The Orchid Affair

by Lauren Willig

  At first, all he saw was the candle, a small blaze of light against the darkness of the room beyond. It flickered off the contours of a female form, outlined the hollows of a collarbone, the curve of a shoulder.

  There was a woman in the doorway, a red velvet wrap tossed carelessly over her bare shoulders. Her hair fell in long waves down her shoulders, tousled as though she had just come from bed. Her hair was dark and rough, swallowing the light rather than reflecting it. The fine white lawn of a chemise showed beneath the red velvet wrap. The fabric ended just below her calves, revealing a pair of decidedly shapely ankles.

  Lifting a hand to shield her eyes from the light of her own candle, she took a step forward on slender, bare feet, blinking sleepily.

  “Antoine?” she said.

  Chapter 19

  André stared, speechless, as Mlle. Griscogne undulated her way into the room.

  He hadn’t thought his governess had it in her to undulate. But there was really no other word for it. Her hips swayed as she sauntered into the room, setting the loose ends of the velvet wrap swinging rhythmically back and forth, back and forth as she moved, brushing against her hips with every motion—back and forth, back and forth.

  André blinked hard, forcing himself to focus.

  Making her leisurely progress into the room, she yawned and stretched, arching her back. “Do forgive, darling, I’m afraid I—oh. Hello. Oh dear. I thought you were Antoine.”

  “Er, evening. Madame,” said Laclos with difficulty.

  André couldn’t blame him. The old artist had been right. Crimson was Mlle. Griscogne’s color. Her skin didn’t look sallow against the velvet. Instead, it was the richest sort of cream—warm, inviting. The velvet wrap clung to her shoulders, faithfully following the curve of her breasts, leaving her throat bare, caressed by tendrils of wild, dark hair.

  Who would have thought that she could have looked so . . . so . . . Well.

  Mlle. Griscogne blinked, scrubbing a hand across the back of her eyes. The movement made the wrap slide along one shoulder, showing the hint of the white linen shift beneath. So she wasn’t naked underneath it, then.

  Just mostly naked.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said, looking up under her lashes, first at the constables, then at André. “I thought you were Monsieur Daubier. I fell asleep, you see.”

  She fluttered her lashes up at Laclos, encouraging him to join her in complicity at her own silliness.

  From the way the constable blushed and shuffled his feet, you would have thought she had asked him to join her in her bed.

  André frowned at his governess. What in the devil was she playing at? And why couldn’t she do it with her clothes on?

  “We didn’t mean to wake you, Mademoiselle—er, Madame . . . ,” Laclos said bashfully.

  “Suzette,” she said, smiling winningly at Laclos. “You can call me Suzette. Would you mind holding my candle?”

  From the way he was looking at her, Laclos would be happy to hold anything she was willing to offer him. Bumbling forward, he willingly took the candle from her.

  Clever, noted the one part of André’s brain that still appeared to be in proper working order. That maneuver had neatly hobbled one of the constables. Laclos wouldn’t be able to reach for his weapon without dropping the candle.

  But that still left Maugret.

  Whose side was she on? And what was she planning to do?

  “Thank you.” Suzette beamed her gratitude at Laclos, raising her hands to sweep the hair away from her face. Her hair was thick and dark and wild, a primitive image of wantonness.

  Only André noticed how her hands shook.

  “Sometimes I worry I might set myself on fire.” The movement caused the velvet wrap to slide back, revealing a deep gap where her shift gaped open. “Don’t you?”

  “Er, uh, yes, Madame, er, Suzette. Ouch!” Laclos jumped as wax dripped on his wrist.

  “Oh, dear.” Suzette was all solicitude. “I hope you haven’t hurt yourself?” Her long hair brushed Laclos’s wrist as she leaned over to inspect the burn.

  “N-not at all. All in the line of duty,” Laclos managed to get out.

  “How very brave you are.” Her voice was like velvet—lush and inviting.

  Right. He had let this go on long enough. “If I might recall you gentlemen to our purpose here?” rapped out André.

  Blushing, Laclos retrieved his hand. He was still holding the candle, but at an angle that was creating a nice little wax slick on Daubier’s floor.

  “Purpose?” The governess still didn’t meet his eye. Swishing her hair over one shoulder, she turned her attention to Maugret. “Are you here to see Antoine?”

  “Antoine?” Maugret appeared to be having trouble focusing. Focusing on her face, that was. His question appeared to be addressed to her bust. It was, to be fair, a surprisingly impressive sight, and, from the look of it, owed nothing to padding, ruffles, or the other subterfuges to which young ladies resorted in eking out what nature had failed to provide. Those severely tailored gray dresses had been hiding a good deal.

  What else was she hiding?

  “Oh! Silly me!” Mlle. Griscogne placed a hand on Maugret’s sleeve as she rolled her eyes at her own folly. “I meant Monsieur Daubier.”

  Maugret gave a jerky nod, his eyes following the movement of her chest.

  One would think they had never seen a woman before, thought André irritably. Of course, they probably hadn’t. Not this much of one, at any rate, in these sorts of surroundings. The painted backdrops and outlandish accoutrements of Daubier’s studio gave the whole an exotic air, a moment out of sensational fiction where anything might happen.

  “Are you Monsieur Daubier’s wife?” André asked, his voice deliberately insolent. “Madame . . . Suzette?”

  “Suzette” flushed deep to the roots of her hair. Only part of it, André suspected, was an act. He didn’t miss the quick movement of her fingers to the edge of her wrap, as though she were itching to hitch it up.

  She recovered quickly, flinging herself back into the role. “Me? Oh no! I’m just his . . .” She hesitated delicately. “His model. For the paintings. He paints, you know.”

  Over her head, André exchanged a knowing look with Maugret. “His model,” André repeated, a wealth of condemnation in the simple word. “And what are you doing here at this hour?”

  “We were to have a session, you see,” she said quickly, fussing with her velvet wrap in a way that did more to draw attention to its inadequacies than it did to fix them. “A painting session. Would you like to wait for him? I’m sure he’ll be back soon.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” muttered Maugret.

  Looking at Mlle. Griscogne in a hangdog way, Laclos said, “Madame, er, Mademoiselle . . . I’m afraid we . . . That is . . .”

  “Monsieur Daubier has been arrested,” André said harshly.

  “Arrested!” Mlle. Griscogne’s hands flew to her bosom. “Antoine!” She swayed a little, as though contemplating the wisdom of a swoon.

  Overdoing it there, thought André cynically.

  Or maybe not. Laclos rushed in to support her. Mlle. Griscogne draped herself artistically over his arm, although André noticed she was careful not to lean too heavily on him. Even in character, she didn’t like to put herself into anyone else’s power.

  A mistake. Never undertake a role one wasn’t prepared to see through to the bitter end, come what may. He had learned that the hard way.

  “Surely,” she murmured, from the crook of the constable’s arm, “there must be some mistake? Oh!” She pulled back, away from Laclos. “If this is about that carriage accident, he already explained about that! It was the other carriage, not his, that hit that cart. We just happened to be right behind them. And he paid for the apples.”

  “Er, um, no, I don’t think it’s the apples. . . .” Laclos was floundering.

  Was it too much to hope that she had persuaded de Berry to sneak out the back way while th
e constables were otherwise occupied? He had been judging her as a potential enemy. But as a potential ally . . . She might be formidable.

  Might be.

  André frowned at Mlle. Griscogne. “Do you think the Ministry of Police concerns itself with apples, Mademoiselle Suzette?” he demanded in his best Delaroche imitation.

  She furrowed her brow in exaggerated thought. “Well, someone ought to. Although these apples really weren’t dearest Antoine’s fault, not at all. And it was the purest bad luck that one knocked over that lady.”

  Clasping his hands behind his back, André paced back in forth in front of the artist’s model, shooting questions at her in a curt, clipped tone. “Have you noticed any strange behavior recently in Monsieur Daubier, Mademoiselle? Any odd comings and goings?”

  Mlle. Griscogne looked at him with wide eyes. “Strange?” Twisting a lock of hair around one finger, Mlle. Griscogne looked up from under her lashes at first Laclos, then Maugret. “There’s really nothing so terribly strange about Antoine. Unless one considers his waistcoats, but those aren’t really so very bad once a girl gets used to them. Of course, there is his—well, there’s no need to talk about that.” She hastily fluffed her hair.

  “That?”

  She looked bashful. “Every man has his little quirks. And he really is such a dear, and such a very good painter. At least so everyone tells me. Do you know he is to paint the First Consul?”

  Not a point André wanted emphasized at this particular moment.

  “An idiot,” André said under his breath to Maugret, on his right. “Just our luck. I doubt we’ll get much more out of her.”

  Maugret looked her up and down with hungry eyes. “Someone will.”

  “Not while you’re on duty,” André said repressively. Or after. Madame Suzette was going to be permanently out of commission as soon as this farce was done.

  “Oh! Wait! I’ve thought of something!” Mlle. Griscogne turned to Laclos, having obviously marked him out as the softest mark of the lot. She put a hand on Laclos’s sleeve. “Darling Antoine has been away a good deal recently.”

  “Away?” André prompted, wondering where she was going with this and whether he should let her.

  “In the evenings. And after I’d made him such a nice supper—well, not made, exactly, but I did pick it up from the cookshop, so that does almost count, doesn’t it?”

  André gestured to Laclos and Maugret, indicating to them to pay attention. “Mademoiselle Suzette,” he said, in a too-loud voice. “Do you know where he goes?”

  She made a moue of distaste. “It’s that warehouse of his.”

  André’s chest expanded as he let out the breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding. Daubier had no warehouse. In an instant, he saw her plan: to send the constables off chasing after a will-o’-the-wisp. He would have cheered if it wouldn’t have given the game away.

  “He says he has to check on his canvases—although why canvases should require hours and hours, I have no idea. He was never like that before.”

  “How long have you been, er, with him?” Laclos blurted out.

  “Oh, a very long time!” she said enthusiastically. “Almost a month!”

  “This warehouse,” said André, giving Laclos a repressive look. He had to; if he didn’t, he might start laughing, and that would be entirely inappropriate. “Do you know where it is?”

  “Oh yes. But I’ve never been there, you understand. He wouldn’t let me. Not even after I asked so prettily.”

  Her mouth stretched in an elongated O on the word “so.”

  For an innocent spinster, she managed to imbue that one syllable with a disturbing number of sexual overtones.

  But she wasn’t an innocent spinster tonight. She was Suzette, artist’s model and supposed mistress of Antoine Daubier, painter.

  André could practically hear the constables panting. Did Mlle. Griscogne have any idea what they were imagining?

  An hour ago, he would have said no.

  Now . . .

  Who in the bloody hell was she? More to the point, what was she?

  “Put your chin up, Laclos,” André said curtly. “You’re drooling.” He turned back to Mlle. Griscogne. “Did he ever say anything to you about this warehouse?”

  “He didn’t like people to come there. Sometimes I wondered—” She shrugged, sending her chemise sliding down her shoulder. The movement drew the fabric taut over her breasts. “Well, never mind.”

  None of them did.

  “I thought as much,” said André loudly. “It is just as I suspected. Mademoiselle Suzette, do you know where this warehouse might be?”

  “It was . . .” She dipped her chin, contemplating her own cleavage. “Wait, wait, I know I have it. . . .”

  Between her breasts?

  Laclos and Maugret inspected the area with equal attention. André resisted the urge to bang their heads together. She was doing brilliantly, far better than he was. He just wished she didn’t have to do it quite so . . . bustily.

  “Yes!” She gave an excited hop. The rest of her bounced with her. “That’s it! Rue des Puces. I remember thinking that I shouldn’t like to spend so much time on a street of fleas. It was number seventy-three. Or maybe seventy-four.”

  “Thank you, Mademoiselle Suzette,” said André quietly. “That was most helpful, indeed.”

  His eye caught hers, and for a moment, just a moment, the mask dropped. There was nothing coquettish there now. She looked, for that moment, unsure, vulnerable, unclothed in a way that had nothing to do with physical dishabille.

  André had an absurd desire to squeeze her hand and tell her it was going to be all right.

  Nonsense, of course. He didn’t know that it was going to be all right, or even whose side she was really on.

  They were going to have to have a good, long talk once he had dispensed with their audience.

  “Laclos, Maugret, a word.” Taking his constables by the arm, he led them a little bit away, drawing them into a confidential huddle. Laclos’s breath smelled of onions, Maugret’s of cheap wine. “If Daubier’s piece of fluff is telling us the truth—”

  Maugret snickered. “That one? She’s all tits, no wits. She wouldn’t lie to us.”

  “Astutely observed, constable,” said André dryly. “As I was saying, I doubt there is much more for us here. It would have been clever of Daubier to conduct his shadier affairs away from his official place of residence.”

  “But . . .” Laclos’s rubicund face fell into concerned lines. “Monsieur Delaroche told us to stay at the studio.”

  “And I,” said André pleasantly, “tell you to investigate the warehouse. Had he known of this further development, I am sure Monsieur Delaroche would agree. The trick to good police work,” he added, in an avuncular tone, “is learning when to adapt one’s plans to changing circumstances.”

  They absorbed the information solemnly, Maugret nodding thoughtfully. He was ambitious, that one. André thought he knew how to handle him.

  “Laclos, I want you to watch the warehouse. See if anyone tries to enter. As for you . . .” André made a show of studying Maugret, making him wait. It couldn’t hurt to let him sweat it out a bit. “Since your powers of observation are so keen, I entrust you with the task of examining the premises. Go carefully. This may yield information of value. Great value. You do understand what I am saying, don’t you?”

  Oh yes, he did. The prospect of patronage, promotion. They were in this together now, as far as Maugret was concerned. André had him.

  “Yes, sir,” was all Maugret said, but he sent a look of triumph at Laclos. It was wasted on Laclos, who was making moony eyes at Mlle. Griscogne across the room. She had draped herself artistically across the chaise longue, in the classic pose made popular by Mme. Récamier.

  “As for myself,” André said, in tones of weary resignation, “I will complete the search here. I doubt it will yield anything of interest, but it must be done.”

  “Nothing of intere
st?” Maugret leered at Mlle. Griscogne. “In that case, I hope we find nothing of interest in the warehouse!”

  “Constable.” André’s voice was icy. “I recall you to your duty. I speak of those things of interest to the Republic. Or does your cock matter more to you than your country?”

  It did the trick. Muttering apologies, Maugret took himself off with commendable rapidity, all but pushing his partner down the stairs.

  André waited until the last heavy tread had faded away. Then he turned to Mlle. Griscogne. She was still lying on the divan, but she had propped herself up on one elbow, her pose anything but languorous. As André watched, she hastily swung her legs over the edge of the divan, pulling the fabric of her shift close about her calves. Her back was ramrod straight.

  “Are they gone?”

  “That was quite a performance.” André raised an eyebrow. “They call her Suzette, the girl men can’t forget.”

  Mlle. Griscogne hitched the velvet wrap up around her shoulders, not seductively this time, but with an awkward, jerky movement that was much more her own. He could see her shivering beneath the velvet.

  “I hope they do,” she said abruptly. “Forget. How long do we have before they come back?”

  In the candlelight, her face looked too thin. The flickering light picked out the hollows beneath her cheekbones, the lines beside her eyes. She was no longer Suzette, artist’s model, but a worried woman past the flush of her first youth.

  André bit back the dozen questions that rose to his lips. There was no time. Daubier’s life hung in the balance still. Daubier’s life and all his plans, long years in the making.

  “Not long enough,” he said. Striding to the dining-room door, he yanked it open. “You can come out now.”

  “Are they gone?” The Duc de Berry’s voice echoed down the corridor.

  “For the moment.” André looked back at Mlle. Griscogne, clutching the red velvet throw around her shoulders. The chemise gaped open at the neck, revealing the deep gap between her breasts.

  “Put some clothes on,” André said harshly. “We’re going back to the Hôtel de Bac.”

  “Here’s your dress,” said the Duc de Berry helpfully, pausing to pick something up off the dining-room floor as he sauntered across the threshold. He looked dubiously at the crumpled gray fabric. “A bit wrinkled now.”