“Frau Schlissel,” she asked, pouring another cup, “will you stay?”
“Count Vatutin has paid my wages through the end of the year.” She lowered her fork to her plate. “I shall stay, if you wish, Fraulein, past that time.”
“The lease on the apartment lasts only until the end of September. If we have not returned by then, you must find another position. I shall write a recommendation for you before we leave today.”
“Today?” choked the housekeeper. “You have not slept!”
“There will be plenty of time to sleep on the coach. When does it leave, Rusak?”
Three hours.
Tossing her napkin on the table, Michelle rose. “I cannot eat. I am going to pack what I am taking with me.”
Rusak caught her hand. Bring little.
An exhausted smile loosened the ridges of anxiety from her face. “I shall bring no more than I can carry in my small satchel. Excuse me.”
Going into the room where she once had slept alone, Michelle opened the wardrobe door. She lifted the board at the bottom and reached in for the bag containing the gold coins. A frown furrowed her forehead as a piece of paper crackled. Drawing it out, she saw that a folded page was attached to her bag. She opened it and read,
Michelle, Liebchen,
If you want to succeed as a spy, you must devise a more original hiding place than under a loose board. I considered taking your little cache to teach you a lesson, but I thought you might truly need it, so I am leaving this note and what I owe you for your first two months of working as my interpreter.
If you are reading this because you are leaving me, reconsider. Many things are not as innocent eyes see. If you are reading this because something dreadful has happened, do not forget what I have taught you, Liebchen. It is too bad because we would have made a hell of a team.
I will close with the words I may never have been bold enough or foolish enough to speak. I love you, Michelle, as I have since the moment you swooned in my arms. What man could resist such a compliment?
Michelle sank to the floor. There was no date on the letter, but it must have been written before the ambush that had crippled Alexei’s right hand. Even then, he had loved her.
When a hand touched her shoulder, she saw Rusak standing behind her. “From Alexei,” she whispered, looking back down at the letter.
Move, Michelle. Please. He pointed at her armoire.
Curious, she stood. Folding the note, she put it in her bodice, wanting it close to her heart.
He knelt by the wardrobe and opened the door. Taking the lower edge of the fabric that lined it, he pulled it away from the brad that held it in place.
She gasped as it opened to let a score of pages and a small book cascade to the floor. “Alexei’s?” she whispered. No wonder Alexei had not been concerned when the apartment was searched. Once he had seen that her room was untouched, he had known that his hidden materials were safe. “Are these Alexei’s?”
He nodded. Scooping up the papers, he shuffled them together. She picked up the small book, which was bound with brown leather. He halted her from opening it, shaking his head.
“If I read it,” Michelle said, “there may be a clue to where he is.”
Only Alexei reads. Secret words.
“Code?”
He nodded. Michelle knows nothing. Safe. Orders. Alexei.
“Let me keep this.” She placed the book in her satchel. “LaTulippe thinks I am Alexei’s mistress Collette and useless.”
Who? When she explained her lie, Rusak chuckled, but signed, Michelle no have book. Alexei angry.
“I will risk that.” A sob scraped her throat. “Alexei can scold me when we find him.”
Frau Schlissel was waiting when they came back to the parlor. “Contact the Russians,” she urged. “Or someone in Talleyrand’s entourage, if you think they are taking Count Vatutin to France. You cannot go after him by yourself.”
Pulling on her cloak, Michelle said, “Rusak has suspicions about where Alexei will be. We shall find him quickly.” She did not add the words that resonated through her brain: if he is still alive.
“These may be the same men who arranged the ambush.”
“Yes.”
The housekeeper’s timeworn hands took Michelle’s. “They are criminals. How can you fight them?”
“Because we must.” She relented when she saw Frau Schlissel’s tears. In a gentler tone, she whispered, “How can I wait here?” She tied her cloak under her chin. “I shall send you an address if we decide to stay in Paris.”
“I thought you were coming back!”
“If we find Alexei before the end of the Congress.” She did not add that both might take far longer than anyone had planned. “Oh! Your letter of recommendation. I—”
“Do not fret about it. Do what you can to rescue Count Vatutin.”
Michelle hugged the housekeeper. “If you are willing to remain, stay here, Frau Schlissel. If Alexei can elude his captors, he will come back here. He must know where we are.”
She nodded. “I shall stay, Fraulein D’Orage. Send me word as soon as you decide what you will do, or if …” She lowered her eyes, but not before Michelle saw the truth. Frau Schlissel did not believe they would find Alexei alive.
Picking up her satchel and reticule, Michelle asked, “Ready, Rusak?” When he nodded, she motioned for him to open the door to begin a journey she could not have imagined yesterday. She had no idea what they would find at its conclusion, but she knew it would not end until they discovered where Alexei was.
Even if it took the rest of their lives.
Chapter Nineteen
The spring sunshine struck the cobbles, but nothing could warm Michelle as she hurried along the Paris boulevard. Beside her, Rusak was scowling. He was furious that she would not heed him.
How could she when doing so meant turning her back on the search for Alexei? It had taken them weeks even to reach Paris. Warm weather had softened the mud and mired the coach every few miles. When her money for their fares had run out, they had walked the rest of the way.
The city was in an uproar, for Napoleon had reclaimed it. That Napoleon had escaped from his island prison and won the loyalty of the king’s men at the same time as Alexei was abducted warned Michelle that the two events were connected in some way. She could not convince Rusak to explain how. Although she had become more proficient at signing during their long journey, this one topic he refused to discuss.
But he must soon. They had been here for nearly the whole month of May, and now they were broke. There was another alternative to coming to Monsieur Mauriac’s jewelry store today to sell Maman’s ring, but she did not want to think about it.
Yet how could she push from her mind Rusak’s excitement when he had burst into the single room they had rented over a pastry shop where the scent of cakes taunted them when another hungry day was over?
She had been reheating the thin broth that would be their supper. “What is it?” she had asked, seeing him sign, Good news. “Did you find Alexei?”
Rusak’s smile wavered.
Putting her hand on his, Michelle sighed. “I am sorry, Rusak. What is your good news?” She could not imagine any tidings that would be good, except that Alexei had been found alive.
Rusak get job. Money for Michelle and Rusak. Money for food and house with two rooms.
“How?”
Go to school for deaf children. Teacher learn signs there. In Paris. Job for Rusak. Teaching. Money for Rusak and Michelle.
“But Rusak, if you teach at the school, when will you have time to help me look for Alexei?”
His lips tightened.
“Are you giving up?”
No. He added nothing else.
“Do you think Alexei is still alive?” When he shrugged and turned away, she took his hand and shook it. “Answer me! Do you think he is still alive?”
Want Alexei alive. Do not know.
“So you are ready to give up?” She dropp
ed onto the edge of the pallet where she slept while Rusak curled up on a patched blanket under the table.
Men die.
“No!” Her anger collapsed into sobs as she hid her face in her hands. How long could she continue on this quest alone? She would never stop looking for Alexei.
When an arm encircled her shoulders awkwardly, she clung to Rusak. He drew her face up so she could see his fingers.
What else we do?
“I can sell Maman’s ring to get some money.” She touched the ring.
No!
“It is just a ring, Rusak. Is an heirloom more important than Alexei’s life?” Running her finger along the lightning bolt, she whispered, “It is the only thing I have left to sell, and I know Maman would have wanted me to help Alexei.” She raised her eyes to meet his. “Rusak, with what I should be able to sell this for, we can buy some allies to help us find Alexei.”
One week. Told school come in one week.
“And we shall look for Alexei until then?”
Sell ring. Try find Alexei one week. Michelle and Rusak find Alexei or stop looking.
Although she wanted to argue, she knew he was being sensible. They had found no clue to Alexei’s location in the past week. Her heart shattered as she whispered, “If we have not found Alexei in one week, you will take the job at the school.” A sob bubbled up from deep within her. “And I shall look for a teaching position also.”
Rusak had gently wiped her tears away, and the motion had undone her. She had sobbed against him, knowing that, in doing as he wanted, she was betraying the man she loved. That Alexei would have expected her to do as Rusak requested had not lessened her pain.
Now she and Rusak had arrived on the street where Monsieur Mauriac’s shop was. She stared at the door. MAURIAC’S JEWELRY STORE was written across the sign over it.
Michelle’s fingers trembled as she reached for the doorknob. The clamor of the streets was muted when the heavy door closed behind them. Her nearly ruined slippers sank into the crimson carpet. She looked about in confusion.
No jewelry was on display. A trio of overstuffed chairs waited around a table to one side of the small room. A lamp glowed near them, and she wondered how anyone could see gems well enough in that light. On the other side of the room was a single table, higher than the first, and a stool.
“Monsieur Mauriac?” she called.
Michelle whirled as she heard a rustle. A curtain covering a door was shoved aside. It was clear they had interrupted the man during his midday meal, for he held a crust of bread. Her stomach growled, and she heard a low laugh from Rusak. She almost retorted that he would not find starving amusing, then realized that they would not starve. His job at the school would buy them food. All they would lose if she could not sell this ring was their last chance to find Alexei.
“Yes?” the man grumbled. Popping the last bite of bread into his mouth, he rubbed his fingers across a napkin and stuck it into his breeches.
“Are you Monsieur Mauriac?”
“Yes.”
Uncomfortable under his scrutiny, she said with feigned serenity, “I would like to sell you something.”
“I do not buy from anyone who has not been introduced to me by another customer, mademoiselle. Do you have a reference?”
She took a steadying breath. If she appeared desperate, he might become suspicious. “It is a piece purchased here.”
“Really?”
Realizing she had piqued his interest, she said, “Actually it is half of a set of wedding rings. Made for Monsieur and Madame D’Orage.”
“D’Orage? That name is not familiar to me, mademoiselle.”
“It would have been more than a quarter of a century ago, Monsieur Mauriac.”
He waved aside her words. “Even if they had been my father’s patrons, I would know. I recall no name like D’Orage.”
“The rings were purchased here.” She twisted the strings of her reticule nervously. Recalling how Alexei had teased her for tangling her fingers in them, she let the bag drop against her skirt. She glanced at Rusak, but he could not help her.
“Do you have proof of that?” Monsieur Mauriac asked.
“No, but would you look at the ring?”
He sighed, “Mademoiselle, I—”
“Sir, we are starving.”
When he looked from her to Rusak, he said, “Let me see the ring.” Gesturing toward the tall table, he ordered, “Over here.”
Drawing off her right glove, she started to place it on the table. When she saw his distaste, she stuffed the tattered glove into her reticule. Regret ached through her as she pulled off Maman’s ring and put it on the table.
He picked it up and gasped. “Where did you get this?”
“It was my mother’s.”
Suddenly he was smiling. “I may have good news for you, Mademoiselle …?”
“D’Orage.”
“Ah, yes, so you said. Will you and your companion please be seated? I believe I have a buyer for you. I shall send a lad to contact them.”
“I can leave the ring with you, if you wish.” She did not want to lose a moment of the time she had to look for Alexei.
“No, please wait. It should take no longer than an hour for them to arrive.”
“But—” Michelle bit back the rest of her words when Rusak tugged on her arm.
No sell. We go now.
She wanted to agree. This was too peculiar. But if there was a chance the money she could get for the ring would help her save Alexei, she must play this game. She went to sit in one of the trio of chairs by the other table. For a moment she thought Rusak would storm out. Then he sat beside her.
An hour had never seemed so long … or so short. Michelle was tossed between expectation and despair as the hands on the clock by the door slowly moved, then seemed to leap forward like a runaway horse. Beside her, Rusak was lost in his thoughts, and she guessed he was thinking about his new job at the school. It was a wonderful opportunity for him, but …
The door opened again, and two people entered. The dark-haired woman was dressed in the height of fashion. Beside her, a tall man also had jet black hair, but when he passed the window, the sparkle of a gold earring glistened in his left ear.
Monsieur Mauriac rushed forward to greet them. Turning, he said, as Michelle and Rusak came to their feet, “Mademoiselle D’Orage, may I introduce Lady Sommerton and the Duc de Tonnere du Grêlon, who are interested in your ring?”
A duc? Wearing a gold earring? And the lady’s name was decidedly English. What was going on here? She knew it did not matter. All that mattered was selling Maman’s ring. With the aplomb she had honed in Vienna, she held out her hand.
The duc took it in his gloved hand and bowed over it, then glanced at Lady Sommerton. His mistress? But why would a French duc have an Englishwoman for a mistress? She almost laughed. Alexei had been pretending to be a Russian with a Swiss mistress. The wisest thing would be to sell them the ring and leave.
Quietly Michelle said, “I would like to introduce my friend Feodor Rusak.” She tried to smile.
Rusak nodded in their direction. She did not explain that he could not speak. She wanted to conclude this deal and continue her search for Alexei.
The duc said smoothly, “Mademoiselle D’Orage, we are pleased you agreed to meet us.”
“Monsieur Mauriac led me to believe that this meeting was necessary to complete our business.”
“May I examine the ring you are offering to sell?”
“Certainly.” Despite her attempts to remain calm, her fingers quivered as she drew off the ring. She did not want to sell her last connection with Maman.
He ran his finger along the raised lightning bolt. When he offered it to Lady Sommerton, Michelle was shocked to see tears in her eyes.
“Mademoiselle D’Orage,” Lady Sommerton asked, her voice cracking, “is it possible that your mother’s name was Sophie?”
“Yes, but how—”
“Dominic, it could be h
er!”
He put a calming hand on her arm. “Don’t jump to conclusions too hastily, Brienne.” His piercing ebony eyes reminded Michelle so much of Alexei’s green ones as he asked, “Would you be willing to answer a few questions?”
“About what?” She was losing valuable time here. She wanted to say that, but heated words might destroy the chance to get the money she needed.
“Your mother’s name was Sophie. Sophie what?”
“Sophie D’Orage.”
He rubbed his chin. “D’Orage. That is French for ‘storm.’ It could suggest Tonnere du Grêlon.”
“Thunderstone?” repeated Michelle in confusion, noting for the first time his odd title. “Like the one on Maman’s ring?”
Lady Sommerton smiled. “And your father’s name?”
“Michel. I was named for him.”
“Not Marc-Michel?” Lady Sommerton asked.
“No. I told you; now can we speak of the ring?”
“Your father is where?” asked the duc.
“He is dead.”
“When?”
“Your Grace, I do not believe that this conversation is necessary in order for you to purchase my ring. If this is how business is conducted here in Paris, I shall wait until I return to Zurich to sell it.” She was bluffing, but she hoped they would not realize that.
“Zurich?” asked Lady Sommerton as she sat. “Is that where you have been? You have been so close all the time?”
Icily, Michelle said, “If you will give me back my ring, I think we shall leave. This has gone on long enough.”
“Please be patient, Mademoiselle D’Orage,” Monsieur Mauriac urged.
Michelle shook her head and held out her hand. She refused to be taunted because she needed money.
The duc said, “Forgive us, Madeomiselle D’Orage, but we have a reason for asking these questions.”
“Then mayhap if you were to explain, I, too, might understand.”
“Monsieur Mauriac asked you to meet us,” the duc said, “because we offered him, as we have every jeweler in Paris, a handsome reward if he found this ring. But we asked to meet the owner face-to-face.”
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