* * *
In a towering, pomaded wig dusted with powder of orris and crushed cuttlebone and decorated with a three-masted ship, make-up that made her look as though she had sneezed in a flour sack, sufficient eau de Cologne to drench a four-storey brothel and side panniers beneath her skirts that would not let a licentious man come broadside, Fleur paced up and down the theatre dressing-room. Columbine and Juanita had enthusiastically offered to stand in for her with de Villaret, but as Thomas pointed out Juanita was too tall and even a stupid man would notice that. As for Columbine, she would reel him in and Fleur wanted to get rid of the man, not have him hanging around the premises penning lovesick poems to bits of Columbine's anatomy. Not that the Jacobin was capable of writing anything except arrest warrants.
Monseigneur-High-and-Mighty-Deputy de Villaret was late, probably deliberately so, curse him. Well, if they started slapping the tables out there for her, it would be his loss. Why was her heart thumping so? Ciel, her nerves were jangling worse than when she had made her stage debut, and, oh, she must keep her voice low and flirtatious.
As she heard de Villaret's voice outside the door, she instinctively stepped back. Rain spangled the greatcoat and beaver of the deputy, who let himself in without knocking. If for an instant he seemed assaulted by the hurricane of scent that must have hit him full-face, he did not let it show and closed the door behind him.
The cluttered room seemed diminished by his being there and she sensed the very air grow taut with anticipation. Realising her hand was clenched tightly about her hairbrush, Fleur willed herself to set it down with nonchalance. Picking up her plumed fan instead—the feminine weapon and buckler of the ancien regime—she unfurled it and fanned irritably as if his presence was heating the room to an intolerable degree. He seemed not to mind; the golden eyes studied her as though she was an insect encased in amber, then he remembered his manners.
"Mademoiselle, je suis enchanté." He stepped forward and carried her reluctant hand to his lips. A libertine flourish. Who was she dealing with? A profligate who professed sober republican virtues, or was she witnessing an abrupt uncloaking of a puritan chrysalis into a dissolute moth?
"Mais non," she trilled, fan aflutter. "I am the one who is flattered. You liked my performance last night, then, citizen?"
His mouth curled, giving a glimpse of fine white teeth, but the man's eyes burned with a cold fire. "My dear mademoiselle, I am sure you could perform brilliantly anywhere."
Rake! Her palm itched to slap that challenging smile.
"It depends on how appreciative my audience is," she found herself saying recklessly and brought her lashes down like a veil against him. "I understand from Madame Bosanquet that you are here out of regard for my safety. How very brave of you."
"I wish merely to point out that there are less dangerous ways to earn a living, citizeness."
Was there an offer hidden in those simple words? Fleur had enjoyed no apprenticeship in flirting like her sisters had, but feminine instinct, and that suspicious tautening between her thighs, recognised the hunter circling closer now. Trying to keep her hand steady, she picked up the dish of sweetmeats an admirer had sent her, and held it out to de Villaret, but he shook his head. She placed an almond between her lips, an excuse not to answer.
He took the dish from her impatiently and nestled it back among the cosmetic pots. "I congratulate you on your obvious talents, mademoiselle, but it only requires one of your victims, such as myself, to denounce you to the authorities for sedition and you will end up in La Pelagie."
The prison for prostitutes. Fleur blanched inwardly and then her anger grew.
"Oh, citizen," she purred, reaching out a lace-gloved finger to tease at his stock, "I am positive you would make sure that no harm comes to La Coquette."
Lazily his fingers fastened round hers and stroked upwards. "That depends."
She pulled away with a soft laugh and turned to her mirror, fastening the paste diamonds into her ears.
"How sweet that you can still blush beneath that appalling make-up, mademoiselle," he commented dryly. "Surely I cannot have embarrassed you."
In the mirror she watched him move up behind her. Skilful hands closed in, parenthesising her small waist. She held her breath; a few inches more and he might touch her breasts, or at least the bared curves that thrust up above the stiff bodice. She desperately wanted to experience such a sensation. Her sisters had told her it was enjoyable, but the alert eyes of the man in the reflection were calculating, like a demon about to snatch a soul.
Instinctive modesty compelled her to set her hands restrainingly upon his cuffs, but with a swift flick of the wrist it was he who now had her arms gently imprisoned against her waist. "It is so easy to make a prisoner of someone," he murmured, drawing her shoulders to lean against him, "in so many ways." Again the ambiguity.
Something beyond the control of her mind made the rebel inside her quiver pleasurably at such subtle custody.
His lips brushed her shoulder. "I should need some reward for my protection from now on, and this reckless sedition will have to cease."
"Reward, citizen?" Her answer was a beguiling, sensual sigh.
"Tonight." The man's words were a soft breath upon her cheek. La Coquette was hard put not to giggle; seducers were so deploringly predictable. "After your performance, come to my table." It was an imperious statement, which was easily translated into sheets or a chaise longue; undo a button here, a lace there. It reminded her of the necessity to flex her feminine strength in modest protest against the man who held her.
His hands released her. The sudden freedom left her desolate but Raoul de Villaret was not done. He adventured his palms upwards over the figured brocade to stroke his fingertips across her skin under the silk edge of her gown. It was unbelievably tantalising. For a breathless instant Fleur wished herself exposed to his touch, to his gaze, like a concubine to her master. He had hardly touched her and she wanted more, much more. But it was the actress La Coquette she was playing who was aflutter at such temptation; the hidden aristocrat must never lose control with the likes of this man. As de Villaret himself had warned: the rakes of Paris devoured innocents.
"Tonight? That depends," La Coquette replied huskily as she shrugged free. "You must go, citizen. I have work to do." She appraised her appalling reflection in the mirror and turned, flirtatiously tugging his watch from his waistcoat pocket to glance at its iridescent hands.
"So have I." Another threat. He sternly withdrew the watch from her fingers and slid it into his pocket. "I shall return later."
"Very well, then." She made dimples of her cheeks, her voice a sultry murmur: "I can fit you in between Doctor Marat and Citizen Danton but," her lower lip quivered, "I do ask how much protection one poor actress can need."
Clearly he did not believe her. Admiration, dislike even, flickered in the depths of his golden eyes.
"Oh-hoo, madame, are you ready?" Columbine cooed through the keyhole. The latch rattled. "Shall I signal your entrance, cherie?"
The spell was broken. The sorcerer released her. It was he who opened the door and with a questioning lift of brow demanded her signature to his unwritten treaty. La Coquette gave him a sultry look and an indifferent wriggle of her shoulder. Hidden behind the cosmetics, the duke's daughter thought herself safely immune. She set her sights beyond the open door, cleared her mind and nodded to Columbine. The drumming began.
* * *
It was dressed as the sombre, virtuous Widow Bosanquet that Fleur finally appeared beside the small table reserved for Citizen de Villaret in the shadows against the side wall. Unfortunately for him, he had been kept waiting a considerable time. On the other hand, only a few drowsy patrons remained to witness the imminent drama. He did not show courtesy by standing so she seated herself without his licence. Behind deVillaret's back, she glimpsed her acting troupe clustering at the serving bar to covertly watch her latest performance; the men in disbelief, the actresses in glee.
&nbs
p; "You wish to say something, citoyenne? Un coup de rouge?" Male words. The empty, waiting wineglass was pushed towards her; the carafe lifted with chill amusement.
"It seems you have been kept waiting to no avail." Her fingers upturned the glass symbolically upon its bowl. "I regret, sir, that this establishment is under new management and does not permit its performers to mingle with the customers."
Surprisingly, he was not unpleasant. Instead, he drew a line in the tablecloth with his fingernail. "I was led to believe the arrangement was agreeable to La Coquette."
"My actresses are not ftlles de nuit." Fleur rearranged her skirts like an annoyed dowager. "You would need to inquire at her lodgings. What she does in her private life is her business, but in regard to her public life, as I told you this morning, she deserves my protection." Dear God, he was right, she did sound like some indignant mother superior. "In fact, how dare you assume that because she is an actress, she is beneath your respect? No doubt you intend to threaten her with imprisonment in La Pelagie if she refuses to sleep with you."
She watched the man's eyebrows rise at her vehemence. "How very noble of you, citizen. Has the Revolution not yet rid our society of such condescension and male bigotry? Oh, you make me so furious! Why do you not abolish the law that degrades these people?" She waved her hand towards the troupe. They were contriving to hold Thomas, now free from his kitchen, in lively conversation but they were still, out of both loyalty and self-preservation, keeping a wary eye on her. Their livelihood, after all, depended on her liberty. "Are you listening to me, citizen?"
He seemed to be completely distracted by her chef's immense person.
"I beg your pardon," he answered, and propped his chin upon his fist in deceptive obedience.
"No," she continued, "you would rather sneer at them and blackmail a talented actress into behaving like a harlot for your pleasure. Well, negotiate the needs of your pathetic life somewhere else. I will not have my theatre turned into a bordello. Close me down out of spite, if you desire. Now leave! My staff have to clean up the mess."
It was as if she was implying the spilt wine and the stained tablecloths were his fault. Raoul de Villaret stared at her in fascination.
"Feeling better?" he asked, reaching for his hat.
"Didn't you listen to a word I said, citizen?" Fleur asked, miffed beyond endurance. His attention kept streaking sideways to her chef, or was it Columbine who might serve as second best? Goodness, here she had been nerving herself to confront him and now the horrid man was not even bothered at having his arrangements aborted. "Are you not... not displeased?" she demanded, tense hands clasped upon the cloth.
A foolish grin smudged the intelligent lines of cheek and brow. Was he too inebriated to rattle threats? "No, citizeness."
"Then kindly remove yourself, citizen."
He skittered a handful of coins across the table and, humming, sauntered off into the cold April air.
Fleur shrugged at her employees and sank back on her chair with a sense of utter failure. It wasn't the end, but it wasn't a beginning either.
* * *
Raoul paused at the door to look back to where the girl still sat at the table. The actors had moved across and were leaning over her like children around a widowed parent but she was not answering them. Weariness spoke in the slender back drooping like a flower that needed sunlight and water.
"Goodnight, citizen. We must all get some sleep, eh?" Raoul swung round. The cook was holding open the door for him.
His voice surfaced coldly. "The owner has certainly turned around the fortunes of this place, or is it down to you?"
The large jowls quivered. "I'll tell you a secret, Deputy. You get some chopped garlic and butter and you heat it in a pan, eh? And then just before opening time you waft the pan around outside. La Coquette's the same. Gets the customers in. As for la petite citoyenne there, she is the heartbeat of us all." The cheerful expression reassembled into sadder folds. "Do not close us down, citizen; it was in good humour. We mean you and the Republic no harm."
Raoul did not answer.
Outside the wind still blew like winter. He did not like being made a fool of, but the boy once belted by an angry duke had grown into a man who enjoyed being in control—of his own emotions and other people's.
Only nineteen!
His hands, achingly, remembered the slender, delightful feel of La Coquette, the delicate bones too easily discernible, the height of her against him. Treated it like a game, had she? Well, the game was only just beginning.
Chapter 9
Arriving early for a session of the Committee for General Security, Raoul made himself comfortable in an armchair next to the stove in the vestibule outside the committee room with a cup of coffee and a newspaper. Within seconds a confident hand batted the paper, and his old master, Jacques-Louis David, now an influential Jacobin deputy and the cultural spine of the Republic, tossed back his coat-tails and flung himself down in the chair opposite. Raoul nodded casually. David's scowls no longer daunted him.
"Bonjour, young Raoul. What a kerfuffle yesterday, eh? A government warrant out for Marat's arrest! Serious stuff—inciting the people to murder and pillage, eh? You should have heard Robespierre huffing about it. Says they might as well indict the entire Mountain."
It was respectful for Raoul to look attentive although he had been at the Convention when the motion had been carried. Serious business indeed! Like the vote on the King's fate, it was one of the few times each deputy had been required to stand up and announce to the gallery how he was voting, and now everyone knew who sided with the Girondin government and who supported Marat and Robespierre. His friend Armand had voted for the indictment, which now put him within the sights of the Mountain's verbal cannons.
"Separates the sheep from the goats." Raoul shook his paper back into its folds and tossed it on the small table next to him.
"It's an all-out attack on us Jacobins, of course." David brushed a finger to and fro across the indent of his chin as he always did when agitated. "But, by God, it will force both sides of the Mountain into bed together."
Raoul agreed; it would certainly unite any deputies—extreme as well as moderate—who felt the ministers had been halfhearted in consolidating the gains of the Revolution. "Do you think they can make the charge stick?" he asked with a soupçon of deference. It was as well to keep his famous mentor sweet.
"First they have to catch Marat, don't they?" The great master leaned forward confidentially, hands clapped upon the meeting of breeches and stockings. "But, by the same token, there's a lot of people who're hoping the government nails him this time. Not me, I might add, but let's be honest, the fellow's a bloody Jeremiah, always bellyaching. There isn't one of us he hasn't hurled some filth at and it sticks, curse the bastard! Ah well." He sat back and, perceiving a loose thread issuing from a waistcoat buttonhole, investigated it. "Did your mission in Calvados go well?"
"Yes, I think so, sir. Ah, good morning, Danton."
Danton slapped a friendly hand on Raoul's shoulder on his way into the committee room but his jibe was for David. "Finished the Tennis Court Oath painting yet?"
"More cheek and I'll paint you behind a pillar, Georges," David called out after him and rose to his feet. "Doing any portraits, are you, Raoul?"
"Some sketches now and again, sir." No longer a pupil, Raoul smiled lazily, noting the wiry grey hairs proliferating amongst the artist's dark curls. The cyst beneath the skin of David's left cheek had grown a little since they had last met.
"Some pretty model, eh?"
The days were long gone when the great master had painted two-dimensional frothy women in silken panniers or taken commissions to depict the heirs of the noblesse in Grecian costume. Neoclassicism, with its sharp defining lines, had taken its nod from him. He painted men creating history or, to be precise, taking oaths—whether it was The Oath of the Horatii, now in an Italian gallery, or the not-yet-finished Tennis Court Oath with its idealism oozing like perspirat
ion from the bistre wash. And heroes! David liked patriotic heroes. The Death of Socrates had been so a la mode before the Revolution that every aristocrat in France had bought a copy.
"Yes, there is a girl," Raoul admitted.
"Ha, sly dog!"A fist slammed his shoulder. "One way to get her clothes off, eh?"
"I suspect it may require more ingenuity than that."
"Oh, a clever hussy, is she? Women don't know their place any more. Well, busy morning, mon gars. If you ever want to give me a hand with any of the public festivals, let me know."
"Thank you, sir, I'll bear that in mind."
And that was all he would do. Raoul had endured enough of David as an employer to last him to the grave. David was a genius, no question, and he had changed public thinking: painters and sculptors were no longer seen as tradesmen but as cultured men worthy of being invited to the salons of the beau monde. But Raoul could not forgive the great master for spitefully destroying the entire Academy of Arts because they had once refused him membership. A few arteries of aristocratic blood still ran deep in Raoul despite his politics.
"Deputies! Are you coming in?" the suisse manning the doors called out tactfully.
Not all the fourteen members of the Committee for General Security were present but the green baize covering the large oval table was already untidy with coffee cups and dispatches, and Danton's pipe smoke drifted beneath the ceiling mouldings, as Raoul sat down in his usual seat opposite David's.
Danton leaned forward so the morning sunlight would not dazzle him as it crawled across the room, his fleshy fingers splaying the morning's agenda.
"Now we've all read your report, it's time we discussed your visit to Normandy, de Villaret. Looks like Caen is a hotbed of Girondin sympathisers."
"It would seem that way," he informed them. "Of course, that is not to say we have no support there."
"Well, you did a good job," Danton conceded after they had discussed Raoul's conclusions at some length. The others bleated obligingly. "I had a quick look through today's business," he continued, sitting back, his thumbs circling each other like busy bobbins, "and there's something confidential come in this morning that you might not have seen yet. Prisoners—all aristocrats—have been escaping from the women's section of La Force prison."
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