The Cavalier of the Apocalypse

by Susanne Alleyn

16

  Sunday, 15 January

  Aristide had no idea whether or not Derville went to Mass on Sundays, though he rather suspected that, in midwinter, his friend preferred a warm bed to a frigid church. Rising early, he washed, begged a shave from Renauld, threw on his clothes, and left the apartment before Derville woke.

  The Luxembourg gardens were still and empty at that hour; the mothers with marriageable daughters and the decorous, fashionable couples would not appear until the afternoon. He spent the time strolling about in a daze, oblivious to the damp chill.

  He was waiting beside the Medici Fountain by the time a nearby church bell tolled noon. There was no sign of Sophie or Victoire in the distance. Of course it was a lady's prerogative to be late, he told himself, and occupied ten minutes with a turn around a grove of trees, kicking aside the last of the fallen horse chestnuts and rehearsing what he would say to her when she arrived.

  At half past twelve, he ceased pacing and threw himself down on the nearest bench, staring into the rippling surface of the fountain's little pool. A lady's prerogative was all very well?

  One o'clock.

  Perhaps she was ill. Or perhaps Eug?nie was ill; she had not looked well when he had last seen her.

  At last he strode off, past the first of the fashionable matrons, and walked swiftly northward. A quarter hour later he entered the courtyard on Rue de Savoie once again and hurried up the stairs, ignoring the porter.

  The maid Victoire opened the door to him. "Is anything wrong?" he blurted out, before she could even say "Good day" to him. "Is something the matter?"

  "Beyond the master being gone, probably dead, and the household at sixes and sevens, monsieur?" she said tartly.

  "I-I meant Mademoiselle Sophie. She didn't come to the gardens as she promised."

  "No, monsieur, she said yesterday evening that we wouldn't be going after all."

  "But she never sent word to me. Has anything gone ill with her, or with Madame Saint-Landry?"

  "They're both in good health, monsieur," she told him, avoiding his gaze, "though madame's been feeling out of sorts lately, and no wonder. Other than that, I couldn't say."

  "Might I come in?" he inquired, when she made no move to let him past her.

  "Begging your pardon, monsieur, but Ma'm'selle Sophie?she told me she wasn't to be at home to you."

  He stared at her, baffled. "I don't understand. Did I-did I overstep myself yesterday? Is that it?"

  "I couldn't say, monsieur," she repeated woodenly.

  "I insist upon seeing mademoiselle," he said, and pushed past her. "I'm not leaving until she agrees to meet me face to face."

  "But, monsieur-"

  "Tell her that. Ten minutes-that's all I ask."

  He strode into the salon, which was empty, and wandered over to the fireplace. Someone-Sophie, he guessed-had set the two miniatures on the mantelpiece. A few daintily crafted paper flowers stood in a vase next to the portrait of Jean-Lambert.

  A long while later, he became aware of another presence. He turned and saw Sophie in the doorway. She was very pale and he thought the tiny gasp he had heard was the sound of her drawing a deep breath. He took a step toward her and she raised a hand as if to keep him away.

  "No," she said, "please-"

  "Sophie? What's the matter? How could you refuse-"

  "I-I do like you," she said abruptly. "Truly."

  Aristide found himself smiling, despite his confusion. "And I like you. Is that something to be sorry or ashamed about?" She shook her head, mute. "I waited in the gardens?why didn't you send me a message?"

  She shrank back a pace as he stepped toward her, her cheeks suddenly crimson. "You don't understand."

  "Understand what?"

  Her pretty eyes, he saw now, were red and puffy, with dark smudges beneath them. "Mademoiselle-you've been crying. What's the matter? Please tell me."

  "Were you going to tell me that you adore me and have the greatest regard and respect for me and all the rest of it?"

  The directness of her question startled him, but he swallowed his surprise and nodded. "Yes," he said, "I suppose I was. Should I not?"

  "No. I-I can't hear such things from you, Monsieur Ravel."

  He stood quite still for a moment, until he decided that she had not, after all, thrust a dagger between his ribs. "Because-because you're a wealthy heiress and I'm just a provincial scribbler?" he said at last. "Do you think I'm a fortune hunter, and that I only want to make empty promises to you so I can marry you for your money?"

  "I?no?"

  "I don't want your money, mademoiselle. I barely know you, but you can't deny an attraction exists between us. And if we grew to know each other better, and matters reached a certain point?I would have told you to arrange a marriage contract any way you wished, for all I cared. I do care about you; because you're a lovely, clever, intelligent young woman and I think we could make each other happy."

  She shook her head. "No?no, it's not that. It's because?because if I let myself fall in love with you, and married you, it would be disastrous. No matter what we did, or where we went, someone would be sure to find out. Somehow they would learn. And the truth would come out about me, that I've been mixed up in a case of murder; and about you?about your father."

  Aristide stared at her, thunderstruck. How on earth could she know about his father?

  "And then what would become of us," she continued, "when people knew that my brother had been murdered, and that I'd married the son of a murderer who-who was broken on the wheel? You know exactly what they would think, what they would say. What sort of outcasts would we be, no matter where we were?"

  "You-I never-how could you-" he stammered.

  "Monsieur Derville told me," she said, without looking at him. "Yesterday afternoon."

  "Derville?"

  "And he's asked me to marry him."

  And yet, he realized, how clear it was. Derville, who had known-and, he saw it now, admired-Sophie for years, and who was the only man in Paris who knew his secret. How better to win her, than to tell her the one damning fact that would poison her against him forever?

  "Are you?" he whispered at last.

  "I don't know. I do like him, and he's funny and charming."

  "I thought perhaps?it's not the same, of course?but still a murder in the family brings unwanted scrutiny. I thought you might understand my own situation better now."

  "I do. Far too much-oh, be honest," she said suddenly, with a quick glance up at him. "You and I?both tainted by the crimes of others?it would be doomed before it began. Even if you and the inspector discover who murdered Lambert, some people will always wonder if that was really what happened, and they'll start vicious rumors. How could the two of us ever be more than pariahs?"

  He knew she was right, and said nothing.

  "If I marry Monsieur Derville, it should be all right. He said that if rumors start, we can go to Brussels and live there-"

  "Derville? Leave Paris?" he interrupted her. "He must love you more than I thought, to make that ultimate sacrifice for you!"

  "I think he does," Sophie said, ignoring his angry sarcasm. "He told me he's loved me for years, since I was only a child. He must, mustn't he, if he's willing to ally himself with me now? We can go to the Low Countries, if we have to, where no one knows us, but his family has some property, and with luck, no one will ever know about me. And if they should learn, his money and his family connections should be able to shield us from the worst of it."

  "While I'm worse than a nobody, with no money, and a taint of my own," Aristide finished for her. "What can I offer you, except the name of a felon, and shame and heartbreak?"

  "You can offer me love," she said softly. "I know that. But you must know, as well as I, that sometimes love isn't enough."

  "Do you love Derville?"

  "I'm fond of him?and I've known him for ages, long enough to believe he'll be a good husband to me."

  "After he betrayed a friend in order to possess you," Ar
istide said, "do you think he'll never betray you, as well?"

  She did not answer. The expression in her eyes was sufficient. He bent and kissed her forehead. "Goodbye, Sophie."

  He thought he heard her whisper "Adieu" to his back as he left the room, strode blindly out of the apartment, and hurtled down the staircase. Hailing the first fiacre he saw, he threw himself onto the dirty seat, seething.

  "Where's Derville?" he demanded as Renauld opened the door of Derville's apartment to him.

  "He's already gone out, Monsieur Ravel. Would you care to wait for him?"

  Aristide shouldered his way past the man and stood glowering in the salon. "Where is he? Where's he gone?"

  "He did say something about meeting a friend for luncheon at a caf? in the gardens, monsieur," Renauld said imperturbably. "May I bring you some refreshment?"

  "No, you can pack my bag. Everything that's mine, understand-I'll never be coming back here. Send it-leave it downstairs with the porter." He turned about and slammed the door behind him as he left.

  Half an hour later he found Derville in the Caf? de Foy, laughing over after-dinner coffee with three companions, a man and two women. "You're going to talk with me right now," he said, without preamble, as he seized Derville by the shoulder of his elegantly tailored coat and dragged him around in his seat. "How could you?"

  Derville's smile faded abruptly. "I won't insult you by pretending I don't know what you're talking about-"

  "How could you?" Aristide repeated. "You bastard-all through your life, you've had everything you ever wanted. You've never lacked for anything, never known what it's like to be without money, family, connections, the lot! Couldn't you have restrained yourself from grabbing away the one thing I wanted? Couldn't you have accepted the fact that she cared for me more than she cared for you? But no, you had to have her, and you used a low, dirty trick to get her!"

  "Perhaps I did," said Derville, rising. His companions, embarrassed, muttered excuses and sidled away. "But you can't say I lied to her."

  "You could have minded your own business! Since school-I always thought you were my friend. You kept quiet about my-my father. I trusted you! And now this!"

  "Do keep your voice down," Derville said. He threw a few coins on the table and strode out to the long arcade, where he turned to face Aristide amid the thin stream of shoppers that came strolling past.

  "Fine. I don't deny it. I told Sophie about your father and mother. But can you possibly believe that it was for her sake that I told her, just as much as for my own sake?"

  Aristide felt his fists clenching and resisted the urge to break Derville's jaw. "Oh, yes, because you're so damned altruistic!"

  "Don't be an idiot, Ravel. You would have had to tell her sometime, you know. Better now than later, don't you think?"

  "And what damned business was it of yours?"

  "Somebody had to do it. Did you ever stop to think of how an alliance with you would affect Sophie? I was selfish; I admit that. But what about your own selfishness in allowing her to cultivate a fine crush on you because you're so intriguingly melancholy and secretive-and in letting yourself think you could have her, and damn the consequences? Did you think that nobody in the circles she moves in would ever entertain a gossipy cousin from Bordeaux? It would take only one person to learn whose son you were, start up the rumor mill, and make both of your lives hell. And, for God's sake, do you imagine you've improved your reputation, now that you've turned police spy?"

  Aristide stared at him, knowing that Derville spoke the truth, and hating him for it. At last, unable to speak, he swung a wild punch at Derville, which the other man countered easily.

  "Ravel," Derville said softly, still gripping him by the wrist, "you probably won't believe me, but I swear to you on all that's holy that if your father hadn't been-what he was-then I'd have stood aside. I know she prefers you to me. She told me so. And if the only thing anyone could hold against you was that you were poor and without connections, and that you did a little work for the police now and then, I'd have been a gentleman, for the sake of her happiness. But marrying you, taking that taint on herself, that taint which will cling to you for the rest of your life, even though I know it isn't remotely your fault-that would have made her very unhappy, in the end. No one can keep a secret like that forever. You know that. Are you finally ready to admit it?"

  "None of what you've said," Aristide said at last, his voice low and tight, "makes you any less of an unparalleled bastard. You thought you'd save her from me, so you snatched her up for yourself?"

  "Yes, if you want to put it plainly."

  "Those two girls who were here with you and your friend-were they the afternoon's entertainment? If you love Sophie so much, why don't you go and spend the afternoon with her, instead?"

  "Perhaps I will," Derville said evenly. "If you've just come from an interview with her, I expect she's upset."

  "Go on, then. Get out of here. Show her you really do love her-"

  "I've loved her since she was fourteen years old!"

  "And if you end by treating her as you eventually treat everyone else-as someone who's only worth anything to you as long as he amuses you-then by God I'll-I'll-"

  He could think of nothing to say that would not be hopelessly hackneyed, and at last turned and strode away without further words. He had passed a dozen shop windows when he heard Derville call his name. Aristide ignored him and strode on, stopping only as Derville caught up to him and tugged his elbow.

  "Ravel-I have to tell you something."

  "More excuses?" Aristide said without turning around.

  "No-it's not that. Something you ought to know."

  Aristide turned halfway. "What, then?"

  "I've been a cad-I admit it. I owe you this, at least." Derville paused, looked away, and fidgeted for an instant before rapidly continuing. "You should know that I told Beaupr?au on Wednesday that Saint-Landry was lying dead in the morgue."

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