The Forbidden Rose

Forty-eight

MARGUERITE FOLLOWED THE PATHWAY OF TWINE Jean-Paul had threaded for her through the galleries and corridors. Guillaume carried the lantern. She gathered in the thread of their way, winding up the labyrinth. It was as if she were Ariadne and had rescued the Minotaur instead of Theseus. That was a slight rewriting of the old tale, but she was in the mood for rewriting sad endings. The ball had become huge by the time she reached the inconspicuous stairway that led upward.

It did not amaze her to find Hawker sitting upright, dozing, at the top of the stone stairs. He pretended he had not been sleeping.

“About time.” Hawker rubbed his sleeve over his face. “Means I don’t have to go down and fetch you. Anybody else coming?”

“We’re the last.” Guillaume closed the lattice door that blocked off the stairs and began to shift barrels in front of it. He could do this by himself, even when he was hurt, but she helped him anyway.

He stopped once, suddenly, in the middle of rolling a barrel on its edge from one place to another, and said, “Every breath I draw from now on, I owe to you.”

“It is not—”

“I want to say it.” He let the barrel down gently, in place, exactly where it belonged.

She changed from boots to shoes. Guillaume blew the lanterns out, all except one, and left them behind on the table. She was on the narrow ladder that led to the café when he said one of several things that had been resting, silent, between them. “The priest and the nuns didn’t come.”

She had seen that and had said nothing. “I wondered.”

“They chose not to.”

“They may survive. Jean-Paul’s friends were full of news. There were accusations in the Convention yesterday. Robespierre is isolated and the delegates seething like a stew. He may fall. It could be today or tomorrow. Soon enough to save them.”

“I hope so.” But he was somber inside, preparing for the worst. Guillaume would be hurt to the soul that he had to leave people behind. It would never be enough for him to save almost everyone.

They opened the door to a café, disturbing a small gray moth. Outside, it was the darkest time of night, long before the streets would begin to wake. Guillaume took a deep breath and started off. She didn’t know where they were going, but she was willing enough to follow.

Did anyone at all see them go past? Were there eyes behind the closed shutters? No one challenged them, in any case. They stopped once and huddled together in the alcove of a doorway while boots marched on a street nearby.

They crossed the Pont Neuf, walking side by side with Hawker far behind, keeping some careful watch upon all the streets. The water emanated cool. Profoundly black, it held the light of the bridge lanterns, rippling in the water. There were no stars, and it was the dark of the moon. Perhaps this meant misfortune for someone tonight. If so, she hoped it would be for their enemies.

“I have found your list for you,” she said. No one would overhear, on the bridge. “It is that you have been seeking up and down the countryside. The list that my father was so infinitely stupid to make.”

“Ah.” Guillaume slowed. “That list.”

“I have finally spoken to my father. He was one of the men who came to free you tonight, which should make you feel cordial toward him. He will find the list and give it to you. You are not kill him, do you understand? He had no idea what would be done with it.”

“I won’t hurt him.”

“Good. Cousin Victor is responsible for this stupidity. And Robespierre. Robespierre, you may hurt as much as you want.”

“I’m going to take you up on that.”

In the Marais, Guillaume thumped on a substantial door in a quiet, shuttered street. After a time, light came to the grille. The portal door was thrown back. They entered quickly. Hawker slipped in after them.

They made little noise, but as they walked in, two candles flickered into being on an upper floor and crossed the spaces of the windows. Light blossomed behind shutters on all sides. Then the ground floor lit.

The porter who had opened the door for them set his lantern on the stone bench and clasped Guillaume’s hand in both of his and pumped it hard. He murmured, “We were afraid for you” and “There seemed no way.”

It was a welcome home. This, then, was Guillaume’s.

The door across the courtyard opened to show a wide kitchen behind. A tall old woman with her white hair in long braids strode toward them, a peignoir of Chinese crimson silk, unbelted, sweeping behind.

“You’re safe.” A dumpling of a woman detoured around the gaunt old one and ran ahead to grab Guillaume’s shoulders and hug him firmly. She released him to look up and down his whole length.

The white-haired woman held up a candle. “Guillaume. Alive. At least relatively unharmed.” The candle shifted to the left. “And Marguerite de Fleurignac.” It was a statement, not a question. Steely eyes considered her, then traveled to Hawker. “And you.” The gaze returned to Guillaume and warmed, fractionally. “I was not optimistic. This once, I am glad to be proved wrong. Come inside, all of you. I need to know what’s going on.”

“Give me a minute to wash the prison off of me.” Guillaume unbuttoned his waistcoat and dropped it and his jacket on the bench as he passed. He headed for the square stone basin at the side of the courtyard. “Maggie, go ahead to the kitchen. Make them give you something hot to drink. Hawker, take the stairway straight behind you. One flight up and second door left. I have clean towels in my room. Bring some.”

Guillaume sent Hawker into the heart of the house to tell the disdainful old woman the boy was under his protection.

“Hawker.” Her voice stopped him. The dark head, sleek as a seal, went up. “Present me to Madame.”

His eyes locked with hers. He knew what she was doing. Every one of them understood. They all held conversations in glances and the twitch of an eyebrow.

“Of course.” Hawker slid into place between her and the old woman. Straight-backed, formal, mocking, he gave the smallest bow and spoke like a young Gascon nobleman. “Madame Cachard, permit me to present to you Mademoiselle Marguerite de Fleurignac. You will have heard of her father, perhaps, the former Marquis de—”

“My wife,” Guillaume interrupted. He’d pulled his shirt off over his head. He stood, half-naked, in the open air. “She’s not mademoiselle anything.” He stripped the shirt down off his arms and bunched it together and tossed it across the bench.

“Fine. You do the pretty. Don’t expect me to know what to call her.” Hawker stalked off through the courtyard, skirting pots of sprawling geraniums, headed for a door in the corner. “Let me know what name you’re using today.”

The door slammed behind him, which doubtless relieved his feelings. There was no one asleep in this house, in any case.

“You are married?” Madame Cachard did not sound approving.

If this woman disapproved of Guillaume’s marriage, she would have to deal with his wife. “We are.” Even without her fan—oh, but she was fluent with a fan—she needed only two words to tell another woman to keep her nose from beneath this particular basket lid.

Madame Cachard raised her eyebrows. Guillaume sat to pull his boots off. “Let’s delve into my private life later, Helen. I need to know what’s happening in Paris.”

“As do we all, after this grenade you’ve tossed into the middle of French politics. What the devil have you been about?” The old woman’s eyes rested on Guillaume and then on her. “You will also explain how you got out of prison. Wash, get dressed, and come inside.” She raised her voice. “You will all join me in the kitchen in a quarter hour, if you please. The world is rolling hotfoot to hell and I need reports. You won’t discover anything interesting in bed.”

A man’s laughter rolled out from above, and an answering chuckle and a murmur of talk. The old woman lifted her candle. “I shall spare my aging eyes the sight of Guillaume LeBreton in all his naked glory. Don’t cover those ribs till Thea sees them. She may decide bandages are called for.” She started to turn, then stopped. “You were right about the boy.”

“I told you so.”

“Give him to me.”

Guillaume pulled his boots off while he thought. “He’s yours. He needs to stay out of England for a few years.”

“We will allow him to menace the populations of Europe for a while. I will begin the process of civilizing him. It will be an arduous undertaking.” She swept off, upright and grand in her crimson robe.

Guillaume stood up, grinning. “Hawker’s in for an interesting time.”

“Madame Cachard as well, I think.”

“Oh yes.”

She came closer to him. For his disguises, Guillaume had built himself the callouses of a poor man, the brown neck and shoulders and chest, as if he worked on the land, bare-backed, under the sun. He could pass for a peasant or sailor and be completely convincing. She had watched him do it again and again in the short time she had known him. He shaped his lies even with his muscles and bones.

But the strength of him was real. She had read the textures and surfaces of his body. When she was lost in sensation and could think only of pleasure, her skin continued to discover him. At least some of what she had learned must be truth.

He unbuttoned his trousers.

“You cannot become naked here,” she said.

“There’s a screen over there. Blow that lantern out and come over here and we’ll both go be naked behind it. Nobody can see.”

Perhaps he was right. The light of the lantern barely touched him and the night was all around. He’d stripped his trousers down and stood in his caleçons, barefoot in the courtyard. Then he removed the last of his clothing. It seemed he could indeed wear nothing at all. He was matter-of-fact about his nakedness, as men are who spend their lives on board ship, or traveling, or in armies, where no privacy is possible.

He said, “I was hoping for a chance at you before the day starts. If you’re keeping your clothes on, I won’t get one, will I?” He hefted the bucket into the bottom of the deep stone basin and pumped water.

“I do not shed my clothing in the middle of a courtyard with everyone stirring and coming to breakfast. I am more modest than you. Frogs in a duck pond are more modest than you.”

“Now you see, that philosopher fellow Zeno would disagree with you. He’d say being naked is more modest than going around all dressed up. He had a whole set of reasons.”

“That is a pernicious doctrine. One can tell you have been to university. Only the very educated believe such nonsense.”

“I’m just saying that to get you out of your skirts. Too bad it’s not working.”

It was certain Guillaume had been to . . . not Oxford. He had been at Cambridge, where they were liberal and mathematical. If she went to Cambridge town and asked after a giant who was brilliant and curious about everything, who laughed largely and had a huge, sly sense of humor, they would remember him.

The bucket was full. He lifted it with both hands and dumped water over himself in a great downpour, shivering as it streamed down him, shaking his head fiercely to get the hair out of his eyes.

I would love him for the beauty of his body if I did not already love him for his calculating sneaky mind. If I did not love his body, I would love his great heart. I would love the strength of him.

He scooped soap from a jar. It was the harsh jelly of lye soap, intended for clothing or pots or scrubbing floors. He washed with wide motions back and forth across his chest. When he came to his face, before he closed his eyes and lathered, he stopped to peel away the false scar he wore on his cheek, scraping it away with his fingernails.

He was without concealment now. Naked indeed. Water ran off him, along the flagstones, down into the shallow channel that led out into the street. All this time he looked at her with hot eyes. Wanting her.

Voices murmured in the night. Scuffles and creaks came from bedrooms of people getting up from bed and dressing. The household was roused. She smelled coffee being ground in the kitchen. She was not alone with Guillaume. “You are all spies here, are you not? Everyone I will meet in this house is a spy.”

He didn’t hesitate at all. “Yes.”

With that one word, he said, “We are married.” He said, “Husband and wife trust each other.” He said, “There are no secrets between us.” One word, and he said all that to her.

“I had not expected to marry a spy.”

“Does it bother you?” He studied her while he filled the bucket again.

“I am unsettled by it.” She felt shy of him. Not because he was English, and in the habit of lying to her, and a spy. Because he was her husband. She did not know how to deal with a husband. Probably Beauty dealt very well with the Beast, but could not imagine what to say to the handsome prince he turned into. Her problem was compounded in that her Beast did not turn into a handsome prince. He turned into a tricky fox. As always, when dealing with Guillaume, matters were complex. “I do not mind that you are a spy. I have sent men out of France who were probably spies. I do not ask. They would only lie.”

No one would have seen the brief pause unless they were watching him closely and knew him well. “Spies do that.”

“I have told a few lies in my own time. I have less fondness for candor than some people, having a father who is most perfectly candid and would drive a lesser woman to murder. And I do not mind that you are English. I am entirely in charity with England. You give refuge to our squabbling idealists and our aristocrats, who are perfectly useless to you and expensive as well. I do not like it that England wishes to give us another fat Bourbon king, but I am even less fond of Robespierre. I think perhaps there is no government I would like.”

“I’m sure there’s a good reason we can’t get rid of all of them. It’ll come to mind in a minute.”

“You do not seem very English, in any case. You make a convincing Frenchman.”

“I’m about half French, if you add it up. Does that help any, or are you still feeling strange?”

“I will feel strange for a time. Being in love with you is shedding the skin of my soul, as a snake sheds its skin. I feel tender and naked. I would rather not love you, in fact, but I have no choice in the matter.”

“I don’t have any problems at all, loving you. It’s pure pleasure.” He filled another bucket and poured it over himself. This time, she got wet, too, she was so close to him. She cupped her hand to take some of the water that spilled off his body. It was chillingly cold, but she splashed it on her face.

She was disconcerted when he leaned down to nip at her ear and kiss her there, quick and playful.

His teeth, closing on her ear, tightened her skin up, sent a hot pulse of lightning within her, down to her toes.

A little breathless, she said, “Will we live in this house? I can deal with your Madame Cachard, if I must.”

“We’ll live in England, at least at first, since they’re holding a war in France and half the people in Paris know you’re running La Flèche. I’ll buy a place near London. Hampstead, maybe. They’re always after me to work in London. Training. Analysis. I’ll be Head of Section eventually, if I stay—”

“No.”

She felt the sigh he did not allow himself. “Then I won’t,” he said. “There’s enough work in this world for a man that he doesn’t have to go spying. There’s a paper on Celtic languages I’ve been meaning to write, if I ever got the time. I can—”

“I mean, no, you will work as you always have. You will travel about, poking and prying into the affairs of the world, and bring balance to the fate of nations and spin peace out of your own strength. You will do the work you were born to do. I will not make you less than you are.”

His lips and his breath were warm on the top of her head. His hair hung down, just touching her forehead, chilly from being washed. He was entirely motionless. It was like being held by one of the tall stones in Brittany, the menhirs, that mark the hilltops. “You’ll send me off? Let me work?”

“Do you think I want a great lummox like you about and underfoot all day long, every day? I shall breathe a sigh of relief, very secretly, when you go away. Then, in a short time, I will forget how annoying you are and welcome you back with great enthusiasm when you come home.”

“I like the welcoming-home idea. And the enthusiasm part.”

She stood on tiptoe to kiss his face where his scar would have been. Where it would be, when he went on his travels again. He tasted like harsh soap. It was a masculine flavor but not romantic. She liked it on him. “Think of my enthusiasm, at night, when you are in dangerous places. You will know that I am waiting for you. I shall, of course, take lovers, but I will shove them swiftly out of the house when you arrive. You must pretend not to notice their coattails disappearing around the corner.”

“Right.” His hands were confident and amused, drawing her in. “Good thing I’m not a jealous man.”

“I will make a home for you, Guillaume, not a cage. You will go away always, to your work and your wandering. If you will leave your heart with me, I will care for it like diamonds.”

When Hawker appeared with clothing they were standing, silent. Guillaume was naked and his arms were around her.

“Anybody’d think you don’t have a bed,” Hawker said.

“I am very fond of beds,” she said. “Perhaps if you take me to one I will show you my toenails. I have gilded them for you. Although I believe there are affairs of state to discuss in the kitchen.”

“Damn affairs of state.” Guillaume carried her away upstairs.