The Paris Affair Part 46

A moment of silence, then the clatter of muskets being dropped to the ground.

"Very good," Suzanne said. "And drop your own pistol."

The lieutenant did so.

"Madame," Suzanne said to Wilhelmine, not taking her eyes off the lieutenant, "get everyone back in the carriage. If we have the least trouble, I fire," she added to the lieutenant.

A rustle of fabric and patter of footsteps followed as the Courland sisters and Juliette got the children into the carriage with admirable economy. Suzanne picked up the pistol the lieutenant had dropped on the ground. Gaze trained on him, she eased herself to her feet.

The lieutenant shot out a hand to grab her arm. Suzanne dealt him a blow to the side of his head with his pistol. She pulled out the string she kept threaded loosely through her corset and bound his wrists in case he had any thoughts of going after the dropped muskets before they were away, then dealt him another blow to the head. Wilhelmine's coachman was already back on the box with the steps raised. Suzanne shot him a look of approval and sprang back up into the carriage. He gave the horses their office as she was slamming the door closed behind her.

She fell back on the seat beside Wilhelmine and Dorothee and took Colin from Doro. Colin's arms closed tight round her neck. "All right?" he asked, tilting his head back to look at her.

"Splendid." She kissed his hair and tightened her own arms round him.

Across the carriage Juliette had Rose pressed to her breast and Marguerite and Pierre snuggled up on either side of her. Suzanne drew a breath. Dorothee turned to look at her. "You're frightened."

"I'll own it was more of a near run thing than I'd have liked." Suzanne smoothed Colin's hair. Her fingers were shaking. Not the worst danger she'd ever been in, but the threat to Pierre had put it in a whole different key.

Marguerite's wide blue gaze swept over the adults. "Why did those men want Pierre?"

Silence washed over the carriage, different from the fear of a few moments before. "I don't know." Juliette reached out to touch her son's cheek.

"Did they want to put me in prison like the soldiers who took Papa?" Pierre asked.

"I don't think they actually were soldiers," Suzanne said. "The uniforms were good, but the insignia on the lieutenant's sleeve was wrong."

"Then who were they?" Dorothee asked.

"I'm not sure." Over Colin's head, Suzanne's gaze locked on Juliette's. Juliette looked back steadily.

"Will you show us how you stopped them?" Marguerite asked. "That was splendid."

" 'Once more unto the breech.' " Simon adjusted his bicorne hat. "Takes me back to our undergraduate days."

"Wrong play." Malcolm smoothed the facings on his coat. He and David had met Simon and their friend Oliver in an Oxford production of Henry IV Part I.

"Same characters." Simon twitched his cuffs straight. "This one's more appropriate for adventure. 'Follow your spirit, and upon this charge-' "

" 'Cry G.o.d for Harry, England, and St. George.' " Malcolm cast a glance up and down the street. "Pity Davenport isn't here."

Harry had in fact volubly objected to not being part of the party that went into the Conciergerie disguised as soldiers. Malcolm had had to forcefully point out that one of them with legitimate diplomatic connections had to remain on the outside in the event that anything went wrong. Harry had muttered about Malcolm's "annoying logic" but had subsided. David hadn't appeared particularly happy about his role, either, though with typical David restraint he'd refrained from objecting. He couldn't quarrel with the fact that Simon was more skilled at playacting. So Simon and Malcolm were making their way over the Pont Neuf and along the Quai de L'Horlage along with O'Roarke and Rupert, garbed in the uniforms of French soldiers. Malcolm felt the resentful glances cast their way. One or two men actually muttered curses as they pa.s.sed. Frenchmen who fought for the king were not popular with some of their compatriots.

"St. Gilles knows what to do," Rupert said. "He's a quick study. It should all go smoothly."

"Quite," O'Roarke said.

To their right rose the stone walls of the Palais de Justice, the ma.s.sive Gothic palace that had once been the home to French kings. Four towers marked the portion of the palace known as the Conciergerie, which had served as a prison for over five hundred years. Malcolm could hear his voice explaining them to Colin, perched on his shoulders, on a ramble round Paris. He'd told Colin about the Tour d'Argent, which had held the royal treasure, and the Tour de l'Horlage, which bore the first public clock in Paris. But not about the Tour de Cesar, where the public prosecutor had sent hundreds of Royalists to their deaths during the Terror. Or the Tour Bonbec, the babbling tower, where prisoners held for torture learned to speak.

They presented their credentials and made their way down a maze of pa.s.sages, beneath vaulted ceilings that rose to darkness, past shadowy cells in which movement was dimly visible behind iron bars. Rupert and Malcolm walked ahead, Rupert silently leading the way. Head held high, no need to hide, relying on the cloaking power of the uniform like a magic garment in one of Colin's fairy tales.

Once they were in the door, the jailers didn't trouble them. The prison was full, the jailers were busy, few stopped to ask questions. Everyone a.s.sumed they must have legitimate business.

Rupert stopped in front of an iron-bound door. St. Gilles's cell was conveniently located just past a bend in the pa.s.sage. While O'Roarke and Simon kept watch and Rupert covered him, Malcolm attacked the lock with his picklocks. It gave with surprising ease. Old and heavy but not particularly complicated.

St. Gilles was on his feet when Malcolm pushed the door open.

"I gave even odds on whether or not you'd actually appear," St. Gilles said.

"You should have more faith in our word," Malcolm said, pushing the door to after Rupert followed him into the cell.

"Not that. I thought you might not make it this far."

"Then you should have more faith in our wit."

Rupert was already stripping off his uniform coat. In less than ten minutes, St. Gilles was dressed in Rupert's uniform, Rupert was b.u.t.toning the coat that he'd smuggled into St. Gilles's cell on an earlier visit along with breeches, waistcoat, shirt, and boots, and Malcolm was arranging St. Gilles's discarded clothing over the pillows. With the blankets drawn up, it should serve to deceive a guard glancing through the grill in the door. Long enough to let them get away. In theory.

Without speaking they returned to the pa.s.sage. Malcolm used his picklocks to relock the door. He and St. Gilles fell in step beside O'Roarke and Simon. Rupert moved past them and made his way briskly through the maze of pa.s.sages to the gate. A breeze from the courtyard carried the guard's surprised accents down the pa.s.sage.

"Didn't realize you were here, Monsieur Caruthers."

"Didn't you?" Rupert asked with careless unconcern. "I've been in the plaguey place an hour or more. Tiresome errand for my father. I'm inclined to tell him he can ask his own questions."

"Doesn't seem to have been noted down." The guard was different from the one who would have been on duty an hour ago. They had timed that carefully.

"Doesn't it? Well, I'm not entirely surprised." Rupert leaned forwards across the desk in a confiding att.i.tude. "Renard seemed a bit distracted when I arrived. A pretty wife was presenting her papers to see her husband. I'm sure Renard would appreciate it if you amended the record. I won't tell anyone if you don't."

The guard coughed. "Thank you, Monsieur Caruthers. Much obliged."

Rupert strolled out into the courtyard. When Malcolm, St. Gilles, O'Roarke, and Simon reached the desk, the guard was absorbed in scribbling on a piece of paper (no doubt amending the record to show that Lord Caruthers had indeed entered the prison). He hastily pulled a ledger over the paper and waved them through, too concerned with his own indiscretion being discovered to pay them much heed.

Malcolm released his breath as they stepped out of the shadow of the prison walls.

"Don't tell me you were nervous," St. Gilles said.

"Always."

"I thought you were a professional."

"Enough so to be aware of the risks."

St. Gilles gave a low laugh. "You're very like your sister."

Malcolm nearly stumbled on the cobblestones. He forced himself to keep walking and swung his gaze to St. Gilles. "She told you."

St. Gilles looked back at him steadily. "Tania and I were closer than my original account might have led you to believe."

"Yes, so I've discovered."

"And the physical intimacy was the least of it." St. Gilles regarded him for a moment with a steady blue gaze. "There was a note in her voice when she talked about you. Though she moved through throngs of people, she was very much alone. But if she had any family it was you."

"You're a kind man, St. Gilles."

"I didn't say it to be kind."

"I thought I knew her. I thought we were close. Closer in some ways than I am to my brother and sister in Britain. But not close enough apparently for her to confide in me about her child."

"She said much the same about you when you married."

"When I-" Malcolm stared into St. Gilles's steady gaze. "I told Tania I was marrying Suzanne. It was just before she left Spain."

St. Gilles's eyes glinted in the sunlight. "So Tania told me when she returned to Paris. And she said you hadn't begun to explain how you felt about your wife. Or why you were marrying her. But she was sure it was infinitely more complicated than you admitted. She said it with a laugh, but in truth I think she was a bit hurt."

"That wasn't-" Malcolm broke off. "I had other people to think about." Though in fairness, he'd been protecting himself as much as Suzanne and Colin. His feelings about his wife and marriage went too deep to share, even with Tania.

"I think Tania felt the same."

"But I wouldn't-"

"Have revealed her secret? She'd have said the same to you." Malcolm recalled Tatiana's teasing, faintly mocking voice when he told her about his marriage. Had he missed an undertone of hurt? He'd prided himself on being good at reading his sister. But G.o.d knows he'd been preoccupied at the time. "I still don't see why she was so determined to keep it secret," he said.

For a moment something shifted in St. Gilles's eyes. Then he gave a low laugh. "Perhaps she was embarra.s.sed. I was hardly in her usual style. But Laclos-"

"Was dead. Whatever we may think of Napoleon's government, they didn't prosecute the children of traitors. In fact, they were rather more respecting of liberties than my own government."

St. Gilles drew a breath. "You knew Tania. She could be quixotic. Oh, look-Those must be our horses."

From the side one would swear the Kestrel really was an old woman. Cordelia studied the line of his shoulders, curved inwards beneath the frayed paisley shawl. The profile, surely more delicate than that of the seemingly elderly man she had first met before he changed into this disguise. The mouth sunken, as though half her teeth had been pulled.

"You're looking at a master," Harry murmured. His own hair was disordered, his face smeared with dirt. Though he was far less disguised than the Kestrel. As was she. Cordelia studied the Kestrel, head bent over a piece of knitting. She suspected he wasn't in disguise only to hide from the authorities. Was there anyone, she wondered, watching the droop of his eyelids, with whom he was really himself?

A clock struck twelve-fifteen. "Time to be off," the Kestrel murmured without raising his head. He spoke in the Gascon French they were using in their guise of a peddler family.

"How do we know they made it out on time?" Cordelia asked.

"We have to a.s.sume they did," the Kestrel said.

Harry flicked the cart reins to set the donkey in motion. Cordelia climbed onto the seat beside him. He cast a surprised glance at her.

"We're supposed to look like a devoted couple," she said. "Don't worry, I've been well coached. I won't give us away." She tucked her arm through his. "I like seeing what your work is like."

"It's generally less agreeable than this." Harry cast a glance back at the Kestrel. "I envy him."

" 'Envy'?"

"Serving no master, choosing whom to help, doing what he thinks is right."

She leaned her head against Harry's arm. "You do what you think is right. It's one of the things I've always admired about you."

"I'm flattered. But if I were that independent I'd have been court-martialed long since."

As they neared the gates, Cordelia caught sight of a quartet of soldiers, pulled up to the side of the road in the shade of a stand of trees.

"Right on schedule," Harry murmured. She felt his gaze on her.

"It's all right," she said. "I know what to do." She let her shawl slither down on her shoulders and tugged her laced bodice lower. Not so different from interrogating Edmond Talleyrand.

Harry pulled the cart up at the guard post. A thickset man in a sergeant's uniform approached the cart. Cordelia felt his gaze linger on her. She shifted her position on the seat, affording him a glimpse of her ankle beneath her calico skirt and linen petticoat.

"Papers?" the sergeant asked Harry, his gaze still on Cordelia's ankle.

Harry pulled out the creased papers the Kestrel had supplied. The sergeant tore his gaze away from Cordelia's ankle long enough to glance through them. "These are water spotted."

"Rosewater," Harry muttered. "My wife knocked it over on them. Can't keep her things from spilling over the dressing table."

"I could if I had one of my own." Cordelia looked at the sergeant from beneath her eyelashes. She hoped the Gascon accent would mask the fact that she wasn't a native French speaker. Her French wasn't as good as Harry's, but thanks to her emigree governess it was better than that of most Englishwomen.

The sergeant sniffed the papers, which had indeed been soaked in rosewater, in just the right place to blur the forged signature.

"All the same, you'd best get out of the cart. Let me have a look."

"d.a.m.nation," Harry said. "We come through here every-"

"Cheri." Cordelia put a hand on his arm. "Don't make things worse. And don't alarm your mother."

"Maman's made of tougher stuff than that. Aren't you?" Harry looked back at the Kestrel.

The Kestrel set down his knitting, cast a baleful glance at the sergeant, and clambered to his feet. "Give me a hand, young man," he said to the sergeant, who was extending a hand to Cordelia. "And stop ogling my daughter-in-law."

The sergeant handed Cordelia down from the cart. Cordelia kicked up her skirt to afford a glimpse of the garters on her white cotton stockings as she slid to the ground. The sergeant managed to brush his hand against the side of her left breast in the process of a.s.sisting her and then turned with a grimace to a.s.sist the Kestrel. Harry glared at him in character.

"Don't be stupid," Cordelia muttered to him in a stage whisper. "You'll get us taken in."

The sergeant jerked his head at two of his men to go through the cart, while he patted each of them down. His hands lingered on Cordelia. It was no worse than the wandering hands of undergraduates in a Mayfair ballroom, but Cordelia thought Harry's glare was not entirely playacting now.

"What's this?" One of the soldiers held up a bottle from beneath the floorboards.

"Water," Harry said.

The sergeant sniffed the bottle, took a swig, and gave an appreciative grunt. "No, it's all right, I won't confiscate it. If you were selling it you'd have more bottles."

"Nothing else," another of the soldiers said a few minutes later. Which was as it should be, for the cart did indeed contain nothing more than their supposed peddlers' wares.

"Well?" Harry demanded. "Can we go?"

The sergeant glanced in the cart, glanced at them again, then inclined his head. He handed Cordelia back up onto the box and managed to get his hand on her right breast this time.

"Pulled a thread, you have," the Kestrel said, picking up his knitting.