The Forbidden Rose

by Bourne, Joanna

  He loved women. It’d be a grim world it weren’t for the women in it, and ugly girls were the warm ones. The soft hammocks. The good friends. Who’d chase after pretty when there were women like this?

  Claudine looked him over when they got to the top of the stairs. “Your room.”

  She was wondering whether to treat him like a boy or a man. He could have told her. “You are kind, mademoiselle.”

  “Citoyenne,” she corrected primly. “I am Citoyenne Claudine. We are careful, mon petit bonhomme, to be excellent citizens of the Republic. You have all that you need? We will bring your belongings to you, later, when your animals are unpacked.”

  I do not envy the man who gets stuck with that job. He hoped nobody inventoried the counterfeit they’d be taking out of those baskets. He’d helped himself to a few bundles.

  “There is water in the pitcher,” Claudine said. “You may wash later at the pump in the courtyard.”

  That sounded like a suggestion. The British Service was about universally in love with washing. He was getting used to it.

  The room had curtains and a rag rug on the floor. Looked like he wouldn’t have to share the bed. Clean sheets. A bureau with a china basin and pitcher on it. And towels. Folded white towels. This was a bloody palace.

  It smelled clean. He robbed houses that smelled like this. He didn’t live in one.

  “Nice.” He’d been expecting a basement, with the possibility of chains. They knew what he was. What he’d done.

  “Althea prepares the rooms. You must thank her. And Citoyenne Cachard, who ordered this for you.”

  Probably some trap to it then. He kept his face blank. In this household, Claudine was likely to be a woman of many talents. She might be the one they’d send to smother him in his sleep. That added a certain—what would Lazarus call it?—a certain piquancy to the situation.

  “You will stay here till Citoyenne Cachard calls for you.” Her eyes danced. “If you are patient, perhaps I will even feed you.”

  She checked to see there was water in the pitcher before she left and locked the door behind her.

  The longer he lived, and he’d lived twelve or thirteen years now, the less he understood about women.

  He was on his own. It behooved him . . . And wasn’t that a fine word? Behooved. He wasn’t sure what it meant but he’d heard Doyle use it. It behooved him to show a little initiative.

  The window had a drop to the stones below that would kill a man a couple times over, doing a right painful and thorough job of it. But the roof was in reach overhead. Once you’re on the roof, the house is yours. Lazarus said that. Unlike some of what that bastard said, that was golden truth.

  Lazarus got him into this mess. It was Lazarus sent him to search Meeks Street, British Service headquarters in London. When he got into trouble, Lazarus gave him over to the Service, easy as kiss yer hand.

  It started smooth, a caper like any other. He’d come down the chimney, headfirst, hanging like a spider on a silk thread. Always some fool lighting a fire in the fireplace, but this one had been out for a while. The bricks were cooled down enough he could stand to touch them. But it was always hard to breathe in chimneys. Hurt his lungs.

  Light came up from the bottom, a gray square of it. They’d left a glim lit on some table when they went to bed.

  He let out rope. Let out some more. The last dozen feet were hot enough to roast a haddock. He did them fast. Poked his head out. Saw an empty room. Good. Now it was just not knocking the fire dogs over when he climbed out.

  He wiped his feet on the hearth rug. No point tracking ashes all over the house. Lazarus had drawn him a map of the rooms. Guesses mostly. Galba’s office was in the back corner. Galba was Head of the whole damn British Service. If there was papers about Lazarus making deals with the French, they’d be in Galba’s desk.

  Find the papers. Get back up the chimney. Leg it out of here. He wasn’t supposed to kill nobody.

  Not his fault Galba walked in on him.

  Claudine’s sabots clicked to the bottom of the stairs. The courtyard down below was empty. He went out the window. A tight fit around the shoulders. He was putting on muscle.

  He balanced on the windowsill with all that flat and hard waiting down below, hanging to the cracks in the stone with his fingertips. Holding on and reaching up to the roof, both at the same time. All a little tricky, that bit. Then he pulled himself up and over the edge of the roof. It was his roof now.

  Good job. If he didn’t say a word of praise to himself, who was going to?

  There was nobody outside to take any notice of him. He crawled along till he could hear Doyle talking in one of the rooms below. Doyle and that woman Carruthers. Let’s go see what they have to say.

  Knowing things was like picking up diamonds and rubies off the street. Made him feel rich. It might even keep him alive long enough to see fourteen.

  The drainpipe that ran down the inner corner of the building, into the courtyard, turned out to be sturdy enough to hold him. He let himself down a dozen feet, bracing against the corner wall, leaving some skin behind. His left knee was giving him trouble again. He didn’t take any account of it.

  Then he could hear.

  “. . . rabid little weasel. I’ll wring his neck myself if you’re too squeamish.”

  The Old Trout thought she was going to kill him. Not likely.

  He couldn’t pick all the words out when Doyle answered. “. . . falling into bad habits.” Too bad he couldn’t hear who was falling into what bad habits. Everybody, probably. “. . . we need . . .”

  The woman was talking again. “You see only the English side of it. There were seven in the last six months in Austria. Two of them at the Theresian Military Academy. Not into their twenties. The top of their class.” He could hear the chink of china on china. They were sipping tea. “It’s obscene.”

  The Service was worried about Austrians. Seemed like de Fleurignac made himself a couple of lists. Not just the one for England.

  He missed Doyle’s answer. Then the old woman was talking. “. . . resources. We’re keeping low to the ground while the French guillotine each other. But, certainly I can assign men to watch the de Fleurignac woman.”

  “. . . reporting to me. I want them in place today. They follow her every time she puts a foot outside the house. I need . . .”

  Easy enough to know what Doyle needed. And wasn’t that a pocketful of irony? A man like Doyle could reach out and take anything he wanted. He didn’t let himself take that woman.

  They talked too low for him to hear. Doyle mentioned the counterfeit in the baskets, saying it was a relief to get it off his hands. Then Carruthers said, “It is not my first priority, but it will give me great pleasure to strangle the life out of that poisonous reptile you’ve brought among us.”

  That was him. A rabid weasel and a reptile, too. He was a man of parts, wasn’t he?

  A long rumble from Doyle. “. . . take more than that to kill Galba . . . recovered except he can’t play that damned violin of his and . . .” More words he couldn’t hear, and finally, “. . . is mine. Ask first. I have plans for him.”

  It was time to hike off. He felt the itch of it. Any thief who didn’t get that feeling didn’t live long. Lazarus said his instincts were good. They told him to shove off.

  He could climb up, back to that room. Or he could head down, to the courtyard, and over the wall into Paris.

  That was what Doyle would call a foregone conclusion.

  He slipped, hand over hand, to the ground. He was flat to the wall by the privy, well hid, when Doyle stuck his head out the window and looked around. Not bad, Mister Doyle. You are one of the best I’ve ever seen.

  But I’m better.

  This house had more holes than a sieve. He was out of it and on the Rue de la Verrerie in three minutes. He walked off, whistling one of the songs he’d heard today. The song was about killing people.

  Hell of a city, Paris.

  “I don’t see him.�
�� Doyle let the curtain loose. “But he’s out there behind the shed. You owe me that louis.”

  Carruthers grimaced. “Crawled down the wall like a lizard. Nasty little monster. I’ll admit I heard nothing.”

  “You can check his room if you want. He won’t be there.” He thumbed a roll open and stuffed hard cheese inside. Held it while he gulped down his tea.

  “He can’t be trusted, just because he was handed over to you. You know that.”

  “He wasn’t handed over. I won him in a card game.”

  “He’s planning to slit your throat one night, while you’re sleeping.”

  “Then he’ll do it. He hasn’t tried yet.” He scooped sugar lumps out of the dish on the tray and tucked them into the pocket in his breeches. “Right now, I think he’s going to lead me to the man who brought the de Fleurignac list to London. He’s out looking for something at any rate. I have to go. Who runs La Flèche? Do we know?”

  Carruthers raised an eyebrow. “The Paris side is run by a botanist at the Jardin des Plantes. Jean-Paul Béclard. In Normandy, it’s a woman. The Finch.”

  “Then Marguerite de Fleurignac is the Finch. I watched her hand out orders to all and sundry across the countryside. I’ll tell you about it when I get back.”

  “In detail.” Carruthers collected every secret that walked through France. Including his. “A woman of the old Normandy aristocracy. It makes sense. Yes. The de Fleurignacs have always done precisely as they pleased.”

  “Helen, I need to know she’s safe. This isn’t just the job.”

  He got a searching look. “I’ll keep her safe.”

  Four words. From Carruthers, that was all he needed. “I’ll leave that to you. I want Pax with me.”

  “He’s yours. I’ve already told him.”

  His hat was on the table by the door. A glance out the window said Pax was in the courtyard, waiting, with the door to the street open. “If my rat comes back alone, don’t kill him.”

  “If he comes back.”

  “Always that chance.”

  “Do you honestly think you can make something of that evil little animal? It’s unwise to adopt baby scorpions. They grow to be venomous.”

  “He’s going to be one of the great ones, Helen. One of us. Either that, or I’ll kill him myself.”

  Twenty

  “THE AGENT WILLIAM DOYLE GAVE ME THE SLIP in the market at Les Halles. With donkeys. He went through the stable yard of an inn and I lost sight of two donkeys among the pack animals. I am a donkey myself, Madame, and I am ashamed.” Justine hung her head.

  Madame laughed at her. Oh, not with her mouth. She was too kind to do that. She laughed with her eyes. “He is very good.”

  “I am very good as well. My heart is broken. I would have sworn there was no man I could not follow through my Paris. And now I am defeated by an Englishman.” There was worse. “The boy also disappeared sometime after they left Hôtel de Fleurignac. I was not exactly following him, you understand, but it is a mortification to add upon the other one that I am not entirely certain where he went or when. I have the brains of a pineapple.”

  She was in the salon, which was the prettiest of several fine rooms in the brothel. All was effortlessly elegant here; the pale, cream-colored walls, the blue curtains with gold swags, the delicate mahogany furniture. No part existed by accident or failed to harmonize with the whole. Someday, she would create rooms like this.

  Madame made her a cup of chocolate, made it with her own hands from hot milk Babette brought up from the kitchen. Madame had taken her own silk shawl from the arm of the sofa and pulled it over the dust and dirt of the servant dress so that Justine would not feel shabby in this beautiful room.

  “When I admitted to myself that I had lost this offensive Monsieur Doyle of England—and that was not soon for I am very stubborn—and lost also two entire donkeys, I came home to confess.”

  Madame did not interrupt her or hurry her.

  She drank chocolate and delayed one more minute. She must admit straightforwardly what she had done. “I have deserted my post. You set me to watch the hôtel and report on any who came to Victor de Fleurignac. Instead, I followed the Englishman. I judged you would want me to.”

  “Exactly well. You did exactly well. I can set any of a dozen girls to watch front doors and make reports. You are one who will know when to abandon your post to follow an order that has not been given.”

  “I am abashed that I lost him in the confusion of the market. I will try to do better.”

  Madame had set a white dish heaped with raisins upon the table. Now she nudged it forward. They were not so sweet, these raisins, but they were perfumed like dreams. They were made from the grapes of Burgundy. Burgundy had been home once.

  She rescued me from hell. When I make this failure before her, she comforts me with a tiny gift from my old home. Madame made nothing of her stupidity but only smiled and tipped more chocolate from the flowered pot into the cup.

  “You shall take these raisins with you and share with your sister. She will enjoy them. Now. Consider this with me. We discover that the admirable William Doyle travels in the company of the daughter of Citoyen de Fleurignac.”

  “They do not merely travel together. I saw her face when she looked upon him. They are lovers.”

  “That is ingenious of him, is it not? He seduces the daughter so she will lead him to her father.”

  “That would be very stupid of her.”

  “Alas, yes. Even clever women commit stupidities in the name of love.”

  “Love.” Justine shrugged. “We will sell love tonight to anyone who can pay.” She lived in a brothel. She could set an exact price on what happened between sweaty bodies in a bed.

  A point of light slid on Madame’s silver ring as she turned it upon her finger. “As you say. Let us hope this woman is not so cynical. We will wish Monsieur Doyle every success in finding de Fleurignac. Perhaps he will become so vexed he strikes de Fleurignac fatally upon the skull and rids us all of a nuisance. Perhaps he will even discover the man who stands behind de Fleurignac.”

  “And orders the deaths in England . . .”

  “Which can only bring reprisals, if we do not put a stop to them.” Madame spoke to herself, knowing her words would go not one inch further. “We have a rabid dog upon the playing field. It is, I fear, a Frenchman of some importance.”

  “The Secret Police have brought down important men.”

  “True. But I would rather the British killed him. Like Rousseau, I am a great admirer of the natural order of things.” Madame had walked to the window to look out over Paris. “I have a task for you, Justine. Not an easy one.”

  “I will not fail you this time. I—”

  Madame waved her to silence. “You have not failed me yet. Listen, child. I have learned that Marguerite de Fleurignac is the Finch.”

  “Finch? The de Fleurignac is Finch?” Now that it had been said, it made sense. If La Flèche was backed by one of the old nobility of Normandy, it explained many things. “And I did not discover this. Not in all the months I have been your eyes inside La Flèche.”

  “You have discovered other things.”

  “I never caught a glimpse of her. We are all a little jealous, here in Paris, because the Finch holds herself aloof. She meets only with the same few friends who were with her from the beginning.”

  “And thus does not show her face to spies of the Secret Police. I hope you will someday be as shrewd.” The milk jug went to the tray beside the flowered bowl. Ashes, damp in that little bowl, said Madame had received messages recently, and burned them. “Here is your task. You will watch her as well as this William Doyle. When the time is right, you will approach and gain her confidence.”

  “I would like to meet her.” She bit delicately at the edge of a raisin. “She smuggled several of the Dantonists out of Paris. In dung carts. I admired that.”

  “I was much amused myself. You will come to her as the Owl and give her the passwords. T
ry to have many convincing stories under your tongue. She will be more discerning than your Gardener, Jean-Paul. Peste. What is that?”

  From below came a sound of tearing cloth and a shriek of outrage. Two girls of the house shouted back and forth, quarreling over a scarf no one would admit to borrowing. Madame turned, ruefully, to the door. “I will go quiet matters downstairs. No, do not get up and leave. I am not such a taskmistress as that. You shall finish this excellent chocolate and then go to your room. You will not, my poor child, wash. You must continue to be the sweepings of the street for a while. But you shall sleep for four hours. I will send Babette to wake you. Go then to the Café des Marchands and become involved in polishing some doorstep in the neighborhood. Citoyen Doyle will doubtless return there. Follow him and see what an interesting life the Englishman leads.”

  When Madame left, Justine did not sit to finish the chocolate but carried it up the stairs to the attic to give to Séverine. She brought the raisins in the little saucer as well.

  Séverine was on the bed in their room, humming to her doll, Belle-Marie, telling it stories. They all sat together and held a small celebration on top of the blankets, passing the chocolate back and forth between them, and the raisins, making sure the doll had a portion. Séverine ate those, since Belle-Marie, for reasons of indigestion, could not finish them.

  The window of her room looked out over the back of the whorehouse, where there were stables and a shed behind them. Already, men were coming and going with their horses. The business of the house had begun.

  Séverine lay down, holding her Belle-Marie tight in her arms. Justine held Séverine.

  She would sleep for a while, then begin her own work, when it was evening, and cooler. There would be wind moving through the streets soon. The country people called that hour between evening and night the hour between dog and wolf. She had chosen to be the wolf in life, not the tame dog.

  Twenty-one

  MARGUERITE RODE WITH THE CARRIAGE WINDOWS rolled down, leaning forward on the seat, looking out at the streets.