Page 50 of Anastasia and the Duke
"Nan, please," she said, flushing a little at his politeness, "Everyone calls me Nan."
"Including Hannah?" he asked, no longer wishing to entertain small talk.
Nan froze momentarily, before turning her attention to the kettle, which had begun to whistle.
"I know that Hannah is not who she says she is," Oliver continued, as Nan began pouring boiling water into a teapot, "I know that it was Sidney who sent her to Grosvenor Square, no doubt with a nefarious purpose in mind--but I do not care about that. Are you listening, Nan? I don't care about Sidney, what I want to know, is who Hannah really is."
He had not meant to shout, but Nan's refusal to look at him had caused him to raise his voice far higher than he had intended. His final words had been almost a roar and the sound of it caused Nan to shake so much that she knocked the teapot to the floor.
"Oh, silly Nan," she muttered, as though Oliver was not there, before she rolled up her sleeves and hunkered down to collect the porcelain shards from the ground.
Oliver leapt from his seat to assist her, but as he too kneeled down to help, he could not help but notice the large scars which marred Nan's forearm. There was no mistaking what they were; dark red and mottled in some places, shiny and stretched in others. These were burn scars.
"You were in France," he stated, lifting his eyes to her face.
Nan gave a petrified nod, but otherwise was unable to speak. Her hands shook uncontrollably, and Oliver realised that he would have to tread gently if he wished to have the truth from her.
"There, there," he said, kindly, as he stood to his feet and held out his hand for her to take, "There's no need to worry; I just need to know what happened. I need to know how Hannah ended up here. Have you any brandy?"
"I only keep sherry, for cooking," Nan whispered, nodding at one of the cupboards.
Oliver assisted Nan into a chair, then went in search of the sherry. Once he found it, he filled two glasses with generous measures, and handed one to Nancy.
"Drink," he urged her, and when she finished her glass, he duly filled it again.
"Tell me everything," he said, once some colour had returned to her cheeks and her hands had stopped shaking.
"I worked for the Comtesse de Bonneval as her lady's maid," Nan began, her eyes glazed and her voice distant, "She had only just wed and she wished to bring an English girl with her to France, but her previous girl hadn't wanted to relocate so far from home. It sounded like an adventure to me, who had never left England, so I took the post when it was offered to me."
Oliver nodded, though he did not speak, afraid that if he were to say anything that it might distract Nan from her tale.
"I was happy in France," Nan continued, "The whole family were, until the trouble broke out. We left Paris, when it all first began--the Comtesse, little Anna, and I--for the Château de Bonneval, just outside Chartres. It was there that I met Antoine."
Nan heaved a soft sigh--a lover's sigh--and Oliver did not need to ask just who Antoine had been to her.
"He was a local politician; very important. But despite that, he was so attentive," Nan continued, blushing a little at the memory, "Always wanting to know what was happening with me, what was happening with the household. No man had ever paid such attention to me before; I was so flattered that a gentleman of his rank could take an interest in a girl as lowly as I."
Oliver bit back a groan; he had a sinking feeling that he knew why the dashing Antoine had shown such interest in a lowly maid.
"We had been at the Château for almost a year," Nan continued, frowning now, "When the atmosphere changed. The Comtesse was nervous and on edge, for the Duke of Orléans--a close friend of the Comte's--had been arrested. On the day that he was guillotined, the Comte returned from Paris and informed us that we would be leaving at dawn for England."
Nan fell into silence, as she replayed the events of that fateful night over in her mind. Oliver could see brief flashes of pain and regret cross her face, as she relived it all.
"Silly girl that I was," she eventually continued, taking a large sip of her drink to steel her nerves, "I did not think I was in any danger--I thought only of Antoine. I stole down to the village to tell him that we were leaving; I was hoping that he would ask me to stay...and he did."
Nan began to shake again; her whole body trembled and shook, but she carried on with the tale.
"He told me to pack my things and meet him at the gates to the Château, just after midnight," she said, twisting her hands in her lap, "So I did. I arrived down at midnight and opened the gates--they were locked from the inside--and once I had opened them, he gave a shout, and a crowd of men emerged from the darkness..."
"The Montagnards," Oliver finished, for he had heard this part of the tale before. The Mountain were the most radical of the political parties in France, led by the infamous Robspierre, and it was they who had unleashed The Reign of Terror upon France.
"Antoine pushed me to the ground, and I hit my head," Nan said, vaguely, lifting her hand to her head as though it still hurt her, "When I awoke, the whole place was in chaos. The house was in flames and the servants were running from the place, screaming bloody terror. I asked one where my lady was, and poor little Anna, and they informed me that they were trapped inside."
Oliver winced, unwilling to imagine the horror of it.
"I knew that if I could just get to Anna, that I would find the Comtesse as well," Nan continued, "For she would have grabbed her daughter before trying to escape herself. I took the back stairs, for the fire had been started in the entrance hall and found Anna asleep in her bed. I grabbed her and went in search of the Comtesse, but there was so much smoke that I was unable to pass through the hallway, and then the ceiling began to give way..."
Nan stifled a sob and rubbed at her arm, the one with the scars. Oliver did not press her for more details on how she had managed to escape from the house, instead, he wanted to know what had happened after.
