Philippe's sneer could have soured cream. "Who is this fop?"
"I am a good friend of this lady's late husband. My name is André Beugneux." The gentleman made an old-fashioned bow with such a flourish of lace kerchief that her brother's beetle-brows instantly rose in irritation. "I will not ask who you are or why you are here, young man. These days it is not a courtesy, but do as madame says."
Before she could stop him, Philippe's hands fastened into M. Beugneux's lace jabot, almost lifting him out of his buckled shoes. "You never saw me," he growled, half choking him. "You heard nothing." He flung the old man away from him as though his very touch defiled him. "Worse and worse, sister," he drawled, turning his head. "Republicans and ageing Ganymedes. I will return tomorrow night. See that we're not disturbed. Out of my way, old man!"With a glower at them both, he took his leave.
* * *
Philippe was impatiently skulking in the shadows of the back garden when Fleur returned from the café with Thomas late next evening. Once Thomas was up in his room, Fleur let her brother in and they climbed the stairs to the salon in silence.
"You took your time."
"I have a business to run," she answered, tugging off her gloves. "Unless you have something else to say to me, it has been a long day and I am tired." She collapsed in her chair and heeled her shoes off. Was that bourgeois enough for him?
"I have, as a matter of fact," he answered coldly. "Maybe you could be useful before we marry you off. After all, it's a war and one must make sacrifices."
Fleur braced herself. He sounded just like the republican government when it wanted a large donation. "You want me to put on breeches and join the royalist army?"
"No, and there's no need to take that tone of voice with me." The curtains were drawn but he walked across to the window and glanced down into the front courtyard, suspicious of the shadows, before he tugged the heavy curtains more closely to and turned with an expression worthy of an irate governess. "I have been listening to the gossip about you."
"Ah, the balloon," she murmured carelessly and enjoyed the disapproval. "Did you know I am probably the first French aviatrix?"
Philippe was not impressed."This deputy, Raoul de Villaret."
"Oh, him. I thought you might have meant Hérault de Séchelles, he is so amusing. Oh, stop gaping at me."
A brief astonishment crossed his face. "I had no idea you moved in such inner circles." Then the sneer returned. So he thought her a republican courtesan! She avoided mentioning her encounter with Marat. That would shock him.
"Do you think I am such a fool, Philippe? I am teasing you about Hérault and, believe me, I have been at great pains to discourage any intimacy with de Villaret. I do not need you or anyone else to point out the dangers. I am a Montbulliou." Her head was high. "Why are you laughing at me?"
Philippe shook his head and the furtive expression she had always disliked came into his eyes. "We have a role for you and it's more important than being a Montbulliou."
"We?"
"The others I met with today. Other royalists." He took his time.
"I thought I was supposed to be the brood mare," she prompted.
"Well, we may still achieve that. Henri de Craon's interested in having a look at you some time. But for now we want you to encourage de Villaret."
"You are too late. I've told him I am not interested."
"Don't be foolish. It's never too late. We want you to take him as your lover."
Fleur was lost for words. Not only did he seem too easily led but the insult was grotesque hypocrisy, especially after yesterday's fraternal dressing-down. "What am I supposed to do?" she asked eventually. "Talk of politics in my chemise?" The thought of Raoul seeing her undressed was most unsettling.
"Or without it."
"How dare you!" She turned away before she hit him, but rough hands dragged her round to face him.
"You will do it for France. You are not allowed a choice, Toinette. It's your duty."
"And the family honour?" she almost spat at him. "What if I become pregnant? You wish a Jacobin's bastard to get your title?"
"Don't be ridiculous. Bastards can't inherit."
"Well, perhaps I'll persuade darling Raoul to change the law."
"You vixen," he laughed, catching her wrists. "Anyway, the cur is from the Protestant noblesse. He fell out with his father and turned renegade. Maybe you can talk him into turning his coat again. Didn't you know?"
A nobleman. No, she didn't. Curse men to hell! The lot of them!
"I won't do it," she snarled, struggling to free herself.
"You will or I will have someone denounce the old roué upstairs."
"But you can't. He is one of us and—"
"Expendable," he cut in, before she could divulge that M. Beugneux was doing more for France than he was. "Very expendable. An ageing sodomite by the stink of him."
"By God, you mean it, don't you?"
"Oh yes, Toinette. The rules of war are dirty. I will do anything to get my lands back, and you shall too!"
* * *
"Bonjour, petite, I've brought you two gifts," M. Beugneux announced, joining Fleur in the kitchen next morning. "Firstly, this." He tugged a set of passe-partouts from his coat pocket. "You never know when you might need it and... these." He dropped a drawstring bag onto the kitchen table and drew out one of her calfskin shoes.
Fleur straightened from putting Machiavelli back in his box. "Oh, so you had my shoe, monsieur! I thought I had lost it but—"
"These are for you," he interrupted excitedly, tipping out a pair of new boots onto the kitchen table. The aroma of new leather filled the kitchen. "To thank you for your generosity. And there's another reason. Watch!" He twisted the heel of the right foot and extracted a blade some two inches long."Only one side is sharp, but drawn unexpectedly across a man's throat from behind, it could be lethal. Not easy to handle, but there, it may save your life some day."
Fleur was not sure whether to be horrified or flattered at such forethought, but his pleasure in giving demanded an equal response in her. "Oh, Monsieur Beugneux." She threw her arms round his waist and nestled against his flowered waistcoat. "That's formidable. I shall try out the keys on all our doors and thank you for the boots."
His hands stroked her back. "Listen, I've made promises. We shall be using the cellar at the café tonight. If anything goes wrong, you and Thomas must disclaim all knowledge. Don't do anything to defend me. Promise, hein?"
"Must you run the risk?" she beseeched him. "If de Villaret starts investigating again, he—" She felt a betraying blush creep over her face and throat.
"I can't delay matters, little one. I shall have to take the risk." Thrusting the boots into her hand, he leant down and kissed her cheek. "Bread and circuses, Fleur, and I'll do everything in my power to thwart these butchers. They haven't the bread but, by God, we have the circuses."
* * *
"This is a surprise," drawled Raoul de Villaret, scabbarding his umbrella in the rack at 47 Rue des Bonnes Soeurs later that evening. He set his hat upon the brass hook and drew off his leather gloves.
Fleur dutifully helped him shed his double-breasted redingote and ushered him into the warm salon. "I would have made the invitation earlier for supper but we were short of hands at the café. You seem in good spirits, citizen. Pray, do sit down."
Being contrary, he stood with his back to the hearth instead, hands clasped behind his back. Oh yes, she could see the haughty blood in him now. No wonder he was at ease with Hérault de Séchelles and Boissy d'Anglas. What was it that people said about religious converts—that they could be more fanatic about their new faith than those born to it? And here before her fire stood a true believer, a debonair disciple to Saint Jean Jacques Rousseau.
This evening the man's dress was unquestionably patriotic: the cuffs on his gleaming boots echoed the dark blue of his sleeves and pantaloons, which set off the scarlet front of his tunic and the crisp white cascades of his stock. Even the m
isbehaviour of the hair strands escaping from his queue looked politically wonderful. Of course, it needed a crooked tooth to just mar that heart-stealing smile to a revolutionary niceness but one cannot have everything. The young slop-sellers and gallery viragoes would have been drumming their heels for him today, no question.
"Haven't you heard the news, citizeness?" Eyes the hue of filtered cider were watching her with the roguish glint that was becoming increasingly familiar. "Marat was freed this afternoon."
"Oh, yes, I heard," replied Fleur, stroking a finger along the brocade arm of her chair, her gaze swiftly averted to a more decorous angle, "but I would have thought that after his attack on your friend Boissy, you would have been pleased to see him muzzled. I can't say I'm rejoicing."
He grinned. "Oh, seeing the Girondins so embarrassed at his acquittal is far more satisfying. They've set themselves a very uncomfortable precedent. We deputies are supposed to have immunity to speak freely, so by ripping Marat's away, they've left themselves open to being brought to trial as well."
"Which could leave you vulnerable too, Deputy," Fleur pointed out."Weren't you one of the pigeons the Girondins were trying to bring down?"
A flash of white teeth showed he dismissed such a possibility. "In a melee of feathers with you, my dear citizeness? They don't share your skill with the slingshot, do they?"
"I don't know what you are talking about," demurred Fleur, her voice a purr. "Would you care for some refreshment, Raoul?" She rose, smoothing her skirts.
"No, thank you, some of us went to the Café de Foy. Closer than the Chat Rouge, Fleur." His gaze lingered thoughtfully upon her cap with its edging of black lace and slid down to the neckline of her simple housegown. He had never seen her throat and shoulders uncovered before. Not that her bodice was risqué; she had fluffed up the black gauze kerchief and it obscured most of her cleavage. "Now what was it you wished to discuss?" The ironic lilt to his voice suggested, oh so very subtly, that the word "discuss" might be coaxed to a different meaning.
"Well, to come to the point," said Fleur briskly, sitting down again. She wasn't sure whether it was the warmth of the fire or his amused smile that was making her temperature rise. He sat down at last, stretched out his legs across the rug towards her as though it was his hearth and crossed his ankles. One hand curled into a pedestal for his chin.
"Hmm," he said.
Fleur withdrew her toes swiftly into the shelter of her skirts. "I want to find out who is behind these attempts on my life. I have my suspicions but I want evidence. I thought maybe you could give me the name of someone I can hire."
"For a bodyguard?" Sprawled back, he seemed relaxed but she could see the fox in his nature was very much on the alert.
"No, to watch Felix Quettehou. I am convinced he sent the assassins to attack my husband."
"Are you sure it is not those very assassins who seek your life in case you might recognise them?"
"I doubt it. Besides, if they were mere brigands, I imagine they would wish to remain in Calvados. I'd be no danger to them here."
"What about Citizen Beugneux?"
Fleur looked at him sharply. "But he was Matthieu's friend."
"A lover's quarrel, perhaps."
The shock that M. Beugneux could be a murderer froze her for an instant before she dismissed the ludicrous suggestion. "He wasn't mentioned in my husband's will. There would be no point in his killing me, whereas Felix Quettehou was next of kin and would have inherited."
"What about you?" For an infinitesimal moment, she thought he meant her, before he added, "Who is your next of kin, Fleur-de-Lis? Your aunt? What's happened to her?"
"Can we omit the "de-Lis" part, citizen?" exclaimed Fleur, rising to her feet."The royalist connotations might be misconstrued." He did not stand out of courtesy and seemed calmly amused by the verbal rap.
"You haven't answered the question." He slowly turned a ring on the third finger of his right hand. The lazy stare was deceptive; he was thinking like a gendarme. "You never do. I hazard there is something in your accent from further west than Calvados. Would you have connections in Brittany, perhaps?"
"Stop behaving like a tribunal," she replied irritably."I was born there, if you must know. My mother was a lady's maid. She never married."
"Then what were you doing in Caen?"
"I went to school there. My aunt married well. She paid for my education but we fell on hard times. Now can we return to the present?" She forced herself to sit back down, wishing that her eyes were not constantly drawn to the man opposite her.
"Maybe we should go through each incident, one by one," he was saying. "Tell me what happened the day the mob attacked you."
On safer ground, Fleur suppressed a sigh of relief, but she began to narrate what had occurred. Having rejected his attention, she had needed a reasonable excuse to lure him back, and it was for patriotic reasons, she rationalised. Not only was the deputy well away from the cellar of the Chat Rouge but if Philippe's friends were watching her house, they would presume she was carrying out her brother's orders.
She was telling Raoul about Quettehou's outburst at the funeral, when something was disturbed in the kitchen below.
Every house has its noises: the shutter that rattles when the wind shinnies up beneath the tiles, the rhythm of rain from roof to the barrel in the yard, but this sound... Oh, bon Dieu, had Philippe returned?
Raoul de Villaret heard it too. The long fingers stroking the sphinx arm of his chair paused for an infinitesimal moment. She read it in his face, the intensity—as if a string had been tuned to exactitude.
"Is that Beugneux? Shall we ask him to chaperone us?" Oh, the Jacobin was testy tonight. Had he been expecting kisses?
"No, it sounds like Machiavelli has escaped again."
"Who?"
"Your friend the python. He's nocturnal. He gets restless. I'd better go and put him back in his box."
"He's very noisy for a reptile."
"Well, yes, goodness, he actually broke a plate last night," she lied.
"Did he? Mon Dieu!" He stood up."Go on, then, reprimand the rascal. I'll stay here if you don't mind."
She grinned, hard put to disguise her relief. "May I bring you some refreshment?"
He shook his head and opened the door for her. It was all too easy.
The bottom of the stairs and the kitchen were in darkness. Fleur took a deep breath and turned the handle. As she stepped in, a gloved hand slammed against her mouth from behind the door.
"Shh, it's me." The hand loosened with a rustle of taffeta.
"Monsieur! Mon Dieu!" He was not alone. She could hear the nervous breathing of someone, several someones. "I'm going to light the candle," she said, fumbling with the flint. "Zut!" An unladylike oath but the occasion warranted it.
"Don't move!" a strange voice rasped as the candle flame grew. Two national guardsmen stood with muskets trained on her. On close inspection, they were women.
"She's a friend," hissed M. Beugneux.
"Not for much longer," muttered Fleur, glaring at his female regalia. "Are you out of your mind bringing them here?"
"Your cursed deputy has set a cordon round the café." M. Beugneux had never sounded so weary and desperate and he looked fit to faint.
"My cursed deputy is upstairs in the salon."
"Christ!" His complexion was grey beneath the cosmetics and in horror Fleur saw there was a different scarlet blossoming on the caped collar of his red jacket. "Just a flesh wound," he hissed. "For the love of God, stay calm!"
"Calm?"
"Shall we shoot her, monsieur?"
"Sacre bleu! Put that damn thing away!" M. Beugneux pushed the gun muzzle downwards and, rallying his spirits, swung round on Fleur. "Get his breeches off him!"
"What!"
"Seduce him!"
She stared at the soldiers. The landing upstairs creaked.
"Anything I can do?" shouted Raoul.
Fleur rushed to the door. "No, I'll be back in an instant,
" she called up with a serenity that would have earned her a part at the Comédie Française.
M. Beugneux held out a bottle of champagne. "For France!"
* * *
"What's this?" De Villaret glanced down at the bottle she had thrust into his hands.
"Shall we go somewhere more comfortable? Monsieur Beugneux will be down for his chocolate soon and I'd rather not get embroiled," she added with feeling.
"If you wish." His expression was disturbingly suspicious."You are looking pale. What happened?"
"It's Machiavelli, he..."
"Yes?"
"He'd... he'd... vomited up a dead rat. You probably heard me swearing."
"Ah." He waved his free hand: "Do you want me to..."
"No," she said hurriedly, sweeping past him to take two glasses from the cabinet. "I've cleaned it up and put him back in his box. I gave him a good talking-to about being so greedy. He did look apologetic—for a python."
"Come then." Raoul waited while she lit a candlestick and blew out the candelabra, and held the door open for her with his boot cap. He was humming the Marseillaise as he followed her up the stairs.
* * *
The bedroom was still warm from the western sun. Fleur set the glasses upon the dressing table, freeing her hands to tug the lower window down and pull the curtains.
"S-sit down." She waved a hand with a nonchalance she did not feel. "Wherever you like." De Villaret was leaning back against the closed door, his eyebrows raised in polite astonishment as he glanced from the bed to the only chair. Perhaps the bed held python-like memories for he stayed where he was. "Would you like to open the champagne, please?"
"I thought we might save it for later." He set the bottle on the floor and straightened, eyeing her like a hawk waiting for a songbird to fly into his orbit.
"L-later?" As Fleur watched the artist's fingers deftly seek beneath his coat collar and unbutton the back fastening of his stock, she discovered her body was acquiring a sensual urgency of its own. "Please, m-make yourself comfortable," she added foolishly.
"Are you sure about this?" His voice sounded distrait, as though his mind was running counterwise.
"S-sure? Oh, this?" She nodded."Yes. W-why, aren't you?"
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