The Companion - Time For Eternity Part 27

Francoise turned. They had to get back to the house and pour those bottles out before the drug could be used on Henri.

Hurry.

Francoise slipped behind a tree in the Place Royale park. She wanted to cry but Frankie wouldn't let her. Gendarmes swarmed in front of number sixteen. Their torches lit the night. How many servants had gotten out? Now she couldn't even approach to find out.

They'll find the morphine in the shampoo bottles.

It made sense. It was the path of time when Henri had been guillotined trying to come true, even though somehow Frankie had bent time enough that Henri hadn't made Francoise vampire the way it had happened before.

Maybe we can't change the part where he dies.

"Well, we are certainly going to try," Francoise breathed. There wasn't much time. Francoise slid through the night with all the practice of Frankie's two hundred years of experience. Only when she reached the other end of the park did she start to run.

Henri shimmered into the cell again. The warehouse had one more family of four. It had been a joy to take them out under the nose of Madame Croute, though it had taken almost all his strength to transport four times in one night. But he had seen all the troops around the warehouse. What good to get them there when there was no way to get them out? He hadn 't even seen Jennings, just deposited the children behind the wall and gone back for the parents before the guards or Croute could realize what had happened.

No guards loitered outside his cell now. No point when it was supposed to be empty. They'd be back soon. It had been nearly an hour. He just hoped his compulsion on Croute worked on a mind that was so bent. But she'd be back too in a few moments and he could give her a refresher course.

What he wanted was Francoise. One touch. That would sustain him.

But he didn't want that. He wanted her out of Paris. Out of his life. Out of danger.

He heard steps down the hall. Several. Voices. Guards. Was Croute back so soon? She would be very angry now that she knew another family had escaped.

Dread warred with relief as he saw Francoise appear. With her halo of golden curls flaring with light from the torches, she looked like an angel.

She hurried in then turned on the guards who had accompanied her. "Go. You promised."

They looked shocked that he was inside the locked cell, though free of his manacles. "Your funeral, Mademoiselle. That brute is not human." One of them opened the cell as the other held loaded pistols on Henri. "Croute will be back any minute. Either he gets you or she will." They locked her in with him.

Francoise stood, coiled, as the footsteps strode away, then flung herself forward, stopping only inches from his chest. "Oh, Henri, are you all right?" She scanned his body.

"I'm well," he said. Better for seeing her. But she shouldn't be here. "I told you to go to Jennings." He wanted to hold her. But he held himself rigid instead.

She moved a lock of hair away from his face. Her touch was gentle. "I've been to Jennings. That's why I came. We don't have much time, Henri. They are searching the house. I'm not sure Gaston got all the staff out."

"Looking for the drug." He smiled grimly. "She can't make me take it. I hope she can't really torture my staff. I used my power on her mind. But I'm not certain of that."

She glanced behind her to be sure the guards weren't lurking. Then she moved in and stood on tiptoe to whisper. "The only way your cargo will leave the warehouse is if they stop guarding it. She'll want all that lace and brandy and salt, won't she?"

He blinked at her.

"If she takes all your goods, why guard the warehouse?"

The girl had a plan. And it was not a bad plan.

"Only you can plant the idea in her little avaricious brain. Jennings is getting skiffs ready. He 'll take them out through the warehouse next door after the goods are gone. It's risky."

"Better than nothing. If the families get out, I'll see to my staff. There are fewer of them ..." At that moment the murmurs of the guards down the hall stopped. Boot heels clicked.

"What are you doing out here?" Croute's voice accosting the guards.

d.a.m.nation. There were few choices. He couldn't let the Croute woman find Francoise here. He grabbed her and drew her into his naked body.

"Why guard an empty cell?" The guards were trying to delay Croute. That was good.

"Don't be afraid. And try not to scream."

Companion! The power welled up his veins like slow sludge. But the room went red. He had enough. Barely. He called for more. As he held Francoise, a feeling of lightness enveloped him. Where to go? The answer surprised him. Dare he? The whirling darkness was already at their knees. Francoise looked up at him with frightened blue eyes. She was biting her lip. It might just stop the scream.

"Good girl." He smiled in rea.s.surance and thought about the boudoir he knew so well.

The room went black. Francoise emitted a gurgling sound of suppressed pain.

Red wallpaper flocked with fleur-de-lis popped into life around them. "Are you all right?" he whispered, as she turned in his arms. He saw her gather herself. She nodded.

"I knew what to expect."

Of course she couldn't have known that. He glanced around. Marianne Vercheroux had turned on the little upholstered stool that sat before her dressing table and was peering into the corner. He had chosen a shadowed area near the dressing room, as though they might have just walked in instead of appearing in a whirl of darkness. There was little explanation he could offer for the fact that he was naked.

"Marianne, you must take care of her until I can come for her." He pushed Francoise into the center of the room. "A day, no more."

"Henri?" Marianne stood, wide-eyed. "How did you get in? What ... what's happened ... ?"

"No time, Marianne. I must get back. I have a job to do. Just keep her safe, will you?"

He felt for the dressing room door behind him. Francoise turned those big eyes on him. They were so wise and sad, it startled him. He glanced to Marianne Vercheroux. He willed her to do as he asked but he dared not use his power. He had need of every drop he had. She lifted her brows, then sighed, sad, accepting. She nodded. Henri allowed himself a half -smile as he shut the dressing room door. Before it could even click shut the blackness whirled up around him.

Francoise stared after the closing door. She wanted to run to him, to tell him not to go back there. What if Madame Croute had the drug? Could that woman give it to him against his will? Henri thought not. But he might be wrong. And then she could send him to the guillotine.

He knew that. But he would not leave those families in the lurch. And she herself had given him a task. Her eyes filled.

Frankie said nothing, but Francoise could feel that she was frightened for him too. Together they turned to Madame Vercheroux.

Why had Henri brought her here? Hiding with his spurned lover was not a choice that immediately sprang to mind.

The woman looked ... resigned. "Why, you ask yourself? Because he knows I am a romantic, under it all. And I will not thwart true love, even if it comes at my own expense."

"He doesn't love me." How it hurt to say that. "You told me yourself he doesn't love."

The woman's smile was sad. "Did I say that? Perhaps I did."

Francoise looked over her shoulder. The buzz of electric aliveness was already gone.

Madame Vercheroux turned back to her mirror and wiped away a speck of something from the edge of her eye. "La," she said lightly, "but how lucky my Deirdre had a cold in the chest tonight. I cannot bear another to handle my maquillage or I would have had a dresser with me even now." She glanced in the mirror to Francoise. "I am asking myself how he will get through the streets unnoticed when he is stark naked. But he will manage, just as he managed escaping to bring you here. " She looked up sharply.

"Was his carriage seen?"

Francoise thought quickly. "No, we came in a hired hack. I covered him with my cloak."

Madame Vercheroux swallowed. "Why he would want to go back there ... I ... I cannot think. But that is where he is going, isn't it?"

Francoise nodded. A woman who cared this much for Henri, even if he didn 't love her, would know that Henri wouldn't be thinking of his own escape.

"Very well. You will stay here tonight in this room. I will go out as planned. I must be seen or my absence will be noted."

True. Madame Vercheroux caused a stir wherever she went. Francoise looked around at the four walls of Madame's boudoir and wondered if she would still be sane by morning.

Madame got up and patted her hand. "He will be all right. He always is."

But Francoise could see the worry in her eyes.

Twenty

Henri shimmered into the cell at the Conciergerie in one corner. The guards were blocking the cell door bars, trying to keep Madame Croute from seeing inside, where they would think Francoise still stood. He blew out the torch to his left that shed light in his corner even before the whirling darkness had drained away. She peered around the guards' broad shoulders.

"Is he here?"

Henri leaned against the stone, his arms crossed over his chest, one ankle crossed over the other, as though he hadn't a care in the world. "I'm here."

The guards turned to stare, giving Madame Croute her opening. She pushed past them. "Open this door at once." The guards took in the fact that they had locked a girl in with him, a girl who was now nowhere in evidence, though the door was still securely locked. No guard made a move, and Madame Croute did not protest when she saw Henri unchained.

The big guard crossed himself. If Madame Croute saw the gesture, she made no comment. Her eyes narrowed. She carried a basket. More knives? Acid? His stomach rolled. It didn't matter. She wouldn't have the courage to come inside now.

"Why did you bother to return?"

Henri smiled, slowly. "I suppose just to see the look on your face." He pushed off the wall and strolled across the cell. The remaining guards pressed themselves against the far wall and reached for their weapons. "I am rather disappointed in you, Croute.

So fixated on getting answers from me you know I'll never give you. You have another opportunity. One that will ensure you never experience again what that girl of fifteen endured. I'm surprised you didn't think of it immediately."

She didn't want to ask him what the opportunity was. She clenched her thin lips. He pushed a shackle and watched it swing at the end of the chain. He caught a strange scent mingled with the soldiers' sweat and the urine and blood in his cell, and of course, the pervasive smell of old stone. He knew that scent, but he couldn't place it.

"What opportunity?" The words seemed torn from her.

He smiled and shrugged, pushed the shackle again. "Well, no matter what happens here, I'm done with my role as the official ...

procurer of difficult items."

Her brows drew together. She didn't want to admit she hadn't thought of that.

"So that lace you're wearing? The brandy your little lawyer likes so much? All over now. " He watched her digest it. "Except what's in the warehouse." He paced to the other side of the cell, and leaned again on the wall. "You could burn it. Or let the mob have it, I expect. Distribute the wealth and all. Or ..."

The calculation began behind her eyes.

"The profit is one hundred percent when one didn't pay for the goods in the first place. Enough for security all one's days ..."

He paused, as if considering. "Or keep some for personal use and sell the rest. Of course one would have to cart it to a safe place before the Revolutionary Council confiscates it."

She was looking at him, but she wasn't seeing him.

"Difficult. There's the matter of the soldiers guarding it for Robespierre ..."

Croute's eyes focused again. "I can take care of that," she snapped. A small smile played about her mouth. "Obviously you know by now who pulls the strings behind the little lawyer." She c.o.c.ked her head on one side. "And lest you make others' mistake and think I'm stupid, I know your ploy. You're trying to keep me busy until your ship arrives in Le Havre and you can get your prisoners to it."

Henri kept his face still through centuries of practice, though he dared not breathe.

"But perhaps you don't know that we have your cook and your majordomo, right here in this very prison. We haven't yet found the girl, but we will."

d.a.m.n. Was her mind so chaotic that he couldn't compel her? "Did you not understand my instructions?"

"I did. And somehow you can compel minds with your red eyes. But I had already issued the order, and no one compels the mob. They're looking for your ward even now. So I trust you'll be here when I return?"

"I'll be here." At least the rest of the household had escaped. He could only hope she wasn't smart enough to look for Francoise at the house of his last lover.

She wouldn't have the courage to enter the cell again. He'd be spared the knives. He'd know when the warehouse was empty of crates because she'd be back to gloat. He must put his faith in Jennings to get his charges away. He'd give Jennings enough time.

Then he'd find Pierre and Gaston. He'd get them down to the quai along with Francoise.

"Until we meet again." Croute turned on her heel and left with her basket still on her arm, taking that elusive scent with her. It was near morning. Francoise paced the red-flocked boudoir like a caged bear. How many hours?

Seven. Stop pacing. You'll wear yourself out.

Seven. That was time enough to have emptied the warehouse. Had Jennings been able to procure skiffs? Was the warehouse still guarded?

"I should be helping Jennings."

He told you to stay here.

"Since when are you taking Henri 's part?" She retrieved her cloak from the tiny, round-backed chair upholstered in gold brocade. "I thought someone who has lived for two hundred years with strength and super natural powers would have a lot more courage."

I'm old enough to know that things never work out well. Frankie's tone was defensive. And I'm the one who's trying to do something about our situation.

"By killing Henri?" Francoise snorted. "It's a good thing one of us is young enough to believe in him or we'd botch our second time around more thoroughly than the first."

I didn't botch the first time around. I was made vampire and abandoned, remember?

"Had it ever occurred to you that if you had gone to help Henri, instead of automatically a.s.suming that he'd abandoned you, with all your new powers you might have been able to save him from the guillotine?" Francoise swirled her shawl around her shoulders.

Frankie was silent. Francoise could feel the shock that her statement had caused though. And well it should. Fear wound itself around her own spine. Henri had been killed in that other life. And Frankie might not want to stop that happening.

But Francoise did.

And Frankie would know it.