Royal 02 - Royal Passion

by Jennifer Blake

  "Take care, Mademoiselle Mara,” he said, his dark eyes cold. “My interest in your proposal is not so great that I will tolerate insults."

  The satisfaction it had given her was great, but not enough to jeopardize everything for it. She refused to acknowledge his threat, however. As if he had not spoken, she went on. “The present unstable situation seems to have been caused by the reformists, some of whom are republicans and some merely frustrated monarchists who would like to persuade Louis Philippe to be more like the constitutional monarchs of Great Britain. That is only the surface. I suspect that many people are secretly stoking the fire under this particular potau-feu . Among them would naturally be the legitimists. When the pot boils over, they hope to seize power in the ensuing panic."

  "Come, come, hearing a recital of the obvious grows tedious. What is your point?"

  "It would greatly enhance your personal consequence and strengthen the legitimist position if you could capture the leaders of the reformist faction before they are able to move to overset Louis Philippe. Is this not so?"

  He merely inclined his head, but there was a stillness in his face that told her she had his complete attention. There was, she saw quite clearly, more than one kind of seduction. Whether the appeal was to passion or to greed, however, the approach was the same, through the mind, the imagination.

  "Of course, you could engage the cooperation of your fellow conspirators for this coup, but they would share in the honor. Then there is always the chance that the present situation will come to nothing. If that should happen, it might be better if you alone had the traitors under lock and key—to exhibit as proof of your loyalty to the regime?"

  "And where might I lay hands on these reformists?” he asked softly.

  Trust. Trust was the cornerstone of what she was doing. Trust that she could persuade de Landes to let her go once the die was cast, trust that Roderic would be able to turn what she was doing to advantage, trust that if he was the manipulator of events that he appeared to be that he had good reason. She had thought she could never place her dependence in him; she had been wrong. The knowledge gave her courage.

  "They will be meeting three nights from now at Ruthenia House."

  A slow smile curved the thin lips of the Frenchman. He came to his feet. “Excellent. I said some time ago that we worked well together. If I had known quite how well, I might have handled matters differently."

  Mara watched his approach with uneasiness. “How so?"

  "I could have taken you into my confidence, shared with you the problems so that your understanding would have been greater. Our arrangement might have been much ... closer."

  She forced an arch smile to her lips. “You don't strike me as a man who would place much confidence in a woman, much less make her free of your secrets."

  "Very true, but for you I might have made an exception."

  Could she force herself to endure any intimacy this man might force upon her? She did not know, but as he reached to touch her cheek with his hot, dry hand, she thought it unlikely. It would have pleased her to think that his advances were a means of testing her, but the increasing heat that she saw in his eyes dispelled that illusion.

  "You—you could do so now, concerning plans for taking Roderic at this meeting."

  "That is something we may indeed discuss, but only after this night."

  He reached out to cup her face, thrusting his fingers into her loosened hair. She knocked his hand aside.

  "Just as I have no liking for the embraces of the prince, I have none for yours."

  "You'll learn to like them, my dear Mara,” he said, towering over her, then placing a knee on the bed. “Oh, yes, you'll learn."

  She flung up her hand to fend him off. He caught it, twisting it so that she gasped with pain as the bones ground together. A cruel smile on his face, he forced her backward on the bed, his other hand closing on the soft mound of her breast, kneading it, slowly tightening.

  Hard on the soft sound she made, the door crashed open.

  Roderic surged through with a pistol in his hand, coming to a halt with his heavy cloak swirling about his wide-set, booted legs and his face a hard mask. Behind him was Michael, who leaped to one side in a half-crouch, also leveling a pistol.

  "Cozy as two peasant women gossiping over a churn,” Roderic drawled. “Is it any wonder that the milk of human kindness is sour?"

  Cursing, de Landes sprang away from Mara. She came slowly to her feet with the color draining from her face and then flooding back again. How much had he heard? It was impossible that he could understand, and yet in a daze of distress she willed him to make the effort.

  He glanced from de Landes to her. His cobalt gaze held on the soft, entreating darkness of her eyes. The frown that drew his brows together lessened imperceptibly. There was an easing inside him, and it seemed that in the shadowy dimness of that dingy room, Mara reached out and placed her cool fingers on the sensitive surface of his mind. He accepted that touch, assimilated its strangeness, its limitless acceptance and tentative dependence, and turned on her in cold suspicion.

  "You were saying before our crass interruption?"

  "Why, nothing, just commonplaces,” she answered, summoning a bright smile. “How did you ever find me?"

  "The house has been under surveillance as a precautionary measure for days. The sentries saw you taken, followed to discover where, and sent for me."

  "But when Juliana disappeared—"

  "I did not trust them sufficiently when they said she had not left the house. My mistake. Enough. Let's get out of here. Unless you plan to stay?"

  Beneath his impatience ran a steely determination to take her away. There was no hint in his manner or words of concern for her or pleasure at finding her. He could not have made it plainer that nothing more than doubt of her discretion, coupled with duty, had brought him. His attitude was like a blow, but at the same time she was well aware that no better ploy to convince de Landes that what she said was true could have been found.

  Mara started toward the door. Michael, giving her a brief smile, backed out into the hall. As she passed through the door opening, Roderic moved to follow her without taking his eyes from de Landes. When they were out, the prince reached to slam the door shut and turn the key that stood in the lock. Down the hall, another door was cracked open, and through the slitted opening could be seen the stout woman. Roderic, with a brief glance in that direction, pocketed the key.

  They swept along the hall to a rickety set of stairs, clattering down them to the landing, then circling around to the next. Behind them, de Landes set up a shout, pounding on the locked door. They ignored the noise. As they ran, Roderic swung his cloak from his shoulders and draped it around Mara, putting a hard arm about her waist to urge her forward. Another landing, and another, and then they were out in the cold, fresh air and the fast-approaching night.

  "Can you walk?” Roderic inquired."A carriage or horses seemed conspicuous tonight with so many abroard on foot."

  "I can now,” she answered shortly, and set off beside the two men as they walked with long strides away from the house where she had been held.

  "Now?” Michael asked, directing a quick, inquiring glance at her.

  "I was bound. The ropes were too tight."

  "And you talked de Landes into moving them? What nerve; I'm all amazement. And pride. Aren't you, Roderic?"

  "Both, immeasurably.” Roderic, scanning the street ahead of them, did not look at her.

  His distant manner was an affront. She took a deliberate breath, saying, “There is something I must tell you."

  "Not now. We aren't out of this yet,” Roderic answered over his shoulder.

  "It's important!"

  "Staying in one piece also has a certain value as well as persistent charm."

  He had heard what Mara and Michael had missed as they spoke, the deep murmuring of a distant crowd. Coming in waves like a dark sea, the sound drew nearer. The street was narrow and lined with tre
es. The light of the torches and lanterns held by the demonstrators was thrown ahead of them along the twisting length, illuminating the fronts of the shops with rooms for let above them and shining on the bare branches of the trees. It was only as Mara saw those piercing gleams that she realized night had dropped down upon them like a smothering woolen blanket.

  "Michael, you will join this group, see who they are and where they are going."

  There were times when the cadre left their uniforms behind as they moved about the city and the countryside at Roderic's bidding. That day must have been one of those times for Michael, for he was wearing a nondescript coat and pair of trousers with a faded waistcoat under his cloak. As he received the instructions of his prince, he tossed back the cloak, handing it to Roderic, and pulled a cap from his pocket. Settling the cap on the back of his head, he pushed his hands into his pockets and set off along the street as if he had not a care in the world.

  Roderic whipped Michael's cloak around him to cover the shining white of his dress uniform, then, with a hand on Mara's arm, faded back into the deep shadows of a doorway.

  The crowd came nearer. A few red banners waved over them, crude, hand-made strips of cloth. Although a few were students from the university and the École Militaire, most seemed to be craftsmen and artisans still wearing their leather vests and aprons and carrying hammers and other tools in their fists. Among the men were a few women, their faces alight and determined in the torchlight. Shouts and laughter rang out as they came, and now and then they broke into song. They did not seem to be unruly or violent, and yet there was defiance in the rumble of their voices. They kept to the center of the street, relentlessly marching.

  They filed past where Mara and Roderic stood, their tramping over the cobbles taking on a muffled, hollow sound between the buildings. They overtook Michael, and with a joke and a quick question, he joined them. They took him with them like a river gathering flotsam into its current.

  When the noise had ebbed and the night was quiet, Roderic stepped out into the street and Mara joined him. They turned in the opposite direction from that taken by Michael and the crowd. They had not gone more than a hundred yards when, nearing a cross street, they heard yet another group of men coming toward them. There was anger in the yells and curses they flung into the night sky. Though their numbers were much smaller, they seemed more vicious.

  "The garden,” Roderic said. “Over there."

  They ghosted beside a building constructed of the omnipresent soot-streaked stone and down the wrought-iron fence beyond it, then slipped through a pair of tall gates. Inside the garden were head-high evergreens and a series of paths. Mara, moving in front of Roderic, turned a corner and stopped, gasping, reaching out to prevent Roderic from moving forward. Ahead of her stood a tall man, a dark shape outlined against the lighter darkness, one hand upraised. A moment later, she gave a shuddering sigh. The man wore Roman draperies that did not move in the faint night wind. It was a marble statue.

  They stood still where they were until it was safe to emerge. As he stepped from the dark garden, Roderic stood staring after the receding group of men. Reaching for her hand, he started after them with only a single word. “Come."

  The were retracing their footsteps, going the wrong way.

  "What are you doing?” she asked, breathless from the pace he had set.

  "I sent Michael on an errand I should have taken myself."

  "He was dressed for it; you aren't.” There was no heat in her words, however. She herself wanted to know what was taking place. The crowds, all of them, seemed to be heading for the river. If she had her bearings, they would, after a time, cross the Seine by the Pont Royal near the Place de la Concorde. It was there that Lamartine had been scheduled to speak at the reformist banquet that had been canceled by the king.

  The wind was rising, turning colder. It tugged at their cloaks, flapping them about their bodies, and brought the sting of tears to Mara's eyes. Without a lantern to light the way, they stumbled on the uneven cobbles. Mara's slippers of soft leather were for wearing inside the house; they had never been meant for extended walking, particularly on the sharp-edged stones. She refused to complain. She was free, not bound hand and foot and shut up in a sour-smelling room. She was with Roderic in the fresh night air. And if there were other shadows hanging over her, what better way was there to escape them than to outrun them?

  The streets near the bridge were more congested. The atmosphere was almost like a carnival with people hanging out of windows and calling back and forth. Street vendors were out selling roasted chestnuts and hot meat pies, candied fruit and bunches of violets, and the organ man with his monkey played on a corner. Still, above it all could be heard the shouts of "Vive la réjorme!," “Down with Guizot!,” and that old one from another revolution, "Liberté, égalité, et fraternité!"

  From the bridge they could see the gathering in the Place de la Concorde, the torches and lanterns glinting like fireflies, casting eerie reflections upon the great stone shaft of the obelisk that had been presented to Louis Philippe by the viceroy of Egypt, Mohammed Ali. The crowd numbered several hundred strong, and the sound of their voices was a distant roaring.

  "What are they doing?” Mara asked as they drew nearer. She could not see above the throng, but there was a dense cloud of black smoke roiling into the air that appeared to have nothing to do with the scattered torches.

  "Lamartine is trying to speak. A few are listening. The rest are making a bonfire of the chairs from the Tuileries."

  "What? But why?"

  "No doubt they were cold."

  The crowd parted then, and she could see off to the right the façade of the Tuileries palace. Men were coming from that direction carrying chairs above their heads like prizes of war. As she watched, a window in an upstairs room shattered into glittering fragments and the throne of Louis Philippe came crashing through. A great shout arose, and the throne chair was seized and thrown onto the fire. That the throne and the chairs that had, many of them, survived the revolution and all that had followed should be wantonly destroyed here on this night seemed like a sacrilege.

  "France should be grateful that beds and armoires are heavier,” she commented.

  There came the atonal tinkling of more breaking glass from the direction of one of the side streets lined with shops. Roderic turned his head swiftly toward that sound."I believe they have found something else for their attention. I've seen enough. Let's go."

  "What about Michael?"

  "He can take care of himself."

  They threaded their way through the Tuileries gardens, away from the wrenching, tearing noise of shop doors being forced and the yells of the looters. People still milled under the leafless trees and around the clipped shrubbery, but with less purpose. A pickpocket, caught at his trade, was chased past them. Here and there were lovers, taking advantage of the general unrest to kiss in the evergreen bowers.

  The street between the Seine and the Louvre was dark and deserted. Roderic walked with one hand on his pistol and every sense alert. The ancient pile of masonry loomed above them on the left, stretching endlessly with its myriad windows and doorways. It was once the home of French kings where sovereigns strode in splendor along the majestic rooms that smelled of the privy because of the habit of impatient courtiers of relieving themselves in the gilded corners and behind the carved doors. To the right, the Seine wound its way with a soft, rushing sigh, channeling the night wind along its length so that it blew damper and stronger.

  Mara was footsore and weary with reaction, her spirits lowering as the sense of danger lessened. She noticed they were nearing the end of the palace wing, coming close to another of the Seine's many bridges, the Pont Neuf, and the cross street that led onto it, though these things made little impression.

  The mob seemed to rise up out of the ground, boiling up out of a stairwell that led down into a shop's cellar. Small in number, not more than a dozen, it was the most bizarre group they had seen. The fece
s of its members were painted like red Indians, and they brandished hatchets and knives and whirled torches in the air as they whooped and yelled. Hanging about them were articles of women's clothing, petticoats and pantalettes, and at their belts hung silver vases and coffeepots.

  There was no way to avoid them, no hope of outrunning them. Armed as they were, it would be suicidal for Roderic to think of fighting their way free, though he might have attempted it if he had been alone. Roderic stopped, shielding Mara with his body.

  And then as the looting mob came bearing down upon them, the wind lifted his cloak, exposing his white trousers with their cerulean stripes and his polished boots. For an instant the braiding and bars on his coat gleamed, richly royal.

  As swift and as precise as a parade drill, Roderic whirled away from the mob, catching Mara in his right arm. With his left, he imprisoned her chin and lifted it higher. His mouth came down to crush her soft, open lips. For a moment she was stunned, then her heart throbbed against the wall of her chest and comprehension flared inside her. She forced a low moan and reached up to push her fingers through his hair, twining them in the silky golden strands as she strained against him.

  A coarse jest or two was thrown in their direction. They were jostled as a few men on the edge of the crowd stopped and stared. They paid no heed.

  "Lean on me,” Roderic whispered, and moving with the slow footsteps of those entranced by desire, they turned down the path that led under the span of the bridge. Paris had from time immemorial respected the privacy of lovers. The looters let them go.

  In the darkness Roderic stopped and stood listening, staring upward. The main body of the men was moving over the bridge. After a moment there were a few curses and more shouted crudities, then thudding footsteps as the laggards ran to catch up. Silence.