His Parisian Mistress (Scandalous Family--The Victorians Book 1)

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  Too much time has passed. He thought his heart might burst through his chest. He turned and trudged toward the front room.

  Two more men passed him as he moved out of the corridor. They were heading for the same location.

  Richard tugged at his waistcoat and straightened his sleeve, as the man who had emerged earlier had done. He could not help but glance at Einaudi’s friend.

  The man nodded. He apparently approved of where Richard had left the bag.

  It was time to leave. Einaudi’s friend got to his feet.

  From behind Richard, deeper along the corridor, he heard a light voice. A familiar voice.

  Ève.

  Richard’s heart seized altogether. He froze, unable to take another step.

  Einaudi’s friend had not noticed. He knew what was to come and was escaping the building as swiftly as possible. He did not care if Richard followed or not. It might even serve their purposes if Richard remained behind.

  Richard whirled, taking in the length of the corridor in one swift, panicked glance. One of the two men entered the convenience.

  The other lingered in the corridor, to wait his turn.

  Ève stood with Bertrand by one of the doors on the opposite side of the corridor. Bertrand had his head down and was fitting a key into the lock.

  Ève murmured softly, all her attention upon Bertrand. Was he about to provide her with the funds she had traveled here to request of him?

  It didn’t matter. Richard ran down the corridor. He did not shout, for it would alert Einaudi’s friend, who was likely not yet outside the building. Any sound of panic would alert the man.

  Ève looked up as Richard pounded down the corridor toward them. Her eyes widened.

  Bertrand looked around. His eyes narrowed. He was quicker to recover from his surprise, for he had more experience dealing with emergencies. Richard’s face must surely show that an emergency was in progress.

  Richard slapped his arms around both of them and shoved them along the corridor.

  “Hurry, hurry,” he said. “Don’t stop. No questions, not now. Run.” He pushed and herded them, desperately trying to shepherd them along the corridor to the corner.

  “Richard, what are you doing here?” Ève’s voice lifted. The sound of it would travel.

  “Not now,” Richard snapped.

  Bertrand said quietly, “Do what he says, Ève.”

  They reached the corridor corner. Richard glanced to the right. A door there might be an exterior door. “Is that the way out?” he demanded of Bertrand.

  “Yes.”

  Richard pushed them in that direction. “Hurry.”

  They had taken only three steps down the corridor when a great blast rent the air. Richard threw himself forward, gathering up Ève in his arms, covering her as much as possible with his body.

  With a harsh whooshing sound, an invisible force slammed into his back and shoved him forward.

  Richard knew no more.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Richard’s unexpected appearance in the corridor, just as Ève was acquiring the funds he would need to pay off anarchists, was the most shocking part of her morning—to that point, at least.

  Almost as shocking had been Bertrand’s easy agreement to provide funds. He got to his feet, reached into his pocket and produced a key. “I can provide you with cash right now,” he said. “You should minimize your arrivals and departures to this building.”

  “Jacques thought you would argue the point.” Ève also rose to her feet.

  Bertrand shook his head. “For pastries and cab fares, I would refuse to spend the money. To rid the world of these people, I will spend every franc at my disposal. Your husband has opened a crack within their armor, one I have not been able to make for myself in four years of investigative work. If he needs a thousand francs to buy his way into their inner sanctum, I will gladly spend that money.”

  He walked her to the front of the building with an energetic stride that told Ève he was very pleased with these developments. That was when Richard appeared and bowled them over.

  Richard muttered with an urgent tone about moving quickly, which Ève could barely encompass.

  She found herself trotting down the corridor with Richard’s arm at her back. He asked about the door and Bertrand answered with the same urgent note in his voice.

  It seemed that Bertrand understood what was happening, even though Richard had not explained himself.

  Richard pushed them down the corridor toward the back door.

  Then he leapt at her as an enormous noise, louder than any sound she had ever heard, stalled her hearing and all thought.

  Richard’s arms came around her, then he shoved her. At least, it felt as though he had shoved her. They both fell to the floor.

  Ève heard Bertrand grunt, then cry out. Both sounds were deeply muffled.

  The floor and the walls shook and shivered. The roaring sound continued. Ève knew she was screaming only because her throat hurt. She could hear nothing but the roaring. Richard laid very still over the top of her.

  Ève closed her eyes, moaning. She waited for the terrible noise to stop and for the world to grow still once more.

  Slowly, it did. The rumbling and roaring faded. It left her ears ringing, but now she could hear the crackle of fire, and the knocking and thudding sound of heavy objects dropping. She could also hear a people screaming. Shouting of incoherent sentences.

  She coughed, as dust swirled in front of her face. The floor before her nose was covered in it. More dust settled as she watched.

  Bertrand coughed, too. He slapped his hand into the dust and pushed himself up. The back of his dark coat was covered in the dirty gray dust. Some of it fell away as he sat up.

  Richard, though, did not move.

  Alarmed, Ève tried to shift from beneath him, but he was too heavy.

  “Bertrand, help me!” She attempted to twist around, so she could reach Richard and lift him from her.

  Bertrand coughed again, hard and heavy.

  “Bertrand!”

  He nodded and eased himself across the floor. He gripped Richard’s shoulders and rolled him onto his back, freeing Ève. Ève scrambled to her knees beside Richard. His eyes were closed.

  Bertrand patted her hand away, when she rested it on Richard’s chest.

  “Wait,” he said. His voice was very rough. He pressed his fingers against Richard’s neck. Then he bent and put his ear close to Richard’s mouth. He listened for a long moment, while Ève sat with her heart still, fear wrenching at her throat and twisting her chest.

  Then Bertrand sat back with a satisfied grunt. “He breathes.”

  Ève bent over Richard once more and patted his cheek. He did not react, except that his lashes fluttered. She tried it again. “Richard! Wake up!”

  This time, he stirred. He took in a deep breath, his chest rising.

  Ève pressed her hand to her mouth, as relief shot through her. It was an intense, sharp sensation which made her feel weak and a little sick. She pressed her hand to the dirty floor, popping herself up as the weakness threaded through her. Her eyes stung with tears.

  Richard groaned and put his fingers to his head. He turned and got himself up on one elbow, then pushed himself into a sitting position. He gave another groan. This time he reached around to the back of his head and felt there. He bought his dusty fingers around to examine them. The tips were bloody.

  Ève’s tears spilled.

  Bertrand patted Richard shoulder. “A bomb?” His voice was very rough.

  “In the water closet,” Richard said. “They forced me to it.”

  Bertrand studied him.

  It seemed to Ève as though it should be comical that both men were covered in dust, their faces like theatre masks. The horrible things they were saying removed any jocularity, though.

  Bertrand gave a great gusty sigh. “Either you have adequately demonstrated your loyalty and are now considered one of them, or…”

  Ric
hard nodded, then grew still, wincing. He touched his head once more. “Or they never intended to recruit me at all. I was their delivery boy, someone they could discard once the job was done.”

  “It would explain the great speed at which this happened,” Bertrand observed. He raised himself to his knees, then bent one knee, put his hand on it, and with a great groan, got to his feet.

  He held his hand out to Ève. She shook her head. “Help Richard up.”

  She copied Bertrand’s movements, rising to her knees then bending one knee and using it to thrust to her feet. She stood swaying for a moment or two. The shouting was coming closer and so was the crackle of fire. Now she could smell smoke in the air, mixed with the dust.

  Bertrand helped Richard to his feet as she had requested. All three of them coughed and brushed the dust from their clothing. Not that removing the dust would make her look any more respectable. Her gown was ripped and quite likely soiled beyond recovery. Not that she would ever wear it again, anyway.

  “We cannot return to the apartment,” Richard said.

  Bertrand nodded. “My thoughts exactly. I will make arrangements.”

  Even though her hearing returned after a while, Ève still felt as though her thoughts were muffled. She kept returning to the fact that a group of men hated other men so much they would plant a bomb to kill them, regardless of who might be near the bomb at the time.

  Two men at least had been killed. It sickened her to know it was the two men who had been in the corridor with them. If Richard had not pushed her and Bertrand toward the back door, where they had been somewhat protected by the stone walls of the corner, then they might very well be dead, too.

  There were many others injured and some of them would not survive those injuries.

  Bertrand put Ève and Richard in his office and told them to stay there, while he helped the rest of the station with the emergency and the injured. His office was virtually untouched, although the big desk had walked itself across the floor, and the papers on top were scattered. There was a fine layer of dust on everything, too.

  This rear part of the building was separated from the front because it had been added on much later. There was only a single door separating the front and the back building, and that had withstood the shock.

  The front building had not been completely destroyed, for the walls were heavy stone, which even a bomb could not completely break up. At least, that is what they heard from the gendarmes and inspectors who stood outside Bertrand’s office, shouting information at each other, as they hurried to help.

  “I’m not even sure what a bomb is,” Ève said, at last. “I mean, I understand what one can do, now. I’m just not sure how one makes such a thing happens.”

  Richard stopped wiping his fingers on his trousers. “They are like exploding cannonballs. The dynamite that they use in mines to clear rock out of the way can be used as a weapon, too.”

  Ève made herself ask the question which had been uppermost in her mind for the last few minutes. “And they made you do this?”

  Richard sighed, his gaze upon his knees. “I could only guess at what was in the bag I carried into the building. I think, though, if I had stepped out of the police station still carrying the bag, I would not have survived.”

  “You mean, they would have killed you?” Horror filled her.

  Richard’s gaze was steady as he met her. “In all this time Bertrand has been explaining to you that anarchists are dangerous and ruthless, what did you think he meant by that?”

  Ève looked away from him, her thoughts confused. “I understood what he meant,” she said softly. Only, she could not finish the rest of her thoughts aloud.

  She understood what dangerous and ruthless meant, even this bloody and murderous level of danger. Her horror came from a different source. It was the terrifying fact that Richard had come very close to dying, just now. Either the bomb might have killed him, or the anarchists would have.

  And her heart would not have survived, if he had not.

  That was the dismay which touched her now. When had Richard become so dear to her?

  Their arrangements were meant to be pragmatic. They were supposed to help each other. Richard had been in such dire circumstances when she met him, that her proposal that they help each other had to a great part also been intended to help him.

  Only, that had changed. Richard was no longer the angry man who had faced her in the café, that first night. His face was more dear to her than any other man’s.

  How had she let this happen? How would Richard feel if he knew that she had succumbed to the very feminine and romantic notion of falling in love with her husband?

  Confused, she hid her thoughts and tried to disperse the feelings swelling in her. Perhaps there would be time later when she could examine them again and decide what she must do now.

  “What does it mean that we cannot go back to the apartment?” she said, to change the subject.

  Richard considered the question, his gaze back upon his knees. “Even if I was the man Einaudi thinks I am, I would not return to the apartment, because I have just committed a serious crime. The French police will expend all their efforts looking for me—or they would if I was not sitting in this office right now. Or perhaps I might have been killed by the explosion. Either way, I would not return to the apartment. Too many people saw me walk into the station with the bag. And now, because of my arrest in May, the police know who I am.” He frowned. “Einaudi set this up beautifully.”

  “I could not return to the apartment, either?”

  “Einaudi does not know that you were here. If you were merely my mistress, you would return to the apartment simply because you did not know any better. I don’t think I would have been the type of man to tell his mistress all his secret plans. Besides, I knew nothing of this plan, this morning.”

  “Then I could return and fetch something?”

  Richard turned on the chair to face her. “You are not to go near the apartment. Einaudi will watch it, to see if I return. Either to deal with me, because I did not die in the explosion as I should have, or to take me to meet the rest of his people. If you were to return and I was not, he would question you. It is too dangerous, Ève. We can never go back.”

  “Then, what is to become of us?”

  His answer was bleak. “I don’t know.”

  The first thing that did happen was that they were taken in a enclosed wagon to a hotel on the outskirts of Paris. Bertrand left instructions that they were not to step outside the hotel.

  By that time, Ève had no energy to go anywhere, anyway. She felt stiff and sore, and both of them were still filthy. As they had no other clothes, they must stay in the room or draw unwanted attention.

  Richard stood at the window, one hand lifting the curtain aside just enough for him to peer out at the street below. He was still and silent, containing his thoughts the way he had when she first met him.

  What was he thinking? It was the first time in quite a while that she had felt as though he was hiding things from her. It was an unsettling feeling. Had he discerned the hot rush of feelings she had felt for him? Had she betrayed herself?

  Even though she wanted nothing more than to fall upon the bed and sleep, Ève asked for a great quantity of hot water to be delivered to the room, along with towels and soap and the largest washbasin they had.

  Then she drew Richard into the middle of the room, removed his clothes and put them in a pile to deal with later. She also stripped down to her camisole and pantalets, made him stand in the bowl and poured water over him to rinse away the dirt.

  The water that ran down his body was pink, tinged with his blood. At the sight of it, Ève hesitated. Her eyes ached with more tears that she blinked back rapidly.

  Richard shook his head. “It’s just a scratch.” His voice was hoarse.

  Ève shook off her mood. She firmly put aside her thoughts. “Here. Here is the soap. Wash yourself, then I will rinse you off.”

 
“And how will you wash your self, once the bowl is full?” Richard asked, his tone reasonable and neutral.

  “I will send for another wash bowl, course.” She made her voice brisk.

  The footmen took the full bowl way and returned with another, allowing Ève to wash properly, too. As she washed, she kept her face wet, which hid the tears she could not stop from falling. It seemed that now they were safe, all the fears and despair which she had suppressed came to the surface.

  She thought she had successfully hidden her feelings until Richard caught her shoulder and turned her to face him.

  She didn’t care that she wore no clothes and neither did he. None of that mattered.

  Richard lifted her chin, to make her look at him properly. He shook his head. “Don’t.”

  “Don’t what?”

  “You feel that this is all your fault, that if you had not involved me in it, it would not have happened. You must not think that. If it had not been me, some other poor sod would have been inveigled into their schemes. They use people, Ève. At least I managed to put the things in the corner where the fewest people were hurt. There were women and children where Einaudi told me to place it. Another man might have left it right there…” His expression was bleak.

  Ève wound her arms around him, careless of the fact that she was still damp. New horror bloomed in her chest. Richard had misunderstood her but now he had reminded her of how horrible this might have been. “How can people sink to such acts?”

  Richard pulled her against him. He didn’t seem to mind that she was wet, either. “I don’t think we can really call them people. I think they have lost the qualities which make them human.”

  She shivered and rested her head against his shoulder. “I am glad you are out of it, now. You might’ve been killed!” It was the closest she could bring herself to speaking of what lay in her heart.

  Richard lifted her chin once more. His gaze roamed over her face, then he bent and kissed her.

  It was not like any kiss he had ever given her. Was it because she now was aware of the true state of her heart? Was it because she had stumbled into falling in love with him?