Time for Eternity (35 page)

Frankie said nothing, but Françoise 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.”

Françoise 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 Françoise. “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?”

Françoise 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?”

Françoise 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. Françoise 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 Françoise 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 Croûte from seeing inside, where they would think Françoise 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 Croûte 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 Croûte did not protest when she saw Henri unchained.

The big guard crossed himself. If Madame Croûte 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, Croûte.

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 …”

Croûte’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 cocked 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.”

Damn. 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 Françoise 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 Françoise.

“Until we meet again.” Croûte turned on her heel and left with her basket still on her arm, taking that elusive scent with her.

It was near morning. Françoise 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?” Françoise 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 assuming that he’d abandoned you, with all your new powers you might have been able to save him from the guillotine?” Françoise swirled her shawl around her shoulders.

Frankie was silent. Françoise 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 Françoise did.

And Frankie would know it.

“We’ll sort this out later, ” she whispered, going to the window. She opened the casement and peered out. Madame Vercheroux’s boudoir looked out on a tiny garden under a pergola covered with an old and gnarled wisteria vine. She might just be able to reach it with her toes if she let herself hang from the sill. She took a breath. Well. What were her choices? She couldn’t get out past Madame Vercheroux’s servants without causing a stir. And she didn’t want to get Madame in trouble for having helped her.

Being so weak really sucks.

Françoise picked up her skirts.

Henri paced his cell, ignoring the guards who cowered in the shadowy corridor, their taunting and bravura gone. Where was Croûte? Hadn’t enough time passed for her to empty the warehouse?

Maybe if he waited for her return, it would be too late. Maybe she had already found the families and they needed his protection.

If there was anything he could do to protect them. Or maybe she had found Françoise. But if he transported out too soon … His brain couldn’t help replaying all the possibilities in a tattoo of probable failure.

You’d think that in a life of five hundred years, he would have learned patience.

Maybe what was bothering him was the fact that he didn’t have all his eggs in a basket he could protect. Maybe he should find Gaston and Pierre, get Françoise. He had power enough for only one or two more transports tonight. He should go for Gaston and Pierre first, since he couldn’t get them out any other way. If he used up his power on them, he ’d have to take Françoise across town physically and hope to avoid the mob. Not great odds.

It always ended badly. Always. He got some out, but there were so many more he couldn’t save. The world devolved into the chaos of stupidity at every turn. His years weighed upon him, along with the coming despair of living without Françoise.

Françoise. She had a plan to get the families out. What an act of faith in possibilities that was. He couldn ’t let her plan fail. He had to draw on a little of her faith and get to it. Dawn was an hour or two away. Jennings had to get the prisoners out tonight.

So there was no time for patience. He must go, no matter the odds. Relief washed through him. He might not win through, but his course was clear. He had to try. He drew his power about himself like a cloak. The world went red. He was for Pierre and Gaston.

But first …

Two of the guards were physically shaking. The metal of pistol barrels and sword and scabbard clattered against each other. He swept his gaze across them, capturing their will. “You,” he said to the biggest of them, a strapping lad with a luxuriant mustache.

“Strip and hand your clothes through the bars.”

“Monsieur Jennings,” Françoise whispered fiercely at the gaping door of Henri’s warehouse. “Are you here?” A faint sound of irregular thumping and crashing came from the back. She peered into the darkness. The entire floor of the giant building was empty, except for the detritus of broken crates and barrels, and Monsieur Jennings’s desk, made small now by the open sweep of space around it.

She stepped inside. Far away in the corner to her right, she saw four or five figures, Jennings and several of his men in shirtsleeves and one or two dressed in torn and dirty lace and satin. The fathers of the families. Monsieur Navarre grinned at her, and saluted, his eyes no longer sad, before he turned back to his task. She had never really believed the families were here in the warehouse, but now she could see a piece of the rear wall in jagged brick pattern had been swung open like a door. When it was shut it would leave no sign of what it was. But open, she could hear a baby wail, and low female voices.

The men took turns in twos swinging large, heavy -headed hammers at a section of the side wall. The others hauled away the bricks and mortar.

Jennings looked up. “Mademoiselle Suchet, what are you doing here?”

“I’ve come to help. Do you have boats?”

“Aye. Tied up two docks down. Enough, I think.” He sounded a bit doubtful. He glanced to the door and strode across to shut it. “Was that open when you came?”

She nodded. “I saw no one in the street but a scruffy urchin. No soldiers.”

Jennings sighed in relief. “Well, Croûte took the bait.”

“Looks like she took everything.”

A large section of the wall collapsed. The men pushed through grimly. “Get on to the next wall,” Jennings ordered in French. He turned to Françoise. “The warehouse two over has stairs down that go under the street from inside the building to where the boats are tied. Less chance of this little parade being seen.”

“What can I do?” Françoise asked.

“Look confident and go to the women. They’ll have to keep the children quiet when we start to move.”

Françoise nodded and turned to leave.

Why does he do it?

Good question. She turned back. “You are
Anglais.
These people are nothing to you. Why do you risk anything for them?”

Jennings’s hatchet face grew grim. Then he managed a shrug. “What are they to Avignon, just because he’s French? Every other Frenchman looks the other way. Maybe the right question is, what is Avignon to me? And that ’s a long story, miss. Let’s just say he done something for me once when no one else would lift a finger to help me and mine.”

Henri seems to inspire fanatic loyalty in spite of his nature.

Françoise nodded. “Something to think about,” she said to both Jennings and Frankie, and hurried back to the open brick doorway.

One boat was away, another half filled with women in big skirts, their panniers torn out to make extra room, children in ragged dresses and grimy short pants, babes in arms, and worried, dour fathers. Three more rocked at their moorings, empty. The first boat was only a shadow, the creak of oars lost as it moved downstream. Dawn was coming soon. Jennings handed a woman who once had been heavy down onto the ladder to the rocking boat below. Now her skin sagged about her chin, sallow from prison.