opened the carriage door and jumped down quickly, then helped Edith to alight. She lingered outside waiting for him, but he gave a few orders to one of his men, seeming to forget all about her and their promise to talk. That seemed so typical of their relationship now. Giving up, she wanted to think, so instead of going in she skirted the house, and stepped on to the lawn, looking out over the silvery landscape. She heard the horses prancing as they were led away to their distant stables, the hurrying of servants' feet as they went inside to rest, and then the house was quite still once more. In two separate suites of apartments, above the magnificent reception rooms, lights were still burning; they were her rooms, and his, well divided from each other by the whole width of the house, as far apart as their own lives had become.
Never had she felt so lonely, so in want of comfort and sympathy. She turned away from the river towards the house, wondering if, after such a night, she would be able to sleep.
But before she reached the terrace, she heard a firm step upon the crisp gravel, and the next moment her husband's figure emerged out of the trees' shadow.
He apparently did not notice her, for after a few moments' pause he turned back towards the house and walked straight up to the terrace. For some reason it panicked her to think that he would go in without seeing her.
"Sir Anthony!"
He already had one foot on the lowest of the terrace steps, but at her voice he started, paused, then looked searchingly into the shadows.
She came forward quickly into the moonlight, and as soon as he saw her, he said, with that consummate gallantry he always had when speaking to her "At your service, my lady!"
But his foot was still on the step, his whole attitude suggesting that he wished to leave, and now had no desire for a midnight discussion concerning her troubles.
"Have you forgotten that we agreed to talk when we got home? Or are you too tired for it now?"
"No, my lady" he answered, "but I should think you must be exhausted. Perhaps you would prefer tomorrow sometime?"
Quietly, she murmured "I think it more truthful to state plainly, now that we are not in company, that you do not want to talk about what ails me, and that you do not care."
.
She looked divinely beautiful as she stood there with the cloak sliding off her lovely shoulders, the gold embroidery on her claret dress shimmering around her, the Scarlet Pimpernel made of rubies glittering in the moonlight, and her exquisite honey-golden eyes turned up to him.
He stood for a moment, rigid and still, but for the clenching of his hand against the stone balustrade of the terrace. Everything about him conveyed the solidity of the staid gentleman-farmer, the most boring man in England. Everything except his eyes, the colour of the ocean, almost glowing at her in the moonlight. For an instant she was again haunted by seeing eyes so terribly like his once before, but she could not remember where or when.
"You desired my presence" he said, shaking her from her thoughts. "I am at your command."
She was so close to him that her eyes, glowing with tears, maddened him, the music in her voice sent fire through his veins. He closed his eyes to shut out the vision of that sweet face, of that snow-white neck and graceful figure.
He had not hidden his feelings well. Now she saw that his stodgy aloofness was a mask. Hope flooded her that this man would help her to bear the burden.
"Sir Anthony," she said, "I wished to speak to you because … because I am in trouble, and have need of your sympathy."
"It is yours to command, my sweet one. In what way can I serve you?"
The mention of that wonderful endearment shattered any semblance of control she might have had only a moment before. All her fears tumbled out.
"Oh Anthony! Tom, Tom Branson, is in deadly danger. He has been arrested in Paris and is under sentence of death! He didn't stop working with the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel when he married as he told Sybil. Oh! It is all too horrible!"
Her tears now refused to be held back. She buried her face in her hands and sobbed.
He knew that Chauvelin, the master of cruelty, was blackmailing her. What was new was Edith's willingness to share how deeply it affected her. He said nothing for a moment, but his face creased with sympathy and tears glistened in his own eyes.
"Please, sweet one, will you not dry your tears? I never could bear to see you cry, and I …"
Instinctively, with sudden, overmastering love at the sight of her grief, he stretched out his arms, and would have seized her and held her to him, protected her from every evil with his own life, his very heart's blood. But he couldn't, not until she told him herself of her sacrifice. He knew without a doubt that he absolutely had to earn her trust again, he couldn't just blurt out that he knew her secret and assume that all would be well now. If he could just prove to her that he deserved to be told what she had hidden for so long.
And so, he restrained himself with a tremendous effort of will, and said very gently "Will you not turn to me, my darling, and tell me in what way I may have the honour to serve you?"
She turned her tear-stained face to him, and held out her hand which he kissed, but Edith's fingers lingered in his hand for a second or two longer than was absolutely necessary because she had felt that his hand trembled and was burning hot whilst his lips felt as cold as marble.
"Can you do anything for him?" she said simply. "You have so much influence at court."
"Perhaps, despite your dislike of him, we should instead seek the influence of your French friend, M. Chauvelin? His influence extends as far as the Republican Government of France." Another calculated risk. A prompt. A request. A hope.
She almost fainted. "W-why do you think he's my friend?" she whispered.
"Only that Andrew said that he saw you in conversation with the man for some time at the ball. Was he just boring you, dearest?"
"He … he is the cause of my trouble. I met him first in France, but under circumstances where he contrived to manipulate me. And this last night he did it again. He has put a price on Tom's head, which …"
He leaned towards her, his whole attitude was one of intense longing, a plea for that confidence which her fear still withheld from him.
" … which involves you, in some way? Is that why you are so very distressed?" he urged gently.
"Yes" she wailed. "I've done something dreadful this night, just to placate Chauvelin, yet I very much doubt that I can trust him to keep his word. He said … he said …"
Oh God. What has she done? He imagined horrible things.
"He was the man who told me about Tom, he has the power of life or death over him, and he named a price in order to release him."
Now, she was almost spent, words had no barrier to fight through to be spoken. Her spirit was almost broken.
"He promised you your brother's life. What price did you pay for it?"
"A truly horrible price!"
"Well?" Awful suspicions were creeping around Anthony's mind. What if the minor sin of a stolen message was not the full extent of Chauvelin's demands? After all, Edith was a very beautiful woman, and he, well, he was a Frenchman, wasn't he?
"I betrayed the Scarlet Pimpernel." It was stated baldly, bravely, and calmly.
Thank heavens! Only that.
"How?"
"Chauvelin had intelligence that there was a secret message that Matthew was going to pass to Andrew. I knew that they are, or were, both members of the League. Chauvelin asked me to intercept it for him."
"And you managed this? Without raising suspicions?"
"Yes" she shrugged. "It is very easy just to admire the cut of a man's cuff and with a quick hand…"
Anthony gave a lopsided smile. "I've always said that you are a very clever woman, my dearest. Did you read the note?"
"It just said 'Be in Dover at noon the day after tomorrow'. That's all I know."
That was the correct note too. The real note was from Matthew to inform the League that he had heard from Anthony's contact in Paris: the final preparations for the upcoming mission had been put in place, so the League would sail for France at dawn, leaving Chauvelin a full twelve hours behind them.
So far, so good.
"Mmm. Well, the least I can do is to talk to Andrew and Matthew and warn them of what has happened. But I shouldn't worry overmuch, my dear."
"But because of me, a brave, noble man might go to his death!" she whimpered.
"The thrill of outwitting the French is all the fellow lives for, or so I believe. And, er, he doesn't know that you're in love with him."
Edith stared up at him with horror. "I'm not in love with him." Anthony pointedly looked down at the Pimpernel jewel at her neck; she raised her hand to it defensively. "I admire him. I think what he's doing is brave and absolutely right; but I'm not in love with him."
"It's a dangerous thing to go around falling in love with a phantom, my dear. For all you know he might be a married man deeply in love with his wife."
"No, never. He can't be that. No married man would constantly leave her to face death in France. Would you?"
He gasped, but instantly recovered with a cough.
"I am far too old and too boring to do anything so dashing."
"Thank you for listening and offering to contact Matthew and Andrew" she said, as she drew quite close to him, and speaking with real tenderness.
He swallowed audibly. "It is too soon to thank me, my sweet!" he said quietly. "I have done nothing yet. Perhaps when Tom is back home we can celebrate." The thought of Tom reminded him of his tasks, and he turned towards them with a biting regret. "But the hour is late, and you really must be tired now. Your maid will be waiting for you upstairs."
He stood aside to allow her to pass. She sighed with disappointment. Perhaps she had been deceived just now. What she had taken to be love in his eyes might have been another strong feeling: merely shock, or disappointment, or, God forbid, hatred instead of love now that he knew of her actions this evening. She stood looking at him for a moment or two longer. This was not how she had hoped this interview would end. He bent his tall figure in a low ceremonious bow and she finally began to mount the terrace.
The train of her velvet gown swept up the steps, and then, as she turned into the ornate doors and out of his sight, she ran as fast as she could up to her own rooms.
Had she but turned back then, she would have seen a strong man, overwhelmed with his own passion and despair. He was but a man madly, blindly, passionately in love, and as soon as her light footsteps had died away within the house, he knelt down upon the terrace steps, and in the very madness of his love he kissed one by one the places where her small foot had trodden, and the stone balustrade there, where her hand had rested last.