The Orchid Affair pc-8

by Лорен Уиллиг

  “Or good sense,” countered André. “He can pick us off one by one as we try to get through the door. We have to find another way.”

  Or not. The boat rocked as André leaned instinctively forward. Delaroche’s henchmen had their guns pointed on his daughter. Oh, to be able to fly. He was too far away to get to her in time, too far away to do anything.

  As he watched, useless, Laura grabbed Gabrielle, using her own body as a shield between his daughter and Delaroche.

  Lord Richard looked thoughtful. “Unless we go through the window . . .”

  They’d wasted enough time. “Good enough,” said André, grabbing the rope on the side of the ship. “Jeannette and Pierre-André, you stay in the dinghy until we give the all-clear. Daubier and I will take the door; you, Stiles and Pete take the window. We’ll catch them in a pincer.”

  “Jaouen?” André looked back down. His old adversary, the Purple Gentian, raised a hand to him in salute. “Good luck.”

  Delaroche hadn’t come alone.

  There were men behind him, four of them, all of the large and hulking variety. All were holding pistols. And they were trained on the little girl in the doorway.

  “Where are they?” Gabrielle demanded, her voice high-pitched with anger and fear. “What did you do to them?”

  Laura yanked Gabrielle aside, pushing the girl behind her. “Aren’t you on the wrong boat, Monsieur? I thought your taste tended more towards nightmares.”

  The men Lord Richard had left on deck must have been dispatched by Delaroche’s guards. It wouldn’t have been much of a contest, four against two, with the two taken by surprise.

  Delaroche permitted himself a satisfied chuckle. “No, Mademoiselle. This nightmare is all Jaouen’s. He allowed his concern for the boy to blind him to the too obvious ramifications of his actions. It is,” Delaroche said contemptuously, “the sort of mistake one would expect of a man who allows himself to be ruled by his emotions.”

  “Or,” countered Laura, “the obligation of a father.”

  She maintained her stance in front of Delaroche, blocking his path to Gabrielle and de Berry. Weapons . . . weapons.... What did they have by way of weapons? De Berry, still in his theatrical garb, was unarmed save for a paper sword. One of the disadvantages of being on a ship was the lack of a fireplace. There was no convenient poker with which to bash away. The furniture was either too heavy to throw, bolted to the floor, or both.

  Could they swim for it? If she opened the window, could de Berry and Gabrielle jump through?

  Delaroche shrugged aside the bonds of paternal affection. “A weakness by any other word is still a weakness. As much as I have enjoyed this conversation, Mademoiselle, I would be much obliged if you would remove yourself from my path.”

  Laura stayed just where she was. “Do you have a purpose for your presence, or is this a social call?”

  “Yes,” chimed in the Duc de Berry. No, no, no, thought Laura, but it was already too late; de Berry was levering himself out of his chair, striding over to look down his Bourbon nose at Gaston Delaroche. “Who in the devil might you be, and what are you doing here?”

  Delaroche shoved Laura unceremoniously aside. She staggered a bit, catching at the wall as Delaroche strutted into the room, the guards crowding in after him.

  Delaroche snapped his fingers. “Hold them,” he said in bored tones.

  Someone grabbed Laura’s arms, pulling them behind her. Laura instinctively tensed to struggle but thought better of it, forcing her body to relax. The grip on her arms was a surprisingly perfunctory one, as if her assailant couldn’t be bothered to put much effort into it. She might need to use that later.

  “Gabrielle!” she said sharply, and the little girl stopped twisting and pulling. Laura shook her head. “Not now.”

  Ignoring them, Delaroche strolled up to de Berry, secure in the knowledge that, while two of his guards might be occupied, there were still two pistols behind him. “Your Royal Highness, I presume?”

  De Berry looked Delaroche up and down, tall and proud, every inch a prince. Good heavens, thought Laura, why didn’t he just hang a sign around his neck saying Guillotine me now?

  “Who might you be?” asked de Berry curtly.

  “I,” said Delaroche, “am your destiny. I suggest you come quietly, Your Highness, or you will find yourself coming . . . very . . . quietly.” He gestured with his cane. “Do I make myself clear?”

  Delaroche didn’t wait for de Berry to respond. He snapped his fingers at his two remaining henchmen. “Bind the Bourbon traitor,” he ordered. “And if he resists . . .” Delaroche’s lips curled. As Gabrielle had noted before, it was a singularly nasty smile. “Kill the girl.”

  “Er, which one?” asked one of the thugs, looking from Gabrielle to Laura.

  Delaroche clicked his tongue with annoyance. “Must I tell you everything? The small one, you cretin. No one would miss the other.”

  “I say,” said de Berry, his nose going red with annoyance. “This is uncivilized.”

  “Uncivilized?” Delaroche tilted his head, rolling the word on his tongue. “Or effective? Jean-Marc!”

  One of the thugs snapped to.

  Delaroche pointed a bony finger at Gabrielle. “Show these people that I mean business.”

  Gabrielle began struggling in earnest, twisting and wriggling to free herself, as agile as desperation could make her. Her captor grappled to keep his hold on her, cursing in a thick Norman accent as Gabrielle turned into a frantic, biting, clawing thing.

  It was now or never. Laura stamped down hard on her captor’s foot and wrenched out of his grasp.

  They could try to fight their way out or . . .

  “Stop!” Laura shouted.

  Two guns swung in her direction. Her former captor was too busy hopping up and down on one foot, while Gabrielle’s had finally succeeded in wrestling her into a standstill, breathing heavily, a long rip in one sleeve. Blood oozed from a bite on his wrist.

  Well done, Gabrielle, thought Laura.

  “Stop?” Delaroche repeated in tones of disdain. “You dare to order my men to stop?”

  Laura planted both hands on her hips as though she were still playing the shrewish Ruffiana.

  “Yes,” she said. “I do. I order you to stop in the name of the Ministry of Police.”

  “I am the Ministry of Police,” said Delaroche.

  “No,” said Laura confidently. She had to sound confident. If she didn’t, they didn’t have a chance. She narrowed her eyes as far as they would go, giving Delaroche a look of scathing contempt. “You work for the Ministry of Police. And a fine mess you’re making of it, I might add. Fouché isn’t going to like this. At all.”

  Delaroche’s henchmen looked confused. So did de Berry, who looked from Delaroche to Laura and back again as though trying to figure out which was most likely to turn into a bat and flap off through the window.

  Delaroche clicked a button, causing the casing on the top of his cane to pop. A thin, shiny sliver of steel showed between the panels of polished wood.

  “Who are you to lecture me on the likes and dislikes of the Minister of Police, Mademoiselle?”

  Laura laughed a low, rough laugh. “Did you really think you were the only one Fouché had entrusted with this business?”

  André bumped into Daubier’s back as the other man came to an abrupt halt.

  Through the open door of the cabin, he could see Laura, but a Laura such as he hadn’t seen before. Gone was the self-controlled Mlle. Griscogne or even the practical day-to-day companion of the last few months. This was a shrew of the ranting, carping variety—eyes narrowed, hands on her hips, exuding contempt with every movement.

  “I had this well in hand until you came along,” Laura spat out, advancing on Delaroche with a swaggering walk that was nothing like her own. “Well in hand. And then you come along with your cryptic pronouncements and your evil laughter, making a muck out of the whole operation. Months! Months of planning wasted.”


  Daubier turned to André with an alarmed look, confusion written all over his face. “Laura?” he mouthed.

  André gave a brisk shake of his head, motioning Daubier to silence.

  “Fouché wouldn’t have—,” Delaroche began, but he didn’t sound entirely certain. They all knew that Fouché would.

  Laura threw back her head, cutting him off with a very effective snort. “Given the stakes as they are? Your record isn’t exactly consistent, you know.”

  André felt a surge of pride. The devil, but she was good. It didn’t matter whether she was Miss Grey or Mlle. Griscogne, she was his Laura and he was bloody grateful that she was on their side.

  Delaroche took a step back. “Fouché would have told me.”

  “Of course he would. Because Fouché always tells you everything,” Laura taunted. “You’ve made a proper mess of things tonight. I could have delivered them to you in one fell swoop: de Berry, Jaouen, the Purple Gentian. Now look what you’ve gone and done!”

  “You lie,” said Delaroche, but he didn’t sound quite sure.

  Laura, on the other hand, sounded quite sure. Heedless of the sword cane Delaroche held in one hand, she marched right up to him. She had, André noticed, cleverly shepherded him away from Gabrielle. Behind her, through the glass of the window, André could see Lord Richard, a shadowy figure in his dark coat.

  If he came through now, he would land on Laura. André held up a hand, waiting to see where she would go.

  Through the window, Lord Richard nodded.

  “Do I lie?” Laura was backing Delaroche up towards the window. “Or can you just not bear the fact that Fouché might have replaced you?”

  Delaroche held up his sword cane to ward her off, staring at her as one might at a horrid apparition of the otherworldly variety—too terrifying to credit, but too credible to deny.

  “Who are you?” he demanded.

  “Don’t you remember?” Laura smiled at him, a slow, dangerous smile. “I am the governess.”

  André brought down his hand. Lord Richard burst through the window in a cascade of glass. Gabrielle screamed, from fear or excitement or both—a high-pitched sound that brought Delaroche whirling one way, then another, as though unsure which way to flee.

  Lord Richard landed in the approved heroic pose, both knees bent and sword at the ready.

  “Never anger the governess,” he said, and sent Delaroche’s sword cane flying with one well-placed smack of his own sword.

  André and Daubier charged. Gabrielle sank her teeth into her captor’s arm just as André dealt him an unscientific but effective blow to the nose. He reeled back, clutching the appendage, blood oozing through his fingers as he landed heavily against the wall, then down into a sitting position and started mumbling.

  Laura grabbed Delaroche’s sword cane, holding Jean-Marc at bay.

  “Drop it!” she said in her best governess voice, and followed it up with a feint to the chest.

  Jean-Marc dropped his gun.

  Daubier scooped it up in his left hand and pointed it at Delaroche. “Call them off,” he growled, in a voice André had never heard him use before. “Call off your men.”

  Delaroche was known for many things, but common sense wasn’t one of them. He backed away, glass crunching under his boots. “You can’t shoot that,” he sneered. “Not with one hand.”

  “Can’t I?” said Daubier, and pulled the trigger.

  Chapter 34

  Daubier missed.

  The bullet went wild, hitting the glass front of Lord Richard’s bookshelf instead, sending bits of glass and chips of cherrywood flying. Delaroche dropped to the ground, shielding his face with his hands.

  Laura lunged forward, grazing Delaroche’s wrist. More alarmed than hurt, he toppled back, landing flat on his derriere, his legs splayed out in front of him. Laura seized the advantage of his momentary confusion to level the point of the sword at his throat, just at the vulnerable spot between his cravat and his chin.

  “My point,” she said levelly. “Call off your guards.”

  Delaroche’s guards were milling confusedly, except, of course, for the one crouched against the wall, bleeding from his nose.

  “Hold!” André’s voice rang out—the sort of voice one could imagine commanding the attention of an entire assembly—perfectly pitched, resonant with authority. Laura risked a peek. He was standing with one arm around Gabrielle’s shoulder, the other holding the bleeding guard’s pistol. “You’re outnumbered. Drop your weapons.”

  “Don’t!” squeaked Delaroche, and scooted back on his behind as the sword grazed his neck.

  André looked around at the assembled guards. “Has Monsieur Delaroche paid you? Anything?”

  They dropped their weapons.

  “I thought so,” said André.

  Laura held the sword cane steady at Delaroche’s throat. “Have no illusions,” she said. “I have no qualms about using this.”

  “I do,” said Lord Richard, coming up behind her, “but only because there are some chaps in London who have a number of questions they would be delighted to put to Monsieur Delaroche.”

  “You are too generous, Monsieur,” said Daubier.

  “Oh no,” replied the Purple Gentian with a smile that wasn’t quite a smile at all. “I don’t think so. Monsieur Delaroche, of all people, should know what it is to be put to the question.”

  Delaroche went very, very still.

  Lord Richard nodded at Delaroche. “Tie him. As for you lot,” he said to the guards as Laura got busy with the curtain cords. “I offer you safe conduct back to shore. You will forget you were here tonight.”

  “To help you forget,” added André, “how about a few carafes of wine?”

  Delaroche’s henchmen seemed to feel that this was, indeed, a fair deal, although they seemed inclined to haggle over the exact number of carafes involved.

  “Ouch!” One suddenly leaped aside, both hands clasped to his posterior.

  “Hmph,” said Jeannette, sheathing her knitting needle in a skein of wool. “If you had simply moved when I had asked, I wouldn’t have had to do that.”

  “Safe conduct, you said?” said Jean-Marc—at least, Laura thought it was Jean-Marc. She had a great deal of trouble telling them apart. He backed away from Jeannette. “We’ll take that safe conduct now if it isn’t too much trouble, sir.”

  Amazing what the application of a knitting needle could do for one’s manners. Laura would have to remember that for the next time she taught deportment.

  Only—she caught herself up short—she wasn’t teaching deportment. She wasn’t a governess anymore. She wasn’t sure what she was, or even who she was.

  “An excellent mission, Miss Grey,” the Purple Gentian told her, clapping her on the shoulder in passing. “Well done, nabbing Delaroche! The powers that be will be pleased.”

  Laura couldn’t help it. She looked at André and saw his head jerk at that Miss Grey. Their eyes met for a moment. He had lost his spectacles somewhere on the other boat, and his eyes looked naked and lost without them. She’d always had the uncanny sense that he was looking through her, seeing through to the things she most wanted to keep hidden. Why, then, now that it mattered, did it feel like he wasn’t seeing anything at all?

  Don’t hate me, she wanted to say, but she couldn’t somehow.

  Pierre-André made a run around Jeannette, shouting, “Papa!”

  André’s attention abruptly shifted. He leaned down to hug his son, who flung himself, in his signature fashion, at André’s waist.

  Laura stepped back, knowing herself to be irrelevant. This past month, after all, had been nothing more than fantasy, a play they played offstage as well as on. She had no place in the family circle.

  “Pierre-André!” Gabrielle, for one, was delighted to see her little brother. Abandoning her father, she hugged him until he squirmed.

  “Can I have a parrot?” asked Pierre-André.

  They sent Delaroche’s guards back to shore with card
s affixed to their necks bearing the image of a small, purple flower. For old time’s sake, the Purple Gentian had said, and since it was his ship, it seemed ungrateful not to let him have his way.

  Delaroche they kept on board, well-trussed. Jeannette had insisted on retying him, deeming Laura’s ad hoc measures insufficiently thorough. All those years of knitting had given her a masterful way with knots. For once, she and Daubier had been in perfect accord.

  Gabrielle and Pierre-André had been happily reunited with each other and their father. There was much hugging and exclaiming and general rejoicing while the stuffed parrot looked benevolently on. Pierre-André was much taken with the stuffed parrot. He was already practicing his “avast, me hearty,” slightly hindered by his inability to pronounce aspirates.

  André apologized to the Purple Gentian for the ruin of his cabin and the Purple Gentian blandly assured him that it had been due for redecoration anyway.

  In short, an excellent time was being had by all.

  Among all the merriment, one former-governess-turned-spy wasn’t likely to be very much missed. Laura made her way to the back of the ship—she was sure there was a name for it, but things nautical had never been much to her taste, for obvious reasons—and watched France recede in the wake of the boat until the lights of the harbor were little more than an echo on the water, and then nothing at all.

  An excellent mission, the Purple Gentian had told her. She had rescued the Duc de Berry and captured a high-ranking, if slightly insane, French operative. She ought to be basking in her triumph.

  Instead, she just felt tired. Tired and oddly let down. The thought of going back to England, to the boxes in the basement of Selwick Hall, to her old life as Laura Grey, or even her new life as the Silver Orchid, depressed her.

  She found herself wishing, insanely, that she could turn back the clock by a week. She wanted to be back in the Commedia dell’Aruzzio. Absurd. She’d hated the Commedia dell’Aruzzio. She’d hated acting; she hadn’t much liked the other actors; and she certainly hadn’t been a fan of sleeping in fields and washing in lakes—washing, that was, when one had the chance to wash at all. She hadn’t liked the rowdy audiences or, even worse, the sulky and silent ones. She hadn’t liked the mules that had pulled the wagon or the ruts that seemed to be a perpetual feature of French country roads in early spring.