by Shana Galen
“Thank you.”
She took a cautious step back, and he released her reluctantly. When he was certain she was steady two steps below him, he handed her the lamp and turned back to the door. Like the one below, it had a round handle, but it opened out, not in. Pulling the handle would be no help opening the door. Laurent pushed at the door, and when it did not move, he motioned for her to lower the lamp.
“Voilà!” he exclaimed when he saw the handle for the bolt. He grasped the metal and pulled. But the metal had rusted with the bolt in place, and as much as he yanked, it would not come loose.
The rough metal cut into his fingers, but he ignored the pain and the warm liquid on his skin, and putting his weight into it, yanked with all of his strength. The bolt began to slide. Laurent continued to pull, muttering curses in French, English, and Spanish, until the bolt came free.
Blood ran down his hand, but he ignored it. Using his shoulder, he pushed against the door. “God’s teeth this is heavy,” he gritted out.
“I thought there was no God, only the Supreme Being,” she retorted.
“Do not. Make me. Push. You down. The. Steps.”
She gave him a ghost of a smile, though he was only half-joking. Finally, the door creaked open, and Laurent fell onto rough cobblestones in a short, narrow alley. Honoria emerged after him, blinking in the daylight. She offered a hand to help him up, but he shook his head, not wanting to dirty her with the blood on his skin. When he finally gained his feet, he saw that behind him a wall sealed the alley. In front of him, it opened into what he thought must be the Rue Montmartre.
Good. All he needed was a bit of luck, and he would be at his little flat in the Boulevard du Temple in an hour or so. With his uninjured hand, he grasped her elbow and started forward.
“Where are you taking me? I want to go back to the safe house,” she hissed.
“And I want to go back to my château in Lyon. Neither of us will have our wishes granted today.” More roughly than he would have liked, he pulled her after him. He would have liked to let her go. Now that they were out in the open, he didn’t need to keep the Pimpernel’s League at bay, but he needed her forgery skills. The only way he would be able to ferry the royal children out of the country was with false documents and passports.
The Englishwoman could create those for him. Once he had the forged papers in his hands, he would let her go. He’d make certain she was safe. He owed her that much. He had never felt as though he owed anyone anything. It had been a long time since he’d cared what happened to anyone but himself.
But that was before he’d sat in La Force for five months and listened to roll call after roll call, men and women summoned to the guillotine. Honorable men and women who did not deserve to die. And while these nobles and commoners alike went stoically to their undeserved deaths, he was spared. He, who deserved the guillotine more than any tailor’s wife or lamplighter ever could.
Laurent had paid no attention to the weather, but now he saw the day had dawned sunny, crisp, and cool. The Rue Montmarte was lined with shops and cafés. It was the sort of day that brought Parisians out of doors to sip coffee and discuss the days’ news. Indeed, the cafés were swollen with men and even a few women. The patrons seemed engrossed in their conversation, but he kept his head down and walked quickly past them. He had to head east to reach the Boulevard du Temple. The walk was thirty minutes. He might have hailed a carriage, but he didn’t have any assignats to pay the fare. Nor did he wish to be recognized. He was just another citizen walking through Paris. He could not act as though he had escaped La Force and cheated Madame Guillotine the feel of his neck beneath her blade.
To her credit, the Englishwoman kept stride with him and ducked her head. She might have wanted to escape, but she wasn’t so much a fool as to risk her life to make a run for it. She seemed to understand this was not the time to call attention to oneself.
Steadily they angled west, avoiding the larger groups of men. It was later in the day and the executions were almost at an end. Those who had not stayed to see the last of them were laughing and chatting in small groups. Laurent followed close enough that he hoped any National Guard they encountered would assume he and the Englishwoman were also returning home from the Place de la Révolution.
“Where are we going?” the Englishwoman hissed in French. She’d been silent until then, her head down and her arm imprisoned by his hand. But he’d seen her gaze darting all around and guessed she had not seen much of the city until now.
“I have rooms on the Boulevard du Temple.”
“And you don’t think it’s dangerous to go to your residence? What if the guards discover you’ve escaped La Force? That’s the first place they will look. And what of your neighbors? They will report you if they spot you.”
He had already considered all of those risks. “That is why we are not making for the Champs Élysées. My apartment on the Bourlevard du Temple is small, a place to sleep if I was too tired”—or too inebriated—“to go home after attending the theater.”
“The National Convention would have confiscated all your property when you were arrested,” she argued. “Who knows who might be living in your rooms now. It might be Danton or Robespierre.”
He laughed. “Robespierre is far too frugal for my chambers. Besides, it’s doubtful the Convention knows of this residence. I paid the rent under a different name.”
For the first time since they’d left the crypt, she gave him a direct look. “Why would you do that?”
He shrugged. “A man likes his privacy.”
Her lip curled as she obviously assumed he meant he’d kept the apartment as a place to take women. He had brought women there on occasion, but for the most part, it had been, as he’d said, a place to sleep after a late night at the theater. After the revolution had begun, Laurent had seen the apartment as a place to hide should the royalists not win the day. He’d been careful to erase or transfer any papers or deeds that linked the property to him or his family.
He would be safe on the Boulevard du Temple, if he could but reach it. And it furthered his plan. He could gather some coin and the privacy would afford his little forger time to make the papers he required. He led the Englishwoman onto another street, this one rather narrow, and immediately realized his mistake. A half dozen soldiers of the National Guard had gathered a few hundred feet before them. Laurent could not pass without being noticed. Even if the men did not recognize him as the former Marquis de Montagne, the absence of a tricolor cockade or striped trousers would make him stand out. Nor could he turn the Englishwoman around and go back the way they’d come. The Guard would be on them like a wolf on a rabbit. He had no choice but to pass them and take his chances.
He began to move forward, but the Englishwoman resisted. “We cannot go that way,” she said, voice low and eyes anywhere but on the guardsmen. “They will stop us and question us.”
“We have no other choice. If we turn around, we look suspicious.”
“We already look suspicious!” she whispered. “We aren’t wearing cockades and your hand is bleeding to say nothing of the wound on your temple.”
He’d forgotten about the injuries, but now he looked at the smear of blood on his hand and almost smiled. He released the arm he held with his good hand and moved to the other side of her, wrapping his injured arm around her and resting his bloody hand on her side, just below her breast.
She jumped. “What are you—”
“Shh. Lean on me and let me be the one to answer questions.”
He propelled her forward. “This is it. I cannot believe this is the end,” she muttered.
“Halt in the name of the Republic!” one of the guards said, stepping in their path. The others fanned out, blocking any hope of moving past the men unmolested.
Laurent halted. “Citizens,” he said. “I beg you to allow us to pass. My wife has been injured.” He lifted his hand slightly so the guards might see the bright blood stain on her white dress.
&n
bsp; But if Laurent had thought the guards would immediately part and allow them through, he was wrong. The men barely glanced at the injury.
“Are you a patriot, citoyen?” the man who seemed to be the leader asked, his eyes darting from the Englishwoman to Laurent. He was older than a good number of the guardsmen Laurent had encountered. So many of those had been little more than boys in baggy uniforms. This one was at least old enough to shave.
“Of course.”
“Where are your tricolor cockades?”
As though anyone could not wear a tricolor cockade, but Laurent bit his tongue. These were simple men, and while verbally sparring with them might satisfy his vanity, it would also doom him.
Which begged the question—where were their tricolor cockades?
Laurent was unused to having to answer to anyone and lies of this sort did not come easily to him. But he knew he’d paused too long when the Englishwoman elbowed him and darted a glance at him from under her lashes.
“Please,” Laurent said, trying to sound desperate. He’d never begged before, but he’d had men grovel at his feet often enough to know how it sounded. “My wife is injured. I must take her to a surgeon.”
The guardsman’s eyes lowered to the bloody stain on her dress again. “What happened?”
More questions. Laurent had never professed to be the most quick-witted. He’d always been rich and handsome and charming. He hadn’t needed his wits. Now he would pay the price for his lack—as would the Englishwoman and Marie-Thérèse.
He clenched the fist at his side, as though that might force his mind into action. And then the Englishwoman looked up at him, those strangely beautiful eyes met his, and he spoke without even thinking.
“Citoyens, we were attacked by enemies of the revolution!”
And wonder of wonders, the guardsmen looked alarmed. Of course, the Englishwoman looked alarmed as well, but hopefully the men were not looking at her shocked face.
“They came upon us, attacking us from behind, as we made our way back from the Place de la Révolution. We had been to see the”—he almost said executions but changed his mind at the last moment—“sacrifices to liberty. These men were crying long live the queen! When we challenged them, they attacked, injuring my wife, and...”
Laurent knew he was in danger of going too far, but what the hell? His life had been filled with theater. He’d see this show to the end.
“And they stole our cockades.”
The Englishwoman closed her eyes, clearly indicating she felt this was one of her last moments on Earth. Fortunately, the action served to make her look weaker.
“They attacked you in the open?” the leader of the guards asked.
“Yes, citizen. On the Rue Montmarte. If you hurry, you might catch them.”
The guardsman didn’t scamper off, as Laurent had hoped. Instead, he looked at the Englishwoman and then Laurent again, his eyes narrowed. Perhaps he wasn’t as simple as Laurent had assumed.
This was the end then. He’d been a fool to believe he could save the princess. He could not even make it halfway across the city. And now he’d doomed not only himself—no great loss as he’d already been doomed—but the Englishwoman as well.
He gave her an apologetic look, but she wasn’t looking at him. She’d raised her face and now stared straight at the revolutionaries. Laurent followed her gaze, noting some of the men were ogling her with mouths hanging open. Laurent had done much the same when he’d first seen her, and he was a man accustomed to female beauty.
“Please,” the woman said in flawless French. “Save us from those monsters. I will personally write to Robespierre of your heroism and sacrifice for the revolution.”
As if Robespierre was a magic word, the men seemed to spring into action. The leader hefted his musket and looked to his men. “Which way did they run? We will catch these cowards, these enemies of liberty.”
“That way!” Laurent pointed to the east as he needed to travel west. “Hurry! They may accost other good citizens and patriots!”
The men started away, and the people in the street behind them hurried to make way. Laurent pushed the Englishwoman ahead, moving as quickly as he dared without causing undue attention. They were out of sight before they reached the Boulevard du Temple, with its tree-lined streets and wide, busy walks. It was far less crowded now as so many of the actors had fled the country and the theaters were severely regulated as to the plays and operas they might perform. Everything had to be approved by the National Convention.
Laurent hurried past the Salon de Cire, where Monsieur Curtius displayed wax figures of men like Marat, Danton, and Lafayette. Or perhaps Lafayette was no longer in favor with the revolutionaries. In which case, some other general would have replaced him. The Salon de Cire was shuttered, either closed for the day or several days while Curtius’s niece, Madame Grosholtz, created another tableau. Laurent had met her briefly at Versailles when she served as tutor to Madame Élisabeth, sister of the late king. But he passed the salon and the laboratory of the Charles brothers beside it. No one could be trusted—not even former tutors to the royal family.
Finally, he reached the front gate to his apartments, but instead of entering that way, he pulled the Englishwoman down a narrow alley and to the dark back entrance used by the few servants he’d employed. The solid wall that comprised the gate was locked with a thick padlock, and Laurent had lost the key months ago. As the wall was too high to climb, he had no choice but to break the lock. “Stand back,” he ordered the Englishwoman. Laurent had taken but one step back when the woman held up a hand.
“Do you want to call attention to us? You think no one will notice a broken lock or hear the noise you make in the effort of breaking it?”
Laurent gave her a long look. “You have another solution?”
He’d expected her to look sheepish and close her mouth. Instead, she reached into her hair and withdrew a hairpin.
“This should work,” she said, bending to observe the lock more closely. “As long as French locks are not so different from those we have in England.”
Laurent stared in stunned silence as she inserted the pin in the padlock and began to wiggle it.
The woman was picking the lock. First, she’d saved them from the guard with the mention of Robespierre, a name that had been nothing sort of magic. Now she was picking the lock to his rooms.
He heard the mechanism inside the lock click even before the padlock fell open. The Englishwoman caught it with one hand. “There.”
“Is there anything you cannot do?” Laurent asked with true appreciation.
“Yes. I cannot stay with you.” And she swung the heavy padlock at his head.
Six
She had not expected him to possess quick reflexes. Everything about him had seemed slow and deliberate and pretentious. She’d swung the padlock, aiming for his already injured temple. She hadn’t wanted to kill him, but neither was she in jest. She intended to wound him badly enough that she might have time to escape and return to the safe house.
But his hand came up at the last second. He swiped fast as a cat, knocking the padlock to the ground and catching her wrist in his hand. His grip was unforgiving, and her knees buckled at the pain.
“Get up,” he ordered, his silken voice hard. With one hand, he pulled the gate open and with the other yanked her to her feet. “Inside.”
Heart slamming in her chest, she struggled to rise before he all but dragged her inside and shut the gate behind her. With the gate closed, he unhanded her, shoving her to the ground and turning on her. Behind him the late afternoon sun dappled the paving stones in the pretty little courtyard. The walls surrounding them were high, so high as to make scaling them almost impossible without a ladder. Perhaps that was why this little haven had remained untouched.
Honoria recognized all the trappings of a well-kept garden, although it was somewhat overgrown and unkempt. The trees offered shade and the flowering bushes had, at one time, been well manicured and p
rovided a pretty view for anyone sitting at the shaded wrought-iron table and chairs. In the center of the paved area a statue of a winged bird rose out of a fountain, and although no water flowed at present, Honoria could imagine when it had, it would have appeared as though the bird rose from a spray of waves.
“You want to kill me?” the marquis all but growled at her. “Then do it. But you’ll have to wait until after I rescue Madame Royale and the dauphin. Then if there’s anything left of me, you may take the first shot.”
“I don’t want to kill you.”
His eyes narrowed.
“But you can’t keep me here like your prisoner. I want to return to the safe house.”
“I’ll return you.”
Now it was her turn to narrow her eyes. “When?” She rose from the paving stones.
“When I don’t need you any longer.”
Honoria inhaled sharply. “You arrogant...bastard.”
“My mother swears she and the duke were only friends.”
Although her French was flawless, Honoria blinked in confusion.
“You called me a bastard,” he explained. “Arrogant—that I will admit, though if you had known me before I was imprisoned you would not think me so arrogant now. I saved your life when the Guard challenged us, and this is the thanks I receive?” He brandished the padlock like a weapon.
“You saved my life?” Honoria did not consider herself easily angered. She had a level temper and a calm demeanor, but this man made her blood boil. “I saved your life. I am the one who mentioned Robespierre. After that, those men could not rush to find the royalists fast enough.”
“That is because you fluttered your lashes at them.”
If she’d been closer, she would have slapped him. “You...you—”
“Bastard? As I said, my mother claims the duke was only a friend. She’s living in exile in Scotland. If you happen to see her when you return to the civilized world, feel free to ask her yourself.”
“Do not be ridiculous. I would never ask such a rude question. And I would never use my looks to gain an advantage. You, however, seem to have no scruples whatsoever.”