"We must talk about yesterday."
"Must we? The man who led the crowd is under lock and key. If you could bring down one of those damn pigeons with your catapult, I'm sure we can prove the link to Caen and find the men who attacked Bosanquet and your brother. We could rent a room opposite Quettehou's yard, spend an hour or two there. What's the matter?"
"To find the answers, you have to ask the questions." With a deep sigh, she clasped her fingers in front of her as she did when she addressed her staff at the restaurant. "I've been thinking very hard about this, just like you." He did not argue. "I don't think we should continue our liaison."
He turned away, tapping his palms restlessly against the mantelshelf The intense passion, the sleeplessness, the horror of yesterday had taxed him. He did not like the man in the looking glass. "What do you intend to do?"
"Survive, Raoul, but it's only a matter of time." She slid her arms around him, across the stiff brocade of his waistcoat, her fingers creeping along the links of his watch. "It's my duty as a good citizen to surrender you to France, who so desperately needs your devotion. Be honest, Hérault is right. You cannot fulfil your destiny if you continue to associate with me."
"You're being foolish." His hands sternly strove to sever the chain she had set about him. "I admit I have a great deal on my mind. I need to finalise the amendments to the constitution and finish some other reports and..."
"Exactly. I don't want to be, shall we say, a hindrance." She loved him too much for that.
Intelligent eyes probed her image in the mirror. "Then we should give ourselves some air, hmm?" he suggested, hurt and calculation mingled with reluctance in his voice. Fleur hid her face against his sleeve and nodded.
Raoul grimaced inwardly. If he could not give this lovely woman a future, have children with her, then the new France was just as flimsy as an assignat—paper instead of gold.
"Raoul?" Brown shining curls teased his shoulder and he turned to kiss the real Fleur. Shadows lay beneath her lower lashes. His fault; the frenzied regime she set herself was just an antidote against the future he refused to share. How damnable of him to keep her to himself, to impose his philosophy of living each day as though there were no morning after, to make her his mistress when he was but a lackey of the Revolution.
"I am wearing you out, my darling. I should let you find some other man who will put a ring on your finger."
Fleur was trying to keep her voice light. "Yes, perhaps you should."With a feigned playfulness, she shook his shoulders as she kissed him back and then pulled away with a sigh. "Living in Paris is like being in Pompeii, waiting for the Mountain to erupt."
"The Mountain, oh, a clever play on words, and when does the molten lava start tumbling about our shoulders?" The splendid face was hardening now, hiding his self-deception.
"What I'm trying to say, Raoul, is that you're like a Roman gladiator in the Colosseum, wondering who will come at your back."
"They don't, darling. It's one on one."
"But fast as you strike down one, there's... You can't stand on your own, Raoul, nor can Hérault or Boissy."
"Oh yes, I can, Fleur. You're wrong. If poor old Armand had not aligned himself with the other Girondins, he would not be an outlaw with a price on his head. I'm a Jacobin and that displeases you, I know, but I am not an enragé and I never shall be." He took her tenderly by the shoulders. "I love you so much. Oh, bon Dieu, do you really want me to marry you? Is it that important?"
"No," she lied, absolving him. "Your life isn't yours to give me." As her left hand reached out to stroke his cheek, he captured it and kissed her palm. "Oh, Raoul, you look weary. Go now," she slid her arm through his and walked him to the door. "I insist, in fact I do not want to see you for an entire week."
"Cruel goddess! I protest I cannot survive."
"Of course you can." She kissed him and pushed him firmly across the threshold."Besides, men can only think of one thing at a time. Just cross me out of your pocketbook until Sunday."
Then she closed the door quietly behind him and leaned back against it, letting out her breath in a slow sigh. Somewhere she had read that if savages believed a shaman had cast a spell of death upon them, they would surely die. Well, she was too civilised to believe such nonsense but she felt Quettehou's hatred like a shadow stealing over her.
The week dragged its feet. Fleur grieved but it was a living man she mourned. She sensibly avoided the Jacobin Club and the Convention gallery and, above all, the man she loved. Instead, busy as clappers in a mill, she worked frantically at the restaurant. There must be something bourgeois hidden in her bloodline for a future playing Raoul's mistress sat uneasily with her morals. Her mama would not have approved, nor Tante Estelle. But she loved him so. Should she be unselfish and let him go? These days she sadly missed poor Emilie's down-to-earth advice and she longed for Charlotte's counsel, even though she suspected her dear friend had never tasted the delights of lovemaking and the little death.
Thinking about Charlotte on the Friday two days before Bastille Day as she walked through the Palais-Royal, Fleur stopped stock-still. A short, slender young lady in a polka-dot gown and stout-soled shoes was walking ahead of her, not with the brisk step of someone who knew their way but somewhat uncertainly. Perhaps it was the provincial clothes, but from the back she might have been the very likeness of Charlotte, even down to the way the white muslin scarf wreathed her shoulders and the high-brimmed hat with a tricolore rosette adorned the chestnut hair. The young lady was pausing outside a bookshop as though she longed to enter. It had to be Charlotte. Oh, if only it were. But what would she be doing in Paris when she was on her way to London?
The stranger was enticed inside and Fleur, who needed little urging to enter any bookshop, followed her in. The lady's profile as she gazed up at the packed shelves lining the walls resembled a ravenous beggar's beholding a rich man's feast, and when she hooked down a moss-green leather copy of Corneille, Fleur started forward.
"Charlotte?"
The stranger jumped like a startled rabbit and dropped the book.
"May I relieve you of that, madame," clucked a balding gentleman, bobbing up from behind his sales table. "Le Cid. You wish to purchase it?" He examined the spine for injuries with a doctor's care.
"So sorry, I-I did not mean..." stammered his customer like a young girl, lifting a hand across her face in mortification. Turning away, flushed, she found Fleur blocking her escape. "Bonjour," she said softly, a slight frown puckering her brow, and hastened past. Fleur followed her out. "That was embarrassing," Charlotte explained with a nervous laugh, but the familiar vigour was back in her voice.
"So it is you," Fleur exclaimed with great delight, drawing her into the dappled sunlight of the Galeries de Bois. "My dear, dear friend." Embracing her was like hugging a chair back but Charlotte had never been one for effusive greetings. "What is this?" she added lightly, trying to keep the suspicion out of her voice. "Why did you not write that you were coming to Paris? Oh goodness, have you run away or has something else dreadful happened?"
"Yes, indeed, it was a sudden decision. I've come to present a petition for a friend."
"Oh, please tell me all about it, Charlotte. There is so much I want to share with you. Bookshops and cafés—you must come and have a meal at the Chat Rouge—and all the people you've read about in the journals, I can point them out to you. Just tell me who you want to set eyes on. And we can go to the Convention, and Dr Curtius's Waxworks, not to mention all the theatres. Talma's playing at the moment and then there's—" Why was Charlotte looking at her as though she were talking French like a Spanish cow? Had her breath grown sour or was her friens hiding some guilty secret? Could a handsome roué have taken advantage of her friend? Was she here in Paris to find her careless lover or, God forbid, a backstreet surgeon?
But Charlotte's waist was slender still, the bazin swathed tightly back towards her bustle. Contrite at such a thought, Fleur swallowed and added meekly, "How long are you
spending in Paris?"
"I-look, my dearest, not long at all if... if... Well, with going to England, you understand," she whispered, making sure no one was close enough to hear her. "You did receive my letter?"
"Yes," Fleur added and waited. Clearly the months apart had put a bridle on her friend's tongue.
Charlotte sensed her discomfort. "That was a wonderful bookshop," she said, turning her face away. "I wish... Do they know you there?"
"Yes. Why, do you want credit?"
"Oh, I should wish to purchase the entire stock, I assure you."
"We can go back in. I'd like to buy you something. Truly, I can afford it now. Oh, and there is an excellent glove shop further on but..." The imminent refusal was evident. "Perhaps," Fleur amended generously, "we could just sit and talk. I know petitions take time but for an instant, please. Over an ice perhaps? Or we could go to my house."
"I should love to see it but... I'm sorry, Fleur, I am short of time today. Yes, let's talk, but somewhere quieter. I'm finding... so many people... it seems so raucous. Caen is so sleepy in comparison. And the heat."
Oh, foolish of her not to realise the city was playing cruelly on Charlotte's nerves. "I know just the place. And, here, use my parasol."
Instead of taking her arm, Charlotte preferred to let Fleur precede her through the bustling colonnades. Outside, the noise of carts and hooves in the Rue Saint-Honore made conversation even more arduous. Fleur wove between the barrows with alacrity, taking care to swish her skirts away from the muddy wheels with their clinging debris.
"You have become quite the Parisian," applauded Charlotte, finally catching up with her. "One can even catch a trace of it in the way you speak. Where are you taking me?"
"To the Eglise Saint-Roch. Temple of Hay Supplies now, I shouldn't wonder."
"But that's where—"
"Your ancestor, Corneille, is buried, yes. Not far. By the way, where are you staying? I could have given you lodging and you could still—" She let that matter fall. "Pardon me, Charlotte, I am firing questions at you like an enemy."
"And rightly so. I should have written to you about my plans but you know me, Fleur, when I finally make up my mind to do something, I must be doing it immediately. In fact, I only arrived in Paris yesterday at noon and then a most agreeable lady at the diligence office directed me to a boarding house, the other side of the Place des Victoires Nationales. It's fine, truly, clean, and there's even a writing table. I would have felt guilty staying with you, especially when I must devote so much time to... the petition."
"Maybe I can help you, Charlotte. I do know some very influential people..." Mentioning Raoul or Hérault to a Girondin sympathiser like Charlotte might not be diplomatic. Could the petition be on behalf of a denounced acquaintance? If so, her politically-minded friend was skating on paper-thin ice.
"Charlotte, you mentioned in one letter that one of your beaux had come to Paris. Is there a man at the bottom of this as well? Something you need to resolve before you leave?"
The older girl's clasped hands flexed with telltale anxiety but her expression was wry as though some irony amused her.
"Monsieur Doulcet, you mean? No, not he. But, yes, there is a man. He fills me with a... a madness I have never experienced before. Now," she set a reassuring hand over Fleur's, "I beg you, question me on that no more." The ensuing silence as they mounted the steps of the church was awkward rather than companionable.
"Bother, it's locked." Fleur shook the iron handle of the church door indignantly. So, it appeared, were the other doors. "And I wanted to show you Diderot's grave as well," she fumed as they gave up and sat down in the shade of an old robinia.
"Never mind, dearest. It truly doesn't matter." Despite setting a sisterly hand over Fleur s, Charlotte somehow seemed impatient, hardly in the mood for confidences but making an effort. "You are looking so much better than when I saw you last and yet... Oh, I wish that man would go away." A resourceful hurdy-gurdy player had stopped the other side of the railings and was grinding out Mozart for them.
"Poor creature. He used to play for the Queen." Fleur threw him some coins. "This is Paris for you. As for me, my fortunes go up and down from week to week. It is like being on a carousel; you hang on until the music stops." And it would soon. "So... yes, tell me, how is dear Madame de Bretteville?"
"My aunt has just had her sixty-ninth birthday and we managed a little party, Madame Levaillant and her family came, and... no, you must tell me what you have withheld from me in your letters. Have you met your poet then, all golden hair and large lovelorn eyes?" The tardy attempt to rekindle the camaraderie in so contrived a manner was as useless as lighting green timber—in any case, poetry had never been Fleur's style, that was an old jest-but it was necessary to locate an answer.
Had she met a poet? One of Danton's circle, the poseur and self-proclaimed playwright, Fabre d'Eglantine, came to mind. He had written more placards than he had dialogue. He sang too, mostly his own praises.
"I am acquainted with one such creature but he is considerably self-centred and quite distracted at the moment revolutionising time."
The Charlotte of Caen would have taken that bait but today's friend showed no interest. "Oh, Fleur, you are too prosaic. You'll never be anyone's muse if you talk so. Surely you must have—"
"Met plenty of gentlemen? Yes, I have actually." Oh well, wade in boots and all. "You remember I described to you the deputy who was in Caen when Monsieur Bosanquet died?"
"All officiousness and stony looks like a male Medusa."
"Did I say that?" Fleur felt the heat rushing into her cheeks. "Well, I have aroused his interest."
"And what's this nonpareil's name?"
"Raoul de Villaret." She picked up a leaf and idly tore it.
"Raoul." Charlotte made it a mocking growl. "Wait, wasn't he one of the deputies who voted for the King's death! What do you mean, his interest? Heaven forbid!" Her panic subsided as she recognised the gleam of mischief in Fleur's eyes. "Oh, you have him at a dangle, then?"
"Yes, I did—to put it delicately—succumb to his ardour. For a while."
Grey eyes regarded her with astonishment. "Oh, God, how could you lose your heart to a Jacobin? I must despair of you, Fleur. You, of noble blood."
"But—" Fleur was about to reassure her that the relationship was at an end.
"Those ghastly Mountain deputies—in my opinion, persons as stupid as they are disagreeable—mercilessly hounded the Girondins from office. Men of ideals and high principles, Fleur, who were doing their best to rule a country at war, and yet no thanks, no pity. Oh, I have heard it all."
"Please, Charlotte, let me assure you that my friend, and he is now merely a friend, does not lean to any particular faction. He moves between them."
"A fence-sitter then. Just as bad!"The older girl lowered her voice. "I tell you this in the greatest of confidence. Five of the Girondins are almost my aunt's neighbours. They are staying in the old Hôtel de l'Intendance in the Rue des Carmes. I've actually spoken with them. Monsieur Buzot, Madame Roland's particular friend, was very pleasant, and Monsieur Barbaroux exceedingly gallant. Oh, but you should hear what they have to say about their betrayal by the Convention. They are so bitter."
"As I understand it, Charlotte, they were incompetent and refused to resign. The Mountain indicted them because it was the only way to make them move over and let others more capable take over."
"No, that's not true. You've been listening to too much of this enragé nonsense. Empty, vicious hotheads! Listen to me, Fleur, Paris is trying to bully the rest of France. The Convention is weak as water. That abomination, Marat, is using the mob to dictate to the Convention. Didn't he order the mob to surround the Tuilleries?"
"Yes, it's true. I saw it for myself."
"If the Girondins had managed to muzzle that revolting man, all would be well, but now nothing will please him but their blood drenching the scaffold."
"My friend believes France is in great jeopardy and
that civil war could easily overthrow the Republic."
"Oh, and putting France in a Jacobin straitjacket will mend matters, I suppose. I tell you this, the Girondins are the only true republicans. The rest are crude rabblerousers with their own agendas."
"I've met Marat."
That struck Charlotte dumb but she recovered quickly. "A crude little beggar, I'm told."
"Well—"
"Oh, save your breath, Fleur. Tender heart, you'd make a speech to save a sewer rat if it squeaked loud enough." She stood up, shaking the dried leaves off her skirt."Now I'm afraid I must get on with my business." Her gaze was steady. "I've always trusted you as you have me. Please do not mention our meeting to any of your new acquaintances. I have no desire to be interrogated about our fugitives in Caen." The challenge in her tone was hurtful but quite deserved.
Fleur gave her promise willingly. "I did not mean to anger you," she added tucking her parasol under her arm. "Please, come and see me when you have finished your business and if I may help in any way, I will."
"I have your address." Charlotte's smile was tight, her lip quivered. "Forgive my vehemence just now. I would not have you remember me so. Paris has turned me into a hedgehog, all spines."
Remembering her own initial fear of Paris and trying to forget the new terrors that stalked the streets, Fleur took her friend's hands, regretful that she could not be allowed to help. "Be careful then, and always wear this." She lifted a hand to touch the compulsory cockade. "Bastille Day soon. There'll be fireworks."
"Oh yes, I'm sure there will." Charlotte nodded, her eyes glassy. The arms that wrapped Fleur were like a loving sister's sending a younger sibling away. "Adieu, my dear friend, and forgive me for being so distrait today."
* * *
It was not a surprise for Fleur to arrive home and find a letter from Mme de Bretteville. An enclosure to deliver to Charlotte, she supposed. But she read the contents in growing bewilderment. Charlotte's aunt had written to let her know that her niece had discreetly secured a passage on a fishing boat at Ouistreham a week ago and she daily expected to hear of her safe arrival at her uncle's in England.
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