by Tracy Grant
"But you know what the Wanderer is," Mélanie said. "You were lying to me eight years ago when you said you'd never heard of it."
Raoul returned his cup to the saucer and twisted the handle. "Did you think so then?"
"No. I thought you were telling the truth, though I knew perfectly well you didn't always do so." Once she'd been used to the idea that he kept things from her. Now it cut like a knife thrust. "But I know you were lying about Julien. And I'm quite sure you were holding something back about the Wanderer just now."
"You're very good, both of you," Raoul said. "But I thought we took it for granted that we all have secrets."
"Secrets." Malcolm said. "Not outright lies."
"My dear Malcolm, sometimes it's impossible to keep secrets without lies."
"Your work in Spain is one thing." Malcolm’s voice was even and firm as iron. "But the Wanderer and St. Juste concern all of us."
"Everything seems to be damnably interconnected. One would think I'd have learned that by now." Raoul drew a hard breath that seemed to shudder through him. "Probably folly to have tried to keep any of it from either of you, but in the circumstances I felt I had to try. You're both owed an explanation, but Laura is as well. I suspect she's also aware I've been holding things back."
Malcolm crossed back to the library table and poured more coffee into his cup. Mélanie could almost hear the words he wasn't saying. I thought things had changed. I trusted you, against all expectation. I let you into our lives. Into our family. But instead of angry words, only the slosh of coffee and the clink of a spoon filled the library. He turned towards Mélanie, as though to reach for her cup and refill it, but she got to her feet and crossed to him, partly in solidarity, partly because she couldn't bear to simply sit.
The door opened on this silence. Laura hesitated on the threshold, taking in the scene before her.
Raoul got to his feet. "We were about to share secrets."
"I can go back upstairs," Laura said.
"On the contrary," Raoul said. "I've been holding back too much from you for too long, sweetheart."
She met his gaze for a long moment. "We never promised to share everything," she said.
"Probably as well, because it's a promise neither of us could keep. But much as I thought it wouldn't be the case, I think we've got to the point where this secret is more dangerous kept hidden than shared." He glanced from Laura to Malcolm and Mélanie. "Sit down, all of you."
He spoke quietly, but something in his tone had them all seated within moments, Mélanie and Malcolm on the sofa, Laura in one of the Queen Anne chairs. Raoul remained standing, one arm on the mantle. His gaze moved among them. "I know I can't ask you to promise to keep quiet about this, but I will ask that you think carefully about what you do with the information I'm about to reveal."
Raoul had always had a sense of the theatrical, but this was exaggerated even for him. "For God's sake, Raoul," Mélanie said. "We may keep secrets from each other, but isn't it a given at this point that, once shared, we all keep each other's secrets?"
"We've never shared a secret precisely of this sort."
"Yes, but—"
"I'm serious. Deadly serious. And I use the term advisedly."
Chapter 32
Mélanie had only heard that edge in her spymaster's voice once before, when he'd rescued her from the bandits who had nearly killed her for information. From Laura's silence and fixed expression, Mélanie didn't think she'd ever heard him talk in that way.
Beside Mélanie on the sofa, Malcolm had gone completely still. "The only other time I heard you talk like that was when I was six and ran too near a stream with a swift-moving current."
Remembered fear flashed in Raoul's gaze. "I was afraid of your being swept away. As I am now."
"I've never been one to idly reveal a confidence," Malcolm said.
"Nor have I," Mélanie added.
"Nor I," Laura said.
Raoul's gaze moved among them. Had she not noticed in the old days how those cool gray eyes could warm? Mélanie wondered. Or was he the one who'd changed?
Raoul scraped a hand over his hair, much in the way Malcolm did when he was searching for the right words. There was something unexpectedly schoolboyish about it that she was used to from Malcolm, but not Raoul. It sat oddly with his intense seriousness. "This goes back to when you were all children," he said. "I met Josephine Bonaparte—Josephine de Beauharnais then—when we were both imprisoned in Les Carmes. You know that. I don't think either Josephine or I expected to live. When I wrote the letter that Hortense gave to Malcolm in d'Arenberg, I fully expected never to see him again. I wasn't at all sure Josephine would survive to get it to him, but I hoped there was a chance. There are things one says at such a time that one would never dream of saying in the light of freedom and sanity. There are bonds that form that have nothing to do with the more conventional relationships between men and women." He glanced down at the fire for a moment, his gaze more than usually hooded. "I tell you this as context for what comes after."
Mélanie stared at her former lover. She'd heard the story before, in bits and pieces. But never quite like this, in these words. "You were both released from prison," she said.
"When Robespierre fell. Josephine escaped death by a day. I went back to London as soon as I could, to see Arabella and Malcolm."
"I remember," Malcolm said. He hesitated a moment, then added, "I don't think anyone's ever hugged me so tightly."
Raoul's gaze met Malcolm's for a moment, memories echoing between them. "I went back and forth between Paris and London and Ireland for some time after that."
"I remember," Malcolm said. "You'd appear at unexpected moments."
"Much as you do with Emily now," Laura said.
Raoul gave a faint smile. "It was a heady time. The sheer relief of having escaped the Terror—I know I felt it and it seemed in the very air. We'd cheated death and we were all a little drunk on freedom. There was unbridled license in all things. It was much the same in Britain, but in Paris we could be open about it. No more hiding behind the veneer of marriage and social convention. Josephine was a widow with two children and no money. She needed a protector."
"Barras," Mélanie said.
Raoul nodded. "Paul Barras, the most powerful of the directors who ran the country."
None of this was new information, though Raoul was drawing it together with unwonted seriousness. "Julien was her lover too," Mélanie said.
"Yes, her relationship with Barras was hardly exclusive on either side. In fact, he'd later encourage her relationship with Bonaparte. But she made him an admirable hostess. And he used her to extract information."
"What a surprise," Mélanie murmured.
Raoul regarded her for a moment, his gaze like dark, still water. Memories echoed between them as well. "She wasn't a trained spy. But her salon was the ideal place to gather information. It was there that I first met Julien St. Juste. I've never been sure if St. Juste seduced Josephine for information, or she seduced him, but by the time I met him they were already lovers. My first glimpse of him was turning the pages of her music in her salon. I think he was still in his teens, with fair hair and the sort of smile that prompts young girls to scribble madly in their journals. He and I left Josephine's together that same evening and walked to the Palais Royale. That was the night I saw a man fall to the ground as we walked past and realized St. Juste had stuck a knife in his side without barely breaking his stride."
"Was it random?" Laura asked. "I mean, is he a crazed killer on top of everything else?"
Raoul turned to his lover. "He's certainly a killer, but his targets are chosen. The man was an Austrian agent. Someone had tasked St. Juste to kill him." Raoul shifted his position, one hand on the mantle, as though to anchor himself. "Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette had been executed, but the dauphin and his sister Marie-Thérèse were still imprisoned in the Temple. What to do with them was a constant tension." He was silent for a moment, as though he, to wh
om words came so easily, was choosing his exact words with care. "As principal director, Barras, Josephine's protector, had charge of the children."
Mélanie felt the jolt that ran through her husband, on the sofa beside her, at the same moment the possibility occurred to her. But surely—
Raoul stared down into the fire for a moment. "The dauphin was ill and failing in prison. Josephine had a soft heart. Barras knew the value of a bargaining chip. And didn't trust his fellow directors. I've sometimes thought it should have occurred to me what they might try, but it didn't. Failure of imagination, perhaps. In any case, I didn't have a suspicion until Josephine confided in me years later."
The dauphin, heir of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, rumored to have died in prison. Also rumored for years to have been smuggled out and hidden away. Rightful King of France, if he resurfaced.
Laura drew in her breath. Raoul's gaze moved to her, softening with concern. "Not my cleverest moment, sweetheart."
The room was gone so still Mélanie could hear the hiss of the Argand lamp. Malcolm was staring at his father. Mélanie was quite sure he had seen it, but he seemed to hesitate to put it into words. "My God. Are you saying that Josephine and Barras spirited away the dauphin—"
"There were always rumors," Mélanie said. "That Barras and Josephine smuggled the boy away."
"We even heard them in India," Laura said.
"Tsar Alexander actually told me in Vienna that Josephine had confided as much to him." Mélanie pictured the tsar's intent face as he spun the story. "But I never really believed—"
"Quite." Raoul shifted his arm along the mantle. "We know the tsar's penchant for elaboration. To put it charitably. But for once he appears to have been telling the truth. According to Josephine, she and Barras switched the dauphin for another boy with similar coloring in early spring of 1795. The substitute boy died of natural causes a few months later. The real dauphin was smuggled off to a safe location."
The implications settled over the room like the Queen of the Night's cloak. "Let me guess," Mélanie said. "Julien St. Juste was employed to make the exchange."
Raoul met her gaze. "Precisely. Josephine told me in 1809. Bonaparte was being pressured to divorce her and marry a foreign princess. By Fouché, among others. Josephine was afraid Fouché would get hold of her coded instructions to St. Juste about the boy's transfer."
Mélanie pressed a hand to her temple. "Sacrebleu. That was the paper you wanted me to steal from Julien."
"It was unpardonable of me to involve you. But I needed someone I could trust implicitly."
Mélanie recalled the terror on Josephine's face that night, when Mélanie had confessed she'd failed to steal the paper but that Julien St. Juste had given it to her voluntarily and said Josephine was the one person on earth he'd never betray. Hortense had been there. Mélanie had watched them burn the paper together. "I understand her desperation. If Bonaparte had learned his wife knew the dauphin was alive and had kept it from him—"
Raoul nodded. "Not to mention the uses Bonaparte's enemies could have made of the information, either finding the real dauphin or using the story to put forwards an imposter. God knows there were enough imposters at the Restoration as it was."
"You must have been terrified as well."
"I was. On multiple counts. Mostly the danger I'd put you in."
"The Wanderer," Malcolm said.
Raoul nodded. "Josephine told me that was the code name."
"Where?" Malcolm's voice came out as a hoarse rasp. "Where is the boy?"
"Josephine claimed she didn't know herself, for the boy's own safety."
"But St. Juste does."
"He'd have had to."
"In Rivendell?"
"Perhaps. Or perhaps you're right that there's another clue in the treasure hunt in Rivendell. My guess is that Josephine was telling the truth that she and Barras didn't know the boy's location, but that they told St. Juste to hide evidence of where he was somewhere they could uncover it if they ever chose to and weren’t in a position to ask St. Juste himself."
"Last summer in Italy," Malcolm said. "When we found out the League were looking for St. Juste. You must have guessed it was because he knew where the dauphin was."
"Suspected," Raoul said. "Though there could be a number of other reasons they wanted him." His gaze moved from Malcolm to Mélanie to Laura. "It seemed safer for all of you not to know."
"For once, I agree with you," Mélanie said.
Laura was frowning. "If Fouché knew this ten years ago, why didn't he blackmail or torture it out of St. Juste long since?"
"I don't think Fouché knew the whole story. Only that St. Juste was in possession of a document that could be damaging to Josephine. In the end, Bonaparte did divorce her, the war worsened, and Fouché's attentions turned elsewhere."
"And you." Malcolm was studying his father. "You've known the rightful King of France could be out there somewhere for over a decade?"
"Could be."
"So St. Juste hid the boy in England?" Malcolm asked.
"Possibly. There could be a clue in Rivendell that leads us to Prussia or Austria or God knows where."
"Yet England has certain advantages. It would be unexpected for a French agent to hide him in the heart of the enemy. And at the time, England had a number of Royalist sympathizers who could be counted on to protect him. Not to mention the surviving members of the royal family were here. It's where I'd have chosen."
"So would I," Mélanie said.
Raoul's mouth curved slightly. "All right, yes, I might—I probably would—have done so as well."
"The boy's never been more valuable," Malcolm said. "Whoever could put him on the throne could control France. The only people who might not want him back are the current king and his adherents. And the Comte d'Artois, as the heir. Just about everyone else could use him to further their own agendas. The British, the Russians, the Austrians, a dozen different factions in France—"
"Bonapartists who might see a puppet king as preferable to the current monarch," Raoul added. "But no, I haven't been trying to find him."
"Why not?" Malcolm asked.
"France should be a republic."
"That didn't stop you from supporting Bonaparte."
"I thought I could count on Bonaparte to preserve some reforms. And I was right to a large degree. Rival monarchs lead to weak countries and infighting. You have only to look at your own country's history."
"Does Hortense know about the dauphin?" Mélanie asked.
A shadow crossed Raoul's face. "If Josephine confided in the tsar—it's possible she confided in Hortense."
"Hortense was there when her mother burned the paper from St. Juste," Mélanie said. "But I don't think she knew what it was. At least, not then. And I don't think she knew what the Wanderer meant when those men attacked us and tried to capture Julien in Switzerland."
"How long has Carfax known about the Wanderer?" Malcolm asked in a taut voice.
Raoul met his gaze. "I saw Carfax today. He admitted to knowing about the Wanderer, but not for how long. What do you think?"
"He never gave me the least indication that he knew anything of the sort. But that's just what I'd expect if Carfax had known all along."
"I don't think St. Juste would have told him," Raoul said. "On Josephine's account. But he didn't tell him about Mélanie either."
"No, he told Sylvie St. Ives," Malcolm said.
"Probably in bed," Mélanie added. "So he might have let something slip to Sylvie about the Wanderer as well. And she might have told Carfax."
Malcolm put his head in his hands.
"Carfax seems to have just started looking now," Mélanie said. "Perhaps he's only just learned."
"What do you think he'd do if he found the dauphin?" Laura asked.
"Carfax fears instability, almost above all." Malcolm looked up. "I think he'd see the return of the dauphin as dangerous, oddly for some of the same reasons Raoul fears it."
"Not
entirely odd," Raoul said.
"So I think Carfax would likely be quiet but keep watch on the dauphin," Malcolm continued. "But if Carfax was upset with Louis XVIII or his successors, I could see him deciding to make use of the dauphin. On the other hand, if he thought the League or Bonapartists were going to get hold of the dauphin, I could see Carfax deciding he needed to be eliminated."
"So could I," Raoul said.
"And now we know the League are searching for the dauphin," Laura said. "And it's quite clear what they'd see. A way to control France."
Malcolm was staring at Raoul. "How the devil did my mother get mixed up in this?"
"I wish to hell I knew." Raoul took a turn about the hearthrug. "I didn't know any of it until after Arabella died. Arabella seems to have taken the papers from Wyncliffe three years after the dauphin's disappearance. As to how Wyncliffe got them— "
Malcolm studied his father. "Who else knows? About the dauphin?"
Raoul hesitated. "I can't be sure whom Josephine may have told. When I spoke with her she was terrified of the news getting out. But if she actually said something to Tsar Alexander, she may have told others. On the other hand, it's possible Alexander really was making it up. It wouldn't be the first time. As I said, I don't believe Josephine told Hortense, but she may have done, towards the end of her life. But I know of only one other person who knows for a certainty. Talleyrand."
"God in heaven. And yet, how strangely logical," Malcolm said. "Was he part of the plot?"
"Oh, no. I can't imagine Josephine and Barras trusting him," Raoul said. "I didn't find out he knew until after Mélanie met St. Juste and St. Juste burned the paper. Talleyrand came to see me a few months later and said we hadn't always agreed on everything, but he trusted I'd understand how vital it was to keep the information about the Wanderer secret."
"How did he learn about the Wanderer?" Mélanie asked.
"He didn't tell me."
"Could he have learned from Arabella?" Mélanie asked.