Trapped by Scandal

by Jane Feather

  Despite the dire circumstances of her present predicament, the girl laughed. The bow was such a ludicrous gesture from a man in the rough garments of a French laborer. His red cap and his homespun ankle-length britches, like her own, identified him as a sansculottes, a peasant who couldn’t afford the silk knee britches of the gentry. He could be any one of the revolutionary peasants rampaging through the streets beyond the prison, mad for blood, someone’s blood, anyone’s blood. But clearly, all was not as it seemed with Monsieur Guillaume, who answered to William.

  She returned his greeting with a mock bow of her own. “My thanks, sir. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

  “Now, mademoiselle, you have the advantage of me,” he stated, his dark eyebrows lifting higher. “With whom do I have the honor of sharing my humble accommodations?”

  “Hermione,” she said flatly.

  He laughed outright. “Hermione? I have to say, that’s not a name that fits a ragged street urchin with a tongue to shame a sailor.”

  She grimaced. “No, it isn’t, is it? I’m usually just called Hero.”

  “Less of a mouthful,” he agreed, thinking to himself that it was probably an appropriate enough name for a girl who ran around the streets of terror-ridden Paris bandaging up mob victims. “So, Hero,” he continued, “let us turn our attention to leaving our present accommodations.”

  “How are we to do that?” She looked doubtfully over her shoulder at the barred gate behind her. She knew that the corridor beyond opened out into the prison’s main courtyard, but little enough light reached through the bars of the cell.

  He glanced up at the tiny window, little more than a skylight, at the top of the high wall. A glimmer of sunlight showed. “Judging by the sun’s position, I’m guessing it’s close to mid-afternoon. At four o’clock, they begin the cull for Madame Guillotine’s evening meal. There is always a fracas, a lot of noise and confusion as they herd people into the tumbrels. We will take advantage of the rampage to slip away. Just make damned sure you don’t get forced into a cart. There’ll be no saving you then.”

  “Forgive me for being obtuse, but how the hell do we get out of this cell?”

  “That’s where you come in. I can’t do it alone, which is why I’m still here,” he said with a sardonic smile. “You will stand at the bars and create mayhem, scream, rattle the bars, hurl every insult and provocation you can think of. The guardroom is just at the end of the corridor; they’ll hear you soon enough. And they will certainly react. If you provoke them sufficiently, they’ll open the gate to drag you out. At which point, I will step in.”

  “What if there’s more than one of them?” Hero asked somewhat skeptically. It seemed to her she would be taking all the risk in this scenario.

  “Oh, there will be,” he stated firmly. “But no more than two or three, and I can handle that number easily.”

  “What with?” she exclaimed.

  “I happened upon a lucky find in my explorations.” He reached into the corner behind him and produced a heavy wooden stave. “This was under the straw in the corner . . . quite amazing how neglectful those illiterate ruffians are. They’re drunk and senseless on wine and brandy when they’re not drunk on blood and power.” His voice was laced with acid loathing. “And if this is not enough, then . . .” He bent down to reach into his boot, withdrawing a wickedly sharp blade.

  Hero took in the small arsenal. “I have this.” She reached up her sleeve and pulled out a very small knife. “It’s quite sharp, although I’ve never used it as a weapon, more as a useful tool, good for cutting bandages and things like that.”

  He nodded. “Indeed. But I’m sure you could inflict some modicum of damage if necessary.”

  “I daresay I could,” she responded with a degree of enthusiasm that in other circumstances would have made her companion smile. “So what happens after they get here?”

  “You have to make them open the gate,” he repeated. “Leave the rest to me, and as soon as you see your way clear, run as if all the devils in hell are after you. The tumult around the tumbrels in the yard should be in full swing, and the gates will be standing open. Get through them and into the street, and then lose yourself in the crowd.”

  “Will you be behind me?” Hero felt a sudden twitch of alarm that this oddly reassuring stranger might disappear.

  “If I can. But don’t think about me, think only about yourself. Get clear, and if you don’t see me, make your way to Rue St. André des Arts. Number seven. Tell them Guillaume sent you.”

  She nodded slowly. She knew the street, on the left bank of the Seine quite close to the Conciergerie. It would be helpful to have a safe haven for her own mission. Since she’d arrived in Paris two days earlier, she’d been finding shelter in insalubrious hostelries, where the presence of a ruffian lad with a few sous for a bed would not draw attention. Of course, given that she knew nothing about her cell mate, this safe haven could well be a den of thieves, but in present circumstances, that seemed immaterial. It wouldn’t be a prison cell, and she had nothing on her worth stealing anyway.

  She approached the gate and took hold of the bars with both hands. “So when do I start?”

  Guillaume moved into the shadows behind her, holding the stave loosely in one hand, his knife in the other. “Now,” he instructed softly.

  Hero rattled the bars as she shouted, pouring forth a stream of abuse, interspersed with shrieks and yells that wouldn’t have been out of place in Bedlam. Results were almost instantaneous. Two guards came pounding down the corridor, yelling their own abuse, cudgels raised.

  “Cretins!” she yelled, shaking the bars again. “Cochons!” A cudgel came down, aiming for her fingers, and she whipped her hands off the bars just in time and spat at them. “Salopards!” They yelled and whacked the bars with the cudgels, but they didn’t unlock the gate.

  Why weren’t they unlocking the gate? There was one way to make sure they did. Hero tore at the buttons on her shirt, ripping it open to reveal her bare breasts. She stood there, challenging them, laughing at them. She heard Guillaume draw a quick breath behind her, and then they were unlocking the gate, salivating as they came into the cell, reaching for her. She grabbed the hand of one of them and bit hard. He screamed, aimed a fist at her, then fell to his knees as the stave smashed into his skull. The second guard was momentarily stunned, and the moment was sufficient for Guillaume to bring down the stave again. Even as the guard crumpled, Hero was out and running for the yard.

  The scene that met her eye as she emerged blinking into the sunshine of late afternoon was pure mayhem. Four tumbrels stood in front of the open gates, horses pawing the cobbles, restive in the midst of so much noise and movement. Men were shouting, herding groups of prisoners, hands bound behind them with rough rope, men and women alike with bared necks, hair tied back or in some cases shorn. They were prodded into the tumbrels with cudgels and pikes, some stumbling up the step into the cart. Helpless, they were hauled up by the guards, and beyond the gates the mob bayed for the blood of the aristos.

  Hero could not spare a thought for today’s victims of the Terror. She ducked and weaved through the throng, her head down but her eyes fixed upon the open gate. She plunged beneath a horse’s head and dived headlong into the triumphant mob beyond the gate. And no one seemed to notice her. In the midst of the crowd, she was safe. She looked like one of them; she knew how to behave like one of them. She paused and for the first time dared to look behind her, to see if her cell companion had reached safety.

  “This way. Don’t dawdle.” An arm came out and swept her almost off her feet, propelling her through the odiferous, exultant crowd and into the relative calm of a narrow alley. “You did well,” Guillaume commented as he finally released his hold, and they stood panting, listening to the rabble’s screams coming from the street byond.

  “It’s amazing what fear for one’s life can do,” Hero obs
erved, wiping the sweat from her brow with her sleeve.

  “Amazing,” he agreed. “Stand still for a minute.” Deftly, he rebuttoned her shirt. “That was a risky move but courageous. However, you don’t need to advertise your sex to the entire city.” Hero felt herself blush as his fingers brushed, presumably accidentally, across the swell of her breast. “Here. Wrap this around you.” He pulled off his sleeveless woolen jerkin, holding it out to her. “It’ll drown you, but it’ll cover a multitude of sins.”

  She took the garment, thrusting her arms into the armholes. It came almost to her knees, but ill-fitting clothes on a ragged youth would draw no remark in this city. She pulled the sides together across her breasts and laced and tied the two strings that held it closed. The jerkin still held his body’s warmth and gave off a slightly musky masculine scent that made her feel strange but at the same time gave her a welcome feeling of anonymity.

  “So where to now?” Her voice sounded normal enough, she decided.

  “Rue St. André des Arts.” He took her hand in a gesture that felt perfectly natural in this most unnatural of worlds. “But first, I think, a drop of something to revive us both. Come.” He drew her along beside him, weaving his way through the narrow cobbled alleyways, where children played in the kennels and slatternly women lounged in doorways idly watching the passing scene, until they emerged into a small square with a broken fountain in the middle. Noise and laughter spilled from the open door of a tavern on one side of the square. A pair of mangy mongrels rolled and snapped in the gutter. Wine barrels formed rudimentary tables on the cobblestones in front of the hostelry, where men lounged, tankards in hand, throwing dice with raucous shouts of triumph or irritation.

  Guillaume shouldered his way through a knot of drinkers in the doorway. “Hey, Guillaume, where’ve you been these last two days?” one of them demanded. “You owe me three sous.”

  Guillaume reached into his pocket and withdrew a handful of small coins. “Here, François.” He tossed the coins onto the top of a wine barrel. “Next time you roll the dice, I’ll make sure they’re not loaded.”

  The other man grinned and pocketed the money. “You had a run of ill luck, that’s all. What can I get you and this lad? Looks like he could do with some hair on his chest.”

  Guillaume laughed. “Brandy . . . and not that ghastly gut rot you pass off on poor innocents.”

  “Oh, aye, only the best for you, citoyen.” François touched his forelock in mock humility and disappeared into the crush of people within the tavern.

  “Stay close,” Guillaume murmured to Hero, who had no intention of doing anything else. Despite the jerkin, she now felt conspicuous amidst the rough crowd, but she was also comfortingly aware of her companion’s height and the strength in his lithe, slim frame. In just his shirtsleeves, he seemed taller and somehow more powerful than most of the men around them, and he exuded a confidence that was immensely reassuring.

  François came back with two tankards. “Best cognac for my friend and his little companion,” he declared, slamming the tankards onto the top of the wine barrel. “That’ll be five sous.” He caught the coins as Guillaume tossed them to him. “So where’ve you been hiding?”

  “In La Force,” Guillaume said tersely.

  The men around them whistled softly. “What did they pick you up for?” the innkeeper inquired.

  Guillaume drained his tankard in one long swallow. “Wrong place, wrong time,” he said. “Same with my friend here.” He slapped Hero’s shoulder amiably. “We gave them the slip when they were taking the last lot of aristos to Madame Guillotine.”

  Someone spat in disgust, and there was a low rumble from the group of men that made the fine hairs on Hero’s neck prickle. There was something terrifyingly unpredictable about the mood of these Parisian streets, a volatility that could swing from raucous good humor to horrifying violence in the blink of an eye. She sipped cautiously at the brandy in her tankard. It burned as she swallowed but heartened nevertheless.

  “Did they take the Latours yet?” Guillaume inquired casually. “Or have they gone to ground already?”

  “Aye, bastard aristos gave us the slip,” one of the drinkers declared. “God knows how they knew we were coming for them, the maggots. We knew they were hiding in the attic, living like rats up there, but when we went for them, they were gone.” There was more spitting amidst a chorus of disgruntled disgust, and Hero kept her eyes fixed upon the dark liquid in her tankard. The one thing she had learned in her days on the streets was to avoid eye contact with anyone.

  Guillaume set down his tankard. “There’s plenty more where they came from, right, mes amis?”

  “Aye, and we’ll send them all to the guillotine soon enough,” the landlord declared.

  Guillaume nodded and adjusted his red cap. “À bientôt, citoyens.”

  He scooped Hero ahead of him, followed by a chorus of farewells. “Just what in the devil’s name is a young English girl doing roaming these streets?” he demanded abruptly as they entered a wider street.

  Hero looked up at him, surprised by the note of irritation in his voice. It seemed to have come from nowhere. “I might ask you what an English gentleman, and you are most clearly both of those things, is doing here,” she retorted.

  “You might ask,” he agreed, “but you would not necessarily get an answer.”

  “And I might say the same to you,” she retorted, half running to keep up with him as he lengthened his stride.

  He frowned down at her. “I’d venture to suggest that I am more able to look after myself in this murderous city than a young, untried girl.” As she opened her mouth to respond, he shrugged and said curtly, “Well, it’s no safe topic for the open street, so we’ll have it out when we get somewhere private.”

  They had reached Place de la Révolution, where the guillotine stood in the center. The vast square was packed with spectators as the tumbrels rolled across the cobbles. Across the river, on Île de la Cité, the great, grim bulk of the prison of the Conciergerie dominated the skyline. Hero forgot her annoyance with her companion’s high-handed tone and averted her gaze from the spectacle in the midst of the square, clinging closer to Guillaume’s shadow as they threaded their way to the first narrow bridge across the Seine. The thud of the guillotine’s bloody blade and the roar of the crowd were repeated endlessly and could still be heard even when they had crossed the second bridge from the island to reach the left bank of the river. Only when they had turned into one of the lanes leading away from the river did the sound fade.

  Rue St. André des Arts climbed steeply from a square just out of sight of the river. Number 7 was tall and narrow like its neighbors. Hero’s companion knocked in a swift rhythm against the wooden shutters beside the front door. He repeated the sequence after a moment, and the door opened just wide enough to admit a man. Guillaume propelled Hero ahead of him through the gap and stepped in smartly behind her. The door closed, and she heard the heavy bar drop into place.

  She found herself in a dark, narrow hallway. The only light flickered from a tallow candle held by the man who had opened the door for them. He was dressed like her companion in the rough clothes of a sansculottes and stared at her in unabashed curiosity.

  “Who’s this, then, William?” he asked in English.

  “A question I’m hoping to have answered myself, Marcus,” William replied in the same language. He hung his cap on a hook by the door and with a neat flick removed Hero’s and hung it beside his own. Her hair, drawn into a tight knot on top of her head, was the color of burnt caramel, rich, dark, and honey-streaked. He had a sudden urge to see it loose. An urge he instantly quelled.

  “We got the Latours out, then, I gather.”

  “Aye,” Marcus replied, still regarding Hero with interest. “They got ’em out before the city gates closed last night. Our folk should be back before curfew tonight . . . if the gods smile,” he ad
ded.

  “If the gods smile,” William agreed somberly. He nudged Hero forward towards an open door at the rear of the hallway. “In here, Hero.”

  She stepped into a small empty room, where a single lamp burned on a table and a small fire flickered in the grate.

  William filled two pewter cups from a flagon on the table and offered her one of them. He brushed aside the recalcitrant lock of dark chestnut hair falling across his broad forehead before taking a sip from his own cup. “A pleasant enough Canary,” he observed. “So, Mademoiselle Hero, who exactly are you, and what the devil are you doing roaming the streets of Paris in the midst of a revolution?”

  FOUR

  Hero examined the contents of her pewter cup intently, as if it contained the answer to his question, before saying, “Hermione Fanshawe. My brother is the Marquis of Bruton.”

  William was rarely dumbfounded, but he found himself so now. “Lady Hermione Fanshawe,” he murmured. “Sweet heaven, what are you doing here?” The earlier note of irritation was in his voice.

  “Looking for my brother, if it’s any business of yours,” she said tartly. Hero was unaccustomed to being questioned about her activities or her motives. It had been several years since anyone had presumed to have the authority to do so, and while she was prepared to acknowledge that this gentleman had earned her gratitude and maybe the right to a few questions, he certainly hadn’t earned the right to pass judgment, and from his tone, it sounded very much as if he was.

  His mobile brows quirked, and his expression was quite unreadable. “I think, my lady, you’ll find that it is very much my business.” He reached for the flagon. “More Canary?”

  She shook her head. “No . . . thank you.” He was infuriating. How could he possibly say something like that? He didn’t know anything about her. When at a disadvantage, Hero had long ago decided, attack was the best way forward. “So, sir, you know who I am. Will you return the favor?” Her tone was curt almost to the point of rudeness, but it seemed merited.