The Orchid Affair (4 page)

Delaroche pushed his way forward. “A throat is made to be used, Monsieur. And, if not, it must be … cut.”

Querelle looked from André to Delaroche and back again. “How do I know you won’t kill me anyway?”

It was an excellent question.

“Do you doubt the word of the Minister of Police?” demanded Delaroche.

Since that was precisely what the man was doing, there was no easy answer to that. Insulting one’s captor might make good theatre, but it made very poor sense.

André looked quellingly at Delaroche. “Should you do nothing,” he said sensibly, to Querelle, “you will most certainly take your place on that scaffold at dawn. Should you change your mind …” He held up the rolled piece of paper, tied with an official-looking red ribbon, letting Querelle’s eyes and mind rest on it and the possibilities it implied.

The condemned man’s eyes darted back and forth, to the window and back again, like an animal in a snare. André could see the wild thoughts going through his mind. The still man on the scaffold, the knife that hadn’t fallen, the offer of pardon … What if it were all a sham: trial, condemnation, execution, all of it? What if it were only a bluff? A gleam of cunning lit Querelle’s bloodshot eyes, gone glassy with fear and a desperate man’s desperate hope. If they were bluffing, he could continue to refuse…. He had held out this long against Fouché, why not longer? They might be lying about Picot and Le Bourgeois. If they killed him, they would never know what he had to tell. They wouldn’t kill him, not now—nor that unfortunate dupe of a decoy in the courtyard, all done up to look like a prisoner. It was a bluff, a sham, it had to be….

André only wished it were.

“And what if I don’t?” Querelle said belligerently, just as the low rumble of a drumroll sounded in the courtyard below, like a swell of thunder in the night.

“Ah,” said Delaroche, his eyes lighting with a feral glow. He turned to the window, leading the others to follow suit. “If that is your choice …”

With a shrill whinny of sound, the blade swooped down, slicing through flesh and bone before landing, with a moist
thunk
, on the wooden block below.

Delaroche watched with unmistakable pleasure as the soldiers went about their grim business.

André could see fear and disbelief warring on Querelle’s torchlit countenance.

The soldiers on duty barely looked at the head as they picked it up by the hair and tossed it into a waiting basket. Another grabbed the dead man by the legs, making a crazy pattern through the matted sawdust as he dragged the headless torso from the block. There was no roar from the crowd; there was no crowd to roar. This was nothing more than routine.

In the cell above, the condemned man’s complexion, tanned from years on shipboard, turned an unfortunate shade of green, like an unripe olive.

“There were five of us,” Querelle blurted out, levering himself away from the window with both hands.

“Five what?” prompted Delaroche, leaning forward.

Querelle took a deep breath, his lungs laboring as though he had been running. “Five of us who landed in October. In the service of the King.”

André nodded to the deputy at the table, signaling him to begin writing. There would be an official report of Querelle’s testimony prepared later, one that left out such inconvenient little details as the means employed in obtaining it.

Pushing away from the window, Delaroche advanced on the prisoner. “I take it this means that you are, at last, prepared to talk to us?”

Through the bars could be heard the terrible sifting sound of sawdust being swept with a long-handled broom, clearing the scaffold to make it ready for its next occupant.

With great effort, like a man with the ague, Querelle lowered his head down and then lifted it up again.

“You appear cold, Monsieur Querelle,” said Delaroche. He gestured to the guard. “You! Fetch our friend a blanket. It wouldn’t do to have him catch a chill. Not now that he has agreed so generously to assist us.”

Something in Delaroche’s voice made the condemned man shudder harder than ever. Which was, of course, exactly what it had been meant to do.

Cutting in front of Delaroche, André plucked the blanket from the hands of the guard and handed it to the condemned man. Querelle’s hands shook as he attempted to arrange the square of wool around his shoulders.

“I do hope you will justify our confidence in you, Monsieur Querelle,” said André quietly. “I should hate to think that you were abusing the generosity of the First Consul.”

“There was a plot,” Querelle said slowly.

This was it, the point of no return. André could see Querelle’s hesitation; it leached out of every line of his body. Venal the man might be, but these had been his comrades. He had endured four months of questioning without breaking. The interrogators at the Temple, where Querelle had been held until now, were seldom gentle in their methods.

Squick, squick,
went the sound of wet sawdust being swept off the scaffold below. The sawdust was matted black with blood. The red ran down with the rain, staining the sides of the platform.

Querelle turned back to André. “There was a plot. A conspiracy,” he elaborated.

“To kill the First Consul?” asked André, holding up a hand to silence Delaroche.

“Oh no! N-no!” It would, thought André, be rather cheeky to admit to attempting to kill the same man from whom one was currently seeking a pardon. “We were just going to, er, kidnap him.”

“A likely story,” sneered Delaroche. “Think about it. Think hard.”

The prisoner gathered the tattered shreds of his courage. He had only one card to play, and he knew it. “I’ll think better once that pardon is signed,” he said.

Delaroche’s lips tightened.

“This might be for the best,” interjected André, turning so that he stood between Delaroche and the prisoner. In a low voice, he said, “I can stay and speak to him while you go to Fouché with the good news.”

Delaroche’s eyes narrowed. “The good news?”

André kept his face carefully bland. “That you were able to get Monsieur Querelle to talk. After four months of silence.”

Delaroche smiled at André, one of those lifts of the lips that never quite reaches his eyes. “I couldn’t have done it without your … assistance.”

“Be sure to relay that to my cousin,” said André drily, and was rewarded by a tightening at the corners of Delaroche’s mouth. The reminder of that relationship never ceased to annoy him, which was precisely why André never ceased to employ it.

Delaroche moved backwards towards the door. “Fouché will want details. Names, dates, places. Monsieur Querelle would be wise to leave nothing out. Otherwise … What is a pardon, after all, but a scrap of paper? Paper tears, it blots, it burns. Paper is a fragile thing.” Delaroche’s eyes bored into the prisoner’s. “Much like a man’s life.”

“Or the passage of time,” said André pointedly, jangling the links of his watch chain. The evil speeches did begin to wear on one after a while. “It wouldn’t do to keep my cousin waiting.”

Delaroche refused to allow himself to be rushed. “So many things are fragile, Monsieur,” he said meditatively. “The things of innocence in this world wither too soon away. A man’s loyalties … a child’s laughter.” He looked to André, the long lines of malice graven in his face all the more apparent in the uneven candlelight. “We would all do well to remember that.”

André had the uneasy feeling that Delaroche was no longer talking about the prisoner.

Chapter 3

W
hen Laura presented herself at the Hôtel de Bac the following morning, the only one who seemed the least bit pleased to see her was Pierre-André. Even his enthusiasm waned when he discovered she hadn’t come bearing sweets.

“Never had a governess before,” grumbled Jeannette, the white lappets of her cap bobbing. She remained pointedly in her chair before the fire, her elbows sticking out over her knitting. She was a tall, raw-boned woman, the lace of her cap incongruous next to the masculine contours of her face. “Poor poppets. As if they haven’t had enough to get used to.”

Jean the gatekeeper spat on the floor to signal either his agreement or his antipathy for Jeannette. It was hard to tell, since his basic scowl never changed. Without a further word, he disappeared the way he had come.

Pity. Laura had almost got used to him.

Laura set her portmanteau down on the parquet floor and smiled determinedly at the inhabitants of the nursery. No one smiled back except Pierre-André, but his smile was directed more to Laura’s pockets than her person. He had obviously been bribed by indulgent adults before.

The rooms appropriated for the nursery were on the second story, just above the grand reception rooms. In other days, they might have been the suite of the Marquise de Bac. The day nursery—now schoolroom, Laura corrected herself—had been paneled in pale pink, with delicate plasterwork designs of bouquets of flowers outlined in flaking green, gold, and red paint. In the sunlight, the air of dilapidation hanging over the Hôtel de Bac was even more apparent than it had been the night before. The plasterwork was dingy, the upholstery frayed, and the windows could have done with a wash. But the nursery, at least, was warm. Whatever allowance for coal the household was afforded had gone straight to the nursery grate. For the first time since coming to Paris, Laura felt the blue tinge leaving her skin.

Although that might also have been because she was still in her coat, neither Jean nor Jeannette having made any offer to take it from her.

Unlike the rest of the house, someone had made an effort to render the nursery habitable. The small chairs and table were cheap and modern but new. A large doll’s house sat on a low table and there were already toy soldiers, a hobby horse, and a series of paper cutouts scattered across the floor. A rug covered the hard boards of the floor, protecting tender feet and knees from splinters; and curtains, stiff in their newness, hung in ruffles across the windows. A little boy with a mop of brown curls was engaged in coaxing a toy on a string on a bumpy journey across the hearth rug. His sister, oblivious, pulled up her knees beneath her skirt and went on with her reading.

It would have been a charming scene, the nurse knitting by the fire, the little boy tugging at his horse, the girl reading on the rug, but for the matching scowls on the faces of the women in the room.

“Good day,” Laura said in clear, crisp tones. “My name is Mademoiselle Griscogne and I am to be your new governess.”

Jeannette sniffed.

Abandoning his toy, the little boy launched himself at Laura’s legs. “Do you have sweets?” he asked winningly. It was clearly a ploy that had worked for him before.

Laura detached him from her lower limbs before he could go prospecting for pockets. “Good day, Monsieur Jaouen. Shall I teach you how to properly greet a lady?”

Pierre-André’s forehead creased. “I’m not Monsieur Jaouen,” he said apologetically. “I’m Pierre-André.”

There had evidently been some mistake and it fell to him to remedy it, even if it reduced the possibility of sweets.

“But someday,” said Laura, “you will be Monsieur Jaouen. I am here to help you accomplish that.”

Pierre-André looked uncertainly at his nurse. “I like being me.”

“You will still be you,” Laura assured him. “Just an older, wiser, grander you.”

Pierre-André considered. “Grand as in big?”

“Very big,” Laura promised gravely.

“Big as a house?”

Laura thought of Hamlet, banded in a nutshell, but king of infinite space. “Not in size, but certainly in spirit.”

Jeannette sniffed.

Laura turned to the girl by the hearth, who hastily jerked her book up so that it covered the whole of her face, only her eyebrows visible above the red morocco binding.

“You must be Gabrielle,” said Laura, a little bit to the eyebrows, but mostly to the book.

The book slid down just far enough to reveal a pair of scornful blue eyes.

“Don’t you mean Mademoiselle Jaouen?” Gabrielle said, in what would have been a fine show of defiance if she hadn’t marred it by glancing for ratification at Jeannette.

Jeannette smirked her approval. Gabrielle’s hunched shoulders straightened.

“No,” said Laura pleasantly. “Because Mademoiselle Jaouen would have stood to greet a stranger in her schoolroom. A little girl who hides behind her book can only be Gabrielle.”

Jeannette bristled. “It’s the nursery, not a schoolroom.”

“No,” said Laura. She had the feeling she would be getting a lot of use out of that syllable. She addressed herself to the children. Gabrielle, book at half mast, was regarding her with open hostility. Pierre-André was busy trying to be a house. “From now on, this will be your schoolroom. You obviously have much to learn.”

Gabrielle’s eyes narrowed.

Good, thought Laura. Plot revenge. Think of ways to get me back. Nothing served as a better spur to learning than a strong dose of competition.

“Schoolroom, indeed,” muttered Jeannette. “That’s no way for children to live, locked up in a schoolroom, no fresh air, no playmates. Disgraceful, I call it.”

Laura spoke over the nursery maid’s grumblings. Little had her parents realized that those acting classes in her youth, the elocution and projection, would be used not to awe the audiences at the Comédie-Française but to overawe provincial nursemaids and defiant children. In her mind’s eye, stone angels wept.

“I will teach you everything you need to know to comport yourselves as an educated young lady and gentleman. Provided, that is, that you have the capacity to learn.” Addressing herself to Gabrielle, she asked, “What schoolbooks do you have?”

Jeannette jumped in. “Monsieur Beniet taught them out of his own library. And very bright they were, too, he said. He was a wise man, Monsieur Beniet.”

“But his library, I assume, is not here?”

Jeannette nodded reluctantly.

“Is there a library in the house?”

“If there was, it’s not here anymore, is it?” said Jeannette belligerently, as though Laura had accused her of personally appropriating its contents. “Not so much as a lick of furniture, scarcely a pot in the kitchen, not a pint of fresh milk to be had. But what can one expect of Paris? It’s no place for a Christian.”

“I take it that’s a no to the library, then,” said Laura. “Since I do not make a habit of traveling with all my books on my back, new ones will have to be acquired before we can begin our lessons.”

Gabrielle smirked.

Laura clapped her hands together. Like animals, children responded well to basic noises. “Come along, children. I believe we can begin our acquaintance with an outing to the bookshop.”

The smirk disappeared from Gabrielle’s face. Jeannette drew herself up in her chair, prepping herself for outrage. “An outing? In this weather?”

Laura looked pointedly at the window. Through the grimed panes, the sun was shining and a bird chirped determinedly on one of the bare trees in the courtyard. “Better than being ‘locked up in a schoolroom,’ don’t you think?” Jeannette might be obstreperous, but she wasn’t stupid. She knew exactly when she had been had. Laura smiled beatifically at her. “If you would be so very kind as to help the children into their outdoor things, Manette?”

“It’s Jeannette.” The nurse set her knitting aside with an audible click of needles.

“Of course.” Laura’s smile didn’t waver. “Jeannette.”

For a moment, the nurse seemed prepared to defy her. The children watched, expectantly, as Jeannette remained stolidly in place, her hands firmly planted on the arms of the chair. Laura kept on smiling.

Finally, with a creaking of joints and a rustle of fabric, Jeannette hauled herself up. She levered herself out of the chair with obvious reluctance, making a production of the simple act of standing.

“Catch their deaths of cold,” she muttered, but the battle had already been lost. She stomped her way to the clothes press, busying herself among a pile of miniature woolens, all sturdily made and decidedly provincial in cut.

Gabrielle cast a stricken look at her nurse’s retreating back, clearly feeling this treachery deeply. Squaring her shoulders, she fought on alone. “What if we don’t want new books?”

“If you prefer to remain ignorant,” said Laura pleasantly, “that is, of course, your choice. It would be unkind, however, to stand in the way of your brother’s education.”

Gabrielle folded her arms protectively across her chest. “I like the books we have.”

“If you only read the same things over and over again, how do you expect to learn? A narrow library leads to a narrow mind.” As aphorisms went, it wasn’t one of her better ones, but it got the point across.

“Books, books, books,” sang Pierre-André, ignoring Jeannette’s attempts to stuff his arms into his coat. “Books, books, books. Can I wear my red mittens? The ones with the tassels on them?”

The mittens having been provided, Jeannette turned her attentions to Gabrielle, yanking the collar of her pelisse so high that only the little girl’s nose stuck out.

Pawing it down, Gabrielle looked challengingly at Laura. “What happens when we run out of room to put them all?”

Taking Pierre-André’s mittened hand in one of her own, Laura herded Gabrielle in front of her, through a whimsically shaped antechamber, that led, through a cunningly concealed plasterwork door, onto the second-story hall, where tapestries four times the height of a man hung in the space above the great marble staircase. “I don’t think you’re going to have that problem here, do you?”

Gabrielle glanced over her shoulder at the vast bulk of the house and fell sullenly silent. Round one to the governess. It was hard to argue that one couldn’t fit the odd book or two into an immense city palace that had lost most of its furnishings somewhere between the Revolution and its occupation by its current owner. From the way Gabrielle and Pierre-André tiptoed past the statuary and started at the echo of their own voices against the soaring ceilings, Laura felt safe in guessing that their home back in Nantes had been more of the three-bedroom-with-room-for-two-servants variety. One could hide an army in the Hôtel de Bac and still have room for an amateur theatrical troupe, a haberdashery, and a few aspiring sopranos.

What was Jaouen doing in a house like this? The faded grandeur of the Hôtel de Bac sorted ill with the man Laura had met the night before.

There was no sign of the master of the house as Laura hustled his children down the stairs, their shoes sending up strange echoes along the time-dulled marble. Laura wasn’t sure whether to be disappointed or relieved. Relieved, she decided. It was no bad thing to have time to get the lay of the land before encountering those too-keen eyes.

“Is your father at home?” she asked.

“He’s never at home,” said Gabrielle. “And he certainly wouldn’t be at home for you.”

“He’s at the Abbaye,” volunteered Pierre-André. He tugged at Laura’s hand. “Monks used to live there, but they don’t anymore.”

“Monks are a degenerate relic of the old regime,” said Gabrielle loftily. Not quite under her breath, she added, “Like governesses.”

“I’m not quite a degenerate relic yet,” said Laura, “but give me a few weeks.”

Gabrielle looked at her uncertainly, trying to tell whether she was joking. Catching Laura watching her, she hastily looked away again.

“Coats buttoned and mittens in place?” Laura asked as they approached the front door. No circuitous side routes for her today. Pierre-André proudly displayed his mittens. Gabrielle shrugged farther into the neck of her pelisse like an irritable turtle.

There were no servants to open the door, so Laura did it herself, feeling rather as though she had fallen into a strange variant of Sleeping Beauty’s castle. This was the sort of establishment that should command a score of servants at the very least, but the only staff she had seen were Jean and Jeannette. The flowerbeds that lined the walk from the porte cochere to the gate were as scraggly with neglect as the interior of the house. The hedges bristled with several years’ unfettered growth, while dead vines draped like widows’ weeds from the grand stone arch that ran across the center of the courtyard. There had once been a clock in the middle of the arch, but the hour hand had dropped off, leaving only the play of sun and shadows to mark the time.

Laura half expected Jean to stop them, but he emerged from his lair by the gate without a murmur, shoving the gate so that it yielded with the maximum squeak. Pierre-André squealed delightedly at the noise. Gabrielle looked pained.

Gabrielle scuffed her shoes against the cobbles. “Is it far?” she asked in a way that made “Is it far?” translate to “If I make enough of a fuss, will you let me go home?”

“Not very far,” Laura lied. “The walk will do you good.”

That last part, at least, was true. As if repenting of the gloomy drizzle of the previous day, it was one of those crisp, clear January days where the air is cold and thin and the sunshine edged with ice, bringing everything into a relief so sharp as to be almost painful. It pinched the children’s cheeks and quickened their step and brightened their eyes as Laura herded them through the gate and down the street. The buildings of Paris, so quick to turn gray in the rain, shone in the sunlight, in the shades of taupe and beige so peculiar to Paris, so unfamiliar to Laura after her time in London.

The Hôtel de Bac stretched along for a full city block, nothing but continuous stone wall. There were other houses like it as they walked, great town palaces hidden behind the anonymity of beige stone, recognizable only from the gates that offered glimpses into hidden courtyards marked by intricately carved pilasters and fanciful stonework. But there were smaller houses too, as they walked along, and little shops whose proprietors, encouraged by the good weather, had piled goods on tables beneath colorful awnings.