"Oh, monsieur, your pardon. Indeed, you have saved our lives." Tante Estelle put a shaky arm round her niece.
"Not monsieur but citizen," their rescuer corrected indifferently."You would be well to remember that." He deliberately used the informal, disrespectful term of address usually reserved for intimates or children, and Fleur felt the anger ripple through her aunt.
"You really know these women?" the man's companion asked.
"A little widow from Caen." Contempt laced his tone.
"Yes, a little widow from Caen," retorted Fleur, with a toss of her head. She glared up at the deputy, bitterly resenting the fact that she was once more in his debt.
"Fortunate we intervened," the handsome blond man commented. "By the look of you, my lovely, you need to improve your acting if you want to keep body and soul together these days. You need a bit more patronage, eh?" It was spoken with friendly lasciviousness and a flash of teeth. A fine hand squeezed her sore forearm, testing her bones through her sleeve. Fleur flinched but he laughed. "Which theatre are you playing at? I'll come along and put you under my surveillance."
Irritation curled her other rescuer's mouth. "How in the name of reason did you manage to cause so much trouble?" He addressed this question to her aunt, making Fleur feel as though she still had plaits and milk teeth.
"All we did was hire a fiacre," protested Tante Estelle in an aggrieved tone. "Is that so wrong?"
"Of course," retorted the deputy, his hostility towards them scarcely concealed. "Good citizens, honest citizens, walk."
"Yes," agreed the man called Hérault. "Unless you are a government official or a member of the Convention. For you, it is safer to walk."
"Walk, with a rabble like that loose?" The lady's voice quavered.
"We have had a revolution, or hadn't you noticed, citizeness?"
Sensibly, Tante Estelle made no answer to that jibe.
"I suggest you seek advice on the new manners required in Paris before you venture out again," he continued smoothly, the disdain in his voice unmistakable. Well, he certainly would not be the one to ask if his manners were anything to go by.
"Yes, indeed," muttered Tante Estelle with teeth-clenched humility. Her hand felt backwards for Fleur's and pressed it cautiously. Thank heaven this creature thrown up by the Revolution did not know who they really were; he might smell more fragrant than the bastard who had just stalked them but his manners and politics made him as great an enemy.
"If the coach that hurtled past us was the one you hired, no wonder it drew attention." He waited, testing her. Fleur drew a breath and then stared at him with feigned blankness, while the icy finger of horror poked his meaning home. She should have recognised the coat of arms! God have mercy, the carriage had belonged to the Princess de Lamballe, the Queen's dearest friend, who had been massacred by the people. But to know the insignia was to condemn herself.
She swallowed. "You..." The word erupted hoarsely. "You mean..." It was an effort to gather the strength back into her voice. "Are you saying it belonged to someone famous? S-some former aristocrat?"
DeVillaret did not answer but regarded her with scarcely disguised suspicion.
"I-I never thought. Oh God!" Fleur felt faint in truth. Tante Estelle was staring at her, concerned.
"Do you know your way home?" Citizen Hérault asked not unkindly. At least he had given up ogling her.
Home? She gulped back the tears of humiliation and shock. Home? A hovel? Return to the forest and live worse than peasants? She blinked, and looked up to be surprised at the pity in the deputy's expression, as if he had knowledge of her dilemma.
"Ah, yes," he drawled, "home." He expected her to retreat. But Fleur had never turned down a challenge and the man's attitude goaded her into defiance. She was not going to slink back to her kennel like a beaten dog. A few days' respite to find her feet without toppling into further danger was all she required; a few days to learn how to cope with this anarchic city. She shook her head as if to brush away these distrait thoughts and discovered the two men were still staring at her, her rescuer academically, as though she was some chemical solution he had tipped acid into and was waiting to see the result.
"Citizeness? Did you hear me?" Citizen Hérault repeated his question.
Fleur pulled her wits together. She darted a glance at one of the dark alleyways; the burly workman was still watching her intently.
"No," she whispered, hating herself for her cowardice and fearful where the honesty might lead her. "No, I do not know my way home. Not yet."
"Where are you staying?" It was the deputy who asked.
What could she answer him? She did not want him to know, she did not want any more to do with him. He was too suspicious, too clever. If he started investigating—
"Forty-seven Rue des Bonnes Soeurs," her aunt informed them.
"Then we shall see you home," the flirtatious Hérault answered. He did not offer either woman his arm but glanced at his disagreeable companion, who merely shrugged and waved his hand towards the corner.
"We shall follow at a distance." So they were to be treated as lepers, as suspects. The odious deputy must have read the fear in Tante Estelle's face for he added in a casual manner, "Do not fear any harm shall come to you—unless you have something to hide."
Harm? Oh it was so tempting to scorn their condescending help but she was genuinely frightened, for her aunt more than herself.
"That would be most generous of you." Her aunt humbly used the informal address, though it must have tasted like bile to do so, and tucked her arm through Fleur's. "Come, my child." Before these men change their minds!
Proudly, their fear concealed, the two women began the walk back. They were forced to glance behind for instructions whenever they came to a corner, for the men kept a discreet, uncontaminated distance behind them.
"Our pigs at Thury-Estry had better manners," muttered her aunt. "If this is the new France..."A curse sufficiently vile eluded her. "Once our émigrés get themselves organised..."
"Hush, Tante. We must not talk so."
"But you think it, do you not?"
Fleur nodded gravely, though, to be honest, she could remember noblemen as rude and crass as these so-called patriots.
"I suppose we have to be grateful," her aunt muttered. "Those sans-culottes animals could have murdered us in cold blood like they did your poor father."
It was appallingly true. "We were stupid. From now on we shall have to be very careful. The rules are different now and we must learn them if we want to survive."
"Let us return to Caen, Fleur. I beg you, sell these properties."
"I promised to look after Monsieur Beugneux and Machiavelli."
Tante Estelle scowled with disapproval but replied, "Then let them leave with us. Anything, Fleur, but let us quit this foul place."
"No! No, we must give it a little longer. Supposing the Republic is never overthrown? What then? We have to survive somehow."
"If that's the case, then we must leave France. Join your uncle in Coblenz or your sister in London." Shakily, she added, trying to be brave, "I daresay I can put up with the ghastly food."
"Better than starving," agreed Fleur, "but how? With this mania for passes, I daresay that soon we shall be needing a passport to go to the end of the street, let alone get out of Paris. Trying to leave France is like running the gauntlet, with some officious shark at every town wanting to inspect our papers and know our business. We are hedged by enemies, Tante."
"And coming here has made it worse. We should have gone to England when the troubles began. It is my fault, Fleur, I thought you would be safe to continue your schooling, I thought—"
"No one could have imagined what was going to happen, Tante Estelle. We must make the best of things. Oh, I do believe we have reached the Rue Saint-Honore, thank heaven."
During the entire fifteen-minute walk, Fleur was acutely aware of their protectors' scrutiny; the gooseflesh along her spine tingled, as if her walk and the sway
of her hips were being evaluated. The men were conversing but more than once she heard their soft laughter like a mockery. It was hard not to suppose that they were laughing at her! Ignore them, she told herself, but the possibility chafed her. Twice she had stumbled on the uneven rubble and blushed in embarrassment, then as they stood on the corner of the Rue Saint-Honore, her already muddied dress was spattered further by filth from the wheels of a passing cart.
"It is fortunate you are in black, little widow," whispered the deputy as the men drew level with the women to cross the street.
Fleur shrugged, trying to be worldly. The deputy was smiling but still with that hint of a sneer; the amber eyes were amused as she scowled at him and looked away.
"Almost there," exclaimed Citizen Hérault in the slightly slurred way Fleur was beginning to recognise. The gentlemen of Paris really rolled their rrs.
The man was right, thank God! Fleur's breath came more easily as she began to recognise the shops they were passing. The clientele were better dressed now, more respectable—no rough workmen in sight, nor, thank heaven, the horrid creature who had almost caused their deaths. Fleur had no illusions about her escorts; if that knife-pulling troublemaker had returned to waylay them with an angry mob, there would have been no more knight-errantry on the part of their rescuers. They would have put their own skins first.
There was the church where M. Bosanquet's passing was to be remembered tomorrow Yes, they were almost home. She halted her aunt on the next corner and waited as the men caught up with them. "We need trouble you no further, citizens. Our lodgings are but a little further, only in the next street."
"What a shame," murmured Citizen Hérault with charming insolence. "I was enjoying the view. Marie-Jean Hérault de Séchelles at your service, deputy for Seine-et-Oise." With an ancien régime flourish, he doffed his broad-brimmed plumed hat. "Unfortunately, it is no longer de rigeur to kiss a lady's hand. In the name of France, citizeness, au revoir." Taking hold of her shoulders, he gave her a vigorous kiss on each cheek.
Fleur arched a rebellious eyebrow at his indifferent companion, who made no such move. "Oh, I do not always follow the fashion," he remarked, sensing her reluctance to have him touch her. "Raoul de Villaret," he inclined his head curtly, "and I am at nobody's service any more, thank God!" But his hand reached out and caught her chin; his thumb, uninvited, rubbed across her indignant lips. "Go back to the country, little widow. The men in Paris eat morsels like you for breakfast."
Chapter 5
Why had he bothered warning her? Raoul wondered. It was not as if he cared what happened to the provincial little Delilah, but even on her hands and knees with the mob salivating for her blood, there had been pride and defiance in her. Well, if he received any more unsavoury information from Caen, he would certainly investigate her further and it would be easier now that he knew where she lived. Perhaps the great watchmaker in the sky intended him to be her nemesis, and if she were responsible for her husband's death, he would make sure she paid.
"Taking little piece, apart from her dialect," murmured Hérault. "'You are missing your sash and epaulette,'" he mimicked. "What else were you missing when you saw her last, my dear fellow? Your shirt and breeches?"
"Have you ever heard of female spiders that devour their mates?"
"'Devour' meaning 'eat', or 'devour' meaning 'consume in passion'?"
"Precisely, Hérault," and wearing his most enigmatic expression, Raoul left the former avocat-général of the Parlement of Paris standing on the corner looking baffled.
* * *
Next morning's rain faltered respectfully for the commemorative service at the local temple of reason. Fleur sat numbly in her hastily cleaned black gown as small groups of mourners slid onto the chairs behind her. Her thoughts were not on the Supreme Being finding room in his mansion for her late and brief husband, but, as they had been all night, on the image of the dark-haired deputy. Under surveillance. It was not just that Fate had flung him into her life twice within a week, but there was something else: not exactly a familiarity but a faint sense of deja vu. She shook her head as if that would exorcise her unease and tried to be dutiful; poor M. Bosanquet lay in a grave at la Delivrande and she should be praying earnestly for his soul's journey through the darkness.
"Citizeness."A hand shook her shoulder from behind. Half rising, Fleur took in the expensive caped greatcoat and silken breeches, and barely concealed her panic. Hérault! Nom d'un chien! How had he known about the service? Was she indeed under the Republic's surveillance?
"Christ have mercy!" muttered Tante Estelle beside her.
Fleur sent a prayer to the empty altar behind her as Hérault saluted her with his right hand on his heart. "Citizeness Bosanquet, I believe? Your humble servant. My condolences."
Humble was he, and pretending not to know her? Fleur inclined her head politely, reluctantly grateful that he expected her to behave as though yesterday's shameful meeting had never taken place.
"Marie-Jean Hérault de Séchelles." He rippled his name forth rapidly; then, as though leaving her to digest this impressive information, he half knelt and shielded his face reverently with his hand, his lips moving in prayer.
"To think the Queen once sent him a specially embroidered scarf," whispered M. Beugneux, pale behind his lacy cuff. "Avocat-général he was, and not only a d-deputy b-but P-President of the—" Further information was prevented as they realised that M. Hérault had resumed his seat and was showing a curiosity in who was attending. Another man joined him, shaking his hand discreetly, and glanced coldly at Fleur without a word of greeting. She barely noticed, though, because a revelation hit her like a catapult pebble.
Hérault de Séchelles. Oh what a fool she was! She had seen the name in several of Charlotte's newspapers. He was the Hérault de Séchelles, one of the leading revolutionaries; a loathsome creature who had betrayed his own kind and, by the expensive look of him, used the Revolution to advance his own selfish interest. She resisted the urge to storm out of the temple as if the traitor had infected the air, for he was surely one of the foul orators to be blamed for the massacre of her father and sister. And was she to be his next victim, to be hauled before a tribunal because she refused to take her clothes off for him?
She stared bleakly at an altar bereft of candles. If the Revolution had dared to rename God, what chance had Fleur, a Montbuillou, to survive among such ruthless wolves? Beside her, her aunt crossed herself with a trembling hand. Real tears prickled behind Fleur's lashes, and an intense longing for a shoulder to weep on, for someone to take care of her for once, overcame her.
"M-madame?" M. Beugneux's crinkled face was displaying concern.
Fleur blinked at him, droplets running down her cheeks, knowing she might contaminate all she touched. Sister to a rebel, niece to an émigré, a duke's daughter and now involved with a murdered stranger, she had already reserved her place on a tumbril. And she had selfishly dragged Tante Estelle to this dangerous city where there was no one to trust.
"Madame Bosanquet?" M. Beugneux repeated, his faded blue eyes full of pity.
Then the words of Matthieu Bosanquet came back to her: "There is only one thing you can depend on in your life—yourself." She must pretend for all she was worth. Pretend that she was not afraid.
"I will survive," she replied with feeling and managed a watery smile.
The old man drew breath to answer but the celebrant, flaunting an opulent tricolore rosette in support of the new Republic, coughed loudly, demanding attention. "In the name of the sansculotte Jesus Christ, I welcome you here to our temple of reason."
The priest seemed like a gull perched on the edge of the pulpit, his eye sharp and head thrown back aggressively as he performed his duty. Disapproval of the deceased's morals spewed out of the morass of revolutionary phrases and religious clichés that followed.
What had poor Matthieu Bosanquet done to earn so little respect? It was hard not to notice M. Beugneux's knuckles whitening. Fleur reached for his
hand consolingly and ignored Tante Estelle's shoulder-wriggle of censure. On the other side of him, Bosanquet's business agent, Pierre Mansart, still a stranger to her, surreptitiously eased his watch out of his waistcoat pocket, and behind her the former aristocrat, Hérault, twisted a loose button on his coat cuffs.
It was deplorable. Fleur had seen young children conduct garden burials for departed rabbits with far more respect. But anger would be indelicate, so she sat through the remainder of the service ignoring the priest, her gaze fixed upon her lap.
"Citizeness?" M. Mansart stood back to let Fleur and her aunt lead the congregation down the nave. Then he and M. Beugneux flanked her with fatherly solicitude as she took her place in the drizzle on the steps outside and waited for the variety of mourners to trickle by, gaping as if she were a pickled monster in a museum. No doubt gossip had condemned her as a money-grabbing baggage already.
Aware of the closer, curious glances of M. Mansart, she played the grieving widow, employing a muffled sob and a handkerchief clutched to her lips as a defence against any unwelcome questions. She had only to recall her beloved maman's last moments dying from an infection of the lungs, and tears, sparse but bitter, came forth to glint upon her cheekbones and further dampen the delicate gauze.
She felt a hypocrite. It was poor M. Beugneux who, truly mourning Matthieu Bosanquet, delivered the necessary phrases and pressed the dark gloved hands, while she whispered polite thanks like a modest provincial.
It was indeed an ordeal; hard-miened faces, as impatient as the priest's, seemed to be assessing the quality of her clothing, but behind them, hemming the crowd, female gulps punctuated the silences and several times a male nose was ostentatiously blown. The emotion emanated only from a cluster of four, two men and two women—one blonde, one tall and olive-skinned—who had sat together at the back of the temple. Unwilling to approach, they humbly eyed Fleur from across the churchyard. Former servants, perhaps? Two long, thin feathers rising from the short blonde's bonnet quivered noticeably as if their owner trembled now and again. The other sobbing woman might be Italian or Spanish, her black hair piled beneath a scarlet bonnet a la Revolution. Maybe they had both bestowed their favours on M. Bosanquet for there was definitely a skittish lack of gentility about them.
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