* * *
At 47 Rue des Bonnes Soeurs, Fleur set down Matthieu Bosanquet's coffeepot before she spilt its contents on the tray cloth, and listened to Emilie in utter astonishment.
"Oh, Citizen Danton spoke so prettily, love, you could have heard a flea jump, an' it was as if... as if he was speaking directly to the heart of each and every one of us patriots." Emilie clasped her hands at her breast like a nun in ecstasy.
"Sentimental rubbish," protested Fleur, "and not a word of truth in it."
"So you may say, my duck, but you and de Villaret are the talk of Paris. There'll be a cram at your café tonight."
"I wish I had not been indisposed," growled Fleur. Yesterday's excitement had brought on her monthly flux and she had missed attending the Convention."Truly, I'd like to wring their necks, de Villaret's and Danton's. True love, pfft!"
Her friend looked as disappointed as a child told not to believe in fairies. "Aw, I wish someone would link my name with Armand Gensonné's like that." Emilie's infatuation was remarkable, considering her politics and that she knew very little about Gensonné other than he looked good in his breeches and had once smiled at her. "And to be kissed in a balloon." Emilie's sigh was volcanic.
"I don't care how many thousand fools swear they saw us kissing," repeated Fleur through clenched teeth. "De Villaret did not kiss me."
"Still, maybe he will paint your picture now. With nothing on." Emilie giggled.
"Ha, that's about as likely as Citizen Robespierre being a monarchist," muttered Fleur. If de Villaret suggested that, she would smash his canvas down on his head with the greatest of pleasure.
* * *
Raoul woke up groggily. He remembered drinking some spectacular wine that had been acquired by Danton in dubious circumstances, but the rest of his recall was cloudy to say the least. When reality struggled to the surface of his drowsy, aching brain, he discovered he was lying on someone's flagstone floor with his mouth as dry as blotting paper, and that the nearby bubbling sounds were not coming from fermenting grapes but a snoring Hérault.
He relieved himself in a bucket and, stumbling upstairs from the cellar, discovered that someone had inconveniently snuffed out the sun. Navigating the dark, lurching courtyard, he halted to clumsily sluice his face at the rainwater butt, and since that did as much good as a wart on a princess's nose, submerged his head to the tip of his ears and then stood, ostrich-like, waiting for his reason to return.
It did. With a vengeance—or certainly part of it did! His conscience dictated that he should offer some sort of apology to a particular young widow without delay and this required strong coffee, a fiacre and some grovelling. The first matter was easily settled, courtesy of the pretty nursemaid in charge of Danton's children. The second took somewhat longer, but a coach eventually unloaded him in the Rue des Bonnes Soeurs. The grovelling?
Sober enough to wish to avoid an audience, and observing that an aproned carpenter and his apprentice were sitting untidily on a doorstep in the courtyard of number forty-seven passing a bottle back and forth, Raoul retreated towards the nearest alleyway. It led him to a narrow lane that conveniently spined the back walls. He counted the buildings, miscalculated and repeated the effort, hoping he had found the right gate. It was locked, nor did any candles flicker behind any of the upper windows. Perhaps he should leave matters until tomorrow, but he was here now and maybe she might even... No, in his less than exuberant state, he knew some fantasies were improbable. He lingered, concealed in the shadows, eyeing the high wall, and then he heard someone hurrying along the alley. A woman, shoulders bent as though she huddled into her shawl, moved with furtive haste along the lane towards him. For an instant he assumed it could not possibly be Citizeness Bosanquet, but the creature darted a swift glance to left and right and then, before Raoul could gather the right bouquet of words to thrust at her, she deftly inserted a key into the gate and let herself through into the Bosanquet garden, hurriedly locking it behind her. He heard another door whine open, and close.
* * *
"Oh, sacre Christus, child! Don't scream!"The woman intruder spun round on the landing at the challenge, holding a finger to her scarlet lips, and Fleur gazed, round-eyed, at M. Beugneux. Not only was her gentleman boarder wearing one of the dressing-room's wigs, more modest than the one Fleur had used for La Coquette, but from neck to waist he was snugly buttoned into a woman's brown bodice jacket. Her astonished stare took in his ample female bosom—stuffed with what?—and slid down over the voluminous bustled skirt. He raised the hem with a rebellious pucker to show flat-heeled shoes—women's, nevertheless.
"It is not what you think."
"I'm not thinking anything," retorted Fleur."But if it's not what you expect I'm supposed to think, what should I think?"
M. Beugneux's face crinkled further. "I can—" He stopped and his gloved hand darted up, silencing any further response from her. They froze and listened but the house was silent save for the distant snores of Thomas from the floor above. Beneath the cascade of ringlets, the gentleman's shoulders slumped in relief. "Oh dear, my nerves are all over the place. Go back to bed, dear child. I owe you an explanation, but will it keep till morning?"
"I suppose so," Fleur whispered back."But I want the truth. You will have plenty of time to think up an explanation but it had better be exceedingly good."
"Oh, you shall have the truth, child, but you might prefer lies. Go to bed now."
"Wait, monsieur, Machiavelli wasn't in his box when I got back."
"Then it was probably just him we heard." M. Beugneux crossed himself in relief. "He will turn up. Sleep well."
Sleep well! With a python on the loose, an elderly man posing as a woman on the other side of the hall and her reputation ruined by de Villaret and his despicable cronies! Fleur's nerves were hopping like dislodged fleas. All she needed was Felix Quettehou to break in and her day would be complete.
* * *
Raoul slid over the windowsill and allowed his eyes to become accustomed to the darkness. Someone was moving about on the floor above and he heard a woman exclaim. Less befuddled now, he moved like a cat, soft-pawed, through the downstairs rooms and paused beside a secretaire in the parlour. His eye might not be so alert to assess, nor his mind to remember, but his curiosity as to what lay behind the marquetry foliage was too great to resist. Besides, it would give the girl time to remove her outer garments. Far easier to negotiate with a woman in a peignoir, without the ramparts of stays and petticoats.
Pulling the heavy curtains tight across the salon window, he drew a tinderbox out of his coat pocket and lit its small companion candle, orientating it so that its special shield reflected all the light across the table. The secretaire was locked. He searched in his pockets for the wire he always carried in case he forgot his door keys. The drop front yielded within minutes like an easy woman but held no female secrets within its drawers. All the papers belonged to Matthieu Bosanquet. Letters, old leases and invitations, addresses, receipts—archives of a busy life—but no dutiful letters from a young wife in the provinces, which was odd. Several, though, from Felix Quettehou the printer, all about money: requests for loans, but the most recent had been short and vindictive:
If you don't pay up, I'll print the truth.
This house was brimming with secrets. He retied the tape about the bundle. Then, fingers sensitive as a physician's, he ran a hand over the interior of each of the small compartments. Nothing. Disappointed, he set each pile of papers carefully back. What else beside her alleged marriage vows had linked the young actress to Matthieu Bosanquet? The girl in the balloon gondola had displayed nerves of steel. But surely not a murderess? Surely she was not working in the printer Quettehou's interests? Every feeling in Raoul hallooed that argument down because he wanted her. Infinitely desirable, courageous and a wonderful blend of mischief and something else—an innocence with men. Well, she wanted a romantic thief. He smiled stupidly at the ceiling and then remembered the duke's chit of a daughter p
ointing her papa's pistols at him. There was a thought! God forbid the alluring widow kept pistols in her boudoir. Apologise, he told himself, but with style! And with luck, she might cook him breakfast afterwards.
But with the cautious testing of each tread as he climbed the stairs, Raoul began wondering at his madness. Twice the creaking nearly betrayed him. Three doors. Were all the rooms occupied? Grinning, he stooped and felt the carpet before each. One piece was hardly worn. He ignored that door and listened against the door on the left. The quiet was almost too intense. He tried the handle. Locked. Which left the room at the back. He waited and then slid a delicate touch around the handle. It turned.
Inside the darkened room, a movement to his right froze him. Damn it! He was jumping like a spinster aunt at his own reflection. He ventured further, thankful this was not the frothy boudoir of a whore de luxe, but it hardly seemed a woman's taste either. Was this her bedchamber? Yes, he recognised the familiar, light perfume in the air before he heard the rustle of the bedclothes. The curtains were securely drawn but he managed to distinguish the drapes of the dark canopy framing the head and foot of the bed against the far wall.
If he were wise, he should slide a hand over her mouth lest she alarm the whole street with a scream, but there were more delicate ways of waking a sleeping woman, particularly this one. Sitting down upon the counterpane towards the foot of the bed, Raoul let his imagination charge ahead, but he was not out of control. Not yet. A peace treaty needed to be set on the table before he... well... raised the matter of a nocturnal alliance.
"Citizeness?" he whispered softly but as he reached out to rock her ankle through the coverlet, the point of a rapier pricked through the stock beneath his jaw.
"Do not move!" She had emerged from the darkness to stand behind him.
With steel pricking his skin, he could hardly swallow. "I... would not dream of it."
"DeVillaret!" Her astonishment dissipated in seconds before he could disarm her. "I thought it was... Why, you bastard!" Her voice was a soft hiss of venom in the darkness. "How dare you come here!"
"You told me that your thief would come by the window, so I..."
Across the pace of shadowy air, he sensed her struggling for words.
"But he's my thief, damn you!" The rapier shook with indignation, tickling his neck in deadly fashion. "Mon Dieu, are all the men in Paris demented tonight?"
He must be. And who else did she...? On the edge of his vision, someone shifted. Diable! Raoul realised with a jolt that if she was holding the weapon, who the blazes was lying in her bed?
"Put the blade away, citizeness," he said firmly, wishing he could read her face, and skewed his gaze sideways trying to distinguish the shape beneath the bedclothes—the man's dark hair upon the pillow. Not someone's mighty bulk, thank God! Which excluded Hérault or Danton, and anyway both of them were sleeping off the drink. Who the hell was it? Some inconnu? The thought that she was already taken winded him. He had been too confident.
"I cannot believe your utter insolence." With renewed control, the girl let the steel point stroke down his cheekbone. Then she jabbed him beneath the chin again. "Do you not understand a plain 'no', citizen, or must I daub the word above my front door with a row of lamps beneath it?"
"I did not come to ravish you." Mere inches from Raoul's thigh, her lover stirred beneath the bedclothes. It would only take a scream from her to wake the sluggard. Or was the man feigning sleep and biding his time to settle the quarrel? Raoul braced himself in readiness.
"No?" He winced at the contempt in her voice. "Ah, you just happened to be strolling past my windows and decided to leave your card in my bedchamber."
"I came to apologise and... I had not realised you already have a lover in your bed, citizeness," he replied, with what he hoped passed for dignity. But the huffy offence he felt must have been evident, for the girl began to laugh and her control of the sword became so precarious that she stepped back, trying to stifle her spluttering in the sleeve of her peignoir.
"What is so amusing?" Raoul demanded in a fierce whisper and tried to stand.
"Stay where you are!" She thrust the thin blade back towards his chest, forcing him back down.
"Why don't you defend her?" he sneered at the supine occupant of the bed. The coward did not stir.
"He cannot answer you, citizen." Hysteria flickered on the edge of her soft, mocking laugh. The rapier was beyond her control, wavering dangerously. He cautiously pushed it aside with the back of his hand and swallowed, his flesh prickling. "Cannot?" He snatched another look at the coverlet and edged to his feet. "In God's name, madame, who is in your bed?"
The rapier fell to the floor and she doubled over, her hands crossed over her ribs with laughter. "You really want to know?"
* * *
He must have fainted. By the time he struggled to his senses, his hands were bound and a huge, brawny fellow whose hands smelled of onions was hoisting him across the back of a hairy beast. If this was a nightmare, why could he not wake up? The drinking bout at Danton's. He must be still in the wine cellar. Yes, that was it. But the smell of hay and newly emitted horse dung filled his nostrils and the memory of lying on the floor with a monstrous snake slithering across him seemed terrifyingly vivid. Recall hit him with the impact of icy water and with it the knowledge that he, one of the proud conquerors of the Bastille, had ignominiously lost consciousness on a woman's boudoir floor.
The ground, a mess of hay, looked damnably close. Oh God, they had him over the back of an ass! Him, Deputy Raoul de Villaret! They were in some sort of stall. He struggled, swearing loudly. The donkey backed in panic.
"Hush," scolded a female voice, "or you will become utterly notorious." Mme Bosanquet materialised at the head of the beast and clicked her tongue to calm the creature. How was she managing to grab one of Raoul's feet when both her arms were embracing the donkey's neck?
"Stay still," rumbled a menacing voice from beneath the belly of the creature. Strong hands were lashing Raoul's ankles to his wrists. A face, sweaty and familiar, loomed up in the candlelight. "You may be a deputy, my friend," muttered the Chat Rouge's massive chef, "but it doesn't give you the right to abduct defenceless young widows and invade their boudoirs. Have you no self-respect?"
"Defenceless!" spluttered Raoul, trying again to wrench himself free. "Her, defenceless! She sleeps with a bloody python. Get me off this damned animal at once!"
"Hush now, stop blustering." The girl, bundled bearlike against the cold in some sort of thick wrap, crouched beside Raoul and stroked his forehead. Her fingers smelled of honeysuckle and donkey. "Thomas will take you home. Where do you live?"
"I am not telling you," snarled Raoul, jerking his head away from her touch. He did not want to seduce this vixen any longer; he wanted to put her across his knee.
"Then you had better lead Blanchette round the streets until the deputy sees sense, Thomas. But I do warn you, Citizen de Villaret, it will provide marvellous copy for L'Ami du Peuple. Of course, if you bribe Marat, he might forego the pleasure of publishing. Ah, but he's not venal, is he? What a pity."
"Oh, my God!" Strangling her was fast becoming a pleasurable thought.
"Don't rely on the Almighty to be sympathetic," lobbed in her chef. "He rode donkeys too, remember."
Too angry to answer the blasphemy, Raoul lapsed into furious silence as they led him out, only comforted by the fact that most of Paris was still snoring. The donkey's hooves clicked loudly on the haphazard cobbling as they crossed the silent courtyard and Raoul buried his face in the thick pelt, praying no curtains twitched to witness his humiliation.
"Wait, madame!" whispered Thomas as they reached the street.
He held the lantern aloft and checked the knots. "As good as a trussed chicken."
"I'll give you trussed chicken!" fumed Raoul, glaring at two pairs of feet."Now, let me off this creature, you little harpy! You/ve had your jest."
"Feel free to shout for help," retorted the outrageous chi
t, "but the scandal will be all over the city faster than the news of a fall in bread prices. Now, where would you like to go?"
"I—oh, Rue Saint-Antoine, damn you!"
"A tedious ride, then." She crouched once more. Hands, used to work, petalled his face, and then she laughed and kissed his hair playfully. "Bon voyage."
* * *
"She's not receiving!"
Raoul jammed his foot in Fleur's hallway before the gaunt woman could shut the door in his face a second time. The baby she was holding blew a kiss at him.
"What, not even a deputy of the Convention?" he drawled with a raise of eyebrows."Go to Citizeness Bosanquet again. Advise her I shall wait until she is ready to see me but pray tell her not to be long. I am not a patient man." The decadent custom of ladies entertaining gentlemen callers while their servants took hours to dress them had disappeared from Paris—regrettably. He could have strangled her slowly in her chemise.
He waited. The woman could have shown him into the salon, not left him on the step like a muddy sabot. He could sense the eyes at the windows. Across the courtyard a joiner stopped singing the role of Figaro and was staring at him with a mechanic's curiosity.
The creak of stair within the house made Raoul swing round hopefully only to encounter a tall, thin elderly man who looked as astonished as he. The gentleman paused and then continued down the stairs, the skirts of a dull surtout coat slithering behind him.
"If you are here for payment, I will give you the address of Citizen Mansart. He is dealing with all madame's affairs."
"He isn't dealing with this one."
"Oh, forgive me." The distrait look vanished; the lines cob-webbing the man's whitened face deepened, and the thin red mouth puckered into a vague hint of welcome. "Citizen de Villaret, of course, of course. Come in. Madame Bosanquet is already at the café. Perhaps there is something I can help you with." Had this ancient fop witnessed his humiliation last night?
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