His Parisian Mistress (Scandalous Family--The Victorians Book 1)

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

The large window stretched to the far corner. In that corner, Richard took off his jacket, wrapped it over his fist and gently punched out the jagged fragments of glass still clinging to the bottom and side of the frame. Then he laid the jacket over the sill and turned to the woman. “If you will permit me…” Without waiting for her response, he scooped her up in his arms and threaded her small feet through the window and onto the pavement beyond.

  She merely sucked in a quick breath of surprise, then straightened as she felt the pavement beneath her feet and brushed off her dress. She held out her hand. “Now you.”

  Another furious blast of whistles and rattlers sounded. “Hey! You! Stop at once! You on the pavement!”

  Evelyn looked over her shoulder toward the front door. Red-faced policemen were running toward her.

  “Run!” Richard shouted at her.

  She didn’t hesitate. She picked up the front hem of her gown and raced away.

  Richard didn’t wait to see how she fared. He had a feeling she was more than capable of running and hiding. He suspected she would be more than able to talk her way out of trouble if the gendarmerie did catch her.

  Time to take care of himself. He could not use the window now. There were gendarmes guarding that exit.

  He picked up his jacket and shrugged into it once more. He found a deep rent in the sleeve. Time to deal with that later. He edged around the fringes of the café and stepped over chair legs and upturned tables, puddles of oil and wine, and a great deal of broken glass.

  The police concentrated upon the people milling in the center of the café, for those people were fighting back. None of them appeared to be the colorful and gay bohemians, either.

  Richard came to the cluster of people trying to shove their way through the service door into the back passage. If they calmed themselves and stepped through one at a time, they would all get out. Only, panic gripped them and they had ceased to think clearly.

  He would have to force his way through. He pushed up his jacket sleeves and went to work, shoving bodies aside and pushing deeper into the press of bodies. He was generally taller than most men and heavier. After years of physical work, he was stronger than the average gentleman had any right to be.

  As a distraction, this night was beyond compare. He realized that, in a grim, dark way, he was enjoying himself.

  That was when a truncheon crashed down upon the back of his head and he knew no more.

  CHAPTER THREE

  When he was next able to pay attention to anything, Richard discovered that French prison cells were as welcoming as British cells. He let his vision swim back into focus a degree at a time, staring up at wood slats only a few inches above his head.

  As he was lying on something hard and even, he guessed the wood overhead was the underside of a similar bench above him. A stone wall painted green ran beside his shoulder. Cold radiated from it.

  He turned his head the other way, then paused as his head thudded and pulsed. When the throbbing subsided, he turned his chin slowly until he could examine the room he was in.

  It was stone from floor to ceiling, broken only by a narrow window high up by the roof, with unpainted iron bars across it. The door was made of more bars, with a stout lock.

  All four walls were green. The ceiling and floor were unpainted.

  On the walls without window or door, four wood-slat cots were mounted to the walls, the far corner of each supported by a chain which also bolted to the walls.

  Each cot held a man. All the men were badly dressed, unshaved and bleary. One of them, on the lowest bunk, had a florid mustache and was in shirtsleeves only. Richard recognized him. He had grabbed the songbird—Evelyn—before Richard made him change his mind.

  There were more men sitting upon the cold floor, or standing with their shoulders against the rough walls, or their backs. No one talked. Everyone looked miserable. Or angry.

  A clanging from the cell door drew Richard’s attention to the bars. A gendarme on the other side waved the truncheon he had used against the bars. The blunt end pointed at Richard. “You. Come here.”

  Richard moved slowly, in deference to his thudding head. He eased to the edge of the bench and risked dropping his chin to look down and see how far down the floor laid. It seemed he was on the second lowest bench. He lowered his boots, let them hang, then carefully eased off the bench and onto the floor.

  The policeman at the cell door rattled the bar with his truncheon once more. “Get a move on!” he growled.

  “Coming,” Richard muttered.

  The man with the florid mustache watched Richard’s slow progress with sympathy in his eyes.

  Richard walked gingerly over to the bars, as the policeman unlocked them using a key on a heavy iron ring carrying many others. The keys rattled.

  “This way,” the policeman said. Richard stepped through as he swung the bars open. The man locked the bars once more and crooked his finger. Richard followed him along the dank corridor, up a long flight of steps into a room filled with uniformed gendarmes.

  One of the uniformed men sat at the desk with a curious contraption upon which he poked his fingers. A sheet of paper was wrapped around a cylinder at the top. As Richard passed, he saw neat text upon the page which looked like it might’ve been printed, such as one found in the book, or a newspaper.

  This, then, must be one of the new machines businessmen called typewriters.

  Judging by the way the man pecked at the keys, Richard could not understand how typewriters could possibly be more efficient than handwriting.

  He was taken into an office and the door shut behind him. There was a desk with a chair behind it. A stool sat in front of the desk.

  Richard sat on the stool. He could hear the murmur of policemen beyond the door. The door was stout and no clear words came through.

  After a while, a senior inspector stepped through the door and shut it. He moved behind the desk. In his hand he carried a manila folder. He put the folder on the desk, settled on the chair and tugged his tunic back into place. Then he opened the folder.

  With some fuss, the inspector uncapped a fountain pen and extended the nib. He blotted it and nodded his satisfaction, smoothed the ends of his mustache and poised the pen above the sheets of paper inside the manila folder. Only then did he look at Richard. “Name?”

  “Am I under arrest?”

  “Name, monsieur?”

  Richard hesitated. While the inspector considered him with forced patience, Richard weighted the advisability of handing over his real name. “I was merely enjoying a drink and the singing of a pretty woman,” he said. “And now I have found myself locked in a cell. May I know why that was done to me?”

  “Until you provide your name, no other conversation can proceed. Name, monsieur?”

  Richard knew that if he provided his name, the next question would be a request for his current address. If he gave a false name with his real address, his landlady would reveal his real name. If he gave a false address, an investigation would prove the address was useless. Yet providing them with his real name and his real address would not benefit him either.

  There were no attractive alternatives. Richard sighed. “Richard Seth Devlin, of Innesford.”

  The inspector nodded, scratching at the paper with his fountain pen. “And where do you currently reside, monsieur?”

  Richard gave him the address of his pension.

  “And how long have you been in residence there?” The inspector considered Richard with an implacable expression. Clearly his accent had registered.

  “Five weeks.” More or less. Richard couldn’t quite remember what the date had had been when he moved in.

  The inspector nodded and capped his fountain pen once more, after carefully retracting the nib. He closed the folder and got to his feet. “Remain where you are. I will return.”

  “May I have a cup of tea and some salicylic powder?”

  The man looked down his nose. “There is no tea here,” he said stiffly.
He left the room.

  Richard waited upon the stool for more than an hour. In that time the throbbing in his head eased. It did not leave altogether, yet he found he could turn his head without feeling ill. He straightened his clothes as best he could and was not surprised to find that the few francs he’d had in his pocket were gone. If he had carried a wallet, he was sure that would also be gone. It had been many months since he had an excess of cash which required a wallet to carry it.

  No one brought tea or powders, or even coffee. The busyness beyond the door did not diminish or increase in volume. The long wait did not bother him. There was nowhere else he was expected to be.

  When his legs and hips cramped from the uncomfortable stool, he got to his feet and walked in a small circle in the space beyond the front of the desk. Then he returned to the stool.

  Eventually, the senior inspector returned. This time he carried a second manila folder. This folder had a great many more sheets in it.

  Richard eyed the thick documentation with a sinking heart.

  The senior inspector nodded at him as he returned to the chair behind his desk. He did not open the folder, but rested his hand against it. “You claim you were in the café last night merely to drink and listened to the singing. That is correct?”

  “Not quite,” Richard said.

  “Oh?”

  “I was there to get drunk, so I might sleep. The singing was purely coincidental, yet I listened anyway.”

  “I am surprised a man like you has trouble sleeping.” The inspector’s mouth turned down.

  Richard glanced at the thick folder under his hand. “I imagine you have spoken to your English brethren by now. Or does the Paris prefecture keep complete records of all England’s undesirables?”

  “We have kept very good records since the Revolution,” the inspector said primly. “You use the word ‘undesirables’. You know what is in this file?”

  “I have a fairly good idea, yes.”

  “You come from a scandalous family, Monsieur Devlin. Criminal charges, arrests, bankruptcies and divorces. You yourself have been arrested multiple times.”

  “I have never been charged with an offense,” Richard pointed out.

  “A minor point. Although, do you see my difficulty?”

  Richard stared at him. “Perhaps you must explain it to me, Chief Inspector.”

  “You say you were there merely for the wine, yet everything in this folder beneath my fingers tells me you were there for more nefarious purposes.”

  “Stealing the silver perhaps?” Richard was still puzzled.

  The inspector rolled his eyes. He got to his feet. “Under the circumstances, I cannot simply let you go. You understand? You will be returned to the cell. We will investigate further and later, perhaps, we will converse again. I hope, by then, you will see the necessity for complete frankness.”

  “I have been completely frank.”

  The inspector opened the door.

  “May I at least have a cup of coffee?” Richard called after him.

  The man closed the door without answering.

  A few minutes later, the original gendarme open the door and crooked his finger.

  Richard sighed and got to his feet. He followed the man across the busy room, down the stairs and waited while he unlocked the bars. Then Richard stepped inside the cell once more. He turned to the gendarme as the man locked the bars, and said, “Is it at all possible to arrange for a croissant or a baguette? Some food?”

  The gendarme nodded toward the cell behind Richard. “Breakfast has already been provided.”

  Richard glanced at the other men. They were chewing bread and holding tin mugs which steamed. The bunk where Richard had been lying had already been taken by another man.

  Richard settled on the stone floor with his back to the rough wall and closed his eyes.

  Every few minutes, another man was taken away for questioning. Sometimes the man returned, usually looking less than happy. Sometimes the man didn’t return. Richard wished those men well.

  Eventually the truncheon was pointed at him once more. Richard got to his feet and moved over to the bars as they were unlocked. A different gendarme led him up the stairs. Instead of taking him to the inspector’s office, the man moved to the other side of the room and along a corridor which ran off that side. Halfway along the corridor, he opened the door and indicated Richard should go inside.

  The room had a scratched table and two dented chairs. Nothing else.

  As the door shut behind him, Richard moved over to a chair and settled in it. He did not waste his energy wondering what was to happen. There was no point. Whatever happened, there was nothing he could do to change it. He had learned that much from past experience.

  He did not have to wait long this time. When the door opened again, he opened his eyes.

  The man who stepped into the room was clearly high in the prefecture’s organization. He did not wear a uniform and his morning suit was new and fashionable. He wore a chrysanthemum in his lapel and carried a top hat which was not extraordinarily tall. His watch chain was gold. So was the knob on the top of his walking stick.

  The man did not sit on the other chair. He pulled it out as if he might, then stood beside it. He considered Richard. “My name is Cyprian Bertrand,” he said in English. His English was perfectly crisp and clear. “It is not normally my practice to explain who I am. Under the circumstances, you should be aware that I am a director of the Sûreté.”

  “What are the circumstances which determine that?” Richard said, even though he was completely indifferent to the name or the rank or the organization of the man accusing him.

  “The circumstances are, someone has vouched for your character, swearing that you are an honorable man and should be released upon your own recognizance. As the person who has vouched for you is someone I trust completely and utterly, I am forced to take their word and release you. You are free to go, Mr. Devlin.”

  Richard sat up, startled beyond belief. He stared at Bertrand, trying to absorb what he had just said. “Who in Paris could possibly vouch for me?”

  Bertrand nodded. “It is natural to ask such a question, for someone like you. I imagine not many people think well of you these days.”

  As it was the truth, and an unpleasant one, Richard kept his mouth shut.

  Bertrand moved over to the door of the interview room and opened it. He leaned out and looked to one side.

  Then he moved back into the room, leaving the door open.

  Richard stared at the door, this time with a genuine and intense curiosity. He heard light footsteps, then the singer from the café stepped into the room. Only, there was little of the glamorous singer on show. The woman wore a very correct and conservative morning suit in a golden tweed which made the most of her dark brown hair. There was almost no train and a smaller bustle than the enormous projections which women tended to favor these days.

  She smiled at Richard. “Hello, cousin Richard.”

  Cousin?

  Miss Evelyn glanced at Bertrand. “I told you he did not recognize me.” She moved over to the table and Bertrand politely held her chair as she settled in it. She smiled at Richard once more. “It has been quite a few years since any of my family attended the gathers at Innesford—when there were gathers, that is. Even so, I did not think I had changed that much. Or perhaps it is simply that you did not expect to come across another of the family in the café last night.” Her eyes twinkled with amusement.

  Richard rubbed his temple. He did not recall any cousin called Evelyn. If she had not attended a gather in years, even when there were gathers, then it was likely she had lived in Paris for all that time. Memory stirred. He opened his eyes once more and considered her. “Ève? Ève Martel Davies, the daughter of Uncle Iefan and Aunt Mairin?”

  “How nice. You remember me.” Her tone was dry.

  “You are right, it has been a great many years,” Richard said. “What are you doing here?”

&nbs
p; Bertrand cleared his throat. “Miss Martel works for me.”

  Richard dropped his hand from his temple. Astonishment stole anything he might say.

  Ève merely smiled. She seemed to be enjoying his surprise.

  “The café you attended last night, Mr. Devlin, was known to the Sûreté as one of the preferred meeting places for anarchists. You know of anarchists?”

  Richard nodded. “Lawless, ruthless bastards.”

  Ève did not seem to be offended by his curse.

  “They are lawless, indeed, and ruthlessness defines everything they do. My department within the Sûreté has been assigned to disband them and scatter them to the four winds, if not destroy them altogether. They are an evil blight upon civilization, Mr. Devlin. The little you have heard about them is the tip of a large iceberg. I have spent five years trying to reach beyond the surface of their organization.”

  “They are anarchists,” Richard pointed out. “As they eschew organization, how can they have one?”

  “In order to work together, they must have structure. It is that structure we have been trying to uncover.” Bertrand did not seem to be offended by the question. “The gendarmes the prefecture provides to carry out normal police work do not fit well among the patrons of cafés where anarchists like to meet. I was forced to find someone whom the anarchists would overlook, who could report back to me on their movements and tell me of their meetings, so we might build our understanding of the group.”

  Richard glanced at Ève once more. “You.”

  She smiled, showing a tiny dimple in one cheek. “Bertrand assured me that no one would ever guess, and he was right.”

  Bertrand said, “Ève has convinced me you are unlikely to be an anarchist. Although you must understand that with your family history, the chief inspector quite correctly assumed you were a likely suspect. After what society has done to you and your family, no one would blame you for wanting that society to crumble.”

  Richard rubbed his temple once more. It was back to throbbing. “I am not a criminal.”

  “Your brother is.” Bertrand’s voice was flat. “You can see why the world considers you to be one, proven or otherwise.”