The Forbidden Rose

Eighteen

DOYLE WALKED AWAY FROM HÔTEL DE FLEURIGNAC, clicking a pouch of gold pieces.

Hawker didn’t approach till he got the hand signal. Then he caught up. “You just walked off and left her?”

“Right.”

“Was the father there?”

“Not a sign or a whisper. There’s a cousin who’s moved in. An interesting fellow. She doesn’t like him.”

They fell into step, the donkeys forming an auxiliary corps at the rear. The boy didn’t ask for a good long time. Two hundred paces. Then he gave in. “Interesting, how?”

“The number of men he’s killed.” I could drag you halfway across Paris by that curiosity of yours. “Bit of a Utopian philosopher, Victor de Fleurignac, which these days means chopping the head off anybody who disagrees with you. About a dozen so far. He thought about adding me to his bag. He would have, if Maggie hadn’t been standing right there. That is a man darkly and justifiably suspicious of me.”

He took a right into the Rue Riquier, stopped, and did a check of the straps of the panniers on both donkeys. Probably they weren’t being followed. Hard to tell in this part of the city.

Hawker stood alongside, fuming. “You left her with a cousin who kills people.”

“Not just with his own lily-white hands, he don’t. It’s all clean and judicial. Orders of the Committee of Public Safety.”

“You walk off and leave her because you think her father’s going to show up.”

“Or she’ll go find him. One or the other.” He patted the straps and clicked at the donkeys. “She is what we call bait.”

“You do that to her. You take her upstairs with you and then you do that to her.” Stomp. Stomp. Oh, the boy was outraged. “I could smell you two when you came down. Like a couple of alley cats. You grinning and her purring and stretching.”

That had been good, strolling along beside her, knowing she smelled of him. “I’m hoping that cousin of hers don’t have your extensive experience. Which he apparently don’t, or I’d be on my way to the chop right now.”

“Fine. Just fine. What about this pair?” Hawker poked an elbow back toward the donkeys. “We’re through with them, aren’t we? Why don’t we sell them, too? Lots of good, savory meat on those bones. Donkey fricassée.”

“Thought that was what you wanted.”

“You don’t eat your own donkey. And you don’t use your own woman as . . .” Hawker kicked a loose chunk of cobble in the gutter. It rolled end over end and rapped up against a wall. “Bait. That’s one of those delicate distinctions gentlemen make.”

A carriage rolled past. Doyle said, “As far as eating goes, mule is better than donkey. I’ll take you to a café where you can try both. There’s one over on the Left Bank.”

“I’d as soon not, if it’s all the same to you. You could find a way to keep her if you wanted to.”

“I’ve taken a lot of trouble to put her right where she is.”

Hawker showed a line of clenched white teeth. “Piss on that.”

“If she’s in it with her father, planning assassinations of army officers, she deserves what she gets. If she isn’t, she’s still the only line we have that leads to him.” It was full daylight. They’d be awake in the house in the Marais, at headquarters. “De Fleurignac knows who’s marked for death. When I get my hands on him, he’s going to tell me. Now, listen. You know where we are?”

“Notre Dame over there.” Hawker pointed. “Hôtel de Fleurignac that way.” Eyes, sharp as obsidian glass, studied him. “You didn’t like leaving her.”

“I don’t have to like everything I do.”

“When are we going to get her out of there?”

“When it’s time. I’m going to wander off down that street, which happens to be the Rue Cairel. You do a little tracking after me, just for practice.” He talked with his fingers, giving the same order. “If we get separated, find me on the Right Bank, downriver of the big bridge, the Pont Neuf.”

Hawker said, “Yes,” with his hand.

Let’s see if we can lose you, boy. He strolled off, taking the donkeys, not glancing back.

“BURNED! The chateau burned! This is impossible. Impossible.” Her aunt shrieked like a parrot and beat her feet upon the floor. “No! No. No. No. Impossible.”

Aunt Sophie. In a world of many uncertainties, she remained predictable. It was the same shocked collapse. For a bird set free from its cage or the fall of the king. For a broken fan or the burning of a chateau.

Marguerite stood, making soothing noises, until the maids assisted her aunt from the salon. Victor ordered scented water for his mother’s eyes. A tisane of lavender and fennel. Damp cloths for her forehead. Aunt Sophie departed, in tears and hiccuping. Silence, with a sigh of relief, settled in.

It was both dim and stifling in the salon. She threw the curtains back, one after another, and opened the windows to let cooler air in. She went about extinguishing the candles, which shed little light and added to the heat.

Victor gave more instructions to Janvier. All activity would cease within the house. Complete quiet would descend in every quarter. There would be darkness in his mother’s chamber, and a maid to sit with her. Pastilles would smolder. Victor considered gravely the merits of several sorts.

Cousin Victor must have invaded the Hôtel de Fleurignac in the past few weeks. In that time Aunt Sophie had splattered the salon with comfit boxes and pudgy cupids. Three clocks ticked away at three different times. Why would anyone need three clocks?

This was Republican spoil, looted from the patrician houses of Paris. She recognized some of it from the homes of her friends.

Janvier departed to oversee the brewing of tisanes. She found another clock, fairly small, on the table behind the sofa.

Victor waited till the door closed. “That was not the way to tell her. My mother is a woman of great sensitivity.”

“There is no tactful way to hint that an entire building has been burned to the ground.”

“There was no reason to say anything. My mother does not need to be told the full extent of this disaster.” He gestured his way across the room, as if he addressed a public meeting. “My God, the loss is catastrophic. How could this have happened? The paintings alone were valued in the tens of thousands of livres. And the library. Do you know how much your father has spent on books?”

“Almost to the sou. The servants are safe. And I escaped without harm, thank you.”

“Naturally, I am concerned for your welfare.” His mouth thinned. The long nostrils pinched. Victor was said to be a very handsome man. She had never seen this herself. “This is your own fault, Marguerite, that the villagers were there, looting and burning. Out of control. If you had stayed in Paris, as I advised, this would not have happened.”

That was the problem, dealing with Victor. He would make statements without the least thread of a logical argument anywhere. “The men who did this came from Paris.”

“Exactly my point. There are political zealots who wander the countryside, stirring up mischief. You invite them by flaunting yourself at the chateau. If you had not been in the chateau, alone, without supervision, the villagers would never have rampaged loose on the estate.”

“Do not blame my villagers. It was the scaff and raff of the tavern. Two men came with arrest orders from the Committee of Public Safety, rousing up—”

“Do not be ridiculous. If orders had been issued, I would have been told. Do you think no one has ever denounced your father’s antics?” He paced, step by emphatic step. “I have quashed any such order. I have kept the de Fleurignacs safe. Leaving aside my affection for you . . .”

Oh, yes. Let us leave that aside.

“I cannot allow my family to be attacked. I am responsible for your actions. Do you think I can occupy the position I do and not have enemies? Your stubbornness, your father’s stupidity in allowing you to live alone and go your own way has—”

“I have managed the estate at Voisemont since I was—”

“Your father’s stupidity in letting you run wild has led to the loss of our estate. God knows what will be said when this becomes known. It is exactly this notoriety I wanted to avoid. If you had been in Paris, under your father’s protection and under mine, none of this would have occurred.”

“Where is my father?”

That stopped the stream of complaint.

Victor waited one moment too long before he answered. “I thought he was with you. At Voisemont.”

Victor did not know where Papa was. If he had been arrested, Victor would have been told. It was a great load of fear removed from her heart. Papa was not scribbling mathematics on the walls of one of the prisons of Paris, annoying his fellow inmates and driving the guards to the point of murder. He was merely missing.

“Has Papa left Paris? Do you know?”

The sound she heard was of teeth grinding. Victor’s teeth. “I assume so. He packed one bag and left. He did not inform me of his destination.”

Almost, she could feel sorry for Victor. “He has not become émigré, if that is what you fear.” Papa did not have sufficient common sense. “Whatever has become of him, it has become of him in France.” Which did not limit the amount of trouble he could get up to.

“I wish I could believe that,” Victor said.

“If you are concerned for him, you should have written to me for reassurance. Though you are kind to visit, of course, and your mother also. Even if it is inconvenient at the moment.” She crossed the room to pull the bell rope.

She had a choice of problems. The most immediate of them was Victor. But he was not the largest.

“We will find Papa in a boat-house in Puteaux, measuring magnetism on the Seine, or in someone’s mausoleum, studying the skull size of geniuses, or . . . I think it was planets in the last letter. I did not pay attention. It was nothing political.”

“Everything is political, Marguerite.” Victor placed himself directly before her. Too close. “What happened between you and that peasant?”

She brushed it away. “Between me and a traveling peddler? Do not be vulgar.”

“You have been in the company of that scum for days.”

“He is hardly scum, Victor. He is a tradesman, certainly, but they have their own virtues and codes.” Do this well. Do this very well. “He was embarrassingly respectful. Not every petty-bourgeois feels the need to wreak violence upon the aristocracy. Some are relieved to follow orders in the old way. He only wants money. There is a piece of land in some village at the end of the earth,” she let amusement infuse her voice, “and a pretty miller’s daughter.”

“Your father would expect me to guard your reputation.”

“My father would expect you to leave that task to him. Or to me. You intrude in matters that do not concern you.” Because of Victor she had denied Guillaume and insulted him and walked away. She had poisoned their farewell.

At last, he dropped his eyes. “I don’t like the way he looked at you.”

“His face? It is ugly indeed, but the poor man can’t help his face.” She turned her back on him. “I will retire now. I find myself most remarkably fatigued by this entire business. I will take coffee in my room and write letters. There are a hundred friends to be told I have returned to town.” Deliberately, rudely, she yawned. “I will visit the baths this afternoon. That will refresh me. I am soiled to my very soul by the events of the last week.”

“This is hardly the moment to go jauntering off to the public baths. My mother will almost certainly wish to—”

“I was not asking your permission, Cousin.” She did not hurry to reach the door of the salon. She would not wish to encounter a footman with his ear still pressed to the keyhole. “Order whatever you wish for luncheon. I will be out. I need not tell you to make yourself at home.”

She was tired unto the bone. Not from her journey. She could have traveled to Mongolia and back with Guillaume and not been this drained. It was the giving him up. A quarter of an hour away from him had emptied her of all joy.

It was not so hard to do one’s duty. It is the afterward that eats one alive. One survives a long time after doing one’s duty. Years and years.

I was born a de Fleurignac. I made myself the Finch, a leader of La Flèche. Neither of them can have anything to do with Guillaume LeBreton, not in any of his guises.

Love was painful. She would not recommend it to any of her friends.

Behind her, Victor said, “If there is something between you and the peddler, it must end.”

He looked vexed. It was an expression that often visited his face. He had been a malicious boy, full of mean plots and empty bluster. Now he was an unpleasant man and his threats were entirely real.

So she spoke lightly. “Do you intend to hunt poor, grubby Citoyen LeBreton to his rooms in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine? It does not become you to be vengeful, particularly to a man who has served me well. But then, you never did know how to deal with the servants.”

She must speak of a man like Guillaume LeBreton as if he were nothing. It was the only way she could protect him. “I would send a christening present to the little miller’s daughter next year, if one still did that sort of thing and I could remember where he said she lived.”