Screams and male shouts from the auditorium made her realize she needed to run toward the back of the theatre, not the front. But not before she had something to swing with.
Grabbing up a metal pole bearing the blue, white and red flag of the new Republic, she flipped it and wrapped the flag around the pole to get a better grip on it.
Another echoing crack of a pistol being fired pierced the air.
“Thérèse!”
She froze, gripping the pole hard and swung toward Jacques’s voice. “Jacques!”
From across the stage, he sprinted toward her, whipping off his periwig. He skidded in, his dark eyes wide and his chest heaving. He grabbed her and swung them behind a prop against the wall. Leaning, he whispered, “Stay quiet. Stay. Quiet.”
She tightened her hold on the metal pole in an effort to keep herself and her panicked mind steady. “What—”
“A man is looking for you,” he rasped, shaking her. “He shot Rémy in the head. He shot him for refusing to let him pass and just shot two others.”
The metal pole clattered from her trembling hands in a blurring effort to make sense of what was happening. “Rémyyyyyy!” Blinded by the terror of knowing her cousin had been shot, she tried shoving past Jacques, only to be yanked back. “Release me!” she screamed, shoving at him again. “We cannot leave him to die! We cannot—”
Jacques grabbed her shoulders hard and violently shoved her into the wall back behind the prop, clamping a hand against her mouth. “Thérèse,” he hissed, hovering so close they were nose to nose. “Cease yelling or he will bloody find us. There is nothing you can do for Rémy. Now stay quiet. Do you hear me?”
She clung to Jacques, attempting to sob in silence. It only echoed around them.
Jacques’s hands jumped to the sides of her face, his breaths as uneven as hers. “For God’s sake, stay quiet. I need you to stay quiet.”
Another sob escaped her.
Pressing her harder against the wall, Jacques stared down at her, his chest rising and falling against hers and then captured her mouth with his, working his tongue hard against her own.
She choked and hit him, trying to tear away.
He broke away and glared. “I am trying to keep you quiet,” he bit out in between breaths.
“You are being vile!” She shoved him, stumbling out from behind the prop.
A stocky figure in an evening robe that billowed around his swiftly moving frame stalked toward her from across the stage, making her eyes widen. He tossed the smoking pistol he held, sending it clattering and skidding across the wooden stage. He dug into the satchel draped around his shoulder, pulling out another pistol that was clearly already primed and pointed it straight at them.
“Jacques!” Thérèse shoved him toward the back of the theatre. “Move!”
“Do not move or by God I will murder you both in a single shot!” the older man boomed, stalking toward them, the pistol pointed straight at them. “Stay where you are!”
They both froze, knowing full well there was nowhere to go.
Jacques set his body against Thérèse and rammed her hard against the wall, using his entire body like a shield. He pressed his backside firmly against her, forcing her to remain against the wall. He widened his stance toward the man. “Leave her be. She has done nothing to earn this!”
An older gentleman with curling grey hair falling into piercing blue eyes came to a halt before them. His face tightened with visible rage as he continued to hold the pistol straight at them, his large hand trembling in an effort to keep it level. “Step aside lest your father weep.”
“No,” Jacques bit out. “Shoot me if you must but I am not letting you touch her.”
Thérèse couldn’t breathe between disbelieving gasps and knew that if she was going to die, she would do it saving the life of a boy who had yet to touch a dream. For she, at least, had touched so many of them with the tips of outstretched fingers.
“No! Do not harm him! Please!” She pulled herself away from the wall, from behind Jacques, and set herself between that pistol and Jacques, tears streaming down her face and her lips trembling. “Before I die,” she choked out, unable to hold back her sobs, “at least…list me my sins. I beg of you!”
The man with the pistol paused and lowered the pistol, skimming her appearance in between ragged breaths. He fingered the trigger of the pistol and searched her face. “Are you Thérèse Angelique Clavette?” he tonelessly asked. “The butcher’s daughter?”
He knew her real name. A sob escaped her, knowing she was going to die.
Setting trembling hands against her belly, she prayed unto God Himself she wasn’t pregnant, if only to give her soul rest knowing the babe would not be murdered right along with her. “What have I done? What have I—”
The older man’s expression stilled. “You cannot have him,” he breathed out. “He does not belong to the Republic. He belongs to the Andelot name. A name your sort of people could never even begin to bring honor to.”
Her lips parted in wavering disbelief. This man was Gérard’s father. She staggered, refusing to believe this man had just…murdered Rémy. He had murdered her darling smiling, happy Rémy who had always foolishly said, ‘You will be the death of me.’
The sobs rolling from her throat became too hysterical for her to control. Anger ripped apart any rational thoughts of her even trying to plead for herself. “Damn you into hell!” she roared. “My cousin was the kindest man humanity could have ever beheld and you…you murdered him!” she screamed. “Over a name! How vile are you?!”
The pistol slowly lifted.
No longer feeling a part of this world, she eerily envisioned Gérard with his mouth quirked and those blue eyes being playful. Eyes she would never see again.
An echoing crack of a pistol being fired thundered, making her jump as acrid soot filled her nostrils. She staggered forward. Then paused.
There was no pain. None.
The pistol the duc held clattered to floor and skid out of sight.
She trembled, almost unable to keep standing as her gaze fell in disbelief to the duc who had collapsed onto the floor, holding his bleeding thigh in between hoarse gasps.
Her eyes widened, realizing that standing behind the duc was—
Citoyen de Sade widened his stance and slowly blew at the barrel of the smoking pistol, wisping away grey tendrils of smoke into the air around him. Dark eyes met hers. “I would have aimed for his head, but I believe in giving every man his due suffering.” Lowering the pistol, he strode toward her. “It will be all right. Breathe.”
Everything frayed. She fainted, falling into an abyss that was now her life.
Early morning, July of 1793
The residence of Citoyen de Sade
The fact that the sun was shining on a day such as this was nothing short of a mockery. In Thérèse’s opinion, a thunderstorm and torrents of rain laced with hail would have better reflected the torturous mood she was in.
As bright sunlight spilled through the latticed windows of the vast corridor, illuminating the black and white tiles of the floor beneath her booted feet, every fissure within the marble eerily appeared like tiny veins pushing up through the surface of skin.
She always noticed the cracks in the marble. She had walked through this very corridor with Sade many times, thinking every aspect of his home, right down to its cracked tiles, was a morbid illusion of imperfection that did not reflect the man.
Quietly entering his cluttered parlor, which was scattered with parchment, obscene books, nude sketches, canes, whips and shackles, she walked over to her usual chair, cradling her two- month-old son, Henri, and seated herself. She absently smoothed that small soft head that gave her so much joy. A joy that had allowed her to survive through the darkness that threatened to swallow her.
The silence was deafening.
She eyed the parlor entrance and continued to gently rock Henri.
Although she wasn’t one to pray, except on Sunday a
t church whilst standing beside whispering women who refused to share her bench, Thérèse silently focused on the only words she could muster. Please let him be pardoned, Lord. He has not earned death. He has so much to accomplish in life. Let him live. Please.
She glanced again toward the open door, tears pressing against the lids of her eyes. A tear slipped down her cheek. She swiped it away with the hand that wasn’t holding Henri.
Steps echoed from down the corridor, making her quickly rise.
“Thérèse?” Sade called in a strained tone.
“Yes?” she choked out, using her free hand to brush away more tears with the tips of trembling fingers. She had become ridiculously dependent on the man for any covert information. Information he graciously freely shared without asking for anything in return. She was certain the amount of pain he saw rolling out of her satisfied whatever morbid fantasies he sought to quell.
Citoyen de Sade veered into the small parlor and jerked to a halt, adjusting the black attire he only ever wore when attending a session at the Convention. His stern features assessed her before softening. “I have asked you to call upon me this morning because I finally have news. Are you ready to hear it?”
She pinched her lips hard in an effort to remain calm. “Yes.”
He pointed at her. “No crying.”
She nodded, her eyes and throat burning as she struggled to obey.
He lowered his hand. “As you already know, his father was guillotined for crimes against the Republic that included the murder of your cousin and two others. Apparently, Gérard was never informed of the charges or the murders seeing he was placed in a different prison. Although he already know his father is no longer with us, he does not know about the attempt made against your life. For the state of his mind, I insist we not tell him and suggest you protect him against what his father did. Gérard is not the same man. Given his high level of aggression toward the soldiers, who are barely capable of keeping him against the wall even with weapons in hand, this situation could escalate beyond your control.”
She swallowed. Dearest God. What had been done to him? “Did they torture him?”
“Yes.” His voice grew ragged. “They were trying to extract information pertaining to papers he was holding and only ever stopped long enough for him not to die, seeing if he did, those papers would be released to the public. The torture had been going on since they arrested him last year.”
Oh, God. She pinched her eyes, her very soul trembling. “They cannot continue to hold him indefinitely like this.” She opened her eyes. “What is his sentence? What is his crime? Has it been decided? Answer me!”
Widening his stance, Sade announced, “He would have been guillotined along with his father, but given these papers and that his family in London had the King of England himself write on his behalf, Robespierre decided Gérard would be temporarily released under the proviso that he stay in Paris until called upon to answer questions about certain papers he possesses. Whatever the hell those papers are, and whoever the hell is holding them, is keeping him alive. Robespierre is scared to the point of shitting to the thirteenth power. And that is saying something.”
Relief flooded her trembling body as she repeatedly kissed Henri’s sleeping head. “Henri, my darling, you are going to finally meet your papa. I knew justice would prevail. I knew it!” She sat in the chair again and nuzzled Henri’s head.
That voice hardened. “I suggest you not celebrate Gérard’s release quite yet. Especially given what I now know. Are you listening?”
She searched that face in dread. “Yes. I…I am listening. What?”
Sade held her gaze. “Robespierre wants those papers. The only reason he is releasing Gérard from prison is because he is hoping Gérard will lead him to whoever is holding those documents. Which means if those papers do not surface as quickly as Robespierre would like, Gérard will end up dead. No more trials, no more prison, no more torture sessions. He is dead.”
The darkness of those words made her realize Gérard would never be safe. Ever. “We need to get him out of France. We need to urge him to take whatever money he can and leave.”
Striding toward her, Sade seated himself in the chair beside her. “He has no money. Everything the Andelot name ever owned, including its fourteen estates and all of its millions, have been confiscated. He does not know it yet, but he has nothing. Even all of his clothes are being put up for auction in a few weeks.”
Dearest God. How could a government strip a man of everything he had been born with merely because he was an aristocrat?
His father’s sins were not his.
They had never been his.
She had to stay strong. She had to get Gérard through this. No more sniffling or crying or— Tears would not save him. Only the butcher girl with a cleaver could.
With her free hand, she took hold of Sade’s large one, meeting those deeply set dark eyes. “Your kindness in overseeing this matter is much appreciated. Whatever money he needs in order to leave the country, I will oversee it. However much he requires, it is his. All that matters is we save him. We have to save him.”
These past few months without Gérard had been nothing short of a numbing blur.
After his father’s senseless rampage, the city of Paris had sensationalized the story to the point of mania, setting an even greater divide between the remaining aristocrats and the people. Pamphleteers waved absurd sketches and posters of her gripping the flag of the Republic with windblown hair while standing up against a crotchety duc of Andelot holding a pistol to her heart.
Despite her pregnancy, and no one knowing who the child really belonged to, her popularity as an actress exploded to the point where the new manager at the Théâtre Française paid her beyond what any actress had ever been paid in order to keep her on stage. The contracts she signed commanded she only be allowed to take two months off to give birth and recover. She was expected to return to the stage in two weeks.
And the men? By God and by Satan. It had only gotten worse. Flowers and gifts and letters and more gifts arrived on the hour, no matter how many times she turned them away.
Even Jacques had lost his mind given the near-death moment they had shared. Outside of the theatre, he had called on her flat late one night and refused to leave despite her protests. It resulted in her smacking him.
Not that it changed anything. He remained at her elbow.
And as of four months ago, which scared her to the point of confiding in Sade, Robespierre had sought to become her greatest admirer and called on her in a regular fashion, frequently inviting her to private gatherings and public events. While she had no doubt Gérard would snap her neck for it, Sade had assured her that if she could be strategic about her association with Robespierre, they could use it to their benefit. To help Gérard.
So she maintained the association.
“When will he be released?” she finally asked.
Sade squeezed her hand. “This afternoon.”
Her lips trembled and she could no longer see past her tears. She hadn’t seen him since the night he left the theatre. Before his father had lost his mind and gave all of Paris a reason to curse the Andelot name. Her only consolation was that Gérard had not been butchered in that slaughter. He had been locked in a leather trunk at the foot of his father’s bed, bleeding from the head, barely conscious, when the gendarmerie nationale marched onto the Andelot estate in a hunt to find him and create a long list of charges that strangely kept getting changed.
Though she had repeatedly tried to see him during all sixteen of his trials that were reset, the locations of the courtrooms kept changing, as well as where he was being held. There were more than fifty-two prisons across all of Paris, all of them always full and all of them always changing names, making it impossible for her to find his name on any of the lists.
She couldn’t imagine what he had lived through.
A part of her felt responsible. After all, she had played along with his game of going
against the Republic. All in the name of money and fame, both of which she now had, but both of which meant nothing without Gérard.
More tears slipped down her cheek.
Releasing her hand, Sade reached up and swiped her tear, dragging it against her skin. He glanced at it and dabbed his tongue to its wetness. “Who knew pain had so much flavor.”
She eyed him in exasperation. She had long ceased questioning Sade’s savage oddities. The moment she thought she understood the man, she did not. He was as charming as he was Satanic. But he had more than proven to be endearing enough for her to embrace him for what he really was: a seeker of pleasure and pain. He took pride in it and she had come to respect that. “Gérard will not be pleased when he learns of our association.”
He grudgingly stared her down. “Did I ever fuck you or whip you throughout any of this?”
She sniffed. “Cease with that language. You and I both know we are friends, but Gérard will never believe it. Or accept it. Especially given your last conversation with him and what you wanted of us.”
Sade didn’t meet her gaze. “This is how we must proceed if we are to save him. You will be given an hour to convince him to give me the papers, after which I will find someone I trust to get him out of Paris. I will wait until he is well out of reach before I get those papers into Robespierre’s hands. By then, no one will be able to touch him. In doing so, your association with Gérard must end. For the safety of your child and your life, if you stay in France, you cannot maintain any further contact or let anyone know you and he were ever involved. You have to let him go. Do you understand?”
Her throat tightened, and she no longer felt herself breathing. She was being forced to say good-bye to a beautiful dream that had never been hers. “No. An hour will not be enough. Is there any way to—”
He gripped her knee. Hard. “It would be too risky, and he requires a full night of darkness to get him out of Paris and as close to the border as possible.”
The Duke of Andelot Page 17