"We haven't finished." The laughter was edged aside like an empty cup and he was watching her again, opening the file once more. "Where is your brother now?"
A reasonable question. "He has left Paris. Why, are you expecting him to attack you in defence of my—" She bit her lip, and her glance flew to his damaged hand upon the map. "Oh no, you don't believe... Philippe? Ciel! Philippe attacked your coach?"
His face answered her question before he spoke. "Certainly it was night and he was masked but he's so very like your father, I'm sure I would have recognised him, except he made it easy for me, introducing himself so that every contemptuous word meant something. That was after he and his three associates had shot the coachman and my fellow passengers in cold blood. Ruthlessness calculated to a nicety. They'd make excellent revolutionaries, don't you think? Quite frankly, I don't take kindly to having my hand shot at for daring to touch his sister."
Fleur could bear it no longer. She fled to his arms and felt them close round her cautiously, then, as though a decision had been taken, tighten protectively in absolution. Snuggling against his shirt, her cheek against his collarbone, Fleur gave a silent prayer of gratitude. Letting go the poison of guilt and regret that had been amassing inside her, she was close to weeping for sheer happiness that he was still alive.
"What's this?"
"Contrition," she answered huskily, grateful that he had not thrust her away. "What happened next?"
"They don't allow this at the tribunal," Raoul murmured. A different intensity was edging out the fledgling kindness. The back of his fingers stroked down her cheek. "Well, there were four of the bastards, all armed. They took my... rapier—you had my pistols." The lines of his face were deepening, growing sterner by the instant.
"Go on." Her arms wreathed his neck.
"Your brother ordered me to give them my papers and take off my uniform before... Oh bon Dieu! I want you." His lips closed down on hers and he was kissing her with a glorious desperation.
And Fleur, nestled on his lap, pressed herself against him, surrendering with all her heart. It wasn't just about releasing the emotion that had been building in each of them like a huge wave; no, it was more than that, a deep irresistible undertow that neither wanted to resist.
"Damn." The male voice in her ear at least sounded cheerful rather than confused.
"Why?"
"It means I am going to have to lay you right here and now." He slid his hands beneath her derriere, lifted her onto his desk and skimmed his hands up her skirt. "Not very comfortable but, believe me, necessary. Is your absolution still available, mon coeur?"
"Is this what you do with all your women prisoners?" Fleur murmured, instinctively arching back her shoulders so that her breasts looked fuller. She felt voluptuous, female, and she wanted him between her thighs, filling her.
He kissed her throat."Only the pretty ones."
"On the government map of Paris?" she teased, drawing his face to hers when he raised his mouth from a kiss that told her he would torment her beyond imagination.
"I don't care. Tell me I've found the Îsle de la Cité? Is that good?"
"Yes," she sighed with pleasure, "but it... oh, yes, that is purrr-fect... seems... disrespectful on top of a cath—cathedral, ohh."
"Temple of reason," he corrected disrespectfully."Bells ringing?"
"They're m... mmm... oh, yes... melting down."
"You know," he whispered, "I could have made love to you over Paris."
"In the balloon?" She wriggled back to blink at him in amazement. "Standing up?"
"Am I not standing now?"
Her lovely eyes were dilated, dusky with pleasure, and she was moist and creamy beneath his adventuring fingertips.
"I missed you. Oh dear, what if I had shot you?"
"Make up for it now," he encouraged, lifting her hands to the fastenings at his waist. "It's not every day we feed on glory, mon coeur. Allons y, citoyenne!"
The growing vortex of sensation that wildly cast aside all reason was pure recklessness and Raoul knew it, but he could no more stop himself than cease to breathe. Rousseau would have understood, for the surrender was passionately noble, divinely savage and a celebration of being alive in so precarious a world.
Yet as he afterwards tugged Fleur's petticoats down to civilise her ankles, he knew it had been wrong. The ring was still in his possession.
Chapter 19
Fleur, content to be squired into a respectable little café close to the quai, lingered beside the stove, shaking her skirts. Outside, the rain, intolerant of plumes and cheap dyes, had emptied the streets of people.
"Thè à l'Anglaise and a glass of Tokai," Raoul ordered, not asking her. With husbandly concern he removed her sagging hat and hung it on a peg, before he led her to a table.
"Are you—?" The helpless gesture was superbly male.
"Damp?" offered Fleur mischievously—after all, they had already shared an intimacy that was quite shocking—and lowered her voice. "Very, but this is more comfortable than La Force. Are we going there for dinner? I can try and eat with manacles on but I daresay you don't chain prisoners any more. There can't be enough shackles to meet the demand."
The eyes watching her gleamed appreciatively like tide-shining kelp. It wasn't just the stove that was having an effect. Sighing inwardly, Fleur recognised the hazardous ground she must cross above the row of cherries sinisterly garnishing the apple tart à la Bastille that was served between them.
Raoul's languid mood was gone. The handsome inquisitor was back in place opposite her. The questions would be calm, arranged between forkfuls, and the other customers would think this a simple rendezvous.
"You haven't told me how you got away. I mean, if everyone else was killed and there were four of them. You mentioned a patriot." The pawn of words edged forwards appeasingly on the board.
Her lover savoured the Tokai and set the glass down easily. She realised now that he was left-handed, that Philippe's cruelty was endurable.
"The coachman, noble fellow. He was wounded in the shoulder but he had a gun stowed beside him and he fired just as your brother was trying to blow my hand to pieces. The diversion gave me a chance to run, so I did." She could imagine the flares of fire in the darkness; the gasping terror. "Thank God, it was night. As it was, they brought me down and thought they'd killed me. There was a lot of blood from here." His fingers pushed up beneath the hair revealing the strike. "Looked worse than it was, I suppose. It would have been hard to tell unless they'd felt my pulse. I don't remember any more but when I came round, the coach was gone and I heard Jacques the driver moaning. It took me a long time to find help for us. I was badly concussed and they'd winged me in the thigh as well. We'd gone off the road, you see, and I set out in the wrong direction, not thinking clearly."
"So what happened to Jacques?" She was remembering M. Bosanquet's wounds.
"He died a few days later, God rest his soul. The people who took us in, well, I suppose I wasn't making much sense at the time. It was over a week before I got my strength back and... oh, diable, the officials in this country enjoy their power. The local fellows made a damn meal of it. I had no papers and they threw me into a cell. Humbling, I can tell you. Don't you dare laugh, ma fille. Thank heaven someone turned up who had been to the Jacobin Club in Paris and they hauled me up for identification. So..." He gestured palms uppermost.
"Let me be clear on this," she pursued, and watched him lift an eyebrow at her presumption, "are you saying my brother and his friends took the coach, everything, and they got as far as Caen and then someone attacked them?"
"It looks like it. I'll find out from Danton. Now it's your turn again." He leaned forward, arms resting on the cloth. "Do you know who your brother was meeting with in Paris? Are you sure de Craon wasn't one of my attackers?"
Fleur shook her head. "Philippe wasn't expecting him yet. He was planning for him to marry me and take over my café and use it as a screen. Over my dead body, I told him! We quarrelled and he said he
was leaving for Clerville. He wanted to raise local support and link up with the royalists in La Vendée. There was no talking sense into him. He made me give him all the money I had on me and he took Maman's ring. Oh, Raoul." Her fingers curled questioningly into his. "I am truly sorry about what happened to you. It's all my fault. I found your notebook and the painting and it confirmed Philippe's suspicions. You should have handed me over to the soldiers when you had the chance. This," she slid her other hand over his glove, "need not have happened and the others would still be alive."
"But it's not the end of the story." He dabbed his mouth with the napkin and cast it aside. "Eat up, citizeness, and I hope you can manage the billet or we'll both be scrubbing pans the rest of the evening."
Swallowing her last mouthful, Fleur tried to estimate his thoughts. He was reining back on something, something that had to be said where other people could not hear, and then it dawned on her why. The assault in Caen had been meant for Raoul; the man wearing his uniform had died.
She did not prompt him. The penance of the journey back to Paris, his recent injuries and attending his own funeral was showing in the shadows around his eyes. Ciel, he must be exhausted.
Pleased that he drew her arm firmly through his as they strolled again towards the Îsle de la Cité, she smiled up at him affectionately. She wanted to pretend that for the first time in her life, she had a beau. Not just a beau, a lover! Just for a little while she wanted to feel happy, to delude herself that Fortune had at last decided to be kind, that tonight she might curl up beside him.
They lingered on the Pont au Change, the old bridge of jewellers and moneychangers.
Raoul waved aside a pedlar trying to sell them busts of Marat. "You know, I think you should carry a bodkin when you venture out, Fleur. Unobtrusive but effective."
"Or a stiletto in the quilting of my stays?" She did not want to think about tomorrow. "I've got a blade in my boot heel." Her Jacobin was looking as though she had just told him of another Lisbon earthquake. "No, really."
"What? Those boots? Show me."
Did he expect her to behave like a horse being shooed? "Not here."
They circumvented the building works along the Quai de la Megisserie and strolled along the riverside terrace overlooking the gardens of the Tuilleries. There were no roars from the Place de la Revolution. Paris was at its most beautiful, the air soft and as gentle as a lover's whisper. Evening light was gilding the mitred rooftops of the palaces, transforming the glass windows to mirrors of fire and making the statues blush. A blackbird, still awake, rippled out its chanson.
"I love this city," Raoul murmured as they found a bench free of bird droppings in the shadows away from beggars and a drunken soldier singing the Marseillaise. "I have been to London, Vienna and Florence but this is the city of my heart. Is it not wonderful to be alive?"
"Yes," Fleur answered truthfully, adoring the flame that lit his eyes. Was this some dark, capricious magic that had granted her deepest desire? To have her mysterious rescuer from Clerville unmasked beside her, heroic as a lover should be. To feast on a man's looks, to find every inch of his profile desirable, to be breathless for his touch, hungry to inflame the appetite for passion. To be in love.
Aloud she asked, "When did you truly realise we had met before?"
"Our supper at the Palais-Royal, Fleur-de-Lis. All the pieces at last fitted together."
Astonishment stilled her. "The toad in your satchel?"
"I am afraid so, Cupid." He stroked a finger down her jawline. "Believe me, the girl at Clerville has been clinging to my mind like a burr. Guilt assailed me every time I remembered her."
"Ha," scoffed Fleur, "which probably wasn't very often since she was round and spotty like a fallen apple."
"But she was brave enough to fire a pistol at me." Raoul's frown argued against the smile in his voice. He was not looking at her now. "Your family seems to make a habit of it." His cuffs were ghostly in the twilight as he lifted his hands, turning them palms upwards as though they were alien objects to be studied. "The space aches, Fleur, as though my finger is still there. Fleur, there's something—"
But not letting him finish, she tenderly clasped his damaged hand and carried it to her lips. "As I would ache, if you were no longer in my life. I know that now. Raoul, you mean more to me than my very life."
It was a mistake.
Withholding a lover's answer, Raoul drew away as though troubled. Fleur watched in dismay as his jaw tightened. Clearly she had said too much.
The quiet between them pained Raoul further, knowing that he must throw last week's truth in her face. Would it be wrong to wait until morning? To spend the night in love and then... "Fleur," he began again. Diable! He did not want to hurt her.
"Oh, I forgot," she exclaimed swiftly, and as if to cajole him back to amiability set back her petticoats to pretty ankle height. Then, darting a glance about them to make sure no one was spying on them, the minx took off her boot and twisted its heel. "A present from an admirer."
In his astonishment Raoul forgot her hateful brother. "Where did...?" Lovely wicked lashes fluttered down, keeping the secret. "You're not going to tell me, are you?"
"Of course not." She tapped her nose like Thomas did when he kept a recipe to himself.
"I can guess." Raoul played with the boot heel, amusing himself as to how quickly he could extricate the blade. "You'll need to practise if you want to use this in a hurry, mon coeur, but it could be palmed, I suppose. You have some very strange allies."
"It's my enemies that worry me," murmured Fleur, unconsciously turning her face towards the west where, beyond the distant trees, the place of execution was silent.
"The breeze grows chill, my darling," Raoul said finally, drawing the darling to her feet and brushing his lips across her soft, willing mouth before they turned into the night.
Perhaps, Fleur decided, they did not need words. Each instant was elixir. The lamps of the Pont Neuf threw a diamond necklace across the dark bosom of the river, and the moon was a golden coin spun up into the sky. "Heads or tails?" she whispered silently to Fortune and glanced up at Raoul's resolute profile.
"Supposing... supposing I were the only one left of my family, my husband would become Duc de Montbulliou."
"Only in the palaces of Schonbrunn or Windsor." Miffed at his indifferent tone, she stowed that insult away for a later quarrel. "Damn me," he drawled in imitation of a courtier. "Do you mean that I have been dining with an heiress. Strap me, and if the monarchy is ever restored—God forbid the return of any of those fat Bourbons—you become a prize. Don't tell me Quettehou proposed in my absence? He did? Félicitations!"
"You," Fleur ground out, "are the most annoying creature on this earth." She was tempted to push him off the terrace. "Yes, he did, after you had left Paris. He knows who I really am. After he tried to force me into giving him the café, he had the audacity to suggest marriage. He gave me two weeks to decide."
Raoul almost exploded with laughter and held up his hands in surrender. "Lord, you'd better do it then. His suit leaves me for dead."
Fleur halted as the clapper hit the bell at last. "Oh my goodness, you were waiting for me to work it out, weren't you?"
Raoul's expression was indulgent, as though she had discovered which of his fists was holding a bonbon."It makes sense. Two murders. Both in Calvados. Both on a lonely road. It bears the same signature, doesn't it? And then there were the attempts on your life and the fire."
"He's not going to give up." She hung her head. "I think you should stay away from me. I've already put your life at risk at least three times. You're too valuable to lose. France—"
"France!"The man looked quite irritated. "Fleur, listen to me. Quettehou can't denounce you, because if he does your entire property will be confiscated by the Republic and he won't get a thing. You are quite safe on that score."
"But he's getting bolder. You heard him make the accusation this afternoon in front of Marat and the others. Bribe a f
ew people to give testimony that I planned Matthieu Bosanquet's death and I'm sunk. He's quite ruthless. We are not dealing with a man of common decency, you know."
She looked so adorably perturbed that Raoul could have fought off a sea full of dragons for her, except that he was the one she would be hating before nightfall. "And another thing," she persisted, "the scoundrel actually forged my will, I'm sure of it, for it was after his last visit that I found it among my papers."
"Not to mention trying to extort money from Monsieur Bosanquet," Raoul added, remembering the bundle of letters.
"How did y—? Oh, yes! The night you went through my papers."
He reluctantly hastened the conversation on before she mentioned pythons. The execution blade was whetted. He only had to tell her how to manage the lever. "I can't prove Quettehou's involvement, Fleur, nor can I work out how he could have so quickly arranged both murders from here in Paris but I will. There's something else." He dug into his pocket and brought out her ring. He watched the growing horror on her face. The little window of this particular guillotine was readied.
"How did you come by this?"The summer was gone from her voice.
"Danton handed it to me this afternoon. I regret to tell you it was found on the man who was murdered in my uniform." Fleur's eyes were darker than the river water now, but not with love. "I can only conclude... Dark hair, uniform... It's easy for assassins, well, for anyone to make a mistake, I suppose, if you have only a description to go by." Diable! Raoul was not going to feel guilty that her brother had died in his place after what the cul had done to him, but he could not bear the hurt and distrust filling her eyes."I truly am most sorry, Fleur."
As her gloved hands gripped the balustrade, he waited for the frost. Below, crouched on the muddy hiatus between the river and the high wall that retained the city, a clerk whistled as he washed his shirt.
Fleur felt the manacles of loneliness and despair snap tight round her heart. Instead of telling her the truth, this smiling Jacobin had deliberately debased her—the Duchesse de Montbulliou enjoyed on his desk like a common trollop, Fleur Bosanquet sweetened for the bad news with tea and sweetcake, while Philippe lay between them, sprawled across the coach seat with his lifeblood dripping down the leather. Ah yes, her brother had fallen into hotheaded company and, yes, his character was not what she would have wished, but he was still her brother.
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