The Sherbrooke Bride - Catherine Coulter [142]
Douglas grinned at his wife. “She probably started with you. Now she’s insulting your grandchildren.”
“Actually,” Georges said, eyeing his mistress, “she is now quite fluently attacking your antecedents and all your former pets.”
“I say,” Tony said, “that we should untie her. She looks quite uncomfortable. What do you say, Alexandra? Do you feel you’ve punished her enough?”
Alexandra took another long drink of her coffee. “All right,” she said at last. “I don’t wish to stomp her into the ground, well, I do, but I’m not up to doing it right now, but I wish her to know that I am mean, that I will not tolerate such wretched behavior toward my husband. She will never try to hurt Douglas again. Never.”
Douglas turned and said something very rapid in French to Georges. He and Tony both laughed.
“What did you say?” Alexandra asked, her voice filled with suspicion.
“I said,” Douglas said very slowly, smiling at his wife, “that once you are fluent in French, I will unleash you on Napoleon himself. Georges agrees that the Corsican upstart wouldn’t stand a chance against you.”
“I’m not sure,” she said, frowning, her voice filled with worry, “you see, I don’t think I’m feeling all that well right now at this particular moment. How long will it take me to learn that bloody language?” She paused, her eyes widening on Douglas’s face. “Oh dear,” she said.
She fainted. The coffee mug fell to the floor. Janine stopped cursing. Both Tony and Douglas were at her side in an instant.
“It shouldn’t take her more than three months to spout French like a trooper,” Tony said, as he gently laid two fingers against the steady pulse in her throat. “Stop shaking, Douglas, she’ll be fine. It’s the excitement, that’s all.”
CHAPTER
24
THE THREE MEN and Janine Daudet arrived at precisely six o’clock the following morning at the massive shipbuilding field that would shortly brim with workers, soldiers, sailors, cooks, prostitutes, hawkers of every item conceivable. They hid themselves and waited.
They remained hidden when the cry went up that General Belesain’s headquarters had been breached. Guards were wounded and tied up and the general was gone.
There was some discussion as the men moved forward through the wide gates. Then there was utter silence.
At first there weren’t more than fifty men and women; their ranks swelled to several hundred, all silent and staring. Then there was a giggle, a shout of laughter. More and more people arrived. The laughter grew. So did the general’s curses and his threats, which ranged from cutting off arms and legs to pulling out tongues to flaying off the hide from every man and woman present. The onlookers paid no attention.
A man shouted, “Good Gawd, it’s a pig, a big fat general sort of pig!”
A woman yelled, “Look at that little thing of his! Naught but a tiny sausage!”
“Aye, and that belly, bloated with all our local food he’s sent his men to steal, the selfish pig!”
“A pig! A pig! Look at the pig!”
Georges looked at Douglas and then to Tony. They didn’t have to take care and be silent. The noise was now deafening. They laughed and slapped each other on the back. Janine Daudet was so pleased she even hugged Tony.
General Belesain was standing on a four-foot-high wooden crate. He was tied securely to a pole, his arms pulled back so far that his back was arched, making his fat belly stick out obscenely. He was quite naked. Pig ears that Georges had stolen from a local butcher were tied on his head, a pig’s snout tied around his face, poking out over his nose. The rest of him was fat and pink, no embellishments needed.
His men tried to get to him to free him but the crowd held them back. They weren’t through with their fun.
Douglas finally motioned for them to leave. Janine said to Georges in some amazement, “You’re laughing. I can’t believe it. You never laugh.”
He turned sober immediately. “I didn’t mean to. It isn’t well done of me.”
Tony said, “A man should laugh; it gives him back his bearings; it makes him realize how absurd life can be.