The Forbidden Rose (27 page)

There were many people abroad. Twenty yards away, bright crowds of men and women laughed and strolled in groups on the promenade, enjoying the cool of the evening. None of them came into this quiet corner.

Papa rounded the leash into his hand and whistled softly. Nico went willingly from her arms to the ground. He clambered to hang on Papa’s lapels, the long tail curled up, the little paws patting and patting at the waistcoat pocket.

“What did you do in England?” She pulled out the pouch of coins and held it in her hand.

He looked away, toward the lights of the street. “My researches. My study of genius. I worked in England upon this.”

His geniuses. It was another of Papa’s strange intellectual exercises, like calculating the orbit of Jupiter or keeping records of rainfall. Only Papa would ask if one could select the young, the potential geniuses. Chemists, experts in physics, mathematicians, engineers, inventors of all kinds, military men, political philosophers. It was harmless, surely. He gathered information. He made lists. Papa was a great one for making lists. He would see if these Englishmen, these Germans, these Italians became famous in ten years or in twenty. He might even be right about some of them. Papa was truly brilliant.

She said, “You will not offend England by saying there are geniuses there.”

“I told Victor. He took a copy to Robespierre. He was very excited. They will save a thousand lives for France, every one of those names.”

She allowed her father to take the pouch from her hand. He tucked it away safely inside his waistband, looking satisfied with himself. He lifted Nico to his right shoulder and bent to retrieve the hurdy-gurdy.

“Robespierre was excited.” The night stilled everywhere, as if Paris stopped and held its breath. A high-pitched buzzing sounded in her ears. “What lives? What is it that Robespierre approves? What would make men come from England, looking for you?”

She put herself in his path and waited.

“We are at war. Soldiers of the Republic are dying every day for France. Robespierre has arranged that a few English soldiers will die before they come to a battlefield.”

“Papa . . .”

“A few men. The military geniuses.” He brushed at his coat. Adjusted the strap of the hurdy-gurdy. “Only men who have put on uniforms and chosen to be our enemies. He promised that. Only in countries that have declared war. Only the military.”

She whispered, “Papa. What have you done?”

“I must go back to my rooms. The night is full of men who spy on us.”

“Tell me where to find you.”

“I have rooms on the Rue Ventadorn near the Café de Chanticleer. Ask for Citoyen Gasparini. Bring me more money when you have it.” He pushed past. “Robespierre explained to me. At the cost of a few English soldiers, I am saving the lives of many Frenchmen. And the Republic.” He was a few feet away when he said, “I wish I had not shown him the list.”

The sound of his shuffle disappeared before his shadow got licked up by the greater shadows of the street.

HAWKER BANGED ON THE GATE OF THE HOUSE IN the Marais.

The porter at the door—didn’t that man ever sleep?—let him in. Carruthers was waiting for him in the courtyard. There was nothing tougher than an old woman. This one was twigs and shoe nails, held together with sheer meanness.

“You came back. I was hoping we’d seen the last of you, Rat.” Love words from Carruthers.

“I regret the necessity, madame. I had hoped to see the last of you as well.” This was his aristo accent. The girl who’d taught him to speak French had been an aristo from Toulouse. “Is Citoyen LeBreton in the house?”

“You left your post.”

“I left my post to follow—”

“A footman. He returned. You didn’t. Where have you been for five hours, Rat?”

She wouldn’t let him into the kitchen to talk about this in private. The blank stone on every side reflected her voice upward. The house was dark, but behind every window there was some Service agent, sleeping light, waking up to listen to the Old Trout.

“I am not under your command, Madame Cachard, however delightful that would be for both of us. I am Doyle’s rat.” He said it the way a gentleman would, using words like razors. “Did he tell you where he would be?”

Carruthers laid out a couple of silences, each with a different meaning. “The Café des Marchands. Make your excuses to him.”

He knew some small number of deadly women. This one, though, froze his bones. She had the same eyes Doyle did, the same weighing look that saw everything.

Right now, she was full of contempt. “The world will be a cleaner place when somebody snaps your neck.”

He wanted to shrivel up and slink out and never come back. So he grinned. “If I am a rat, madame, I’m the most dangerous rat you will encounter outside your nightmares. A good night to you.” He turned his back on her and walked out the way he’d come in. He’d wipe his arse with Robespierre’s papers before he gave them to that old hag.

The hell with her. The hell with the lot of them.

MARGUERITE THOUGHT OF GOING BACK TO THE Hôtel de Fleurignac. But Victor was there, and his mother, and a houseful of servants who would look in her face and see something was wrong. They would bring her delicacies to eat and brew her tisanes. And hover.

She could not. She could not. She crossed her arms around her waist and began walking.

Papa had done something dreadful. Or, not so much done this himself as stood back and allowed his work to be used for horrible purposes. It had not been chance that brought Guillaume to the chateau at Voisemont. He’d come looking for Papa. How disappointed he must have been to find only her.

Now she must mend this.

Somewhere in her city she would find a little breeze. In some park. In some street that led down to the Seine. She would stand and let it blow into her face and watch the sun come up. Maybe that would make her feel better.

A violin played in one of the twisting streets to the left, perhaps in a café. It was beautiful and faint, like a bird singing when the woods are utterly still. She walked for a while toward it.

If she had known where Guillaume was, if she had the least smell of a notion where he might be, she would have walked in his direction. It wouldn’t have been a choice. Her feet would have started moving on their own and kept at it till they bumped into his boots.

I am a great fool.
She stubbed her toes on the uneven cobbles. In the narrow and ancient streets of this quartier, stone barriers jutted into the streets so carts would not scrape the walls. That was another hazard to avoid. She seemed to be full of pain in every region inside her skin. Her stomach cramped.

He is English. Why did I not see that?
He was not a smuggler, or a bookseller, or a petty criminal, or even a member of the Secret Police. He was a spy of England. He was sent to find her father and take revenge upon him.

She must have walked a long way. In some alley off the Rue d’Anduza, she leaned over and was sick, retching most miserably. But after that, she felt better. The early dawn turned chilly though, and she walked along, shivering. In the Rue Montmartre she passed cafés with every table full. Men in fine clothes idled away the end of the night, drinking cognac, talking loudly, holding the newspapers that were already circulating on the streets. Around them, at other tables, men just awakened and surly were getting ready to do the work of the world. It was as if, in these streets, humanity divided itself into Men of the Day and Men of the Night.

Guillaume was both. Day and Night. He could sit with one sort of men or the other, and they would both welcome him.

She noticed, then, where her feet had brought her. The Café des Marchands, where she had eaten with Guillaume. Where he had told her she could leave a message for him. Where she had told him she did not need him.

She sat at one of the tables outside the café, since it was as easy to be discouraged and forlorn sitting down as wandering the streets like a ghost. When the woman paused impatiently beside her, she ordered coffee and a roll.

The coffee was laid on the table softly, so it would not spill. The roll set beside it.

“Are you well, citoyenne
?”
the woman asked.

She shook her head, but said nothing. The woman went away.

She did not want to eat. She wanted to be at home, in the chateau at Voisemont, at her desk, writing tales of beauty and high adventure. She did not want to live in an adventure. They hurt.

When she wiped her face with her hands, she discovered that she no longer smelled of being loved by Guillaume. She smelled like monkey.

 

 

FROM the end of the street Doyle saw Maggie, sitting at a table outside. Her head was bowed, so he couldn’t see her face. She was dressed to match the café in plain, durable clothing. That could have been deliberate on her part, but it was probably wasn’t.

He’d said she could find him here. He hadn’t thought she would.

She’d taken the table farthest from the door, where she wouldn’t be bothered by men going in and out. A cup of coffee, untouched, sat before her and a little round of bread, unbroken.

“Hello, Maggie.”

Her head came up, smooth as flowing water. Strands of hair slipped and fell across one another and slid down around her face. The clear, brown eyes lifted and met his.

“I’ll join you,” he said.

I am drowning in this woman and I don’t want to swim free. This is the one. This is the one I’ll give up the Service for.
Yesterday or the day before, or maybe the first time he’d seen her, he’d made the decision. While he wasn’t noticing, his mind thought it out and argued it through and settled it. His Maggie. It already sounded natural.

He scraped the rush-bottomed chair back so it was up against the wall of the café and he could keep an eye on the street. He sat next to her, almost touching. She looked tired and worn out and sad. “You’re up early.”

“Not early. I was awake all night.”

She’d walked half the city, Talbot said. Talbot had followed her, at a careful distance, all night. She’d passed a dozen cafés, talked to an organ grinder in the park, played with his monkey, scratched a cat’s ears in an alley, spent time looking out at the river. If somebody was supposed to meet her, he didn’t show up.

Talbot said she was sick. She’d cast up her accounts in an alley.

He couldn’t. He’d have to take her back to Hôtel de Fleurignac and leave her there. Damn, but it felt wrong. “Probably not a good idea to go walking around Paris alone at night. You meet dangerous people.”

“Like you. But I met you first in broad daylight, so there are no guarantees. At Voisemont, I go walking at night.” Maggie picked up the coffee and barely tasted it. “I used to go walking.”

The widow who owned the Café des Marchands came out from behind the counter and brought him cut bread, a slab of hard cheese, and a cup of wine, without him having to ask. The widow liked his looks and, being in the market for another man, let him know it. She gave a shrewd glance from him to Maggie and shrugged and left.

He said, “Did you come here looking for me?”

“I don’t think so. I’m not sure why I’m here.” She sat staring into the cup. “It just happened somehow. Perhaps I was looking for you with some part of my soul that is very stupid and does not know it is no longer allowed to be with you. It is like a dog that cannot be told that its human is dead. It goes out on the street, taking its accustomed walk, looking everywhere for him. Does that not sound both sad and self-pitying?”