“I am sorry,” William found the words slipping out unbidden. “The world has become a cruel place.”
“Go to sleep,” Gaudet said gently. “Pap will keep watch.”
“It is big enough for two,” William spoke without thinking. “You will need to be well rested for the days ahead.”
“I do not sleep any longer,” Gaudet told him with a forced lightness, “until I have absolutely no choice.”
“Why?”
“Did you not see me lashed to the wall, my back raw from the whip?” Gaudet asked furiously, virtually leaping from the chair. “Beaten to within an inch of my life, burned, slashed, starved and you ask why I do not sleep?”
William remembered the scene too well, the haunted shadow in Gaudet’s eyes having disturbed his own sleep during these last few weeks since parting. “I am not quite the unfeeling monster you suspect, Monsieur.”
“I worry…” The fight seemed to go out of Gaudet and he sank onto the bed. “If I cannot get to them, you must find them, sir. They have nobody—see them safely to England?”
“I will see you all there.” He put his hand on Gaudet’s shoulder. “I have been given a task, Monsieur, and I have not failed yet.”
“My back is still troubling me.” It clearly took a lot for the playwright to broach the subject. “I wonder, might you help me bathe it? Mademoiselle Dupire had helped but she is… Well, God help her.”
William wanted to refuse, to plead exhaustion, crawl under the frayed blankets and block out the world. Instead he nodded, reaching into his pocket for the small bottle that contained the liquid that had soothed Gaudet’s wounds that night in the prison. “Of course.”
“I would not ask, you understand, but I think the day’s exertions have rather told…”
“I will do it”—he got to his feet, adding a couple of drops to the water—“if you will try to sleep.”
“I will try,” Gaudet agreed, taking a deep breath before he pulled his shirt over his head.
The marks left by the whip hadn’t fully healed, yet the angry crimson wounds were now dulled, as were the black bruises that time had rendered disappearing gray shadows. He dipped his head as William wet the cloth and sat on the bed again. Gently, he pressed it to Gaudet’s body, trying his best not to think, preferring instead to concentrate on cleaning the marred skin.
There was the slightest sound of discomfort before Gaudet bit his lip, breath coming quicker. William winced in turn and muttered an apology, doing his best not to aggravate Gaudet’s back further as he breathed in the delicate fragrance of the water that filled the air.
“I would not have guessed that you were an Englishman,” Gaudet said eventually, his tone too cheery to be anything but manufactured. “If you ever wish to turn your hand to the stage, come and find me.”
“I would not be suited to it,” he told Gaudet firmly. “Besides, my hands are busy with other things.”
“Tell me about her,” was the cheeky reply, “and cheer me a little.”
“There is nothing to tell.” William was powerless to stop the coldness in his tone. “My work keeps me busy enough.”
“As you say.”
“I do.” He fought the absurd need to explain, to make Gaudet understand, pausing as he struggled with conflicting emotions that he did not have time for.
“Thank you for all you have done,” Gaudet told him. “Now let us try to sleep?”
“That is the most sense you have spoken since I have known you,” William decided with relief, lowering the cloth. “Sleep.”
Chapter Thirteen
Sylvie moved her hand over her face, feeling the tender skin and increased heat where Tessier’s fists had landed that morning. Her lip was split in at least two places, she knew, and her left eye had swollen badly enough to suggest that it might be black, the vision reduced to just a fraction of what it ought to be. For the so-called Butcher of Orléans, he had proved reticent when it came to her punishment, and she had found herself encouraging him along, telling him to use his fist rather than his palm, to put his force into every swing.
The rope with which he bound her was as loose as her shawl and she urged it tighter so that her flesh burned and prickled with blood, letting him throw her to the floor until her white nightgown was filthy and torn, hair disheveled and full of dust.
“Now I look like a real prisoner,” had been her answer when he’d begged for her forgiveness on his knees, his face resting on her stomach. “You’ve done a good job.”
Abandoned on a pile of straw that stabbed at her skin, Sylvie felt like a real prisoner, too, the bare hopelessness of the royal suite a virtual palace compared to where he had placed her in preparation for Charron’s arrival. Bastien had been brought to his mother after her beating and he lay curled in her arms, his head resting in her lap and his body moving with the steady rise and fall of sleep. Even now he refused to cry, but she saw the despair in his eyes, the pain that filled them when he saw the injuries that blighted her beauty.
“I never saw them guillotine a kid before,” Bastien had confided before he’d finally given in to exhaustion, “so I suppose I’ll be special in a way.”
“And just like I said, I’m going to show them my arse before they do.”
She stroked her bruised hand softly over his dirty hair and studied his peaceful face, recognizing herself in his childish features and more than that, in his strength. To put a scrap of food in his skinny belly she had been through things she would never share with anyone, from a simple dip in a crowd to going down on her knees for a so-called gentleman behind the Délassements-Comiques. Even here in this hell of a prison, he clung to her like a babe, all that bravado forgotten in the moment he’d seen her bruises.
“You’re not going to have nothing to worry about,” Sylvie whispered. “You’ve got your ma looking out for you.”
If I have to give Vincent Tessier the occasional treat then so be it, it won’t be the first and it won’t be the worst.
“Better than the guillotine,” she concluded aloud, her head snapping up. The door opened and a guard shoved Charron into the tiny cell, the sound of the manacles he wore waking Bastien from his sleep.
“Thierry!” Bastien pushed himself upright and shuffled closer to Sylvie. The door slammed again, the heavy lock sliding into place a moment later. “See what they did to Ma!”
“Sylvie,” Charron said earnestly, putting his manacled hands on her shoulders and studying her face.
“It’s not as bad as it seems.” Sylvie made an air of putting on a brave face.
Thierry shook his head, Bastien pulling at his sleeve for attention as he asked with a child’s optimism, “They’ll bring help then, won’t they?”
“Nobody’s coming for the likes of me,” Charron whispered. “But I got you two a deal.”
“What have you done?” Sylvie searched the face of the man who had put a roof over their heads, saved them from more than he would ever know. “Who’d come for us in here?”
“I fed Tessier a line and he went for it, told him that Gaudet was headed for Spain and had taken off that first night.”
You really believe that Vincent Tessier might believe your fairytales. She almost smiled—it would be funny if it weren’t so tragic.
“But that’s not true,” she leaned closer, dropping her voice. “Is he safe?”
“He’s bound for the coast,” Charron told her, a shadow clouding his face when he added, “I told Tessier I smuggled them out, so…”
So I will be next to meet the executioner.
“No,” Bastien cried, his head whipping from his mother to the man who had been a father to him. “That’s not fair! No!”
The boy wriggled his small frame beneath the manacles to force an embrace from Charron, who squeezed his eyelids together and told the child, “You’ve got to take care of your mother now, all right? Don’t give her a hard time.”
“I’ll kill Tessier,” Bastien promised, fury and sadness in every word. �
�I swear I will.”
“And what good would you be to Sylvie then?” Charron shook his head as Bastien edged out from beneath the chains that bound his wrists and fixed him with his gaze. “Sylvie needs you—that’s the most important job in the world.”
Sylvie cocked her head to one side and watched their exchange, recognizing now in these final moments that this man was the father her son deserved, that in less vicious times the family they had become might have been enough to carry them through.
A shame you’re not the one with the diamond or we could have been so very happy.
I might even have loved you one day, given time.
She straightened when Charron addressed her directly, blinking back into the dank cell and the damp, filthy air that was almost a presence in itself.
“Gaudet’s sister’s in Le Havre,” he told her and she knew that this was the truth, no line to string Tessier along. “Roucelle’s Dee’s man in that part of the world.”
“Le Havre.” She turned the words over in her mouth, feeling the sting of triumph. “He’s headed for Le Havre.”
“I want you to try and catch up to Gaudet. I can tell you the safe houses I have given him but that’s all I can do.” Charron closed his eyes again and she listened as he went through the locations where they might find help, revealing the secrets of his escape network, the concealed places in the house she had shared where this information could be found. Through all of it, Sylvie kissed her lover and murmured soft reassurances, tried to tell him that execution wasn’t necessarily guaranteed, that they could still walk free through the streets of the city again.
“I made you a gift, a little box for your buttons,” he whispered, kissing her chastely. “I wanted to give it to you, but…”
She felt another twinge of pity at his simplicity, to be talking of boxes and buttons when much greater riches were at stake. “Don’t worry over that now. We’ll find Gaudet, you’ve got my word on that.”
“Where is it?” Bastien asked urgently. “That box?”
“The workshop hearth…” Charron fell silent as the door swung open and the guard entered, his demeanor as casual as a man strolling by the river.
“Come on, son,” the guard told Bastien, taking him under the arms. “Let’s be having you.”
“Put me down!”
“You’re lucky today,” he informed the child. “Not every lady who’s slept in this here cell got to go home with her lad.”
Though the boy fought and swore the guard carried him effortlessly out, slamming the door and locking it behind him. With freedom suddenly impossibly near, Sylvie could hardly keep her eyes off the cell door, straining her ears for the sound of the key jangling, the heavy lock sliding back. Now she had what she needed she longed to be away from here, this place that had become a charnel house.
“I’m sorry,” she told Charron with something close to honesty, “that it had to end this way.”
The door swung open again and this time the visitor was more than a mere guard, Tessier a slender shadow in black. He executed a curt bow and tucked the horsewhip he carried beneath his arm, a thin smile on his bloodless lips.
“Have you said your goodbyes?” As he spoke, Tessier took Sylvie by the elbow and hauled her to her bare feet. Her stomach felt as though she had swallowed poison and she turned her eyes to the floor. She was sure that Charron would read in them what she had done, the bargain she had made with herself. “Not many have walked free from this cell, Mademoiselle, don’t dawdle.”
Such a good man.
“Before you go,” Charron called after them, his voice strong for the benefit of the interloper, “tell me you love me one last time—let me die with that in my ears?”
It would be a kind lie, the right thing to do, the only thing to do if she were any sort of a decent person. Sylvie thought again of who she was, of what had brought her here, and what she intended to do, and the words stuck in her throat, bitter and unspeakable. At the door she turned, heart hardening as she knew it would have to if they had a chance of surviving.
“I can’t say it, Thierry,” she told the too-trusting man who had given them so much. “Because I never did.”
Chapter Fourteen
For the first time in weeks and no doubt as a result of his utter exhaustion, Gaudet slept through the night, wakened by Papillon’s decision to carry out her morning promenade up and down the bed. After treading heavily on her master, she snuggled down between Gaudet and William happily, sinking back into a deep sleep.
“It’s over there,” the still sleeping Englishman muttered, one arm lifting slightly. “There!”
“Shh,” Gaudet hushed, happy to return to sleep, his eyes not even opening. Instead he snuggled closer and draped his arm around the waist of what he believed was a rather pretty Parisian molly. There was silence then, punctuated by the occasional sigh as William dreamed in the warm and comfortable bed, Gaudet’s face resting against his hair.
“I could put you in a play,” Gaudet whispered, trailing his hand lazily over his companion’s chest. “You have such presence.”
It was the sort of statement that should, he was certain, be met with a positive response—excitement, perhaps, and gratitude at the very least. The irate exclamation of shock was decidedly out of place and he cracked open an eye to find himself face to face with the man he now knew as Bobbins.
For a long moment, Gaudet gazed at his companion, then, with a shrug, closed his eyes and snuggled closer again, thinking Bobbins was really quite acceptable company at the moment. The man beside him was still and silent, and he almost drifted off again before he heard the words, “I am not being in a play. Never, sir!”
At that, Gaudet lifted his head and asked, “Why are you holding my hand?”
“I am not—”
“Yes”—he held up their linked hands—“you are.”
“You, sir,” came the eventual reply when the fact couldn’t be denied, “are holding my hand. I would like it back immediately.”
Gaudet straightened his fingers, proving beyond a doubt that he wasn’t the one doing the holding, then laughed. “Sir, you like Frenchmen?”
“Not at this particular time,” was the dry response, Bobbins pulling his hand away a second later.
“I dreamed you were a gorgeous bedfellow”—Gaudet sighed, careful not to mention the gender of the bedfellow in question—“with whom I had passed a night of debauchery.”
“You must be horribly disappointed.” Bobbins attempted to sit up.
Pap leaped onto Bobbins’ chest, tongue lapping at his face as Gaudet laughed, clapping. “She is kissing you hello!”
“I don’t want her to kiss me at all,” the Englishman exclaimed, batting with his hands. “Get her off.”
“She likes English boys.”
“Well, I do not like French poodles.”
Gaudet’s face dropped into a pout and he wondered how anyone could not like French poodles, especially one so angelic as the little girl who had followed him through hell and high water. “Well.”
“Not like that,” Bobbins quickly clarified, Gaudet’s hopes rising again. “I mean I don’t like them like that. It’s a poodle.”
“Who likes poodles like that? That would be a very strange way for a chap to like a poodle.” Gaudet clamped his hands over the dog’s ears. “Pap is too young for such talk. She has no interest in carnality. She is very spiritual.”
“Well!” Bobbins seemed even more perturbed, though quite why, Gaudet couldn’t fathom. “Now we’ve established that, do you think I might get up?”
“You already are.” Gaudet laughed, casting an arch glance at his companion’s breeches.
There was nothing to see at all, of course, but he enjoyed the devilment of it nevertheless. The utterly scandalous claim was more than worth it, Bobbins pushing both man and poodle aside as he sat up, fixing Gaudet with what he could only describe as a look. Gaudet cared little and instead lay back in the bed, hands pillowed beneath his he
ad as he watched Bobbins make for the long-cold water and splash some over his face. He appeared tense, and if the sleep had done his companion good it did not show.
“Would my lovely coat cheer you?”
“I do not want to wear your coat.” Bobbins was clearly finding the idea difficult to process, and Gaudet wondered again at what an odd fellow he was.
“I adore fashion.” Gaudet sat up against the thin pillow, dreaming of the room full of clothes in London, the gleaming jewels, polished shoes and acres of silks and lace. “Antonia—Her Majesty to you—and I used to pass hours in the pursuit of it. She always said I was the finest hairdresser at court, far better than those supposed professionals.”
“Congratulations.” Bobbins dried his face, peering over the towel at Gaudet. “You dress hair?”
“Now and then.” Gaudet sighed, shaking his head. “They cut off her hair, you know…and her poor children… This country is going to Hell.”
“Which is why we’re getting out of it.” Bobbins seemed animated at last. “Get up. Get dressed. We must be on our way.”
“We had such times… The last time I saw her, we gave a little soiree for the children, had a little ball for them…”
“We need to go,” Bobbins cut into the reminiscence.
He was right, of course. Gaudet knew that, even as he gathered up Papillon and slipped from between the sheets. Le Havre seemed a million miles, a hundred years away and he thought again of the sister and her infant child, of Vincent Tessier and those rooms in London where everything was just, just. Under Bobbins’ impatient stare Gaudet tidied himself as best he could, the new coat bringing some comfort as he slipped it on, adjusting it with a sigh of satisfaction.
“I am very famous, you know,” Gaudet explained, smoothing down the fabric. “I do not usually dress like a gutter peasant, as you will see when we dine in London.”
“Dine in London?”
Gaudet wondered for a brief moment if the man might be just a trifle idiotic, the look of surprise on his face at the simple statement giving him cause for concern.
The Star of Versailles Page 11