Robespierre squeezes his fingers together, head tilting with attentiveness. “You must have witnessed many remarkable moments. Were you at Tuileries when the family was taken away? Is it true that the queen feared the Assembly would murder them all?”
“I wasn’t present that day.” I feign regret for missing out on such a notable event, but I remember the blood-splashed walls and think anyone would have been mad to want to be there. “I was there when Versailles was stormed and when a riot came through Tuileries in June. The queen was full of fear on both occasions. She trusted no one and wrote often to her family in Austria.” I dislike sharing information with Robespierre, but I know I must give him some things in order to make him believe my story.
Robespierre scowls at the mention of Austria. “That stagnant nation knows nothing of the glory of France.”
“Of course not. France moves toward enlightenment in a way that no country could hope to rival.” Knowing I must bring the conversation back around to my uncle, I make up a small lie. “My uncle always felt such pride for France’s progress.” In fact, I am not sure what he thought of the matter, but I do know that he would swear it true in order to free himself from prison. “I suppose that is why he wanted me to watch the queen specifically. He feared her foreign influence.”
“As all the wisest did.” He leans back, watching me carefully. “If your uncle has been working against the monarchy for so long, why was he suspected of anti-revolutionary activity?”
“Someone must have made a mistake,” says Léon.
Robespierre’s gaze flicks to him, but he doesn’t look satisfied by the simple answer.
“You were suspicious of him on the basis of his plays,” I remind him. “Doubtless, others felt the same. He does have connections, but the reason for them—his espionage—remained a secret of necessity.”
“Of course.” Robespierre interrogates me further about the nature of my spying, asking intelligent, detailed questions that aren’t always easy to answer. Although I hate to do it, I have to give him more anecdotes than I’d like. Still, my information is all so outdated now that it can harm no one. I’m careful not to say anything about Madame Campan, lest she become implicated in current events. I do mention Geneviève, with some reluctance. I don’t think she’d mind talking with Robespierre, whom she admires, about the queen’s household, but I still dislike dragging her into this. “One of the other wardrobe women also spied for my uncle. She can corroborate many of these facts, as well as his dedication to the revolution.” I give him her name and watch the tense lines around his mouth relax. When he bends his head, he looks more trusting. At last Robespierre folds his hands together and reclines in his chair. “It does sound as though an error was made. I shall speak to your uncle myself. No doubt he’ll be back at home again soon.”
“Thank you, monsieur.” Relief that the interview is finally over infuses my tone with an extra note of gratefulness.
He inclines his head. “The truth shall always prevail.”
Fearing he’ll want to visit longer, I try to catch Léon’s eye, but he stands at once and shakes Robespierre’s hand. “It was good to see you, my friend, and I’m sorry to rush away. I must return to the shop.” I know it’s a lie. He told me Monsieur Renard gave him the whole afternoon off.
“I also have work to do. I’m writing a speech to convince the Assembly to create a People’s Tribunal.” Robespierre turns to me. “If your watchful eyes and keen ears happen across any useful information, I trust you know where to find me.” His courteous smile turns sharp. “Your uncle isn’t the only one who knows the value of a good spy.”
“Of course. It’s the least I could do to repay you for your attention to this matter,” I say, but my stomach twists into a knot. I’ve no desire to resume spying, especially not for Robespierre. His watchfulness and ruthless questions make me nervous.
Robespierre escorts us to the door. “One last thing, Citoyenne Aubry. If you see Madame Campan again, I’d be interested to hear of it. She’s close to the queen, isn’t she?”
Momentarily speechless, I try to hide it by ducking my head in assent. “Anything to help, Citoyen.” My lips feel dry. I tell myself that he’s watching Madame Campan, whose connection to the queen is well-known, but the idea that he knows she has visited me makes a knot twist between my shoulder blades. “Thank you again.”
Robespierre sees us off with a cheerful smile, although he looks even more smug than usual to me. As soon as we step out the door into the clean air, I take a deep breath, feeling my heart race with belated nerves.
Léon links his forearm with mine, forcing me to either tug away or lay my fingers along his wrist and walk with him as a proper escort. I choose the latter, but it’s a bittersweet reminder of old times.
Léon and I decipher every sentence of the interview. It helps me calm down, and I feel confident that my uncle’s release comes shortly. When we’ve thoroughly discussed every aspect, Léon’s arm shifts under my hand, sliding free of my grip, his fingertips grazing the underside of my wrist. Twining his fingers with mine, he guides us into a quiet nook around the corner from a bookseller’s shop.
“Must we continue our earlier discussion now?” I’m aware it’s a mild way to describe our fiery argument, the passionate embrace. My body quivers with excitement at his nearness and the way he grips my hand, but I’m also worried my longing for him makes me misinterpret things, that perhaps he only wants us to part on better terms than previously, not to reconcile. I press the wall, giving him space to talk.
“Yes, we must. We agreed it wasn’t over.” Léon leans very close to me. The silken warmth of his breath skims across my neck.
“What are you doing?” I whisper. His lips are mere inches away from mine.
“I’m going to kiss you. Unless you don’t want me to?”
“I thought we were going to argue more.”
“I think we’ve had enough of that,” he murmurs. “It’s behind us now.” His mouth brushes against mine, feather light, with the last sentence, and his hand strokes my cheek gently, enticingly.
I lean into him, fusing our lips in a kiss as tender as the touches leading up to it. I feel like I melt into his arms, fitting there exactly right, nestled against his chest. His fingers move from my cheek, sliding behind my ear, and tangle tightly in my hair as the kiss changes into something fiercer. I let go of his hand and reach for his shoulders, sighing with delight when he wraps his arm tightly around my waist.
“We can’t stay here,” I say breathlessly. “It isn’t proper.” The repetition of his phrasing from our tension at Robespierre’s house makes me giggle with dazed amusement.
“You’re right: I don’t care about proper,” he says roughly, but he chuckles, too, and releases me slowly. “Can we go somewhere?”
“Yes, and quickly.”
He leads us to the watchmaker’s shop, rather to my disappointment. “I thought we were going somewhere to be alone.”
“We are.” Unlocking the door and pushing it open, Léon lifts me off my feet and swings me across the threshold. My skirt billows with the movement. “Monsieur Renard closed the shop for the day. Since I completed my apprenticeship, he takes his family to visit his mother across the Seine one afternoon a week. They won’t be back until bedtime. They always stay for supper.”
I slide my arms around his neck. “I must say, this is all very convenient. Did you intend to seduce me?”
“Until today I didn’t dare hope we’d be so joyfully reconciled. But love always finds a way,” he whispers. “Didn’t you tell me that once?”
“I don’t know. It sounds terribly sentimental.”
“You certainly must have said it, then.” Teasing me, he nuzzles my neck and pushes me toward the stairs. “I wish I could carry you up, but I’m afraid we’d land in a heap at the bottom.”
I go first, deliciously aware of his eyes watching my hips sway. He pushes the bedroom door shut with a loud thump and pulls me willingly back into h
is arms, his mouth swooping over mine. Being utterly alone washes away the joking of downstairs, rekindling the heat between us, building it higher than before, outmatching the fierce tension of our embrace in Robespierre’s library, eclipsing the excited joy of our reconciliation by the bookshop. Within moments, Léon has unhooked the top of my bodice and is tracing hot kisses along my breasts, his tongue dipping into the valley between them. Blindly, I wrestle with the buttons on his pants and manage to open the front of them, exploring the shape of him with eager fingers. His breath explodes against the side of my neck as he gasps with enjoyment, and then it’s my turn to do the same when he rucks my skirt aside and trails his fingertips up the inside of my thigh.
“Don’t wait,” I murmur into his ear. Lightning flickers over my skin. I feel like I’m burning with desperate desire. It isn’t anything like the first time, when I was nervous and uncertain. I want him badly.
“Oh God, Giselle. You’ll seize all the control I have left.” Instead of bearing me down to the narrow bed, as I expect, he slides his hand past my hips and lifts me onto the edge of the bedside dresser. He kisses me passionately while I rearrange my skirt, raising it higher. His fingers stroke against me until I gasp and squirm. He nestles his hips between my thighs, and I clutch at his shoulders as he sinks deep into me, staring into my eyes so I can see the rush of pleasure suffusing his features. Léon tries to go slow, reaching to stroke my breasts again, but I kiss him, arching my body against his, meeting each thrust. Our bodies grind forcefully together, and it makes me feel delirious. The sudden swell of delight leaves me gasping and whimpering against his mouth, while his motions grow rougher, jerky. I coax his tongue into my mouth, lightly sucking on it, and this sends him over the edge with a hoarse groan, his fingertips digging into my hips.
We smile at each other, breathing hard and pressing butterfly-soft kisses to each other’s cheeks and foreheads. Léon lifts me down, and I sag against him, weak in the legs.
“Take off your dress, my love,” he says.
My brow arches in surprise. “Already?”
“I wouldn’t say that. I’ve been waiting over a year to see your bare skin again. I meant to look at you for a while first, get to know your body again, but instead we both succumbed completely to lust.” He grins.
“Mm. We did.” It feels very good when I stretch my arms over my head.
A wicked glint lights up his eyes. “But we still have a whole afternoon of no interruptions, and I plan on kissing every inch of you.”
* * *
Later, when I sleepily survey the room, I realize we broke the candlestick that stood on the dresser, knocking it to the wood-planked floor.
“Doesn’t matter,” says Léon. “It was always smoky.” His voice softens. “It was good of you to risk so much to have your uncle released.”
“I’m not such an angel. I did it for Eugénie, and also because my uncle knew of my role in Varennes. I feared he’d share, using it to procure his own release.”
He stares at me, aghast. “Would he do that??”
I shake my head, pressing my lips together. “I don’t know. But I couldn’t risk it.”
Pulling me close to him, he tucks my head under his chin, folding me in his arms. “I’m glad you thought of it, to protect yourself.” He runs his hand along the outside of my arm in a long, smooth stroke. “The events of the past year have changed us, haven’t they? We dealt with dangerous secrets, betrayal, riots, violence.… Are we scarred?”
I reach for his hand, squeezing it tight. “No. We are stronger.”
He presses a kiss against my hair. “Good. I don’t want to be apart from you again.”
“You won’t be, as long as I have anything to say about it.”
He rolls me onto my back again, sweeping my hair across the pillow, gently twirling the ends around his fingertips. “I love you, Giselle.” He brushes tiny feathery kisses across my cheeks. “I never stopped, not that whole year we were apart. I felt so hurt and betrayed, but I kept loving you, even when I thought it would be better for my sanity if I stopped. I could hardly understand my feelings, but now everything’s right again.”
“I loved you too, but I felt so ashamed for betraying you that I often avoided you. I worried I’d never be able to face you again, yet I longed for you every day. I’ve loved you for three years, and I’ll never stop.”
His fierce kiss burns like a promise. “And now we’ll look to our happy future,” he murmurs. “Varennes belongs in the past now.”
Chapter Twenty-three
AUGUST 1792 TO JUNE 1793
Robespierre keeps his word. My uncle is released on August thirtieth. Eugénie sends me a note to tell me, which I don’t see until the next day. The day of his release is busy for another reason, for Léon and I marry at last. Neither of us wants to wait, in spite of the surprise our family and friends cannot quite conceal in regards to our sudden reunion. Our wedding is a small, intimate affair, with only my parents, Monsieur Renard and his wife and two young sons, and Geneviève and Étienne in attendance.
Maman roasts a chicken, and Papa fetches a couple of particularly fine bottles of wine from the cellar.
“I was saving these for a special occasion.” He hands a glass to Léon, grinning at me. “This certainly qualifies.”
Geneviève has somehow procured a dozen or so sugared rose petals, and helps Maman decorate the small cake with them, made after our cook was given permission to splurge on eggs and flour.
“Where did you get candied roses?” I ask her curiously.
“I made them.” She laughs at my surprise. “Come now, I’m not entirely talentless in the kitchen. I rather like cooking. I started to do it myself after I left my parents’ home. The hardest part was finding enough sugar.”
Later, after we have eaten, she takes me aside, grinning. “I always cherished the hope that you and Léon would reconcile. I’m so glad it happened.”
“What about you? Will you marry Étienne at last? You’ve been engaged for years.”
She purses her lips, considering. “I always thought I wasn’t ready, that I was too busy with the revolution, but it isn’t a real excuse, is it? Especially as Étienne is an even more fervent revolutionary than me. It would be rather nice to live together. Where are you and Léon going to live?”
“Here, for a short while.”
“It’s a large house. You should be comfortable enough, as long as Léon and your parents are companionable?”
“Yes, so far.” In fact, both of them are so pleased with Léon for moving past my decision to aid the royal family’s flight to Varennes that he could probably consume the entire wedding cake on his own, and they’d find a reason to excuse him for it. “Still, I hope we find our own home soon.” Now that Léon and I have fully resumed our relationship, I don’t want to waste a single moment of time together.
* * *
Three days after my marriage to Léon, the revolution, which has been relatively quiet since the captivity of the king and queen, spikes violently. Fearing that foreign Austrian and Prussian armies will invade France, causing the royalist prisoners to revolt against the population, Marat calls for the prisoners to be executed preemptively. It sounds like a drastic solution, given that Paris is free of invading armies, but it happens nonetheless. I’ve never met Marat, but I know that Léon has, and I have difficulty imagining what sort of man could create a rationale for the prompt execution of over a thousand prisoners.
“I suppose he would say the end justifies the means.” Léon sighs heavily. “But Paris has become so volatile that I often wonder if anyone has a clear vision of what the end should be.” Just as I have given up spying, Léon has also withdrawn from the revolution, and never goes to Café du Foy for political discussions anymore. Instead he reads poetry and works of philosophy, rather than of political treatises, and devotes his energies to watchmaking and spending time with me.
One of the most tragic casualties of the spiking revolution comes in the hor
rific death of the Princesse de Lamballe, dear friend to Marie Antoinette. She’d been sent to La Force Prison shortly after the storming of Tuileries, and in the beginning of September a tribunal demanded that she swear to support liberty and equality, and of hatred for the queen and king. Allegedly, she agreed to liberty but not to betray her friends, and was condemned to death. Denied even the humane speed of the guillotine, she was thrown into the hands of a mob and torn apart. I feel sick thinking of it, imagining the invasive hands, and maybe other body parts, the jeering voices, the pain and humiliation that must have filled the last moments of her despicable death. Later they paraded her head on a pike. I heard they tried to deliver it to the queen but were not allowed to reach the Temple. At least the queen was spared this additional terror, but how she must weep for her friend.
I didn’t know the princesse well, and never spoke to her, but I saw her often at Versailles with Marie Antoinette. Most of the time, she comported herself with all the discreet manners and elegance expected of her noble blood, but she appeared to have genuine affection for the queen. When they spoke together, she listened intently, eyes glinting with sincere interest. Once, some joke that I couldn’t hear set them off into peals of laughter. They giggled together until their cheeks glowed pink, and they breathlessly fell back against the velvet sofa. Even with the gilded wall decorations and their elaborate powdered hairstyles and silken gowns, they looked just like two regular woman enjoying a moment of friendship.
Although I don’t verbalize my sorrow for the princesse, Léon notices my somber mood and understands the cause.
“Perhaps it would distract your mind to read something.” He draws soothing circles on my back with his hand. “No? Could you fall asleep? Rest might ease your mind.”
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