Joy V. Sheridan writes

Charity Amour

CHAPTER THIRTEEN part 1

At precisely the same time that Lord Seyton Clover was bucking and cresting in a mad long chase back to London Town, Charity Cottrell was undergoing much the same kind of violent motion in a small sailing craft upon the English Channel. Both were treated to the same brutal weather conditions, for fierce winds made a depression that not only swept down upon the waves in a nor’easterly direction, but contained sufficient force to shriek their wildness far inland.

These winds had, by way of maidservants, sleetish, freezing rains and thunderous black clouds. Maybe it was even so that either prong of the blue forking lightning might have struck first the one party, then the other. It was simply atrocious weather and, for that, was a milder version of the severe gale which had kept Charity’s own vessel from setting sail earlier than this time. 

Had Charity Cottrell been fully conscious, she would have undoubtedly swooned anyway; for the waves were towering high and fearsome and had made many an experienced salt all but lather his breeches with the brown stain of severe apprehensions. 

High the spray plumed over the bows, sending hard-packed palmfuls of stinging water about the decks. Lord Seyton Clover had much the same kind of minor tempest upon his own face, for though there was not spray, the minute, numerous cyclones of rain fair bucketed into his visage, so that he dare not catch a mouthful of air without being soaked in near-freezing moisture. He for his part, cursed heartily the false message and its bearer, who had dragged him away from London Town on such a fool’s mission.

To think that he had been idiot enough to swallow the fabrication of lies and deceit! Surely, he reasoned, it boded evil and he was persistently predispossed to think that that evil now encircled his protégée. 

On he urged his stallion even faster through the foul witches’ brew of elements, dreading equally his own arrival back in Orchard Street, and the news which he felt in his bones awaited him there. That he had thus far been full a three nights away from London he bore equally well in mind - and that was a longish stretch when direst villainy was sensed afoot! 

Charity had no mind, in her present state, as to the time, the place or the date. She had been secreted in a dark, airless, bolted room once the coach had transported her and Mellors to their point of departure. She had hazarded a guess at the time after she had been somewhat rudely thrown into the holding shed: but what did it matter? The place had served its purpose and had been sturdy enough to hold her whilst the captain hemmed and hawed about setting sail. 

The man, Mellors, following his lordship Lord Rispian’s directive, was even now aboard this same vessel, ostensibly a fishing boat but more in the way of a free-lance marauder, preying on hapless vessels less well built or speedier than the ‘Fair Carlyle’. 

Stout though this man of seasons prided himself on the quality of his stomach for matters maritime, he was (as was Charity) stricken with le mal de mer, being set into as prone a state as poor Miss Charity Cottrell herself. Although Mellors had had instructions to keep the abducted young woman sedated, it was soon apparent that the only sedation she required was already being provided liberally by the fierce November seas and weathers. 

At length the vessel crept into a sheltered harbour, small and hidden away and chosen for just those attributes, and Charity was on her feet at last! Needless to say, those legs and feet were more than a trifle wobbly but how she rejoiced to get the feel of terra firma once more beneath her feet. Her head continued to swim for some time: the rocketing and buffeting motion still wheeling about her like the sea birds croaking and twirling in the skies overhead. So intent was she in trying to counteract these particular phenomena that she gave not a thought to her predicament. 

Gradually, the gradients and alternatives of feeling giddy - hot; cold; sick and on the point of blacking out - relented and she began to recover her health, if not - totally - her cheerful spirits. 

Mellors, for his part, was exceedingly glad that they had reached harbour safely: it would not have done for the ‘Fair Carlyle’ to have floundered, dear me, no! For then he should have lost everything: his dreams of joining the landed gentry included. He too soon recovered his old composure and had quickly ascertained from the boat’s captain where rooms had been booked for the young woman and himself. Not too far removed, so he was told; to the north inland of the harbour. 

Armed with this knowledge, and with the frail form of Charity Cottrell firmly affixed to his greatcoat, Mellors set about hiring the services of a loitering youth to conduct them to the pension and also to find out about forms of transportation available from the village. Here Mellors’ French ancestry came into its own: he had more than a smattering of the French language through acquaintanceship with a maternal relation (his Mama had been from Normandy). 

He spoke fast and fluently to the youth, who picked up Charity's valise (for she was still in receipt of this), and Mellors's own belongings were packed onto the boy’s back. Mellors all but raced Charity along, dogging the French youth’s footsteps. 

She had no heart to struggle or resist, for the realisation of her direst dilemma had at last once more settled about her consciousness. She could not speak the French language, let alone any dialect of it; she had no money; she had not even as much as a decent change of apparel. Fate would have to fathom out this episode of her existence! She despaired of her appearance, for she looked as though she had lived in her garb for several days, which was – indeed – the truth of the matter.

Noting her consternation, which was made physically apparent by Charity’s trying to rub tar off the edge of her lifted-up cloak, and perhaps, by feeling fractionally guilty about his own earlier misconduct towards her, Mellors encouragingly hinted that he might be able to obtain a change of clothes for her. 

He, being party to the kidnap plot, had naturally more than one change of clothing with him, and, after all, Paris would afford him the opportunity to improve on his own wardrobe. 

For this was the second point on their journey. Not that Charity Cottrell was aware of this fact, however. 

He must remember to doctor the ‘filly’ up, lest she get any silly notions into her head that she could fare well enough on her own, now that they were in La Belle France. He sniffed the Gaelic ambience with appreciative nostrils. 

Paris! And then on to Madame Natalie d’Esprit and Le Château des Amourettes!